Courtship and Marriage, and the Gentle Art of Home-Making

o has suffered for her firstborn, one of the most soul-satisfying on earth. I suppose most women given choice would wish their firs

begin to discern between the firm will and the weak will of those who guide him, and to profit thereby; and she is a wise woman who begins as she means to end, and who teaches her child that her decision is absolute from the e

o be resisted, and so the citadel is lost. It is impossible also for the ordinary woman, who has the care of a baby all day long, in addition to a multitude of other duties, not to become nervous, irritable, and excitable, and the probability is that the child becomes a reflex of herself. I know of no more self-denying and harassing life than that of the mother of

and conscientious woman she knows that she is sowing the seeds of future good and ill, that early impressions are never erased, and that her own influence is the one which will leave the strongest, the most indelible mark on the future of the little ones she has under her wing. To this there is no exception whatever; i

r, seeing in him the image of what he may yet become. He will not love his mother any less, but he will be impatient a little, perhaps, of her careful supervision; he wants to be a man, to imitate his father, to show that he is a being of another order. It is always amusing to look on at this subtle and inevitable change, but sometimes touching as well. It is th

s boys all his days; he will share the pastimes, the interests, the absorbing occupations of his boys, in the schoolroom and the recreation-ground, just as he did not disdain to join sometimes in the frolic of the nursery. He will understand cricket and football, and hounds and hares, and know all the little points of schoolboy honou

chums, which is a boy's definition of the jolliest possible relationship, and which is very beautiful existing between father and son. But there are fathers who have no patience with the boy who, feeling in him the promptings of a larger life, begins to give himself little airs, and to adopt a manly and masterf

e young heart, bounding with a thousand buoyant impulses, eager to see life and taste its every cup, deprived of sympathy and outlet, and thrown back upon itself, becomes reserved, self-contained, and morbid. Then, again, there is a temptation to concealme

which, of course, there are the usual exceptions

y are not in an aggravated form still characteristic of him. Some men forget that they have ever been young; looking at them and witnessing their conduct in certain circumstances, one finds it difficult to believe that they ever were young. They have been fossils from their birth. That is the grand mistake-to fix such a great gulf betwixt youth and maturity that nothing can bridge it. It is more love

nd still better to his father, in every dilemma, sure of advice and aid, he will not go very far wrong. The world is full of pitfalls, and it is sure nothing

lcome to it, and that he need not go out always to seek liberty and enjoyment. In one word, let him have room to breath