CHAPTER XIX. 



IT is of the utmost importance to individuals 

 and to society that attention should be watchfully 

 bestowed upon children, both with respect to their 

 health and their morals. Their future welfare in 

 life depends upon this, and the important charge 

 falls greatly upon the mother. Her first lesson 

 their talent being only imitation should be that 

 of obedience, mildly enforced ; for, reason being 

 the faculty of comparing ideas already presented 

 to the mind, it cannot exist in a child, to whom 

 few or no ideas have been presented. Then follow 

 lessons of truth, sincerity, industry, honesty. It 

 ought to be impressed upon their minds that, 

 though they are young, yet the longest life is 

 only like a dream ; and, short as it is, it is 

 rendered shorter by all the time lost in wicked- 

 ness, contention, and strife. They ought to be 

 taught that all they can do, while they sojourn 

 in this world, is to live honourably, and to take 

 every care that the soul shall return to the Being 

 who gave it as pure, unpolluted, and spotless as 

 possible ; and that there can be no happiness 

 in this life unless they hold converse with God. 



With respect to the health of children, I fear the 

 present management is not right. The mistaken 

 indulgence of parents, in pampering and spoiling 

 the appetites of children, lays the foundation of a 

 permanent train of diseases, which an endless 

 supply of medicines and nostrums will never 



