Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-05-05

one child creeps just like another shows .
lack Of observation in Ferdinand which
makes him seem more like other men than
anything ever detected in him before. A
trained eye, such as Harvard Annex gives
to women, would show even q man that
children creep as differently as men live.
SIGNS OF cHARAcrER.
Ariel's little curling leg is her own charm
ing sign manual, or, as Girton girls say,
sign crusculine. Another child ereeps on
all fours. A third sits fat down and straight
mp and bitches along. 1t is character. But
instead of watching the dear baby so as to
see what the kingdom of heaven is, men
will sit and smoke, or go of to their clubs
or the banks or the offices, and try to build
up the kingdom of this world. And Ariel
will not creep much longerl
The consequence is that whole country
is rocking up and down with prohibitory
laws and prison idleness and solitary con-
inement, and things that ought to have been
settled when the drunkards and the prison
ers were in their craeles. am a prohibit
tory law to our baby. She is already be-
ginning to understand that emo, no" means
absolute prohibition. The next thing will
be to make her understand that one "no"'
means just the same as two. Then she must
learn to say her own no. If all the babies
of one generation could be taught this I
consider that it would be equivalent at least
to the anti-saloon movement. Then when a
habit is SO thoroughly ground in that it be-
comes principle, why it is equal to q Con-
stitutional amendment, and the work is
done. All the cost of electioneering is
saved and the country has a generation of
temperate citizens, temperate not because
the bars are closed and the laws enforced.
but because they like to be temperate; be-
cause it IS ill-bred to be intemperate; be-
cause it is vulgar not to be self-controlled.
And all this is owing to the women who
watch their Ariels, and see when the little
will lurches into selEwill and curb il; see
when the pleasantness of enjoyment is in
danger of becoming the p1easantness of
selishness and check it; see when courage
dares to push itself into defiance and soften
1t back to courage.
WHERE TO BEGIN REFORM.
don't suppose we shall wholly succeed,
we mothers; but we shall do great deal
better than the State prisons and the laws.
Ii you can't reform a man when he is a
baby you certaInlycan't count on reforming
him when he is a grown man. All the
good OF grown-up reformatories is in their
application to the poor creatures whose
fathers and mothers did not know how to
rear them. They have no reform for the
well-reared. If can't teach Ariel to be q
good girl some one else must, but it is of
more Importance that try than anything
else in the world, and so just say to the
great men who are talking about planting
trees for the future and suppressing Nor
monism and establishing schools and max
ing treaties for the Northwest passage
and the Samoan reefs, that am doing
better work than they, because it is closer
work; and it is much more important that
they listen to my report and see how fast |
Ariel develops in her tiny teeth and in
sweet little Intelligence and her lovely lit |
tie character, and what develops her, than |
it is for me to listen to them to know how
many miles minute a fast horse trots or !
how many shakes an earthquake gives to |
the square inch. The horse is nothing but |
a horse when all is said, and what good does |
it do to know all about an earthquake if |
you cant stop it? And if you could stop it |
you would doubtless do more harm than |
good, since now they say it is only the liv- |
ing earths that quake. The worlds that are |
still are dead. So it may comfort the poor
earthquakers to know that after all there's |
life In the old land yeti
GAIL HAMILTON,