CHILDREN HAVE THEIR RIGHTS.

HERE is not a day of my life in which I am not vexed at the injustice done to children. A Sunday or two since, I went to church. In the pew directly in front of me sat a fine little lad, about twelve years old, unobtrusively taking notes of the sermon. By my side sat a man—gentleman, I suppose, he called himself—his coat, pants, boots, and linen were all right as far as I am any judge, and dress seems to be the test now-a-days—who occupied himself in leaning over the front of the pew, and reading what the boy was writing—evidently much to the discomfiture of the latter. Now I would like to ask, why that child's pencilled notes should not have been as safe from curious eyes as if he had been an adult? and what right that grown-up man had, to bother and annoy him, by impertinently peeping over his shoulder? and of what use is it to preach good manners to children, while nobody thinks it worth while to practice the same toward them? The other day I was sitting in a car, and a nice, well-behaved boy of ten years took his seat and paid his fare. Directly after, in came the conductor, and without a word of comment, coolly took him by the shoulder and placed him on his feet, and then motioned a lady to his vacant seat? Why not ask the child, at least? I have often been struck with the ready civility of boys in this respect, in public conveyances—but that is no reason why they should be imposed upon; the lady who took the seat might possibly have thanked a gentleman for yielding it to her, but she evidently did not think that good manners required she should thank the boy. Again—what right has a gentleman to take a blushing little girl of twelve or thirteen and seat her on his knee, when he happens to want her seat. I have seen timid, bashful girls, suffering crucifixion at the smiles called forth by this free and easy act; and sometimes actually turning away their faces to conceal tears of mortification; for there are little female children unspoiled even by the present bold system of childhood annihilation—little violets who seek the shade, and do not care to be handled and pulled about by every passer-by. Again—why will parents, or those who have the charge of children, make hypocrites of them by saying, Go kiss such and such a person? A kiss is a holy thing, or should be, and not to be lightly bestowed. At any rate, it never should be compulsorily given. Children have their likes and dislikes, and often much more rationally grounded than those of grown people, though they may not be able to syllable them. I never shall forget a snuffy old lady whom I used to be obliged, when a child, to kiss. I am not at all sure that my unconquerable aversion to every form of tobacco does not date from these repulsive and compulsory kisses. With what a lingering horror I approached her, and with what a shiver of disgust I retreated to scrub my lips with my pinafore, and shake my locks, lest peradventure a particle of snuff had lodged there. How I wondered what she would do in Heaven without that snuff-box, for she was a "church member," and my notions of Heaven could by no stretch of liberality admit such a nuisance; and how I inwardly vowed that if I ever grew to be a woman, and if I ever was married, and if I ever had a little girl, all of which were dead certainties in my childish future, I would never make her kiss a person unless she chose to do it, never—never—which article of my pinafore creed I do here publicly indorse with my matronly hand.

Again, what more abominable tyranny than to force a child to eat turnip, or cabbage, or fat meat or anything else for which it has an unconquerable and unexplainable disgust? I have seen children actually shudder and turn pale at being obliged to swallow such things. Pray, why should not their wishes in this respect be regarded as much as those of their seniors? Not that a child should eat everything which it craves indiscriminately, but it should never, in my opinion, be forced to swallow what is unpalatable, except in the case of medicine, about which parents tell such fibs—that it "tastes good," and all that—when they should say honestly, "It is very bad indeed, but you know you must take it, and the sooner it is over the better; now be brave and swallow it." I do protest too against forcing big boys to wear long curls down their backs after they are well into jackets, for the gratification of mamma's pride, who "can't bear to cut them off," not even though her boy skulks out of sight of every "fellow" he meets for fear of being called a "girl-boy;" or the practice making a boy of that age wear an apron, which the "fellows" are quite as apt to twit him about, or anything else which makes him look odd or ridiculous. There is no computing the suffering of children in these respects. I dare say many who read this will say, "But they should be taught not to mind such things," etc.; that's all very well to say, but suppose you try it yourself;—suppose you were compelled to walk into church on Sunday with a collar that covered your cheeks, and your great-grand-father's coat and vest on; to hear the suppressed titters, and be an object of remark every time you stirred; and you a man who hated notoriety, and felt like knocking everybody down who stared at you? How would that suit? Nothing like bringing a case home to yourself. Just sit down and recall your own childhood, and remember the big lumps in your little throat that seemed like to choke you, and the big tears of shame that came rolling down on your jacket, from some such cause, and don't go through the world striding with your grown-up boots on little children. They are not all angels, I know; some of them are malicious, and ugly, and selfish and disagreeable; and whose fault is it?—answer me that? Not one time in ten, the child's. You may be sure of it. God made it right, but there were bunglers who undertook a charge from which an angel might shrink.

And now I want to put in a plea for the children about story-reading. At a certain age, children of both sexes delight in stories. It is as natural, as it is for them to skip, run and jump, instead of walking at the staid pace of their grandparents. Now some parents, very well meaning ones too, think they do a wise thing when they deny this most innocent craving, any legitimate outlet. They wish to cultivate, they say, "a taste for solid reading." They might as well begin to feed a new-born baby on meat, lest nursing should vitiate its desire for it. The taste for meat will come when the child has teeth to chew it; so will the taste for "solid reading" as the mind matures—i. e., if it is not made to hate it, by having it forced violently upon its attention during the story-loving period. That "there is a time for all things," is truer of nothing more, than of this. Better far that parents should admit it, and wisely indulge it, than, by a too severe repression, give occasion for stealthy promiscuous reading.

How delicious in these days of hot-house-childhood it is to find a little one who can relish puss in the corner. To find one who does not at six years of age turn up its little nose at everything but "round dances," and a supper of "pâté de foie gras" and champagne. What a sorrowful sight are those blasé languid little things who are incapable of a new sensation before they are out of short clothes—to whom already there is no childhood left—who have turned their backs on that path of flowers to which they can never return, through long years of satiety and weariness. What shall compensate them for the dear, fresh, innocent, simple delights, which to children, naturally and simply brought up, are so attractive? We are all making grave mistakes about children. Those who unfortunately live always in a great city, are mostly the sufferers. Life there is such a maelstrom, swallowing up every hour so much that is lovely and beautiful. Fathers, and mothers, delegating so much of the care and oversight of them to those, whose paid service yields neither sympathy nor appreciation to the victims under their charge. Toy shops are ransacked, and small fortunes expended, to supply this lamentable deficiency; till the weary little one at six or seven has exhausted the stock, and sighs for "something new;" like a flirt who has put her slipper on a thousand hearts, or a man of the world, reduced by too much money and leisure, and too little brains, to caress the head of his cane, long, weary hours, staring out of his club window. I think this is very pitiful, both for the child and the man. Indeed it is children so brought up, who make such men, and women of a corresponding type. Life seems fast losing its simplicity merely for want of the brave courage to defy fashion's encroachments. "What will they think?" is at the bottom of it. Who among us has pluck enough to snap our fingers at that question, and face the formidable—"Did you ever?" which treads upon the heels of independent thought and action, even in a right and obviously sensible direction. Nor is it a question of sex. I find as much of this spirit, or the want of it, in one sex as in the other, and the children are the victims.

Now children naturally hate fine clothes and the restrictions upon freedom and enjoyment that they impose. Children naturally prefer live animals, to the pink dogs, and blue sheep, and green cows, presented in a wooden "Noah's Ark." Children naturally prefer a garden and a shovel, to a stereotyped lounge, with a silent cross nurse, over city pavements. Children should be put to bed by loving hands, and their eyes closed with a kiss, as our cherished dead pass into the land of silence. Children should leap into loving arms when they again open their eyes with the baptism of the fresh morning light.

Children should be kept in ignorance of nearly all that is now as familiar to their ears as their own names. But, alas! we all know how different things really are, and the result—is the children of to-day—children, with rare and blessed exceptions, only in name. Oh! the perpetual "nurse;" the perpetual nursery! The sad sight of the spirit-weary little child checked in its most innocent and healthy impulses; called "naughty," for being buoyant and merry, till sullenness and defiant mischief are the result. Oh, mother in the parlor, take off that silk dress which little feet may not climb upon, and take a seat in your own nursery, and give that little one the love, without which its whole sweet nature shall be turned into bitterness. Oh, father, at the sound of whose footstep that child must always "hush up" or beat a hasty retreat to parts unknown—how much, how very much you lose, when never that little face grows brighter that "papa has come home;" when, with your hands thrust into your coat-pocket, you lounge along toward your door, and never invite with your love that dear blessed little nose, to flatten itself against the window-pane, watching for "my papa."

My papa! Good heavens! what is it to be Senator, Member of Congress, President, King, to that? "My papa!" Man! what can you be thinking of, that the sweet, trustful, blessed ownership in those two little words, fails to move every drop of your blood? And what can the wide earth, with all its cheating promises, give you, in compensation for that which your short-sighted folly throws away? Oh, sometimes, stop and think of that.