Afro-independent. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn. ;) 1888-1???, 1888-09-22
TRIALS OF CHILDHOOD.
DIR. TaImage Earnestly Pleads for More
sympathy and Less spank.


sympathy and Less spank.
In the long catalogue of ehildren's
woes leg-aehe stands very prominent.
After running, racing. climbing and
jumping all day long this is one OF tn o
worst troubles We remember it now.
the rolling and tossing to get to sleep
and the half-cry of distress of which no
one but ourselves seemed to have any
appreciation. ALI active children have
their leg-aehe at nightfall Blessed
the mother whose entertaining story
or the stroke of whose soft hand
silences and soothes and cures.
Hunger is another of the boyhood
and girlhood distresses. There may
be plenty in the pantry and yet the
children are half the time starved.
Parents with capacity to swallow a
haltpound of beefsteak and the usual
accomplishments do not understand
why. midforenoon or midafternoon,
children should be hungry 1t is cruel
to keep little ones faint and exhausted
for the lack of food because the dining
hour has not come. All the doctors
and dietaries to the contrary notwith-
standing, whenever your children are
hungry, whether it be the hour of nine,
ten or eleven a. M, or two, three or
Tour p. m, give them something to eat
One of the worst of childhood griefs
is subsection to DULLES. They are TO
be found in every school and on every
street; the boys who knock your hat
down over your eyes and chuck you
under the chin, calling you .'bub. and
steal your cap and trip you up for the
fun OF seeing you fall down, and dare
you to fight-you ten years and they
fourteen. We have vivid remembrance
OF one such bully and our sufferings at
his hands, and we now declare, minister
or no minister, If ever we meet him
again he had better look out! There
Is nothing more exasperating to us
than to see large boys imposing on
small ones. Let schoolmasters give
such young Herods the rattan in lib
eral measure. But alas for the lads who
have year after year to submit to the
ruffian impositions! TO be chased and
pulled and mauled and be able to do
| nothing In return but bite your lip and
clinch your fist and wish you were
foot taller.
Going to school is among the hard
ships of children. The pills OF lxnowl-
edge are now sugar-coated, and school
houses are sometimes made attractive
with music and flowers and pictures
and teachers who understand and
practice the law of kindness. In such
cases children are glad when the
school hour comes. Not so with many;
not so with us in boyhood. We SILVER
to think of it. A mile and half
through snowbanks a little crusted,
so that every step broke through.
our big sister pulling us along by
the tippet, ears tingling with cold,
! feet half-frozen, and all of what we
could then see no use in--the learning
to read and write and cipher. No
cards with marks of good behavior, no
medals to hang around the neck, moth
ing on earth to encourage but going
up head occasionally, and box of the
ears If we missed, more frequently.
Our sympathies go out for all those
who, contrary to their wishes, are
obliged to go to school.
But we can not enumerate the
troubles of children. We suspect that
they need more rewards and fewer
punishments, more apples and less
switch, more sympathy and less spank.
While we console their mishaps they
would unconsciously relieve ours. II
instead of standing so much on our
dignity we would get down on all-fours
and let our children get astride of us,
imagining they were a-hOrseback,
probably some of our manhood troubles
would fall off at the moment the
youngsters got on.-T. d. TdlmGge, d.
d., IN Chicago Times.