How He Learned by Emma Graves Dietrick

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 1, 1902

How He Learned

By Emma Graves Dietrick

Emma Graves Dietrick, in Christian Work

We had a mothers’ meeting one day—not the kind where somebody who doesn’t know what it is to be a busy, tired mother, with more work than time, and more trials than patience, stands up and lectures mothers on their duty.

No, we don’t much believe in such meetings. The kind we had was where a great-hearted mother who lives near the heart of the Master read a few helpful words from the Bible, and then we all forget everything but how we love our children, and how we want the dear Lord’s own help in training them. And so we knelt down, and a number of us put our longings into a sentence or two of prayer. Then we had questions. One mother said, so earnestly, “How can I teach my children politeness?” adding, as she thought perhaps we would think her little ones monsters of rudeness, “I don’t mean about saying, ‘Thank you’ and ‘Please,’ and such things, which they have never been allowed to omit, but I mean going between some one and the fire or the light, and teasing for things when I’m busy with company.” Over the faces of many came the conscious look which said so plainly, “Yes, I know all about it; that’s one of my troubles, too.” A little hush fell as they waited for the answer of the leader. With a smile, she said to the young mother who had asked the question, “Why, my dear, you answered yourself,” and seeing the puzzled look, she added, “You spoke of ‘things they have never been allowed to omit,’ did you not? That is the secret of habitual courtesy. If a little one finds that teasing never succeeds, he will soon drop it. And for the other things mentioned, I believe that if mothers themselves were more careful, their children would be.”

A mother I know had need one evening to pass between the light and her little son. With sweet, grave courtesy she said, “Will you excuse me, dear, if I pass between you and the light?” He looked up and said, “What made you ask me that, mama?” And she answered, “Because, dear, it would be rude to do it without speaking. I would not think of not speaking if it had been Mr. —— (the minister), and surely I would not be ruder to my own dear boy.” The boy thought a moment, and then said, “Mama, what did I ought to said back?” And mama replied, “What do you think would be nice?” He studied over it awhile, for he was such a wee laddie, and then said, “Would it be nice to say, ‘Sure you can’?” This was mama’s time to say, “That would be nice, but how would you like to say, just as Mr. —— would, ‘Certainly’?”—it means the same thing, you know.”

And that little lad, now a young man in college, is remarked for his never-failing courtesy. A friend said of him the other day, “It’s second nature to —— to be polite,” and the mother smiled as she thanked God in her heart for the grace that had helped her to be unfailingly courteous to her boy.

Is it any wonder that he wrote to a friend of his mother, “Her life preaches too eloquently to me to need any wordy effort on her part”?

Mother, how are you training God’s boy?