Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1874-02-25
Miscellany.
Saving for the Children.

1t not unfrequently happens that the
children of two families living near each
other and brought up under the same
social and educational influences turn
out very differently on arriving at ma
turity. The family that seems to have
had the most careful training does less
credit to itself than the families whose
childish freedom of action shocked the
critical observer. We say ''seems to
have had the most careful training" for
it is often only in seeming after all that
the difference has consisted. As rule
it may be predicted of wise family
government that it will be known, as a
tree is, by its fruit. All government
that is Cnly 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 ac-
cepted as cardinal points in family
policy. 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 natures 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
gaining his point and thinking, compla-
Gently, of the amount he is worth. The
mother will pinch, and contrive, and
patch and darn, practicing thousand
small economies that nobody ever sus-
poets, and losing even the memory of
the day when she was bonny, blithe-
hearted girl whom her tired husband
used to come miles to see in courting
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 expense, count up
the dollars it viii cost, and decide that
a common school education Is good
enough for their children as it was for
them. This only sometimes, and seldom
where the parents are Americans, born
to the idea that the son may be Presi-
dent one day, and that, as We wrote in
our copy-books, Education is the life
of liberty" Oftener the music lessons
and the college course are allowed,
however, and the home economies are
doubled, while it is in countless little
ways that the love of the beautiful is
stunted and crushed, and the children
made to feel that of all unlOvely, hard,
prison-like places, home is the most so.
There is parlor, to be sure, grim and
funeral as a hearse, and it is only used
on solemn occasions, as at a christening,
n wedding, or funeral. For Mary and
Lucy to sit there of an afternoon with
their sewing, or for Charlie and Sam to
take a lamp there in the evening to play
checkers, would be an unheard of trea-
son against the household economy. If
there be piano, and If it stands in the
parlor, there is sure to be strip of stair
carpet between it and the door, and
another strip of stair carpet in front of
it, lest the necessary going to and fro
OF the girls to practice should wear out
the splendOrs of the best three-ply of
tapestry. The children desire to take a
paper or magazine as their neighbors
do, but it costs So or 81 a year, and
father shakes his head. There is to be
course of lectures in the neighboring
church by distinguished men and
women, and it would be pleasant to go
but winter is coming and there is coal
to get, and flour will be wanted, and
mother says, ".Better not mention the
lecture to your father"
Now, when the choice is between
Goals and flour and music and lecture
tickets and there is honestly not enough
money to afford all, why the latter must
go. Cut your coat by your cloth, of
course. But we are talking of cases
where there is enough money to afford
aesthetic and intellectual enjoyment as
well as food and fire to afford books
and papers other than school-books,
and to put now and then a picture on
the wall and a flower in the window, as
well as to buy when needed chair and
a table.
Save for the children if you can, and
so much as you can, but remember it is
spendthrift economy that does it by
saving from them. The time when they
need home full Of grace and beauty is
in the forming period of life. There
are very few men, if they knew it, who
can afford not to have the visits in their
family every week of a fresh, breezy,
bright instructive paper and there is
very few who can afford not to let their
children have good times in the house
hold while childhood lasts. When the
final interest is apportioned it will be
those who have spent most wisely who
will have the largest dividends.-Hearth
UrH HO1De