The Union and eastern journal. [volume] (Biddeford [Me.]) 1854-1858, 1857-10-23

Il
necessity. To restrain it is to thwart na
ture. We need to provide for it. Not +
attempt to find amusement for them, bu
to give them an opportunity to anus
themselves. II is astonishing to see no,
little it requires to satisfy boys nature.
First in the list l put strings. Wha
grown up people find in q thousand form;
OF business and society a boy secures in
string. He ties up the door for the ex
quisite pleasure of untying it again. HI
harnesses chairs, ties up his own fingers
haltes his neck, coaxcs a lesser urchin Il
become his horse, and drives stage
which, with boys, is the top Of human
attainment. Stringsa are wanted for snares
for bows for whips, for cats cradles, foI
kites, for fishing, and a hundred thing
more than / can recollect. A knife il
more exciting than string, but does no,
last so long and is not so various. After
a short time it is lost or broken, or has
cut the fingers. But string is the in
strument of endless devices, and within
the management and ingenuity Of a boy,
The first article that parents should lay
in, on going into the country, is a large
ball of twine. The boys must not know
it. Ifthey see whole ball the charm is
broken. 1t must come forth mysterious
", and rs if there were no more. .
For indoors, next We should place up
on the list pencils and white paper. At
least one hour in every day will be safe
ly secured BY that. A slate and pencil
are very good. But as children always
aspire to what men do, they account the
unusual half of letter and a bit Of PEN
Gil to be worth twice as much as any
slate.
Uponthe whole, wethink a safe stream
of water near by affords the greatest
amount of enjoyment among all natural
objects. There is wading and washing;
there is throwing ofstones, and finding of
pebbles; there is engineering Of the most
Iaborious kind, by which stone and mud
are made to dam up the water, or to
change the channel. Besides these things
boys are sensitive to that namcless at
traction of beauty which especially how
ers about the streams; and though they
may not recognize the cause, they are
persuaded of the fact that they are happy
when there are stones with gurgling wa
ter around them, shady trees and succu-
rent underground, moss and water, cress
insect, bird, and all the population Of the
cool water courses. ....-
But boys are not always boys. All
that is in us in leaf, is in them in bud
The very yearnings, the imaginings, the
musings, yea, the very questions, which
occupy our later years as serious tasks,
are found in the occasional hours Of boy
hood. We have scarcely heard one NOR
al problem discussed in later life that is
not questioned by children. The crea-
ton of the world, the origin Of evil, di
vine foreknowlclge, human liberty, the
of the soul, and various 9TH
cr elements of elaborate systems, belong
to childhood. Men trace the conncc-
tions Of truths, and their ethical applica-
tons and relations, but the simple elc-
ments of the most recondite truths seem
to have gained in them very little by the
progress of years. Indeed, all truths
whose root and life is in the Infinite are
like the fixed stars, which become no
larger under the most powerful telescope
than to the natural eye. Their distance
is too vast to make any appreciablc vari-
alton in magnitude possible. They are
mere points of light. ...
Boys have their soft and gentle words,
too. You woald suppose BY the morn
ing racket that nothing could be more
foreign to their nature than romance and
vague sadness, such as ideality produces
in adults. Boys have hours Of great
sinking and sadness, when kindness and
tondness are peculiarly needful to them.