When you are walking with him, call his attention to any woman or child or poor man in trouble, and if his services can be of use, urge him to offer them.
I saw one day a small boy spring to the aid of an old coloured woman who had dropped a lot of parcels in the street, and I thought it was a certain evidence that his mother was a rare and sweet woman. For the manners of little boys are almost invariably what their mothers make them.
Awake early in his heart a sympathy for the deformed, the crippled, and otherwise unfortunate beings.
There is no other country where such vulgar and heartless curiosity, and even ridicule, is bestowed upon grotesque or unsightly types of humanity, as in America.
A little dwarfed girl in New York City committed suicide a few years ago because she was so weary of being laughed at and ridiculed by her associates in the street and at school.
Think of that, in this Christian age, and in the metropolis of America!
An old street peddler was set upon by school-children and so annoyed and misused that he became insane.
Another was injured by street children—the children of the public schools—and died from the effects of their abuse.
This is the fault of mothers who have never deemed it their duty and privilege to awaken the tender and protective qualities in the character of their children.
Speak often to your boy of the pathos of dumb animals dependent upon human thoughtfulness for food, drink, and decent usage.