SINGING IN THE FAMILY.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1256, 16 March 1878, Page 3

SINGING IN THE FAMILY.

Cultivate singing in the family. Begin when the child is not yet three years old. The songs and hymns your mother sang, bring them all back to your memory, and teach then them to your little ones; mix thein all all together, to meet the similar moods, as in after life they come over us so mysteriously sometimes. Many a time and oft, in the very whir of business, in the sunshine and gaiety of the streets, and amid the splendor of the drives in a park, some little thing wakes up the memories of early youth—the old mill, the cool spring, the shady tree hy the little schoolhouse—and the next instant we almost see again the ruddy cheeks, the smiling faces, and the merry eyes of schoolmates, some gray-headed now, most " lie mouldering in the grave." And "the song your mother sang" springs unbidden to the lips, and soothes and sweetens all these memories. At other times, amid the crushing mishaps of business, a merry ditty of fhe olden time pops up its little head, breaks in upon the ugly train of thought, throws the mind into auother channel ; light breaks in from behind the cloud in the sky, and new courage is given to us. The honest man goes singing to his work, and when the day's labor is done, his tools laid aside, and he is on his way home, where wife and child, and tidy table, and cheerful fireside await him, he cannot but whistle or sing.—•'Prairie Farmer."