Page:The lady or the tiger and other stories, Stockton (Scribner's 1897 ed).djvu/187

Rh and, if it should seem best, to help them do it. Of course, the parents are expected to promote and maintain the material interests of the family; and as their labor, beyond that necessary for present necessities, is generally undertaken for the future benefit of the child, it is but fair that the latter should have something to say about this labor. In the majority of cases, however, the parent may, in this respect, safely be let alone. The more he gives himself up to the amassing of a competency, or a fortune, the less will he be likely to interfere with the purposes and actions of his children.

One of the most important results in the training under consideration is its influence upon the trainer. When a child has reduced its parents to a condition of docile obedience, and sees them day by day, and year by year, pursuing a path of cheerful subservience, it can scarcely fail to appreciate what will be expected of it when it shall itself have become a parent. Such observation, if accompanied by accordant reflection, cannot fail to make easier the rule of the coming child; and, in conclusion, we would say to the children of the present day: Train up a parent in the way he should go, and when you are old you will know how to go that way yourself.