Page:An address delivered by the Hon. Mrs. Welby to the married women of Newton on the first Thursday in Lent, 1872.djvu/16

12 proper room for them and lodgers being forbidden without special permission, sometimes pressed hardly on you; now you will perhaps see that the object of all these regulations is the same as my object in addressing you to-night. The rules are intended to be a help in preserving decency and virtue, and I feel sure that in future you will take advantage of them, and see their necessity.

Remember (I am now speaking more especially to those who live in small cottages) that you should all take the utmost care to teach your children decent and modest habits. You can do this much more than you think, if you will only try. Things which seem to you mere trifles may do harm to a child, and teach it bad habits, or take away its innocent ignorance. I beg you, dear friends, to take especial care about your sleeping rooms. As far as you possibly can do it, let none but very little boys and girls sleep in the same room, or at least without a partition, or good screen. Do not say you cannot take care of these things; you can if you