For Our Young Readers.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIV, Issue 38, 15 January 1897, Page 8

For Our Young Readers.

TEACH CHILDREN COURAGE. Children should be accustomed as soon as possible to sleep in a dark room. Unless they have learned to be afraid of it, the darkness is soothing to the nerves, and the rest is more profound and refreshing than when there is an unconscious stimulation of li°-ht It is particularly desirable for children of a nervous temperament that light should be excluded, yet it is most often the nervous sensitive child whose imagination has been filled with fears of the shapes the dark may hide. Silly tales told by cruel servants or mischievous brothers, thoughtless speeches of the elders, stories half understood and brooded over make the kindly darkness a terror to many an unfortunate child. The mother should try by every means in her power to remove these fears. The child who is subject to them should never be forced to stay alone in the dark. Much gentle persuasion and reasoning, appeals to common sensed and tho example of older persons \ U n be necessray before they are overcome. But patience will conquer them at last. Grown men and women sometimes are terroiisod cmr by the dark. 15y no means is this strange fear the exclusive postewon of juvenility. HOW TO MAki: I J\ Two little people who couldn't agree Were ha\ ing a tifr" and were mad as could be. They looked at each other in silence a while. Till a sudden ylad thought made one ot them smile. Said she - Say. you ain't -v cry mad. are you. Bessie ' ' •• \\ ell no." \uil the other. •• nor you. are you. Jessie ' " '■Then let n- make up." little Jessie su^ested. " Well, you bo the one to bey in." Be-s requested. But that didn't suit, so the tiff lingered still. While the sinall-.si/ed disputants were claiming their will. When, what do you think Inouiiht at List .sunny weather .' Just this — They agreed to bey in both together/ A UL^sIAN U VBY. A traveller from Russia s .iys that Kuwan babies in Siberia are not very attractive, lie s;n -, that one day he noticed in one of the houses a curious bundle on a shell: : another hunir irom a peg in the wall and a third hung by a rope Irom the ratters — this. "one the mother was swinuiny. The traveller discovered that each curious bundle v..is a child : tho one in the swinging bundle was the youngest. The tra\eller lookel at the little b.iby and tound it so dirty that lie exclaimed m di-mw . " Why do you not wash it .' "' The mother looked horror-?! ricken. and ejaculated: "Wash it! Wash the baby ' Why. it would kill it ' What a happy country Russia w ould be for some boys. Ne.\er to hear •• \\ ash your face and hands." nor •• l[a\e you brushed your hair ' '