I am aware that Brother Franklin D. Richards' request to the children to come to meeting this afternoon has produced a little excitement; but we are very happy to see the people together. My remarks will be to parents as well as to children. I will commence by saying that if each and every one of us who are parents will reflect upon the responsibilities devolving upon us we shall come to the conclusion that we should never permit ourselves to do anything that we are not willing to see our children do. We should set them an example that we wish them to imitate. Do we realize this? How often we see parents demand obedience, good behavior, kind words, pleasant looks, a sweet voice and a bright eye from a child or children when they themselves are full of bitterness and scolding! How inconsistent and unreasonable [unreasonable] this is! If we wish our children to look pleasant we should look pleasant at them; and if we wish them to speak kind words to each other, let us speak kind words to them. We need not go into detail, but we should carry out this principle from year to year in our whole lives, and do as we wish our children to do. I say this with regard to our morals and our faith in our religion.
Now let me call the attention of parents to another subject worthy of their notice—that is, the use of proper language. Take us as a people and we are not overstocked with language; there are very few highly educated men in the Church to which we belong. We have a few learned men and a few good scholars among the women, but they are scarce. Now, parents, and I wish you to remember this, should never permit themselves to speak improperly before a child, or to use language that would not be commendable in an orator. If you have not such language at your command, then use the best you have. It is true that to use that which we are in possession of to advantage is a peculiar gift. We see some who can use language, apparently, to their entire satisfaction, and yet they have no great store of language at their command; but still they have the happy faculty of conveying their ideas with greater propriety than others who are literary in their tastes and have been highly educated. There is considerable in making choice of words. For instance, if we were to address a man who had been disobedient and needed chastisement we would use very different language from that which would be used if addressing a child or a lady. If you wish to impress on the minds of individuals or an audience anything that you desire them to remember, you will have to use language accordingly. I have heard it observed that language should be used according to the merits or demerits of the case under consideration; this will do under some circumstances. I wish to impress upon myself, as well as upon my brethren and sisters, the propriety of never using language to a child that we should dislike to hear them use in refined society. If we have a choice set of words at our command we should always use them when speaking to our children, even from the time they commence to talk. If we do this, the effect will be very pleasing in after years, for when our children enter into polite and refined society, instead of being mortified and having to call them to one side to correct their unrefined language, the elegance and propriety of their mode of expression will be a source of gratification and pleasure. If a child has to be corrected for the use of improper or inelegant language, it might reply, "Mother, or father, I am using words that you taught me."
Carry out this principle, not only in language, but in all the affairs of life; and let us always set an example before our children that is worthy of their imitation and highest admiration. If we do this, we shall have occasion to rejoice and be exceeding glad, for we shall have influence over them and they will not forsake us.
There is a passage in this good book (the Bible) said to have been written by a very wise man, which says—
"Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."