THE MOTHER THE TEACHER.
Mother’s Sphere in the Home.—Mother as Maker of Sunshine.—Food,
Clothing and Restraint not the Mother’s Full Duty to Her
Children.—Teach Them Self-knowledge.—Mother Should Give Honest
Answers to Honest Inquiries.—Ignorance Leads to Vice, and Vice
to Ruin.—When Shall Children be Taught Physical Truths.—How
to Teach Little Children Physical Truth.—Questions of Sex
Should be the Most Sacred Things of Their Knowledge.—How to
Teach the Children in This Sacred Way.—The Preparation for
the Lesson.—Mothers Should Teach Their Boys as Well as the
Girls.—How Boys Grow Away from Their Mothers.—How Mothers May
Win and Hold Their Boys.—An Honest Mother’s Reward.—A Mother’s
Power Over Her Children.
“The best teacher is a wise mother. She will thoroughly equip
the child for the journey of life; she will place him on the
right road, and she will fill his mind with such ideas of truth
and justice as will enable him to withstand the temptations
of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Thrice happy is the
child who possesses such a mother. He may have other teachers
in school and college, but none whose influence is so
far-reaching and lasting as hers.”—THOMAS HUNTER.
“As is the mother so is her daughter.”
“An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.”
A traveller and a native met upon the streets of Tokio, Japan. In the
course of their conversation upon this wonderful land of the “Rising
Sun,” the native exclaimed: “But have you seen It?”
“It,” repeated the traveller, “what do you mean by It?”
“Ah: you would not ask had you seen It.”
They met again a few weeks later, after the American had beheld the
glories of the wonderful, indescribable “It” of Japan,—the Holy Mountain,
the marvelous Fujiyama, which rises thousands of feet above the level
plain, snow-capped, reflecting the rays of the sun in a thousand varied
shades, alone, majestic, incomparable, in its grandeur and beauty.
Little wonder that the admiring natives call it the “It” of Japan. It
might as truly, among its kind, be called the It of the world.
There were few words exchanged, but the native was satisfied. The It was
understood and appreciated by the traveller.
Months after the Japanese visited America, and from the Pacific to the
Atlantic was eagerly searching for anything that would compare in natural
beauty, with this marvelous Holy Mountain of his own land. The Yosemite,
the majestic Rockies, the National Park, Niagara, all were visited, but
nowhere could he find the one thing worthy the name.
As he became known, the homes of America were thrown open to him. At last
he awoke one day and exclaimed in his delight, “I have found it, the It
of America, and it is greater than that of my beloved land. The It of
America is her homes.”
To this beautiful figure I would add but one word. The It of the home is
the mother. Shall I prove it from the lips of a child?
Willie, aged five, bounded into the house one day, exclaiming as he hung
his hat in the hall, “This is my home.” A lady visitor said, “The house
next door is just like this, Willie, suppose you go over there and hang
your hat in the hall, that would be your home as much as this, wouldn’t
it?”
“No ma’am,” said the little fellow. “Why not?” asked the lady. “’Cause my
mother does not live there,” was the triumphant reply.
Truly the mother is the home, and as well, although unconscious of it,
she is the barometer of the home. “Mamma, what makes it look so dark, is
it going to storm?” said my little one. “Why, darling, it isn’t dark,”
I answered; “the sun shines beautifully.” He ran to the window and came
back exclaiming, “Why so it does, mamma, but it seems so dark here. May I
go out in the sunshine?”
And then I was startled with the knowledge that the little one was under
the shadow of my face, for gloomy thoughts had held me all the morning,
and I had given myself to their companionship. “Yes, my darling,” I said,
“you may go out and mamma will go with you.”
When we came back laughing and cheery, my baby added unconsciously
another rebuke, “How lovely the house is now, mamma, and how it makes you
smile.”
Is it not lamentably true that the many mothers consider their work done
when they have fed and clothed their children, and restrained them from
the glaring evils of the day; and is it not as true that many of them
have given little or no thought as to the best methods in which these
three things shall be done? The question of preparation for maidenhood
and boyhood, for manhood and womanhood, is never considered for a
moment. It has not dawned upon the many that they should teach their
children that they are a small part, but nevertheless a very important
part of the great living, thinking, striving world. That the next
generation will be the better or the worse because they are a part of it.
That they can fit themselves to be a blessing, or neglecting the fitting,
make themselves a curse to the coming generation.
Teach them that before they can understand and help others, they must
know themselves. Begin with their earliest instinctive questionings to
answer truthfully, and glorify the thoughts that nature has implanted
in every human heart, and that unless properly understood will become a
snare and temptation to them. Many girls who have gone astray, or in some
measure have become victims of their ignorance, have said to me in their
remorse, “Oh, doctor, if my mother had only taught me these things, I
should not have made the mistakes I have made. Why do mothers keep their
girls in such ignorance?”
And many a mother, who has grown grey with the weight of care and years,
after listening to a talk on maternal responsibilities, has exclaimed,
“If I had only known these things while training my children, what a
difference it would have made with my boys and girls, and how much of
sorrow and regret I could have spared them all these years. How much less
of regret should I have had.”
I like to think that in great measure, the mother is responsible for what
her children know and don’t know. Ah, but you say, how can a mother be
responsible for teaching her children aright when she has not been so
taught herself? Doesn’t this very question prove my statement? Because
the mothers behind you have shirked their responsibility, have you a
right to shirk yours? Remember what we have already quoted, “What we need
most is a generation of educated mothers.” And by this word “educated” is
not meant “college trained” alone, but thoughtful, earnest, wide-awake,
self-cultured women as well, who have at heart the highest good of
themselves as well as those who come after them; and who are willing to
give time and careful painstaking thought and research to the care of the
home and to the mental, moral and physical training of their children. To
such mothers every question of the little ones comes as the divine right
exercised by the individual child, and as such receives proper attention
and reply.
Never does such a mother turn her child away with the rebuke or fretful
rejoinder, that she has no time for such questions. For what is a
mother’s time given but to guide the feet of her babies into true paths;
to be the answer book for all their puzzling problems? A true woman never
compels her children to go elsewhere for the answers to questions which
she herself should give. In answering be so truthful that they may never,
even in thought, question your word. Blessed child of a more blessed
mother, was the little girl, who when a mate questioned the truthfulness
of a certain statement, excitedly replied, while her eyes flashed, “It is
so, for my mamma said it was; and if my mamma said it was so, it is so if
it isn’t so.”
When shall I begin to teach my children those things which pertain to
their being and well-being, many mothers ask; and I would reply, just
as soon as they begin to question. Not always will it be wise to answer
their questions fully; but you may always, and should answer them as far
as best, and then say, “That is all you can understand now, but as you
grow older mamma will tell you more about it. Always come to me when you
want to know about these things, for God gave you your mamma purposely
to teach you in the right way, and who ought to know as well as a mother
what her children should know?” I am often asked, “Isn’t it unsafe to
tell children all that they want to know? will they not talk of it when
and where they should not?” No, not if you teach them aright. If you do
not tell them, some one else will, and often in a way which you should
blush to know about. Unless you answer them frankly and truthfully
concerning these pertinent questions of their being, the entire realm of
sex, of nativity, of fatherhood and motherhood, which should be among the
most sacred things of their knowledge, will be associated in their minds
with sin, darkness and unholiness.
One needs to think long, earnestly and prayerfully along these lines,
before these lessons can be taught in all their sweetness and purity. We
need to go patiently back and divest them of all their coarseness and
sin, with which wrong teaching, or no teaching at all, has clothed them,
and then, dressing them in their legitimate garments of whiteness and
purity, tell them to our girls and boys, so that it will be no longer
necessary to say to our young men and women, “Know Thyself” for all
shall know themselves, from the least to the greatest, and all that
“self” stands for.
At the mother’s knee is the true primary school for these great questions
to be learned, and happy the mother who can take her children through all
the higher grades, until their education in these things is completed.
Every child is an animated interrogation point, and they have a right to
be, for so they learn. Meet them with loving frankness and you will never
need confess that you have lost the confidence of your children. They
will turn to you as steel to a magnet, attracted by this loving bond of
sympathy and truthfulness. “Mamma, where did I come from?” opens the way,
dear mother, for the most beautiful truth you can teach your child, next
to its new birth.
“But I don’t know how to teach it,” you say; then tell your little one,
“that’s a long question, darling, and mamma must think out the simplest
way to answer it, and in a few days I will tell you all about it.” Then
away to your own room and down on your knees before God, until the
subject is divested of every shadow of sin and darkness, and then in this
pure light think for your life, and if you cannot formulate your thoughts
as you would, hurry at your first leisure to the wisest woman you know
in these things and talk with her about it. It is so simple after all,
and if told in a matter-of-fact way, with no hesitation or blushing, it
will be so received by your child.
The simplest way is to teach them that the egg from which the little bird
or downy chicken comes, is laid by the mamma bird or hen, and then she
sits upon it to keep it warm, while it grows in the shell until it gets
too large to stay there longer, when it bursts the bonds and comes out a
downy, active little bird or chicken. “In much the same way, my darling,
you grew; only instead of your being able to see the little egg, which
was your beginning, it was kept warm and snug in a little room in mamma’s
body, while you grew from a tiny speck of an egg, so small that you
could not see it with the naked eye, into a fat, beautiful, rollicking
baby; then you came out through a little door made purposely for it, and
was nestled in mamma’s bosom forever after. I think it must be you are
kept hidden away while you grow, because mammas are so busy, you might
be forgotten if you were in any other nest, and you would get cold and
die. As it is, mamma carries you wherever she goes, and whatever she is
doing; and you are always nestled snugly and warmly in the little cradle
God made purposely for you, and where mamma can feel you moving about as
you grow, for you are right under her heart.”
It will do them no harm to take them a little into the agony of the
birth chamber; they will love and reverence you the more, and feel the
closer bond. One dear boy on hearing the story of his birth, throwing his
arms about his mother’s neck, while the tears streamed down his cheeks,
exclaimed, “Oh, how boys ought to love their mothers.”
Tell the boys as well as the girls, dear mothers, and do not make the
mistake so often made, in thinking it will do no good to talk to the
boys. It will do all the good in the world, and they will bless your
memory for it; aye, more, their wives and all good women will bless
you as well. Just one illustration to prove my point, and to encourage
mothers who have put off teaching their children later than they should.
A mother who had but one child, a son, who had grown to be fifteen,
untaught in these things, as so many boys are, had grown away from his
mother and sought companionship that was not all it should have been,
outside the home. The mother in a heart to heart talk with a friend,
expressed her grief that she had lost the confidence of her boy. “He has
grown away from me,” she said. “I see,” said the friend, “but why don’t
you tell him your condition”—she was expecting then a little one—“and
nine chances in ten you will win him back.” “Oh,” said the mother, “I
could never talk with him of such things. What could I say?” “Don’t you
suppose he knows already?” said the friend. “Yes, I am sure he does, for
he seems shy and conscious when he looks at me.” “Then why be afraid to
talk to him of it?”
Then followed a long earnest talk of what she had missed all these
years in neglecting the teaching that the boy must and would have,
and had probably gotten from those who had clothed it in impurity and
shame, instead of purity and loveliness. And a promise was exacted that
she would talk with her boy and tell him as only a mother can, of her
condition, and of her sorrow that she had lost his full confidence, which
she once had and delighted in so much.
But in her timidity the time passed and the confidence was not given
until the very day of her confinement. The boy rushed into the house and
found the mother alone in the agony of labor, the father having gone for
the physician and nurse.
“What is the matter, mamma? You are sick. Can’t I help you?” At the
loving question the broken promise came to mind, and in the desperation
born of her suffering, she resolved to tell him still. “Oh, son, darling,
I’m going to have a baby;” she groaned in her agony. “Oh, mamma, why
didn’t you tell me that you needed me?” he exclaimed, as he threw
his arms around his mother’s neck. “I thought you didn’t want me to
know, because you never talked to me about such things, but I wish you
had.” And they were crying together, mother and son, thinking the same
thoughts, all reserve broken down, loving in the same old way, and the
lost confidence restored.
The questions relating to their being and to the mysteries of procreation
are legitimate ones, and demand a patient hearing. They should be met
with such pure candor, that they shall never in the minds of innocent
childhood be clothed in a mystery which is too often interpreted as
sin. Little wonder that untaught boys grow to be men that trample upon
every holy instinct of womanhood, and set at naught the sacredness of
maternity.
I have read somewhere of a great physician who gave finely illustrated
lectures to women upon the subjects relating to maternity. One wise
mother who had listened with wrapt interest to his talks, called at his
office one day with her twin boys seven years old. “Doctor,” she said,
“I would like you to show my boys the beautiful anatomical plates that
you use in your lectures, and tell them about some of them.” “Certainly,
madam,” he replied, “I will gladly do so.”
He turned them over one by one, answering an eager question here and
there, put by the bright boys, until he came to one illustrating twin
pregnancy, which he passed hastily over without giving an opportunity for
sight or question. “Stop, doctor,” said the mother. “That is the very one
I want my boys to see. I have promised them that as soon as they were old
enough I would tell them all about the little room in mamma’s body where
they grew for nine months before they came into her arms.”
The doctor was struck with confusion and could not utter a word. He who
had stood before great audiences of adults and taught them unblushingly
the secrets of being, was silent before innocent childhood. The mother
was forced to be the teacher, when she had looked to one wiser to
enforce the lesson. Standing in the presence of the great doctor, she
told them in pure sweet words the story of their prenatal life and of
her motherhood, not forgetting to tell of the great pain which was all
forgotten so soon in the gladness that her baby boys were born to her.
She finished, and there were tears upon the faces of all her listeners.
“Oh, mamma, how good boys ought to be to their mothers,” said one of the
twins; while the doctor exclaimed, “Madam, that was the finest lecture
upon the subject to which I ever listened. Go on so teaching your boys
and they will be men that the world will be proud of and greatly need.”
This is the kind of seed-sowing which not only bears a rich harvest of
purity and innocent knowledge, but as well keeps out the weeds of sin and
impurity, which curiosity gratified by secret whisperings always sows.
“The true mother is a teacher whether she is conscious of it or not,
and the true teacher uses the innate mother element—that which broods
over the child and warms it into life—as much as she does her acquired
knowledge.”
Just as surely as the child in prenatal life drew his nourishment
mental, moral, and physical, from the mother, so surely in postnatal life
will he look to her for example, for strength, for encouragement in all
virtues, for warning against pitfalls, for direction in all knowledge,
for comfort in sorrow, for real heart’s-ease, for cheer and inspiration
in the race of life. God pity and forgive the mother, who has no
storehouse from which her children can draw their supplies of comfort and
courage and rest.
I like to think of the wonderful Shepherd Psalm as a prototype of what
God designs the parents to be to their children. Remember the ancient
shepherd _led_ his sheep; so should the mother, in obedience to God and
her higher nature, in loveliness, in patience, in hope, in cheerfulness,
in sweet charity, lead her little ones in the “Paths of righteousness.”