and only of God. Whereas, if the day is treated, as it is
in some countries, as a holiday, the child forgets God
in the pleasures which are addressed to the ear and the
eye ; the day reminds it of earth and time, and not of
God and eternity. While symbols should not be car-
ried to idolatry ; while one is not to lose sight of the
thought suggested in the symbol itself, still this mode
of teaching has great power over the infant mind in
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waking up and calling into exercise the emotional part
of our nature — one great object of all religious culture.
The church should, in the child's mind, be unlike other
buildings ; it should be to it as God's house, about
which cluster associations and thoughts and emotions
which no other building has power to do. Time and
again and constantly, daily and hourly, mi|st the child
be reminded of these things, of these thoughts, of these
associations. It may be done by a hint, a word, or a
look ; but these hints and words and looks should be
repeated whenever an opportunity presents. The
child's mind will thus become interested in these
thoughts, and deep impressions be made upon it.
The same course must be pursued in relation to its
duties toward itself and its fellows. Its mind ghould
be taught to reason on its actions ; no wrong act should
be overlooked without showing the child its nature, its
demerit, its desert of blame. The child should be
made by a hint to see the law and the act, the right and
the sin. Children are constantly doing wrong, and as
constantly should be taught the wrong. It is not enough
to punish ; the child must be made to see the wrong
and the right ; the act should be referred to this, and
condemned for that and that only. Many parents over-
look these so-called trifling errors, but let them recol-
lect that it is by such trifling acts that the moral char-
acter of the child is formed. These are the examples
presented by the child itself, by which the parent may
illustrate and render apprehensible to the infant mind
the true law of the divine life. Never should a wrong
act be passed by unnoticed, unrebuked, lest the child
should come to regard it as right. There are painful
9
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130 CRIME AND THE FAMILY.
omissions in this respect. Parents are often too busy-
to notice these minor errors in a child, and therefore
pass over them in silence, and the child comes to be-
lieve that its witty sins, its sharp tricks, are no sins,
are not blameworthy acts at all.
Selfishness should be rooted out by examples. The
child should be introduced to the miseries of life, and
then taught how it has been blessed by being born un-
der circumstances so .much happier than those of so
many others who are as good as itself and may be bet-
ter. God's goodness to it should be impressed upon
its mind, as well as pity for the poor child who is born
to want and ignorance and vice and misery, unless
good people by their bounty shall rescue it from the
consequences of its birth. Such contrasts should not
be made the means of puffing up its pride, but of de-
veloping its gratitude, its humility, its compassion.
Never permit a child to make sport of human misery ;
let it rather be taught to look upon it with.a pity which
prompts to relieve. And yet how often do we see
children laughing at the unfortunate, at the child who
has not been blessed of God as they have been, at its
ragged clothes, its timidity, or its awkward manners.
The allowance of such conduct on the part of a child
serves awfully to harden the heart and petrify the feel-
ings. It narrows the sympathies and teaches a selfish
morality.
But above all, let parents teach by a correct exam-
ple. Parental example is the most impressive of all
teachers; if this is not right, precept will have but
little influence over the youthful mind. It is folly for
parents to talk of liberality and benevolence, while,
by their practices and words, they are exhibiting them-
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TEACHING — THE MODE. I3I
selves as stingy, arid mean, and penurious, refusing
to relieve the distressed, or supply the wants of the
starving. How often, too, do we see parents guilty of in-
sincerity, and envy, and a spirit of scandal? Parents
will often, in the presence of children, treat courteously
a visitor, and as soon as he or she is gone, fall to
and ridicule or slander him or h^r ? What can children
think of such conduct ? They must think their parents
dishonest, envious, and malicious, destitute of those
kindly feelings which ought to characterize the inter-
course of human beings. With such examples before
them, children will grow up and become filled with
the like spirit, while they will lose all respect for their
parents and all confidence in human sincerity and
honesty. Parents, if they must slander their neigh-
bors, should avoid doing it in the presence of their
children. But parents should never be guilty of such
conduct, should never be guilty of a word, or an act,
which is not justified by the highest principles and
prompted by the purest and noblest feelings; they
should act generously, lovingly, kindly, toward every-
body, if they would wish their children so to act.
The thoughts, and feelings, and principles of parents
will overflow and penetrate the minds of their children.
Such a result can not be avoided.
Let parents then look well to their own words and
conduct, if they would train up their children in the
way they should go. Never let them say a word, or
do an act, which is not right and desirable that their
children should do. Their own character, in the
estimation of their children, depends upon it. If they
are ever generous, kind, charitable, sincere, honest,
their children will love and reverence them, will rise up
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132 CRIME AND THE FAMILY.
and call them blessed, while following their example
and exalting their memory. Let parents run over
their words, their acts, and weigh their influence for
good or evil on those dear ones committed to their
nurture and culture, and whose future depends, for
weal Or woe, upon their fidelity in the discharge of
parental duty. Teach them, as you value the happi-
ness of your children, both by precept and example.
Let your teaching and your example be in accordance
with the true law of humanity, that law which, if
obeyed, will bind society together with the sweet
cords of love, and elevate humanity to that condition,
and develop it into that life, which shall realize the
divine ideal — a state of perfect beatitude.
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CHAPTER XIV.
THE WRONG WAV.
After having presented affirmatively, my views upon
moral and religious culture and training, I might close,
as having said all of truth I have to say ; but oftentimes
an affirmative truth is made to stand out more distinctly,
and to become more impressive, by a clear presenta-
tion of the opposite error. So it may conduce to
deepen the impression on the minds of parents and
readers, if I should briefly sketch the wrong way of
training a child, the way which leads to ruin and dis-
grace and death, and which is yet pursued by too
many, with the most heart-rending results ; and many
persons pursue this course through a real tenderness
for their children, a kind of love founded on a blind
instinct, not upon experience and reason, while others
are reckless and careless as to what their children
may do, leaving them to grow up as the trees of the
forest or the wild weeds by the roadside. It is a mel-
ancholy sight, thus to witness parents training up their
children for failure in life, if not for ruin.
When the child has come into the world, the parent
should consider it as simply having a right to grow up
and shape its own destiny. This is the true principle
on which this scheme of moral training is based ; and
it is always well to act on principle, and understand-
ingly, since, if the principle is realized in the results,
no one will be disappointed, no one will be troubled
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134 CRIME AND THE FAMILY.
with any misgivings for a failure to do one's duty ;
whereas, if the principle is one way and the practice
another, there is a fearful chance for an unquiet con-
science and scalding tears. This principle gets rid
of all these difficulties, as it recognizes for right only
results ; hence, whatever those results may be, they
will always be right. This principle also will exert
another quieting influence : it sets aside as null all
idea of God, and hence of the duty of training a child
up into His divine and glorious image. According to
this principle, there are no duties, only results, and
these results must be left' to work themselves out
through the unrestrained natural man. Such restraint
IS said to destroy all manhood in the boy, and all in-
dependence in the girl. To insure these all-important
qualifications, the child must be left to nature's instruc-
tion, and then he will be so independent and selfish
that the boy will become a tyrant and the girl a virago.
Their own wills will be their sole law, and, without
music in their souls, they will be ready for any act of
insubordination and lawlessness. But I have said
enough on the principle ; I can only urge each parent
to make up his mind upon it, either to adopt it as right
or reject it as wrong. Let us have none of that half-
way policy which consists in not daring to deny the
right, and yet in perpetually practicing the wrong. I
can not insure peace of mind on that hypothesis,
though I may insure the result which an honest adop-
tion of this principle would secure. I want it under-
stood that this principle comes from the bottomless pit
and the father of lies. It is, however, important that
people should distinctly understand what their work
is, for some then might shrink from doing it, as they
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THE WRONG WAY. I35
would hardly purpose to do that which they are so
keenly engaged in doing.
We are now prepared to apply this principle to the
development and culture of a human being. As the
principle impliedly rejects the spiritual part of human-
ity, we must have a single regard to the animal, and
seel^ to develop that according to its own peculiar law.
If, therefore, a young child cries, as it probably will,
the mother or nurse should get out of patience at once,
and in a pet it would be best to strike the child, as that
will develop the natural instinct of anger, and lead the
child to resist all efforts to quiet it. This irritating
process should be kept up until the child has become
furiously angry ; then it may be quieted by giving it
what it wants, if it craves anything, or by a sugar-
teat, some candy, or a little of Bateman's drops. This
done, the child, being somewhat exhausted by its
struggles of anger, will readily fall asleep, and the
lesson for that time may be considered as over. It
will not do by firmness to let the child fret himself
without obtaining the gratification he desired, because
the child, on a next occasion, might yield more read-
ily, and, after having been subdued by gentle firmness
a few times, would acquire such a habit of obeying an
outward law that it would yield at a single decided
word of command, and in this way his animal nature
might be subdued, instead of being developed and
strengthened. Moreover, the candy or the drops
would also aid to stimulate the appetite, and render it
more clamorous for gratification the next time than at
first, while the drops would tend to stupefy the child,
so that in time it might come near being stripped of its
humanity. This system of provoking a child to wrath
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should be kept up, and be constantly pursued. Every
time the child becomes clamorous for anything, it
should be so resisted in the gratification of its wish as
to rouse it into a temporary frenzy, and in this way its
anger will become in a short time almost uncontrolla-
ble, breaking out in fury upon the most trifling occa-
sions. The will of the child will refuse to submit to
an outward law, and in a short time set at defiance
nurses and parents and teachers, and make of home a
place somewhat like a china-shop with a maddened
bull within it. It would not be well just to leave the
child to have its cry out, since by that course its tem-
per and self-will would fail to be developed, its passion
would be left to slumber, and, not attaining much
strength, the child, as its reason and its intellect be-
come developed, might then yield to their influence,
as its animal nature would not have been nurtured into
vigor. If, therefore, this method is to have its full
eflfect, the child should always be just half-governed;
then it will always be in an angry mood. The child
should always be at first denied its wants, resisted for
a time, then the parent should yield and give it all it
wants. In that way it will soon understand that resist-
ance can always be overcome by anger, crying, and
stubbornness. The child will very soon come to have
a will of its own, and know how to subject every other
to the vicissitudes of its feelings, caprices, passions, and
appetites. It will soon learn to take what it wants,
sauce its mother when she protests and prays \}cL^good
child not to be naughty; but the emphatic ** I will" or
«' I won't" will silence the poor, weak mother and the
whole house, who will be compelled to yield or fight
with the precocious Nimrod. The child, as it begins
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THE WRONG WAY. I37
to run round the house, will show itself an apt pupil ;
it will tear all the books and papers it can la}'' its hands
on, scratch and disfigure the furniture, turn over the
chairs, poke the fire and throw it out on the floor or
carpet, throw the broom or brush in the fire, thrust
its hand into the sugar-bowl, snatch any nice bit from
the table when strangers are present and there is
something a little better than common prepared for a
friend or the stranger ; it will break the dishes, singe
the cat, arfd cut the dog, and do many other things
which will give an auspicious promise of its aptitude
to receive and profit by its instruction. In this way
the child will learn the habit of having its will upon
all occasions, of acting according to the teachings of
nature rather than from any law of right received into
or imposed upon the mind by parental authority 5 its
conscience and its moral powers will remain wholly
undevoloped as they should do, since, if they \yeve to
act, it might render the promising boy or girl un-
happy, insomuch as they might be led to regard as
wrong some of their proceedings, and it would be a
pity to disturb the peace of so promising a youth.
Whenever the child does any act indicative of a lit-
tle smartness and a good deal of wickedness, laugh
slyly at its smartness, while you gently rebuke the
wickedness ; tell it what a promising child it is, and
that it will by and by make a great man or a talented
woman. This will effectually prevent the formation of
any settled notions of right and wrong, except the one
notion, that whatever so promising a child does, is right
and can not be otherwise. When it is very trouble-
some to strangers or guests, reprimand it gently ; but
be sure you tell the guests what a good child it usually
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13^ CRIME AND THE FAMILY.
IS, and you can not understand what has bewitched it
now. The child will in this way learn to lie after pa-
rental example, since it has been probably told a hun-
dred times by that same parent that it is a very bad
child, indeed the very worst the parent ever saw.
As the boys grow up and are able to run about, they
will be anxious to be out in the streets of a town or
city, and their curiosity should by all means be grati-
fied. In this respect, the boys are privileged above
the girls. Social conventionalism has declared it im-
proper for a girl to be allowed to run at large in the
streets of a town or city, and in this respect they are
X hardly and tyrannically dealt with ; since if it is good
for the boys, I can not see why it is not for the girls.
It is time that conventionalism should be done away
with, and reality be substituted in its place. But there
is no such social difficulty with the boys, since most
boys are allowed a generous liberty in this respect.
The streets of a town or city are a school full of in-
struction ; boys here soon learn many things which
they would hardly learn under the domestic roof and
^around the domestic fireside. There are here many
things to be seen which are novelties to the boy, and
much excitement to be submitted to, and excitement is
always interesting to the young. In this school they
will find apt teachers — older boys who have already
become proficients in all the useful learning to be
gathered in the streets of a city or town. The boy
soon learns to swear ; he can not well avoid contracting
this genteel habit, since he hears it from the lips of
men and older boys, to whom he looks up as shining
examples. He also learns to smoke, and that other
accomplishment, which generally goes with it, the sip-
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THE WRONG WAY. I39
ping of a little beer, or brandy, or gin to quench the
thirst which follows either tobacco smoking or chewing.
If his parents are able, they should be sure to keep
the promising youth supplied with money. This will
procure the young pupil in street education many ar-
dent friends, who will be eager to introduce him to the
acquaintance of the various places where pleasure is
to be found. If his parents can not supply money,
the boy would do well to attach himself to another boy
who has it ; or if no other means can be found, let him
abstract a little from his mother's drawer or father's
pocket — in that way he will soon be induced to find it
elsewhere than at home, and from other persons than
parents. If, however, the boy has money, he will
find older ones to pilot him through the windings of a
great city, and introduce him to all those pleasant
places where young men find recreation and pleasure.
During these excursions parents must not trouble them-
selves if their boys begin to stay out till after dark, till
eight o'clock, till nine, till ten, till eleven, till the noon
of night; it is not astonishing, since there are so many
interesting things to be seen and enjoyed. If the young
man is to be aided from home, it would be well to keep
for him a fast horse and a neat buggy. There is much
pleasure in fast driving, and then what an accomplish-
ment it is I He will find female friends to grace his
ride, with whom perhaps his mother may be unac-
quainted, and whom his sisters have not met in their
visiting and calling; still they are gay, ring out the
merry laugh, and sweeten the pleasures of life to the
promising and pleasure loving. He will pass from
place to place ; grade by grade will he ascend from the
sidewalk to the beer-shop, the oyster-saloon with its
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140 CRIME AND THE FAMILY.
brandy bottle and those choice liquors which never
impair the heahh, to the faro table and gambling-house,
winding up with the gay palaces where the daughters
of pleasure smile and laugh and in the end betray.
This whole process is as natural and easy as the way
to mill. Many parents are too absorbed in pleasure
or business to inquire for the whereabouts of their chil-
dren, but console themselves with the conviction that
their children will do right, come out right in the end.
Nay, because the father is rich and the mother gay, it
does not matter much what the son does, since wealth
and fashion cover up a multitude of what would other-
wise appear as ugly sins.
If now and then the boy stays out late, and father
and mother are uneasy, let'them ask the boy, and he
will explain it all and remove the uneasiness without
it being necessary to check him in his course. If he
now and then comes home intoxicated — at first slightly,
then more and more — do not let the mother trouble
herself: it is only the freak of a young man, who will
now and then overstep the strict line of propriety in
the overflow of youthful feelings, as so many great
men, in their youth, have done ; by and by the wild
oats will all be sowed, and the domesticated ones
spring up spontaneously. It is true that these painful
scenes will increase in number, and be oftener re-
peated, as time rolls round ; but let the fond mother
think of her wealth and her position in society, and
drug her memory with vanity into forgetfulness. But
by and by the real results will be coming forth ; and, if
one day the boy is laid on a dying bed with that fearful
frenzy which excessive drinking produces, let the poor
mother console herself that such is the ordinary con-
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sequences of life, and they must be borne in silence and
with genteel propriety. But, if some day she hears that
her son has been guilty of murder in the orgies of a
brothel, let her dry her eyes and fold her hands under
the assurance that the natural fruit of her doing has
now ripened into maturity, loaded with the bitter clus-
ters of Sodom. Let her go and hide her gray hairs
and die in obscurity, since she has no child to comfort
her declining age ; her wealth shall be her consola-
tion, since that was her idol. As for the father, he is
too much immersed in money-making to care where
his son is, and too callous to feel a pang, as he sees
him consigned to a drunkard's grave or receiving the
reward of his crime.
In matters of dress, it will be well to make this, in
quality and form, such as to distinguish the child from
others. Take great pains to convince the child that
it looks prettier than others, and is therefore better.
This will early develop the feeling of vanity, and
teach the child to consider those not as well clothed
as itself far beneath it, and only to be despised. Dress,
by this method, will become a test of merit — well-
dressed people being good and badly dressed people
being bad. This impression is easily made where
parents have wealth. If they are poor, then rich
dress may be regarded as an evidence of demerit,
of a hard heart and an oppressive spirit. Bad people
only dress gaily and never work ; it is the poor only
that are virtuous, industrious, and good. In this way,
ill-feelings toward each other may be early instilled
into the minds of both rich and poor, a permanent
hostility be created between them : then one will be
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142 CRIME AND THE FAMILY.
able to oppress, and the other to plunder, without any
compunctions of conscience.
The girls should be specially attended to by the
mother. She should early flatter them with gay
dresses and a showy outside. They need not be
troubled with education, as that will not aid in this
work. The mother should tell her daughter of the
faults of all her neighbors and acquaintances ; should
ridicule their singularities, and depreciate their char-
acter. She may show her own duplicity, in speaking
in one way to the face of a visitor, and in another and
different way behind her back. The daughter will be
largely benefited by such dishonesty and insincerity
on the part of the mother, and readily imbibe all her
spite, and malice, and insincerity. Physical defects
may be represented as more to be deplored than moral
ones, and wealth as the only real standard of merit.
It is sufficient to hint these various points ; the world's
practice will suggest the residue, and apt "mothers
will find no difficulty in carrying through this course
of education their apt and imitative daughters.
I might carry these hints still more into detail, but
I have said enough to show how a child may be
trained up for vice, crime, and perdition, and that in
that training there need be no mistake ; that the result
will be as certain in this case as the other. Can any
one doubt that children thus trained will walk in that
path, through a short and giddy and dissipated life, to
a rapid perdition ? There can be no doubt of it. The
records of our criminal tribunals and of perdition are
full of evidence on this point ; so that no parent need
hesitate as to the result, if he or she decides upon this
mode of training. *'The wages of sin is death."
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This declaration will ever be found to be true. Let
parents then choose between the two methods of train-
ing ; choose deliberately and in full view of the con-