THE IMPORTANCE OF SYMPATHY BETWEEN THE MOTHER AND THE CHILD.

An Address delivered before the New York Maternal Association.

BY REV. JACOB ABBOTT.

I SHOULD have been pleased if the ladies of this Association, in asking me to address them, had assigned me some particular topic on which to speak. The field of Christian education is a boundless one. The more we explore it, the more unlimited it seems. In entering upon it, on such an occasion as this, without some restriction, we are in danger of losing ourselves in vague generalities. With the design of guarding against this danger, I have selected for the topic of the few remarks which I propose now to address to you,

The Importance of Sympathy between the Mother and the Child.

Sympathy is very distinct from love. There may be strong love with very little sympathy. It is true they very often accompany each other. Among equals perhaps one seldom exists without the other. But between the parent and the child the instinctive affection on the one side may be very powerful, while there is no common bond of union, and consequently there will be very little return of love on the other.

To sympathize with a child is to understand, and appreciate, and in some measure to partake of, his feelings and desires-in all the various circumstances which awaken them. She who sympathizes with a child acquires a vast ascendency over his mind. This is the secret of the magical influence which some persons seem to exercise over the young, and which many think they would give anything in their power to possess. The secret is in sympathy. It consists in just understanding how children think and feel, and in sharing those thoughts and feelings. Expressed thus in general terms it seems a very simple principle, -but its influence is universal in modifying all the treatment which the child receives at its parents' hands.

I have said that there is often very little sympathy between

the parent and the child. It is not surprising that this should be so. In fact we may almost consider it surprising that it should be ever otherwise. Everything tends to produce a total dissimilarity in all the habits of thought and feeling which characterize these different periods of existence. The child enters upon life dazzled and delighted with the novelty and brilliancy of the whole scene around him. For the mother, the novelty has gone,-the brilliancy has faded, and the world is decked to her in sober colors, which every year have less and less of charm. The child is thoughtless and gay. Having no responsibilities to bear, Providence has formed it incapable of feeling the burden of responsibility. The mother's heart is full of care. A heavy load rests upon her continually, which makes her eye restless and contracts her brow. The child is full of instinctive gladness and glee. He is happy at nothing. He laughs from the mere pleasure of laughing, and finds everything a resource for pleasure and play. The mother is thoughtful and sedate. Time has sobered her. Anxieties have sobered her; and perhaps sorrow. The child is full of imagination and vivacity, everything is seen metamorphosed or magnified. The sofa and the chairs, to his eyes, are gay carriages and spirited horses; he sees castles in the fire, and lions and tigers on the wall: the lawn is a boundless expanse of verdure, and the congregation at church a countless throng. To the mother the congregation is thin, the lawn is too contracted, the wall is a mere wall,-and the furniture plain furniture, far below the standard of her ambition. And so in regard to moral vision. The mother is removed from all temptation to take sweetmeats furtively, to tell falsehoods,-to strike those that displease her. But the boy, full of appetites and impulses all new and all growing in strength every day, unaccustomed to the art of restraining them,-unacquainted with the necessity of restraining them, is continually going astray; and the mother, judging his transgressions by the same standard with which it would be proper to measure her own, is astonished and vexed at his faults, and wonders that her injunctions and the plain principles of duty are capable of exercising over his heart so little control. All these things combine to separate the middle-aged

from the young in heart and feeling. The mother loves her childshe protects him, she watches over him, but often she does not understand him. There is no harmony or sympathy in feeling. The desires, and hopes, and fears, and endless imaginings of the youthful heart, she does not appreciate, and of course does not share.

Where there is a want of sympathy between the parent and the child, there can be but little influence of the one over the other, except, indeed, the influence of command and fear. Children know, by an instinct never at fault, who enter into and sympathize with their childish feelings, and who do not. If you look down upon their amusements and plans, as upon something beneath you, something which you merely tolerate in them,and perhaps tolerate reluctantly, on account of the trouble which they incidentally occasion you, they will soon feel that you and they have as it were taken opposite sides. They will feel alienated from you, or rather will feel that you have alienated yourself from them. So in regard to the faults which they commit. If you enter into their feelings, place yourself in imagination in their situations, and consider the nature and the strength of the temptations which weigh upon them, they will see in you a kind and sympathizing friend, even while you are taking the most decided and efficient measures to correct the faults into which they have fallen.

But how shall the parent learn to feel this sympathy for his children? I answer:

1. Observe them. Study them. Thousands of parents know nothing about their children. They know their faces, their names, perhaps their ages, but of their hearts,-their hopes and fears, the world of fancy and imagination that they live in, they know nothing. They love them, it is true. They toil incessantly to provide for their wants or to lay up a store of future wealth for them. But they do not know them. Now to know children we must go to them. We must lay aside our business, our wandering thoughts, our care-worn faces, and go into the centre of the little group, making ourselves one of them. There we must listen to their talk, notice their mistakes, study the hidden meaning of their actions, and from what we see acted out on their little stage,

discover the nature and movements of the hidden springs within. There can be no more interesting study than this. The subjects are all around us. They are invested with a beauty and charm unspeakable. We give enjoyment and we receive enjoyment at every step of our progress. The little world of mystery which we attempt to enter and explore, flits before us in an endless change, exposing itself by the most transparent media, and unfolding its most hidden recesses freely and spontaneously to our view. Thus the child is the most simple, the most alluring, the most useful study for the man.

Then, to study children is making sure of sympathizing with them. We cannot watch them without catching their spirit. We cannot see the world of enchantment which they live in, without entering it and learning in some measure to live in it ourselves. Thus we link ourselves to them, we catch the freemasonry of their looks and gestures. We understand them and can make them understand us, and we come into possession of that magical ascendency which some persons seem to possess over their minds, and which many others are so much at a loss even to comprehend.

2. Learn always to put the most favorable construction upon all which your children do or say, in representing the case to them. If you hear indirectly that they have done something wrong, suspend your judgment till you have fully learned all the particulars of the case, and listen to what they have to say with a desire to put the most favorable construction upon it. I say with a desire to put the most favorable construction upon it, meaning that you show a disposition at the outset to judge favorably, while you still firmly put the true construction upon it at last, even if it is an unfavorable one. If, for instance, you have given your boy leave to go out to play for half an hour. The time elapses and he does not return. Do not, as many would do in such a case, condemn him unheard and get your reproaches and invectives prepared to launch against him when he enters, and perhaps even utter some in anticipation in the hearing of the other children. Let the other children, on the contrary, see that you continue to regard him as innocent till he is proved to be

guilty. Meet him when he returns with a pleasant countenance, -a countenance expressive of hope that he can give a good reason for his absence; and if on hearing his report and faithfully though fairly scrutinising it, he appears not justified, let him see that you are disappointed and sorrowful, not vexed and angry,— let him see that you listen to his plea, not impatiently and with a prejudication against it, but with candor and hope, and that you come to the conclusion to condemn him slowly, reluctantly, and with pain.

3. Parents who wish to secure the confidence and sympathy of their children, should never dispute with them. It is almost impossible to get engaged in a dispute without being unfair. How often do we find that the most confirmed and experienced Christians, when fairly warm even in a theological combat, lose their good-nature and candor, twist and turn the positions and arguments of their antagonists in the most unjust distortion, and struggle to crowd down and trample upon one another in the most heartless and tyrannical manner. Now this spirit is very prone to show itself in all cases of disputation. And the consequences are peculiarly disastrous when the parties are a teacher and his pupil, or a mother and her child. In such cases the stronger party is hardly ever candid and fair. The feebly and imperfectly expressed arguments of the weaker one are but half heard, and half considered. That which is perhaps deserving of but little weight is allowed not half the weight that it really deserves. The feebler party is overpowered and silenced, half by argument half by authority. He feels that he has suffered injustice though he has not the skill to show why, and if he makes the attempt, his opponent does not wish to hear another word said about it, and ends the discussion. It requires no explanation to show how powerful the influence of such a contest is in destroying all sympathy and fellow-feeling, and implanting, in their stead, a deep and lasting alienation.

If, therefore, you ever enter into any discussion whatever with a child, be his friend and helper in it, and not merely his antagonist. Aid him in expressing what he attempts to say. Encourage him. Give full force to his arguments, even if they are weak arguments.