Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1890-01-08
THE SPARTAN THEORY.
Extremes In Training Children
should be eAvoIdsd--Loulsa Al
colts Experience.

so sweet Is It to provide Joys an
foreSee advantages for these young
creatures (childTen), that / have, in a
long experience, known but one pair Of
parents who wers consistently heroic
in this way. They said: I'VE have
safely invested one thousand dollars for
our only child That will suffice to
educate her, after which it Is best for
her that she she uld rely on herself. We
feel Justified IN spending our whole in
come"-it went mainly for phIlan-
thropy-''and making no further pro-
vision for her" But" SAID. max
ing head feeoly against this torrent Of
brave purpose ''suppoSs she should be-
come an inyalIdy'' That can never
happen" replied the mother, still
Spartan; I've have trained her so well
physically that her health is secure. {"
When l heard afterward of this very
young girl as struggling with long and
serious Illness, i wondered whether the
parents felt that there was any weak
point in their armOr of defense; but
have never learned
In Louisa Alcott'S case the strength
AMI weakness of the Spartan theory are
visible from beginning To end. IL was
the glory and triumph Of her life that.
beginning in extreme poyerty-com-
blned always. be II remembered, with
high thinking and ideal aims she
achieved such success with her pen as
10 raise her whole household from pow
erty TO comfort; and she made in all,
her publishers estimate, more than
S2UO, 900 by her books. This is the
bright side; the reverse side is that by
this very course Of life she ruined her
health, and had years of inyalidism;
that zhsa Innn1 haraalF - -
hasty, unsatisfactory, and comparative
ly ephemeTal work that when at last
she allowed herself in maturity To try
for more profound and ideal achieve
meut, in "a Modern Mephlstophles, 4"
her weaTied brain failed of the success
for she which she longed. Moreover,
she found that even in the earning of
money the demand grows with the
power To meet II, aud that even at the
height OF her fame she "must grind
away at the mill, and make money to
supply the many claims that press upon
her from all sides'' lille, p. 1861. AS
result, while many less successful
authors have found in literary life
their highest enjoyment, she said, IN
answer To young mans question as TO
writing looks: Not If you can do
anything else. Even dig bitches Life,
p 367)- 1t is impossible not to see in
all this the pathetic and even the tragic
side of the yoke she bore in her youth.
Had her struggle with life been less
tremendous, would she have gained or
lOstI Ii is impossible to say.A shade less
of conflict might have left her heroic,
but it might have enabled her to work
more slowly, to try for higher stan
dard, and yet to lead as disinterested a
life. The universal instinct that leads
all parents to seek for their children
smoother ways than they themselves
have found surely implies that smoother
ways are not IN themselves a source OF
evil. There are dangers III too great
prosperity, no doubt, even for the lite
Iary class. We see in such lives As those
of Landor and Ruskin, for instance,
the waywaTdness that sometimes comes
when the author is placed wholly above
the need of consulting his public, and
so misses the wholesome discipline of
required adaptation But II society IS
10 20 on developing and the world inn
proving, IL must be in the direction of
comfort, not prIVatIon, and any doc
trHe whI,h assumes poverty 10 be the
real desideratum must refute itself at
] Il. Taken as a whole. every CON-
munity needs to be better, not worse.
oHp anu NnAt We dCCOtuIdBiS heeN - 50
to train our children and ourselves that
We we can all lead noble lives without
being mendicant monk. OF Oriental
fakIrI. George Sand in "COnsuelO"
sings OF 1.-THE good goddess Of poverty, "
md there certainly is such a deity; but
there Is also good goddess of pros
perity, and her proselytes are often as
seTyiceable as those Of the other. and
sometimes more harmonious AMI more
S-rene-