Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1893-10-31
seLs DENIAL OF PARENTS.
II Should Never BE Permitted TO Dcgen-
crate Into Self Enacement.

efhto lnto ocil l-nhNemehts
That parents should deny themselves SUI
perfuities for the sake OF their children Is
not in the least TO their credit. IL Is meet,
right and their bounden duty. That they
should give their children better advan-
tages than they have had themselves Is
equally, in the nature OF things, their
proper line Of conduct. Each generation
owes to the one IN advance all that IL can
bestow of preparation, of culture, of OPP
portunity and VI privilege. The self de
nial of parents Is the tribute the race de-
manda. 10 Is not especially notable nor
particularly prhseworthy, because It Is the
appointed and expected role which is given
TO people whom they take upon them the
obligations of poreuthood.
But self denial on tho part OF the parents
Is one thing, and self effacement quite an
other. The plain man and the plain wom-
an who have scrimped and stinted and
saved, oontri7ed, managed, risen early and
ant up late, to send their sons and dnugh-
ters TO college, to educate them literally,
60 place them well in the world, are not TO
be set aside as OF small account when their
children arrive at maturity.
They are wrong TO allow themselves to
DO pushed to the wall, set in the back
ground, as they sometimes are. The mother
may not know Euclid or have the faintest
acquaintance with the Greek poets, the
music her daughter plays may beA Chinese
puzzle TO her comprehension, but she does
know whole world Of science, not neces-
sarily in books, to which her daughter can
gain no clew in the classroom, since life
must be the teacher.
The father may speak less ornate yer-
naculnr than his boys vocabulary, but he
has the shrewdness, the acquaintance with
men, which como only by intercourse with
onc's fellows, by joy aud sorrow and this
different phnses through which all pass
who live long enough. IL should be no
part OF the self denial Of parents to do with
out the Difference, the tenderness, the re-
gard, Of those whom they have brought up.
One linda It oftener In comparatively
new country than In the more conventional
life of our cities, state of things In which
parents seem to have been outgrown by
their children. There are farmhouses In
our frontier states where women, not yet
middle aged, have put on gray hairs and
wrinkles lost the beauty and elasticity Of
youth yenrs before their time, resignedly
accepting privation and toll and Loneliness
TO give their girls chance.
If tho girls ARE noble, sweet natured aud
true they will hold the dear mother In the
greatest esteem because Of all that she has
done for them. Far from entertaining a
feeling OF pride or OF complacency, they
will repay the beautiful self denial OF their
parents by devotion which never knows
shade Of elimination. IL is an ignoble ma
ture alone which Ia capable OF feeling
ashamed Of those who belong to ones kith
and kin on account Of any simplicity Of
manner or plaimess of speech. Self denial
must not become self placement.
A few years ago it was not uncommon to
find the parents OF young people rather
crowded out Of thewny the drawing rooms
given up TO the youthful daughters and
their friends, while the mother and father
sat by themselves ia basement dining
room or their own chamber. A better state
OF things obtains now, and young people
have learned that society IL crude and I'M
satisfactory, in which parents have not their
fitting place, -Harper's Bazaar.