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I. The Home 1

II. The Training of Children ... 16

II The Training Of Children

There are two families in which the children are under exactly opposite influences and training, and I have often thought how good it would be if the best characteristics of one of these families could be balanced by the best qualities of the other, and how much that is loving and wise and useful such a balance would develop in the children; and — more than that — if these good elements could be welded together by the one strong quality which both families lack, the result to parents and children would be full of happiness and power. In the first family that I have in mind, the parents train their children by line and rule; they are gentle and loving to them in speech and in manner, but absolutely domineering in their influence. The children live regular lives, are receiving the very best education, never eat anything that is not nourishing, and have plenty of sleep; but, in most cases, they have no spontaneity whatever. They are good little puppets in the hands of their parents.

Little Tommy is told to be kind to his sister, and then it is impressed upon him emphatically that he has been kind to her.

"Now wasn't that good, Tommy, to give your apple to your sister? Don't you feel much happier than if you had not done it?"

Where do you get a more complacent smile than the "I-have-been-good" expression on the face of a child ? It is sad enough to see such complacency on the faces of grown-up people, but on a child's face it is more than sad, it is depressing.

If the mother is talking to a visitor when a child enters the room, — and if the child makes a mistake in manners, the conversation — no matter how interesting — must stop immediately, while the visitor is obliged to sit by and listen to the elaborate instruction which is inflicted on the poor child.

"Tommy, give your hand to the lady, dear, — no — no, your right hand, Tommy. Now say, how do you do, Mrs. Smith?"

Tommy looks silly.

"Say how do you do, Tommy."

Finally Tommy gets it out and escapes, and, Mrs. Smith's patience having been tried to the utmost, she is not likely to continue the conversation with the composure that she had before poor Tommy came in. A quiet little talk with Tommy, quite by himself, including a special agreement by which mother would make a little sign of reminder the next time a visitor came, would have done the necessary work far better and far more happily to all concerned, for children respond with pleasure to the sense of a little special intimacy with their parents. When a friendship between parent and child is established, and the parent knows how^ to develop the friendship, the wholesome training of the children goes on apace. But the character of the parent must be strong and mellow and clear to make such friendship possible.

In the case of this family there is no such friendship, but only a carefully cultivated appearance of friendship for the sake of conscientious domination, and, if both parents should suddenly die and the children be left to their own resources, it is most likely that their real tendencies to wilfulness and general disorder would burst forth after their repression and assert themselves vigorously, much to the distress of the children themselves; then, after learning to know their faults truly, they would, if their foundation of character were strong enough, finally work their way out to their own individuality and true freedom. Perhaps some of them would learn strong and helpful lessons from all their past repression, while others would be left scarred so long as they lived in this world. The saddest part of it all is that these parents are really conscientiously devoting themselves to their children, and denying themselves in order that their children may have all the advantages which naturally lead to worldly success. Not only that, but the parents feel that their children's eternal interests are first in their own parental hearts and minds, and that they are bringing them up from that point of view alone. These parents are quite sincere in their feeling toward their children, and the children are quite sincere — so far as I know — in the belief that their parents are wise in training them — both spiritually and naturally — in the way they should go. It wTould be quite out of the question to make either parents or children see the conditions as they really are. The children are not only losing all spontaneity and becoming like little, galvanized, grown-up people, but they are constantly getting ill, and the people about wonder why Mrs. Smith's children are so often ailing, when they are so admirably brought up and have so wholesome an every-day life.

If the parents of these children happen to take offense and feel that they have been injured or neglected by any of their friends, the children also take offense, and a friend can often perceive the degree of favor in which he stands with the parents by the manners, or lack of manners, of the children. These children

are under the chronic influence of "suggestion"; their little brains and nervous systems are really suppressed or hysterical, for they are only thermometers that go up and down according to the temperature of the minds of their parents. They are unusually interesting children in their possibilities, but they are being trained and dominated out of their own individualities, so far as that is possible in comparatively wholesome external surroundings. There is much, very much, more mind than heart in everything that is done for them, and this, of course, kills out their warm, spontaneous affection, and makes their so-called love morbid, clinging, and subservient.

In the other family, on the contrary, there is more heart than mind. The children are helped — you can hardly call it trained — to be good little boys and girls. They are kind and generous to one another, and live along in a happygo-lucky way, perfectly devoted to their parents, and with a natural spontaneity which is delightful. You feel, at first sight, that these children are really themselves. It is charming to see them so natural and happy, and so apparently congenial and friendly with their parents and with one another. But if you put any one of them to a test in which some careful thought or strength of character is required, you will almost always find them wanting. You might as wTell expect the laughing ripples of a brook to do the work of a steadily flowing stream, as to expect any one of these children to meet their difficulties, whether great or small, with anything but the most superficial ideas of right and wrong. The brook is beautiful to listen to, and fascinating in the sunshine, but it is of no use whatever to turn a mill-wheel.

Suppose, for instance, that some one has been really unjust to these children, and you try to explain that, even though they have been unjustly treated, that is no reason why they should be unkind — they listen and look blank. Suppose you try to say that difficulties in school help us to become strong men and women, and that we need the hard lessons to gain the good strength that comes from learning them, — as for instance :

"Why, Willie, if you did not know fractions you would find it very much harder to earn your living when you are a man."

In the case of this particular " Willie," you will be met with a blank "Ye-e-s," long drawn out in a way which is indicative of absolute inability to comprehend. It is curious too, for the children all seem naturally intelligent, and it is like knocking a bell and finding it will not ring, to try them with anything deeper than examples of immediate and visible cause and effect.

If the parents thought more intelli- 24 gently, more deeply, and more simply, and then made friends with their children, the children's perceptions would be clearer and more alive.

These children are also, to a certain extent, under the unwise domination of their parents, but they are much more spontaneous than the children of the other family.

In both families, if the parents dislike you the children dislike you, and all the parents' faults are reflected upon the children. In the first family they are loving and kindly by line and rule, but in the second family all the members are, in general, more natural and kindly.

If there were more spontaneous love and less line and rule in the first family it would be better all around. If there were a little more line and rule and a little less spontaneity in the second family, conditions would be very much improved. That is, it would be better if the first family loved more along with their thought, and if the second family thought more along with their love. But, even if that change were made, and the families improved accordingly, the key-note of the difficulty would not have been struck. The main trouble in both families is that, if the father and the mother hate, the children hate; if the father and the mother are selfish and resentful, the children are selfish and resentful; if the father and the mother are personally sensitive and too ready to believe themselves injured, the children are personally sensitive and too ready to believe themselves injured.

There is only one possible real way of training our children, and that comes solely through training ourselves. If parents could once become wide-awake to this truth, the gain to parents and children would be simply incalculable. It is comparatively so easy to be full of the responsibility of training our children, and full of our own self-importance as parents, and, at the same time, never to realize the necessity of establishing in ourselves the habit of obeying the very same laws which we must train our children to obey. If we are entrusted with a piece of clean white linen which belongs to some one else, and insist upon handling it every day with dirty hands, we must, if quickly and unexpectedly called upon to return it, return it soiled and disfigured. It is just so with the children. If our own hands are not clean, their little souls will be marked with our finger marks, and in some cases the marks will prove to be stains which do not come off in the wash — at least not in this world.

Children are entrusted to us, — they are not ours. They are little rudimentary men and women, with individualities of their own, and, if they are to be guided toward their best power for use, those individualities must have room and opportunity to grow.

If I cannot feel, from the very beginning of his life, a mutually helpful relation with my child, I am not prepared to do my duty truly as his father or his mother. If I am not as ready to learn from my child as to teach him, I am not truly ready to guide or to lead him. The child was born into the world to obey the same laws that his mother and father were born to obey, and he can only be expected to obey his father and his mother in response to their obedience to the same laws which they are teaching him to obey. A child is quick to feel the real obedience in his parents, and to respond to the spirit of it in their guidance, and equally quick to feel and respond to their disobedience and inconsistency. If a mother is trustful and quiet, and

lets herself be permeated with and taught by the gentle, innocent atmosphere about her little baby, she will be ready to guide him through his hard places by the help of the very life the baby has brought with him into the world.

Thus will the companionship begin, and thus it will grow with a real exchange between parent and child, until the child has grown to maturity and a permanent friendship is established. Both strict discipline and expansive confidence between parent and child become possible when the parent has first learned to discipline himself, and is living in the same spirit of obedience to law which he is exacting from his child. A child is quick to detect any disobedience on the part of his parents, and, if the father and mother are ready to acknowledge at once the truth of any true criticism, they will only gain more respect and more prompt obedience from the children

as a result of their honest frankness.

A child who has inherited peculiarly selfish tendencies from father or mother has the best possible chance to grow in strength and unselfishness of character, if his parents have recognized those tendencies and overcome them in themselves; but, on the contrary, his situation is perilous if his father and mother have only indulged their selfishness, and are therefore ready only to indulge their child or be unreasonably severe with him.

Our books, talks, and lectures — all theories upon the training of children — are useless, and only raise in us a blind fog of intellectual pride and self-importance, unless we know, and believe, and act upon the principle that no true training is possible unless it comes through our own loving obedience to laws that are given equally to us and to our children. When we train our children in the light that is given us as a result of our own experience in loving obedience, then we shall understand where to begin and where to end — we shall know how best to foster the free development of their own individuality, and how best to give them the benefit of our own experience. There is no selfish love or pride of possession, no domineering wilfulness, no warping family prejudice in the true training of children. It is companionship, real companionship, from first to last. While our children are little and we must exact obedience from them for the sake of teaching them the laws that we must ail obey, we should be learning from them without their knowledge; but after they have matured, the giving and the taking should be mutual and consciously helpful to both parents and children. Froebel said: "Come, let us live to our children." The German idiom can only be rendered into English properly by a paraphrase, and it implies a responsibility to our children for the quality of our own lives. Let us live in such a way that our children will understand clearly the standards which we hold before ourselves, and the spirit in which we are laboring to apply them to our daily lives. Then it will be possible for us to teach the same standards to our children, and we shall find the truest companionship with them in hearty co-operation according to the common principles which we both acknowledge. Even little children catch the spirit of a principle through their parents5 influence before they can possibly understand its application. It is what we are that trains our children more — much more — than what we do and say. Let us remember always that they are little, rudimentary men and women, and that it is our duty and privilege to lead them to their true freedom, which we can only do as we find our own.

Ill

A rough-lookixg old man was mowing the grass just behind the fence in his garden. It was a beautiful garden, — so beautiful that an elderly lady who was walking with her little niece stopped to call the child's attention to it. They looked over the fence for a few moments and talked about the flowers, and finally the lady ventured to speak to the old man, who, although he was a near neighbor, had paid no attention to them whatever o

"Mr, Birch," said the lady, very politely, "I should like to take my little niece into your garden, if it will not trouble you, just to let her get a nearer look at these beautiful flowers."

"Well/5 answered Mr. Birch, without raising his eyes from the scythe, "I sharn't hender yer."

The little girl looked up with doubtful eyes, but the old lady merely smiled and, with a quiet "Thank you," led her niece down the steps and into the paths of the garden.

As the two stood for some time admiring the roses, Mr. Birch passed with his scythe over his shoulder. He did not hesitate in the least to pass between his guests and his roses.

" These are wonderful roses, Mr. Birch," said the lady.

"Well — y-a-a-s, purty good," answered Mr. Birch, and passed on.

As if by sudden impulse, he turned, picked the most beautiful rose of all, and handed it to the little girl, stretching his arm directly in front of her aunt. The child looked at her aunt in shocked surprise, then at the rose. Her glance was so quick that, even if Mr. Birch had had finer perception, he could hardly have noticed it. The lady at once said :

"How kind of Mr. Birch to give you the rose, dear/'

At this the child's face brightened, she took the rose with a quiet little "Thank you," and Mr. Birch passed in front of them again without a word. When they were out of sight and hearing, the child held out the rose to her aunt, saying:

" Here is your rose, Aunt Mary. Wasn't he horrid ?"

"Why, no, dear," said her aunt, "he was not really horrid, he liked to have us enjoy his garden, — he liked to give you the most beautiful flower in the garden, — he is very kindly, but he does not know how to do things in the pleasantest way."

"Doesn't know how!" said the little girl with a puzzled air. "Why, Aunt Mary, he has been in this world ever so many years."

Finally, after a long silence, she exclaimed thoughtfully: "Aunt Mary, do you think Mr. Birch wants to know how to do things in the pleasantest way?"

I once sat next to a man at dinner whose manners were courteous and graceful. He was so well informed that it was a delight to talk with him. After dinner I spoke of him to a friend, who was loud in her praises of his kindness to others. She told of one kind deed after another, showing how he had anticipated people's needs in many ways to relieve and save them from trouble or annoyance. When the gentleman came into the drawing-room I watched him with new interest, and was again impressed by his grace and ease of manner.

Months later I was surprised and glad to meet the same man and his wife in an English railway carriage. It was a happy renewal of our acquaintance and, as we were all traveling for pleasure, it was agreed that we should travel for a few weeks together.

For the first week my admiration grew steadily for what seemed to be one of the best-bred men I had ever met. But gradually it began to dawn upon me that his wife was always working to make him comfortable, and he was doing nothing whatever for her excepting when neglect would have been positively discreditable, or when his kind attention could be remarked by others. He always spoke to her courteously and appeared very fond of her. But his fondness seemed based upon the fact that she helped him to be comfortable and shielded him from annoyance. Since she believed him to be a hero, she unconsciouslv nursed his selfishness, for he sincerely believed himself to be a kindly, well-bred, Christian gentleman. A friend who traveled with us was ill, and he wTas most thoughtful and gentle in his care of her* His wife did everything for the invalid that required hard work, but she stood in the background and let him do all the kind talking.

Later on we met some friends who were not at all to this " gentleman's " taste. He struggled with his antagonism and covered it with his habitual attitude of good manners, but it was finally too strong for him, and his rudeness, when it at length appeared, was low and brutal. I never knew that an apparent gentleman could so quickly change into a clown. Before our journey was over we were the guests of very simple people. He had not yet recovered his habitual attitude of the beneficent gentleman enough to adapt himself, even on the outside, to their quiet simplicity, and, although it was plain that he was always trying to say what would appear pleasing, he could not hide his contempt for the primitive life of the people around him.

He reminded me of the play which Gilbert wrote called "A Palace of Truth." The King had a palace in which every one who entered was obliged to say what he really thought, while believing that he was only saying what he wished other people to hear. The Princess sang a song and asked one of the courtiers how he liked it. "A very ordinary song, Your Majesty, very ordinarily sung!" he replied, with a low and graceful bow. He believed he had said, "A very charming song, Your Majesty, very beautifully sung!" — and so, in this Palace of Truth, one character after another was exposed for what it really was, until the King, having become subject to the same conditions by losing his protecting amulet, was only too glad to move his court to their habitual surroundings.

The well-mannered man of whom I have been writing was in a veritable Palace of Truth while he was subject to the test that his unwelcome companions had unconsciously imposed upon him, but he did not take true advantage of the test in the sense of learning thereby to see himself more clearly. Only other people who saw him were enlightened and helped to understand that good manners and kind actions are not necessarily well bred or really kind.

The personality whom I have tried to sketch is an extreme example, but he is a true expression of what we see about us every day in milder and less offensive forms. We do not realize, and so the fact is brought to our attention, how many men and women there are who are well behaved, — we cannot call them well bred, — because they want to stand well in what they consider to be the best society. It is a good plan to look carefully into ourselves and to consider the sincerity of our own good manners; if we look with a desire to know the truth we shall probably find in ourselves more than one touch of good behavior which is simply for the sake of appearing well to others; more than one touch of good manners which is not in any sense well bred. If we have the perception to discover the unreal quality of our own lives, the very perception of it will assure us that we have behind it the possibility of true good breeding, and, if we are vigilant in avoiding all false appearances, it will not be long before good manners, without the motive of sincere kindliness, will be more hateful to us than bad manners themselves.

If we could know that good manners do not make good breeding, any more than artificial flowers make a garden; if we could only appreciate the truth of that fact fully, and act upon it, it would be of the greatest service in uncovering the conventional hypocrisy of the world.

Good breeding is a sincere, kindly con- 41 sideration for others put in its pleasantest and most delicate form.

The rough gardener was not well bred, for although he was kindly, he had lived for years without caring to put his kindliness into pleasant forms, and there must have been some sort of selfish indulgence in the man to prevent his perceiving the crude, almost repulsive form of his kindliness. A man can be gracious without being polished. It is even possible for a man to have good manners in essentials, and yet eat with his knife, although of course it is pleasanter when his good manners extend to non-essentials. We all know under what social disadvantages Abraham Lincoln grew up, and yet one of his contemporaries, in speaking of his bearing, said of him that "he had a dignity which a king might envy and a common man despise."

The selfish man who seemed thoughtfully considerate of others and whose manners were finished in every detail certainly was not well bred, for his considerate kindness was only his way of indulging his own selfish love of admiration, and the pleasant form in which he expressed this consideration was nothing but a hollow mask. If we want to recognize a well-bred man we must watch him in an emergency. Many a thick veneer of good breeding has cracked and gone to pieces in a shipwreck or a railroad accident.

There is a certain inherited instinct for kindliness, and for living and acting in good form, which proves to be perfectly hollow when put to the slightest test, unless its possessor has made it his own by feeling and living in true and active obedience to the commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves. We are not well bred simply because our grandfathers were. If we have a good inheritance to build on let us be grateful, but let us remember that all inherited good habits must be established by the strength of our own personal character before they are really ours. If we inherit low, common, vulgar habits of mind, and have the intelligence and power to recognize the fact, then the low inheritance will not remain ours, for we can cast it off and receive all good in its place. Every man, outside of hell, has in him the possibilities of a gentleman. Every woman, outside of hell, has in herself the possibilities of a lady.

All good customs have a true reason for existence, and any man who has the fine perception which good breeding always gives will easily adopt the best customs of those with whom he is thrown, no matter in what part of the world it may be. A real love of our neighbor gives us a quick perception of his point of view, and an ability to conform to it in all ways that are possible and necessary. When we are selfishly set in our own ways, we carry a resistance to the habits of people who differ from us which makes it difficult to understand or to conform to their customs.

If we are well bred, truly well bred, we are loving, thoughtful, observant, quick in our perception of other people's needs and delicate in our manner of supplying them without intrusion. If, for instance, we know that a man is anxious to hear a bit of news and cannot easily get it, we are quick in seeing that it reaches him. We never leave a letter unacknowledged. There are very many little ways of doing thoughtful things for others which should be, which are, absolutely necessary to a well-bred man, and it is good to know that our perception for the small and for the great needs of other people grows rapidly as we put it into practise.

Kindly consideration for others, with a gentle tolerance for all ways in which they may differ from us, is the root of good breeding, and good manners are its branches, flowers, and fruit.

If the root is firmly planted within us, and is carefully nourished and tended, it will not be long before the pleasant forms in which we express our kindliness will take care of themselves.

Finally, let us think more deeply and see how clear and wonderful an example the Creator gives us for expressing all our work in pleasant forms. Think of the beauty of the flowers, of the color of the sky, of the grace in the forms and motions of the clouds ! We can, with the deepest reverence, see and feel the beauty of nature, and realize that the love which is behind that universal beauty is also — on the smaller, derivative, human plane, — at the root of all good breeding. For the essence of good human qualities is in God himself, and is given to us as we shun the selfish obstructions which interfere.

IV

"My dear Friend — I should have written to you before, but it has been impossible for me to find the time. I can give you no idea of how I am rushed from morning until night. When I wake in the morning there is a burden upon me as to how I am to get through the duties of the day. When I go to sleep at night I cannot cast off the weight of the work that I have left undone. What would happen to the family if I were taken ill, I do not know. No one else seems to be willing or indeed to be capable of taking responsibility. I have a hundred things to tell you, but cannot stop now — I must go to work."

The writer of this letter could never 47 visit a friend without having to "hurry off" because she was too busy to stay; and even when she was acting the part of hostess herself, although she tried to be polite, there was a constant impression of "please go as soon as you can, for really I am so busy I have not time for visitors." The strain to be seen on her face was evidently chronic, and leisure had become an impossibility.