The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1883-03-16
The Spelling Of the Child.

most any body can do it without trying
very hard. Proof of this is continually
seen in this great army of i'll hammered
and demoralized youngsters, who might
lave been treasures of home comfort
and blessings to society at large had
they not been spoiled in the bringing
up. Many of these children have had
the advantages of comfortable homes
and fair education, much of which
appears to have been thrown away on
them 1t does not follow that spoil,
in order to be spoiled, must be very
wicked, very violent, or ever very de-
structivc. There are thousands of we'll
meaning children who neither swear,
fight or destroy their parents furniture
with axes aud hammers, who neverthe
less, are a nuisance to all who have to
come in contact with them. Many of
these children have been damaged in
their infancy by parents, aunts and
nurses, who told them they were the
most wonderful children ever created
and gave them TO understand that in
the ages to come there never would be
an infant half so beautiful, so lovely
or so gifted A child thus compliment
ted becomes so puffed up beyond en-
durance. His smart sayings are re-
peated in his hearing before friends
and Eeighbors, until in his infantile
vanity he regards himself as monop-
olist in the manufacture of wise saws
and cunning jokes. His petty impu-
dences are regarded as evidences of
monster sagacity, and he is encouraged
to rudeness by hearing on all sides flat
tering mention of his brilliant efforts at
repartee. 1t does not take many years
of this kind of training to make an in.
fant odious.
In England practice exists in Ger
tain circles as to the feeding of very
young children, which happily does not
to any great extent obtain in this coun-
try. The youngest of the family are
not considered worldly of place at the
family dinner-table, but are sent to eat
their meals with the servants. The
result of this is seen to the great disad-
vantage of the children when they
come to be old enough to eat with the
family. They have by this time ac-
quired many habits of which they need
to be broken, and they have picked up
many forms of speech together with
much conversational literature, whicl
it would he well for them not to know
The process of breaking them of these
is slow and disagreeable. But some
times children pick up at the tables oi
their own parents ugly ways of eating
and unmannerly styles of conversation
quite as bad as anything they can learr
in the kitchen or the stable. 1t is un
pleasant to be all the time whacking a
a child and tell it to do otherwise thar
it is doing. 1t is injustice to the chilc
to enforce the severe old rule that ''chil
dren should be seen and not heard.
But there are quiet and graceful way
of making even the youngest child OF
der his ways so that he shall not be al
offence to those who sit at meat wit
him. The child who loudly proclaim
his likes and his dislikes at a table is
nuisance. He who clamors for on
kind Of food after another, only t
make mess with each dish as he II
ceives it, and then to clamor fo" more
is disagreeable table companion. II
who fills his mouth too full, and persist
in talking while thus overloaded, shoul
be sent from the table
1t is mistaken kindness TO spoil
child by letting it have its own wa
and by failing to direct it out of wron
ways and into right ones. The crop ,
spoiled children would be lighter tha
it is if more firmness and sound iud,
, ment were mixed in with the manag
, ment.