Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1890-01-05
THE SPARTAN THEORY.
Extremes in Training Children Should Be
Ayoided-Louisa Alcott's Experience.

Extremes in Training Children Should Be
Avoided-LOuisa Alcott's Experience.
So sweet is it to provide joys and foresee
advantages for these young creatures chill
dren), that have in long experience, known
but one pair Of parents who were 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 should
rely on herself. We feel justified in spend
ing our whole income"-it went mainly for
philanthropy-"and making no further pro-
vision for her." But" / said, making head
feebly against this torrent of brave purpose,
Suppose she should become an lnvaiidf'
That can never happen, replied the mother,
still Spartan; 1--WE have trained her so well
physically that her health is secure" When
heard afterward of this very young girl
as struggling with long and serious illness,
wondered whether the parents felt that there
was any weak point in their arnaor OF de-
tense; but l have never learned.
In Louisa Alcott's case the strength and
weakness of the Spartan theory are visible
from beginning TO end. 1t was the glory and
triumph of her life that, beginning in ex-
treme poverty-combiued always, be 1t re-
membered, with high thiSzing and ideal
aims-she achieved such success with her pen
as to raise her whole household from poverty
TO comfort; and she made in all, her pub
fishers estimate, more than 5000, 600 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 invalid
ism; that she bound herself TO a method of
hasty, unsatisfactory, and comparatively
ephemeral work; that when at last she al
lowed herself in maturity TO try for a more
profound and ideal achievement, in "a Mod
ern Mephistopheles.n her wearied brain failed
of the success for which she longed. More
over, she found that even in the earning OF
money the demand grows with the power 70
meet it, and 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" Life, p. 1860.
As a result, whils many less successful authors
have found in literary life their highest en-
joyment, she said, in answer TO a young mans
question as TO writing books: Not II you
can do anything else. Even dig bitches"
Life, D. 36Tl. II is impossible not to see in
all this the pathetic and even the tragic side
of the yoke sac bore in her youth
Had her struggle with life been less ire
mendous, would she have gained or lostl It
is impossible to say 4 shade less of conflict
might have left her less heroic, but it might
have enabled her TO work more slowly, TO try
for higher standard, and yet to lead as dis
interested 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 source OF evil There are
dangers in too great prosperity, no doubt,
even for the literary class. We see in such
lives as those of Lander and Ruskin, for in
stance, the waywardness 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 if society is 70 go on devel-
oping and the world improving, IL must be IN
the direction Of comfort, not OF prlvatlon,
and any doctrine which assumes poverty 10
be the real desideratum must rerute itself at
last. Taken as a whole, every community
needs 20 be better, not worse, OF, and what we
accordingly need Is SO 70 train our children
and ourselves that we can all lead noble lives
without being mendicant monks or Oriental
fakirs. George Sand in 'Consuelo" sings Of
the good goddess Of poverty" and there
certainly is such deity; but there is also
good goddess of prosperity, and her proselytes
are often as serviceable as those OF the other,
and sometimes more harmonious and more
sersne-T. ". H in Harpers bazar.