Is it not true that parents are the lawgivers of their children? Does
not a mother's counsel--does not a father's example--cling to the
memory, and haunt us through life? Do we not often find ourselves
subject to habitual trains of thought? and, if we seek to discover the
origin of these, are we not insensibly led back, by some beaten and
familiar track, to the paternal threshold? Do we not often discover some
home-chiseled grooves in our minds, into which the intellectual
machinery seems to slide, as by a sort of necessity? Is it not, in
short, a proverbial truth, that the controlling lessons of life are
given beneath the parental roof? We know, indeed, that wayward passions
spring up in early life, and, urging us to set authority at defiance,
seek to obtain the mastery of the heart. But, though struggling for
liberty and license, the child is shaped and molded by the parent. The
stream that bursts from the fountain, and seems to rush forward headlong
and self-willed, still turns hither and thither, according to the shape
of its mother-earth over which it flows. If an obstacle is thrown across
its path, it gathers strength, breaks away the barrier, and again bounds
forward. It turns, and winds, and proceeds on its course, till it
reaches its destiny in the sea. But, in all this, it has shaped its
course and followed out its career, from babbling infancy at the
fountain to its termination in the great reservoir of waters, according
to the channel which its parent earth has provided. Such is the
influence of a parent over his child. It has within itself a will, and
at its bidding it goes forward, but the parent marks out its track. He
may not stop its progress, but he may guide its course. He may not throw
a dam across its path, and say to it, hitherto mayest thou go, and no
farther; but he may turn it through safe, and gentle, and useful
courses--or he may leave it to plunge over wild cataracts, or lose
itself in some sandy desert, or collect its strength into a torrent, but
to spread ruin and desolation along its borders.
The fireside, then, is a seminary of infinite importance: it is
important, because it is universal, and because the education it
bestows, being woven in with the woof of childhood, gives form and color
to the whole texture of life. There are few who can receive the honors
of a college, but all are graduates of the hearth. The learning of the
university may fade from the recollection, its classic lore may molder
in the halls of memory; but the simple lessons of home, enameled upon
the heart of childhood, defy the rust of years, and outlive the more
mature but less vivid pictures of after days. So deep, so lasting,
indeed, are the impressions of early life, that we often see a man, in
the imbecility of age, holding fresh in his recollection the events of
childhood, while all the wide space between that and the present hour is
a blasted and forgotten waste. You have perchance seen an old and
half-obliterated portrait, and, in the attempt to have it cleaned and
restored, may have seen it fade away, while a brighter and more perfect
picture, painted beneath, is revealed to view. This portrait, first
drawn upon the canvas, is no inapt illustration of youth; and, though
it may be concealed by some after-design, still the original traits will
shine through the outward picture, giving it tone while fresh, and
surviving it in decay. Such is the fireside--the great institution
furnished by Providence for the education of man.