Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1870-06-01
Look After Lads.

boOh hiIOl haNr'
From an article under this head in the
Chicago Journal Of Commerce we take the
following extracts:
In our cities, where trade drives and is ex-
acting and where amusements and fashion
hold such despotic sway, this eyil-tor it is
an evil-of absenteeism from partcnal and
maternal duties is growing one, and threat
ems to injure both individuals and soce ty
more than we may expect. Hurried life !;
life too exclusively confined 10 the counting
ROOM life with the crowd in the boarding
house or the hotel life that is restless and
gay to the verge Of dissipation-this sort Of
life with its obviously demoralizing effect
upon America IN its teens, Is quite too COM
mon. Verify, it might properly be said
that parties have no moral right to be mar
ried aud have the ''oliye plants" spring up
around any table but the table of their own
dOnic!e, where they can and are anxious to
look after the welfare. the growth and cul-
ture OF their offspring
The Psamist tells that "God setteth the
solitary in families, " which means, we sup
pose, that the way people ought to live is in
households, where the natural relations and
the natural affections shall have the privacy
the separation, from the great bustling
world and the conc0urse of the people they
require for their right enjoyment and their
pure aud healIhful exercise yet how sadly
is this ordination OF Providence interfere
with and disregarded, onaously so, in our
great and multitudinous towns. Indeed it
Is, or Is becoming, a very serious question,
how what are assumed To be the imperative
demands of business, and what are felt 10
be the almost Irresistible solicitations of
society," can be recoucied with a decently
faithful regard to the claims of domestic
life. . We dread the street aud the gut~
ter for the little chaps We talk Of the prema-
ture old medicines of the shoeblacks, news
boys and other vagabond youngsters; but
really it admits of doubt whether rags and
rowdyism in blind alleys are worse in their
influence on the rising generation than hotel
entries and ball rooms In the company OF
grooms, coachmen and other servants. The
cnntarfon OF vicious and loose habits is rot
waTdcd of by fine clothes, and little gentle
men may getsnfected by it quite as easily,
perchance, as little gaDsta8. Certainly,
terrible infants in costly attire are about
as frequently met with as those whose chief
argument is coating OF dirt. 1t is, there
fore, very desirable with the rich as well as
the poor that well ordered family living
should not pass away, as it~seems to be pas
sing away; and that the intercourse and as
s0ciation between parents and their children
should become less intermittent and closer.
OF what advantage will it be to make
fortune. for ones heirs and to seat them III
luxury, if meanwhile they are left without
careful watching, without special and sOllc-
itous care for their moral tra!ung and watch
Ing, aud care that cannot be safely entrusted
to hirelings? Il would be well for some
merchants and professional men to put this
inquiry 10 themselves, as they remember
how they daily cone out of their front doors
in the morning not to re-euter them until
e-eGing, and then only to prepare Tor giving
i good portion OF the night to engagements
In which home matters have no lot or part.
Keep your boy bog while he Is boy ; a
well behaved, polite boy; a manly boy a
courageous. self reliant boy; no milk sop
boy tied to his mother skirts, but still a
boy; not little weakiing top, precociOus
snob, conceited monkey, aping the airs
and acquiring the habits Of grownup dan
dies and fast characters Don make a self
indulgent small gentleman Of him. Teach
him to wait upon and take care Of himself,
and to respect his interiors and treat them
courteously and kindly. Pray save him
from the absurdity Of a cane and kid gloves
and garments that are not auited to down
right hearty plays. 1t may be pretty and
aristocratic, and sign of your opulence to
dress him up in the height of fashion, but
in so doing you run the risk of spelling him
for any robust and useful living in this dem
ocratic land and pray remember, as you
take a pride in the bright handsome lad,
that this is democratic land, of which he
is to be citizen; therefore that he is not
wholly yours. but belongs to his country, and
that you are first to make him an honest, gen
uine republican in moral, mind and manners.