AFTER all, I think it must be merely a matter of disposition," sighed Mrs. Ames, dismally. She and her friend Mrs. Walters were discussing the subject of contentment, and how they were best to impart that beautiful quality of heart and mind to their children.
"Wilfred used to be the most good-natured, contented child I ever saw when he was small. Why, I've known that child to sit and play with a little basket of clothes-pins for an hour, as happy as you please; but now, since he has grown older—he is five this month—I can't do a thing with him, he just teases and teases for something all day. Really, Mrs. Walters, I don't know what I am to do, the boy is never contented. There's Walter, now," continued Mrs. Ames, "he's a real comfort,—so contented and good-natured; I think the two qualities go together. It was his birthday yesterday, you know, and his father gave him a new garden hoe and rake; he's getting to be a great gardener. Will you believe me, little Wilfred cried because he wanted them; he wanted to work in the garden, too. Just think of a little tot only five years old working in the garden!" and Mrs. Ames laughed heartily at the bare idea. "Yesterday," she continued, "he cried all day for a needle and thread and scissors; he wanted to sew like Susan."
"Now, Mrs. Ames," replied her friend, "I don't agree with you that it is wholly a matter of disposition. I think training has very much to do with the conduct of our children—perhaps as much or more than the natural disposition. I believe you should gratify your little one's desire for work to do, and for tools to work with."
"Why, Mrs. Walters! do you think we should give our children everything they cry for?"
"By no means. But you say that your little boy used to be very good-natured and contented, which to my mind proves that he is not by nature discontented. What the child needs, evidently, is employment. When he was a babe, he busied himself with the clothes-pins, now he has grown beyond the clothes-pin stage, and you should give him real work to do, and let him feel that he is expected to do it. Give him a tiny corner of the garden to plant and tend as his own, and, my word for it, he will be as content and happy as his older brother."
The next few months proved that Mrs. Walter's words were true. Little Wilfred was given a corner of the garden, and, young as he was, he raised and sold enough of his own vegetables to disprove forever the notion that very little boys can not be useful. And as his usefulness grew, his contentment grew in double ratio. Rarely ill-natured or peevish, he was the joy of the household.
I tell you there is nothing for old or young that will so effectually cure a case of "the blues"—which is only another name for discontentment—as useful employment of some kind. Let the boys and the girls learn to "lend a hand" when they see any one in need of assistance. But, alas and alas! there are parents who seem to think their children belong so exclusively to themselves that they are hardly willing to allow them to do a deed of kindness for any one outside their own family. Who can wonder that the sowing of such seeds of selfishness rarely fails to yield a harvest of regret and sorrow.
Has the spirit of disquietude and discontent entered your family? Is Mary's brow clouded from morning till night? Has John forgotten his cheerful whistle? Is baby Jane in mischief constantly? You may be sure that one of the best remedies in the world is simply useful employment. Give John a little piece of land, father, or a share of the crops he has helped to garner; give him a calf or a colt or a sheep that he may call his own; and then, I warn you, don't forget yourself and sell them and pocket the money. Don't!
"Well," says some discouraged mother, "my Ella has enough to do I'll guarantee, but she finds time to worry and fret because her clothes are not quite as fine as Mrs. Grey's daughter's; and even little Alice is unhappy because I can't afford to buy her as fine a set of doll dishes as Julie Brown has, while it was by using the closest economy that I was able to buy her those she has now. So what can I do to teach my girls contentment?"
Well, mother, yours is a hard question. In the first place I think you were very foolish, under the circumstances, to have bought little Alice any doll dishes at all; or to have striven to bring Ella's wardrobe up to the standard of that of your wealthier friends. Young people who are troubled with this phase of discontentment need to be taught both by precept and by example that "godliness with contentment is great gain." To my mind, children were a great deal happier when they had fewer expensive toys, and when there was not so much time and attention paid to their wardrobes. Honestly, don't you agree with me?
If the little girls were taught to manufacture rag dolls, and the older girls were encouraged to give that ten cents to missions instead of spending it for a gay ribbon which can only be worn once before it is spoiled, how much better it would be! O, if this motto could be framed and hung up in a conspicuous part of the house—"Be ye content with such things as ye have"—I believe many a dollar might be kept to do good with, and many a soul saved from death. Let the girls learn to do their own sewing. "O but," you say, "I tried that to my sorrow, and as a result Susie has ruined her new suit." Evidently Susie did not learn to sew on cheap material. But better spoil the dress than the girl.
Let Tommy learn to drive nails and to saw boards. And above everything else, if you see that Mary and John have a special talent for any line of work—sewing or drawing or music or literature or mechanics or just plain, ordinary housework—no matter what, encourage them in their special line. I shall always affirm, and I believe rightly, that it is too bad to insist upon a child's spending weary hours trying to master something so utterly distasteful to him that he will never make a success of it. It is too bad for a natural musician to throw away his time trying to learn to paint! too bad for one whose whole heart and soul long for the field of literature, to waste his moments trying to master higher mathematics.
It is the duty, and should be the pleasure, of every parent to find out what particular line of employment is suited to each child, and then to encourage him to follow it. Then I am quite certain there would be left little time or inclination for discontent.