The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1885-11-26
Teaching Children seIf-Control.

Teaching Children Self Control.
A writer in the New York Home
Journal calls attention to the need of
cultivating presence of mind in chill
dren, especially in girls.
Presence of mind is quality much
talked of, much honored, and-little
cultivated; yet, like most other good
things in this world, it requires cufti-
walton to bring it to any degree of per-
lection, for in very few cases is 1T
natural gift. Some people there are,
doubtless, to whom it comes naturally
and by instinct to do the right thing at
the right time and place; but they are
few in number. Then, again, some
people are by nature cooler-headed
than their neighbors, and do not
scream or otherwise become useless
just when their services are required.
But this quiet composure, though very
valuable, is not quite the same as pres
ence of mind. The latter consists not
only in having your wits ready for use,
but in knowing how to use them,
and being sufficiently calm and
steady in mind to remember and
turn to account that knowledge
From the earliest possible age
children should be taught self. control,
and the instinct of trying to remedy
any mistake or accident they may en-
counter. Teach your child, if he cuts
himself anywhere, at once to hold the
two sides of the cut tightly together,
to stop the bleeding, and then cry if
he likes: instead of, as children usu lily
do, dancing about, bowling and shak
ing the wounded part violently, thus
making it bleed and smart doubly.
Show him that if he burns or scorches,
himself, he can save himself much
pain by covering the place with wet
soap, or cold cream, or fuller's earth,
or violet powder, all or any of which
are pretty sure to be within reach in
the nursery.
But if boys require to be taught
self-control, doubly so do girls. Hav-
ing, by nature, weaker nerves and
more vivid imagination, they shrink
from pain, suffering, and danger in a
fashion utterly unintelligible to their
brothers. But the more natural this
shrinking is, the more carefully should
they be taught to govern it. Girls
should acquire at least the rudiments of
nursing, and learn the best and easiest
attainable remedies for the ordinary
accidents of daily life, just as
certainly and as matter of course
as they are taught to sew and to
read Especially should quiet and
GOODNESS be impressed on them. Calm
ness Is not insensibility, though many
people confound them. A girl is not
hard-hearted and unfeeling because she
can witness painful sights quietly, and,
if need be, lend steady, firm hand to
the doctor or nurse. On the contrary,
she has usually twenty times the sym
patty and unselfsh kindness of that
delicate little damsel who has no com
mand whatever over herself, and fills
the room with her shrieks, winding up
by running away the very moment an
extra hand might be useful. 1t may
seem harsh to say SO, perhaps, but
those dainty bodies, who are SO utterly
useless at any emergency, or, as their
friends plead, 80 highly endowed with
sensibility" chose who are not their
friends make unpleasant reference to
"folly" and "hysterics"), are generally
selfish and self absorbed to degree
utterly unintelligible to their more So
Der sisters, who are taught to forget
self and to control both mind and body
by their large-hearted sympathy with
and comprehension of suffering. But
the sick room is not the only place
where presence of mind is required.
Scarcely day passes when we do not
more or less require it. Thank good
ness the notion that women should faint
or go into Mysteries for the smallest
thing is pretty well exploded still,
even yet the opposite lesson might be
more strongly inculcated.