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HELPS TO EDUCATION. 
 
 a 
 
7? 
 
 HELPS TO EDUCATION 
 
 HOMES OF OUR COUNTRY. 
 
 WARREN BURTON, 
 
 AUTHOR OF " THE DISTRICT SCHOOL AS IT WAS." 
 
 BOSTON : 
 
 CROSBY AND NICHOLS, 
 
 117, Washington Street. 
 
 1863. 
 

 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, 
 
 BY WARREN BURTON, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 BOSTON : 
 
 PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON & SON, 
 
 5, Water Sti'.eet. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The most difficult as well as the most important work 
 on earth is the wise education of children. Parents, 
 will you kindly accept the following counsels from a 
 sincere and earnestly devoted friend ? May they make 
 good, in some appreciable ^gree, the homely Saxon 
 word placed first on the titlepage ! 
 
 Opportunity is now taken to explain to friends, that, 
 during the last two years, infirm health has kept me 
 from the educational field in which I had been exclu- 
 sively working for ten years before ; or rather it has 
 prevented me, to my keen regret, from the more 
 urgent duty of devoting myself, in some active way, 
 to our present momentous cause. In the mean time, 
 as strength would allow, and with many intermis- 
 sions, this volume has been under preparation. It is, 
 I trust, a worthy service of the Christian patriot to 
 provide, even in a small measure, against future adver- 
 sities, public and private, in our beloved country, by 
 laboring at those more hidden sources of good and 
 evil which lie in the shadow of its homes. 
 
 W. B. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 
 Lecture on Parental Responsibility 3 
 
 Lecture on Government, Misgovern:ment, and 
 
 No Government in the Family ..... 27 
 
 Lecture on the Management of the Selfhood 65 
 
 Passages from a Lecture 115 
 
 I. Gifts 117 
 
 II. Bad Companionsliip 120 
 
 III. Irritability of Temper 123 
 
 IV. Children at Table 127 
 
 Suggestions on the Discipline of the Observ- 
 ing Faculties 135 
 
 A Letter from the Agent of the Massachu- 
 setts Board of Education 274 
 
 Topics of Religious Education 277 
 
 The First Knowledge of the Creator. . . . 279 
 
 The First and Great Commandment 293 
 
VIU CONTENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 
 The Child's First Ideas of Jesus 335 
 
 The Bible 344 
 
 Notes 357 
 
 Index 359 
 
 Note. — The general heads of this volume hardly give 
 a fair view of its contents. The Index, at the close, shows 
 the items of interest to be exceedingly numerous, and of 
 great variety. 
 
LECTURE 
 
 ON 
 
 PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
NOTE. 
 
 The statements and considerations in the following Lecture are 
 of the most serious moment : indeed, their importance can hardly 
 be overrated. Yet the hackneyed title and topic, it is feared, will 
 at once affect ihany with a sense of dulness and discouragement, 
 and cause them to hasten beyond to what may seem more inviting. 
 In anticipation of this, a special and earnest request is ventured, 
 that such persons would at least make an attempt at reading. The 
 old subject is here presented in a manner somewhat new ; and it 
 is humbly hoped that the reader will be interested and impressed 
 beyond what might be expected from so trite a theme. If the peru- 
 sal could be made without haste, so as to permit to words their 
 fullest force, the little longer time taken would hardly be regretted. 
 This preliminary discourse, so read, would almost necessarily better 
 prepare the mind for the practical instructions which follow. 
 
LECTUEE 
 
 ON 
 
 PAEENTAL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 rilHE chief purpose of this world is the forma- 
 -*- tion and development of man. Here he not 
 only commences existence, but prepares for an- 
 other world. In the present condition of things, 
 this preparation is difficult : many think it to be 
 doubtful. The human being, as now consti- 
 tuted, is, indeed, fearfully as well as wonder- 
 fully made. He is a mysterious system^ of 
 capabilities and possibilities. He is capable 
 of good, and capable of evil. He may be hap- 
 py, or he may be unhappy ; indeed, exceedingly 
 joyous in felicity, or at the utmost extremity of 
 wretchedness. He can answer to the various 
 epithets of virtue and piety given in the Sacred 
 Word ; or he may make applicable to himself, in 
 different degrees, one and another, and even 
 many, if not all, of those terms by which sin 
 against God, crime against man, and the depra- 
 
4: PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 vity of the heart, are expressed. To particular- 
 ize : First, as a little child, or the larger youth, 
 in the family of his birth, he may be a precious 
 delight by his dispositions, so ajffectionate and 
 generous, and, by his manners, so gentle and 
 winning. In school he may be studious and or- 
 derly ; on the play- ground, ingenuous, sweet- 
 tempered, and beloved. Next, as an apprentice 
 or a clerk, he may be respectful, diligent, honest. 
 Then, as a neighbor and a citizen, he may be 
 upright, obliging, peaceable, public-spirited. As 
 a husband and a father, he may make his home 
 the best emblem and image of very heaven. 
 Toward the Divine Being he may be reverent 
 and loving, deeply but cheerfully pious. In 
 short, he has within his capacities that by 
 which, the Holy Spirit helping, he shall be 
 able to love God with all his heart, and his 
 neighbor as himself. This world may be better 
 and happier for his single life in it, and heaven 
 at length be more blessed for his single added 
 presence there. Such is the human being capa- 
 ble of becoming, if he shall be properly cared 
 for, wisely trained, adequately educated. 
 
 But now to particularize the opposite capa- 
 bilities and possibilities : This same human in- 
 fant has that within him, by which, in his 
 
PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 parental abode, he may be ill - tempered and 
 disobedient ; a very furnace of selfish passions, 
 consuming his own best good, and the peace 
 of his nearest, truest friends. At school he 
 may be idle, unruly, impudent, rebellious ; on 
 the play-ground, unfair, testy, rough, vulgar, 
 profane. Let him become an apprentice at 
 a trade, or a clerk in a store ; and what then ? 
 — unfaithful, disobedient, disrespectful, truth- 
 less, rakish. He may purloin from his em- 
 ployer to pay for finery, dainties, and other 
 extravagances. At length, he may sink into 
 dissipation and various dissoluteness, and early 
 die, — a human ruin. But suppose him appa- 
 rently to recover from his sensual and spend- 
 thrift habits. He may now enter the field of 
 business for himself, to do what ? To cheat his 
 customers, to live on others' losses. Again : as 
 a neighbor, he may be rude, crabbed, disobli- 
 ging, unfeeling. As a citizen, he may possess 
 scarcely a single spark of public spirit. Self — 
 hard, dark, unheavenly self — is the centre and 
 the circumference of all the hopes, fears, aspi- 
 rations, activities, and satisfactions of his life. 
 But his home, — should he enter on married and 
 parental life, — what the possibilities here ? Ah ! 
 by sharp -spoken petulance, or lowering sullen- 
 
6 PAEENTAL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 iiess, or by fierce outbursts of anger, by nig- 
 gardliness or tyranny, by intemperance and other 
 depraved indulgences, this choicest, innermost 
 spot may be made like unto that outer place of 
 darkness, and weeping, and gnashing of teeth. 
 
 Furthermore : standing beside man's infancy, 
 and contemplating the future, we may in all 
 truth affirm, that possibly he shall plunge into 
 direst crime, — shall steal, rob, murder. Yes, 
 that little being, who has, as yet, not entertained 
 a purpose, a feeling, or a thought of wrong ; 
 who seems, in his present weakness and inno- 
 cence, utterly incapable of inflicting any sort of 
 pain on others, — that now absolutely harmless 
 creature may, at twenty or thirty years of age, 
 enter your window in the darkness of midnight, 
 and, during the helplessness of your sleep, grope 
 his way to your goods or your money; and 
 should you perchance be aroused, and attempt 
 to defend your property, he may stab or shoot 
 you dead on the spot ; then murder your ago- 
 nized, shrieking wife, to prevent her alarming 
 the neighborhood at the instant, or identifying 
 his person afterward as the perpetrator of the 
 crime. Ah ! language fails to depict the horri- 
 ble atrocities which lie within the capabilities 
 
 and possibilities of the man. This world may 
 
 /' 
 
PARENTAL RESPOXSIBILITY. 7 
 
 be much worse for his having lived in it; and 
 the world to come, — the all-seeing Eye alone 
 can trace his path, and discern his state, in its 
 labyrinthine and endless depths. Along such a 
 line of tendencies, along such a course of im- 
 morality, vice, crime, enormity, or, at leasu, 
 through some one portion or another of it, this 
 human infant is likely to run, should he be 
 neglected, — should he not be properly trained, 
 wisely, adequately educated. Is it not a mo- 
 mentous alternative? There is alarm, there is 
 terror, in the very thought of the contingency. 
 
 But this is God's own child. Does he leave 
 him unprovided for, and to his own poor, feeble 
 self? Oh, no ! his providence is most faithful. 
 Out of all the rest of the world's inhabitants he 
 provides one man and one woman, who are to 
 be the very first, the long-continuing, and the 
 most responsible guardians under himself Of 
 all finite beings, they are nearest in place, near- 
 est in blood, and nearest in affection. In them, 
 indeed, has been implanted an instinctive, pecu- 
 liar love, not primarily as an especial gratifica- 
 tion to them, but as insuring fidelity to the 
 paternal Creator, and to this his off'spring. 
 Thus to the earthly father and mother is com- 
 mitted the most dependent and the most im- 
 
8 PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 pressible of all animated things. They have 
 in their hands the beginnings of a boundless 
 destiny, folded up as in a bud. They have 
 in charge the wondrous, the auspicious open- 
 ing. The Lord God Almighty calls and sets 
 apart these two to this duty, as much as if he 
 pointed down to them with a visible finger, 
 and spoke in articulate thunder in the pre- 
 sence of an assembled world. It is the highest, 
 the most holy, calling of their lives. They 
 are to be the surest of all protectors, the 
 earliest and the most influential of all educators. 
 They are to fit this being for noblest virtue and 
 loving usefulness in the present life. They are 
 to act sooner and to do more than all others to 
 fit him for the life to come. They are not only 
 to teach and train, but to rule as in a realm. 
 God's vicegerents, they are seated on the strong- 
 est throne beneath all the skies : this throne is 
 the earliest and tenderest heart, the first, sweet, 
 enduring love, of a little child. If faithful to 
 their gentle sceptre, all the armies of earth, all 
 the hosts of hell, cannot move them therefrom : 
 they are next in power to the Almighty. Thus, 
 more than all others beneath the heavens, they 
 are the arbiters of time and eternity to this im- 
 mortal spirit. Such is the responsibility of 
 parentage. 
 
PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY. 9 
 
 Now, can it be, that in this age of unparalleled 
 mental light, and amid all its various Christian 
 institutions, these God-commissioned guardians, 
 guides, and rulers shall not understand their 
 office, and feel their obligations ? Can it be that 
 tliey shall not be faithful ? 
 
 Let us see. In human affairs, knowledge 
 and skill are considered necessary to success. 
 Preparation and qualification are requisites well 
 appreciated all the world over. Who thinks 
 of entering on the chosen avocation for a live- 
 lihood or for usefulness, without forethought 
 and preparation? Let us glance at a few in- 
 stances. Suppose one of the so-called learned 
 professions : what years has the aspiring youth 
 been qualifying himself for this ! What book 
 after book has he plodded through, what 
 expense incurred, and possibly what severe 
 privations endured, to place himself at the com- 
 mencement of his favorite, life - long career ! 
 Another devotes himself to some department of 
 the arts. Whatever his genius, he most pa- 
 tiently persists and works on long, before he 
 reaches the lofty mark of his burning desire. 
 Still another gives himself to some one of the 
 material interests. He spends years upon the 
 soil, learning how crops and cattle are matured. 
 
10 PARENTAL EESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 and turned to best account; or in a shop or 
 manufactory, to obtain the craft of wielding 
 tools or of tending machinerj whereby inani- 
 mate matter is moulded into forms of use ; or in 
 some mercantile warehouse or common store, 
 acquiring a knowledge of such productions, and 
 a facility in selling them. Indeed, from the 
 highest profession down to the lowest handicraft, 
 there is preparation. Custom requires, necessity 
 commands it. Without it, unless there be ex- 
 traordinary talent, there must be failure of suc- 
 cess. The very child understands this fact, and 
 expects, as he grows up, to leave, it may be, 
 the dear home of his birth, to learn the occupa- 
 tion of his life. 
 
 Again : consider a young woman. She is a ■ 
 distinct and providential part in the great order 
 of things. She is to take a commanding posi- 
 tion in the passing but momentous procession of 
 human lives. She also has been spending years 
 in preparation for the future. She has passed 
 tiirough the schools, studying at least the com- 
 mon branches, and perhaps the various higher 
 matters in literature and science, — Latin, French, 
 and the abstruser mathematics. She must be 
 an adept at pencil- drawing, and also painting. 
 Moreover, for months, it may be for years, she 
 
PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY. ll 
 
 is a pupil at the piano, that she may touch the 
 keys with even respectable skill. Perchance, 
 she is versed in household affairs ; at least, well 
 understands general arrangements and the more 
 delicate mysteries of the culinary art. With all 
 these acquirements, if there be judicious regard 
 to time, talent, taste, and life's important duties, 
 no fault can be found. 
 
 At length, such a young man and such a 
 young woman give themselves to each other in 
 sacred marriage. Here is a new home. Home ! 
 it is earth's most precious place. It is that one 
 spot which heaven most nearly touches, and 
 which its messengers soonest and oftenest visit. 
 The spirit of God broods over the home. The 
 Creative Power descends, and there is a new 
 human being; something utterly unknown to 
 time, space, or finite intelligence, before ; some- 
 thing distinct from all other existences that 
 ever were, or will be ; something the exact like 
 of which is not, and never will be, in the whole 
 universe of God. It is committed to the charge 
 of this twain. From a thousand millions these 
 two are separated by the Creating Hand, and 
 ordained as primary and especial ministers, to 
 keep, and to keep most safely; to educate, and 
 to educate most wisely ; to bless, and to bless 
 
12 PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 more than all the rest of the world, particularly 
 in the first years, — this creature of the Most 
 High. 
 
 Well, those who have spent so long a period 
 carefully fitting themselves for occupations which 
 have to do with chance-coming strangers, and 
 which operate simply on the more general needs 
 of family and social life, — they, surely, cannot 
 but have qualified themselves for this duty, one 
 nearest to the hands, most solemn to the con- 
 science, and closest, dearest to the heart. What 
 books must they have read, what treatises 
 studied ! How have they consulted the experi-i 
 ence of living persons around ! How have they 
 humbly sought wisdom from above ! If they ever 
 did pray, they must have earnestly supplicated 
 now. Tliey cannot but be ready to do time's 
 noblest work on earth's loftiest, lordliest pro- 
 duct. What ! are they not Heaven's own angels 
 embodied in the flesh ? Alas, alas ! that young 
 father and that young mother have spent not a 
 year, not a month, not a week, not a day, not an , 
 hour, — they have not read a book nor made 
 an inquiry, — in preparation. Some foresight 
 and provision for the merest physical necessities 
 make the only exception. They take the cen- i 
 tral instrument of the grand orchestra of crea- } 
 
PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY. 13 
 
 tion, framed and toned by the Infinite Artist 
 into almost utterly unskilled hands. What can 
 ensue but that it should be loosened or strained 
 into discords, or even shattered to ruin, and 
 scattered, as it were piecemeal, to the world's 
 tempests ? 
 
 This may be looked upon with some degree 
 of indulgence, considering the thoughtlessness 
 and rushing impulses of youth. But these pa- 
 rents go on to more mature and sober life, and 
 child after child — it may be, numerously — is 
 at length intrusted to their care, with immea- 
 surable destinies rooted in the earliest and most 
 impressible years ; and yet nothing is intention- 
 ally and specifically done to repair that lack of 
 fitness with which they assumed the parental 
 office in the beginning. Is it any wonder that 
 families are what we so often see, — misrule at 
 the head, and misdeeds in the members ? How 
 can it be otherwise than that boyhood should be 
 ill-tempered and disobedient at home ; disorderly 
 at school ; contentious, unmannerly, vulgar, and 
 profane in the street ; and perhaps take early 
 steps toward dissipation and ruin ? What more 
 likely than that sister girlhood should grow up 
 self-willed, petulant, vain, frivolous, and self- 
 idolizing? Is it any wonder that communities 
 
14 PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 are shattered by p'etty self-interests, and imbit- 
 tered by scandals ; and that ordinary business, 
 in which Christian justice and kindness should 
 prevail, is one hot war of struggling, yea, crush- 
 ing antagonisms ? 
 
 There are supposed to be thirty thousand 
 human beings, once innocent babes at the ma- 
 ternal bosom, now shut up within the granite 
 walls and iron doors of the prisons of our country. 
 Is this any wonder, when we take into view the 
 homes from which they came, and the pupils of 
 other homes among whom they fell ? Is it any 
 wonder that as many more, quite or almost as 
 wicked, are yet abroad, desolating society ? Is 
 it any wonder that all around, and in every 
 grade of life, there are low sensualities, fiery 
 passions, destructive collisions, and all the mul- 
 tiform shapes and methods and innumerable 
 complications of unheavenly selfishness ? Yes, 
 yes : why should not all these things be ? for 
 who puts the rush of causes back from their 
 inevitable efifects ? Oh ! when I perceive, in so 
 many directions, intelligent, reasoning, interest- 
 seeking men and women, inquiring into and 
 clearly understanding and surely acting on the 
 philosophy of cause and effect in all the concerns 
 of life but that of the right care and culture of 
 
PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY. 15 
 
 those nearest and dearest to them in their homes, 
 it seems a strange, unaccountable fatuity, a 
 stupendous insanity. Behold, notwithstanding 
 countless instances in the past, and numerous 
 cases in the present and all around, admonish, 
 and that even terrific gulfs of ruin close by 
 send up the wail of those perishing down in 
 them ; notwithstanding God's Holy Word majes- 
 tically commands and tenderly pleads, and his re- 
 tributive providences awfully warn, — how many, 
 by their own direct example, incite their chil- 
 dren, or at least, by their neglect, permit them, 
 to approach, step by step, the brink of the deep, 
 dark, fatal abysses ; yea, and perhaps they stand 
 by, apathetically, senselessly, and see them drop, 
 one by one, in ! Ye saints and angels, who gaze 
 down in pity or amazement, is not this a mad- 
 ness ? 
 
 Consider the other various interests of life : 
 how numerous the appliances to promote their 
 advancement ! What institutions, books, periodi- 
 cals, meetings, discussions ! As for reading, the 
 publications come, the whole year through, al- 
 most as thickly as do the flowers in the few 
 vegetative months ; and some of them rival, in 
 richness and beauty, the very flowers. How 
 bright the centre-table with its gilded volumes ! 
 
16 PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 In the houses of the wealthy is the large and 
 various library ; and, in the hands of all, the 
 multifarious newspaper. From the unwholesome 
 places of teeming brains creeps that vermin, 
 that reptile literature, which steals into the ' 
 hands of brothers, thence into those of sisters, 
 and into the hearts of both, leaving vileness — 
 it may be, poison — there. But in how few of 
 these houses, take the land through, from the 
 lowest to the highest, do we find a single volume 
 teaching the Heaven-commissioned heads of the 
 household how to train up their children in 
 the way they should go 1 There are such books, 
 there are periodicals, for this purpose ; but the 
 booksellers affirm, that of all the works of com- 
 mon, practical value, they have the least call 
 for treatises on family discipline. 
 
 What gatherings all over the land, for discus-^ 
 sion, knowledge, and impulse in respect to the 
 increase and management of property, and the 
 multiplying of facilities for business ! What ex- 
 hibitions, emulations, successes, and applauses ! 
 There are agricultural fairs and cattle -shows ; 
 and the land glows with culture, and gladdens 
 in the beauty of flowers and the ripeness of 
 fruits, and proudly swells with the largeness 
 and fatness of kine. 
 
PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY. 17 
 
 Of conventions, there are other than those of 
 patriotism and partisanship : there are horse 
 conventions, and even poultry conventions ; and 
 men and women, and beauty and fashion, collect 
 around in multitudes to behold and admire. 
 Our most gifted orators are invited on such 
 occasions, and they sound their most silvery 
 eloquence in the cause of brutes and vegetables. 
 But who ever heard of a similar gathering of 
 fathers and mothers, in loving ardor and con- 
 scientious anxiety, to learn from each other, by 
 interchange of ideas, by the discussion of ques- 
 tions, and by the hearing of committee-reports, 
 how to rear and educate noble sons and daugh- 
 ters ; how to prevent sons from descending, as 
 so many have done, beneath the brute ; how to 
 prevent daughters from coming to be not much 
 better than inactive vegetables, — yea, than very 
 weeds ; how to make the infant a fully developed 
 man, worthy to be earth's powerful lord, and 
 heaven's blessed heir?"^ 
 
 * The maternal associations which have been instituted in many 
 churches are no exceptions to what is intimated above. These are 
 confined to one sex, are of limited numbers generally, and of vacil- 
 lating and feeble operation. So I have been informed by many 
 pastors. The meetings for educational discussion, mentioned toward 
 the close of this volume, had not been started when this lecture was 
 first written ; and they are now but an experiment and a begin- 
 ning. 
 
 2 
 
18 PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 In case of physical defect, how anxious are 
 parents for a remedy I Let there be only a stain 
 marring personal beauty, and they would apply 
 steel or jBre, with all the pain, if thus the blemish 
 could be taken out, and no scar left. How 
 little is thought of the stain made by bad com- 
 panionship and example on the soul ! I knew a 
 mother who travelled a hundred and fifty miles 
 in the cold, cheerless winter, carrying her infant 
 for a distinguished surgeon to set aright its dis- 
 torted foot ; and who then journeyed back again, 
 all unaccompanied, except by strangers, to an 
 impoverished home. Is there any mother who 
 would not do the same, or a father who would 
 not give his last dollar, to save a child from life- 
 long lameness? But with what moral distor- 
 tions do children come into the world, and these 
 inherited from parents themselves, or more re- 
 mote progenitors ! yet how few parents are 
 anxious about, or even at all notice, such obli- 
 quities ! Take these obliquities in the begin- 
 ning, how soft and pliable to heaven- directed 
 management ! Let them alone, they become 
 crookednesses, gnarled, knotted, enduring, per- 
 haps hideous to the sight, and an anguish to 
 the bosom, of that community which is obliged 
 to hold them in its midst. 
 
PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY. 19 
 
 But some reply, " We have been faithful to 
 our children : loe have diligently sought and 
 practised the best methods of culture." But 
 have you done all your duty? Your children 
 are still insecure, unless your neighbors are as 
 faithful as yourselves. You must not rest till 
 all around partake of your spirit, and co-operate 
 in your action. Society is like one great jellied 
 mass : touch but a single spot, and it trembles 
 throughout. Is your son a pupil at the public 
 school? Is he a member of the street-commu- 
 nity of boys ? If so, he is every day exposed to 
 the contagion of vice. Unless his ears shall be 
 stopped like the deaf, he cannot but hear vul- 
 garity and profanity ; catch words and ideas, too, 
 which shall sink into his memory, and infuse a 
 stain into his soul, which perhaps, through the 
 eternal ages, may not be cleansed out. Your 
 daughter may be as pure as a snow-flake just 
 from the airy cloud, or as the sweetest blossom 
 of the spring ; yet she is surrounded and endan- 
 gered by influences that may defile and deform 
 the crystalline threads, and the fresh, delicate 
 bloom, of her soul. There are those in polished 
 society, and perhaps altogether unsuspected, 
 whose very presence is almost a poison. Ah ! 
 whose son or daughter is safe with the present 
 
20 PAEENTAL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 morals of cities, towns, and villages ? Yet who 
 is alarmed at this condition of things, or seeks 
 to alarm others ? Let a pestilence, let the cho- 
 lera, sweep along the land, and approach, day 
 by day, nearer and nearer, and what consterna- 
 tion ! How the authorities bestir themselves ! 
 How cellars and drains are looked into, searched 
 closely, and cleansed ! Not the speck of a de- 
 caying vegetable must remain. Indeed, were 
 some offensive matter unexpectedly discovered 
 in a neighbor's yard or in the contiguous street, 
 sending its effluvia into the premises of the most 
 aristocratic gentleman, and, if the laborer could 
 not be hurried to its removal, he would himself 
 seize the spade with his own soft, white hands, 
 — yes, so would the mother of his children,.! 
 however delicate and high - bred, — and dig a ' 
 pit, and thrust the nuisance in, and bury it up, , 
 to save the dear ones from the pest-inviting at- i 
 mosphere. But the elements of a moral cholera ' 
 are as thick in the great cities as the smoke and ' 
 soot that lower over their roofs : indeed, they 
 pervade every town and village of our land. 
 But who stirs a limb or utters a word toward > | 
 an active and determined purification ? 
 
 The angel of death often snatches little chil- 
 dren away to the care and training of heavenly 
 
PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY. 21 
 
 teachers ; while infatuated parents put forth all 
 their puny strength, and shriek out supplica- 
 tions, to prevent this most blessed rescue from 
 their own destroying hands : but let the demons 
 from the bottomless pit come stealing up, come 
 rushing up, and there is no alarm, and they 
 seduce and destroy at their pleasure. 
 
 How long shall the proper care of infancy, 
 the nurture of childhood, and the guidance of 
 youth, be deemed a small, petty business, and 
 utterly unworthy special consideration, amid 
 what are called, or what are fancied to be, the 
 great affairs of life, — money - making, dress, 
 dress-displaying, and pleasure-seeking? A small 
 matter, a petty matter, is it, — the early disposi- 
 tions, tendencies, and habits of the human being, 
 which unfold into angelic beauty, or burst out 
 into horrible deformity ! Yet the parents who 
 thus feel and believe, or at any rate who neglect 
 the higher nature, call in, when a child is seized 
 with sickness, the most reliable physician within 
 their means; and, learned and eminent as he 
 may be, he stoops to the small business of feel- 
 ing the infantile pulse, of counting throb by 
 throb, and of keenly inspecting the color of the 
 tongue. An unusual tinge upon the skin is then 
 of consequence : it is a symptom. But be as- 
 
22 PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 sured, that there are little things, yea, least 
 things, in the earliest character, too generally 
 unheeded, which are also symptoms, — spiritual 
 symptoms ; and, to the wise and watchful edu- 
 cator, they are most fearfully premonitory. 
 Little and belittling is it, — the charge of the 
 chief and central organism of this lower creation, 
 around and for which the wheels of nature turn 
 and its springs play in all their mightiness and 
 minuteness, and for which wondrous providences 
 have been displayed, and even nature-rending 
 miracles wrought ! — the charge of it, that it 
 may be unfolded into beautiful order, and grand 
 and joyous activities, and be made to sing for 
 ever in unison with heavenly spheres ! 
 
 For this immortal one, the spiritual mansions 
 were builded, glorious, boundless, eternal ; yea, 
 for him the third heavens may have been lifted 
 up, nearest to the light inaccessible. But, alas ! 
 through causes, commencing with the earliest 
 life ; yea, by the sharp -cutting consequence of 
 undirected thought, ungoverned appetites, burn- 
 ing passions, and motives yet closer within the 
 will and the self-hood, and still more intensely 
 ungodly, — he may prepare, year by year, in his 
 own mysterious, unfathomable nature, an ever- 
 deepening, terrific hell ; and none but the Om- 
 
PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY. 23 
 
 niscient can know when or whether such awful 
 industry shall ever stop or pause. To save such 
 a being from himself, the Ancient of days, the 
 " I am that I am," descended into Immanuel, — 
 Jehovah into Jesus. Yea, the most merciful 
 Father continues long-suffering and ever-provid- 
 ing. Nevertheless, how utterly without avail 
 may it be, unless those who receive body and 
 soul from his immediate hand and spirit, and are 
 left in living freedom, shall fulfil their initiatory, 
 far-reaching, superlative part ! 
 
LECTURE 
 
 ON 
 
 GOVERNMENT, MISGOVERNMENT, AND NO- 
 GOVERNMENT IN THE FAMILY. 
 
NOTE. 
 
 This and the following Lecture were given at first extempo- 
 raneously. It was of great importance to make the subject interest- 
 ing; for, of all topics presented to the public ear, that of family- 
 education seemed to be the most dull and uninviting. It was desi- 
 rable to show that there was no lack of life and spirit in it; that, 
 while it was of the first moment, it could also be made somewhat 
 attractive. Illustrative incidents were, therefore, quite numerously- 
 introduced. It was found that those which had been witnessed by 
 the lecturer, and especially those in which he himself had borne a 
 part, were the most effective on the audience. These Lectures, when 
 put on paper for delivery, retained the same characteristics. They 
 are now presented in print, much in the same style. The first per- 
 sonal pronoun continues to be used where the incidents were really 
 of a personal character. This circumstance, it is believed, cannot 
 but impart to them a reality and an impressiveness which a more 
 abstract, and apparently more modest, method would not have 
 afibrded. It is therefore hoped that this individual prominence of 
 the writer will not be set down to the account of any thing like 
 egotism; for nothing could be further from the truth. The object 
 has simply been to come as close to minds and hearts as possible, for 
 the sake of doing them good. It may be said here, moreover, once 
 for all, that if, anywhere in these productions, the author makes him- 
 self personally conspicuous, this is done for the sake of greater 
 use or convenience, and not at all for self-exhibition. 
 
LECTURE 
 
 GOVERNMENT, MISGOVERNMENT, AND NO- 
 GOVERNMENT IN THE FAMILY. 
 
 XN the first place, let us understand the grounds 
 -*- of parental power and filial submission. It 
 is only according to certain laws, certain fixed 
 methods of matter and spirit, that the plans of 
 the Divine Father can be fulfilled. The human 
 being comes into the world in utter ignorance 
 of these conditions of welfare. Hence, from 
 very birth, he is liable to infringe them and to 
 suffer. First, he knows not what will do him 
 bodily injury; so he must be forcibly restrained. 
 In this simple circumstance of safety begins the 
 trial of what is called " government." A child's 
 hand is withheld from a sharp knife, or burning 
 lamp, or some other destructive agent ; and he is 
 thus initiated into submission to a power above 
 himself. No one, having the care, would fail to 
 
28 GOVERNMENT, MISGOVERNMENT, AND 
 
 exercise the due control, in case of positive and 
 immediate danger. At this point, however, de- 
 termined, inevitable government often ceases. 
 From this point there may be continued a course 
 of obedience, order, quietness, comfort, peace, 
 in the parental and filial relations ; or, on the 
 other hand, there may commence long-protracted 
 disobedience, disorder, distraction, and any thing 
 but peace. The child was made for activity: 
 it is absolutely necessary for his growth and 
 health ; also for his mental as well as his physi- 
 cal development. So, in his instinctive impulses, 
 he betakes himself this way or that, and gets 
 hold of one thing or another. He knows not 
 the tendencies of his conduct in respect to a 
 hundred things and movements. The work-bas- 
 ket which he might pull from the stand, or the 
 plate he might draw from the table, are not 
 valuables to him. He knows not why he may 
 not touch them, as well as try his strength or 
 perceptions on any thing else. He has no idea, 
 moreover, of property as belonging to others. 
 Why should not he appropriate scissors or mus- 
 lin just as others do who have eyes and hands ? 
 He is a little, crawling, creeping, picking, pull- 
 ing, pushing, climbing, tottling, and tumbling- 
 down piece of activity. 
 
NO-GOVERNMENT IN THE FAMILY. 29 
 
 What is denominated " mischief" in the house- 
 hold vocabulary is his work; and this sort of 
 industry is really of incalculable profit in his 
 education. Nevertheless, he must be permitted 
 to go exactly so far, and no farther ; to do 
 exactly so much, and no more. He must be 
 governed. Authority must be made absolute. 
 It must exercise compulsion in all these in- 
 stances, just as much as in the case of closely 
 threatening physical danger. Then there was 
 no hesitation, whatever might be the resistance, 
 the angry wilfulness, and even spasmodic con- 
 tortions, of the little operator. Begin at the 
 earliest, and keep straight on, and it will not 
 be difficult, generally, to establish certain rules 
 of action with a child, and to make him under- 
 stand that these rules must be obeyed the same 
 as he obeys the necessity of not touching fire. 
 It simply requires watchfulness and firmness. 
 Here is a practical illustration which fell under 
 my own eye many j^ears ago. A little boy of 
 nine months old is making the tour of the room 
 on all fours ; stopping at this thing, then at 
 that ; tugging at a chair, pushing a cricket, and 
 poking along something else; but, coming within 
 reach of the bright-headed but black-footed im- 
 plements of the fireplace, he stops, and turning 
 
9 
 
 GOVERNMENT, MISGOVERNMENT, AND 
 
 his little face over his left shoulder, and his 
 bright eye up to his mother, who happens to be 
 behind at the opposite side of the room, he 
 gives her a significant look, as much as to say, 
 " I should like to know how those things feel, 
 and to use them as you do, mother. But you 
 needn't worry : I shall mind you, and not touch 
 them." Then, turning back, he pushes his tra- 
 vels among unforbidden curiosities. There was 
 the same habit of contented obedience to other 
 necessary restrictions. Yet this was an uncom- 
 monly sickly and nervous child by constitution ; 
 one who, by indulgence, would have been a 
 screeching, scratching little rebel, driving at 
 every thing that was accessible, like thousands 
 of others, in spite of anybody or any thing but 
 irresistible strength or impenetrable matter. 
 
 In many families, however, rules are made 
 only to be overruled or to be unmade. In fact, 
 the household sovereign, who does not insist on 
 immediate submission to separate and incidental 
 commands, is likely at length to fall into a weak- 
 ness of character, which will not insist on a 
 uniform compliance with what are intended to 
 be the fixed statutes of the domestic realm. 
 Places for certain things, and times for certain 
 doings, which should be regular, — the proper 
 
NO-GO YERNMEXT IN THE FAMILY. 31 
 
 wliere and when, — get all askew, and are some- 
 times lost beyond recovery. Yes, laws, which 
 are important to the safety and the life of the 
 heedless little ones, will be broken over and 
 broken over, until, in consequence, some terrible 
 calamity shall smite that home with sadness, or 
 even with agonizing bereavement. Such has 
 been the occasion of many a fall, breaking the 
 limbs ; and many a drowning in the forbidden 
 water. 
 
 Sometimes such parents are conscious of 
 their error, and, indeed, are even intending re- 
 form; but they get no farther toward it than 
 intention. Said a mother of this character to 
 her pert little boy, " George, I tell you what 
 it is : I'm going to turn over a new leaf with 
 you." — "Mother," was fhe reply, "I tell you 
 what it is : you have been a great while turn- 
 ing over that new leaf, but haven't got it over 
 yet." Alas ! how many there are, who, like this 
 impotent one, are always intending to turn over 
 the new leaf, but never get it over ; or, if they 
 do, the leaf will not stay put^ but flits back, and 
 exhibits the same continually repeated tale of 
 weakness, misrule, and discomfort ! 
 
 Here the remark is well in place, that it is 
 those children who are ever breaking the laws 
 
32 GOVERNMENT, MISGOVERNMENT, AND 
 
 of home, or in whose homes there are no laws to 
 be broken, who come to be the offensively vi- 
 cious and the destructively criminal. Such, of 
 a certain class, are often sent on long voyages, 
 under strict sea-captainship, to Calcutta or Can- 
 ton ,' or on a three-years' cruise to look on and 
 see how monstrous whales are taken in the 
 South seas or on the North-west coast. But, if 
 the unmanageable fellows belong to a certain 
 other class, their voyage is a short one, and hard 
 enough to bear : it is from the court-room to the 
 House of Correction or the State Prison. 
 
 If the child shall be trained to conform to 
 established rules, then he will be much more 
 ready to obey those commands and injunctions 
 arising from exigencies which are ever new. In 
 the first place, in a little child's impulses and ac- 
 tivities, he is liable to take directions in which 
 no established rule of prohibition will come in 
 his way. Household affairs are various and 
 changing ; and the child must be in the midst, 
 with his little eyes to look, his little hands to 
 take hold of, and his curiosity to be gratified. 
 Well, the prohibition to be given is the first one 
 of the kind, and may never occur again. But if 
 it is not made, if his hands are not held back, he 
 does harm to himself or to something else. If 
 
NO-GOVERNMENT IN THE FAMILY. 33 
 
 he is not restrained in this particular instance, 
 much less can he be restrained in the next ne- 
 cessity of the sort : so there will be incalculable 
 disorder. Indeed, where a child shall not be 
 made implicitly to obey particular commands, it 
 will be hard to make him conform to general 
 rules. It will be diflScult to establish any gene- 
 ral law for him. He has his own will in these 
 individual instances, in spite of the authorita- 
 tive injunction : what will he care, then, for the 
 wish, the word, the command, that he shall not 
 go anywhere and do any thing that he chooses ? 
 Let it be understood, then, that general rules of 
 government begin in special directions which 
 are continually made necessary in family life. 
 These are as rivets, ever thickening, which keep 
 up the bars and barricades of physical and moral 
 safety about the home. 
 
 A most successful parental educator, whose 
 large family of children did him distinguished 
 honor, was once asked the secret of his success. 
 The patriarch replied, that he had no great wis- 
 dom to boast of, but that he would simply state 
 one circumstance which might have had an im- 
 portant bearing on the matter. His children 
 could never remember the time when they did 
 not obey their father and mother. The princi- 
 
 3 
 
34 GOVERNMENT, MISGOVERNMENT, AND 
 
 pie thus illustrated lias been intimated before, 
 and is of infinite importance : it is to begin to 
 establish authority over the child as soon as any 
 restraint is needed, and to keep this authority 
 unbroken. Of course, the occasions must occur 
 so early, that no human remembrance could go 
 so far back as to reach them. Eecollection, as 
 it runs along back to the earliest, to the faintest 
 thought, finds a father and a mother who were 
 never disobeyed. With such training, and such 
 habits thus early formed, there cannot ordina- 
 rily come the struggle of the great will with 
 the little will, and — what we sometimes hear 
 about — the absolute necessity of breaking the 
 will. For the will has always been submissive 
 and pliant. It has been thoroughly habituated 
 to yield to the strong, the knowing, the careful, 
 the tender, yet the firm and majestic authority 
 which has, from the first, bent above it. How, 
 with such wise management, would the child be 
 saved from disagreeable memories of the up- 
 risings of its own will, and the down-pressings, 
 yet unsteady pressures, of the superior will ! 
 If the parent only knew it, it is absolute cruelty 
 to a child to bring on such conflicts by the let- 
 alone policy, and thence to fill the mind with 
 ever-living prickles from the keenly vivid re- 
 membrance of such passages in child-life. 
 
XO-GOVERXMENT IN THE FAMILY. 35 
 
 What folly, then, is there in the notion^ often 
 expressed, that children should never be made 
 to obey until they understand the reason why ! 
 When, according to this theory, they are old 
 enough to obe}", they are, for the most party quite 
 too old to do it according to their own ideas. 
 Children draw inferences much earlier than is 
 commonly supjposed. Appertaining to this very 
 point, here is an illustration which I myself re- 
 ceived from a father's own lips. A lady, con- 
 versing on the methods of education and the 
 proper time of beginning discipline, pointed to 
 his own little boy, with the remark^ '^ Such 
 children are not old enough to mind." After 
 she had gone, the father gave the child some 
 trivial direction ; and he straightened up his bit 
 of a body, and turned up his tiny face, w^ith a 
 sort of newly-felt consequence, and exclaimed, 
 " Father, I'm not old enough to mind ! " 
 
 By a glance at the methods of God in intro-. 
 ducing his children into the world ; at his wise 
 and beautiful laws appertaining to the com- 
 mencement and the progress of the human facul- 
 ties, — the weakest reason, one might think, 
 would perceive the course of duty. See how 
 things have been pre-arranged ! A child is put 
 into the hands of the parent in baby and total 
 
Q 
 
 6 GOVERNMENT, MISGOYERNMENT, AND 
 
 weakness both of body and mind ; and this, that 
 authority may not be deferred, but, on the con- 
 trary, be most firmly established, at the earliest 
 activities of life. How beautifully adapted is 
 one thing to the other ! An infantile lack of 
 animal strength is set over against an infantile 
 ignorance of mind and a blind impulsiveness of 
 wdll. The feeble creature is not only entirely 
 in the keeping, but under the absolute control, 
 of his authoritative friends. At first, they can 
 hold him as with the strength of a single nerve. 
 Being present and observing, they can restrain 
 him from any ordinary danger. But they ac- J 
 quire a power over him beyond that of muscular 
 strength : deeper and more subtle causes affect 
 his will, and lead him to submit. There is a 
 reverence, a commingling of fear and love. Be- 
 sides this, there is a sort of sentiment of duty. 
 He soon begins to feel that he should, as well as 
 that he must, yield obedience. Here, indeed, is 
 the first dawning of conscience. Then comes 
 in habit. From his earliest recollection, he has 
 been accustomed to yield to this authority; and, 
 if his governors and guardians have been faith- 
 ful, it is, at length, with him as it is with most 
 good citizens in regard to the laws of the State : 
 there is no thought or wish to violate them. 
 
NO-GOVERNMENT IN THE FAMILY. 37 
 
 Let the habit of obedience be thoroughly con- 
 firmed, and the child, who at first needed painful 
 compulsion, will afterwards want only rational, 
 tender, but unwavering guidance. The power 
 of parents, and of their coadjutors around, to- 
 gether with reverence and an unfolding con- 
 science within his soul, all conspire to make 
 him a peaceful subject of the first and most 
 sacred empire on earth, — that of the home. 
 Now, could such a state of things be brought 
 about there, how obedient, respectful, and order- 
 ly would grow up the communities of youth in 
 the school, of manhood in the neighborhood, and 
 of citizenship in the town and the state ! But 
 it is not always so ; and why ? Because these 
 first rulers, these most responsible of all mon- 
 archs, do not faithfully perform their duty. 
 They do not designedly neglect ; but they are 
 inadvertently delinquent. Indeed, many, who 
 well understand the nature of their responsibili- 
 ties, are ignorant of the true methods of meet- 
 ing them. Instinct may impel, tender parental 
 affection may prompt, them to be faithful ; but, 
 after all, family government is a science and an 
 art, and they have not the endowment. There 
 are natural gifts about it, as there are in the 
 government of a school or of a country. Some 
 
38 GOVERNMENT, MISGOYERNMENT, AND 
 
 have them, and they can hardly help governing. 
 Others (and they seem to be a numerous class) 
 are not so favored : they need instruction and 
 a sort of training for their office. Indeed, those 
 who in their very nature can govern, as it is 
 called, may be much assisted by hints drawn 
 from the experience and observation of others. 
 
 It must be confessed, that an irreverent, un- 
 ruly spirit has come to be a prevalent, an out- 
 rageous evil among the young people of our 
 land. Foreigners observe the fact, and are 
 very much struck — are indeed • shocked — by 
 it. An elderly clergyman related to me this 
 incident : " The Persian bishop, who visited 
 this country several years ago, called on me ; 
 and I introduced my daughter. His very first 
 words, accompanied by a kindly look, were 
 these : ' Do you obey your parents V — as much 
 as to say, ' Can it be, that a young lady, so intel^ 
 ligent and well-mannered as you appear to be, 
 is, like American children and youth in gene- 
 ral, disobedient and disrespectful to parents ? ' " 
 The clergyman asked the bishop if he intended 
 to visit England on his return home. He rcr 
 plied, that he could not then tell: he must, in 
 the first place, write home, and obtain his 
 father's consent. The bishop's father was an 
 
NO-GOVERNMENT IN THE FAMILY. 39 
 
 ecclesiastic of an inferior grade, and actually 
 subordinate to the son. But, as a parent, he 
 was considered far superior in position and 
 office. Thus he must send across two oceans 
 to obtain that parent's consent before he could 
 make a passing call on gloriously renowned Eng- 
 land. The incident shows a world-wide distance 
 between the East and the West in other things 
 than longitude. 
 
 Some of the good old people make facetious 
 complaint on this deterioration of youthful cha- 
 racter and manners. " There is as much govern- 
 ment now as there used to be in our young 
 days," say they; "only it has changed hands." 
 There are certain professional men, who have 
 occasion to know, above most others, into whose 
 hands it has been transferred : for instance, phy- 
 sicians, ministers, and school-teachers. 
 
 Many other people, of less extensive acquaint- 
 ance, have been convinced of the fact. 
 
 " This is a democratic country, there is not 
 the least doubt," remarked a jocose friend ; " for 
 the majority — that is, the children — do go- 
 vern." Surely they have it mostly all their 
 own way. Yes, the democratic spirit has crept 
 into the home, where it was never intended to 
 be. Father and mother — those sovereigns by 
 
40 GOVERNMENT; MISGOVERNMENT, AND 
 
 divine right — have been deposed. Alas for 
 morals and order until there shall be a restora- 
 tion ! It should be laid down and inculcated 
 through the nation as a great maxim of civil 
 and political wisdom, that sound family mon- 
 archies are the surest foundation of a steadfast 
 and a happy republic. 
 
 Instinctive parental love — that special en- 
 dowment from the Divine Parent — is the first 
 preparatory qualification for the holy office ; but 
 it is quite often perverted into a disqualification. 
 This was intended to insure fidelity to the child's 
 best good ; but how frequently does it lead to 
 blind, destructive indulgence ! The loving in- 
 stinct of the brute makes it faithful, but never 
 spoils the offspring. Would that the same could 
 be said of the human sovereign of the brute ! 
 
 This abuse of instinctive tenderness is parti- 
 cularly shown in a lack of firmness to resist a 
 child's importunities. The darling craves some 
 improper gratification. His parent, true for 
 the moment to conscience, says, " No ; " but the 
 child's experience is, that no is turned to yes 
 by half an hour's teasing. So he takes to this 
 peculiarly melodious sort of eloquence : " Now, 
 do, mamma : I say, won't you ? Do let me have 
 it ! " till the conscientious, the womanly, yea, the 
 
NO-GO YERNMENT IN THE FAMILY. 41 
 
 faithful motherly " No " is whined clear out of 
 his way ; and the mamma often comes very near 
 to something much like whining too : " Yes, 
 you may have it : but, my child, how you do 
 trouble me ! it seems as if you would wear my 
 very life away." But, from a different disposi- 
 tion, the reply is, perhaps, " Yes : take it, and be 
 off! '^ If such a mother desires her child's love, 
 let her understand that he is certainly not grow- 
 ing in affection during this uncomfortable space 
 between refusal and compliance. He is irritated 
 by the delay. His thought and feeling are, 
 " Why do you keep me waiting? Let me have 
 it now. You know you'll let me have it by and 
 by, after I have teased long enough ; as you 
 always do. I don't like you, mother ; I don't 
 like you, old mother ! Let me have it now." 
 Such is the secret language of his soul. Well, 
 does he like her any better after she has come 
 round, or rather down, to his little mightiness ? 
 Not at all. He thinks of her, cares for her, no 
 more, till he comes back for some new indul- 
 gence ; sure, moreover, that he shall get it. 
 The child, whose appetites and passions are 
 thus developed, really loves less than any other 
 one. His lower nature is made to overgrow 
 and cover up and crush down his higher; until, 
 
42 GOVERNMENT, MISGOVERNMENT, AND 
 
 at length, it takes a good deal of perforation and 
 probing about to get at what little heart he has 
 left. 
 
 Again : the parent wishes her child to enjoy 
 life ; to be a happy child. How often she bends 
 her back, hardens her hands, and scorches and 
 withers her face, to furnish luxuries for his plea- 
 sure ! Yet she is taking the most direct and 
 certain means to counteract her heart's earnest 
 desire ,* namely, that he should enjoy life. He 
 is a spoiled child ; and the spoiled child is one of 
 the most wretched beings that ever disappointed 
 the purpose of creation. The least opposition 
 stirs up his irascible temper ; and is such a dis- 
 position a blessing? Brothers and sisters and 
 men-servants and maid-servants, if there be such 
 unfortunates about him, must go quick at his 
 bidding, or spring and get something at his yell. 
 How he will hop and stamp and flutter, and shake 
 himself about, if he cries '' Go ! " or " Come ! '^ 
 and nobody starts ! He gets provoked at things 
 inanimate just because they retain their natural 
 qualities : the nail his cap clings to, or the door 
 which sticks a little in the opening, have to take 
 instant punishment ,* or, rather, the little fist that 
 hits them a blow has to take it. But alas for 
 those that are not inanimate, and who can feel ! 
 
NO-GOVERNMENT IN THE FAMILY. 43 
 
 The school-mate who will not turn down the way 
 that suits him, or rather, perhaps, who will not 
 stop by the way, or not do something else, just 
 as he demands, becomes a momentary victim, 
 and has to take a push, pinch, or kick. And 
 what is he at school? — a self-willed, insolent 
 nuisance to the teacher ; selfish and petulant 
 with the pupils ; by turns, an offence to every- 
 body. It is he who comes home knitting his 
 brows, grating his teeth, and muttering his 
 wrath, perhaps his hate, against some one. It 
 is most likely to be the teacher. It is he who 
 naakes the teacher's good appear nothing but 
 evil before the parent ; and, alas ! that parent, 
 spoiled also, has not the justice and the good 
 sense, not the common sense, to go to the teach- 
 er, and hear his account of the matter : no ; 
 but rather repeats and propagates the child's 
 misstatements. At length arise gross calumnies 
 and intense bitterness ; and sometimes, espe- 
 cially in CQuntry towns, comes the breaking-up 
 of the school itself, sometimes of neighborly 
 peace besides. These spoiled children are abso- 
 lute robbers. Do they not compel the teacher 
 to leave his duty to others to take care of them? 
 Do they not wrest time and teaching from the 
 whole school ? And why not ? Look into that 
 
44 GOYERNMENT, MISGOVERNMENT, AND 
 
 family den whence these depredators have issued 
 forth, and their felonious characters are at once 
 accounted for. 
 
 Let us now just glance at a contrast. Here 
 is a child to whom " No " has always been 
 no. The negative, once put down, stays, un- 
 less there shall be some peculiar change of cir- 
 cumstances. He has been trained never to be . 
 impatient. He has learned to confide in the 
 love and the wisdom which cross his inclina- 
 tions. Well, his request is refused ; what then ? 
 He drops not a tear, says not a word, but away he 
 trips to something else, — to his work, his books, 
 or his play. He skips like a lamb, he capers in 
 the breeze, he carols like a bird, — a happy boy 
 still, the well-governed and trustingly obedient 
 son of a wise parent, — God's best angel in the 
 flesh. 
 
 Yerily, these weak parents spend absolutely 
 more time in running after and coaxing, and 
 trying to govern, their children, ten times over, 
 forty times over, than the judicious disciplinari- 
 an. Said an excellent lady, whose grandchildren 
 were of the sort described, " Oh ! if my daughter 
 had not so much to do, she would have time to 
 train her children." I could have told her, 
 that the very reason why her daughter did not 
 
NO-GOYERNMENT IN THE FAMILY. 45 
 
 liave time to train her children was because she 
 had not, in good season, taken time to train 
 them. Her neglect led to misrule ; and this 
 misrule compelled her, at length, to attempt to 
 rule at a great expense of time, strength, and 
 patience, and, after all, with but little success. 
 To what wretched shifts are such imbeciles 
 sometimes driven ! How often are methods 
 adopted which the plainest common sense might 
 perceive to be the immediate antecedents of 
 evils worse than those which are sought to be 
 presented I 
 
 Not a few resort to stratagem, to downright 
 deception. The consequence is, the quick-ejed 
 child soon sees through the trick. He reads 
 the natural, unbidden language of the tone and 
 the countenance, contradicting the words ; and 
 he receives a lesson in deception, — indeed, in 
 falsehood, — which he will practise back again : 
 yea, he will pay off his parent for such profitable 
 instruction by lying, and with compound inte- 
 rest. 
 
 Others — God's vicegerents though they are, 
 with absolute authority, and suflScient strength 
 to enforce it — humbly pay for permission to ex- 
 ercise a rightful control. They hire their liege 
 subjects to obey. Ah ! what promises of rides, 
 
4G GOVERNMENT, MISGOVERNMENT, AND 
 
 sights, plajs, playthings ; or, what is worse, of 
 pie, cake, candy, — any thing that shall pervert 
 still more an already perverted palate, and 
 weaken even further an already weak sense 
 of duty ! — for this is the consequence. These 
 domestic rulers flatter themselves, that by these 
 means they have exercised due authority, — 
 have secured obedience. But this is not autho- 
 rity or obedience : it is a bargain, the benefit of 
 which is mostly on one side. The child thus 
 trafficked with and tempted will practise his 
 first Yankee shrewdness on his own parent. 
 He will wait and wait, and wind up the pur- 
 chaser to the point at which the pay suits him, 
 before he will close in. Thus he exchanges 
 obedience for what, in business, is called a 
 " valuable consideration ; '^ or, to use another 
 mercantile phrase, he performs a " pretty little 
 operation " — on his own father or mother. What 
 an absurdity I The Almighty God's own nearest 
 agent, possessing an adult body, equipped with 
 two strong arms and two capable hands, and 
 having this very God and his Holy Word, 
 and also conscience and common sense, in sup- 
 port, — what an absurdity, what a sin, to stoop 
 down, down, to buy up, not obedience, but tardy 
 compliance, of tiny weakness ! Alas I how will 
 
KO-GOVERNMENT IN THE FAMILY. 47 
 
 even wisdom sometimes change suddenly to 
 folly, and substance and strength fall into very 
 nothingness, in this matter of government ! 
 While delivering lectures on domestic educa- 
 tion, I was once the guest of an excellent lady. 
 She was a very mother in her own little Israel, 
 and took a deep interest in the cause. She really 
 wished that " every parent in town could hear 
 the lectures ; they were so much needed, and 
 they would do so much good." But one day I 
 saw her gliding along to a cupboard, her little 
 boy tripping after. Soon she furtively slipped 
 in her hand, and snatched out a golden and most 
 tempting piece of cake, and slid it into the hand 
 of the child ; while she leaned down to his ear 
 with the softly whispered injunction (but I heard 
 it), " There : now go, and do it." And this was 
 a pattern mother of the town. It seemed as if a 
 blow fell on my naked heart. " Ah ! how little 
 good am I doing, after all ! " thought I. " All 
 is vanity," said the Preacher of old. "All is 
 vanity" was then despairingly echoed by one 
 poor preacher of the present. 
 
 Many have a habit of threatening as a means 
 of government. You will hear them say, " I'll 
 put you into the closet," or " out into the entry," 
 or "down cellar!" How seldom is the threat 
 
48 GOVERNMENT, MISGOVERNMENT, AND 
 
 executed ! Thus the parent not only betrays 
 an utter powerlessness, but also sets an exam- 
 ple of falsehood. But if the offender shall, at 
 length, be thrust into the fearful place, the un- 
 comfortable spirit is not thrust out ,of him. He 
 scratches, he pushes, he thumps the door ; he 
 splits his mother's ears with his screeches for 
 some ^ve long minutes, perhaps ; when she, quite 
 overcome, opens a chink just to parley a little, 
 
 — to say, " Now, my son, if you'll only behave 
 yourself, I'll" — but she does not finish her pro- 
 position ; for he puts his two hands through that 
 strip of daylight, pushes aside the door, and his 
 mother too, and rushes out like the gust of a 
 tempest. Then he continues to plague that 
 weak-souled parent till weariness and sleep im- 
 prison him for the night ; yet only to be let 
 loose again in the morning, — the same little 
 storm-spirit as before, ever blowing the parental 
 threat back on the breath that uttered it. 
 
 I have known those who would have been 
 perfectly horrified at the idea of a woman's pre- 
 suming on her right to exercise the butchering 
 business, and to wield the knife and the cleaver, 
 
 — 1 have heard such threaten most fiercely to 
 shin their own offspring ; to skin them alive ; 
 to take off every inch, as sure as they were 
 born. 
 
KO-GOVERNMENT IN THE FAMILY. 49 
 
 I have heard even more terrible threats than 
 these. One day, as I was passing some Irish 
 dwellings in Boston, my ears were suddenly 
 shocked by the exclamation, in a fierce, feminine 
 voice, together with the native brogue, " If you 
 don't go 'long, I'll kuU ye I " I was seized with 
 a curious impulse, and, in a moment, was within 
 the door whence came the screech ; and there 
 sat a handsome young Irishwoman, looking not 
 at all as if she really meant to kill her little boy, 
 who, near by, looked not at all as if he expected 
 to be murdered by his own dear mother. I did 
 not soften her surprise at my unexpected intru- 
 sion with even a " Good-morning ! " but put the 
 question at once, " Do you mean to say that you 
 intend to kill your child ?" and she burst out into 
 a good-natured laugh, and replied, " Oh ! I have 
 to use the buggest word I can thunk of, or he 
 won't go 'long." As I left this poor, ignorant 
 Irish mother, I could not but reflect that there 
 is also many an American parent, better off in 
 every way, who uses big words to make a child 
 " go along ; " and often, the bigger the word, the 
 more he will not go. 
 
 In these days of humane ameliorations, -cor- 
 poral punishment savors of cruelty, and is by 
 many considered a shocking barbarity. Few 
 
50 GOVERNMENT, MISGOVERNMENT, AND 
 
 parents can bear to have bodily pain inflicted on 
 a child at school ; yet I have often seen those 
 who are given to the most excessive indulgence, 
 and who would almost melt with tears of sym- 
 pathy at any accidental trouble to the darling, 
 — I have seen such, in momentary excitement, 
 assail that same tender creature with a violence 
 which would be deemed entirely behind the age, 
 if resorted to at school. Here is a catalogue of 
 such parental inflictions : pats, slaps, pulls, dabs, 
 twists, twitches,, tweaks, pinches, pokes, pushes, 
 cufls, shakings (almost to very pieces), down- 
 right whippings with a little stick, and possibly 
 thumps with something heavier still. 
 
 It may, however, really be necessary sometimes 
 to resort to corporal punishment ; to give a real, 
 old-fashioned whipping with the old-fashioned 
 rod, — even Solomon's rod. The strong, lower 
 nature cannot be subdued, perhaps, any other 
 way. This is often the case when due discipline 
 has been neglected too long. Sometimes a hard- 
 ened child or youth comes from unfaithful hands 
 into other and more conscientious care ; and it 
 is felt, at length, that decided steps are to be 
 taken. Now, if there is to be whipping, let it 
 be a whipping^ especially if the subject is of 
 considerable size. Let some time elapse be- 
 
NO-GOVERNMENT IN THE FAMILY. 51 
 
 tween the offence and the punishment, that the 
 culprit may think the matter over, feel his guilti- 
 ness, and shrink from the correcting hand before 
 it is lifted : thus his soul shall be whipped as 
 well as his body, and with more than twofold 
 effect. Then, when the hour of infliction shall 
 come, let it be a solemn hour, — a season of 
 earnest prayer for a right spirit ; let it be as 
 if the heavens darkened down, and the guar- 
 dian angels were looking through the gloom with 
 starry eyes, taking note of the transaction in their 
 books of remembrance, from which you yourself 
 are to be judged. So let it be, and such a pun- 
 ishment may be blessed by the Most Merciful, 
 and be the beginning of a permanent reform. 
 
 There are numerous mild methods of disci- 
 pline which may be adopted with all desirable 
 results in the case of many little offenders. 
 Give a child nothing to do ; fasten him to a 
 seat : let there be nothing which he can play 
 with, or any way use, within reach, — not even 
 a particle of sand ; for, if there shall be, he will 
 try to solve with it the problem of the infinite 
 divisibility of matter. Restless activity is al- 
 most as constant a condition and want of his 
 nature as breathing is. Let him, then, have 
 plenty of the opposite inaction ; burden him 
 
52 GOVERNMENT, MISGOVERNMENT, AND 
 
 with nottiing to do ; and you are about as likely 
 to reach the difficulty as in any other way, — 
 this, too, without absolute bodily pain. 
 
 You may send a wrong-doer to bed in the 
 bright daytime. Take away his clothes, and 
 every possible occupation ; and then let him 
 continue — rolling from side to side, seeking 
 rest, not to his body, but to his feelings — 
 until he shall resolve to amend, and shall hum- 
 bly promise so to do. But give not over until 
 you conquer, if it shall take a month. There 
 are various other privations of customary plea- 
 sures and comforts which might be tried with 
 good effect. Let there be an inevitable cer- 
 tainty, that any specific transgression shall be 
 punished with some specific privation, and the 
 method, in most cases, will be successful. 
 
 Let me not be understood as advising an iron 
 rigor, with its hard, sharp, cutting severity. I 
 simply counsel resolution and efficiency, accom- 
 panied by as much mildness as Christian love 
 can breathe into your character. There may be 
 all the firmness of the rock, with all the velvet 
 softness of the mosses that grow upon and adorn 
 it. The child respects real authority. When 
 he knows and feels that the parent possesses 
 a truly conscientious determination, together 
 
NO-GOYERNMENT IN THE FAMILY. 53 
 
 with all due parental love and tenderness, re- 
 verence and love are likely to be his permanent 
 dispositions. To obey, when occasion requires, 
 will be a habit. Take an illustration from the 
 sun : there he stands, — the great paternal lu- 
 minary, — keeping around him and holding fast 
 his family of worlds, each in its proper place ; 
 pouring out his golden beams, awakening the 
 verdure, opening the flowers, ripening the fruits, 
 profusely shedding beauty, but making no noise. 
 Let it be so with parentage centred in the 
 home, — strong, loving, luminous, quiet, but ever 
 there ; an unmoved, immovable, central power. 
 Why should not children love and grow and 
 blossom and be blessed under such unfailing, 
 genial influence? 
 
 Another mode of amendment is to keep a 
 record of failings and amendments. An admo- 
 nition of to-day is often forgotten by to-morrow, 
 in the whirl of giddy thought. Again : words 
 may be uttered, in reply, not altogether respect- 
 ful in tone, if they should be in meaning. This 
 may excite harshness in the parent ; and then 
 really disrespectful language in rejoinder bursts 
 out from the child, and both advice and autho- 
 rity are more unheeded than ever. All this may 
 be avoided by a silent record in a blank book. 
 
54 GOVERNMENT, MISGOYERNMENT, AND 
 
 There, in the kindest spirit, explain the nature 
 of a wrong disposition, and put down the several 
 circumstances of anj instance of misconduct. 
 Now, this will be a momentous matter to a child. 
 It is in black and white, almost like print. It 
 can be read in solitude, and in moments of so- 
 ber reflection, when the words of wisdom and 
 tenderness will be apt to sink deep into the 
 heart. This record does not perish in the air 
 like words uttered by the mouth. There it is, 
 to meet the eye again to-morrow, or a month 
 or a year hence. There it is, moreover, to be 
 seen by the other parent, — the father, for in- 
 stance, — when he shall come in. To a daugh- 
 ter tenderly attached to a father, it is a fearful 
 spectacle, — that of this beloved and revered 
 parent reading such a record with a tearful eye, 
 a saddened countenance, and a meaning glance 
 now and then at the misdoer. Let the child's 
 character, as it unfolds, continue to be registered, 
 the good as well as the evil ; the improvements 
 in an especial manner, as an encouragement. If 
 an ordinary story shall be of use, this cannot 
 but be so. It is the child's own passing life and 
 changing character put into a permanent book, — 
 the life giving back visible lessons to the heart 
 from which that life has issued forth. 
 
NO-GOVERNMENT IN THE FAMILY. 55 
 
 Finally : one of the surest methods of secur- 
 ing filial reverence and obedience is to sur- 
 round and consecrate the relation of parent and 
 child by religious associations. Next to that of 
 God, the name of the earthly parent should be 
 hallowed. In the nearest possible relationship 
 stand father and mother to the Father in heaven. 
 They receive the soul from his generating spi- 
 rit ; they take the body from his framing hand. 
 They receive the charge of life directly from 
 the Self- existent and Eternal Life. Who ap- 
 proach nearer to the Lord God Almighty than 
 they? Yerily, if any relation is holy, it is 
 theirs. At first, they stand between the Most 
 High and their ofi'spring. They are the shadow- 
 ing- forth of his power and majesty and love. 
 It is through them that he bows the heavens, 
 and comes down to the least of his little ones on 
 earth. For the child, in the first instance, does 
 not know any thing concerning his heavenly 
 Parent ; but he does know his own visible fa- 
 ther and mother. These are a sort of first 
 deities to him : they are great, very great, 
 to his littleness. Their might is irresistible, 
 their authority absolute, their care ever ready, 
 their love unfailing. All he possesses and en- 
 joys is chiefly from them. They are the first, 
 
56 GOVERNMENT, MISGOYERNMENT, AND 
 
 the greatest, the wisest, the most affectionate, 
 and the most tenderly beloved beings known. 
 Home, moreover, is all the heaven of which he 
 at first knows. Now, when the idea of the 
 Father most high, our Father in heaven, is pre- 
 sented, the little soul but runs up from inferior 
 attributes, with which he is already acquainted, 
 to higher ones of a similar kind. How impor- 
 tant, then, that the earthly relative should most 
 truly show forth the qualities of that relation- 
 ship which is of all others the highest and the 
 holiest ! As the little learner shall associate 
 one with the other, how will the reverence 
 and obedience to both be intermingled and con- 
 firmed, and become an abiding and controlling 
 princijjle of the life ! Let that parent, then, 
 be faithful, not so much to his own as to the 
 heavenly Father's child. It is through him 
 as an instrumentality that the Eternal would 
 bestow his earliest and his best blessing on 
 the newly existent immortal, especially the 
 blessing of spiritual and religious nurture. He 
 is consecrated to a holier work than ever was 
 priest, and in a holier temple than was ever 
 reared by human hands. He is to lead this 
 undying spirit to its own Father in the high- 
 est, in the temple of home. In this place. 
 
NO-GOVERNMENT IN THE FAMILY. 57 
 
 if anywhere below, there should be an altar, 
 and a worship the purest and the most faithful. 
 If any priesthood should never neglect its duty, 
 the priesthood here should never fail. This 
 family shrine should be the holy of holies to the 
 little one there kneeling. It should be the most 
 sacred as well as the dearest spot on earth. As 
 that revered father shall read the Word, and as he 
 shall lift the devout, sincere soul in iprajer, lead- 
 ing the circle of loved and linked hearts to the 
 sole Hearer of prayer, how will he increasingly 
 reflect upon the subdued and solemnized child 
 somewhat of the love unspeakable and the light 
 full of glory which fall upon him from above I 
 The earthly relations will be indissolubly asso- 
 ciated with the divine ; and this changeful, 
 lower home, with the everlasting, ever-blessed 
 heavens. Now, with other judicious training, 
 how will reverence for rightful authority possess 
 the filial soul I With due fidelity on the part of 
 those charged with the care of the dispositions 
 and the habits, obedience will become a con- 
 firmed characteristic. With faithful endeavors, 
 and with God's blessing, the apostolic injunction 
 can hardly fail to be heeded : " Children, obey 
 your parents in the Lord ; for this is right." 
 How solemn will seem that commandment of 
 
58 GOVERNMENT, MISGOVERNMENT, AND 
 
 the Ancient of days, given amid the awfulness 
 of Sinai, yet with graciousness and significant 
 promise, " Honor thy father and thy mother " ! 
 
 Oh that mothers knew their power ! It is as 
 spirit and might from God. There is nothing 
 this side of heaven and the angels so strong as 
 a mother's teaching, prompted by a mother's 
 love, and this, blessed by the divine answering 
 of a mother's prayers. I have a most appropri- 
 ate illustration. 
 
 While in the exercise of a missionary mini- 
 stry in Boston, I was one day hastening along 
 what was considered not only the crookedest, 
 but the filthiest and the wickedest, street in the 
 city. I had been informed, that, in a cellar 
 there, a half- drunken man and his equally 
 drunken wife were selling liquor to make others 
 wholly drunken, if thereby gain might be added 
 to gain. I felt that I must stop a moment to 
 remonstrate. While in the place, there came 
 in a young man, tall, finely formed, and athletic, 
 with a bright and interesting countenance. He 
 leaned his elbow on the bar, as if waiting for 
 the stranger to retire, — probably that he might 
 more freely obtain his dram. I presumed it 
 seemed to him that I had a sort of missionary 
 aspect. I soon addressed him with a kindly 
 
NO-GOVERNMENT IN THE FAMILY. 59 
 
 greeting, and received a civil reply. I then 
 inquired if his mother were living. In an in- 
 stant, his cheek was flushed and his eye mois- 
 tened; and he tremulously replied, "No, sir: my 
 mother has been dead fourteen years." Then, 
 looking him steadily but kindly in the face, I 
 further inquired, '' Did your mother teach you 
 to pray, my young friend ? Did she teach you re- 
 ligion ? " The color deepened on his cheek, 
 and his eyes filled with tears ; and in choked ac- 
 cents he stammered out, " sir ! my mother was 
 a good woman : she did teach me to pray ; she 
 did teach me religion. I thought I had religion 
 myself, once ; but it is all gone now." I imme- 
 diately stepped up to his side, took him by 
 the arm, and said, " My young friend, this is no 
 place for you. Come, go with me." Then I led 
 him up those creaking, crazy steps as if he had 
 been the veriest child. I conversed with him a 
 few minutes longer while standing on the pave- 
 ment, and warm tears fell from his eyes upon 
 the cold, red brick ; but, being in haste, I took 
 him to an intelligent friend not far off, and 
 asked that he would detain him somehow till I 
 could return and hold further conversation. But 
 I did not see the young man again. He went 
 soon into the country, returning but once, as I 
 
60 GOVERNMENT, MISGOYERNMENT, AND 
 
 understood, to get some necessary articles ] and 
 then he entirely disappeared. I know not what 
 became of him from that time onward. But I 
 received a singular, and to me, at that time, a 
 surprising account of him on that very day. I 
 requested a police watchman of that district to 
 accompany me in the evening in a visit to the 
 many cellar haunts in that street, similar to, and 
 perhaps worse than, the one I had entered in 
 the morning. I wanted his protection from dan- 
 ger, or at least insult, as I wished to make some 
 investigations for a moral purpose, which I was 
 set to do by the committee of the association 
 under which I operated. He told me that he 
 was engaged, and that the whole body of the 
 city police were also engaged, on special duty 
 for that evening. " But," said he, " I can tell 
 you of a young man, who, if you can secure his 
 company, will keep you safe ; for everybody in 
 the street is afraid of him." To my exceeding 
 surprise, he mentioned the very person whom I 
 had met in the cellar that morning. This young 
 man had before been the ringleader of the 
 riots of the street, the rowdiest of the rowdy, — 
 the very Anak among the strong. When he 
 came swinging his big fist and screeching with 
 his almost wild-beast voice, the stoutest and the 
 
NO-GO YERNMENT IN THE FAMILY. 61 
 
 bravest stood aside, and let him pass. He had, 
 at length, been put into jail for riot. From this 
 durance he had just come out. He was con- 
 siderably sobered, probably, as the watchman 
 knew, and intending to be more cautious in his 
 conduct, but still carrying sufficient of his past 
 reputation to make others stand off and keep 
 clear. At this point in his history, I met him in 
 the cellar. I was a perfect stranger. He had 
 no interest in me. He would not have struck 
 me, perhaps ; but he might have turned away 
 surlily, or have given me an insolent reply. But 
 no : I spoke two or three words ; they seemed to 
 be spiritually electric, — mother, prayer, religion; 
 and the strong and the feared one seemed utter- 
 ly subdued. I took and led him out of that foul 
 drinking den as if he were the smallest boy that 
 could walk; and I committed him, while in tears 
 like a child, to the care of a friend. It was the 
 remembrance of a mother's teaching and prayers 
 that now came over him. Was it not in answer 
 to those prayers that a way was opened through 
 the stone around the heart, so that the waters 
 of contrition gushed forth, cleansing in their 
 course, and preparing for the regenerating spi- 
 rit of God? 
 
 Now, mothers, will you not teach your chil- 
 
62 GOVERNMENT, ETC., IN THE FAMILY. 
 
 dren to pray? and will you not pray with 
 them ? Will you not teach them religion ? Fa- 
 thers, shall these partners in parentage, shall 
 these hearts joined with yours in the most re- 
 sponsible duties, be the only servants of God 
 who shall teach, pray, and be faithful in that 
 holiest of all places, the home ? 
 
LECTUEE 
 
 ON THE 
 
 MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 
 
 I. THE RULE FOR IT. 
 II. HOW THIS RULE IS NEGLECTED, 
 m. HINTS ON ITS OBSERVANCE. 
 
NOTE. 
 
 Especial attention is invited to the introductory pages of the 
 following Lecture. Here is set forth, though very imperfectly, an 
 all-important principle in education ; one which, if made a chief 
 aim in culture and in life, would change earth to a paradise. The 
 more clearly this shall be understood in the outset, the more effective 
 are likely to be the subsequent strictures and suggestions. 
 
 The few physiological hints interspersed, though not appertaining 
 to the main subject, presented themselves so readily, that the oppor- 
 tunity was seized for needful service in this much-neglected direc- 
 tion. 
 
 The remarks on the forced and untimely activity of the infantile 
 brain are commended to serious consideration. This all-prevalent 
 error should be conversed upon in the household and in the neighbor- 
 hood, and the law of soundness be rigidly enforced, if parents would 
 save the helpless child from much suffering, and themselves from 
 harassing discomfort. 
 
LECTURE 
 
 MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 
 
 G 
 
 OD is love. Prompted by this, he is ever 
 exercising all his infinite attributes to bless 
 his creation. As to human beings, however, he 
 cannot bless them in the highest, without their 
 own consent. If husband and wife, parents and 
 children, brothers and sisters, do not lovingly 
 discharge their mutual duties, then that good 
 cannot be given which God has in store. It is 
 only through their own hearts and hands th'at 
 domestic felicities can reach them. If neigh- 
 bors interchange no sincere kindnesses, then the 
 best advantages of vicinage are not enjoyed. 
 So throughout the whole great family of our 
 race : man is, from the heart, to bless man, 
 according to nearness and ability and to oppor- 
 tunity in general, or the common Father's boun- 
 tiful provisions will be unused and his plans not 
 carried out. God must abide by his own wise 
 
 5 
 
66 MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 
 
 and pre-existent laws. He will not crush the 
 order of his universe for the sake of those who 
 refuse to conform. Whoever, therefore, does his 
 duty to others, is in his own person, as it were, 
 the lengthening- out of the arm of the Infinite 
 Giver ; so that he drops his bounty into capaci- 
 ties otherwise unreached. Whoever does not 
 perform his duty to others, hinders even the 
 Almighty from bestowing the good he intends. 
 Indeed, the Most Merciful is at any moment 
 actually waiting to pour sweet satisfactions 
 through the hearts and lives of millions ; but 
 they will not let him. Unloving relatives, quar- 
 relsome or neglectful neighbors, and unjustly 
 warring nations, turn aw^ay from the infinite 
 fountain of good, and will not receive its ever- 
 ready streams. 
 
 It is a common idea, that the recipient of a 
 favor is the one most benefited ; but it is not so, 
 if we consider the inner as well as the outer life. 
 The bestower, if he possesses a right motive 
 and spirit, is more blessed than the receiver. 
 He has the satisfaction of witnessing another's 
 increased enjoyment, and of being the object of 
 thankfulness and of warmer attachment. But 
 it is not necessary to the enjoyment of doing 
 good that the object of it should know whence 
 
MANAGEMENT OP THE SELFHOOD. 67 
 
 it comes, so as to be grateful to the individual 
 benefactor. There is a reward richer than the 
 deepest gratitude or the tenderest sensibility 
 of the person benefited : it is that which arises 
 from, indeed which exists in, the affection itself 
 that prompts to the action. The love which is 
 not only felt, but which is disinterestedly active, 
 toward another, is the very essence of happi- 
 ness. The divine and all-perfect character will 
 illustrate this. God is love. The infinitely 
 intense consciousness of this love, the never- 
 ceasing outflowing of it through innumerable 
 channels in his recipient creation, are what con- 
 stitute his blessedness; at least, in a large de- 
 gree. It is not what his children feel toward 
 him and do for him that makes him happy, but 
 what he feels toward and does for them. Just 
 so the highest felicity of man consists in the 
 possession, the consciousness, and the outflowing 
 of a similar love. In all the relations of life, it 
 is not what we receive from others which gives 
 us the purest and most intense pleasure : it is 
 what we feel inwardly toward them. 
 
 Once, in my own presence, a mother, holding 
 her infant upon her lap, and gazing intently into 
 its face, exclaimed, " Oh ! I could sit here all 
 day, and ask for no other happiness than to look 
 
68 MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 
 
 at this darling child." She was blessed in her 
 own overflowing maternal heart. It was not in 
 the filial reciprocation of it ; for that infant could 
 not yet appreciate and feel in return. It is 
 the same in all the other domestic affections, and 
 likewise in the still wider relationships. It is 
 what each one feels toward another that is the 
 most thrillingly intense, and that makes the most 
 precious part of the heart's treasures. It is not 
 the consciousness of reciprocated attachment, 
 though this truly adds to the happiness. 
 
 In the circle of friendship, it is not the atten- 
 tions shown us, or the presents we receive, 
 which most enhance that circle : it is what we 
 feel toward and do for them. To a properly 
 cultivated and noble nature, there is far more 
 gratification in making a birthday or a New- 
 Year's present than in receiving one. 
 
 Again : the benefactor to the poor is blessed 
 in the very consciousness of a benevolent dis- 
 position ; but he is doubly blessed when this 
 disposition is moved, and gushes out afresh in 
 a new act of kindness. The late Amos Law- 
 rence of Boston gave perhaps of his abundant 
 means from a sense of duty ; but he gave also 
 because he loved to do it: it made him hap- 
 py as such things do the angels. When the 
 
MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 69 
 
 good doer lets not his left hand know what his 
 right doeth, then no praise of men or no self- 
 praise disturbs the pure thrilling bliss of the 
 prompting, Heaven-like love. 
 
 Florence Nightingale left her healthful, rural 
 home in England, and shut herself up in a hospi- 
 tal, in crowded, smoky London, to tend upon 
 poor invalid women. She betook herself to 
 this work, not for money or for distinction, but 
 from that sweet benevolence of the heart which 
 is its own reward. She went to the Crimea, and 
 confronted sickness and death in all its horrors, 
 to relieve the suffering soldier. She made her- 
 self so useful and dear to the wretched, that the 
 very shadow of her person falling on his pillow 
 was kissed by him in the impulsive throb of 
 his grateful bosom. All the emoluments the 
 English Government could bestow in compensa- 
 tion, all the honors royalty might vouchsafe, to 
 this noble woman, would have been no induce- 
 ment to superintend those pestilential hospitals. 
 She went because she loved to go. Her heart 
 carried her thither, and her reward was in the 
 heaven of her own bosom. 
 
 Thus we perceive the principal ground on 
 which was given the golden command, '^ Thou 
 shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" It was 
 
70 MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 
 
 because self- forgetful love toward other living 
 beings is the central spirit and inmost life of 
 true and lasting happiness. To love God with 
 all the heart, and the neighbor as one's self, is 
 to receive the very kingdom of Heaven into the 
 heart. It is to receive Jesus Christ and the 
 Holy Spirit and God himself. It is to be like 
 God to the utmost extent in which the finite can 
 approach the Infinite in affection and blessed- 
 ness. 
 
 But how little have mankind understood this 
 philosophy of their nature, and the loving will 
 and beneficent laws of God ! Even the majority 
 of those brought up under Christian influences 
 do not understand. They live and act as if hap- 
 piness was something outside of them, or some- 
 thing to be grasped after, struggled for, and 
 taken in. By each individual's thus feeling 
 and acting, there comes a collision of one per- 
 son's self with another person's self, and mutual 
 repulse, loss, and disappointment. If any do 
 succeed in gratifying the lower and selfish na- 
 ture without ofi'ence to others, yet how poor and 
 miserable they are notwithstanding 1 
 
 Each successive generation of mankind edu- 
 cates its offspring in the same ignorance, to 
 make the same mistake, and to suffer the same 
 
MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 71 
 
 wretched disappointment. Parents, by their 
 own spirit and example, train and lead their 
 children to shut out that kingdom of God which 
 is waiting to come into their souls in all its ful- 
 ness and felicity. Even the majority of pro- 
 fessedly Christian parents, who really desire 
 better things as far as they are sincere, do, from 
 almost the earliest consciousness of their chil- 
 dren, educate them into this unchristian and 
 most unheavenly selfishness. They do that 
 which it seems to me they would utterly abhor ; 
 that indeed which all loving and rational pa- 
 rents would abhor, if they did but understand 
 the true philosophy of happiness. Why should 
 they rather curse than bless those who are so 
 dear to their hearts? 
 
 I propose now to show some of the occasions 
 and circumstances through which children are 
 educated to dispositions and habits of selfish- 
 ness. 
 
 Human beings, however pure, could hardly 
 but manifest something like selfishness in the 
 very earliest life ; because, through utter igno- 
 rance and inexperience, they would be conscious 
 only of their own pleasures and pains. Their 
 first attention, in the very nature of things, 
 must be directed to themselves ; and, if they 
 
72 MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 
 
 should not be specially informed^ they must 
 come quite slowly to recognize the welfare of 
 their fellow - creatures. Besides this primary 
 and necessary regard for self, there is very early 
 developed, in innocent ignorance, as human na- 
 ture now is, an unheavenly self-seeking. Even 
 should there be no injudicious treatment on the 
 part of friends, children in diiferent degrees, 
 according to native constitution, show, quite uni- 
 versally, that they do not love their neighbor 
 as themselves. It requires the most faithful 
 effort and discipline to bring the child to this 
 best law of life. Indeed, it needs the regene- 
 rating spirit of God to purify the soul from 
 self-love. Watchful care and training only put 
 the soul in a receptive attitude, that the Holy 
 Spirit may enter, and make way for the fulness 
 of the kingdom of love. 
 
 It is of unspeakable importance, at the earliest 
 possible period, to check this inborn, perverse 
 selfishness, and to open the heart to better dis- 
 positions. But, as methods generally are, the 
 original tendency is perpetually strengthened. 
 Parents, older brothers and sisters, and other 
 friends, join in the baleful, cruel work of inten- 
 sifying self; and, of course, multiplying the mise- 
 ries which must be the consequence. 
 
MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 73 
 
 A first injudicious step is a premature awaken- 
 ing of the intellect. It is very gratifying to 
 parents and others of the family to observe a 
 child's opening faculties, and especially to re- 
 ceive from him an individualizing look. Hence, 
 at the earliest stage, particular effort is made 
 to induce him first to recognize them, and next to 
 notice the inanimate objects around. At length, 
 he does observe more and more, with less 
 and less prompting and direction from others. 
 He now not only sees, but desires to take 
 hold of and to become acquainted with, things. 
 Soon this new intellectual appetite comes to 
 be an urgent want ; and, unless it is gratified, 
 the infantile looker is uneasy, and wriggles 
 about : he is sometimes quite uncomfortable, 
 and cries aloud. He must know, and he must 
 have too. His mind outruns his bodily ability : 
 so others must go and come and bring for 
 him. If he craves what should be denied, he 
 must have it, or he screeches like — not a little 
 innocent child. So the harm must be risked, 
 for he cannot be reasoned with ; or, if refusal is 
 absolutely necessary, how prolonged cries of 
 disappointment, and perhaps flashes of temper, 
 pain the parent and trouble the tender-hearted 
 observer ! He must not play with fire ; he shall 
 
74 MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 
 
 not toss and swing about tlie costly watch as he 
 does his rattle ; he may scream, fling out his 
 hands, pucker all up, redden in the face, stretch 
 out stiff, and almost go into spasms, and yet no 
 one can take down for him the new moon or the 
 evening star. Now, I would ask, if it would not 
 be better to leave the child to put forth his 
 mental powers more slowly ; and then a sdf^ 
 that cannot be gratified without tasking and 
 wearjnng others, will not be so readily and ex- 
 cessively developed. The grown-up, with their 
 many faculties in the highest state of develop- 
 ment, do not desire what they never thought 
 of; and why should the child crave and cry for 
 what he knows nothing at all about? Again: 
 inasmuch as the feeble perceptives easily tire 
 of the same object, a frequent change is de- 
 manded, and must be had, or there is no peace. 
 So there is a hurried, and often an anxious, 
 seeking for something new for the unnaturally 
 awakened curiosity. This cannot be put down 
 at will, though the nerves of all concerned pain- 
 fully suffer. 
 
 By such management, the larger portion of 
 infants in civilized society require some one to 
 hold them, to wait on them, to carry them about, 
 and to supply new objects of interest ; or, in 
 
MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 75 
 
 other words, to amuse them. We now not only- 
 have the phrases, '^ Tend the baby," " Mind the 
 baby," but " Amuse the baby." He must have 
 amusements, as a fashionable woman must have 
 parties, balls, and theatres to keep her from 
 being miserable. He has time on his hands to 
 be killed, like some foolish, grown-up people, who 
 have no regular occupation. In this way, at 
 the very earliest, the inborn, selfish tendencies 
 are hurried forth, and hardened into abiding 
 habits. Thus the quite young child becomes 
 the veriest tyrant of the household. 
 
 It was not intended that the mind should 
 grow in strength and activity disproportioned 
 to the ability of the material coverings and in- 
 struments ; as an illustration will make evident. 
 Who would prematurely make a child stand, 
 and bear his weight, on his soft, tender foot, and 
 slender, yielding leg ? All know the danger of 
 distorting the little member out of shape. The 
 babe must lie at length, before he can sit; he 
 must roll and sidle along before he can creep ; 
 and creep before he can stand or walk. We 
 wait for nature gradually to accumulate strength,, 
 sure that this strength will be well used in good 
 time. Other parts of the frame are weak in 
 proportion, — the hand, arm, stomach, and the 
 
76 MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 
 
 very organs of speech. However mucli the in- 
 fant wonder may think and have to say, he can- 
 not command his organs of speech till they have 
 attained a certain degree of growth, qonsistency, 
 and strength. The little material organization, 
 in a harmonious and healthy development, is 
 feeble alike throughout. Of course, the brain, 
 being made of matter, is subject to the laws of 
 matter, and is certainly weak with the rest 
 of the body. Ought it, then, to be exercised 
 too early, any more than any other member? 
 Indeed, the brain, in substance, texture, and 
 complexity, is probably one of the most delicate 
 organs of the whole system ; and none is more 
 liable to be harmed by premature use. Every 
 act of observation, every newly awakened de- 
 sire, tasks the brain : every ebullition of passion, 
 — yes, the least emotion of disappointment, — 
 when the flitting wish must be crossed, also 
 tasks the brain. This early rousing of the per- 
 ceptions by the quickly successive showing of 
 objects, this carrying of the child in some new 
 direction to see things, and this bringing of 
 other things to him to be seen, in conse- 
 quence of the prematurity, is a similar folly 
 with that by which a child is put too early and 
 assiduously to his school and his books ; which 
 
MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 77 
 
 course is now considered physically and men- 
 tally destructive, and foolish in the extreme. 
 
 If, however, the habit of a premature curiosity 
 has been formed, or there is a very peculiar 
 constitution, it Will require much reflection and 
 wisdom to deal with it ; but, somehow, it ought 
 to be modified and regulated. For health's sake, 
 then, let alone the infant brain, or, more proper- 
 ly speaking, the mind that moves it. Do not 
 permit the intellect to peep through the senses 
 at the strange things of this new earth-scene 
 any faster than need be. When the little ob- 
 server shall come to carry himself, — first upon 
 creeping toes and knees, and then upon his in- 
 dependent feet, — still permit him to make his 
 discoveries but slowly^ and stay as long at each 
 one as will in any wise content him. In this 
 way, you will not stretch and twist and shatter 
 his tender nervous system by premature and 
 excessive action. He will thereby also, at the 
 soonest, begin to form an important intellectual 
 habit, — that of fixed and continued attention. 
 His little perceptives will not be wearied and 
 worn as they would have been if tasked earlier : 
 so that now he can continue longer at an object 
 without weariness or harm ; at least, he can take 
 his own abundant time, and not engross the 
 
78 MANAGEMENT OP THE SELFHOOD. 
 
 precious hours or minutes of another. By such 
 a holding-back, or rather by this not hurrying 
 forward, how will the comfort, and perhaps 
 health, of others be spared ? Ah ! that older 
 sister will not be so often kept 'from pastime or 
 study, or from easier and useful occupation, to 
 tend the babe ; tossing him this way and that ; 
 reaching up and taking down, first one thing, 
 and then another ; again stretching on tiptoe, 
 and, with tip-fingers, getting at still something 
 else for his gratification ; or tugging with him 
 backward and forward, shifting from one aching 
 arm to another, and hushing and humming her 
 breath away, to soothe him if he must be dis- 
 appointed ; and, withal, straining her limbs, 
 wrenching her sides, twiating her spine, perhaps 
 crippling her for life, and possibly crushing her 
 into an earlier grave, as has actually been the 
 case with thousands. 
 
 Another misfortune may also sometimes be 
 avoided, — that of an ignorant and self-serving 
 domestic stealthily dealing paragoric to stupefy 
 the unquiet little creature into sleep, endanger- 
 ing health, and even life. Thus, by letting 
 alone, and patiently waiting Nature's period, the 
 child is far more likely to retain his precious 
 health and sweet gentleness, and to have a time- 
 
MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 79 
 
 ly ability proportioned to his age. Indeed, from 
 what bodily distemperaments and mental uneasi- 
 ness at present, and unnumbered ills in future, 
 shall the unconscious innocent be saved ! Still 
 further, from what unmelodious cries and pain- 
 ful sympathies and wearisome tendance shall 
 the kindly household likewise escape ! 
 
 Please not to understand that I would neglect 
 real and absolute wants : these may be more or 
 less numerous and urgent, according to native 
 constitution ; and must receive due attention. 
 But I do say, — and I say it with emphasis, — let 
 the soul work its way through the senses with- 
 out pressure and any hastening effort, just as the 
 flower emerges from the bud. It will be all 
 the more thrifty, symmetrical, and lovely for 
 being left to itself. Nature, whether in her 
 inanimate or animate organizations, must be per- 
 mitted her own time and methods. 
 
 The necessity of food is one of the most 
 frequent occasions for the development of self- 
 ishness in one of its basest forms, — that of 
 sensuality. 
 
 The human organism, like any other machine, 
 wears out, and needs mending up. Food is the 
 mending substance. In any case of repair, 
 the skilful mechanic applies just enough addi- 
 
80 MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 
 
 tional material to remedy the defect, — to make 
 the structure as much like a new one as pos- 
 sible, and no more. The waste made in the 
 animal body is to be supplied precisely accord- 
 ing to the same rule, — just as much fresh 
 material, in the form of nutriment, is to be 
 added as will answer the end, and no more. In 
 the case of the child, however, the means of 
 growth, besides this, are to be furnished ; or the 
 machine is to be completed, — that is, brought 
 to its full size. ' The want is indicated by hun- 
 ger. This ceasing, the Creator's end has been 
 answered. An overplus of aliment would tend 
 to impede the action of the organism, and to 
 disfigure its symmetry. In the repair of a 
 watch, a little too much new material would 
 disturb the delicate mechanism, and the needed 
 exactness of .movement would be lost. Further 
 and clumsier tinkerings would stop it dead. Is 
 it not the same with this human timepiece, which 
 ticks the moments with heart-beats ? God's law 
 of mechanical proportions and adjustments, in the 
 case of his living workmanship, is temperance ; 
 and this law cannot be vidated with impu- 
 nity. Yet, alas ! how continually is it trans- 
 gressed ! In this land of plenty and indulgence, 
 many children eat quite as much for pastime 
 
MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 81 
 
 and mere sensual pleasure as for use. Simple, 
 nutritious food, Nature's best mending stuff, will 
 not suflSce, as the relish for such depends on 
 Nature's healthy appetite. Artificial tastes are 
 excited by artificial luxuries, and these soon be- 
 come pressing wants. How does the evil begin ? 
 Just to amuse the newly weaned, or perhaps the 
 unweaned, infant ; just to amuse, — nothing more 
 is intended, — a crum or a spoon's-tip of some 
 rich compound is put to his mouth. The flavor 
 is now first experienced ; and the little creature, 
 whose frame the Creator would build strongly 
 up from the purest elements, is thus initiated 
 into high living. A little further on in his 
 months, he troubles the busy housekeeper : so 
 some dainty diverts attention while she accom- 
 plishes her affairs. Or some tired attendant, in 
 this way, relieves herself from his uncomfortable 
 humors. Well, a taste is fairly formed for eat- 
 ing : eating becomes a fastened habit. It is 
 one of the ways in which a smart little fellow, 
 two years old, kills time. He is really dissipated. 
 At peep of day, he gives his mother a slap, or 
 his father a push, or the nurse (if she has the 
 care) a pinch, and wants cake, pie, candy, or 
 some other good thing. Then, all day long, 
 there must still be, besides the family meals, an 
 
 6 
 
82 MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 
 
 occasional tribute to the palate. He is dull and 
 uncomfortable : he wants amusement ; so he 
 amuses himself with eating, as some other time- 
 killers do with drinking. As they whet up the 
 appetite for dinner, or more probably, in the 
 long-run, blunt it down, by gin, brandy, or rum ; 
 so this little beginner prepares himself for the 
 meal by a spicy piece of mince -pie or an unc- 
 tuous doughnut. He thus early becomes a gross 
 voluptuary. 
 
 What, now, is the consequence ? In the earlier 
 stages of this gluttonous career, thousands and 
 thousands are borne to the grave, indirectly 
 killed by sheer indulgence. Accidental colds 
 are made worse, and promoted to violent fevers ; 
 disorders of the bowels are engendered ; heredi- 
 tary diseases, like the scrofula, more easily fasten 
 an incurable hold ; indeed, ills untold and un- 
 imagined are brought upon the weak and over- 
 loaded system. According to reliable statistics, 
 about one-quarter of all that are born die under 
 five years of age. Of course, how much larger 
 the number driven from the stage of life be- 
 tween birth and the adult period ! No doubt, 
 impure air and various other circumstances are 
 partly the cause ; but this premature destruc- 
 tion might yet be very much diminished by fit- 
 ness, temperance, and regularity in diet. 
 
MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 83 
 
 Ah ! could parents but once clearly under- 
 stand how fearful as well as wonderful is this 
 organism of muscles, fibres, nerves, tubes,, and 
 infinitesimal ducts, together with the speeding 
 currents, oozing juices, and dew-like distilla- 
 tions ; and how they twist and clog and mat and 
 mash them up by their blind, their almost insane, 
 indulgence, — methinks they would fall on their 
 knees, and lift hands and eyes and voices to the 
 Author of life, supplicating pardon for the mur- 
 derous "past, and wisdom and firmness for the 
 future ; and thus this terrible havoc of the inno- 
 cents would be abated. 
 
 In our abundant country, people of the most 
 ordinary means might take a lesson, in this mat- 
 ter of eating, from the nobility of England. It 
 is said, that all along up through childhood cer- 
 tainly, and somewhat into youth, their children 
 are not permitted those luxuries which load the 
 daily table for the gratification of their elders. 
 By such judicious restraints, as well as by other 
 circumstances, this class of people is insured 
 that degree of robust health for which it is so 
 distinguished. Indeed, we might take a further 
 lesson from even regal families. Victoria, it is 
 said, exhibits a truly queenly wisdom in the 
 education of the royal heirs. No doubt, that, 
 
'84 MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 
 
 in her family, sound dietetic rules are observed 
 as well as other important principles of disci- 
 pline. The husband and father, it is well known, 
 co-operates with the most conscientious faith- 
 fulness, and lends a strong, steady, governing 
 hand. 
 
 It may be stated, in addition, that the children 
 of the Russian czars are altogether unaccus- 
 tomed to harmful luxuries. The dietetic laws 
 appertaining to them are absolute. In this 
 manner must the present autocrat have been 
 educated. Thus he has inherited, and con- 
 tinues to enjoy, a sound body to go with that 
 sound intellect and great heart which bestows 
 freedom, as well as commands obedience, among 
 the sixty millions of his vast empire. If every 
 citizen sovereign in our country would train 
 his children with a similar inflexible wisdom, 
 what a robust, healthy, and truly majestic po- 
 tentate should we at length become, seated in 
 million -fold unity on our august continental 
 throne ! 
 
 But the moral effect is far worse than the 
 physical. In the first place, the temper is in- 
 jured. The overloaded and distended system 
 causes frequent uncomfortableness, and some- 
 times severe pain : thus the naturally mild of 
 
MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 85 
 
 w 
 
 disposition become sensitive and irritable, and 
 the constitutionally irascible are more readily 
 developed into as fiery imps as unwise parenta 
 need be tortured and punished by. In this way 
 is started the selfishness of a vindictive spirit, 
 which, in the distant future, may flame forth in 
 deeds of cruelty and destruction. A base net- 
 tle is cherished which pierces everybody that 
 touches it, and whose prickles will be blown 
 by occasional gusts of passion against all that 
 come near. 
 
 But this eating propensity is, in itself, a 
 selfishness still lower down than the temper 
 which it occasions ; and it is the broad stair, 
 next to the steep descent, to more dangerous 
 intemperance and to viler lust. It prepares the 
 young to be more excessively dissipated after 
 leaving the restraints and the oversight of home. 
 Our large cities are thronged with young men 
 who are at one stage or another of sensualism. 
 Some are sinking down to the lowest dissolute- 
 ness. Look into certain places on an evening, 
 and there they are, indulging the depraved ap- 
 petite ; not only eating the dainties which simple 
 nature does not crave, but drenching and scorch- 
 ing nature with liquid fire ; becoming, it may 
 be, inebriates for life. Whence did they come ? 
 
86 MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 
 
 I 
 
 Who are they ? Sons of the farmers, of the 
 mechanics, of the traders, of the lawyers, of 
 the doctors, of the legislators, and perhaps of the 
 judges and governors, of the land. Ah me ! 
 — must the humiliating confession be made? — 
 some of them are quite likely to be the sons of 
 the ministers of our churches. In many cases, 
 these youths have been led to the brink of the 
 gulfs of ruin by their own parents at home. 
 They have been trained to think of and live for 
 the palate. A city merchant informed me, that 
 out of thirty acquaintances of his youth, clerks 
 in neighboring stores, one-half died in early life 
 of dissipation, and some of them were con- 
 nected with the most respectable families of 
 the State. 
 
 One sabbath forenoon, while speaking in a 
 country church on the temptations and dangers 
 of city life, I observed a young man sitting 
 uneasily, and coloring in the face. He absented 
 himself from the afternoon service. He declared, 
 as I was told, that he wouldn't go to meeting 
 to hear a minister talk in that sort of way. 
 He was then on a visit from Boston to his 
 relatives. Within four weeks from that time, 
 his corpse was brought from the city, and cast, 
 dust to dust, near the church where he had so 
 
MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 87 
 
 lately sat, angry at the preacher's truth. He 
 had died of disease brought on by dissipation. 
 Now, had these ruined youths been trained to 
 the true uses of food, to a conscientious tempe- 
 rance, from infancy up, how different, probably, 
 would have been their fates ! How would they 
 have blessed the restraining prudence of their 
 parents through prolonged and healthy years ! 
 
 Apparel is another bodily want ; and it is the 
 occasion of an unheavenly selfishness in the form 
 of vanity. Vanity says, " Don't look at him or 
 her, but behold me ! " An early disposition is 
 the love of finery, and the attention it attracts. 
 The child hastens to exhibit some new article of 
 attire or ornament. There may be a quite in- 
 nocent pleasure in possessing it, and a wish for 
 sympathy ; but, withal, there is likely to be an 
 unamiable vanity. A little girl, some three 
 years old, wore for the first time, in church, a 
 dress with a pocket. She whispered, " Mother, 
 do you think that Mr. " (naming the mini- 
 ster) " knows that I have a pocket in my dress ?" 
 There was here an incipient vanity which might 
 grow to be monstrous. That child, left un- 
 checked, coming to be the miss of sixteen, might 
 trip and mince to church, with her fashions and 
 her attractions uppermost in her mind. 
 
88 MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 
 
 But no wonder that this vice should so bane- 
 fully blossom out, when parents themselves so 
 often nurture it from the earliest. To gratify 
 their own vanity, how they bedeck the darling, 
 and even overload with finery ! Some children 
 seem like huge insects of the summer, — very 
 aristocrats of the gaudy and gauzy tribes ; and, 
 to use a phrase which will be understood, fit to 
 be the " big-bugs " of the naturalist's cabinet. 
 When this vice first shows itself, teach the true 
 uses of apparel. If need be, take off and put 
 away the new, and replace the old, till the de- 
 sire for display shall be corrected. 
 
 There is, however, no objection to the use of 
 the beautiful in the attire of children ; but there 
 must be adaptation to the age, or the beautiful 
 will not be there, or at least its charm will have 
 fled. How admirable is Nature in her simple 
 flower-buds ! She reserves her large and far- 
 seen fashions for the full, expanded bloom. 
 Cannot parents apply this example, divinely 
 ordained, to the living, priceless blossoms of 
 their own households? 
 
 Next, there are house, furniture, and style 
 of living, as an occasion, not only of vanity, 
 but of pride. It is by no means intended to 
 disparage well-gotten wealth, and the elegance 
 
MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 89 
 
 it affords. The eye was formed to be pleased. 
 The Almighty designed and made things to 
 please it. The tasteful arts are but the faint 
 imitations of his own works. It is only the bad 
 spirit which accompanies possessions and privi- 
 leges that is to be censured and deprecated. 
 
 At a school recess, a little bit of pretension 
 puffs itself up, and exclaims, " Your father isn't 
 as rich as my father is ; you don't live in so 
 nice a house as I do." Who instilled such mise- 
 rable folly into the heart of a child, if not the 
 parents or other inmates of home ? Certain 
 young ladies will not notice certain other ones 
 in the street, though they are school compa- 
 nions, belong to the same class in recitation, 
 and are of equally proper manners, and perhaps 
 of more refined character, because, forsooth, 
 the fathers of these latter live in inferior style, 
 and move in a different circle. Now, millions 
 of wealth, the loftiest ancestry, and the most 
 splendid fashion, cannot make such souls lovely 
 or beloved, or truly happy. If death snatch 
 their spirits from the corrupt but cherished 
 flesh, can they be received among those heaven- 
 ly ones who have been exalted in proportion to 
 their humbleness, and are thought of and loved 
 by others in proportion as they have forgotten 
 
90 MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 
 
 themselves? cruel, cruel parents, with your 
 own trusted breath to pufF up the tender, elastic 
 soul into such swollen and repulsive deformity 
 as pride ! 
 
 Yery many of the " first people," as they are 
 called, possess their privileges, it is hoped, with- 
 out pride. Indeed, there are those whose lack 
 of pretension, whose very humihty, might give 
 lessons to all ranks beneath them. Here is 
 an admirable example with which to close this 
 topic. A gentleman of large inherited wealth, 
 and of the best education and culture the 
 country could afford, had two daughters at a 
 school, conducted, not by an ambitious and 
 showy, but by a most thoroughly educated 
 and judicious teacher. The daughter of another 
 gentleman, of hmited means and quite economi- 
 cal living, — a bank or insurance clerk, perhaps, 
 — was also an attendant ; but she was one of 
 the best scholars in her class, of refined man- 
 ners and amiable disposition. The two young 
 ladies, on acquaintance with this schoolmate, 
 seemed particularly pleased with her, and made 
 her a special associate at recesses. The circum- 
 stance excited attention and surprise. Those 
 of similar position and pretensions with the 
 young ladies ventured to inquire and remon- 
 
MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 91 
 
 strate about the matter. " Why are you so 
 intimate with this person ? " said they. '' Why 
 do you so lower yourselves ? Her father's posi- 
 tion in life is entirely different from that of 
 yours, and his daughter can never move in the 
 circle that you will." The reply was modestly 
 made : " She is certainly equal to any one of 
 the school in talent and character ; and we know 
 no reason why we should not associate and be 
 intimate with her, if we like her, as we happen 
 to do." At length, the father of these young 
 ladies came to the teacher, and made especial 
 inquiries concerning the character of this favor- 
 ite companion. Perhaps it had been hinted to 
 him by meddlers, that his daughters were form- 
 ing low associations. He, however, received the 
 most satisfactory assurances from the teacher : 
 so the intimacy continued uninterrupted. When 
 the long summer vacation arrived, this noble- 
 souled father, this thorough Christian gentle- 
 man, invited his daughters' friend to spend the 
 leisure weeks at his magnificent country seat, 
 and gave her the opportunity of the best privi- 
 leges of his own social life. He made no such 
 invitation to those who thought it a degradation 
 to be intimate with the excellent person whose 
 parentage was altogether respectable, but whose 
 
92 MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 
 
 rank the world had put a few notches lower, for 
 no other reason than the lack of money and the 
 position it affords. 
 
 Education itself, that precious privilege, is 
 made the occasion of developing the most in- 
 tense selfishness. The prevalent stimulus to 
 study is selfish emulation : higher place in the 
 class, the medal or the book-prize, or other out- 
 ward honors of scholarship, become the aim. 
 Thus the true end of education is forgotten. 
 No wonder that forceful, fierce ambition should 
 so often manifest itself in after-life, or that po- 
 litical aspiration and demagogism should possess 
 many an otherwise noble soul with a very mad- 
 ness. If love, self-forgetfulness, and humility 
 make heaven, how can this fiery emulation and 
 its bitter heart-burnings, and such worldly tower- 
 ing -up, prepare for the sublime lowliness of 
 heaven ? 
 
 Here the remark may come in, that parents 
 often make the acquirements of their children 
 the occasion for displaying their own fond con- 
 ceit, and, in doing so, set a harmful example to 
 the child. You will scarcely have taken your 
 seat in some houses, and have begun to speak of 
 the children, before little Admirable must run 
 and get his book, and show the gentleman how 
 
MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 93 
 
 well he can read. Thus the visitor is compelled 
 to witness the exploits of a poor little fellow at 
 stammering and miscalling words ; and, withal, 
 his remarkable dexterity at showing how mis- 
 taken his doting parent is. 
 
 After this early development of self, in con- 
 nection with the goods of life, the evil cannot 
 but put itself forth to the utmost in the acqui- 
 sition of them. As these things and all other 
 property are represented by money, the grasp- 
 ing soul is concentrated upon this. Money in 
 due degree, for good ends and by just means, 
 is, of course, a proper object of pursuit ; but 
 how has the true idea of it been perverted ! 
 Good and use are at length overlooked, and a 
 new passion, a new vice, has taken possession, 
 — the love of money, as money ; and how early 
 it appears ! The child hardly old enough to 
 articulate gloats over his bits of coin. Even 
 the best affections are transmuted into this 
 money-passion. A boy spontaneously performs 
 a trivial service (perhaps picks up your dropped 
 handkerchief, and restores it), and you as sponta- 
 neously offer him a piece of change. How he 
 snatches it, and scuds away to his parents ! and 
 how in spirit they snatch it too, in sympathy 
 with his good fortune ! 
 
94 MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 
 
 The true reward for a favor is, first, the sweet, 
 loving impulse to do it, and then the agreeable 
 consciousness of having done some little good. 
 Every opportunity to render service to another 
 is a God-send to the little heart. It opens that 
 heart, and fits it for a larger sphere of good- 
 doing at a maturer age. If a reward for such 
 spontaneous favors be received, pure generosity 
 is stifled, and the sordid motive of doing good 
 for pay takes its place. 
 
 I have, in my own personal experience, a 
 most charming and impressive illustration of an 
 opposite character, which I cannot forbear to 
 bring in here from a volume where it is in 
 print. 
 
 " Early one summer morning, I was travelling 
 in a chaise through this mountain-town.* I had 
 arrived near the outskirts, when I fancied that 
 I heard a singular noise ; but did not then stop 
 or look out to see what it might be, as I was in 
 particular haste to reach my destination. I drove 
 rapidly on. But soon the noise again startled 
 my ear, and seemingly the shrill scream of a 
 human being. Still driving on, I leaned out of 
 the vehicle to learn whence came the piercing 
 
 * Dublin, N.H., on the north side of the Monadnock. 
 
MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 95 
 
 sound. I then discovered a boy pursuing me at 
 the top of his speed, and crying after me to stop ; 
 which I now did. He came up nearly ex- 
 hausted by half a mile's run, with his bosom all 
 open, and his face all reddened with the heat, 
 and reeking with perspiration ; and he panting- 
 ly exclaimed, ' You are losing your trunk, sir ! ' 
 At this information, I leaped out ; and surely my 
 trunk was in a deplorable condition. It had 
 been fastened beneath the axle-tree. But one 
 of the straps had got broken, and it was dan- 
 gling by the other, now almost wrested off, 
 having been knocked against the stones, and 
 dragged through dust and mud, till it was a 
 sorry sight. I requested my benevolent in- 
 former to stand at the horse's head till I should 
 put it into safety. Of course, such a boy, or any 
 boy, could not but do this under such circum- 
 stances. When ready to start again, I held out, 
 in spontaneous gratitude, a piece of money, of 
 more tempting value than our smallest silver 
 coin ; and, lo ! the little fellow drew back and 
 straightened up, and with a keener eye, and al- 
 most an offended tone, exclaimed, ^ Do you think 
 I loould take ;pay for that ? ' I could not prevail 
 on him to receive the least compensation. I 
 went on my journey, rejoicing in the accident, 
 
96 MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 
 
 although it was to cost me the repairing of my 
 torn and bruised trunk. It had made known to 
 me one magnanimous hoy. For how many much 
 slighter favors had I received from the young, 
 who capered away, insensible to the pleasure of 
 doing a kindness, in the satisfaction of ' taking 
 pay for that ' ! ' Ay,' thought I, ' this boy is an 
 honor to the common school ; he is a Christian 
 learner in my friend the minister's Sunday 
 school ; he is a diligent reader of the juvenile 
 library. Blessed pupil of a blessed pastor ! 
 thy getting is the true and the best one, — that 
 of understanding : to thee, wisdom is " the prin- 
 cipal thing." ' How many, many times since 
 have I thought of that boy, and wished that I 
 knew his name, and could trace his onward 
 course ! How many times, in my wanderings 
 and stoppings within sight, even within the 
 most distant glimpses of the peaked crown of 
 that proud old hill-king, have I thought of that 
 grand, that royal-spirited boy I That mountain, 
 by natural association, is to me a most fit monu- 
 ment to one magnanimity towering above many 
 meannesses. Ye boys, and indeed ye men, of 
 our country, to whom the moral of my story 
 may apply, I pray you, when you shall perform 
 a little favor spontaneously, or even by request, 
 
MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 97 
 
 let your souls stand up in true nobility, in 
 the heavenward grandeur of disinterestedness, 
 and say in the spirit, ^ Do you think I would 
 take pay for that ? ' '' ^ 
 
 The manifestations of self, through cunning, 
 duplicity, and positive acts of deception, easily 
 come along after meanness. For instance, a boy 
 swaps knives or pencils with another lad, and 
 then boasts, with a sparkling eye and a chuck- 
 ling voice, that he has got the best end of the 
 bargain ! His parents, it may be, brighten and 
 chuckle too at the early shrewdness and promis- 
 ing thrift ; and thus encourage and spur him on. 
 Now, this getting of the best end of the bar- 
 gain knowingly, and through the unsuspecting 
 ignorance of the other party, is a violation of 
 the golden rule, " to do as we would be done 
 by." It is worse : it is the breaking of the com- 
 mandment, " Thou shalt not steal ; " for it is 
 taking by stealth that for which there is given 
 no equivalent. It is absolute theft in the eye 
 
 * The people of the town, on seeing the incident in a publica- 
 tion, were curious to know who the young hero might be. After 
 several years, his name was discovered. He proved to be a poor boy 
 who "lived out" at a farmer's to work for his living. His ac- 
 quaintances at once exclaimed, " Well, it is just like him ! " Brief, 
 simple, but most expressive eulogium, — " It is just like him ! " 
 
 7 
 
98 MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 
 
 of that Infinite Justice whicli gave the law on 
 Sinai. The " best end of the bargain " is the 
 worst end of it. Such a beginning of business 
 may lead, at length, either to some great theft or 
 enormous forgery, and to the State Prison. It 
 may prepare the way for grand peculations from 
 government, or for magnificent embezzlements 
 from bank and railroad corporations, and all their 
 infamous glory. 
 
 Many forms of injustice prevail in the busi- 
 ness world, of which human law takes no cog- 
 nizance, but which are nevertheless violations 
 of the divine law. The young, almost univer- 
 sally, are educated into this injustice. Children 
 are trained by the example of parents, and 
 indeed by prevalent practice, to a cool, keen 
 selfishness, and habitual unfairness in trade, in 
 the following way: Articles on sale are of a cer- 
 tain specific value when viewed in the relation 
 of cost and of other values, and they ought to 
 command a certain price ,* but how many are 
 never willing to give a just price I They want 
 the thing for a little less. Suppose a retail 
 store. " Come, now : won't you fall a little ? 
 You can afford to take a cent less, — only a 
 cent." Sometimes even the half-cent is higgled 
 for. Now, this half-cent is no more for the pur- 
 
MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 99 
 
 cbaser to give than it is for the seller to lose ; 
 and, in the long-run, it is the half-cents, more or 
 less, on yards and pounds of goods, which make 
 up much of the trader's gains or losses. Thus 
 such people clip off, and press down and screw 
 harder and harder, until they often drive the 
 dealer himself to questionable expedients, in 
 order to make his absolutely necessary profits. 
 By such a spirit and example, children are edu- 
 cated not only to a littleness which is disgusting, 
 but to a wrong which is abhorrent. 
 
 Inculcate on the young, by precept and prac- 
 tice, the righteous rule of business, — "to live, 
 and let live ; " or rather the great commandment 
 of justice, — " Whatsoever ye would that men 
 should do to you, do ye even so to them." 
 One may claim of a seller a good article ; but, 
 then, let him claim, in turn, its full value, and 
 get it — of your son or daughter. " Ah ! " re- 
 plies selfishness, in the guise of suspicion and 
 caution, " in this way the buyer will lay himself 
 open to be continually cheated and wronged." 
 By no means. Justice, candor, and kindness, 
 on his part, will be his best protection. Let a 
 character for uprightness and liberality be once 
 established with a dealer, and, in nine cases out 
 of ten, he would put himself to inconvenience^ 
 
100 MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 
 
 or even to loss, sooner than occasion incon- 
 venience and loss to such a customer. He 
 would abhor — at least, in good nature, he would 
 disdain — to commit on him a fraud. Meanness 
 is generally its own punishment. It provokes 
 retaliation, and, somehow, gets " come up with " 
 sooner or later. 
 
 A somewSat ludicrous anecdote will illustrate 
 this point. A customer at a country store, hav- 
 ing supplied his wants, inquired, as it was near 
 the new year, for the next almanac. The 
 trader handed him the indispensable work. The 
 price was asked. " Six cents," was the reply. 
 ^' Oh ! it is too much," the customer rejoined : 
 " I can't give that." — " Yery well," said the 
 trader ; and, stooping down, he brought from 
 some by-place another copy, with the observa- 
 tion, " Here is an almanac you may have for five 
 cents." The customer, much pleased, paid the 
 money, and took the article. In a day or two 
 he returned to the store, with his purchase in 
 hand, and, much excited, exclaimed, 'J Sir, you 
 cheated me in this almanac. Why, there are 
 only ten months in it : the other two are torn 
 out ! " — "I knew that," replied the trader, very 
 quietly, yet significantly ; " but you got all you 
 paid for." 
 
MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 101 
 
 An equally instructive incident comes from 
 another experience : — 
 
 " I had been accustomed," said a gentleman, 
 " to purchase my grocery necessaries of a parti- 
 cular trader in our village. One of my neigh- 
 bors, on a time, hearing me mention the place of 
 supply, exclaimed, " Oh ! don't go there : you 
 will certainly get cheated ; for I don't succeed 
 well at all with the man." I could not but think 
 in my own mind, that the grocer also, on his 
 part, failed to succeed well with my neighbor ; 
 for my experience had been of quite a different 
 kind. On one occasion, at the close of the year, 
 we had a settlement of accounts, and squared 
 up, as had been our custom. The trader then 
 opened a new page, at the head of which he put 
 my name ; but he wrote also what he had not 
 written before, — Hon. before it. ' What do 
 you mean by that ? ' said I. ' I have never held 
 any office which gives me a claim to such a 
 title.' — 'No matter,' said the trader: 'you are 
 honorable ; and I have put it down on this 
 account -book, and here it shall stay.'" This 
 gentleman's experience is suggestive to the 
 parental educator. For myself, I should cer- 
 tainly prefer that a son should gain the reputa- 
 tion, and win the unsolicited, unthought-of title. 
 
102 MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 
 
 honorable, on account of his perfectly just deal- 
 ing with his fellow-menj than to climb like a 
 reptile, or rush like a vulture, to the highest 
 office of a State, or even to the chief magistracy 
 of the nation. 
 
 Early home -circumstances, considered alto- 
 gether trifling, are the tiny roots of a monstrous 
 growth of immoralities in the future business- 
 life. There are deceptions, trickish annoyances, 
 and various unrebuked, at least unamended 
 wrongs, between children themselves. There 
 are falsehoods and artifices exercised toward 
 parents. These, if discovered, are too lightly 
 passed over. They are not brought into solemn 
 judgment before the religion of Christ and the 
 will of God. But worse : what evasions and 
 subterfuges, prevarications and deceits, in social 
 life, are often practised by parents themselves 
 in the presence of their children ! Then what 
 stratagem and double-dealing to manage the 
 children on trying occasions ! How often are 
 positive refusals not adhered to, but are melted 
 away by pertinacious teasing ! Again : what 
 threats which are never executed ! what pro- 
 mises which are never performed ! Alas ! no 
 wonder that human nature is so often, so early. 
 
MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 103 
 
 and so effectually initiated into a life of heart- 
 lessness, lying, dishonesty, and dishonor. 
 
 I have thus exhibited some of the occasions 
 and circumstances through which children de- 
 velop dispositions and form habits of selfishness ; 
 and, in connection, have given a few impressive 
 contrasts. I would now present some examples 
 of an opposite kind of training. First, then, as 
 you believe in Christianity and in the heaven it 
 reveals, teach a child, as early as possible, to 
 forget himself; to do, and indeed to live, for 
 others. As soon as he shall be able, let him 
 pass with his little hand some needed article to 
 another, and he shall have begun a life of bene- 
 ficent industry. As soon as he can creep, let 
 him go errands on all fours, — for instance, to 
 carry some manageable thing, perhaps the news- 
 paper, pinned to his clothing, to a person across 
 the room, wanting it ; and he shall have possibly 
 begun his journey across the continent, to carry 
 civilization into some new territory; or, as a 
 missionary, to set up the cross of Christianity 
 among the far Heathen, and to give himself up 
 a living sacrifice at its foot. 
 
 Train a child to work, not by cold and stern 
 compulsion or merely by the inducements of 
 activity, but for the sake of being of service, 
 
104 MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 
 
 of doing some little good. If there are no ser- 
 vants in a family, there are numberless things 
 in which boys and girls can be useful. Beauti- 
 ful are their dispositions, blessed their lives, if 
 they shall be affectionately helpful. There are 
 thousands of wives and mothers, broken down 
 by hard work and the various burdens of life : 
 not only daughters, but sons also, should aid in 
 making those burdens lighter. In the absence 
 of daughters, things ordinarily done by them 
 could be, and ought to be, done by sons. It is 
 a mere notion, that this and that is girls' work ; 
 and that, therefore, it is beneath hoy dignity to 
 touch it. Whatever is of use is honorable ; 
 especially if, through the performance, kind 
 affections flow out. It adds to the dignity 
 rather than detracts from it. He who, whether 
 boy or man, shall honor his father and mother 
 by doing them kind service, most particularly 
 honors himself. 
 
 Again : train up a child to such a pursuit as 
 will add to human enjoyment beyond the per- 
 son's own self. As the chief motive to such a 
 pursuit, let not self-interest, but usefulness to 
 others, be presented. When an apprenticeship, 
 or preparation for business-life, is entered on by 
 a youth, the idea should be strongly inculcated, 
 
MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 105 
 
 and thoroughly wrought into the soul, that the 
 avocation is designed by an all-embracing Provi- 
 dence, not so much to enrich and elevate him- 
 self, as it is that he may be of use to his brethren 
 of the human race, equally God's children with 
 himself. If one is industrious and prudent, self 
 will be sufficiently taken care of at any rate 
 The all -loving Father's object is to develop 
 through certain uses, that love for our felloW' 
 beings which not only makes the truest felicity 
 but which turns all the energies of the man 
 and all his external and internal possessions, to 
 the best possible account. To forget self, and 
 to love others, is to be like Divine Perfection : 
 not only so, but to work is to be like the Divine. 
 The Deity is the Infinite Worker. If he is the 
 Almighty Master of the universe, he is also 
 the Universal Servant : he ministers to the mi- 
 nutest wants of all. Indeed, it is only through 
 the multitudinous, the innumerable workings of 
 his power, that his love is made known. So far 
 as a human being is idle and useless, so far has 
 he removed himself from the image and like- 
 ness in which he was made, and from the felici- 
 ties that belong to his nature. 
 
 The young man who does nothing but saunter 
 about town, and while away his time in trivial 
 
106 MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 
 
 conversation or on superficial literature ; or the 
 young woman who takes her daily promenade for 
 mere show, who makes her calls for cold eti- 
 quette or frivolous gossip, and wastes the rest of 
 her time on the last new novel and in the cur- 
 rent amusements, — is a sort of moral monster. 
 The very God who made them is every moment 
 teaching them a lesson of industry ; for he tends 
 their very heart-beatings by his own active and 
 ever-present energies. If he stop his work in 
 their idle bodies, they die. 
 
 Again : I would train up the young with such 
 dispositions to usefulness, that the desire for it 
 should never cease while life and energy con- 
 tinue. I honor the old merchant who still sticks 
 to his business, and makes his accumulations to 
 the very last, if he only does it, not for the 
 love of money, but for the adding of means to 
 means that he may do good, and communicate 
 abroad. 
 
 The very idiot who has a heart to feel for 
 human want and suffering, and has willing hands 
 to relieve according to his ability, is a thousand- 
 fold more to be respected than the man who 
 lives for nothing but to reach out after money ; 
 who grasps all he in any way can, and then 
 holds it all close to himself; thinking of it as 
 
MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 107 
 
 a possession of his own, and not as a means of 
 usefulness to others. 
 
 Many years ago, I resided in a most excellent 
 family, a member of which was a weak-minded 
 boy, eight or ten years of age. He could hardly 
 put together words enough to make a single full 
 sentence, he was so defective in ideas, or at least 
 in speech. Indeed, he could not pronounce his 
 own name ; which was Francis. So he called 
 himself by the more convenient monosyllable, 
 " Boy." But he had a most gentle nature ; a 
 large and abounding heart, flowing out most 
 sweetly to all around him. Many years sped 
 away, and I hardly knew how they sped with 
 the tenderly remembered Francis. At length, 
 meeting a relative, I made inquiry after him. 
 The reply was, that he had for a long time been 
 at board in an excellent home ; that, though a 
 man in stature and twenty-six years of age, he 
 could read no better and could speak no better 
 than when I knew him as a child. Indeed, he 
 could not yet utter his own name, but still, in re- 
 ferring to himself, said " Boy." " But," continued 
 my informant, " he is, though an idiot, good; he 
 is kind ; he is very loving. It is a great pleasure 
 to him to be taken on occasional visits to the 
 alms-house of the town ; and there he makes 
 
108 MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 
 
 such presents to the poor inmates as suits his 
 benevolent fancy." 
 
 The lady mentioned an incident of recent 
 occurrence, which to me was peculiarly touch- 
 ing ; and for the sake of which, as a special 
 illustration, I have now brought this person to 
 notice. " In the course of last winter," said she, 
 " an old man, who lived alone with his wife in 
 the neighborhood, died. Soon after the burial, 
 some women, in the presence of Francis, were 
 conversing on the subject of the old man's de- 
 parture, and the lonely situation of the widow. 
 Among other things, they wondered who now 
 would cut and split and carry in the poor wo- 
 man's wood. Immediately Francis was heard 
 to exclaim, ^ Boy knows.' His words, however, 
 excited at the time no attention. At length, it 
 was remarked by the neighbors, that Francis 
 every day, regularly, made a visit to the widow's. 
 The people began to be curious, so invariable, 
 and in all weathers, was his going to the house. 
 Inquiry was made ; and it was found that he 
 went to cut and split and carry in the widow's 
 wood." Thus, while these neighbors were won- 
 dering who would do it, and while their own sons 
 should have thought to do it, — indeed, should 
 have been so trained by them as to have rejoiced 
 
MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 109 
 
 to do it, — the blessed charity was performed 
 by Francis, the idiot. 
 
 When the Framer of bodies and the Father 
 of spirits shall deliver that beautiful soul from 
 its clayey bondage, how will it soar up and up 
 to the region of celestial affection, unspeakably 
 above those who know, but who, with their com- 
 petent strength, do not ; who possess, but who 
 of their overflowing abundance give not ! 
 
 If the young shall be rightly trained in the 
 home, and especially if this training is second- 
 ed by the Sunday school, they shall begin even 
 in childhood to do, according to a child's measure 
 and means, what they shall perform in their 
 opulent age with a wide-sweepmg and a most 
 bountifully dropping hand. The trifling contri- 
 butions of children, a single cent or a half-dime, 
 on each occasion, will, if heart and wealth shall 
 grow together, become in. the distant future 
 the hundred -dollar donation, or the thousand- 
 dollar bestowment in some grand philanthropy ; 
 or, it may be, the hundred-thousand-dollar legacy 
 to some noble institution ; and this not for show, 
 not for the world's praise, but from that humble, 
 hearty love of doing good which is its own 
 blessing and richest reward, whether the world 
 knows and praises it or not. 
 
110 MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 
 
 Again : it is in tlie home, and under true 
 Christian nurture, that the missionaries of the 
 cross to Heathen lands are best prepared. Sup- 
 pose a child trained to read God's word, to learn 
 concerning his heavenly Father therefrom, and 
 the beautiful happy home of many mansions 
 prepared in heaven for his earthly children. 
 Let him be opportunely informed that millions of 
 human beings in other parts of the world are 
 without the knowledge of this dear, loving 
 Father, and have no idea of this pure and 
 blessed home, — are utterly ignorant of that 
 Saviour Son who came into the world to deliver 
 from ignorance and sin all who might hear of 
 and follow him : that child might be so im- 
 pressed as to melt with pity toward those 
 benighted worshippers of stone and wood, who 
 are so utterly without the true God in the 
 world. With such appliances as a noble Chris- 
 tian mother could make to the little heart, how 
 might he be formed to be another Judson, from 
 the earliest dew upon his life's bloom, and at 
 length bear fruits for the feeding of multitudes 
 in distant lands I 
 
 I knew of such a mother. The following 
 circumstances occurred in one of the interior 
 cities of Massachusetts, where I once, for a 
 
MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. Ill 
 
 short time, resided. The example will plead for 
 a true Christian education far better than any 
 theories or the most eloquent setting of them 
 forth. Two little boys had been told by their 
 religiously faithful mother of the destitution of 
 the Heathen as to Christian privileges ; espe- 
 cially of their having had no Bible, — that book 
 which the children loved so well to read, and 
 from which they were so constantly and inte- 
 restedly taught concerning the heavenly Father, 
 and that Jesus who took little children in his 
 arms and blessed them. So it came into their 
 compassionate hearts to give such little moneys 
 as they might occasionally obtain to the Bible 
 Society, of which their mother informed them ; 
 thus doing some little part in sending the good 
 book to the Heathen. Of course, they could 
 hardly comprehend the full scope and meaning 
 of such an enterprise ; but they had knowledge 
 sufficient to light the way to their continually 
 growing hearts. At length, there was esta- 
 blished in that city an Orphan Asylum, where 
 children who were without parents, or who, 
 through intemperate fathers, were perhaps worse 
 off, might have a comfortable home for a time. 
 Somehow, the little b.oys' sympathies became 
 deeply interested in this institution. Perhaps 
 
112 MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 
 
 it was because they could see with their own 
 pitying eyes the wretched suiferers in the 
 street who needed just such a refuge. So, with 
 their mother's consent, the bits of money which 
 they had been accustomed to drop, as they could 
 get them, into the aperture of their tight box 
 for the Bible cause, were now devoted to the 
 use of the Orphan Asylum. 
 
 But at length the Lord wanted these chil- 
 dren, and took them to himself. They were, I 
 think, smitten with some epidemic, and died 
 within two weeks of each other, respectively, 
 at five and three years of age. Their own spe- 
 cial contribution-box was then opened, and the 
 sum of two dollars found, which had fallen from 
 their little hands, and been devoted to the Or- 
 phans' Home. Beautiful, inviting, blessed exam- 
 ples of parental training to benevolence and 
 philanthropy ! Oh, could the millions of chil- 
 dren in our plentiful and privileged country be 
 so educated, how would a thousand, where 
 there is now one, go forth to civilize, to Chris- 
 tianize, the Heathen world ! — and how would 
 hundreds of thousands, Avho at the same time 
 accumulate means by prosperous industry, shed 
 their moneys like sunshine and shower-drops to 
 
MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 113 
 
 aid them in making the wilderness glad, and the 
 desert blossom as the rose ! 
 
 I have something more to add about the elder 
 of the two boys. It was remarkable how he 
 exhibited the ruling passion, if we may so call 
 it, if not in death, at least in sickness, and as 
 long as he well could. In the commencement of 
 his disease, although compelled to stay at home 
 from school, he was yet well enough to range 
 the house. But how marked the contrast be- 
 tween his method of amusement or his child- 
 work and that of the majority of children who 
 might be kept in similar durance ! He put his 
 school-books into his little satchel, and imagined 
 himself a col porter carrying good Christian 
 books to the destitute inhabitants of the newly 
 settled West, in imitation of modes of action 
 which he had read of in the religious papers, or 
 heard about from- his parents or at the Sunday 
 school. As if going from house to house, he 
 would knock at the door of a room ; then, as if 
 hearing an expected voice, enter, and make his 
 salutations to the imaginary inmates, courteously 
 inquiring if they would like to take some good 
 books which had been sent by some excellent 
 people for their use. Thus he proceeded from 
 room to room in this beautiful, evangelic play, 
 
 8 
 
114 MANAGEMENT OF THE SELFHOOD. 
 
 until the very moment, for aught I know, when 
 he was cast upon that bed from which he 
 arose, in his spirit-form, to meet the welcoming 
 angels. 
 
 The Son of God bows himself down from the 
 right hand of the. infinite throne to bless such 
 children, and to breathe on them his Spirit. 
 Parent, he would thus do to jonr own little 
 ones : he only waits for you to bring them nearer 
 to the heavenly courts. 
 
PASSAGES FROM A LECTURE. 
 
I. — G I F T S. 
 
 TT is customary in many families, perhaps in 
 -*■ most of any considerable culture, to inter- 
 change gifts, especially on the usual annual 
 occasions. This is well. By these tokens, the 
 affections are drawn out, interwoven, and bound 
 fast. But it should be understood, that it is not 
 so important for the parent to bestow on the 
 child, as for the child to bestow on the parent. 
 Filial love is enhanced far more by giving than 
 by receiving. In this there is something much 
 better than accepting, and being grateful. The 
 affectionate heart must prompt, the excited 
 intellect must contrive, and the diligent hand 
 must execute. There must be a series, perhaps 
 a long series, of impulses, thoughts, and actions. 
 All these have reference to the beloved relative, 
 and they all develop the heart more and more 
 toward him. The more numerous the antece- 
 
118 PASSAGES FROM A LECTUEE. 
 
 dents to the bestowment, the more developed is 
 the love which prompts the beautiful attention. 
 I have a true story charmingly appropriate to 
 the subject : — 
 
 The celebrated Scotch phrenologist, Mr. 
 George Combe, when travelling on the conti- 
 nent of Europe, fell in with a distinguished 
 musician as a fellow-passenger in a stage-coach. 
 The artist remarked to him, while speaking of 
 his profession, that he had a son who was as 
 accomplished a performer as himself on the 
 violin, his favorite instrument. " I discovered," 
 said he, " that he had a remarkable talent for 
 music when he was about six years of age. On 
 one of my birthday mornings, I was awakened 
 from sleep, at break of day, by hearing my 
 favorite tune performed on my favorite instru- 
 ment most enchantingly. In delightful amaze- 
 ment, I tossed away the clothes, and looked out ; 
 and what did I behold ? — my darling boy thus 
 making a birthday present to his father. 
 
 '^ I found, on explanation, that, months before, 
 he had obtained the instrument from his mother, 
 together with her consent to his little plan: so 
 he practised that one tune particularly and con- 
 tinually, till he had perfected himself in it. 
 Then, when the day came and the dawn first 
 
GIFTS. 119 
 
 gleamed, lie stole to bis father's bedside, and 
 poured bis birthday present into bis ear. 
 
 " And what did you do, sir ? " inquired Mr. 
 Combe. 
 
 " I wept." 
 
120 PASSAGES FROM A LECTURE. 
 
 II. — BAD COMPANIONSHIP. 
 
 "PARENTS often complain of the bad com- 
 -*- panionship to which their children are 
 exposed. " If onr boys," say they, " could only 
 have proper companions, it would be easy 
 enough to manage them ; and all would go 
 right." To such complainers, let it be said that 
 there is one method of securing good compa- 
 nionship, which is not sufficiently thought of. 
 Let parents themselves be companions to their 
 sons and daughters, and the best of companions 
 too. The public-house or the village-store is no 
 place for a father's leisure time. Home is his 
 proper place ; his family, his richest possession ; 
 and training and making happy his children, his 
 appointed and his highest work. It should be 
 his most delightful work. Let not his private 
 reading absorb all his time, while the children 
 cower stilly in the corner, or run riot without 
 
BAD COMPANIONSHIP. 121 
 
 disturbing his abstractedness. Let him join 
 them at times in their juvenile literature, sym- 
 pathize with them in its entertainments, and aid 
 them to apply its instructions. Indeed, the 
 little golden cups of genius, proffered now by 
 many eminent writers, cannot but refresh and 
 nurture even the adult mind. 
 
 Again, let the father — let both parents con- 
 descend to mingle in the children's pastimes, 
 and they will enjoy such playfellows full as well 
 as those of their own age. Ever let them 
 remember, however, to leave their play without 
 having lost any of the strength or the dignity of 
 parentage. 
 
 A highly respected merchant, speaking of his 
 own methods of discipline, remarked that he 
 never had the least difficulty from his children's 
 wandering off with bad companions, or wishing 
 to wander. " We take care," said he, " fre- 
 quently to invite, for an evening, virtuous and 
 most unexceptionable young acquaintances to 
 our house. We join most heartily in the juven- 
 ile sports. Indeed we task our own minds to 
 invent new games for our mutual recreation ; 
 and truly we do succeed in making home the 
 happiest place in all the world to our chil- 
 dren." 
 
122 PASSAGES FROM A LECTURE. 
 
 Another gentleman, careful as to the exposure 
 of his sons, adopts especial means to keep them 
 from bad associations on holiday occasions. For 
 instance : if there is to be no great public cele- 
 bration on a Fourth of July in his little city, 
 and yet the population are all loose abroad, he 
 would keep his own sons at home. So he gets 
 up a celebration- of Independence within his 
 own domestic domain. He prepares, in connec- 
 tion with his children, a regular programme of 
 exercises. He constitutes himself the president 
 of the day, and makes an oration. Then the 
 whole family contrive to get up toasts. One 
 son is a toastmaster ; and another son writes an 
 ode, as he is something of a poet. The whole 
 celebration is concluded by a few fireworks in 
 the yard. In the mean time, the star-spangled 
 banner waves over the scene. Thus his chil- 
 dren are trained to consider, that home is not 
 only the most patriotic, but for them the happi- 
 est, place in the country. Enviable fathers ! 
 would that thousands of others -would go and do 
 likewise ! 
 
IRRITABILITY OF TEMPER. 123 
 
 III. — lEHITxiBILITY OF TEMPER. 
 
 rriHERE is perhaps as much fault in the man- 
 -■- agement of a child's temper as in any one 
 thing relating to domestic discipline. When 
 the temper of a quite young child is once 
 roused, he is a perfect rebel. Nothing but ab- 
 solute strength can restrain his squirming body. 
 He cannot be reasoned with at this age, and 
 especially in this condition. What can be done ? 
 Nothing but to wait till the little tempest has 
 gone down, as we wait for that of the weather 
 to get exhausted. Let no perturbed feelings 
 appear in the actions or faces of bystanders, if 
 it can possibly be helped. Especially let the 
 person in immediate care strive for patience in 
 the heart, and serenity on the countenance. 
 Let there be soft, sweet soothings, — no loud 
 exclamations. Sometimes the attention may be 
 diverted to some attractive object, and the trou- 
 
124 PASSAGES FROM A LECTURE. 
 
 ble pass away. But be sure that there shall be 
 no responsive excitement of any kind in others 
 around. Every child is born with the resentful 
 emotion slumbering in his nature. With all 
 care, it will sometimes start forth. But love 
 and a wise self-possession will be adequate to 
 the emergency. 
 
 Above all others, parents should not put to 
 this element the kindling spark of their own 
 irascible dispositions. Yet how often is this 
 the case ! The child, for instance, is at his 
 interesting work, — mischief so called ; and he 
 breaks a choice vase, or soils some fancy-work. 
 Now, the parent is any thing but the self-pos- 
 sessed and patient one that provokes not chil- 
 dren to wrath. To be startled at the accident 
 is pardonable ; but what a look ! what a tone ! 
 Ah ! what a hand on that unintentional misdoer ! 
 Then the child, catching the baleful spirit, — 
 with what look and tone and action he images 
 back the angry parent ! How is the tender, the 
 sweet, and the lovely scorched and withered away 
 by such outbursts of the nether elements ! 
 
 " But I can't help this temper " is the excuse. 
 " I inherited it from my own parents : they didn't 
 manage it well in my own childhood. Indeed I 
 wish I could govern it as I should." Can you 
 
IRRITABILITY OF TEMPER. 125 
 
 not do it, my friend? Let us see. Suppose 
 you have company, much-respected friends, and 
 a vase is broken or some fancy-work soiled ; then 
 how soft the admonition ! The very scolding is 
 as sweet as music ; and the visitors go away 
 with the idea and exclamation, " What an amia- 
 ble disposition ! " 
 
 Your excuse is, that you cannot maintain 
 calmness under a sudden excitement of feeling. 
 As to this, let us have another illustration : A 
 careless father leaves his naked razor on the 
 table, on some brief absence from the room. 
 The little child is entertaining himself with his 
 own resources. The mother, that mother who 
 was yesterday so hasty spirited, is occupied 
 with her affairs. At length, her eye catches a 
 glimpse of the little experimenter ; and, behold ! 
 he, curious creature, wishing to know something 
 about razors, has the glittering implement in 
 his hand. His tender finger is within a hair's 
 breadth of the fearful edge. Well^ she is sud- 
 denly surprised, far more than yesterday : she 
 is dreadfully alarmed. But does she start and 
 spring, and startle the unconscious innocent? 
 Does she scream out and catch hold ? Oh, no ! 
 At the least joggle of that tiny, unsteady hand, 
 the finger may slip, and there will be a bloody 
 
126 PASSAGES FEOM A LECTURE. 
 
 gash ; or the implement may drop on his tender 
 foot, and he will be maimed for life. What 
 now ? " Hold it fast, darling ; let mother have 
 it; hold it fast." What astonishing self-posses- 
 sion ! How engaging her smile ! how winning 
 her tones ! and her tread is as soft as a rose-leaf 
 lighting on the verdure beneath ; and the child, 
 charmed and drawn by such sweet, motherly 
 magnetism, renders up the deadly thing, and is 
 safe. Now, why cannot this parent realize, that 
 the pricking temper, the deeply cutting anger, 
 indulged over and over again by the child, 
 makes wounds in the tender spiritual frame- 
 work, which, hidden from the world's eye, may 
 last on and last on, and be very sore, long after 
 gashes from inanimate steel shall have been 
 healed ? Woe to that mother or father, woe to 
 that elder sister or brother, whose own uncon- 
 trolled temper shall intensify or occasion such 
 anguish in the young and helpless soul ! 
 
CHILDREN AT TABLE. 127 
 
 IV. — CHILDREN AT TABLE. 
 
 nnHERE is one time and one place at which 
 -*- an indulged and mismanaged family gene- 
 rally exhibit about their worst. It is the meal- 
 time and the table. How often are they the 
 occasion at which the lower nature in the child, 
 the animal, manifests its claws, its teeth, and its 
 quarrelsome voracity ! The call is given for the 
 morning, mid-day, or evening repast, — no mat- 
 ter which ; and now how the creatures rush to 
 their feeding ! What a scraping and squeaking 
 of chairs, as they drag them up or pull them 
 back ! What rattle and racket, as they creep 
 up or tumble on ! Then what hastening to the 
 onset ! — cries for this or that ! or, without a 
 cry, they dash into one thing, or slash across 
 another. Then there is the hue perhaps, espe- 
 cially at the daintier articles, " Mother, he's 
 getting it almost all : I sha'n't have any.'' The 
 
128 PASSAGES FROM A LECTURE. 
 
 reply is snapped back : " I say I'm not getting 
 it all ; but you got it almost all yesterday, and 
 I'm going to have my share to-day." Indeed, 
 all law and order, if there ever were any, are 
 entirely upset ; and perhaps some dishes are up- 
 set too. 
 
 There is no more strength of authority in that 
 distracted and custom-hardened mother than 
 there is in a wreath of steam curling up from 
 the hot cookery. It is possible that the father's 
 grum voice and stern look may command order ; 
 or, very likely, they may not. He perhaps con- 
 siders the meals, and the management thereat, 
 the mother's affair, unless the uproar becomes 
 quite insupportable. 
 
 Then he simply exclaims, " Pshaw, pshaw ! 
 what a noise you make ! " And he meekly puts 
 down his food with Yankee, tavern-like velocity, 
 and scuds out of his own home, away from his 
 own empire, as if to save his ears. 
 
 As it regards these unmannerly and unman- 
 ageable children at the table, there is one simple 
 rule. It is this : If a child does not come quietly, 
 and take his own proper place, and there wait 
 till he is helped ; and then, if he should not be 
 satisfied with what he is helped to in ordinary 
 circumstances, — indeed, should he behave in 
 
CHILDREN AT TABLE. 129 
 
 any way such as would put you to the blush 
 (with company), — send him away instantly. 
 Do not threaten, as the majority of parents do, 
 ^^ You shall leave the table, if you don't behave 
 better. I tell you, you shalV^ What cares he ? 
 He knows it is nothing but breath : he has heard 
 the threat ever since he can remember. No : 
 let the rule be understood and established ; 
 let it be acted on as instantaneously as the 
 report follows the flash of a gun, — only with 
 perfect gentleness, as well as decision, on your 
 part. There should be no harshness of voice, 
 or roughness of hand : indeed there will be no 
 need of it, if such shall be the well-understood 
 rule. 
 
 It may be said, that the child, by some inad- 
 vertence, may make an unintentional mistake. 
 Very well : then the certain penalty will prevent 
 future carelessness. This would avert, perhaps, 
 a similar carelessness and ill manners, and con- 
 fusion of countenance, when there shall be 
 company. Indeed, so train your child, and it 
 may certainly be done, that you shall just mo- 
 tion with your finger for him to leave the table, 
 and he shall instantly obey and be gone ; and all 
 so quietly, that the persons present, possibly, 
 shall be first made aware, by his vacant place, 
 
 9 
 
130 PASSAGES FEOM A LECTURE. 
 
 that he has left. Thus, under all circumstances 
 at the table, you are at ease ; you have no fear ; 
 and your children are being formed at once to 
 easy and appropriate manners, whatever be the 
 company. 
 
 Do not, however, follow the example of a 
 brother-clergyman. " I have complied with your 
 rule already," he remarked, as I was commend- 
 ing this method of discipline. " I have sent my 
 children away for bad behavior. But I find they 
 like nothing better ; for they have then a capital 
 time in the kitchen with the maids." — " Did 
 you send them into the kitchen ? " I asked in 
 reply. — " Oh, yes ! where else should they go ? " 
 — " Not there," I rejoined ; " for, while you and 
 the mother are eating the pudding, they will 
 there be eating the pie or the cake, or whatever 
 nice bit the good-humored girls can hunt up to 
 tickle their palates, and gain their favor. Oh, 
 no ! that is not the way. Put each in a corner 
 by himself, with no fellowship from anybody, or 
 any thing but his own memory and heart and 
 conscience. Let him feel how very lonely and 
 how very cold it is to be shut away from the 
 genial table, and the warm, loving hearts around; 
 and such discipline will not often need to be 
 repeated." 
 
CHILDREN AT TABLE. 131 
 
 Why should there not be perfect propriety of 
 manners at home, and in all its unguarded priva- 
 cy, as well as anywhere else ? There should 
 certainly be respectful manners and language 
 to parents there, and particularly at the table. 
 There should be courtesy also to brothers and 
 sisters ; and here is a very special opportunity, 
 which ought not to be neglected. Indeed, the 
 table is about the best possible schooling-place 
 for manners. Every day, regularly, it presents 
 opportunity for theory and practice. The table 
 is the place where the sweetest family affections 
 may be cultivated, and the heart flow around 
 from one to another, as nowhere else. Every 
 meal should present something new of intelli- 
 gence brought by those who come from abroad. 
 With a little effort, with a little regard for the 
 great ends of existence, certainly this might be 
 realized to an extent far beyond what has ever 
 been before in the majority of families. Let the 
 meal be the simplest : should necessity compel, 
 it may be nothing but bread and fruits ; and yet 
 there may be as rich a pastime to the intellect 
 and heart as the most abundant wealth, or even 
 royal revenues, could afford. 
 
 The table is the special place and scene of 
 what is called " hospitality." This word gene- 
 
132 PASSAGES FROM A LECTURE. 
 
 rally has reference to those who come in from 
 without ; but it may have a higher meaning, and 
 be applied to those who abide together within. 
 Each family, and loving and beloved soul in it, 
 may have at the table, and at every meal, an- 
 other and new occasion for fresh hospitality to 
 the dear souls around. This consists in utter- 
 ance, with the common desire to entertain, or in 
 listening, with a desire to be entertained ; for 
 it is hospitable, as well as courteous, to listen, — 
 inasmuch as, when one thinks he can do good 
 by speech, he likes to be heard. How beautiful 
 might these table-manners be, in all they com- 
 prehend as to the mental as well as the material 
 man ! 
 
 Thus a family would be prepared for pro- 
 priety, grace, kind feeling, anywhere. They 
 might sit down in the humblest abode, or with 
 the rudest people, and still put them at perfect 
 ease ; and this without at all participating in 
 their rudeness. They might sit in the highest 
 circles of our country, indeed with nobles and 
 princes, and make themselves agreeable and 
 respected by their charming gracefulness, joined 
 with their pure Christian simplicity. 
 
 Finally : do not forget the rule, Send them 
 
 INSTANTLY AWAY. 
 
SUGGESTIONS 
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE OBSERVING 
 FACULTIES. 
 
NOTE. 
 
 To leave moral training for the present, attention is asked to a 
 subject not so absolutely important as the preceding, but one in 
 which parents should have a lively interest. Many years ago, the 
 present writer, in lecturing on early intellectual culture, earnestly 
 urged the discipline of the observing faculties. He then had not the 
 remotest idea, that this discipline, as an indispensable requisite, 
 would be so long neglected ; for it was at that time practised in 
 European schools, and advocated also by eminent writers in our 
 own country. More than twenty years, however, have elapsed since 
 his first humble efforts and sanguine expectations ; and yet but little 
 progress comparatively has been made in this direction. In prepar- 
 ing this volume, it came forcibly to mind, that a much-needed help 
 might be rendered to the family, and indirectly to the school, by 
 some practical suggestions on this part of education. By the aid of 
 a single written passage and some brief notes, some former utter- 
 ances, which were mostly extemporaneous, have been introduced 
 into this work, interspersed with fresh matter suggested by more 
 recent circumstances. 
 
 It may be further premised, to prevent any possible misconcep- 
 tion, that it is not intended to crowd upon childhood what is above 
 its ability. Some of the proposed exercises are perhaps more 
 appropriate to youth. Most of them, however, might be entered 
 into by children of various ages, in company with the parents them- 
 selves, all in mutual cultivation of the observing faculties. These 
 suggestions are presented by one who has read and thought much 
 on these subjects, and who has no interest but the best good of the 
 community, older and younger. Will parents, will all readers, 
 consider them with candor, and ask themselves, without any sort of 
 prejudice, whether they are not sustained by reason and plain com- 
 mon sense? Most especially are they entreated to observe their 
 bearing on success in business and most of the practical affairs in 
 life. 
 
SUGGESTIONS 
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE OBSERVING 
 FACULTIES. 
 
 THE BEGINNING. 
 
 ri^HE intellectual development of the human 
 -*■ being begins as soon as he can open his 
 eyes, and put forth his little hand, — as soon as 
 his senses come in contact with the material 
 world. From this time onward, he is continually 
 gaining knowledge, and being prepared for his 
 future of life, usefulness, and enjoyment. It is 
 said, that all the simple elements of knowledge 
 and the best part of man's education are obtained 
 by the time he is five years of age. These foun- 
 dations are mainly laid at home. The work is, 
 or should be, under the supervision of the 
 parents. This education, however, goes on, 
 whether they attend to it or not. Indeed, the 
 child will be continually educating himself. It 
 may be truly said, that the first and the most 
 important part of man's intellectual culture, as 
 things have been, is self-culture. Now, this 
 
136 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 fostering from kindly nature, this forth-putting 
 and forth-grasping of the infant faculties, may 
 be exceedingly assisted by the parents and 
 other older members of the family, if they did 
 but think of it, and would but give themselves 
 to it. Help, in this primary home institution, is 
 as valuable as it is in the public seminaries to 
 which the mind is afterward introduced. In 
 the majority of homes, however, this assistance 
 is casually and poorly rendered. It is because 
 parents have the notion that they have nothing 
 to do with intellectual development. This they 
 suppose belongs only to the schools. If a child 
 asks a question about any thing new to his 
 curiosity, he may be kindly answered. If he 
 persistently puts many questions, he is patiently 
 borne with, or perhaps hastily hushed or snapped 
 off. The parents have not the least suspicion, 
 that, in replying to such questions, they are 
 really exercising tutorships and professorships 
 as important, to say the least, as any in college. 
 Indeed, it may be affirmed with absolute truth, 
 that as schools have generally been conducted, 
 especially for little children, the education mostly 
 stops at the school threshold ; at least, it begins 
 to be exceedingly hindered, as will plainly ap- 
 pear. 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 137 
 
 KNOWLEDGE WITHOUT BOOKS. 
 
 Just watch a babe, and see what Nature, or 
 rather his own divinely devised constitution, 
 prompts him to do ; and let us gather useful 
 hints from the observation. As soon as there is 
 any visual discernment, there is a separation of 
 one thing from another, and the reception of dis- 
 tinct ideas. The little one leaves the maternal 
 lap, for what ? — to work, and to get knowledge 
 to prepare him for more and more work. He 
 creeps about the room, not only for the pleasure 
 of muscular action, but to seek for new objects 
 to his curiosity ; hunting for prey, if we may so 
 speak, as food to his awakened and craving 
 perceptions. Every thing he gets hold of is a 
 subject of interest, — a fund of entertainment ; 
 and, though his mother perhaps thinks not of it, 
 it is a source of most valuable instruction. We 
 cannot just yet say of him, that " he who runs 
 may read ; " but we may say, that he who creeps 
 can, — can read the great book of perceptible 
 and practical knowledge open boundlessly before 
 him, just as fast and far as he can get at it. 
 Toeing and kneeing it along, he lays hold of 
 every thing within the touch and the crook 
 
138 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 of his fingers. Why ? he wants knowledge, and 
 he will have it. First, the thing, — the indivi- 
 dual : it is separate from some other thing he 
 perceives, and he wants to know about it as 
 another and distinct object. Then the several 
 perceptive powers come into action ; finding 
 out the various qualities, — figure, color, size, 
 weight, — as they are peculiar to each indivi- 
 dual thing. Thus the child ranges through the 
 room ; and, when in due time he mounts to 
 the top of his feet, he runs about the house, 
 and soon out-doors, and then round about the 
 premises, all the time after knowledge, — know- 
 ledge of objects, qualities, operations, uses. Be- 
 fore the little looker and hunter is four years 
 old, he is acquainted with hundreds of things, — 
 perhaps, we might say, thousands. He knows 
 nothing about the book, it may be ; but is he 
 deficient in language ? By no means : objects 
 are distinguished by names ; qualities, by appro- 
 priate terms. What riches of language are his, 
 even now, though he may never have been at 
 school, and cannot read a word ! All this time, 
 he has been in training for the duties and enjoy- 
 ments of maturer life. He has been studying 
 the Creator's perfect works, and unconsciously 
 finding the steps which lead up to the Most 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 139 
 
 "Wise and Most Loving. He has been acquaint- 
 ing himself with the things also made by human 
 hands, and examining the materials of which 
 they are composed. This is in preparation for 
 the time when he himself shall make similar 
 things, and will need accurate knowledge of 
 fabrics and materials as to qualities and fitness 
 for specific purposes. 
 
 INDUSTRIAL EFFORTS. 
 
 Nay, farther, our little beginner at life is 
 something more than a learner : he is a maker. 
 He is at his mechanics too. See him putting 
 this with that in rude efibrts at construction ! 
 Give him a dozen blocks, and he is in absolute 
 blessedness at work ; building up and pulling 
 down, and altering, his wall or house, or what- 
 ever else he may be striving to imitate. How 
 wonderfully industrious, imitative, and construct- 
 ive ! He wants to do every thing he sees others 
 do. Give him little tools, fitted to his little fing- 
 ers, and how delighted ! How he skips off, all 
 glee, to his miniature business ! All these appli- 
 cations of his strength, and trials of his skill, are 
 instincts and impulses to prepare him for the 
 labors, duties, and pleasures of life. And the pa- 
 rents ought all the time to sympathize with 
 
140 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 him ; lending a hand, now and then, to help just 
 enough and no more ; catching hints from in- 
 structive Nature, and carrying out her plans far 
 beyond what the child's unassisted mind could 
 think of in his own behalf. But they do no such 
 thing. On the contrary, they cut off the little 
 learner from the very education he was getting, 
 as well as he could, almost all alone. They 
 practically declare, " Nature, you do not know 
 as much as old usage does, — usage begun in 
 ignorance, and continued in stupidity." 
 
 AN ABUSE OF NATURE. 
 
 But let us more particularly consider what is 
 done. Oh the sad change which comes over 
 this childhood's dream, or rather over this con- 
 tented, sweet reality ! This is what we do, — 
 we, grown-up and pretendedly grown-wiser peo- 
 ple : we catch up the active, looking, learning, 
 working, and manufacturing, happy little crea- 
 ture, and clap him, together with twenties, 
 thirties, forties, or fifties besides, into a wooden 
 box, hardly, in some instances, large enough to 
 hold them without jamming and hurting one 
 against the other ; and fasten him upon a seat, 
 out of the reach of the many objects he has been 
 in the midst of, and which he has been doing 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 141 
 
 with, as Nature intended. Yes, tliere we fasten 
 him, or permit our agent, the school-committee 
 or the school-teacher, to do it ; and we make him 
 bend his neck, and fix his eyes on a plain, dry- 
 surface of paper. This he must not cut, fold, 
 crumple, or variously shape, in the way of cul- 
 tivating his manufacturing abilities. No : he 
 must look straight down upon this metamorpho- 
 sis of cotton. Were it but the rags out of which 
 it came, many-shaped, many-hued, there would 
 be something to hold the eye ; but what does he 
 see now? Words, words, words; little, black, 
 immovable images, which he cannot get his 
 fingers under. What cares he for them? Na- 
 ture made him to care for things, and for words 
 too, just so far as they stand for the things he 
 has to do with, or can have any clear idea of. 
 He, indeed, has an appetite, if we may so speak, 
 for words, so far as they convey any ideas ; but 
 we do not consult this appetite, but give him 
 the words all tasteless of meaning. When I say 
 this, I do not mean to convey, that no explana- 
 tions at all are ever given, but that none scarcely 
 are given, in a large majority of schools, take 
 the country through, in immediate connection 
 with the things to which they belong. Before 
 the child enters school, it is always things ; then, 
 
142 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 words. At school, it is first words, and then 
 things ; that is, if the pupil shall happen to come 
 across them. Otherwise, he must go without 
 such substantial acquaintance. Now, this ought 
 not so to be. This period, lent by Nature to 
 prepare for future industry and livelihood, ought 
 not to be so unprofitably and wretchedly spent. 
 In all common sense and true philosophy, this 
 paper-deadening, ink-blinding delusion should be 
 put away. But what shall take its place ? Re- 
 alities, life, thought, action, intelligence ; just 
 what the child has been forced to leave at his 
 own home. This might be done, and how easily 
 and cheaply done besides ! Really it would not 
 cost, on the whole, so much as school-weariness 
 or school-hate costs, when it breaks over bounds, 
 and runs wild into mischief. 
 
 PKOFITABLE SCHOOLING. 
 
 Let our primary schoolrooms, and indeed 
 the higher schoolrooms, be well provided with 
 shelves and boxes. Let these be filled with all 
 sorts of productions of nature and art ; speci- 
 mens of all sorts of wood and metals ; all kinds 
 of cloth and leather, or any other fabric, — 
 indeed, of every thing which can well be 
 brought into a school, and put in some proper 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 143 
 
 receptacle. Let each one of these objects be 
 a subject for examination by classes, in con- 
 venient order, under the direction of the 
 teacher. In this way, the plan begun by Nature 
 at home would be carried out, and carried out 
 much farther than could possibly be at home 
 under ordinary circumstances ; as many objects 
 would be supplied by the scholars from differ- 
 ent families, which could not be had, excepting 
 as each was found in a different home. All 
 the perceptive faculties would here find delight- 
 ful occupation, and be continually gaining in 
 strength. Children would hardly be tired of 
 such observation, due regard being given to 
 their comfort and constitutional power of atten- 
 tion. Indeed, if rightly managed, they would 
 enter heartily into minute examinations, and 
 comparisons of one thing with another ; for 
 there might be a healthful and spirited emula- 
 tion in the exercise. It may be farther re- 
 marked, that the words designating the object 
 in hand, and its qualities and uses, must come 
 into the occasion. These the children learn 
 just as readily as they learn at home the name 
 of the lamp, and that it is bright and hot ; or 
 the terms belonging to any thing else. Lan- 
 guage is not lost, but rather most richly gained. 
 
144 THE DISCIPLINE OP THE 
 
 by this use of the time. Furthermore, just 
 consider the practical utility of this mode of 
 education. What a wide and minute acquaint- 
 ance is formed with things, as necessaries, com- 
 forts, and luxuries, in living, or as appertaining 
 to the various affairs of business ! How the 
 quality of the material and of the manufacture 
 of a commodity will be compared with the qua- 
 lity of another of the same kind ; so that, by the 
 time the child shall be old enough to leave 
 school, he shall have run through the whole 
 range of objects ever used in ordinary life, and 
 be able to detect the minutest differences be- 
 tween one and another of the same sort ! With 
 such a training, it would be utterly impossible 
 for manufacturer or trader to impose an inferior 
 production on the purchaser. He must propor- 
 tion his price to the quality, or keep his goods 
 on his hands. With the ignorance of commodi- 
 ties in which people have been kept until grown 
 up, and obliged to purchase for themselves, how 
 continually have they been subjected to impo- 
 sitions on their credulity, and to consequent 
 annoyance of spirit ! It has really taken a life- 
 time to obtain that practical knowledge of qua- 
 lities and fitnesses which might be acquired 
 by boys and girls before they should be half 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 145 
 
 through their teens, were the common-sense and 
 time-saving method above explained adopted. 
 How also are the poor now imposed upon ! 
 They must take a second or third rate article 
 at a very little reduction from the price of the 
 best, to make a small saving. Yet, in the long- 
 run, theirs are the dearest purchases of all. But, 
 with such an education, there could scarcely be 
 any imposition on anybody. The children of 
 the poor, in our common schools, are equally 
 learners with those of the rich. If those who 
 are pinched for money must seek the cheapest 
 thing, they will know exactly its comparative 
 value, and will either have fair terms, or go to 
 some competitor more favorable to their circum- 
 stances. Then the struggle would be among 
 the manufacturers to see who should excel, — 
 who should go ahead in improvement, — as 
 knowing that the purchasers have been trained 
 from very infancy to detect imperfections. Then 
 the trader could not deceive the buyer, if the 
 manufacturer should succeed in deceivins; him. 
 Indeed, retailer, jobber, wholesale dealer, and 
 manufacturer must all be honest men, selling at 
 prices exactly just ; that is, according to quality, 
 all other circumstances being equitably con- 
 sidered. If every article in a dry-goods store 
 
 10 
 
146 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 or a grocery, or any other furnishing establish- 
 ment, were thus put to the test of minute exami- 
 nation and comparison, the reign of that old 
 hollow-hearted despot whose power is in his 
 own pretence and in the ignorance of his sub- 
 jects — the reign of King Sham — would be 
 ended. 
 
 LOSS AND GAIN. 
 
 Thus much might easily be done in our 
 schools ; yes, and save enough money by the 
 " operation/' as trading people have the term, 
 to pay the whole school-tax. Just think of it, 
 friends ! — how much the majority of people 
 actually lose out of pocket by overpaying for 
 poor commodities ! Or, if price and quality do 
 go honestly together, how much uncomfortable- 
 ness is often occasioned to the body, and trouble 
 to the spirit, by these cheap imperfections ! 
 How often, too, the purse suffers, in the long- 
 run, by all the rips, breakages, and good-for- 
 nothingness for which the few dollars or few 
 cents saved are far from making up ! Who has 
 not had occasion to feel the truth of the saying, 
 " The cheapest things are the dearest " ? Just 
 look round your premises, and take a distinct 
 observation of all the various necessaries, com- 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 147 
 
 forts, luxuries, and elegances there gathered. 
 Consider the ceaseless rush of wearables, eata- 
 bles, drinkables, and burnables into your house- 
 hold receptacles. Then reflect that all this 
 mixed and continuous avalanche of earthy mat- 
 ter is sweeping through your doors from the 
 beginning to the end of married life, half a cen- 
 tury perhaps and more, costing to moderate 
 fortunes, for fifty years, fifty thousand dollars 
 at least, and to others twice or four times that 
 amount ; and then reflect how often through this 
 long period the twain and their dependents have 
 been mistaken, have been cheated, or somehow 
 have lost in their bargainings, in consequence 
 of not having their senses about them; at least 
 one sense wide open and sharp, — that is, the 
 sight. Yes, friends, take all these absolute re- 
 alities into a clear comprehension, and then tell 
 me whether the shelves and boxes of specimen 
 goods at the schoolroom, and the careful inspec- 
 tion and comparison of them by the pupils, in 
 the course of all the long years passed there, 
 are nothing but a theorist's tuJiim. 
 
 But, alas ! even if you should think this com- 
 modity project not a whim, but rather an all- 
 important requisite, it would be quite in vain 
 as schools are now arranged. Even if parents, 
 
148 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 committees, and teachers should all be convinced 
 of the value of the proposition, it might take no 
 short time to get it into action. Who does not 
 know that public improvements, however well 
 acknowledged, are often postponed for years? 
 Inconvenient and unhealthy schoolrooms in ci- 
 ties, and miserable old schoolhouses in the 
 country, prove this fact. However, the better 
 time is coming, as a few schools here and there 
 in our country bear witness. In the mean time, 
 good parents, what shall prevent you from going 
 into this commodity training at once in your 
 own families? Indeed your children are at it 
 now, all by themselves, — even the youngest 
 creeper on the carpet. They only want a little 
 assistance. Their senses a.re all alive and awake ; 
 their observing faculties are at their appointed 
 work. The difficulty is, there are so many new 
 things all about in this freshly entered world, 
 that they do'not work long enough on one piece 
 of matter ; they are not thorough. Now, what 
 these little candidates for purchases and house- 
 keeping want is your help and companionship at 
 inspection. How much can be learned of real 
 substantial knowledge, even before the child 
 shall arrive at the school-going age ! Without 
 any help at all, except his own keen senses or 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 149 
 
 the eager perceptives behind them, he becomes 
 marvellously knowing at four or five years of 
 age. Now, amid all your gettings of new 
 things, what a constant opportunity is there for 
 him to get an understanding of them, if you 
 will but stop to show him ! What ample time is 
 there during the three meals a day, at the table, 
 for the inspection of things in use thereupon, 
 and for talk about things which have been seen 
 otherwhere ! Indeed, friends, you may take your 
 children along through your whole house-world, 
 and over and over again, searching every thing 
 as thoroughly as air, light, and heat search them, 
 by the time they shall come to the edge of their 
 youthful years. Even a seven-year-old errand- 
 doer would have something like a mature judg- 
 ment as to the poor, the better, and the best, at 
 the store where he carries your cents, dimes, 
 and quarters, to bring you back, as you hope, 
 the best thing to be had for the money. You 
 would find, I can affirm without fear of contra- 
 diction, the immortal adage to be true, even of 
 a child, that ^^ knowledge is power," — power 
 over a store-keeper or any other money-maker. 
 Just try the plan at once, my friends, and be 
 convinced. You will then have something to 
 talk about with your children, not so much to 
 
150 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 grumble about^ and not so much time for grum- 
 bling. Finally, when you shall have thoroughly 
 proved the value and the pleasure of this thing, 
 —^learning in the home seminary, — then try all 
 your influence for a change in the school. Both 
 institutions earnestly working together, be as- 
 sured that all sorts of producers would have to 
 go ahead toward pefection, and trade would be 
 compelled to be honest. Adulteration, that vile 
 deceiver, that sometimes awful poisoner, would 
 be cornered, starved out, and have to give up. 
 Old and mighty Sham, as was intimated before, 
 would have to abdicate, and his line would per- 
 ish. 
 
 Much more is yet to be said about the investi- 
 gation of material things. It has happened to 
 be convenient to present the subject just now in 
 one respect, — that of quality and comparative 
 fitness for uses, — a sort of profit-and-loss view 
 of the matter. I shall now take up this object- 
 study somewhat methodically, and in various 
 relations. All, however, will have a bearing, 
 more or less, on practical utility. 
 
 . INFANTILE ACTIVITY. 
 
 The exercise of the observing faculties — ob- 
 ject-study — begins in early infancy, prompted 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 151 
 
 by the inborn instincts. Some hints appertain- 
 ing to this tenderest age may be of benefit : so 
 they are here given intermediately as we pass 
 along. 
 
 Set it down, friends, as a fact, that your chil- 
 dren want things substantial, and palpable to the 
 senses, from the time they are put on the floor, 
 from the mother's lap. They must have them 
 at first, or nothing. Let them, therefore, have 
 what they, want ; but it must be judiciously 
 and properly. The infant is pleased with that 
 which he can grasp, and shake about, and 
 put to his mouth. But do not, like some ig- 
 norant parents, give him what may be hurtful, 
 — a painted toy, for instance ; so that he shall 
 be in danger of sucking the paint, and of being 
 poisoned : for the taste is one of the first ave- 
 nues to infantile knowledge and enjoyment, and 
 there is a sucking instinct. Put into his hands 
 little hard things of different shapes, and made 
 of ivory, or some other clean, firm substance, 
 which may be found perhaps at the toy-shop ; 
 or things of solid wood, which you can carve 
 out yourself. When he shall fairly get upon 
 the floor, there to be seated like a monarch on 
 his throne, or to move about like a mechanic in 
 his shop, provide him with little blocks, and other 
 
152 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 manageable things, to pile up and toss about. 
 When he shall be old enough to try any thing 
 like building with them, some one should show 
 him how, and help his beginning. Few probably 
 need this hint ; yet there are some too busy with 
 work or amusements, or too indolent, to stoop a 
 few moments to the incipient constructor, if he 
 is not in the way of their feet, or makes no 
 disturbing cries. Any thing which will not 
 harm him, and which he himself cannot injure, 
 might be within his domain or his workshop. 
 Pray, have the good sense not to let him have, 
 even to gain a moment's quiet, what he may 
 tear or deface, such as the yet-unread newspaper 
 or a valuable book. He must understand that 
 he can never have such things, at least unless 
 there are those of the kind devoted to his spe- 
 cial use alone. You will save a great deal of 
 time and trouble by firmness in this matter. In 
 process of the months, he becomes a traveller 
 on all-fours about the room : he is in search of 
 curiosities and adventures. It is now far better 
 to keep entirely out of his reach things he must 
 not touch, than to be ever anxiously on the 
 watch, and perpetually stopping, thwarting, and 
 irritating the headlong discoverer. As for the 
 rest which cannot be put aside, such as the stove 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 153 
 
 or the fireplace, and the implements belonging 
 to them, just let him understand, that it is your 
 will, which cannot he changed, that he must never 
 touch them. If necessary, just let him get, un- 
 der your careful watch, an uncomfortably hot, 
 but not a burnt finger a few times ; and he will 
 perceive why he must not go too far in that 
 direction. 
 
 SYMPATHY WANTED. 
 
 Enough has been said perhaps to indicate 
 how a child may be entertained and instructed 
 for the first year. As the second comes on, he 
 begins to run about, and to go anywhere, and 
 get at every thing ; and you are put to your 
 activity to keep him within safe bounds. He 
 is perpetually finding new things. His brain is 
 too weak to be kept very long at one single 
 object : so it is a happy provision, that curiosity 
 should carry him quickly from one thing to an- 
 other. Nevertheless, let him hold on to what 
 he has, as long as he will ; the longer, the bet- 
 ter : for thus he will form the habit of concen- 
 trated attention, preparing him to stick to a 
 lesson till he thoroughly learns it, or to any 
 other pursuit in the future till he shall have ac- 
 complished it. By and by, when he shall dis- 
 
154 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 cover some new and curious thing, he will run 
 with it to you if he can, or bring you to it, to 
 show you what a wonderful discovery he has 
 made. He is a social being, such as he is to be, 
 or ought to be, in all his after-life. It is worthy 
 of remark, and of gratitude also to the good 
 Creator, how children want the presence, the 
 attention, and especially the sympathy, of others.' 
 Above all things, in gratifying curiosity, and 
 getting knowledge, and doing their little play- 
 work, they crave sympathy. How this infantile 
 innocence instructs far-off manhood and woman- 
 hood, and rebukes solitary and cold self-seeking ! 
 Your child wants sympathy : give it to him on 
 the spot. He will be satisfied with a very little. 
 Do not turn him abruptly off, unless the house 
 should be on fire, or somebody is in agonizing 
 pain, and must have you at once. Look, as he 
 holds up his new-found treasure : look ! perhaps 
 you will learn something yourself; for children 
 often find out interesting items of knowledge 
 which their parents had been utterly ignorant 
 of before. Then dismiss the novelty-finder with 
 a tender word and a kind look, and he will run 
 away as happy as ever Agassiz was after having 
 discovered and lectured about some new species 
 of fish ; for genial science delights to impart as 
 well as to find. 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 155 
 
 INDIVIDUALIZING. 
 
 But your child has begun to talk : he calls 
 things by name ; that is, if, in all patience, 
 you will tell him what the names are. Now 
 or soon, you may help him to cultivate into 
 strength and acuteness the most important per- 
 ceptive faculty of his mind : it is the indivi- 
 dualizing faculty. The phrenologists name it 
 "individuality." All qualities of material things 
 which fit them for special uses inhere in sepa- 
 rate individual objects. Certain qualities are 
 bunched together, and thus form a certain spe- 
 cies of things. Now, unless the sense distinctly 
 detects and gets hold of the thing, the qualities 
 and uses cannot be apprehended. So, one of 
 the very first observing powers put in action is 
 that of individuality. It is not some new qua- 
 lity, but some new and distinct object, which 
 the child drives at and lays hold of; and then 
 he looks for its properties. Some have this fac- 
 ulty constitutionally much stronger than others. 
 Many a boy and girl, many a man and woman, 
 go along the roads in a country place, or the 
 streets of a city, with their eyes half shut, or 
 gazing about with a vacant stare, or fastened 
 straightforward upon nothing. Others observe 
 
156 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 every thing, and gain knowledge at every step 
 and at every turn of the eye. Such being the 
 constitutional dilBferences in children, it v^ill be 
 v^ell for parents to attend early to this matter. 
 Perhaps they themselves are deficient in this 
 individualizing ability, and it is time that they 
 should make up the deficiency. 
 
 THE OBJECT-GAME. 
 
 As a mutual benefit, and pleasure indeed, let 
 parent and child have a sort of game at finding 
 objects. It may be called " the thing-game," or, 
 if you please, " the object-game." The wall, 
 ceiling, window, floor, carpet, table, chairs, and 
 so on, will probably first strike attention, and be 
 named. Soon, all the prominent objects of the 
 room will be exhausted. Then there will be a 
 scramble for something more. Objects will be 
 discovered which otherwise would not have met 
 the eye, or have been thought of The head of 
 a nail, a shred of cloth, the minutest thread, or 
 any particle of matter ; a spot or mark on the 
 furniture or wall, or any thing else ; any thing 
 which may bear a name, — will be detected one 
 after another : and he is the victor who shall 
 find the minutest and most out-of-the-way thing 
 to which may be put a name, and the last thing to 
 
OBSERYING FACULTIES. 157 
 
 be found. At auother time, the same game 
 may be played with objects in the yard, or any- 
 where around the house, or as far away as the 
 sight can reach from door or window. Differ- 
 ent apartments in the house may be made the 
 scene of the game. If the time be the dark 
 evening or a winter's cold day, let the trial be, 
 who shall call to recollection the most objects in 
 some other room in the house, or in the naore 
 distant shed or barn. What an inventory will 
 thus be made of the implements and various 
 goods of the household ! You might go farther, 
 and call to recollection what may have been 
 noticed in a neighbor's domicile, or anywhere 
 else. Thus, in mere exciting pastime, you will 
 develop in your child and in yourselves the 
 central and most important faculty of the intel- 
 lect. You will all be trained to keep your eyes 
 open, to look, to see, and to separate one thing 
 from another ; and thus to ©btain knowledge of 
 new and distinct things wherever you go. How 
 keen at catching objects at a glance will you 
 become, if you only try ! You know how the 
 sailor will discover a ship at the distant horizon 
 when it seems but a speck, but which the undis- 
 ciplined passenger could not possibly perceive. 
 It is because he has been for years searching 
 
158 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 the ocean's surface for any object which may 
 break the blank uniformity, and especially for 
 his eye's love, — a sail. His success at such 
 perception is a matter of discipline and use. 
 Just so the sight of children might be trained 
 to acuteness of observation among the objects 
 on the land, if parents would set themselves and 
 their children about it. Of course, as was inti- 
 mated before, there will be differences in accom- 
 plishment according to differences in organic 
 constitution. 
 
 qualities: form. 
 
 Next, after individualizing the world of mat- 
 ter around, comes the learning of the forms of 
 things. These forms can be seen by the eye in* 
 the light, — can be felt by the hand in the dark : 
 they are the subjects of two senses. Soon will 
 the child learn the ideas and' the names, — ■ 
 long and short, square and round. Indeed, 
 you may cheaply provide blocks exhibiting all 
 the various geometrical figures ; and the child 
 in due time (for I would force nothing) might 
 learn the various geometrical names. At his 
 impressible age, it will be as easy for him to 
 fasten on his memory a scientific term as any 
 other word, if there is only a real visible object 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 159 
 
 Tinder it. How easily, then, will he learn whe- 
 ther any object his sense falls on is most like a 
 square, , triangle, cube, parallelogram, sphere, 
 cone, pyramid, or any thing else ! I need not 
 here run through the several geometrical figures 
 and names. You may easily get a book, and 
 look at them ; and the advantage to yourselves 
 and children will amply repay the trouble. 
 
 SIZE AND MEASUREMENT. 
 
 To proceed with qualities : next comes the 
 size of things. The child soon perceives this, 
 without your telling him that one object is 
 larger or smaller than another. All he wants 
 from you are words to designate differences in 
 dimension. Yes : he does want, or rather need, 
 something else. He needs training to accuracy 
 in discriminating the size and bulk of different 
 things. Let him then have, when he shall be 
 old enough, a .two-foot rule such as carpenters 
 use, or the household yard-stick, marked off into 
 feet and inches ; and set him to measuring ob- 
 jects, — whatever or wherever he pleases, bating 
 all harm. He can find the length and breadth 
 of the floor ; the length, width, and height of 
 furniture. Indeed, have him measure the di- 
 mensions of any thing he may put his rule 
 
160 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 against, within or around the house. When he 
 shall be old enough, furnish him with a ten-foot 
 pole, or a rope, or an iron chain of longer ^tretch ; 
 and, with this, set him to finding the length and 
 breadth of a field, or the distance between your 
 own house and the next neighbor's, or the 
 school-house or the church. Thus your boy is 
 becoming a surveyor before he knows it. This 
 procedure will not be a dry task to him, unless 
 you make it so : it will seem to make a man of 
 him, and he cannot but like it. I see no impro- 
 priety, moreover, in a sister's taking a part in 
 such outdoor, healthy, and instructive action. 
 Certainly, all in-door exercises in such measure- 
 ments will fall within the proprieties of female 
 life, and much in the uses of it. Why not make 
 a sort of competition and game of this quality of 
 size? Let a guess be made as to the length, 
 breadth, or height of any thing ; and then see 
 who comes nearest .to the fact by the measure. 
 Your boys and girls will like it ; and so will you, 
 if you have any of your young sportiveness still 
 left in your soul. 
 
 But some will inquire. What practical advan- 
 tage can this possibly be in the future ? It is 
 replied, that the active business of almost every 
 one depends more or less on off-hand and imme- 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 161 
 
 diate decisions, based on a knowledge of things. 
 Tlie farmer does not often scientifically survey 
 the portion of a field he intends to plough up for 
 a crop. lie decides on the quantity through his 
 previous knowledge of comparative proportions. 
 The more accurately he can judge of lengths 
 and breadths, the nearer will be his work to his 
 Welshes. Oftentimes, this kind of judgment will 
 come into play in respect to spaces and dis- 
 tances. Again, in buying and selling loads and 
 piles of commodities, men often guess at the 
 dimensions, or judge by the eye, without defi- 
 nite numerical measurement. He, therefore, 
 who shall have the truest perception of size 
 will have the advanta<2:e. In the affairs of a 
 household, moreover, such as the cutting and 
 repairing of garments and the proportioning of 
 quantities in cookery, the fliculty of size comes 
 into most useful requisition. Why, therefore, 
 shall it not be assiduously developed from early 
 life onward, to the saving of work, time, money, 
 and comfort, quite worth the while, take the life 
 through ? 
 
 WEIGHT. 
 
 Now comes the quality of weight. In a most 
 incidental, unlesson-like, and playful way, you 
 
 11 
 
162 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 can teach your child, boy or girl, the difference 
 between one thing and another as to weight. 
 Let him lift first one object, and then another ; 
 so that he may perceive the difference in the 
 pressure upon his hands. You can tell him, 
 that this pressure is weight, and that one thing 
 weighs more than another. He will learn, too, 
 that the difference, in different kinds of things, 
 does not depend on size. In due time, you can 
 show him what it does depend on. Provide 
 some scales. These will not cost more than a 
 few cigars, or any other luxury which you ex- 
 haust in the using, or some little piece of finery 
 quickly worn out ; but the scales will last for 
 years, and outweigh their own price a thousand 
 times over in this educational usefulness. With 
 these let him weigh all the various commodities 
 proper to be put into them. Do not make a task 
 of the matter, but rather a pastime, which you 
 may join in yourselves. In the first place, have 
 each one present take the commodity in hand, 
 and lift it up and down, and guess how much it 
 weighs, or rather try to form an accurate judg- 
 ment about it. Then put it into the scale, and 
 see who comes nearest to the fact. Thus the 
 little company, parents and children, have not 
 only entertainment, but. gain knowledge ; and a 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 163 
 
 special faculty is disciplined for future and valu- 
 able use in the affairs of life. It would be easy 
 to show the special application of this training 
 to practical purposes, as in the case of the other 
 faculties and qualities. Thinking readers can 
 readily illustrate for themselves. 
 
 COLOR. 
 
 There is a special faculty likewise to observe 
 color. Such different properties of objects as 
 form and weight must certainly require the use 
 of a specific power : so also must color ; for this 
 differs from every other property in nature. 
 This faculty of color may be disciplined to mar- 
 vellous acuteness and enjoyment, if pains are 
 only taken with it. Of all the appearances of 
 matter, the child earliest observes and delights 
 in color. It is the color of the fire and the lamp 
 which so early attracts the infant eye : so of 
 other objects one after another. Bright and 
 dazzling colors are his joy. As his age shall 
 warrant, teach him the names of the various 
 distinct colors. By the help of a book, if you 
 need one, you may be somewhat methodical in 
 your instructions. You can give him the names 
 of the three primary colors, then of the second- 
 ary colors ; and, at length, of all the various 
 
164 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 colors made up from these ; together witli the 
 many hues, tints, and tinges which have names. 
 Provide patterns of cloth as copies ; and, from 
 these, let the child get the idea and name of the 
 distinctive colors. This will be a pleasant mat- 
 ter, if you choose to make it so. You may get 
 up a color-game, as you do with the other qua- 
 lities. Take any object of an indeterminate 
 color, and see who will quickest find the stand- 
 ard color which it most nearly resembles. See 
 who shall name the colors, hues, or tinges, to 
 the greatest number of objects according to some 
 text-book. Here are the things both of art and 
 of nature, innumerable, all around, with colors of 
 all sorts : what a source of entertainment and 
 discipline for the special faculty, if parents will 
 but think of it, and go at the work, or rather 
 the sport ! The training of this faculty is of 
 singular importance to those who have much to 
 do with dry goods, and especially to ladies who 
 are the principal purchasers. I once knew a 
 former's wife, the mother of an infant boy, and 
 of a little girl perhaps three years old, at the 
 time I have in mind. She had no help but that 
 of her own hands, and of this little bud of a 
 maid. Among other things, she must make, 
 mend, and alter garments. She could not well 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 165 
 
 run up stairs to a closet or drawer for a piece 
 of cloth, whenever she might want it : so she 
 had all the various fabrics of wool, cotton, or 
 silk, done up respectively in separate parcels 
 by themselves. Not only so, but, if I recollect 
 aright, there was a subdivision of fabrics, ac- 
 cording to color. So, when in her work the 
 mother needed a particular cloth of a particular 
 color, she sent the little active and willing girl 
 away up stairs for it. If she made a mistake in 
 the selection, she had to go back and forth till 
 she got the right little roll. The result was, 
 that the child became exceedingly discriminat- 
 ing in whatever belonged to cloths and their 
 colors. She, at length, manifested remarkable 
 taste as to the fitnesses and proprieties of dress. 
 Her natural organization might have been fa- 
 vorable to such ability. Nevertheless, such an 
 early use of the special faculty must have 
 enhanced this prominent characteristic. 
 
 NATURE. 
 
 In this training to the observance and enjoy- 
 ment of color, you will, of course, not omit the 
 infinite variety in the aspects of nature. With 
 sunshine and cloud, mountains, lowlands, woods, 
 waters, and other features of nature, what a 
 
166 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 range for the eye ! How it may be taught to 
 fasten and feast on distinctive colors, and their 
 many lights and shades ! 
 
 FLOWERS. 
 
 The flowers cannot possibly be omitted; for 
 these are among the first things which attract 
 a child's admiring gaze. These will afford 
 almost numberless lessons in discriminating 
 colors. They may not be so practically useful 
 as the lessons upon cloths; but the living and 
 wonderful beauty will make them far more de- 
 lightful. What a taste might be nurtured, what 
 pleasure secured and continually enhanced, by 
 a little pains ! How easily might the delighted 
 mind be carried, in due time, from the charm of 
 the flowers into the rich botanical science which 
 lies in their various characteristics, and in the 
 leafy structure which they adorn ! 
 
 Another special subject of notice is the va- 
 rious colors and hues of the different vegetable 
 productions. What a dijBference between one 
 kind of grain or grass and another ! What 
 changes of hue in the same kind, as the growth 
 proceeds ! Habituate your child to watch, day 
 after day, as the invisible Painter varies the 
 tints and tinges and shades. Direct his eye to 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 167 
 
 all the appearances presented by the vegetable 
 realm, as there may be cloud or sunshine, breeze 
 or calm. Thus training him to observe Nature 
 in all her many shows, you may fit him for land- 
 scape painting; at any rate, you will prepare 
 him better to enjoy the painter's work. But, 
 above all, you will educate him to delight in the 
 matchless wonders of the all-perfect Hand. 
 
 • 
 
 GRAINS. 
 
 Furthermore : do not let the little learner go 
 without knowing one grain from another, as to 
 both stalk and kernel. It would be well to put 
 each kind of grain into a little box or transpa- 
 rent via], for convenient future observations. 
 It is perfectly wonderful how much music or 
 mathematics, and many other things, are learned, 
 or rather are pretended to be learned, while the 
 commonest and most useful things are left out 
 of the catalogue of requirements. I once tra- 
 velled in a stage-coach with a little girl, eleven 
 years old, who was going from her dear home to 
 a high-priced fashionable boarding-school, fifty 
 miles away, to be educated. The schools close 
 by her father's door — and they were quite good 
 schools too — would not answer. I made some 
 inquiries of the child as to the particulars of 
 
168 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 her course of instruction. Her studies seemed 
 to me very remarkable ; but she knew so Httle 
 of them, that she could make no remark about 
 them herself. We passed a large wheat-field, 
 goldenly rich and beautiful ; for it was just be- 
 fore the harvest. I inquired if she knew what 
 grain that was ; and she had no more idea of it 
 than she would have had of the vegetation of the 
 tropics, if she had been dropped suddenly down 
 into the midst of it. She was equally ignorant 
 of a great many other striking objects and use- 
 ful things along the road. Just so, thousands 
 of our young ladies go to school, spend money, 
 tug at lessons, and learn words, and yet hardly 
 know what their bread is made of At least, 
 they know not much about industrious Nature's 
 primal and indispensable factory out in the 
 fields. 
 
 TREES. 
 
 A word more about another kind of produc- 
 tion. Your child learns, doubtless, very early, 
 which is the apple or pear or peach or plum 
 tree, — and how each looks, if such be near 
 by ; and can also tell the elms from the maples 
 standing, it may be, at the door or along the 
 street. But it is possible, unless you take some 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 169 
 
 little pains, — and certainly if yon put him 
 into the school-prison early, and there keep 
 him, — that he will not advance much further 
 in his knowledge of trees. There is many a 
 boy who grows up without being able to name 
 the trees in a neighboring wood ; and of quali- 
 ties he is very much more ignorant still. As to 
 girls, the majority know next to nothing about 
 these magnificent monarchs of the vegetable 
 kingdom. They lift themselves all alive out of 
 the ground, and stretch out their leafy scep- 
 tres, and wear their foliaged crowns, and there 
 tower, — waiting to be looked at, admired, and 
 studied ; and yet, with all their beauty and state- 
 liness, how unrecognized they remain ! Now, 
 friends, parental readers, let it not be so with 
 your children, whether sons or daughters, if you 
 would have them truly educated. Turn their 
 attention to the difference, in form and general 
 appearance, between one species of tree and an- 
 other. They will most readily learn the names. 
 Show them clearly the different parts of the 
 tree, and teach them the words designating 
 each part. According as" the age permits, you 
 can have much conversation with them on the 
 philosophy of its growth and nature. I was 
 once walking on a farm with the owner's little 
 
170 THE DISCIPLIKE OF THE 
 
 boy, five years of age ; and lie pointed out to 
 my unnoticing sight, with a keen eye and the 
 zest of a naturalist, a peculiar characteristic of 
 a great oak near which we passed. That father, 
 I found, made it a pastime to show his child 
 the things of nature, and to make explanations 
 about them ; and I am very sure it was a pas- 
 time to my little companion and instructor. 
 
 But to proceed: take the little learner into 
 the woods, and see what new trees you can find 
 there, and help him to a knowledge of these. 
 If you are ignorant yourself, become his fellow- 
 learner. 
 
 LEAVES. 
 
 One thing, in particular, might be done to 
 improve the observing powers in minuteness, 
 and to prepare entertainment for the future. 
 The leaf of one species of tree differs from that 
 of another. Now, let the exact difi'erence be 
 noticed, and at length fixed in the memory. 
 Let a number of leaves be culled from each 
 tree, and thoroughly dried by pressure in a 
 book ; then when all the foliage has fallen under 
 the cold, and the inclement winter has come, 
 what fun, and instruction too, can you and your 
 children have with the leaves ! You can make 
 
OBSERYING FACULTIES. 171 
 
 it a pleasant game to see who shall best tell the 
 name of the tree to which each kind of leaf 
 belonged. It may take several games to asso- 
 ciate some twenty or thirty of these little 
 things, so variously shaped and notched, each 
 with the name of its parent of the pasture or 
 forest. Then, when the next vegetative season 
 shall arrive, how sharp the young eyes will be 
 after the different kinds of trees, each with 
 its differently shaped foliage ! The leaves of 
 shrubs, plants, grains, and grasses might also 
 be prepared in the same way for the winter's 
 amusement and instruction. It would be a good 
 plan, moreover, to provide little pieces of all 
 sorts of wood ; letting a portion of the bark 
 remain as one of the distinctive marks. Thus 
 the child and yourselves, companions as docile 
 as he, will learn the difference between the 
 color, fibre, and strength of one species of wood 
 and those qualities in another species. He will 
 come to know the kind of wood from its internal 
 look, as well as from its external, with which he 
 began. By this inspection, he will be gradually 
 acquainting himself with all the various sorts of 
 timber which in after-life he may have to do 
 with, either as a manufacturer or a purchaser. 
 As things have been, this valuable knowledge 
 
172 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 has been left to a life-long experience of mis- 
 takes and losses, mingled in with whatever 
 successes may have come. 
 
 MINERALS. 
 
 Still further : you may lead your young looker 
 into the mineral kingdom, and find many trea- 
 sures there, before saying any thing about mine- 
 ralogy. You may, however, give the term, if 
 you please ; and he will remember and like it at 
 his age, as well as any other word. You may 
 incidentally teach him mineralogical terms : only 
 be sure to have them stand for visible and real 
 objects. What makes children dislike these 
 matters is the taking the life out of them, if 
 they have any, by a hard lesson-task, without 
 any intelKgible explanation. In the first place, 
 you can easily have at hand, for illustration, 
 specimens of the several metals in common use ; 
 such as iron, lead, copper, silver, gold, and other 
 metals ; and also their various combinations. Let 
 the differences, uses, and comparative values of 
 these substances be shown, together with their 
 original locations and conditions in the earth. 
 How very much you might communicate, from 
 time to time, about these minerals ; storing trea- 
 sures in the mind richer and more lasting than 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 173 
 
 the precious metals themselves I Again : have 
 your child hunt for rocks which are peculiar for 
 size, shape, color, streaks, spots, or mossy pic- 
 tures. Show him the different layers of earth, 
 disclosed by a cut through a hill where a road 
 passes, or in- a river's bank. He has eyes, as 
 Avell as a farmer, to notice how the productive 
 soils differ from each other, and also from the 
 barren strata beneath. Thus, from this early 
 date onward, he will obtain that knowledge of 
 land which is all-important to the agriculturist, 
 and indeed is useful to any one who cultivates 
 but a little patch of a garden. You may have a 
 game together to see who shall find the greatest 
 number of curious stones. Or, if you are at the 
 water-side, try who shall be most successful in 
 spying out beautiful pebbles. This slight be- 
 ginning in mineralogical science may possibly 
 lead to a zealous and thorough . continuance. 
 Many years ago, some crystals embedded in a 
 lump of iron ore were pointed out to a youth. 
 He was so surprised at their regularity and 
 beauty, and with the fact that they had been 
 hidden for ages in that entirely different and 
 shapeless mass of matter, that his eyes were 
 afterward put on the watch for similar things. 
 This trivial circumstance first gave the start to 
 
174 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 one of the most distinguished mineralogists of 
 our country, and the author of valuable treatises 
 on the science. Now, if your boy shall not 
 become eminent, he may, by your aid, become 
 a minute observer of mineral substances. Ever 
 afterward, his eye will be sharper to detect 
 them, and his travelling be made interesting by 
 bowlders in the pastures, stones by the wayside, 
 or even gravel rattling beneath his carriage- 
 wheels in the road. 
 
 It will be well to help your little fellow- 
 rambler to begin a mineralogical cabinet, al- 
 though this may seem too grand a phrase for 
 the occasion. The rudest boards, and the 
 lad's collection of curious pebbles or coarser 
 stones to put upon them, will suffice to com- 
 mence with, if there shall be nothing better. 
 The very fact, that a particular depository has 
 been prepared for such things, will induce effort 
 to fill it up. Great pleasure, perhaps great 
 usefulness, may grow in the future from this 
 humble beginning. Should it be so, your son 
 will thank you a thousand times for this first 
 setting-out in the science which he got from a 
 loving parent. 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 175 
 
 ANIMALS. 
 
 If the very ground beneath the feet can be 
 made to yield so much to the early mind, how 
 much more the living creatures which move 
 above it ! How delighted even infonts are 
 with the pictures of animals ! What a marvel, 
 then, are the substantial animate creatures them- 
 selves ! These move about, and have a purpose 
 in moving, as has the child himself. They do 
 something, and there is a sort of wonder what 
 they will do next. The household dog and cat 
 are favorites, and the animals about the yard 
 and barn are objects of interest, — all this before 
 much instruction can be given. Nature is get- 
 ting the pupil ready. In due season, and soon 
 will this come to most, how much may be taught 
 concerning the distinctive natures and habits of 
 these tenants of the homestead ! But the wider 
 animal kingdom — curiosity cannot reach the end 
 of this ; but it can delightedly travel on and on, 
 if instruction will only lead it forward a little. 
 The birds, which make the spring so gladsome 
 and the summer fields and groves so all alive, 
 have specific forms, colors, notes, ^ habits, histo- 
 ries. Now, the boys and girls might become 
 
176 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 knowing and acute in these various matters, 
 just as well as to be so sharp-eyed after birds' 
 nests, as most of them are. Indeed, young peo- 
 ple in the country, if parents and teachers would 
 only look to it, might make no small progress in 
 ornithology before the customary school-years 
 should be over. As for the larger four-footed 
 creatures, there is not much chance at them, 
 except through the happening of a menagerie 
 or a wilderness. Some of the smaller quadru- 
 peds, however, are within easy reach. The 
 nimble, chirruping squirrel has several habits of 
 his own. The opening curiosity would be just 
 as ready to learn about these as to watch his 
 freakish motions. Even rat and mouse might 
 be made something of scientifically. Perhaps, 
 if the truth were known of the skulks, they 
 would seem very much less offensive. Even 
 snakes and worms might also have a better 
 repute with the associations. Let us save our 
 children from a life-long disgust, if we can. 
 
 INSECT CURIOSITIES. 
 
 There is another division of the animal king- 
 dom which spreads all around the home in every 
 direction, — that of insects. How countless 
 their species and varieties ! There is no reason 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 177 
 
 why the young should not be introduced into 
 considerable acquaintance with the science of 
 entomology, and this without hard and dry 
 study. Even this long and strange scientific 
 term would be no burden to the fresh memory, 
 because it would mean something to it. What 
 a trifle would a microscope cost for family use ! 
 so that, when any singular little creature should 
 be found, there might be a minute and wonder- 
 ing inspection. 
 
 There is a country town, one of the roughest 
 in New England, which was favored with a cler- 
 gyman who well understood the true methods 
 of education. Among other investigations, he 
 devoted some of his leisure to entomology. 
 Somehow, he inspired the people of the whole 
 town, more or less, with his spirit, and espe- 
 cially the young. All eyes were opened and 
 sharpened to discover some new bug or worm 
 or butterfly ; and happy was the little boy or 
 girl who could run with some prize of the kind 
 to the minister, receive his thanks, and get a 
 peep through his microscope at the wonders. 
 Now, if one man could exercise such an influ- 
 ence over a whole town six miles square, what 
 might not be expected of young learners, were 
 school-teachers in their separate districts, and 
 
 12 
 
178 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 parents at the homestead, all to get their percep- 
 tions awakened to these variously constituted 
 tribes, amid whose creepings, flyings, buzzings, 
 and hummings they have their own being and 
 habitation I 
 
 FISHES AND SHELLS. 
 
 Again: there are the inhabitants of the wa- 
 ters. It is well known how interesting the dis- 
 tinguished ichthyologist, Agassiz, can make a 
 lecture or an incidental talk about fishes. Both 
 older and younger hang delighted on his de- 
 scriptions of the finny creatures, hardly thought 
 of before, excepting as now and then seen glan- 
 cing within their own glassy element, or as pre- 
 sented by quite another sort of professor, — the 
 cook. It is anticipated, that the time will come 
 when parents will be so well informed as to 
 show their children, in table conversation, that 
 trout, haddock, and shad may afford mental as 
 well as bodily nutriment. All that is needed for 
 this purpose is a little reading, observation, and 
 a desire to be instructive. 
 
 Some families have on hand a great variety 
 of shells. It would be a pretty exercise for the 
 children, on a winter's day, to sort out these 
 flowers of the sea according to species, size, or 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 179 . 
 
 some other rule. Thus several of the observing 
 faculties would be cultivated, together with 
 pleasant occupation. 
 
 PHENOMENA OF NATURE. 
 
 We will glance again at the inanimate world. 
 There are various phenomena and processes in 
 it which may be made interesting and instructive 
 subjects for sight and speech. Nature is pass- 
 ing through changes and performing operations 
 continually all around. The child observes many 
 of them. When they first strike his sense, his 
 curiosity is likely to be aroused; and he may 
 ask, " Why is this or that ? what makes it do 
 so ? " The loftier reflective faculties are now 
 beginning to operate : they want to know the 
 how, the why, and the wherefore of every thing, 
 especially of the changes and the actions of 
 things. The reflective faculty — the causality 
 more than any other — prompts to questions. 
 In answer to this, the considerate parent will 
 reply and instruct ; but many a thoughtless or 
 busy one will turn the child off, and thus stop 
 him from studying lessons and receiving know- 
 ledge from the greatest and truest book in the 
 universe, — the universe itself Before long, in 
 ordinary experience, the child becomes so en- 
 
180 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 tirelj accustomed to these natural phenomena, 
 that he loses all curiosity about them, and asks 
 no more questions. Thus millions live and die 
 in the civilized world, and even in this book- 
 blessed and school-favored land, utterly ignorant 
 of wonderful processes going on around them 
 all the time ; whereas, had the earliest curiosity 
 been kept up and nurtured, creation would have 
 been an ever-opening and yet untiring volume. 
 I once asked quite a large boy what clouds were 
 made of. He replied, " Smoke." He had seen 
 with his own eyes thick smoke go up into the 
 air from all the chimneys of the neighborhood ; 
 and what could it possibly do there but be 
 turned into clouds? Nobody had ever pointed 
 out to him the grand round of the vapors from 
 the ocean and all the waters of the land, up 
 through the sky, and down to the earth, the 
 streams, and the seas again ; doing all the world 
 good on the way. Yet that boy was at school, 
 and might have been great at words, remarkable 
 before his school-committee, and wonderful to 
 his parents. 
 
 I asked that young girl in the stage-coach, 
 before mentioned, what clouds were ; and she 
 replied, " Oh ! they are great bags up in the 
 sky ; and now and then holes get torn, and down 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 181 
 
 comes the rain." This was all she seemed to 
 know about this ever-vaiying and manifestly 
 beneficent part of nature. But was she not at 
 a grand boarding-school, learning great words in 
 big books, and at high expense ? Was she not 
 getting a fashionable education ? What more 
 could the world ask of her ? 
 
 But it is not boys and girls alone who are 
 ignorant of Nature. A large proportion of the 
 grown-up do not understand her most common 
 operations and appearances. There are mists, 
 clouds, rain, hail, snow, ice, dew, fire, light, air : 
 now, how few in all the civilized world have a 
 philosophical knowledge of these phenomena ! 
 Why is it so ? One answer may be, that they 
 were not explained to the young. Their eyes, at 
 length, became accustomed to them, the newness 
 passed away, and curiosity passed away with it : 
 so a whole lifetime is spent in ignorance of 
 changes, combinations, and beneficent results, in 
 the wise plans and works of the adorable Crea- 
 tor. Could some such natural phenomenon take 
 place but once in a hundred years, and then 
 be advertised as a spectacle, there would be a 
 rush of eager multitudes to behold it, and a most 
 earnest listening to the scientific explanations. 
 Ah ! what minute processes, what mighty move 
 
182 THE OBSERVING FACULTIES. 
 
 ments, what numberless benefits, every moment ! 
 and bow millions of the most privileged of our 
 race now live in the midst, and see not, and ask 
 not how or why ! Good parents, you are en- 
 treated not to suffer your own beloved children 
 to grow up with such deadened curiosity and 
 contented ignorance. If you have not the requi- 
 site knowledge already, become fellow-learners 
 with them. A book or two for the purpose can 
 be bought for what you would spend for some 
 transient amusement or perishable luxury.* 
 
 The preceding suggestions relate mainly to 
 some of those qualities of objects which toge- 
 ther make up their obviously specific character. 
 They have been extended to far greater length, 
 and into much more detail, than was at first 
 anticipated. In consequence of this, there 
 seems to be need of a pause ; and here is a con- 
 venient place to make it. 
 
 * The treatises here named would be convenient: Tate's "First 
 Lessons in Philosophy, or Science of Famihar Things;" Wells's 
 " Science of Common Things;" Brewer's " Guide to the Scientific 
 Knowledge of Things Familiar; '' and Peterson' s " Familiar Science, 
 or the Scientific Explanation of Common Things." 
 
FURTHER SUGGESTIONS 
 
 ON 
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE OBSERVING 
 FACULTIES. 
 
NOTE. 
 
 The following suggestions pertain to a different class of quali- 
 ties, — those which are not inherent in substance itself, but which 
 are cii'cumstantial and concomitant. These also are exceedingly 
 important subjects of the observing faculties, and afford occasion 
 for careful direction and discipline on the part of parents and other 
 teachers. Those who have an earnest and conscientious interest in 
 early and right mental culture will proceed without requiring any 
 special invitation. 
 
FURTHER SUGGESTIONS. 
 
 PLACE. 
 
 PLACE, OR GEOGRAPHY AT HOME. 
 
 A CHILD may begin geography long before 
 he goes to school, or rather he may lay the 
 sure and proper foundations for this science. 
 When he shall have been taught the points of 
 the compass, — East, West, North, and South ; 
 then which side of the room the fire is, which the 
 table, and in which direction are the barn and 
 the garden ; and when he shall see just how the 
 land lies and looks, close around his home, — he 
 has had an introduction to geography ; or has, 
 in a small degree, been prepared for an intro- 
 duction. A beginning has been made according 
 to the real nature of things. He understands 
 what he asks about, and what he is told. All 
 the words have a meaning to his little mind. 
 Now, what you may do, and what he will be 
 glad of, is, that you carry him on a little farther 
 
186 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 and still farther than he would go, clearly and 
 certainly, without your personal guidance. You 
 must talk him along, and walk him along, until 
 you have together surveyed the neighborhood 
 all around, and he has obtained a positive know- 
 ledge of it ,• a knowledge which he feels to be 
 his own, just as he feels that a knowledge of 
 your door-yard or sitting-room is his own. ♦For 
 instance, you can ask him in what direction the 
 street runs ; and, if he has not already found 
 out, tell him, and he will soon know beyond 
 forgetting. Have him learn who lives in the 
 next house to his own home, on the right hand 
 and on the left ; who, in the second, third, and 
 fourth ; and so on. Of course, this could hardly 
 be done in the brick-blocked, heterogeneously 
 neighbored but unneighborly city. Children at 
 a very early age somehow learn what are a road, 
 a field, a pasture, a wood, a hill, and a brook. 
 Indeed, they quickly become familiar with most 
 of the prominent features of nature, and the 
 words by which they are designated. They 
 learn much by the incidental conversation of 
 persons around. But you might, by a little 
 pains, make your child a more accurate as well 
 as far-reaching observer than he would other- 
 wise be. Train him to notice every distinct 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 187 
 
 object within the scope of his eye ; all the in- 
 equalities of the surface ; all the varying tints of 
 the vegetation, between the first tender green 
 of the spring and the russet of the autumn. 
 Every rock, every little hillock and bush, or 
 whatever else may make a distinctly observable 
 thing, should be a lesson to his eye. Were 
 these diminutive traits in the landscape only 
 magnified, they would be such geographical 
 features as might be noticed in the big school- 
 book ; yet the fact, that they are but insignifi- 
 cant lines and dots as it were, does not make 
 them ungeographical. If geography, according 
 to precise definition, is a description of the 
 earth, — then, when these diminutive things 
 shall be described by your child, he makes real 
 geography out of them ; and it will be unspeak- 
 ably more profitable than the dry, hard descrip- 
 tions of text-books, as they have generally been 
 forced upon poor little learners, or rather word- 
 getters. If a child be accustomed to such 
 minute observation, he will not, of course, over- 
 look the more prominent marks in a prospect. 
 But, in further commendation, even some of 
 these minutiae of the land's surface are import- 
 ant indications to the eye of science ; and would 
 you not be glad to have your son look at nature 
 
188 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 with such an eye ? "Wherever he shall ramble 
 or travel, would you not have him exercise 
 a keen, detective sight, instead of a vacant 
 gaze ? 
 
 HOW NOT TO GET LOST. 
 
 The exact understanding of the points of the 
 compass is practically of no small importance. 
 Many persons most easily lose the direction, 
 when they find themselves in a new place. In- 
 deed there are those who are absolutely so 
 turned about, that sunrise and sunset seem to 
 have exchanged horizons ; and it takes some 
 considerable looking-round and reflection to get 
 out of the bewildering dilemma. Did all roads 
 run at right angles toward East and West, North 
 and South, and were all houses built square upon 
 them, there would be no difficulty. But, trans- 
 versed and crooked in all directions as roads 
 and streets have to be, the points of Oompass 
 are sometimes hardly found in a whole lifetime. 
 Indeed there are those who, after a long residence 
 in Boston, scarcely know the direction in which 
 runs that most familiar of all its thoroughfares, 
 Washington Street ; or which way exactly the 
 grand and far-seen State House faces. It seems, 
 then, that there might be a real advantage in 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 189 
 
 early and continuallj training the observation 
 as to the points of the compass. At home, it 
 can be made a matter altogether incidental, and 
 cost no time which may be better employed. 
 Let the cardinal points be well fixed, and it will 
 be easy then to fix in the child's mind the direc- 
 tion of prominent objects between, and also the 
 course of the streets, roads, and streams. 
 
 In the exercise of individualizing objects be- 
 fore mentioned, as the child's understanding 
 shall advance, it will be well to locate the va- 
 rious objects, in all directions, in respect to the 
 points of the compass. There might be a little 
 emulous pastime about it, as was recommended 
 before in the culture of the perceptions. Why 
 should not the parents be at the pains of pur- 
 chasing a compass for this very purpose? It 
 would cost no more than many other things 
 usually provided, but which might equally as 
 well be done without. With this instrument, 
 every point of direction might be exactly estab- 
 lished. Thus it would be not only easy, but plea- 
 sant and profitable, for children to be trained, as 
 they grow along up, to know the precise point, 
 from home as a centre, of every farm and house 
 in the town ; or, if in the city, of every promi- 
 nent object there. So accustomed would the 
 
190 THE DISCIPLINE OP THE 
 
 young learners become to such definite observa- 
 tions, that, as they should travel out to other 
 towns now and then, they would quite readily 
 fall into these exercises ; and the turnings of a 
 road or the windings of a stream, the house on 
 a hill, the village-church spire in the distance, 
 might be made an additional trial for this sort 
 of judgment. So eventually, wherever they 
 should travel through the country, their heads 
 w^ould not get confused, as now so often hap- 
 pens. At least, sunrise and sunset would keep 
 their places, to their eye, just as Nature really 
 puts them. 
 
 JUDGING OF DISTANCES. 
 
 In this connection, it may be well to say 
 something more about the measure of spaces 
 and distances. There is a great deficiency in 
 people's minds generally as to accuracy in dis- 
 tance. One has only to travel in the country, 
 and inquire of various people how far it is from 
 one certain place to another certain place, espe- 
 cially if it be as to the way from one town to 
 another, to be convinced how vague are the 
 notions of many persons in respect to space. 
 Why need this be so, if parents, at odd times, 
 without interfering with any business, should 
 
OBSERYING FACULTIES. 191 
 
 just instruct and amuse themselves and their 
 children in this matter ? If a father and son are 
 proceeding to a distant field to work, or to any- 
 field, why not for once take a tenfoot pole or a 
 measuring chain, and find out the exact dis- 
 tance ? But suppose a boy is going of an 
 errand to a neighbor's, who lives, according to 
 vague supposition, a quarter or half a mile ofi": 
 let him take his pole or chain, and get the exact 
 measurement, and settle it for good and all. Or, 
 on some leisure time, let the boys, if there are 
 more than one, and the father with them, if he 
 pleases, make a little pastime of the thing. This 
 measuring entertainment may from time to time 
 be extended to any house, or any object, or 
 through any distance whatever, according to 
 convenience. Thus a judgment about distances 
 will be formed, which will come frequently into 
 use in subsequent life. 
 
 EDUCATION ON A HILL-TOP. 
 
 Suppose, now, a pleasant day, and a little leisure 
 at command, to afford your children, and indeed 
 yourselves equally, some little entertainment, — 
 perchance instruction. You have already be- 
 come acquainted, it may be, with whatever is 
 within view of home. You have observed every 
 
192 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 house, field, pasture, wood, rock, shrub, gleam 
 of water. However, it is not necessary to wait 
 to get all these nearest things by eye and heart. 
 Now, take your little company to the highest 
 hill-top you can conveniently reach. From this 
 elevation can be discerned various prominent 
 objects in towns around. Give the young ob- 
 servers the names of these localities, and just 
 the direction in which they lie. There are 
 certain eminences, each perhaps with a name: 
 tell them the name. There, beneath, are the 
 valleys also. Perhaps it may be known, that a 
 considerable river has its course through some 
 of them, or at least some brook large enough to 
 turn the useful mill. Describe these streams, 
 well known to your larger experience, but which 
 the children cannot discern in their sunken and 
 shaded channels. But they can see with the 
 naked eye, as well as you, the many varied fea- 
 tures of the landscape between the centre where 
 they stand, and the whole horizon round. Now, 
 make a game of it : see who can count the great- 
 est number of distinct fields or pastures, or 
 separate pieces of woodland, and the greatest 
 number of hills. Indeed, as to this feature, you 
 may let the eye descend to the minutest promi- 
 nences on the surface, and you will find that the 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 193 
 
 sight will become amazingly sharp, and pick up 
 the least little haycock of a hill at a distance 
 which would not have been thought possible 
 before. Then let the vision hunt after valleys, 
 and any little dips and crinkles in the land's 
 surface, in the same manner. There are cliffs 
 and rocks and single trees standing in open 
 land, and houses and out-houses, to be playfully 
 sought likewise. Withal, take note in which 
 direction exactly any road may run, or valley 
 wind, or stream meander ; at what point of the 
 compass any house or hill may be situated. If 
 there shall be a mountain in the distance, there 
 will be something not only to fasten the eye, 
 but to feed it with beauty or lift it to grandeur. 
 Depend upon it, my friends, that you will give 
 your children and yourselves, not only a most 
 entertaining but instructive excursion. The 
 visit to the spot may be repeated several times, 
 before all the objects of the expanse shall fall 
 beneath inspection, or the lesson or the pleasure 
 be exhausted. By and by, you will climb, with 
 your little company of observers, some loftier 
 hill or the mountain - top ; and, from such a 
 height, advance youf knowledge, possibly, to 
 distant States. 
 
 13 
 
194 THE DISCIPLINE OP THE 
 
 THE USE. 
 
 Now, let US consider the practical advantage 
 of this actual observation of the earth's surface, 
 and the various objects, natural or artificial, 
 thereon presented. In the first place, it is evi- 
 dent to all, that the examination of any material 
 thing by the naked faculties is better, for all 
 possible purposes, than the reading or studying ^ 
 of a description of it. It is safer, certainly, to 
 see a farm with one's own eyes before purchas- 
 ing it, than to trust to any written description. 
 The general who has actually traversed the 
 ground on which he is to make a campaign is 
 far better prepared for its emergencies, than if 
 he knew the field of operations only as presented 
 by the map. The same may be said of every 
 practical concern. The mind must be prepared 
 to comprehend clearly what is distant, and can- 
 not be come at through the naked senses by 
 a thorough inspection of similar things within 
 their reach. 
 
 These intellectual facts have scarcely been 
 thought of by parents and teachers generally 
 in this time-consuming, and we may say heart- 
 burdening, matter of education. Now, what do 
 children, for the most part, see when they cast 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 195 
 
 their eyes upon a map? Nothing but a plain 
 surface of paper, with black lines crooking here 
 and there, called roads and rivers ; and little 
 dots having the names of towns and cities, with 
 blotches standing for mountains : and this is just 
 about all. The brute animals would take into 
 notice about as much. But with this actual 
 training of the observing powers, as has been 
 recommended, there would appear right on the 
 map, as it were, in definite forms and colors 
 seen by the vivid imagination, real hills, valleys, 
 streams, roads, every thing just as the map was 
 intended to represent them. That plain paper 
 surface would seem moulded into all the various 
 features and appearances of nature by that 
 mind's eye which had been studying the real 
 earth in these pleasant family excursions. Thus 
 geographical language would be all filled, and 
 made rich, with real science, — the earth's facts. 
 Pray, try the experiment, and see. 
 
196 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 N U M B E E. 
 
 WHERE AND HOW ARITHMETIC SHOULD BEGIN. 
 
 An early intellectual exercise, as has been 
 before mentioned, is that of individualizing ob- 
 jects ; the considering of any separable portion of 
 matter by itself. This idea of distinct things, 
 of individualities, is one of the primitive founda- 
 tions of all knowledge ; and therefore the idea is 
 among the earliest introduced into the mind. 
 This exercise of individuality affords the first 
 occasion for the action of another faculty, — 
 that of number. This, of course, must wait till 
 words can be acquired, and be applied to things. 
 Quite an advance is usually made in a know- 
 ledge of things and their names, before the idea 
 of number is distinctly apprehended, and its 
 appropriate terms intelligibly used. Counting, 
 however, is an exercise which children very 
 early perform. Friends put them to it in some 
 playful mood, or to divert them from a trifling 
 grief. They are asked, perhaps, how many 
 thumbs they have, or how many fingers. In 
 this way, or in some other as incidental, that 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 19T 
 
 science begins which reaches up into the sub- 
 limest mathematics. It does not take long to 
 get through thumbs and fingers, and to the first 
 and all-important waymark, — ten, in the nume- 
 rical progress. So far, each term has a thing 
 to which it is applied, — a thing to be seen and 
 felt ; but, beyond this, the majority of children, 
 according to observation, are taught to use the 
 terms abstractly, — to utter them without any 
 reference to individual and observable objects. 
 There are, no doubt, parents who, in teaching 
 the child, are wise enough to apply, in a much 
 greater extent, the numerals to substantial 
 things. Sometimes children themselves, with- 
 out any hint from others, will make the applica- 
 tion. Nevertheless, the majority, I think, in 
 their first acquisition of numerical terms, are 
 taught the words without things, in the same 
 manner as much of other education is conducted. 
 Now, this need not be so : it ought not to be, 
 inasmuch as individual things are all around, 
 from one up to hundreds, thousands, and mil- 
 lions; and, for every numerical term, there may 
 be a positive object on which to place the eye. 
 Thus the little learner would clearly apprehend, 
 that counting is not merely putting one new 
 word after another, but is adding thing to things, 
 
198 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 object to objects, one after another : it is making 
 an increase of quantities, under the notice and 
 evidence of his own immediate senses. In 
 counting, for instance, articles of furniture in 
 the room, steps in the stairway, doors and win- 
 dows in the house, the newly started arithmeti- 
 cal faculty has something real and firm to run 
 along on, as the earlier used perceptive powers 
 have. 
 
 In the object-game, recommended in a pre- 
 vious section, there is an excellent opportunity 
 at number : for the game may be not only to see 
 who shall quickest find objects one after another, 
 or who shall come to the very last thing possible 
 to be found, but also who shall come to the lar- 
 gest number including these objects ; who shall 
 count the highest in the game. Besides the 
 things in the house, those abroad are sufiicient 
 for infinite counting, or until the mind, even of 
 the adult, might get utterly tired and confused 
 in its simple and straight-onward task. 
 
 THE COUNTING-GAME. 
 
 It is a good plan to train children to observe 
 the proportions between the number and the 
 bulk of things. For instance : it will take about 
 so many apples, or any other kind of fruit, — 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 199 
 
 considering size, — • to fill a certain measure. 
 Let the precise number be ascertained. Make 
 a pleasant thing of the matter ; and see who 
 shall come nearest to the fact, in a guess about 
 the measure of fruit from the tree, or of potatoes 
 or turnips or any other production from the 
 ground. Although you make a pastime of your 
 guessing and counting, the judgment thus edu- 
 cated will be a circumstance of positive practical 
 gain in those affairs where gain or loss depends 
 on accuracy of judgment. 
 
 This counting-sport might be carried on in 
 many ways, and to an indefinite extent, among 
 brothers and sisters, to enliven the home. But 
 the parents, especially the father, might well, 
 in the evening's leisure, take a part in these 
 numerical operations. Agricultural life affords 
 a great variety of instances for this kind of 
 mental action. Indeed, in any sort of civilized 
 life, there must be purchases of farm-products, 
 and numerous opportunities for maturing the 
 judgment about numbers, quantities, bulk, and, 
 we may add, cost. There is scarcely a family 
 which does not suffer more or less detriment in 
 consequence of poor judgment about commodi- 
 ties bought and moneys paid. Certainly, the 
 needed ability cannot be had, except by expe- 
 
200 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 rience ; and this experience might as well begin 
 as soon as nature gets ready for it, as to be 
 deferred to long afterwards, when immediate 
 occasion shall require. 
 
 AN ECONOMICAL IDEA. 
 
 One particular application of the numerical 
 faculty is very easy and of practical importance, 
 and must therefore be interesting to the young 
 learner. Yarious things of household use are 
 in sets, consisting of a definite number. For 
 instance : so many chairs belong to a room ; or 
 there is a particular number in a set of crockery, 
 of knives and forks, and of spoons. The child 
 will most easily count these, and hold the num- 
 ber in memory. This is a matter of practical 
 use ; for, unless the number of these things is 
 kept in mind, there may be an unheeded loss. 
 It will be really a strengthening of the charac- 
 ter, and a positive preparation for carefulness 
 in the future, to give a daughter quite early a 
 specific charge over these more losable imple- 
 ments. There are also other sets of things, the 
 number of which might be obtained and held 
 with advantage ; such as napkins, towels, pillow- 
 cases, sheets, and perhaps other kinds of furni- 
 ture. By this application of the enumerative 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 201 
 
 ability, you might early enlist a daughter's spe- 
 cial interest in your goods and their safety. 
 In this connection, moreover, she might be 
 easily led to consider it her duty to keep them 
 all in their proper places, in their proper order, 
 and with all desirable nicety. This care will be 
 a relief to yourself, mother, and a profitable 
 discipline to her. 
 
 There is no reason why a boy also might 
 not be trained in this numerical knowledge 
 as to household matters. Of course, he is ade- 
 quate to it equally with a sister ; and, together 
 with her, he is more particularly under the 
 maternal care in his earlier years. It is alto- 
 gether proper, and it will be beneficial for him, 
 to learn whatever he may, in company and in 
 sympathy with sisters. All indoor knowledge, 
 however minute, will the better qualify him for 
 manhood and a new home of his own. Every 
 man should have at least a general knowledge 
 of his own household affairs, however perfect 
 the wife may be in her administration. Now, 
 inasmuch as a boy's home education ordinarily 
 continues for some years, it would be altogether 
 easy for him to become thoroughly acquainted 
 with the matters belonging to the domestic 
 domain. It could not but be, in most cases, 
 
202 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 altogether pleasant also, as long as he is privi- 
 leged with such affectionate companionship. 
 
 OUTDOORS. 
 
 There are, however, outdoor concerns in which 
 a boy can exercise numerical accuracy and care 
 about sets and classes of things. Let him count 
 the fowls on the premises, get the precise num- 
 ber in each flock of a species, and have an eye 
 that none are missing. So also let him know, 
 and keep in mind, the exact number of cows, 
 sheep, and their young, or whatever else of the 
 domestic animal kind may pertain to the home- 
 stead. A sister also might very properly accom- 
 pany him in sympathy and care ; for thus her 
 mind would be expanded, and, without any un- 
 due straining or task -work, would easily and 
 agreeably acquire an initiation into that outdoor 
 knowledge which the future wife eventually 
 might wish to have in the possessions, plans, 
 and operations of her husband. 
 
 Some may smile at this reference to probable 
 domestic life ; but just as surely as early habits 
 of any kind will influence the remote future for 
 good or for evil, so surely will this sort of know- 
 ledge and carefulness effect the future economi- 
 cal character of the woman. 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 203 
 
 OWNERSHIP. 
 
 In this counting of furniture sets and of flocks 
 and herds, a child's interest must naturally be 
 quickened by the circumstance, that they be- 
 long to parents, and have a certain use. This 
 matter of ownership will draw the little heart 
 toward them. It would be quite a different 
 affair to put the numeric faculty to work on 
 stones in the public road, or pebbles along a 
 water-shore. Let it be especially considered, 
 that the idea of possession and utility will be of 
 no small importance to the incipient arithmeti- 
 cian. In continuing, therefore, this sort of 
 discipline indefinitely onward, let the exercise 
 be as much as possible on objects of property. 
 Let there be a sort of game to see who can 
 recollect the largest number of articles, or sorts 
 of useful things, belonging to the house or the 
 premises around, as they would not all be in 
 immediate sight. 
 
 In this thorough enumeration of goods, there 
 is one practical advantage, which is certainly of 
 no small importance. It occasions the young 
 learner to become acquainted in detail with the 
 various commodities, and objects of possession, 
 within and around the home. Young persons 
 
204 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 generally have but a vague and imperfect know- 
 ledge of these things. By this exercise, they 
 will get in mind an inventory of property, almost 
 as if they were making an appraisal. They will 
 acquire a habit of exactness as to what is pos- 
 sessed. Besides, there will come indirectly 
 some notion of the specific uses of things : this 
 will be an additional advantage. How many peo- 
 ple have a very confused idea of their own pos- 
 sessions ! The confusion reaches and continues 
 into their daily affairs with a quite injurious 
 effect. Now, could an accurate apprehension as 
 to these matters of property be made a habit of 
 the mind from very childhood, it would influence 
 a whole business life. It would certainly be of 
 no small importance in conducting the concerns 
 of a store, especially one containing all sorts of 
 goods, as is more generally the case in the 
 country. 
 
 It may be objected to the plan of giving chil- 
 dren this special idea of property and ownership, 
 that it will make them think too much of mate- 
 rial possessions, and strengthen their affection 
 for these things to a degree which in after-life 
 might be detrimental to the character. Such a 
 consequence would greatly depend on the native 
 mental constitution. No doubt, some children 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. * 205 
 
 have the love of gain so born with them, that, 
 without any counter-influences, these exercises 
 would really intensify the inherited avarice. 
 But there is to be a moral and religious educa- 
 tion ; and, if parents are as faithful in this as in 
 the discipline pertaining to material things, any 
 such tendency will, in general, be quite suffi- 
 ciently counteracted. Let it be understood by 
 readers, once for all, that in this treatise there 
 is intended no such neglect of the higher nature 
 as will leave the lower unrestrained, or in the 
 least degree unbalanced. 
 
 COUNTING ON INDEFINITELY. 
 
 After the class of things above referred to 
 shall all have been gone over, the exercise may 
 be continued on objects which excite no inter- 
 est, except that they are to be enumerated one 
 after another, each adding to the sum. With 
 the start which the young numberer gets in the 
 way suggested, he will now be able to count to 
 almost any extent. Let him push ahead on 
 any thing which comes handiest. 
 
 Outdoors there are, for lessons, trees in the 
 woods, and stones in the walls. In counting 
 the trees, it may be worth while to remark, 
 there will incidentally arise some knowledge of 
 
206 .THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 species and their uses. There must necessarily 
 be caught some glimpses of dendrology, to use 
 a scientific term ; which, as long and hard as it 
 seems, a child would remember as well as any 
 other word. Indeed, in touching and individu- 
 alizing the stones in a wall, as he should trip 
 alongside, what curious varieties he might dis- 
 cover ! and thus the diverse riches of mineralogy 
 would now begin to open on him, if not before. 
 Within doors the learner may sit at ease ; and 
 with a measure of corn, beans, or peas, or the 
 smaller grains, he may count on for hours, if he 
 shall choose, and renew the operation day after 
 day. And why should he not, if there be time 
 and inducement ? He may as well do this at 
 home as many other quite idle things, or some- 
 thing at school called " education," but which 
 amounts to nothing at all toward this end. 
 Every grain he touches is an individual object ; 
 it is a unit ; it is as much a distinct and observa- 
 ble object as if it were a mountain ; it goes to 
 make up a sum which is denominated a thousand 
 or a million. Now, just let a child, of adequate 
 age and ability, enumerate palpable, individual 
 substances in this way ; and he will proceed, not 
 vaguely and confusedly, but clearly, definitely, 
 and with a perfect intelligence, to almost any 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 207 
 
 amount of numbers, piled up, in idea, one upon 
 another. Then, when he shall come to the 
 examples of the text -books at school, what 
 otherwise would be empty abstractions will to 
 imagination cover and contain, as it were, like 
 clothing, substantial and definite forms. He 
 will have a distinct idea of numerical quantities 
 and relations, such as will be of invaluable ser- 
 vice in the higher mathematical regions, where, 
 as things have been, learners too often grope in 
 a dark and cold misty expanse. 
 
 POWER OF CONCENTRATION AND OF INDIVIDUALITY 
 IMPROVED. 
 
 Still other benefits from our enumerative ex- 
 ercise may be adduced. It afibrds opportunity 
 for concentrating attention. It would have the 
 effect to bring a naturally unsteady and wander- 
 ing mind to act for a time continuously in a 
 specific direction. This is no small matter in 
 education, and also in the practical affairs of 
 life. 
 
 Again : the act of counting one by one neces- 
 sarily develops, more or less, the individualizing 
 faculty. An object must be apprehended as a 
 distinct unit : it is individualized. Perhaps, in- 
 deed, this is the best method possible of deve- 
 
208 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 loping the central and leading perceptive power. 
 The occasion would be of special importance to 
 a child whose individuality might be naturally 
 weak, as is often the case. Such a person, in 
 passing along a village street, would have a 
 vague idea of houses ; and this would be all : 
 but, if he was set to counting the houses, each 
 one would come, at least momentarily, into dis- 
 tinct notice, and in some degree also its conco- 
 mitant circumstances. Or, supposing you take 
 such a child to a store, you might suggest to 
 him to count, while you are doing an errand, all 
 the kinds of things he might see on the counter, 
 shelves, or anywhere else, without being obtru- 
 sive beyond propriety. Then afterward, let him 
 give you his account, and you will find that his 
 store-visit has been quite an instructive occa- 
 sion. Still further, the subordinate observing 
 faculties would be called into exercise more or 
 less in connection with individuality. Of course, 
 as each object is enumerated and noticed, its 
 form, size, color, place, &c., would be also in 
 some degree observed. Thus we perceive how 
 a simple operation, which at home is carried 
 scarcely beyond thumbs and fingers, except in 
 abstract words, and which is pursued at school 
 probably never beyond the numerical balls, may 
 
 '<k 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 209 
 
 be made the means of large, various, and most 
 profitable discipline. 
 
 It is hoped that enough has been said to 
 show clearly, that simple counting is no unim- 
 portant item in intellectual discipline. Let it 
 not, then, be neglected because it is not included, 
 to the extent indicated, in the customary educa- 
 tional programme, or because there is no prece- 
 dent for it in ordinary experience. 
 
 BUSINESS ARITHMETIC. 
 
 In the young learner's first arithmetical exer- 
 cise, — enumeration, — the importance of having 
 things to accompany words must be most evi- 
 dent to the reader. But, furthermore, the same 
 will hold true of other numerical operations. 
 The purpose of the ordinary arithmetical educa- 
 tion is to prepare the student for the business 
 of adult life. The more, therefore, that num- 
 bers and figures directly pertain to real sub- 
 stances and to actual transactions, the more 
 immediate and practical will be their bearing on 
 future exigencies. Could exercises in addition, 
 subtraction, multiplication, division, &c., directly 
 concern commodities ; and could they, moreover, 
 be performed right in their midst, — there would 
 be a reality and an interest which could not be 
 
 14 
 
210 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 felt at the distance of the school, and especially 
 in such abstract examples as generally make the 
 lessons of the book. It is a common remark 
 with business-men, that they did not understand 
 arithmetic, after all the time spent on it at 
 school, till they had occasion to use it in their 
 own actual affairs. The reason of this is very 
 plain. In their business, there are certain mate- 
 rial substances. If these are not, at the moment, 
 within sight, they are before the mind's eye: 
 the numerical relations of these things are, there- 
 fore, more distinctly apprehended. There is no 
 blur of abstraction about them. A calculation 
 must be made, and this with perfect accuracy : 
 no guesswork can be allowed here. Hence 
 there is a real and pressing demand on the 
 science of number. The interests, the feelings, 
 and the arithmetical operation, all tend together 
 toward one end. Something of immediate and 
 practical importance is to be accomplished. No 
 wonder, then, that men who have quite forgotten 
 their schoolbook rules, should now invent rules 
 of their own ; and, as is sometimes the case, 
 even make short cross-cuts to accurate and pro- 
 vable conclusions. Such is the testimony of 
 practical experience. 
 
 Now, could instruction be transferi'ed to the 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 211 
 
 store, the mechanic's shop, or the farm, there is 
 no doubt that arithmetic would be understood 
 and appreciated to a degree which cannot possi- 
 bly be realized at the schoolroom, as the science 
 is there more generally communicated. The 
 intellect may be, to some degree, disciplined by 
 the abstract lessons there : they are better than 
 nothing. This discipline, however, falls far short 
 of what would come from the demands of actual 
 business. 
 
 FAMILY CIPHERING. 
 
 But the school must remain in its one assigned 
 location. Its exercises are likely to continue 
 for some considerable time as before, — abstract 
 and unreal ; for it takes a long while to improve 
 text-books, and, we may add, to improve some 
 of the teachers who superintend their use. 
 Now, parents, must your children be limited to 
 schoolbook examples? Must they remain with 
 this hazy, half-way knowledge of arithmetic, 
 until they also shall come into the actual busi- 
 ness of adult life, or at least that of apprentice- 
 ship? By no means, if you will only take a 
 little pains yourselves. You have had your 
 own schooldays, and have gone through the 
 abstractions as your children are doing now, and 
 
212 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 probably with no more profit. But, since then, 
 you have been putting these dimly apprehended 
 abstractions to concrete and positive use. Per- 
 haps you have been inventing rules and methods 
 of your own. At any rate, you can apply num- 
 ber and figure to visible and palpable commodi- 
 ties, to all the intents and purposes of livelihood 
 and accumulation. Now, it is just such an 
 application which your own children need at 
 this very moment, and which most probably they 
 cannot have, except in an imperfect degree, at 
 school. Why, then, shall they not have it at 
 home, and under the instruction of those whom 
 they naturally love better than any one outside 
 the family circle ? All you have to do is to sit 
 down among them in the leisure evening, and 
 present the examples of your own business, just 
 such as you have worked out in your own head, 
 or on slate or paper, at your need. If you have 
 been long in life, your memory must abound in 
 instances ; or you can invent numerous exam- 
 ples similar to what really occur. Depend upon 
 it, arithmetic will put on a new aspect to the 
 learners, all the brighter and all the more plea- 
 sant because it shines out from a light reflected 
 by the most beloved and trusted friends. If 
 you have not been called by your own afiixirs 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 213 
 
 to make much use of numbers, and your own 
 school - abstractions — figure - shadows, as they 
 may be called — have been quite forgotten, have 
 fallen even from shadows into absolute nothing- 
 ness, — then you can become a fellow-learner 
 with your children. With this fresh school- 
 knowledge, such as it is, they can perhaps 
 instruct you, or at least be the occasion of your 
 learning. You can, at least, mutually assist 
 each other in real, lifelike performances in cal- 
 culation. Your larger general experience and 
 maturer judgment will, of course, take a re- 
 spected lead. Home is the proper place for 
 children in the evening; but then there must 
 be work or study, or some sort of entertainment, 
 to make home agreeable, and worth staying in, 
 preferably to any outside allurements. Sup- 
 pose, now, for once you try, among other things, 
 this arithmetical experiment ; and see if it does 
 not, as the saying is, come to something. 
 
 EXPLANATION. 
 
 By what has been said, let it not be inferred 
 that any objection is intended to the more ab- 
 stract exercises in numbers, in due process of 
 an advanced education. This right beginning 
 indicates really no hinderance to an ascent into 
 
214 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 the veriest sublime of mathematics. Indeed, the 
 best assurance for the profoundest attainments 
 in this science must be thoroughly distinct ideas 
 of material objects in their numerical relations 
 at the outset. 
 
 In conclusion, let me say that I have dwelt to 
 such extent on this topic, for the reason, that, 
 in the arithmetical branch of education, as in 
 almost every other, time, pains, and money are 
 spent out of all proportion to profitable results. 
 Boys and girls, instead of going straight on, step 
 after step, in clear light and on a palpable path, 
 learning the world and its things as they really 
 are, wander, or rather perhaps are driven, over 
 ground without any certain foot-hold, — a sort 
 of ghost-land. They are set to peer after and 
 strike at flitting images, and not to lay hold on 
 substantial knowledge, which stops and stays in 
 the hand. 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 215 
 
 ACTION. 
 
 THE POWER OF EVENTUALITY. 
 
 It is one of the earliest perceptive functions to 
 observe action, to see what things do, to watch 
 curiously for what shall be done next. No 
 matter what it is that acts or simply moves : the 
 little eyes are intent. It may be the flitting of 
 a feather or the flutter of a leaf. If the object 
 is a living one, like the kitten, the dog, the 
 horse, or a bird, how delightedly the varying 
 movements are followed ! The comings and 
 goings of human beings still more strike atten- 
 tion, especially those of new forms and faces, 
 which may happen along. 
 
 Now, the observing of movement requires a 
 distinct operation of the intellect. Puss asleep 
 and perfectly still in her corner is a subject of 
 notice altogether diflTerent from her skipping 
 across the room and hopping into some indul- 
 gent lap. So difibrent is the action of an indi- 
 vidual object from the individual itself, that 
 phrenologists affirm there must be a distinct 
 
216 THE DISCIPLINE OP THE 
 
 faculty to take cognizance of it. Indeed, they 
 think they have discovered a special organ for 
 the purpose in the brain. This organ, the physi- 
 cal and material together, is denominated Even- 
 tuality. Whether the theory be true or not, it 
 gives us a more distinct idea of the intellect in 
 its relation both to actions in continuance and 
 actions completed. Now, this particular observ- 
 ing faculty is of incalculable importance in the 
 educational course of the young. It needs a 
 systematic and thorough discipline as much as 
 any other power. 
 
 DIFFERENCES IN THE OBSERVING POWER. 
 
 Parents and educators have scarcely thought 
 of the difference between one person and an- 
 other as to the ability of clearly perceiving 
 actions as they occur before the sight. Even 
 in the same family, one organization will be 
 found much superior to another as to this sharp- 
 sightedness at events. One particular child 
 will be strangely and habitually unobservant of 
 incidents around. Ask him if he saw such a 
 thing done, and he knows nothing about it. It 
 is as if he had been closed round with a thick 
 mist, or been living in a dream-world of his own, 
 or had no eyes at all. His brother, much 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 217 
 
 younger it may be, catches, at the same time, 
 every passing circumstance as with a kind of 
 appetite. He will look and learn at any rate. 
 He will see incidents just in the order and con- 
 nection in which they took place, and he will 
 narrate them with equal exactness. Now, these 
 differences will run on through life, and charac- 
 terize the mental operations and acquirements, 
 and perhaps the material fortunes, of the two 
 relatives. The originally strong power will 
 become stronger through ever-new occasions, 
 which it instinctively seizes on just for its own 
 gratification. It will grow because it cannot 
 help growing. On the other hand, the defective 
 perception will still continue weak and inade- 
 quate ; that is, unless it shall be developed by 
 special training or by peculiar circumstances of 
 business or necessity. 
 
 The eventuality of the majority of people, 
 though of normal and average strength, is so 
 utterly neglected in specific education as but 
 very imperfectly to perform its office. The 
 world is full of action. Things inanimate are 
 in movement, and produce effects. Living crea- 
 tures, while awake, are almost always in casual 
 motion, or in definite procedure to certain ends. 
 So thick, so various, are activities of one sort 
 
218 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 and another around the human being, that he 
 cannot possibly notice all of them. He observes 
 only a part, and such as attendant circumstances 
 may bring to sight. Even these he may not 
 observe distinctly and accurately, because there 
 seems no special need of it. He notices, if he 
 notices at all, simply because he happens to 
 look. As a general matter, there is no direct- 
 ness of attention caused by any previous special 
 discipline. There is, moreover, no sense of 
 moral obligation through which he shall endea- 
 vor to know exactly what takes place as he 
 looks. Of course, if there is no call for particu- 
 larity, why should the child or the youth be 
 particular ? He will have no more reason for it 
 than he would have in counting the trees in the 
 orchard, or the stones in the wall, till he should 
 be put upon the exercise, as in the case of the 
 arithmetical discipline which has been already 
 advised. 
 
 CONSEQUENCES OF NEGLECTED CULTURE. 
 
 Thus it is that a faculty of incalculable prac- 
 tical importance has failed in its office ; and, like 
 all neglects and failures, this has been followed 
 by more or less of retribution. To consider all 
 the evils resulting from inaccurate observation 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 219 
 
 of facts, and careless statements about them, 
 would be to take in all the world and all time 
 since Adam's fall. Words and figures would 
 fail of the amount. A*few instances will give 
 us some faint idea of the abounding evil. 
 
 A careless young observer, giving an account 
 of some disorder in a schoolroom, will make a 
 statement quite different from what might have 
 come from another witness with a clear-seeing 
 eye. In consequence, some poor urchin may 
 get an unjust punishment. The same careless 
 describer of the offence, coming to be a man, or 
 even before he arrives at this age, may be called 
 to the witness-stand in a court of justice ; and 
 may unintentionally testify so wide of the truth 
 as to what his eves seemed to behold, that a 
 fellow-man may innocently be subjected to fine, 
 imprisonment, or even death on the gallows. 
 Now, consider all the millions of cases, which, 
 in all the world, have been brought before ma- 
 gistracies and juries, and there decided according 
 to testimony ; and we can have some idea of the 
 thousands of unjust decisions, — unjust because 
 of the imperfect perceptions of really honest 
 witnesses. 
 
 Take human society as it exists everywhere 
 around us. Suppose any city, town, village, 
 
220 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 or even little neigliborhood : what misapprehen- 
 sions and misstatements of facts are continually 
 occurring I Now and then, some base scandal 
 starts up, and comes to an enormous growth. 
 In the majority of such cases, the story is not 
 an entire fabrication. There has been some 
 incident as a groundwork. But the eyes of the 
 first observer and reporter of that incident were 
 so inadequate to their office, that he gave only 
 a part of the truth, or added a trifle to it. Thus 
 the error first sprang into existence ; then, pass- 
 ing from lip to lip, it grew at length into a great 
 fiction, having but little of the original verity 
 about it. All this might happen through a 
 mere intellectual defect, without the least inten- 
 tion of departure from the exact truth. 
 
 Again : the mistake might originate from the 
 same incapacity in some one of the hearers of 
 an affair. It must be understood, that those 
 persons, who would naturally see a transac- 
 tion but imperfectly, would also, from the same 
 weakness of faculty, get imperfect notions in 
 hearing an account of a transaction, even if 
 that should be thoroughly correct. In the first 
 place, they receive but a dim idea of an 
 occurrence as it comes to the ear ; then they 
 but faintly remember it. In a procedure em- 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 221 
 
 bracing a series of incidents, some one item 
 or more may fall out of memory altogether. 
 Consequently, their statement of the case will 
 make quite a different matter. Thus, how- 
 ever exactly truthful a first observer and 
 narrator may be, hearers will inadvertently re- 
 ceive only dim and altogether inadequate ideas 
 of an aflfair. In this way, a chance auditor of 
 some truthful narration may start a most egre- 
 gious error on its irrepressible course through 
 the lips and ears of a community. While there 
 is but one original witness, and he entirely 
 truthful, there may be at length a hundred hear- 
 ers of his account, many of whom will uninten- 
 tionally repeat it with more or less variation 
 from the facts as they come to their ears. No 
 wonder that falsifications so numerously and so 
 universally prevail, when we consider this one 
 simple, unthought-of intellectual deficiency. 
 
 Still, all the evil is not to be imputed to this 
 source. There are very often moral perversities 
 through which such mistakes are magnified, and 
 made far more operative for evil. A charac- 
 teristic love for gossip, together with peculiar 
 imaginative ability, will enlarge a trifle into 
 wonderful magnitude, and diversify it with 
 curious forms. But, what is much worse, an 
 
222 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 uncharitable, sensorious disposition will exagge- 
 rate and .blacken little innocent affairs into 
 heinous sins or even enormous crimes. A bad 
 spirit, with a big imagination, will create mon- 
 sters out of almost nothing. Thus it is that 
 heartburnings, broken friendships, and even 
 bloody assaults and cruel murders, have come 
 to pass without number. Yery few, as society 
 has been and now is, go through life without 
 some personal experience of the sort. 
 
 MISTAKEN SUBMISSION TO THE EVIL. 
 
 Such carelessness has there always been in 
 observation and statement, so uncommon is per- 
 fect accuracy, that errors are taken as a matter 
 of course, and as what cannot be helped. While 
 an individual is under personal grievance, he 
 will complain of careless eyes and truthless 
 speech ; but otherwise there is a singular indif- 
 ference to the evil. People do not expect the 
 truth. They are inured to falsehood, and let it 
 go. No idea of improvement in the way of 
 education has occurred probably to one in a 
 thousand. Any moral obliquity, it is expected, 
 may possibly be corrected by Christian influ- 
 ences ; but any thing further is hardly con- 
 sidered within the range of reform. Things are 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 223 
 
 as they have been ; and so must they continue 
 to be, unless supernatural influences shall arrest 
 their course, and make a change. 
 
 WHAT A NEW DISCIPLINE WOULD DO. 
 
 It is rational to suppose, that much improve- 
 ment may be achieved by simply understanding 
 the mental organism, and conforming the early 
 discipline to its conditions. There is a great 
 advantage in good intellectual habits, independ- 
 ent of moral convictions and principles, if these 
 latter influences on conduct cannot be had. Let 
 a child be trained, as a matter of discipline, to 
 see and describe things exactly as they are ; and 
 this habit of accuracy will continue in after-life, 
 just as any other habit may continue, entirely 
 separate from the thought of moral obligation. 
 A person may be educated to extraordinary 
 facility in arithmetical calculations : no moral 
 element enters into this peculiar ability. Just 
 so it may be with the perception of events. 
 Could all the families of a neighborhood be 
 trained, from their earliest infancy upward, to 
 see things precisely as they are, and to describe 
 them just as they were seen ; and could the 
 same discipline be carried into schools, and the 
 pupils there be trained to be as exact in obser- 
 
224 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 vation and description as they are trained to be 
 exact in performing arithmetical problems, — 
 there would be an unexampled improvement in 
 conversational trustworthiness and in neighborly- 
 relations. There would be, as there is in other 
 things, a sort of emulative desire for accuracy, 
 and perfect truthfulness to fact. A failure as to 
 the precise fact would lower the intellectual 
 standing and reputation. A faulty observer and 
 teller of incidents would be considered as poorly 
 educated, like a blundering reader or a bad 
 speller. Could such a discipline be carried into 
 every family and every school of the country, 
 there would be a national reform. A whole 
 people would be educated to see events accu- 
 rately, as they might be educated to survey 
 correctly and minutely the geographical features 
 of their native town, as was recommended in 
 the suggestions about place. They would be 
 capacitated not only to observe actions in their 
 progress, but to apprehend the causes and the 
 results of action to a degree beyond all former 
 precedent. Could moral and religious motives 
 be brought to bear on this point of culture as 
 they ought, what wonders of improvement might 
 be accomplished ! But the all-important aid of 
 the conscience and the heart will be hereafter 
 considered. 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 225 
 
 HOW THE DISCIPLINE MAY BEGIN. 
 
 As soon as a child shall be able to tell his 
 experiences, it may easily be perceived what 
 native strength and precision of eventuality he 
 may possess. Then, according to his lack must 
 be the particularity and assiduousness of his 
 educators. 
 
 Now the question comes, Where and how 
 shall the necessary training be commenced ? 
 There need be no search after lessons ; for — to 
 use several of the appropriate terms — motion, 
 action, incidents, events, and facts are close by, 
 and everywhere around. The first thing that 
 happens may be an exercise of discipline, if the 
 child is old enough to notice and give some 
 account of it. Still there must be advantage in 
 system ; and, for this reason, one subject will be 
 preferable to another. 
 
 Certain transactions are better suited to begin 
 with than others, which might be good for a 
 further stage of progress. It is one of the 
 acknowledged rules of education to commence 
 with what is best known or can be most easily 
 known, and thence proceed to things more diffi- 
 cult. The chief requisites are distinctness of 
 
 15 
 
226 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 perception, and correctness in recital. It' is 
 important that the several parts of a proceeding 
 should be noticed according to their precise 
 succession. Those operations are excellent for 
 attention and questioning, at the outset, in which 
 first one thing is done, then another, in necessary 
 order. 
 
 HOUSEHOLD LESSONS. 
 
 The industrial concerns of a household are nu- 
 merous and diverse : let them by turns become 
 lessons for observation. No better instances 
 can be presented to children than the goings-on 
 around them in ordinary work. They are inte- 
 rested in what their friends do. The smiling 
 aspect and kind tones of invitation will be all 
 that is wanted to enlist their special attention 
 to any movement, or series of movements, per-^ 
 formed by their domestic friends. 
 
 But let us illustrate. Take, for example, the 
 setting of the table for dinner. There is, first, 
 the drawing-out of the table to the proper posi- 
 tion ; second, the lifting and fastening of the 
 leaves ; then the spreading of the cloth ; and so 
 on, — one performance after another, till the 
 meal is ready, and the family are at knife and 
 fork. Now, let the child, as a matter of disci- 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 227 
 
 pline, exactly describe every process of the 
 table-setting in its exact order. Let there be 
 no mistake in the sequences, as perfect accuracy 
 in this particular respect is one of the benefits 
 of the lesson. The same use may be made of 
 other household duties in which there is a me- 
 thodical routine. Of course, children, whether 
 desired or not, usually notice these proceedings. 
 These are among the occasions of that uncon- 
 scious and gradual development of intellect 
 which will go on without care or thought on 
 the part of the little lookers or their friends. 
 But, according to their native power of even- 
 tuality, they may notice each particular of a 
 transaction in its due order, or they may have 
 but imperfect perceptions and confused ideas. 
 The important point aimed at is accuracy in 
 seeing and telling, as a settled characteristic ; 
 an ability which shall prevent no. small harm, 
 and do great good, in that future which depends 
 so much on early formed habits. Take mental 
 constitutions as they average, and this perfect 
 exactness of sight and speech cannot be had 
 without some special discipline. The practical 
 advantages warrant all the pains which can pos- 
 sibly be given to the subject. 
 
228 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 MANUFACTURING LESSONS. 
 
 Besides the various kinds of orderly work at 
 home; the several divisions of skilled labor, the 
 distinct and life-long occupations of people, will 
 afiford most valuable exercises in this sort of 
 observation. 
 
 First, take those more simple mechanical 
 trades which are common in every country vil- 
 lage or town, and are mainly carried on by 
 hand. In each one of these, there is an orderly 
 procedure : first, one thing is done ; then, an- 
 other ; and so on through a course of work. 
 Now, let a child of adequate age watch the 
 processes, and afterward give a«i exact account. 
 In due time, have him visit mills and factories, 
 and trace their more complex operations ; no- 
 ticing how the several connected forces produce 
 results. 
 
 AGRICULTURAL LESSONS. 
 
 Educational visits to the farm must certainly 
 not be omitted. Its ajBfairs are probably more 
 numerous and diverse than those of any other 
 separate productive employment. From the 
 first touch of culture in the spring till all 
 the harvests are gathered in, there is orderly, 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 229 
 
 progressive work. Then, in the winter, there 
 is the kindly care of animals in several daily- 
 processes. There are, besides, useful but less 
 regular doings which come in between the rest. 
 Now, all these matters, judiciously presented, 
 would be exceedingly interesting and instruct- 
 ive to the fresh perceptions of the young. 
 They should begin their agricultural observa- 
 tions with the earliest movements in the spring. 
 Let them notice every distinct kind of labor in 
 all its items, and these in their orderly and pre- 
 cise succession. Then an account should be 
 required as perfectly exact as any prescribed 
 recitation at school. 
 
 BENEFITS. 
 
 All industrial occupations might afford les- 
 sons similar to those indicated above. It is not 
 necessary to particularize any farther. Now, it 
 cannot be doubted, that this peculiar discipline 
 would be of inestimable advantage to the young 
 as candidates for life's activities and uses. No 
 descriptive books could equal, or make up for, 
 this positive knowledge caught by the naked 
 eye. 
 
 One special and important benefit would be 
 the obtaining of some considerable insight into 
 
230 THE DISCIPLINE OP THE 
 
 the various trades and pursuits of men. The 
 pupil would also learn something, not only about 
 methods of procedure, but about the materials 
 and implements used. What is, moreover, of 
 much consequence, he would obtain that know- 
 ledge of different kinds of business which is 
 really necessary to develop his own taste, and 
 to form his judgment in respect to the choice 
 of an employment for himself. Still further, he 
 would eventually come to that understanding of 
 the various avocations of men which is quite 
 necessary to form a just estimate of their re- 
 spective and peculiar services. Indeed, such 
 a knowledge would lead to that charity and 
 kindliness which is so much needed, but is so 
 often withheld. 
 
 WHAT A FATHER MIGHT DO. 
 
 It may be averred, that, in this intelligent 
 part of the country, most people have some 
 general ideas of the different departments of 
 industry. But why not possess a more tho- 
 rough and systematic knowledge, when it can 
 be so easily gained? During the* years usually 
 devoted to education, there might be obtained 
 a quite extensive and comparatively intimate 
 acquaintance with the various pursuits of life. 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 231 
 
 and this without much that would seem like a 
 task. Nothing would be necessary but simply 
 to take or make occasions. A father could 
 scarcely better employ a little respite from busi- 
 ness, than to take his children, as a pleasant 
 pastime, to places of various industrial activity. 
 A small portion of the time now spent in school 
 on studies unadapted to the pupil's age, but 
 faintly understood and quickly forgotten, would 
 suffice for the purpose. 
 
 nature's works and ways. 
 
 Mai's art and industry should not engage the 
 whole attention. In the mean timoj let children, 
 from the earliest ability, observe the movements 
 and processes of nature. If they are capable of 
 admiring human inventions and their effects, 
 they can be led to admire and study the wonder- 
 ful machinery by which the Creator brings about 
 results. Some will see and reflect considerably? 
 and ask questions, and grow in knowledge with 
 but little prompting. It is not so with the ma- 
 jority. They soon become so accustomed to all 
 regular phenomena, that they cease to think much 
 about them. As for the more covert processes, 
 excepting such as may unexpectedly startle their 
 sight, they scarcely, by themselves alone, find 
 
232 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 them out. Whatever is going on continually in 
 regular successions of movement, and which has 
 been thus going on from the earliest remem- 
 brance, is unheeded by most, simply because of 
 this very order and constancy. It is with people, 
 as they grow gradually up, in respect to the 
 mechanism of nature, as it is in respect to the 
 household timepiece : they are so accustomed 
 to its tick, tick, that they do not hear it ; and, if 
 they happen to catch a glimpse of the inner ma- 
 chinery, they have no curiosity to study a struc- 
 ture, which, close by, has served their conveni- 
 ence so well and so long. H 
 
 These faculties, thus admirably fitted to ob- 
 serve and know, should not become so deadened 
 and useless. The infinite Designer and Maker 
 did not so intend. The infant possessor begins 
 early and aright to use them. His innate in- 
 stincts, almost as soon as he fairly gets his eyes 
 open, prompt him to look and learn. How intent- 
 ly he gazes on the flickering flame or the waving 
 tree I He is pleased with any sort of gentle 
 motion. But these instincts should grow into 
 earnest desires to look farther and farther, and 
 to learn still more and more. All that is needed 
 with most is easily-given direction and sympathy. 
 At first, the child simply observes movement, 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 233 
 
 and has no thought beyond the impression on his 
 sight. But this observation is the initiative step 
 toward the whole philosophy of causes, effects, 
 and uses. This one perceptive power, eventual- 
 ity, holds the key, as it were, to all natural 
 science. This science, in large degree, consists 
 in understanding how the masses and elements 
 of matter, and the organic forms of it, act on 
 each other, and what are the ends designed. Of 
 course, the action must first be known before it 
 can be discerned whence it comes, or to what 
 it tends. What rounds, and ranges, and mazes of 
 movement between the stupendous rolling and 
 circling of worlds and the leaping affinities of 
 atoms! — an infinitude of agents and activities; 
 millions of distinct organs and offices and opera- 
 tions, yet one connected and harmonious me- 
 chanism, moved every moment by one infinite 
 Power. Now, parent, shall all this be no more 
 to your beloved child's curiosity than the ever- 
 swinging pendulum or the ceaseless tick of the 
 old, convenient clock ? 
 
 CASUAL EVENTS. 
 
 Besides those processes which take place in 
 regular routine, and which may be repeatedly 
 observed by the learner, and, as it were, got by 
 
234 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 heart, there are other occurrences which are 
 fortuitous and unexpected. Nothing before has 
 been exactly like them, and nothing will follow 
 exactly similar in the collocation of all the seve- 
 ral objects and circumstances. Events of this 
 sort are transpiring every moment. Mankind, 
 exercising their own wills, are continually doing 
 this and that, according to contingencies. It is 
 such transactions, not distinctly observed, and 
 aflfording no second opportunity for better sight, 
 which occasion those misstatements whence 
 come innumerable difficulties and heart-burnings 
 in society. Perfect accuracy, in observing and 
 representing these, is of surpassing importance. 
 A habit of being truthful to facts should as 
 early as possible be formed. To this end, no 
 discipline can hardly be too persistent and 
 thorough. 
 
 Those unimportant incidents, ever new and 
 various, which are continually happening within 
 and around the home, present the most conve- 
 nient lessons to the little observer. Of course, 
 it is not necessary that he shall get through all 
 the methodical processes before alluded to, even 
 those within the house, before he may be put 
 upon these. Let it be an emphatic requirement, 
 that, in his account, he shall omit no circum- 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 235 
 
 stance, nor put one out of its exact order, any 
 more than he did in the case of the table-setting, 
 or any other fixed and regular proceeding. Thus 
 a habit will be formed of distinct and consecu- 
 tive observation. Besides, in this way, the 
 young mind will be aided in acquiring that 
 ability of concentrated attention which is so 
 important to success in either study or busi- 
 ness. 
 
 If those casual occurrences which are in 
 themselves of no special importance shall be 
 accurately noticed, those transactions which 
 make their mark on a day or a week, or on the 
 times, will, of course, secure the pupil's close 
 and minute attention. There are those proceed- 
 ings which may be not only a discipline, but a 
 rich instruction. Among these are public move- 
 ments and spectacles. Some of them grow out 
 of prevalent tastes and customs ; such as funeral 
 and civic processions, ordinary military parades, 
 and anniversary occasions. Others make a part 
 of the history of the times ; such as the march- 
 ing of troops and the sailing of war-vessels, as 
 in the present great national crisis. Hitherto, 
 no specific and circumstantial attention to such 
 events has generally been required as a part of 
 education ; but they afford lessons of far greater 
 
236 THE DISCIPLINE OP THE 
 
 value, if rightly conducted, than are found in 
 the naked, crumb-like facts of some historical 
 text-books, which wearily occupy much time in 
 seminaries of learning. 
 
 INFLUENCE UPON LITERATURE. 
 
 It is by no means intended to disparage the 
 study of well-written history. Indeed, this in- 
 tent and thorough observation, this study of pass- 
 ing affairs, will be a valuable preparative for the 
 study of history in the school, or for the profit- 
 able perusal of it at any subsequent time. It 
 will be a useful qualification for any sort of read- 
 ing in which facts are comprised. A person who, 
 from constitutional defect, takes but a slight or 
 confused notice of present occurrences, will have 
 but a slight remembrance of them. He will 
 have a much more imperfect idea and remem- 
 brance of transactions which are presented only 
 through language. The action-noting faculty, 
 which has been well disciplined by what trans- 
 pires immediately before it, will be more readily 
 impressed by mere verbal communications. A 
 narrated occurrence will thus be more clearly 
 conceived of: it will not seem distant and dim, 
 but, as it were, present and distinct, to this parti- 
 cular observing power. The memory, moreover. 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 237 
 
 will be proportionally retentive ; for each intel- 
 lectual faculty is supposed to have a memory of 
 its own, so that the eventuality which is keen to 
 perceive is also strong to retain. 
 
 This exactness in the knowledge and presenta- 
 tion of events, as a matter of culture and general 
 habit, must necessarily have a most salutary ef- 
 fect upon the literature of the people, both that 
 which they themselves make and that which is 
 made for them. If conversation shall become 
 more true to fact, epistolary communications will 
 share the improvement. Gossip by the pen 
 will be reformed as well as gossip by the tongue. 
 But, beyond this, historical compositions will be 
 characterized by more thorough and satisfactory 
 research. A public opinion which has been 
 trained up to the mark of absolute truth must 
 press upon the responsibility of writers, so that 
 history, in future, shall not have to be rewritten, 
 and the characters of men rejudged, as hereto- 
 fore, for the sake of right and justice. 
 
 Again: with this better culture as to action, 
 fictitious productions, which now make so large 
 a part of the common reading, will be altogether 
 more faithful to nature. No small portion of the 
 novels, and especially of the juvenile tales, of 
 the day, are poor representations of human life. 
 
238 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 Their authors seem to have been living, from 
 childhood up, in an imaginary world. They have 
 not studied, as they should, nature and man, in 
 those multitudinous activities by which traits 
 and qualities are truly made known. Now, this 
 special culture of eventuality will supply fancy 
 and invention with those truthful materials which 
 have hitherto been so much wanting. Thus the 
 creations of genius will become verisimilitudes 
 of what has been actually experienced, or what 
 at least is possible to man in view of the known 
 principles of his being and his surrounding con- 
 ditions. 
 
 Coming generations will have this true litera- 
 ture. When the whole people shall be trained 
 to an exact observation of the real and moving 
 world, then the few who shall write for the people 
 will not fail of that best discipline and knowledge 
 which comes through the primitive and surest 
 use of the eyes. 
 
 NEWSPAPER REFORM. 
 
 One of the most important benefits to come 
 from eventuality, as it should be, is the improve- 
 ment in newspaper literature. Everybody in 
 our country, who can read at all, reads the news- 
 paper. It exerts a wider and deeper influence 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 239 
 
 than any other emanation from the press. It 
 does unmeasured good, but also much evil. A 
 new appetite has been engendered, or rather a 
 constitutional one intensified tenfold. It is a ra- 
 bid hunger for something new ; and, besides 
 this, for something as much as possible exciting. 
 The newspaper would not be a newspaper unless 
 it furnished this new thing. Hence a competi- 
 tion between journals. That goes ofi" best which 
 contains the keenest stimulative for the moment. 
 The slightest rumor is caught up, and made the 
 most of to-day ; but it may be utterly contra- 
 dicted to-morrow. No matter : it serves its end ; 
 it satifies the craving. Thus, if no other harm 
 is done, thought is prevented from settling down 
 on serious and really important subjects. The 
 popular mind is unsettled, and is kept unsettled 
 and unstable. There is especially a bad effect 
 upon the young, who, as they grow up, ought to 
 be getting their faculties more and more, and 
 continually, into a condition of strength and con- 
 solidation. For thorough-going, substantial read- 
 ing, there is not tim§ ; and as for deeper science 
 and philosophy, they are scarcely thought of 
 after leaving the school. 
 
 Now, should there be an education from the 
 earliest to a clear perception of passing incidents, 
 
240 THE DISCIPLINE HP THE 
 
 and to a thoroughly accurate statement of them, 
 the young would come up into life with a habit 
 of accuracy, and, in consequence, with a taste 
 for it. Vague observation, and more vague de- 
 scription, would be no part of their experience. 
 For such readers, the newspaper item about 
 somebody or something must have a ground of 
 probability. If such things shall be found within 
 a day or a week utterly false, the public taste 
 and habit will say, " Away with them ! nothing 
 of this I " Thus journals will compete with each 
 other for exactness to the truth. A public man's 
 character will have a safety not recently expe- 
 rienced. A distinguished lady's delicacy will 
 not be offended by some false rumor about her, 
 as is now sometimes the case, published from 
 end to end of the land. Thousands of things, 
 utterly unwarranted, will not be breathed into 
 growth, as at present, by this hot breath of desire 
 for the new and exciting. 
 
 In this advanced age, when steam and tele- 
 graph bring news from all quarters of the world, 
 sufficient for every day's entertainment, false- 
 hood will not be needed. Indeed, there will 
 hardly be leisure to glance along the abundance 
 of authenticated facts ; and many of these, in 
 this new and wonder-producing era, may be quite 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 241 
 
 as attractive to curiosity as any catch-penny fabri- 
 cations, or even the more innocent scintillations 
 of genius. 
 
 PARTISAN CALUMNIES CHECKED. 
 
 But, above all, the bitter calumnies of political 
 partisanship must receive a wholesome check, if 
 they do not utterly come to an end. These are 
 the worst concomitants of our elective govern- 
 ment. These are the abominations of the country. 
 These too often thrust our best men prematurely 
 into retirement, or prevent them from coming 
 out of it at all. As things are now, character is 
 mangled, murdered, in political warfare. Could 
 the people of this country be trained to be faith- 
 ful to fact, a salutary influence must be exerted 
 in this direction. A change for the better would 
 be wrought, such as hitherto has never been 
 known in popular governments. If absolute fact 
 be demanded, all electioneering misre'{)resenta- 
 tions must cease. That party which should resort 
 to falsifications must succumb ; must wear writ- 
 ten on its very forehead^ Wrong. Let a thorough 
 examination into facts be the groundwork of 
 political opinion, and the reason, the intelligence, 
 the common sense, of voters would bring an over- 
 whelming majority to the side of the right and 
 
 16 
 
242 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 the best. The people would come to know who 
 are their truly wise., good, and great men, and 
 would give to them their confidence. The peo- 
 ple would confide also in each other. Then, in- 
 stead of democracy, deceived, cheated, degraded, 
 and made a byword through the monarchies of 
 Europe, there would be a democracy like the 
 clear shining of the sun after the rain, enlighten- 
 ing the eyes, and warming the hearts, of the 
 common masses all over the world. It would be 
 like a great luminary in the heavens, ascending 
 towards its noon, it might be, but there to stand 
 still, as the sun did of old, while the true and 
 the faithful everywhere should become victori- 
 ous and free. 
 
 PRESENT STATE OF OUR NATION. 
 
 But such a state of things has not yet been, 
 and many fear that it will not exist perhaps for 
 ages. Chir nation, at this moment, heaves and 
 tosses like ocean in the storm ; yea, as with the 
 more terrible earthquake, opening new chasms 
 downward, shooting new volcanoes upward, even 
 shaking the nations that are afar ofi*, and per- 
 plexing monarchs on their thrones. And all this 
 has come from the lies of selfish, wicked men. 
 Old custom, the love of ease, of power, of wealth. 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 243 
 
 and luxury, could not possibly have prevailed, 
 had it not been for this diabolical " refuge of 
 lies." Had the truth as to facts, nothing but the 
 truth, been presented from the platform and 
 the press for the last thirty years ; had the peo- 
 ple received the truth, and reflected it to each 
 other just as the millions of the summer dew- 
 drops reflect the unfailing, benignant sun, — the 
 present fratricidal war could never have been. 
 It would have been as utterly impossible as for 
 hailstones and thunderbolts to have fallen from 
 the cloudless sky on herb and beast and man 
 below. 
 
 The demons of falsehood still divide the land. 
 The father of lies himself hangs, as it were, in- 
 visibly over it, in all his hideous, heaven-defying 
 malignity, and scatters his own arrows of destruc- 
 tion into the ears and the understandings and 
 down into the hearts of a credulous people. 
 What the end will be, no one but the omniscient 
 God, or foreseeing and truthful angels, can tell. 
 Parents, teachers ! such now is the state of our 
 country ; and why is it so, why has it been so ? 
 Because the parents and teachers, your prede- 
 cessors, generation back behind generation, did 
 not train the young to see the truth, to speak 
 the truth, and to live the truth. It is because the 
 
244 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 educators themselves have been false : how, 
 then, could they train their children and pupils 
 to be true? 
 
 Now, shall this state of things remain ? Shall 
 it be ages before we shall be a stable people, 
 with a stable government and a stable prosperi- 
 ty ? It all depends upon you, parents and teach- 
 ers of this nation, whether we shall grow into 
 safety, and realize the hopes of yearning millions 
 the earth over, or not. Accept the views which 
 have been here imperfectly presented as to train- 
 ing to the truth ; let them be adopted in the 
 family, in the school, in the land throughout; 
 and, with one addition in the educational plan, 
 there will be, there must be, inevitable success. 
 
 DISCIPLINE OP THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 But this addition is the most important matter 
 of all. Without it, there can be no assurance of 
 steady progress and of final security. This is 
 the culture of the conscience, side by side, with 
 the discipline of the observing intellect. No- 
 thing can be more true, as all history proves, 
 than that the human heart is deceitful above all 
 things, and desperately wicked. Such is the self- 
 ishness of human nature, — a selfishness acting 
 from very infancy, and strengthening with the 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 245 
 
 years, subjugating the intellect to its service, — 
 that the conscience must be awakened at the 
 earliest, and set to its restraining work. All 
 the solemn warnings of religion will be needed 
 with some constitutions to make the tongue's 
 statement true to the eye's witnessing. Parents, 
 upon you is imposed, by the infinitely True, the 
 responsibility of quickening the moral sense of 
 your children to the surest guardianship over 
 the tongue, and, indeed, over the feelings and mo- 
 tives which lie beneath the speech. Teach them, 
 that knowingly to deviate from exactness, even 
 as to trivial incidents, is to be guilty of false- 
 hood, and falsehood replete with danger ; for it 
 prepares the way for more serious deviations, 
 and thence more heinous obliquity. Impress 
 upon them, that what has once really taken place 
 is fixed : it has been, it exists as a fact for ever. 
 However human beings may misconceive it, take 
 from it, or add to it, there it is, printed on the 
 irreversible page of the past ; there it is, more- 
 over, naked before the Omniscient Eye. Neither 
 wishes nor prejudices nor passions, nor volumes 
 of words, call change it one tittle. In the pro- 
 cess of time, and in the passing-away of tempo- 
 rary motives and feelings, events may come to 
 be seen in their true light. Then self-seekers 
 
246 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 and falsifiers will stand out exposed in the same 
 light, and in their naked deformity. Train your 
 children, therefore, to believe and to feel that 
 they might as well struggle up, despite of gravi- 
 tation, into the clouds for a hiding-place, as to 
 struggle away, and for ever keep away, from the 
 fastness of fact and the searching severity of 
 ruth. 
 
 TWO BEINGS WHO CANNOT BE ESCAPED. 
 
 There are two beings from whom the untruth- 
 ful man cannot conceal his guilt. One is himself. 
 At the moment of its utterance, he is conscious 
 of the falsehood. Henceforth it is written on his 
 memory that he has lied. He can no more wipe 
 it out than he can wipe out the wrinkles on his 
 brow above it, or shape into infantile openness 
 the sinister expression of his face. There it is, 
 registered on his memory for ever. It may sink 
 away from the constant glance of his own 
 thought, perhaps it may remain unseen for years; 
 but it is not gone. The leaves of more recent 
 experiences are but laid over it. Some time, 
 with lightning swiftness, those leaves may be 
 flung back ; and there, as in years long before, 
 blazes out the record, — falsifier, liar. Teach 
 your children, therefore, that, if the untruthful 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 2-17 
 
 shall escape all the rest of the world, he shall 
 ever, ever, be pursued and found by himself. 
 
 The other being from whom the liar cannot 
 hide is that One of whom it is said in the sacred 
 oracles, " He that planted the ear, shall he not 
 hear? He that formed the eye, shall he not see? 
 Shall not God search this out? For his eyes are 
 upon the ways of man, and he seeth all his 
 goings. There is no darkness, nor shadow of 
 death, where the workers of iniquity may hide 
 themselves. Hell and destruction are before 
 the Lord : how much more, then, the hearts 
 of the children of men I " 
 
248 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 TIME. 
 
 In close connection with action is another im- 
 portant matter of discipline. It regards the 
 relation of time. Movement occupies more or 
 less of duration according to the space or dis- 
 tance passed through, or according to the num- 
 ber of motions, as in those indicated by the 
 ticking of a time-piece or in the pulsations of 
 the blood. It is supposed that there is a special 
 faculty for the perception of time, as there is in 
 the case of other qualities and relations in nature. 
 There are those who can tell almost any hour of 
 the day or night, without clock or watch. Such 
 persons have a naturally keen perception of time, 
 which has been increased by constant use. They 
 are always to a moment punctual to their engage- 
 ments. They keep nobody waiting ; that is, if 
 their moral nature is as true as their one intel- 
 lectual ability. Others have a character directly 
 the reverse. Owing to a constitutional weakness, 
 or the undeveloped condition of this faculty, they 
 have but little consciousness of the passing mo- 
 ments. In early life, they are behind at school, 
 unless well prompted : ag they grow up, they are 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 249 
 
 behindhand in their engagements, behind in 
 their business, behind at public meetings. Are 
 they on committees or in any service associated 
 with others: they are always tardy, and keep 
 their fellow-officials in uneasy endurance. Per- 
 haps, when they do arrive, they may consume 
 much time in needless talk, through the same 
 unconsciousness which made them late. 
 
 TIME IN TALK. 
 
 Some persons are particularly unconscious of 
 time in conversation. They will spend the whole 
 space allotted to the call of a friend on some 
 casual topic uninteresting and tedious to the 
 hearer, who may wish to touch on subjects more 
 accordant with his tastes, or on which he came 
 especially to confer. Cases are not infrequent, 
 in which speakers, who had been appointed to- 
 gether wiiii others to address an audience, have 
 appropriated to themselves nearly the whole 
 time of the occasion. An opening speech has 
 been known to consume about the whole even- 
 ing. 
 
 PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 
 
 Again : how often are the movements of vari- 
 ous public occasions tediously delayed by the few 
 
250 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 persons, and indeed by some one individual, hav- 
 ing the direction ! So common are such delays, 
 that people hardly expect any thing better ; yet 
 they are obliged to observe the appointed hour, 
 or they might possibly forego the profit of the 
 occasion. Thus sometimes the precious hours 
 of thousands are irretrievably lost through the 
 neglect of a few tardy officials. Let these thou- 
 sands of lost hours be aggregated into one 
 amount, and their worth to industry estimated, 
 and the waste would appear enormous. 
 
 PUNCTUALITY AS TO PROMISES. 
 
 There are other cases in which the pinch of 
 punctuality is not sufficiently felt, and disappoint- 
 ment and inconvenience may annoy, and possibly 
 much pecuniary loss be incurred. For instance, 
 how often mechanics and other producers engage 
 to furnish articles by a certain datd, and then 
 fail of accomplishment I In fact, through all the 
 circles of business, promises as to time are fre- 
 quently broken : hence losses of money, or com. 
 fort at any rate, of good feeling, and perhaps of 
 amicable relations. This is a matter of ordinary 
 experience. The fact is, that many a man, in 
 promising the completion of work at a certain 
 day, has but a vague idea of the time necessary 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 251 
 
 for the performance. He goes by guess. His 
 judgment as to time and movement has not 
 been cultivated. Perhaps he is constitutionally 
 defective, and can measure days and hours 
 scarcely much better than the senseless clock 
 with its machinery askew. 
 
 DISASTROUS ^ACK OF PROMPTITUDE. 
 
 In human affairs, there are crosses and losses 
 innumerable and incalculable through lack of 
 promptitude. At the first battle of Bull Run, 
 the long delay of one division in the morning's 
 march was an incidental cause of that lamentable 
 defeat. Had our army got into action as early 
 as was intended in the commander's plan, a de- 
 cisive victory would have probably been won 
 several hours before those re-enforcements ar- 
 rived which turned the scale in favor of the 
 enemy. It was probably a miscalculation as to 
 time on somebody's part which prevented the 
 pontoon-bridges from reaching Fredericksburg 
 coincidently with the army, and thus delaying 
 Burnside's great movement and leading to ulti- 
 mate defeat. History records numerous in- 
 stances of similar disasters. 
 
252 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 EARLY ATTENTION TO THE TIME-FACULTY. 
 
 Now, as this defect as to time is often a con- 
 stitutional infirmity, it should be understood at 
 the very outset of education, and be remedied 
 by the most assiduous culture. It may be dis- 
 covered, by a little attentioa, what the native 
 capacity of children is in this respect. See 
 whether they are prompt at school, church, or 
 any other place, at the appointed moment. Note 
 whether they seem to lose all idea of time in 
 play or talk when some pressing duty is before 
 them. Should there appear an unconsciousness 
 of duration, then they must be watched, and 
 trained accordingly. As a disciplinary exercise, 
 let them be put in many ways to the exact ob- 
 servation of time in the course of ordinary duty. 
 In some affairs, certain operations require a cer- 
 tain measurable period of time for their accom- 
 plishment. The usual routine of every day in 
 household or farm matters is divided into several 
 parts appertaining to one thing and another. In 
 the course of experience and habit, calculations 
 are very readily made in respect to the quantity 
 of time demanded by each, so that every thing' 
 may be attended to and finished in order. But 
 
OBSERYING FACULTIES. 253 
 
 the young generally need some special disci- 
 pline before they can accurately adjust one thing 
 to another in their engagements. Some require 
 very much care for the purpose. If they should 
 be neglected in this matter by the first parental 
 educators, they would be likely to go through 
 the whole subsequent life, confused themselves, 
 and confusing others. Innumerable people con- 
 tinue all their days in this unfortunate predica- 
 ment, and just from the lack of foresight and 
 discipline. 
 
 HELP FROM THE TIMEPIECE. 
 
 Accustom, therefore, children to notice parti- 
 cularly the hours, the half-hours, and even the 
 minutes, occupied in any regular work or duty. 
 Let it be, however, insisted on that performance 
 shall be thorough and without fluttering haste. 
 In this way, they will learn how to portion out 
 time to its several uses. They will be educated 
 into a substantial and reliable judgment as to 
 the seasons of regular duty. 
 
 There are occasional transactions which also 
 may well be made lessons. In doing errands at 
 a store or a neighbor's or anywhere else, let the 
 time of going and coming at ordinary speed be 
 carefully noted. As children are fond of special 
 
254 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 exercises if tliey but be made agreeable, let them 
 guess how long it will take to walk or run a cer- 
 tain distance and back again, or to make a certain 
 number of motions with the feet or hands in imi- 
 tation of work, as in the Kinder-garten plays. 
 Suppose any new work is to be undertaken : let 
 there be guesses as to the time occupied. In- 
 deed, no matter what the operation is, it will 
 serve to discipline the young to mark time 
 with precision, and to form habits of adjusting 
 movements to movements with an economical 
 accuracy, which shall be a lifelong benefit to 
 themselves and everybody who has to do with 
 them. 
 
 MEASURING TIME BY THE SUN. 
 
 It is a good plan, furthermore, to have chil- 
 dren measure time by the place and the progress 
 of the sun. Let them guess the time of day by 
 the sun's position in the sky, and then refer to the 
 timepiece to see how near the precise moment 
 they have hit. Let such an exercise be pursued 
 till the hour of day, at any place of the sun, 
 may be quite accurately determined. A similar 
 course might be pursued in respect to the moon 
 and the stars, for the sake of a more thorough 
 education of the faculty, and perhaps for occa- 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 255 
 
 sional and valuable use in emergencies that 
 might arise. Indeed, the first idea of time came 
 from the regular movements of the heavenly 
 bodies. Hence originated those divisions of du- 
 ration which are named in the languages, and 
 govern the doings of all the world. These phe- 
 nomena of the heavens perpetually teach and 
 remind mankind of the importance of method or 
 economy in the use of time. No lesson pertain- 
 ing to life's practical affairs is inculcated on a 
 grander scale than this. It is written on the 
 expanse of the firmament. It is illustrated by 
 revolving globes. Parents ! shall this wisdom, so 
 mightily and momentously vouchsafed, be lost to 
 your children because you fail to interpret it 
 to their understandings and impress it on their 
 hearts ? 
 
256 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 ORDER. 
 
 In the works of God there is a certain order, or 
 methodical arrangement, which is best adapted 
 to the end for which they were made. Not only 
 organic forms of matter, but the operations by 
 which they accomplish their uses, exhibit this 
 perfect adaptation of one thing to another, and 
 of means to ends. Thus they give an all-impor- 
 tant lesson to man for his own works and ways. 
 In human affairs, it is by a similar systematiza- 
 tion that the greatest good is brought to pass. 
 
 A SPECIAL FACULTY. 
 
 It is supposed that there is a special mental 
 faculty which takes cognizance of order. It 
 gives to the individual the ability to notice and 
 appreciate it in things around ; and also the 
 ability to do things, and keep things himself, ac- 
 cording to the same rule. There are sometimes 
 wide differences between one person and another 
 as to the native strength of this faculty. To be 
 convinced of this, we have but to recall our ex- 
 periences with various people. One has a place 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 257 
 
 for every thing, and keeps every thing in its own 
 place. Such a one is thoroughly systematic in 
 business. That thing is done first which in good 
 judgment should come first. He knows when 
 his work is completed. There are no hurried 
 runnings or flurried huddlings to finish up what 
 was supposed to be already finished. With him, 
 '' done " means done, and is truly so. His anti- 
 cipated leisure is not all cut up or cut short 
 in the least by his own neglects. As far as 
 depends on himself, he is always sure of time 
 for pastime. Just like the sun that regularly 
 shines on him, he knows his exact path, and his 
 exact place in that path, at every hour from 
 morning until evening ; and then he knows 
 when his day is done, as the sun knows his 
 going-down. 
 
 How entirely different from this is the con- 
 stitutional character and prevalent habits of 
 another person ! Indeed, how many there are, 
 who, as to 'a systematic disposition of things, 
 are about as much to be calculated on as the 
 dust blown and tossed by the wind ! They can- 
 not calculate on themselves. They are disturbed 
 by tendencies which have crept into their na- 
 tures from some progenitor : so these tendencies 
 impel them to and fro, up and down, evermore, 
 
 17 
 
258 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 because no educating hand came in good season 
 to the rescue. 
 
 Such being the contingencies of poor human 
 nature, they should be looked after without fail, 
 and right early. The educator should under- 
 stand the child's native mark of ability to appre- 
 ciate order and conform to its laws. It can soon 
 be seen whether much attention shall be re- 
 quired. Be the faculty stronger or weaker, it 
 should be put to its use, and consequently under 
 discipline, the same as the other intellectual 
 powers. The parent's loving heart will be glad 
 at an easy task ; and the same heart, together 
 with a quickening conscience, will prompt to 
 perseverance and insure success in the more 
 difficult case. 
 
 HOW TO DISCIPLINE THE FACULTY. 
 
 Let us now consider what a child may be put 
 upon quite early in the way of training the 
 faculty of order. 
 
 I once knew a child, not more than nine months 
 old, who was disturbed and uncomfortable when 
 some prominent article in the room, as a table, 
 work-stand, or chair, was not in its accustomed 
 place. He would point with his finger, together 
 with a significant, indeed an imploring expres- 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 259 
 
 sion of his eye, to the thing in its irregular posi- 
 tion. This child, no doubt, possessed the faculty 
 of order in very strong constitutional develop- 
 ment. But we may infer from the instance, that 
 children, on the average, may, in this respect, be 
 quite early trained to strength and accuracy. A 
 child who only creeps might be set to the use of 
 pushing a displaced chair into its position in line 
 w4th the other chairs. When he shall get fairly 
 upon his feet, he might have a care, according to 
 strength, that any article of furniture in the room, 
 when out of place, should be put right. Such a 
 charge would be not only a discipline in the plan 
 of the parent, but it would be an actual pleasure 
 in the idea of a child. He wants to move ; he 
 cannot bear to be still : if he can do things to a 
 certain end like others, and especially if he can 
 gratify others by his activities, he is in his life's 
 delight. 
 
 CARE OF PLAYTHINGS AND CLOTHES. 
 
 Accustom a child to take the best possible 
 
 care of his own playthings, — to have a special 
 
 place for them when not in use. They should 
 
 never be thrust confusedly down, and lie in a 
 
 ^mble, as so often happens, but be laid by with 
 
 <much regard for convenient arrangement and 
 
260 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 neatness as any implement of adnlt industry 
 may be put away, each where it belongs. This 
 order about playthings will be an important pre- 
 paration for order in the work-things of after-life. 
 
 Still further : let children be educated to keep 
 their own clothes in the best possible disposure 
 in the drawer, chest, or closet, or wherever they 
 may be placed. Let each article, however small, 
 have its own particular position, where, if need 
 be, it might be found in the dark. 
 
 Their clothes, on being taken off for the night, 
 should be put in a certain definite and appro- 
 priate place : not here at one time, and there at 
 another, but in the best position for airing; and 
 each article in such a manner as to be most easily 
 come at, even without light. Thus, in the case of 
 fire and the necessity of quick escape, whether at 
 home or abroad, whether at the house of a friend 
 or at a strange hotel, the clothes could at least 
 be snatched by the hand, if there should not be 
 time to put them on. By an orderly habit of this 
 sort, thousands in the conflagrations of the past 
 would not have been driven almost nake. ""^om 
 the burning into opposite elements, whi 
 eased them perhaps for life by their in 
 cies. "^ 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 261 
 
 HOUSEHOLD MATTERS. 
 
 When children shall be old enough to assist in 
 household affairs or other duties, it is of much 
 consequence that they should do every thing 
 according to that exact succession of operations 
 by which any kind of work can be most speedily 
 and most thoroughly accomplished. Days and 
 weeks, and, in a long life, even months, are lost 
 to some, because the precise firstly, secondly, 
 thirdly, &c., are not linked into habit. The buzz- 
 ing, clattering, rumbling factories of all sorts 
 might instruct such wasters ; for here must be a 
 certain beginning, a regular progress, and a de- 
 finite and sure completion. 
 
 Early and fixed habits of this sort will have 
 great influence on their own industrial condi- 
 tions and success in the far future. In the case 
 of girls, the practice of order cannot be too early 
 commenced, and it should never be intermitted. 
 They grow up right in the midst of those matters 
 and things, the like of which is to make their 
 owf: liiief duty as wives and mothers. Laxity of 
 -?'•' i >m girlhood, unreformed then, will run very 
 Ay a disturbing force through all their 
 ju. • eeping future. 
 
262 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 BOYS. 
 
 In the case of boys, they may be put to ap- 
 prenticeships in which there is a necessity for a 
 certain order, as in mechanical trades and the use 
 of machinery. They may be compelled to be 
 systematic in their vocations to a certain extent; 
 yet, in other affairs, they may fall into exceeding 
 laxity and confusion. Whatever, therefore, they 
 have to do, within or around the house, should 
 be performed with regularity and precision; not 
 only because it is best for the occasion, but be- 
 cause it will be a valuable discipline toward their 
 future. 
 
 NEATNESS. 
 
 Personal neatness comes under this head of 
 order. This, with some constitutions, will be 
 found to require much training and discipline. 
 There are children, who, from a native instinct, 
 have a strong abhorrence of any soiling of their 
 persons or clothes. They are early quite sen- 
 sible of any lack of neatness about a room. 
 Others are much the reverse. These seem to 
 enjoy dirt and disorder as much as others do the 
 best condition of things. These disorderly na- 
 tures must be early looked to, and continually 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 263 
 
 watched as they go along up, that, through mere 
 discipline, they may have that habit of neatness 
 which will be necessary for the comfort and satis- 
 faction of others, if not for their own. Many a 
 man, slovenly in his person and in his business, 
 many an untidy woman and housekeeper, might 
 have been blessed with at least average habits 
 of neatness, had they been properly disciplined 
 in their early homes. Such children should be 
 set particularly to put and keep things in order 
 about a house or the surroundings. If any thing 
 should be out of place, they, above all others, 
 should be set to put it in place. If they must 
 go, in case of need, up into the garret, down 
 into the cellar, to some distant out-house, or 
 away into a field, so much the better. The far- 
 ther they shall have to run, the more impressive 
 and profitable the practical lesson. This sort of 
 task should be made an imperative duty, to be 
 continued as long as is necessary. By this dis- 
 cipline, such faulty organizations will be forced 
 into the desirable habits, even against their own 
 natures. 
 
 There is a neatness in work, and in the way of 
 doing a thousand little things, which many peo- 
 ple, for the lack of early education, do not pos- 
 sess. They will drop and slop, spill and spatter, 
 
264 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 in every direction, simply because they are not 
 trained to steadiness of hand, carefulness of the 
 foot, or quick observation of the eye. Pains and 
 perseverance with such children will save much 
 trouble under the parental roof, and will pre- 
 vent them, doubtless, from innumerable discom- 
 forts and a thousand chagrins in their own future 
 home. But let it be most especially remembered, 
 that example will be unspeakably more powerful 
 than precept. The young will hardly practise 
 order amid the surrounding confusion of their 
 elders. The disorder in which they have been 
 brought up, and to which they have been from 
 the earliest accustomed, is quite likely to be the 
 earliest and habitual experience of their own 
 rising families, and to become, possibly, the un- 
 profitable inheritance of generations still beyond. 
 
 AN APPEAL. 
 
 Parents 1 for your own sakes in the dear home, 
 for the sake of loved children in their future 
 abodes and vocations, and for the sake of that 
 common usefulness every one owes to his kind ; 
 for the sake of some higher and wider good 
 your son or daughter may be providentially 
 called to accomplish, — do not omit a duty com- 
 paratively so easy as the one now enjoined. 
 
. OBSERVING FACULTIES. 265 
 
 Train your young families to that methodical 
 arrangement, to that best order, so necessary to 
 give to art and industry and to all virtuous en- 
 deavors the highest success. By such a habit, 
 work which must be done, however coarse, may 
 be done in a way which is not only the shortest 
 and the easiest, but which may have even some- 
 thing like a gracefulness about it. By this, the 
 humblest task may have an adornment. 
 
 The inferior animals, each after its kind, are 
 orderly by instinct, and might instruct the intel- 
 ligences put over them in dominion. Inanimate 
 nature, close by and all around, teaches those 
 who labor in its midst the same lesson. How 
 instructive are soil, water, air, heat, and light, 
 as they work and build up blooming and fruitful 
 vegetation ! The same wisdom comes from the 
 far silent heavens : with a power mightier than 
 any human speech, they proclaim the necessity 
 of system. They show forth the beauty, the 
 majesty, the divine perfectness, of order, while 
 they declare the glory of God. 
 
266 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Other specific topics belong to the subject of 
 these suggestions, and might properly have been 
 considered. But this division of the volume has 
 been extended much beyond the original design. 
 It is hoped that the patience of readers will hold 
 out for some closing thoughts, which may still fur- 
 ther elucidate and confirm the theory presented. 
 
 It is a well-known fact, that the majority of man- 
 kind do not begin to study specifically and minute- 
 ly the substances on which they are to operate 
 through all their industrial lives, until they get 
 into apprenticeship or into actual business. 
 Then there must be disadvantage and loss, for a 
 time, in proportion to the ignorance. In some 
 cases, this ignorance continues quite palpably and 
 injuriously through all their vocational course. 
 Now, the training which has been indicated is a 
 process of fitting one, in a degree, for all sorts of 
 business whatever; a process begun with the 
 very opening of the eyes and the putting-forth 
 of the hand. Indeed, Nature is continually striv- 
 ing to educate the perceptive faculties; and 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 267 
 
 would really double and quadruple their develop- 
 ment and attainments, if we would let her have 
 her own methods, and lend her a helping hand 
 amid the multitude of objects which might con- 
 fuse the young learner's attention. 
 
 There are certain individuals whose peculiar 
 organization will make them sharp-sighted ; will 
 place things, and all their qualities, before them 
 just as they are, notwithstanding the distracting 
 circumstances of number, variety, and even dis- 
 order: but these are comparatively few. The 
 majority need help and showing, that the most 
 may be made of the materials around. This must 
 be evident from the exercises in objects and qua- 
 lities which have been here proposed ; for how 
 few, without advice, would pursue these matters 
 in the best way, and to the most profitable extent ! 
 Indeed, how has the whole world gone blunder- 
 ingly along with the idea, that education consists 
 in words, — words wide apart from the things to 
 which they belong ! It has scarcely occurred 
 to educators generally, that, in presenting things 
 to the learner, they must almost necessarily pre- 
 sent words — nouns, adjectives, and verbs — which 
 would stick to these things like their color in the 
 day-time, or as their temperature does both day 
 and night. 
 
268 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 HOW A GOOD JUDGMENT COMES. 
 
 There is a common saying about certain indi- 
 viduals something like this: " He has an excellent 
 judgment; he is remarkable for his judgment." 
 NoM^, what is meant? It is this: He knows what 
 things are in their qualities and relations, and he 
 knows what to do with them to the best possible 
 advantage. Innumerable instances in the various 
 avocations of life might be adduced in illustra- 
 tion. How common it is for a citizen to be called 
 on to appraise the goods of a neighboring estate, 
 or, as a public officer, to make valuations of pro- 
 perty for taxes ! In such cases, a practical know- 
 ledge of commodities is all-important. We may 
 take the most striking and instructive instances 
 from these very times. Millions of money are 
 lost to the nation through the ignorance of com- 
 missaries, quartermasters, contractors, and other 
 providers for our armies, through the lack of 
 that early and continued education of the observ- 
 ing faculties which has now been advised. If 
 the loss, for the most part, comes from any other 
 cause, it must be from a criminal dishonesty, 
 deserving the punishment of a penitentiary from 
 a cheated country. 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 269 
 
 VIVID RECOLLECTIONS IMPORTANT. 
 
 Furthermore, a great deal of business is done 
 in the way of trade, without the actual presence 
 and inspection of the commodity to be bought and 
 sold. In this case, much is to be trusted to the 
 honesty or honor of the seller. Nevertheless, a 
 great deal depends, on both sides, upon the actual 
 knowledge of things previously acquired. With- 
 out such knowledge, the buyer must take the sell- 
 er's word ; and, without this knowledge, the 
 seller himself may unintentionally mislead : for 
 in both of their memories and conceptions there 
 may lie a confused mass of things, designated by 
 certain names. As for the absolute qualities, 
 fitnesses, and values, it may be the merest guess- 
 work with both. Or, if but one of the parties is 
 ignorant, he must go by guess, or trust impli- 
 citly to the integrity of the other. Now, let a 
 thorough acquaintance with objects and their 
 qualities be obtained, and there they lie in the 
 memory in all distinctness. There is no confu- 
 sion. The mind's eye sees similar commodities 
 in the distant ship or warehouse, or anywhere 
 else, about as clearly as the physical eye would 
 see them lying beneath the face. The memory, 
 as a general rule, performs its office well or ill, 
 
270 THE DISCIPLINE OP THE 
 
 just in proportion as the original perceptions are 
 disciplined and developed ; so that, in a large 
 portion of business transactions, what is good 
 judgment depends on distinct and accurate 
 recollections. 
 
 DISTINGUISHED MEN. 
 
 The histories of many distinguished persons 
 show, that it was a culture quite independent of 
 prescribed educational forms which made them 
 useful and eminent. Among the extraordinary 
 men of our own country are those whose literary 
 advantages were exceedingly limited. They sim- 
 ply exercised their naked faculties on whatever 
 came before them, or lay in any providential line 
 of duty. They might have had some one power, 
 like individuality or eventuality, in uncommon 
 strength. This, spoiitaneously, leading the way, 
 might have brought concomitant powers into 
 action and increasing ability. All the faculties 
 were employed upon the objects, the events, the 
 realities of the present world, and state of things ; 
 while their privileged contemporaries were en- 
 gaged on abstract books and chapters, sentences 
 and words. Although these students of real life 
 might be quite inaccurate in the nice uses of Ian- 
 
OBSEEVING FACULTIES. 271 
 
 guage, yet they obtained the weightier matters 
 of a useful education. Such men, nevertheless, 
 generally possess an adequate ability at expres- 
 sion, as far as it is necessary simply to convey 
 their own ideas. Indeed, these observers and 
 doers often have a remarkable facility of speech. 
 This comes from the very nature of their educa- 
 tion. They somehow pick up words appropriate 
 to all the things, qualities, relations, actions, and 
 transactions within their notice ; and those words 
 are presented naturally and easily with the sub- 
 jects to which they belong. If there should be 
 any defect at all, it is that of some little point 
 which they might have rectified themselves, as 
 many do, by a strenuous and determined self- 
 discipline. The strongest men in our nation, the 
 centres of momentous circles of afikirs, may be 
 excelled by school-girls of fifteen as to verbal 
 and grammatical niceties. The ability adequate 
 to the Presidency of the nation or to a Cabinet 
 secretaryship does not depend on verbalities 
 obtained at school or college, but on an acquaint- 
 ance with things and actions and principles ; a 
 knowledge of individual, social, municipal, civil, 
 military, national, and international realities. 
 "Washington's success, at the head of armies and 
 administrations, was the result of that sound 
 
272 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 judgment wliich had been matured amid present 
 substances, passing events, and pressing emer- 
 gencies. 
 
 BOOKS, NEVERTHELESS. 
 
 Let it not be supposed, by what precedes, that 
 an unwarrantable discarding of books is advised. 
 It is simply meant that books shall not come into 
 use so early, so numerously, and so unintermit- 
 tedly, as to stifle and dwarf the faculties instead 
 of aiding to strengthen them. The distinguished 
 men alluded to improved themselves by reading 
 as they had opportunity ; and, in one respect, 
 they read with a peculiar advantage. Their pre- 
 liminary experience with the world's naked 
 realities enabled them to take hold of language 
 with a- strong, effective grasp, as if words were 
 palpable handles to the meanings underneath. 
 They labored, however, under many and great 
 disadvantages. Their improvement came with- 
 out system, — now and then, ~ here a little, and 
 there a little. 
 
 With our present command of means, we our- 
 selves should seek for our children that educa- 
 tion which begins exactly in the right place and 
 at the right time, and which proceeds in the 
 best order, and in those directions, and to that 
 
OBSERYING FACULTIES. 273 
 
 extent, which shall make the largest and fullest 
 measure of good. 
 
 Dear fellow-educators! — with what gentle 
 touches of nature's elements, as with his own 
 tender fingers, does the infinite Parent awaken 
 his immortal ofi'spring to consciousness and 
 thought ! Why shall we not follow these divine 
 intimations ? Be assured that they run, with 
 unbroken continuance, into grand rules of de- 
 velopment and great infallible signs along the 
 way of everlasting progress. 
 
 Leaving much that might well be said, were 
 there space, we will now consider the unfolding 
 of those afiections, without which the intellect, 
 however mighty amid material things, is yet but 
 weak and poor, and can never rise to those 
 realms where angels teach, and none but the 
 loving grow wise. 
 
 18 
 
274 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE 
 
 A LETTER FROM THE AGENT OF THE MASSA- 
 CHUSETTS BOARD OF EDUCATION. 
 
 [After the preceding suggestions were first sent to the press, cir- 
 cumstances occasioned a considerable delay in the printing. In the 
 mean time, the discipline in view has been fast gaining in public 
 favor. I submitted the " Suggestions," as soon as I could, in sheets, 
 to the large-minded and efficient State official above mentioned ; and 
 I am fortunate in the permission to place his letter here as a most 
 seasonable and sufficient indorsement of my own views on the sub- 
 ject.] 
 
 Boston, April 28, 1863. 
 Kev. Warren Burton. 
 
 My dear Sir, — I am very glad to learn that you 
 are about to publish a work for parents, embodying the 
 results of your varied experience, wide observation, 
 and long study. The portion of this volume which I 
 have had the pleasure of reading abounds in wise and 
 practical suggestions of great importance. Your hints 
 on " Object-teaching" will accomplish much good, if 
 they lead parents to the early and proper discipline of 
 the observing faculties of their children. So far as 
 relates to intellectual training, I heartily concur in the 
 sentiment of Ruskin, " The more I think of it, I find 
 this conclusion more impressed upon me, that the great- 
 est thing a human soul ever does in this world is to 
 see something, and tell what it saw in a plain way. 
 Hundreds of people can talk, to one who thinks ; but 
 thousands can think, to one who can see." 
 
OBSERVING FACULTIES. 275 
 
 The importance and methods of " Object-teaching" 
 have been a frequent topic of my lectures at teachers' 
 institutes and normal schools for more than six years. 
 The system is gradually working its way into our 
 schools, and, when in skilful hands, with the happiest 
 results. I have spent several weeks during the last 
 year in vilsiting the best " object-schools " in the coun- 
 try, especially in New York, Albany, New Britain, 
 Conn., Toronto, C.W., and Oswego, N.Y. This sys- 
 tem has been more fully and successfully applied in the 
 schools of the latter place than anywhere else in this 
 country. As a result, the primary schools of Oswego, 
 which a few years since were in a low condition, have 
 been raised to a degree of excellence, probably not sur- 
 passed, if equalled, in this country. I visited all the 
 schools of the city, with a single exception, in order to 
 observe the working of the system under a great va- 
 riety of circumstances, and with all classes of children, 
 the rich and the poor, Germans, French, Irish, and 
 Scotch, as well as Americans. So celebrated have 
 these schools become, that Oswego is now a sort of 
 Mecca for educators from nearly all the loyal States. 
 During a visit of less than two weeks in that city, I 
 observed representatives present from several distant 
 States, including teachers, committees, and superin- 
 tendents. This, I was told, was but the usual number 
 of visitors from abroad. While I should dissent from 
 some views and methods there adopted, the system, as 
 a whole, is, in my judgment, practical, philosophical, 
 and admirably adapted to young children. 
 
 But this drill ought to begin long before the school 
 
276 THE OBSERVING FACULTIES. 
 
 age. The 'parent should daily give training-lessons in 
 common things. I value this book as one designed and 
 fitted to make parents " object-teachers ; " to convince 
 them that the facts and objects surrounding the child 
 in every-day life should be the earliest and most effec- 
 tive instruments in developing his powers ; and that 
 thus habits of close, accurate, and exhaustive observa- 
 tion should be early formed. 
 
 BiRDSEY G. NOKTHROP, 
 
 Agent Mass. Board of Education. 
 
TOPICS 
 
 OF 
 
 RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. 
 
NOTE. 
 
 Let it not be understood that the writer thinks this division of 
 his volume at all complete. He is aware, that, on the topics here 
 considered, more might be said, and certainly a great deal better 
 said, than will now be found. There ai-e some kindred points which 
 he has not. touched upon at all, or but very briefly. He has fol- 
 lowed the course of thought and sentiment which providentially ran 
 through his own mind. On some other occasion, perhaps, subjects 
 here neglected, or treated but slightly, will receive from him more 
 worthy attention. At any rate, if readers will consult other writers 
 on education, as they are sincerely besought to do, they will find 
 some of the deficiencies of this humble work quite amply supplied. 
 
THE FIRST KNOWLEDGE OF THE 
 CREATOR. 
 
 What is the best method of communicating the 
 first ideas and knowledge of the Divine Being to 
 a child? 
 
 It requires forethought and wisdom to make 
 this communication in a manner worthy of the 
 most high, most holy, and most loving Object 
 of thought. We know how deep are earliest 
 impressions ; how strong and uneradicable are 
 the ties of association : how unspeakably impor- 
 tant, then, are the associations which should 
 surround the first idea of the greatest and best 
 of all beings in the mind of a child ! He is to be 
 reverenced and loved more than all others ; and 
 there should be nothing which could possibly 
 detract from the most full and perfect enjoyment 
 of this chief, central, supreme Image in the mind. 
 Every thing should be in harmony with all the 
 perfect attributes of God, as these shall be ra- 
 tionally and truly understood in maturer life. 
 The associations of the first communication, at a 
 
280 THE FIRST KNOWLEDGE 
 
 time when these attributes can hardly be appre- 
 hended, will go along with the opening under- 
 standing and affections, and be connected with 
 even the best idea of the Divine that may come 
 in to the unfolding capacities. It seems, there- 
 fore, that the first knowledge of the Creator 
 should be communicated on some chosen occa- 
 sion, and by the person who, from relationship 
 and loving care, will best represent the divine 
 attributes. This person is the parent. 
 
 The first consideration respects that one par- 
 ticular name of the several belonging to the 
 Infinite One, by which he shall be first desig- 
 nated to a child. Were the title. Our Father in 
 heaven, or Our heavenly Father, the first to be 
 impressed upon the infant memory, it would not, 
 at this early age, be associated with the deep 
 overflowing love and all the watchful care of the 
 parental relation. These qualities would not 
 come into view, except with growing experience. 
 It seems to me, therefore, that the name God 
 should be the first through which the mind should 
 have this earliest knowledge. This is the first 
 and the oftenest used in the Bible. Indeed, 
 in point of time, the Divine Being was God, be- 
 fore he was a Father to the child. The relation 
 of Father does not exist till the off'spring has 
 
OF THE CREATOR. 281 
 
 existence ; but from eternity he is the self-exist- 
 ent God. This name, therefore, should be the 
 first presented, as indicating a Being whom he 
 cannot see, but who is the Maker of all he does 
 see. It would be a new name to him. It should 
 be presented so as to be a most impressive name; 
 moreover, one, above all, most pleasant in re- 
 membrance. 
 
 The Divine Being is generally first made known 
 in connection with some one of his works. " Who 
 made it ? " is one of the earliest questionings of 
 a child, as if he had an intuitive notion that every 
 thing must have a maker. '^ God made it," is an 
 answer and a belief written among the earliest 
 memories of all the Christian generations. Now, 
 what object shall be the first occasion of using 
 the holy Name, and of expressing the fact of di- 
 vine creation ? It seems to me, it should be the 
 most beautiful, majestic, glorious representative 
 of God presented by the whole material crea- 
 tion, — the sun. Nothing so attracts the infant's 
 eye as the light; for the light belongs to the eye, 
 and the eye belongs to the light. The very flame 
 from the fireside and the candle attracts his gaze 
 before he has looked beyond the walls of the 
 nursery ; and, at first, more than any thing else 
 within them. How, then, must the brightness of 
 
282 THE FIRST KNOWLEDGE 
 
 the sun fasten his inexperienced attention ! But 
 not that of the noonday luminary. These splen- 
 dors dazzle away the eye, and prevent calm, 
 impressive contemplation. It is the sun, then, in 
 its milder glories, not overpowering the vision 
 to blindness, but jQlling it with pleasure and admi- 
 ration, through which the idea of God should be 
 first conveyed. It is through the rising light 
 that the idea of the Father of lights should first 
 ascend into the souPs firmament, and thence 
 illumine all ideas and all knowledge beneath. 
 
 With some special care, almost any child might 
 be led to gaze at and admire the morning twi- 
 light and the mounting sun. If there is any 
 thing in all nature which can fasten his vision in 
 the intensest observation, it is this. He may be 
 pleased with the tree-blossom, or the flower from 
 the garden or field, or any other bright object ; 
 he may be amused, may be delighted, with these 
 beautiful little things : but it is not with such 
 that I would first associate the name of the great 
 and glorious God. The first and deepest impres- 
 sion of the Almighty Creator should not be with 
 what is little and pretty ; which can be held in 
 the hand, played with, and picked to pieces by the 
 fingers, and destroyed. No ; but carry him, as 
 early as he shall be able to individualize the 
 
OF THE CREATOR. 283 
 
 object, able to separate it from the horizon of 
 earth and sky, from contiguous cloud or hill, to 
 behold the rising sun. A child is attracted not 
 only by form and color, but by motion. Here 
 he beholds the most perfect form amid the most 
 charming hues, — a glory too mild to dazzle and 
 pain the eye ; and this, in grand magnificent 
 movement, a double enchantment to the fastened 
 gaze. Let this spectacle become a frequent and 
 a most desirable pastime to the opening, the ad- 
 miring, the wondering little soul. Then, when 
 there shall be sufficient maturity, choose the 
 most fitting opportunity — one when all the cir- 
 cumstances shall be most agreeable and appro- 
 priate — to pronounce the adorable Name, to- 
 gether Avith one of the greatest facts in creation, 
 as a remembrance. " God made the sun." Let 
 the child pronounce these words after you : 
 " God made the sun." He does not know yet 
 who God is. This knowledge will come in due 
 time. But the supreme Name is henceforth and 
 for ever associated with the most glorious ma- 
 terial creation. God made the sun. The first 
 eternal truth is written upon an imperishable 
 memory. Here begins that instruction in re- 
 ligion, in love, in devotion to God, which is to 
 consecrate and shed blessed influence upon all 
 
284 THE FIRST KNOWLEDGE 
 
 other instruction. This is the first opening of 
 the soul's temple for the Divinity to be there 
 enthroned for worship. Henceforth the name 
 God, caught by the infantile ear, will make im- 
 pression, and especially if heard in worship. The 
 child hitherto, in the family devotions, may have 
 been quiet, and as i£ seemingly listening ; but 
 the language of the service most probably slipped 
 over his ear, dropping nothing into his soul. The 
 holy names and titles were to him, perhaps, no 
 more than the most insignificant particles of 
 speech. But now the name of Him who made 
 the great round, bright, beautiful sun, coming 
 up in the east, surrounded by charming colors, 
 — that name will mean something, will be thought 
 of, will be remembered, felt. How reverently, 
 then, should it be spoken in the hearing of the 
 child I It may be well for him to observe that it 
 is pronounced with some nice peculiarity of 
 tone, separating it markedly from other words. 
 It should not be a tone to touch his spirit 
 with any thing like fear, any thing disagreeable, 
 or any thing ever afterward to be remembered 
 as out of taste, or not accordant with all gentle 
 or grand harmonies. Let there be no nasal 
 twang, no rougb or peculiarly odd pronunciation ; 
 let there be nothing which shall not afterwards 
 
OF THE CREATOR. 285 
 
 mingle sweetly with the very best melodies of 
 memory. Sometimes the speaking of a word, 
 with the slightest lowering and softening of the 
 voice, is impressive ; far more emphatic, indeed, 
 than force or loudness. There may be again the 
 least perceptible pause before utterance, so that 
 the holy Name shall stand out distinctly from its 
 connections more than the other words, and yet 
 not to such a degree as to cause any discordant 
 and inappropriate hiatus. Certain persons are 
 able to express humility, reverence, and love, all 
 combined, as they take the divine Name upon 
 their lips. This cannot be expected of all, any 
 more than that all should sing in perfection ; but 
 all who love their children, and feel that they 
 have the most sacred of all human duties to 
 perform toward them, can strive for the best 
 preparation, and can approximate perfection in 
 proportion to natural gifts and earnest endeavors. 
 There will come in connection those adjunc- 
 tive words, signifying the qualities and attributes 
 of the Divine ; such as the Almighty, the Most 
 High, the Eternal, the Most Holy, Gracious, 
 Blessed, together with others. A child cannot 
 at first receive the full meaning of these, any 
 more than he can take in the full idea of God. 
 It is not at all necessary that he should. As his 
 
286 THE FIRST KNOWLEDGE 
 
 mind opens, they will assume larger and larger 
 breadth in it, and deeper and deeper meaning, 
 taking hold of the affections. All these epithets 
 should be so used as to inspire the sincerest, the 
 very best devotion of the soul, the fullest rever- 
 ence and love. Almighty and most merciful 
 Q-od! — this phrase from the Christian ages often 
 makes the commencement of prayer. Infinite 
 power, with infinite tenderness, is attributed to 
 that one Being who alone can hear and answer 
 prayer to the uttermost. How should such an 
 expression be consecrated in the memory and 
 and the heart of a child ? The same may be said 
 of other sacred phrases. 
 
 There are the human appellations of the Deity, 
 more home-coming and heart-touching because 
 drawn from the analogies of the home and the 
 heart, — Our Father in heaven, or Our heavenly 
 Father. Some, perhaps, may prefer first to pre- 
 sent the idea of the Creator under one of these 
 phrases. They give to the child at once the idea 
 of love, gentleness, care, and protection, as far 
 as the parental title already stands for these qua- 
 lities in his apprehension. But, after all, this 
 Being is unseen, and can scarcely be compre- 
 hended thus early by these tender analogies. 
 He is yet a mystery ; and I should prefer to 
 
OF THE CREATOR. 287 
 
 have him presented first by a new and mysterious 
 name, God. The term " father " can be applied 
 to many all around, — to the vile, to the worst of 
 human beings : that of God belongs to the One. 
 That name can never belong to any other. Then 
 let that one Name be a central name in the firma- 
 ment of the understanding; the greatest, highest, 
 holiest, best ; even as that Being must be whom 
 it images forth. But the tenderer name of Fa- 
 ther, in due time, can be easily associated with 
 the Divine. In conversations about the loving 
 and beautiful character of God, he can be likened 
 to a Father in faithful care and tenderness. 
 There can be easily impressed upon the child all 
 that is most lovable, and best suited to bring 
 out toward the heavenly Parent his tenderest 
 aff'ections. His earliest prayer will be that which 
 belongs both to infancy and age, and all the life 
 between, — the all-comprehending one taught by 
 the Lord. Though the word " God " is not 
 expressed within its compass, yet the child will 
 readily associate our Father with that mysterious 
 name which is first and greatest in remem- 
 brance. 
 
 Besides the most majestic and appropriate 
 illustration of creative power and glory, various 
 other objects in nature should be made the me- 
 
288 THE FIEST KNOWLEDGE 
 
 diums of religious instruction. Perhaps the new 
 moon, as it appears after an interval, and which 
 is not, like the older moon, a repeated nightly 
 spectacle, might to the infant mind be one of the 
 best tokens of the Divine Power. The child may 
 hardly remember to have seen it the month be- 
 fore. There it is, the delicate crescent, a bright 
 silvery bow upon the edge of the golden, mellow 
 twilight. It is as if it had just been created, and 
 placed there by an invisible hand. How it attracts 
 and fastens the little wonderer's gaze I Let it be 
 said in due time, after the first great impression 
 from the monarch luminary, " God made the new 
 moon." 
 
 There, too, is the beaming, melting, richly flow- 
 ing evening star : let its brightness, its beauty, 
 its charmingness, fall into the tender memory 
 with the name of God. That is a most touching 
 instance of a child's startled apprehension of 
 creative power expressed in a sweet little 
 poem : — 
 
 " Presently, in the edge of the last tint 
 Of sunset, where the blue was melted in 
 To the faint golden mellowness, a star 
 Stood suddenly. A laugh of wild delight 
 Burst from her lips; and, putting up her hands, 
 Her simple thought broke out expressively, 
 ' Father, dear father, God has made a star! ♦ " * 
 
 * See " Sacred Poems," by N. P. Willis. 
 
OF THE CREATOR. 289 
 
 The whole starry host of the heavens, at a rightly 
 chosen occasion, should be made to uplift, to 
 solemnize, to fill the little mind with the power, 
 majesty, and glory of God. 
 
 But the earth is written all over with lessons 
 on the goodness and greatness of the Creator. 
 There are the flowers, with their beauty and 
 fragrance, whereby to express the blessed name 
 and character of God. There are the birds, all 
 life, motion, and music, through whom his name 
 and his praise may, as it were, be sung to the 
 delighted ear. Showers and rainbows; the forth- 
 putting verdure and foliage on field and forest 
 in the spring, as if an invisible worker every day 
 did more and more for the watching eye to ad- 
 mire, — these also may lift the thought toward 
 God. Little purling brooks, and great sweep- 
 ing rivers ; the soft, green hills, and the blue 
 and grand mountains ; the dark storm-cloud, the 
 swift lightning, and the thunder's marvellous 
 voice, — should all be made to tell of God. But, 
 if these mightiest exhibitions of nature should 
 speak in majesty, they should also be made to 
 utter forth the divine benignity and love. 
 
 Few children are permitted to look with their 
 early eyes upon the great and grandly impres- 
 sive ocean. Let such as are vouchsafed the 
 
 19 
 
290 TH£ FIRST KNOWLEDGE 
 
 spectacle associate it with Him who holds its 
 unsounded depths and sublime boundlessness in 
 the hollow of his hand. 
 
 The human being is, in his first consciousness, 
 surrounded by the divine works. They are the 
 first observed; they give the earliest impressions. 
 They should all of them be made to declare the 
 existence and character of G-od. But language 
 is to be used, and this by the Parent through 
 which these works are to address and instruct 
 the soul. As early as possible, and as much as 
 possible, this language should be that of God's 
 holy word. There are passages which beauti- 
 fully or grandly set forth the divine attributes. 
 The child has already, with his earliest utter- 
 ances, consecrated his innocent lips and his 
 opening soul with the prayer of the Lord Jesus. 
 Let him also commit to memory other precious 
 portions of Scripture. Before he shall have 
 learned to read, let the instruction, parents, be 
 distilled as heavenly dew from your own lips. 
 How it will fall upon his soul, and make it mel- 
 low and fruitful, even as the paths of God drop 
 fatness ! 
 
 The Old Testament, and especially the Psalms 
 and the Prophets, abound in allusions to God's 
 works and ways, and to his grand, his benignant, 
 
OF THE CREATOR. 291 
 
 his charming attributes. But it is in the New 
 Testament that are found the most inviting 
 attractions toward God. There is the dear, first- 
 learned prayer. There the Eternal and the Al- 
 mighty is more particularly presented as a tender 
 Father; and by whom? By Jesus, the Son, — 
 the blessed, the beloved, the most gentle and 
 compassionate, the most winning being ever seen 
 on earth in human form. Now, why shall not 
 the child commit to memory numerous passages 
 from all these sacred inspirations? With your 
 tender invitations, with your sweet encourage- 
 ments, with your own song-like lips, how much 
 might you lay upon his impressible memory before 
 he can even read ? This will shine out with more 
 and more meaning as years increase, and will 
 send gleam after gleam into his understanding, 
 and fervor upon fervor into his heart. Heed not 
 those, who, in this case, crj^ out against the use- 
 lessness and absurdity of words without know- 
 ledge. How many lessons do children study at 
 home, overlooked by the parent, how many more 
 at school, convej^ing scarcely an idea through 
 the hard, unintelligible terms! and yet no objec- 
 tion is made, because this is supposed to be edu- 
 cation. Is not religion also a matter of education? 
 and must its length, breadth, depth, and height 
 
292 FIRST KNOWLEDGE OF THE CREATOR, 
 
 be the only science which the young intellect is 
 required to see through at once, and thoroughly 
 to measure from side to side and from foundation 
 to .summit ? Let it not be asserted, that these 
 instructions from the sacred oracles are pecu- 
 liarly darkening or burdening to the young mind, 
 when so very much else is imposed, which, in sad 
 reality, is dry and hard and dark and burdensome'. 
 It will depend much on the manner of communi- 
 cation how it shall be received, and what effect 
 it shall have ; and, for this, your affection and 
 wisdom are responsible. It belongs to you, more 
 than to all the rest of the world, to make known^ 
 to the little ones waiting at your side, the glory 
 of God as declared in the Book of books. 
 
THE FIRST AND GREAT COMMANDMENT. 
 
 " Thou slialt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all 
 thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength." 
 
 With what cumulative and transcendent forc^ of 
 language is expressed the first and chief duty 
 of man ! The simple meaning doubtless is, that 
 he must love the Creator more than any crea- 
 ture ; he must love him supremely. To the Lord 
 our God, to the Giver of all good, to the Father 
 in the highest, belongs the strongest, the warm- 
 est, the most continually devoted love which is 
 possible to human capacity. 
 
 Of all the commandments of the Most High, 
 this is that one which should be most thoroughly 
 impressed in the education of the young. The 
 inculcation of it belongs to the heads of the family 
 above all other teachers, as indeed does all reli- 
 gious nurture. But how can parents invite and 
 train the child to love God supremely, when they 
 do not themselves believe in the reality of the 
 literal command, or in the possibility of fulfil- 
 
294 THE FIRST AND 
 
 ment? Let us now see how the case apparently 
 stands with many fathers and mothers of excel- 
 lent repute, and who are regular attendants on 
 Christian ministrations. If they should divulge 
 their secret sentiments, would not the exclama- 
 tion of each one be something like this? — ''How 
 is it possible to love a Being whom I cannot 
 touch, cannot see, cannot hear ; and who is infi- 
 nitely, awfully great, to a degree unspeakably 
 suiwjassing that with which I love my own near- 
 est personal relatives, whom I can see and con- 
 verse with, and who draw my heart to them by 
 attentions, kindness, and an undoubted love, 
 which they bestow on no other beings in the 
 world? I can entertain a degree of gratitude 
 toward the heavenly Parent ; at certain times, I 
 can feel even a warmer glow than this : but to 
 love the universal and invisible Spirit above ob- 
 jects seemingly nearer and more personal to me; 
 above friends, brothers, sisters, parents, children, 
 and even wedded partner; in a word, to love him 
 more than all these together, as seems to be im- 
 plied, — oh ! this is an utter impossibility. It 
 must be that the language is extremely figura- 
 tive, like much in the Scriptures; and, of course, 
 is not to be literally fulfilled." Surely, judging 
 from appearances, there prevails this utter un- 
 
GREAT COMMANDMENT. 295 
 
 belief in any positive ability fully to obey this 
 great leading law of both the Mosaic and the 
 Christian dispensations ; oi', if there is not a cold, 
 careless unbelief, there is a palsying despair of 
 the duty. There is at least an excessive indif- 
 ference to it. In this condition of mind, parents 
 cannot possibly train their children up to the 
 Scripture requirement of love to God. 
 
 Now, if there could once be a clear under- 
 standing and belief of an ability to love the Di- 
 vine Being above every other, would not the 
 difficulty of doing so grow less and less, and at 
 length entirely disappear? Would not parents 
 realize, that the greatest possible favor they 
 could confer on a beloved child would be the 
 development of this affection, which is to become 
 the essential life of the whole heart, soul, mind, 
 and strength of the man ? 
 
 It is proposed now to meet the case stated by 
 showing that we have a capacity to love God to 
 the degree expressed in the command ; and 
 that the language of Scripture, however strong 
 and superlative, is no more than commensurate 
 with the ability of fulfilment. We will first, how- 
 ever, dispose of a preliminary case. There is a 
 very large number of people, taking them as they 
 appear in the world around, who seem thus far 
 
296 THE FIRST AND 
 
 to have experienced no degree of love or grati- 
 tude at all toward their Creator. It must be 
 difficult for them to realize that they possess 
 even the feeblest ability in this direction. They 
 are yet to be convinced that they can love the 
 Lord their God in the least. We will first meet 
 their condition. In doing this, we shall be also 
 better prepared to convince and persuade those 
 who are partially experienced and are half-way 
 believers. 
 
 A little analogical reasoning will conduct to 
 the truth wanted. There are certain objects 
 around us here, toward which we indulge affec- 
 tionate feeling with different degrees of intensity 
 and pleasure, according to our nearer or more 
 remote relation. We love things inanimate, as 
 country, home, and possessions therein. Next, 
 we love friends, brothers, sisters, parents, chil- 
 dren, wedded companion. The affection toward 
 each one of these is different from that toward 
 each other, conferring a pleasure of different 
 kind and degree. The feeling toward inanimate 
 objects is unlike that toward living beings. 
 Friendship differs from the domestic loves ; and 
 these last are distinct one from another. There 
 seems to be an independent mental faculty, 
 through which each distinctive sentiment is 
 
GREAT COMMANDMENT. 297 
 
 exercised toward its appropriate object. Each 
 is a separate fountain of happiness, set in 
 the heart, and open to a perennial flow, if we 
 choose to give it tending. But in all reason, in 
 all consistency, must not another love be added 
 to the list? Can it be, that the infinitely Benefi- 
 cent should endow us with capacities to love and 
 be happy in each other ; indeed, to be attached 
 even to things without life ; and yet leave us 
 destitute of a capacity by which to love Him, the 
 Author and Giver of all, the souPs own Father 
 in the highest, the best of all beings, the love- 
 liest of all, and consequently, of all beings, the 
 most worthy of love ? Oh, no ! He whose high- 
 est attribute, whose innermost nature, is love, 
 would certainly crown the series of loves by 
 conferring the capacity to love himself, the pri- 
 mal source of love, in return. From the analogy 
 of the human constitution, therefore, and leaving 
 out of sight actual and individual experience, is 
 there not the strongest probability that we are 
 endowed with a distinct capacity appertaining to 
 the Divine Being, whose function it is to enter- 
 tain a special and a peculiar love toward him ? 
 Yes, we ca7i love him, in some measure at least, 
 because we were made to love him, as we love 
 our earthly parents, being constituted so as to 
 
29B THE FIRST AND 
 
 love them in return for tlieir affection toward 
 ourselves ; or as, indeed, we love any relative 
 with affection answering to affection. Must not 
 the mere intellect, which acknowledges a perfect 
 Creator, perceive by these analogies, that the 
 human creature would hardly be complete with- 
 out some sort of capacity to love him? With a 
 consistent view of human nature, the man who 
 could believe that he had no ability within him 
 to love God, must also believe that something 
 had been left out in his formation which ought 
 to have been put in ; or had been lost out of 
 sight, and was worth being sought for until 
 found. 
 
 We now come fairly to the all-important ques- 
 tion in the present case : To what degree are we 
 able to love Grod ? Can we love him with all the 
 heart and soul and mind and strength, according 
 to the commandment? Can we train our chil- 
 dren to this supreme affection? Have parents 
 this supposed excuse of inherent inability in 
 themselves and their offspring? Let us again 
 try analogy. In the several distinct relations of 
 life before mentioned, we naturally love the ob- 
 ject of each in a degree proportionate to the 
 nearness of that object in the series of relation- 
 ships. In a well-trained family, the affection 
 
GREAT COMMANDMENT. 299 
 
 between brothers and sisters is stronger than 
 that toward companions outside of tlio home. 
 The affection of children toward parents is 
 strono-er than that toward each other. The love 
 of parents toward children has a still stronger 
 hold on the heart. The love between parents 
 themselves, as husband and wife, if there be^ a 
 true marriage, surpasses all other feelings and 
 intimacies between fellow-creatures. Thus, as we 
 go from the lower to the higher relations, and as 
 the connection becomes more close and unbroken 
 and indispensably necessary in the constitution 
 of things, the more intense is the love. That 
 person on earth who is the nearest in relation- 
 ship, in place, and in intimacy, has the deepest 
 and most thorough hold on our nature. Now, 
 apply this rule of order, nearness, and intimacy, 
 a step farther. The next higher Being, and the 
 last, with whom we are in positive and certain 
 relations, is the very Lord God. He is not the 
 medium through which body and spirit come, 
 but the very source from which they come. He 
 is the Framer of the body, and the Father of the 
 spirit. His own life and love, wisdom and power, 
 are the essential origin of him who here appears 
 in his image and likeness. There is no relative 
 in the universe so near to man as the eternal 
 
300 THE FIRST AND 
 
 God. He is, in absolute truth, tlie everlasting 
 Father. Beyond all others, therefore, he must 
 necessarily be the highest, closest, best object 
 of the heart. If, then, the heart shall be con- 
 sistent with itself, true to its other relations, 
 according to their degrees, it will permit this 
 nearest, this first and eternal Relative to possess 
 its love to the uttermost. 
 
 Still further : in the domestic relations, we 
 ordinarily love, not only in proportion to the 
 constitutional nearness of the relative, but also 
 according to the opportunities for closeness, fre- 
 quency, and continuance of communion. It is not 
 necessary to run through these relations again. 
 Suffice it to say, that the heavenly Father is not 
 only actually nearer than any other being in the 
 universe, but he never departs from this near- 
 ness if we would but recognize it. He is the 
 ever-abiding centre and support of our nature. 
 He is the life of our life, the inmost spirit of our 
 spirit. Without his immediate and constant pre- 
 sence and power, we should fall to pieces as to 
 body, and our souls even would be annihilated. 
 We can go away from the nearest and dearest 
 earthly friend, — the earth's width may be be- 
 tween us ; but we cannot go away from God. 
 Were all the other inhabitants of the world dead, 
 
GREAT COMMANDMENT. 301 
 
 and myself should survive, one and alone, God 
 would be with me, the same as if my whole race 
 were still existent. He would necessarily con- 
 tinue to be my inmost life, my own personal, 
 infinitely loving, heavenly Father. I have, there- 
 fore, opportunities to commune with him, such 
 as I have with no other being. At all times and 
 in all places, he is with me, to be addressed, to 
 be realized, as the source of all supply, the 
 nearest and dearest of all friends. I have un^ 
 ceasingly open access to him ; I have infinite 
 opportunity. Why, then, should I not be able 
 to love him with all that intensity of feeling 
 expressed by the language of Holy Writ ? 
 
 Does not all analogy conduct not only to the 
 duty, but to the practicability of the duty, laid 
 upon the faculties ? If the divinely authoritative 
 Word commands that we must love, an utterance 
 from the secret depths of our own souls responds 
 that we can love the Lord our God more than all 
 beings beside.* 
 
 But let us pursue our analogy one step farther 
 still, and we shall arrive at a most important and 
 crowning inference. Our best happiness is in 
 those loving afiections which we have been tra- 
 cing, one above another, in our natures. Spring- 
 ing out of each kind of love, there is an enjoyment 
 
302 THE FIRST AND 
 
 less or more in measure, according to the lower 
 or higher character of the particular affection, 
 and also according to its weakness or strength, 
 or degree of development, in the individual soul. 
 Now, we have seen that love toward God ought 
 to be and can be the supreme affection ; indeed, 
 that no other affection can approach it in inten- 
 sity and power. This being so, then high, strong, 
 and absolutely supreme must be the happiness 
 flowing forth from the full exercise thereof. 
 From the inmost,' the mightiest, the sovereign 
 love must issue the highest felicity possible to 
 a child of God, even a sovereign blessedness. 
 
 If the foregoing course of thought is conclu- 
 sive, there must arise to any one seeking his 
 best good, and especially to the parental heart 
 bound up in dear offspring, this inquiry; viz.. 
 By what methods shall be developed this regal 
 affection, through which the soul attains to its 
 crowning bliss ? If we have any adequate idea 
 of the rich, the glorious object* in view, we 
 should be a contradiction to ourselves if we did 
 not seek the means of attainment. Considering 
 how we toil and struggle, and wrest both body 
 and soul, for things which are as grains of sand 
 to a kingdom's diadem, compared with the in- 
 heritance here presented, surely not to be awake 
 
GREAT COMMANDMENT. 303 
 
 to the worth of this pric ^'ess pv^session, and in 
 most ardent, , anxious'' inquiry how we shall 
 secure it, would - indicate that we are either 
 idiotic or insane! '-"I^Tes, here is human nature's 
 utmost possible g.ood, — the bhssfulness which 
 legitimately and necessarily flows from the in- 
 most, the deej)epit, the largest, the most celestial, 
 the most nearl'/ divine capacity in our frame. 
 The question i^ow is. How shall we open this 
 capacity 'at^^i^^^^ ^ blissfulness which more 
 than anything ^1?© verifies to man below the 
 lofty ejaculation, " In Thy presence is fulness of 
 joy • at T-^y right hand there are pleasures 
 
 for everiJQ^w'e " ? 
 
 j\^s fill along, we have found an analogy be- 
 tween- ■'^^6 particular religious affection in view 
 and ot'^sr affections, shall we not find a still far- 
 ther <*nalogy touching those means of develop- 
 men.t^'wMch we would now ascertain? Not only 
 our > affections, but all the various faculties of our 
 nati**^; li'®^6 I'eply ^nd instruct. 
 
 Qiuf powers generally become stronger and 
 stitJ*^^^ in proportion to u^. The body and 
 lidfli^,^ 'are- made robust and sinewy by ^abor. 
 rp^fl^^teljiect is strengthened by exercj se in 
 -tudy o^ in practical affairs. The elegant tastes 
 ^^lQ)j^.nhanced by cultivation. The conscieiice is 
 
304 THE FIRST AND 
 
 quickened an i^<=-?.arpe^ned by culture and use. 
 The social ai.^,^i^ons gro .t3^'|)j; reciprocal and re- 
 peated attentions. The d'-fjjjrjestic loves deepen 
 by ever-fresh _. iter change a \of tenderness. We 
 will illustrate, however^ ,i«fi>,r-^ ^t length by a 
 sentiment, which, in this c^»e[,|8 particularly 
 appropriate, — that of filial afig^tion. In what 
 manner is this excited, and m'4<£e. strong and 
 delightful ? Do not our own hftn^-tg. arid expe- 
 rience most clearly reply ? ItUi! l»^^.|3ei^g con- 
 stantly with parents, by receiviB'g-.i^nremitted 
 favors from their hands, by associg-^^pg things 
 given and acts done with the tend'^^ness of a 
 parent's love ; it is by keeping the hei^trt, as it 
 were, open to the reception of that; Daelt -jng ten- 
 derness which flows in the tones, streai^^g from 
 the eyes, and distils from the whole QOia-ntfevjiance 
 of these earliest and best friends, i-?n that* filial 
 love grows and is made strong. A goo<J ehi:((i is 
 in the constant exercise of filial emotions iiji^ind, 
 of course, there cannot but be a propor,tio*r^ate 
 development and sweet satisfaction of fher i|lial 
 heart. But suppose, if possible, that a aoHy^^er 
 receir ing favors from parents, should anost ?'5jften 
 asso'- te these favors with their terideiVness ,* 
 suppn e that he should not care for theii- ^^^z 
 pani If hip ; had as lief they would be ^st*^t af" 
 
GREAT COMMANDMElsJ. 305 
 
 present : would this son love -y; parents in 
 any degree commensurate wi >che affection 
 and the favors unceasingly bestr ed upon him ? 
 Certainly not. It is by frequent thinking about 
 and feeling toward the parental benefactors that 
 grateful love glows in the filial heart. 
 
 Finally, none of the faculties of our nature are 
 felt, none are a source of enjoyment, till they 
 are directed toward their appropriate 'objects, 
 and exercised, and are thereby put into process 
 of development. Now, let us apply these analo- 
 gies to our relation to the heavenly Parent. 
 Granting that we possess the strongest native 
 capacity to love God, must it not remain in em- 
 bryo, and be unfelt like the other affections, till 
 it is directed to its proper object, and is exer- 
 cised, is put to its intended use? Like them, 
 how can it arrive at its fullest felicity without a 
 conscious and close intimacy with that Being in 
 relation to whom it was especially implanted ? 
 Our heavenly Father may bestow on us all we 
 possess and enjoy ; on his own part, he may love 
 us and pity us to the utmost degree possible to 
 his infinite nature : yet, if we think not of him, 
 care not for him, hold no special communion 
 with him, of course it will be impossibl ' for us 
 to love him, and enjoy the blessedness sr 'aging 
 
 20 
 
306 THE FIRST AND 
 
 from this love. In this case, like all the others, 
 there must he use before there can be develop- 
 ment and strength, and the consequent delight- 
 ful results. 
 
 We have, then, the all-important truth, that it 
 is by exercising love toward God that it is 
 strengthened into power, so as to become su- 
 preme over all the other affections of the soul. 
 What, now, are some of the special methods of 
 cultivating this holiest and happiest affection 
 commanded in the divine Word, and confirmed 
 by the very design and structure of man? 
 
 We seek the methods of that blessed work to 
 be performed on ourselves and our families. We 
 would love the Lord our God with all our heart, 
 and with all our soul, and with all our mind, and 
 with all our strength. What shall we do? First, 
 this object of feeling being ever present in 
 the uttermost nearness to our souls, we must 
 cherish the consciousness of this fact of nearness 
 until his presence shall be as familiar to our 
 minds as the presence of parents is familiar to 
 children in the native home. How much do re- 
 flective and tenderly alfectioned children attri- 
 bute to faithful parental care ! It seems the very 
 light and warmth and life of the house. In earli- 
 est years, they go to sleep at night, and leave this 
 
GREAT COMMANDMENT. 307 
 
 care yet near and watchful. They awake in the 
 morning, and it is near and watchful still, as if 
 no rest had been taken by it, or had been needed ; 
 and it is at work now, as it had been from their 
 earliest remembrance, providing for their wants. 
 They find themselves every new day encom- 
 passed by love and thoughtfulness as by the 
 warmth and light. How tenderly they trust and 
 love tliis unfailing presence ! Now, just so should 
 we train our children and discipline ourselves to 
 regard the heavenly Parent's loving care. In 
 the first place, he gives us to each other in the 
 dear parental and filial ties. Indeed, he has 
 distilled from his own bosom into our bosoms 
 those sweet mutual affections with which they 
 continually overflow. Next, he provides for the 
 family wants, through the products of nature and 
 the strength of the parental frame, in a manner 
 without which we should all utterly perish. 
 How much reason, then, have we to feel, to 
 trust, to love, to rejoice in this presence, which 
 pervades and fills the whole home ; this Provi- 
 dence which never sleeps, although all other 
 eyes are sealed ; and which never shuts or 
 draws back its hand ! 
 
 Again : there are the divine works in nature ; 
 those through which sustenance and comfort 
 
308 THE FIEST AND 
 
 come to the body, through which instruction 
 comes to the understanding; those which dis- 
 play beauty, grandeur, and sublimity to the 
 admiring sense. If the works and gifts of rela- 
 tives and friends remind us of their kindness, 
 and are ever exciting grateful affections anew, 
 what should be the effect of works and gifts like 
 these ? The planets fail not to reflect the sun's 
 golden beam^ which they cannot help receiving ; 
 and why should not we be equally true to that 
 " Father of lights," from whom cometh down 
 every good and every perfect gift ? 
 
 The devout Catholic makes his prayers one 
 after another, according to the beads of his ro- 
 sary, and believes himself drawn nearer and 
 nearer to his God. To us and our children, cre- 
 ation is one boundless rosary, to lead on, and still 
 ever to lead on, our hearts in the grateful fervors 
 of devotion. Each individual object not only 
 reminds of duty, but, by its special formation and 
 use, should stir us to new emotions of adoring 
 love. It is the rosary of the Church universal, 
 and a gift from that common Father with whom 
 is no respect of persons. It begins with the 
 rocks and jewels of the mine, and is twined 
 million-fold through the kingdoms of nature 
 near; then it is wreathed in burning constella- 
 
GREAT COMMANDMENT. 309 
 
 tions 'above, and thence runs endlessly on before 
 the eye of wondering and worshipping disco- 
 very; held fast and for ever by the hand of 
 Him of whom it is written, " He telleth the 
 number of the stars ; he calleth them all by 
 their names." 
 
 In another place, the scriptural presentationfi 
 of the works of God are sufiSciently commended 
 to the heart and the memory. Here it may be 
 useful to add, that the poetry of our native lan- 
 guage is rich with allusions to the divine attri- 
 butes as manifested in nature. Sacred verse 
 especially abounds in such references as incite- 
 ments to devotion. The training of the young 
 to commit passages of this kind to memory would 
 be among the best benefits bestowed by parental 
 care. Early and peculiar associations, and an 
 abiding influence with which many doubtless 
 will sympathize, induce me to place here for 
 illustration a well-known hymn of Watts. It is 
 one of those w^hich he entitled " Divine Songs, 
 attempted in Easy Language for the Use of Chil- 
 dren." Indeed, if it is " in easy language," and 
 stoops to the simplicity of childhood, there is, 
 notwithstanding, no fulness of strength, no great- 
 ness of mind, which might not be caught up by 
 it, and borne away, as on cherubic wings, to con- 
 
310 THE FIRST AND 
 
 template the wonders of creation, and thus be 
 inspired to sing the power, wisdom, and good- 
 ness of the Creator. 
 
 * 
 
 "I sing the almighty power of God, 
 That made the mountains rise; 
 That spread the flowing seas abroad, 
 And built the lofty skies. 
 
 • I sing the Wisdom that ordained 
 
 The sun to rule the day: 
 The moon shines full at his command, 
 And all the stars obey. 
 
 I sing the goodness of the Lord, 
 
 That filled the earth with food: 
 He formed the creatures with his word, 
 
 And then pronounced them good. 
 
 Lord, how thy wonders are displayed. 
 
 Where'er I turn mine eye; 
 If I survey the ground I tread, 
 
 Or gaze upon the sky ! 
 
 There's not a plant or flower below 
 
 But makes thy glories known; 
 And clouds arise, and tempests blow. 
 
 By order from thy throne. 
 
 Creatures, as numerous as they be, 
 
 Are subject to thy care : 
 There's not a place where we can flee, 
 
 But God is present there." 
 
 Besides these inspirations from what is some- 
 times called the " elder Scripture," there is an- 
 other means of culture, which an illustration 
 may possibly present more forcibly to notice. 
 Suppose your earthly parent to pen a history of 
 
GREAT COMMANDMENT. 311 
 
 his life, embracing numerous acts of care and 
 love for yourself, for brothers and sisters, during 
 infancy, back beyond your own recollection ; and 
 also recording his various deeds of kindness, his 
 admonitions, his hopes, his fears, his many, many 
 trials, concerning his family during childhood 
 and youth up to maturity. Suppose there to be 
 an account, moreover, of his generous exertions 
 for many others ; of the part he had taken in 
 great enterprises of philanthropy ; of his en- 
 deavors in behalf of even the humblest and 
 remotest race of men. Besides all these narra- 
 tions of facts and circumstances, suppose there 
 to be intermingled various precepts of surpass- 
 ing wisdom and purity. Still farther : suppose 
 there to be interspersed among the pages poetic 
 effusions of transcendent beauty, pathos, and 
 sublimity ; effusions such as would take hold on 
 the heart, and abide in the memory, filling you 
 with the deepest sense of a genius consecrated 
 to the highest and holiest aims. Now, if a me- 
 morial, such as has been imagined, should be left 
 to be specially perused by your own eyes, and 
 affectionately kept by your own hands, would 
 you not prize it above every thing else which 
 should come as property from the parental 
 ownership? Would you not read it and read it 
 
312 THE FIRST AND 
 
 over and over again, commit much of it to me- 
 mory, get it by heart ? Would a sentence or a 
 line in that dear bequest escape your notice ? 
 Would you not feel that* your father's spirit 
 lived in every word? And in your repeated 
 perusals of these writings, and meditations on 
 their contents, as some new and precious mean- 
 ing should open on your apprehension, would 
 not your filial love kindle into renewed fer- 
 vency, and perhaps into a livelier glow than 
 ever before? * 
 
 Our heavenly Father, through his appointed 
 agents, has given such a record concerning him- 
 self. The parallel is, of course, not exact; but it 
 is sufficiently so for our purpose. The Bible is 
 filled with the revelations of his wisdom, with 
 the instances of his beneficent affection toward 
 his human offspring : its lyric and prophetic 
 pages are radiant with emanations from that 
 light which is inaccessible and full of glory. 
 The whole varied volume, while it is righteous, 
 august, awful, in authority and command, is also 
 abounding in expressions of loving-kindness, 
 tender mercy, unfailing compassion, and long- 
 suffering toward erring children. We know the 
 sacred contents: they need not be farther de- 
 scribed. Now, should you dwell on the varied 
 
GREAT COMMANDMENT. 313 
 
 and wonderful writings, so lay up the rich trea- 
 sures in your memory, so absorb their spirit 
 into your heart (as you doubtless would in the 
 previously imagined case), could it be otherwise 
 than that your love toward God would grow pro- 
 portionally intense, pervading and blessing your 
 soul with a heavenly felicity ? What amazing 
 providences from the beginning, onward, all con- 
 ducting to one grand result, — the deliverance of 
 man from the slavery, degradation, and misery 
 of sin ! What heights, what depths, what vast- 
 ness of wisdom and love, in the mission of the 
 Saviour Son ! And all this for you, your own par- 
 ticular self, and for each one of your children, 
 as much as for any one that has lived. Oh ! you 
 and they could not hold in conception all this, 
 could not realize it in heart, over and over, yea, 
 continually, as might be done, without a love to 
 the Lord God and Father of mercies, compared 
 with which your present feeble feelings are as 
 our spring's chilled and tardy vegetation com- 
 pared with the summer's deep luxuriance of ver- 
 dure and flowers. 
 
 Any opening of the soul to God in affection is 
 a worship of itself. Every filial emotion toward 
 the heavenly Parent, whether expressed or unut- 
 tered, and whenever it shall arise, is an approach 
 
314 THE FIRST AND 
 
 toward him. It is a coming nearer and nearer 
 to that conjunction of the finite spirit with the 
 Infinite Spirit, in which alone there is perfect 
 fruition. But there is a special and all-important 
 influence to this end in definite and stated devo- 
 tions. Let us now, then, more particularly con- 
 sider that increase of loving piety which comes 
 from the concentration of heart and soul and 
 mind toward God in regularly recurring acts of 
 worship. 
 
 It is a law of our nature, that, in relation to 
 our friends, the more we express our sincerely 
 kind feelings in language, and more especially 
 in friendly acts, the more our afi'ection deepens, 
 the more fully does it possess the bosom. The 
 efibrt of expression concentrates attention on the 
 object, for some brief time at least, shutting out 
 other things. Now, toward God we can per- 
 form no deed of charity ; we can do nothing which 
 is of the least benefit to him. With the excep- 
 tion of general obedience to his laws, we can 
 outwardly manifest our hearts toward him only 
 by acts and words of worship. But these acts 
 and words are of the utmost importance to our 
 spiritual life. In the same manner as expres- 
 sions of kindness towards friends deepen that 
 friendly love, as before mentioned, so does true 
 
GREAT COMMANDMENT. 315 
 
 worship quicken and deepen those feelings which 
 spring from our relation to God. In the per- 
 formance of this service, all other subjects being 
 shut out from the mind, the religious faculties 
 for the time are in earnest, unhindered action. 
 They become stronger by the exercise, as any of 
 the other faculties become stronger as they are 
 put more and more to use. With this view, what 
 encouragement to express our child-like love in 
 frequent acts of devotion ! 
 
 First, in private prayer. Let every rising day 
 excite a lively gratitude to the unslumbering 
 Guardian of the night, who has preserved us 
 from harm during the senselessness and help- 
 lessness of sleep, and who is now the strength 
 of the frame for another day's activity. Let a 
 Christian poet's fire kindle the heart's earliest 
 offering : — 
 
 " To prayer, to prayer! for the morning breaks, 
 And earth in her Maker's smile awakes: 
 His light is on all, below and above, — 
 The light of gladness and life and love. 
 Oh ! then, on the breath of this early air 
 Send upward the incense of grateful prayer." * 
 
 Again : new and distinct instances of providen- 
 tial goodness may occur during the day. Why 
 
 * Henry Ware, jun. 
 
316 THE FIRST AND 
 
 should not each one elicit silent thanks, if not 
 loudly ejaculated words ? Should we not thank 
 a fellow-mortal for inferior favors ? We should 
 certainly habituate our children to grateful ex- 
 pressions for occasional kindnesses of friends : 
 why, then, should we not habituate them to a 
 fresh renewal of devout gratitude to the all- 
 gracious Friend for every new and distinct token 
 of his goodness ? ^' Seven times a day do I 
 praise thee, because of thy righteous judg- 
 ments," saith the Psalmist. 
 
 The season of rest again returning, let there 
 be another act of devotion for the mercies of the 
 closing day, and for the felt confidence that 
 the same omnipotent care will preserve now in 
 sleep as in nights before. Let the Christian 
 poet before quoted aid into flame our evening 
 sacrifice : — 
 
 " To prayer! for the glorious sun is gone, 
 And the gathering darkness of night comes on : 
 Like a curtain, from God's kind hand it flows 
 To shade the couch where his children repose. 
 Then kneel while the watcliing stars are bright, 
 And give your last thoughts to the Guardian of night." 
 
 There is one simple stanza which has come down 
 from generation to generation in the religious 
 training of the family. Millions of children 
 doubtless have dropped into helpless uncon- 
 
GREAT COMMANDMENT. 317 
 
 sciousness as this passed out of the memory, 
 yea, out of the heart over the lips. John 
 Quincy Adams avowed in his old age, that this 
 little verse, taught him in childhood by his 
 tender, faithful mother, had been the prayer 
 with which he had fallen to his nightly rest ever 
 since. The chief ruler of a great nation could 
 not dignify this prayer by the continued use of 
 it in his age ; but the use of it dignified him. 
 He who humbled himself to be even as a little 
 child was certainly exalted by so doing to be a 
 shining central example to a whole nation of 
 fathers, mothers, and children, through all com- 
 ing time."^ 
 
 Next, there is social worship ; first and espe- 
 cially, that at the domestic altar. Friends, do 
 you really desire for yourselves and your children 
 to grow in a beatific love toward God ? If so, 
 then, as families, daily unite in a common thanks- 
 giving for common favors, and particularly for 
 family blessings. Let these clustered hearts thus 
 statedly and feelingly express a piou§ gratitude 
 that they are bound together in kindred ties, are 
 a mutual good, and are enclosed in one dear, de- 
 lightful home ; and this service shall certainly 
 
 * " Now I lay me down to sleep," &c. 
 
318 THE FIRST AND 
 
 nurture that holiest love, which, as itself be- 
 comes supreme, shall more and more sanctify and 
 enhance all the rest. 
 
 Lastly, there is the public worship of the sab- 
 bath. If the previous suggestions have been 
 appreciated, it must be perceived that the ser- 
 vices of the sanctuary are a farther and all- 
 important means for the development of religious 
 love. Here, one individual at the pulpit leads 
 the thoughts and feelings of the congregation. 
 "Whether they follow or not, this common organ 
 of utterance proceeds. The more faithful the 
 audience is to this guidance, and the more 
 effectually adoring love is exercised and deve- 
 loped, the more speedily and certainly will that 
 sovereign affection be attained, out of which 
 is to spring the supreme felicity of the soul. 
 Every appropriate word, then, either of hymn 
 or prayer, should be heard, and its import felt. 
 No expression should be lost to the ear, and no 
 meaning to the heart, any more than should be 
 lost on the learner of music any note from the 
 intent instructor. 
 
 Let the duty be brought more closely home 
 by an illustration. Suppose you have a son at 
 school. Imagine word to be brought that this 
 dear child neglects his lessons, — is an idler. 
 
GREAT COMMANDMENT. 319 
 
 You are surprised, filled with regret, and hasten 
 to the remedy. You admonish, and, if need be, 
 tearfully beseech him. You make the most 
 earnest appeals to his heart not to neglect those 
 exercises by which his powers are to be strength- 
 ened, and by which he is to be prepared for 
 business, for respectability, and for greater en- 
 joyment in life. You persevere till he reforms. 
 But oh! parent, give heed to the admonition, and 
 be meek. How much more neglectful and guilty 
 are you, perhaps, than this listless boy, too young 
 to appreciate his privileges ! Are not you your- 
 self an idler in another school ? And, what is 
 more, do you not set a pernicious example to 
 your own child, and make him and keep him an 
 idler too ? The sanctuary of public worship is 
 the great " common school " of the religious af- 
 fections. Here is an institution whose builder 
 and maker is God ; and his gracious providence 
 has brought you thereto. Here Infinite Mercy 
 has appointed, that the noblest capacities of the 
 soul shall be developed and trained into glorious 
 strength, — capacities which most nearly ally us 
 to the angels, and, more than all, enable us to hold 
 communion with the Eternal and the Most High. 
 This seminary especially provides for the cul- 
 ture of that loftiest, holiest attribute of the soul, 
 
320 THE FIRST AND 
 
 — love to God. Here the spirit may drink of the 
 deepest, fullest, sweetest fountain of good, even 
 "joy in the Holy Ghost." Oh, what is the edu- 
 cation of intellect, that it may grasp worldly 
 riches, power, or fame, to this education, which, 
 in the present life, bestows the soul's crowning 
 felicity, and prepares for ecstatic love and bless- 
 edness in the life everlasting ! 
 
 "We now come to the last and most effectual 
 means of developing the commanded love toward 
 the Lord God : it is prayer. In the stated de- 
 votional exercises already considered, — those at 
 the family altar and in the public sanctuary, — 
 this particular blessing, nearness and love to 
 God, would, of course, come in with other sub- 
 jects of prayer ; but, besides these, the indivi- 
 dual soul, feeling its own needs, its own faintings 
 and yearnings for the highest good, should alone 
 by itself make earnest and continuous entreaty 
 for the direct aid of the Holy Spirit toward this 
 crowning attainment in the religious life. Truly, 
 if assistance in any case is vouchsafed in answer 
 to supplication, it. must be to enhance, with an 
 endless and boundless increase, that love which 
 is the supreme, ineffable delight of the soul, and 
 which, more than any one thing else, was the 
 Creator's end in making man in his own image 
 
GREAT COMMANDMENT. 321 
 
 and likeness. Of all bestowments, those belong- 
 ing to the inner man are especially to be sought 
 in prayer, and are most bountifully received in 
 answer. Of such favors, nothing can be more 
 readily, tenderly, and largely given than that 
 most perfect of all the perfect gifts from above, 
 — the ability to love the all-gracious Giver him- 
 self. What, then, have Christian believers to 
 do but to ask and receive, and to teach and 
 train their children to ask, so that they may be 
 as richly and blessedly answered ? It is indeed 
 for the sake of your children, dear friends, that 
 the attempt has been made to show through 
 analogy the highest human capacity, and to pre- 
 sent the various methods of development. It is 
 for those you hold dearest that the culture of 
 this capacity has been urged on yourselves. 
 No one can train another with fullest success to 
 love that which he does not himself love. It is 
 for this reason, that, in this special topic of re- 
 ligious education, your own spiritual improve- 
 ment and felicity have been blended with those 
 of your children. If you have been addressed 
 with more personal directness than may seem 
 befitting, if you have been preached to, it was 
 in the sincere and deep conviction, that this 
 " foolishness of preaching '' to the parent would 
 
 21 
 
322 THE FIRST AND 
 
 best induce practical and effective wisdom to* 
 ward the child. 
 
 In closing, permit one more earnest appeal. 
 Oh for the power adequately to set forth the im- 
 mensity of blessing to come through entire obe- 
 dience to " the first and great commandment " I 
 Let all that is beautiful and glorious in creation 
 be displayed to the opened and enraptured vision 
 of one who had been blind from infancy, let the 
 mingled melodies and harmonies of a thousand 
 music-choirs steal upon the unstopped ear of 
 one born deaf, and the ecstasy of delight would 
 but feebly illustrate the deep, the thrilling, the 
 ecstatic bliss, the angel-like joy, which comes 
 from, which indeed is a portion of, loVe toward 
 God. Eange through all the mineral kingdom, 
 and find gems such as royal treasures only can 
 purchase, and present them to the dazzled vi- 
 sion, to the eager acceptance, and you offer 
 nothing of such transcendent worth as this affec- 
 tional crown of man's whole nature, this more 
 than regal glory, this love towards the Infinite 
 in love. 
 
 Should you turn your child out among stran- 
 gers, should you disinherit him in your will, 
 you could not cause him so wide, deep, dark an 
 abyss of privation as the withholding the nur- 
 
GREAT COMMANDMENT. 323 
 
 tiire of this greatest and strongest, this sove- 
 reign of all the loves. A child cast among 
 strangers might find hospitality and friendship, 
 and his own hands might earn a support. If 
 you cut him off from your estate, he might per- 
 haps be saved from indolence and dissipation by 
 such loss, and become rich through his own 
 suflScient energies. But, ah ! who can open the 
 inmost, the deepest, the most hidden capacity of 
 his soul, like yourselves ? Cold strangers will 
 not do ii. The world does it not. The one 
 hour of one day in the week at the Sunday school 
 cannot do it as you might, — you, who are with 
 him from the first opening of his senses, the 
 first thinking of his intellect, the first emotion 
 of his heart ; you, whose smile brings his earliest 
 smile, whose love wins forth his earliest love. 
 Yes, you yourselves have opportunities to show 
 him the smile on the countenance of the High- 
 est, and the love which lights up that face of 
 Glory, such as are vouchsafed to no other beings 
 in all the universe beside. 
 
 Why is it, that with such a capacity, with 
 such countless incitements to the unfolding, 
 there is so little love toward God in the Chris- 
 tian world ? It is because the poor child has 
 been neglected, and by none comparatively so 
 
324 THE FIRST AND 
 
 much as by his own father and mother. It is 
 because these relatives themselves have been 
 neglected by their own parental predecessors. 
 Thus the spiritual desolation has come down, 
 and still continues, just as intellectual barren- 
 ness continues from generation to generation 
 where there are no schools or books. Just as 
 some neighborhood remains in vulgar ignorance, 
 so do thousands of families in our Christian 
 civilization remain in irreligiousness, and es- 
 pecially without that inmost and best life of 
 religion, — love toward God. Just as some 
 settlement in the wilderness, or hamlet among 
 the difficult hills, has long waited for the en- 
 lightened, the progressive, the successful in- 
 structor, so has the lineage of the family been 
 waiting for that parental teacher and renovator, 
 who should inaugurate a new epoch, a new life, 
 a new joy, to those of his name. 
 
 Readers, parents, what say you ? Shall '^ the 
 first and great commandment," which left the 
 Saviour's lips nearly two thousand years ago, 
 and has wandered so long amid God's children, 
 and found so little obedience, so little know- 
 ledge of it, so little faith in it, so little thought 
 Qf it, — shall it strike upon your own line, enter 
 your own home, and you, like the rest, continue 
 
GREAT COMMANDMENT. 325 
 
 as those " who, seeing, see not ; and, hearing, 
 hear not, and neither do understand"? 
 
 Would that these humble arguments and ap- 
 peals might induce some to feel for themselves 
 and for their children that longing for love 
 toward God, that thirst for a union with him 
 and blessedness in him, which is as the hart's 
 panting for the water-brooks, and which is well 
 expressed in the deep pathos of a prayerful 
 hymn ! — 
 
 " Oh that my heart were right with Thee, 
 And loved Thee with a perfect lovel 
 Oh that my Lord would dwell in me, 
 And never from his seat remove i 
 
 Father, I dwell in mournful night 
 Till thou dost in my heart appear: 
 Arise, propitious Sunl and light 
 An everlasting morning there- 
 
 Oh! let my prayer acceptance find, 
 And bring the mighty blessing down: 
 Eyesight impart, for I am blind; 
 And seal me thine adopted sou." 
 
 Many readers will not need the analogical 
 argument which has been presented. It is 
 enough for them that they are commanded in 
 the divine TVord to love the Lord their God 
 supremely. They have the faith that no duty 
 
326 THE FIRST AND 
 
 would be there imposed which they are unable 
 to fulfily although as yet they have not come up 
 to the mark of perfect obedience. Again : they 
 aver that the' experiences of thousands of Chris- 
 tians bear sufficient witness to the reality of the 
 blessedness which comes from love to God. 
 " There is no need of tracing analogies/' say 
 they; " there is bo need of reasoning : here are 
 palpable and incontrovertible facts." But even 
 to these readers it may be replied, that the 
 preceding course of thought may be of use 
 nevertheless. There may come upon them 
 dark seasons- of discouragement : even they may 
 question whether apparent facts may -not be 
 illusions. They may be tempted even to the 
 thought, that the Scripture language, in its 
 mighty strength, is, after all, but an impres'sive 
 figure of speech ; and their own short-comings 
 and seeming inability to rise to the height re- 
 quired may seem ample confirmation. In the 
 state of mind supposed, will any one aver that 
 our analogical reasoning will not be of some 
 avail in^ sustaining the sinking spirit ? 
 
 Still farther, these friends will occasionally 
 meet those who distrust all these avowed expe- 
 riences of love, and consequent satisfactions. 
 Their objections occupy so large a space before 
 
GREAT COMMANDMENT. 327 
 
 their mental sight, that well-substantiated facts 
 are but little seen. How useful, then, to the 
 positive believers in the commands and promises 
 of the Word may be the analogical argument ! 
 Its thread can be shown to the doubter to begin 
 in the hidden depths of his oAvn nature, and to 
 run thence up to that perfect love which cast- 
 eth out fear, and admits only joy and peace. 
 All truths are consistent one with another. It 
 is the part of wisdom, then, to meet the objector 
 on his own ground, with some positive truth 
 fairly acknowledged. Thence, if candid, he 
 may be led to those higher and more interior 
 views, of which, at first, he had no true and 
 clear conception. It is hoped, therefore, that 
 those who may not need this analogical leading 
 to the truth will nevertheless accept it, and 
 apply it to use where it may really be wanted. 
 
 And, now, will the friends whose case was 
 attempted to be met in the outset permit me to 
 address them directly once more ? You have 
 seen, how that, in the very structure of your 
 mental constitution, there must be the capacity 
 to love God, the source of love ; to love him 
 more than any other being can be loved, as 
 being nearest to the soul, not only in relation- 
 ship, but in that position, as it were, which is 
 
328 THE FIRST AND 
 
 most favorable to the closest and most constant 
 intimacy. Why, then, will not your candor, 
 with your reason, accept as positive facts the 
 avowed experiences so numerously presented in 
 the various churches ? There are some, who, 
 in their perfect sincerity and unsuspecting sim- 
 plicity, express their religious fervors without 
 restraint, whether there be few or many to hear. 
 It may be in rude outbursts of prayer, in lan- 
 guage unreJBned and ungrammatical, or in exult- 
 ant song without melody ; but all this is no 
 evidence that their experience is not real. The 
 jars upon your refinement, the disgusts of your 
 taste, should not blind you to a principle and to 
 a deep want of your own nature. You have 
 but to extend your acquaintance with truly 
 Christian people to find many whose hearts fer- 
 vently but steadily glow with the greatest love 
 possible to the soul, and who possess a peace 
 which passeth understanding; but they make 
 but little outward demonstration. Perhaps they 
 are hardly distinguished from other respectable 
 and orderly people, who are altogether below 
 their high mark of Christian attainment. With 
 them, truly the kingdom of God cometh without 
 observation. It comes to them more especially 
 unobserved, because there is so much room for 
 
GREAT COMMANDMENT. 329 
 
 it freely to occupy. It is to sucli believers that 
 you are invited to look for the best evidences of 
 joy in believing. In the inquiry-meeting and 
 the conference-room, there are presented every 
 week the incidents of religious experience, could 
 you be there to hear. The narrators are evi- 
 dently sincere. The instability of some of them, 
 the returning of some to their past sensual life 
 as the swine to her wallowing, is no proof of 
 insincerity : it is rather a proof of the strength 
 of depraved appetite and passion, and the weak- 
 ness of the conscience and the will as to better 
 things. Besides those, few or many, who endure 
 but for the moment, who blaze suddenly out 
 and are as suddenly extinguished, how many 
 there are who shine on more and more brightly, 
 even toward the settled and perfect day ! 
 
 As an illustration of a religious experience, 
 will these friends accept the following trust- 
 worthy statement of facts ? The narrator was a 
 personal friend of my own, and belonged to one 
 of the most liberal Christian denominations. 
 His profession was that of the law; and he 
 seemed to carry his cool, clear, legal habit of 
 intellect into theological inquiry. In some of 
 his views he was indeed quite radical ; yet he 
 was obliged to acknowledge the evidences of 
 
330 THE FIRST AND 
 
 his own heart. He was a devoted Sunday-school 
 teacher, and gave me the account in the course 
 of an incidental conversation appertaining to the 
 matters of the school. I may not repeat the ex- 
 act language of my friend ; but I give the 
 facts correctly, I think, as I recall them to me- 
 mory, at the present writing, after an interval of 
 many years. 
 
 " Several years ago, the people of the town in 
 which I resided were proposing to hold a four- 
 days' meeting to produce a revival of religion. 
 I thought that this was not the way to obtain 
 religion, and I very earnestly opposed the mea- 
 sure. I conversed and reasoned with my neigh- 
 bors a great deal on the subject. Nevertheless, 
 the meetings were held; but I did not attend 
 them myself. In the mean time, I still presented 
 my views in opposition as I had opportunity. I 
 could not, of course, but think a great deal 
 about God, my heavenly Father, and of his cha- 
 racter; and read my Bible, from which I drew 
 my own theology, the same as my neighbors did 
 theirs. At length came the sabbath. I did not 
 attend meeting, but staid at home alone. My 
 thoughts were on the great subject which occu- 
 pied the people generally, — God and religion. 
 All at once, to my utter astonishment, I was 
 
GREAT COMMANDMENT. 331 
 
 taken with a most extraordinary experience. I 
 had a sort of unaccountable influx into my mind 
 of love to God. It was a feeling almost ecstatic, 
 yet calm and still, but deep. At the same time, 
 I felt a peculiar affection toward my neighbors, 
 toward everybody. Indeed, I experienced pre- 
 cisely what my neighbors were holding their 
 four-days^ meeting to obtain. 1 felt what I did 
 not believe myself capable of before. It was 
 an approach' toward the fulfilment of the com- 
 mand, ' Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with 
 all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all 
 thy mind, and with all thy strength.' I held no 
 more controversy about revivals. I opposed 
 them no longer; for I had a revival of my 
 own." 
 
 Such is the statement of my own personal 
 friend, whom I should no more think to doubt 
 than to doubt myself. He made no comments 
 on his experience ; he could not himself explain 
 it: he simply oflfered it as a spiritual fact. To 
 me, however, it shows that an earnest, intense, 
 and continuous contemplation of God, the open- 
 ing of the soul toward him, without ceasing, 
 from day to day, the yearning after him, the 
 prayer to him, will accomplish in brief space for 
 the adult man or woman, hitherto neglectful, 
 
332 THE FIRST AND 
 
 that which ought to have been in process 
 through long educational years. But from this 
 let there be no argument or excuse for neglect. 
 How few there are out of the multitude of the 
 neglected and tfie neglectful who come at length 
 to this blessed recognition of God, of supreme 
 love toward him, and of the believer's joy I The 
 true doctrine is, to educate the child from the 
 beginning into Christian knowledge, faith, hope, 
 love, and fruition. In this, the aid bf the Holy 
 Spirit is to be distinctly and emphatically recog- 
 nized. All the human faculties are of God's 
 creating ; and, without the actual presence and 
 sustaining power of his influence every moment, 
 there would be no body, no mind, no faculties at 
 all. Every thing would fall into nothingness. 
 In respect to those capacities, however, which 
 have immediate relation to spiritual and to hea- 
 venly things, it seems to me that there is a 
 direct and immediate action of a heavenly in- 
 fluence, or of the " Holy Spirit." The truth 
 may be illustrated in this way : A child may 
 admire a flower or any other charming object, 
 and say, " Oh, how beautiful ! how I love it ! " 
 while the parent has but a distant and imperfect 
 sympathy, although the object may be a gift 
 from his own hand. But if that same child shall 
 
GREAT COMMANDMENT. 333 
 
 express an earnest, deep, and most tender love 
 to the parent, and this directly to his listening 
 ear, and with a looking-up to his own bending 
 countenance, he answers back with an earnest, 
 deep, and most tender love in return. He can 
 hardly help it. The inmost, the ever-abiding 
 law of the spiritual nature is, " Ask, and ye shall 
 receive ; seek, and ye shall find." This applies 
 to the finite relations, and it equally applies to 
 the infinite. Now, the child is not able of him- 
 self, without instruction, to feel the afiection 
 toward the heavenly Parent. He must know 
 him and what he has done, and how good, how 
 tenderly kind, he is, before he can love him. 
 The fixed conditions of the child's nature must 
 be regarded in the higher as well as in the lower 
 activities. It is your duty, therefore, parent, to 
 assist your child in his religious development as 
 you would in the discipline of the other several 
 various faculties of his nature. In regard to 
 those exercises appertaining to the highest ob- 
 ject of affection, there will be at length a con- 
 scious meeting of spirit with spirit, of love with 
 love. The child's heart will find, as it were, the 
 heart of the heavenly Parent, that is, will be 
 conscious of his spirit, with an unspeakable joy, 
 yet all in perfect accordance with that divine 
 
334 THE FIRST AND GREAT COMMANDMENT. 
 
 order and harmony which run through the uni- 
 verse. When we shall come to understand the 
 laws of the spiritual creation as we do those of 
 the material, we shall say these things must have 
 been thus in the very necessity of things. 
 
 Now, I believe in the influx of the very spirit 
 and life of God upon the young soul in its pro- 
 cess of religious development. If the child 
 shall be shown God's works, such as the sun, 
 the stars, and the flowers, and thus be made to 
 think lovingly of the greatness and goodness of 
 the Maker, there will steal in upon him a secret 
 heavenly influence, nurturing his germinant af- 
 fections. In the progress of culture, as God's 
 works in nature, and ways in providence, shall 
 be still further displayed ; and especially as his 
 tender compassions in salvation shall be made 
 known ; and, still more, as confiding and earnest 
 prayer shall become an habitual exercise, — why 
 shall not the holy regenerating Spirit descend in 
 greater and greater plenteousness, until there 
 shall be a growth "unto a perfect man, — unto 
 the measure of the stature of the fulness of 
 Christ"? 
 
THE CHILD'S FIRST IDEAS OF JESUS. 
 
 Jesus Christ, next to God the Father, should 
 occupy the child's mind more than any other 
 being in the reception of religious impressions. 
 How important, then, that he should be pre- 
 sented in such a manner as not only to affect 
 the memory, but to touch the heart I Before the 
 child is able to read, he can hear and understand 
 about Jesus. Why, parent, should you not 
 make it a study to impart to him his first ideas 
 of the Saviour, and in such a manner as to be 
 engaging, and even delightful, to his little soul ? 
 How careful are you to be qualified in every 
 thing appertaining to the business by which you 
 live, and accumulate wealth ! But is not your 
 first business, your highest, your best duty, to 
 educate your child, to bring him to God and 
 to a heavenly eternity, and this through Jesus 
 Christ? How careful are you, mother, about 
 household affairs, and especially the comfort of 
 
336 THE child's first ideas of JESUS. 
 
 your children ! how anxious that they should be 
 cleanly and tasteful at the sabbath school and 
 the church I But how infinitely above all this is 
 your duty to the child's imperishable soul, to 
 the understanding that must have truth, to the 
 memory that must retain it, to the heart that 
 must feel and be moved by its power ! It is for 
 you to give the first, deepest, holiest, best ideas 
 of him who said, " Suffer the little children to 
 come unto me, and forbid them not ; for of such 
 is the kingdom of God." This yearning tender- 
 ness has flowed from that heart of immeasurable 
 love, through the many centuries, a living 
 stream ; and now, parent, shall your own heart, 
 like a rock in the way, turn it aside from your 
 child ? Or, rather, the Lord Jesus Christ from 
 the heavens at this very moment sends down 
 the holy stream of his grace to these dear sub- 
 jects of the kingdom ; but it must first fall into 
 your own bosom, there to become a well of liv- 
 ing water, and thence to spring up into the life, 
 the everlasting life, of your little ones. 
 
 A personal appeal has just been made to the 
 mother ; but it can hardly be said which parent 
 is most sacredly bound in this momentous charge 
 of the earliest Christian instruction. Let both 
 be faithful. Sometimes one, sometimes perhaps 
 
THE child's first IDEAS OF JESUS. 337 
 
 the other, will have better gifts for earliest com- 
 munication. Let Providence order which shall 
 have the precedence. That same Jesus said, 
 " What God hath joined together, let not man 
 put asunder." It is worthy of note, that this 
 was uttered in connection with the beautiful 
 incident of blessing the children, as recorded in 
 the Gospel of Mark. So let not those conjoined 
 in parentage be put asunder in the training of 
 their common offspring, and especially in that 
 religious culture, which, above every thing else, . 
 is of momentous import to the child. Both, 
 therefore, are entreated to make it a special 
 study, how to instruct the child in religion, and 
 especially how to unfold to him the wonderful 
 life, works, and character of Jesus, the Christ. 
 If you are of religious habits, your child must 
 have heard you read of Jesus Christ in the 
 Bible, utter his name in prayer, and speak 
 of him in religious conversation. He must, 
 therefore, necessarily have some faint idea of a 
 person held in reverence and love. Various 
 will be the impressions on different minds of 
 the same age, according to constitutional capaci- 
 ties and idiosyncrasies ; but still, at some parti- 
 cular and well-chosen time, you are to impart 
 the first specific instruction concerning this 
 
 22 
 
338 THE child's first ideas of JESUS. 
 
 wonderful being, the Son of the " almighty and 
 most merciful God." 
 
 Children are, in general, tenderly and deeply 
 interested in infants. Perhaps, therefore, the 
 best method of introducing the learner to the 
 character of Jesus would be to begin with 
 the circumstances of his birth and the condition 
 of his infancy. Let the account of Luke make 
 the commencement. There are the shepherds, 
 keeping watch over their flock by night ; then 
 the coming of the angel with his good tidings 
 of great joy ; next the sudden presence of the 
 heavenly host, and their song of praise and 
 glory to God. On how many millions of little 
 minds has some Christmas hymn deepened the 
 impression of the Gospel-story ! If it could be 
 given to the ear also through the attractive 
 melody of pious lips, there will be an added 
 charm. If possible, then, let the story come, not 
 only through rhyme and rhythm to the little 
 soul, but also through song ; but, if this cannot 
 be done by yourself, you may at least softly, 
 sweetly, reverently read the simple narrative in 
 the Bible. How glad will the child be, when 
 he shall be able himself to read, to find with his 
 own eyes, in the book, the very same words 
 which he had first heard from the lips of love ! 
 
THE child's first IDEAS OP JESUS. 339 
 
 Then come the scenes of " the babe lying in 
 a manger/' and of the wondering shepherds; 
 and, as related in another Gospel, of the star- 
 guided and worshipping wise men, and their 
 singular gifts. The various incidents, however, 
 need not be further indicated. There they are 
 on the sacred page, for the little soul to be filled 
 with them to the full. 
 
 Wonder is a mental emotion most easily ex- 
 cited in a child. He loves to wonder. How, 
 then, will the miracles of Jesus lift him up to 
 the mysterious, the incomprehensible ; fill him 
 with wonder at the same time that they touch 
 his heart with gratitude, with love, with a deep 
 reverence toward the doer of mighty and 
 marvellous works ! A child's sympathy is most 
 easily brought out at the sight of human pain 
 or any kind of, trouble. How he will weep, how 
 he will stretch out his own little hands to help, 
 how he will run to and fro to get the assistance 
 of others, when there is some sudden exhibi- 
 tion of suffering ! Now, take advantage of this 
 characteristic. Can you not make the child 
 realize the pains, the various sufferings, of those 
 miserable human beings Jesus so compassion- 
 ately, so tenderly healed? Can you not portray 
 to his mind's eye the Divine Healer, self-pos- 
 
340 THE child's first ideas of JESUS. 
 
 sessed and serene, as knowing what he had 
 power to do, and jet, with a countenance of 
 melting pity, bending toward the sufferer? then 
 how, at a touch of his finger, or a few gentle 
 but commanding words, there was instant re- 
 storation, — health, strength, rising - up, and 
 walking, — as if there had been a creation anew? 
 Can you not then make him realize the sudden 
 change from utter despair to the intensest joy, 
 as manifested by the face glowing and the eye 
 glistening with emotions such as had never been 
 experienced before, and by the voice tremulous 
 and almost inarticulate in its efforts to pour out 
 the filled bosom's burden of thankfulness to the 
 performer of the wonderful cure ? Can you not 
 show to your child also the believing and sym- 
 pathizing company of disciples, and, besides 
 these, the great multitude of common people, 
 astonished and awe-struck, and bursting forth 
 in utterances of glory to God? Parent, there 
 is no one in the whole compass of time with 
 whose image you could so possess your child's 
 mind, memory, and heart, as with that of Jesus 
 of Nazareth. He transcends all others human 
 by his origin, his character, and his works. He 
 is separate from all others by the sacred names, 
 Son of man, the Christ, the Son of God, Mes- 
 
THE CHILD^S FIRST IDEAS OF JESUS. 341 
 
 siah, Immanuel, the Redeemer, the Saviour of 
 the world, the Lord ; but, furthermore, he is 
 lifted high above all mere human nature by a 
 mysterious union with the infinite and invisible 
 One, — that Father in heaven, of whom you must 
 have already spoken to your child. " I am in the 
 Father, and the Father in me. He that hath 
 seen me hath seen the Father," said Jesus. " In 
 him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead 
 bodily," wrote the apostle. " I am Alpha and 
 Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First 
 and the Last," saith the Lord in the Revela- 
 tion. 
 
 The evangelical record of this, the ^^ Wonder- 
 ful," is the history of histories in the Book of 
 books. It begins with infant weakness in hum- 
 ble poverty : it ends with the ascending Lord, 
 to whom is given, as he declared, " all power in 
 heaven and in earth." If any thing that was 
 ever told or published should be treated with 
 the educator's most studied and wisest skill, 
 it is these events and circumstances, handed 
 down by the first Christian penmen, and which 
 Providence has laid upon parental responsi- 
 bility. 
 
 The little human being, to whom all the world 
 is new, is of most easy impression. He is in the 
 
342 THE child's first ideas of JESUS. 
 
 power of his parents as in that of a superior and 
 irresistible providence, if they so choose. Why 
 shall they not, then, forestall evil with good, 
 little things with those which are truly great 
 and momentous? Why shall they not make 
 Jesus Christ occupy so large a place in the 
 opening mind, make his image so beautiful, so 
 attractive, so sweetly charming, and so great 
 and glorious, that every other one of human 
 form shall seem in comparison small, dim, and 
 utterly insignificant? 
 
 A few stanzas of a lofty hymn, borne upon the 
 strains of a grand old tune, come echoing along 
 the chambers of memory from loved voices heard 
 in earliest years. Let them have a place here. 
 Perhaps they may be caught up anew in many 
 homes, and wafted melodiously into opening 
 memories there, and go sounding on, calling 
 back, ever and anon, the wandering affections to 
 their fealty. 
 
 " All hail the great Immanuel's name ! 
 Let seraphs prostrate fall : 
 Bring forth the royal diadem, 
 And crown him Lord of all. 
 
 Let countless angels strike the lyre, 
 And low before him fall, 
 Who tune to love their holy choir, 
 And crown him Lord of all. 
 
THE child's first IDEAS OP JESUS. 343 
 
 Let every tribe of every tongue, 
 All creatures, great and small. 
 Loud swell this universal song, 
 And crown him Lord of all." * 
 
 * The hymn has been somewhat altered from the original in. the 
 course of time, and the improvements (if so they may be called) 
 have been adopted here. Opportunity is now taken to say, that 
 allusion to any specific doctrine of salvation has been purposely 
 avoided. It was thought that the object of this treatise would best 
 be answered by general incitements to love and honor God and the 
 Son, to which none could object, rather than by any sectarian 
 peculiarities. It is supposed, however, that the quotations from 
 Scripture, such as here introduced, would be acceptable to all 
 denominations, each one making its own interpretation as to the 
 pre-eminence signified. 
 
THE BIBLE. 
 
 Of all the books in the world, that which your 
 child should love most is the Bible. He should 
 not only reverence it, but he should have for it 
 a profound affection. As you would seek the 
 best interests of your child, as you would have 
 the Rock which is ever higher than he always 
 in sight, through all the storms of temptation, 
 the mists of false doctrine, and the darkness of 
 depravity, take care how you show to him, and 
 keep before him from the earliest, the word of 
 God. 
 
 There are some observances, in regard to the 
 mere keeping of the Book, which might have a 
 salutary effect on the mind. The large family 
 Bible should be kept in some particular place 
 assigned: it should never lie carelessly about 
 here or there in the dust, like any other ordinary 
 publication of the passing times. I would even 
 here have a case or cabinet made for it pur- 
 posely, — a tabernacle you may call it, if you so 
 
THE BIBLE. 345 
 
 please, — with glass in the door, through which 
 the volume could be seen, separate from all 
 other volumes. This tabernacle should be placed 
 in the family-room, where it could be looked up 
 to with reverence, even as the Israelites looked 
 toward the tabernacle within which abode the 
 Shechinah of Jehovah. From this, every morn- 
 ing and evening, the Word should be taken and 
 read by the father-priest amid the assemblage 
 of his beloved. Then prayers should be made 
 as if inspiration, winging the soul upward, had 
 been caught from its sacred pages. Let each 
 child have a care that his own Bible (for he 
 should have one), appropriated to his private 
 use, shall be kept with the utmost regard to 
 neatness. Let the sacred volume be always 
 spoken of with respect ; yes, with reverence. 
 
 Never associate with any passage of the holy 
 Word any ludicrous incident. Never suffer, if 
 you can possibly help it, any person, no matter 
 how old in years or high in position, to narrate 
 a laughable mistake or blunder made by some 
 one in reading the Bible. Such an anecdote, 
 once falling upon the receptive mind of a child, 
 • will hardly be cleansed out of memory in this 
 life : it may not be in the life to come. He who 
 thus defiles a child's memory, commits an abomi- 
 
346 THE BIBLE. 
 
 nation in the holiest temple of religion upon 
 earth; even in that soul whose builder and maker 
 is God. For myself, I should rather have the 
 adornments of my house defaced, my windows 
 broken, my very garments wrested from my 
 children's backs by ruflSans, than to have a cour- 
 teous friend, in the agreeable interchanges of 
 conversation, associate, as I have known it hap- 
 pen, the ludicrous and the laughable with God's 
 holy and eternal truth. 
 
 We now return to the question. How shall the 
 child be made to love the Bible ? There will be 
 a constitutional dilOference between one child and 
 another which may help or hinder an interest. 
 There are children who will love to read, or 
 hear you read, those mysterious things which 
 even you yourself do not understand. There are 
 those who will read the wonderful Apocalypse 
 with a deep fascination. The majority, however, 
 probably, would not thus be interested. You 
 must find out what the peculiar taste is, and the 
 accessible point. Children delight in narrative : 
 read to them an account of the miracles of Jesus, 
 also the parables. Read the story of Joseph, 
 and other touching things in the Old Testament.- 
 Read whatever they love to hear about. Do not 
 read a great deal at a time. It is better that 
 
THE BIBLE. 347 
 
 your exercise should stop before the interest at 
 all subsides, than continue beyond it. As you 
 proceed, make explanations. If your heart is in 
 the work of your child's education, you will find 
 yourself able to do this, and you will grow in 
 ability. Be careful that your child shall remem- 
 ber no Severe language or harsh disposition of 
 your own in connection with your Bible-read- 
 ing. When he shall think of the Bible, let it be 
 mostly as of the heavenly Father, and the loving 
 Jesus, and the beautiful angels, and of good men; 
 or, if he must think of bad men, let it be as of 
 those whom the loving Father and the blessed 
 influences of the blessed Book would have made 
 better. If you shall be judicious, you can in- 
 duce him to commit to memory, in the course of 
 years, a large portion of the sacred writings, 
 without the feeling of an unpleasant task. Some 
 of the beautiful narratives in the Gospels, also 
 the parables, and very many of the precepts, 
 might be stored up in mind. Indeed, the whole 
 Sermon on the Mount might be thus treasured 
 up. The Psalms particularly, or selections there- 
 from, and also from the Prophets, might be com- 
 mitted to memory, especially such portions as 
 are adapted to be chanted in religious worship. 
 If there is any one thing which is now wanted 
 
348 THE BIBLE. 
 
 as a new feature in religious education, it is the 
 training of children to chant the holy Word. 
 Let the older members of the family learn to 
 chant. Those yet quite too young to do it can 
 sing in the spirit ; and perhaps their own little 
 voices will drop into the broad stream of melo- 
 dies as they find the Word thus sweetly falling 
 on their ear from other lips. Could the sacred 
 language float to their hearing at church from 
 the choir and the congregation, how easily could 
 they then be led to commit to memory the words 
 wliich had been made charmingly melodious 1 
 Some very strenuously object to children's learn- 
 ing by rote what they do not understand. Hence 
 they would have only those simple and practical 
 precepts committed to memory which shall be 
 at the time altogether intelligible. But the 
 Sacred Scriptures, in their origin, import, and 
 use, can bear no comparison with school text- 
 books, in which dry terms and rules are gene- 
 rally so distasteful. These mainly have to do 
 with the bare intellect. The Scriptures concern 
 not so much the head as the heart. At first, 
 indeed, the intellect merely may be engaged in 
 memorizing, because the understanding is not 
 yet able to present the selected passages to the 
 afi'ections ; but, even in these cases, the parental 
 
THE BIBLE. 349 
 
 givers and hearers of the lesson may distil their 
 own hearts like dew upon it, thus making it of 
 easy and sweet acceptance. They can tell the 
 learner of its hidden riches, which shall come 
 forth to sight at a maturer age as come the 
 green blades and the grain from seed buried in 
 the soft mould of the ground. 
 
 Some of the Bible names, though not at first 
 signifying much to the young mind, still have 
 a beauty about them, which will make them a 
 blessing to the memory, without any burden. 
 This is peculiarly true of a few geographical 
 names ; such as Judaea, Jerusalem, Zion, Bethle- 
 hem, Sharon, Hermon, Tabor, Carmel, Lebanon, 
 and others. There is melody in the very sound. 
 How many of these names are woven into spi- 
 ritual song, to charm the sense, if not to soften 
 or uplift the spirit ! But it is supposed that 
 these Scripture names have a specific meaning, 
 which made them peculiarly appropriate in their 
 first application to objects. Could these pristine 
 significations be found, as at some future period 
 they may be, how then would these beautiful 
 words, and indeed many other names of holy 
 writ, open like a rich fruitage from those re- 
 ceptacles of memory where they have been 
 dropped ! 
 
350 THE BIBLE. 
 
 I believe myself that in the Sacred Scriptures 
 is the inspiration of God, and that the very 
 angels draw near as it is read, and especially as 
 it is read by children. Their evil affections are 
 less developed than those of adults ; they are yet 
 in comparative innocency ; so that the good an- 
 gels can come nearer, or rather angels have not 
 yet been discouraged, and compelled to go 
 aWay. 
 
 Children now are trained from their earliest 
 ability of voice and tune to sing and perform 
 hymns adapted to their age. Soon they are able 
 to join in the congregational singing at church. 
 Indeed, a large portion of the hymns sung in 
 ordinary worship are intelligible to children, so 
 that they can sing with the spirit and under- 
 standing also. Why shall they not also be 
 taught to chant the inspired Word ? With this 
 engaging accompaniment, how easily would they 
 commit to memory devotional parts of the Psalms 
 and the Prophets ! These would be a richer 
 treasure to their memories than volumes of the 
 profane poetry of the world. There is no ob- 
 jection to reading, and committing to memory, 
 the pure productions of genius, whether of prose 
 or poetry ; but, beside all these, like the vital 
 fluid in the body, or a finer essence within this, 
 
THE BIBLE. 351 
 
 there should be the divine Word in memory and 
 heart. Its truths should be the vitalizing es- 
 sence of all other knowledge and literature. 
 Those not experienced have no possible concep- 
 tion of the spiritual, living influences from the 
 word of God. 
 
 One reason why parents set so little value on 
 the Scriptures, for themselves and their children, 
 is because they have no conception of the virtue, 
 the power, which go forth from them. They 
 look upon them as they look upon other writ- 
 ings, estimating them according to their notions 
 of external and artistic beauty, or the evidences 
 of their historic authenticity and genuineness. 
 They have no idea of the living spirit which 
 ever abides with and moves these cloudy and 
 multiform chariots of language. A fact will 
 best illustrate the sweet, the heavenly influences 
 of the Word. One well known to the writer, 
 between whose home and whose business lay a 
 tract of naked ground, rough and unsightly, 
 together with streets occupied by the uncleanly 
 abodes of a foreign population, their untidy 
 children prominent and noisy along the thresh- 
 olds, adopted the following method of using the 
 time of his daily travel to his employment. He 
 copied upon little cards portions of the Psalms 
 
352 THE BIBLE. 
 
 and Propliets. These lie committed to memory 
 on his way. He avers that the unsightly things 
 which before pained his eye as he passed, were 
 now, as it were, shut out of sight ; and the dis- 
 tance was hardly thought of. His feet seemed 
 almost to be lifted up, and wings given to his 
 body, as he now went to his day's duties. It 
 was the sweet, delicious influence from the Word 
 that lifted him up and bore him along. He 
 walked through heavenly scenes now, rather 
 than along the rude, disorderly, disagreeable 
 ways of ignorance, poverty, and sin. This fact 
 will illustrate the power that may be exercised 
 by God's word through all the hard, rough pas- 
 sages of human life. It is for you, parents, to 
 say whether your children shall have such com- 
 fort, such consolation, such inspiration, or not. 
 Indeed, however easy may be their lot, however * 
 calm their life's journey, passages from the Word 
 treasured in memory will be lights along the 
 way to cheer and bless ; clear shinings, such as 
 cannot be estimated by those who themselves 
 have had no experience. 
 
 There are many lonely hours which can be 
 alleviated by no human companionship, when no 
 book is at hand, and when outward objects have 
 no interest to the eye. At these times, if the 
 
THE BIBLE. 353 
 
 memory shall be well stored with the riches of 
 knowledge, there will be resources which out- 
 ward circumstances, unless they shall be quite 
 painful, cannot diminish or dim. Many a wake- 
 ful hour on the bed at night might be made 
 devout with worship, and bring the angels sweet- 
 ly into fellowship, by the perusal of Psalm or 
 Gospel written on the memory. Sleep might 
 come, and catch the spirit from the midst of holy 
 writ, and bear it in vision to angelic scenes and 
 to heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Such things 
 have been, and they may always be, under simi- 
 lar blessed conditions. But in the season of sick- 
 ness, the body prostrate, the hands strengthless, 
 and the eye failing, then how might the trea- 
 sured Word flow like a river of life from the 
 memory out into the heart, bearing a refresh- 
 ment and a dewy peace, compared with which 
 all the geniuses and literatures of the world 
 •would be but as a parching drought ! 
 
 There may be passages from the beautiful 
 literature of one's own language or the ancient 
 classics, which the mind may run over in these 
 hours, and bring up freshly to view ; but all 
 such choice selections meet the mind's eye 
 generally with the effect to present external 
 beauty, artistic excellence. They are gazed 
 
 23 
 
354 THE BIBLE. 
 
 upon, as it were, like a picture, a statue, fair 
 and perfect, but, comparatively at least, cold 
 and lifeless. They afford but little life, power, 
 efficiency, to the soul. Indeed, how few there 
 are, even of those liberally educated or highly 
 cultivated, who resort systematically to historic, 
 poetic, and classic remembrances to relieve the 
 tedium of lonely hours ! How different it is, or 
 might be, with the treasuring-up of God's va- 
 rious Word in the memory ! In the first place, 
 the Scripture itself makes it a duty to think of 
 God ; to have him in mind before all other beings. 
 In the next place, this very Scripture, rightly 
 understood, will show that this having God in 
 mind, this consciousness of him, will be the 
 source of the highest possible felicity to the 
 soul. Next, the very Word itself will be 
 the very best possible medium of receiving the 
 idea of God, and of being filled with a full con- 
 sciousness of his character, and with a love for" 
 him as a Father, as the most tenderly loving 
 being in the universe ; and, finally, there will 
 come with this Word, as it is committed to me- 
 mory, a sweet influence, a delicious influx, from 
 God himself or the Holy Spirit, which none but 
 those who have experienced can know. 
 
 As early as good judgment will allow, and 
 
THE BIBLE. 355 
 
 continuously, let your child's memory be stored 
 with these riches, which never take wings ex- 
 cept to bear their possessor heavenward, and 
 which no man, nor all the world together, can 
 take away. Although he may be learned in all 
 the lore of many nations and ages, and though 
 all the sciences of nature shall be as familiar to 
 him as the alphabet, yet, on the bed of mortal 
 sickness and at the dying hour, passages from 
 the Book of books will take precedence of every 
 thing else. The incitements to trust, the con- 
 firmations of faith, the promises to hope, pre- 
 sented by the inspired Word, will be worth 
 all the libraries and memorized learning of the 
 world. How many of the earth's mightiest in 
 wealth, learning, intellect, and genius, have at 
 last been glad to repose the spirit on some of 
 the Psalms, as the wasted and sore frame might 
 repose on the couch and pillow made soft and 
 easy by the hands of affection ! How have they 
 come down from the world's pride to sit at the 
 feet of Jesus in the Gospels, in the utmost hum- 
 bleness and docility ; indeed, to cast themselves 
 upon his bosom like little children on a parent's 
 breast, believing this to be the safest place for 
 refuge and peace I 
 
NOTES. 
 
 I. 
 
 It was the author's purpose to add a section on the culture of 
 the Conscience ; but the space left was found quite too limited for 
 the largeness and importance of the topic. This point of discipline 
 has been so egregiously neglected, and the consequences have been 
 so enormously destructive, that a considerable treatise, instead of a 
 few pages, seemed requisite to do it justice. In fact, in the effort to 
 prepare the article intended, the subject assumed such magnitude, 
 it ran out into so numerous ramifications, and brought to view such 
 a multitude of illustrative incidents, that the worker was over- 
 whelmed with his materials, and knew not what best to select to 
 make the necessary abbreviation. Friendly readers are therefore 
 besought patiently to wait for a much better service than could be 
 performed at the close of a volume already quite too large for con- 
 venience in these crowded times. It is proposed. Providence favor- 
 ing, to present at a future opportunity, in a separate work, some 
 suggestions on Right and Wrong, and the education of that vice- 
 gerent of God, and sovereign on the soul's judgment-seat, — the 
 Conscience. 
 
 n. 
 
 In a note at the bottom of page 17, it is intimated that something 
 would be said about meetings for educational discussion which have 
 been held in various parts of the country. After that note was 
 printed, the plan of the work was considerably changed, so that an 
 account of the meetings referred to was necessarily excluded. Their 
 practicability and valuable use will be considered at some future 
 time, if the author shall be permitted to carry out his plans of pub- 
 lication. He would take this opportunity to make known, that he 
 has a large quantity of educational matter on hand, — the accumu- 
 lation of many years, — which he hopes to present eventually for 
 public use. 
 
^ 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Pape. 
 
 Action, attractive to infant curiosity 215 
 
 Adulteration of goods remedied by education 150 
 
 Advantage of good judgment as to size 160 
 
 Agricultural lessons 228 
 
 Ambition and demagogism, how sometimes originated ... 82 
 
 Amusing the baby 75 
 
 An abuse of nature 140 
 
 Analogical argument, the use of an 325-7 
 
 Analogical reasoning about love to God 296 
 
 Anecdotes and incidents in illustration, 18, 29, 31, 35, 38, 47, 49, 58, 
 
 86, 87, 90, 94, 100, 101, 107, 111, 118, 164, 167, 173, 180, 330, 351 
 
 Animals, knowledge of 175 
 
 Apparel of children, abuse and use of 87 
 
 Appeal to the parent to study how to teach 335 
 
 Arithmetic, where and how it should begin 196 
 
 Bad companions, how to keep children from 120 
 
 Beating down prices before children 98 
 
 Beginning of intellectual development 135 
 
 Benevolence and true usefulness, how taught 103 
 
 Best end of the bargain, the worst end 98 
 
 Bible, child's love and reverence for the 344 
 
 Birds, as objects of interest and study 175 
 
 Blessedness of love toward God 322 
 
 Bodily health cared for, moral health neglected 20 
 
 Books on family education, what booksellers say of ... . 16 
 
:360 INDEX. 
 
 Books, use of 272 
 
 Books explaining nature, mentioned in a foot-note 182 
 
 Boxes and shelves in the schoolroom, for a new use .... 142 
 
 Brain, care of the health of 76 
 
 Business-men, the way they learn arithmetic 210 
 
 Ca4)inet of minerals begun by a child 174 
 
 Capacity to love God to the degree expressed in the command, 
 
 analogically presented 295 
 
 Care over household things, how taught 200 
 
 Care over domestic animals 202 
 
 Care of infancy and childhood considered a petty business . . 21 
 
 Casual events, notice of 233 
 
 Catalogue of petty parental inflictions 50 
 
 Causality and its questions 179 
 
 Chanting the Holy Word 350 
 
 Cheapening an almanac, amusing instance of 100 
 
 Chief purpose of this world 3 
 
 Child-traveller after curiosities 152 
 
 Child keeping playthings and clothes in order 259 
 
 Children's interest in the miracles 339 
 
 Christmas-hymns 338 
 
 Ciphering Avith real profit at home 211 
 
 City young man and the country preacher 87 
 
 Clergyman's children 130 
 
 Closet-scene, mother and child 48 
 
 Clouds, a school-boy's philosophy about 180 
 
 Color, faculty of, how cultivated 163 
 
 Color-game 164 
 
 Commandment, the first and great . . •. 293 
 
 Commandment, the first and great, disbelief in the literal truth 
 
 of the language of 293 
 
 Committing the Scriptures to memory 292 
 
 Commodities at home, education in 148 
 
 Compass, the use of, in education 189 
 
 Companionship, bad, how avoided 120 
 
 Concentration, power of, improved 207 
 
 Conscience, first dawning of 36 
 
 Conscience, discipline of 244 
 
 Contrast in a child's possibilities " 3 
 
INDEX. 861 
 
 Page. 
 
 Convention for horses and poultry 17 
 
 Corn, beans, and peas, as exercises in counting 206 
 
 Counting-game 198 
 
 Creator, first knowledge of 279 
 
 Dangerous exposure of the young 19 
 
 Dangers of modern society 19 
 
 Deceit and double-dealing of both children and parents . . . 102 
 
 Defect in personal soundness and beauty, care against ... 18 
 
 Degree in which we can love God 298 
 
 Democracy in the family 39 
 
 Dendrology learned incidentally 206 
 
 Differences between one person and another in noticing inci- 
 dents 216 
 
 Discipline, penal, various mild forms of 51 
 
 Discipline, how it may begin 225 
 
 Discipline of the time-piece 253 
 
 Dissipation of a little child 81 
 
 Dissipation of youth in cities, how occasioned 85 
 
 Distances, learning how to measure 190 
 
 Distinguished mineralogist, how he first became interested in 
 
 his science 173 
 
 Distinguished men 270 
 
 Duplicity and deceit in bargains 97 
 
 Earliest object of a child's notice 163 
 
 Early moral symptoms fearfully premonitory 22 
 
 Early attention to the time-faculty 252 
 
 Eating, excessive, destructive effects of, on children .... 82 
 
 Economy and saving, practical teaching of 146 
 
 Economical idea 200 
 
 Education by parents, estimation of, compared with other 
 
 interests 15 
 
 English nobility, their children's food 83 
 
 Entomology for the young 177 
 
 Errand-doing on all-fours 103 
 
 Eventuality, power of 215 
 
 Evil, the child's capabilities of 4 
 
 Evils of society traceable to parental neglect 13 
 
 Example of a distinguished parental educator 33 
 
INDEX. ^^^^^ 
 
 Page. 
 
 Faculty of individuality, what it is, and liow cultivated ... 155 
 
 Falsehoods, people inured to them, and submit 222 
 
 Family government, some have a natural gift for 37 
 
 Family ciphering " 211 
 
 Father taking pastime with his children 230 
 
 Father and mother conjoined in religious teaching 337 
 
 Fictitious literature improved 237 
 
 Fire at night, readiness to escape 260 
 
 Firmness, culpable lack of, in the parent 40 
 
 Firmness with mildness will be respected, and will prevail . . 52 
 
 Fishes aflPording mental nutriment 178 
 
 Florence Nightingale, her philanthropy 69 
 
 Flowers 166 
 
 Food, philosophy of 79 
 
 Foreigners shocked at the irreverence and unruliness of our 
 
 youth 38 
 
 Form, fticulty of, and its culture 158 
 
 Fourth of July celebrated at home 122 
 
 Francis, the idiot 107 
 
 Gatherings for slxij thing but home-education 16 
 
 Geography, where and how the study of, should begin ... 185 
 
 Gifts, as tokens for aflection 117 
 
 God's provision for the child's safety and culture ..... 7 
 
 God, his chai-acter .^ 65, 67 
 
 God, name of 280 
 
 God, name of — manner of speaking it 284 
 
 God, qualities and attributes of 285 
 
 God as a Father 286 
 
 God as seen in various objects of Nature 289 
 
 Gossip, together with imagination, its harmfulness 221 
 
 Government, grounds of parental 27 
 
 Government, first occasion for 27 
 
 Grains, observation of 167 
 
 Grandmother, the excuse of a, for her daughter 44 
 
 Help of boys and girls in a family 104 
 
 Henry Ware, jun., extracts from his hymn on prayer . 315, 316 
 
 Hiring children to obey 45 
 
 History of the divine dealings 310 
 
INDEX. 363 
 
 Page. 
 
 Holy Spirit aiding religious love 332 
 
 Holj' Spirit, difterent operations of 328 
 
 Holy Spirit, interesting case of individual experience . . . 329 
 
 Home, how a new, may be considered 11 
 
 Honor and honesty 101 
 
 Honorable, a singular use of the title 101 
 
 Household lessons in eventuality 226 
 
 How not to get lost 188 
 
 Hymn from Dr. Watts 310 
 
 Idle young men and young women 105 
 
 Infantile impulses 28 
 
 Infantile activity 150 
 
 Ignorance of the names and natures of trees 169 
 
 Individualizing faculty impi'oved by counting objects . . . 207 
 
 Individualizing I55 
 
 Industrial efforts of a little child 139 
 
 Insight into various trades and pursuits 229 
 
 Insect curiosities 176 
 
 Instance of a child's keen observation 169 
 
 Instinct of the brute parent never abused 40 
 
 Instinctive human parental love, use and abuse of 40 
 
 Instinctive observation in a child 232 
 
 Intellect, premature awakening of 73 
 
 Intellect, disproportionate strength and activity of 75 
 
 Inventories and appraisals of propertj^; to make them, how 
 
 taught 204 
 
 Irish woman's terrible threat to her child 49 
 
 Irreverence, growing, among the young 38 
 
 Jesus, the child's first idea of 335 
 
 John Quincy Adams, his going-to-sleep verse 317 
 
 Judgment as to the quantities of things, how improved . . . 199 
 
 Judgment, how a good, comes 268 
 
 Knowledge, how a child gets much of, without books .... 137 
 
 Knowledge of wood and timber important, and how obtained . 171 
 
 Language of the Scriptures, influence of, in the child's me- 
 mory 290 
 
364 INDEX. T^^^Mi 
 
 Page. 
 
 Lawrence, Amos, his love of doing good 68 
 
 Leaves, different kinds of 170 
 
 Letter, Rev. Mr. Northrop's, on object-teaching 274 
 
 Lies and scandals, how they may originate and grow .... 220 
 
 Literature in certain emergencies 353 
 
 Little girl helping her mother in a peculiar way . . . . . 164 
 Living creatures compared with pictures, as objects of interest 
 
 to children 175 
 
 Lofty hymn and grand old tune, their power 342 
 
 Loss and gain 146 
 
 Love and labor for others, genuine happiness of . ..... 65 
 
 Love to the neighbor, philosophy of 69 
 
 Love to God, means of development of 302 
 
 Man, his capabilities and possibilities 3 
 
 Manufacturing lessons 228 
 
 Maps, what the mind's eye should see on them 195 
 
 Maternal associations (foot-note) 17 
 
 Maternal self-possession illustrated 125 
 
 Meal-time punishment 129 
 
 Measuring implements for children 159 
 
 Measuring time by the sun 253 
 
 Melody of some Bible-names 349 
 
 Memorial of the heavenly Father 312 
 
 Mental hospitality 131 
 
 Microscope for family use 177 
 
 Minerals, children's knowledge of 172 
 
 Minute traits of a landscape to be observed 186 
 
 Mischief, the child's work; use of it 29 
 
 Missionaries, where they should begin 110 
 
 Money, early love and abuse of 93 
 
 Moon and stars, medium of religious instruction 228 
 
 Mother's blessedness in her babe 67 
 
 Mother's toil for the child's pleasure 42 
 
 Nation, present state of our, and why so 242 
 
 Nature's works and ways to be noticed 231 
 
 Neatness, personal 262 
 
 Neglect of parental preparation for the child's training ... 12 
 
 New intellectual discipline 223 
 
INDEX. 365 
 
 Page. 
 
 News of all sorts, craving appetite for; its effect 239 
 
 New-Testament attractions 291 
 
 No and yes of the weak parent 40 
 
 Nothing to do as a punishment 52 
 
 Number of criminals in the United States . . 14 
 
 Number, the relation of, considered 196 
 
 Object-game 156 
 
 Object-teaching, letter from the Agent of the Massachusetts 
 
 Board of Education 274 
 
 Obligation, peculiar, of parents for their children's spiritual 
 
 welfare 323 
 
 Observing fiiculties, hints toward the early culture of ... . 150 
 
 Observation, actual, practical advantage of 194 
 
 Observing power, difterences in the 216 
 
 Old people's facetious complaint 39 
 
 Old merchant busy still 106 
 
 Order, special faculty of 256 
 
 Order, how to discipline it 258 
 
 Order in household matters 261 
 
 Order in boys 262 
 
 Our Father in heaven as a title of the Creator 286 
 
 Out-doors •. • • 202 
 
 Parents may get learning from little children 154 
 
 Parents' opportunity for training the child to love God . . . 323 
 
 Parents both united in the religious training of their child . . 336 
 
 Parentage, solemn responsibility of 7 
 
 Partisan calumnies checked by what means 241 
 
 Pattern mother's weakness 47 
 
 Perceptive faculties, general remarks on 266 
 
 Persian bishop's remark to a young lady 38 
 
 Persevere till you subdue an offender 52 
 
 Phenomena of Nature instructive to children ....... 179 
 
 Philanthropic little boys Ill 
 
 Picture of neglected morals 13 
 
 Pictures of animals delightful to infants ....*... 175 
 
 Place, or geography at home 185 
 
 Playthings and clothes, care of 259 
 
 Poetry, religious 309 
 
366 INDEX. 
 
 Page. 
 
 Points of the compass to be learned 188 
 
 Poor imposed on in trade — new remedy for it 145 
 
 Prayer, private 315 
 
 Prayer for ability to love God . . . • 320 
 
 Prayerful hymn 326 
 
 Prevalent ignorance about natural phenomena 180 
 
 Pride of position at school 89 
 
 Primary selfishness . 71 
 
 Promptitude, disastrous lack of 251 
 
 Providential pre-arrangement for parental government ... 35 
 
 Public movements and spectacles 235 
 
 Punctuality as to promises 250 
 
 Punishment, corporal ■ 50 
 
 Psalms and Prophets, their allusions to God's works and ways . 290 
 
 Eat and mouse made something of * 176 
 
 Reading, its multifariousness 15 
 
 Reason why not always to be given . 35 
 
 Recollections, vivid ones important . 269 
 
 Record of failings and amendments, its peculiar advantage . . 53 
 
 Reform in newspapers 240 
 
 Relation of the earthly parent to the heavenly Parent ... 65 
 
 Religious relations of the parent to the child 55 
 
 Religious faculties must be used to be developed 305 
 
 Religious remembrances, interesting case of 58 
 
 Religious experiences 328 
 
 Remarkable instance of a mother's influence 58 
 
 Republic, a monarchy the foundation of a 40 
 
 Resort of earth's mightiest at last 353 
 
 Resource for the lonely night-watches 353 
 
 Rocks, peculiar and beautiful objects of nature 173 
 
 Rosary of the Church universal 308 
 
 Rules overruled in parental weakness, — consequences ... 30 
 
 Russian czars, the children of, as to luxuries 84 
 
 Sabbath- worship, fidelity in performing 318 
 
 Sacred writings committed to memory 347 
 
 Sailors' power of sight 157 
 
 Sanctuary, the " common school " of religion 319 
 
 Scales for children's use 162 
 
index: • 367 
 
 Page. 
 
 School-girl's amusing notion about clouds and rain .... 180 
 
 Schooling which is profitable 142 
 
 Seeing things and actions, and describing them just as they are 223 
 
 Selfishness, how children are ti-ained to 70 
 
 Selfishness, education a cause of 92 
 
 Self-love, how strengthened from the beginning 72 
 
 Setting the table, occasion of a lesson 226 
 
 Shells, what might be done with, on a winter's day .... 178 
 
 Showing off a child's learning 92 
 
 Sick little boy, the beautiful play of 113 
 
 Sickness, how solaced and refreshed 363 
 
 Sister at baby-tending endangered 78 
 
 Singular birthday present from a child 1T8 
 
 Size, fiiculty of, how cultivated 159 
 
 Snakes and worms, scientifically reputable 176 
 
 Spoiled child, what he does 42. 
 
 Stage-coach ride with a school-girl 167 
 
 Star, child's first impression of 288 
 
 Stratagem and deception in family government 45 
 
 Stones by the wayside, objects of interest 174 
 
 Stones in the walls 174 
 
 Stj'Ie of living as an occasion of vanity and pride 88 
 
 Success in life, early preparation for ^ 9 
 
 Sun, the first object by which to convey the idea of God . . 281 
 
 Sun, illustrating what a parent should be 53 
 
 Swapping among boys 97 
 
 Sympathy wanted by the infant 153 
 
 Table, children at 127 
 
 Tasteful dress for a child 88 
 
 Temper of a child injured by over-eating 86 
 
 Temper, irritability of, in parent and child 123 
 
 Things not to be touched by a child 152 
 
 Things should go with words in teaching a child to count . . 197 
 
 Threat, horribly ludicrous 48 
 
 Threatening, and not performing 47 
 
 Throne, the strongest, in all the world; what it is ..... 8 
 
 Time, faculty of, discipline in regard to 248 
 
 Time wasted in talk 249 
 
 Tour of the room by a child on all-fours 29 
 
368 • INDEX. 
 
 Page. 
 
 Trees, knowledge of 168 
 
 Trying to govern, time foolishly spent in 44 
 
 Turning over a new leaf by the mother 31 
 
 Two beings who cannot be escaped 246 
 
 Two individuals chosen out of a thousand millions .... 11 
 
 Unimportant incidents, the use of, in training 234 
 
 Unmannerly children at table 127 
 
 Vanity in apparel 87 
 
 Various aspects of Nature generally as to color ...... 165 
 
 Vegetable appearances particularly 166 
 
 Victoria and the royal heirs . 83 
 
 Why people are so ignorant of Nature • . . 181 
 
 Watts's Divine Songs 309 
 
 Weight, faculty of, how cultivated . . . .• 161 
 
 Well-governed child, how happy he is 44 
 
 Wild youth, whither sent for correction 32 
 
 Willis, extract from a poem of 288 
 
 Witness in a court-room 219 
 
 Where family order or disorder usually begins 28 
 
 Whipping, with what spirit it should be done, if necessary . . 50 
 
 Who most benefited by a favor 66 
 
 Wonder, a faculty of the child exercised in respect to the 
 
 miracles and life of Jesus 339 
 
 Word of God, its vitalizing and uplifting influence 351 
 
 Worker, the Infinite One 105 
 
 Worship, social, domestic, and public 317 
 
 Worship, philosophy of 313 
 
 Worth of character, admirable example in respect to ... . 90 
 
 Wrong-doer sent to bed in the daytime 52 
 
 Boston : Printed by John Wilson & Son. 
 
 3477 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 029 453 534 2