LECTUEES AND ESSAYS READ AT INSTITUTES. 401 



This is due to the rigorous, old-time home culture. Educatiou must be incul- 

 cated by the mother. lu Wales and England, the character of the mother is 

 inquired for as a recommendation for the son. The average boy, noisy, impet- 

 uous, detesting home work, bankrupt in education, and a dodger of churches 

 and other pious places, yet has a fathomless tenderness for his mother, but he 

 wants no spectator. He is characterized by a passionate loyalty to whatever he 

 espouses, and a high sense of honor to which appeal can safely be made in 

 most cases. One thing in his teaching is imperative — moral purity. Let the 

 mother inculcate this with loving care, putting aside false notions of modesty 

 and all prudishness. Let us have done with the belief in the saying, "Wild oats 

 must sometime be sowed." He who thus sows must inevitably reap a similar 

 harvest. Every boy should be trained to respect womanhood. Nothing so 

 much adorns manhood as his respect for woman. The boy should be trained 

 in politeness. This has a commercial value. He makes his way in the world 

 easier f o'r a pleasing address. There is no reason why the boy of to-day should 

 not be taught the ordinary rules of etiquette. Good manners are to a man 

 what beauty is to a woman. But best of all, train boys in honor, in integrity, 

 and trustworthiness. To sum it all up, train the boy into manliness, that 

 standard of manliness that combines the strongest virtues with the gentlest 

 weakness. Let him be like a hand of iron in a glove of velvet. There is 

 nothing higher or nobler than this." 



The conscientious mother will deem it a duty likewise so to train her girls, 

 that they will be courteous, efficient, methodical, and industrious, — so that mar- 

 ried or single, they shall be skillful, useful, unselfish women. And in most cases 

 where girls do not develop into such women, the fault has been in their home 

 training. We need in our homes more of that very precious old-time rever- 

 ence toward men and women, that simple courtesy toward the fireside, the 

 school-room, and the pulpit, which characterized our earlier New England 

 families. We lack respect for manhood, and reverence for what is sacred. 

 Our boys grow, too soon, to be young gentlemen, and our girls grow fearfully 

 old frightfully soon. These evils can be remedied in only one way, and that is 

 by wholesome home instruction. Society has now so much machinery that we 

 are letting it do many of our personal duties. We commit our babies to nurses, 

 when every chronic old maid, even Annie Dickinson, confesses that "The 

 man or woman who has never loved, hugged, kissed, played with, listened to, 

 told stories to, or thoroughly spanked a baby, has missed the cardinal joys of 

 life." We have good schools. We pay well for them, and think our duty of 

 educating the children is done when we commit them to the teacher. Books 

 and magazines must do our talking. Sunday-schools are expected to relieve 

 us of moral and religious instruction. Thus, one of the evils of modern 

 society is the excessive reliance on outside machinery to do the work of home. 

 Now, it ought to be a delight to parents to be in constant and active contact 

 with the minds of children ; to exert their talents in the domestic circle ; to 

 put their knowledge at the service of the family ; to pronounce useful maxims, 

 illustrate great truths, give wholesome advice, and inspire laudable ambitions. 

 What opportunities for instruction the long, dark, cold, winter-nights bring to 

 the farmer's family ! While revellers dance to lively music, amid gay scenes, 

 in brilliant halls, we may enjoy a dearer scene, — the cheerful home fireside, 

 instructive books, studious children, and the society of those friends whom the 

 heart and experience aknowledge to be true. Here intelligence, sobriety, 

 thoughtfulness, and peaceableness may be acquired ; and they can be acquired 



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