Each child is bequeathed at birth a sceptre
and a crown.
The first rule is parental. The primitive monarchy is in the home. A
young baby cries. The trained nurse turns on the light, lifts the baby,
hushes it, sings to it, rocks it, and stills its weeping by caresses and
song. When next the baby is put down to sleep, more cries, more soothing
and disturbance, and the setting of a tiny instinct which shall some day
be will--the power of control.
The grandmother arrives on the scene. When baby cries, she plants the
little one firmly in its crib, turns down the light, pats and soothes
the tiny restless hands that fight the air, watches, waits. From the
crib come whimpers, angry cries, yells, sobs, baby snarls and sniffles
that die away in a sleepy infant growl. Silence, sleep, repose, and the
building of life and nerve and muscle in the quiet and the darkness. The
baby has been put in harmony with the laws of nature--the invigoration
of fresh air, sleep, stillness--and the little one wakens and grows like
a fresh, sweet rose. The mother, looking on, learns of the ways of
God with men.
Firmness is the true gentleness.
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