III. DUTIES OF PARENTS AND TEACHERS.

THE child who has not left the tender embraces of its parents feels hunger and can procure for itself no nourishment; it feels cold and can not clothe itself.

But its father and mother are at hand.

They are attentive to its least cry; they watch the tones of its voice, and observe its complexion and color.

If it laughs, their hearts are full of pleasure; if it cries, they are grieved. If it tries to go, they follow its slightest motions; if it is sick, they have no rest.

They nourish the child and instruct it, until they have developed it into

a man.

They trouble themselves in a hundred ways, only to care for the child and to ensure its success in life.

Oh, the virtue of a father and mother is truly infinite; it is like God himself. An ancient Chinese emperor.

When once a female friend from Campania visited Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, and in the course of conversation, after an idle fashion, first showed her own rich ornaments, and then requested to see Cornelia's, the latter waited until her two blooming boys, Tiberius and Sempronius, came home from school, and then showed her friend the boys, saying "These are my jewels." VALERIUS MAXIMUS.

An intelligent father must try to influence his son by good company, and must attend to this, as a chief department of education.

Example, knowledge of men, and admonition, are of prominent importance in education.

The father must so conduct toward the son that the latter shall be sensible of his father's love for him, and then give him more of his confidence than any other man.

As a father who is too strict destroys his son by bad management, so the father who manages him lovingly, and with wise consideration, will first reach his object.

Constraint makes the young obstinate and cunning, so that they deceive first their father and then more easily others.

A good son is obedient to his father out of respect and love, and follows his father's advice. TERENCE.

It is the highest praise of a noble race, that even in the midst of great wealth they bring up their children to be noble men, a memorial of their family and of themselves. PLAUTUS.

Children must needs complain of a wicked father, for it is through his means that they are despised. BIBLE. JESUS the son of SIRACH.

Water-drops wear away stones, and iron is worn out by the hands. But the crooked timbers of a wagon wheel will never regain their natural condition, however much industry is expended on them.

A field good by nature grows wild by neglect; and the better it naturally is, so much the more unfruitful is it if allowed to remain uncultivated.

However rough and hard the ground may be, it will yet, when it has received the necessary cultivation, bear good fruit. ·

Do not trees by neglect grow crooked and unfruitful, but when properly tended, are they not made fit to bear fruit?

What body is so strong as not to become weakened by disorderly living; and what so weak that training will not strengthen it?

Are not horses, if well broken when colts, obedient to the rider, and those not broken, wild and hard mouthed?

Are not the wildest beasts tamable by assiduity?

Human character considered in this point of view, is a long-fixed habit. Just as it is necessary that the limbs of a child should have proper management even immediately after its birth, in order that they may grow properly, even so must the moral character, as long as the child is weak and tender, be trained, even from the earliest youth.

The souls of children are as wax, upon which, as with a seal, impressions of wisdom and virtue can easily be made; whereas afterwards, when they have become hardened, they can be erased only with difficulty, and in like manner all new ones are resisted.

Children should early be made to learn useful things.

As the vine-grower drives down stakes near the vines to support them, so must the teacher fasten good teaching and admonitions to children, if they are to possess a good moral character. And to this end children should have only such teachers as unite with a true morality, a rich store of knowledge and experience.

He who does otherwise, is like a sick man who neglects the real physician, but sends for a quack, who by ignorant treatment destroys his life; or like a merchant who turns away the most skillful captain, and employs the least skillful one instead.

A good education, including the proper instruction, is the first, middle and last means by which youth become virtuous; while all other good things, such as riches, high birth, beauty, &c., are in comparison with such an education not worth trying for.

Children must be protected from follies and from intercourse with bad men, and made accustomed to tell the truth; and never to forget that lying is a contemptible thing, and deserving of universal abhorrence.

When parents, from avarice or conscientiouslessness or ignorance or any other cause, neglect their children, the sad consequences which punish such conduct do not fail to follow.

When such sons grow up to be men, give themselves up to the most frightful vices, and squander all their goods, then, when it is too late, the parents who have ruined them, feel the deepest distress. PLUTARCH.

It is a natural impulse for parents to love their children and to be troubled when they are in trouble; as we see, even in the case of unreasoning beasts, that they will even give their lives for their children.

If one had twenty children, and among them all only one who was good and obedient, that father would feel towards that good child, precisely as he would if he had no others.

Father and mother are in a position similar to God's, as relates to their children; and the paternal feelings of God towards us are excellently represented in them.

But this ought married persons to know; that neither God, Christianity, or all the world, can impose upon them or their children any greater or more useful work, than that they should train up their children well. This is the directest road to heaven.

And when parents do not industriously perform their duty, it is as unnatural a thing as for fire not to burn, or water not to wet.

And on the other hand, hell can not be more easily served, nor a more

shameful thing be done, than by the neglect of children by their parents, and their being permitted to curse and swear, learn shameful words and songs, and live according to their own wills. LUTHER.

Parents are placed in their station by God, not merely to find their pleasure in their children, or to gratify their curiosity with them; and still less to drive them to anger and to provoke them with excessive punishment; but to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. In like manner as the labors of pious and God-fearing parents are certainly followed by a rich blessing--for pious children are a crown and honor to them, (Prov. xvii; 6)-so, if parents will not exercise the proper care and pains, but let things go on as they will, do not train their children in the fear of God, but give them over to wickedness and corrupt them, then certainly will God's anger and all manner of curses be upon both parents and children. (Prov. x; 1.) LUTHER.

The home, the school and the church are the three chief pillars of education.

Therefore this must come to ruin, if one of these pillars is broken down; and most of all does a defect in the first of these corrupt children.

The impressions which the child receives at home, being the first, and enforced by the examples of the father and mother, are the most enduring.

The parents are the first and most influential instructors; and accordingly, most distinguished men have been so fortunate as to enjoy a good home training.

In the relations of the parents to the children, it is of the utmost consequence that, on the subject of education, father and mother should think in harmony.

To this result will contribute the earnestness and firmness of the father, the softness, warmth, patience, and at the same time the proper steady strictness, of the mother.

It is the intermingling of these traits which will complete the ideal of a home education, and is the foundation of happiness in the family.

Those to whom God has given the best gift which he can give to manchildren should find no place of amusement, gaming table, gay society, or theatrical exhibition, any more necessary to them than is the company of their children.

Absences from home should only be occasionally taken, as a necessary recreation and relief, to make them more capable of performing their home duty.

For there may be such a thing as an excess of self-devotion.

But this is exactly calculated to cripple the faculties which are indispensable to the fulfillment of the educational duties.

It admits of no doubt that the mother can do very much not only for the corporeal benefit, but also for the mental development, of her children, if she is an intelligent and true mother.

She usually has her children much about her in their early years; they depend chiefly upon her. She has their youthful minds entirely in her

power.

She can therefore do much to direct aright the first development of their perceptions and of their reflective powers; to secure them an early acquaintance with language, the most important means of cultivating the understanding; and that even their little plays may have some reference to a higher purpose.

Even upon sons while growing up into young men mothers, even of intelligence, consider as grown beyond they can have an influence in many ways beneficial.

whom so many their influence— NIEMEYER.

I hold it incontestable, that if the history of all those men were fully known, who have distinguished themselves for uprightness or virtue, it would be found that nine out of ten of them owed these good qualities to their mothers.

It is not now sufficiently understood, how important for the future life is an innocent and blameless youth; how almost all those who have enjoyed this advantage, have owed it to their mothers; and how universally the perfection and the good fortune of men is founded upon female intelligence and female virtue. ISELIN.

Parents are under obligations to educate their children, because they are required to do so by the voice of nature, regard for their own happiness, and their obligations to society and to the divine organization of the

human race.

This education differs from the instruction which the children receive from others; but for this latter they must be prepared in the bosom of the family, and brought up to it.

Parents can therefore not be permitted to neglect this physical, intellectual, and moral and religious training, any more than the furnishing of that civic education which only terminates at years of discretion and fitness for an independent employment. VON AMMON.

He who can not perform the duties of a father, has no right to become a father.

Neither poverty, nor labor, nor regard for men, can excuse him from bringing up his children and from educating them himself.

I assure every one who has a heart, and who neglects these holy duties, that he will one day weep bitter tears over his fault, and will never escape remorse for it. ROUSSEAU.

To neglect the education of children, not to do all that is possible for this holy purpose, so far as parents may be able, in their circumstances, not to secure them the best teachers, not to keep them regularly at school, not to instruct them personally as far as possible, not to protect them from vice and by good examples to encourage them to goodness, is worse than to expose young children; it is the murder of their immortal souls.

Children are the most lovely bond of marriage; the best wool on the sheep. When Dr. Jonas hung up over the table a beautiful bough of cherries in memory of the creation, and praised the magnificence and goodness of God in such fruits, Dr. Martin Luther said:

Why do you not think likewise of your children, the fruit of your bodies, which are more valuable, and more beautiful and wonderful creatures of God, than whole trees full of fruit?

But men go their ways and think nothing of it; yea, are even blind and avaricious about such gifts; as very commonly happens, that people, when they have children, become more and more miserly, and pinch and rake and scrape, that they may leave them the more.

Do you not know that his own portion is set apart for every child even before he comes into the world, and what is to happen to him? And the proverb says, the more children, the better fortune.

Ah, dear Lord God! how great is the blindness and ignorance and vileness of a man who does not consider this, but who misuses the best and most valuable of God's gifts! LUTHER.

There are no greater benefits than those which parents confer upon their children.

But just as the husbandman renders useless the seed which he has sown, if he gives it no further care, so all the parental care of their children's

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bodies is in vain, if they confine their solicitude to the period of childhood, and do not bestow long-continued care upon them. SENECA.

Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive-plants round about thy table.

Behold, that thus shall the man be that feareth the Lord.
Yea thou shalt see thy children's children, and peace upon Israel.
BIBLE. Ps. cxxviii.

Children's clothes should be neat, but not rich, even if the means of the parents will permit it.

For temporal wealth is transitory; while rich clothing usually infects a child's mind with pride.

To cure or hide bodily defects, and to let the soul remain ugly, is nothing but whitewashing a sepulchre full of fashionable bones.

To bring them to baptism, or to the Lord's Supper, and then not to instruct them any further in Christianity, is a dangerous custom. It quenches the spark of faith, and may destroy a soul, which at the last day will cry Ah! and Wo! over the neglect of its parents.

As the years pass on, it is the duty of parents to see that their children learn something which may enable them to be of service to God and to the commonwealth.

Reasonable parents will consider not only for what their sons are fitted, but whether their own means will allow of it.

It is contrary to prudence to risk anything in hazards.

And in particular, it is an over-haste which deserves punishment, to undertake to devote children to a particular calling, even before they are born. Such destinations often have bad results.

It would be well if women were not merely made to stick fast to household affairs, but were to have their understanding cultivated and their moral nature developed, so that together with Martha's attainments in family management, they might with Mary choose the good part. Luke, X; 42.

Moderate correction with the rod, in case of positive obstinacy is better than a foolish bugbear.

Fear and terror are injurious, and often may become impossible to be removed during the whole life.

As reason grows with years, it will be well for parents to instruct children in their duties towards God, themselves, and their neighbors; to exhibit to them the reward of virtue and the punishment of vice, so that they may not go astray and fall into immorality.

Above all, parents should set their children a good example.
For children are like tinder, which quickly catches fire.

The tendency to evil already exists; and if parents nourish it by a bad example, the result is an unreasonable life, and one unpleasing to God. If parents are God-forgotten and vicious, their children will readily be led into the same vices.

Parents should punish their children for all evil deeds, but should seek prudently to avoid the two harmful extremes of too great rashness and too great indulgence.

For the former banishes love from the child, and the latter fear.

He is rather a devil to his children than a father, who denies them necessary food, clothing and maintenance, or who strikes or drives away from him those of them who are silly or deformed or lame.

And he shows a foolish and shallow love, who gives up to all their willfulnesses, and winks at their bad habits.

A middle path is best.

The Bible must be early put into the hands of the children; for this is