Part 8 (1/2)

Under this head, nothing more can be necessary than to relate an anecdote which teaches much more eloquently than any thing I can say out of my own convictions. In North America, a tribe of Indians attacked a white settlement, and murdered the few inhabitants. A woman of the tribe, however, carried away a very young infant, and reared it as her own. The child grew up with the Indian children, different in complexion, but like them in every thing else. To scalp the greatest possible number of enemies was, in his view, the most glorious and happy thing in the world. While he was still a youth, he was seen by some white traders, and by them conducted back to civilised life. He showed great relish of his new way of life, and, especially, a strong desire of knowledge, and a sense of reverence which took the direction of religion; so that he desired to become a clergyman. He went through his college course with credit, and was ordained. He fulfilled his function well, and appeared happy and satisfied. After a few years, he went to serve a settlement somewhere near the seat of war, which was then going on between Great Britain and the United States; and before long, there was fighting not far off. I am not sure whether he was aware that there were Indians in the field, (the British having some tribes of Indians for allies,) but he went forth to see how matters were going;--went forth in his usual dress,--black coat, and neat white s.h.i.+rt and neckcloth. When he returned, he was met by a gentleman of his acquaintance, who was immediately struck by an extraordinary change in the expression of his face;--by the fire in his eye, and the flush on his cheek;--and also by his unusually shy and hurried manner. After asking news of the battle, the gentleman observed, ”but you are wounded.--Not wounded!--why, there is blood upon the bosom of your s.h.i.+rt.” The young man crossed his hands firmly, though hurriedly upon his breast; and his friend, supposing that he wished to conceal a wound which ought to be looked to, pulled open his s.h.i.+rt and saw--what made the young man let his hands fall in despair. From between his s.h.i.+rt and his breast, the gentleman took out--a b.l.o.o.d.y scalp. ”I could not help it,” said this poor victim of early habit, in an agonised voice. He turned, and ran too swiftly to be overtaken; betook himself to the Indians, and never more appeared among the whites. No one supposes that there was any hypocrisy in this man while he was a clergyman. No one doubts that he would have lived a contented life of piety, benevolence and study, if he had never come within sight or sound of war. When he did so, up rose his early habitual combative and destructive propensities, overthrowing in an instant all later formed convictions and regenerated feelings. By the extent of victory here, we may form some idea of the force of early Habit, or be duly warned by the question whether we can form any idea of it.

The first habit to be formed is,--as is self-evident,--that of obedience; for this is a necessary preliminary to the formation of all other habits. If mothers would but believe it, there is nothing in the world easier than to form a habit of implicit obedience in any child.

Every child,--dependant and imitative,--is obedient as a matter of course if nature is not early interfered with, and put out of her way.

Every one must see that good sense on the part of the mother is absolutely necessary,--to observe what the course of nature is, and to adapt her management to it. For instance,--there is no way in which infants are more frequently, or so early, taught disobedience as by being teased for kisses. The mother does so love her infant's kiss,--to see the little face put up when the loving desire is spoken,--that she can never have enough of it. But her sense, and her sympathy with her little one show her that it is not the same thing with the child. Well as it loves caresses in due measure, it can easily be fretted by too many of them; and if the mother persists in requiring too many while the infant is eager after something else, she will first have to put up with a hasty and reluctant kiss, and will next have to witness the struggles of the child to avoid it altogether. If too young to slip from her arms, he will hide his face:--if he can walk, he will run away, and not come back when she calls. She has made him disobedient by asking of him more than he is yet able to give. If the training begins by pleasantly bidding him do what it is easy and pleasant to him to do, he will do it, as a matter of course. When it is to him a matter of course to do as he is bid, he will prove capable of doing some things that he does not like,--if desired in the usual cheerful and affectionate tone. He will go to his tub in the cold morning, and take physic, and be quiet when he wants to romp;--all great efforts to him. And he will get on, and become capable of greater and greater efforts, if his faculties of opposition and pride be not roused by any imprudence, and if his understanding be treated with due respect by the appeals to his obedience being such only as are moderate and reasonable.

He must be left as free as reason and convenience allow, that his will may not be too often crossed, and his temper needlessly fretted. What he is not to have, but would certainly wish for, must be put out of his sight, if possible. If there are any places where he must not go, he should see it to be impossible to get into them:--for instance, it is better that the fire should be well guarded than the child forbidden to go upon the rug;--and in either case, his gay playthings should not stand on the mantel-piece, tempting him to climb for them.--And so on,--through the round of his day. Let his little duties and obligations be made easy to him by sense and sympathy on the part of his parents; and then let them see that the duty is done,--the obligation fulfilled.

All this is easy enough; and certainly, from all that I have ever been able to observe, I am convinced that success,--perfect success in forming a habit of obedience is always possible. Where a whole household acts in the same good spirit towards the little creature who has to be trained,--where no one spoils him and no one teases him,--he will obey the bidding of the voice of gentle authority in all he does, as simply as he obeys the bidding of Nature when he eats and sleeps.

So much for this preliminary habit, which is essential to the formation of all others that the parents wish to guide and establish. I will now speak briefly of the Personal and Family Habits which are the manifestation of those conditions of mind of which I have treated in my preceding chapters.

CHAPTER XXIV.

CARE OF THE HABITS.--PERSONAL HABITS.

It requires some little consideration to feel sufficiently that it is as necessary to be explicit and earnest about the personal habits of children as about their principles, temper, and intellectual state. Our personal habits have become so completely a second nature to us, that it requires some effort to be aware how far otherwise it is with the young,--how they have every thing to learn; and what a serious thing it is to everybody at some time of his life to learn to wash his own face and b.u.t.ton his own jacket. The conviction comes across one very powerfully in great houses, where little lords and ladies are seen to need teaching in the commonest particulars of manners and habits, as much as any young creatures about a cottage door. Every one knows this as a matter of fact; but still, there is something odd in seeing children in velvet tunics and lace frocks, and silk stockings and satin shoes, holding up their little noses,--or _not_ holding them up--to the maternal pocket-handkerchief; or dropping fruit-stones and raisin-stalks into papa's coat-collar, by climbing up behind his chair. To see this natural rudeness in those to whom consummate elegance is hereafter to appear no less natural, makes one thoughtful for the sake of such as are to remain comparatively rude through life; and also because it reminds one that there is nothing in regard to all personal habits, that children have not to learn.

It is so very serious a matter to them,--the attainment of good personal habits,--that they ought to be aided to the utmost by parental consideration. This consideration is shown first in the actual help given to the child by its mother's hands; and afterwards by making all the arrangements of the household as favourable as possible to good habits in each individual.

The tender mother makes the times of was.h.i.+ng and dressing gay and pleasant to her little infant by the play and caresses which she loves to lavish even more than the child delights to receive. She can hardly overvalue the influence of these seasons on the child's future personal habits. Hurry, rough handling, silence, or fretfulness may make the child hate the idea of was.h.i.+ng and dressing, for long years afterwards; while the a.s.sociations of a season of play and lovingness may help on the little creature a long way in the great work of taking care of its own person. When the time comes,--the proud time,--when it may stand by itself to wash, the pride and novelty help it on; and it is rather offended if help interferes, to prevent its being exposed too long to the cold. All this is very well; but there comes a time afterwards when the irksomeness of was.h.i.+ng and dressing, and cleaning teeth, and brus.h.i.+ng hair, becomes a positive affliction to some children, such as no parents that I have known seem to have any idea of. We grown people can scarcely remember the time when these operations were not to us so purely mechanical as that our minds are entertained by ideas all the time, as much as if we were about any other business. But children are not so dexterous, in the first place; in the next, all labour of which they know the extent is very oppressive to them: and again, any incessant repet.i.tion of what they in any degree dislike is really afflictive to them. We must remember these things, or we shall not understand the feebleness of will which makes a boy neglect some part of his morning was.h.i.+ng, and a girl the due hair-brus.h.i.+ng in the evening, though both are aware that they suffer more in conscience as it is, than they could from the trouble, if they could rouse themselves to do the business properly. I have known one child sick of life because she must, in any circ.u.mstances, clean her teeth every day;--every day for perhaps seventy years. I have known of a little boy in white frocks who sat mournfully alone, one autumn day, laying the gay fallen vine-leaves in a circle, and thinking how tired he was of life,--how dreadfully long it was, and full of care. Its machinery overpowered him. I knew a girl, old enough to be reproached for the badness of her handwriting,--(and she was injudiciously reproached, without being helped to mend it)--who suffered intensely from this, and even more from another grief;--she had hair which required a good deal of care, and she was too indolent to keep it properly. These were the two miseries of her life; and they did make her life miserable. She did not think she could mend her handwriting; but she knew that she might have beautiful hair by brus.h.i.+ng it for ten minutes longer every night: yet she could not do it. At last, she prayed fervently for the removal of these two griefs,--though she knew the fable of the Waggoner and Hercules. Now,--in cases like these, help is wanted. Remonstrance, disgrace, will not do, in many cases where a little sympathy and management will. Cannot these times be made cheerful, and the habit of painful irresolution broken, by putting the sinner into the company of some older member of the family, or by employing the thoughts in some pleasant way while the mechanical process is going on?--I mean only while the difficulty lasts. When habits of personal cleanliness have become fixed and mechanical, it is most desirable (where it can by any means be managed) for each child to be alone,--not only for the sake of decency, but for the benefit of the solitude and silence, morning and night, which are morally advantageous for everybody old enough to meditate.

I fear it is still necessary to teach and preach that n.o.body has a right to health who does not wash all over every day. This is done with infants; and the practice should never be discontinued. Every child of a family should look upon this daily complete was.h.i.+ng in cold water as a thing as completely of course as getting its breakfast. There was a time, within my remembrance, when even respectable people thought it enough to wash their feet once a week; and their whole bodies when they went to the coast for sea-bathing in August. In regard to popular knowledge of the Laws of Health, our world _has_ got on: and, after the expositions, widely published, of those who enable us to understand the Laws of Health, we may hope that was.h.i.+ng from head to foot is so regular an affair with all decent people as to leave no doubt or irresolution in children's minds about how much they shall wash, any day of the year.--As for the care of the teeth,--parents ought to know that, in the opinion of dentists, all decay of the teeth proceeds from the bone of which the teeth are composed not being kept purely clean and bright.

This happens oftenest when teeth overlap, or grow so that every part cannot be reached. Much of this may be remedied, if not all of it, by early application to a dentist. But parents to whom this precaution is impossible can do much to save their children from future misery from toothache, and indigestion through loss of teeth, by seeing that the tooth-scrubbing is properly performed. This is more important than the polis.h.i.+ng of knives and bra.s.s knockers.--As for the brus.h.i.+ng of a girl's long hair, it really is a very irksome business till it becomes mechanical; and a mother may consider a little effort at amus.e.m.e.nt well bestowed till the habit of doing it properly is securely formed, and the mind is rich enough to entertain itself the while.

Readers begin to yawn or skip when they meet, in any book, with praises of early rising. Yet how can I pa.s.s over this particular of personal habits, when I think it of eminent importance?--I believe it is rare to see such early rising as I happen to think desirable. I believe it is rare to see families fairly at their daily work by eight o'clock,--after having had out-door exercise and breakfast; and this, every morning in the year. The variety of objects presented for the observation and enjoyment of children (and of everybody else) in the early morning hours, far surpa.s.ses that which can be seen at any other time of day.

Even town-bred children can see more pure sky, and quieter streets, and the country seems to have come nearer. And in the country, there are more animals abroad,--more squirrels, more field mice, more birds, than at noon or in the evening. The rooks fly higher in the dawn than at any other time; the magpies are bolder and droller; the singing birds in the thickets beyond measure more gleeful; and one need not tell that this is the hour for the lark. All except very young children can keep themselves warm in the mid-winter mornings, and will enjoy the delight of being out under the stars, and watching the last fragment of the moon, hanging over the eastern horizon, clear and bright in the breaking dawn. When these children come in, warm, rosy, and hungry, at seven o'clock, or half-past, and sit down to their breakfast, they seem hardly of the same order of creatures with such as come sauntering down from their chambers, when their parents have half done their meal;--sauntering because they are tired with dressing, or have had bad dreams, and have not recovered their spirits. And what a difference it makes in the houses of rich and poor whether the breakfast things are standing about till nearly ten o'clock, or whether the family have by that time been at work for nearly two of the brightest, and freshest, and quietest, hours of the day!

In every industrious household there should be a bell. This is an admonition which tries no tempers, and gives no personal offence. If the father himself rings the family up in the mornings, it is a fine thing for everybody. If he cannot,--if he is too weary with his day's work for early rising, or if the mother is disturbed with her baby in the night,--if neither parent can be early in the morning, then let it not be insisted on that the children shall be so. It is a less evil that they should forego all the advantages of early rising than that any contest on the subject should take place between them and their parents.

I have seen cases where the parents could not, or did not, appear till nine o'clock or later, but yet made it a point of conscience with the children to be early;--with the most disastrous effect. The children were conscientious, and they did try. When they now and then succeeded, they were satisfied and triumphant, and thought they should never fail again. But the indolence of the growing season of life was upon them: and there was the languor of waiting for breakfast. In the summer mornings, they were chilly and languid over their books; and in the winter, the fire made them sleepy. They grew later and later; they were rebuked, remonstrated with,--even warned against following the example of their parents: but they sank deeper into indolence. At last, the suffering of conscience became so great that it was thrown off by a most audacious effort. I happened to be a witness to the incident; and I have never lost the impression of it. The two girls were only half-dressed at half-past eight. They heard their mother's door open, and looked at each other. She came (herself only half-dressed) to say that she had been defied long enough, and she _would_ be obeyed. She slapped them heartily. As she shut the door, the younger sister, all horror and dismay, stole a look at the elder. The elder laughed; and the younger was evidently delighted to join. I saw, on the instant, that it was all over with the mother's authority. The spirit of defiance had risen, and burst the bonds of conscience. Late rising,--the very latest,--curse as it is,--is better than this. What a struggle is saved in such cases--what a cost of energy, and health, and conscience, by a complete establishment of good habits, through the example of the parents! If the father be but happy enough to be able to take out his little troop into the fields, or merely for a stretch along the high road, in the freshness of the morning, what a gain there is on every hand! He has the best of their affections, if he can make himself their companion at this most cheery hour of the day; and they will owe to him a habit which not only enhances the enjoyment of life, but positively lengthens its duration. Then, after their walk of a mile or two, they find mother and breakfast awaiting them at home,--the house in order and already aired; and everything ready for business when the morning meal is done. They are in the heart of their work, whatever it be, when their neighbours are opening their chamber doors. In London, I am aware, one meets with the plea, in every case, that early rising is impossible, on account of the lateness of the hours of everybody else. I only know that when I lived in lodgings in London, I used to boil my coffee on the table at seven o'clock,--giving no trouble to servants,--and that I used to think it pleasant to have my pen in hand at half-past seven,--the windows open to the fresh watered streets, and shaded with summer blinds, and the flower-girls stationing themselves below,--their gay baskets of roses still wet with dew. I think London streets pleasanter in the dawn than at any other time. In country towns, I know that families can and do keep early hours, without any real difficulty: and in the country, everybody can do as he pleases. I need not say that growing children must have their breakfast before they feel any exhaustion for want of it. I do not understand the old-fas.h.i.+oned method of early rising;--working hard for three or four hours before eating anything at all. If adults can bear this, it is certain that children cannot. I may mention here that a prime means of health for persons of all ages is to drink abundance of cold water on rising, and during the vigorous exercise of the early morning. This morning regimen, if universally adopted, would save the doctors of our island half their work.

There is no part of the personal habits of children more important than that which relates to their eating. We must remember how vivid the pleasures of the senses are to children,--how strong their desire of every kind of gratification,--and how small their store, as yet, of those intellectual and moral resources which make grown people careless of the pleasures of sense. If we look back to our own childhood, and remember our intense pleasure in looking at brilliant colours, and at hearing sweet sounds, unconnected with words and ideas,--such as the chords of an Eolian harp,--and the thrill of pleasure we had at the sight of a favourite dish upon the table, we shall be aware that, however ridiculous such emotions appear to us now, they are realities which must be taken into account in dealing with children.--The object is so to feed children as to give them the greatest amount of relish which consists with their health of body and mind. If their appet.i.tes are not considered enough, they will suffer in body; if too much, they will suffer infinitely more in mind. I have seen both extremes; and I must say, I think the consequences so important as to deserve more consideration than the subject usually meets with.

In one large family which I had for some time the opportunity of observing, there was a pretty strict discipline kept up throughout, with excellent effect on the whole; but in some respects it was carried too far. Some of the children were delicate, particularly in stomach; and the intention of the parents was that this should be got over, as better for the children than yielding to it. Three or four of the children throve well on the basin of bread and milk, which was the breakfast of them all: but there was one little girl who never could digest milk well; and the suffering of that child was evident enough. She did not particularly dislike milk; and she never asked for any thing else. That would have been, in her eyes, a piece of shocking audacity. She had a great reverence for rules; and she seemed never to dream of any rule being set aside for her sake, however hardly it might bear upon her. So she went on for years having the feeling of a heavy lump in her throat for the whole of every morning,--sometimes choking with it, and sometimes stealing out into the yard to vomit; and, worse than the lump in the throat, she had depression of spirits for the first half of every day, which much injured the action of her mind at her lessons, and was too much for her temper. She and her friends were astonished at the difference in her when she went, at, I think, twelve years old, to stay for a month in a house where she had tea-breakfasts. She did, to be sure, cast very greedy looks at her cup of tea when it was coming; and she did make rather a voracious breakfast; but this was wearing off before the end of the month. She went home to her milk-breakfasts, her lump in the throat, and her morning depression of spirits and irritability. But at last the time came when she was tall enough to have tea with the older ones; and in a little while, she showed no signs of greediness, and thought no more about her breakfast than any body else.

I remember another case, where a similar mistake appeared more broadly still in its bad effects. In a family where it was the custom to have a great rice-pudding every Sat.u.r.day, and sometimes also on the other baking day,--Wednesday,--there was a little fellow who hated rice. This was inconvenient. His mother neither liked to see him go without half his dinner, nor to provide a dish for him; for the child was disposed to be rather greedy, and troublesome with fancies about his eating. But in the case of the rice, the disgust was real, and so strong that it would have been better to let it alone. His mother, however, saw that it would be a benefit to him if he could get over it: and she took advantage of a strong desire he had for a book, to help him over his difficulty. The little fellow saw at a shop-window a copy of the Seven Champions of Christendom, with a gay picture of the dragon and St. George: and his longing for this little book was of that raging sort which I suppose only children ever feel. He was to have this book if he would eat rice-pudding. He eagerly promised; feeling at the moment, I dare say, when there was no rice within sight, as if he could live upon it all his days, to get what he wanted. When Sat.u.r.day came, I watched him. I saw how his gorge rose at the sight of the pudding: but he fixed his eyes upon the opposite wall, gulped down large spoonfuls, wiped his mouth with disgust, and sighed when he had done, demanded his fee, ran for the book, and alas! had finished it, and got almost tired of it, before bedtime. The worst of it was,--he never again tasted rice. Here was the moral injury. He was perfectly aware that his bargain was to eat rice-pudding whenever it was upon table; and he meant to do it. But it required more fort.i.tude than he could command when the desire for the book was gratified and gone: and his honour and conscience were hurt.

Another bad consequence of this mistake about two or three of his dislikes was that he thought too much about eating and drinking; was dainty in picking his meat, and selfish about asking for the last bit, or the last but one, of any thing good. Of course, I do not speak in censure, when I give such anecdotes. I blame n.o.body where n.o.body meant any harm. On the one side there was a mistake; and it was followed by its inevitable consequences on the other.

In such a case, where there is a large family, with a plain common table, I should think the best way is for a child in ordinary health to take his chance. If there is enough of meat, potatoes, and bread to make a meal of, he may very well go without pudding, and should, on no account, have one provided expressly for himself: but he should be allowed to refuse it without remark. Where the mother can, without expense and too much inconvenience, consider the likings and dislikes of her children in a silent way, her kindness will induce her to do it: but it must be in a quiet way, or she will lead them to think too much about the thing; and to suppose that she thinks it an important matter.

This affair of the table is one worth a good deal of attention, as it regards the temper and manners of the household, and the personal habits of each. There is no reason why the father's likings as to food should not be seen to be cared for. If he is a selfish eater, he will ensure that the matter is duly attended to. If he is above such care for himself,--if it is clear that his pleasure at his meals is in having his family about him,--that is a case in which the mother need not conceal her desire to provide what is liked best. The father, who never asks or thinks about what is for dinner, is most likely to be the one to find before him what he particularly relishes; a dish cooked, perhaps, by his wife's or his little daughter's hands. And, again, if the little daughters see that their mother never thinks about her own likings, perhaps they will put in a word on market-day, or at such times, to remind her that somebody cares for her tastes. Then, again, in middle-cla.s.s families, where the servants dine after the family, they should always be openly considered. After the pudding has been helped round once, and some quick eaters are ready for a second plateful, it must be an understood thing that enough is to be left for the servants.--On the ground of the danger of causing too much thought about eating and drinking, it is desirable that, where the family take their meals together, all should fare alike. If there is anything at table which the younger children ought not to have, it is better that they should, if possible, dine by themselves. This is the plan in great houses, where the little ones dine at one o'clock, eating freely and without controversy of what is on the table, because there is nothing there that can hurt them. If the family dine together, and there are two or more dishes of meat on the table at the same time, all must learn the good manners of dividing their choice, so that the father may not have to send a helping of goose to everybody, while none is left for himself, but that the mother's boiled mutton may have left half the goose for the choice of the parents. All this is clear enough: but, if a present arrives of anything nice,--oysters, or salmon, or oranges, or such good things as relations and friends often send to each other, it seems best for all the household to enjoy the treat together, who are old enough to relish it.

It can scarcely be necessary to mention that the earliest time is the best for training children to proper behaviour at table, as every where else. Every one of them has to be trained; for how are the little things to know, unless they are taught, that they are not to put their fingers in their plates, or to drain their mugs, or to make shapes with their potato, or to crumble their bread, or to kick their chairs, or to run away to the window before dinner is done? They will require but little teaching, if they see everybody about them sitting and eating properly; but it is hard upon children when they have been allowed to take liberties and be rude at the nursery dinner, and then have everything to learn, under painful constraint, as they are growing up.

I have been sometimes struck with the conviction that the bad manners I have seen at the school-room table arise from a misconception as to what dinner is. In one house, you see the busy father hurry from his work to table, hardly stopping to wash his hands, turning over to his wife the task of helping the children, or even pus.h.i.+ng round the dish for them to help themselves,--throwing his dinner down his throat, and after it his solitary pint of porter; s.n.a.t.c.hing his hat, and off again to business, almost without saying ”good bye” to any one. When he is gone, the others think they have liberty to do as they please; and a pretty scene of confusion there is,--one child sc.r.a.ping a dish, another kneeling on a chair to reach over for something, a third at the window: and the mother with baby on her arm, coming at last to carry off the dishes, saying that she is sure dinner has been about quite long enough, while some of the children are perhaps really wanting more.--Again: one sees in a rich gentleman's family, ill-managed, a great mistake as to dinner. The bell is rung at the nominal dinner-hour,--or probably a good deal after it: for servants can hardly be punctual under such management. The soup is on the table, and one or two of the family are in their seats, waiting for the rest. One young lady has her fancy-work in her hand: another has the newspaper. Papa comes in for luncheon. He will have a plate of soup. The reader jumps up to help him; but the soup is cold. As n.o.body seems to wish for any cold soup, it is sent away; but turned back at the door by a hungry boy, who has only just learned that dinner is ready, and is ravenous for the first thing he can get to eat. While the joint is helped, one drops in from the stable,--another from the music-lesson; a third from botanising in the wood; and the first comers run away to look for something in the library, or to have a turn on the gravel walk, saying that they do not care for pudding, and will come back for cheese. Altogether, it is an hour and a half before the cloth is removed, and the weary governess can get her charge in order for the Italian master,--if indeed he be not come and gone in the interval. This is an extreme, but not an impossible case: and in such a case, the plea we shall hear is that it is a waste of time for a whole family to sit doing nothing but eating their dinners in the middle of the day: and that formality makes eating of too much importance. Such is the plea; and here lies the mistake. The object of dinner is not only eating but sociable rest. The dinner hour is a seasonable pause amidst the hurry of the busy day; and the harder people have to work, the completer should be the pause of the dinner hour. The arrangement is very important to health; for the largest meal of the day is best digested when it is eaten with regularity, at leisure, and in a cheerful mood of mind; and when a s.p.a.ce of cheerful leisure is left after it. And more important still is the arrangement to the manners and tempers and dispositions of the family. It is a great thing that every member of a household should be habituated to meet the rest in the middle of the day, neatly dressed and refreshed;--the boys' coats brushed, and the girls' frocks changed or set straight; the hair smoothed, and face and hands just washed. It is a great thing that they should take their chief nourishment of the day in the midst of the most cheerful conversation, and at a time so set apart as that n.o.body is hankering after doing anything else. When we consider too that after dinner is the only time between Sunday and Sunday that the working father has for play with his infants,--who are in their beds, or too sleepy for fun, when he comes home in the evening,--we shall own that there is no waste of time in the dinner hour, even if nothing whatever is done but eating and talking. In fact, it is this time which, from its importance, ought to be saved from all encroachment. The washed faces, and the cloth on the table, and the hot dinner should all be in readiness when the father appears. Not a minute of his precious hour should be lost or spoiled by any one's unpunctuality, or any body's ill-manners. All should go smoothly at his table by every one's gentleness and cheerfulness and good-breeding. When the meal is finished, all the clearing away should be quickly and quietly done, that he may have yet a clear half-hour for rest, or for play with the little ones. Where this hour is managed as it ought to be,--(and nothing is easier under the care of a sensible mother) the busy father goes forth to his work again with his mind even more refreshed by his hour of cheerful rest than his body is strengthened by food.

On the remaining topic of Personal Habits,--Modesty,--Decency--it cannot be necessary to say much. The points of mistake which strike me the most are two:--I think that in almost every part of the world, people herd too much and too continually together:--and I think that few people are aware how early it is right to respect the modesty of an infant.