The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1873-08-21
Safeguards to Purity.

There are many parents who fancy that they
can bring up their children, and especially
their daughters; in large degree ignorant of
the evil that is in the world. AS the king in
the fairy tale banished all spinning wheels
from his dominions, that his daughter might
not wound her fingers with spindle, and real
ze the prophecy of the spiteful fairy at her
christening, even so mothers withhold useful
and necessary knowledge from their daughters,
lest with it may be mingled something leading
to harm. And even as this charming princess,
Notwithstanding every precaution, as by acci-
dent came upon the only spinning wheel in the
realm, was wounded by the spindle, and fell in
to her hundred years slumber, SO often does
the young lady unawares, stumble upon expe-
riences of whose possible existence she never
dreamed and which are far more disastrous to
her than those that befell the sleeping beauty.
Boys and girls as they grow will learn the
ns and outs of this wicked world. If their
parents do not give them this knowledge, some
body else will, and the manner in which the
information is given is in all moral respects
vastly more important than the matter. The
parent may instruct the child in everything it
should know, satisfy its curiosity within proper
otherwise would be sown by chance cultivators
more with tares of vice than with the wheat of
knowledge.
1t is Simply astonishing how soon young
children pick up slang words, vile words, pro-
fame words, and attacf-to them meanings. 1t
is equally surprising how instinctively they
conceal all this knowledge from their parents,
and while the mother thinks her little girl
model of innocence and purity, her neighbor
may know that such is very far from being the
case. Therefore it is not possible for the mother
to cultivate too great an intimacy with her
child. She should have The juvenile heart
spread out before her as mirror, rejecting ev-
cry thought, every feeling, every passion of the
child. Thus she will be able judiciously to ad-
minister antidotes to vice and build up safe
guards to virtue.
Girls are as general rule brought up in ig-
norance of very much which it most concerns
them to know. Many a, young lady dances on
the verge of precipice, not knowing her dan
ger, and many fall from virtue because their
mothers had not the courage to warn them of
the pitfalls in their pathway and the steps Lead
ing thitherward. The love of purity, like the
love of knowledge and the love of fame, grows
by what it feeds on, and dies if it have not
suitable nutriment. The girl anu boy VINO
have steadily held up before their eyes an ideal
of high and pure womanhood and manhood,
who are taught from early childhood that their
souls are alike sacred to purity, will hardly fail
to realize in maturity the highest wishes OF
their parents in these respects. Heroic virtue
is never the result of ignorance in man or wo-
man. We who know the shoals along the en-
trance to mature life should build lighthouses
on sunken reefs, plant buoys in dangerous
places, and build boats for the rescue OF the
shipwrecked.
In his PRAYER for his disciples, Christ said, "I
pray not that thou shouldest take them out of
the world, but that thou shouldest keep them
from the evil" Purity is not inconsistent with
knowledge of evil, and as soon as child is old
enough to wander from the right way, he
should be instructed in the dangers that are
most likely to befall him, and the way in
which they can be avoided.
When there is perfect understanding be-
tween parents and children when the daugh,,
ter feels that she can confde every thought and
desire of her heart to her mother, and the son
is in full sympathy and counsel with his father,
there is little danger that the happiness of the
parents will be wrecked by the proHigacy of
their children. Many grown people seem to
think there is no harm done in evading ques-
tions asked by children, or in giving such
answers as totally mislead and confuse them.
This is a woful mistake, and most disastrous
consequences follow it. Truth never Injuries
anybody, and though it may be diluted, so to
speak, when given to children, any II lalseho1d 9
of fallen women in our great city are largely
recruited from the country. Rarely does any
Young woman knowing her danger become
identified with this unfortunate class, and
Young men who have been forewarned by judi
cious parents of the alluring temptations which
seek them out on every hand are too wise to
wander far from the paths of virtue.