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The Breakfast Table

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Dec 27, 1906

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 83, No. 52.

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The Breakfast Table

Even in families called intelligent the breakfast table is usually interrupted by a mad rush for the cars or for school. But if we want wholesome, beautiful children, we shall follow the breakfast with a short period of leisure, and then go serenely about the day’s work. One of the first needs in the child’s day is for general ’bodily exercise, and this can better be given in the home than in the school; for in the home the exercise can be purposeful, some household service which will be of real use. Here, again, the service can be made a joy or a task, according to the spirit we put into it. It must be remembered that the childish will to do is rather fitful and uncertain, given to taking up occupations with enthusiasm and then dropping them before completion. The remedy is to fill out and complete the will, and this, it seems to me, can best be done by working merrily and joyfully with the child.
A small boy will help you make his bed and “tidy up” his room with the greatest pleasure if you give him your good company at the same time—the only sort of company you ought ever to give any one—while he would find it a very dull and distasteful task if he had to do it alone. Tell him a story, sing a duet with him, try to outwhistle him; in short, see to it that you are merry workers in this merry, charming world. But do not rob him of the service, with its measure of health and good spirit, and do not teach him to look down on women while he is still in knickerbockers by forcing him to think that these homely, necessary tasks are unsuitable for him, but none too good for his mother or sisters, or the women servants. In no case, however, may this service be paid for in other coin than loving appreciation, for that is to turn the child into a miserable little trader, and quite rob the service of value.
A day is well begun which has in it these wholesome elements of home life, this serenity and good comradeship and service. The home life is the primary thing, and the school life quite secondary.—Henderson in 'Education and the Larger Life.'