NOTHING can be a greater mistake than to consider young people as destitute of understanding; their understanding should rather be appealed to and consulted. Do we not all remember how, when young, we were imposed upon; how our elders sought sometimes to put us off; how they gave us evasive answers or explanations; how they told us some plausible story as an excuse or as a reason? And do we not remember that even in our youth and simplicity we were quite capable of seeing through their maneuvers? Do we not all remember how, when anyone endeavored to keep us in ignorance of some proceeding of which we were made accidentally cognizant, we could divine very correctly the real motive for sending us out of the way with some false excuse? Now, in a case of this kind, which comes within the pale of parental authority, the will of the parent alone ought to be sufficient to control the child. But there should be no stifling of truth and no relaxation of duty. If, as often will happen, it is not expedient or proper for children to know a particular fact or incident, they should be told so with frankness and kindness, but at the same time with firmness. We are apt to overlook the intelligence of these little people and address ourselves to their stature. The treatment of children must always, for their own sakes, differ from that of full-grown men and women; our manner of addressing them must also be different; but there does not seem to be any reason why we should not give them full credit for the amount of intelligence they do possess; and we may every day see children with more discrimination, greater good sense, and better regulated moral deportment than many whose tall figure or riper age has invested them with the consequence of men and women.—Arthur's Home Magazine.