Infidelity on the subject of children’s conversion. This is partly
because of some soft, silly and irrational processes which are
sometimes resorted to for what is called “Getting the children
converted.” [That is true.]
The idea of usefulness in the world is not sufficiently appreciated. In
families there is too much selfishness in “living for ourselves,” for
our furniture, our table, our comforts and our society; and not enough
thinking about how we may live as a center of influence for the good of
others.
Too little restriction in the matter of association between boys and
girls at that period of life when they are called the “after boy” and
the “after girl.” When they are neither boys nor girls, neither men nor
women. We put away dolls too early from the arms of our girls as they
grow up.
Saying “don’t” forty times a day.
Giving sympathy to the girls, and neglecting the boys in the home.
There should be not less sympathy to the girls, but more sympathy to
the boys.
DR. VINCENT: Taking for granted that boys ought always to be rough,
and girls always to be gentle—and so girls should, and boys too; but
at the same time there is a roughness which is fitting to a boy that
you can not endure in a girl. I love to see a boy grow up, full of
manhood, and yet never ashamed to kiss his mother or his father when
they meet. I take great pride in any boy, who growing up to be a man,
gives expression as a man to that tender feeling of love with which he
regards mother and father.
Parents forget that the little child’s troubles are just as serious
things to it, as the greater troubles of grown people are to them. The
little waves of the bay are as hard on the little boats as the big
waves of the sea are on the big ships; and many a child at four or five
years of age—younger or older—suffers acutely from sorrows that come,
in which it finds no sympathy. We should remember this; and blessed
is the minister and blessed is the teacher who has it in his heart to
sympathize with and comfort the little people in their sorrows.
The foolish emphasis placed by parents upon the intellectual
attainments of their children, while the moral qualities are regarded
as of no consequence. It is frightful to contemplate the standards
which prevail in our public schools and generally in our educational
institutions of to-day, by which memory is taxed, and knowledge of
science, knowledge of literature and of mathematics emphasized, and
scarcely any attention whatever paid to the moral foundations. We can
not regard this with too great solicitude, nor labor as parents too
carefully for governing the development of the moral element.
Father and mother should read to and with their children, while the
children are small. Then they will be likely to form habits of reading
in later years.
Homes lack well-considered purpose and systematic effort. People plan
for their business; they plan for their summer tours; they plan in
every line, except that of the home training, the home spirit, and the
home life.
Too little frankness and too little genuine simplicity encouraged among
young girls. It is a bad thing if, through shame or fear of being
laughed at, a girl fails to tell the sweetest and deepest and richest
things of her heart’s life to her own mother. Blessed is the home where
the girl is trained never to keep anything from her mother, and where
the boy is trained always to confide in father. Boys and girls who are
brought up with that confidence never go to ruin.
Illiteracy in the home:—Resulting from so many people not joining the
C. L. S. C.
DR. VINCENT: I honestly believe that the C. L. S. C. will fulfill a
useful ministry in this respect in American homes. I have had some
beautiful letters to that effect: one from a lady the other day, out of
which I shall read on commencement day, relates to the service of the
Circle in increasing the sympathy between the husband and wife in lines
of reading and study. I never talk about home, but I have pleasant
memories of one of the best homes that mortal ever enjoyed; a father
who lived for his children, and a mother who set a constant example
of the faith and sweetness and patience of the true woman and mother.
May God grant his blessing upon the thoughts that have swept through
our minds to-night, and make our homes all the better because of this
conference.
* * * * *
We had better appear what we are, than affect to appear what we are
not.—_La Rochefoucauld._