Certainly! I deem it to be your imperative duty to _study_ the
subjects well. The proper management of children is a vital
question,--a mother's question,--and the most important that can be
brought under the consideration of a parent; and, strange to say, it
is one that has been more neglected than any other. How many mothers
undertake--the responsible management of children without previous
instruction, or without forethought; they undertake it, as though it
may be learned either by intuition or by instinct, or by
affection. The consequence is, that frequently they are in a sea of
trouble and uncertainty, tossing about without either rule or compass;
until, too often, their hopes and treasures are shipwrecked and lost.

The care and management, and consequently the health and future
well-doing of the child, principally devolve upon the mother, "for it
is the mother after all that has most to do with the making or marring
of the man." [Footnote: _Good Words_, Dr W. Lindsay Alexander, March
1861.] Dr Guthrie justly remarks that--"Moses might have never been
the man he was unless he had been nursed by his own mother. How many
celebrated men have owed their greatness and their goodness to a
mother's training!" Napoleon owed much to his mother. "'The fate of a
child,' said Napoleon, 'is always the work of his mother;' and this
extraordinary man took pleasure in repeating, that to his mother he
owed his elevation. All history confirms this opinion..." The
character of the mother influences the children more than that of the
father, because it is more exposed to their daily, hourly
observation.--_Woman's Mission_.

I am not overstating the importance of the subject in hand when I say,
that a child is the most valuable treasure in the world, that "he is