What a halo lingers about
the blessed spot! and how the soul of the exile cherishes the pictures
which adorn the halls of memory,--pictures which the rude hand of time can
never efface!
This earth has many lingering traces of Eden yet remaining, which enrapture
the eye of the beholder. But there is no sight in all the world so
beautiful as that of a well-ordered, harmonious Christian home,--a home
where love reigns; where each esteems the other better than himself; where
the parents are careful to practise what they preach; where the daily
lessons instilled into the minds of the children from babyhood to maturity
always and forever include the indispensable drills in good manners.
There is no school so important as the home school, no teacher so
responsible as the parent, no pupil under such weighty obligations to
deport himself creditably as is the son or daughter of the household. And
may it not be asserted truthfully that there is no more thrilling
commencement scene than that which sees the noble young man or young woman,
having passed successfully through all the grades of the parental school,
bid a regretful adieu to the dear childhood home, to enter upon a career of
usefulness elsewhere, to spend and be spent in saving humanity? But how few
such commencement scenes do we witness! How few pupils ever pass the test
satisfactorily in the important branch of ethics! When parents practice
good manners toward their children; when they find as much pleasure in the
unaffected "please" and "thank you" of the home kindergarten as they do in
the same marks of politeness elsewhere; when the deportment in the grades
of the home school is considered of greater importance than that in the
schools away from home, our preparatory schools and colleges will have less
trouble in securing good behavior on the part of those in attendance, and
the problem of how to maintain proper decorum will have lost its
perplexity.
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