Hiring Children to be Good.
MRS. HOLMES and her sister were sitting before the cheerful grate fire sewing, while their tongues flew almost as nimbly as their fingers, as various matters from the forming of the President's Cabinet down to the shade of blue used in knitting the baby's socks had been discussed. Finally the subject of hiring children to be good was broached. "Well," said Mrs. Holmes, "I am tired of trying to coax or beg Albert to do anything, and I think he is too large a boy to coerce into right-doing. So I am going to hire him to do any little task I may hereafter require of him." "Mark my words, Ellen, you'll be sorry if you do," replied her sister, "how soon, think you, will his judgment as to terms differ from yours? I saw that course tried by George Edward's mother last summer. She needed some cherries for making pies, and offered him six cents a quart to pick them. He answered, impudently enough, 'Who'll pick cherries for six cents a quart? I wont.' And only yesterday, in coming from church, I overheard Mrs. Moody offering her boy five cents to learn the books of the Old Testament before evening." "Well, he probably learned them." "He more likely did not, or if he did he can't repeat them to-day. I will find out how good his memory is next Sunday morning, as he is in my class. Hiring children to learn anything, to do anything which they should do for its own sake, or to be anything, I have never yet found to work well." "Well, what can be done?" "Done! Why tell a child to do a thing and see that he does it, to be sure. The very groundwork of order in families is obedience. I have always told you that you would have trouble with Albert if you appealed so constantly to his wishes in little matters. A parent ought to know what is for a child's good better than the child does, and without unrighteously provoking a child to wrath or thwarting it unnecessarily. Unquestioning obedience should be the rule. This has always been my plan with my children, as you well know." "I have always thought you too much too strict with your little ones. What does a child of Nina's age know about obedience? You utterly spoil all the little cunning ways of your mere babies." "Better to get along without a self-willed pet than to tolerate a self-willed boy." "But you do give your children rewards for being good. What is that but hiring them?" "My children know that obedience is expected of them; that to do good and be good is to be the rule of their lives, but they have evil and temptation to contend against, as well as all other children. If the hope of gaining some little gift is added to the conscientious rightfulness of the matter, I sometimes think it helps some in overcoming the natural desires for wrong-doing." "Then why do you tell me I shall be sorry if hire Albert to do right?" "Simply because he well knows if you do not hire him he will not have to perform the required task, and in this way you are putting yourself at his mercy. You make the gift the sole reason for his doing it, and as I say, his ideas of value and yours will soon differ. With my children, if I wish anything done they understand fully they must do it, whether I give them any little extra pleasure for it or not. A regular barter of so much given for such a service rendered I seldom make with them. Whenever I do, it is about some little business matter, and for the purpose of educating them either to work or to get by their own labor. I hired Willie to pick some berries for me during the summer, yet, had I wished him to do so he would have picked them for me without pay. I wished to teach him the value of his labor." "Well, I must confess, I can't see the difference between your method of hiring and mine." "Well, there is a difference. You admit being tired coaxing and begging Albert to do anything, and therefore propose hiring him, and I tell you it will fail as signally as coaxing and begging have done. I never importune my children to do anything which I have not a right to command them to do, as you well know. Therefore a gift from me is extraneous, a reward of well-doing, yet not a make-shift to enforce a command, which without it would be of no effect. And would you commence this very day, late as it is, and demand a prompt, quick obedience from Albert, in a short time you would have no occasion to coax or beg, and the rewards of well-doing can then be kept for prizes as it were." "Well, sister, your success with your boys has so far certainly been remarkable. If I only could—" "You can if you will. You are a woman of sufficient character to carry out any course which involves as much courage and tact as this will. Only you must assert and maintain your womanly, or rather your motherly dignity."—Christian at Work.