, 1879-12-08
Keeping the Peace.

This little essay mas no wider scope
than the discussion of some of the diff
fculties in the way of keeping the
peace in families, and some of the meth
ods by which these difficulties may be
removed. If, however, it should appear
that the same difficulties are at once in
the way Of the peace of nations as we'll
as that the same methods which pro-
mote family peace may be successfully
employed to harmonize nations, there
need be no surprise.
Each individual is a world in him
self. He has needs, desires. prefer
ences, tastes; and the satisfying of these
he instinctively seeks without regard to
the welfare of any other individual.
But he soon learns that every other per-
son he comes in contact with is u unit
just like himself, with like needs, and
it may be with like desires, preferences
and tastes, and that compromise of some
sort between clashing interests is ne
cessity. The family is the chosen field
where these compromises should be
adjusted, where brethren shall learn to
dwell together in unity, where the
strong shall not by reason of their
strength Cypress the weak, where love
shall neutralize selfishness, and where
the common good shall be the supreme
law. To the mother chiefly is intrusted
the responsibility of keeping the family
peace, and sometimes she finds she has
pretty large contract on her hands.
Some children are born Unfortunately
selfish. others have this trait developed
by excessive indulgence. Some chill
dren are born with an arbitrary dispesi-
tion, and from their cradles impose
laws on all about them. Wo do not
propose here to discuss prenatal inhu
ences and show how many child is
simply the victim of misfortune in
coming into the world loaded with traits
fastened on him by the errors and
crimes of his progenitors. It is enough
to point out the fact and then try to
make the best of it, or rather make the
most and the best Of a child suffering
for faults not in any just sense his own.
And here we may remember with pro-
found satisfaction that He who know
eth our frame and remembereth that we
ore dust " is the final Judge Of us all.
The mother, holding from its inception
the life of her child within her own,
has opportunities vouchsafed to no one
else to first form the character of her
child and then study the unfoldings of
this character from the very beginning
onward. She has it in her power to
check the budding of selfshness, to
guide the will, to restrain the passions,
to direct the current of its activities,
and to throw around it an atmosphere
which seeming to be nothing shall
contain the substance of all things" in
which her child shall grow in beauty
and symmetry as flowers grow in balmy
climates. As one by one others begin
to move in orbits about her as the plan
cts around the sun, the harmonious
adjustment of these orbits occupies her
no less than the holding of each sepa-
rate planet to its separate orbit. And
in addition to this she must be herself
in constant equipo1se. Clouds on her
face, disturbances of her "photo-
sphere" are followed by climatic rigors
and "electric storms" on all the orbs
that encircle her. The laws Of physical
life and of spiritual life are alike.
It is impossible to avoid differences
in families. They spring up of them
selves as naturally az flowers and
weeds and all vegetable growths spring
from the soil. Sometimes they flow
from similarity of dispositions and
tastes, and quite as often from dissim-
ilarity. sit matters not" said a
mother in our hearing not long ago,
show many Or what variety of play
things get for my children, they all
struggle for the same toy" Children,
like grown people, often do not know
what they want till they see some one
else apparently happy with O posses
sion; then it becomes clear to them
that they want that alone. With chill
dren as with grown people the life does
not consist in the abundance Of things
they possess. and it is we'll to let them
learn this lesson early. No children
are SO restless and unhappy as these
who have everything done for them aud
are never called upon to forget and
even sacrifice their own inclinatlons to
secure the happiness of others. Pleas
and varied occupation is very potent in
preventing differences in families. Alb
sorbed in music, in painting, in en-
broidery, in fretwork. in knitting. in
crocheting, in reading, in study ing,
the young mind has no time to indulge
in i'll humors. It is. according to the
old rhyme, Satin Sho always 'tinds
some mischief still for idle hands and
idle hearts to do. As o means vi pre-
serving harmony among small children,
the Kindergarten methods are the con-
summation of wisdom, aud when these
ere employed with the spirit that should
accompany them, every ill regulated