Trusting our Children.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 957, 4 July 1890, Page 4

Trusting our Children.

By Mrs Henry Ward Beecher. None are so proud and happy as yonng children when they first understand that their parents have confidence in their honour and in their faithful performance of such duties as are committed to their care. This feeling of responsibility, awakened by this knowledge, in little children, brings to them their first sensation of self-respect. They soon learn that faithfulness is absolutely necessary to the satisfactory execution of any work they may be called to perform. Thus good seed is daily sown, which, in after years, will yield abundant harvest, and repay all the trouble it may have cost to prepare the soil to receive. It is not easy work to train children into such habits, and if conscience would absolve the mother she would, doubtless, prefer to do herself all the work she assigns to the child. But such lessons are a part of a mother’s mission, and should never be delegated to another. As soon as a yonng child has learned how to do certain things, it is wise to leave these small ‘chores’ for the child to do alone, when the mother is not looking on. Should some trivial thing be not done exactly right, no great loss will follow. Just say to the little three or four-year-old child—- ‘ Mamma must go out for [a little while, I don’t like to leave this room in such dis. order. But Willie is such a helpful little man, I’m sure he will put all these playthings up nicely before sapper; and when Jennie has finished her play she knows just how mamma likes to have her doll things folded and put away. When I come back the room will be very nice—l know.’ This proof of their mother’s confidence will make the little ones very happy, and they will try to merit their mother’s approbation. It may be necessary to be a little shortsighted when overlooking the work.

Let all oriticism wait awhile. Appear pleased, nay. be pleased, with their.childish efforts. Give as much sweet praise as is judicions—and perfectly truthful—tog’addeu their hearts and make them eager for other efforts. When not called to put playthings away It may be well to say, in an easy—but not fault-finding—tone : * £ think you had better put these boohs on this shelf instead of putting them in the box with the other things. They might get injured there, you know. And, Jennie, dear, I would fold this little doll’s dress this way.’ Geutle hints, interspersed with as much approval as can be conscientiously given, will so fix the lesson in their minds that it will not he long before they will be proud to do such work without being told, yet knowing that mamma always has a general oversight cf it all.

Year by year increases the trust and responsibility ; bat accept the work they do, and the oara they try to take, as a love offering to save your time and strength, and it will not be long before willing hands and happy hearts can really lighten your labours. At the same time your children are learning the lessons which will prepare them to be useful men and women, and a joy and honour to their parents. As early as possible teach your children to do errands outside of the house, in time out of town—if need be—to buy groceries, or a little shopping just important enough to tax their taste and discrimination a little, the first step toward more important work later on. A child can be taught, through love and confidence, to enjoy labour and reaponsi’ le cares. But if instead, parents sternly command a child, watch every act with constaut suspicion and fault-finding, then labour is made a drudgery, and cares of any kind become a terror and a loathing to the yonng. Under such training children become stubborn, or, if naturally timid or loving, they are nervously fearful of being blamed, and this fear leads to deceit and falsehood, as the means of escape, and only by God’s grace is the child saved from shipwreck and ruin.

How to Act When in Society.

Yon want to become a good conversation, alist, and acquire the ease aud grace whioh is essential to success in society ? Now, my dear, it is just as necessary that in society there should be good listeners as well as good talkers. It shows equal intelligence to listen as to talk well. If you are nervous and embarrassed, study how to say the simplest things in the most natural manner, and, for a while at least, constitute yourself the aidience for the brilliant talkers. You can only be graceful and natural by forgetting yourself. The woman who is awkward and ill at ease is the one who thinks continually of how she is looking and how she is acting —who is, in reality, a little bit vain in a peculiar way. She thinks that, in a draw-ing-room, her* hostess should continually look after her happiness and study her enjoyment. This is an impossibility. After her hostess ha 3 floated her a few minutes in society she expects her to swim alone, or else to sti nd at a safe distance and watch the other swimmers.

To converse well it is necessary that you should have the art of discovering what will interest the person with whom you are talking and that you will know how to drop the subject when it becomes tiresome, and never to let a special fad of your own be the one subject that you bring up. Learn to be all things to all people. To avoid personalities or very decided opinions on any subject. You don’t want to give a tirade against dishonesty to a man whose father died in State’s prison for forging notes. You don’t want to object to the divorce laws when the man you are talking to may have married a divorced woman. You don’t want to talk about bleached hair to a woman whose hair is pronouncedly yellow, nor to discuss how injurious is rouge and powder to the woman who is made up in a most decided manner. In your heart you may object to all these things, but you are not giving expression just now to what you think ; yon are simply making yourself pleasant to someone whom yon have met to-day and may never meet again. Talk about Egyptian mummies or French politics; how orchids grow, the last new play or the last new song ; but use good English, speak as if you wore interested, aud then you will gain what yon want—a reputation of being a charming woman socially.