How not to train up Children aright.
Multitudes of good Christian people understand that art perfectly, and practice it faithfully. Let me give you an example. Not long since I was a visitor in the house of a Christian mother—a woman who had been brought up with many advantages, social, literary, and religious, and is reputed to be uncommonly well educated. As we sat conversing in the parlor, her little girl, of some five years old, came in crying, when the following colloquy took place, interspersed with vain attempts, on the part of the mother and myself, to continue our conversation: “Mamma, I want some candy; I want some candy,” repeated half a dozen times, with cries each time louder and louder, till they became a shriek; mother meanwhile taking no notice. At last, unable to endure it longer, she said: “Hush, Mary, hush, and go away!” But Mary didn’t hush—only repeated more emphatically, “I want some candy!” and screamed more fiercely. “I declare I never saw such a child. Mary, hush and go away!” Mary still screams, “I want some candy!” “Why, Mary, don’t you see Mr. Amos? What will he think of you? His little girls don’t do so!” (That they don’t.) Mary screams on, “I want some candy! give me some candy!” Mary, I’ll whip you, if you don’t hush and go away. I haven’t got any candy!” Mary apparently knows her ground well, and bates not a jot or a tittle of her demand and of her earnestness, “I want some candy! give me some candy!” with a very infantile yell. The mother by this time is somewhat excited herself, and thrusts her hand into a pocket, takes out a key, passionately thrusts it into the little hand, and says: “Here! go to Aunt Jane, and tell her to look in the drawer, and give you some!” The little victor stops her cries at once, and trots off with the key to Aunt Jane. There is the way not to do it. The scene is a real one, and I have not exaggerated it. It needs no comment. Any one can see the folly and wickedness of that parental management, the error and neglect which must have gone before in the training of poor little Mary, and the bitter consequences which must follow.