TREASURES THROWN AWAY.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 13, Issue 1083, 14 September 1869, Page 4

TREASURES THROWN AWAY.

(Prom the "Family Herald.") How delicious in these days of hot-house childhood it is to find a little one who can relish " puss in the corner," to find one who does not at six years of age turn up its little nose at everything but " round dances " and a supper ofjpc/te defoiegraes and champagne. What a sorrowful sight are those blaze languid little things who are incapable of a new sensation before they are out of short clothes ; to whom already there is no childhood left; who have turned their backs on that path of flowers to which they can never > return, through long years of satiety and weariness ! What shall compensate them for the dear, fresh, innocent, simple delights, which to children, naturally and simply brought up, are so attractive P We are all making grave mistakes about children. Those who unfortunately live always in a great city are mostly the sufferers. Life there is such a maelstrom, swallowing up every hour so much that is lovely and beautiful; fathers and mothers delegating so much of the care and oversight of them to those whose paid service yields neither sympathy nor appreciation to the victims under their charge. Toy shops are ransacked and small fortunes expended to supply this lamentable deficiency, till the weary little one at six or seven has exhausted the stock, and sighs for " something new," like a flirt who has put her slipper on a thousand hearts, or a man of the world, reduced by too much money and leisure, and too little brains, to caress the head of his cane, for long, weary hours while staring out of his club window. I think this is very pitiful, both for the child and the man. Indeed it is children so brought up who make such men and women of a corresponding type. Life seems fast losing its simplicity merely for want of the brave courage to defy fashion's encroachments. " What will they think?" is at the bottom of it. Who among us has pluck enough to snap our fingers at that question, and face the formidable— " Did you ever ?" which treads upon the heels of independent thought and action, even in a right and obviously sensible direction P Nor is it a question of sex. I find as much of this spirit, or the want of it, in one sex as in' the other, and the children are the victims. ■••;;- Now chi|dren naturally hate fine clothes kind the restrictions upon freedom and enjoyment that they impose. Children pateaUy prefer live' animals to the ipink dogs aad'blue sheep and green cows, pre«

sented in a wooden "Noafrs Ark." Children naturally prefer a garden and a shovel to a stereotyped lounge, with a silent crors nurse over city pavements. Children should be put to bed by loving hands, and their eyes closed with a kiss. Children should leap into loving arms when they again open their eyes with the baptism of the fresh morning light. Children should be kept in ignorance of nearly all that is now as familiar to their ears as their own names. But, alas, we all know how different things really are! — and the result is, the children of to-day,— children, with rare and blessed exceptions, only in name. Oh the perpetual "nurse!" the perpetual nursery!— the sad sight of the spiritweary little child checked in its most innocent and healthy impulses; called " naughty," for being buoyant and merry, till sullenness and defiant mischief are the result. Oh mother, in the drawing-room, take off that silk dress which little feet may not climb upon, and take a seat in your own nursery, and give that little one the love without which its whole sweet nature will be turned into bitterness. "Oh father, at the sound of whose footsteps that child must always "hush up," or beat a hasty retreat to parts unknown, how much, how very much you lose, when, that little face never grows brighter on being told that "papa has come home ;" when, with your hands thrust into your coatpocket, you lounge along towards your door,, and never invite with your love that dear, blessed little nose, to flatten itself against the window-pane, watching for "myjiapa." "My papa !" Good heavens ! what is it to be a Prime Minister or a Lord High Chancellor to that? "My papa!" Man, what can you be thinking of, that the sweet, trustful, blessed ownership in those two little words, fails to move every drop of your, blood ? And what, I ask, can the wide earth, with all its cheating promises, give you in compensation for that which your shortsighted folly; throws away P Oh sometimes stop and think. Fanny Febn.