“‘Mamma, are you there?’

“‘Yes, darling.’

“‘All right, then!’ and the child went back to its play.

“By-and-by the little voice was heard again, repeating,

“‘Mamma, are you there?’

“‘Yes.’

“‘All right, then;’ and the little ones returned again, satisfied and reassured, to their toys.”

The sense of their mother’s presence, or at least the certainty of her being near at hand, was necessary to their security and contentment in their plays.  But this feeling was not the result of any teachings that they had received from their mother, or upon her having inculcated upon their minds in any way the necessity of their keeping always within reach of maternal protection; nor had it been acquired by their own observation or experience of dangers or difficulties which had befallen them when too far away.  It was a native instinct of the soul—­the same that leads the lamb and the calf to keep close to their mother’s side, and causes the unweaned babe to cling to its mother’s bosom, and to shrink from being put away into the crib or cradle alone.

The Responsibility rests upon the Mother.

The mother is thus to understand that the principle of obedience is not to be expected to come by nature into the heart of her child, but to be implanted by education.  She must understand this so fully as to feel that if she finds that her children are disobedient to her commands—­leaving out of view cases of peculiar and extraordinary temptation—­it is her fault, not theirs.  Perhaps I ought not to say her fault exactly, for she may have done as well as she knows how; but, at any rate, her failure.  Instead, therefore, of being angry with them, or fretting and complaining about the trouble they give her, she should leave them, as it were, out of the case, and turn her thoughts to herself, and to her own management, with a view to the discovery and the correcting of her own derelictions and errors.  In a word, she must set regularly and systematically about the work of teaching her children to subject their will to hers.

Three Methods.

I shall give three principles of management, or rather three different classes of measures, by means of which children may certainly be made obedient.  The most perfect success will be attained by employing them all.  But they require very different degrees of skill and tact on the part of the mother.  The first requires very little skill.  It demands only steadiness, calmness, and perseverance.  The second draws much more upon the mother’s mental resources, and the last, most of all.  Indeed, as will presently be seen, there is no limit to the amount of tact and ingenuity, not to say genius, which may be advantageously exercised in the last method.  The first is the most essential; and it will alone, if faithfully carried out, accomplish the end.  The second, if the mother has the tact and skill to