FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85  
86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   >>  
cension, "By Jove! your name is Dennis; _you_ are not in it!" The old gentleman paused, instinctively prepared to hear the usual "Why, daughter! papa is _astonished_ to hear his little girl," etc, etc., after the fashion of the parental hypocrite. But this candid young father met the dignified eyes squarely, and said promptly, "I'm sorry, Doctor, but there's no use denying it; she is just giving _me_ away." He had the sense to recognize his own teaching, the honesty to admit it. Whether he has the discretion to reform his methods remains to be seen. For right here is another point: that people think it is "cute" for a _little_ child to say and do things that in a child a few years older would be most unattractively rude. But they must reflect that this same cute little child will soon be a few years older, and will carry into that riper age the fixed habits that are forming now; and it will not be so easy a task to transform the child's manners as it is to dress him in a larger suit of clothes. A choice rose was grafted upon a wild, thorny stock, and planted beside a veranda trellis. The owner watched it carefully for a year or so, cutting down the rank shoots of the wild stock as they sprang aggressively from the root, allowing the grafted branch to grow in full luxuriance, bearing carmine clusters that filled the garden with spicy odor. The next spring an ignorant gardener pruned away the branches, cutting down the slenderest and leaving what to his unpracticed eye were the most desirable, because the thriftiest, shoots; and when the time of blossoms came, nothing appeared but the ragged petals of the wild thorn. So, in "the rosebud garden of girls"--or boys. If the choice graft of cultured manners (for it _is_ a graft on the sturdy but wayward stock of human nature) is left to be choked out by the rank, wild growth of impulse, or if by some flagrant error in example and discipline it is practically cut down at the main branch, what can the careless trainer expect? He may weep to find no velvet-petaled rose when he comes to look for it; but he has no right to blame the rose-bush, nor can he, at this late day, hide the tact of his blundering pruning by righteously affirming that he is "perfectly astonished." His neighbors, who have quietly noted the methods pursued in his kindergarten, are not in the least surprised. Another resource for escaping blame is that of explaining that the children "learn t
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85  
86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   >>  



Top keywords:

methods

 
branch
 

shoots

 

grafted

 

manners

 

cutting

 
garden
 
choice
 

astonished

 

rosebud


appeared

 

ragged

 

petals

 

choked

 

nature

 
cultured
 

sturdy

 
wayward
 

spring

 

ignorant


gardener

 

pruned

 

filled

 
branches
 

slenderest

 

thriftiest

 

Dennis

 

growth

 
desirable
 

leaving


unpracticed

 

blossoms

 
perfectly
 

neighbors

 

affirming

 

righteously

 
blundering
 
pruning
 

quietly

 

explaining


escaping
 

children

 

resource

 

Another

 

pursued

 

kindergarten

 

surprised

 
practically
 

discipline

 
clusters