Connecticut western news., 1895-06-13
STOP YOUR NAGGING.
ITS EVIL EFFECTS UPON CHILDREN
 ARE INcAlcULABLE.

A Charming Woman Tells of the Infiu-
 ence of a Mothers Teaching-Terrors of
 the Everlasting "Don't"-Little Ones as
 We'll as Big Ones Entitled to Reasons.
 It Is a mistake to suppose that children cannot be interested in little pieces of household work. A child of can save its mother many steps each day. If taught thus early in life to make itself useful, and that its efforts are appreciated, it gradual ly gets accustomed to the idea that it is of some importance in the world, and you have probably saved yourself many anxious moments. Children who have any rcaliz- ing sense of their parents love and of their own responsibilities as a factor in the home life are not liable to get very far from the right path, and even if the old Adam in them does rise to tho top occa- sionally they subdue him much moro quickly than tho children who arc never given reasons and are never taught to uso their own reasoning powers or to utilize their superfluous energies.
 Children should be taught to amuse themselves in a rational way. It Is my firm belief that they should never bo left long to their own devices, and that the moment they tire of an occupation or amusement they should have change or a diversion. Grown people get desperately tired of do- ing ono thing or half dozen things over and over again, even when they under stand perfectly the logic and necessity, and surely adults should be moro reasonable than children, though our actions some times say that we give children the credit for being the more sensible.
 A charming society woman onco told me that her success in her trying social posi- tion was all owing to her mothers gentle tuition at the time when her character was forming and her mind in its most re- captive state for retaining impressions.
 "We were very poor, she said, "and my mother, being good seamstress, mado our living by doing fine hand sewing. She was Q lady in. every sense of the word and did not forget her early rearing, even when her fortunes were at their lowest ehb. All day long she bent over her sewing, and I played about the room, my few playthings all being of home manufacture-we could afford no others. My chief delight was in playing great lady and calling on my mother. My trained dress-for, of course, all great ladies wore trained gowns, I thought-was my mothers big gingham apron tied on behind. She made me pair of mitts of white pique, such as she used to wear when she was child, and told mo that a lady always woro gloves when she went on the street. She taught me to keep my shoes well vanished, as lady never wore rusty shoes, and as lady never wore soiled clothes or ragged ones either was particularly careful of mine, and was ex- tremely happy when found that could sew up a tear in my apron or rent in my little frock quite to my mothers satisfac- tion.
 "Mother taught me how to enter a room and how to lcavo it, how to bow. how to accept O favor. Indeed before ] was years old think I had quite mas tered every rule of The Young Ladies' Guide to Good Behavior and had learned a great deal about books, for my moth CT got at last to talk to me as though I was real 'grownup.' l was a rest less child, and a noisy enc, and in self defense my mother had to de- wise some means of keeping me em- ployed. Of course she could not stop her work, but her method of amusing me was instructive to me and helped to divert her own mind. When I was 10 years old, my mother died, and the next six years were very hard ones for me- I had to work for my own living and could not go to school, but the taste for books that my mother had fostered in me, and the little that she had been able to impart to me, as she stitched away, was my salvation. I am sure that her admonitions about what a lady should or should not do, given as much to keep me quiet as with any thought of their after effect perhaps, held mo in check very often, and her gentle counsel and talks about the world and the people who made 1t happy place to live in made me ambitious to be one of the primo mov CTS In it. I read and studied by myself CT. rry moment I could get away from my work, and when fortune at last turned smiling face on me l was quito ready to take the place in the world and in society that was really my right by birth.
 If my mother had been liko so many mothers, of the opinion that children should be suppressed, kept ignorantly quiet or in the background, or if she had turred me loose to play on the streets or to seek companions of my own choosing, 16 of the best years of my life would have been blank. I have tried to teach my children as my mother taught me. When I must deny them anything, I tell them why, so that they may not think am un- reasonable, and I try to keep them em- ployed, or else interest and amuse them, SO that their meddlesome fingers will not be put where the nurse or myself must be constantly saying don't to them. Ad monitions of that kind are no more to children after awhile than laws that have no penalty attached, and besides I believe that constant nagging of that kind is ab- solutely injurious to child or man. have known children who were actually nagged into being perfect little terrors."
 Therel That Is the word I wanted. Don't nagl Itis worse to the temper than persistent pin pricking is to the flesh. It would be great deal better to actually bruise the flesh of your child in passionate punishment than to keep its temper black and blue with an everlasting humping of "don'ts" that finally callous it into utter indifference. If 1t must be denied thing that it wants very much indeed, give it reasonable excuse for the denial and then provide it with employment of some kind, either amusement or work, and it will soon forget it's denial. But if you want to make a small anarchist out of it just say "don't' and give "because' as a reason, as it flies from one forbidden thing to an- other, till both of you are worn out and you, being the biggest and most powerful, spank it and call it possessed. Anarchy grows fat on that kind of treatment, and a child anarchist is the most difficult of all malcontents to deal with.-Senora Sarah In Washington Star. Capping It.