CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



feel disposed to resent their ill-usage upon the 

 usurper of their rights, as well as to murmur 

 and complain against the injustice itself. The 

 children, on the other hand, are bound to obey 

 their parents, and to exert themselves to make 

 them happy. Parents are sometimes grievously 

 distressed in consequence of the bad behaviour of 

 their children. Their reasonable hopes are dis- 

 appointed, their best feelings are tortured. An 

 idle, ungrateful, dissolute son is such a compli- 

 cated cause of suffering, as may, if anything may, 

 lead one to murmur at the order of things. But it 

 rarely happens that parents who have learned to 

 habitually discharge the duties owing to them- 

 selves and others are thus afflicted. The char- 

 acter of children is very much affected by home 

 influences. If those influences be of a pure and 

 refining character, the child's mind will become 

 pure and refined also. Many parents content 

 themselves with preaching the importance of the 

 duties of life, instead of endeavouring to fulfil 

 them ; thereby leading their offspring to despise 

 those obligations, instead of regarding them as 

 essential to their well-being and happiness. Those 

 parents who complain most loudly of their chil- 

 dren neglecting their duties, are very often those 

 persons who have been most remiss in the dis- 

 charge of their duties to their offspring. A child 

 has duties to fulfil towards its parents, but it 

 must be first taught the nature of those duties. 

 Every parent ought to give his children the best 

 possible education according to the means within 

 his reach. Some parents, especially among the 

 poorer classes, complain that their means are 

 insufficient to secure a proper amount of educa- 

 tion for their children, but, in nine cases out of 

 ten, poverty does not form the real cause. Work- 

 ing-men in the receipt of good wages will often 

 spend more at the public-house in a single month 

 than would suffice to cover the cost of their chil- 

 dren's education during a whole year. Were 

 parents to properly discharge their duties towards 

 their offspring, we should have no need for factory 

 or education acts. No amount of parental neglect, 

 however, gives a child the right to disobey the 

 injunctions of its parents, for, without obedience, 

 there can be no discipline. Children who are 

 petted and allowed to have their own way are apt 

 to become vain, unruly, and a source of constant 

 annoyance to all with whom they come in contact 

 A spoiled child invariably proves a misery to 

 himself as well as his parents and relatives. At 

 the same time, a parent should not be too harsh 

 in enforcing obedience. Firmness combined with 

 gentleness will often effect more than unflinching 

 severity. A child who has learned to love its 

 parents generally takes delight in fulfilling their 

 wishes, however irksome they would otherwise 

 appear. The desire to please its parents, to elicit 

 their smiles of approval and gratification, forms 

 an incentive to the proper fulfilment of the most 

 difficult duties ; and this feeling rarely becomes 

 extinguished in after-life. 



A parent should endeavour to guide the tastes 

 of his child, to teach him habits of self-respect, 

 and to become regarded as his best friend and 

 counsellor. He should not interfere with his son's 

 friendships or affections, unless bestowed upon 

 unworthy objects, and should not allow any un- 



560 



worthy feeling on his part to form an obstacle to 

 the union of his son or daughter with those to 

 whom they may have given their affections. 

 Some parents insist upon treating their offspring 

 as children long after they have attained the years 

 of manhood, thus wounding their feelings of self- 

 respect, and degrading them in the sight of others. 

 No parent should endeavour to interfere, unless 

 solicited, in the management of the households of 

 their married children. The father is the natural 

 head of the household, and is responsible for its 

 good conduct On the other hand, children are 

 bound to love and honour their parents, and to do 

 them all the good they possibly can. Even after 

 they have established households of their own, 

 the duties of children towards their parents do not 

 become weakened. They are bound to help their 

 parents should it be necessary, in return for the 

 care taken of them during the years of childhood by 

 their parents. In short, they ought to seek to pro- 

 mote in every possible way the happiness of their 

 parents, even as their parents did the same unto 

 them. The same rules apply to fraternal relation- 

 ships. Brothers and sisters, being brought up 

 together, eating at the same table, playing at the 

 same sports, and united by the love of one father 

 and one mother, are always expected to love one 

 another, and to assist in promoting each other's 

 welfare, especially in after-years, when they are 

 no longer directly under parental control. 



These are the chief duties, it appears to us, that 

 fall to be described in a treatise on Practical 

 Morality. No doubt there are others which are 

 highly important, especially in the class of social 

 duties, but we think we have indicated, as far as 

 our limits allowed, the general principles which 

 ought to regulate us in the performance of all of 

 these. We have not thought it necessary to touch 

 upon the duties of recreation and amusement, 

 though these are, in a right view of human nature, 

 no less real and binding than others whose 

 obligatoriness we more readily confess. Moreover, 

 we have purposely refrained from introducing 

 religious considerations into the subject ; not by 

 any means because we undervalue the influence 

 of religious sanctions or motives in the discharge 

 of any duty, however slight, but because the obli- 

 gations of morality are independent of the varying 

 forms of religious systems, and are binding even on 

 those who do not acknowledge the validity of reli- 

 gious considerations. It is nevertheless clear that 

 as nothing affects the character and life of men so 

 powerfully as religious convictions, these must oper- 

 ate no less powerfully as inducements to do those 

 things which reason and conscience declare to be 

 binding upon us. Men are not the less but the more 

 likely to do justly, and to love truth and mercy, 

 because they believe that they are commanded by 

 an Almighty Being to whom they are answerable 

 in all things, to perform those duties which nature 

 and society require of them. In truth, the great 

 evidence of the reality and worth of a religion is 

 that it inspires men with an exalted love of virtue : 

 whenever we find a man making solemn profes- 

 sions of religion, zealous in regard to doctrine and 

 worship, or the interests of a sect, but insincere in 

 speech, uncharitable in feeling, unscrupulous in 

 business ' that man's religion is vain.' 



