CHAPTER XXII.

THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN.

The Horse Trainer’s Method.—The Training Which Develops Talents.—When Child-training Should Begin.—The Training of Her Children the Mother’s All-important Calling.—The Influence of the Mother’s Own Character and Life.—The Children Imitators of their Parents.—Importance of Earliest Training.—Spoiled Children.—Children’s Rights.—The Proper Correction of Children.—Broken Promises and Parental Falsehoods.—Value of Tact in Parental Discipline.—Value of Parental Sympathy.—The Mother, Herself, the Best Gift to Her Children.—The Choice of Books and Stories.—The Choice of Companions for the Children.—Toys, Sports and Amusements.—An Appeal to Mothers.

MOLDING THE CLAY.

Within their tiny hands my children hold A ball of yielding clay, And, as they try some dainty form to mold, I hear them softly say, “What shall we make? an apple or a vase? Some marbles, or a fan?” One little boy, a smile upon his face, Says, “I shall make a man.”

Straightway, with lengthened face, he, at his task, Begins, and ’neath the hands Unskilful, weak, and yet too proud to ask For aid, a form expands, Crude, and yet not too poor to show the man Hid in the maker’s thought— How different yet if some skilled artisan The ball of clay had wrought.

To-day within my hands my children lie, I shape them as I will, And seek for aid from Him that is on high, That He may with His skill Teach my weak, willing hands to rightly mold The clay that I have sought, That in true forms of beauty may unfold The Maker’s highest thought.—TRANSCRIPT.

“I regretted that you had no child, because I thought your heart would not receive that education for heaven which the care of children alone can give. You are surprised perhaps, for you are thinking only of educating your child; but let me tell you that we parents are as much indebted to our children as they to us.”—ANNA E. PORTER.

“Who is sufficient for these things?”

In a recent magazine article, on the training of horses, I found the following: “The thoroughly competent trainer considers the colt’s individuality and breeding, for upon these depend the measures to be taken to develop the animal into a race-horse. Every good or bad quality in a race-horse is inherited from sire or dam; courage, endurance, extreme speed, action, ability to carry weight, soundness or unsoundness, good or bad temper, all these are matters of inheritance, and must be carefully looked for by the trainer as he develops his horses. The trainer is constantly devising schemes to counteract the faults and to make the best use of the good points of his horses.

“The making of a thoroughbred race-horse cannot be called an exact science. It develops, however, an amount of patience, courage and self-denial that is rarely engendered in callings better understood and more highly esteemed by the general public. The trainer’s life is a hard one and vicarious in the extreme.”

It strikes me that in this we, as parents and teachers, have a grand suggestion in the right training of children. With us a _vicarious_ life would count for the coming generations of the human family.

“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it,” has been invested with a new meaning to me these past few years. It not only means train him up in the correct moral way, reverencing things sacred, respecting father and mother, being a pleasing child, a good son, a law-abiding citizen, a blessing to home and society; but it means as well, train him up in the way he was intended to go, from the endowment of birth, heredity and education. In other words do not warp, from his birth, a mechanic by trying to make a minister of him. Do not try to crowd a farmer into a lawyer’s mold. Do not attempt to train into a carpenter one who is a born artist. Do not force your boys and girls through a literary college, if a bent in some particular direction inclines them toward a technical education. In short, “Train up a child in the way _he_ should go,” as well as in the _way_ he should go.

The mother of the Wesleys was once asked when she should begin to train the little three months’ old baby she held in her arms. “Begin?” she replied, “why I began three months ago.” Her answer was admirable, but she did not place the time sufficiently far back by many months. When our daughters are rightly trained, they will all the way along, from the time that marriage enters their minds, be consciously educating themselves for motherhood, and thus be in a large measure training their little ones even before they are promised.

Does this seem too ideal to our young mothers, and not at all practical? It should not, and I believe will not when it is carefully considered. If any who reads these pages is already anticipating early motherhood they need not be discouraged, for every succeeding child should be better than the one before. Every lesson she learns in the care and training of the first children should but make her the stronger for the duties of future mothering. The trouble too often is that she allows her time and attention to be taken up with less important things, and the fixing of the earlier lessons and learning new and better ones are neglected. In other words, motherhood is not to-day considered her all-important calling, and the little ones suffer from the mothers having fallen too deeply in love with other and less noble things.

All will agree with me, when I say, that we can only with great difficulty train in our children, what we do not know as a part of ourselves. Are you calm and self-possessed? Then you can with little effort teach your children this valuable and telling characteristic. Are you governed by reason and judgment, not impulse? Then you can train your child to this same strength. Are you of even temper? Then you will have little trouble with a stormy-tempered boy or girl. Are you charitable and careful in your speech, and kindly in your judgment of others? Your children are easily led in the same direction.

It is safe to say that only so far as we have travelled ourselves, can we lead our children. True we can point them onward, and tell them of the desirableness of that way to travel in, but their little feet are reluctant to try new paths, unless the parent has tried them before them.

The story of the little son who had without permission followed his father up a steep and dangerous mountain climb, and who at a particularly difficult point in the path, made his presence known, by calling out, “Step carefully, papa, for I am coming in your footsteps,” illustrates just what our example is to our children. Hence I say, Mrs. Wesley did not put the time of her beginning to train her baby, back far enough by many years. Every step in the onward path which she had made in all the years of her own training was but a page in the training she was to give her boys and girls in the after years. “As is the mother so is her daughter,” is God’s truth, although it is many times hard to face.

We desire to train our children to _our_ ideals, and they are ever reaching up to us as _their_ ideals. True, this should spur us on to better things that our example shall be a more worthy copy, but we waste much precious time when we must go to school in mature life to learn the lessons that should have been fixed in our youth.

First, let us remember that a child can be taught more bad habits in its early months than years of training can undo. A methodical, well taught baby becomes a tractable child, as a rule; while a haphazard baby, humored in every whim, becomes a child and adult of the same demands. Have you not often met grown men and women that were just great overgrown spoiled babies? You can read the history of their training, or the lack of it, in their habits, their whims, and their selfishness, through the unmistakable lines these have written on their faces.

Again we must remember that children have rights that we are bound to respect; and unless we do respect them, we can hardly expect them to regard our rights. Another fact is this; that no two children can be trained alike. Each is a study by itself, and each must be studied, if we desire to attain success in the individual case. But few absolute rules can be made; for there must ever be a certain degree of flexibility about every law laid down in the home.

A request is far better than a command, but from the parent it should be regarded with such respect that it equals a command. Also there is a wide difference between a criticism and a kindly correction of a fault. Criticism antagonizes, and arouses the anger of the child, though he may not be old enough to analyze his feelings, yet the spirit of rebellion is there, and leaves its unpleasant results. On the other hand the kindly correction, with love shining all through it, awakens a sorrow for the wrong, and a determination never to repeat it.

“Johnnie, what makes you do so? It does seem to me that you are always doing something you ought not to do.” See the angry flash in little Johnnie’s eye, and the sullen silence as he turns away, with resentment at the wrong done him, written all over his quivering form.

“Johnnie dear, mamma does not like to have her son do so, it is wrong and such things spoil boys and make them grow up in the wrong way. Think of it, son, and see if you would like your life to go in the way that action would lead you.” A tender, sorrowful light comes into the little face and a regret for the sin is expressed and forgiveness sought.

The first manner of correction, if it can be called that, drives your little one away from you, while the second holds him to you, as a traveller is bound to a trusted guide in a dangerous way.

Oh! the sorrow of the falsehoods told to little ones, under the guise of threats that are never realized. In my hearing only a few days ago, in the space of half an hour, a mother told her child—a bright but of course spoiled little boy, not more than three years old, at least a half dozen deliberate falsehoods. I say deliberate, because she knew they were false, and the saddest of all was the fact that the child recognized the untruths as well, and was not moved by them an iota.

Nowhere is there so much tactful wisdom needed as in the mother’s dealings with her little ones. How many times we fail by too great zeal, how many times for not enough. Often, not to notice the little naughtinesses is the wisest thing, when these little wrongs are not positively sinful. Not noticing such wrongs insures their being forgotten sooner, and oftentimes the children are simply imitating in a childish way what they have seen in their elders.

The following incident will illustrate the wisdom of not heeding. A little boy strutted up to his busy mother one day, and without a bit of prelude or postlude, said, “Gosh.” The wise mother took no notice, and again standing directly in front of her, and in a more emphatic tone, he repeated the coarse word. Still no rebuke from the mother and no reproving look even. As if bent on being heard and eliciting some rebuke which he evidently expected, he thrust his hands into his pockets, straightened up, and with a stamp of his tiny foot, said with double emphasis, “Gosh, mamma.” Then the undisturbed mother looked up with simply this, “Yes, my son, I heard.” He turned away crestfallen, but the coarse word was never repeated.

In contrast, another mother with less of wisdom and more of the overdone zeal, heard her little boy say, “Darn.” She called him to her and with a very solemn voice said, “What did I hear my little boy say? Didn’t I hear him say the _naughty_, NAUGHTY word, darn,” and her voice sank to an awesome whisper. “Yes,” said the little fellow, with an air of important badness, “I said it.”

“Come here and let me look in your mouth,” said the mother. He opened his mouth with very little concern, and really seeming to enjoy it. “Oh-h-hh,” said the unwise mamma, “I see two little black devils.” “My-e-e-e,” said the little fellow; “Darn, darn, darn,”—and then the mouth flew open wider still. “How many devils are there now, mamma?” The mother’s answer is not recorded, but we trust she learned wisdom.

I have been exceedingly interested in noting what an ignorant horse-trainer can teach a wild, high-mettled colt. How does he do it? Not by whipping, not by thwarting and fretting, but by patient, persistent effort, and much study of the particular training each colt needs. He goes farther than this. He studies the pedigree that he may better know how to correct the faults of his pupils. Is it not worth while for a mother to take as much pains and carefulness for the well-being of her precious charges? “Where is the flock that was given thee, thy beautiful flock?” will be a question that mothers must meet, and must answer sorrowfully in many cases. The answer might well be taken from the same book, “The Book,” in which the question is recorded. “As thy servant was busy here and there they were gone.”

Parents must keep in sympathy with their children to understand and lead them. The cares of business, the demands of society, clubs, etc., etc., will not excuse you. There can be no business, no demand upon your time that can begin to equal in importance the proper care of your children. They are your charge, and the responsibility can be relegated to none other.

I have read somewhere of a mother who by the rounds of social life, and all the cares incident to it, had given her children over to the care of a nurse, until she awoke one day to realize that she was almost a stranger to her own children, and that they seemed to care little for her, since they saw her so seldom. “This will never do,” said the thoroughly awakened mother. “These are _my_ children, and as such, demand _my_ care, and influence and love, which I shall henceforth give them without stint.” She began at once. Every engagement which interfered with the loving care of her little brood, was resolutely cancelled, while she gave herself to redeeming the time that she had wasted, and to regaining her place in her children’s hearts which she had nearly lost. Was she successful, I imagine I hear you ask. Did ever a mother put her hand and her heart to the accomplishment of a noble purpose, and fail? Never. And she never will. Delightful trips were planned and carried out, all-day excursions, long walks, with a luncheon in some quiet place, away from the crowd. Books were read, lessons taught that sank, freighted with their wealth of wisdom, into the mother’s, as well as into the children’s hearts. Oh the joy of that delightful season! Nothing in all her life could bear any comparison with it. Should she give it up and again enter society, whose demands gave her little time for the pure pleasure she had enjoyed with her children? She would leave it for her babies to decide. As they gathered about her, she said, “My darlings, mamma has something she wishes you to settle for her. Shall we go on as we have been doing for the past happy months, or shall mamma take again her place in society as she did before she knew her dear babies as she does now?” “Oh, mamma, we can’t get along without you now, and you know you belong to us,” said the oldest one, and the sweet silence of the baby as she hugged the dear lost and found mother, tightly about the neck, was all the answer she needed. “Now, mamma dear, would you have gone away from us again, if we had said so?” “No, darling, not even if you had said so, for then I should have seen all the greater need of staying with my own children until they loved me again. But I dared let you decide, for I knew what you would say. Bless my babies! These months have been the happiest of my life, and do you think I could leave you again? I can have as much as I need of society and still live with my babies.”

Every parent is bound to be interested in all that should legitimately interest their children. Books, games, little excursions, days off from business that the boys and girls may have their papas and mammas all to themselves, are important things which no wise father or mother will neglect to consider.

As they grow older the sympathy and love you show for them when you deliberately put aside your book, and read to them some childish story, or bit of adventure, will never be forgotten. No wise man or woman ever loses interest in children’s stories. If they are worth your _children’s_ reading, they are worth _your_ reading. It lies in the power of every parent to fashion their children’s taste in literature. Choose wisely, for the matter is an important one. Do not make the mistake so often made of thinking that any child’s book is good enough for the children. This is not true. There is as wide a difference in children’s books as in books for adults. With all the delightful writers for the little ones, there is no need of reading trashy things to the children. Your children’s libraries will be an index of your literary taste, and your highest care for them. Books are companions, and should be chosen as wisely as you would choose their associates.

How in this day of public schools and free American loving democracy, can I choose my children’s companions? Ah; but you can, dear mother. Train them so wisely, get the love of all that is good so instilled into their beings, fix so surely the hatred of evil, that they will instinctively choose companions worthy of them. Be kind to all, but do not make close friends or companions of any but those who are good. Occasionally a wolf in sheep’s clothing will be met, and you will need great tact to lead your child to see the falseness of character, and to get away from it ere the influence has been hazardous.

Let me illustrate. A grown up boy fifteen or sixteen said one day to his mother, “Mamma, some of the boys are going down to the Gardens to-night after school, and may I go with them?” “What is there to see and enjoy, son?” “Oh I hardly know, but the boys say there’s lots of fun.” The mother gave her consent, all the while knowing she would not have chosen the Gardens as a suitable place for her boy to find amusement. When he came home from school to leave his books, he found his mother all ready to go out. “Where are you going, mamma?” asked the boy. “I thought I would go with you, son, I have never been there and I thought I would like to enjoy it with you.” “But mamma, I don’t know as it is a good place for you to go to.” “Oh, don’t trouble about that, son, any place that you care to visit is suitable for your mother.”

She was dressed in her prettiest and most girlish dress, and outdid herself to be entertaining to her boy. She said nothing in criticism of the place, and went from one thing to another as the boy’s fancy dictated. In a covert glance she could see the disgust growing in her son’s face, as a coarse jest or a profane word came to them from the frequenters of the place, but never a word of fault-finding escaped her lips. Finally, thoroughly disgusted, her boy said, “Let’s go home, mamma, I’m tired of this sort of stuff.” “Very well, son, if you wish,” said the little mother, but not one word of comment or criticism of the place or surroundings, for she saw that the lesson was learned. On the following day she had her reward. Her son with several of his companions were in the yard under the window where she sat in hearing. “Who was that girl you had with you at the Gardens yesterday?” said one of the boys. “It was my mother,” said her son. “Whew,” said the boy, “catch my mother to go to such a place!” Then the brave answer came from her boy, that brought tears of gladness to the mother’s eyes. “Well, I want to tell you right here, boys, you’ll never catch me going anywhere again where I can’t take my mother. Of course she knew what kind of a place it was and wanted me to see that it was no place for me if it were not for her, and I learned the lesson.” Oh the wisdom of such a mother: and the tactfulness.

When the children are young they should never be allowed away from home over night, and should have no visitors to spend the night with them. This cannot be too carefully guarded. Neither should they be allowed to play alone with companions whom you do not know, or are not perfectly sure you can have full confidence in.

No playing out of doors after nightfall. More evil is learned in evening hours than is dreamed of. Have toys and amusements, and allow companions in the home, and your children will not care to leave it for the streets.

Be one with your children in their sports and games, and make yourself so companionable that they will choose you before all others.

All the way along know what your boys and girls are reading. It lies with you to form their tastes, and direct their choice.

Oh mothers, forbear to neglect this great and blessed responsibility, with which you are invested. No work in all the world can equal it in importance, none in the rich harvest which is the result of painstaking sowing. No cast-iron rules can be laid down, for no two children are alike. It is sufficient to say, “Mothers, be true to yourselves, and esteem the trust committed to you as sacred beyond measure; study to show yourselves approved ‘workmen that need not to be ashamed,’” and you will have reason to rejoice at the results of your labors. “Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth.”