Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 May 1881 — Home Influences. [ARTICLE]

Home Influences.

It was Napoleon who said that the character and fate of the child was the work of the mother. Largely this is true, though not in a sense to exclude the influence of the father, especially in the case of boys. The child is often left to the mother’s care. A double duty is hers; to that which God gave is added that which man shifted upon her, and with her rests the whole work of preparing her child for the grave encounters of life. In how many homes does a mother’s intercourse with her children alternate between caressing indulgence and pettish fault finding? In how many are the bodies pampered and dressed, children reduced tp lucre ornaments to gratify

paternal vanity, while the affections are thwarted, and all the highest possibilities of the mind either uncultured or repulsed. Girlhood and boyhood pass, the old home is left, and the new begun away from old scenes and associations; restrained no longer, but altogether free, still you trace childhood influences. When your boy steps into the street he opens all the doors of his home; he carries out a photograph of his parents to be seen of their neighbors. When the little girl goes into the next house she carries the domestic newspaper abroad. Dear reader, is your domestic newspaper readable ?