JENKINS.
The memories of childhood cling, perhaps, more tenaciously than those
of any after period of life. The attachments and antipathies then
formed are more enduring. Our school-companions at our first
school--the children of our immediate neighborhood, who first rolled
with us upon the grass, and dabbled with us in the branch--we never
forget. Time, absence, protracted separation, all fail to obliterate
the features, the dispositions, or anything about them, which so
unconsciously fastens upon the mind, and grows into the tender soul of
childhood. These memories retain and bring back with them the feelings,
the likes and dislikes, which grew with them. These feelings are the
basis of lifetime loves, and eternal antipathies.
The boy is father to the man, as the girl is mother to the woman. Who
that has lived seventy years will not attest this from his own life's
experience? The generous, truthful boy will be the noble, honorable
man; the modest, timid, truthful girl will be the gentle, kind, and
upright woman. Nature plants the germ, and education but cultivates the
tree.
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