Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 January 1881 — A Word for the Little Ones. [ARTICLE]

A Word for the Little Ones.

O'DoaahM*a Mastetow, I hate to see children forced to do things that are disagreeable to them, .merely for the purpose of making them obey. Where any good end is to be an-

•wend it is different. Little ones often object to what is good fir r them, and when firmnew is necessary, people should of course be firm ;but it a little powerless creature has a strong fancy or a great repugnance, a parent or guardian abuses his power in ignoring it. Why should your little boy be made to eat the fist of his meat if he loathes it, or anything, no matter wdiat, that is repulsive to him? It may be necessary’to refuse somethings at table, but seldom, if ever, to force anything upon him. Why make a child, either boy or girl, miserable by forcing it to wear articles of clothing of which its taste does not approve, or at which other children laugh? I think little girls suffer more from this than from any one thing. Almost all of us have some such memory. I knew a lady* whose childish life was made very wretched for a year by an obsolete old bag in which she was forced to carry’ her books to school, and another whose mother forced her to wear some old lace, which, though costly, was laughed at by the ignoraut children who made her world, and declared that she actually wished herself dead until that lacei was banished from her. Jf you can afford it, .it is wiser to give your little boy the particular top or kite he wants, or your girl the very doll she covets and ribbon she admires.