THE MORAL VALUE OF NEATNESS.
By Christian Union
ONE of the serious mistakes made by mothers in training their children, is in supposing that careful habits can be cultivated in careless surroundings. A ragged or worn carpet, so little valued by the mother that grease or ink spots can be left on it without causing comment, may become a moral calamity. Tying the child up in a bib, and giving it the liberty to spill its food when eating, is responsible for bad table habits in the men and women whom we meet. A child who is made to eat its food carefully, in a room where the furnishings are respected, where a penalty will follow carelessness, naturally acquires careful, refined manners. Many a mother spends more time repairing damages—the results of careless habits, due largely to the furnishings in the dining room—than she would need to spend in setting a table carefully and keeping the room in order, so that its order and neatness commended the respect of the children. The ounce of prevention is worth several pounds of cure in the training of children, and it is a pity that the ounce of prevention is not administered in the infinitesimal doses necessary in early childhood, rather than in the radical doses necessary to overcome neglect in matters that are never minor—for manners and habits mark the man. A man may be a moral man and eat with his knife; but he would be a more valuable man in the community if he recognized the uses for which the knife was designed, and applied it only to those uses.