St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-01-25
Leaving Children Something.

Boston Herald "
OF the thousands of people who are
straining every nerve to leave their
children something, how many ever re-
fleet that every man is as sure to leave
his children something as the sun is to
rise tomorrow morning! 1t may be an
ample fortune in one case, or tendency
to lifelong nervous dyspepsia in an
other, but an inheritance" of some sort
each parent is bound to entail on his
offspring. Over the money Inheritance
he often worries himself into softening
of the brain, but,aS to the inheritance
of physical and mental qualities-the
dyspepsia, ill-temper or dependency on
the one hand, or the health, courage,
culture and noble character on the
Other-these he thinks will take care. of
themselves. He is right. They viii
take care of themselves, and there
is just where the mischief lies. Now,
if every mother, for example
were only Mother Carey's chicken, in
stead of a human being, she could
safely adopt this leave-alOne course, and
recommend it to the paternal Mother
Carey's cock. These happy creatures
have few parental anXieties. Their
young inherit from them none but
good and useful qualities. The first
minute they are tiedged they take
straight to the water, and never to beer
or whisky. AS for flying, both impulse
and power are so perfectly transmitted
in their organization that they are rapt
up bodily into the sky, and sent wing
ing it over, the deep. Born to swim,
born to fly, born to eat flesh, they simply
set to work to do it, and so each little
doWny birding starts out in life with
an Inheritance amply sufficient for a
successful career of business, travel in
foreign parts, and cOngenial social ell
jOyment.
Far different is it with human chill
dren. Every once in a while, indeed
one Of them is born with all organiZa
ton as marvellous as that of Mother
Carey'S chickling, only of a vastly
higher and more complex kind. Look,
for instance, at that miraculous boy who
has lately been enhancing Boston with
his music. To the great ocean and the
limitless sky ranges OF Beethoven he
tO0kaS lnStlnctively as the seabird to the
pillows and the air. Still, even though
musical millionaire from the start, his
careful father has felt it will never do
to let him run wild. The boy is never
allowed to get into bad musical COM
pany of the Jim Crow order. Few
parents, however, transmit such all Or
ganizatiOn to their children. And yet
they have transmitted one, and sur
rounded it with influences to call it out.
The children will have to cope with it
all their lives. Why not think, then, of
what has already been left the chill
dren as well as of what may be left
them in money, if business turns out
well? If father has bequeathed
child an irritable temper why not, in
mercy, try to bequeath him the example
of a parent who has governed and con-
trolled the same infirmity for life
time. The child inherits not merely
what the parent inherited, but the good
or bad use the parent made of such in
heritance, the calming or the inf1aming
influence of the life lived in the child'S
presence. There are people in plenty
in the land who have succeeded in leav-
ing their children money. What is
wanted is more who succeed in leaving
them intelligence, purity, self-contrDl,
the memory of happy home, consecra-
ton to high way OF living. 1t is a
rare father who has not reason to look
back with terror and remOrse on great
many things he has already left his
children, and for which they will have,
to be sanity indeed if they ever rise
up and call his memory blessed" 4