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48 after naughty boys and girls; or that the roaring steam-engine which terrified them so much, was a very good engine, because it carried people to London to see the pretty sights. Beyond such explanations as these, the intelligence of the nurse too seldom extends. Besides which, we must not fail to observe, that in these and similar instances, the sensation of fear has taken possession of the child before the explanation, such as it is; can take effect; and thus the impression of danger remains to be stronger in its memory than its subsequent impression of the justice of the cow, or the benevolence of the steam-engine.

What I am particularly anxious to urge upon the attention of mothers, is the importance of making just impressions first; and I am persuaded that by the means of easy, and, at the same time, instructive conversation, this may to a great extent be done, so that when the object which would otherwise have been one of terror, does present itself, the child may be prepared to receive it under more favorable impressions than those of fear; and even where, as must necessarily be the case, the object is such as it has never heard of before, the child who has been in the habit of receiving well-timed and judicious information from its mother, will be preserved from a variety of painful apprehensions, by a general impression that everything in nature and art has its particular use; and that even the most powerful agents of which it can form a notion, are not put in action by any malignity of their own, but are overruled for some good purpose, and often made conducive to the greatest benefit to man.

The feeling of trust and confidence which such a mode of instruction is calculated to inspire, belongs more to a subsequent chapter than to this. Yet, as our trust in general is intimately connected with our impressions of truth, it is necessary to observe, that it is chiefly upon its confidence in the combined wisdom and sincerity of its mother, that the child depends for security, in spite often of the effect produced by external objects upon its senses; and that it is the character of the mother taken as a whole, to which it mentally refers when surprised into an apprehension of danger from a cause which it can not understand. A calm and self-possessed mother, welcoming cheerfully the