Chapter 3

be taught the value of a Home. If his advisers lay before him the lesson of life in all its aspects, he will indeed be a prodigal if he have not a Home of his own almost immediately upon leaving the fatherly roof. There are no reasons, no exceptions, which relieve the healthy, able-bodied young man from an early advance on the enemies who threaten the welfare of the citizen. The strongest fortification which the human heart can throw up against temptation is the Home. Certain men are almost invincible against the onslaughts of the many base allurements which wreak such misery on all sides of us. Why are they so firm? It is because a glorious example has stood before their minds, a liberal and older knowledge of the world has aided their early endeavors, and a plentiful advice has fastened in their understandings the wisdom of virtue and industry. If your sons have Homes of their own, you can leave them, as a great General leaves his lieutenants to occupy a country, here a fortress held in safety, there a cantonment with natural defenses, and there a "city on a hill," while you advance into those other regions which are written on the map of your destiny, "sustained by the unfaltering trust" that you have kept the great obligation imposed on you, and handled your forces for the best advantage of the cause you served.

DUTIES OF PARENTS.

Delightful task! to rear the tender thought, To teach the young idea how to shoot.--Thomson.

By the general voice of mankind, children are held to be a blessing to the good. Where the bonds of love do not tighten as the children grow, it is like those cases where the chords and muscles do not fasten together after a hurt--there has been malpractice. Let us not live like quacks. There are some general rules in life which will lead us toward a greater enjoyment of our children's lives. Through them and their issue we become immortal on this earth. Death cannot sweep us down entirely. We leave our lives set in a younger cast of flesh, to hold the fight against the enemy. While they thus serve us, to guard us from extinction, we also stand as their ambassadors in heaven, presently to go on our mission,--first to finish our own preparations, and then to begin those of our offspring, who will follow in our footsteps. Says Shakspeare: "The voice of parents is the voice of gods, for to their children they are heaven's lieutenants." Our experience teaches us that virtue and honesty are in themselves great rewards. Whether we be virtuous and honest matters little in our estimation of the value of those qualities. The thief, quaking before the Judge, cannot but compare his own lot with that of the good man who sits above him. The one has followed every bent of his inclination, which gradually became more and more capricious, more difficult to satisfy. The other put on a steadying curb in early life, denied himself nine times where he humored himself once, and

FINALLY HAD A CHARACTER

which made few demands upon him, and whose demands were decent and in order. Thus "some as corrupt in their morals as vice could make them, have yet been solicitous to have their children soberly, virtuously, and piously brought up." We therefore, on every ground, must teach our children religion, dignity, and probity. "Parents," says Jeremy Taylor, "must give good example and reverent deportment in the presence of their children. And all those instances of charity which usually endear each other--sweetness of conversation, affability, frequent admonition--all significations of love and tenderness, care and watchfulness, must be expressed toward children; that they may look upon their parents as their friends and patrons, their defence and sanctuary, their treasure and their guide."

FATHER AND SON.

Says Sir R. Steele: "It is the most beautiful object the eyes of man can behold to see a man of worth and his son live in an entire, unreserved correspondence. The mutual kindness and affection between them give an inexpressible satisfaction to all who know them. It is a sublime pleasure which increases by the participation. It is as sacred as friendship, as pleasurable as love, and as joyful as religion. This state of mind does not only dissipate sorrow which would be extreme without it, but enlarges pleasures which would otherwise be contemptible. The most indifferent thing has its force and beauty when it is spoken by a kind father, and an insignificant trifle has its weight when offered by a dutiful child. I know not how to express it, but I think I may call it a transplanted self-love."

THE OCCUPATION.

"The time will be coming--is come, perhaps--when your young people must decide on the course and main occupation of their future lives. You will expect to have a voice in the matter. Quite right, if a voice of counsel, of remonstrance, of suggestion, of pointing out unsuspected difficulties, of encouragement by developing the means of success. Such a voice as that from an elder will always be listened to. But perhaps your have already settled in your own mind the calling to be followed, and you mean simply to call on the youngster to accept and register your decree on the opening pages of his autobiography. This is, indeed a questionable proceeding, unless you are perfectly assured of what the young man's unbiased choice will be."

THE DAUGHTER.

"Certain it is," said Addison, "that there is no kind of affection so purely angelic as that of a father to a daughter. He beholds her both with and without regard to her sex. In love to our sons there is ambition, but in that to our daughters there is something which there are no words to express." "There is, however, an unkind measure by which a few persons strive to avoid living by themselves in their old age. They selfishly prevent their children (principally their daughters) from marrying, in order to retain them around them at home. Certainly matches are now and then projected which it is the duty of a parent to oppose; but there are two kinds of opposition, a conscientious and sorrowful opposition, and an egotistical and captious opposition, and men and women, in their self-deception, may sometimes mistake the one for the other. 'Marry your daughters lest they marry themselves, and run off with the ploughman or the groom' is an axiom of worldly wisdom. Marry your daughters, if you can do so satisfactorily, that they may become

HAPPY WIVES AND MOTHERS,

fulfilling the destiny allotted to them by their Great Creator. Marry them, if worthy suitors offer, lest they remain single and unprotected after your departure. Marry them, lest they say, in their bitter disappointment and loneliness, 'Our parents thought only of their own comfort and convenience. We now find that our welfare and settlement in life was disregarded!' But I am sure my hard-hearted comrade in years," continues this aged writer, "that you are more generous to your own dear girls than to dream of preventing the completion of their own little romance in order to keep them at home, pining as your waiting minds."

THANKING DEATH.

One of the most learned observations to parents has been made by Lord Burleigh. "Bring thy children up," said he, in "learning and obedience, yet without outward austerity. Give them good countenance and convenient maintenance, according to thy ability; otherwise thy life will seem their bondage, and what portion thou shalt leave them at thy death, they will thank death for it, and not thee!"

EDUCATION.

"I suppose it never occurs to parents," says John Foster, in his Journal, "that to throw vilely-educated young people on the world is, independently of the injury to the young people themselves, a positive _crime_, and of very great magnitude; as great, for instance, as burning their neighbor's house, or poisoning the water in his well. In pointing out to them what is wrong, even if they acknowledge the justness of the statement, one cannot make them feel a sense of guilt, as in other proved charges. That they love their children extenuates to their consciences every parental folly that may at last produce in the children every desperate vice." As to this matter of education,

OUR GREAT SCHOOLS

have taken it largely out of the parents' hands to guide the course of instruction, and where this would be done logically, I cannot but feel it is to the disadvantage of the child; but the system is built for public, not for individual benefit, and will probably do the greatest good to the greatest number. If we could have a little less Latin and a little better spelling, a little less long Latin and a little more good short Saxon I believe our youth would make their mark easier. Our young people dislike interest tables and are delighted with long words. Under the present system and popular taste, our children despise

THE LANGUAGE OF THE BIBLE

until they are thirty years old, whereafter they gradually learn that the very essence of artful language is contained in its pages. There is not much need of a long word when a short one sounds better. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters." How like the ripple of a brook the syllables drop from the tongue! The fall of the voice, and _the fall of the idea_, make the passage a lovely instance of the highest art in poetical expression. If our youth could be taught respect, attention, multiplication and division, spelling, short words, short sentences, Bible, Shakspeare, and geography, and could spend less time conjugating foreign verbs, there would be a really higher grade of intelligence in the end, perhaps, and there would, above all, be more of that glorious independence of mind which makes a thing worthy of commendation because it is appreciated, not because somebody else has said it is good.

WORSHIP.

The Catholics say that if they may have the spiritual culture of the child till he is ten years of age, they will willingly surrender him into the hands of the teachers of any other faith, resting secure in the permanency of early teachings. The great value of early religious instruction has always been conceded by the most learned. "The first thing, therefore," says Dr. Priestly, "that a Christian will naturally inculcate upon his child, as soon as he is capable of receiving such impressions, is the knowledge of his Maker, and a steady principle of obedience to Him; the idea of his living under a constant inspection and government of an invisible being, who will raise him from the dead to an immortal life, and who will reward and punish him hereafter according to his character and actions here.

ON THESE PLAIN PRINCIPLES

I hesitate not to assert as a Christian, that religion is the first rational object of education. Whatever be the fate of my children in this transitory world, about which I hope I am as solicitous as I ought to be, I would, if possible, secure a happy meeting with them in a future and everlasting life."

"A suspicious parent makes an artful child," says Haliburton. A tender parent makes a wayward son. A cruel parent makes a timid son. Be harsh when harshness is necessary, but be kind when kindness is needful, for as the grass of the fields needs the light of the sun, so does the human heart yearn for sympathy and kindness, in all the years of its wonderful growth. Parents may in a great measure do much of the teaching which that

NOTORIOUSLY HARSH SCHOOLMASTER, EXPERIENCE,

deals out, who beats our boys and girls so brutally. I cannot, in closing this chapter, do better than to quote the words of wise old Roger Ascham: "He hazardeth sore that maketh wise by experience. An unhappy sailor he is that is made wise by many shipwrecks, a miserable merchant that is neither rich nor wise but after some bankrouts. It is a marvelous pain to find a short way by long wandering. He needs must be a swift runner that runneth fast out of his way. And look well upon the former life of those few who have gathered, by long experience, a little wisdom and some happiness; and when you do consider what mischief they have committed, what dangers they have escaped (and yet twenty for one do perish in the adventure) then think well with yourself whether you would that your own son should come to wisdom and happiness by such experience or no."

BROTHER AND SISTER

The noble sister of Publicola, The moon of Rome; chaste as the icicle, That's curdled by the frost from purest snow, And hangs on Dian's temple.

But good my brother, Do not as some ungracious pastors do, Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven, Whilst like a puffed and reckless libertine, Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, And recks not his own rede.--Shakspeare.

There has always been a charm for me in the speech of the haughty _Coriolanus_ concerning _Valeria_, the sister of _Publicola_. There is such a noble alliance of the brother and the sister. The one is a man in high regard; therefore his sister likewise takes on those correlative qualities which make her the moon of Rome, the Goddess Diana, as it were. The young man of good quality will begin his life with an exalted appreciation of his sister. He will give her that tender regard and assistance which is her gentle due, and she, in turn, will form her ideas of young men by the character of her brother, and, in choosing a man upon whom to settle her womanly affections, will be largely guided by her estimate of her brother's manhood. The young man can not over-estimate the importance of his influence in this connection. Depend upon it, if he be high-minded, courteous, attentive, self-sacrificing at the proper times,

HIS SISTER WILL DEMAND,

in the man who aspires to be her companion in life, the qualities of a high mind, a courteous demeanor, an attentive inclination, and a willingness to put aside self at the time that duty and manhood demand. The brother's acquaintances and associates are often the first young men introduced to the sister on terms of intimacy. If the brother lower the standard of his life, the colors of his house are also trailed. His family pride should be, and usually is, one of the strongest supports in holding him to a course of action that will retain the entire respect of his community. When a son with a sister grown plunges into ways of disrepute, there is no more sorrowful example of the utter selfishness of a depraved human heart.

HOW MUCH LESS GRASPING IS THE BURGLAR

who is not willing to let the hard-working citizen keep his earnings, but steals upon him in the night and robs him into poverty--how much less selfish, I say, is he than the brother who steals upon the fair young life of a pure, good maiden, brands her as the sister of a disreputable loafer, and leaves her to choose loafers for a husband, or marry a stranger who may afterward taunt her with her low connection! I can conceive of no keener spur to the young man of pride and purpose than to keep this view of things before him, that he may be worthy of the company of young men who, in turn, will be worthy of the company of his sister.

MANY OF THE NOBLEST YOUNG MEN

of the present day, when they go for a summer vacation, take their sisters with them. The act gives them their first true knowledge of the responsibilities attaching to the care of a woman--to the gravity of married life. It being cheaper, as a rule, for man and wife to travel together than for brother and sister, the brother has an idea of future expense awaiting him (after he shall have married) which is on the right side of an estimate--that is, the surplus side. The sister's mind is broadened by this kindness and self-sacrifice of the brother. She has a higher opinion of manhood, and her choice will fall all the higher up. What makes our finest girls often go through the forest of maidenhood rejecting the most promising staffs of support, and, finally, nearing the plains of spinsterhood, pick up in a panic

THE CROOKEDEST STICK OF THE LOT?

It is mainly the brother's fault. He has not shown her how much of a man he himself can be, and she has not noticed the manly qualities of many of the admirers whom she has passed by in disdain. A wise young woman should be on the lookout for gentleness and courage in man. If she finds those qualities--if she can only become aware they are there, her heart will relent in spite of her, and there will be no hesitancy in her final choice, nor regret in her final retrospect.

IN YOUR SISTER

you behold the exact complement of yourself. Yourself and herself, brother and sister, are the links which your parents have left to hold their minds, their qualities, their aggregated development and progression, to the earth. All that your parents were, yourself and your sister will perpetuate, adding the acquirements of your own lives. You have in your sister an opportunity for self-study without its like or equal. Where your sister is weak, there are you weak (naturally) also. Your vanity may conceal the fact in your own nature, but her character will express it to you.

STRENGTHEN UP THESE POINTS.

As the calker goes through the hold of the ship, peering intently for light, or listening for the trickling of water, so should you, in observing your sister's character and family peculiarities, find and calk up all the treacherous leaks in your own nature. Her carelessness is your forgetfulness. Mend it. Her heedlessness is undoubtedly your recklessness. Send out scouts. Her impatience is possibly your high temper. Hit yourself when you are in rage, and thus learn its folly. I know of a man who once came within an inch of braining his fellow-soldier. They were lying on the grass, when the fellow struck my friend a smart blow with the iron ramrod of a Springfield musket, all in fun, you know. My friend was like Cowper, who wrote:

The man who hails you Tom or Jack, And proves, by thumping on your back His sense of your great merit, Is such a friend as one had need Be very much his friend, indeed, To pardon or to bear it.

Well, he felt the smart of the iron ramrod, and his fury rose in a whirlwind; and he got up, took the musket by the barrel, raised it back for an awful blow, and was just about to crush the head of the joker when a white face and the simple word "Jim!" brought him to his senses. He dropped the musket and sank upon the grass in a paroxysm of excitement, but was saved from murder just by a hair's breadth. He had never curbed his temper before. Here he had been forced to overcome the fury of a building all in flames. The lesson sank deep into his heart. To-day nobody knows he has any temper at all.

THE SISTER'S INFLUENCE.

Again, as you are influential in the matter of the future prospects of your sister, and can probably elevate her lot by your aid in forming her character, so, too is she often, though to a smaller degree, potent in turning the tides of your life. She has dear friends of her own sex. They are at your house. They may come to see you by coming to see her. You meet these girls at your home, and, perhaps, some day you wake up in love. Now, if your sister, who admits these maidens into your home, has that true womanhood which is so admirable, you are certain to have fallen in love with one of the finest young women in town, and it is

A LUCKY DAY FOR YOU,

for young women usually keep away from young men for whose character they have no regard. Do not, however, get into the opinion that you are irresistible, or anywise attractive. It will give you many wounds. Young women detect masculine vanity of this order with a quickness that is appalling to the young man. They may have had no thought of you at all! They will then, all the readier, become influenced by your good points, and, above all, by your habitual good treatment of your sister. Be, therefore, on your guard, even in self-interest, which is a low guide of action, nevertheless--but

EVEN FOR THIS IGNOBLE REASON.

Watch over your sister, to protect her from any association whatever with bad young men, to minister to her wants, to help your parents minister to her health, and to love her with a sincere affection, for as long as you live, you will find her devotion unchangeable, through good and evil report. This same sister may be your companion all through your life. Where single life becomes the destiny of both brother and sister this often happens. In almost every neighborhood there are two persons thus domiciled, honorably fullfilling their duties to society, and often doing greater public service than any other two people of the community. Look therefore upon your sister as perhaps the best friend you will have

AFTER THE DEATH OF YOUR MOTHER.

Consider her as the person whose interests may be more closely allied with your own than those of any other soul on earth. It certainly cannot lessen your respect for the high relation she sustains toward your life and your happiness. Counsel her in exceeding kindness, for you will find her inclined to retort, as did _Ophelia_ to her brother _Laertes_, at the head of this chapter, bidding you be sure you "reck your own rede" which was an ancient form of admonishing one to heed his own advice.

YOUTH

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The soul that riseth with us, our life's Star, Hath elsewhere had its setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter darkness, But trailing clouds of glory, do we come From God who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy.--Wordsworth.

"Like virgin parchment," says Montaigne, "youth is capable of any inscription." Let us have only those inscriptions which will do us honor in the long years that the parchment will unroll before us. "Unless a tree has borne its blossoms in the spring," writes Bishop Hare, "you will vainly look for fruit on it in autumn." All through the great history of Thiers, wherein he recites the scenes of the French revolution, the Consulate, the Empire, and the rock of St. Helena, there runs one consistent observation that youth is noble and magnanimous. The thousands of characters who "strut their brief hour" upon the stage in the terrible drama which this historian depicts are young and generous, lofty and incorruptible. Then they ripen into manhood, glory waits upon their comings and their goings, and they are soon between two masters, their interests and their consciences. A circumstance threatens their early resolutions, an event overturns their consciences, and a selfish, jealous, ambitious mind thenceforth guides the fortunes of a life.

HOW FORTUNATE FOR THE RACE OF MAN

that when the mind is least prejudiced with set beliefs and when the heart is kindliest, it lies in the power of those who have the young near them to bear them frequent counsel, and to strengthen the natural nobility of their natures!

A great deal can be accomplished in the early years of life. Many men have made all their fame in the morning, and enjoyed it through the rest of their lives. Alexander, Pompey, Hannibal, Scipio, Napoleon, Charles XII., Alexander Hamilton, Shelley, Keats, Bryant--hundreds of examples readily come to the recollection, showing how thoroughly the mind can be trusted even in its immaturity. Youth is beautiful. It is "the gay and pleasant spring of life, when joy is stirring in the dancing blood, and nature calls us with a thousand songs to share her general feast." "Keep true to the dreams of thy youth," sings Schiller. We love the young. "The girls we love for what they are," says Goethe, "young men, for what they promise to be." "The lovely time of youth," says Jean Paul Richter, "is

OUR ITALY AND GREECE,