Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1873-10-20
SAVING FOR THE CHILDREN.

very differently on arriving at maturity. t
The family that seems to have had the
most careful training does less credit to
itself, than the family whose childish
freedom of action shocked the critical
observer. We say 'seems to have had
the most careful training" for it is Of
ten only in seeming after all that the
difference has consisted. As a rule, it
may be predicated of wise family gov
ernment that it will be known as tree
is, by its fruits. All government that
is only from the outside, and therefore
despotic, fails necessarily of reaching its
end and all government whose aim
from first to last is to teach its subjects
self-control must give them considerable
latitude. The latter sort, however,
takes very much more time and thought
than the former, and is compatible with
certain things which have come to be
by many people accepted as cardinal
points in family polity. For instance,
if father and mother set out primarily
with the idea that they must save for
their children. and so feeling, if they
bend each year the strength of their ma
lures in united effort to add acres to
the farm or to increase the money in the
savings banks. they will spend all their
force there. The father will work hard,
late and early, saving here, economizing
there, growing, stoop shouldered and
gray, but gaming his point and think
ing, complacently, of the amount he is
worth. The mother will pinch and con-
trive and patch and darn, practicing
thousand small economies that nobody
ever suspects, and losing even the mem
ory of the day when she was bonny.
blithe-hearted girl whom her tired hus-
band used to come miles to see in court
ing days. The children, who are first
in the loyal, honest hearts that love
them, though they never have time to
show it in any sweet way, meanwhile
grow up, Maria wants to take music
lessons, John wants to 60 to college;
but father and mother think of the ex-
pense. count up the dollars it will cost,
and decided that a common school edu-
cation is good enough for their children
as it was for them. This only some
times, and seldom where the parents are
Americans, born to the idea that the
son may be President one day, and that,
, as we wrote in our copybooks, "Educa-
RI tion is the life of liberty Oftener the
music lessons and the college course are
allowed, however, the home economies
t are doubled; while it is in countless
E little ways that the love of the beautiful
q is stunted and crushed, and the children
e made to feel that of all unlovely, hard
: prison-like places, home is the most so
e There is parlor, to be sure, grim ano
: funeral as hearse, and it is only usec
: on solemn occasions, as at a christening
f a wedding, or funeral For Mary anG
g Lucy to sit there Of an afternoon will
t their sewing, or for Charlie and Sam t.
: take lamp there in the evening to pla.
# checkers, would be an unheard-of trea
l. son against the household economy.
l. there be piano. and if it stand in tn
e parlor, there is sure to be strip Of stat
!; carpet between it and the door, ant
d another strip of stair carpet in front Q
!; it, lest the necessary going to and fr
e. of the girls to practice, should wear ou
'e the splendors Of the best three-ply Q
at tapestry. The children desire to take
paper or magazine as their neighbor
do but it costs So or 81 a year. an
:" father shakes his head. A great singe
:, with voice like an angels comes
- y. town. and the young people want to G
~ to the concert but the tickets are S.
' and So would buy Benjamin pair {
shoes, SO that extravaganza is frowne
upon. There is to be a course of le
: lures in the neighboring church by di
:, tinguished men and women, and it woul
;. - be pleasant to go, but winter is comir
and there is coal to get, and -four WI
:" be wanted, and mother says, .'Bett
not mention the lectures to your father
Now when the choice is between Goa
and flour and music and lecture ticket
and there is honestly not enough mon
. to afford all, why the latter must G
: Cut your coat by your cloth, of cour'
But we are talking of cases where the
as enough money to afford aesthetic al
intellectual enjoyment as well as 70
and fire. to afford books and pape
,ur other than school books, and to put NJ
and then a picture on the wall and
flower in the window, as well as to b
elf when needed chair and table.
Save for the children if you can, a
me SO much as you can, but remember it
lsh- spendthrift economy that does it by S;
ing from them. The time when Il
and need home full of grace and beauty
ket. in the forming period of life. There
Iker very few men. if they knew it, who I
lar, afford not to have the visits in th
half family every week of fresh. bree
/ bright, instructive paper; and there
very few who can afford not to let Il
liar children have good times in the hor
hold while childhood lasts. When