The weekly north Iowa times. [volume] (McGregor, Iowa) 1857-1867, 1859-09-14
Good Children.
G. 7. STRICKLAND, Sec'y.

Good Children.
The Professor Of the Breakfast Table, in
his talk to the readers of the atlantic, for
August, offers some pungent suggestions
concerning good children and their me-
moirs
In early years, while the child "feels its
life in every limb" it lives in the body and
for the body to very great extent. 1t
ought to be so. There have been many
very interesting children who have shown
a wonderful indifference to things of earth,
and an extraordinary development of the
spiritual nature. There is a perfect ltera-
ture of their biographies, all alike in their
essentials, the same ''disinclination to the
usual amusements of childhood;" the re-
markable sensibility the same docility :;
the same conscientiousness; in short, an
almost uniform character, marked by beau
tiful traits, which we look at with painful
admiration. 1t will be found that most of
these children are the subjects of some con-
stitutional unfitness for living, the most fire.
quent Of which need not mention. They
are like the beautiful, blushing, half
fruit that falls before its time, because its
core is gnawed out They have their mean
ing they do not live in vain-b but they are
wind falls.
l am convinced that many healthy chill.
dren are injured morally by being forced to
read too much about these little meek suf-
ferers and their spiritual exercises. Here
is boy that loves to run, swim, kick foot
ball, turn somersets, make faces, whittle,
fish, tear his clothes, coast, skate, fire crack
ers, blow squash "tooters," cut his name
on fences, read about Robinson Crusoe and
Sinbad the Sailor, eat the widest angled sli-
ces of pie and untold cakes and candies,
crack nuts with his back teeth and bite out
the better part of another boys apple with
his front ones, turn up coppers, "stick"
knives, throw stones, knock off hats, set
mouse-traps, chalk door steps, ''cut behind
ANYTHING on wheels or runners, whilst
through his teeth ''holler" fire on slight
evidence, run after soldiers, patronize an
engine company, or in his own words,
be; isn't that pretty nice sort Of boy,
though he has not got anything the matter
with him that takes the taste of this world
out? "4
Now, when You put into such hot
blooded, hard-fsted, round-cheeked little
rogue's hand, a sad looking volume or PAM
phlet, with the portrait Of a thin, white
faced child, whose life is really as much a
training for death as the last month of
condemned criminals existence, what does
he find in common between his own over
flowing and exalted sense of vitality, and
the experience Of the doomed offspring Of
invalid parents? 1t is not until he has
worked his way through the period of hon.
est, hearty, animal existence, which every
robust child should make the most of-not
until he has learned the use Of his faculties,
which is his first duty-that boy of cour-
age and animal vigor is in proper state to
read these fearful records of premature de-
cay. l have no doubt that q disgust is
implanted in the minds of many healthy
children by early surfeits Of pathological
piety. do verify believe that He who took
children in His arms and blessed them,
loved the healthiest and most playful of
them just as we'll as those who were richest
in the tuberculous virtues.
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