The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1873-03-06
From the chronological JourDal.l
Children's Rights.
BY MRS. JULIA A. CARNEY.


Amid all the hubbub there is made
now about mems rights, women's rights,
patent rights. and political rights, / won
der if any one could, in some lull of the
clamor, get in a word edgewise about
children's rights?
1t is needed very much, and / have a
mind to try. although a full discussion of
the subject would fill volume. Our
much boasted nineteenth century is
nearing its close 1t has been most en-
phatically an age of progress and of right.
Let it not pass away without doing as
much for its little ones, the children of a
civilized community, as. it does for its
dumb animals and its far-away heather.
Our own country needs missionary
labor as we'll as Baroboologha. Does this
! seem an unfounded assertion?
In the July number of The Science Of
Health l find the following corroborative
words: Our cities are to-day swarming
with juvenile vagabonds who have no
prospect in life but as paupers, criminals,
and drunkards. Who cares for them 2
Yet the editor probably did not include
the army of little martyrs inclosed by
the brown walls of Fifth Avenue, who, in
many respects, need our commiseration
as much as those of Five Points.
The sweet poet has sung truthfully:
''The store-house Of the graSsIhoGpper
The philanthropist is forcing upon the
world the more prosaic truth, that i'm
munity from needless suffering is the
right of ever creature God hath made.
Yet how many of us are thoughtfuliy,
wisely caring for the children? One class
of reformers is poring over the census
tables, and blaming another class OF re-
| formers who have no more to do with
the matter than themselves, because
overworked American mothers do not
add to their own tolls by bringing into
the world larger number of the children
of tobacco-steeped fathers, For most of
our American mothers are overworked,
whether rich or poor Fashion is as
hard mistress as poverty, and our large
middle classes have perhaps the hardest
work of all to equal with their slender
means the dress and style of living of the
wealthieT.
"Who cares for the children y was the
question:
Mormonism and Communism are each
caring for them, but they are attempting
entire ely antagonistic results, and striving
for those results through a sacrifice not
only of Scripture teaching but of the
highest and holiest emotions of the hu-
man heart.
The police care for them, sometimes
with tenderness that seems foreign to
their office, but they have no power un-
til the law is infringed, and then the law
must be satisfied at whatever cost of hu-
man souls
The religionists care for them! All over
the land we hear of children's revivals.
and The Sight of He'll is sold for pen
ny as juvenile reading Yet the concen-
trated agony occasioned to youthful
mind by either of these influences is pro-
badly greater than ali the suffering of
the brute creation from the day they
were named of Adam until now. For is
not the soul more than the body2 and
the heir of Immortality more than the
beast that perisheth? Yet, where are
our humane societies for the children?
The following item has been quoted
approvingly by many of our papers:
1.-THE New London wis Times reports
that girl in that place, thirteen years
of age, committed to memory 100 verses
of the Bible in single week"
Another tells the awful depravity of
a boy who having been cheated with the
promise of new book into cumbering
his memory with a vast number of unap-
preciated verses, was presented with
volume over whose erudite dullness his
grandfather would have gone to sleep.
The little fellow unidentified himself for
the loss of his play-time by selling the
book and purchasing with the proceeds
good stock of peanuts and confection-
ary When / read this item neither
twenty years as minister's wife nor
constitutional aversion to slang phrases
restrained the exclamation, Hes
brick -
There seems to be a prevalent idea
among the mass of men and women that
children have no rights that an adult is
bound to respect" This is a fallacy
What do we mean by natural and ina
lienable rights if they are net inherent
in our very natures
If, then, we accept the definition Of
the time-honored Declaration, those rights
are "life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap
piness." Admitting this, where does it
lead us
If children are entitled to life they are
entitled to the highest order of life pos
sible to humanity. For this that life |
must have a pure source. Its parentage |
must not only be pure before the law but !
before God; and pure not only from un- |
chastity but from every other sin. There |
are many who will add with me, pure also |
from luxurious living and the poisonous |
drugs which are taken as an expiation of |
the fault; pure from the disgusting trio, |
alcohol, tobacco, and swine, baptized !
daily with Gods own trinity of health,
pure water, air and sunshine
For this the mother must not grudge
the time spent in ennobling life which
is eternal She must not deem it mer-
itorious thing to toll over broidered
seam and ruffied flounce that her own or
the little ones garments conform to the
last freak of fashion, while the new book
is unread, the choice picture unpurchas-
ed, or the glowing sunset unseen. For
all these things not only decide what
your child's life shall be but what shall
be your future fitness to guide that life.
A Hard Case.