IDEAS ABOUT CHILDREN.

Clutha Leader, Volume I, Issue 21, 3 December 1874, Page 5

IDEAS ABOUT CHILDREN.

{To the Editor of the Clutha Leader.) . E:rR,-^People, or I should say parents seem rarely to think what tbe effect ol their bringing-up will be upon their children in after life. That "as a free falls so shall it lie," is not more true than that a man's or woman *B life is but a reflection of their childhoodlike photographs taken under a clear sky and near clear water, where the rt Section is often darker or brighter than the original, but still the same outline reproduced. I pass by children's infancy and first years, though msny words might be written of tbem being nurtured in habits of eeltinuulgtnce er disobedience, and afterwards reproaching their parents for tbe seed thus sown, and which always bears fruit-; some thirty, some fifty, and some an hundredfold. What I would more particularly write about just now are those years in which a •child's intellect may be cultivated for good 1 or evil. . First impressions are very lasting, and when tbe tendencies of the household take their -hold upon its brain, they • are seldom or never eradicated. Where the tendency is towards low pursuits, or even to a love of rhoney, for its own sake the child, especially if it be a boy, insensibly gains the same. (>n the other hand in those happy homes where the father and ' mother are companions and friends, as well as man and wife-; where .joys and sorrows are mutual ones • where books are read and discussed, as well as the passing events in the outer world (not the trivial gossip wbich harrows every mind which engages in it) is it not natural that a child Would feel that it could find ready sympathy for those higher and better thoughts which nearly all children have at times; thoughts 1 and ideas which only need care and encouragement at home to send out into the world true men and women able to take their place in the great battle of life. I am, &c.-, T " 1 T ' ft t lii