Part 85

13. But there are no words to say what we are or what we deserve if we do this to the little children whom we have dared for our own pleasure to bring into the perils of this life, and whose whole future may be blighted by the mistakes of our careless hands. There are thousands of young men and women to-day groaning under the penalties and burdens of life, who owe their misfortunes, their shipwreck and ruin to the ignorance or indifference of parents.

14. Parents of course love their children, but with that love there is a responsibility that cannot be shirked. The government and training of children is a study that demands a parent's time and attention often much more than the claims of business.

15. Parents, study the problems that come up every day in your home. Remember, your future happiness, and the future welfare of your children, depend upon it.

16. CRIMINALS AND HEREDITY. Wm. M.F. Round was for many years in charge of the House of Refuge on Randall's Island, New York, and his opportunities for observation in the work among criminals surely make him a competent judge, and he says in his letter to the New York Observer: "Among this large number of young offenders I can state with entire confidence that not one per cent. were children born of criminal parents; and with equal confidence I am able to say that the common cause of their delinquency was found in bad parental training, in bad companionship, and in lack of wholesome restraint from evil associations and influences. It was this knowledge that led to the establishing of the House of Refuge nearly three-quarters of a century ago."

17. BAD TRAINING. Thus it is seen from one of the best authorities in the United States that criminals are made either by the indifference or the neglect of parents, or both, or by too much training without proper judgment and knowledge. Give your children a good example, and never tell a child to do something and then become indifferent as to whether they do it or not. A child should never be told twice to do the same thing. Teach the child in childhood obedience and never vary from that rule. Do it kindly but firmly.

18. IF YOUR CHILDREN DO NOT OBEY OR RESPECT YOU in their childhood and youth, how can you expect to govern them when older and shape their character for future usefulness and good citizenship?

19. THE FUNDAMENTAL RULE. Never tell a child twice to do the same thing. Command the respect of your children, and there will be no question as to obedience.

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CHASTITY AND PURITY OF CHARACTER.

1. CHASTITY is the purest and brightest jewel in human character. Dr. Pierce in his widely known Medical Adviser says: For the full and perfect development of mankind, both mental and physical, chastity is necessary. The health demands abstinence from unlawful intercourse. Therefore children should be instructed to avoid all impure works of fiction, which tend to inflame the mind and excite the passions. Only in total abstinence from illicit pleasures is there safety, morals, and health, while integrity, peace and happiness are the conscious rewards of virtue. Impurity travels downward with intemperance, obscenity and corrupting diseases, to degradation and death. A dissolute, licentious, free-and-easy life is filled with the dregs of human suffering, iniquity and despair. The penalties which follow a violation of the law of chastity are found to be severe and swiftly retributive.

2. THE UNION of the sexes in holy Matrimony is a law of nature, finding sanction in both morals and legislation. Even some of the lower animals unite in this union for life and instinctively observe the law of conjugal fidelity with a consistency which might put to blush other animals more highly endowed. It seems important to discuss this subject and understand our social evils, as well as the intense passional desires of the sexes, which must be controlled, or they lead to ruin.

3. SEXUAL PROPENSITIES are possessed by all, and these must be held in abeyance, until they are needed for legitimate purposes. Hence parents ought to understand the value to their children of mental and physical labor, to elevate and strengthen the intellectual and moral faculties, to develop the muscular system and direct the energies of the blood into healthful channels. Vigorous employment of mind and body engrosses the vital energies and diverts them from undue excitement of the sexual desires.

Give your young people plenty of outdoor amusement; less of dancing and more of croquet and lawn tennis. Stimulate the methods of pure thoughts in innocent amusement, and your sons and daughters will mature to manhood and womanhood pure and chaste in character.

4. IGNORANCE DOES NOT MEAN INNOCENCE.--It is a current idea, especially among our good common people, that the child should be kept in ignorance regarding the mystery of his own body and how he was created or came into the world. This is a great mistake. Parents must know that the sources of social impurity are great, and the child is a hundred times more liable to have his young mind poisoned if entirely ignorant of the functions of his nature than if judiciously enlightened on these important truths by the parent. The parent must give him weapons of defense against the putrid corruption he is sure to meet outside the parental roof. The child cannot get through the A, B, C period of school without it.

5. CONFLICTING VIEWS.--There is a great difference of opinion regarding the age at which the child should be taught the mysteries of nature: some maintain that he cannot comprehend the subject before the age of puberty; others say "they will find it out soon enough, it is not best to have them over-wise while they are so young. Wait a while." That is just the point (they will find it out), and we ask in all candor, is it not better that they learn it from the pure loving mother, untarnished from any insinuating remark, than that they should learn it from some foul-mouthed libertine on the street, or some giddy girl at school? Mothers! fathers! which think you is the most sensible and fraught with the least danger to your darling boy or girl?

6. DELAY IS FRAUGHT WITH DANGER.--Knowledge on a subject so vitally connected with moral health must not be deferred. It is safe to say that no child, no boy at least in these days of excitement and unrest, reaches the age of ten years without getting some idea of nature's laws regarding parenthood. And ninety-nine chances to one, those ideas will be vile and pernicious unless they come from a wise, loving and pure parent. Now, we entreat you, parents, mothers! do not wait; begin before a false notion has had chance to find lodgment in the childish mind. But remember this is a lesson of life, it cannot be told in one chapter, it is as important as the lessons of love and duty.

7. THE FIRST LESSONS.--Should you be asked by your four or five-year old, "Mamma, where did you get me?" Instead of saying, "The doctor brought you," or "God made you and a stork brought you from Babyland on his back," tell him the truth as you would about any ordinary question. One mother's explanation was something like this: "My dear, you were not made any more than apples are made, or the little chickens are made. Your dolly was made, but it has no life like you have. God has provided that all living things such as plants, trees, little chickens, little kittens, little babies, etc., should grow from seeds or little tiny eggs. Apples grow, little chickens grow, little babies grow. Apple and peach trees grow from seeds that are planted in the ground, and the apples and peaches grow on the trees. Baby chickens grow inside the eggs that are kept warm by the mother hen for a certain time. Baby boys and girls do not grow inside an egg, but they start to grow inside of a snug warm nest, from an egg that is so small you cannot see it with just your eye." This was not given at once, but from time to time as the child asked questions and in the simplest language, with many illustrations from plant and animal life. It may have occupied months, but in time the lesson was fully understood.

8. THE SECOND LESSON.--The second lesson came with the question, "But where is the nest?" The ice is now broken, as it were; it was an easy matter for the mother to say, "The nest in which you grew, dear, was close to your mother's heart inside her body. All things that do not grow inside the egg itself, and which are kept warm by the mother's body, begin to grow from the egg in a nest inside the mother's body." It may be that this mother had access to illustrations of the babe in the womb which were shown and explained to the child, a boy. He was pleased and satisfied with the explanations. It meant nothing out of the ordinary any more than a primary lesson on the circulatory system did, it was knowledge on nature in its purity and simplicity taught by mother, and hence caused no surprise. The subject of the male and female generative organs came later; the greatest pains and care was taken to make it clear, the little boy was taught that the sexual organs were made for a high and holy purpose, that their office at present is only to carry off impurities from the system in the fluid form called urine, and that he must never handle his sexual organs nor touch them in any way except to keep them clean, and if he does this, he will grow up a bright, happy and healthy boy. But if he excites or abuses them, he will become puny, sickly and unhappy. All this was explained in language pure and simple. There is now in the boy a sturdy base of character building along the line of virtue and purity through knowledge.

9. SILLY DIRTY TRASH.--But I hear some mother say "Such silly dirty trash to tell a child!" It is not dirty nor silly; it is nature's untarnished truth. God has ordained that children should thus be brought into the world, do you call the works of God silly? Remember, kind mother, and don't forget it, if you fail to teach your children, boys or girls, these important lessons early in life, they will learn them from other sources, perhaps long ere you dream of it, and ninety-nine times out of one hundred they will get improper, perverted, impure and vile ideas of these important truths; besides you nave lost their confidence and you will never regain it in these matters. They will never come to mamma for information on these subjects. And, think you, that your son and daughter, later in life will make you their confidant as they ought? Will your beautiful daughter hand the first letters she receives from her lover to mamma to read, and seek her counsel and advice when she replies to them? Will she ask mamma whether it is ever proper to sit in her lover's lap? I think not; you have blighted her confidence and alienated her affections. You have kept knowledge from her that she had a right to know; you even failed to teach her the important truths of menstruation. Troubled and excited at the first menstrual flow, she dashed her feet in cold water hoping to stop the flow. You know the results she is now twenty-five but is suffering from it to this day. You, her mother, over fastidious, so very nice you would never mention "such silly trash" but by your consummate foolishness and mock modesty you have ruined your daughter's health, and though in later years she may forgive you, yet she can never love and respect you as she ought.

10. "KNOWLEDGE THE PRESERVER OF PURITY."--Laura E. Scammon, writing on this subject, in the Arena of November, 1893, says: "When questions arise that can not be answered by observation, reply to each as simply and directly as you answer questions upon other subjects, giving scientific names and facts, and such explanations as are suited to the comprehension of the child. Treat nature and her laws always with serious, respectful attention. Treat the holy mysteries of parenthood reverently, never losing sight of the great law upon which are founded all others the law of love. Say it and sing it, play it and pray it into the soul of your child, that love is lord of all."

11. CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER.--Observation and common sense should teach every parent that lack of knowledge on these subjects and proper counsel and advice in later years is the main cause of so many charming girls being seduced and led astray, and so many bright promising boys wrecked by self-abuse or social impurity. Make your children your confidants early in life, especially in these things, have frequent talks with them on nature, and you will never, other things being equal, mourn over a ruined daughter or a wreckless, debased son.

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EXCITING THE PASSIONS IN CHILDREN.

1. CONVERSATION BEFORE CHILDREN.--The conduct and conversation of adults before children and youth, how often have I blushed with shame, and kindled with indignation at the conversation of parents, and especially of mothers, to their children: "John, go and kiss Harriet, for she is your sweet-heart." Well may shame make him hesitate and hang his head. "Why, John, I did not think you so great a coward. Afraid of the girls, are you? That will never do. Come, go along, and hug and kiss her. There, that's a man. I guess you will love the girls yet." Continually is he teased about the girls and being in love, till he really selects a sweet-heart.

2. THE LOSS OF MAIDEN PURITY AND NATURAL DELICACY.--I will not lift the veil, nor expose the conduct of children among themselves. And all this because adults have filled their heads with those impurities which surfeit their own. What could more effectually wear off that natural delicacy, that maiden purity and bashfulness, which form the main barriers against the influx of vitiated Amativeness? How often do those whose modesty has been worn smooth, even take pleasure in thus saying and doing things to raise the blush on the cheek of youth and innocence, merely to witness the effect of this improper illusion upon them; little realizing that they are thereby breaking down the barriers of their virtue, and prematurely kindling the fires of animal passion!

3. BALLS. PARTIES AND AMUSEMENTS.--The entire machinery of balls and parties, of dances and other amusements of young people, tend to excite and inflame this passion. Thinking it a fine thing to get in love, they court and form attachments long before either their mental or physical powers are matured. Of course, these young loves, these green-house exotics, must be broken off, and their miserable subjects left burning up with the fierce fires of a flaming passion, which, if left alone, would have slumbered on for years, till they were prepared for its proper management and exercise.

4. SOWING THE SEEDS FOR FUTURE RUIN.--Nor is it merely the conversation of adults that does all this mischief; their manners also increase it. Young men take the hands of girls from six to thirteen years old, kiss them, press them, and play with them so as, in a great variety of ways, to excite their innocent passions, combined, I grant, with friendship and refinement--for all this is genteely done. They intend no harm, and parents dream of none: and yet their embryo love is awakened, to be again still more easily excited. Maiden ladies, and even married women, often express similar feelings towards lads, not perhaps positively improper in themselves, yet injurious in their ultimate effects.

5. READING NOVELS.--How often have I seen girls not twelve years old, as hungry for a story or novel as they should be for their dinners! A sickly sentimentalism is thus formed, and their minds are sullied with impure desires. Every fashionable young lady must of course read every new novel, though nearly all of them contain exceptionable allusions, perhaps delicately covered over with a thin gauze of fashionable refinement; yet, on that very account, the more objectionable. If this work contained one improper allusion to their ten, many of those fastidious ladies who now eagerly devour the vulgarities of Dumas, and the double-entendres of Bulwer, and even converse with gentlemen about their contents, would discountenance or condemn it as improper. Shame on novel-reading women; for they cannot have pure minds or unsullied feelings, but Cupid and the beaux, and waking of dreams of love, are fast consuming their health and virtue.