Spoiled Children

Ijhe old adage that a girl is worth a thousand dollars, and a boy worth fifteen hundred, is a depreciation of values. I warrant that the man who invented the theory was a bachelor, or he would not have set down the youngsters so far below cost. When the poorest child is born, a star of joy points down to the manger.

We are tired of hearing of the duty that children owe to their parents. Let some one write a disquisition on what parents owe to their children. What though they do upset things, and chase the cats, and eat themselves into colic with green apples, and empty the castor of sweet-oil into the gravy, and bedaub their hands with tar? Grown people have the privilege of larger difficulties, and will you not let the children have a few smaller predicaments? How can we ever pay them for the prattle that drives our cares away, and the shower of soft flaxen curls on our hot cheek, and the flowers with which they have strewn our way, plucking them from the margin of their cradles, and the opening with little hands of doors into new dispensations of love?

A well-regulated home is a millennium on a small scale — the lion and leopard nature by infantile stroke subdued — and “a little child shall lead them.” Blessed the pillow of the trundle-bed on which rests the young head that never ached! Blessed the day whose morning is wakened by the patter of little feet! Blessed the heart from which all the soreness is drawn out by the soft hand of a babe!

But there are children which have been so thoroughly spoiled they are a terror to the community. As you are about to enter your neighbor’s door, his turbulent boy will come at you with the plunge of a buffalo, pitching his head into your diaphragm. He will in the night stretch a rope from tree to tree to dislocate your hat, or give some passing citizen a sudden halt as the rope catches at the throat, and he is hung before his time. They can, in a day, break more toys, sHt more kites, lose more marbles than all the fathers and mothers of the neighborhood could restore in a week. They talk roughly, make old people stop to let them pass, upset the little girl’s school-basket, and make themselves universally disagreeable. You feel as if you would like to get hold of them just for once, or in their behalf call on the firm of Birch & Spank.

It is easy enough to spoil a child. No great art is demanded. Only three or four things are requisite to complete the work. Make all the nurses wait on him and fly at his bidding. Let him learn never to go for a drink, but always have it brought to him. At ten years of age have Bridoret tie his shoe-strines. Let him Strike auntie because she will not get him a sugar -plum. He will soon learn that the house is his realm, and he is to rule it. He will come up into manhood one of those precious spirits that demand obeisance and service, and with the theory that the world is his oyster, which with knife he will proceed to open.

If that does not spoil him, buy him a horse. It is exhilarating and enlarging for a man to own such an animal. A good horseback ride shakes up the liver and helps the man to be virtuous, for it is almost impossible to be good, with too much bile, an enlarged spleen, or a stomach off duty. We congratulate any man who can afford to own a horse; but if a boy own one, he will probably ride on it to destruction. He will stop at the tavern for drinks. He will bet at the races. There will be room enouofh in the same saddle for idleness and dissipation to ride, one of them before, and one of them behind. The bit will not be strong enough to rein in. at the right place. There are men who all their lives have been going down hill, and the reason is that in boyhood they sprang astride a horse, and got going so fast that they have never been able to stop.

But if the child be insensible to all such efforts to spoil him, try the plan of never saying anything encouraging to him. If he do wrong, thrash him soundly; but if he do well, keep on reading the newspaper, pretending not to see him. There are excellent people, who, through fear of producing childish vanity, are unresponsive to the very best endeavor. When a child earns parental applause he ought to have it. If he get up head at school, give him a book or an apple. If he saw a bully on the play-ground trampling on a sickly boy, and your son took the bully by the throat so tightly that he became a little variegated in color, praise your boy, and let him know that you love to have him the champion of the weak. Perhaps you would not do right a day, if you had no more prospect of reward than that which you have given him. If on commencement-day he make the best speech, or read the best essay, tell him of it. Truth is always harmless, and the more you use of it the better. If your daughter at the conservatory take the palm, give her a new piece of music, a ring, a kiss, or a blessing.

But if you have a child invulnerable to all other influences, and he cannot be spoiled by

any means already recommended, give him plenty of money, without any questions as to what he does with it. The fare is cheap on the road between here and Smashupton. I have known boys with five dollars to pay their way clear through, and make all the connections on the “Grand Trunk” route to perdition. We know not why loose cash in a boy’s pocket Is called pin money, unless because it often sticks a hole into his habits. First he will buy raisins, then almonds, then a whisk cane, then a breast-pin, then cigars, then a keg of “lager,” then a ticket for a drunken excursion, and there may possibly be money enough left for the father to buy for his boy a coffin.

Let children know something of the worth of money, by earning it. Over-pay them If you will, but let them get some idea of equivalents. If they get distorted notions of values at the start, they will never be righted. Daniel Webster knew everything except how to use money. From boyhood he had things mixed up. His mother gave him and Ezekiel ijioney for Fourth of July. As the boys came back from the village, the mother said, “Daniel, what did you buy with your money? “and he answered:” I bought a cake and a candy, and some beer, and some fire -crackers.” Then turning to Ezeklel she said, “What did you buy with your money?..” “Oh,” said Ezekiel, ‘’Daniel borrowed mine.”

On the other hand, it is a ruinous poHcy to be parsimonious with children. If a boy find that a parent has plenty of money, and he, the boy, has none, the temptation will be to steal the first cent he can lay his hand on. Oh, the joy that five pennies can buy for a boy! They seem to open before him a Paradise of liquorice-drops and cream - candy. You cannot in after-life buy so much superb satisfaction with thousand dollars as you bought with your first five cents. Children need enough money, but not a superfluity. Freshets wash away more cornfields than they culture.

Boys and girls are often spoiled by parental gloom. The father never unbends. The mother’s rheumatism hurts so, she does not see how little Maggie can ever laugh. Childish curiosity is denounced as impertinence. The parlor is a Parliament, and everything in everlasting order. Balls and tops in that house are a nuisance, and the pap that the boy is expected most to relish is Geometry, a little sweetened with the chalk of blackboards. For cheerful reading the father would recommend “Young’s Night Thoughts” and Hervey’s “Meditations among the Tombs.”

At the first chance the boy will break loose. With one grand leap he will clear the catechisms. He will burst away into all riotous living. He will be so glad to get out of Egypt that he will jump into the Red Sea. The hardest colts to catch are those that have a long while been locked up. Restraints are necessary, but there must be some outlet. Too high a dam will overflow all the meadows.

A sure way of spoiling children is by surfeiting them with food. Many of them have been stuffed to death. The mother spoke of it as a grand achievement that her boy ate ten eggs at Easter. He waddles across the room under burdens of porter-house steak and plum-pudding enough to swamp a day-laborer. He runs his arm up to the elbow in the jar of blackberry jam, and pulls it out amid the roar of the whole household thrown Into hysterics with the witticism. After a while he has a pain, then he gets “the dumps,” soon he will be troubled with Indigestion, occasionally he will have a fit, and last of all he gets a fever, and dies. The parents have no Idea that they are to blame. Beautiful verses are cut on the tombstone, when, If the truth had been told, the epitaph would have read —

Killed by Apple Dumplings!

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