The Bulletin. 37 



(lays after a puiiisljiiiont, than before; and if tboy were not, I knew 1 liad 

 not carried the matter to a finish. You parents who have not tried this 

 seemingly anomalous way of increasing, strengthening, your children's love 

 for you, try it and bo convinced. 



In regard to truthfulness, I believe that example, coupled, of tourse, with 

 precept, counts for more than anything else. This means that" the mother 

 cannot give a short pound of butter, nor the father a short cord of wood, or 

 bushel of apples, say, and then expect to be able to train the child into truth- 

 fulness. How often will a parent deceive a child, tell him the "bad man will 

 get him," or the like, then reprove the child for an untruth! We cannot be 

 too careful about this, nor set too high a value on it, in our dealings with our 

 children. I am often astonished to hear a parent laHijhiiitjly, jokingly, tell of 

 some untruth or dishonesty practiced by some one else. The Scriptures tell 

 us that "fools make a mock of sin" ; that is, a joke of it ! 



We must beware, too, of being prejudiced into thinking that because the 

 children are o(//-,s they must be truthful. In my twelve years of teaching, I 

 learned that in this particular ijoiut parents are most easily deceived. Over 

 and over again parents have said to me, "I know that Mary, or Sallie, or Jim, 

 has many faults, but untruthfulness is not one of them." This, when all mates 

 and teachers knew the child to be false. Because truthfulness is so closely 

 associated with and so decisively affects one's attitude toward property, I 

 hold that we cannot properly train our children in the former, if we neglect 

 to prepare them for the acquiring and use of the latter. We try to fit them 

 for many another demand to come, later in life, but how many of us deliber- 

 ately plan to train them in money earning and money spending? There are 

 some parents who give their child a crippled chicken, or lamb,^ or troublesome 

 calf to raise for his own. When old enough to be put on the market and con- 

 verted into cash, that calf, say, is taken, arbitrarily, without consulting the 

 rightful owner, and sold; then what? Often all the money is appropriated 

 by the parent. Usually a small part is condescendingly given (!) to the 

 child. The child's sense of justice is thereby wronged, so that, as in a case of 

 a man I know, fifty years have failed to obliterate the feeling of bitterness 

 against the lawlessness of his parent. The child by this course is taught to 

 disregard rightful ownership. The better plan is to have a talk with your 

 child. Tell him you wish him to learn the value of money; how hard 'tis to 

 earn, how easy to spend. Tell him you have decided to pay him for certain 

 duties ; but that, like his parents, there are many, many duties he must per- 

 form with no expectation of visible remuneration — just as a member of the 

 family, and with the consciousness that thereby he is contributing to the gen- 

 eral welfare. I would urge you, too, to fix the wages at the price you would 

 have to pay others for similar work ; and then give him enough duties to earn, 

 in the course of a year, an amount equal to what you have been in the habit 

 of spending on his clothes, including shoes and stockings. Tell him that 

 henceforth you expect him to buy these with his own earnings. Incidentally 

 he learns to be careful of his clothes. Require him to keep a strict account. 

 This gives him a good training in business, a correct idea of the legitimate 

 reward for certain kinds of labor, and the necessary cost of part of our living. 

 It thereby fortifies him against failure, right at the very point where our 

 country boys are apt to fail. They go to town, earn a few dollars a week, and 

 because they never before had the handling of money, they feel rich. Then 

 follow trying, humiliating experience, when the irorhl is a hard critic. Would 

 it not be far better to let the child earn his first wages at home? Let him 

 make his mistakes there, too, where loving eyes can watch him and tender 

 counsel lead him into a better way ! 



In regard to purity, it seems to me that parents are most negligent. 



I hold that the first lessons in purity should be that of the sacredness of 

 the person. Our children, from their infancy, shoidd be taught modesty. In 

 some of ouf crowded country homes this is often difficult ; yet if we realized 

 its. import, we would see to it that a little curtain is hung across the corner 

 of the room, or the bed be pulled far enough out from the wall, and each 

 child taught to dress there, out of sight of his own hrothers and sisters. This 



