Again the great day particularly assigned to Bobby comes round with its wealth of honours, gifts, and carefully-chosen distractions—a picnic, if in summer, a matinee, if in winter—the day of days, his own especial feast, the most notable day of the year for him, the birthday of Bobby.

The cultivation of children’s birthdays is of evident importance for their development as self-assertive citizens. It entertains in their juvenile minds a proper sense of individual merit, the necessity of their existence to the rest of the world, and the right which is theirs to pleasures and luxuries. True, the event commemorated, the benefit conferred upon mankind” is not of Bobby’s own volition; but as men are born to glory, as men have, often unwittingly, greatness thrust upon them, so is Bobby made cognisant of his part in the great scheme of things by distinguishing the auspicious day on which he first saw the light. On that day he became the centre of interest in the family circle, an object of complacency to relatives and parents, and a hypothetical cause of joy to the universe. Bobby realises that on his anniversary he is entitled to the fulfilment of all his wishes. Not only does he expect and exact treats and presents of varied description; but his whims may not be thwarted. Everybody yields to him; his brothers and sisters play the games of his predilection, wait on him, court favour with him, admit his claim to be the hero, for this is the day on which Bobby, noble Bobby, has been bom into the world. The magnification of self gives to Bobby a poise which will stand him well in the battle of life, and preserve him from an altruism detrimental to his material interests.