As they grow older the sympathy and love you show for them when you deliberately put aside your book, and read to them some childish story, or bit of adventure, will never be forgotten. No wise man or woman ever loses interest in children’s stories. If they are worth your children’s reading, they are worth your reading. It lies in the power of every parent to fashion their children’s taste in literature. Choose wisely, for the matter is an important one. Do not make the mistake so often made of thinking that any child’s book is good enough for the children. This is not true. There is as wide a difference in children’s books as in books for adults. With all the delightful writers for the little ones, there is no need of reading trashy things to the children. Your children’s libraries will be an index of your literary taste, and your highest care for them. Books are companions, and should be chosen as wisely as you would choose their associates.
How in this day of public schools and free American loving democracy, can I choose my children’s companions? Ah; but you can, dear mother. Train them so wisely, get the love of all that is good so instilled into their beings, fix so surely the hatred of evil, that they will instinctively choose companions worthy of them. Be kind to all, but do not make close friends or companions of any but those who are good. Occasionally a wolf in sheep’s clothing will be met, and you will need great tact to lead your child to see the falseness of character, and to get away from it ere the influence has been hazardous.
Let me illustrate. A grown up boy fifteen or sixteen said one day to his mother, “Mamma, some of the boys are going down to the Gardens to-night after school, and may I go with them?” “What is there to see and enjoy, son?” “Oh I hardly know, but the boys say there’s lots of fun.” The mother gave her consent, all the while knowing she would not have chosen the Gardens as a suitable place for her boy to find amusement. When he came home from school to leave his books, he found his mother all ready to go out. “Where are you going, mamma?” asked the boy. “I thought I would go with you, son, I have never been there and I thought I would like to enjoy it with you.” “But mamma, I don’t know as it is a good place for you to go to.” “Oh, don’t trouble about that, son, any place that you care to visit is suitable for your mother.”
She was dressed in her prettiest and most girlish dress, and outdid herself to be entertaining to her boy. She said nothing in criticism of the place, and went from one thing to another as the boy’s fancy dictated. In a covert glance she could see the disgust growing in her son’s face, as a coarse jest or a profane word came to them from the frequenters of the place, but never a word of fault-finding escaped her lips. Finally, thoroughly disgusted, her boy said, “Let’s go home, mamma, I’m tired of this sort of stuff.” “Very well, son, if you wish,” said the little mother, but not one word of comment or criticism of the place or surroundings, for she saw that the lesson was learned. On the following day she had her reward. Her son with several of his companions were in the yard under the window where she sat in hearing. “Who was that girl you had with you at the Gardens yesterday?” said one of the boys. “It was my mother,” said her son. “Whew,” said the boy, “catch my mother to go to such a place!” Then the brave answer came from her boy, that brought tears of gladness to the mother’s eyes. “Well, I want to tell you right here, boys, you’ll never catch me going anywhere again where I can’t take my mother. Of course she knew what kind of a place it was and wanted me to see that it was no place for me if it were not for her, and I learned the lesson.” Oh the wisdom of such a mother: and the tactfulness.
When the children are young they should never be allowed away from home over night, and should have no visitors to spend the night with them. This cannot be too carefully guarded. Neither should they be allowed to play alone with companions whom you do not know, or are not perfectly sure you can have full confidence in.
No playing out of doors after nightfall. More evil is learned in evening hours than is dreamed of. Have toys and amusements, and allow companions in the home, and your children will not care to leave it for the streets.
Be one with your children in their sports and games, and make yourself so companionable that they will choose you before all others.
All the way along know what your boys and girls are reading. It lies with you to form their tastes, and direct their choice.
Oh mothers, forbear to neglect this great and blessed responsibility, with which you are invested. No work in all the world can equal it in importance, none in the rich harvest which is the result of painstaking sowing. No cast-iron rules can be laid down, for no two children are alike. It is sufficient to say, “Mothers, be true to yourselves, and esteem the trust committed to you as sacred beyond measure; study to show yourselves approved ‘workmen that need not to be ashamed,’” and you will have reason to rejoice at the results of your labors. “Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth.”