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in the East Indies; and my poor Sam used to say-“ If a man had money he would find friends.”

Roger. Flatterers he may find, but not friends. None of all your husband's flatterers took any concern in your boys when you left them, to marry my brother; and, poor youths they neglected their education, spent their money as soon as they were old enough; and are now far away. If some of the time their father and you devouted to gaining money, had been applied to keep them from bad company, and to give them good instruction, you would not now be shedding tears on their account. I did not mean to grieve you; but to make you feel the vast importance of bringing up my brother's children with greater care.

Terence. God forbid that they should hear from any one- -"that a poor man is neither the better nor worse for the reputation he bears, if he can escape the penalties of the law." Let them be taught every day and hour, that by honesty, sobriety, industry, and an ingenuous obliging manner, a person in the lowest station may secure a very high character; and besides the inexhaustible fund of self enjoyment he must have, his interest will be more benefited by his good name, than by all the base gains of artifice and cunning.

Joseph. I never saw a man who deserved a singularly high character for fair dealing and good neighbourhood, without some ready resource in misfortune. Some worthy person among his betters was always ready to lend him a helping hand.

Terence. If I had no purer motive than worldly wisdom, I would endeavour above all things to render my children pious, upright, sincere, temperate, humble, diligent and benevolent. Benevolence will make them accommodating so far as rectitude allows, and kind to the utmost of their power.

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Betty

Betty. You speak as if a child could he shaped out like a cap or a gown all in a few hours. Now I am certain that let you take all the plague possible to turn them one way in the morning, it is clean out of head before night.

Roger. I admit that the ideas of good or evil are very imperfect in the mind of a child. Therefore, the impression must be very frequently renewed. Perhaps on the twentieth, or hundredth repetition, an infant does not clearly comprehend the meaning of what has been said to him; and he may hear the same thing as often before it is fixed in his memory, or has touched his feelings with any permanent effect; but a child who has just principles con tinually presented to his attention must make a nearer approach to the season of self-determined virtue and wisdom, than if left to casual occurrences for making up his opin

ions.

Betty. I hear much that I don't understand; and no wonder a little puss should find it all Greek and Latin. 'The shortest way is to drive them to what we like; and to keep up our authority by the rod! Parents come to a poor pass when those that don't reach their elbow take the up. per hand.

Roger. Yet your Tommy rules you to all intents and purposes. It is suffering an infant to get an infant to get the upper-hand

that makes so much sorrow for childhood.

Gently lead him to obedience as a suckling-teach him good from evil by timely restraint, and by endearing mild advice-and his love and esteem for his parents will produce more uniform obedience, than selfish and slavish motives derived from fear.

Terence. The foolish familiarity and unbounded licence given to little ones takes away all reverence for the parent, and all power of self-command; and the severity after

wards

you

wards used to subdue a refractory spirit, extinguishes affection, and engenders base and malevolent passions. Lewis. I hope, Betty, all that has been said will reconcile to begin this same day, and henceforward to deny Tommy any indulgence that could not be granted to him with propriety a year or two years hereafter. I hope too you are convinced that you will lose none of your authority by treating the rest of your children in such a manner that they may find themselves at ease in your presence, and appear such as they really are.

Betty. You have my promise, Lewis; and Dick would never forgive me if I forfeit my word. Yet it will go nigh to break my heart to see and hear my sweet jewel, my heart's delight, crying out his pretty eyes, for what I could give him.

Lewis. But the more he gets, the more he will desire; and you must put a period to those indulgences some time or other. If the unprofitable gratifications of his humour shall be withheld before they become customary, he will 300n cease to expect them, and he will be happy without

them.

Dick. Aye, wife, and you wont be provoked to give him : rough handling, as you do sometimes, if you are in a great hurry, and he piagues you.

Lewis. It is over fondling at one time, and rough treatment at another that makes infants ungovernable. Consider too that when you can no longer use him as a baby he must learn to yield obedience, and it will cost him much distress, and you much labour-perhaps, fruitless labourto restrain him. He is now an year old. He should have been treated as a rational creature some months

ago.

Susan. It is the surest way to treat a baby as a rational creature from the moment he begins to look about him,

as we

really are not certain of the precise time that be

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receives

receives impressions. I find this is a leading maxim in Lady L.'s book, and it may be followed without difficulty. We see children pampered as babies who must put up with very coarse fare afterwards. We see them gratified in every capricious whim so long as they can be made playthings, and then they are deprived even of harmless liberty, as a means to crush a rebellious spirit. This is, indeed, employing the first stage of life to create misery for the next; but if we begin as we must end, the child will not feel the absence of gratifications he never knew.

Roger. THE FEWER GRATIFICATIONS THAT SHALL BE ESSENTIAL TO THE HAPPINESS OF ANY INDIVIDUAL, YOUNG OR OLD, HIGH OR LOW, THE NEARER DOES HE APPROACH TO A STATE OF HONOURABLE INDEPENDENCE; but for those that must owe subsistence to manual labour, it is an excess of folly to give their children a relish for any pleasure that is not indispensible to their health or improvement; and these simple necessa ries are amply sufficient for making children happy.

Terence. Moderation, and the timely habit of submis sion to gentle authority, makes them happy in infancy, and prepares them for the season of responsibility. My wife has never given one of our children any eatable as a reward for good behaviour. Ripe fruit is good for them, but we give it as a preservative of health, and study on all eccasions to shew our contempt of animal appetites.

Betty. Maybe it has been my own foolishness that makes our brats so troublesome for pence, to buy fruit; and I can get nothing kept from them in the garden.

Roger. Thus you see that an insatiable desire for such things is a sad enemy to the morals of your children. If they had been taught to think it beneath them to be very anxious for eatables of any kind, they would not take base

ways

ways to procure fruit. We never heard that one of Terence's children took any liberties in his garden, though it is not so well fenced as yours.

Betty. It's well known I have done my very best to keep mine from robbing our garden. There's hardly a Monday morning without flogging for it.

Roger. Is it just, is it humane, first to permit the poor young creatures the habit of an inordinate desire for good things, and then to employ violence for breaking off that habit without giving any fixed principle of integrity to constitute the power of self-denial?

Lewis. Be that now my care. Nothing but an improved sense of rectitude can counteract such habits. Betty. With all the good you are to do us, I hope you can get Hammel to begin Latin again. I wish I could see his head in the pulpit, or that he were something to make him a gentleman.

Terence. By compelling Hammel to aim at being a latinist, you will spoil a fine mechanical genius; and he will never rise to eminence as a scholar. His former teacher tried to lash him into the love of learning, as if a boy could acquire a liking for the cause of his daily torture. So great is now his antipathy to the dead languages, that it is not possible for him to become a proficient.

Lewis. Nor is it necessary. Nature has chalked his path, and we shall but injure him by contradicting the best of his endowments and inclination.

Betty. I wish all my sons to be scholars.

Roger. Many an excellent artisan has been spoiled by parental vanity. I have a most profound respect for erudition, but it is degrading the learned languages to suppose that every boy must be a linguist. A mechanical genius in some ought to be carefully cultivated. It is a sure road to wealth if properly improved.

Lizzy

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