LHGfWED am STEEL FOR OUR HOME. THE VESHON OF LHFE, Otir Home OR Emanating Influences of the Hearthstone, BY CHARLES E. J3ARGENT, M.A., WITH THE CO-OPERATION OF REV. WILLIAM H. WITHROW, D.D., HENRY W. RUOFF, M.A., PH.D., REV. WILLARD E. WATERBURY, B.D., AND FRANK N. SEERLEY, M.D. EDITED BY CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS, M.A., F.R.S.C., F.R.S.L. Author "History of Canada" " Orion," " Beausejour," " EartVs Enigmas" etc., etc. I ILLUSTRATED. PUBLISHED IN ENGLISH AND GERMAN. KIing=Richiarcison Co. vE> F*I^ I ^IGrt^I fry IvE) , 3VI -^-^. 53 s3 RICHMOND. DES MOINES. INDIANAPOLIS. SAN JOSE. DALLAS. TOLEDO. 1898. Pv Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year eighteen hundred and ninety-nine, BY THE KING-RICHARDSON COMPANY, In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. Entered according to Act of Parliament of Canada, in the year 1899, BY THE KING-RICHARDSON COMPANY, At the Department of Agriculture. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. May peace be in thy home And joy ^?vithin thy heart. Issued by subscription only and not for sale at the bookstores. Biographical Notes of Au.th.ors. CHARLES E. SARGENT, M.A., Author of " Education and Evolution," etc. Graduate of Bates College; received the degree of M.A. from same institution; pursued post-graduate studies in Yale University ; before graduation and subsequently was a teacher and public lecturer. He is an educator of note, an independent thinker, and a graphic, forceful ^vriter. REV. WILLIAM H. WITHROW, D.D., F.R.S.C., Editor " Methodist Magazine and Review," etc, etc, Canada. Educated at Victoria University and the University of Toronto, Canada; degree of M.A. in 1864, and later the degree of D.D. from Victoria University ; Fellow of the Royal School of Canada. Editor Sunday School Lesson Literature, Methodist denomi- nation, Canada. As a minister and editor he wields widespread influence. HENRY WOLDMAR RUOFF, M.A., PH.D., Literary Editor with The King-Richardson Company, Publishers. Graduate of the University of Indiana ; pursued graduate studies in Harvard University; was assistant Ethnologist to Columbian Exposition; onetime lecturer in ethics, psychology, and the philosophy of history in Pennsylvania State College. He is a versatile scholar and possesses fine literary instincts. REV. WILLARD E. WATERBURY, B.A., B.D., Of the Baptist Missionary Union, Springfield, Massachusetts. Graduate of Syracuse University ; entered Y. M. C. A. work at Concord, N. H. ; studied theology and entered the Baptist ministry ; has written for religious journals and contributed to books and periodicals. He is a preacher of much directness and force, and a successful leader of young people. FRANK N. SEERLEY, B.A., Pn.B., M.D., International Y. M. C. A. Training School, Springfield, Mass. Graduate of the University of Iowa, ivith degrees B.A. and Ph.B. ; studied medi- cine in, and received the degree M.D. from, the University of Vermont. He is identi- fied in a very broad sense with Y. M. C. A. work, and is an authoritative specialist in physical culture. -< CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS, M.A., F.R. S. C., F.R.S.L., Literary Editor with Harper Brothers, Publishers. Graduate of the University of New Brunswick; M.A., 1881 ; Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada; onetime Professor of English Literature and Economics, King's College University, N. S.; author of " History of Canada," " Orion, and other Poems," " Raid of Beausejour," " Earth's Enigmas" etc. He is a celebrated critic and author. PRBKACB. (^ I HE reader will notice that the treatment of this work 4 I has been confined almost exclusively to what may -* be termed the didactic method. That is, the rigidly scientific as well as the grossly sentimental methods have been, in the main, avoided in the interest of a treatise that is designed to be instructive and helpful. Home has not only been regarded as an institution of nature, but in the treat- ment of almost every subject has been involved the exposi- tion of some related natural law, because every relation of the home life is the outgrowth of some law of our nature or of our surroundings. It has been the constant aim to make this book a popular scientific treatise on the various phases of the home, and in this respect, so far as we know, it stands alone. We have chosen to consider the various relations of the home life from this standpoint, from a conviction that society has come to need something more substantial than those mere expressions of sentiment, which, for the most part, constitute the books of this kind that heretofore have been given to the public. Many very entertaining books, however, have been produced thus, but the undisputed fact Preface. that all the while the old-time home love has been slowly but surely fading away, is sufficient proof that they have not accomplished the object for which they were written. It is true that the word " home " is one of the most poetic in human language, that the institution of home itself owes its origin to an innate sentiment, and that this emotion like all others grows and develops by its own action. Such expressions of sentiment, therefore, have their use. The great number of those beautiful prose poems, that dur- ing the past few years have been offered to the public, show how deep and insatiable is this home sentiment. Yet in spite of all this, the street and the public hall are usurp- ing the kingdom of the fireside, and the feebleness of its higher ministrations fills us with deep solicitude if not posi- tive alarm. The restoration and preservation of the old home love and reverence by a more rational and philosoph- ical conception of the home relations, we believe, is neces- sary to the maintenance of our social integrity. The home life is to the social life what the unvarying movement of the water wheel is to the complex and dis- cordant motion of the great factory. When the machinery stops or moves fitfully and unreliably the experienced machinist does not think, by merely lubricating the bear- ings, to remove the difficulty, but with lantern and wrench and hammer descends into the pit to see what is wrong with the " great wheel." There are certain diseases whose symptoms are chiefly xiii Preface. or wholly local, but which, nevertheless, must be cured by constitutional remedies. Such is the character of most of those moral diseases that affect human society, and the remedies we have tried to point out are constitutional rem- edies. The one organ we have aimed to reach is that which is the most central and vital of any of the living body of society the home. Society is agitated to-day over the startling problem of divorce, and yet, with all its attendant evils, divorce must be regarded only as a symptom of a fatal disease that is preying on the vitals of society. Intemperance and licen- tiousness are symptoms of diseases that can be reached only through the organ of home. What the home is, society will be. The moral corrup- tion and the dark vices of the city would perish in a single night did not their destroying rootlets reach down into the foulness of perverted homes. Still, what a world would this be were it not for the institution of home ! How would the streets of the great city be turbulent with lawless outcries at midnight did not the Great Father, through the kindly shepherd of a natural law, send his children at night to the fold of home ! How its gracious protection enmantles the slow-breathing multitude like the folding of a great wing ! This treatise is, in the main, the product of Mr. Charles E. Sargent, who, by virtue of his keen observation, rare mental equipment, and the earnestness of his convic- xiv Preface. tions, has given it unusual force and a picturesque style. The chapter on Books for the Home was prepared by W. H. Withrow, D.D. ; the chapters, Origin of the Family, The Home and the State, and The Home in Literature, by Mr. Henry Woldmar Ruoff ; the chapter on Personal Responsibility, by Mr. Charles G. D. Roberts ; the chapters on Home Religion, Bereavement in the Home, and Music in the Home, by Rev. Willard E. Waterbury, B.D. ; the chap- ter on Home Hygiene and Sanitation, by Frank N. Seerley, M.D. ; while the chapters, Ethical Duties of the Home and Home Correspondence and Forms, were collaborated by Mr. Henry Woldmar Ruoff and Mr. Charles E. Sargent. The wide range of topics discussed, as well as the unity of purpose exhibited, is not the least desirable fea- ture of the work ; while the evident moral intent must surely result in lasting benediction to the home and society at large. CONTENTS. PAGE Preface, ..... . xi CHAPTER 1. Origin of the Family, ..... 23 CHAPTER 2. Tine Nature of Home, . . . . . 32 CHAPTER 3. Influences of Home, . . 45 CHAPTER 4. Buds of Promise, . . 53 CHAPTER 5. Childhood, . . . ; . .61 CHAPTER 6. Home Training, . . 71 CHAPTER 7. Rewards and Punishments, . . 96 CHAPTER 8. Amusements for the Home, . . 104 CHAPTER 9. Home Smiles, . .114 xvi Contents. PAGE CHAPTER 10. Joys of Home, 120 CHAPTER 11. Education of Our Girls, . . . .129 CHAPTER 12. Ed.tJ.ca.tion of Our Boys, .... 144 CHAPTER 13. Books for the Home, 152 CHAPTER 14. Music in the Home, 167 CHAPTER 15. Evenings at Home, 172 CHAPTER 16. Self Culture, 185 CHAPTER 17. Sundays at Home, ... . . . . 200 CHAPTER 18. Individual Rules of Conduct, . . 210 CHAPTER 19. Correspondence and Social Forms, . 216 CHAPTER 20. Manners at Home, 246 CHAPTER 21. Family Secrets, 264 xvii Contents. CHAPTER 22. Kthical Duties of the Home, . . .273 CHAPTER 23. Contentment at Home, .... 287 CHAPTER 24. Visiting, 294 CHAPTER 25. Unselfishness at Home, .... 303 CHAPTER 26. Patience, 309 CHAPTER 27. Religion in the Home, .... 319 CHAPTER 28. Temperance, i . . . . . . . 328 CHAPTER 29. Economy of the Home, .... 340 CHAPTER 30. Home Hygiene and Sanitation, . . 353 CHAPTER 31. Home Adornments, . . . . 362 CHAPTER 32. Dignity at Home, . . . . . .368 CHAPTER 33. Success or Kailmre Koreshadov^ed at Home, 374 xviii Contents. PAGE CHAPTER 34. Fallacies about Genius, . . ' . . 384 CHAPTER 35. Courage to Meet Life's Duties, .. . 395 CHAPTER 36. Personal Responsibility, . . ' . . 403 CHAPTER 37. Trie Important Step, . . . . .411 CHAPTER 38. Leaving Home, 427 CHAPTER 39. Memories of Home, . . . . , 436 CHAPTER 40. Trials of Home, . . . ... 442 CHAPTER 41. Sorro-w and. Its Meaning, .... 450 CHAPTER 42. Bereavement in the Home, . . . 465 . CHAPTER 43. The Wido\v's Home, . . . . . 475 CHAPTER 44. Homeless Orphans, 480 CHAPTER 45. Homes of the F*oor, 488 xix Contents. PAGE CHAPTER 46. Homes of the Rich, ... . 495 CHAPTER 47. The Home and the State, . . . .505 CHAPTER 48. The Home in Literature, . . . .516 CHAPTER 49. The Old=Rashioned Home, . . .580 CHAPTER 60. Ou.r Last Farewell of Home, . . . 594 CHAPTER 51. Heaven Ou.r Home, 605 ILLUSTRATIONS. PRINTED FROM STEEL PLATES. The Vision of Life, ..... . Frontispiece. This picture, symbolical of the successive stages of life, was specially prepared for Our Home by the well-known artist, C. Etherington, formerly of Paris, where he was a frequent and appreciated exhibitor. The Old Hearthstone. . ..'... 44 The work of the sterling artist and engraver, the late John Sartain of Philadelphia. It is a faithful picture from the home of John Howard Payne. These are My Je\vels, .' . 70 Reproduced from a painting by the celebrated European artist, Schopin, originally engraved by F. T. Stuart. Improving Spare Nloments 184 A highly artistic study prepared specially for this work by C. Etherington Breaking Home Ties, ..'..... 426 Reproduction of the widely celebrated painting, of that name, by the late lamented Thomas Hovenden, who sacrificed his life in an attempt to rescue a child from a passing train. The Hour of Anxiety, 451 Reproduction of Luke Tildes' masterpiece. This painting has been the subject of admiring comment in two hemi- spheres, depicting, as it does, a scene of the deepest pathos. The Old- Fashioned Home, .' . . . .581 A faithful portraiture of " Auld Lang Syne " by C. Ether- ington, a strong picture of ancestral days. Borne from the Earthly Home, .... 604 The original painted by Carl Gotherz of Paris. A piece of beautiful symbolism representing the pilgrimage from earth to heaven, with the attendant sorrow of dissolution. AN'S life's a book of history; The leaves thereof are days; The letters, mercies closely joined; The title is God's praise. MASON. CHAPTER ONE. Tlie Origin of ttie Kamily. fF history and tradition are to be trusted, the family, in some form of association, existed from the dawn of the human race. It was established with the sanction if not by a special creative act of the Divine power and finds the highest fulfillment of its ends in obe- dience to the natural laws of order and grace instituted by its Founder. We cannot go behind the Divine creative act and in- quire what the ultimate motive or what the prototype of the family may be. It is sufficient to know that it is the highest form of functional life, and that through it is being wrought out the divine purpose of creation and the Creator. There are great gaps in history, or, more properly speaking, in traditional history, that we may well wish were bridged. A great many conclusions would then possibly be changed or even discarded. But assuredly more cer- tainty, more validity, would be introduced into our specu- lations regarding both the origin and the early condition of mankind. It has been sagely observed that "Barbarism writes no history " ; and this may account, in a measure, 23 The Origin of the Family. for the great stretches of waste at the beginning, and along the varied courses of racial development. This lack of consecutiveness in the record of the human race has left an open door for a series of momentous guesses touching the early stages of religion, morals, social conditions, government, family relations, mode of warfare, intellectual development, and what not ? Some problems are raised of vital concern ; others appear as the result of the "mind's own throwing." I WO theories are widely held respecting the origin of ^ the family, neither of which conflicts with the fun- damental assumption of its Divine paternity. The one is known as the biblical theory of a special, creative act. " And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ; and man became a living soul. ****** And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept : and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof ; and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. ****** And Adam called his wife's name Eve ; because she was the mother of all living." The other, which is generally known as the scientific or evolutional theory, sets forth that man, and consequently the family, was the result of long periods of development 24 The Origin of the Family. and differentiation from some lower order of being. While this is evidently in conflict with the special creation theory, it does not remove man from an intelligent and Divine order of creation. Whether God operates in his world through avast and complex system of laws or by special acts of creation, or by both, as may meet his inscrutable purpose, is, after all, only a question of mode and of small significance in comparison with the greater fact that he was the ultimate Creator, whether of man or molecule. H'ARLY family life differs as widely, outside of its *^* natural constitution, as races themselves. It is marked by the peculiarities of custom, temperament, en- vironment, climatic conditions, degree of development, religion, and morality incident to different races. We are wont, as a rule, to confine our observations upon the early institution of the family to the Jewish race, forgetting that there are other races which also had an infancy within the records of authentic history. So a complete study of it embraces the survey of a vast array of social facts, both historical and anthropological. The generaliz- ations and main conclusions, only, can be produced here. Travelers and anthopologists are alike in stating that the prevailing form of social life in the early stages of races is that of promiscuity, although no less an authority than Mr. Herbert Spencer asserts it as his belief that monog- yny, or the marriage of one man to one woman, existed 25 The Origin of the Family. side by side with it, from the earliest periods of racial his- tory. The early histories of Greece, Rome, and the Indo- European peoples throw the weight of their evidence to the theory of promiscuity. No intimation of separate and dis- tinct places or modes of cohabitation appears in their early legends or traditions. In fact, so marked was this promis- cuity that at a little later stage the mother became the nat- ural head of the family or gens, its protector and its pro- vider, and performed functions very similar to that of a patriarch or chief of a tribe. There was little or no affec- tional life such as characterizes the modern family, and consequently no distinctiveness of selection other than caprice. Arising out of the fact that the mother was the only one who could identify her offspring, and thereby entitle herself to become the center of a social unit, a new rela- tion was formed which has been termed polyandry, or the marriage of one woman and many men. Under this rela- tion woman rose to a position of greater influence than man, and it is recorded in the legendary history of Greece that beside the right of franchise, she possessed many other functions in rudimentary government. Under the reign of Cecrops, the serpent king, it is averred that a dispute arose between Pallas and Poseidon, which was settled by a vote of the Athenians (including the votes of the women) in favor of Pallas. In order to placate Poseidon, therefore, the men of Athens resolved to 26 The Origin of the Family. disfranchise the women and that children should hence- forth cease to take their names from the family of their mothers. This is probably a somewhat unscientific explanation of the transition from polyandry to patriarchy, or the gens, but it at least indicates that there was a change in the au- thority of the sexes and a transfer of their social functions. LJ ATRIARCHY as an early form of family life was a ^_^ polygamous association of which the oldest repre- sentative of the blood relation was the head. Under it, however, especially with the Hebrews, female chastity was preserved and it attained to a very creditable degree of development. Corresponding to the patriarchy of the Jews, the simi- lar associations of other races and nations are known by va- rious names. Among the lower order of races and includ- ing the Celts, they are designated clans ; among the Romans gens ; among the Greeks, ytvvg, genus ; among the North American Indians, a totem ; and so on. The remarkable coincidence is that home is an Anglo-Saxon word, and throughout its whole history has been synonymous, as far as it refers to the natural constitution of the family, with monogyny, the marriage of but one man to one woman. Mr. Spencer, after affirming his belief in the theory that monogyny is one of the oldest forms of the family, a little inconsistently, as we think, endeavors to account for its 27 The Origin of the Family. general prevalence later, through the operation of exog- amy, or wife stealing. It is well established that in the clan or patriarchal forms of the family strict rules obtained against alliances outside of that particular clan or patri- archy. It therefore follows that marriages within the clan or patriarchy were often between those of the closest blood relation. The only way to effect a marriage, then, between members of different gentes was through the stealing of a female member of one family by the male member of an- other. In a case of this kind the motive for the act lay not in an infraction of the customs of each particular gens, but in some charm of person that made the alliance stronger and more enduring. Indeed, in the earlier history of Greece, wife stealing became a commonplace practice, and it is not improbable that this particularizing of persons, whether through a crude form of love, or for some ulterior reason we know not of, was a powerful factor in the gen- eral institution of monogyny. l-^ECURRING for a moment to the hypotheses with V_ which we started, one thing is very evident : that if monogyny were the earliest form of the human family, there have been lapses and variations from it during the many centuries of its career for which we can scarcely ac- count. It may be that such is the law of progression ; that humanity must often descend into the trough of the sea to ascend and re-ascend to the crest of the wave. 28 The Origin of the Family. However that may be, after a long process of years, and struggle with the barbarities of races, we are brought into the possession of that chiefest blessing of modern civ- ilization the home which has been made possible only through the firm intrenchment of the monogamous mar- riage. It must not be understood, however, that the produc- tion of the modern home was due to one set of influences or circumstances only. The naturalist and the anthropolo- gist tell us the story from the standpoint of physical and racial life ; while the social and religious philosopher pre- sents the case of potential or inherent development. In this respect it is proper to observe the validity and force of both. From the low brutality of promiscuous relationship, with its ignorance, its stolidity, its lack of organization, its absence of affectional life, to the modern Christian home, with its ideals of sacredness, law and order, comfort, in- telligence, morals, and religious vitalism, is indeed a long stretch, and nothing short of the guiding influences of an Almighty hand could have brought it about. Mr. Herbert Spencer observes, in substance, that the home is the most important factor in civilization, and that civilization is to be measured at different stages largely by the development of the home. This seems to be amply borne out by the results of study in every branch of so- ciety, whether government, morals, religious or social institutions. The natural family gave rise to the household 29 The Origin of the Family. or familia. The village became an offshoot from these, and related villages recognized a common ruler, or king. Questions of property rights, slaves, laws of inheritance, modes of worship, distribution of labor, and so on, arose. So that the history of the family in its relation to society in general is practically a history of civilization itself. I HE emancipation of the family from the bonds of V savagery is marked in many ways. The mortality of offspring has been lessened, woman has ceased to be held in serfdom, physical comforts have been increased, mother- hood has been raised to the dignity of a sacrament almost, different spheres of activities have been developed for the sexes, individuality has forced itself into recognition, and possibly above all else is to be noted the development of the affectional nature. This latter became a new force in society, and the inspirational theme of nearly all early literature, as well as the guiding motive of art, music, and legend. There was scarcely a common interest that did not extend to the family sooner or later. Religion became its foster mother, devised forms of worship, sacrament, and grace in its special behoof, and prescribed its relation to society as well. It became the subject of special laws under the state, and formed an organic part in the classifi- cations of early citizenship. And so we might go on recounting the multiplicity of newborn functions, which 30 The Origin of the Family. came to the family organization as the result of its mani- fold struggles toward the rightful position it holds in mod- ern civilization to-day as the home. Born out of the throes of human development and racial turmoil, it stands forth as the highest form of associated life, and as .the natural unit of all future civic development. 31 CHAPTER TWO. Ttie Nature of Home. UR home is the one spot on earth where is con- centrated the largest percentage of our earthly interest. There are few human beings without a home or the memory of one. The vast multitude that surges through the streets of the great city is made up of individual souls, each of which to-night will seek some place it calls home. There are those who roll through the streets with golden livery to palaces where brilliant lights, gorgeous tapestry, and soft-piled carpets await their coming. There are those who walk the frosty pavement with cold and bleeding feet, whose homes are in damp and dreary cel- lars, or in the rickety garrets of worn and wretched hovels. No lights, no music, no feasts, await them, nothing but a crust and a bed of straw. And yet these places in all their wretchedness are the homes of human beings. There is still another class of homes, where has been answered the human heart's best prayer, "give us neither poverty nor riches " ; where peace and joy and love and contentment dwell ; where industry and frugality, with 32 The Nature of Home. sunbrowned hands and healthful appetite, sit at the board of plenty. But whether the home be a palace, a cottage, or a garret, it is home. ^U OME is in the soul itself ; and, to a certain extent, is V,^ independent of outward circumstances. Of this inward home the outward is but the expression ; and yet it is doubtful if the outward is ever a true expression of the inward, inasmuch as men's ideals always transcend their experience. Neither the wretched hovel where vice and hunger dwell, nor the palace where lies the gilded corpse of love, can be a true home. ' ' Home is the resort Of love, of joy, of peace and plenty, where, Supporting and supported, polished friends And dear relations mingle into bliss. " Next to religion, the home sentiment is the strongest in the human heart. At the name of home the better impulse of every heart awakens. As the chord of the instrument is dead to every sound until its own harmonic chord is struck, when it vibrates and taking up the sound prolongs it as if it could not let it die, so many a darkened mind is dead to every appeal save that magic sound, " home ! " The lives of thousands who have been snatched as brands from temptation's fire will testify to the magic power of a sister's early love, while the sudden remembrance of a mother's 33 The Nature of Home. " good night kiss " has stayed the assassin's dagger. In the dark and loathsome dens of iniquity there are those whose lips have, for years, acknowledged their Creator only in oaths ; whose eyes have shed no tears, and whose ears have heard only the blasphemies of drunken revelry. And yet could an unseen hand write upon those walls the words "Home" and "Mother's Love," lips would quiver, eyes would swim, and from the depths of many a soul in which the germs of truth and love had long since seemed dead, would burst the heart-rending confession, " Once I was pure as the snow, but I fell, Fell like a snow-flake from heaven to hell, Fell to be trampled as filth of the street, Fell to be scoffed at, be spit on and beat ; Pleading, cursing, begging to die, Selling my soul to whoever would buy ; Dealing in shame for a morsel of bread, Hating the living and fearing the dead." I HE powerful influence which the home sentiment ex- ^ erts over the minds of men was shown in a striking and unique manner at Castle Garden, New York. Some ten thousand people had gathered there to listen to that sweet- voiced singer, Jenny Lind. She began with the sub- lime compositions of the great masters of song. Her audience applauded her with a respectful degree of appre- ciation. But at length, with sweetness ineffable, born of 34 TJie Nature of Home. the holy parentage of genius and passion, she poured forth that immortal song, "Home, Sweet Home." At once the irrepressible contagion of sympathy spread through that vast audience. Peal on peal of thunderous applause resounded, until the song was stopped by the very ecstasy of those who listened ; and when the soft refrain was heard again, that mass of humanity was melted into tears ; the great masters were all forgotten, while ten thousand human hearts knelt at the shrine of a poor and obscure out- cast. Why was this ? Was Howard Payne a greater genius than they ? Must these mighty names yield their places to one whom the world has forgotten ? No ; it was simply because when sorrow laid his iron hand on the heart of Howard Payne, in his cruel grasp he chanced to strike that chord which vibrates to a lighter touch than any in the human heart save that alone swept by the master's hand. 4 ' Home of our childhood ! how affection clings And hovers 'round thee with her seraph wings ! Dearer thy hills, though clad in autumn brown, Than fairest summits which the cedars crown." i The rough experiences of the roaring, toiling, stormy world may blot out all other images from the mind, but the picture of our early home must hang forever on the walls of memory, until "the silver cord be loosed or the golden bowl be broken." 35 The Nature of Home. I HE old man may not recall all the experiences, all the ^ struggles and triumphs of his early manhood ; bat every feature of his childhood home, every little playhouse that he helped his sister build, is photographed upon his heart's tablet and can never fade away. Perchance the golden light of eternity will not dim the brightness of that picture. Whatever else the heart may forget, it cannot forget the place of its birth ; it cannot forget the little broken cart, the sled and the kite, the sister's fond caress, the brother's generous aid, the father's loving counsel, and the mother's anxious prayer. It cannot forget the day when a chastening hand drew still closer the cords of love and bound the little circle in a common sorrow ; the day when hushed footsteps were in the house, and the silent rooms were filled with the odor of flowers, and the garden gate swung outward to let a little casket through. " That hallowed word is ne'er forgot, No matter where we roam ; The purest feelings of the heart Still cluster 'round our home. " Dear resting place where weary thought May dream away its care, Love's gentle star unveils its light And shines in beauty there." 36 The Nature of Home. the ministry of home consists not alone in its fond memories and hallowed associations. It is the great conservator of good, the "seeding place of virtue." It is the origin of all civilization. The laws of a nation are but rescripts of its domestic codes. The words uttered and the doctrines taught around the fireside are the influences that shape the destinies of empires. It is the influences of home that live in the life of king- doms, while parental counsel repeats itself in the voices of republics. We would impress upon the minds of our readers this grand truth, and would that we might thunder it into the ears of all mankind, that a nation is but a mag- nified home. Parliament and Congress are but hearth- stones on a grander scale. Those great and noble charac- ters who have left a deathless impress upon the history of nations were not fashioned on battle fields, but in the cradle and at the fireside. They are those, moreover, who at every period of life, at every turn of fortune or adver- sity, have never forgotten the old home. NO argument is necessary to convince us of the potency of home influence in shaping character. There are certain truths to which it is only necessary to call atten- tion, and minds instinctively assent to them, and to this class, we believe, belong those general truths concerning home which we have mentioned. Indeed, they are recog- 37 The Nature of Home. nized and taught in the trite maxims of everyday life. Napoleon understood well the nature of home and its mis- sion when he said, " The great need of France is mothers." Mohammed said, " Paradise is at the feet of mothers." " O wondrous power ! how little understood 1 Entrusted to a mother's mind alone, To fashion genius from the soul for good." In democratic countries like the United States and Canada, where the fate of the nation is in the hands of the people, the future of the nation is in the hands of the chil- dren. They must be fitted for their high responsibilities by the influences of home. These countries should. fear the disloyalty and contention of the fireside more than the nefarious plots of scheming politicians. If boys wrangle and contend at home, if they cannot discuss with dignity the little questions that arise in their daily intercourse with one another, be sure they will not honor the nation when they take their places in Senate, Parliament, or Congress to discuss the great problems that confront the civilization of the nineteenth century. NOW, if home may be so powerful an influence for good, how important becomes the cultivation of the home sentiment. To be destitute of this sentiment is almost as great a misfortune as to be destitute of the relig- ious sentiment. Indeed, we believe that one cannot pos- 38 The Nature of Home. sess a true and exalted love of home while there is wanting in his character that which when awakened may yield the fruit of a godly life. What a mighty responsibility rests upon him who essays to make a home, for the founding of a home is as sacred a work as the founding of a church. Indeed, every home should be a temple dedicated to divine worship, where human beings through life should worship God through the service of mutual love the highest tribute man can pay to the divine. If the home sentiment be one of the strongest passions of the human soul, it was made such for a wise purpose. The affections of the heart all have their corresponding outward objects. We possess no power impelling us to love or desire that which does not exist as a genuine insti- tution and necessity of nature. So this strong home senti- ment only proves to us that the institution of home was divinely born. It is based in the very constitution of human nature, and so vital is the relation which it sustains to our needs, that every heart must have a home. It may not be of brick or wood or stone. It may not have a " local habitation and a name." But if not, out of the airy tim- bers of its own fancy the heart will rear the structure which it demands as a necessity of its being. We are aware that there are thousands who are called homeless ; but their hearts' demand is at least partially met by the possession of an ideal home. The body may exist without a home, but the heart, never. The world called Howard 39 The Nature of Home. Payne a homeless wanderer, yet kings and peasants have implored entrance at the vine-wreathed threshold of that home which he reared in the airy dreamland of poesy. Another evidence of the divine origin of the institution of home is found in its obvious adaptation to the end it serves, and in the striking analogies which we detect be- tween its functions and the general methods of nature. ["VERY growth in nature is nurtured and sustained *^,* through its early existence by a pre-existing guard- ian. The germ of the oak is nourished and protected by the substance of the acorn until it is strong enough to draw its food directly from the earth, and to withstand the tempest and the scorching sun. So it must be with the germ of that oak which is to wave in the forest of human society. And if we wish it to become a grand and noble oak, and not a hollow hearted deformity, we should look well to the protection and nourishment of its early years. We should see that there is the proper spirit- ual soil from which the little human germ may gather wholesome and strengthening food when it puts forth its tender rootlets into the great world without. The relation which the acorn sustains to the germ is precisely that which the home sustains to the child. If we were to suppose the germ endowed with intelligence, we should still suppose it ignorant of everything but the en- vironments of the acorn. It would, of course, be all uncon- 40 The Nature of Home. scious that there is a world without full not only of germs like itself, but of giant oaks. So the child is ignorant of the great outward world. The home is its little world and it knows no other. Precious thought, that it never quite outgrows the bliss- ful ignorance ! We take on higher and broader views of life, but we are compelled by a law of our being to look forever upon our home as in some way the grand center from which radiate all other interests. When the mother shades the windows of the nursery, she but unconsciously imitates the Creator of her child, who through the institution of home has shut from his feeble and nascent mind the flashing colors of the too bril- liant world. But not alone for childhood is the sacred ministry of home. It is the guardian of youth, a consolation amid the weary toils of manhood and a resting place for old age, where he who is soon to lay off the armor may find loving hearts and tender hands to guide his tottering steps to the water's edge. Again, the mature mind is only that of a developed in- fant. It is still infantile with reference to the universe in its entirety. Nor can it ever fully comprehend the signifi- cance of life in the aggregate. Were we to attempt to dwell in the great temple of the world, we should become lost in its vast halls and mighty labyrinths. Hence it be- comes necessary to reduce the scale of the world ; to iso- 41 The Nature of Home. late the human mind, as it were, from the vastness of ag- gregate life. And this God has done in the institution of home. " Home's not merely four square walls, Though with pictures hung and gilded : Home is where affection calls, Filled with shrines the heart hath builded ! Home ! go watch the faithful dove, Sailing 'neath the heaven above us ; Home is where there's one to love ! Home is where there's one to love us ! " Home's not merely roof and room, It needs something to endear it ; Home is where the heart can bloom, Where there's some kind lip to cheer it ! What is home with none to meet, None to welcome, none to greet us? Home is sweet, and only sweet, Where there's one we love to meet us I " h I oil CHAPTER THREE. Influences of Home. T is a law of all initiate life that it is susceptible to outward and formative influences in an inverse ratio to its age. An ear of corn while it is yet green may have an entire row of its kernels removed, and when it becomes ripe it will show no marks of this piece of vegetable sur- gery. So the young child may have many a vice removed while he remains as plastic clay in the hands of those whose privilege it is to mold the character for eternity, and when he is old he will show no marks of the cruel knife of discipline and denial through which the change was wrought. But if he becomes old before the work is begun the scar will always remain, even if the experiment suc- ceeds. A bad temper in a young child may be sweetened, but the acid temper of an old man reluctantly unites with any sweetening influences. We find here a striking analogy to a physical law of our being. It is a well known fact that in early childhood the osseous tissues of the body are soft and flexible. The bones may be almost doubled upon themselves without 45 Influences of Home. breaking, but in the old the bones are so hard and brittle that they cannot be bent at all without breaking. We can make little or no impression upon them. They stubbornly refuse to respond to any influences. Surely it is true of the bod^y, " As the twig is bent the tree's inclined." But it is no less true of the mind and soul. The disposition of an animal may be made almost what we choose to make it by our treatment of it when young. Who does not know that the disposition of the dog is almost wholly dependent on the manner in which the puppy is treated ? This principle is recognized in the adage, "It is hard to teach an old dog new tricks." Whatever may be our views concerning the moral and spiritual relations of the human to the brute creation, it cannot be denied that the laws which govern the mental life of each are essentially the same. The difference is in quantity rather than quality. What a grand virtue is patience ! How charming in childhood ! How sublime in manhood ! Then let us learn a lesson from the ease with which patience is created or destroyed at will in the young animal. The susceptibility of children to outward influences is largely due to their power of imitation, and this power was doubtless given them for a wise purpose. Originality is not a virtue of infancy and childhood. Hence, if we would influence the acts of a child we should set him an example, we should act as we wish 46 Influences of Home. him to act. Patient children are never reared by impatient parents. Most of the crime and misery of the world are due to the early influences of home. We may not be aware how small an influence may work the ruin of a child when he has inherited slightly vicious tendencies. By nature the disposition of a child is the sweetest thing in the world, and how beautiful, tender, and sweet might become the lives of all if parents were conscious of these truths, and would act according to their knowledge. But they so often contaminate the sweet springs of childhood with the bitterness of their own lives, that we do not wonder that the old theologians so strongly believed in total depravity and innate sinfulness. Infancy is neither vicious nor virtuous ; it is simply innocent, and is susceptible alike to good and bad im- pressions. Its safety consists alone in the watchfulness of its guardians. The soldier has his hours of duty, but the par- ent to whose hands is intrusted the guardianship of an immortal soul is never off duty. When the baby is asleep all the household move softly lest they awake him ; but when he is awake they should move and think and speak more softly lest they awaken in him that which no nursery song can lull to sleep again. The young child is an apt student of human nature. You do not deceive him as you perhaps think. The 47 Influences of Home. knowledge of human nature, of the motives that impel us to actions, comes not from reason nor from observation. It is an intuitive knowledge and is always keen in the child. It acts, too, with far greater vigor between the child and parent, especially the mother, than between the child and others. Every look of the mother's eye is interpreted by her child with far greater accuracy than the most profound student of the anatomy of expression could interpret it. The sharpest merchant may not detect the sign of dis- honesty in the father's face so quickly as the child. LxARENTS, your child is a bound volume of blank ^_^. paper on whose pages are to be written the record of your own lives. Be careful then what you allow to be written there, for the world will read it. Do you not see that through this principle by which you are instinctively en rapport with your child, an awful responsibility is thrown upon you ? The secrets of your inmost soul are the copy which the trembling hand of your child is trying to write. The word influence is the most incomprehensible, the most vast and far reaching in its significance, of all words. We seldom use it in any- but a literal sense, but in every degree of its true meaning there is the shadow of infinity. Philosophers tell us, not in jest, but in the profoundest earnest, that every footfall on the pavement jars the sun, 48 Influences of Home, and every pebble dropped into the ocean moves the conti- nents with vibrations that never cease. Your hand gives motion to a pendulum, and in that act you have produced an effect which shall endure through eternity. The vibra- tion of the pendulum as a mass ceases, but only because its motion has been transformed from mass motion to molecular motion. Had it been suspended in a vacuum and been made to swing without friction at the point of suspension, it would have vibrated on forever, but the fric- tion, which is inevitable, and the resistance of the air, grad- ually bring it to rest, and we say the motion has ceased. But this is not true. The motion has not ceased, it has simply become invisible. At every vibration a part of the motion was changed at the point of suspension and in the air into the invisible undulations of heat and electricity. A moment ago the pendulum was swinging, but now infinitely small atoms are swinging in its stead, and the aggregate motion of all those atoms is just equal to the motion of the pendulum at first. These waves of atomic motion expand and radiate from the points of origin, ex- tending on and on and on, past planets and stars, beating and dashing against their brazen bosoms as the waves of the ocean beat the rocky shore. This is not the language of fancy ; it is the veritable philosophy, the demonstrated facts of science. Your will gave birth to motion communicated along the nerve of your arm to the pendulum, and that motion has gone past your 49 Influences of Home, recall, on its eternal errand among the stars. What a sol- emn thought ! You are the parent of the infinite ! And yet this illustration but faintly shadows the awful- ness of human influence. If a simple motion of your hand is fraught with eternal consequences, what shall we say of the influences of your mind ? They shall live as long as the throne of the Infinite. Oh, that we might impress upon the minds of mother and father the awful truth that an influence in its very nature is eternal. Not a word or thought or deed of all the myriad dead but lives to-day in the character of our words and deeds and thoughts. We are the outgrowth of all the past, the grand resultant of all the world's past forces. Only God can measure the in- fluence of a human thought. " No stream from its source Flows seaward, how lonely soever its course, But what some land is gladdened. Xo star ever rose And set without influence somewhere. Who knows What earth needs from earth's lowest creature? No life Can be pure in its purpose and strong in its strife, And all life not be purer and stronger thereby." /V MOTHER speaks a fretful word to a child at a crit- V^, ical moment, when just upon his trembling lips hangs the ready word of penitence, and in his eye a tear, held back by the thinnest veil through which a single tender glance might pierce. But the tender glance is with- 50 Influences of Home. held. The penitence grows cold upon his lip, the tear creeps back to its fountain, the heart grows harder day by day, until that mother mourns over a wayward child, the neighborhood over a rude boy, the city over a reckless youth, the state over a dangerous man, and the nation over the sad havoc of a dark assassin. Who can trace to its ultimate effect that fretful word through all its ramifica- tions to infinite consequences ? That word shall reverber- ate through the halls of eternity when planets are dust and stars are ashes. I IF all human influences those of home are the most far reaching in their results. The mutual influence of brothers and sisters may be almost incalculable. There are many men who owe their honor, their integrity, and their manhood to the influence of pure minded sisters. Sisters usually have it in their power to shape the charac- ter of their brothers as they choose. There is naturally a pure and holy affection existing between brothers and sisters. It is natural for all brothers to feel and believe that, in some way, their sisters are purer and better than others, and sisters also believe that their brothers are nobler than the brothers of their associates. This senti- ment is so universal that we cannot help believing it was ordained for a wise purpose. Of course there is the ele- ment of deception in it, but it is one of nature's wise de- ceptions. She deceives us, or tries to deceive us, when she 51 Influences of Home. paints what seems a solid bow upon the canvas of the sky. She deceives the superstitious and ignorant when she flings her chain of molten gold around the dusky shoulders of the night. But these deceptions are not such as to cast any reflections upon her integrity. So we may believe that this sweet deception which makes angels of sisters and heroes of brothers was divinely ordered to unite brothers and sis- ters in closest communion and to bring them both within the enchanted circle of home influence. " I shot an arrow in the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where. #********** " I breathed a song into the air, It fell on earth, I knew not where. *********** " Long, long afterwards in an oak I found the arrow still unbroke ; And the song from beginning to end, I found again in the heart of a friend." Morals, manners, methods, the principal concomitants of character, have their inception and largely their devel- opment within the home. It is at once one of the most civilizing and demoralizing of human agencies. It may be a lazar-house of vice, strife, improvidence, unfaith, prosti- tuting every budding power, or it may be the sanctuary of domestic felicity, kindness, truthfulness, philanthropy, bestowing continued benedictions upon each member and radiating the light of human joy. 52 CHAPTER FOUR. Buds of Promise. ^ (5} OME as a natural institution has for its primary object the nurturing of those tender buds of promise which can mature in no other soil. The human bud, unlike that of the flower, does not contain its future wholly wrapped up within itself, but depends much upon the hand that nurtures it. The rosebud, no matter in what soil it grows, no matter what care it receives, must blossom into a rose. No care or neg- lect, at least in any definite period of time, can transform it into a noxious weed. But on every mother's bosom there rests a bud of promise, and whether or not that promise shall be fulfilled depends upon her. Whether that bud shall blossom into a pure and fragrant rose or into the flower of the deadly nightshade, is at the option of the guardian. We would not, however, be understood as teaching the doctrine long since abandoned by the investigators of human science, that all are born equal as regards future possibilities. If men had known the subtle laws that gov- ern the development of the human intellect, they perhaps 53 Buds of Promise. might have traced the lightning's course through the infant brain of Franklin, and have discerned in the nascent mind of Newton the unlighted lamp whose far-searching beams have since guided the human intellect through the track- less void of the night. And yet, had the guardianship of these minds been different, they might to-day be baleful blood-red stars in the firmament of guilt and sin. Homer, Shakespeare, Milton, Washington, Dante, and Longfellow, each lay as a little bud of promise on a mother's bosom, and yet that mother knew not that the world was to thunder with applause at the mention of her dear one's name. Knew not ? We will not, however, speak thus posi- tively, for history furnishes much evidence that with the birth of such a bud there comes a hint of its promise ; as it were, a letter to its guardian from the Creator. 3O close is the relation between mother and child that to the spiritually minded mother there seems to come a premonition of her child's destiny. And yet this fact does not in the least lighten the burden of responsibility that falls on every mother at the birth of her child. Such a premonition, indeed, would always be a safe guide were it always given ; but a mother, through lack of suscep- tibility dependent on temperamental conditions, may hold in her arms unawares that which the world has a right to claim. Out from among the thrice ten thousand little chil- dren that swell the murmur in the schoolrooms of the great 54 Buds of Promise. cities, or with bare . and sunburnt feet patter up the aisles of those dear old schoolhouses that nestle among the hills and valleys, sacred urns that hold the childish secrets and hallowed memories of a thousand hearts, out from among these shall the angel of destiny select one and place upon his little head the crown of Longfellow and dedicate him to the service of his kind, and make him the sweet interpreter of star and flower. Mother ! shall it be your boy ? Do you hear in your soul the gentle whisper ? If you do, wherever you may be, may the benediction of humanity rest upon you. May your precious life be spared to watch the opening of that bud of promise. As friends and neighbors assemble to see the unfolding of the night-blooming cereus, so the world shall watch the unfolding of that precious bud. t every mother act as if she held a bud of prom- ise. Let those who have riot felt the premoni- tion attribute it to their insensibility. Better a thousand times bestow your tenderest care upon an idiot, better believe that you hold the bud of genius and awake to bitter disappointment, than to learn in the end that you have failed to do your duty, and that a genius grand and awful like a fallen temple lies at your feet in the pitiful impo- tence of manifest but unused power. But the buds of promise are not confined to the great geniuses. As we said at the beginning of this chapter, 55 Buds of Promise. every infant is a bud of promise. It is not the Washing- tons, the Pitts, the Lincolns, that shape a nation. They are the directing forces, like the man who holds the levers and valves of the engine. But, as after all it is the toiling, puffing steam that drags the train, so it is the great delv- ing, toiling, sweating multitude that shapes the character of nations. It was not her statesmen that made Greece grand. It was the character of her citizenship. The mightiest states- men that the world has ever yet produced could not make a grand republic in the South Sea islands. What a nation needs is honest toilers ; intelligent and scholarly farmers, cautious, scientific and temperate railroad engineers, learned blacksmiths, and healthy, intelligent, and pious wood choppers. Thus every mother is the guardian of a bud of promise, and whether she will or not must hold herself responsible for the blossom. Let her not hasten to rid herself of that responsibility. That bud will open soon enough. No bud develops so rapidly as a human bud. Let it remain a bud just as long as possible. The rose acquires its perfume while its petals are folded, and the longer it remains a bud, the sweeter will be the blossom. Again, it is the most rapidly developing bud that soonest fades. Then do not pull apart the tender petals of that bud of promise in order to hasten its unfolding, lest in an hour of sadness you should say : 56 Buds of Promise. " And this is the end of it all : Of my waiting and my pain Only a little funeral pall And empty arms again." There can be nothing more destructive to the promises it contains than to attempt to open a rosebud with any other instrument than a sunbeam. The world is full of the withered buds of human prom- ise that have been too early torn open by the thoughtless hand of parental pride. The crying sin of modern parents is their unwilling- ness to let their children grow. They wish to transform them all at once from prattling infants into immortal geniuses. They have more faith in art than in Nature, in books and schoolrooms than in brooks and groves. \rOUNG children should not only be kept from school, ^ but they should be taught at home very sparingly and with the greatest caution in those things which are generally considered as constituting an education. Many suppose that the injury of too early mental training re- sults solely from the confinement within the schoolroom, but this is a great mistake. The injury results chiefly from determining the expenditure of nervous energy through the brain instead of through the muscular system. Your young child must have no thoughts except those 57 Buds of Promise. which originate in the incoherent activity of his childish freedom. All others he has at the expense of bone and muscle, lung and stomach, and ultimately at the expense of his whole being. The solution of a mathematical problem is as much a physical task as the lifting of a weight. The passion of the orator and the devotion of the saint are both measured by the potentialities of bread and meat. So that those who try to fill their little children's minds with " great thoughts " and who teach them to meditate upon the great realities of life, thinking thereby to make them grand and great, are not only defeating their own ends, but are destroying the foundations of future possi- bility. They are turning to loathsome foulness the sweet- est perfume of those buds whose undeveloped petals they are so rudely tearing apart. I HE social forces of the present age are such as to V render young children peculiarly liable to precocity. Mentality has acquired such an impetus through hereditary influences that the minds of infants early commence that fatal race of thought, which results in the wreck of so many thousands of human bodies. Thoughtfulness in youth, and even in childhood, when the physical system has become strong enough to be aggressive in its relations to the natural forces, cannot be too strongly urged. But 58 Buds of Promise. infantile thought is not only useless, but is a great evil, and usually involves an irreparable waste of life force. There are two great evils whose indirect influence upon the world cannot be estimated. The one is the overfeeding of infants, and the other is the unnatural and abnormal activity of the infant mind ; and the one evil enhances the other, for there is nothing that so interferes with digestion in the young child as thought. Wendell Phillips in speaking of the evils of American precocity, with his characteristic and humorous hyperbole, tells us that the American infant impatiently raising him- self in the cradle begins at once to study the structure and uses of the various objects about him, and before he is nine months old has procured a patent for an improvement on some article of the household furniture. " Who can tell what a baby thinks? Who can follow the gossamer links By which the manikin, feels his way Out from the shores of the great unknown, Blind, and wailing, and alone, Into the light of day? Out from the shore of the unknown sea, Tossing in pitiful agony, Of the unknown sea that reels and rolls, Specked with the barks of little souls Barks that were launched on the other side, And slipped from heaven on aii ebbing tide? 59 Buds of Promise. What does he think of his mother's eyes? What does he think of his mother's hair? What of the cradle-roof that flies Forward and backward through the air ? What does he think of his mother's breast, Bare and beautiful, smooth and white, Seeking it ever with fresh delight Cup of his life and couch of his rest? " 60 CHAPTER FIVE. Ctiildtiood. LL animals are born in a somewhat helpless condi- tion, but none so helpless as the human being, hence its necessity for the tenderest care. Throughout all nature it is the function of the mother to exercise a special care over the young. The mere intellectual desire for the child's welfare is not suffi- cient to insure that degree of. attention which it requires ; for the most intelligent and even Christian mothers are sometimes utterly neglectful of their children, while the selfish and narrow minded are frequently very tender in their attentions. Why is this ? It is simply because the mother love, or, more properly, the parental love, is not the outgrowth of a sense of duty. It is an instinct which we possess in common with the brute. It is a significant fact that throughout the whole animal kingdom the parents possess this instinct just in proportion to the helplessness of the offspring. The home is a universal institution, and exists among the lower 'animals in a measure, even. It was, doubtless, 61 Childhood. designed to meet the necessities arising from the helpless- ness of offspring. The young lion could not accompany its parents in their search for food, nor could the eaglet soar with its mother into the heavens. Hence the necessity of an instinct that should prompt the lion and the eagle to select and prepare a proper place in which to leave their young while they were attending to the duties imposed by their mode of life. So reason may tell us that it would be far better for us to take good care of our children, and to pro- vide for them a suitable home, but our observation of those in whom the instinct is weak convinces us that mere reason seldom produces this result. While the intellect tells us what we ought to do, it gives no impulse to do it ; but instinct gives the impulse, the desire to do, and when the instinct is in a healthy condition we may rely on the intellect of Him who implanted the instinct, for the fitness of the acts to which it prompts us. Indeed, it is a law of our being that reason cannot perform the office of an instinct. It may tell us that we ought to breathe incessantly, but there are few of us who would not forget the duty were it not for the instinctive impulse. Without the home instinct, the legitimate desire for novelty which all possess would be left unbalanced, and the whole human race would wander from place to place, and the world would become one mighty caravan. With- out the instinct of parental love, the child would be held in the same esteem as any other person who should give us 62 Childhood. the same amount of trouble. And since it is a law of our selfish nature that unless provision is made by special in- stinct, we cannot love that which gives us only pain, the child's lot on earth would indeed be an unenviable one. But the instinct transforms all the pain and trouble into joy, so that the parents are not only made willing thereby to incur all the troubles and anxieties which their children bring, but are even made to take positive delight in incur- ring them. The home instinct and that of parental love are closely allied, and so intimate is their relation that we cannot doubt that they were bestowed with reference to each other. It is true that many other blessings, even the sweetest joys of life, are rooted in the home instinct ; but these are all secondary and subsidiary to the one grand end, the home of childhood. Home is the only place where childhood can develop. It is there only that are to be found those influences which are necessary to fertilize the character of the child and cause it to blossom and bear the fruit of a noble life. Why have nearly all great men had homes illustrious for their beauty, and the purity of their influences ? The answer is to be found in the fact that the soil of home contains just those elements required for the growth and development of the child's body, mind, and soul. Notice closely the figure, the face, the features, the voice of that little street waif. Why is his frame so small 63 Childhood. and shrunken ? Why are his features all crowded and pinched ? Why do his eye, his walk, his voice, and his man- ner suggest dwarfed precocity ? For the same reason that an apple which has been early detached from its stem will become early ripe, but never developed. Subject it to whatever treatment we may, it will shrivel up and become insipid, fit symbol of the boy who was early dropped from the home into the street. The home is the garden where buds become fruit. How important then that the garden be kept free from weeds, while it is enriched with affection and exposed to the sun- light of joy. How slight an influence may serve to blight that opening bud. The child is as impressible as he is helpless. He is sim- ply the raw material out of which character is to be fash- ioned by the silent and almost imperceptible influence of his surroundings. And it is this which " Plants the great hereafter in the now." Silently as the falling of snow-flakes the character of the child is formed. We cannot see the bud unfold, and yet we know that to-morrow it will be a rose. So our percep- tion cannot follow the growth of the child's character, and yet we know that day by day its forces are gathering, and that soon he will become to his anxious parents a joy or a sorrow. Children are much more easily influenced by example 64 Childhood. than by precept. A child may be told repeatedly that dis- honesty is sinful, yet if he detect dishonesty in father, mother, sister, or brother, he will imitate the example. You may as well tell him that sinfulness is dishonesty, for he knows no difference. Both terms are meaningless to him. Most of the thieves, robbers, and murderers of the next generation are now little innocent children in the arms of mothers. How should mothers shudder at this thought ! The first evidence of passion or of evil intent, the first manifestation of dishonesty, should alarm the mother like the cry of fire in the night. " The summer breeze that fans the rose, Or eddies down some flowery path, Is but the infant gale that blows To-morrow with the whirlwind's wrath." Jyi OTHERS ! you cann'ot watch the formation of child V_ character too critically. By watching, however, we do not mean the exercise of that suspicion and doubt which are so fatal to the free, open confidence of the child, but that cautious surveillance without which all your efforts in his behalf will be fruitless. Better a thousand times that the child, even in his tender years, should gaze full upon the hideous face of sin, than that the silken cord of confidence be broken that binds him to a mother's heart. Liberty is the only atmosphere in which a human soul can grow. Strict literal watching is both unnecessary and inju- 65 Childhood. rious. Confidence between mother and child may become so perfect that the child cannot commit a wrong without confessing it. Your watching then should be directed to the maintenance of this confidence, which can be insured only by putting the child upon his honor, for honor grows only by being exercised. With this confidence between yourself and your child you will at all times be conscious of his moral condition. You will feel in your very heart the first dawnings of evil thought in him. And remember that it is necessary you should know the evil thoughts as soon as they dawn, for the conflagration that scourges with its fury great cities is less dangerous at its onset than the first evil thought in the heart of youth. " Crush the first germ ; too late your cares begin When long delays have fortified the sin." But by nature the young child is innocent, and positive influences for evil must be brought to bear upon him be- fore he can become otherwise. With his half divine na- ture he recoils from the very sight or sound of that which is wrong. Yet he is so imitative and so susceptible that his danger is nevertheless imminent, and the fact that he may more readily imitate the good than the evil should not relax parental vigilance. 66 Childhood. yOUNG children and even infants comprehend far ^ more than people generally believe. They cannot express their mental operations by the use of language. Their thoughts are expressed only by their actions, and how vague an idea of the thoughts of the profoundest thinkers would we have if our only clue to them were the mere outward acts of their authors. Were actions the only inter- preters of human thought, the world would appear to us like a vast insane asylum. Happiness is the only food on which the child can be fed with profit. Sorrow is sometimes an excellent thing for those whose spiritual digestion is sufficiently strong, but children never should be fed on this diet. Sorrow ripens, but joy develops a soul. But let us not entertain that foolish and cruel notion so prevalent, that hard knocks, disappointment," constant work, and little recrea- tion are necessary to develop the character of a child. Some one has given the following beautiful piece of advice to mothers : "Always send your little child to bed happy. What- ever cares may trouble your mind, give the dear child a warm good-night kiss as it goes to its pillow. The memory of this in the stormy years which may be in store for the little one will be like Bethlehem's star to the bewildered shepherds, and welling up in the heart will rise the thought, ' My father, my mother loved me ! ' Lips parched with 67 Childhood. fever will become dewy again at this thrill of youthful memories. Kiss your little child before it goes to sleep." "Ah ! what would the world be to us If the children were no more? We should dread the desert behind us Worse than the dark before. " What the leaves are to the forest, With light and air for food, Ere their sweet and tender juices Have been hardened into wood, ' ' That to the world are children ; Through them it feels the glow Of a brighter and sunnier climate Than reaches the trunks below." 68 l$g! 1 ^55 rs s> i 9y - -^ fe> c " , *" M QJ m CHAPTER SIX. Home Training. i I bo -* HE training of the child necessarily begins with the body, for the young child must be regarded chiefly -* as a young animal. The animal nature is the first to be developed, and in every well-born and healthy child the manifestations of animality will precede those of intellectuality. One has said, " If you would make your child a good man, first make him a great animal." The child's prospects of future greatness are measured in part by his stomach and lungs. The most important period of a child's training, then, is that period during which he is an animal. Nature's method seems to be to form first a powerful physical system, and then, on this as a foundation, to rear the intellectual and the moral. If the physical is diseased, the mental, gen- erally speaking, cannot be healthy. One of the most important elements in a great man is a great body, great in health, in vital stamina, and in its capacity to become the counterpart of the mind. In view of these facts it becomes of paramount impor- tance that the mother have a knowledge of physiology. 71 Home Training. No woman has any moral right to bear the honored name of mother till she possesses such knowledge. We would not place a delicate machine in the hands of one who was ignorant of its structure. Not that the mother should be a physician; for she generally practices medicine too much. It is as important that she should know how to let her child alone, as to know how to take care of him. It is not necessary that she should know just what to do for him when he is sick. It is much better for her to know what not to do for him. It is the doctor's duty to cure him when he is sick, but it is the mother's duty to give the doctor as little opportunity as possible to display his skill in this direction. Let every mother remember this fact, that the cry of a sick child may be the telltale that convicts her of sin. A child never cries unless it has been wronged by inattention, or as a signal of distress. A healthy child is always angelic. No parent has any business with any but a healthy child, for wholesome food in proper quantities never deranged a stomach. Pure air never diseased a lung. A human eye was never blinded by the diffused sunlight. Teeth never decayed through grinding pure and wholesome food. NO child, unless his appetite has been pampered by a foolish mother, will ever crave that which it is nec- essary to withhold from him. Nor will his appetite ever 72 Home Training. require to be urged. No rational person will contend that reason should usurp the place of instinct in the matter of eating and drinking. Those delicate conditions of the sys- tem in which it accepts or rejects nourishment are entirely beyond the ken of reason. Through the whole animal kingdom, including man, there is an instinct which tells its possessor just what kind of food and how much its sys- tem requires. No tests of science could determine this. Tyndall may exhaust all his resources in trying to deter- mine whether or not a given robin has eaten enough to meet the requirements of its physical nature. At his best he can only estimate it, but the robin knows exactly. We have known a mother to urge her little baby to sip from her own cup of tea, and have seen her appear quite grieved because the little creature with pure mind and pure body instinctively rejected the proffered beverage. And, after being defeated in her attempt to vitiate his taste, she would exclaim, "I fear my child is going to be eccentric." Some mothers are almost terrified at seeing a child eat a piece of bread without butter, although writers on hygi- ene, whose books are within the reach of all mothers, are agreed that butter is one of the abominations of civili- zation. It is not our intention to write on the subject of health or diet, but so long as butter, spices, and other un- necessaries are admitted to be evils, it seems unpardonably foolish, not to say wicked, to urge the young child to use 73 Home Training. them, especially since he does not desire them, and shows by his actions that he would much prefer not to have his food polluted with such stuff. Let the mother refrain from pampering her child's appetite, or else be willing to take the consequences when that same appetite, diseased and perverted by her own hand, shall bring him home reeling and staggering to her frantic arms. That mighty army of one hundred thousand who are annually marching down to drunkards' graves were, in some part, we believe, trained for that awful march by careless and ignorant mothers. It is admitted by all that alcohol is repugnant to the unvitiated taste of man or beast. No child with instincts pure from the hand of God will taste alcohol ; it is not until his appetite has been depraved by Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrups and other abominations. All these must first be forced down his throat by the stern exercise of parental authority before he learns to tolerate alcohol in any form. The child's instinct is God's argument, and it is unanswerable. If it be true, then, that a healthy instinct rejects alcohol, how shall we account for the almost uni- versal appetite for it ? There can be but one explanation, some almost universal depraving agency ; and what can this be but the wrong physical training to which parents subject their offspring. Home Training. I HE problem of home training to-day covers the prob- V. lem of intemperance. So long as children are grow- ing up with a taste for the nostrums with which babies are universally poisoned, the world will be full of drunkards. But it is not alone the poisonous nostrums which de- prave the appetite. The cookies, candies, sweetmeats and the thousand products of human ingenuity and a luxurious civilization conspire to destroy that pure instinct which God designed to be a perfect guide as regards the quantity and quality of our food. We do not understand how Christian mothers can consistently express their faith in God while their acts show that they distrust the wisdom which gave the child this instinct. The little child is fed on flesh, pickles, and highly sea- soned food till he becomes sick ; then of course he cries. That breaks the mother's heart and she gives him a cooky to stop his crying before he goes to bed. She cannot bear the idea of her child going to bed hungry. The cooky may give him the colic, but what of it so long as he is not hungry ! She cannot tell whether he has the colic or the headache, but if he cries he must have some medicine. It is of but little consequence what it is so long as it is medicine. We have actually heard mothers, when ques- tioned as to why they gave their babies a certain kind of medicine, answer that they " wished to give them some- thing and didn't know what else to give them." We pre- 75 Home Training. sume it never occurred to them to give the baby the benefit of the doubt. The disposition depends upon the condition of the stomach. If that be sour, the disposition will be sour also. Many a good child has had his disposition spoiled with cake and candy. A tendency to all forms of depravity may result from a diseased condition of the digestion. Every form of sin may originate with the stomach. Al- most all of the suicides result from the mental disease of melancholy. This disease is known by all physicians to be the direct result of an affection of the liver, and the liver and stomach are so related that the one cannot be affected without the other. Hence a wrong physical training of a child may lead to suicide. The habit of dwelling perpetually on the dark side of life, as the melancholy person does, results in the perver- sion and depravity of the whole mind. Thus every sin may originate in the stomach. I HERE are mothers who would regard the withhold- V ing of sweetmeats from their children as cruelty. It is hard to believe that such persons exist, but observa- tion forces the fact upon us. Such mothers, of course, can appreciate no higher enjoyment than that of eating and drinking, and they feel perfectly contented so long as their children are eating something 'that tastes good. They never stop to question whether the physical pleasure 76 Home Training. which a piece of highly spiced mince pie yields their child can compensate for the physical, intellectual, and moral depravity that may result from it. The mother who gives her child candy, cakes, etc., simply for the pleasure of the child, without regard to their effect on his health, what- ever may be the character of her outward life, is in spirit a sensualist. It is customary for mothers when their children get angry and scream, to give them something that tastes good to eat. Now this is a twofold evil. It is both a phys- ical and a moral evil. It is a physical evil because it tends directly to produce dyspepsia. The human stomach can- not perform its functions properly while the mind is angry. The adage, " Laugh and grow fat," is founded in true philosophy. In order for digestion to be performed in the most perfect manner there must be at the time of eating a sense of peace and joy pervading the mind, making the very consciousness of existence delightful. All have observed that the dyspeptic men are those who are fretful and cross at the table. The tea is too cold ; the coffee is too weak ; the steak is cooked too much or not enough ; the potatoes should have been baked instead of boiled ; there is too much saleratus in the biscuit ; or there is some trouble with something enough to cast a shadow over the whole meal and cause the whole family to sit in gloomy silence. This is not so much because dyspepsia tends to make 77 Home Training. people cross at their meals, but because being cross at meals makes them dyspeptics. Many men have become incurably diseased by eating when they were angry, and the mother who gives her child a cooky to stop his crying may be laying for him the foundation of a life of suffer- ing. Again, such a practice is morally wrong because it rewards a child for being angry. In this way he learns, whenever he wishes anything, to scream and cry until his wish is gratified. He soon acquires such a habit that he does this even though no one be near to grant the wish. This is his first lesson in rebellion against an unseen power. As he grows older, the screaming is changed into cursing, and thus originates the habit of profanity. Men swear chiefly because their mothers gave them cookies to stop their crying. When mothers learn the secret of home train- ing, the majority of the vices that now curse the world will die out for want of soil in which to grow. rVLL children are overfed. There is no danger that V., any child will starve so long as its mother loves it, but there is great danger that it will be fed to death. But, says the mother, how shall I avoid these evils ? How shall I keep my child's appetite healthy ? And when he screams and will not be satisfied with anything but a peppermint, what shall I do ? These are honest questions. 78 Home Training. No mother willfully injures her child by knowingly depraving his appetite, and thereby all his passions. It is, of course, through ignorance and not malice. The remedy is the most easy and natural thing in the world. Simply let the child alone, that is all. Children have a divinely given right to be let alone, but this right has never been granted by man. Your child will keep his own appetite healthy if you will let him. When he screams for that which it is not lawful for him to have, the treatment is very simple, let him scream. The human mind acts from motives and never without them. The child screams either to make you yield to him, or from a feeling of revenge because you do not yield. Now the only way to prevent a mental act is to take away the motives which prompt to the act. Hence the way to break a child of the vice of screaming is to remove these two motives. The first you can remove by showing him that your word is law. When you have commanded him to do or refrain from doing a certain thing, make him understand that you will not revoke your order, and that further pleading will be in vain. The second motive, that of revenge, may be removed by proving to him that it "doesn't work." Show by your indifference that his loud crying does not give you the least inconvenience. You can accompany the music with the humming of a careless tune. He will see by this that his scheme of vengeance is defeated, and there will be nothing 79 Home Training. left for him to do but to stop crying and amuse himself as best he can. If it is time to put your little child to bed, do not coax him to go and then be conquered by coaxing in return. Do not be conquered at all. In the first place, you should not tell him to go to bed till you know that it is time for him to go, and not till you are determined he shall go. It is not necessary that you be arbitrary. There is no objection to arguing with him, if your command at the time is not fully understood by him. Try to convince him that he ought to do as you tell him. In every instance the import of the word ought should be kept before his mind. But if he still resists, use the argument of force, paying no attention to his cries and screams. We do not write thus coldly and unfeelingly from any lack of love for little children. There is nothing in the wide realm of being so lovely and pathetic as a young child. There is no eloquence that can equal its prattle. No mother can love her child too much. It is not the in- tensity of the mother's love that we would condemn, but the unwise and injudicious direction of that love. And when we say the child should be let alone, we do not mean that he should be coldly neglected, but simply that he should be allowed to grow and develop in the soil of his own childish freedom ; that his body should be left chiefly to the care of its own instinct, while the mother watches the process with delight. 80 Home Training. Mothers usually make much harder the work of taking care of their children than the necessities of the case re- quire. Most mothers may learn a valuable lesson from the cat. See how she takes care of her kittens. She does not doctor them ; she manifests no anxiety for their physical welfare. She simply watches the kitten's growth, and doesn't assume any higher prerogative. She brings a mouse and lays it before the little savage, but she does not urge the case in the least. If the kitten does not want it, she does not say, "I'm afraid my little darling is going to be sick. Can't he eat it anyway ? Please eat it for mamma." O no, she just eats it herself, and does not seem to have the least fear that nature will forget to bring back her child's appetite. Nor does she seem to resent the kit- ten's refusal to accept her offer, but the next mouse is usu- ally eaten with a relish. Thus the cat is wiser than the human mother, for she is wise enough to intrust to nature those things which she herself is not wise enough to do. The world has yet to learn that the little children are its physical and spiritual teachers. When Christ would name the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven he said, "Whoso humbleth himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of Heaven," thus making it a kingdom of little children. There was philosophy in that beautiful reply of Christ's. All sin consists simply in the acts that are prompted by instincts which have been depraved. Children's instincts are least depraved, for they 81 Home Training. are nearest to the source of all purity. Hence the child's heart must always be the truest symbol of Heaven. 1 * |E do not belong to that school whose motto is "spare ^ the rod and spoil the child." We believe that untold evil has resulted to the world from that false philos- ophy, and we are glad to know that the world is rapidly discarding it. To say nothing of the morality, or rather immorality, of the doctrine, it is entirely unnecessary. How foolish to break the sweet spell of confidence by beat- ing and striking, when the little heart can be melted in penitential grief by a word ! Why use sticks and clubs when the child does not fear them half so much as he does his mother's grief ! Hyenas snarl and growl and strike, and some mothers snarl and scold and strike. Isn't the analogy almost humiliating ? But this method of treatment does not accomplish the desired result. Whipping a child does not and cannot produce any desirable internal change of character. It may modify the outward acts. It may also produce an in- ternal change, but only for the worse ; only that change which comes from perpetually harboring a feeling of hatred and revenge. A blow struck upon unregenerate humanity can awaken but one feeling, and that is the feel- ing of resentment. The child always resents a blow, whether it comes from his parent or from a playmate. He 82 Home Training. cannot easily be made to acknowledge in his heart that the punishment is just ; and while he believes that it is unjust he will feel rebellious, and no one will contend that a rebellious feeling can do much toward elevating the char- acter. The feelings of anger, hatred, and physical fear are among those which we have in common with the brutes, and while we are under the dominion of these feelings we cannot rise much above the brute. All know how utterly depraving anger is to the whole mind, and the effect of physical fear is nearly as bad. Some who have been thought noble have been known when brought face to face with death upon the ocean, to rudely snatch a life-pre- server from a helpless woman ; thus showing how physical fear may paralyze the sense of honor and every other noble sentiment of the soul. Now what is true of the man under the influence of an intense fear is also true of the* child under the influence of a less intense fear. It is the nature of fear, whether great or small, to repress all that is God-like and arouse all that is demoniacal. You cannot inflict corporal punishment on a child without filling his little heart with fear. It is a well known fact that under a cruel and tyrannical teacher the pupils rapidly become vicious and untrustworthy. This is simply because of the moral repression resulting from constant fear. Then do not frighten the children. Every argument that can be deduced from the wide range 83 Home Training. of human nature forbids us to inflict corporal punishment on children. " But,'' says the disciple of the rod, ''the child can be made to acknowledge the justice of the punishment, and ought not to be punished until he does acknowledge it. By the proper argument he may be made to feel that he deserves to be punished." Very well ; then he doesn't need to be punished. The object of punishment of course is to induce penitence, and if the child becomes penitent before the punishment, he certainly doesn't need to be punished. Who would punish a child after he had acknowledged that he ought to be ? Think of the mother who could whip her child after he had laid his head sob- bing on her bosom and said, " Mamma, I ought to be whipped ! " And yet, according to the admission of even the Solomon school, he should be willing to say this before he ought to be whipped. He must be made penitent before the punishment can have any but an evil effect. The whole truth is expressed in these two facts. First, we ought not to punish a child till he sees and acknowl- edges the justice of the punishment ; and second, when he sees and acknowledges the justice of the punishment, he doesn't need it. Thus the doctrine of the rod is crowded out entirely. There are no circumstances under which it is proper to use it. 84 Home Training. I HE object of all training is to develop character, ^ and not merely to secure outward obedience. A child may be a model of obedience, and yet with every duty which he outwardly performs he may mingle an unuttered curse. With a horse or dog the prime object is to secure out- ward obedience. We care but little about the moral char- acter or the spiritual destiny of our horse, so long as he obeys the whip and stops when we say "whoa !" But what parent could say this of a child ! The true mother cares less for the outward act than for the inward. It is not so much her object to make the child obey her com- mands as it is to make him obey the commands of his own conscience and the spur of duty. If the child is inter- nally obedient to his own conscience, he will develop a noble character even though he disobey every parental command. Let every parent remember that there may be a vast difference between outward and inward obedience, and that either may exist without the other. The child may not cherish any feelings of hatred toward his parents, nor have any definite sense of rebellion, yet if he obeys simply because he fears to disobey, while he cannot feel that the command is just, he experiences, only in a less degree, all those evil results that come from harboring the sentiments of hatred and revenge. This obedience is outward and not inward. 85 Home Training. UT how shall the stubborn boy be trained who seems incapable of responding to any other appeal than that of the rod ? Let us suppose a case, the most difficult that we can conceive, and see if there are any points where our doctrine would fail in practice. Suppose a mother requests her boy to go to a neighbor's house on an errand. The boy wishes to play ball and stubbornly refuses to go. What shall that mother do ? " Give him a good sound thrashing," the Puritan mother would say. But even if she can do it now, she will certainly lack the physical power in a short time, and then what shall she do? " Turn him over to his father," some one may say. A year or two more will place him beyond the authority of his father, then what is to be done ? Here the resources of the " rod " school become exhausted. He has defied the authority of force, and has triumphed. The rod system, like some systems of medicine, works well in those cases which need no doctoring. As a rule the rod arouses the very passion which led to the commission of the offense, the very one we wish to allay. The secret of governing a child is to soothe those faculties whose unrestrained action gave rise to the offense, and at the same time to call into action the restraining faculties, those which would have prevented the commission of the offense had they acted at the time. One of the principal restrain- ing faculties is conscience, or the sense of obligation. Now all are supposed to possess this faculty in some degree. 86 Home Training. Those who do not, are morally deformed ; they are mon- strosities, and their treatment involves something more than the subject of " home training." We are not giving directions for the management of the insane, nor the morally idiotic, but for the management, training, and development of those who are fit to be intrusted with their own freedom, those who are free agents and who are capable of becoming men and women. NOW let us see how this doctrine will work with the stubborn boy we have just supposed. He, of course, is under the influence of anger, the very passion which the mother would excite still more if she were to attempt to punish him. Hence she must cool this passion by arousing the sense of obligation. Let her appeal to his honor. He has honor, but it is suppressed for the time by anger. He loves his mother unless he is a fit subject for the penitentiary, and in that case he does not come within the jurisdiction of any system of home training. A system must be devised expressly for him. Perhaps it may be advisable for her tp do the thing herself which she has commanded the boy to do, or perhaps it may be well to call his sister and send her on the errand, with the understanding that it is not just for her to be compelled to do it. When he remembers that his little sister has performed a duty that was not hers but his, he will feel a little uncomfortable in the region of con- science. He should be reminded, perhaps, during the 87 Home Training. evening, that he is under moral obligation to another who has performed a duty that he refused to perform. It should be talked of for a long time, and his conscience should not be allowed to rest till he has paid the moral debt. No precise rule can be given as to the way in which his conscience should be appealed to in every instance. Circumstances may vary so that any attempt at this would be impracticable. The mother should be so well acquainted with the nature of the child as to be able to appeal to any sentiment at will, under any and every varying circumstance. Some may object to this because it defers obedience too long. But a disobedient, ungrateful, and stubborn boy should be regarded by parents as a misfortune, and they should be happy if they succeed in securing obedience at all, even if it requires days to secure obedience to a single command. But if this method is practiced with the child from his infancy, he will not become a disobedient and stubborn boy. We have supposed an extreme case in order to anticipate and fortify ourselves against the argument arising from such cases. But we are well aware that many a good old mother who has wielded the rod for thirty years will, in her just egotism, point to her noble sons and daughters as a trium- phant refutation of these views which she will be pleased to call trash. Nor would we disregard the well-earned practical knowledge of these grand women. Their egotism 88 Home Training. is pardonable. Yet we shall modestly claim that they are liable to be mistaken in some of their views of life, and when they oppose our doctrine and style in theory, we shall reply that the doctrine of moral accountability is a theory, but it is one that appeals so strongly to the common sense and intuition of mankind as to be independent of the argument of actual experience. 1 4 |E would not contend that injudicious training is sure "to spoil a child, neither will the wisest training always serve to develop a noble character. The chil- dren of noble mothers will sometimes be noble in spite of wrong training. Men have developed powerful lungs who through their whole lives have breathed hardly a breath of pure air. Men have had strong digestion who have abused their stomachs, and intemperate men have died of old age. But these are the exceptions and not the rule. For one who desires to live a long life it would not be safe to be intemperate simply because a few have lived to be old in spite of intemperance. Neither is it safe to follow a wrong system of train- ing because some mothers of the rod persuasion have reared a family of noble children. Such mothers trans- mit to their children healthy bodies and sound minds and good morals, and they would have developed into noble men and women under almost any system of training. 89 Home Training. Besides, the occasions for punishing such children occur at intervals so rare that little injury can result. IN the training of the child, physical culture should precede all other kinds ; next should follow the train- ing of the affections. He should be taught to love only the good and to hate all that is bad. After this the intel- lect should be trained. Not however by sending him to school to sit all day on a hard seat where his feet can- not touch the floor, and where he learns to say "A." Little children are usually sent to school when they should be romping through the woods and pastures. Of course we do not condemn the common school system, yet there are many features of it which tend greatly to neutralize the good. It were infinitely better for the race to live in barbaric ignorance with sound and healthy bodies, than in the grandest civilization with bod- ily weakness and physical impotency ; for a barbaric race may become civilized, but a race of physical weaklings is doomed to extinction. And it cannot be denied that the com- mon schools, especially in the city, are rapidly sapping the physical stamina of the civilized world, and this is especially true in hot-headed America. Children should be educated at home by the parents ; at least till they are well developed physically. It is safe to send a boy to school when he has become so strong 90 Home Training. physically that no teacher can suppress his buoyancy and too early make a man of him. Studiousness on the part of young boys and girls should be regarded by parents as a more dangerous symp- tom than hemorrhage of the lungs. Indeed, these are often symptoms of the same disease. I HERE are many and strong arguments for educating V children at home. In the first place, the mother is the natural teacher of the child. The eagle does not send her little ones to school to learn to fly, nor does she employ a governess, but chooses to perform the duty herself. The spiritual sympathy between mother and child enables the mother to minister to the individual wants of the child as no other teacher can. There are locked chambers in every human soul, but in the child's there are none to which the mother does not hold the key. The public school tends to destroy the individuality of the pupil, to crush out all his originality and force his mind, whatever may be its natural tendency, into the com- mon channel. Civilization tends directly toward physical and mental diversity, and individual peculiarities, but the public school does not recognize this fact. Low down in the scale of life we notice but little diver- sity. A flock of birds seem all alike. We cannot detect any difference between two foxes of the same age and sex, but dogs and horses differ, because for ages they have 91 Home Training. been under the modifying influences of man until their condition corresponds to that of the civilization of man. In the early ages men differed from one another far less than they do at present. Civilization and a tendency to diversity are so closely dependent on common causes that whatever hinders the one hinders also the other. Of course we would not contend that the common schools retard civilization, although in this respect they certainly have a tendency to retard it. In the public schools all are compelled to take the same course, regardless of their individual peculiarities of talent. If a pupil is by nature poorly endowed with the mathematical talent, he must go through just as fast but no slower than the others. The explanations that suffice for those who are mathematically inclined must suffice for him also. No provision is made for taste or talent. But this is not the case when the children are edu- cated at home. Every peculiarity of talent may be pro- vided for. Then there is a great source of pleasure in the education of one's own children. It tends to perpetu- ate the authority which parents ought to have over their children. If the child has been educated by his parent he will never cease to have the highest respect for that parent. This is a strong reason why parents should educate them- selves and keep pace with their children in all their studies; for although dutiful children will always respect 93 Home Training. their parents however ignorant they may be, yet intelli- gent parents, those capable of instructing their children, will be respected still more. Then, if for no other reason, the children should be educated at home, to maintain the authority of the parent and the respect of the child. tthe mothers of our country, as far as possible, pat- tern after that mother who not only trained the bodies of her boys and made them physical heroes, but trained their affections and made them moral heroes. Nor, indeed, did her care cease here ! She trained them intel- lectually, fitted them for college, and sent them forth to meet on life's arena those intellectual heroes who have been trained at the hands of honored masters. Men shall feel in this a beauty and a pathos to the end of time, whenever the historian shall turn for a moment from the crimson pictures of national strife to narrate the simple story. Can those boys ever cease to respect that mother ? Can they ever cease to reverence her very name ? Perhaps it is not generally known that we worship God with the same faculty with which we honor our parents. Now the children of such mothers as we have considered must feel perpetually a sense of honor and parental rever- ence. This strengthens and develops the faculty with which God is worshiped. Hence we see why the children of such parents are usually religious. The unwritten life 93 Home Training. of one such woman is a stronger argument than all the silver irony of prostituted genius. There are, of course, but few mothers or fathers who can fit their boys or girls for college, and this is not neces- sary in order to apply the doctrine we have advocated. There are but few boys and girls who go to college. Nor is it necessary to keep the children home from school. The mother can superintend the education of a child even while he is in school. The teacher's function should be something more than merely listening to the recitation of the pupil. But this is nearly all that the average teacher does. Hence the mother has a wide field even while her child is in the public school. I HERE seems to be a growing tendency on the part ^ of mothers to intrust the training of their children to the hands of nurses. This is a great error. In the first place, it breaks the current of divine magnetism between mother and child, which ought to make the mental pulses of both beat in unison. Again, it has a tendency to dimin- ish filial reverence in the child. By separating him from his mother at that tender age in which the links of the eternal chain should be forged, we render it almost impos- sible for him to love her as he ought. This is not to be wondered at, for the modern fashionable mother sees her child only as a visitor would see it. The child must be dressed up as if to entertain strangers, and when he begins 94 Home Training. to cry he is carried away at once by the nurse, while the mother makes another appointment. Perhaps one of the most striking manifestations of God's mercy to the race is seen in the fact that compara- tively few offspring are born of such women if the license of literature will permit us to use the word woman in this connection. Better a thousand times that the world should be populated from the slums than from such sources. ' < The mother in her office holds the key Of the soul ; and she it is who stamps the coin Of character, and makes the being who would be a savage But for her gentle care, a Christian man." 95 CHAPTER SEVEN. Rewards and Punishments. HE rewards and punishments of home should be analogous to, if not identical with, those which * God has already instituted as natural rewards and punishments. There should be little or nothing artifi- cial in the rewards or punishments of home. If a child is bribed to do his duty by some promise of reward, he is likely to acquire the fatal habit of performing virtuous acts from low motives. The approval of con- science is the natural reward for the performance of one's duty. If an artificial reward is substituted for this, the motive is transferred from conscience to some selfish faculty, and the whole moral character becomes lowered. Hence no reward should ever be given for the mere per- formance of duty when it is clear to the child that it is his duty. In some cases where the desired act seems to be an act of self-sacrifice on the part of the child, and one which he does not understand to be particularly his duty, it is per- fectly right and often wise to offer rewards. But if he is hired to do those things which his own conscience plainly 96 Rewards and Punishments. tells him he ought to do, he will learn to act in such cases from the motive of the reward, and not from that of con- science. But during this time conscience must lie idle for want of something to do, and God never lets a talent lie in a napkin without depreciating. Although conscience might have prompted him to the same act, yet if it be not the determining motive he cannot experience the approval of conscience. Conscience deals with motives, not with acts, and, like every other function of our being, grows by exercise. The food of conscience is its own approval, and in order to secure its approval it must afford the ruling motive. Whenever a reward is offered, an appeal should not be made at the same time to the sense of duty. It should pass simply as a trade, and the child should not be reminded that there is any right or wrong about it. These are the only circumstances under which it is proper to offer a reward to a child. We would not have it understood, however, that rewards should be given only for those acts which con- science cannot approve. Such acts, of course, should never be required nor performed at all. Rewards should be offered only for good deeds, those which the conscience of the child, if it were to act at all, would approve. What we mean is simply that a base reward should never be made to supplement conscience in such a way as to become the ruling motive. If it be found that conscience is 97 Rewards and Punishments. acting at all, do not offer a reward to complete the motive and make it strong enough to rule his act, but try to stim- ulate conscience to a still higher degree of action, until its motive becomes sufficient of itself to produce the desired result. As a rule the reward when given should appeal to the mental rather than the physical. It should be something which has a tendency to stimulate the thinking or invent- ive powers rather than something which merely satisfies a physical want. It is generally better to give a book than a drum, although there are far meaner rewards than a drum. Candy and sweetmeats should never under any circumstances be offered. That which is unfit for an adult is surely unfit to constitute a reward for a child. It is a fact that the world makes its greatest efforts in response to the demands of sensual gratification. Is it unreasonable to suppose that the foundation of this evil is laid in childhood through the pernicious practice of reward- ing children with sweetmeats ? A toy steam engine or some machine which will stimu- late the constructive or inventive faculty is, perhaps, the most appropriate present which can be given to a boy. There are circumstances, however, under which it would be improper to award such gifts. In case the child is already too much inclined to mental activity, no present should be given which will farther stimulate the intellect. At the present time there are many cases of this kind, 98 Rewards and Punishments. especially in the cities. For such precocious children a cart or sled or a pair of skates would be a far more appro- priate gift than a book or even a steam engine. the worst and most injurious practice connected with the subject of rewards and punishments is that of bribing children with promises that are never meant to be fulfilled. It happens in many cases that this is the child's first lesson in falsehood. All promises made to children should be conscientiously fulfilled, for the whole life and character of the child may be changed by a single repudiated promise. Let no parent assume the fearful responsibility of giving his child the first lesson in dishonesty. The punishments of home should be, as far as possible, natural. They should consist chiefly, if not wholly, in pointing out and making a direct application of the same kind of punishment which Nature herself inflicts for the same offense. For instance, the natural punishment which Nature has appended to the sin of falsehood is the suspicion and dis- trust of our fellow men. Hence when a child tells a false- hood, he should be made to feel that he has done that for which he deserves the suspicion of the whole family. All eyes should be turned upon him with a pitying distrust. Nature's punishment for selfishness is a withdrawal of the sympathy and love of society, and in addition thereto 99 Rewards and Punishments. the defeat of its own ends. Selfishness is always defeated in the end. Hence when a child has encroached upon the rights of his brothers or sisters through selfishness, the sympathy of the family should be withdrawn, while at the same time he should be prevented from reaping the benefit which he anticipated from his selfish act. The other children should be made to feel that he is actually unworthy of their society. In certain cases, perhaps, he should be banished from the society of the family and even shut up in his room, as a severer punishment and as a more direct and literal application of that principle which is involved in the banishment to which society always dooms the selfish man. God has made society on such a plan that it cannot tolerate selfishness. He has also arranged our nature so that the very best thing for the selfish man is to have society shun him. It is the only medicine that will cure him if he is curable. Now, is it not safe to follow God's method in punishing the child for selfishness at home ? Who will come so near to challenging the wisdom of God as to style this "idle theory " ? If the child be defeated in his selfish purpose by the parent, and he is banished for an hour or a day, as the case may be, from the sympathy of the family, he will come to feel by no process of logic, perhaps, but by the force of habit and association, that such conduct on the part of others is the necessary and inevitable accompaniment of his selfishness ; that it is founded in the justness and true 100 Rewards and Punishments. order of social relations. When he becomes a man he will receive the same kind of punishment from society if he still persists in his selfishness. He will then perceive that the punishment is rational and inevitable, and that the relation between it and the offense is constant and necessary. If any other method is pursued the child will in the course of his life be subjected to two kinds of punishment for the same offense, one an arbitrary and the other a natural one. The human mind is unable to perceive any necessary relation between the crime of selfishness and the pain inflicted by an angry parent with a birch stick. There is no logical relation between them, and as a natural consequence the child rebels, at least spiritually, and hence is made more selfish than before. He will be more and more selfish as he grows older, and when he comes to receive the natural punishment from society for his sin, he will rebel against that from the mere force of habit. He will come to hate society. He will be cold and cynical. He will come to entertain a morbid sentiment of ill-will toward society, and, spurred on by the feeling that the world owes him a debt, he may be led to commit some dark and dreadful crime against his fellow men. It is not impos- sible that a large percentage of the pirates, robbers, and murderers are such because of the unwise and illogical relation between the offenses and punishments of their childhood. 101 Rewards and Punishments. || NE has truthfully said, "Caprice or violence in cor- recting will go far to justify the transgressor in his own eyes at least ; he will consider every appearance of injustice as a vindication of his own aggression." Who has not seen a confirmation of this among schoolboys ? Often a boy is whipped by a teacher when if properly man- aged he would willingly express his sorrow for the offense. But after the whipping he goes sullenly to his seat mutter- ing to himself, " I'm glad I did it." He is glad that he did it because he feels that his teacher has wronged him, and that in a certain sense the offense which he himself has committed makes them even. Human beings, and espe- cially children, when under the influence of anger, are not very reasonable, and are usually not inclined to take an impartial view of things when the matter of their punish- ment is involved. But it may be said that he ought to look at it differ- ently ; that he has no right to look at it so partially ; that the case is plain if he will look at it rightly. Very well, but if he doesn't look at it rightly, the facts of the case are of no benefit to him, and he receives all the injurious results to his moral nature that he would receive if the facts were on the other side of the case. The vast majority of human acts are either right or wrong ; if right they are self-rewarding, and if wrong they are self-punishing. It is the function of human 102 Rewards and Punishments. authority to teach the transgressor wherein his transgres- sions punish themselves. " A picture memory brings to me : I look across the years and see Myself beside my mother's knee. " I feel her gentle hand restrain My selfish moods, and know again A child's blind sense of wrong and pain. " But wiser now, a man gray grown, My childhood's needs are better known, My mother's chastening love I own. " Gray grown, but in our Father's sight A child still groping for the light To read his works and ways aright. " I bow myself beneath his hand ; That pain itself for good was planned, I trust, but cannot understand. " I fondly dream it needs must be, That as my mother dealt with me, So with his children dealeth he. " I wait, and trust the end will prove That here and there, below, above, The chastening heals, the pain is love 1 " 103 CHAPTER EIGHT. Amusements for th.e Home. (5 I HE 1 HE human mind demands amusement. One of its constituent elements is a love of fun. No innate -1 demand of the mind can be denied without injury. Amusement and fun are as essential to the growth and development of the young mind as sleep, or any form of exercise. Hence we have no sympathy with that system of home government which suppresses this element in the children. Such systems are suicidal, and one can hardly help doubting the genuineness of that religion that imposes perpetual melancholy as one of its tenets. It has been said that Christ never was known to laugh but often to weep, and if he foresaw the existence of that creed that suppresses laughter as one of the cardinal vices, it is no wonder that he never laughed. But there is no evidence that he did not laugh. The character of his mis- sion was such as to render any record of his lighter moments entirely out of place. It is, however, a well known fact that Christ was of a thoughtful, serious cast of mind, and even if it could be proved that he never laughed, the fact would have no weight as an argument against 104 Amusements for the Home. laughter among us. We are not expected nor required to follow his example in all things, for this would be impos- sible. Marriage is a divine institution and imposes obliga- tions upon us from which Christ, by virtue of his nature and work, was exempted. Were it not for the superstitious folly of so many peo- ple, what we have said on this phase of the subject would be entirely superfluous. Probably but few Christian peo- ple at the present day would openly acknbwledge that they have conscientious scruples against laughter, yet there are thousands of stern fathers who virtually sup- press all laughter in their homes as a religious duty. They would not acknowledge to themselves even that they believe laughter to be wrong in the abstract, and yet some- how or other they manage to resolve every occasion for laughter into something that ought to be suppressed. IT is the duty of the parents to make home pleasant and ^ agreeable, and even to furnish occasions for merri- ment and fun, as much as it is to furnish food and shelter. Children should not be required to remain quiet and sedate during the long evenings simply because the stern father wishes to read the newspaper. If he wishes to read aloud something that would be interesting to the children, it is proper to do so. All parents should consider themselves under obligations to furnish at least one paper or magazine expressly for the children. Not one of the ponderous and 105 Amusements for the Home. somber journals of Zion, but one full of light jokes, inter- esting stories, and such information as children desire and can appreciate. Of course the father and mother are to be allowed time to read their religious and political papers, and their scientific books ; but the children's right in this respect must not be encroached upon. It will not hurt the father or mother to read aloud from the Youth's Companion, Harper's Round Table, The Ladies' Home Journal, or some other paper of similar character, or, perhaps, what is bet- ter still, they can lay aside their own paper and listen and be interested while one of the older children is reading. Reading aloud by parents and children is one of the most useful sources of amusement in every home. In addi- tion to the amusement, valuable information would be obtained, as well as healthful vocal exercise and elocu- tionary drill. /VNOTHER source of amusement, peculiarly appro- V^, priate for the home, and one of which we never tire, is music. The money spent for a musical instrument is not thrown away. Every home should contain some such instrument, and there are but few families that cannot afford a piano or an organ. There is something in the nature of music that tends to evolve harmony in the hearts of those who jointly produce it or listen to it. There is something of philosophy in the oft quoted words of Shakespeare : 10G Amusements for the Home. " The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils." It is probable, however, that the author used this word music in the broadest sense of poesy, yet even in its restricted sense there is the semblance of truth. The world presents us with many examples of grand and noble souls that are deaf to the pleadings of the harp, and yet the fact remains untouched that music is the language of the highest souls. Eloquence holds a wand for the soul's lofty moods, and yet there is an altitude in whose rarefied atmosphere the soul is dumb, and in the frenzy of despair seizes the harp and the viol. From these spiritual beati- tudes on whose hushed summits the veil is rolled back, there comes no message save in wordless strains. We cannot stand beside a friend in the presence of music without feeling the ties grow stronger. The spirit's invisible arms clasp each other. Neither can we stand beside an enemy without feeling the timbers of hatred that have braced our souls apart, give way, and before we are aware our spirit proclaims him friend. How peculiarly appropriate, then, as a home amuse- ment, is music ! As well might you drive love from home as to exclude music. Let the boys learn to play the violin ; and let the girls play the organ or piano. Let the home' be a perpetual temple of song. 107 Amusements for the Home. fy SILENT home, where there is no music nor reading, V- and but little conversation, is a dull and sad place for the young. Children do not like to stay long in those places where their only entertainment is their own thoughts. There is nothing worse for a child than continu- ous subjective thinking, that sort of a day after day intro- spection. It leads to habitual melancholy, and this state is so thoroughly unnatural for a child that it cannot exist without enfeebling both mind and body. Those who com- mit suicide will be found in almost every instance to be those who were led to subjective thinking during the long winter evenings of their childhood. A boy cannot maintain health of body without laugh- ter, merriment, and fun. We have every reason to believe that a lamb would not maintain its bodily health and grow to be a mature animal if it were prevented from frisking and frolicking. iyl OST especially does the feeling of merriment assist V^ the digestive function. This idea is already prev- alent among the people, and yet there is too little abiding faith in the medicinal virtue of fun. Our meals should be scenes of uninterrupted merriment. It is a fact univer- sally acknowledged that the American people eat too rap- idly for the good of their health. Now, there is nothing that checks rapid eating like repartee and merry conversa- tion. 108 Amusements for the Home. One of the evils of Puritanism, which we have not yet outgrown, was the idea that cheerful conversation is unbe- coming at meals. The children were taught to eat in silence at the second table, under the awful superintend- ence of their parents, who had eaten up all the good things. The eating up of the good things, however, was not half so cruel as it was to compel them to put on long faces, and be men and women, and eat in silence. The free ventilation, the hard work, and the simple fare which they enjoyed prevented them from having dyspepsia. But we cannot tell how thoroughly their stomachs and livers were prepared by such treatment at meal time, to transmit that dread complaint to the next generation. It is not at all an extravagant belief, that much of the dyspepsia of to-day had its remote origin among the Puritans in their cruel suppression of childish mirth at the family board. There are families in which the Puritanic idea is still prevalent, that "children should be seen but not heard." We have no sympathy with that doctrine. Such an idea could have originated only in parental selfishness. In the days of our grandfathers the children were, indeed, pitiable creatures. But we are gradually becoming more civilized on this point. The same principle in human nature that has given rise to societies for the " prevention of cruelty to animals " has so modified our sentiments toward children that we no longer regard them as so many wild beasts put into our hands to be tamed. Children are now allowed to 109 Amusements for the Home. spend most of their time in the pursuit of fun and to laugh at meals. LJ ARENTS should mingle with their children in their ^_^ sports and games. It is not unbecoming to a mother or a father to play with a child, but, on the con- trary, it is quite becoming ; and in so doing a parent is discharging one of the highest duties that have been im- posed upon him. This is not the task it may seem to be. There is something in the relation of parent and child that makes the parent take positive delight in that which de- lights the child. Every mother knows this to be true. There is that in the experience of every one which testifies to this. We all feel an interest in those things which interest the ones we love. This principle has an influence even over the senses. Articles of food which we do not ordinarily like, when eaten in the presence of a loved one who does like them, actually become savory to us. "We are made by this principle to fall into the same line of thought and feeling with those we love. And hence the mother experiences almost as much delight from playing with a cart as does her child. This same principle doubtless accounts for the fact that all animals play with their young. This is nature's argu- ment. The cat and dog, however old and dignified, almost continually play with their young ; so does the lion, and probably all wild animals. Animals that cannot by any 110 Amusements for the Home. other possible means be induced to manifest the slightest degree of playfulness, are full, or appear to be full, of fun and frolic while rearing their young. Do not these facts proclaim a natural law ? Playing with children is a sub- ject of much more importance than most people are led to suspect. The oldest of a family of children often has a bad dis- position, and it is doubtless due to the absence of older playmates. It seems to be a law of the child's nature that in order to properly develop he requires an older playmate. The younger members of the family are provided for in this respect by the older ones, and accordingly their dispo- sitions are better, and their minds are usually more sym- metrically developed. Now, if parents would heed this law and become the intimate associates and playmates of their children while they are young, no such disparity of disposition and character would be found. The chief reason why so many children become dissat- isfied with their home and desire to leave it at the earliest possible opportunity, is because they have not had happy homes ; and unhappy homes are seldom looked back to with tender thoughts in after years. But let them keep the old time feeling in their hearts that " there's no place like home," and when the hour of reunion draws nigh with its glad tidings and joyful welcome they will not send the cruel telegram of two words, " business pressing," but will come with open hearts and smiling faces, bringing back 111 Amusements for the Home. again the same feeling that they carried away, that "there's no place like home." children are not the only beings that require amusements. All require it, even the aged. Abso- lute rest is not the thing required by the father when he comes home from the shop, the office, or the store. Human beings need but very little of that kind of rest beyond what they get during the hours of sleep. If there could be found a vocation in which all the faculties should be exercised alike, those engaged in such a vocation would require no amusement beyond what would necessarily result from exercising the faculty of mirth equally with the other fac- ulties. But the relations of human life afford no such vocation, hence the wisdom of making special provision for amusements. Suppose we have a complicated machine, only a part of which is in action, half of the wheels remaining motionless. Now suppose we discover that the machine is wearing out in that part which is constantly exercised. What shall we do to maintain the symmetry of the machine and prevent it from becoming in a short time useless ? Will it be suffi- cient to simply stop the machine a few hours or days and then start il again ? Surely not, for half of it is now actually rusting out from the lack of being used. One half needs rest and the other part needs action in order to check the process of destruction. Hence the only way to accom- 112 Amusements for the Home. plish the desired result is to stop the part that has been continually running and start the other part. This illustration explains the whole philosophy of amusements and recreations. Man does not need to rest, but simply to start up the other half of his vital and mental machinery, and home furnishes the only adequate motive power. ' ' Frown not, when roistering boys or toss or strike The bounding ball, or leap or run or ride The mastered steed that, as the rider, loves The rushing course, or when with ringing steel The polished ice they sweep in winter's reign ; All pleasing pastimes, innocent delights, That gladden hearts yet simple and sincere, Let love parental gather 'round the home, And consecrate by sharing ; let it watch With kind, approving smiles each merry game That quickens youthful blood, and in the joy That beams from crimson cheeks and sparkling eyes Its own renew, and live its childhood o'er." 113 CHAPTER NINE. Home Smiles, SMILE is the most useful thing in the world in proportion to its cost. It costs absolutely nothing, but its potency is often beyond esti- mation. It conies as the involuntary and irrepressible expression of a sentiment that lies at the basis of human society. Smiles constitute a part of our lan- guage. There seem to be certain combinations of words that require to be supplemented with a smile before they can have any meaning to us. The human soul, shrouded in the mysteries of person- ality, yearns to know the essence of other souls, as it were, to touch a hand in the dark, and smiles are the electric flashes that illumine the wide gulf that separates indi- vidualities. There is a mystery in what we call acquaintance. Acquaintance, however, is not the proper word, but since human language affords no one more apt we shall be obliged to use it. Why should we say that we are acquainted with this one and not with that one ? Acquaint- anceship does not consist in a knowledge of some one's 114 Home Smiles. peculiarities of character or disposition, for we sometimes feel acquainted with persons whose minds are sealed books to us. We cannot understand them. Their thoughts are mysterious and unfathomable, and they always seem to take a turn which was wholly unexpected to us and which we cannot account for, and yet we feel a large measure of acquaintanceship with them. There are others whose minds are as transparent as glass. Their mental operations are performed, as it were, in the sight of all. We can almost anticipate their very thoughts, and yet we would not think of speaking to them, because as we say we are not acquainted with them. Acquaintance is not a conventionality of society, for it may be observed in those rude and primitive communities where the mere conventionalities of society have little weight. It is more strongly manifested in little children even before they can talk than in older people. This shows that whatever acquaintance may be, it is natural and not artificial. In what then does it consist ? What passes between two souls when a third party says, "This is Mr. Jones, Mr. Smith " ? There is usually some form of salutation, as the bow or the shaking of hands ; although there is nothing of a permanent or essential nature in these, for the mode of salutation differs in different nations and communities. The Turks fold their arms across the breast while bowing ; the Laplanders touch their noses ; and in Southern Africa they rub their toes together. 115 Home Smiles. there is one act that accompanies all these differ- ent modes, one rite that never varies. It is the smile. The philosophy of acquaintance is wrapt up in the philosophy of the smile. When two smiles have met, two souls are acquainted. A smile is the sign that a soul gives when it would examine another soul. Every soul in the universe lives alone. There is a dark curtain dropped before the window of its house which hides it from the view of all. Every one has felt his loneli- ness even in the midst of crowds. Souls cannot come into contact, but they can draw aside the curtain from the win- dow. To smile is to draw aside the curtain. The fondest souls can do no more. Even lovers must caress through a window. At home, these curtains should often be drawn aside, for there is nothing so fatal to a home as to have its mem- bers become unacquainted with each other. And there is nothing so difficult as to renew the acquaintance of broth- ers and sisters, when once it has been lost. When they begin to be restrained and self-conscious in each other's society ; when they begin to review with indifference those phases of life over which they once smiled and wept together, they are unconsciously, perhaps unwillingly, cutting each other's acquaintance. There is no sadder sight on earth than that of a brother and sister who are unacquainted. The coldness and reserve that spring up 116 Home Smiles. between the members of so many families originate in a lack of smiles at home. By smiles we do not mean that which takes the place of loud laughter when the occasion is insufficient to pro- voke us to more noisy demonstrations. Nor do we mean either the transient smile with which one regards the ludi- crous, or the habitual smile that often accompanies a low degree of thought-power. There is a smile that originates neither in the sense of the ludicrous, nor in thoughtlessness. Like certain articles of dress such smiles are becoming on all occasions. They sit with equal grace upon the visage of joy and of sorrow. They seem as appropriate when they wreathe the mother's thoughtful face as when they live in the dimpled cheek of laughing girlhood, or with their magic play transform tear-stained eyes to twinkling stars. These are the smiles with which we would adorn every home. We would set them as vases of flowers in every human abode. 3 MILES should be the legal tender in every family for the payment of all debts of kindness, and each member should be willing to take this currency at its face value ; for its value is beyond the reach of those disturbing influences that shake the world of commerce. And, what is better than all, it can never be demonetized, for it bears the immutable stamp of the divine government. 117 Home Smiles. Let the members of the family, almost as often as they meet, greet each other with a smile, for eyes that meet in full gaze without a smile soon grow cold. The mother, if she would keep the confidence of her son, must be lavish of her smiles. Mothers often weep in the presence of their sons on account of the anxiety that they feel for them. This is a great error, for in the first place it leads a young man to conceal that which he believes would displease his mother. This is often the beginning of a fatal reserve. Besides, it causes him to feel that his mother has not con- fidence in him, and that however much she may love him she fears to trust his honor. I HE smile is nature's cure for the disease of bashful- V ness. This disease is simply the fear which one soul experiences in approaching another. But the smile is an instinctive effort to suppress the fear and to know the soul. A knowledge of this principle would be of great service to those having the charge of bashful children. Strangers should always encourage a smile in a bashful child. Such children should be met with smiles rather than with words. The smile is the only form of salutation that a bashful child can use. He cannot speak to a stranger in audible language, but if the stranger will consent to use the lan- guage of smiles he may almost always gain quick admis- sion to his confidence. When the bashful child smiles and blushes, and hangs his head in the presence of strangers, 118 Home Smiles. there is great hope that he will outgrow the infirmity, for the smile is an instinctive effort to overcome it. But where the child is not inclined to smile there is little hope, and the malady usually degenerates into moroseness and oddity. The habitual smiler is never a dyspeptic. Smiles pro- mote the general health and are especially fatal to any disease of the stomach or liver. Smiles also promote the growth of the religious senti- ment, because they cannot thrive without a constant sense of obligation to others. Especially do they tend to culti- vate benevolence, for every smile is a gift, and benevolence grows by giving. There are few souls that can " smile, and murder while they smile." None indeed can murder while they smile from the heart. There may be the same movement of the facial muscles, but smiles are not merely contractions of certain muscles. They are mental acts. The actor may give the outward expression of a smile, and murder while he smiles, but the words of the great dramatist are not true of a single human soul except the smile be spurious. < ' Sweet is the smile of home ; the mutual look Where hearts are of each other sure ; Sweet all the joys that crowd the household nook, The haunt of all affections pure." 119 CHAPTER TEN. Joys of Home. 'OY is the natural and normal condition of every human soul. To be genuine and permanent it must depend chiefly on internal instead of external conditions. Every natural function both of the body and of the mind is attended with pleasure and never with pain, unless it be the penalty for a broken law. If walking is not pleas- urable, it is because there is some trouble with the physical system. If daylight does not bring to the eye positive pleasure, it is because the eye is diseased and there is a maladjustment between it and the light. The difficulty is always on the part of the eye and never on the part of the light. When the song of birds, the sighing of the breeze, the rippling of the brook, the chirping of the insect, and the thousand voices of nature do not bring to the ear and soul an exquisite sense of divine harmony, it is because sin with rude hand has broken the interpretative chords of the spirit's harp. We always hear music at second hand, just as we 120 Joys of Home. see beauty. Hence it has been said that " beauty is in the eye of the gazer, and music is in the ear of the listener." There is philosophy in this saying, for all the music that we hear is that which the soul itself produces when it responds to the myriad voices from without. These sounds and voices from nature, God's great orchestra, must be reproduced by the soul's response before they can become music to us. It is not the music without that we hear, but the spirit's imitation of it. If, then, the soul be tuned to the same key so as to give a true response, rest assured that our lives will be filled with harmony and joy, for God's hand never strikes a dis- cord. The secret of human joy, then, is to keep the spirit's harp in tune. To the spirit whose harp is out of tune, the clouds are but unsightly rags with which the mantle of the sky is patched ; the mountain in its grandeur is but an eminence that is hard to climb ; the sublime thunder of Niagara is but a loud noise that makes it difficult to sleep ; while the songs of birds, the patter of the rain, the laugh- ter and the voices of the woods are but the troublesome prattle of Nature's children. I OY cannot be bought with gold. There is but one +J thing that Nature will take in exchange for it, and that is obedience to the divine laws of our being. Joy is the only legitimate arid necessary product of every normal 121 Joys of Home. and healthy function. It is absolutely impossible for any function of our being, if healthy and normal in its action, to produce anything but joy, no matter what may be the outward conditions. The truest and highest joy is a prod- uct of health, and is but partially dependent on external conditions. Nature aims at no other grand result than that of joy. She has created the myriad varieties of fruit for the pleas- ure of the palate. For the joy of the eye she has. painted on the earth's green canvas the gentle hints of heaven, and bathed the picture in the liquid silver of the sunlight. For the ear she has filled the earth with harmony divine. For the joy of our social and domestic natures she has instituted the home, the fireside, and society. For our intellectual nature she has filled the universe with prob- lems, the solution of which gives us exquisite pleasure. For our spiritual nature she has given the heavenly reward of an approving conscience. Thus is joy the eter- nal aim of Nature. I IN whom then rests the blame when life's joys are tarnished and its sweetness turned to bitterness ? Whom shall we blame for the strained and weakened eye that makes the sunlight painful ? Whom shall we blame for the overwrought brain that makes causation and all problems irksome ? Whom shall we blame for the seared and deadened conscience that makes duty a task 122 Joys of Home. and honor a burden ? We fancy that the conscience of none of our readers is yet so far deadened that he will not quickly answer, " I myself am to blame." The clamor for joy and pleasure, then, when rightly interpreted, is a universal call to duty, for the reward of duty is unalloyed joy. It is a call to study and mental discipline ; for the fruit of culture, like that of duty, is joy and only joy. It is a call to physical obedience and to the cultivation of health ; for joy is the necessary and insepa- rable accompaniment of these, and without them it cannot exist. Let the reader remember this one fact, that obedience to the physical, intellectual, and moral laws of our being is the only condition that Nature imposes upon us, and when this one condition is complied with she will shower upon us joys untold. She will make the breath of morning a source of exquisite delight. The very consciousness of existence will thrill us with that joy which all have felt at rare intervals, undefinable, and too subtle for any analysis. External objects and conditions seem to play no part in the program. At most they are only the occasions and not the causes of the joy. We look into the face of a friend or out over the sheen of a lake, and we feel an un- utterable joy coursing through all the channels of our being, and welling up in gurgling laughter ; and we can- not possibly tell why we laugh. The joy that comes to perfect health with the sweet intoxication of the morning 123 Joys of Home. dew, is "the purest and sweetest that Nature can yield.'' Such is the bountiful reward of Nature for obedience to her laws. We have dwelt thus at length on the laws that govern the emotion of joy because they have an important bearing on the subject of which we are treating. [HE fireside is the only spot where it is possible to ^ obey all the laws of our being ; hence it is the only spot where supreme joy can exist. Domestic joy is the only joy that is complete. Truly has the poet said : " Domestic joy, thou only bliss Of paradise that hath survived the fall." Man may cultivate his intellect and derive pleasure from obedience to its laws, even though he may not have a home. He may derive a joy from obedience to the laws of his moral nature while he is a hermit or a wanderer. He may even derive some enjoyment from partial obedience to the laws of his social nature. But all enjoyment from this source must be partial, because all obedience to the social law must be incomplete outside the domestic circle. The family is the truest type of society. But without a fireside, man's domestic nature, from which he derives by far the largest amount of his earthly enjoyment, cannot but remain cold and almost entirely 124 Joys of Home. inactive. This department of his nature can be kept alive only by the heat of the hearthstone. The home is the place where all the joys of life may exist in their ripest fruition. Even the intellectual nature, which is the farthest removed from the sphere of domestic influence, cannot be developed to its fullest possibility outside of the home ; for the boy requires in the first stage of his intellectual devel- opment the wholesome spirit of rivalry and emulation that exists among children of the same household. In every stage he needs the stimulus of honest commendation, and this comes in its purest and most useful form from the members of the same family. The joys peculiar to the moral and spiritual nature must be only partial, and far below what this part of our being is capable of yielding, unless it be cultivated in the sanctuary of home. Conscience must be kept sharp by the pathetic appeals of little children, by the tender looks and anxious words of mothers and sisters, and by the nice adjustments of domestic obligations. 1 if HAT a plea do we find in these facts for the institu- ^ tion of home, and how much is signified by " the joys of home" ! No words of ours are necessary to impress that significance upon the minds of those who are the members of happy families. With what feelings of delight do such look forward to the evening hour when the family, 125 Joys of Home. overflowing with joy, shall gather around the board with mirth and laughter. How the father's heart thrills at the sudden thought that the hour is near when he shall meet his loved ones ; when he shall leave his care and troubles all behind, and sit in his easy chair, or recline upon the sofa, and watch the fire light dancing on the wall and hear the merry voices of the children, or listen to the sweet music of domestic contentment. Can heaven yield a sweeter joy than this ? But the joys of home are not to be measured by actual domestic felicity, for home has joys independent of this. There is joy in the very thought that one has a home. There is joy in the poetry with which the divine artists of time and memory conspire to paint the old homestead. Joy is heightened and pain is lightened by being shared, but home is the only place on earth where they can be fully shared. Everywhere else there is a reserve that makes our joys and pains peculiarly our own. At home the heart may be opened, and all that it knows and feels may be known and felt by others. The joys of home are the only ones of which we never weary. We grow tired of those joys that come from min- gling promiscuously in society. We tire of the exciting pleasures of trade and commerce. We tire of gazing at the marble fronts and gilded palaces of the great city. We shut our eyes and close our ears in weariness and dis- gust even at the sights and sounds of the public park. 126 Joys of Home. But we never grow tired of a mother's cheer, although the birds in the park may weary us. We may leave the art gallery satiated, but the old pictures on the walls of home are ever new. Let us then cherish the joys of home, for their peren- nial freshness hints at their eternity. The child, who with his playmates, wanders from his home over the hill and meadow, when he wearies of his sports and games, turns at nightfall to his home to lay his little weary head upon his mother's breast. So when we shall weary of the little sports and games of earth, may we find our homeward way back across life's meadow and up the hill to the threshold of the home eternal, and lay our weary heads upon the bosom of the Divine, forever and ever. " Sweet are the joys of home, And pure as sweet ; for they Like dews of morn and evening come, To make and close the day. " The world hath its delights, And its delusions, too ; But home to calmer bliss invites, More tranquil and more true. " The mountain flood is strong, But fearful in its pride ; While gently rolls the stream along The peaceful valley's side. 127 Joys of Home. Life's charities, like light, Spread smilingly afar ; But stars approached become more bright, And home is life's own star. The pilgrim's step in vain Seeks Eden's sacred ground ! But in home's holy joys again An Eden may be found. A glance of heaven to see, To none on earth is given ; And yet a happy family Is but an earlier heaven." 128 CHAPTER ELEVEN. Education of oi_ir Girls. HE education of woman is among the foremost problems of the nineteenth century. It is something more than a social problem. It is a civil and politi- cal, a moral and religious problem as well. Inasmuch as the presence of woman constitutes one of the chief charms and benefits of society, and inasmuch as it is she who far mpre than man gives character to society, her education and culture are a social problem. But into her care have been intrusted the nation's future statesmen, those who are soon to be clothed with authority and to make laws for the government of man- kind. Hence her education becomes a civil and political problem. Not only is she intrusted with the guardian- ship of the intellect and character of the world's statesmen and philosophers, but her gentle presence, as she bends over the cradle, and the silent influence of her daily life are shaping the entire moral character of the coming gen- eration ; and thus does the education of woman become a great and moral problem. 129 Education of Our Girls. Again, since she shapes the moral character of the world, and since the eternal destiny of man depends upon the character in this life, it follows that her education becomes the profoundest spiritual and religious problem. IN view of these momentous facts what should consti- tute the education of our girls ? Human life is short and its powers of endurance are limited. None of us can reasonably hope to accomplish all that our imagination may picture to our minds as desirable. We cannot appro- priate the great sea of knowledge. We surely cannot do better than Sir Isaac Newton, who picked up only a few pebbles on the shore. But whether we are able to pick up one or many of these pebbles we should select only those whose size and shape best adapt them to our purpose. We have no argument to offer against the study of those branches which utilitarians are wont to condemn as involving a waste of time and energy. We have no sym- pathy with this utilitarian idea. We pity the man who is able even to distinguish between beauty and utility. That mind which does not see the highest use in Niagara is but poorly developed and poorly educated. Nature has drawn no line between the beautiful and the useful. On the contrary, she has purposely blended them in an indis- tinguishable union. Every apple tree is first a vase of flowers and then a golden fruit basket. A blossom is the preface to every useful product. Before Nature can allow 130 Education of Our Girls. even a potato to grow and ripen she places the divine seal of beauty on it in the form of a little flower. That little flower, which is made the necessary condition of the pota- to's development, was placed there to teach us that there is a use in beauty and a beauty in use. Hence we would not condemn the study of music and the fine arts. The history of music is the history of human development. It has been the sensitive gauge that has marked the civiliza- tion of every age and nation. The music that charmed the undeveloped and savage ear of the past would be to us but rude noise, and perchance the divinest harmony that wafts our spirit starward may be but discord compared with the symphonies that echo down the aisles of coming ages. Music is not altogether an art ; it is a science as well, and viewed in its highest aspect it becomes the grand exponent of that universal and divine harmony which every properly developed soul has felt, and which gives credence to that sweetest of all mythologies, "the music of the spheres." Thus while we cannot speak too highly of the science of music as a means of soul development and heart culture, yet as a mere outward accomplishment it cannot be denied that it usurps a disproportionate amount of time and energy, and we would unhesitatingly condemn that method of study which would reduce the science and art of music to a mere system of finger and vocal gymnastics. It is a fact which the observation of almost every one will con- 131 Education of Our Girls. firm, that the present method of musical instruction has a direct tendency to take the soul out of music, and leave it, like the poetry of Pope, a mere shell from which the living creature has departed. The modern masters of song seem to have forgotten the prime object of music, viz., to move the heart and lift the soul. They exhibit their powers to us as the circus rider exhibits his, and they expect us to applaud them for their skill in execution ; if we do not they attribute our indifference to the "lack of culture." Life is too short and its duties too momentous for a girl to spend years in acquiring proficiency in the production of a mere sound, and one in which, in spite of her culture, she is discounted by the ordinary canary bird. Music should be made an instrument and not a toy. /VLL this may be true, says the mother, but how shall I V^ educate my daughter ? It is easy to generalize and to criticise existing systems ; but what is the particular method which I must follow in order to avoid this criticism ? In the first place, it is necessary to have a just view concerning woman's place in the economy of society. It is useless to give advice in regard to the higher education of woman to those who covertly or otherwise regard woman as an inferior being, whose highest and most legitimate function is to swing a cradle through the air twelve hours a day. We would not express other than the tenderest sen- 132 Education of Our Girls. timents concerning the divine mission of motherhood. But has the reader ever asked himself what it is that makes motherhood so divine ? Is it not, after all, that which lifts woman above motherhood, that can make motherhood divine ? We are pained when an eminent writer gives weight to expressions like the following : " The great vocation of woman is wifehood and motherhood." Would the author object to a slight change in the latter part of the phraseology so as to make the expression applicable to man ? 'Would those who think that the quoted words express a fine thought be offended with the following ? The great vocation of man is husbandhood and father- hood. The moment we exalt motherhood to the rank of a prime object, that moment does it descend to the level of the function involved, and the divine mother becomes simply a mammal of the genus " homo." All there is of divinity in motherhood is derived from the divinity of womanhood. Why does the artist always paint, that kind of motherhood which suggests to our minds the condescension of the divine to the human ? It is not the motherhood, but the condescension to motherhood, that makes it divine and beautiful. Whatever heightens and glorifies woman's nature, then, renders more beautiful and more divine the mission of motherhood. It is the seminary that sanctifies the nursery. We hope the world has heard the last of that sickly sentiment concerning "woman's sphere," "the hand that 133 Education of Our Girls. rocks the cradle rules the world," etc. If that hand were permitted to take hold of the world a little more directly, it would not at all interfere with its ability to rock the cradle. The female robin must feed and care for its young, but it finds time each morning to sing its little hymn of praise upon the tree-top to its Maker. So woman may rock the cradle sufficiently each day and yet find time to glorify her God with her intellect. We would see the little sister and brother hand in hand enter the primary school ; we would see them together promoted to the grammar school ; we would see them struggling on through the course all unconscious that there is any radical difference in their mental constitutions ; we would see them graduate from the high school together, and together enter the university, and here through four years of intellectual conflict we would see them stand side by side in that fiercely contested arena, and with tongue and pen and brain compete for those prizes whose winning foreshadows life's success. We would see them both at the graduating exercises, fearlessly giving to the world a spec- imen of their thought and eloquence, " Mid the sweet inspiration of music and flowers." NOR would we see them part here; but with brave hearts enter the same profession. We see no good reason why women should not serve their kind 134 Education of Our Girls. as lawyers, doctors, and ministers. It is true there are objections and hindrances incidental to their sex, but these we believe are fully counterbalanced by those quali- fications in which they must be acknowledged even supe- rior. In medicine, it is fast coming to be the opinion of the world that woman, whatever may be. her incidental dis- abilities, is by nature even better endowed than man with some of the peculiarities of talent that prophesy suc- cess. One of these peculiarities is that intuitive insight which, when supplemented by scientific knowledge, leaps to right conclusions with the certainty of an instinct. It is in moments of emergency that woman's mind betrays its peculiar fitness for the medical profession. All must admit that she is the natural nurse, and it is almost an adage among physicians that " as much depends upon the nursing as upon medical skill." We would not, of course, make this claim for woman with reference to all professions. It is not the general superiority of woman that we seek to prove, but simply that for the profession of medicine, at least, she has some special qualifications. But we would not deny that she may with equal pro- priety enter almost any of the other professions, and in this we are confident that we only anticipate the tide of public sentiment. How eminently do her sincerity, moral- ity, and spiritual mindedness fit her to point the world to nobler endeavors and higher ideals ! 135 Education of Our Girls. Many of the arguments which prove her fitness to minister as a physician to the diseased bodies of mankind also go to prove her special fitness to minister as a moral physician to their diseased souls. Why, then, should our talented and ambitious girls lament that there is no field open for them ? There are very few professions open to their brothers which they may not also enter if they will but have the courage, not the immodesty, to step aside from the conventional path which the hand of society has marked out for them. But while woman possesses so many of the qualities requisite in the professions, there are still few women who are adapted to a professional life, and the same may be said of men. Hence a professional education cannot meet the require- ments of the great mass either of girls or of boys. "The greatest good to the greatest number" should be our motto. We must go, then, to the little farmhouse and the little cottage beneath the hill. Not that the farmhouse and the cottage are the abodes of intellectual weakness. On the contrary, history shows that the world's great minds, like wheat, potatoes, and apples, are usually pro- duced on farms, yet it cannot be denied that the mass of the people, those to whom we wish to speak, are symbol- ized by the farmhouse and the cottage. 136 Education of Our Girls. lijHAT, then, shall constitute the education of the ^ common girl who is destitute of the ambition and, perhaps, the talent to become great and useful in any professional capacity? We answer, in the first place, that her education should be as varied and perfect as possible, if for no other reason, to enable her properly to educate and rear her own children. Whatever grand truths are planted in the mother's mind take root in the next genera- tion, and there grow, blossom, and shed their perfume on the world. The child receives the mother's very thought by intuition. If the mother's mind is weak and narrow in its range, the child is affected by this fact long before it finds any meaning in the mother's words. But if the mother's mind is cultured and refined by study until her thoughts are grand and far-reaching, the child's soul will grow and expand under the mesmeric influence of these thoughts, as the plant grows under the influence of the sun. Again, education, or the refinement and organic im- provement resulting from education, is transmitted from mother to child. Who cannot tell by the looks of a little boy whether his mother was educated or not ? The child of the educated mother will have a finer grained organism ; he will be handsomer, will have more regular features than the child of the ignorant parent. As a rule he will acquire the use of language at an earlier period. He will also 137 Education of Our Girls. generally be found more open and frank in his manner, and more susceptible to moral and spiritual influences. OW grand and comprehensive, then, becomes the theme of woman's education. To the parent no question can be more important than how shall I educate my daughter ? If it is impossible to educate both let the son go uneducated, and educate the daughter. The im- portance of the son's education may be, indeed, beyond estimation ; yet that of the daughter is even more im- portant. Many parents believe that the virtue of their daughters will be more secure if they remain in general ignorance ; but the frightful statistics of our great cities show this to be a terrible mistake. It is a fact that cannot be denied, that the ranks of that army which parade the streets of the great cities at midnight, in painted shame, are filled from the country. Few are natives of the city, notwith- standing the dangers and temptations of city life are far greater than those of the country. There can be but one explanation of this fact. The superior educational facilities of the city afford a salutary and restraining influence in the form of mental culture. The city girl is better educated than the country girl, hence she has a stronger character. Both may be innocent, for innocence may live comfort- ably with ignorance, but virtue and ignorance cannot long 138 Education of Our Girls. endure each other's society. A young kitten is innocent, but it has but little character ; and we could not call it par- ticularly virtuous. There are thousands of human kittens whose virtue consists only in the innocence of ignorance. " Pulpy souls That show a dimple for each touch of sin." Let every mother and father remember that there is no virtue in ignorance, even in ignorance of sin. If you do not give your boy an opportunity to use his muscles he will soon cease to have any muscles. So there can be no virtue without temptation ; if you do not give your daughter an opportunity to use her virtue in the resistance of tempta- tion, it is to be feared that she will soon cease to have any virtue. A certain woman had a choice plum tree, the fruit of which she was anxious should ripen. The birds had car- ried away all but one, and over this she bound a cloth. It was safe from the birds, but, while she shut it from them, she shut it also from the sunshine and the storms, which alone could ripen it, and it withered away and fell. The mother should teach her daughter above all things to know herself. The man was unwise, who, fearing that his bird dog would acquire the habit of killing barn-fowl, shut him up during his puppyhood and secluded from his sight every kind of bird. When he released him to test the merits of 139 Education of Our Girls. his system of education, the dog rushed at the fowls and killed them all before his master could call him off. Would he not have acted more wisely had he taught the young dog to discriminate between barn-fowl and wild- fowl ? As it was he did not educate him, but attempted to suppress an inborn instinct. Equally unwise is the mother who keeps, or tries to keep, her daughter in ignorance concerning those things which she has a divinely given right to know. Let her direct her daughter's intuitions as nature unfolds them, but never attempt to suppress them, for sooner or later there must come a revelation. \ * f HATEVER may be true concerning the question of ^ woman's rights, whether or not she has a moral right to participate in the civil government of society, we will not here attempt to discuss. A concession of her rights, however, as interpreted by the strongest advocate of woman's suffrage, is not at all inconsistent with the undisputed fact that woman finds her highest mission at the altar of home. Nor does this fact interfere with what we have already said concerning the inconsistency of making wifehood and motherhood the prime object of life. The doctrine of woman's rights can never be proved by contending that she is not by constitution and nature calcu- lated to pursue a somewhat different object in life from 140 Education of Our Girls. that which man pursues, or at least to pursue the same by somewhat different methods. If it could be shown that men and women should both engage in the cultivation of the soil, it would be still undeniable that woman is best adapted to the more aesthetic portion of the labor, and man to the rougher and heavier portion. If a flower garden or nursery were placed in the midst of rough stubble, none would deny that it would be natural for the man to mow the stubble, while the woman should tend the garden in its midst. This would be true even if it should be shown that woman should help to till the soil. So if it should be shown that woman has a moral right to participate in the solution of social problems, which we are not by any means prepared to deny, it would still be true that it is her most natural function to have particular charge of the little nursery, home, in the midst of the rough stubble of human society. \ A [OMAN'S education, then, is necessarily very imper- ^ feet, unless it be largely in the line of that which best becomes her nature. She should have, emphatically, a home education, and this means something more than a knowledge of the dustpan and broom. It means something more than a mere knowledge of the daily routine of housekeeping, in the popular sense of 141 Education of Our Girls. that word. Woman holds in her hands the physical health of the world. Three times each day our lives and health are at the mercy and practical judgment of woman. Nay, more, for the world's character is largely what its food makes it. Indirectly, then, she exerts a modifying influ- ence over our loves and hates, hopes and fears, joys and sorrows. Whoever controls a being's stomach controls that being's destiny. What, then, can be more important than that girls should be educated in cookery and the related sciences, chemistry and hygiene ? This, then, is what we mean by a home education for girls, that they should be taught both through the wisdom and experience of mothers, and also through the medium of books, how to engage in the noble occupation of housewife with the best advantage to mankind. Such an education cannot be obtained solely from prac- tice in the kitchen. The whole mind must be expanded and disciplined by a study of Nature and her laws. No woman can possibly fulfill, in the best manner, her duties as housewife without a good general education. " Three years she grew in sun and shower ; Then nature said, 'A lovelier flower On earth was never sown ; This child I to myself will take ; She shall be mine, and I will make A lady of my own. 142 Education of Our Oirls. ' Myself will to my darling be Both law and impulse ; and with me The girl, in rock and plain, In earth and heaven, in glade and bower, Shall feel an overseeing power To kindle or restrain. She shall be sportive as the fawn That wild with glee across the lawn Or up the mountain springs ; And hers shall be the breathing balm, And hers the silence and the calm, Of mute insensate things. ' The floating clouds their state shall lend To her ; for her the willow bend ; Nor shall she fail to see E'en in the motions of the storm Grace that shall mold the maiden's form By silent sympathy. ' The stars of midnight shall be dear To her ; and she shall lean her ear In many a secret place, Where rivulets dance their wayward round, And beauty born of murmuring sound Shall pass into her face.' ' 143 CHAPTER TWELVE. Education of Our Boys. N education does not necessarily mean the dis- cipline of a college course. In the present condi- tion of society, that advantage is, as a matter of necessity, reserved for comparatively few. In its true significance education means something more than the ability to unravel the involved constructions of a dead language ; something more than a proficiency in mathematics and the physical sciences ; something more, even, than can be reaped from the most laborious toil of the human intellect. It is a drawing out, a developing and strengthening of every element, every faculty, every power of body, mind, and spirit. It is such a condition of the whole being, resulting from a constant refinement, that the several powers shall observe the highest economy in their separate spheres, while the power of co-ordinated action shall be rendered more perfect. One may so cultivate and strengthen the muscles of his little finger that he may be able to support with it twice his weight ; while the main muscles of his body are so weak that he may not be able to lift half his weight. You 144 Education of Our Boys. could not call such a man a strong man. So one may cul- tivate his mere intellectuality till he becomes the brilliant center of the world's admiration, if such were possible ; but you cannot call him educated if he is vicious, if his anger is uncontrollable, if he is a drunkard or a glutton, if he is stubborn, if he is unconscientious, if he is irreverent, if he is spiritually blind, if he is selfish, if he is dead to the appeals of human want and suffering. /UN education on this broad basis should be the life * V work of every human being. We would not by any means be understood as under- valuing the education of the intellect. The importance of the education of a power is commensurate with the impor- tance of the power itself, and certainly no power of our being can be of more importance than the intellect. A college education is within the reach of every young man who possesses the ambition for it, even though he may possess neither friends nor money. There are hun- dreds of students in this country who are paying their own way through college by their own energy and labor. In most of our colleges, a young man of activity and determi- nation may earn during the vacation enough to pay his expenses during the term. So that he who thirsts for knowledge has no legitimate excuse if he does not avail himself of a college education. None should ask us to bring other evidence than that of every intelligent observer. 145 Education of Our Boys. There never yet was occupation so low, nor obstacle so broad and high, as to defeat the resolve of a human soul. No fierce monster of opposition ever reared its hydra head in the path of a human endeavor, That would not shrink and cower Before the dauntless power Of a fearless human will. There are those who are conscious that they were richly endowed by nature with noble gifts, but who have failed in life through their own indolence. It is customary for these to comfort themselves in their sad retrospection by repeating these melancholy lines: " Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dai-k unfathomed caves of ocean bear ; Full many a flower is born to' blush unseen And waste its sweetness on the desert air." Do those lines prove that truth is not an essential ele- ment of poetry ? No, for they are believed and felt to be true by mistaken souls, and in that way they perform the function of truth. They convey, or rather seem to convey, a solemn truth to those who, by the unwise concession of their own weakness, have unwittingly surrendered life's argument to circumstance, their merciless opponent. But let us put this doctrine to the practical test. We have said that an education does not necessarily mean the discipline of a college course. Indeed, all are not so con- 146 Education of Our Soys. stituted that a college education would bring them the greatest good even intellectually. Nor would we be so radical as to deny that circumstances may defeat the pur- pose of merely going to college. The circumstance of poverty, however, is not a valid excuse. At any rate, all may become well educated. Those men are almost num- berless who have become great and useful by the light of a pine torch, who have learned the science of mathematics with a stick for a pencil and the ocean beach for a slate. But suppose we meet the barefoot boy in the street picking rags, what word of advice have we for him ? He will listen to all our fine talk about the grand possibilities which are offered to the poorest and the worthiest in our great communities ; he will listen to the story of those great souls who have climbed to glory over fence rails and canal boats ; and when we have finished he will meet us with the question, "What shall I do and how shall I begin ? " Let us see if we can answer these questions. As the first step toward the desired result, he can pick up a rag, just as he has been wont to do, and examine it, not as here- tofore with the simple purpose of determining whether he shall put it into one or the other of two baskets ; but he can make it the text-book with which to begin an education. He can ask those older and wiser than himself what it is made of and how it is made. They will point him to the great mill yonder, where, if he tells his purpose, he can 147 Education of Our Boys. gain admission and learn something of the mechanical principles involved in the manufacture of the rag. If he continues to make inquiries until he can trace a piece of cotton through all its transformations, till it comes out a piece of fine bleached cotton, he has surely begun an edu- cation in earnest. He can save a penny a day for a few days and buy a primer, and with that primer under his arm he may politely accost any lady or gentleman with these words, " I am determined to make the most of myself. I want to learn to read. I have bought a little book. Can you give me any advice or help ? " There is not a man or woman in all that great city with a heart so hard as not to be melted to sympathy by that appeal. He would be astonished at the amount of love and sympathy and philanthropy in the world which he before had considered so cold and heartless. Young man, bootblack, rag-picker, obscure farmer boy, or dweller in the dingy haunts of the city, remember that Freedom's goddess holds over your head a crown. But she never puts that crown on any but a sweaty brow, the royal symbol of effort and worth. From every lowly cottage roof, However poor and brown, From every dusty hovel, points A hand at glory's crown. 148 Education of Our Boys, /V LTHOUGH it is true that men can be good farmers or V_ mechanics without being able to read or write, yet we believe that the greatest possible number of these classes should be liberally educated. We often hear it remarked that one is very foolish to spend so much time and money in procuring an education if he intends to make no use of it, the remark implying that if he intends to enter no profession the time and money thus spent are wasted. We have no sympathy or patience with that view of life. Man is above the brutes chiefly because he knows more. It is a greater sin to take his life than that of a brute, because he has more life to take, because his facul- ties are more God-like and more powerful. Now education means simply making these faculties powerful and God-like, and nothing more. Hence an educated man is more a man than an uneducated one. It increases the humanity of man and adds to our very being. Even if one is to spend his life in idleness gazing at the clouds, it is a duty he owes to himself, to the universe, and to God, to make the most of himself by acquiring a liberal education. I/ NOWLEDGE, like virtue, should be an end in itself. V-. Think of a mother teaching her children to be vir- tuous because their prospects of financial success would be greater ! We should pity the moral weakness of that mother. We all instinctively recognize virtue as a sublime 149 Education of Our Boys. object and end in itself. It is a part of that God-like nature of which we boast, it is a part of our very immor- tality. So is knowledge. Why, then, should we talk about knowledge and education simply as means to facilitate the accumulation of dollars and cents ? Let no mother teach her boy such sophistry. The capacity of the soul for enjoyment is just propor- tionate to its interior development. Knowledge is to the mind what health is to the body, it makes more of us. pDUCATION is the handmaid of religion. The sta- ^N^ tistics of every community will show that criminals are taken from the ranks of the ignorant. If the best and highest minds do not in some way associate knowledge and religion, why are colleges and seminaries under the direct supervision of the Christian church ? Education has transformed the savage into the Christian. The wide gulf that stretches between the beastly cannibal and the con- scientious Christian has been bridged by the invisible cables of education, and away into the infinitely potential future shall stretch this golden bridge, till the farther end shall rest upon the massive masonry of the eternal. Education was divinely instituted. Nature is the schoolmistress whom God employs to educate his children. This sweet and patient teacher knows how to win our hearts so that study becomes a pleasure. Everywhere she has placed before our eyes an open text-book with such 150 Education of Our Boys. fascinating pictures that we cannot help reading the description of them. She found us with the beasts. Patiently she has conducted us through the primary school of the savage and barbarian, through the grammar school of war and bloodshed, till we have entered with her the high school of modern civilization. She will lead us tri- umphantly through and admit us into her vast university. There she will show us mysteries that would blind' us now. In her laboratory we shall learn the awful secret of being. When we have graduated here she will lead us proudly up and present us to the Great Master, at whose side we shall sit and under whose tuition we shall turn our eyes star- ward and forever and forever shall study the infinite of infinites. " The heights by great men reached and kept Were not attained by sudden flight ; But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upward in the night. " 151 CHAPTER THIRTEEN. Boolcs for the Home. ^^^^ OD be thanked for books," says Channing ; " they are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of all the ages." Car- lyle has said that the true university of these days is a col- lection of books. They contain the garnered wisdom of all time. By their means the poorest man can sit at the feet of the world's greatest teachers and learn the lessons of their noblest lore. "Books," says Henry Ward Beecher, "are the win- dows through which the soul looks out. A home without books is like a house without windows. Let us pity those poor rich men who live barrenly in great bookless houses ! Let us congratulate the poor that, in our day, books are so cheap. A library is not a luxury, but one of the necessa- ries of life." Yet how many homes are splendidly furnished with everything but books. There are costly car- pets, sumptuous furniture, a table laden with all the luxuries of life, everything that will pamper the body, while the soul is starved for lack of knowledge. Small wonder that persons bred in such surroundings are 152 Books for the Home. dwarfed in mind, narrow in their range of thought, occu- pied with petty amusements or small scandal or silly tittle tattle. Books give wings to the soul. They enable it to soar above the sordid cares of life, to rise into the eternal sun- light of the hills of God. As one reads a great masterpiece of literature, though even in a prison cell, the narrow walls expand, his freed spirit ranges through space, he becomes the contemporary of all times, the inhabitant of all lands. He can say exultingly with Lovelace : " Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage." " Reading," says Lowell, "is the key that admits us to the whole world of thought and fancy and imagina- tion, to the company of saint and sage, of the wisest and the wittiest at their wisest and wittiest moments. It ena- bles us to see with the keenest eyes, hear with the finest ears, and listen to the sweetest voices of all time." I HAT we may secure the greatest advantage from the ^ use of books we should be most careful in our choice. An English officer in India took down a book from his library and felt a slight sting in his finger as he opened it. In a few hours his arm began to swell, and in two days he was dead. He had been stung by a venomous 153 Books for the Home, asp. There are other snakes, more deadly still, that hide in books ; that poison the soul with a more mortal virus ; that kindle flames of unhallowed passion in the chambers of the mind and set the whole being on fire with the fire of hell. Other books, by their wishy-washy flood of trivial com- monplace, drown out the opportunity of studying the great books that are the mental landmarks of the race. "A good book," says Milton, "is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life." Why waste our time upon a trashy and frivolous book when we may hold high converse with the wisest sages, the greatest souls, the noblest heroes the world has ever known ? may be broadly described as of two sorts : Books of information, and books of inspiration, or as De Quincey calls them, "books of knowledge, and books of power," The former are the bread and butter of life. The latter are its richest wine, fragrant with the aroma of the finest vintage of the soul. The former, to change the figure, are the tools for life's' daily use. The latter are the instruments of music for its loftiest and most sacred moments. Of the former are the text-books of our trades and occupations. But even these so far reaching are the relations of life may touch the infinite. The rules of mechanics, the study of science, the laws of 154 Books for the Home. hygiene, the investigation of nature, all these reveal a wonder world everywhere around us. They make us exclaim with the psalmist, " O Lord, how manifold are thy works ! In wisdom hast thou made them all : the earth is full of thy riches," The study of the past is necessary to enable us to dis- charge the duties of the present. And how noble, how inspiring, such a study often is ! What examples of hero- ism thrill the soul, what tales of suffering for conscience's sake, of fidelity even unto death, of sublime endeavor, of lofty achievement, of brave battle with wrong, of saintliest suffering, of Christ-like self-sacrifice, the records of the race reveal ! All these ennoble and embrave our souls to play our part in life, to discharge its often difficult duties, to quit us like men, to be strong. Such books become, indeed, books of inspiration as well as information. But by the former phrase we mean especially the writings of the great poets and sages and seers of our race : of Dante and Milton, who reveal the woes of the nether world and the joys of Paradise ; of the myriad-minded Shakespeare, who portrays the human soul in the great crises of fate, who depicts its love and longing, its agony and despair, its rapture and its triumph ; of Wordsworth and Bryant, those high priests of nature, who interpret its inner meaning to the soul ; of Tennyson and Lowell, who voice life's loftiest aspirations and clothe in "thoughts that breathe and words that burn" its highest 155 Books for the Home. a 'd its holiest truths ; of Emerson and Browning, with their high and calm philosophy ; of Longfellow and Whit- tier, with their love of the beautiful, the true, the good ; their hate and scorn of selfishness and wrong. Tf iVBOVE all, for both instruction and inspiration, for V^ guidance in life's lowliest walks, and uplifting in its highest flights, is the Word of God. In those divine oracles the Most High reveals his will to man in words so simple that the little child can understand ; yet are there in them depths of wisdom which the wisest philosophers can- not fathom ; heights which the holiest saint, unaided, may not climb. " O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! How unsearchable are his judg- ments, and his ways past finding out ! " A good test of our reading is, does it bring us more in sympathy with the word and mind and will of God ? When the great Sir Walter Scott lay dying in his library at Abbotsford, he said to Lockhart, his son-in-law, "Reach me the Book." "What book?" asked Lockhart, glancing around upon the twenty thousand volumes on the walls. " There is but one Book," said the dying man. And out- shining all others, as the noonday sun outshines the stars of night, is the Word of God. All books that bring us into sympathy and harmony with this book, whether they be books of science, of history, of the biography of the world's great men, the makers of epochs, the poets and phi- 15G Books for the Home. losophers, the saints and sages and seers of the race, are good books. IN order to gain time for the best reading we must * rigidly abridge that spent on the second or third best. "Read not the Times," says Thoreau, "read the Eterni- ties." We must, however, read the Times that we may know the daily history of the world in which we live. The modern daily papers are the most wonderful creation of the century. They are thrilling and throbbing with the life of every land. But their very number and volume demand a severe selection. They are like the Franken- stein of the German story, the goblin summoned to bring water to the magician, which brought it in such quantities as to weli-nigh drown him. Many persons read nothing but the daily papers. Such j persons may have a certain shallow smartness, but they cannot have much accurate information, much broad cul- ture, much deep or general knowledge. Their time and attention is so frittered away on the ephemeral and in- significant that they have little time and less taste for things of profoundest interest, of most momentous impor- tance. We must learn even in reading the daily papers to skip the trivial and the trashy, to grasp the chief facts, to avoid the gossip, the scandal, the idle speculations, most of which are disproved before the rising of to-morrow's sun. Above 157 Books for the Home. all should we avoid that great curse of American civiliza- tion, the Sunday newspaper, with its deluge of common- place, its ocean of frivolous and pernicious reading, and its very small modicum of instructive matter, like FalstafT 's monstrous quantity of sack to a beggarly pennyworth of bread. In the high class weeklies, the news of the world, of the great events by which history is being made around us, is better digested and conclusions are more wisely drawn than is possible in the dailies. The religious week- lies give much attention to the great moral movements of the age, to the achievements of missions at home and abroad, to the life and work of the various churches in whose interests they are published. The international sys- tem of Sunday-school lessons has called forth a copious literature in which whole commentaries are condensed into pamphlets for the elucidation of the sacred text. It is, in its way, a liberal education to pursue the course of study thus laid down. In the great monthlies many of the best books in science, in philosophy, in fiction, first appear. But there are a multitude of story papers and maga- zines which are filled with the most frivolous and sensa- tional trash, light, frothy, and turgid in character, which cannot by any stretch of charity be called literature at all. These only waste the time, corrupt the taste, and, in the case of the " Satanic press," debauch the soul. A recent reviewer, having examined a great number of speci- 158 Books for the Home. mens of this degraded press, writes, " Nothing good can be said of them ; they must be characterized as bad, worse, worst." They abound in blood-curdling fiction, coarse description, prurient suggestion, and vulgar slang. Many of these " penny dreadfuls " are specially written for boys and girls of crude and uncultivated tastes. The statistics of our prisons show that many youthful criminals have been led into lawless lives by the evil suggestions of these pernicious papers. I HANK God, there is an antidote to these agents of ^ evil. There are papers of pure, ennobling, and uplift- ing tendency, most carefully edited and handsomely illus- trated. These are not merely the issues of the great religious houses, but such splendid papers as " The Youth's Companion," "Harper's Round Table," "St. Nicholas, the boys' and girls' own magazines, and many others. The way to keep bad reading out of the home is to fur- nish that which is good. Young people will prefer bread to carrion, and wise parents will ungrudgingly supply good reading for their households just as they supply good food for their table. Some persons have, unfortunately, little taste for reading of any sort. We have even heard of col- lege graduates who have seldom read a volume except their text-books. A taste for good reading can readily be culti- vated. Give a boy either of those great classics of the English tongue, "Robinson Crusoe," or "Pilgrim's Prog- 159 Books for the Home. ress," and he will soon, like Oliver Twist, ask for more. A whole literature for young people has been created, attrac- tive in form, wholesome in spirit, and instructive and ennobling in general scope and tendency. Under wise counsels and training the young mind will grow up with a taste for wholesome, pure, and bracing books. Wherever possible there should be in every house a good dictionary, an atlas, and a cyclopedia. No unknown word should be passed without learning its meaning. Thus habits of definiteness of thought and exactness of expres- sion will be unconsciously cultivated. A man or woman who is thus trained to a love of good books, has placed in his hand the key of all knowledge. The best books will to him prove solace in solitude, joy amid sorrow, wealth in poverty, and gladness even in life's darkest gloom. Such a pure, refined, and cultivated taste will be a possession which the world cannot give nor take away. It will the better fit its possessor for the duties of time and for the beatitudes of eternity. -**-- Horne Reading Courses. I HE lists of books in the following courses have ^ been prepared with the view of affording to the reader a bird's-eye view of the literature and thought- activity of the world from the most authoritative sources. They have been prepared from the bibliographies of two of 160 Books for the Home. the most experienced authorities living, George Haven Putnam, the eminent publisher, and John Millar, B. A., Deputy Minister of Education of Ontario, with additional suggestions. These books represent a liberal education in themselves and at the same time are vast in scope, compre- hensive in treatment, authoritative, and, in many instances, masterpieces of literature in their respective spheres. Bootes of Reference. Webster, Worcester, or Standard Chambers's, Appleton's, Johnson's, Dictionary. or other Cyclopedia. W. and A. K. Johnston's or other Smith's Bible Dictionary. Atlas. Anthem's Classical Dictionary. History. Cox's Greece. Guizot's History of France. Arnold's Rome. Students Motley's History of Hoi- Students Gibbon. land. Milman's History of the Jews. D'Aubigne's History of the Refor- Green's Shorter History of Eng- mation. land. Ridpath's or Bancroft's History of Hallain's Middle Ages. the United States. McCarthy's History of our own Parkman's Canada. Times. Biography. Hughes' Alfred the Great. Book of Golden Deeds. Washington Irving's Columbus. Biographies of Luther, Melanch- Carlyle's Cromwell. thon, Zwiugle, Calvin, Knox, English Men of Letters, Edited by Wesley, Carey, Morrison, Coke, John Morley. Patton, Duff, Mackay of Uganda, Smiles' Self Help, Duty, Thrift, Mackay of Formosa. and Character. British Statesmen Series. 101 Books for the Home. Travel and Description. Kiuglake's Eothen. Hawthorne's Our Old Home, Eng- Layard's Nineveh, abridged. land. Stanley's Sinai and Palestine. Wallace's Russia. Bayard Taylor's Views Afoot. Howells' Italian Journeys. General Literature. Lord Bacon's Essays. Carlyle's Essays. Macaulay's Essays. Emerson's Essays. Fronde's Short Studies on Subjects. Lowell's Among My Books. Great Dana's Household Book of Poetry. Palgrave's Golden Treasury. ^Esop's Fables. The Poetical Works of Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, Tennyson, Mil- ton, and Bell's Shakespeare (Funk & Wagnall's Edition). \Vork:s of Imagination. Pilgrim's Progress. Robinson Crusoe. Don Quixote. Sir Walter Scott's Tales. Mrs. Stowe's Stories. The Schonberg-Cotta Series. Miss Muloch's John Halifax, and A Noble Life. Dickens's Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, Christinas Carol, Da- vid Copperfield, Old Curiosity Shop, Tale of Two Cities. Rev. Charles Sheldon's Religious Stories. Charles Kingsley's Hypatia, and Westward Ho. Miss Alcott's Little Men, and Lit- tle Women. Hughes' Tom Brown at Rugby. Henty's Historical Stories. Conan Doyle's White Company, and Micah Clark. Hawthorne's The House of Seven Gables. Science. Proctor's Popular Science, Other Worlds than Ours, and Light Science for Leisure Hours, Half Hours with the Stars. Miss Buckley's Fairyland of Science. Dana's Geology. 162 Books for the Home. Course for Ambitious Young People. History and Biography. Outlines of Universal History, The American Commonwealth, Fisher. Bryce. Shorter History of the English Peo- Our Country, Strong. pie, Green. Life of Washington, Irving. Fifteen Decisive Battles of the Life of Lincoln, Nicolay and Hay. World, Creasy. Life of Gladstone, Herbert Glad- Leading Events of American His- stone. tory, Montgomery. Travel and. Science. Bird's-Eye View of the World, Political Economy, Ely. Reclus. Walks and Talks in the Geological Due West, Ballou. Field, Winchell. Over the Ocean, Curtis Guild. Recreation in Astronomy, Warren. Physical Geography, Russell Hin- Chemistry, Appleton. man. Introduction to Botany, Steele. Physics, J. D. Steele. Hygienic Physiology, Steele. Religious Literature. The Bible, especially John, Mark, History of the Christian Church, Proverbs, Acts, Psalms, I. and II. Fisher. Timothy, James. Manual of Christian Evidence, Row. Essays. Sketch-book, Irving. Ethics of the Dust, Ruskin. Outline Study of Man, Hopkins. Handbook of Universal Literature, Self Reliance, Manners, Friend- Botta. ship, Love, Emerson. Makers of Modern English, Daw- Self Help, Smiles. son. 163 Books for the Home. Poetry and Drama. Paradise Lost, Milton. Lady of the Lake, Scott. Hamlet, Shakespeare. Marmion, Scott. Julius Cresar, Shakespeare. Tennyson, Whittier, Longfellow. Kietion. David Copperfield, Dickens. Vanity Fair, Thackeray. Hypatia, Kingsley. Kenilworth, Scott. John Halifax, Miss Muloch. The Pilot, Cooper. Adam Bede, George Eliot. Ben Hur, Wallace. Pilgrim's Progress, Bunyan. Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne. Tom Brown at Rugby, Hughes. Uncle Tom's Cabin, Mrs. Stowe. Advanced Course for Yoting Women. The Dawn of History, Keary. Outlines of Universal History, Fisher. Outlines of European History, Free- man. History of the United States, Hig- ginson. History and Biography. Shorter History of the English Peo- ple, Green. French Revolution, Carlyle. Boswell's Life of Johnson. Irving's Life of Washington. Life of Gladstone, Morley. Friction and Travel. On the Heights, Auerbach. Les Miserables, Hugo. David Copperfield, D'ickens. Ivan hoe, Scott. Romola, George Eliot. Hypatia, Kingsley. Uarda, George Ebers. A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens. Vanity Fair, Thackeray. Lorna Doone, Blackmore. The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne. Alhambra, Irving. Uncle Tom's Cabin, Mrs. Stowe. My Novel, Bulwer. Bird's-Eye View of the World, Reclus. Humboldt's Travels. 164 Books for the Home. Religious Literature. The Bible. Natural Theology, Paley. History of the Christian Church, Analogy of Religion, Butler. Fisher. Christian Ethics, Newman Smyth. History of the Protestant Reforma- The Perfect Life, Charming. tion, D'Aubigne. Essays and Criticism. History of Literature, Taine. Poetry, Comedy, and Duty, Everett. Self Help, Smiles. Macaulay's Essays. Emerson's Essays. Principles of Literary Criticism, Ethics of the Dust, Ruskin. Stedrnan. Sketch Book, Irving. Handbook of Poetics, Gummere. Walden, Thoreau. Poetry and. Drama. Paradise Lost, Milton. The Divine Comedy, Dante. Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Comedy of Goethe's Faust. Errors, Merchant of Venice, Mac- Iliad and Odyssey, Homer, beth, Julius Cfesar, Midsummer Browning, Tennyson, Whittier, Night's Dream, Shakespeare. Longfellow, Lowell, Poe. Lady of the Lake, Scott. Conduct and Fine Arts. Ethics for Young People, Everett. History of Art, Von Reber. Conduct as a Fine Art, Gilman. Esthetics, Bascom. Manners and Social Customs, Slier- The Beautiful and the Sublime, wood. Burke. History of Music, Hunt. Science and Politics. The Human Body, Martin. Chemistry, Remsen. Descriptive Botany, Bessey or Gray. Recreation in Astronomy, Warren. Birds of North America, Audubon. Political Economy, Walker. Voyages of a Naturalist, Darwin. Sociology, Giddings. AValks and Talks in the Geological History of Civilization, Guizot. Field, Wmchell. 165 Books for the Home, Periodical Literature. Youth's Companion, St. Nicholas, Harper's Round Table, Ladies' Home Journal, Public Opinion, Review of Reviews, Outing, Cen- tury Magazine, Harper's Maga- zine, Scribner's Magazine, English Illustrated Magazine, Nineteenth Century, North American Re- view, Forum, Popular Science Monthly, The Art Amateur, The Magazine of Art, The Decorator and Furnisher. 166 CHAPTER FOURTEEN. Music in the Home. UStC is not a luxury for the few, but a form of art that gives pleasure to the many. Accord- ing to Shakespeare " The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils." It is not to be measured by money values any more than love and smiles and kind words are to be gotten and given for dollars. It is not merely a matter of aesthetics but of ethics, and both as a moral force and as an aesthetic art it should be cultivated in the home. " Music is the universal language of mankind." An American or an Englishman may attend a church service in Germany, France, or Italy, and understand no word of the sermon, but the music reaches his heart, for it is in the language of the soul, and that is independent of words. Music is more than the universal language of man- kind, it appeals to the lower animals as well. Ruskin long ago observed : " Brutes can enjoy music. Mice are thrown 167 Music in the Home, into raptures by it. Horses are powerfully excited by the trumpet and may be taught to dance in excellent time." Elephants and even serpents are susceptible to the power of music, and all have observed how a tune whistled or sung will awaken the sweetest carols of the canary. This universal language should, then, be cultivated in the home. Animals are not moved by architecture or painting or sculpture. A horse is indifferent to the noblest building, it means less to him than a barn. Most children must learn to appreciate the more superficial arts, but some appreciation of music is inborn, and the possibilities of its cultivation are boundless. lyl USIC is not a mere ornament, it is an educative V-. power. Plato taught that as gymnastic exercise is necessary to keep the body healthy, so musical exercise is necessary to keep the soul healthy ; and that the proper nourishment of the intellect and emotions can no more take place without music than the proper functions of the stomach and the blood without exercise. Dr. Dogiel, a Rus- sian professor, has experimented with an instrument called the pletismograph, for examining the circulation of blood in man. His discoveries of the effects of music on the blood, the muscles, and nerves of man and the lower animals open up a wonderful field of possible uses for music. He says : " Music is one of the most powerful means of educating children. * * * If sciences are necessary for 168 Music in the Home. the development of the intellect, the arts, painting and music, particularly, are necessary for the education of our feelings." Music develops in youths, imperceptibly to themselves, a certain harmony of feelings, a softening of the strong animal passions, and thus ennobles them and creates a love for everything beautiful. Ruskin declared music to be "the most effective of all instruments of moral education." /V FATHER, whose children were remarkable for V-, cheerfulness and amiability, was asked the secret of his success in training them. He replied : " When anything disturbs their temper I say to them, 'sing,' and if I hear them speak against any person I call them to sing to me ; and so they have sung away all cause of discontent and disposition to scandal." Think over the families you have known ; single out those who cultivated music in the home ; and you will find that in those homes there was a refinement, a gentleness of tone and manner, which gave them a superiority to many others of even higher social position. They were not musical because they were gentle and refined, but they were gentle and refined because they were musical. Those people, by the cultivation of music, came to have an habitual shrinking from discord of any kind. Music is a medicine for the temper. Many a mother almost distracted with the care of a fretful child can make 169 Music in the Home. no better investment of a little time than to go to the piano and play a few simple airs ; at first something soft and plaintive, then gradually brightening and quickening the music. It will not only help the child but the mother will be surprised to find how her own nerves have been soothed and rested. The shadows are gone, the sunshine is come. Not only babes but adults can sometimes be conquered by music. When Napoleon exploded into one of his ungov- ernable furies, Josephine was wont to play to him one sim- ple but beautiful air which always soothed and pacified him. When the father has returned home weary from the manual or mental toil of the day, why should not the chil- dren, if they can play or sing, brighten the evening hours with music ? Memories of these evenings will lighten the toil of the following day. Music is not merely for show and company. The father whose evenings and Sundays are cheered by music either vocal or instrumental will feel that he has made a good investment of his money in pro- viding musical instruction for his children. Those who can play or sing should be forever done with silly excuses and simpering hesitation. When friends want music give it as graciously as you would grant any other favor. Forget self and simply do your best. Excuses spoil the music before it is rendered. 170 Music in the Home. I HOSE who have some musical ability are under a V sacred obligation to cultivate the gift by persever- ing, painstaking practice. The world is full of discords, and he who can introduce one more element of harmony is a benefactor of the race. So also is he who can put in a song where there was but a sad silence. One of the sweetest memories I know is that of the work of a band of little girls who each week visited the sick and aged, bringing flowers and song. Long after the flowers faded and their fragrance was gone the melody of the sweet voices lingered in the hearts and homes visited. It is observable that not only are musical families har- monious in their relations but there is a strength of attach- ment among their members which is not usually found elsewhere. Musical notes as threads of silk and chains of gold have been silently binding those hearts together. Partings may come but attachments continue. Mu- sical memories are independent of time and space. Dis- tance or duration does not weaken the power of music in the home. 171 CHAPTER FIFTEEN. Evenings at Home. x IT ' (^ I HE evening hours are the holy hours of home life. i I They are the hours in which there is the freest play -* of all the hallowed influences that come from the domestic relation ; the hours in which the radiant forces of the home are focalized and brought to their highest efficiency. There is really just as much sunshine on a cloudy day as when the sky is clear, but the sickly growth of vegeta- tion during cloudy weather proclaims its ineffectiveness. So the home may exert just as much actual influence when its sunshine is intercepted by the clouds of care and busy toil; when the merciless dispatch with which "father's" dinner must be prepared, or with which some of those many labors inseparably connected with the home life must be performed, has so absorbed the time and energy of the family that each member seems to be an illustration of the "survival of the fittest." Under these circumstances the home may send forth as large an amount of influence, and yet such influence can- 172 Evenings at Home. not reach the lives and characters of those who have a claim upon it. Such may be called latent influence. It is only when the "day is done " that home exhibits its sweetest and serenest life. It is when the sun has gone down that the home influences become actual and potent. In opening the tender buds of young characters, the light from the hearthstone is far more efficient than the sunlight. I HE distinctive characteristics of the home life are ^ manifested most strongly when the labors of the day are ended and the family gather round the fireside for the evening. One hour of evening home life is worth a month of the ordinary daily experience. It matters little where our days are spent if we spend our evenings at home. Man's soul is not receptive during the day, for its atti- tude is not favorable. The labor of the day puts the mind into that attitude in which it resists the shaping influences of life. Labor itself is in part a process of spiritual resist- ance, so that the soul that toils is comparatively safe from the snares of temptation. During the hours of labor we are less susceptible to good influences as well as to evil ones. The whole being puts itself upon the defensive while it toils. Satisfied with its own condition, it refuses to be changed by outward 173 Evenings at Home. influences. In this principle we find the explanation of the adage, "Idleness is the parent of vice." The evening is the hour when crafty Satan preaches most eloquently. It is also the hour at which he can gather the largest and most attentive audience. In our great cities Satan's churches are crowded every evening. , fortunately, the evening hour is also the hour in which the good angel can gather his largest audi- ence, and he who would baffle Satan's influence must preach in the evening. The evening is the hour when the protecting power of home is greatest ; it is the hour when its protection is most needed. We see a divine wisdom in this. The only hour in the day when the laboring young man is vulnerable to temptation is when his labor is ended and his mind relaxed ; and just at this needed hour the home exerts a doubled influence. Parents need not be at all anxious concerning the character of their boys who from choice stay at home of an evening, but they should never feel at ease concerning those who desire to spend their evenings away from home. We do not mean that children should never go away from home in the evening. The evening is a very proper and agreeable time to visit our neighbors, and children should be allowed frequently to spend the evening with their neighbors' children. This is only a transfer of home 174 Evenings at Home. influence. They are at home in one sense when at their neighbors' home, or at least they are surrounded by home influences. It is an excellent practice to allow children, even when very young, to visit their neighbors' children alone in the evening. The reason of this may not at first be obvious, but we think that upon reflection every parent will per- ceive the wisdom of it. In the first place, it is a mild lesson in self-reliance and independent action, which every parent should try to develop in the minds of his children. Again, all children who are to develop into noble men and women must sooner or later be brought into contact with temptations to every form of improper action, and the earlier this process commences, and the more gradually they encounter the temptations of life, the better for their welfare. And, certainly, sending children to their neigh- bors' alone in the evening, thus putting them upon their own sense of propriety, and subjecting them to the little temptations to trifling breaches of etiquette, which always present themselves when young children gather in groups, is one of the most judicious methods of applying this prin- ciple. It is not well for parents in such cases to be over- strict in regard to the hour of the children's return. It is far better to teach them to exercise their own sense of pro- priety in this matter. Let them be taught that it is a gross breach of good 175 Evenings at Home. manners to stay much beyond a certain hour, perhaps nine o'clock. But this is far different in its effect from commanding them to start when the clock strikes nine. In the one case they are compelled to go home by an inward sense of pro- priety, and in the other by an outward sense of authority. It is always a cross for children to leave their playmates, and if they can just as well be taught to make this sacrifice through their own sense of propriety, their parents should certainly rejoice in this early opportunity to give them a practical lesson in self-denial. If the child is compelled by an outward authority located at home, to withdraw from a pleasant associate, he is quite likely to conceive a dislike for that authority and for the place toward which it con- strains him. Then let the children visit. Let the parents visit in the evenings. Let all the members of the family feel that the home is not a prison. This is the only way in which children can be taught to love home and to feel that home is the best place to spend their evenings. You cannot make them feel this by compelling them to stay at home evenings. If a child has acquired a distaste for home, the evil must be corrected by the use of mild stratagem. I 1NE of the strongest arguments for the habit of spend- ing the evenings at home is found in the opportunity which they offer to the young for self-improvement. 170 Evenings at Home. Horace Mann once wrote a beautiful truth in the form of an advertisement, "Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for- they are gone forever." We would like to have the ordinary young man of twenty-five look over our shoulder while we do a little fig- uring. We mean that young man, however, who is always complaining because he hasn't time. We mean that young man who is mourning because he hasn't an education, who would have gone to college could he have spared the time. We want to show him how many of those golden hours set with diamond minutes he has thrown away since he was sixteen years old. It is nine years since then, and in each of those years there were three hundred and sixty-five evenings. Setting aside the fifty-two Sunday evenings, which, however, might be employed to advantage without violating the fourth commandment, then taking out fifty- two evenings more, one for every week, for visiting and entertaining visitors, there will remain two hundred and sixty-one. Now each one of these two hundred and sixty- one evenings contains four of those golden hours. Hence in one year he throws away one thousand and forty-four hours. During the nine years from sixteen to twenty-five, he throws away nine times this number, or nine thousand three hundred and ninety-six hours. 177 Evenings at Home. Just think of it. The average college student spends about four hours a day in study. There are five days in a week in which he studies, making twenty hours a week. Thirty-eight weeks constitute the college year, making seven hundred and sixty hours which he studies in a year. There are four years in the college course. Hence in his whole course he studies four times seven hundred and sixty, or three thousand and forty hours. This is less than a third as many as the young man may throw away between the ages of sixteen and twenty -five. Should not every such young man feel indignant with himself ? Time enough spent on the street corners, in the stores, in the hotel, or in the bar room, to go through college three times. Nine thousand golden hours gemmed with five hundred and forty thousand diamond minutes, gone forever. Perhaps it may seem even cruel in us to remind the young man of his terrible loss, but it is never too late to do better. A noble endeavor can never be too early or too late. We would not cause any young man a useless pain- ful regret. He cannot profit by mourning over spilt milk, but if he will keep his pan right side up for five years to come he can go through college yet, and graduate when he is thirty years old, and have the honor of presenting to himself his own diploma. Evenings at Home. not alone for the opportunities for culture which they afford are evenings to be prized. The evening in the happy home is a fragment of heaven. We cannot afford to lose it. The ineffable joy that human nature is constituted to experience at the evening hour around the golden altar of home, is a symbol and a prophecy of that which every harmoniously developed soul has reason to believe is in store for him. It is the only place where each and every faculty and power of mind and body may legiti- mately act, and with that divine spontaneity that feels no pressure nor restraint. When reason acts through the day it is spurred to action by the necessities of daily duty, and the pleasure which all organic activity, both mental and physical, is intended to produce is lost in the mad whirl of life's tumultuous conflict. The same is true of that innate, tendency to mathematical computation which is capable of conferring so much pleasure by the revelations it gives of the universality of divine law and order. But when these powers act amid the cheerfulness of the evening entertain- ment at home, in the playful solution of problems and puzzles, they act with a spontaneity and accompanying pleasure on their own account which hint at their origin and their destiny. This same principle applies to every power of being. Who does not still carry in his mind the sweet pictures of happy evenings at home, when all the family sat by the fire, mother with her knitting, and father with his stories of 179 Evenings at Home. prouder days, while the kitten gamboled upon the floor or played with the ball of yarn that fell from mother's lap, and while the fire light moved upon the wall like the wav- ing of a white wing in the darkness, as if heaven could not permit so much joy upon the earth without having its representative there ? Now mother tardily rises to light the lamp, and the children gather round the table with slate and pencil to grapple with those little tasks and problems that only sweeten life's remembrances. How indelibly through all the change-freighted years this picture remains upon the canvas of the soul. Unlike the perishing works of genius, time never bleaches the canvas nor turns the picture pale. Gaze on that picture, O youth. Nor turn your eyes aside when Temptation with perfumed robes sweeps past thee in the tumultuous rush of beauty's carnival. When we turn our eyes from the soft colors of a beautiful picture, to gaze upon the brilliancy of the electric light, and then turn again to view the picture, how dim the colors, how blurred is the whole picture till we have steadily and persistently gazed for a long time. y t.RN a lesson from the analogy that exists between the spirit's eye and that of the body. That sweet picture of your home, O youth, gleams not brilliantly but softly and forever in the evening fire light. Reflect long before you turn your eyes from its images and your heart 180 Evenings at Home. from its solaces to gaze upon the seemingly more resplen- dent pictures to which the truant spirit leads. " Gladly now we gather round it, For the toiling day is done, And the gray and solemn twilight Follows down the golden sun. Shadows lengthen on the pavement, Stalk like giants through the gloom, Wander past the dusky casement, Creep around the fire-lit room. Draw the curtain, close the shutters, Place the slippers by the fire ; Though the rude wind loudly mutters, What care we for wind sprite's ire? " What care we for outward seeming, Fickle fortune's frown or smile ? If around us love is beaming, Love can human ills beguile. 'Neath the cottage roof and palace, From the peasant to the king, All are quaffing from life's chalice Bubbles that enchantment bring. Grates are glowing, music flowing From the lips we love the best ; O, the joy, the bliss of knowing There are hearts whereon to rest ! " Hearts that throb with eager gladness Hearts that echo to our own While grim care and haunting sadness Mingle ne'er in look or tone. 181 Evenings at Home. Care may tread the halls of daylight, Sadness haunt the midnight hour, But the weird and witching twilight Brings the glowing hearthstone's dower. Altar of our holiest feelings ! Childhood's well-remembered shrine ! Spirit yearnings soul revealings Wreaths immortal round thee twine ! " 182 MOMENTS . CHAPTER SIXTEEN. Self Culture. is the constant elimination of useless movements, physical or mental, and the attain- ment of increasing economy in the expendi- ture of our forces. The Indian has plenty of strength, but the white man of half his weight and strength, who has acquired the art of boxing, is more than a match for him ; and this for the simple reason that the Indian has not yet learned to elim- inate the movements that do not count. He is a spend- thrift as regards forces. But the white man, by means of patient culture, has learned to omit all useless movements, and to expend his forces in that manner and at that time and place in which they will tell the most. He does not bend a joint or contract a muscle that does not produce some desirable outward result. It is easy to detect an uncultured person in society ; for example, when he attempts to walk across a hall or draw- ing-room in the presence of spectators. It is not because he does not perform all the movements necessary to take him to the other side, but because he performs certain 185 Self Culture. other movements that interfere with or obstruct the essen- tial movements ; such as the turning of the head from side to side, accompanied by a wasteful expenditure of thought in the form of a painful consciousness that people are gaz- ing at him. There is in his blush a wasteful expenditure of vital forces in compelling the blood to the surface. All such movements are uneconomical because they produce no desirable or useful result. Nature has agreed to give us a positive dislike for all such movements, and we call them awkward. She has also made us susceptible of a positive delight from witnessing economical movements, and at her suggestion we call them graceful. Graceful move- ments, then, are simply economical movements. If the person referred to should walk across the hall with the least possible expenditure of vital and mental force, the movement would necessarily be graceful. Civilization is but aggregate culture, and since culture is the spirit and essence of economy, we see why it is that the science of political economy has always developed itself simultaneously with civilization. Indeed, civiliza- tion and political economy are necessarily reciprocal. 3 UGH, then, is the nature of culture in the abstract. Let us follow out the principle in its application to our physical, mental, and moral natures, and see whether we can find in it anything that shall be of use to us in the development of our lives and characters. 186 Self Culture. Our muscles are cultured when we can use them with no waste of force. Our intellects are cultured when we can solve a problem or arrive at a conclusion by the shortest and most direct route of logical deduction. Our moral nature is cultured when duty becomes a grace- ful and economical movement in the soul ; when the use- less movements of sin are eliminated ; when all our spirit- ual forces are concentrated ; when the good that we do, the graces we exhibit, our acts of abnegation, condolence, sympathy, charity, and love rise without debate spon- taneous from the soul ; when we can say, " Thy will be done," without a diverting and wasting struggle with ourselves. The reason why certain men have been able to accom- plish such wonderful results in the field of thought and investigation is because, through long toil and patient cul- ture, they have learned to concentrate the mental forces by eliminating all useless thoughts. Like the bee, which always takes a straight line, they have acquired an intel- lectual instinct by which they are enabled to take the shortest, directest, and consequently most economical line of logic links between their intellectual standpoint and the solution that they crave. And he who can do this, he who can take the shortest road, can surely go farther and accomplish more in the same time than he who is com- pelled to hunt out his path, to travel through all the by- ways, the briers, the brambles, and the underbrush, and at 187 Self Culture. last, perhaps, lose his way altogether in the vast swamp of intellectual uncertainty. rV LL culture in its ultimate analysis is necessarily self V- culture. Culture when used as a verb predicates the affording of conditions for self -direction or self -develop- ment. If we attempt to culture a horse or a dog we accom- plish the result only by inducing him to make certain vol- untary movements in the direction of our will. But if he does not choose to act according to our will, all culture ceases until he becomes willing to obey. We cannot cul- ture anything that has the power of volition. Hence, when we break a colt, or train a dog, he cultures himself at our suggestion. And thus it is that all the culture we receive in this life must be self culture. Teachers may suggest, but we must execute ; they may advise, but we must do the work. I HE sense in which we have used the word "culture " ^ is not very different from that in which we have used the word " education" in the chapter on the "Educa- tion of Our Boys." Indeed, all that we have said by way of definition in either chapter might have been said with equal propriety in the other. We will allow the one to supplement the other. The words educate, train, and culture are, for all prac- 188 Self Culture. tical purposes, synonymous, and may be used interchange- ably. In our chapter on " Home Training " we have pre- sented some similar thoughts concerning the importance of training or cultivating the physical, intellectual, and moral nature in the proper order, and in the right way. That, however, was intended chiefly for advice to parents con- cerning the management of children too young to attempt self culture. But the primary constitution does not change. What the child requires, the youth and young man require, only, perhaps, in larger quantities and in dif- ferent proportion. Hence in this chapter we shall aim to give such helpful advice as will enable young men and women to continue the process that their parents helped them to begin. They may now call it self culture, to denote a higher stage of the same process. The first and chief aim of self culture, as of all educa- tion, should be symmetry. The undue strengthening of one part or faculty, to the neglect of another, is not cul- ture, but according to our definition it is the reverse, for it destroys that power of co-ordinate action and economical expenditure of effort in which culture consists. No power of mind or body exists independent of other powers, and so cannot be unduly strengthened without peril to the other and weaker ones. If the stomach be enlarged by over-eating, while the lungs be kept weak and small, the whole body will become 189 Self Culture. diseased and the mind also ; for a sound mind cannot exist in an unhealthy body. The stomach, being large, will crave a large amount of food, but the lungs, being small, cannot furnish oxygen enough to oxidize the carbon that is furnished to the blood by the stomach ; so the system becomes clogged ; corrupt and troublesome ulcers appear, and perhaps consumption, and all because the stomach was enlarged. Not because the lungs were not cultivated, but because the stomach was cultivated alone, as if it were an independent organ. Similar disasters follow the independent and separate training of any of the other physical powers. If the stomach, the appetite, the lungs, the liver, the kidneys, the circulation, the skin, and the muscles be all cultivated to- gether, the more they are cultivated the better. It is abso- lutely impossible to carry that kind of culture to excess. But if we cannot cultivate all, it is far better not to specially cultivate any of the physical functions. I T is a well-known fact that circus performers are very short lived ; and yet we would naturally expect them to live to a very old age. How full and powerful their lungs are ! How agile they are ! How almost marvelous the strength of their muscles ! How erect they are ! What free play all the internal organs must have ! They are compelled by their employment to live temperately ; their food is that which is recommended by the highest medical 190 Self Culture. authority ; they sleep in well ventilated rooms. It would seem that if earthly immortality were possible, the profes- sional gymnasts should possess the boon. But, instead, the average duration of their lives is very short. How shall we account for this paradox ? Simply by that principle just named, which demands the symmet- rical and proportionate development of all the functions. They carry training of the muscles to such an extent, that, like wasting fire, they consume their vitality. In spite of all hygienic regimen and temperance, their training is not symmetrical, although it may appear to be such. The human body is a delicate machine, and no wheel can be made to turn faster or slower than it was intended to turn without tearing off the cogs. But it is often found that in the same individual certain vital organs even with- out special culture are larger and more powerful than others, and this is doubtless the reason why many appar- ently healthy people die young. It is because they are born with some of the vital organs powerfully developed, while others are weak, and the strong ones consume the vitality that the weak ones have not the energy to appropriate. It should be the first object of culture to balance the powers by cultivating the weak and restraining the over- action of the strong. After this most desirable result has been secured, all the functions should be trained alike, and the whole carried to the highest possible state of culture. It 191 Self Culture. is usually an easy matter to ascertain what organs of the body are weak and what strong, but, in case the facts are not obvious, a physician should be consulted, who should be requested to test all the vital organs ; not to doctor them, but to measure their strength. If the brain and nervous system are predominant, much muscular exercise should be taken, while the mental powers, and especially the imagination, should be restrained. If the reverse is true, the brain should be forced to act, and the tendency to muscular action should be held in check. If the muscles are stronger than the framework of the body, then great care should be used not to exercise the muscles to their full extent, for such a practice would be sure to strain the body and injure the vital organs. This condition is oftener seen in women than in men ; hence women frequently injure themselves by lifting. If the muscles are weaker than the framework, then little injury can result from the full and unrestrained use of the muscles. But Nature is very kind to those who are too ignorant to ascertain their own weaknesses. She has so constituted us that the best and most useful form of exercise is that of walking or running. And that is just the kind of exercise that the necessities of life compel us to take the most of. This form of exercise actually has a tendency to balance the organic developments, for it brings into action every organ of the body, and in such a way as to benefit the 193 Self Culture. weak ones relatively more than the strong ones. For instance, if the lungs are weak and the muscles strong, then the lungs will be the first to say stop ; and they will say so just at that moment when they have received the greatest possible amount of good from the running. The lungs will have received just enough exercise to do them good long before the muscles have had enough to test their endurance, or to strengthen them much. If the muscles are weak and the lungs strong, then the muscles will control the amount of running, and adapt it to their own particular needs. Long before the lungs have received exercise enough to do them much good, the mus- cles will have received just enough to do them the greatest possible amount of good. Thus we see how it is that run- ning is the best exercise in the world, and, to a certain extent, relieves us of the responsibility of ascertaining which are our weak organs, for it will pick them out for us and make them strong. People both walk and run far too little. It is, perhaps, impossible for human beings or animals to be born with all their organs in a state of perfect balance, and running seems to be Nature's means of bal- ancing them, for she gives the young of all animals, the human species included, an irrepressible impulse to run almost continually, and during that age, too, in which their organs are most easily modified. As a rule, children need no other physical culture than their own freedom. A child in the woods for one day will 193 Self Culture. do more in the direction of curing an organic weakness than all the doctors of Christendom. 1 1 TE have spoken thus minutely on the subject of phys- ^ ical culture not only because physical culture is the basis of all culture, but because the general directions which we have given are as applicable to intellectual and moral culture as to physical. Symmetry is the one idea that should be kept promi- nently in view in all forms of culture. But the laws of the mind are such as to allow considerable margin for va- riety's sake. One need not be equally gifted in all his men- tal powers in order to be symmetrical. It is not necessary that he be able with equal facility to play the violin and calculate an eclipse. He may be born with such a latent talent for music as to render this not only the most pleasant but also the most profitable occupation of his life, and still violate no essential law of symmetry. But if he possess the talent to such a degree as to become its slave, while his whole mental energy is absorbed by the one pas- sion, and he is left to feel that there is nothing else beside music to render life worth living, he has passed the limits which the law of variety allows him and has become unsym- metrical. His musical faculty should be restrained, while other faculties should be called to the front and compelled to act. This is a hard task anrl one which is not very fre- Self Culture. quently accomplished, for the very reason that the diffi- culty itself is of such a character as to prevent the person from seeing things in their true light. When one talks to him about the grandeur of science and the beauties of philosophy, he listens with impatience to such foolish- ness. The same is true of all forms of disproportionate mental development. Nothing but a knowledge of the mental economy will enable one, under these circum- stances, to see himself as he is. When one looks upon himself from the standpoint of mental science, he elimi- nates the bias of his own feelings resulting from his strong- est tendencies, and sees himself as others see him. It is very often the case that one can be made to see his own mental defects in no other way than by a study of mental science. I HERE is one law of great importance that should not ^ be lost sight of either in physical or mental culture. It is the law of periodicity. It is in recognition of this law that the professional gymnast is required to practice at just such an hour each day. In some way which we can- not fully understand, the muscles instinctively adapt them- selves to the conditions of periodical activity, so that when the appointed hour arrives it finds them in that particular condition which enables them to derive the greatest possi- ble amount of good from a given amount of practice. The 195 Self Culture. law operates in precisely the same way in the mental economy. A music teacher who has had much experience will insist that the pupil practice at the same hour each day. It is not essential that we should advise more minutely with reference to the education of the mental powers, since the needed advice may be found in the chapter devoted expressly to that subject. /y I ORAL culture involves no different principle from V_ that of intellectual culture, and the cardinal idea of symmetry is as applicable to this form as to the two forms we have already considered. The same is true of the law of periodicity ; the saint who prays at regular periods will grow in the instinct of prayer and faith, while he who prays only when he finds it convenient will find that the intervals grow constantly wider. It is necessary, however, to keep constantly in mind the fact that the only legitimate condition of him who lays claim to moral cul- ture is that of the complete supremacy of the moral senti- ments over the passions. All sin originates in passional supremacy, while out of the ceaseless and often equal con- flict between the moral impulses and those of the passions, grow all the enigmas of human conduct. A person in whom the latter condition exists will remain alike to his friends and foes an unsolved problem. He will be both 196 Self Culture. very good and very bad. When under the dominion of the excited passions he may be a fiend ; but an hour later he may be a saint. The saddest condition for a human being is that in which the passions and moral sentiments are so equally balanced that neither can gain a permanent vic- tory over the other. When the moral sentiments and the passions are both predominant at intervals, the moral sense becomes capri- cious and cannot be depended upon. The person becomes distrustful of his own good resolves, and his character loses all stability and permanence. Either condition is bad enough, but on the whole we regard the relation of equality between the passions and the morals as the most dangerous and destructive. So deplorable is this condition that we would even regard the permanent ascendency of the passions as a lesser evil. Such a condition offers little hope of recovery, for the passions and moral sentiments both grow by their occa- sional victories, the one as fast as the other, and both are weakened by their occasional defeats, the one as much as the other. The remedy for this condition is to make the intellect an ally for the conscience. It should be required to devise means to keep the passions out of temptation. When the passions are not aroused by the presence of temptation, they are not difficult to manage. Ordinarily, however, 197 Self Culture. temptation is a source of strength, uniformly, indeed, if it be resisted. But this condition is not always fulfilled, and in the case we are considering it is almost sure not to be fulfilled. The intellect, therefore, should see that tempta- tion is never allowed to be present, and should seek those places, occasions, and influences that appeal to the morals. By persisting in this course a long time the moral nature will gain a permanent victory, and then the vigi- lant restraint may be removed, the fetters may be taken off from the passions, and they will recognize their master. " When gentle twilight sits On day's forsaken throne, 'Mid the sweet hush of eventide, Muse by thyself alone. And at the time of rest Ere sleep asserts its power, Hold pleasant converse with thyself In meditation's bower. " Motives and deeds review By memory's truthful glass, Thy silent self the only judge And critic as they pass ; And if thy wayward face Should give thy conscience pain, Resolve with energy divine The victory to gain. 198 Self Culture. " Drink waters from the fount That in thy bosom springs, And envy not the mingled draught Of satraps or of kings ; So shalt thou find at last, Far from the giddy brain Self-knowledge and self-culture lead To uncomputed gain." 199 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. Sundays at Home. HETHER we regard the Sabbath as divinely appointed or as growing out of the instincts and necessities of man's moral and spiritual nature, the experience of man has demonstrated that it sustains a vital relation to our highest welfare. With the exception of the few hours supposed by all civilized people to be spent in public worship, the day is not in any sense a public day, but, on the contrary, it is the most private of all days. It is a day when the loud tumult of public affairs is hushed, and each individual becomes a world in himself. It is a day of personal meditation. A purely public day, like the Fourth of July in the United States, bears little relation to the home life. It is from the fact that Sunday is the most private of all days, that we here make it a subject of special consideration ; in order, if possible, to determine what purpose in the economy of home shall be subserved by this important period called the Sabbath. It constitutes one seventh of our entire existence, and of no other seventh do we spend so large a part at home. For the small part that is devoted 200 Sundays at Home. to public worship by no means equals that consumed on other days by labor and those duties which partially or wholly isolate us from the influences of home. H>jOW, then, shall we employ the Sunday at home? V_ How shall we secure for it a place among the higher ministries of home life ? This, of course, will depend somewhat upon the views we hold concerning the nature and object of the Sabbath. It is not our purpose to discuss the subject in its theo- logical aspect, but simply to compel it, if possible, to yield a contribution to the lessons of home life. And yet it is impossible to do even this without taking some definite ground as to the religious significance of the day. It is useless to contend that the Sabbath has no religious sig- nificance, for, to divest it of such significance would be, in the nature of things, to abolish it altogether. If it be claimed that the Sabbath was born of human instincts, still it was of the religious instincts, and to prove that it was thus born would be to claim for it a Divine sanction. We believe that the religious nature of man and the insti- tution of the Sabbath are complementary, the one to the other. But whatever origin may be claimed for the Sab- bath, and whatever purpose it was primarily intended to serve in the economy of civilization, we have no reason to believe that it was intended for a period of " suspended animation" or of physical and mental stagnation. Jesus 201 Sundays at Home. rebuked the too close and Pharisaical observance of the Sabbath, and taught, both by precept and by example, that man was not made in order that he might observe the Sab- bath, but, on the contrary, that the Sabbath was made in order that man might have the privilege of observing it. Man was made first and the Sabbath was adapted to him, although we believe that the natural law on which the Sabbath is based is coeval with the history of creation. If, then, the Sabbath originated in the religious instincts of man, it is inconsistent and foolish to contend that it should not be observed as a day of special religious exercise. But the question still arises, what constitutes special religious exercise ? and by what method is the desired result best attained ? The now generally recognized law that disagreeable or painful action always weakens the faculty involved instead of strengthening it, is directly opposed to the Puritanic observance of the Sabbath ; for how can a child be sub- mitted to more intense mental torture, than to be compelled to spend a whole day where he is not allowed to smile, where all conversation is suppressed, except that which is absolutely necessary, and where even that is conducted with semi-whispers in the unmistakable tone of reverence and awe ? The Sabbath in too many homes is a day to be dreaded by the children. The observance of it required is so strict as to be painful, and hence weakens their moral and religious nature instead of strengthening it. The effect 202 Sundays at Home. of such forced action is almost always far worse than no action at all. This law obtains with reference to every power of our being, but its action is most obvious with reference to the moral and spiritual faculties. These must act from choice or they cannot be strengthened. Hence the question becomes a most delicate one, "How shall the Sunday be spent at home ? " l/ERHAPS no further advice to the intelligent parent V,^ is required than that he should be guided in all cases by this great law, that every action, in order that it may strengthen the part acting, must be accompanied with pleasure, instead of pain. In the first place, let the Sunday at home be divested of all needless solemnity ; let it be a day of cheerfulness and social enjoyment, a day of music both instrumental and vocal, a day of conversation and reading. Let the chil- dren be taught to think and to meditate on the great prob- lems of life and the vast concerns of eternity, not in a solemn, awe-inspiring way, but in a manner consonant with good judgment and common sense. Let them be encouraged to engage in respectful discussions among themselves on these questions. Thus will they early develop a tendency to think and hold opinions of their own, while yet the parents' superior wisdom may detect and point out fallacies in their reasoning. There is little danger of sophistry and false conclusions in these argu- 203 Sundays at Home. ments if the parent is watchful, and seeks constantly to set the young thinkers right, not by an ipse dixit, nor even by "thus saith the Scripture," but by convincing their reason with superior logic. When one begins to doubt any doctrine, whether intel- lectual or religious, he naturally conceives a dislike for any authority which disputes his ground, unless the authority is enforced by reasons which his own intellect is compelled to acknowledge as conclusive. Superior logic is the only authority which a questioning mind naturally receives with good grace. Hence, if you do not wish your child to hate the Bible, do not attempt to silence all his questions by the mere quotation of Scriptural texts, but first, calmly and kindly, lay bare the fallacy in his argument, and then show him, if you choose, how your own argument accords with Scripture. But it may be asked, why not teach the child to trust ? why cultivate a tendency to question, by harboring the argumentative disposition ? There is, it is true, a period in early childhood when unquestioning trust is natural and proper. But let us remember that when the child reaches the age of fourteen or fifteen, he comes suddenly into pos- session of the weapon of logic, and no matter what may have been the teachings and influences of his early years, he will, between the ages of fourteen and twenty, think, doubt, and question for himself. Every human mind, however trustful it may be through childhood, must pass 204 Sundays at Home. through its period of doubt and mental conflict, and the earlier this period is passed, the better and the safer. Unbelievers are made out of those minds which receive only the ipse dixit of bigoted fathers, after the awakening intellect demands a reason. When questions begin to present themselves to such minds, questions that insist upon an answer, dissatisfied with the merely dogmatic answer of the father, they nat- urally appropriate the most logical explanation at hand, which, of course, partakes of the narrowness of their own thought-power, and thus they are often led astray. There are probably in the world few unbelievers who would be such had their young logic been answered with logic and not with authority. We believe that a very large percentage of the world's unbelief is due to a wrong system of Sunday discipline. we would not have the children disregard the solemnity and sanctity of the Sabbath. It is nat- ural for children as well as for older people to have their periods of serious thought. But parents should bear in mind that with the child these periods are not naturally quite so serious nor so protracted as their own. We believe the day should be a day of rest, not, however, for the reason usually assigned, viz., that man's physical nature requires it. For to suppose that the natural duties of life constitute a burden so heavy that it cannot be borne with- 205 Sundays at Home. out constantly putting it down, is to suppose that God made a mistake in the adaptation of life's powers to its duties. Man is surely as well adapted to his natural surround- ings as the ant or the beaver, and to these, the burden of life's labor is not so great as to require a periodic rest. \ ijE believe that the philosophy of the Sabbath as a ^ day of rest is to be found in Nature's law of undi- vided intensity, the law by which it is impossible for an organized being to act intensely at two or more points at the same time. This law holds with equal force in the physical, intellectual, and moral worlds. The physician makes a practical application of its physical phase when he irritates the feet with drafts to cure the headache. The student applies its mental phase when he requires his room to be silent in order that he may put his "whole mind " to his task. And the saint applies its moral phase when he avoids temptation and prays in his closet. Now, the Sabbath is the complement of man's religious nature, and in accordance with the law of " periodicity," of which we have already spoken in our chapter on " Self Culture," this department of his nature must act with special force at certain regular periods. In the light of these facts the whole philosophy of the Sabbath as a day of rest may be seen at a glance by watching a laborer at work. Suddenly a thought seizes him ; one which deeply 206 Sundays at Home. interests, and vitally concerns him. How instinctively he drops his tools and stands motionless ! Now, we have only to regard the world as one man laboring for his daily bread, but who, by a law of his spiritual nature, is called upon once in seven days to think with special intensity upon the great concerns of the eternal and the unseen. The same instinct that caused the mechanic to drop his tool and stand motionless causes the world to do the same. It is but the instinctive applica- tion of this universal law of undivided intensity that closes the furnace door, hushes the roar of the engine, and spreads the mantle of silent thought over the great city. I S it then a sin to labor on the Sabbath ? Yes, a two- fold sin, a sin against both our physical and our moral nature. Just as when one eats heartily when engaged in intense mental labor, he sins against both his mind and his stomach. Physicians tell us we can do nothing more injurious, for the brain leaving concentrated nearly all the vital energy of the system, the stomach is in consequence left feeble and unable to dispose of its burden without a great strain. Exactly the same principle holds with reference to laboring on the Sabbath. The absorbing occupation of the Sabbath should be the study of ourselves with the one view to symmetrical self culture. Sunday is the day of all others for self culture. It is a day in which we should study our relation to our 207 Sundays at Home. Maker, and in accordance with the impulses of the moral nature, all our mental energies should be expended in rounding out our characters, and perfecting our whole nature. He who attempts this great work on the Sabbath, and at the same time attempts to carry on the ordinary labors of life, is not only thwarting his own efforts at self-improve- ment, but is doing that which will shorten his life perhaps a score of years. But he who carries his ordinary labors into the Sab- bath does not, of course, observe the day. Then he com- mits a still worse sin. He not only sins against society, which, however, is a comparatively minor sin, but he refuses to obey a great spiritual law, which is woven into the very constitution of his moral nature. So that, view the subject as we may, we cannot ignore the Sabbath without sinning against ourselves, and we cannot sin against ourselves without sinning against our God. * " O day to sweet religious thought So wisely set apart, Back to the silent strength of life Help thou my wavering heart. 1 ' Nor let the obtrusive lies of sense My meditations draw From the composed, majestic realm Of everlasting law. 208 Sundays at Home. " Break down whatever hindering shapes I see or seem to see, And make my soul acquainted with Celestial company. " Beyond the wintry waste of death Shine fields of heavenly light ; Let not this incident of time Absorb me from their sight. " I know these outward forms wherein So much my hopes I stay, Are but the shadowy hints of that Which cannot pass away. " That just outside the work-day path By man 's volition trod, Lie the resistless issues of The things ordained of God." 209 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. Individual Rules of Conduct. ^CCESSFUL culture is rarely the result of unmethodical effort. The best results are obtained only when due regard is had to a judicious and systematic use of time, when the mind sub- jects itself to self-government through a code of laws adopted and approved by itself. Mind in all its operations and volitions is under the dominion of law. There is no product of creation's law that in its operations can tran- scend law. A being, then, develops best and most rapidly when each department of his nature is subjected to the rigid discipline of its own laws. In our chapter on self culture we have dwelt upon the general laws that govern our physical, intellectual, and moral natures ; but there are laws of a less general charac- ter, which it is equally important that we should observe, laws pertaining to individuals and growing out of organic or temperamental conditions. These laws each individual must discover and obey for 210 Individual Rules of Conduct. himself ; for since they originate in individual peculiarities they cannot be of general significance, and hence cannot be formulated into a code by any but the individual him- self. Such are the laws pertaining to the particular time and the amount of sleep required by each person, to the kind and quantity of food desirable for each, and to the processes of thought and mental activity that vary with traits and temperaments. All these laws should be ascertained by self-examina- tion and by remembering our own experiences. In this connection it is proper to consider the importance of divid- ing each day into periods for the performance of special duties. Learn from self-observation what part of the day may be with greatest advantage spent in reading and study. Not alone, however, with reference to reading and study, but with reference to each and every function of life. But it is not enough merely to learn these facts. It is far more important, as it is far more difficult, to form and keep the resolutions to which this knowledge should prompt us and make them a part of our daily routine. I HIS subject naturally suggests the practice of keep- ^ ing a journal. There is perhaps no other practice which, in proportion to the exertion it requires, is capable of yielding such desirable results in the direction of personal culture. Setting aside the advantages of being able, at a moment's notice, to present the written volume of our lives 211 Individual Rules of Conduct. (not the generalities and glowing eulogiums in which biog- raphers and literary executors indulge), such a minute delineation of our daily thoughts and deeds through all our past years, as will enable us at any moment to tell what function in our life's programme a given day has per- formed, setting aside all this, there is probably no one practice more disciplinary in its permanent effects than that of recording each night the thoughts and deeds of the vanished day. The duty, however, should be conscien- tiously performed. This disciplinary tendency is in the process itself independent of the record's value. It often happens that the demands of daily life present themselves with such tumultuous rapidity, and in such perplexing confusion, that the great reviewer, Conscience, does not always have time to subject each act to a suffi- ciently scrutinizing examination. And many of them get a favorable verdict by demanding a haste that conceals their deformities. But when, at the close of day, that hour which seems to offer most leisure for the solution of life's problems, we sit, calmly reviewing our deeds in the order of their occurrence, and in all their inter-relations, then it often happens that Conscience finds occasion to revoke its decision, and to pass a severer verdict. Again, the aid in the cultivation of memory which the practice offers is by no means insignificant, since it espe- cially cultivates that power of memory in which a large number of persons are deficient, viz., the power to repro- 212 Individual Rules of Conduct. duce impressions in the order in which they occurred. It is needless to say that this form of memory is the most useful of all. That form of memory which enables one to reproduce a few disjointed links in a chain of thought, although it may reproduce a great many of them, can sel- dom be of great service to its possessor. The recollection of past events is valuable to us only as it enables us to recognize the relation of the recollected events. Hence the value of that form of memory that can recollect them in their sequential order. Now, the reader will demand no proof of the assertion that there are no means by which this form of memory can be so quickly and thoroughly acquired as by the practice of recalling each night the experiences of the day in their chronological order. The talent for public speaking, so highly prized by all young men, but possessed by few, is almost wholly conferred by this power of consecutive memory. Those who possess it are enabled not only to reproduce the thoughts gathered in the process of prepara- tion, but to reproduce them in their order, one thought suggesting the next and thus enabling the speaker to dis- pense with notes. We cannot too strongly urge the practice of keeping a journal. We have dwelt thus at length upon the subject on account of the importance which we believe it pos- sesses, and because it affords the best possible assistance in carrying out the chief injunction of this chapter, viz., 213 Individual Rules of Conduct. that each individual should govern himself by laws, max- ims, and resolutions of his own authorship. I fE would recommend, not only the practice of record- ^ ing, in the evening, the thoughts, deeds, and events of the day, but also of recording, in the morning, that which we intend to accomplish during the day. This prac- tice offers a threefold advantage. First, it enables us to govern ourselves through the day by the laws which we enact in our better moods ; second, it leads us to set a high price upon time, and to cultivate a habit of punctuality and method ; third, when we have written the record at even- ing just under the promise of the morning, and the divine conscience within us utters in our spirit's ear the comments that seem fittest, we may be gazing upon one of the most significant lessons of life. For it is a lesson symbolic of the close of many a life ; a dark and colorless evening in sad contrast with the brilliant hues and joyous beauty of youth's morning. The practice can have but one tendency, and that is to make these two records more closely agree. I HE journal or diary is the best and most convenient ^ place in which to record those maxims and resolu- tions, the wisdom and necessity of which we have so strongly urged. As fast as you discover under what par- ticular regulations and circumstances a given function of 214 Individual Rules of Conduct. your life is most advantageously performed, make these regulations and circumstances the theme of a resolution or a maxim, and record it in your diary, to become a law of your life. In this way you will eliminate the evil and conserve the good in your experience. You will grow wiser and better, and in the end, it is possible that your list of resolu- tions may become a contribution to the world's store of wisdom and virtue. This, however, should not be the object of the resolutions. Your one purpose should be the development in your soul of life's virtues, for it is by these that life is measured. " Count life by virtues ; these will last When life's lame, foiled race is o'er ; And these, when earthly joys are past, Shall cheer us on a brighter shore." 215 CHAPTER NINETEEN. Correspondence and Social Korms. HERE is probably no one accomplishment that reveals so much of human character as that of correspondence. All are familiar with the fact that experts are able from the handwriting alone to give the prominent features of the writer's character, and in cases of suspected forgery the uniformity of handwriting is allowed as evidence in the courts. But much as is revealed by the manner in which we write, still more is revealed by the nature of that which is written, not only the general merit of the composition, but the thoughts and sentiments expressed, the delicacy and propriety with which they are expressed, the neatness of the written page, the orthography, and the grammar. Then there is a certain individuality that impresses us that comes under none of these heads, too subtile to be reduced to a definition ; more ethereal than the perfume of a tropic morning, but which stamps the product unmistakably as the work of a noble soul. This indefinable something transforms all the sharp angles and irregular lines into 216 Correspondence and Social Forms. shapes that please, and covers the ugliness of imperfect chirography with a secondary beauty on which we delight to gaze. SCCHOLARSHIP, culture, refinement, and inborn no- '**^ bility nowhere betray themselves so conspicuously as in the act of correspondence. While general culture of the whole mind is necessary to the acquirement of this accomplishment, yet the only specific means to be employed is the study of the best models. Advantage should be taken of the imitative tendency of little chil- dren, and accordingly all the best correspondence of the parents should be read repeatedly to the children. They will always be interested in a letter from Aunt Josephine or Cousin Robert, and if the letter is a good model it should be read and re-read in the presence of the child till he begins to catch the phraseology. The best models of the father's business correspondence may be committed to memory by the children. These forms once fixed in their minds will leave their influence long years after the words of the model are forgotten. The particular examples and problems we solved in our school days are all forgotten, but they have left something in our minds of which we make use every day. So in regard to these models in correspondence. It is not so much the mechanical form of the written page to which we would call the attention of the young reader, as to that Correspondence and Social Forms. intellectual ideal to which the study of the models gives rise, and which embraces not only .the mechanical form, but all the qualities that go to make it a finished product of the individual mind. We have tried to select such models as in themselves convey valuable suggestions and information on the gen- eral theme of correspondence. The one great error into which most young people fall in the matter of correspondence is the idea that to write a letter is to perform a literary feat. When a child writes his first letter to his cousin or absent friend, he usually makes a day's work of it even with his mother's suggestions, while if that cousin or friend were to visit him, he would not only find no diffi- culty in prattling all day, but would probably much prefer to dispense with his mother's suggestions. In the following letter from the Hon. William Wirt to his daughter, mark how charmingly natural and simple his language. It seems almost impossible that such should have been written. It seems more like a verbatim report of a fireside conversation. BALTIMORE, April 18, 1882. MY DKAK CHILD : You wrote me a dutiful letter, equally honorable to your head and heart, for which I thank you, and when I grow to be a light- hearted, light-headed, happy, thoughtless young girl, I will give you a quid pro quo. As it is, you must take such a letter as a man of sense can write, although it has been remarked, that the' more 218 Correspondence and Social Forms. sensible the man, the more dull his letter. Don't ask me by whom remarked, or L shall refer you, .with Jenkinson, in the Vicar of Wakefield, to Sanconiathon, Manetho, and Berosus. This puts me in mind of the card of impressions from the pencil seals, which I intended to enclose last mail, for you to your mother, but forgot. Lo ! here they are. These are the best I can find in Baltimore. I have marked them according to my taste ; but exer- cise your own exclusively, and choose for yourself, if either of them please you. Shall I bring you a Spanish guitar of Giles' choosing? Can you be certain that you will stick to it? And some music for the Spanish guitar? What say you? There are three necklaces that tempt me, a beautiful mock emerald, a still more beautiful mock ruby with pearls, and a still most beautiful of real topaz, what say you? Will you have either of the scarfs described to your mother, and which the blue or the black ? They are very fashionable and beautiful. Any of those wreaths arid flowers? Consult your dear mother ; always consult her, always respect her. This is the only way to make yourself respectable and lovely. God bless you, and make you happy. Your affectionate father, WILLIAM WIRT. This quality of simplicity is the chief virtue of the family letter and the letter of friendship. In these it is necessary to observe but one principal rule, viz., write just as you would talk if the person to whom you write were by your side. A letter to mother or father is no place to display your literary skill by the free use of tech- nical words and high-sounding phrases. When the letters of brothers and sisters become essays, be assured that their heart relations are not what they should be. The vocabu- 210 Correspondence and Social Forms. laries of affection are not compiled from the glossaries of science and philosophy. When you write to a friend put yourself into the letter. He does not wish you to instruct him. It isn't what you say, but yourself that he desires. Except that of business, the one object of all correspondence is to serve as a substi- tute for that interblending of personalities which is the excuse and philosophy of society. It is a miserable substi- tute at best, and fulfills its office badly enough even when we put all of ourselves into it that we can. It is not ego- tism to talk about yourself in a letter of friendship, for, if your friend is not interested in you, he is not your friend. The following is from a young man in college to his mother. It does not contain a single allusion to Calculus, nor are there any Latin quotations in it. AMHERST COLLEGE, Tuesday evening. MY DEAR MOTHER : Though I am now sitting with my back toward you, yet I love you none the less ; and what is quite as strange, I can see you just as plainly as if I stood peeping in upon you. I can see you all just as you sit around the table. Tell me if I do not see you? There is mother on the right of the table with her knitting, and a book open before her ; and anon she glances her eye from the work on the paper to that on her needles ; now counts the stitches, and then puts her eye on the book, and then starts off on another round. There is Mary, looking wise and sewing with all her might ; now and then stopping to give Sarah and Louise a lift in their lessons trying to initiate them in the mysteries of geography. She is on the left side of the table. There, in the background,