How Mothers May Help the Teacher.
By Elizabeth P. Allan
As I sat at my open window one spring day, I unconsciously left off studying my Sunday-school lesson to watch the down of the aspen trees, as it fell in a perpetual sheen of white flakes all about the yard. On a still day like this, it is one of the prettiest sights of the season; the motion downward of these shining, feathery motes seems the superlative of gentleness, and so light are they that the breath of a speaker, the wing of a bird, the slightest motion in the air, diverts them from their earthward course, and carries them off. My heart and brain were filled with the lesson, its application to my particular class of little girls, the possibility (and sometimes the impossibility) of rooting the good seed in their careless young hearts, and it was natural that the scene before my eyes should suggest an illustration of my difficulty. This lesson, I said to myself, is full of blessed influences, which might descend on those precious little souls in just such a soft shower as I see falling on my flower-beds; but oh! their gentle downward motion is so easily diverted, and, being diverted, is lost. Then the little circle of faces seemed to rise before me, and I realized that my chief obstacle in gaining and holding their attention and interest was their own attire. I don't know what special device the devil has for preventing boys' classes from giving heed (some other teacher knows that), but this matter of dress is one that never seems to fail him, at any season of the year, on the girls' side of the room. Of course, the tug of war between me and the enemy comes at the turn of the seasons. A teacher with any knowledge at all of the feminine heart must make allowances for the intense interest which each of the six little girls feels in the winter or summer outfit of the other five; that must be accepted. But just as I get my class, as I hope, to a reasonable state of indifference, with regard to hats and dresses, some mother provides Jennie with a new costume, and for six successive Sundays, efforts are made by the other five after some variety in their own dress, and the precious lesson time is spent in speculation as to the effect of these changes; admiration, disapproval, or too often envy of the others; and in such a troubled atmosphere the white-winged blessings cannot settle. I could describe an infinite variety of forms which this evil assumes, but I have already used up too much space, for I would fain reach the ear of the mothers with a plea for help. And first, dress the little scholars simply; children are not keen critics of material, it may be rich and costly, if you choose, but not so showy or elaborate as to make the girl who sits by you (whose mother can barely manage to dress her decently) feel like the cinder maiden among her bedecked sisters. Surely the golden rule demands so much of you. And, pray, do not vary the costume in which she comes to Sunday-school any oftener than you must; save that friction as much as possible. And, lastly, let Nellie wear her new dress and hat elsewhere at least three times before she comes to Sunday-school in them. Do these things seem too trivial? I raise my eyes again to the shower of the aspen-down; a tissue veil hangs carelessly upon a rose-bush, and flutters backwards and forwards in the gently stirring air; for a wide space around, the ground is bare of the summer snowflakes; they do not settle there, though the veil is a mere cobweb, and moves with so little force. And shall we not give ourselves untiringly to the removal even of little stumbling-blocks from the little feet?—Elizabeth P. Allan, in S. S. Times.