The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1884-07-25
Keeping Children Busy.

is as needful for children as for adults
And even more necessary, since they
have so little resource in retrospect. The
busy child is generally the happy child,
and the happy child is generally the
least troublesome of the species. Indeed,
we have often thought that the maxim,
BE virtuous and you'll be happy"
might in the case of children, if not
always in that of grown persons, be re-
versed and made to read. "Be happy
and you II be virtuous." Certain is it
that the unoccupied child is unhappy
and often indocile and mischievous.
In nothing do children differ more
than in their ability to amuse them
selves. A child with an active imagina-
ton can play with eager delight with a
thousand trities that children unblessed
with that faculty have no conception of
utilizing. And we are mistaken if those
juveniles are not the happieSt who are
compelled by a scarcity of material to
invent new and fertile uses for what
they do have. Certain it is that so
much may be done for child that he
will be dwarfed for life by an over
supply of toys and attention. while if he
is thrown in part on his own resources
he will have the Joy of Inventing and
creating amusement for himself
The Kindergarten occupations furnish
eXhaustless material for the instruction
and amusement combined of the little
folk. Though 4 regular course of in
struction a TO the use of these gifts
is certainly desirable, those who can not
take this course may utilize the kinder
garten gifts in their nurseries with
very great advantage. There are books
giving specific Instructions as to the
employment of each gift" and any
mother or nurse who will read them
carefully may have the means ut hand
Of keeping the little brains and fingers
happily employed.
Plato, in The Laws" says: "Now a
boy is of all wild beasts the most diff
cult to manage. For by how much the
more he has the fountain of prudence
not yet fitted up, he becomes crafty and
keen and the most insolent of all wild
beasts. On this account it is necessary
to bind him, as it were, with many
chains. - The habit of industry is one
of the best chains with which to bind a
boy, and this habit may be formed from
the cradle and strengthened through all
the growing years. Little chores about
the house and garden not above the
boys strength to do he is all the better
for doing. The stimulus of wages may
be used to further him in his willing
ness to work. and these wages may be
applied to the purchase of little indul-
gences, which the parent would gladly
give, but which are more highly priced
when earned than when accepted as .
gift.
The reading of suitable books is an
other very strong chain to bind boy to
the practice of virtue, and girl as
well. The long days of childhood can
not be better spent than. when growing
vigorously in body, in storing up the
seeds of knowledge and in forming
nuclei about which accumulations Of
various informal on may grow. The
rudiments of all the sciences may be
learned before the child enters his teens.
But this depends on the wisdom and
care of the parents very largely. and
upon the facilities afforded the child.
If instead OF being shut up in a school
room five hours every day, he is made
the companion of an intelligent parent
and his mental activities directed to-
ward interesting topics, he may advance
far more rapidly in intellectual growth
and attainment than his fellows moping
through the dull routine of the primary
school as it is generally conducted.
Horace Greeley's mother told him
stores, recited poetry to him and fed
his mind with all the treasures of her
own, thus cultiyating in him taste for
vast and vario.s reading, taste which
he retained to the last.
A printing press, tool chest, scroll
saw, pet animals, set of garden tools.
are excellent things for boys to occupy
themselves with, but their use requires
constant oversight from parents, so that
habits of exactness, of neatness, of
kindness. of thoroughness, and of order,
may be formed. Occupation is not
intended merely to keep boy or girl
from mischief, but positively to form
them to virtue. The knitting and sew
ing which our grandmothers did in
their childhood, the samplers they
wrought, we smile at now, but in this
work they learned what we are trying
to teach our children. Handicraft OF
all sorts is becoming the fashion and
childish hands are now taught to draw,
to paint, to model. to hammer brass,
to embroider, and in this agreeable
work, amusement and profit combine.
N y. grittLne.