The sea coast echo. [volume] (Bay Saint Louis, Miss.) 1892-current, 1892-04-02
KEEP THE GIRLS YOUNG.
Help Your Daughters to Enjoy Youth
While 1t Lasts.


While 1t Lasts.
Mothers should try to prolong their
daughters childhood as much as posi-.
ble Life's troubles will come to them
fast enough. And, even from selfish
point Of view, daughter who is child
like in manner and in thought is much
more of a comfort to a mother than an
immature little woman can be.
1t is natural no doubt, for tired
/ woman, who has no mother or sister
near, to tell her troubles to her little
girl; to let her know that the butcher
and baker want their bills settled and
that the speculation of papa's has de-
layed the payment; to remark on the
conduct of Aunt Elizabeth as ''unlxind;"
to point out the shabbiness of the par
lor furniture; to wonder whether the
poor-house is the future destination of
the family, etc. But it is awfully cruel,
nevertheless, as many natural things
are. Little, pale, grave-looking girls,
with premature sense of responsible
lty, are the outcome of this sort of
thing, and the depth of shame and sor.
row of which the little heart is capa-
Perhaps it is even worse than this to
dilate to child on the faults of friends
and acquaintances; to point out the
spite or meanness of people the child is
disposed to like; to arouse the desire
for revenge, which awakens in every
young soul at the thought of wrong or
injustice Afterward the mother may
learn that she was mistaken, and for
give and forget; the child seldom does
1t is said that in China there are
strange dwarfs of grotesque shape. kept
for the amusement of the emperors,
who were made so at birth by being i'm
prisoned at birth in jars made for the
purpose, the forms of which the wretch
ed creatures took in growing, they be.
ing originally no different from other
children.
We know that foot or limb could
be thus altered; that crooked noses or
crooked ears come of the carelessness
OF those who nurse young infants. The
ring that is put upon your finger when
it is small will imbed itself into the
flesh and make depression never to be
obliterated, if it is left there as the fin
ger grows
Effects as distorting as these are pro-
duced on the young heart and mind by
fitting childhood's budding love and
faith and confidence to the narrowness
OF adult life-to its greed of gold, it's in
ordinate value of appearance, its sus.
picion of others, or to the sad knowl.
edge of what life really is.
If you love your daughter, let her
laugh and prattle. Rejoice with her;
do not make her weep with you. There
are thousand things to teach her that
are bright and good and elevating, and
you had better go back to your own
youth, and help her dress her doll like
Miss Elfrida Jane, who seems so lovely
in the child's eyes, than tell her that
Miss Elfrida Jane paints her cheeks,
and is not all she ought to be in con-
duct You had better read "Cinderella"
and "Puss in Boots with her, and be-
lieve with her that good fairy might
come down the chimney at any time
and evolve golden coach from vel
low pumpkin, than to teach her prema-
turely that the world is a sad place and
It's dwellers mostly evil-minded per-
sons.
Keep your little girls young and
hopeful and they will help YOU to
keep SO, too.-N. Y. Ledger.