THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
1067 
Some Principles of Child Training 
By a Young Mother 
Maternal Responsibility. — With 
the birth of our baby came to me, as 
to all mothers, a great sense of the re¬ 
sponsibility of training the little life. 
The knowledge that I had it in my power 
to make of the little soul a personality 
of beauty and usefulness or a degraded 
thing that would detract from the world 
instead of adding to it, was almost over¬ 
whelming. I felt that long years of 
training would hardly have made me com¬ 
petent to meet all the issues of such a 
situation wisely, and here was I, scarcely 
sons to have and none that would dis¬ 
honor them. 
The First Child. —When, at the end 
of the first year of our marriage, our 
little daughter was born, my first sensa¬ 
tion was of our great responsibility. 
But I felt, also, that I had not come to 
my sacred task altogether unprepared. 
She was the culmination of our hopes 
and desires, and the time had also ar¬ 
rived when the theories I had entertain¬ 
ed as to how a baby should sleep and 
eat and behave generally, were to be tried 
Ten Pounds of a Very Valuable Product. 
more than a girl who felt her ignorance 
and inexperience to such a degree thut 
it was almost terror. But I had this 
thought for comfort—that I had made all 
the preparation that lay in my power. I 
was thoroughly domestic in my tastes, 
and all my girlish dreams of the future 
showed a little home that was the bright¬ 
est place on earth, a husband who was 
the noblest of his kind, and a big brood 
of little children with me to minister to 
them all. My closest companion from 
my infancy was my father, who mixed 
philosophy and farming. Many are the 
talks we have had, as he went about his 
work, on what we called the vital prin¬ 
ciples of life. We often talked of hered¬ 
ity, and a frequent expression of his was, 
“What you are, your children will be.’’ 
This was my inspiration when as a girl 
I tried to weed out the defects in my 
character that I considered unfit to 
hand down to my dream-children. As 
a young woman I studied child physiol¬ 
ogy and child psychology in . normal 
school, always with this thought in mind, 
“1 must master these principles for the 
sake of my own children that I hope to 
have.” When I came to governing and 
mingling with children in the schoolroom 
I still had the same thought in mind— 
that out of my experience with other 
mothers’ children I might learn some¬ 
thing of child nature and child training 
that would help me in dealing more wise¬ 
ly with my own. In the meantime I read 
much literature on the care of children, 
mentally, morally, physically. Then after 
three years of teaching, the young man 
came into my life, who measured up to 
my standard of what a young man should 
be. I pictured him as my husband and 
it was a satisfying picture. I thought 
of him as the father of my little children. 
He had qualities that I should like my 
out. It has been very interesting to see 
how many of my ideas have held good 
and how many fell through. If she had 
not been such a perfectly normal, per¬ 
fectly healthy little soul our task would 
have been a different and more difficult 
one. She was just the sort of baby we 
had hoped she would be, healthy and 
happy, and as little trouble as a baby 
could oe. 
Beginning Training. —We began our 
training with her first hour of life. The 
first time she cried we did not take her 
out of her crib, but after making sure 
the baby was comfortable, we let her 
cry. This principle we always adhered 
to, and she never learned to cry for the 
sake of being taken up. I often held 
her, however, in order to rest her little 
bacK. One of the things that helped 
me most, I think, in the care of her 
was consistent regularity in all her 
habits. By this method the baby knew 
what to expect at all times. She was 
fed promptly at stated intervals; she 
had her bath at the same hour every 
day, after which she always took her long 
daytime sleep; her outing came at a 
regular hour and she was put to bed 
at 6 o’clock every night. After she was 
snug in her bed I turned out the light, 
closed the door and my husband and I 
had our quiet evening together as we 
had before she came. 
Outdoor Life. — She was an out-of- 
doors baby. Circumstances were such that 
it was impossible for her to take her 
daytime naps out of doors, but the only 
days that were too bad for an hour’s 
outing were days when a hard, cold wind 
was blowing. Then I put on her wraps 
and- opened the windows in the room. 
She enjoyed the snow well protected in 
her little sled. Even sunshiny zero 
mornings found her out of doors. I 
warmed her wraps and all of the pil¬ 
lows and coverings for her carriage and 
wrapped her up well. At the end of a 
half hour when we brought her in, she 
was warm as toast under the blankets. 
On rainy days she took the fresh air on 
the porch. 
Insuring Health. — I found the 
tables, formulas, and suggestions that 
one of the well-known current woman’s 
magazines sends for the asking, of great 
help in regulating the baby’s diet. When¬ 
ever any condition of the baby came 
about that I did not understand I went 
to the doctor. This is one of the rea¬ 
sons to which I attribute the fact that 
she has never been sick. 
Moral Training. — After she had 
passed her first year we found problems 
of a moral nature confronting us. One 
of the first things we tried to teach her 
was the principle of mine and thine —to 
differentiate between her possessions and 
those of others. We were not as suc¬ 
cessful in this as we had hoped to be. 
Now at two years of age she does not 
hesitate to handle other persons’ pos¬ 
sessions, but will lay the article down 
if told that it isn’t hers. As a babe in 
arms I held her down to pick up any 
toy she had dropped. When she began 
playing with toys on the floor I held 
the bag for her and helped her put them 
in when she was through playing. As 
she grew older she put them all in with 
no assistance, thus learning to pick up 
her playthings when she was through 
with them. Having a bright colored bag 
to contain them and a certain place for 
the bag to hang made teaching her easier. 
Avoiding Fear. — One of the things 
from which I have constantly tried to 
guard my baby, is fear iu any form. I 
would teach her caution, but I would 
have fear have no place in her life. She 
has never been told that a bugaboo or a 
big bear will get her if she doesn’t 
do thus and so. Fear of the dark is 
another terror from which I have tried 
to shield her. For these reasons I have 
never thought kindly of going away for 
an afternoon and leaving the baby in 
charge of an inexperienced or ignorant 
girl who will see to her for a small 
amount of money. It is possible for 
her to undo all my work, and instill 
these fears in the few hours of my ab¬ 
sence. 
Training to Helpfulness. —At two 
years of age our little one is a very 
active little body, always investigating 
or imitating her elders witih dire re¬ 
sults to herself or the furniture if she 
isn’t watched. I find it simplifies mat¬ 
ters when I am about my work to give 
her some part in it—to keep her with 
me and content her. In setting the 
table she puts on the silver. I show 
her the right way and she follows it 
well for so young a child. She knows 
the right place for the pans when I 
wash and dry the dishes. She helps 
sweep with her little broom, or she can 
hold the dustpan for me. She busies 
herself about the beds when I am making 
them. The greatest factor in this ar¬ 
rangement is the quantity of things she 
learns incidentally, more than the fact 
that she is kept out of mischief. 
Intellectual Teaching. — I believe 
I have already instilled a love of books 
—and of good books—in her mind. She 
loves Mother Goose’s rhymes and can say 
some of them. Tennyson’s “What Does 
Little Birdie Say?” is her favorite 
“story” as she calls it. We have accom¬ 
plished much in the two short years of 
her life, that we hoped to do. Some of 
our plans have failed entirely. Teaching 
the little child obedience is one of the 
most difficult problems we have had, and 
we have not solved it yet. She is so full 
of energy and originality and persistency 
—qualities that we love to see in her— 
that we are afraid to dwarf them by too 
harsh treatment. Her two years have 
been such a satisfaction to us, but we 
realize we have made only a beginning. We 
have come to the conclusion that no mat¬ 
ter how deep of understanding and sym¬ 
pathy or how broad of mind a woman 
may be, she isn’t quite big enough for the 
job of motherhood. g. w. d. 
I surely do appreciate those Jimmie 
Barlow stories. They are original, help¬ 
ful and truly humorous in the broadest 
sense. The magazine is bettering every 
issue. m. D. 
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