Manners of the Mother Mould the Child.
THERE is no disputing this fact; it shines in the face of every little child. The coarse, bawling, scolding woman will have her coarse, vicious, bawling, fighting children. She who cries on every occasion “I’ll box your ears—I’ll slap your jaws—I’ll break your neck,” is known as thoroughly through her children as if her unwomanly manners were openly displayed in the public streets. These remarks were suggested by the conversation in an omnibus—that great institution for the students of men and manners—between a friend and a schoolmaster. Our teacher was caustic, mirthful and sharp. His wit flashed like the polished edge of a diamond, and kept the ‘bus’ in a ‘roar.’ The entire community of insiders—and whoever is intimate with these conveyances can form a pretty good idea of our numbers, inclusive of the “one more” so well known to the fraternity—turned their heads, eyes and ears one way, and finally our teacher said: I can always tell the mother by the boy. The urchin who draws back, with doubled fist and lunges at his playmate if he looks at him askance, has a very questionable mother. She may feed him and clothe him, cram him with sweetmeats, coax him with promises, but if she gets mad she fights. She will pull him by the jacket; she will give him a knock in the back; she will drag him by the hair; she will call him all sorts of wicked names, while passion plays over her red face in lambent flames that curl and writhe out at the corners of her eyes. And we never see the courteous little fellow with smooth locks and gentle manners—in whom delicacy does not detract from courage or manliness—but we say that boy’s mother is a true lady. Her words and ways are soft, loving and quiet. If she reproves, her language is “my son”—not “you little wretch—you plague of my life—you torment—you scamp!” She hovers before him a pillar of light before the wandering Israelites, and her beams are reflected in his face. To him the word mother is synonymous with every thing pure, sweet and beautiful. Is he an artist? In after life that which with holy radiance shines on his canvas, will be the mother’s face. Whoever flits across his path with sunny smiles and soft, low voice, will bring “mother’s image” freshly to his heart. “She is like my mother,” will be the highest meed of his praise. Not even when the hair turns silver and the eye grows dim, will the majesty of that life and presence desert him.” “But the ruffian mother—alas, that there are such—will form the ruffian character of the man. He in turn will become a merciless tyrant, with a tongue sharper than a two-edged sword, and remembering the brawling and cuffing, seek some meek, gentle victim for the sacrifice, and make her his wife, with the condition that he shall be master. And the master he is for a few sad years, when he wears a widower’s weed till he finds victim ‘number two.’ We wonder not that there are so many awkward, ungainly men in society—they have been trained by women who knew not nor cared for the holy nature of their trust. They have been made bitter to the heart’s core, and that bitterness will find lodgment somewhere. Strike the infant in anger, and he will, if he cannot reach you, vent his passion by beating the door, the chair, or any inanimate thing within reach. Strike him repeatedly, and by the time he wears shoes he will have become a bully, with hands that double for fight as naturally as if especial pains had been taken to teach him the art of boxing. Mothers, remember that your manners mould the child. Who will not say that mothers ought to be thoroughly educated, whether our sons are or not?