Knoxville journal. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1874-1986, 1875-02-18
Neglected Children.

/ spend several hours every week with
company of children who may fairly
be ranked under the title neglected"
They are not over clean. Their clothing
is thin and rather promiscuous. Half
the time they are probably very cold,
and the other half hungry. Their faith
ers and mothers are poor, are unfOrtu-
nate, are sometimes drunken; and some
of those little ones are familiar with
sights and sounds which would brighten
the delicate, high bred, beautiful girls
who find 1t labor of love every week to
teach them to sew.
But my experience with these little
specimens Of the tenement and the
street has been that, considering their
opportunities, they are very docile.
They blossom out under loving influ-
ences as your hyacinth does when you
take the bulb from the cellar and set 1t in
the sunny south window They repeat
Bible verses and hymns, and sing-why,
they sing as IT they had never known
trouble or care.
Several times the thought has come to
me. Are these the only neglected chill
dren? Not very original thought, per.
haps, but one we mothers would do well
to ponder Oftener than we do It is a
dreary day for the maternal heart when
1t takes up that desolate refrain: "They
made me the keeper of the vineyard, but
mine own vineyard have not kept"
A child, coming into the world by no
volition of its own, surely has right to
claim the care and protection of Its faith
er and mother. They are not released
from this claim by any exterior circum-
stance. Whether they live in Rag Fair
or Fifth avenue, they are equally bound
to take the best care they can of their
own offspring. To do Rag Fair justice,
it is not half so anxious to shirk the
responsibility in the matter as Fifth ave.
nue. often is.
No matter how many subordinates
your purse can employ, you are yourself,
being a parent, your child's first and best
guardian. But society, business and the
| church make many demands upon your
time. Even SO. Meet them If you can !;
but if you must choose which to give
your best to, and which to give your
second best, and which to let 60 by the
board, let home and children have the
| freshness, the first of the day, and the
closest brooding Of the heart.
have known family OF dear little
children, clothed In purple and fine linen,
and faring, like the man in the parable,
| sumptuously every day, who were almost
| as badly off as Lazarus in the same.
They were wholly under the care and in
| fiuence of illiterate, vulgar and unprin-
| cipled servants, their mother being too
much engaged with company, friends
and benevolent enterprises to do more
| than give them kiss once or twice a
| day, and sometimes when they vexed her
| 9 scolding or slap. The mother, q
brilliant and educated and most fascinat-
ing lady. BY and by she is ashamed of
her children, who are Doors, Unpublished,
unmannerly and ungrammatical. What
wonder? They were neglected, and moth
| ing else could have been expected Seven
times one are seven. You cannot make
| i. nine, to save your life.
Some mothers neglect their children
through the care they take of their out
ward appearance. Come what will, they
must have SO many little frocks, and SO
many little aprons, SO many pies and
cakes too, on the table, and SO much
| luxury in the furnishing and adjoining of
their homes. Somebody and something
must be put off and turned aside. and it
is very likely to be the little Kitty or
Johnny, who Is, after all, the
occasion of the parents greatest
pride and anxiety 1t Is terri
bic thing, though, when you really
sit down and think about it, that child.
living, breathing, sentient and immortal,
should ever be considered as merely
clothes-pole, or center-piece for vain
display