Train up a Child In the Way He Should Go Text

Abstract

This is a piece by Sir Wilfred Lawson which has its tongue firmly in its cheek. The seemingly joyful nature of the passage highlights the influence of the drinks industry over the state. The powerful illustration shows the reality of the drunkard child and the ironic quote from the poem ‘Oh joy! That in this Christian land Should fall my happy fate.

“Train up a child in the way he should go”

I thank the goodness and the grace
Which on my birth have smiled,
And made me, in these Christian days,
A happy English child.

I was not born as, it appears,
Some wretched ones have been,
Compelled to spend their infant years
Deprived of beer and gin.

Kind friends with care provide that naught
My rising virtue baulk ;
To seek the “public” I am taught
As soon as I can walk.

‘Tis there my tottering steps they lead,
And shape my course aright ;
To those entrancing homes, indeed,
Of sweetness and of light.

Oh joy! that in this Christian land
Should fall my fappy fate,
Where “pubs” are always close at hand,
And Drink controls the State.

14th October 1897.