headaches through rebuking them, we shall
have plenty of heartaches when they grow up. If you yield up your
authority once, you will hardly ever get it again."

290

Parents deserve reproof when they refuse to benefit their children by
proper discipline.

291

My dearest pastime is with children.

292

Children are poor men's riches.

293

Nothing has a better effect upon children than praise.

--_Sir P. Sidney._

294

_Their Little Needs_--It is often asserted that both men and women would
be selfish beings but for children. They call out, and refine, and
soften the best feelings of the parental heart. Their little needs are
so many, and their simple ignorance so affecting, and their very
caprices so winning, that love and attention flow out to them almost
instinctively.

That must be a hardened nature which can be unmoved by the soft touch,
the playful childishness, and the hundred little pranks of a baby.

--_Unknown._

295

You can not expect better manners from your children than you teach
them. They imitate instinctively.

296

Children should be taught early to sympathize with the deformed, the
crippled, and otherwise unfortunate beings: A little dwarfed girl in one
of our great cities committed suicide a few years ago because she was
so weary of being laughed at and ridiculed by her associates in the
streets and at school.

An old street pedlar was set upon by school children and so annoyed and
misused that he became insane.

297

MY CHILDREN STILL.

A young preacher recently called upon an eminent Divine, and in the
course of conversation asked him how many children he had. "Four, sir,"
was the reply. At the supper-table, the visitor perceived two beautiful
children seated by the side of the mother. Turning to his host, he said,
"I thought you had four children, sir: Where are the other two?" Lifting
his eyes, the holy man of God pointed upwards, while a sweet smile broke
over his countenance. "They are in Heaven," he repeated slowly and
calmly; "yet my children still: not dead, but gone before."

298

Dr. Samuel Johnson once said, "Above all, accustom your children
constantly to tell the truth; without varying in any circumstance." A
lady who heard him said, "Nay, this is too much, for a little variation
in narrative must happen a thousand times a day, if one is not
per