PEDIATRICS Vol. 48 No. 1 July 1971, pp. 58
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MRS. LYDIA MARIA CHILD IN 1844 TELLS MOTHERS HOW TO DEVELOP THEIR CHILD'S CHARACTER

T. E. C. Jr. M.D.

Mrs. Lydia Maria Child (1802-1880), a prolific writer and humanitarian reformer, wrote the most widely read early 19th century book to guide mothers in the correct management of their children. Here is her advice on how to develop good affections or character in a child:

It is a common opinion that a spirit of revenge is natural to children. No doubt bad temper, as well as other evils, moral and physical, are often hereditary–and here is a fresh reason for being good ourselves, if we would have our children good. But allowing that evil propensities are hereditary, and therefore born with children, how are they excited, and called into action?

First, by the influences of the nursery–those early influences, which, beginning as they do with life itself, are easily mistaken for the operations of nature; and in the second place, by the temptations of the world.

Now, if a child has ever so bad propensities, if the influences of the nursery be pure and holy, his evils will never be excited, or roused into action, until his understanding is enlightened, and his principles formed, so that he has power to resist them. The temptations of the world will do him no harm; he will "overcome evil with good."

But if, on the other hand, the influences of the nursery are bad, the weak passions of the child are strengthened before his understanding is made strong; he gets into habits of evil before he is capable of perceiving that they are evil. Consequently, when he comes out into the world, he brings no armor against its temptations.