Life and Literature Part 21

The dutifulness of children is the foundation of all virtues.

--_Cicero._

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His cares are eased with intervals of bliss: His little children, climbing for a kiss, Welcome their father's late return at night.

--_Dryden._

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A BAD EXAMPLE.

Whatever parent gives his children good instruction, and sets them at the same time a bad example, may be considered as bringing them food in one hand, and poison in the other.

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Children have neither past nor future; and what scarcely ever happens to us, they enjoy the present.

--_La Bruyere._

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An honorable life is the best legacy a father can leave to his children.

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Children should not be flattered, but they should be encouraged. They should not be so praised as to make them vain and proud, but they should be commended when they do well.

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Children are excellent physiognomists, and soon discover their real friends.

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_Dr. Guthrie_--He believed--to use his own words--that "where parents will never punish their children, those children will punish them."

_From Dr. Guthrie's Memoir._

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Indulgence to children breeds ingrat.i.tude.

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A man who gives his children habits of industry, provides for them better than by giving them a fortune.

_Whately._

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Choose rather to leave your children well instructed than rich. For the hopes of the learned are better than the riches of the ignorant.

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WOULD YOU HAVE ANSWERED SO?

You would not be in a j.a.panese house long without noticing their extreme politeness, and that this politeness was especially shown by children toward their parents. The one thing that j.a.panese children must learn is perfect obedience; a child would as soon think of refusing to do a thing altogether, when told, as to ask why he must do it.

A little * * * girl, the child of a missionary, was playing in the street with some j.a.panese children.

"Mary," called her father from the house, "come in."

As she paid no attention, the others thought she had not heard, and began to say to her: "Your august father is calling you," "Your honorable parent is beckoning to you," and so on.

"I don't care," said Mary.

The children stopped playing and looked at her in astonishment. Her father called her again. This time she answered crossly, "I don't want to come in. What for?"

At this the children picked up their playthings and hurried home, talking excitedly all the way. "Rude little foreigner!" "Bad little girl!" they said, and it was a long time before Mary saw anything of her friends again.

_Juniors in j.a.pan._

280

_Children_--Living jewels, dropped unstained from Heaven.

--_Pollock._

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Children know, Instinctive taught, the friend and foe.

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