as his judgment shall dictate. But reasons should
never be given as inducements to obey a command. The more completely the
obedience to a command rests on the principle of simple submission to
authority, the easier and better it will be both for parent and child.

_Manner of exercising Authority_.

Let no reader fall into the error of supposing that the mother's making
her authority the basis of her government renders it necessary for her to
assume a stern and severe aspect towards her children, in her intercourse
with them; or to issue her commands in a harsh, abrupt, and imperious
manner; or always to refrain from explaining, at the time, the reasons for
a command or a prohibition. The more gentle the manner, and the more kind
and courteous the tones in which the mother's wishes are expressed, the
better, provided only that the wishes, however expressed, are really the
mandates of an authority which is to be yielded to at once without question
or delay. She may say, "Mary, will you please to leave your doll and take
this letter for me into the library to your father?" or, "Johnny, in five
minutes it will be time for you to put your blocks away to go to bed; I
will tell you when the time is out;" or, "James, look at the clock"--to
call his attention to the fact that the time is arrived for him to go to
school. No matter, in a word, under how mild and gentle a form the mother's
commands are given, provided only that the children are trained to
understand that they are at once to be obeyed.

_A second Objection_.

Another large class of mothers are deterred from making any efficient
effort to establish their authority over their children for fear of thereby
alienating their affections. "I wish my child to love me," says a mother of
this class. "That is the supreme and never-ceasing wish of my heart; and if
I am continually thwarting and constraining her by my authority, she will
soon learn to consider me an obstacle to her happiness, and I shall become
an object of her aversion and dislike."

There is some truth, no doubt, in this statement thus expressed, but it is
not applicable to the case, for the reason that there is no need whatever
for a mother's "continually thwarting and constraining" her children in her
efforts to establish her authority over them. The love which they will
feel for her will depend in a great measure upon the degree in which
she sympathizes and takes part with them in their occupations, thei