Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1877-10-15
THE CHARACTER.


character is formed when what is called
the education" is finished. Girls be-
lieve this, though the truth is that the
real consolidation of character is only
just now beginning; but perhaps boys
who have already had wider experience
at school, and to whom their future pro-
fessional career affords more extended
outlook, know that time and the world
will modify as much as they teach, and
that the mould into which they have set
so far is not the ultimate to which they
will attain. They know that If the boy
is father of the man, the man is differ
ent from the boy, and fathers are not
necessarily reproduced with any great
exactness in their children. As rule
girls do not forecast so much. They
honestly believe that they are now what
they will always be. and that no modify
ing influence will come from marriage
with its sense of dependence and union
in one, from maternity with its all-im-
portant responsibilities, from mistress
hood with its habit of command-those
circumstances which do for them, in the
way of forming their character, what the
arduous battle of life and the hard knocks
got in the clash of business and the
knowledge of moral possibilities do for
men. Whatever girl thinks now to be
wrong or shocking" she cannot be in
duced by any argument to suppose may
be lawful or pitiful or praiseworthy. Her
mind is in the cotyledonous state yet
wherein she nourishes only the simple
radicals of things, and knows nothing of
future diversities; and she cannot un-
derstand condition when the leaf shall
have differentiated into the flower, and
yet the flower be greater glory than
the leaf; when the flower shall have
died off into fruit, and yet the fruit be
more important possession than the
blossom and when in its turn the fruit
shall have shed its seed for the future
harvest, and that harvest be of more
value than the present whence it has
sprung. She will not accept what she
has not realized and she has not real
lied growth in change. How can she
become, say, generous in judgment on
things outside her experience? Virtuous
youth is, of necessity, hard and narrow.
Those who hold the wider views which
come by knowledge and experience are
broadly "lax." and, like a creature
scared by spectre, Tho rigorouely or
thodox young girl starts in horror from
the first person who advocates mercy,
tolerance, equal right of opinion, and
something in it, where she has believed
only one word could be said, and that
word-Condemnation. By and by she
gets a little more accustomed to hear
things and sentiments, of which she has
been taught only unqualified disapproval
gently mentioned, with respect and with
out adjectives. By and by she can be
brought to look at this opinion which is
contrary to her own as the result of wise
men thoughts and good mems impulses,
and therefore so far deserving her respect
and attention-further to see that it
may have something in it''-stlll fur
ther that this something has points su-
perior to her own creed-and in the end
is brought to adopt as the truth what
she had secuted with such fierce bigotry,
and TO find it safer and wiser than her
former faith all through. By this time
she has become liberal and receptive,
instead of narrow and condemnatory /;
but during the process of change of SEN
timent she had no idea that her charac-
ter was being formed on another model,
and her nature retranslated from its
first rendering.
Or it may be just the other way; a
creature too young and innocent and
loving to condemn any one. not knowing
indeed what there is in life to condemn
at all, falls into the hands of one who
lives with lions perpetually in the way,
and surrounded by snakes in the grass,
whose existence she feels bound to pro-
claim even if she cannot demonstrate.
But suspicion does not always halt fol
demonstration before it makes itself GER.
tain, loud and positive. By degrees the
young creature intrusted to her influence
learns the melancholy creed that more
evil exists in the world than good-that
all differences from her own way Of
thinking and manner of life are evil
and than evil must be sought out dill
gently wherever existing, and heated al
profoundly as it is discerned clearly
From the happy innocence of her former
days. when she knew nothing of thi
miserable code and loved all alike, sh,
has passed into the phase of righteou
and universal condemnation.
How TO AVOID BEATING.-A wo
| ranr, xrho hnd c,,forod ha rha rous haat