It is not difficult to discover when a false system of pretended giving and pretended taking has been practised in a family, by the blank and disappointed look of the little giver, if a portion unexpectedly large is taken from its hand; as well as by the trembling and hesitation of that hand, and the fearfulness with which it is drawn back, the next time the ceremony of pretended giving has to be performed toward the individual who happened previously to take too much. Never, it may safely be said, were the elements of a truly generous character unfolded and brought to perfection by such a system as this—a system which, so far as it encouraged self-deception, and the substitution of mere pretence for what is real, just, and true, is exactly so much worse than absolute greediness.
If children must be greedy, let them by all means run first into the garden, and devour the ripe fruit before any one else has discovered that it is ripe; but do not let them come in to offer a small portion of it to mamma, in order to obtain her praises, though all the while feeling perfectly secure against any diminution of their own selfish enjoyment.
There is no need, however, that children should be greedy; because it is in the power of almost every mother, to teach them that there is a higher enjoyment than that of merely satisfying their own appetites. Suppose, for instance, it should be the established rule in a family that all first fruits should be offered to the parents, and that they should be appropriated entirely, but still thankfully, by them;—received simply as their due, but still acknowledged with every token of affection. For those self-devoted and uncalculating mothers, to whom allusion has been made, I am aware it would be difficult to do this, or to maintain any rule by which they would themselves be made first in their children's consideration; but could they once be made witnesses of that higher, purer joy, which pervades the soul of a young child on having learned that it is "more blessed to give than to receive," they would surely not deny them the cultivation of so lasting a source of real happiness.
