Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 May 1878 — Pleasing the Children. [ARTICLE]

Pleasing the Children.

Some little girls, the youngest class of a private school in an adjoining city, following the custom of their elders, determined, a few days ago, to hold a fair for the benefit of some orphans. The matter had been fully and properly canvassed, price of admission (five cents) agreed upon, fancy-work commenced, contributions solicited, lotteries arranged, and all seemed to be working nicely after the manner of grown folks. The question where the fair was to be held was the only one unsettled, and this for a while bid fair to be an obstacle that would block the wheels of progress and turn into an utter failure an enterprise that had been commenced with such high hopes of abundant success. At whose house shall the fair be held? There was sickness at one, company at another; one’s mother was too busy and another’s thought it would be too much trouble. At last a little tot, the tiniest of the class, said, “ I think you can have it at our house. My mother says nothing is too much trouble when it pleases her children. I know she will be glad to have you come.” Thus spoke the child of a wise woman. We want no further evidence of her wisdom than the testimony of her child, given! in that simple, artless way. We wish we knew her, that we might do her reverence in person as we do now in spirit. Brighter than any jewels in Victoria’s crown shines her motherhood. For her example in the treatment and home education of her children she deserves the thanks of the world. But do we not see, in the effect of the teaching of this mother in a more lowly station, the same wise treatment that produces the same effect on her children and all around her? Is there a mother of any one of those little school girls who will not feel a reproof when she hears her child say, “Marie’s mother says nothing is too much trouble to do for her children.” If there is, we are sorry for her, and for her children and her children’s children.

Home influence is in this country too often unappreciated. Parents are too much occupied with the labor of accumulating worldly wealth to attend to the home instruction of their children. They are entirely willing to give all the money necessary to pay for instructions in school or college, but cannot spend the time to give them personal attention. The education of children should begin with their earliest infancy. Lessons of obedience, respect, confidence and love should be taught long before school days commence, and be taught in a spirit of confidence and love. When your child believes in you and knows that you are willing to do every possible’thing you consider for his good; when he trusts you because there has never been occasion for doubt, you have laid a foundation for an education that will be excellent, even though that child never sees the inside of a schoolhouse. What greater confidence can be expressed than that by the child who said, “It is true, for my mother says so, and when she says a thing is so, it ts whether it is so or not.” Not very correctly put, perhaps—but we all know what it means—that if mother saysa thing is so it will prove to be so, no matter now improbable it may look at present. This topic furnishes a good opportunity to introduce an argument in favor of the education of women, but we will not improve it further than to say that, in our opinion, if liberal education can be given only to a part of the family, the girls should have ■ it. The influence of an educated mother in a household can scarcely be overrated. She is with the children every hour of their infancy, just when the twig that shall grow to be the. tree is susceptible of being bent. And words spoken in a aer spirit, at a proper time, are i sown that will bear rich fruit in after years.— Rural New Yorker.