A CHILD born with a nervous constitution is to be pitied or envied according as he has parents who do or do not know how to treat him. Character is made or marred, even more than we are wont to believe, by the training which the child receives, and the future of no child is more absolutely in the keeping of its father and mother than is that of the nervous child. By injudicious treatment such a child may be made to grow up a physical and moral wreck, at odds with all the world, while under wise management it may develop into one of the highest types of lovable man or woman—gentle, affectionate, sensitive, intellectual, and dependable. The nervous child is often difficult to manage, especially if the mother is impatient with its despondency or its irritability. Scoldings only increase the tension of its nervous system, and more severe punishment, which the phlegmatic child takes with scarce a whimper and to12its betterment, is often cruel in the extreme. There are two types of nervous children—the active child, always on the go, inquisitive and acquisitive, but delicate as the mimosa leaf, shrinking back into itself at the first repulse or harsh word; and the pale, quiet, sensitive child, intelligent and thoughtful, but retiring. The child of the first type develops into the inventor, the active philanthropist, the promoter, the schemer, the adventurer, or the leader of criminals, according as his training has been wise or foolish. The child of the second type becomes the philosopher, the thinker, the man of letters, the poet, or the misanthrope, the sour recluse, and the plotter against society and government. One great mistake in training a nervous child is to try to strengthen the nerves by opposition. A nervous child must be guided, not driven; if afraid of the dark, it must not be forced to sleep in a closed room without a glimmer of light. It should not be laughed at for its natural timidity, but should be gently convinced by argument of the groundlessness of its fears. At the same time its physical constitution should receive careful attention. Good, digestible food, an open-air life, avoidance of long hours of study, frequent changes of air and scenes, are all not only serviceable, but, one might say, indispensable in the transformation of the child of nervous disposition into the well-poised man or woman. —Youth’s Companion.