When Franklin made his discovery of the identity of lightning and electricity, people asked, "Of what use is it?" The philosopher's retort was: "What is the use of a child? It may become a man!" This question—"What is the use of a child?" is not likely to be asked by our young married friends in reference to the first miniature pledge who is about to crown their wishes. They believe that one day he will become "the guardian of the liberties of Europe, the bulwark and honour of his aged parents." What a bond of union! What an incentive to tenderness! That husband has an unfeeling disposition who does not find himself irresistibly drawn by the new and tender tie that now exists.
I hope I appreciate the value of children. We should soon come to nothing without them. What is a house without a baby? It may be comparatively quiet, but it is very dull. A childless home misses its discipline and loses its music.
Children are not "certain sorrows and uncertain pleasures" when properly managed. If some parents taste the stream bitter it is very often they themselves who have poisoned the fountain. They treated their children when very young merely as playthings, humouring every caprice, and sacrificing to present fancies future welfare; then, when the charm of infancy had passed, they commenced a system of restraint and severity, and displayed displeasure and irritability at the very defects of which they themselves laid the foundation.
"In an evening spent with Emerson," says one who knew him, "he made one remark which left a memorable impression on my mind. Two children of the gentleman at whose house we met were playing in the room, when their father remarked, 'Just the interesting age.' 'And at what age,' asked Mr. Emerson, 'are children not interesting?'" He regarded them with the eye of a philosopher and a poet, and saw the possibilities that surround their very being with infinite interest. Each of his own children was for him a harbinger of sunny hours, an angel sent from God with tidings of hope.
Jeremy Taylor says, "No man can tell but he that loves his children how many delicious accents make a man's heart dance in the pretty conversation of those dear pledges; their childishness, their stammering, their little angers, their innocence, their imperfections, their necessities, are so many little emanations of joy and comfort to him that delights in their persons and society." And what shall be said of the man who does not love his children? That he, far more than the unmusical man—
"Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus.
Let no such man be trusted."
"Civic virtues, unless they have their origin and consecration in private and domestic virtues, are but the virtues of the theatre. He who has not a loving heart for his child, cannot pretend to have any true love for humanity."
"I do not wonder," said Dr. Arnold, "that it was thought a great misfortune to die childless in old times, when they had not fuller light—it seems so completely wiping a man out of existence." "Write ye this man child-less." Cuvier's four children died before him. In his sixty-seventh year we find Moore writing, "The last of our five children is now gone, and we are left desolate and alone. Not a single relative have I left now in the world." How Hallam was successively bereaved of sons so rich in promise is well known. There is a touching gravestone in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey with the inscription, "Jane Lister, deare child, died Oct. 7, 1688." These parents knew only too well the value of a child.
A merchant in the city was accustomed to demand an excuse from his clerks whenever they arrived late. The excuse given, he invariably added, "Very well; but don't let it happen again." One morning a married clerk, being behind time, was promptly interrogated as to the cause. Slightly embarrassed, he replied, "The truth is, sir, I had an addition to my family this morning, and it was not convenient to be here sooner." "Very well," said the merchant, in his quick, nervous manner, "very well; but don't let it happen again."
There are people who think one, or, at most, two children, very well, but they don't wish it to happen again and again. So frequently do additions happen at Salt Lake City that nine families can, it is said, fill the theatre. One must love children very much to see the use of possessing the ninth part of a theatre-ful. And yet a family that is too small is almost as great an evil as one that is too large. It may be called a "large little family." Often an only child gives as much trouble as a large family. Dr. Smiles tells us that a lady who, with her husband, had inspected most of the lunatic asylums of England and the Continent, found the most numerous class of patients was almost always composed of those who had been only children, and whose wills had therefore rarely been thwarted or disciplined in early life.