DUTIES OF PARENTS TO SCHOOLS

1. Parents should send their children to school constantly and seasonable.

2. They should see that they are decently clothed, and cleanly in their persons.

3. They should encourage them to respect and obey the rules and requirements of the school.

4. They should encourage them to be orderly in their deportment, and studiously to regard right.

5. They should encourage them to be studious by manifesting an interest in their lessons.

6. They should have regard for the character of the books their children read, and see that they read understandingly.

7. They should cultivate in their children habits of true politeness and courtesy

8. Besides visiting the school and co-operating and sympathising with the teacher, they can do much for its improvement and success, by manifesting at all proper places, an interest in its welfare, and a deep solicitude for its reputation; by speaking well of the teacher, and of all his judicious plans; by palliating or excusing his faults or failings, (of which every teacher must be expected to have some,) and by inducing their neighbors to visit the school and take an interest in its exercises; thus showing to their children, in the most convincing manner, that they feel that their present employment is an important one, and that the duties of school are not to be regarded as little con sequence.

Among the most important observances for school children, says Dr. Hall, and which every wise and affectionate parent will never bee sight of; are,

1. See that they have all the sleep that they can take. Every child under ten should be in bed by eight o’clock, summer and winter, so that they may have nearly eleven hours’ sleep. Those older should be in bed at nine and be required to rise at six; thus they will have more time for study in the morning, when the brain is rested and acts efficiently, and will also be prevented from injuring their eyes, as very many school children do, by using artificial light.

2. See to it that every child goes to bed with warm, dry feet, and that they sleep warm all night.

3. If you are a human, and not a brute, never allow your child to go to bed with wounded or ruffled feelings from any angry words, or harsh or hasty conduct on your part. Always send them off to school in a happy and affectionate state of mind; and when they return, let them be invariably received with a kindly greeting, and a loving, thankful heart that they are once more returned to you in health and safety. These things are the more necessary as their ambitions, their disappointments, their discouragements, and their troubles, in reference to their school and their lessons, are as important to them as yours to you in the mightier matters of life, and if they find not a balm for all these in the affection, and smiles, and sympathy, of their mothers especially, it is to them a misfortune, and to such mothers a disgrace.

4. By all possible means arrange that your children shall reach school with dry feet and dry clothing; the neglect of this has sent many a sweet child to its early grave, the victim of a mother’s carelessness or a teacher’s stupidity.

5. School children should eat with great regularity; thrice a day is all-sufficient for those above ten. Frequent eating, and tempting their appetites with sweetmeats and delicacies, has been the ground work of early and life-long dyspeptics to multitudes.

6. Teach children perseveringly the importance of attending promptly to the calls of nature and by any and every means bring it about that this shall be done before leaving for school in the morning. To this end arrange that they shall be through with their breakfasts an hour before it is necessary to start for school, even if they have to eat by candle-light. Oases of fatal inflammation of the bladder have often occurred in consequence of the ignorance or brutality of teachers in this connection.

7th. Embrace every opportunity of impressing the child’s mind with the fact that teachers are laboring for their good, and therefore ought to be, loved, respected, and obeyed, as their best friends.