Excerpt from The Little Child at the Breakfast Table: At the Breakfast Table; Days and Seasons; Little Prayers for Morning, Bed-Time, and Household Thanksgiving In our home we had long been in the habit of reading at the breakfast table from a little book called Daily Strength, and we loved the habit and the book. The reading began the busy day with a quiet moment of thankfulness, in which we all joined. While the children were little, they sat silent by our side, feeling only that it was a morning word with God in their home, somewhat like their own word with him at night. But as they grew old enough to read, we wished them to take part with us in this household greeting. We felt that we should fail as parents unless it became dear to them as well as to us; and we wanted the memory of our morning thanksgivings to mingle deeply with their recollections of the old home, their childhood and ourselves. But the words that we elders found on the page for the day were seldom adapted to them. Not that the thoughts were all too high for our little transcendentalists, but the life-problems dwelt on were often remote from a child's experience, and the forms of expres sion not in accord with the mind of a child, who needs words short and simple and suggestive of pictures. Finding no book quite fitted to our purpose, we arranged and printed a small collection of readings, calling it The Little Child at the Breakfast Table. There were but thirty-one readings in all, one for each day of the month. That seemed enough for variety, yet not too many for love, as repetition might make them familiar. Children welcome repetition of that which they like. This was eighteen years ago. All came about as we had hoped, only better than our hope. Month after month the home-day opened with the little book read at the breakfast table. There were favorites, of course, but gradually everything in it became known almost by heart. Our thought had been to provide something for the five to ten-year old period; but, by the children's own love and choice, it lasted well over the edge of their teens, and until, with their help, we began to arrange a somewhat older collection to take its place. As long as they live, they will remember the morning moment that made God, Home, and mother and-father love, parts of one thought and feeling. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.