Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1886-04-23
Parental Responsibility.

Few parents feel as they should their
parental responsibility even when chill
| dren are born to them; fewer still are
capable of acting up to their own ideas
of parental duty, and almost none think
Of these things before taking the mo-
mentous step that results in family.
| Men who exercise the most critical
! iudgment i'm the choice of q mate for
trottng horse, women whose delicacy Is
shocked even by the mention Of mater
nitv, do not scruple to form unnatural
and abnormal allianceS-to choose TIER
mates. though it is for a lifetime that
they choose them, with less care than a
bird exercises in selecting its mate OF a
season. Beauty, whether physical,
mental, or normal, is a legitimate OBJECT
of choice. and he or she succeeds best In
life who is mated to a share OF all.
Much ink has been wasted in satiric pity
of those of either sex who are tempted
by a pretty face or a well-proportioned
| fipure-a choice which at its worst gives
hope of good physical qualities III the
offspring; but far too little has been
said i'm favor of those marriages for
money, for position, or for mere conve'
nience, which are the curse Of modern
society.
Still, there are few, no matter how
| ignorant or how frivolous, how worried
or worn out, how criminally neglectful
or impiously dependent upon Provl-
dence to take their duties of their shoul-
ders. that do not feel, when 70 them
comes an active, growing little mind
and body, receptive and acquisitive, inn
perioas yet pliable, that it is their duty
to care for, and that do not sometimes
wish that they were better able to per-
form their duty.
In the distribution of blame women
deserve by far the larger share. In all
matters relating to the future of indl-
viduals, of the state and Of the race, the
female is the more important sex. For
the existence of a child both sexes are
equally responsible, but what that child
-man-child or woman-chld-shall be,
depends almost entirely upon the female
parent. Before birth the mother
health, temper and habits influence for
good or evil those Of her offspring. The
babe draws its food from her, and her
lap is its home. Through its earliest
wears she is its sole teacher, and in its
older childhood her example and influ-
ence have more power than those OF
auy other person. To have such power
a woman should be fitted to exercise it.
Nature intended her for woman and
mother; every line Of her figure pro-
claims it; her voice, her gait, her men,
tai aptitudes and shortcomings, all pro-
claim her woman as surely as do the de-
tails of her anatomical structure. Yet
the aim of woman, or, rather, OF some
women, appears 10 be to escape entirely
the duties of maternity. If they have
child they delegate it. if possible, to
| nurses-dry and wet-and TO careless
girls the care of the precious blessing.
The poor wOmah goes to the factory,
while the child lies uIcared for, tended
by strangers, perhaps drugged, the rich
woman attends balls and parties, church
and theatre, picnic and charity fair,
while an ignorant servant feeds her
babe from bottle. Even if she loves
her child and tries 10 care for it, she
knows not how. Such one-and there
are thousanJs-deserve pity. No mother
taught her a mothers duties, no school
gave her information useful TO her; she
does not know how to regulate the food
or clothing of the child, how to attend
to its little wants, how to comfort its
little ailments, and oft-times she loses
her babe through her own misdirected
efforts 10 keep it.
Life is serious business, young la.
dies, and contains things more import
ant than music and dancing, and more
useful than playing at painting and
towing with small mathematics. When
the world, our white world, has become
tired of trying to educate women into
men perhaps it will begin to try to edu-
cate them into women.