HOW TO REPROVE.

Parents should never check expressions of tenderness in their children, nor humiliate them before others.  This will not only cause suffering to little sensitive hearts, but will tend to harden them.  Reproof, if needed, should be administered to each child singly and alone.

CHEERFULNESS AT THE TABLE.

Children should not be prohibited from laughing and talking at the table.  Joyousness promotes the circulation of the blood, enlivens and invigorates it, and sends it to all parts of the system, carrying with it animation, vigor and life.  Controversy should not be permitted at the table, nor should any subjects which call forth political or religious difference.  Every topic introduced should be calculated to instruct, interest or amuse.  Business matters, past disappointments and mishaps should not be alluded to, nor should bad news be spoken of at the table, nor for half an hour before.  All conversation should be of joyous and gladsome character, such as will bring out pleasant remarks and agreeable associations.  Reproof should never be administered at the table, either to a child or to a servant; no fault found with anything, and no unkind word should be spoken.  If remarks are to be made of absent ones, they should be of a kind and charitable nature.  Thus will the family table be the center of pleasant memories in future years, when the family shall have been scattered far and near, and some, perhaps, have been laid in their final resting-place.

TRAIN CHILDREN FOR SOME OCCUPATION.

Chancellor Kent says:  “Without some preparation made in youth for the sequel of life, children of all conditions would probably become idle and vicious when they grow up, from want of good instruction and habits, and the means of subsistence, or from want of rational and useful occupations.  A parent who sends his son into the world without educating him in some art, science, profession or business, does great injury to mankind, as well as to his son and his own family, for he defrauds the community of a useful citizen, and bequeaths to it a nuisance.  That parent who trains his child for some special occupation, who inspires him with a feeling of genuine self-respect, has contributed a useful citizen to society.”

BAD TEMPER.

Dread an insubordinate temper, and deal with it as one of the greatest evils.  Let the child feel by your manner that he is not a safe companion for the rest of the family when he is in anger.  Allow no one to speak to him at such times, not even to answer a question.  Take from him books, and whatever he may have, and place him where he shall feel that the indulgence of a bad temper shall deprive him of all enjoyment, and he will soon learn to control himself.