How to Put Children to Bed.
Not with a reproof for any of that day's omission or commission. Take any other time but bedtime for that. If you ever heard a little creature sighing or sobbing in its sleep, you could never do this. Seal their closing eyelids with a kiss and a blessing. The time will come, all too soon, when they will lay their heads upon their pillows, lacking both. Let them at least have this sweet memory of a happy childhood, of which no future can rob them. Give them their rosy youth. Nor need this involve wild license. The judicious parent will not mistake my meaning. If you have ever met the man or the woman whose eyes have suddenly filled when a child has crept trustingly to its mother's breast, you may have seen one in whose childhood's home dignity and severity stood where love and pity should have been. Too much indulgence has ruined thousands of children; too much love not one.