26
Fundamentals of Christian Education
Young ladies will read novels, excusing themselves from active
labor because they are in delicate health. Their feebleness is the result
[36]
of their lack of exercising the muscles God has given them. They may
think they are too feeble to do housework, but will work at crochet
and tatting, and preserve the delicate paleness of their hands and faces,
while their care-burdened mothers toil hard to wash and iron their
garments. These ladies are not Christians, for they transgress the
fifth commandment. They do not honor their parents. But the mother
is the one who is most to blame. She has indulged her daughters
and excused them from bearing their share of household duties, until
work has become distasteful to them, and they love and enjoy delicate
idleness. They eat, and sleep, and read novels, and talk of the fashions,
while their lives are useless.
Poverty, in many cases, is a blessing; for it prevents youth and
children from being ruined by inaction. The physical as well as the
mental powers should be cultivated and properly developed. The first
and constant care of parents should be to see that their children have
firm constitutions, that they may be sound men and women. It is
impossible to attain this object without physical exercise. For their
own physical health and moral good, children should be taught to
work, even if there is no necessity so far as want is concerned. If they
would have pure and virtuous characters, they must have the discipline
of well-regulated labor, which will bring into exercise all the muscles.
The satisfaction that children will have in being useful, and in denying
themselves to help others, will be the most healthful pleasure they
ever enjoyed. Why should the wealthy rob themselves and their dear
children of this great blessing?
Parents, inaction is the greatest curse that ever came upon youth.
Your daughters should not be allowed to lie in bed late in the morning
sleeping away the precious hours lent them of God to be used for the
best purpose, and for which they will have to give an account to Him.
The mother does her daughters great injury by bearing the burdens
that they should share with her for their own present and future good.
[37]
The course that many parents pursue in allowing their children to be
indolent, and to gratify their desire for reading romance, is unfitting
them for real life. Novel and storybook reading are the greatest evils
in which youth can indulge. Novel and love-story readers always fail
to make good, practical mothers. They are air-castle builders, living in