To this end, and to bring the mind of the child into that listening and willing state without which all arguments and even all attempts at instruction are wasted, we must listen candidly to what he says himself, put the best construction upon it, give it its full force; see it, in a word, as nearly as possible as _he_ sees it, and let him know that we do so.

Then he will be much more ready to receive any additional considerations which we may present to his mind, as things that must also be taken into account in forming a final judgment on the question.
A boy, for example, who is full of health and increasing vigor, and in whom, of course, those organs on which the consciousness of strength and the impulses of courage depend are in the course of rapid and healthy development, in reading to his mother a story in which a thief that came into a back store-room of a house in the evening, with a bag, to steal meal, was detected by the owner and frightened away, looks up from his book and says, in a very valiant manner, "If I had been there, and had a gun, I would have shot him on the spot." _The Rough Mode of Treatment_.
Now, if the mother wishes to confuse and bewilder, and to crush down, so to speak, the reasoning faculties of her child, she may say, "Nonsense, George! It is of no use for you to talk big in that way.

You would not dare to fire a gun in such a case, still less, to shoot a man.
The first thing you would do would be to run away and hide.

And then, besides, it would be very wicked for you to kill a man in that way.

You would be very likely to get yourself hung for murder.