EARLY BOYHOOD


Having now laid down the general principles which we have to recognize
in the moral training of the young, let me endeavor to make some
practical suggestions how these principles may be carried out,
suggestions which, as a matter of fact, I have found to be helpful to
educated mothers in the great and responsible task of training the men
of the future generation.

All I would earnestly ask you to remember is, that in offering these
suggestions I am in no way venturing to dictate to you, only endeavoring
to place a wide experience at your service. Doubtless you will often
modify and, in some cases, very possibly reverse my conclusions. All I
ask is that you should weigh them thoughtfully and prayerfully and with
an open and unprejudiced mind before you finally reject them.

Let us, therefore, begin with the nursery. It is in the nursery that the
roots of the evil we have to contend with are often first planted, and
this in more senses than one. In the more obvious sense all experienced
mothers know what I mean. But I am quite sure that there are a large
number of young wives who become mothers without the smallest knowledge
of the dangers to which even infant boys may be exposed. This ignorance
is painfully shown by the frequent application for nursemaids from our
penitentiaries. At one house where I held a small meeting my young
hostess, an intelligent literary woman, came into my room after the
household had retired to rest to ask me about some curious actions which
she had noticed in her baby boy at night. There could not be a doubt or
a question that her nurse was corrupting her little child before that