Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1891-07-16
In WOMAN'S BEHALF.
WHAT GIRLS MOST NEED.


Some Advice Co Mothers Upon the Train
Ing of Their Daughters-Tho sunny At
mosphere the Home should Furnish.
Girls, like roses, grow best for those
who love them. Love, warmth is as
necessary for the budding soul as the
opening rose, and whoever watches the
girl-soul with eyes of love will see
therein responsive growth, deepen
ed coloring, tender unfolding of the
many-petaled heart
No crime can be surer of Gods con-
demnation than that of bringing into
this world an unwelcome life and then
abandoning it to the slow torture Of
soul starvation. The tender plantlet
that finds the skies of April and May
drear and chill may cling to life even
though its young leaves are frost-bit-
ten, but all its life will be weakened
and its symmetry and beauty lessened
by that early blight
A little girl of or 8 years came up
the aisle of Northwestern train the
other day. and the old little face with
the lines of pain and anxious thought
already beginning to mar its young
beauty made one feel sad, as if one
were looking upon blighted flower
But the cause of it all was only too
evident as we glanced up into the out
of-tune, falsetto face of the woman who
ierked her into seat, and whom the
little one miscalled by the tender name
Mamma" Maternity and mother
hood may be terms widely different in
meaning. The maternal parent of a
child may have no right to the holy
name of mother.
The girls first supreme need is home
sunshine-that is mother sunshine.
You might as well expect a rose to
der the lowering gloom of a perpetual
thunderstorm as to expect girls to
blossom out into bright, lovely girl
hood in cold, chilling atmosphere of
constant censure and fault-fnding.
To be welcomed into an atmosphere
full of soul sunshine is the divine right
of every young soul. To have that at
mosphere kept warm and sunny during
all the early years of growth is debt
owed by parents to their children-a
debt for which we can not but believe
they will be held accountable.
If the atmosphere of the home is
warm and sunny and pure the young
girl soul may be left to develop in its
own sweet way, and it will be found
budding and blossoming at every happy
nod. For it seems to be law of ma
ture that children born of strong, pure
and loving parents, with such sun
ny home atmosphere, instinetively
choose the best elements for their spirit
ual growth. In the early years of soul
growth there is often too much we'll
meant but ill-timed solicitude on the
part of parents and teachers, | remem-
her, one springtime, to have had my
soul sorely vexed by precious young
botanist of three years who insisted
upon pulling up my tender plantlets
ito see how the woots 60" Some we'll
intentioned people are perpetually pull
ing girls up by the roots, to see how
they are growing. To such soul-in-
quisitors we feel like saying: "Do let
your girls alone" There is divine
mystery of growth in every soul, which
even the nearest and dearest, the moth
er, may not penetrate. 1t is something
too sacred for any other being to know,
save God alone, and this is the reason,
1t may be, that in His wis
dom it is forever hidden from
any eye but his. And your duty as
mother seems to be to keep the home in
which they live and move and have
their being" warm, sunny and whole
some, so that they may reflect your soul
light and absorb its warmth and quick.
ening power, just as the planets reflect
the sunshine and are quickened into
life and beauty by their mother sun.
And this home sunshine, this mother
sunshine, means that home must be the
brightest and sunniest spot upon earth
1t means that all the spites, and envies
and meanness of the world shall be
kept out of the home as sedulously as
you would keep poisonous weeds out o.
your garden. 1t means that there the
young girl always feels the better, no
bier side of her nature expanding. i
means that there the natural language o
her heart is love, and song, and prayer
1t means that the whole wide worlC
can hold no place for her comparable
to that home, however simple and low
ly, which is warmed and lighted by he
mothers smile 1t means that for he
girl-soul, mother, comfort, peace, sun
shine, and soul rest are synonymou
terms. 1t means that she can only thinl
of heaven as longer and brighte
dream of home. Chicago Tribune.