Children Who Ask by Sel.

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 30, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 38.

Children Who Ask.

By Sel.

MRS. MARY C. HUNGERFORD has some wise words in Our Country Home, about answering the boys. Children, both boys and girls, ask all manner of questions just because they are curious and want to know. The child that does not ask questions must be lacking in intelligence, and the gist of Mrs. Hungerford's advice is, that the mothers should not be ashamed to candidly own their ignorance when unable to answer some puzzling query. Evasive answers are denounced on the ground that "a child's clear eyes soon see through its mother's thinly-veiled pretenses of being too busy or too sick, and then he has to learn that she not only is not able to give the information he seeks, but stoops to deceit to cover her inability. The boy who finds out that his mother's lips can utter a word that is not strictly true, is to be pitied, but his mother is more to be pitied." A suggestion follows to the effect that mothers might get their children to help them more at the household work, and in turn study a little with the children, and thus all would learn something, and an era of mutual helpfulness would set in. I cordially commend the idea. Mothers, and fathers, too, are far too much addicted to the habit of checking the wholesome spirit of inquiry and investigation in their children which is a mark of a healthy mind. If possible, let the child look it up with you. Then talk over the subject in the household, so that it may be permanently impressed on the minds of all. All lawful questions should be encouraged.—Sel.