of good fiction be permitted, where the desire is strong. Some of the highest interests of English history have been opened to the present generation by the novels of Scott, as to many a preceding one by the Plays of Shakspere. My own opinion is that no harm is done, but much good, by an early reading of fiction of a high order: and no one can question its being better than leaving the craving mind to feed upon itself,--its own dreams of vanity or other selfishness,--or to seek an insufficient nourishment from books of a lower order. The imagination, once awakened, must and will work, and ought to work. Let its working be ennobled, and not debased, by the material afforded to it.
In the parents' sympathy must be included forbearance; forbearance with the uncertainty of temper and spirits, the extravagance of ideas, the absurd ambition, or fanaticism or, (as it is generally called) "romance" which show themselves more or less, on the opening of a strong imaginative faculty. It should be remembered that the young creature is half-living in a new world; and that the difficulty of reconciling this beloved new world with the familiar old one is naturally very trying to one who is just entering upon the struggles of the mind and of life. He cannot reconcile the world and its ways and its people with the ideals which are presenting themselves to him; and he becomes, for a time, irritable, or scornful, or depressed. One will be fanatical, for a time, and sleep on the boards, and make and keep a vow never to smile. Another will be discontented, and apparently ungrateful, for a time, in the idea that he might be a hero if he had certain advantages which are not given him. Another looks down already on all his neighbours on account of the great deeds he is to do by and by: and all are convinced,--every youth and maiden of them all,--that nobody can enter into their feelings,--nobody understand their minds,--nobody conceive of emotions and aspirations like theirs. At the moment, this is likely to be true; for their ideas and emotions are vast and stirring, beyond their own power to express; and it can scarcely happen that any one is at hand, just at the right season, to receive their out-pourings, and give them credit for more than they can tell.--With all the consequences of these new movements of the mind, the parents must have forbearance,--even to the point (if it must be) of witnessing an intimacy with some young companion, not very wise, who is the depository of more confidence than is offered to those who should be nearest and dearest. These waywardnesses and follies may have their day, and prove after all to have been, in their way, wholesome discipline. Every waywardness brings its smart; and every folly leaves its sting of shame in the mind that is high enough to manifest any considerable power of imagination. They will punish and cure themselves; and probably in a short time. Nature may be trusted here, as everywhere. If we have patience to let her work, without hindrance and without degradation, she will justify our confidence at last. Give her free scope,--remove out of her way everything that is low and sordid, and needlessly irritating, and minister to her everything that is pure and gentle, and noble and true, and she will produce a glorious work. In the wildest flights of haughty and undisciplined imagination, the young aspirant will take heed enough to the beauty and dignity of a lowly, and dutiful and benignant walk in life, to come down and worship it when cruder visions have passed away.
It is only to wait, in gentleness and cheerfulness, and the wild rhapsodist, or insolent fanatic will work his way through his snares into a new world of filial, as well as other duty, and, without being less of a poet, but because he is more of one, will be a better son and brother and neighbour,--making his life his highest poem.
It will be said that we have here, in treating of the training of the Intellectual faculties, recurred to the department of morals. And this is true. No part of human nature can work in isolation; and when we treat of any function by itself, it is for the convenience of our understandings, and not as a following of nature. No intellectual faculty can act independently of the moral; and the higher the faculties, the closer we find their interaction; till we arrive at the fact that Veneration, Benevolence, Hope, Conscientiousness and Firmness cannot act to perfection except in company with a vigorous faculty of Imagination, and strong Reflective powers: and again, that the Reasoning and Imaginative powers can never work to their fullest capacity unless the highest of the moral powers are as active as themselves. In all true poetry, there is a tacit appeal to the sanction of Conscience, and Veneration and Benevolence are the heavenly lights which rise upon the scene: while, on the other hand, no Reverence is so deep, Benevolence so pure, as those which are enriched by the profoundest Thought, and refined and exalted by the noblest Idealism.
These truths bring us to a practical consideration as serious as any which our minds can receive and dwell upon. My own sense of it is so strong, and so confirmed by the experience of a life, that I feel that if I had the utmost power of thought and language that were ever possessed by the human being, I could do no justice to it:--that the only means of improving the _morale_ to the utmost is by elevating the ideal of the individual. It is well to improve the conduct, and satisfy the conscience of the child by calling upon its resolution to amend its faults in detail,--to control its evil tempers, and overcome its indolence and laxity: but this is a temporary method, insufficient for its ultimate needs. The strength of resolution fails when the season of youth is past, or is employed on other objects; and it is rare, as we all know, to see faults amended, and bad habits overcome in mature years: and then, if improvement proceeds, radically and continuously, it is by the mind being placed under good influences, operating both powerfully and continuously. Of good influences, the most powerful and continuous is the presence in the mind of a lofty ideal. This is the great central fire which is always fed by the material it draws to itself, and which can hardly be extinguished. When the whole mind is possessed with the image of the godlike, ever growing with the expansion of the intelligence, and ever kindling with the glow of the affections, every passion is consumed, every weakness grows into the opposite strength; and the entire force of the moral life, set free from the exclusive care of the details of conduct, and from the incessant anxiety of self-regards, is at liberty to actuate the whole harmonious being in its now necessary pursuit of the highest moral beauty it can conceive of. To this godlike inspiration, strong and lofty powers of Thought and Imagination are essential: and if parents desire that their children should be what they are made to be,--"but a little lower than the angels,"--they must cherish these powers as the highest sources of moral inspiration.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CARE OF THE HABITS.--IMPORTANCE OF HABIT.
The importance of HABIT is an old subject; as old as any in morals. For thousands of years, moralists and philosophers have written and preached about it; and everybody is convinced by what they say. But I much doubt whether, even yet, many penetrate into the depth of the matter.
Everybody sees, and everybody has felt the difficulty of breaking bad habits, and that there is no security to virtue so strong as long-formed good habits: but my observation compels me to think that scarcely anybody is aware of the whole truth;--that every human being (except such as are born defective) might be made perfectly good if his parents were wise enough to do all that might be done by the power of Habit.
This seems a bold thing to say, but I am convinced that it is true.
I am aware that we cannot expect to see any parents wise enough to know how to make the fullest use of this power: and perhaps there are none, even of the tenderest parents, who can keep themselves up to an incessant vigilance over their infants, without any carelessness or flagging. Sometimes they are busy; sometimes they are tired; sometimes they are disheartened. They are not perfectly wise and good themselves; and therefore they must sink below the mark, more or less. But I am sure it would be a great help to their strength, and vigilance, and heartiness, if they could clearly see how easily their children may be made anything they please.
The great points, for conscientious parents, are to be fully convinced of the supreme importance of the formation of Habits, and to begin early enough. If they will begin early enough, they will be sure to be convinced. But a pretty strong conviction may be had beforehand, by observation of the history and character of mankind.
Habits of Belief are the most important of all: and everybody thinks so: and of all Beliefs those which relate to Duty,--those which are called religious--are the highest. Now look round the world, and see how many individuals you can find who have inquired out for themselves what they think they believe. As for nations,--a nation of independent thinkers is a thing never dreamed of. Such a spectacle as that has never been seen in the wildest visions of the most sanguine of poets and moralists. I have travelled among heathens, Mohammedans, Jews, and many kinds of Christians; and I have found them all believing what they were taught, before they could reason, to hold as sacred truth; and this was exactly what their teachers were themselves taught to suppose (for one cannot call this Belief) in the same manner. The Red Indian, on the shores of the American lakes, and on the wide prairie, is brought up, from the time he can understand language at all, to believe that there is a Great Spirit who lives far away over the waters or beyond the forests, who is jealous and angry if the people do not offer to him whatever they like best;--who forbids them to touch whatever he wants for himself;--who has favourites among their warriors, and is most pleased with those who most torture their bodies, to show their bravery. The Indian believes in a good many inferior spirits, who do him good or harm, and mingle more in his affairs than the Great Spirit does. This is the Indian way of thinking; and every Indian child grows up to think in the same way, upon the whole, though one may be more sure than another of one or another part of the doctrine. No one of the whole tribe asks for any proof that things are so. The early habit of taking these doctrines for granted, as something solemn and sacred, which somebody must have known for true a long time ago, prevents any one but a thoughtful person here and there ever inquiring whether there is really any knowledge existing about the matter at all, or only superstition. Then, there are the Jews. Not one Jew in ten thousand ceases to be a Jew in religion; and nobody out of the Jewish body ever gets to think as they do;--to hold their doctrines, and their traditions, and their superstitions. Next, in order of time, come the Christians. There are many bodies of Christians, differing as much from one another as if they held faiths called by different names. There are the Christians of the Greek Church, worshipping many gods under the name of saints;--some thinking it blasphemy not to adore the Emperor of Russia next to God, and some paying their first homage to the Virgin with Three Hands. There are the Christians of the Romish Church, who are shocked at the Emperor of Russia for not being one of them; and shocked at the Protestants for not worshipping the bones and toe-nails of _their_ saints. And there are the Protestant Christians, who are shocked at the superstitions of the Romish Church on the one hand, and at the doctrines of every Protestant sect but their own, on the other. Then come the Mohammedans, who think it exactly as impious in all Christians not to receive Mohammed, their prophet, whom they think a greater than Christ, as the Christians think it impious in the Jews not to receive Christ, whom they hold to be greater than Moses. The children of all these multitudes, (except in an extremely rare case, here and there) receive what they are early told, as their parents received it before them; and no one supposes that any one of those vast multitudes would think and feel as he does on matters of religion if he were not early habituated to think and feel as he does. Can we imagine any one of ourselves, concluding for ourselves, for instance, that the most solemn and sacred of human duties was to go through a set of prostrations and gestures, like those of the Mohammedans, five times a day as long as we live, unless we were taught, from early infancy, to consider such acts to be in the highest degree virtuous? Can we imagine ourselves thinking, as the Mohammedans do, that every man who does not go through this set of gestures five times every day, is careless about goodness altogether,--is an Infidel (which is the Mohammedan name for a Christian)--is wicked, and must be cast into hell?
More persons in the world believe this than believe in the gods of the Red Indian, and the faith of the Jews, and the doctrines of all bodies of Christians put together. Yet it is incredible that any man would so believe,--so undoubtingly, so solemnly, if he had not been habituated to such a belief from the very beginning. If the beliefs of the majority of mankind are thus dependant upon habit,--if their faith and their views of duty and happiness,--(the most important of all views) have this origin, how is it possible to overrate the importance of Habit? If, turning away from the Greek Christians and the Mohammedans, we contemplate in our imagination a large sect or nation who should have been habituated, from the first dawning of intelligence, to regard perfect goodness as the most sacred and solemn and beautiful thing that the human mind can conceive of,--as a thing the most interesting and important to every human being,--and a thing within the reach of every one of us, is it conceivable that such a people would not be the most virtuous ever seen on earth? Let it not be said that children are so taught,--that such is the habit of their minds in our Christian country: for alas! it is very much otherwise. They are occasionally told, indeed, that Christ desired his followers to be perfect as their Father in heaven is perfect; but this is not the aim steadily and cheerfully set before any child, as a hopeful enterprise,--as the best thing in the world, and as a thing which must be done. No child sees that this object is what his parents are living for, in comparative disregard of everything else; and that this is what he ought to live for, and is expected certainly to accomplish, according to his means. While he is told, and pretty often, that the best thing in the world is to be good, he is habituated, by what he sees and hears almost all day long, to believe that it is a hopeless thing to become perfectly good, and that everybody tries, in fact, for something else, with more zeal and expectation;--to get knowledge, to get reputation, to get employment and comfort,--to get all manner of pleasant things by their own desires and exertions, while they trust that some power will make them good, without that unremitting desire and exertion on their parts which alone can make them so.
I have before me the Remarks of a conscientious and affectionate father on the essential and unlimited power of Habit in the rearing of Children;--a truth which he had heard of all his life, but never fairly estimated till he had employed his energies on the education of his own family. I do not know who he is; but I see by the pamphlet before me[A] that he is earnest and intelligent, and qualified to speak from experience. Earnest he must be, for it appears that it was his constant habit, during the infancy of his children, to rise in the night, to see that they were well, and sleeping peacefully: and he invariably went with them to school, and met them at the school door, to bring them home again,--more than a mile,--though he was a busy man,--obliged to work for their bread and his own. This earnest observer says "I now repeat the opinion that every child born, not insane or idiotic, might, to a moral certainty, be trained to be a gentle, a benevolent, and a pious adult. Of the correctness of this opinion I have long ceased to have any doubt. Holding this opinion to be positively correct, I next held that the universal belief of its correctness would soon lead to an amount of improvement in the several conditions of human existence that would exceed even my own sanguine expectations. The encouragement which this belief would give to parents would bring into active and affectionate exertion an amount of attention and devotion to the training of the infant feelings and propensities of their offspring, such as heretofore has never been exercised, or perhaps ever imagined. I would, therefore, spread this belief among all mankind, by every means in my power to employ, and with it my opinions of the kind of teaching, or rather training, by which such blessed results might be produced. To describe this kind of teaching, or training, is not at present in my power to do, to a due extent. I will but give one brief rule, namely, 'What you wish a child to be, be that to the child.' And I would impress upon the mind of the mother, the nurse, or other teacher, the importance of so training each desire or propensity as to bring it as early as possible into habitual obedience to the dictates of the religious and moral sentiments,--those sentiments being guided by the enlightened intellect of such mother, nurse, or teacher. These teachers should be aware of the fact that the mind of a child is continually acquiring habits of thought, as its limbs are habits of action, whether by the spontaneous and unguided efforts of its own mind and body, or by following the training of those having the care of it. They should be continually improving themselves in the art of so guiding the infant dispositions, and the exercises and actions of their charge as to form the disposition _as early as possible_; and this course of training would effectually preserve the child _from every approach to the formation of any other habits than those inculcated by the teacher_."--(Remarks, &c., pp. 11, 12).
[A] "Remarks on the Advantages of early Training and Management of Children." By a Colonist. Ollivier, 59, Pall-Mall.
Next to the Beliefs established by early habit, come the propensities.
Under this head, nothing more can be necessary than to relate an anecdote which teaches much more eloquently than any thing I can say out of my own convictions. In North America, a tribe of Indians attacked a white settlement, and murdered the few inhabitants. A woman of the tribe, however, carried away a very young infant, and reared it as her own. The child grew up with the Indian children, different in complexion, but like them in every thing else. To scalp the greatest possible number of enemies was, in his view, the most glorious and happy thing in the world. While he was still a youth, he was seen by some white traders, and by them conducted back to civilised life. He showed great relish of his new way of life, and, especially, a strong desire of knowledge, and a sense of reverence which took the direction of religion; so that he desired to become a clergyman. He went through his college course with credit, and was ordained. He fulfilled his function well, and appeared happy and satisfied. After a few years, he went to serve a settlement somewhere near the seat of war, which was then going on between Great Britain and the United States; and before long, there was fighting not far off. I am not sure whether he was aware that there were Indians in the field, (the British having some tribes of Indians for allies,) but he went forth to see how matters were going;--went forth in his usual dress,--black coat, and neat white shirt and neckcloth. When he returned, he was met by a gentleman of his acquaintance, who was immediately struck by an extraordinary change in the expression of his face;--by the fire in his eye, and the flush on his cheek;--and also by his unusually shy and hurried manner. After asking news of the battle, the gentleman observed, "but you are wounded.--Not wounded!--why, there is blood upon the bosom of your shirt." The young man crossed his hands firmly, though hurriedly upon his breast; and his friend, supposing that he wished to conceal a wound which ought to be looked to, pulled open his shirt and saw--what made the young man let his hands fall in despair. From between his shirt and his breast, the gentleman took out--a bloody scalp. "I could not help it," said this poor victim of early habit, in an agonised voice. He turned, and ran too swiftly to be overtaken; betook himself to the Indians, and never more appeared among the whites. No one supposes that there was any hypocrisy in this man while he was a clergyman. No one doubts that he would have lived a contented life of piety, benevolence and study, if he had never come within sight or sound of war. When he did so, up rose his early habitual combative and destructive propensities, overthrowing in an instant all later formed convictions and regenerated feelings. By the extent of victory here, we may form some idea of the force of early Habit, or be duly warned by the question whether we can form any idea of it.
The first habit to be formed is,--as is self-evident,--that of obedience; for this is a necessary preliminary to the formation of all other habits. If mothers would but believe it, there is nothing in the world easier than to form a habit of implicit obedience in any child.
Every child,--dependant and imitative,--is obedient as a matter of course if nature is not early interfered with, and put out of her way.
Every one must see that good sense on the part of the mother is absolutely necessary,--to observe what the course of nature is, and to adapt her management to it. For instance,--there is no way in which infants are more frequently, or so early, taught disobedience as by being teased for kisses. The mother does so love her infant's kiss,--to see the little face put up when the loving desire is spoken,--that she can never have enough of it. But her sense, and her sympathy with her little one show her that it is not the same thing with the child. Well as it loves caresses in due measure, it can easily be fretted by too many of them; and if the mother persists in requiring too many while the infant is eager after something else, she will first have to put up with a hasty and reluctant kiss, and will next have to witness the struggles of the child to avoid it altogether. If too young to slip from her arms, he will hide his face:--if he can walk, he will run away, and not come back when she calls. She has made him disobedient by asking of him more than he is yet able to give. If the training begins by pleasantly bidding him do what it is easy and pleasant to him to do, he will do it, as a matter of course. When it is to him a matter of course to do as he is bid, he will prove capable of doing some things that he does not like,--if desired in the usual cheerful and affectionate tone. He will go to his tub in the cold morning, and take physic, and be quiet when he wants to romp;--all great efforts to him. And he will get on, and become capable of greater and greater efforts, if his faculties of opposition and pride be not roused by any imprudence, and if his understanding be treated with due respect by the appeals to his obedience being such only as are moderate and reasonable.
He must be left as free as reason and convenience allow, that his will may not be too often crossed, and his temper needlessly fretted. What he is not to have, but would certainly wish for, must be put out of his sight, if possible. If there are any places where he must not go, he should see it to be impossible to get into them:--for instance, it is better that the fire should be well guarded than the child forbidden to go upon the rug;--and in either case, his gay playthings should not stand on the mantel-piece, tempting him to climb for them.--And so on,--through the round of his day. Let his little duties and obligations be made easy to him by sense and sympathy on the part of his parents; and then let them see that the duty is done,--the obligation fulfilled.
All this is easy enough; and certainly, from all that I have ever been able to observe, I am convinced that success,--perfect success in forming a habit of obedience is always possible. Where a whole household acts in the same good spirit towards the little creature who has to be trained,--where no one spoils him and no one teases him,--he will obey the bidding of the voice of gentle authority in all he does, as simply as he obeys the bidding of Nature when he eats and sleeps.
So much for this preliminary habit, which is essential to the formation of all others that the parents wish to guide and establish. I will now speak briefly of the Personal and Family Habits which are the manifestation of those conditions of mind of which I have treated in my preceding chapters.
CHAPTER XXIV.
CARE OF THE HABITS.--PERSONAL HABITS.
It requires some little consideration to feel sufficiently that it is as necessary to be explicit and earnest about the personal habits of children as about their principles, temper, and intellectual state. Our personal habits have become so completely a second nature to us, that it requires some effort to be aware how far otherwise it is with the young,--how they have every thing to learn; and what a serious thing it is to everybody at some time of his life to learn to wash his own face and button his own jacket. The conviction comes across one very powerfully in great houses, where little lords and ladies are seen to need teaching in the commonest particulars of manners and habits, as much as any young creatures about a cottage door. Every one knows this as a matter of fact; but still, there is something odd in seeing children in velvet tunics and lace frocks, and silk stockings and satin shoes, holding up their little noses,--or _not_ holding them up--to the maternal pocket-handkerchief; or dropping fruit-stones and raisin-stalks into papa's coat-collar, by climbing up behind his chair. To see this natural rudeness in those to whom consummate elegance is hereafter to appear no less natural, makes one thoughtful for the sake of such as are to remain comparatively rude through life; and also because it reminds one that there is nothing in regard to all personal habits, that children have not to learn.
It is so very serious a matter to them,--the attainment of good personal habits,--that they ought to be aided to the utmost by parental consideration. This consideration is shown first in the actual help given to the child by its mother's hands; and afterwards by making all the arrangements of the household as favourable as possible to good habits in each individual.
The tender mother makes the times of washing and dressing gay and pleasant to her little infant by the play and caresses which she loves to lavish even more than the child delights to receive. She can hardly overvalue the influence of these seasons on the child's future personal habits. Hurry, rough handling, silence, or fretfulness may make the child hate the idea of washing and dressing, for long years afterwards; while the associations of a season of play and lovingness may help on the little creature a long way in the great work of taking care of its own person. When the time comes,--the proud time,--when it may stand by itself to wash, the pride and novelty help it on; and it is rather offended if help interferes, to prevent its being exposed too long to the cold. All this is very well; but there comes a time afterwards when the irksomeness of washing and dressing, and cleaning teeth, and brushing hair, becomes a positive affliction to some children, such as no parents that I have known seem to have any idea of. We grown people can scarcely remember the time when these operations were not to us so purely mechanical as that our minds are entertained by ideas all the time, as much as if we were about any other business. But children are not so dexterous, in the first place; in the next, all labour of which they know the extent is very oppressive to them: and again, any incessant repetition of what they in any degree dislike is really afflictive to them. We must remember these things, or we shall not understand the feebleness of will which makes a boy neglect some part of his morning washing, and a girl the due hair-brushing in the evening, though both are aware that they suffer more in conscience as it is, than they could from the trouble, if they could rouse themselves to do the business properly. I have known one child sick of life because she must, in any circumstances, clean her teeth every day;--every day for perhaps seventy years. I have known of a little boy in white frocks who sat mournfully alone, one autumn day, laying the gay fallen vine-leaves in a circle, and thinking how tired he was of life,--how dreadfully long it was, and full of care. Its machinery overpowered him. I knew a girl, old enough to be reproached for the badness of her handwriting,--(and she was injudiciously reproached, without being helped to mend it)--who suffered intensely from this, and even more from another grief;--she had hair which required a good deal of care, and she was too indolent to keep it properly. These were the two miseries of her life; and they did make her life miserable. She did not think she could mend her handwriting; but she knew that she might have beautiful hair by brushing it for ten minutes longer every night: yet she could not do it. At last, she prayed fervently for the removal of these two griefs,--though she knew the fable of the Waggoner and Hercules. Now,--in cases like these, help is wanted. Remonstrance, disgrace, will not do, in many cases where a little sympathy and management will. Cannot these times be made cheerful, and the habit of painful irresolution broken, by putting the sinner into the company of some older member of the family, or by employing the thoughts in some pleasant way while the mechanical process is going on?--I mean only while the difficulty lasts. When habits of personal cleanliness have become fixed and mechanical, it is most desirable (where it can by any means be managed) for each child to be alone,--not only for the sake of decency, but for the benefit of the solitude and silence, morning and night, which are morally advantageous for everybody old enough to meditate.
I fear it is still necessary to teach and preach that nobody has a right to health who does not wash all over every day. This is done with infants; and the practice should never be discontinued. Every child of a family should look upon this daily complete washing in cold water as a thing as completely of course as getting its breakfast. There was a time, within my remembrance, when even respectable people thought it enough to wash their feet once a week; and their whole bodies when they went to the coast for sea-bathing in August. In regard to popular knowledge of the Laws of Health, our world _has_ got on: and, after the expositions, widely published, of those who enable us to understand the Laws of Health, we may hope that washing from head to foot is so regular an affair with all decent people as to leave no doubt or irresolution in children's minds about how much they shall wash, any day of the year.--As for the care of the teeth,--parents ought to know that, in the opinion of dentists, all decay of the teeth proceeds from the bone of which the teeth are composed not being kept purely clean and bright.
This happens oftenest when teeth overlap, or grow so that every part cannot be reached. Much of this may be remedied, if not all of it, by early application to a dentist. But parents to whom this precaution is impossible can do much to save their children from future misery from toothache, and indigestion through loss of teeth, by seeing that the tooth-scrubbing is properly performed. This is more important than the polishing of knives and brass knockers.--As for the brushing of a girl's long hair, it really is a very irksome business till it becomes mechanical; and a mother may consider a little effort at amusement well bestowed till the habit of doing it properly is securely formed, and the mind is rich enough to entertain itself the while.
Readers begin to yawn or skip when they meet, in any book, with praises of early rising. Yet how can I pass over this particular of personal habits, when I think it of eminent importance?--I believe it is rare to see such early rising as I happen to think desirable. I believe it is rare to see families fairly at their daily work by eight o'clock,--after having had out-door exercise and breakfast; and this, every morning in the year. The variety of objects presented for the observation and enjoyment of children (and of everybody else) in the early morning hours, far surpasses that which can be seen at any other time of day.
Even town-bred children can see more pure sky, and quieter streets, and the country seems to have come nearer. And in the country, there are more animals abroad,--more squirrels, more field mice, more birds, than at noon or in the evening. The rooks fly higher in the dawn than at any other time; the magpies are bolder and droller; the singing birds in the thickets beyond measure more gleeful; and one need not tell that this is the hour for the lark. All except very young children can keep themselves warm in the mid-winter mornings, and will enjoy the delight of being out under the stars, and watching the last fragment of the moon, hanging over the eastern horizon, clear and bright in the breaking dawn. When these children come in, warm, rosy, and hungry, at seven o'clock, or half-past, and sit down to their breakfast, they seem hardly of the same order of creatures with such as come sauntering down from their chambers, when their parents have half done their meal;--sauntering because they are tired with dressing, or have had bad dreams, and have not recovered their spirits. And what a difference it makes in the houses of rich and poor whether the breakfast things are standing about till nearly ten o'clock, or whether the family have by that time been at work for nearly two of the brightest, and freshest, and quietest, hours of the day!
In every industrious household there should be a bell. This is an admonition which tries no tempers, and gives no personal offence. If the father himself rings the family up in the mornings, it is a fine thing