upon the character of their children, begin to train them, both by example and precept, from their tenderest years._ (On this subject see also Homiletics on chap. iv. 1-4.) _OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS._ The future may be imperative. We prefer this view. "_Let_ a wise son make a glad father." If a man has a good son, let it be his one all-sufficient gratification. . . . Men toil for their children, and give themselves pain in their behalf to an extent absolutely heroic, considering how they abnegate self, but to an extent altogether disproportioned, as between their temporal and eternal warfare. This is one way we destroy our children. If their temporal inheritance is threatened, we are all on thorns; but if they are doing well or ill in piety, we give it but little notice. The verb, therefore, as an imperative, means most. "_Let_ a foolish son be the grief of his mother," that is, an unconverted son. He may be all smiles and amiableness, and the father's business may be doing well, but if he is a fool, spiritually, it should be his mother's grief. And then follow the reasons--(For) "treasures of wickedness profit nothing," etc.--_Miller._ Perhaps this first sentence may have been placed in the front to point to the value of a godly education in the personal, social, national influence, connected both with time and eternity.--_Bridges._ The father is specially said to be gladdened by a wise son as he is of a more severe nature, and not so likely to form a partial estimate, and therefore not so easily gladdened as the mother; so that it is the stronger praise of the wise son to say that not only the mother, but also the father, is gladdened by him. On the other hand, the mother is apt, through fondness, to ignore the errors of her son, and even to encourage them by indulgent connivance. The wise man admonishes here that she is laying up "heaviness" in store for herself.--_Fausset._ After the previous general description of Wisdom, Solomon begins with what is uppermost in his own mind, What would be the character of his successor? What would become of his throne, his wealth, his people, after himself? See his melancholy forebodings in Proverbs xvii. 2-21, 25; xix. 13; Eccles. ii. 18, etc. Solomon has one son, and he is Rehoboam. This thought lies underneath many of the sayings in the Proverbs.--_Wordsworth._ Every son should be an Abner, that is, his father's light, and every daughter an Abigail, her father's joy. Eve promised herself much in her Cain, and David did the like in his Absalom. But they were both deceived. Samuel succeeds Eli in his cross, though not in his sin. Virtue is not, as lands, inheritable. Let parents labour to mend by education what they have marred by propagation.--_Trapp._