Friends Intelligencer Volume 46 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1889 edition. Excerpt: ...necessary thereto should be begun in the nursery. It seems natural in some children, and is exhibited in the readiness to perform special duties that are assigned them; while there are others, often in the same family, that appear to have no faculty whatever in this direction, but wait to have everything done for them and never think of being helpful to another. It is a great wrong to a child to be allowed to drift aimlessly through the years of its infantile life, with no training except what it acquires through its impulses, which at best are erratic and visionary and devoid of system. The readiness with which a child accepts the little responsibility at first assigned him, in most cases depends chiefly upon how the matter is presented; there is always a right way to win cheerful obedience, and the wise parent will make it a point to secure his hearty cooperation in the effort. It is never wise to make the first requirements burdensome; it should be some simple, easily performed service for himself or for one he loves, and when once made should in no case except sickness or absence, be left to another or remain unperformed. This cannot be too strongly insisted upon. Many a vacillating, unprofitable life can be laid at the door of a weak yielding to the whim of the child by the parent. "It is good fora man that he bear the yoke in his youth," wrote the prophet Jeremiah, and surely none had greater reason than himself to be thankful for a discipline that gave self-control and undaunted courage to meet the changes and vicissitudes of a long and most eventful career. This training is essential to every child whatever his condition or prospect in life, not alone that he may be fully equipped, ---" thoroughly furnished..".