The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, March 22, 1903, Page 6

THE SUNDAY CALL. HERE is a very wholesome exhort tion relative to & young man’s busine life in the fourth chapter of Paul's first letter to his friends at Thessalonica: “Study be quiet, and to do your own business, to work with your own hands.” This an exhor n to a sober and humble n of life—that of quiet and diligent dust This is essential that man may »d through his life and that he able to help Instead of being fitting are these words when ap- to the life of young in this they suggest that young men should a business pursuit, that they should their bt ss instead of having it them, they should do all this 1 redemption and the thus to the glory of men and ortant it is that every be devoted to himself. at 1 3o not mean, for a moment, a , niggardly, selfi life: but a true best welfare, at he be pure and noble purpose to and to do his best. To have purpose in life is iteelf a guar accom shment. To be a young of purpose is to be & young man of affliction that could possib'y oung man is a home in which ermitted to dream and idle away MOTHER'S oblj tion to her child not begin with their birth. Neither does"1t end with ¥ death. It begins the years of her before some does in early life, of hiim who i abit that we ¢ cter that a good m n as a heritage d tion or with two, estimat It annot g one gener nber tha e can we can hand nd loveliness and We don't The wn, Teaay- born generations. treasures as easily as that long life, The gdod achicve are only a drop in look at the cou uences that go to make up Remember that the ¥ a mother, but a father, he has good a chance to tendencies has. Remem- at behind ncestors who pas in the form cme e of the world a W one of parent cket whe: and ents 14 as she awn of tendencies AM very much of the nion that much of matrimoniai mis- on a finan- and the generally who finds it to be the the ery rests 1 basis, cial woman the necessary one incubator. men who are more than gener- ous with themselves fail to consider that e woman likes a little generosity on her wn account. They will spend royally, wreat thelr friends as if they owned two or three coal mines, when black diamonds ar. ing by the carat, and yet if the wife wanted to indulge in hospitalities with a few chums at a swell cafe, the masculine element of the household would consider her recklessly improvi- dent, if not downright depraved, to even think of such a thing as treating her friends in a far more economical way than he would ever think of doing. The lord and master will spend at least $50 for a little dinner to a select few, but if wifey paid half the sum for a love of an Easter bonnet he would be tempted fo “‘cuss” her extravagance. Many men have an idea that if they pay a wife's bills there is little need for any pocket change, which, of course, a wife resents. nisery his time and golden opportunities. Many a father of affluence has felt at .is death the great mistake of leaving to his son a legacy in money and landed estate, in- stead of a well-trained body and mind and heart that fit him to go forth and work his way to success. I khow that many parents are going to the opposite extreme and are pushing and crowding their young sons to wreck and premature death. They fill them with top-lofty no- tions and. Impossible ideals. As Nixon Waterman expresses it: Hurry the baby as fast as you can. Hurry him, worry him,_ make him a man. Get him If business and after the cash All by the time he can grow a mustache; Let him forget he was ever a boy. Make gold his god and its jingle his joy. Keep him c-hustling and clear out of breath, Until he wins—nervous prostration and death. Now, I am not arguing that way of making a man; but I am urging the great necessity of young men being taught early In life the great need of having a commanding purpose—that kind of a pur- pese without which the home life with its early training and discipline will largely lose its force over the young men for the.present and also in after years. A young man without such a purpose will be hard to guide and control and n ater yvears, at his best, he will be cir- cumscribed In his achievements. To be his best In this busy world a young man should have a purpose that shall fill, ab- serb and command his entire being, mar- shaling all his thinking and directing and controlling and his planning and toiling. The want of such a purpose is the most se of so many “downs” or fall- in life. A purposeless life leads to ess and idleness is “the Judas thal betrays the innocent into evil and mur- But every drop in the bucket goes to fili it. Without the final drop it would not be f Therefore a mother must not ie the legacy which she is pre- 1€ to leave behind her. be sum of life is made up by the fwo great influences, heredity and environ- nt. Neither one is sufficient in itself. are potent in the making of man. must be considered as much as the her in the building up of a world human beings. But heredit considered and less unde environment, therefore the young ers of the race need, perhaps, ngs aldng that 1 From the early warnings on the subject training up a child” and the inclining the tree we have been instructed m imy nce of character building ccept and example. But it is only of te vears that mothers have been told to begin molding their child’s character before it is born. They do not as yet realize this, is shown by the fearful rate at which children are brought into the world entirely unfitted for the strug- glc for existence which is to follow. Have you mothers ever realized that it is a far more serfous thing to give ife than to take it?* Ask some scientist. Murder is considered a crime. What is murder? It is putting a stop to a life which may or may not be a happy one. At any rate there is an end to pain ‘or the person killed. But the giving birth— what is that? It is calling from Infi oblivion a human entity, calling it ceme and be happy or unbappy, as par moth- e mors e, is the, THE /TINGY There is gred no position that can be cata- that is half so humiliating to a wife that of semi-mendicant on her hus bounty, and ehe should not be blamed if she feels resentment A woman would infini rather start out into the world and earn the where- with to meet her needs than to ask it of a man, no matter how pressing they might be, and if when she does ask, it is given grudgingly or with an emphasized bill complaints and objections, then the humillation is augmented. There are few women who are not proud of being able to spend judiciously by making one dollar do the duty of two, It is a gift which may be cultivated and the woman who knows the art enjoys an immense advantage over one having less judgment. One woman may dress better and man- age on half the sum expended by another, and yet if she cannot control a certain share of the family purse she is wretch- edly handicapped A man never will nor can understand the needs of a woman or of a house as does the woman. There may be a few who do, but such are generally such awful “Miss Nancys” that they should be ruled off the hearth. A man who runs amuck in the house for the sole purpose of poking his nose into all the household concerns is about as sand PING FONC» T 1is frequently a puzzling problem for hosts and hostesses to know what to provide with which to amuse their guests on a winter evening. For the such a problem is easier of solution, as pense is no object. For the middle classes, however, a satisfactory and en- joyable means of entertaining their guests is much harder to. think of. To these, what a godsend must ping pong be! If the party is compozed of ladies or gentiel a mixed single should be got up. jost should go round to various guests fMAing out those wishful to play— then, as the evening is 1l the time that i= available to work the tournament through, it should be arranged on the rich far naturally ex- “knock out” system and not on the American principle of playing off in sec- tions. Having got the names of those wishful to play, who, let us suppose, amount to a round dozen, the host should write their names on slips of paper, and mix them well up in a hat, and should then get one of the company to draw out the names one by onme. Each two names of the players as they come out should be” bracketed together, meaning they have to play each other; then, in the knock out tournament (which is played off in rounds and in which dirdetly a player is beaten he Is out of it, but the winner continues playing through until he is elther Leaten himself or becomes the ultimate winner of the whole) it vir- tually means that each round reduces the winners by half, and it is absolutely nec- esgary that the final shall be reduced to two players, who have to piay off for first and second prizes. The number of players competing does not always al- low of this, and in order that the result MAN B> REV-PFRANK DBDAKFR derous hands.” God has linked poverty with Idleness and laziness, and these twa kindred evils are mother to a numerous progeny of other evils. Cato, the philos- opher, said: “By having nothing to do nien learn to do evil.” An Italian prov- erb declares: ““He thaf labors is tempted of one devil; he that is idle by a thou- send devils.” Nothing better, therefore, could happen to a young man who has the right kind of grit than to be thrown on the world and his own resources. But some one asks: *“How can a young man have such a purpose and aim when he does not kgow what is in him?” Others say, “Ydung men should wait un- til they are older and more familiar with the ways of the world before they settle down to business in some definite line of work.” I can’t see much force in this 6b- jection to a young man having a definite aim and purpose in his youthful years. He can certainly be natural, be himself. He can certainly form some idea as to his desires and capabilitles. Far better have an alm and an ever present purpose, con- trolling his thought and hand and putting to good use his leisure moments, than to * drift aimlesely along, time and strength. ‘We are more in need of skilled artisans and tradesmen than any other class of workmen. Many a young man would be far befter off were he to learn,a trade rather than aftempt to be a professional man. Foster Coates, In the Ladles’ Home Journal, says: “I remember years ago, when I was a very young man, meeting John Roach, the great ship-bulider, in his ship-yard at Chester, Pa. I remember too what he said then about the value of a trade¢ to the average boy. ‘Young man,’ he sald, laying his great broad hand on wasting “precious case may be™ You ¥ be calling it Into a life of suffering. Is not that a more awful thing than to plit a person out of existence? Whether these scientists are right or wrong, they are certainly entifled to the ccnsideration of thinking people. Surely this you mus¢t admit—it is an unfair th%ng my shoulder and looking at me earnestly with his keen, steel blue lrish eyes, ‘next to a clear conscience, a trade is as good a thing as any young man can have in this country. You can carry it with you all your lite; you have to pay ne'ther rent nor taxes upon it, and it will help you around a sharp corner when most other things will fail.” Peter Cooper, a man Whom American boys. cannot too much admire, said: “If I had my way, I would give every boy a trade. Then I would have him stick to it, love iteand be good to it. If he does it will be good to him.” % k The thing for voung men to guard against s an aimless life. The men of power are such largely because they are men of purpose. It was Emerson who said: “The crowning fortun: of a man is to be born to seme pursuit which finds him in employment and happiness, whether it be to make baskets, or broad- swords, or canals, or statues, or songs.” A young man may be educated and ac- complished, genteel and of neat appear- ance, and yet belong to that traveling fraternity whose transactions are with- cut mutual exchange of values, they be- ing all ‘one-sided. Their cry is ‘“give, give.” Their tales of woe are pathetic, how they are poor victims of misfortune, ground under the wheels of somebody else’s goad fortune. There Is a large class of these unfortunates who live off public forbearance. It is a érime against nature and soclety for any young man to be allowed to lic as a helpless babe In the soft lap of public forbearance and be fed and cared for. It is a shame to send young men to school year after year, without an all-controlling object as their life work. They czme out of school to fritter away precious time and means as they did while at school. The prover- bial lore say “He that follows two horses is sure not to catch either’”; *The man with one trade will care for a wife and seven chjldrer, while a man with seven trades cannot support himself.” The next thing of importance to having a business is to work it and not let it work jyou." Don't: depend on others to do your work, but “study to do your own business, and to work with your own hands.” - The great trouble with many young men in business is that while they pursue other things their creditors pur- sue them. Having found one's natural aptitude and decided to follow a certain cafling, it remains for young men to get a “move” on them. A lictle fellow who had his wits about him when the collec- tion plate was passed around administered a rebuke to his mother, who, on the way home, was finding fault with the sermon. “Well, mother,” he said, innocent: “what could you expect for a penny You will get out of life about what you put inte it in the way of good, hard work, unless you work other people, and then you will be a ‘thief. Excelsior should be your motto. Most exalted natures are dis- tinguished by the highest activity. Un- wearled activity prevails throughout the entire course of nature. The fllustrious historical characters who have won im- perishable fame exhort to industry. Gems of price are deeply hidden ‘Neath the rugged rocks conceale ‘What would ne’er come forth unbidden, To thy search may be revealed. But some say: “I don't have the advan- tages and opporturities for development that I need. I am bound in by circum- stances that are not conducive to success in my calling.” The young men who suc- ceed in life are not that class of worth- less fellows who go about whining, “I have never had half a chance,” but th who haven't really had a quarter of a chance and yet have forged their way to the front. Young men should make no provision for defeat: they should burn th bridges behind them. They should not be like the army captain of whom it is said that when he was cornered by the enemy, he addressed his men as follows: “My men, fight like demons until your powder gives out, then run. Imal lame; I'll start now We are exhorted to so study to do our work that our powder wiil fiot give out and there need be no provision made for running. There is a world of meaning in the word “study.” In these days one’s suc cess depends largely on knowing how. Find out how to make things count. Cultivate a taste for reading. Your reading will stimulate thought. You may never pass through a college, but you may secure an education. This has been the course pursued by most of our great men who were poor boys. They have hon- ored the Prestdential chair and the Con- gressionai halls; they have adorned ths Lar and eleetrified the pulpit; they have wielded their power in civil and military life, in the realm of literature, science and education. They have succeeded through the books they have read. Cultivate the habit of accuracy and promptness in all you do. Then work with your own hands and brain. Yleld not to discouragement, but push forward until a siccess worthy your best manhood and effort is yours. Let nothing draw you aside from your purpose. There is ‘a reason Wwhy one young man succeeds and another fal CS=CHILDRIC! B> FELEN GARDNER DAY to bring into the world children that are not able to hold their own in life, men- tally, morally and physicaily. There cases where it would be better to remain unboern. You mothers must look to this. Be sure as possible that you can equip vour child for the struggie before you cail it are to face that struggle. Of course there may be aciidental circumstances entirely be- yond v control - which render your child's fe a misery in spite of all that you can do. We cannot formulate rules by accidents but by probabilities. You must see to it that the child's chances are good. How are you going to do this? Not by waiting until he arrives, trusting then to discipline out of him the very faults which you yourself implanted in him. You can not afford to walt a day In the beginning of his education. Begin now, whether you are indeed a mother or only a poten- tial one. Begin even though you are a young girl with no present thought of motherhood. Begin to weed out your own faults, to plant your mind with all good thoughts. Begln to train your boedy into strength. Do not expect that all vour own gain can be passed on to your children. If you acquire a knowledge of the French language by diligent study your ehild will not be born with a full vocabulary of French. This is as absurd as to suppose that if we cut one leg from the body of one of the little laboratory victims, a guinea pig, its progeny will thereafter be three legged. Not the actual acquire- ment -passed on,but there is a tendency passed on when the acquirement is con- stitutional. That sounds difficult, Lut it is not. For instance, suppose you Lave by nature a habit of thinking spiteful, jeal- ous thoughts and you go to work to urive out those thoughts by persistent cffort -+ BY KATE; THY/ON as unmitigated a nuisance as can well try a woman's soul. T confess that if I had to worry through life with such a one there would be every possibility of a mur- der, with the probability of a hanging in the family, wherein I would be either the star attraction of the funeral or the unique tassel dangling at the business end of the rope. It would be simply a ques- tlon as to which wefe the more active in getting in the “best licks. A woman has less of the spendthrift instinct than a man. If she wants any- thing she wants it mighty bad and is going to save, and pinch, and manage until she gets it, whether it be a dlamond ring, a pair of parlor curtains, or-a scrap of oilcloth for the kitchen, according to her means; but she will do a lot of think- ing and save her pennies most religious- ly until the wish becomes an accomplish- ed fact. when, of course, she is so well satisfied that she begins to long for some- thing else, and the saving process starts out all over again. If a woman has a certain allowance she malkes her calculations accordingly, and 1 do not think that individually women are as vain as they are accredited with being, but her pride in.her home will sum- gest little additions here and there that add to the attractiveness. A Dainty little femininities scattered about are a pretty safe index to a woman's character that bespeak refinement and’ the cuitivation of the mental and moral individualit The woman who cannot indulge her. fads and fancies is apt to grow unhappy ant to feel terribly injured. A man may re- gard them as trifles, but when reverses even make the sacrifice of iittle luxuries imperative a woman misses them more than she does . greater sacrifices she is ca'led upon to make. Women who have been reared in lux- ury and bave experienced reverses find it ‘harder to dispense with little things, like' the daintv accessories of ‘the toilet, than with a retinue of servants—one being a personal privilege the other merely the show of affluence. The man who gives his wife an fllow ance preportionate to his means is often surprised when he lings how much she has managed to Tom it. It preserves a w man's self,respect, too, to be made thus independént, and she will appreciate it very much more than a man will give her credit for. To, beg a husband even for money is the limit of feminine abnegation, and Js a sort of po- lite crueity on the husband's part who makes it a necessity. Even children should be given a certain amount of pin money and the satisfying of littie caprices and fancies for what they may see in the shop windows is an incentive to save. A man should be willing to treat’ his wife as liberally as he treats himself. A man who' counts every penny that a woman spends is a petty tyrant, and the man who never gives his wife a cent of pocket money is worthy only of con- tempt. Nothing so completely humiliates a wo- man as an empty purse, and the woman so situated has little confidence i her- self, nor can she feel at ease among her kind. Men are often more selfish than stingy. They would be more generous to a wife if it did not entail a certain amount of per- sonal disccmfort, but when it is a question of self-denial and of sharing with the wife or letting her go without, the man will often, under the flimsicst pretext, manage to convince her that. it is necessary for him to have all. 1 have known men moderately circum- stanced who always appeared well- groomed and whose wives were called upon to make all manner of sacrifices, the husband explaining that it was necessary for him to do many things to insure his position. Meanwhile the wife was clothed in the old family hand-me-downs, while he had no thought of her humiliation. And yet such men figure as good husbands. No woman, whether young or old, will be satisgfied in her married life if she has not some little income to call her own and which makes her feel independent. 1 do not think the proportion of women \ and substitute loving, generous their place untll you acquire from within a real constitutional generosity—not a pretended one, remember, worn on the surface for the sake of appearances, but a genuine one. You can transmit a slight tendency to a generous trend of thought. It will be ever so little, for one genera- tion is an infinitely short time in the of the world, but it will be one of drops that help fill the bucket. More- over, besides what you ean do in the way of heredity, think how much more f will be to help your child pattle with : same fault of jealoudy So in two ways you have eral trend toward good Practically, mentally ana morall same laws hold. Make your own bod nearly perfect as possible if you w give a tendency to health to the child yet unborn. Those who fear for the results of wo- man’s higher education forget that she is responsible for the inheritance children just as much as man long as waman is held back t race is htx'lbd(‘k. for all that 4 in her she ¢ pass on to the future citi- zens. 1 wrote once, and 1 mean it st ““Heredity has been taken into account so little that total ignorance of its very ciple has been looked upon as a charming attribute of the young mothers upon whose weak or undeveloped shoulders r the responsibility, the weifare, the shame or the glory, the very sanity and capacity, of the generations that are ta come!” ones age en to is. spendthrifts to men is one in a hundred. Women fear debt too much and are in- clined to be honest if it be possible, while a man will pay if he can, but does not worry so much over debts. A woman becomes absolutely hysterical if called upon or dunned for money that she cannot command, while a man will get fighting mad and want to kick out the fellow who duns him. For this reason the woman who is given an allowance wherewith to pay the house- hold bills has too great a fear of the con- sequences if she fails to pay and wiil strain every nerve to do so. Besides, it does her an awful lot of good to save a small amount with which to do as she pleases. In the long run I think it econ- omy for'a man to trust his wife with the family finances. It flatters her to be trusted, and she will try to justify the confidence. i The' really extravagant woman is the exception, not the rule. Woman, of course, loves pretty things and man would not 1ove her if she did not, but there are comparatively few women who will risk the consequences of dis- honesty for the gratification of this love. 1 do not know which Is worse—the selfish man who always trles to excuse his selfishness, or the pure and simple stingy man who is nasty-and mean and everything that is horrid and tyrannical. The wife of either has my sympath TAPER/ ' BYMJ-CRITCHIE shall be arrived at, it is frequently neces- sary to make some of the competitors “byes”—this means that they come through a round without having to play. We will suppose the selected twelve players’ names have confe out of the hat in the order that follows, using numbers instead of names. As there are twelve players, there must be four byes to re- duce the final to two players; two byes should be placed at the top and two at the bottom thus:— ‘Winners Winners 1st 24 Winn Round. Round. aneLrs bve 33 13 bye 510 ] lu the above, each winner is placed to the right of the brackets. Should there be fewer than twelve guests, they may be cut up mto sections, each player in each section playing evéry other in such sec- tlon, and the winners of the sections ul- timately playing each other to find the winner. This system, however, involves a far greater number: of games, and where time is an object it is advisable to adopt the “knock out’—the latter system of tournament is that observed in all of the lawn tennis tournaments in England, and is probably as good a method as can be thought of for finding the best player in the shortest time. In case the American system is pre- ferred—and it has its devetees—we will Jjust glvedan instance of how to conduct the draw. We will suppose there are nine guests whom we will {dentify by the letters from A to I. We will split these up into sections of three. The names must be put into a hat, and then drawn out. We will suppose they come out in the following order: Section 1. Section 2. B A E c G F D Ie Each of the plays in each section plays every other player in such section. We will suppose B wins section 1, C section 2, and I section 3. We have thus three winners, and they can be formed Ipto a final section and play each other, the winner of the most games taking first prize, the second second prize, and so on. In the event of a tie between two players it is desirable to play a further match to decide who is the winner. The above easy methods of organizing a small tourna- ment will probably commend themselves te those who are giving a ping pong party. Big tournaments are organized ard conducted on the same lines, only of course on a more elaborate scale. We now come to the four game at ping pong for an evening party, and if the Section 3. H game Is not desired to be taken too seri ously there is no doubt that a comsider- able amount of fun can be got out of a 200d mixed doubles. In playing a doubles a line should be drawn down the middie of the table, and it is advisatle to adopt lawn tennis scoring, in fact to play the game in just the same way as at lawn tennis. The gentlemen having selected their partners, one of the couples starts service, the server serving to the player at the opposite corner transversgly, just in the same way as at lawn tennis, and both sides serving alternately as at that game. If miore of a romp is desired, both players on each side can play with one racquet between them, it being im perative for each player after making a stroke to lay the racquet on the table, and the other to'take it up each time. We have also heard of a game in which, after playing a stroke, each piayer has to run round to the opposite side of the table. and then play from there. (Copyright, 1903, by D. T. Plerce’)