The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1882-04-20

All parents are happy in viewing them
selves when repeated in their children,
as If it were sure pledge of immortality
that this line of face. that breadth OF
temple, this curve of eyebrow or of lip,
were to be handed down the generations;
and pleasant as they find all that, just so
bitter do they find it when unfortunate
traits, that previously might have been
repressed inthemselyes, but that have
not been, and that only afford misery,
are brought into action through Inherit
ance, and they see their own sins finding
them out again. Yet although they may
have reason to doubt if any rod ever him
dered their lying, or did anything but
drive them to concealment; if any depri-
walton of desired things ever made UNI
selfishness in them, or did anything but
aggravate avarice; if any ridicule ever
made the difficult problem easy of com
prehension, or if any of the compulsory
and primitive methods wrought any but
momentary and superficial gaining of an
object, and lasting harm and hurt-still
they go ON with these methods, the rod,
the dark closet, the make-game, the rob-
berry Ito call it its true name), and him
der the mental and moral growth of the
generation by just so much unwise ac-
ton in treating children like criminals.
That children. have always been re-
garded as delicious and delightful things,
when giving nobody any anxiety as to
their real welfare, is quite undisputed;
but when this anxiety. arises, whether
they are criminals Or have been but too
often the victims of criminals is ques-
| ton that might be considered to their
| advantage. Meanwhile even our treat
| ment of criminals grows to partake less
and less of the punitive character, and
more and more of the hindering and
curative.
If we look with condemnation on the
I-whipping-post for grown people in the
full possession of all the faculties they
ever had, how can we approve. of the
| slipper used on children with faculties
| but half developed? The general sense
Iof civilization now seems to be that we
shall not revenge ourselves for crime,
but shall simply prevent its further COM
| mission; how, then, can we treat tender
little beings, without the power to help
themselves, with any less consideration?
| Assuredly the time is not distant when
duty in this regard will be seen
from different point of view from that
| from which it has been regarded in the
past. The half-opened blossom will not
be made to suffer unnecessary pain for
| the worm at its heart. nor shut up away
from the sunshine that the worm may be
left to eat in peace, but gentle forces will
find the blight and remove it, and let the
bud bloom to what perfection it may in
. all the sunshine it can have. That it may
take almost infinite patience to bring up
children as children and not as criminals,
lis not TO weigh in the least against the
necessity. Infinite patience is the first
fruit of all true love, and no mother, no
aunt, no guardian of children, has a
right to be without goodly supply of
it, and while attending to the good OF
the children otherwise, to be busy besides
in the active cultivation of this heavenly
plant in themselves. There are number
less ways of depressing evil without ex-
citing it, and of cutting off sin, not by
looping the little branches, but by gently
digging round the root, and exterminat-
ing as much as can be reachedat once in
the yet imperfect system, which is te
grow more perfect as each generation
regards its successors as something, il
not already superior to itself, at any rate
to be made SO, and not to be kept inferior
by the lash of tongue and rod. Harper
Bazaar. e