Page:The Mothers of England.djvu/27

22 The maintenance of this unyielding authority on the part of the mother, requires, it would seem, some little tact and skill; for some who are the most imperative in their commands, are in reality the least obeyed. That hasty slaps, loud talking, and harsh words, have nothing whatever to do with the system of discipline here recommended, it is scarcely necessary to say; neither that weakest and most fruitless sort of pleading, which consists of a perpetual repetition of "Now do," and "Now don't;" and still less do threatenings and bribes enter into the scheme proposed; but a steady and consistent method being in early infancy, and never on any occasion whatever departed from, of requiring obedience to the parent's wishes, simply as such, accompanied by a strict regard to clearness, consistency, and truth, in making those wishes known.

To a child trained up in this manner, obedience is so easy, that it no more thinks of questioning the mother's right to direct its actions, than it quarrels with the nurse because she stretches out her arms to prevent its falling. Nor is there more severity in the exercise of such authority, than in the protecting care which preserves an infant from corporeal harm. Ninety-nine out of every hundred of the whims and wishes of a child, would, if it were possible to gratify them, be productive of more pain than pleasure; and thus it is necessary, even for its happiness, that they should be subjected to the decision of another. Let the little hero, before he is able to walk, thrust away the hand of the nurse as he will, she suffers no symptoms of vexation on his part to prevent her necessary assistance, because she knows, and in this she judges for herself without consulting him, that the child would be more hurt by a fall, than by being the subject of a mere momentary vexation. And the mother knows, or rather she ought to know, that upon the same principle her child would suffer more by discovering that he had the power to contradict and oppose his mother's wishes, than by being deprived of some little gratification of fancy or desire, which in all probability would please him only for a moment.

By the habit of obedience too, when practised toward a judicious and consistent mother, the child soon learns.