The First Thing to Teach.
The first thing which should be taught a child is obedience, and after that should come reverence. It is very hard to teach an American child reverence. His parents must be people of remarkable force of character if they succeed in doing so, for the whole tendency of our free institutions is against him. The Declaration of Independence arrays itself with its "glittering generalities" against this first effort of home training. The newly arrived foreigner in his might, majestic through numbers, defeats the idea; for he soon learns, as the beginning of his political career, that his vote is as good as his master's—perhaps better. Thus the good old relation between master and servant, of respect on the one hand, and help on the other—the best relation for the benefit of home—is uprooted at once. Almost the first impression on a young child's mind is of the insolence of his nurse to his mother. He sees that her orders are not obeyed, that she is powerless to enforce them. He hears the nurse speak to her in loud, arrogant, defiant tones. He often sees his mother, before a powerful and strong elderly nurse, paralyzed with fear; for, if she deems that her child's comfort and welfare are at stake, if she believes that the nurse knows more than she does, she will endure insolence to herself, and a sort of assumption on the part of the nurse, of an authority which should never be delegated.—"Amenities of Home," in Appleton's Home Series.