[Duties of Parents.]
Thoughts Intended Especially for Their Ears—Children a Blessing—Through Our Children We Become Immortal on the Earth—Shakspeare—How Character is Built Up—Good Example—Father and Son—Starting the Boys and the Girls—The Daughter—Do not Blight Her Life—Happy Wives and Mothers—"Thanking Death"—Education of the Young—The Power and Beauty of the Bible—Bible, Shakspeare, and Geography More Necessary than Grammar, Botany, and Latin—Worship—A Suspicious Parent—The School-Master Experience—Try and Cut Down the Extent of His Services in the Education of Your Child.
[Brother and Sister.]
The Noble Brother Will Have a Noble Sister—The Young Man of High Tone Will See to It that His Sister is Treated with Respect—He Sets the Example to All Others—Utter Selfishness of a Young Man Who Drags Down His Sister by Falling into Bad Society Himself—The Summer Vacation—Why a "Crooked Stick" Has Been Picked up By the Sister—Your Sister Your Other Half—Watch Her and Mend Your Weak Places—A Quick Temper—Scene in a Field Near Stone River Battle-field—The Sister's Influence on Your Fortunes—Brother and Sister as the Two Heads of One Home.
[Youth.]
"Heaven Lies About Us in Our Infancy"—The Great History Written by Thiers, and Its Central Thought—The Impressibility of Youth—Much Can Be Accomplished in Youth—Alexander, Cæsar, Pompey, Hannibal, Scipio, Napoleon, Charles XII, Alexander Hamilton, Shelley, Keats, Bryant—Youth Our Italy and Greece, full of Gods and Temples—Edmund Burke—Rochefoucauld —Chesterfield—Lord Lytton's Love of Youth—Shortness of Youthful Griefs —Hannah More—Sir Walter Raleigh's Wise Remark—The Extraordinary Expectations of Youth—Dr. Watts—Story of the Alpena—Lord Bacon's Summing up of the Differences Between Youth and Age—Introduction to the Hard-Pan Series.
[Prudence in Speech.]
Need of Money—Difficulty of Getting It—Testimony of the Closest Mouthed Man Who Perhaps Ever Lived—"No Man Can Be Happy or Even Honest Without a Moderate Independence"—You Find Yourself Behind a Counter—The Little Boy's Shoes Wear Out at the Toe—They are Therefore Copper-plated—The Young Man's Common Sense Gives Way at the Tip of His Tongue—Difficulties in the Way of a Boy Who "Blabs"—A Man Who Is "Pumped" Like the Secretary of the Treasury Must Have Practiced Silence All His Life—Story of the Barber of King Midas—Beware of the First Error—How Things Leak out—Put a Copper-Toe on Your Tongue.
[Courtesy.]
Courtesy Rests on a Deep Foundation—He Who is Naturally Polite is Naturally Moral—You Wish to Have Your Customers Brighten up—Brighten up Yourself—What is Good-Breeding?—Read Chesterfield—Study Your Customer—You are Young and Positive—Be Careful on That Account—Your Hands—Jewelry—Act Respectfully and You Will Be Full of Good Manners—An Example—How to Treat the Busybody—Zachariah Fox—Ralph Waldo Emerson—Milton's Allusion to the origin of the Word "Courtesy"—The Celebrated "Beaux" of History—Momentary Views of Our Souls—Your Clothes—They Should Occupy Little of Your Mind—Civility Costs Nothing and Buys Everything.