The Horse Trainer’s Method.—The Training Which Develops Talents.—When Child-training Should Begin.—The Training of Her Children the Mother’s All-important Calling.—The Influence of the Mother’s Own Character and Life.—The Children Imitators of their Parents.—Importance of Earliest Training.—Spoiled Children.—Children’s Rights.—The Proper Correction of Children.—Broken Promises and Parental Falsehoods.—Value of Tact in Parental Discipline.—Value of Parental Sympathy.—The Mother, Herself, the Best Gift to Her Children.—The Choice of Books and Stories.—The Choice of Companions for the Children.—Toys, Sports and Amusements.—An Appeal to Mothers. MOLDING THE CLAY. Within their tiny hands my children hold A ball of yielding clay, And, as they try some dainty form to mold, I hear them softly say, “What shall we make? an apple or a vase? Some marbles, or a fan?” One little boy, a smile upon his face, Says, “I shall make a man.” Straightway, with lengthened face, he, at his task, Begins, and ’neath the hands Unskilful, weak, and yet too proud to ask For aid, a form expands, Crude, and yet not too poor to show the man Hid in the maker’s thought— How different yet if some skilled artisan The ball of clay had wrought. To-day within my hands my children lie, I shape them as I will, And seek for aid from Him that is on high, That He may with His skill Teach my weak, willing hands to rightly mold The clay that I have sought, That in true forms of beauty may unfold The Maker’s highest thought.—TRANSCRIPT. “I regretted that you had no child, because I thought your heart would not receive that education for heaven which the care of children alone can give. You are surprised perhaps, for you are thinking only of educating your child; but let me tell you that we parents are as much indebted to our children as they to us.”—ANNA E. PORTER. “Who is sufficient for these things?” In a recent magazine article, on the training of horses, I found the following: “The thoroughly competent trainer considers the colt’s individuality and breeding, for upon these depend the measures to be taken to develop the animal into a race-horse. Every good or bad quality in a race-horse is inherited from sire or dam; courage, endurance, extreme speed, action, ability to carry weight, soundness or unsoundness, good or bad temper, all these are matters of inheritance, and must be carefully looked for by the trainer as he develops his horses. The trainer is constantly devising schemes to counteract the faults and to make the best use of the good points of his horses.