What use to me the gold and silver hoard?
What use to me the gems most rich and rare?
Brighter by far--aye! bright beyond compare--
The joys my children to my heart afford!
288
Children need models rather than critics.
--_Joseph Joubert._
289
_Spurgeon said_: "With children we must mix gentleness with firmness;
they must not always have their own way, but they must not always be
thwarted. If we never have headaches through rebuking them, we shall
have plenty of heartaches when they grow up. If you yield up your
authority once, you will hardly ever get it again."
290
Parents deserve reproof when they refuse to benefit their children by
proper discipline.
291
My dearest pastime is with children.
292
Children are poor men's riches.
293
Nothing has a better effect upon children than praise.
--_Sir P. Sidney._
294
_Their Little Needs_--It is often asserted that both men and women would
be selfish beings but for children. They call out, and refine, and
soften the best feelings of the parental heart. Their little needs are
so many, and their simple ignorance so affecting, and their very
caprices so winning, that love and attention flow out to them almost
instinctively.
That must be a hardened nature which can be unmoved by the soft touch,
the playful childishness, and the hundred little pranks of a baby.
--_Unknown._
295
You can not expect better manners from your children than you teach
them. They imitate instinctively.
296
Children should be taught early to sympathize with the deformed, the
crippled, and otherwise unfortunate beings: A little dwarfed girl in one
of our great cities committed suicide a few years ago because she was
so weary of being laughed at and ridiculed by her associates in the
streets and at school.
An old street pedlar was set upon by school children and so annoyed and
misused that he became insane.
297