Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-02-24

children and sleep an hour without know
ing where they are or what they are at, that
time ends when they enter their teens. A:
the outward control slackens, the vigilance,
the provision for them must redouble, fol
one must seek to do by influence what has
hitherto been done by authority. We musi
not act so much as owners Of our children,
but as friends to them, from the beginning,
and never so much as in choosing their
lines for them. We have no right to bring
them up to suit our own ambitions and
views, without first consulting their
characters and fitness. We have nc
right to condemn this girl who
hates music to hours at the piano, shut
away from fresh air, because we want her
to be as fneS performer as any in her circle;
no right to insist on making a scholar OF
that boy whose bent runs to business and
making bargains; no right to tear that lad
from his beloved books and send him of
West because good opening presents for
making money, nor any right to decide of
hand that girl is wasting her time draw
ing or singing, which she loves, because she
does not soon show remarkable talent at
either. The children have to live their
lives for themselves, not we for them, and
they may suffer lasting regret from some
cramped taste which might have been the
bliss of toll, or they may labor wearily life
long in uncongenial callings which drag
upon body and spirits alike.
MISTAKES OF PATENTS.
1t seems so slight thing to parents some
times to make or mar the life that is in their
hands I EuaEr a hriCbf GIRL of
is, daughter of farmer not over well-to-do,
who told him if he would only buy books
for her, she had far rather work her own
way through an education than to marry
the hard faced elderly bachelor proposed as
her bridegroom. One would have thought
the 2GO-acre farm might yield her $40 worth
of Scnool books, but it was too much for
her toiling sire, so she married the Irish
cattle farmer and made the best of it. /
knew also q family where the mother with
an exquisite voice and musical taste. had
been forbidden the piano simply because
the autocrat of the house disliked practice
herself and hated it in anyone else, The
daughter inherited her mothers represSed
tastes in double measure, and like q fate
was forbidden to study music by the same
maiden aunt and her own father. He could
afford $500 for farm machine almost any
time, but not $500 for a secondhand piano.
Years after, when he could no more pay his
own taxes, the first musicians of the coun-
try pronounced that his daughter had a
voice of compass and expression, which,
trained earlier, would have made her for
tune, but then il was too late.
have known of so many lives of sensi-
five dutiful children blighted by parental
disregard of their natural tastes, some sent
insane for life, others who dropped and died
in uncongenial careers and yet others who
were never half the men and women they
might have been in callings of their choice,
that it is plain parents cannot be too care.
ful of the souls in their charge. We must
be their friends, unselfsh enough to give up
our dearest wishes for them, if it seems safe
10 give them their own way in life.
ALL AFTER THE DOLLAR.
1t is hard on parents, too, when the honor
able ambition and care for children re-
ceives such a stroke as that which visited a
Chief Justice OF The United States, when
the son he had fondly hoped would follow
IN his steps, graduated from college and took
a partnership in cracker bakery! The
son Of college professor, descended from
the Brahmin caste of New England culture.
after every advantage Of foreign education
and travel, returned to his native town and
set up confectionery business, where he
himself by making a superior
kind Of cough candy. But if public men
Will choose wives who, admirable house |
keepers and amiable women as they are. in !
theif hearts count good living and money |
making the chief thing in life, they must /
expect the strain to appear in their chill |
dren- Or if they allow themselves to be
merely the cashiers and providers for their
and leave the tastes of their bows
and girls to be formed by the first pretty
woman they meet In society, they will find
their own wishes and influence 90 for
naught, when it comes to the questions of
life.
The covert smile of the smooth social
,ritic is more to them than the heartache or
neartbreak of the parent.
Just as truly one must be able to guide
roung things from running off after whims
which are not tastes, and schemes of living
lut into their.heads by ill-judging advisers.
There is deal of artistic and adventurous
talked by story teilers and writers
or the young, and nothing wants such
igid revision as Literature of this sort. 1t
S not always service to lad to put it in
us head that his career is incomplete with
ut a course of art study, even if he is clever
with his lead pencil at grammar school. He
nay not have spark of inventive taste.
nOugh to combine old forms in fresh de.
ign, or particle of the dogged persever-
nee at his brush which is as necessary for
he artist as for the house painter.
TOO MUCH ART.
The patterns exhibited at the first schools
f design in this country are very plain
roof that there are plenty of art scholars
agging at their pencils who had better be
oeing corn or driving delivery wagons. !
let, it seems to be the mission of every ,
'unday school teacher and pastor and edf-
ress to beat up recruits for this great and
tzrveling army of art. / recall one bow ]
Tho left school and set up fshcart. much
0 the convenience of the village, and who ;
light have been in good business in three
ears, but some injudicious friend tried to
aise q taste for something higher ,
q life,'' and 1 missed our fish !
ealer to be told he was studying at the Free !
lrt School. He kept at it one term and I
1und out that art was not his vocation, ap- |
arently, for he was home at the end of '
ree months minus his easel and minus a J
sh trade. Would it not have been better
D teach that boy respect for himself in bis /
-ade. so that he could look forward to buy t
lg knowing good pictures from the pro- 7
eeds of his tin counter and ice chest? A 4
IAN may have fine, true taste and keep
sh market, where his better feeling may t
lad him to eliminate the disagreeables of {
-ade, to his own satisfaction and that of his Q
q
As tor the adventures in business, they y
re the material of the unsuccessful. The n
oys who must go for the glory and the e
of rancho life far West, in place d
the tame profit of improving old farms at =