Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, January 11, 1903, Page 23

Educational Value of the Mothers’ RS, FREDERICK dent of the HOFF, National Congress of presi- Mothers, discusses “The Task of the American Mother” in the New York Independent as fol lows As society has passed through its dif ferent processes of evolution the character of the home has slowly, almost insensibly altered. Greater wealth and greater lux- ury are now the daager to high ideals of life other special Our national relations with peoples have changed. The whole world of trade and commerce has been af rconditions Labor fected by new saving machines have destroyed home industri invaded the Kitchen and the while, at the same time, schools colleges and professions have thrown « their doors to the average woman science has sick-room n tempt- ing her far from the work she can do best The knowledge of all this—the desire to bring to the home all the benefits and none of the disadvantages of these great oppor- tunities and at the same time to so compre- hend the dignity and value of her work wife, mother and homemaker that she c: do this work for the sake of its results—all make the task of the twentieth ntury mother a difficult one. To meet her respon sibilities she must drop nothing of valuc that the old days held for motherhood, and she must add to her equipment. To her love, she must give thought; to her devotion she must add wisdom. Her work must be done with the aid of all the knowledge, science and tried experience that she can attain. Nor must the father be forgotten, for neither parent can alone fulfill the duties of parenthood. The child who has lost either father or mother, or, having bo h, finds them disunited in spirit, has a handicap in life race. If the father of the twentieth century is not to be a mere provider for the lower needs of his young family, he must seek more light and more special edu- cation than most men possess. Mothers learn their duties by daily and hourly con- tact with their children; but fathers, as a rule, see these children through the mother's eyes and, if they are not careful, s often undo her slow work by an igno- rance of the children's individualities or by total lack of knowledge of the In the GREAT fire occurs, says the Sat- urday Evening Post. Millions £o up in smoke. “Losses fully insurance,” we read and we are glad. A fine ship goes “All saved and and it doesn’t seem bad enough for Millions go up in smok« ; day; every twenty-four hours, on the age, a ship is wrecked—and the world with the it fiction that these stupendous losses are fully covered It is a universal illusion. The losses are lost irredeemably. They may be taken from the shoulders of the immediate own- ers and distributed among the crowd, but they are losses all the same. Loss s loss, and insurance or any other ingenuity of human providence cannot make it other- wise For illustration, take a scheme now in process of making. In spite of earnest pre- cautions there are bank failures with large Now the banks propose a mutual plan, insurance against failure, If one bank fails the other banks pay its they buiid up a fund for the pros- covered by lives vessel in- down. sured” a second thought eve ave moves on please losses insurance losses Clearing the Ice Cap Off the City Streets--One of the Incidental Feature which govern the bodies and minds laws growth of their This attitude is not to be demned. The struggle for life has becom £0 intense that it is asking much of a mar to turn from !t and daily devote some por tion of his time to the study of his children Yet that is precisely what the wise father of the twentieth century will do if he real izes, with the mother, that, although tho home is the unit of national life and its in fluence is never ending, still their children must pass beyond its limits into the wider world and in time take their turn in build ing and making our great republic. In so far as the standard of home life has been high, in so far as the parents have under- stood outside conditions and have succeeded in setting the example of upright and hon orable living under all circumstances, just s0 far are the boys and girls fitted to meet their duties of citizenship lightly con It was to inculcate this idea, to protect the dignity and sanctity of family life andl to surround the childhood of the whole world with mother-love, that the Congress of Mothers was organized in 1897, It was argued that the task of the parent is far more difficult than that of the teacher. Yet the one receives years of careful and special training, while the parents are few who ever have any preparation for the care of a child—even in the matters of physical well- being—until one is born to them. Upon the most precious material, the wealth of the nation, young fathers and mothers try their 'prentice hands, and sad has been the tale of some of the experiments The main work of the congress so far has been to call together great audiences of parents, to listen to advice offered by prac- tical workers and experts in all the prob- lems that beset the parents and guardians of children. It has formed parents’ clubs in schools, thus striving to unite teacher and parent in a common risk; it has invited both to confer upon their work of educa tion and character building. Nor has the congress finished its duty with this effort on behalf of the child happy enough to live in the average American home. Its thought has gone out to the poor and neglected little ones whose parents are dead, or worse than dead—the defective or the delinquent child in any walk of life, and especially to the child who, in his carly youth, is branded by the law. Matter of Fire pective losses. It is simply a distribution of the burdens Instead of coming down as thunderbolts on a part of a single com- munity the losses are sprinkled over tne entire country. But they are as much losses as though one individual sustained them We juggle with the word all through our lives. Men speak of making up lost ycars, lost sleep, lost opportunities, lost prestige They don't do it. They can't do it. The moment that has swept by is as much gone as though it were a million years old. The missed chance is as dead as yesterday. An eternity of repentence cannot recover the misspent hour. Fate does not turn back the clock or give rain checks. We have ideas. We dally and we lose them. Then we fish for them down in our consciousness—but do we get them again? The poet who has fine lines that never get on the paper, the painter who sees visions and delays mixing his pigments, the writer who blows his best thoughts through rings of laggard smoke, all think they will pull out their losses at other times—but the losses are there and they have not even the consolation of insurance. One of the most Because it is now recognized as part of motherhood, mothers the land over are studying the laws which govern the chil- dren of all our states. Whenever the siudy has been done systematically and by an or- ganized group of women, sure result has followed. A juvenile court is now lished in several of our states; and in many others the idea has waked to life and is arousing thought and interest estab- This is a new departure indeed for the woman who once believed that her duty was done when “her houschold is clothed in scarlet,” and her own children were loved and taught. Our twentieth century mother has grasped the nobler idea of patriotism; she rears her children for good citizenship, while in her ears rings the voice which de clares the least of His little ones is as Him self. “Give me the children,” former, “and in a generation your prisons will be empty, your reformatories closed.” A promise that seems too bold, until we compare it with Horace Fletcher's thought that, by surrounding childhood with the social quarantine of early training in good habits and fixed choice of the right, we can remake humanity. says the re- At both extremes of society are intelli gent care, control and sympathetic guidance of childhood imperatively needed The physical and moral wrecks of our so- ciety are not all found in what we arc pleased to call the lower cl es. The hu- man nature of the slums is seen not seldom in court circles under a thin disguise; and West Ends have many an object lesson in the immutability of the law ““Who breaks wise pays.’ Mothers who have given their children every desire of the heart—who would have given life itself for them-—have been doomed to watch them in the grip of uncontrolled passions, or dying as vic- tims of a moral disease far worse than any physical one. The poor mothers cry, in their agony, “Had I but known how to train my child, this would not have been.” Surely mothers of this class* need the edu- cation the twentieth century will offer. Even in the average home, where the children inherit good instincts and good habits, where neither dissipation nor pov- erty offers peculiar temptations, there stiil is needed the special education of the par- ent; for whatever has been well done with- Losses heroic things ever done since this world began was when Thomas Carlyle rewrote “The French Revolution' after the ignorant servant had burned the first manuscript in the grate. Some may say, here was a case in which the loss was no loss, thanks to a Scot nerve, but who can tell? Isn't it reas- onably certain that in that first manuscript Carlyle made things clearer and easic his readers? for Would not the most of us who read the second writing as a matter of duty like to catch a glimpse of the first? That burning was a loss—a mighty loss, and it illustrates better than anything else could the more complete losses that come when other men procrastinate with ideas and plans, or abandon them altogether. Regain one's losses? How? Take the greatest optimists—bald people! First and last they have spent more money on hair- restorers than Mr. Morgan or Mr. Rocke- feller owns, and never has a lost hair been restored. It may be an humble comparison, but lost years, energies, ambitions and such are as unrecoverable as lost hair neither effort nor quackery nor sighing bring them back. with them. But far below this world is that one in which an army ot little ones stand lifting their hands to us for help A great cery comes up to us from the lame, the the mentally defective, and the tainted who dwell in miserable homes in sick, morally the squalid quarterseof our great cities Society has been struggling with the prob lem for several centuries in Europe, and for several generations in our new world. That it is not solved is proved by Morrison’s opening chapter, in which he states that erime is on the increase and that, as a rule youthful crime is standard of home life and to the transmis sion of weakened health and blunted moral sense Yet, in this loving parents abound, who are willing to do for their chil dren all they know how; whose devotion and self-sacrifice are matchless. But her as elsewhere ignorance has interfered, and the strongest love cannot alone supply wis dom. To the submerged mothers the other mothers must go; and around the hapless children must be thrown all the loving thought and protecting influence which women can use. It is not enough to take such children from their surroundings and put them into asylums and institutions, or even into other families. It is far better, if it be possible at all, to keep them in the home with its humble “little h,” and raisc that home to a higher level parents in their duties. Out of her own home, this is the first immediate work of the twentieth century mother. But it is a gigantic task, and will call for the help of every intelligent woman. Most especially will it need the help of the woman who, never having had children, or having buried her heart in some tiny grave, has more leisure than that which the homekeeping woman, with many children, can command The work opens to such childless women the widest field for their womanly quali ties. No one can say that, in it, a woman is out of her sphere, for the one eternal attribute of womanhood is tender sympathy for all weak and euffering humanity. Now we shall s joined to it a knowledge which traceable to the low class, too, to educate the walks warily to avoid the mistakes of the P , & patience which is tr to endless beginnings after endless failures, Congress out skill and knowledge may be better done becau tudy h wght us the slow ing of results, and we shall find a power of self-control based upon logical law And shall find the the task abundantly worth whil 1 that tucation in psycho along with these, we convictio hat not only it is the only way in which to right the disjoined relation of our society we o must more or I lespadr 1 with any degree of pert child, ah, there lie th ture! To sum up, then, the attitude of the twentioth century mother is to declare that the love and never to b be added the them ' I killed in the physical car of e children She must know th h il values and suitable the homely virtue devotion of motherhood are impatred; but to them must tudy of how bhest to exerci twentieth century mother must combinations of food of cleanlin imnd order the need of rest md - exereis the precautions to Ia ohserved in hool life ant in adole realize that there a higher than My Grundy, and higher than and wealth, if luxury and case are not to become an insidious discas conet She must erities standards social And when she and the father have gained in confidence and respect of their children when they have set them exampl of up right life anl have scen their feet firmly planted on the road that leads upward then the mother who has met her duties honorably may - nay must - reach out to less fortunate children the e tender hands which guided her own. But she will have need of education in the laws of the child’s development, in the history of past efforts and new something experiments, she must be than a sentimental phil anthropist. She must have wisdom as well as love; firmness for th more well as sympathy And ge children, as for her own, she must study and comprehend the different phases through which children the laws under which they mature is the beginning of her task and love the end of it, but between the beginning and the end lies a long road, traveled securely only by parents who think as well as feel, who make it a deliberate choice to educato themselves as fit guides for children who are citize of a country which is to answer, in one way or the other, the ques tions of self-government and the future of mankind pass and Love Where Tramps Are Liked PEAKING of tramps, I know of one place in the United States where this interesting and erratic member of society is looked upon as a luxury,” said a visitor quoted by the New Orleans Picayune, “and instead of meeting with kicks and cuffs, and being hustled around by the welcomed. The place 1 oul in the extreme northwestern part of Arkansas, in the Ozark mcountains Few tramps ever get iuto that world. You see there is but one railroaa running through that part of the country Tramps, as you no doubt know, follow the railroads. But the which runs through the section of the Ozarks 1 have in mind regularly at the various points along the route, and be sides the small commercial centers are some distance apart. This is one reason for the scarcity of tramps out there. The ex treme cold is anoth reason If a tramp should happen to be thrown off in the mountains between stations he would likely freeze and starve before he could get within hallooing distance of a human being. Con always mind is police, he is have in region of the 'Frisco system does not stop ditions of this sort have the migrating element of the country population out of the Ozarks, and hence out there the tramp is luxury. The few enough to venture tended to keep a sort of bold looked upon as tramps who are into that section strike a perfect paradise for the winter if they happen to land in one of the centers of population By lghter work around the house he will be fed like a prince for several months, and will wind up with a suit of clothes, and if he suc ceeds in winning the good will of the fam ily he is with he will be cordially invited doing some of th to return the next winter. There are no negroes out there Servants are very gcarce, In the summer servants are not needed But when the mountains are wrapped in snow and ice the familics begin to look around for help, for some person to split kindling and hring in wood, and do other little things of the kind. They watch for the coming of the hobo, and out there his footfall is always a welcome sound Children whose habit are parents have the entitled to a lot of nagging sympathy of the Winter Scason SON OF SUNNY ITALY by a Staff Artist WHO FINDS ICE DIGGING A MEANS TO LIVING—Photo NTH AND DOUGLAS DURING A JANUARY THAW Photo by a Staff Artist