Page:Letters to Mothers (1839).djvu/112

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to trouble the good seed. It nurtures the listening babe, with the "sweet words of sweetly uttered knowledge." "It holdeth, said Sir Philip Sydney, little children from their play, and old men from the chimney corner." Especially does it prompt the cradle-sleeper to love the God and Father of us all, and as he advances in stature, walks with him amid the charms and harmonies of Nature, speaking the language of a clime, where beauty never fades, and where melody is immortal.

Simple, vocal musick, the mother will be desirous to introduce into her system of early education. Its softening, soothing, cheering influences, have been too often tested to need additional evidence; and its affinity with devotion has been felt by every one who has heard a little group singing their sacred song ere they retired to rest, while even the infant on its mother's knee, imitated her tones, its heart swelling with the spirit of praise, ere the understanding was able to comprehend its dialect.

Yet it was not my intention in this letter, have defined the department of early education but simply to urge mothers to consider it their province. I feel persuaded, that after they have for a few years, superintended daily and systematically, the culture of the beings entrusted them, they would not be willing to exchange it