A little girl likes to be pretty, to dance well, to sew neatly, to be
helpful to her mother, to be petted, loved, approved.
A little boy wants to be a fast runner, a fine swimmer, a good
fighter--he wants to be strong and brave and self-reliant and many other
things, besides. He admires these qualities in other boys; a feeling of
his inner nature, in accord with his conscience, tells him he would
like to be that kind of a boy, himself. He feels it is the kind that
every one ought to want to be.
And if he is a normal, healthy boy, this feeling arises within him just
as naturally and spontaneously as the feeling which comes to a sensitive
soul in the presence of a sunset, or musical harmonies and tells it they
are beautiful. It is quite apart from any far-sighted calculations of
the intellect concerning the practical use which those qualities may, or
may not, have in after life.
The same thing is true of the little girl and what she admires and
aspires to.
As the youngsters grow up to be men and women, they are still
susceptible to the same sort of feeling, in spite of the fact that many
other more practical and material considerations are liable to creep in
and confuse it, alter it, distort it.
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