The Home.

Western Star, Issue 2218, 1 July 1898, Page 4

The Home.

How to Get Pat. How to get fat is the great, ambition of some people, so that the following extract from the “ Philadelphia Times” may help those who have not yet succeeded : —“ The girl who longed to he fat sat and though!. ‘lt takes so long !’ she exclaimed, glancing at her face in the mirror. ‘ to have round, rosy cheeks, and a Cupid chin,’ and she hummed a little tune as she drew up her sleeve and displayed to view an arm as straight and thin as a bean pole. ‘Ana my neck ! It is simply all bones !’ Throe mouths later I met her at: a party. Her shoulders were two dimpled, snowy, plump pictures, and her round throat and Cupid chin were only as pretty as her round, soft arms. 1 was amazed. • I gave up worrying to begin with,’ she admitted. ‘And then I began to grow fat. I drank milk and cream whenever and wherever I could get it. I devoured all the candy, sweet wines, starchy desserts that ever came within reach of my all-devouring appetite. I slept twelve hours, and never hurried or got. excited, or ran. or walked more than was absolutely necessary for my health and exercise. 1 ato nothing biller or sour, lived on oatmeal, chicken, potatoes, and vegetables. It was hard work, but. it is good for one's health, and it was worth it, wasn’t it. ” Too Clever Children. Never allow children to use their brains too much, for if they do so the result, is often very serious. Some children are naturally ambitious, and will strain every nerve, as it: were, so that they may have the honour and glory of being at the top of their class at. school, and in this they are unwisely encouraged by their parents, whose vanity is so great, for their offspring that they wish them to outshine their little contemporaries, quite careless or oblivions of the fact that undue precocity has to be paid dearly for later on. Many children, without being ambitious, have an insatiable thirst for knowledge, which is the result of an abnormally developed brain. In these cases, instead of being encouraged to learn, children should be kept back as much as possible, and encouraged to play out of doors, and to do everything that will give the active little brain rest, for you may depend upon it that, whether you wish it, or not. the child’s mind work harder a great deal than is good" for it, in asking tin- why Mid the wherefore tdi it- se, 's around it in the wonderful woiv ( iI have heal'd it sail. that, blessed is the mother who is coiiK’ 11 * to have a stupid baby,” and I believe 51 ,s feany I rue. How seldom, though, is , :l mot her content to have a baby without a,’O’ of little tricks to show off to her friends. What, a pleasure it. is to her to heat’ people say what a wonderfully clever child hers is. when tit a few months old it. can point, to grandpapa’s picture on the wall, or can play “ ptit-a-cake.” Or, later on. how supremely delighted the parents are when their little girl or boy lisps out “John Gilpin” or some other nursery tale in verse. Poor deluded people. Can they not see that these performances are about: on the level with the tricks of the lapdog, or with the talking of a tame parrot, and 'that in order to gratify their parental vanity the child’s mental capacity is being overtaxed and weakened ? Recently a. friend of mine her baby to see me, and she gave a good example of parental vanity. Sin; told me that her doctor considered her baby so excitable and clever for a. child ot his age that he was to be kept back as much as possible! She then put him down on the floor to crawl about, and gave him a number of little coloured balls, and told him to give me a red one, then a blue one, then t wo, and then three balls, just to show me his cleverness. . It; seems to me positively wicked to force the brains of infants, ami. if 1 had my will, no child should be made to learn even the alphabet till it. was at least 5 years old. In the lirst years of life a child has quite enough to occupy its brains in learning about the things it sees around it. Take care then not to let the mental growth get ahead of I lie physical, or your child will be handicapped in later life by weakness of either body or brain, or perhaps both. " Home Notes.”

A Spoiled Child. A spoiled child is owe of the most unhappy of living creatures, and generally sickly ; for, besides the physical evils which the indulgence of its undisciplined appetite engenders, its temper preys upon its health. To pamper (lie little folk in all their whims and caprices is a parental sin, and one which is always visited upon the unfortunates who have been thus irrationally petted. One of the immediate penalties of the offence is the dislike with which spoiled children are generally regarded. But theie are worse consecjuences than this. 1-ln voting tyrant too often develops into the overbearing youth, and the overhearing vouth into the unjust and hateful man. Gentleness, kindness, and reasonable patience are absolutely essential to the proper management of children. When severity is necessary, it is usually because some error of the past lias been unwisely overlooked, or perhaps winked at. Above all things, treat the little ones justly, for their sense of injustice is keen and bitter. Lads Who Rise in Life. History has taught us that no circumstances are too humble for a boy born in them to rise to eminence. It lias also taught us that poverty is frequently a help rather than a hindrance, and tliat the right kind of a man will make circumstances bend to Ids purposes. and not let circumstances bend him. There is a breed of heroes, which is never extinct in any age of the world, who delight in obstacles, and who make poverty, disadvantages, and youthful deprivations only serve as the rounds of the ladder by which they climb to greatness. They do not sit down and whine because others are more fortunate than they. They take fortune ms it comes, unmurmuringly, and by a kind of mysterious alchemy, as it. were, transmute misfortunes into benefits. But few great men have been developed from among the poor of cities. Ihe dwellers in the wretched tenements of the large cities do not train children to greatness. The fresh air. the healthy surroundings, the wholesome influences of the country are lacking. The crowded tenements of the city usually train up the children born under their evil influence to lives of crime, degradation, and depravity. The germs of greatness rarely flourish there.