After your duty to your wife comes that towards the children whom God lends to you, to fit them to return pure and virtuous to him. This is your task, responsibility, and trust, to be undertaken prayerfully, earnestly, and humbly, as the highest and most sacred duty this life ever can afford you.
The relationship between parent and child, is one that appears to have been ordained by Providence, to bring the better feelings of mankind and many domestic virtues into active exercise. The implicit confidence with which children, when properly treated, look up to their elders for guidance is not less beautiful than endearing; and no parents can set about the work of guiding aright, in real earnest, without deriving as much good as they impart. The feeling with which this labor of love would be carried forward is, as the poet writes of mercy, twice blessed:—
“It blesses him that gives and him that takes.”
And yet, in daily life and experience, how seldom do we find these views realized! Children, in too many instances, are looked on as anything but a blessing; they are treated as incumbrances, or worse; and the neglect in which they are brought up, renders it almost impossible for them, when they grow older, to know anything properly of moral or social duties. This result we know, in numerous cases, is not willful, does not arise from ill intentions on the part of parents, but from want of fixed plans and principles. There are hundreds of families in this country whose daily life is nothing better than a daily scramble, where time and place, from getting up in the morning to going to bed at night, are regarded as matters of chance. In such homes as these, where the inmates are willing to do well, but don’t know how, a word in season is often welcome. “Great principles,” we are told, “are at the bottom of all things; but to apply them to daily life, many little rules, precautions, and insights are needed.”
The work of training is, in some degree, lightened by the fact, that children are very imitative; what they see others do, they will try to do themselves, and if they see none but good examples, good conduct on their part may naturally be looked for. Children are keen observers, and are very ready at drawing conclusions when they see a want of correspondence between profession and practice, in those who have the care of them. At the age of seven, the child’s brain has reached its full growth; it seldom becomes larger after that period, and it then contains the germ of all that the man ever accomplishes. Here is an additional reason for laying down the precept:—be yourselves what you wish the children to be. When correction is necessary, let it be administered in such a way as to make the child refrain from doing wrong from a desire to do right, not for the sole reason that wrong brings punishment. All experience teaches us that if a good thing is to be obtained, it must be by persevering diligence; and of all good things, the pleasure arising from a well-trained family is one of the greatest. Parents, or educators, have no right to use their children just as whim or prejudice may dictate. Children are smaller links in the great social chain, and bind together in lasting ties many portions which otherwise would be completely disjointed; their joyousness enlivens many a home, and their innocence is a powerful check and antidote to much that is evil. The implicit obedience which is required of them, will always be given when called forth by a spirit of forbearance, self-sacrifice, and love:—
“Ere long comes the reward,
And for the cares and toils we have endured,
Repays us joys and pleasures manifold.”
If you cherish and honor your own parents, then do you give your children the most forcible teaching for their duty, example. And your duty to your children requires your example to be good in all things. How can you expect counsel to virtue to have any effect, if you constantly contradict it by a bad example? Do not forget, that early impressions are deep and lasting, and from their infancy let them see you keep an upright, noble walk in life, then may you hope to see them follow in your footsteps.
Justice, as a sentiment, is inborn, and no one distinguishes its niceties more quickly than a child. Therefore in your rewards and punishments examine carefully every part of their conduct, and judge calmly, not hastily, and be sure you are just. An unmerited reward will make a child question your judgment as much as an unmerited punishment.
Guard your temper. Never reprove a child in the heat of passion.
If your sons see that you regard the rules of politeness in your home, you will find that they treat their mother and sisters with respect and courtesy, and observe, even in play, the rules of etiquette your example teaches; but if you are a domestic tyrant, all your elder and stronger children will strive to act like “father,” by ill-treating or neglecting the younger and weaker ones.