Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1889-11-01
TRAINING CHILDREN,
A SOUTHERN LADY'S METHOD OF
BRINGING UP THE YOUNG.

pllISS1iN0 Ut liz 1ooN0s
She Easily Explained What Yves So NIys-
ley Was Good Boy Simply Because
He Wasn't Preached To.
Mankind is rendered more or less misera-
BILE by the enfant terrible. Bad children
swarm all over the land, and it is an open
secret that persons in search of peace and
harmony refuse to buy homes on blocks in
habited by little people, and make their alb
sence a positive consideration in fiat and
hotel life. Something is radically wrong,
and after meeting Charley Brown and his
clever mamma at the seashore, one house
hold at least became convinced the trouble
all lies in faulty maternal management.
Charley was just turning 6 years old,
with the brightest baby face and manifest
figure in white fannels one could find in
riding from the southern end of Mississippi
all the way up to its far northeast corner. He
had never brother or sister to share dominion
i'll the hearts of group of adoring relatives,
and by the canons of infantile spoilation,
ought to have been an insutferable nuisance
before cutting his pretty white teeth But
li'SSet
sad moral disadvantage she made things
tolerably even by giving him by all odds the
wisest of mothers.
WATCHING THE BOY.
Mrs. Brown never posed as the ideal
mamma. Indeed, of all the people she would
have been most surprised had any one told
her of her differences from the ordinary run
of mankind. Rather shy than otherwise,
with no professed mission in life, she was ut
terly unconscious of illustrating the lost art
of combining sugary goodness with unalloyed
happiness in the career of one small, healthy
boy.
At first, when strangers met him, they
simply believed Charley had been better
coached than the majority in maintaining
his company manners. Never for moment
did they credit his uniform gayety, sweet.
ness and good breeding as every day facts.
Such thing was too far out of the common
to be true. AS rule, weeks intimate in
tercourse was necessary to convince doubters
that the child had, as regards his behavior,
no recognition of time or personages. He
was an agreeable surprise in the morning, a
pleasant reality at noon, and when evening
came turned in like blue eyed seraph to
sleep fast as dormouse all night long. Be-
tween daylight and dark he was good, better
and best.
The mystery of this angelic union of phys
zeal, mental and moral perfection remained
unsolved, until one of the guests, more enter
prising than the rest, determined to watch
the handsome little enigma one whole day,
and see where he differed from the balance of
his kind. Her attention was rewarded, for
pretty soon Charley's plump legs were dang
ling over the arm of chair, while he sucked
peppermint drops and whistled at intervals
as the candy allowed-nor did he hold to one
attitude, but wriggled about in orthodox
child fashion, squirming all over the seat as
his active young body prompted, with never
correction to trouble his peaceful mind.
Exhausting this amusement, he announced
bis desire to fish, and ran off to get the short
pole and small hook provided for his special
use.
A chorus of voices on the gallery rose in
wonder that Mrs. Brown could permit him
to have a genuine steel hook, and a dozen
prophesied of horrors to follow an accident.
She had explained all its dangers, she said,
very quietly, and he must take the risks.
Yes, he could go barefooted; yes, climb the
gate if he preferred certainly go in the
shallow water, where it was safe; none of
these irritating useless injunctions, whereby
mothers think they are fulfilling duty, and
in reality rendering their children wretched.
When the pretty baby was fast asleep some
one observed how rarely fortunate Mrs.
Brown was in having so seldom to correct
the young master. "No," the judicious lit
tie mother replied, sit is not that, but, you
see, have raised my boy not to need it"
Begged for the sake of a couple of anxious
hearted young matrons sitting near, to ex-
press her views on the perplexing question,
she continued:
"a long time ago, when a girl growing
up, l noticed how constantly parents fretted
their children by that utterly hateful of all
nursery words, DON'T You are all kind
enough to call my Charley a paragon of
goodness, and he is dear little monkey,
but, believe me, the principal cause Of his
amiability and obedience is that he is never
corrected by word or look save under ex-
treme circumstances. For my part doubt
babies being born in sin and the children of
wrath. We are the ones, then, who make
them so. Look at baby; its tiny fingers
just as naturally reach out for futtering
ribbon OF convenient lock Of hair as the
dew falls from heaven, and yet right there
the little hand is slapped and it first hears
that odious DON'T Now a child in proper
environments does not do three things day
for which it should be reprimanded. If you
don't give useless orders, it will never dis
obey.
SIN fact, one-half of it's misdemeanors are
suggested by the maternal commands, like
the proverbial children who put beans up
their noses simply because their too prudent
mother had issued hitherto undreamed of
orders to the contrary.
II remember one day when Charley was
scrap of child, this truth being borne in
upon my mind by comparing the difference
in wisdom, human and divine There were
over 100000 of the chosen people in that will
derness recently out of the bondage of slavery,
and yet when Moses went up in the mountain
to receive Jehovah's laws, he was given just
ten commandments, the Lord laying down
less than a dozen rules whereby the Israelites
were charged for all time to live and die.
Only the very gravest crimes were explicitly
forbidden. 1t appeared divine Judgment
recognized the folly of over burdening frail
humanity and curbing naturally healthy in
stincts, seeing with the powers of omnipotence
that those who adhered in letter and spirit
to the great laws would come out all right in
lesser matters. 1t occurred to me then that
with my baby would strive after the Lords
brevity rather than the prolix rulings of
Moses, who half the time seemed to issue his
orders, simply that the people might enjoy
the fun of breaking them and being punished
in consequence My methods, as you all are
pleased to dignity them, are simplicity itself.
1t begins and ends with banishing don't n-
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