Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 220, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 September 1910 — FIRST IMPRESSIONS COUNT [ARTICLE]

FIRST IMPRESSIONS COUNT

Mind and Character of the Child Are Plastic and Parents Must Be Careful. Did you ever consider how plastic are the mind and character of your child, ready for the molding of circumstances, natural forces and the various impressions left upon it by the actions of grown people? The whole life of your boy or girl is before you. How Important, then, is the fact that first impressions should be of the finest and the best that make for the nobflity of man! One of the first ideas to be zealously guarded is your child’s belief in your perfect honesty and trustworthiness. Remember, little ones cannot tell the difference between Jest and earnest, and truth and untruth are marked by a sharp line. If, therefore, you make threats or promises that you do not keep, if you repeat childish happenings with exaggeration, if you evade, or, worse yet. lie, you are Impressing your child in a way that you may regret your life through. Be equally Insistent to have the early Impressions in your child’s life those of beauty. Remember that these are the memories that Unger through life. Do you want sordidnes and ugliness and unhappiness to cling in the background? of childhood? Keep a child happy; let it have all the pleasure and Joy and color In its life that it is In your power to give. The nursery should be the pleasantest room In the house. Nowhere else have you; the opportunity of influencing unconsciously the tastee of the young. ' In that nursery, If there are good books, works of art—not mere daubs—toys that instruct as well as amuse, collections that train a child’s incllnation for original research, those first Impressions have a lasting influence on after life and the building up of character. Do not get into the habit of thinking a child’s thoughts and notions do not count. They count for more than do your own; yours are amenable to rsa- , son or common sense, while his are not realized or understood until they have made a fluid impression for harm or good.