Part 85

1. Not long ago a Presbyterian minister in Western New York whipped his three-year-old boy to death for refusing to say his prayers. The little fingers were broken; the tender flesh was bruised and actually mangled; strong men wept when they looked on the lifeless body. Think of a strong man from one hundred and fifty to two hundred pounds in weight, pouncing upon a little child, like a Tiger upon a Lamb, and with his strong arm inflicting physical blows on the delicate tissues of a child's body. See its frail and trembling flesh quiver and its tender nervous organization shaking with terror and fear.

2. How often is this the case in the punishment of children all over this broad land! Death is not often the immediate consequence of this brutality as in the above stated case, but the punishment is often as unjust, and the physical constitution of children is often ruined and the mind by fright seriously injured.

3. Everyone knows the sudden sense of pain, and sometimes dizziness and nausea follow, as the results of an accidental hitting of the ankle, knee or elbow against a hard substance, and involuntary tears are brought to the eyes; but what is such a pain as this compared with the pains of a dozen or more quick blows on the body of a little helpless child from the strong arm of a parent in a passion? Add to this overwhelming terror of fright, the strangulating effects of sighing and shrieking, and you have a complete picture of child-torture.

4. Who has not often seen a child receive, within an hour or two of the first whipping, a second one, for some small ebullition of nervous irritability, which was simply inevitable from its spent and worn condition?

5. Would not all mankind cry out at the inhumanity of one who, as things are to-day, should propose the substitution of pricking or cutting or burning for whipping? It would, however, be easy to show that small jabs or pricks or cuts are more human than the blows many children receive. Why may not lying be as legitimately cured by blisters made with hot coals as by black and blue spots made with a ruler or whip? The principle is the same; and if the principle is right, why not multiply methods?

6. How many loving mothers will, without any thought of cruelty, inflict half a dozen quick blows on the little hand of her child, and when she could no more take a pin and make {397} the same number of thrusts into the tender flesh, than she could bind the baby on a rack. Yet the pin-thrust would hurt far less, and would probably make a deeper impression on the child's mind.

7. We do not intend to be understood that a child must have everything that it desires and every whim and wish to receive special recognition by the parents. Children can soon be made to understand the necessity of obedience, and punishment can easily be brought about by teaching them self-denial. Deny them the use of a certain plaything, deny {398} them the privilege of visiting certain of their little friends, deny them the privilege of the table, etc., and these self-denials can be applied according to the age and condition of the child, with firmness and without any yielding. Children will soon learn obedience if they see the parents are sincere. Lessons of home government can be learned by the children at home as well as they can learn lessons at school.

8. The trouble is, many parents need more government, more training and more discipline than the little ones under their control.

9. Scores of times during the day a child is told in a short, authoritative way to do or not to do certain little things, which we ask at the hands of elder persons as favors. When we speak to an elder person, we say, would you be so kind as to close the door, when the same person making the request of a child will say, "Shut the door." "Bring me the chair." "Stop that noise." "Sit down there." Whereas, if the same kindness was used towards the child it would soon learn to imitate the example.

10. On the other hand, let a child ask for anything without saying "please," receive anything without saying "thank you," it suffers a rebuke and a look of scorn at once. Often a child insists on having a book, chair or apple to the inconveniencing of an elder, and what an outcry is raised: "Such rudeness;" "Such an ill-mannered child;" "His parents must have neglected him strangely." Not at all: The parents may have been steadily telling him a great many times every day not to do these precise things which you dislike. But they themselves have been all the time doing those very things before him, and there is no proverb that strikes a truer balance between two things than the old one which weighs example over against precept.

11. It is a bad policy to be rude to children. A child will win and be won, and in a long run the chances are that the child will have better manners than its parents. Give them a good example and take pains in teaching them lessons of obedience and propriety, and there will be little difficulty in raising a family of beautiful and well-behaved children.

12. Never correct a child in the presence of others; it is a rudeness to the child that will soon destroy its self-respect. It is the way criminals are made and should always and everywhere be condemned.

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 {399} 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. {401}

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?