--_Joseph Joubert._ 289 _Spurgeon said_: "With children we must mix gentleness with firmness; they must not always have their own way, but they must not always be thwarted. If we never have headaches through rebuking them, we shall have plenty of heartaches when they grow up. If you yield up your authority once, you will hardly ever get it again." 290 Parents deserve reproof when they refuse to benefit their children by proper discipline. 291 My dearest pastime is with children. 292 Children are poor men's riches. 293 Nothing has a better effect upon children than praise. --_Sir P. Sidney._ 294 _Their Little Needs_--It is often asserted that both men and women would be selfish beings but for children. They call out, and refine, and soften the best feelings of the parental heart. Their little needs are so many, and their simple ignorance so affecting, and their very caprices so winning, that love and attention flow out to them almost instinctively. That must be a hardened nature which can be unmoved by the soft touch, the playful childishness, and the hundred little pranks of a baby. --_Unknown._ 295 You can not expect better manners from your children than you teach them. They imitate instinctively. 296 Children should be taught early to sympathize with the deformed, the crippled, and otherwise unfortunate beings: A little dwarfed girl in one of our great cities committed suicide a few years ago because she was so weary of being laughed at and ridiculed by her associates in the streets and at school. An old street pedlar was set upon by school children and so annoyed and misused that he became insane. 297 MY CHILDREN STILL. A young preacher recently called upon an eminent Divine, and in the course of conversation asked him how many children he had. "Four, sir," was the reply. At the supper-table, the visitor perceived two beautiful children seated by the side of the mother. Turning to his host, he said, "I thought you had four children, sir: Where are the other two?" Lifting his eyes, the holy man of God pointed upwards, while a sweet smile broke over his countenance. "They are in Heaven," he repeated slowly and calmly; "yet my children still: not dead, but gone before." 298 Dr. Samuel Johnson once said, "Above all, accustom your children constantly to tell the truth; without varying in any circumstance." A lady who heard him said, "Nay, this is too much, for a little variation in narrative must happen a thousand times a day, if one is not perpetually watching." "Well, madam," said the Doctor, "you ought to be perpetually watching." 299 He knows not what love is, that has no children. 300 Children are travelers newly arrived in a strange country; we should therefore make conscience not to mislead them. 301 IT'S ONLY ME.