"NURSING FATHERS."
"And kings shall be thy nursing fathers."--_Isaiah_ xlix. 23.
It is an old saying, "Praise the child and you make love to the mother;"
and it is a thing that no husband ought to overlook, for if the wife
wish her child to be admired by others, what must be the ardour of her
wishes with regard to _his_ admiration! Cobbett tells us that there was
a drunken man in his regiment, who used to say that his wife would
forgive him for spending all the pay, and the washing money into the
bargain, "if he would but kiss her ugly brat, and say it was pretty."
Though this was a profligate he had philosophy in him; and certain it is
that there is nothing worthy of the name of conjugal happiness unless
the husband clearly evince that he is fond of his children.
Where you find children loving and helpful to their mothers, you
generally find their father at the bottom of it. If the husband respect
his wife the children will respect their mother. If the husband rises to
offer her a chair, they will not sit still when she enters the room; if
he helps to bear her burdens, they will not let her be the pack-horse of
the household. If to her husband the wife is but an upper servant, to
her children she will easily become but a waiting-maid. The first care
of the true, wise husband will be to sustain the authority of the wife
and mother. It must be a very remarkable exigency which allows him to
sit as a court of appeal from her decisions, and reverse them. But
although husbands ought not to vexatiously interfere with their wives in
the management of children, especially of young children, still they
must not shirk their share of care and responsibility. It was not
without reason that Diogenes struck the father when the son swore,
because he had taught him no better.
There is no effeminacy in the title "nursing fathers," but the contrary.
Fondness for children arises from compassionate feeling for creatures
that are helpless and innocent.
Napoleon loved the man who held with a steel hand, covered with a silk
glove; so should the father be gentle but firm. Happy is he who is happy
in his children, and happy are the children who are happy in their
father. All fathers are not wise. Some are like Eli, and spoil their
children. Not to cross our children is the way to make a cross of them.
But, "Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath." That is, do not
irritate them by unwise or capricious rules and ways. Help your wives to
make the home lively and pleasant, so as to keep the children from
seeking pleasure and excitement elsewhere. The proverb says that
"Clergymen's sons always turn out badly." Why? Because the children are
surfeited with severe religion, _not_ with the true religion of Christ,
who was Himself reproved by the prototypes of such severe men.
"Where," asks Mr. James Payn, "is the children's fun? Boys are now
crammed with knowledge like turkeys (but unfortunately not killed at
Christmas), and there is absolutely no room in them for a joke." An idol
called "success" is put up for worship, and fathers are ready to
sacrifice the health and happiness of their children upon its altar.
"The educational abomination of desolation of the present day," says
Professor Huxley, "is the stimulation of young people to work at high
pressure by incessant examinations." Some wise man (who probably was not
an early riser) has said of early risers in general, that they are
"conceited all the forenoon, and stupid all the afternoon." Now whether
this is true of early risers in the common acceptation of the word or
not, I will not pretend to say; but it is too often true of the unhappy
children who are forced to rise too early in their classes. They are
"conceited all the forenoon of life, and stupid all its afternoon." How
much unhappiness might children be spared if fathers would goad them
less, and sometimes cheer up that dulness which has fallen to most of
us, by saying:
"Be good, dear child, and let who will be clever;
Do noble things--nor dream them all day long;
And so make life, death, and that vast for ever
One grand, sweet song."
What to do with our boys and girls is certainly a serious question, but
the last thing we should do with them is to make them miserable. Why not
disregard all false notions of gentility, and have each child well
taught a manual trade? Then they will have riches in their arms, and you
will have escaped the unpleasant alternative of the Jewish proverb,
which says that he who does not teach his son a trade teaches him to
steal.
We give here a sketch of Canon Kingsley as a father, because we do not
remember any home life more beautiful and instructive. Because the
Rectory-house was on low ground, the rector of Eversley, who considered
violation of the divine laws of health a sort of acted blasphemy, built
his children an outdoor nursery on the "Mount," where they kept books,
toys, and tea things, spending long, happy days on the highest and
loveliest point of moorland in the glebe; and there he would join them
when his parish work was done, bringing them some fresh treasure picked
up in his walk, a choice wild-flower or fern or rare beetle, sometimes a
lizard or a field-mouse; ever waking up their sense of wonder, calling
out their powers of observation, and teaching them lessons out of God's
great green book, _without their knowing_ they were learning.
Out-of-doors and indoors, the Sundays were the happiest days of the week
to the children, though to their father the hardest. When his day's work
was done, there was always the Sunday walk, in which each bird and plant
and brook was pointed out to the children, as preaching sermons to Eyes,
such as were not even dreamt of by people of the No-eyes species.
Indoors the Sunday picture-books were brought out, and each child chose
its subject for the father to draw, either some Bible story, or bird or
beast or flower. In all ways he fostered in his children a love of
animals. They were taught to handle without disgust toads, frogs,
beetles, as works from the hand of a living God. His guests were
surprised one morning at breakfast when his little girl ran up to the
open window of the dining-room, holding a long, repulsive-looking worm
in her hand: "Oh, daddy, look at this _delightful_ worm!"
Kingsley had a horror of corporal punishment, not merely because it
tends to produce antagonism between parent and child, but because he
considered more than half the lying of children to be the result of fear
of punishment. "Do not train a child," he said, "as men train a horse,
by letting anger and punishment be the _first_ announcement of his
having sinned. If you do, you induce two bad habits: first, the boy
regards his parent with a kind of blind dread, as a being who may be
offended by actions which to _him_ are innocent, and whose wrath he
expects to fall upon him at any moment in his most pure and unselfish
happiness. Next, and worst still, the boy learns not to fear sin, but
the punishment of it, and thus he learns to lie." He was careful too not
to confuse his children by a multiplicity of small rules. "It is
difficult enough to keep the Ten Commandments," he would say, "without
making an eleventh in every direction." He had no "moods" with his
family, for he cultivated, by strict self-discipline in the midst of
worries and pressing business, a disengaged temper, that always enabled
him to enter into other people's interests, and especially into
children's playfulness. "I wonder," he would say, "if there is so much
laughing in any other home in England as in ours." He became a
light-hearted boy in the presence of his children. When nursery griefs
and broken toys were taken to his study, he was never too busy to mend
the toy and dry the tears. He held with Jean Paul Richter, that children
have their "days and hours of rain," which parents should not take much
notice of, either for anxiety or sermons, but should lightly pass over,
except when they are symptoms of coming illness. And his knowledge of
physiology enabled him to detect such symptoms. He recognized the fact,
that weariness at lessons and sudden fits of obstinacy are not hastily
to be treated as moral delinquencies, springing as they so often do from
physical causes, which are best counteracted by cessation from work and
change of scene.
How blessed is the son who can speak of his father as Charles Kingsley's
eldest son does. "'Perfect love casteth out fear', was the motto," he
says, "on which my father based his theory of bringing up children. From
this and from the interests he took in their pursuits, their pleasures,
trials, and even the petty details of their everyday life, there sprang
up a friendship between father and children, that increased in intensity
and depth with years. To speak for myself, he was the best friend--the
only true friend I ever had. At once he was the most fatherly and the
most unfatherly of fathers--fatherly in that he was our intimate friend
and our self-constituted adviser; unfatherly in that our feeling for him
lacked that fear and restraint that make boys call their father 'the
governor.' Ours was the only household I ever saw in which there was no
favouritism. It seemed as if in each of our different characters he took
an equal pride, while he fully recognized their different traits of good
or evil; for instead of having one code of social, moral, and physical
laws laid down for one and all of us, each child became a separate study
for him; and its little 'diseases au moral,' as he called them, were
treated differently, according to each different temperament....
Perhaps the brightest picture of the past that I look back to now is the
drawing-room at Eversley, in the evenings, when we were all at home and
by ourselves. There he sat, with one hand in mother's, forgetting his
own hard work in leading our fun and frolic, with a kindly smile on his
lips, and a loving light in that bright gray eye, that made us feel
that, in the broadest sense of the word, he was our father."
Of this son, when he was an undergraduate at Cambridge, his father (then
Professor of History) writes: "Ah! what a blessing to be able to help
him at last by teaching him something one's self!" And to a learned
"F.G.S." he says very seriously: "My eldest son is just going off to try
his manhood in Colorado, United States. You will understand, therefore,
that it is somewhat important to me just now whether the world be ruled
by a just and wise God, or by o. It is also important to me with regard
to my own boy's future, whether what is said to have happened to-morrow
(Good Friday) be true or false."
Writing to his wife from the seaside, where he had gone in search of
health, he says: "This place is perfect; but it seems a dream and
imperfect without you. Kiss the darling ducks of children for me. How I
long after them and their prattle! I delight in all the little ones in
the street, for their sake, and continually I start and fancy I hear
their voices outside. You do not know how I love them; nor did I hardly
till I came here. Absence quickens love into consciousness. Tell Rose
and Maurice that I have got two pair of bucks' horns--one for each of
them, huge old fellows, almost as big as baby."
Writing from France to "my dear little man," as he calls his youngest
son (for whom he wrote the "Water Babies"), he says: "There is a little
Egyptian vulture here in the inn; ask mother to show you his picture in
the beginning of the bird-book." There was little danger that the sons
of such a clergyman as this would turn out badly.
A companion picture of Dr. Arnold as a father, has been drawn by Dean
Stanley: "It is impossible adequately to describe the union of the whole
family round him, who was not only the father and guide, but the elder
brother and playfellow of his children; the gentleness and tenderness
which marked his whole feeling and manner in the privacy of his domestic
intercourse. Enough, however, may perhaps be said to recall something at
least of its outward aspect. There was the cheerful voice that used to
go sounding through the house in the early morning, as he went round to
call his children; the new spirits which he seemed to gather from the
mere glimpses of them in the midst of his occupations--the increased
merriment of all in any game in which he joined--the happy walks on
which he would take them in the fields and hedges, hunting for
flowers--the yearly excursion to look in the neighbouring clay-pit for
the earliest coltsfoot, with the mock siege that followed. Nor, again,
was the sense of his authority as a father ever lost in his playfulness
as a companion. His personal superintendence of their ordinary
instructions was necessarily limited by his other engagements, but it
was never wholly laid aside. In the later years of his life it was his
custom to read the Psalms and Lessons of the day with his family every
morning; and the common reading of a chapter in the Bible every Sunday
evening, with repetition of hymns or parts of Scripture by every member
of the family--the devotion with which he would himself repeat his
favourite poems from the Christian Year, or his favourite passages from
the Gospels--the same attitude of deep attention in listening to the
questions of his youngest children, the same reverence in answering
their difficulties that he would have shown to the most advanced of his
friends or his scholars--form a picture not soon to pass away from the
mind of any one who was ever present. But his teaching in his family was
naturally not confined to any particular occasions; they looked to him
for information and advice at all times; and a word of authority from
him was a law not to be questioned for a moment. And with the tenderness
which seemed to be alive to all their wants and wishes, there was united
that peculiar sense of solemnity, with which, in his eyes, the very idea
of a family life was invested. The anniversaries of domestic events--the
passing away of successive generations--the entrance of his sons on the
several stages of their education, struck on the deepest chords of his
nature, and made him blend with every prospect of the future the keen
sense of the continuance (so to speak) of his own existence in the good
and evil fortunes of his children, and to unite the thought of them with
the yet more solemn feeling, with which he was at all times wont to
regard 'the blessing' of 'a whole house transplanted entire from earth
to heaven, without one failure.'"
What Luther was as a father may be imagined from a letter which he wrote
when absent at the Diet of Augsburg, to his little boy, aged five years.
The mother had written the home news, especially telling the loving
father about his first-born, so to him, as well as to her, Luther wrote
the following letter, full of fatherly fondness and charming
naturalness.
"Grace and peace in Christ, my dear little boy. I am pleased to see that
thou learnest thy lessons well, and prayest well. Go on thus, my dear
boy, and when I come home I will bring you a fine fairing. I know of a
pretty garden where are merry children that have gold frocks, and gather
nice apples and plums and cherries under the trees, and sing and dance,
and ride on pretty horses with gold bridles and silver saddles. I asked
the man of the place whose the garden was, and who the children were. He
said, 'These are the children who pray and learn and are good.' Then I
answered, 'I also have a son, who is called Hans Luther. May he come to
this garden, and eat pears and apples, and ride a little horse, and play
with the others?' The man said, 'If he says his prayers, and learns and
is good, he may come; and Lippus and Jost [Melanchthon's son Philip, and
Jonas' son, Jodecus] may come, and they shall have pipes and drums and
lutes and fiddles, and they shall dance, and shoot with little
crossbows. Then he showed me a smooth lawn in the garden laid out for
dancing, and there the pipes and crossbows hung. But it was still early,
and the children had not dined, and I could not wait for the dance. So I
said, 'Dear sir, I will go straight home and write all this to my little
boy; but he has an aunt, Lene (great-aunt Magdalen) that he must bring
with him.' And the man answered, 'So it shall be! go and write as you
say.' Therefore, dear little boy, learn and pray with a good heart, and
tell Lippus and Jost to do the same, and then you will all come to the
garden together. Almighty God guard you. Give my love to Aunt Lene, and
give her a kiss for me.--Your loving father, MARTIN LUTHER."
What is chiefly wanted in the education of children is a wise mixture of
love and firmness. Parental authority should be regarded as vicegerent
authority, set up by God and ruling in His stead. A parent is to a child
what God is to a good man. He is the moral governor of the world of
childhood. Parental government is therefore only genuine when it rules
for the same ends as God pursues.
When children accord willing obedience the end of family government is
gained. To attain this end a parent should be careful to observe the
following rules. First, never to hamper a child with arbitrary
restrictions, but, if possible, always to let the reasons of each
command or prohibition be apparent; secondly, to let every punishment
have some relation to the offence, and so imitate the great laws of
nature, which entail definite consequences on every act of wrong; and,
thirdly, never to threaten a punishment and afterwards shrink from
inflicting it; finally, punishments should be severe enough to serve
their purpose, and gentle enough to ensure the continuance of affection.
Nor should the child be left alone until he feels that the punishment
has been for his own good, and gives assurance of this feeling by
putting on a pleasant face.
Human nature requires amusement as well as teaching and correction. One
of the first duties of a parent is to sympathize with the play of his
children. How much do little children crave for sympathy! They hold out
every new object for you to see it with them, and look up after each
gambol for you to rejoice with them. Let play-time and playthings be
given liberally. Invite suitable companions, and do everything in your
power to make home sweet. Authority, so unbent, will be all the
stronger and more welcome from our display of real sympathy. If family
government were well carried out in every home, children would be
happier and better than they are now. Then there would be, even in our
own great towns, a partial realization of the words of the prophet
Zechariah, in reference to Jerusalem delivered: "And the streets of the
city shall be full of boys and girls, playing in the streets thereof."
The home of our children ought never to be a prison where there is
plenty of rule and order, but no love and no pleasure. We should
remember that "he who makes a little child happier for an hour is a
fellow-worker with God."
It was bitterly said of a certain Pharisaical household that in it "no
one should please himself, neither should he please any one else; for in
either case he would be thought to be displeasing God." This reminds us
of the Scotchman who, having gone back to his country after a long
absence, declared that the whole kingdom was on the road to perdition.
"People," he said, "used to be reserved and solemn on the sabbath, but
now they look as happy on that day as on any other." It is a blessed
thing for the rising generation that such grotesque perversions of
religion are seldom presented to them now; for every well-instructed
Christian ought to be aware that religion does not banish mirth, but
only moderates and sets rules to it.