Importance of Mother

“Who knows not that the springs of an empire’s prosperity lie in its domestic constitution, and in well-trained families? Even one such family is a contribution to the majestic flow of a nations greatness. Can such families exist without a woman’s care, oversight, and wisdom? Has it not grown into a proverb that home has ever been the nursery of great men, and their mothers their instructresses? It may be said, as a general principle, that woman is not only the mother of the body, but of the character of her children. To her is first entrusted the instruction of the mind, the cultivation of the heart, and the formation of the life. Thought, feeling, will, imagination, virtue, religion, or the contrary moral tendencies all germinate under fostering influence. The dominant direction which is to determine the whole course of life lies concealed in the first years of infancy, and these belong to mother.” 

    ~ John Angell James, Female Piety 1860