MORAL RESPONSIBILITY. 



How often we hear the outspoken grief of a wo- 

 man who is deploring the debased condition of a son 

 or a daughter. In the depth of her woe she will ex- 

 claim : " What have I done that such wretchedness 

 should come upon me ? " It would suit the situation 

 better if she should inquire what she had left undone. 

 The mother of a child is the molder of its future. 

 The plastic and pliant creature is as clay in a potter's 

 hands. If the expanding mind be impulsive, irri- 

 table, and impatient of restraint, the peculiarity is 

 largely due to inheritance the unruly spirit came 

 from father or mother or other progenitor, and is to 

 be duly considered, and wisely modified. A parent 

 may be proud of a pretty feature in a darling girl or 

 boy, but feature alone is not conveyed to offspring 

 mental peculiarities are also inherited. Not a beauti- 

 ful eye alone is transmitted, but a splay-foot and a 

 vicious will are reprodued and entailed. If the 

 twisted foot and wicked temper be judiciously treated 

 they will nearly disappear; and in the course of sev- 

 eral generations of thoughtful management, the de- 

 fects may be substantially eradicated. Intelligent 

 parents should know what their children's tastes and 

 inclinations are to become by a consideration of their 

 own. Children are not exactly like either parent in 

 mental endowment or physical make-up, but they ex- 

 hibit a blending or compromise of the two parents. 

 If the mother be the daughter of a good mother, she 



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