The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1893-08-11

cities parents do not allow their chill
dren TO graduate, for the simple reason,
they say: "We cannot afford to allow
our children's health to be destroyed
in order that they may gather the
honors of an institution" Tens of
thousands of children educated into
imbecility; SO, connected with many
such literary ablishments there
ought to be asylums for the wrecked.
1t is push, and crowd, and cram, and
stuff, and jam, until the child's intel
lect is bewildered, and the memory is
wrecked and the health is gone.
Girls 10 years of age studying alge-
bra! Boys 10 years of age racking
their brain over trigonometry! Chill
dren unacquainted with their mother
tongue crying over their Latin, French
| and German lessons! All the vivacity
of their nature beaten out of them by
the heavy beetle of Greek lexiconl
| And you doctor them for this, and you
| give them little medicine for that,
and you wonder what is the matter
with them. ] will tell you what is the
matter with them. They are finishing
their education
In my parish in Philadelphia little
child was so pushed at school that she
was thrown into a fever. and in her
dying delirium, all night long. she was
| trying to recite the multiplication
table. In my boyhood l remember
that in our class at school there was
one lad who knew more than all of us
put together. If we were fast in our
arithmetic, he eXtricated us When
we stood up for the spelling class he
was almost always the head of the
! class. Visitors came to his fathers
house, and he was almost always
brought in as prodigy. At IS years
of age ne was an idiot. He lived ten
years an idiot and died an idiot, not
knowing his right hand from his left.
or day from night. The parents and
the teachers made him an idiot.
You may flatter your pride by forcing
your children to know more than any
other children, but you are making a
sacrifice of that child, if by the addi-
| tions to its intelligence you are making
a subtraction from its future. The
child will go away from such maltreat-
ment with no eXuberance to fight the
| battle of life. Such children may get
along very well while you take care of
| them, but when you are old or dead,
| alas. for them, if, through the wrong
system of education which you adopt
ed, they have no swarthiness or force
| of character to take care of themselves.
Be careful how you make the child's
head ache or its heart flutter. ! hear
| a great deal about black mems rights.
rights, and women's rights. Would
God that somebody would rise to plead
for the children's rights
Again, there are many parents who
are sacrificing their children with
wrong systems of discipline-too great
rigor and too great leniency. There
| are children in families who rule the
household. They come to the author
ity. The high chair in which the in
FAINT sits is the throne, and the rattle is
the scepter. and the other children
make up the parliament where father
and mother have no vote, such chill
dren come up to be miscreants.
There is no chance in this world for
child that has never learned to mind.
Some people become the botheration
of the church of God and the pest of
the world. Children that do not learn
to obey human authority are unwilling
to learn to obey divine authority. Chill
dreu will not respect parents whose au-
| thority they do not respect. Who are
these young men that swagger through
the street, with their thumbs in their
vest, talking about their father as the
old man. "the governor, the squire"
''the old chap" or their mother as 1.-The
old woman?" They are those who in
youth, in childhood, never learned 10
respect authority.
There must be harmony between the
fathers government and the mothers
government. The father will be
tempted to too great rigor. The
mother will be tempted too great
leniency. Her tenderness will over
come her. Her voice is little softer.
her hand seems better fit to pull out a
thorn and soothe a pang. Children
wanting anything from the mother cry
for it. They hope to dissolve her
will with tears But the mother
must not interfere, must not coax
off, must not beg for the child
when the hour comes for the asser-
ton of parental supremacy and the
subjugation of child's temper. There
comes in the history of every child an
hour when it is tested whether the
parents shall rule or the child shall
rule. This is the crucial hour If the
child triumphs in that hour, then he
will some day make you crouch. 1t is
horrible scene. / have witnessed it: 4
mother come to old age, shiverinG with
terror in the presence of a son who
cursed her gray hairs and Knocked her
wrinkled face, and begrudged her the
crust she munched with her toothleSs
gums.
How sharper than se-pent's tooth il is
To have thankless child.
But, on the other hand, too great rig
or must be avoided. 1t is a sad thing
when domestic government becomes
cold military despotism Trappers on
the prairie fight fire with fire, but you
cannot successfully fight your child's
bad temper with your own bad temper.
We must not be too minute in our in
spection- We cannot expect our chill
dren to be perfect We must not see
everything. Since we have two or
three faults of our own. we ought not
to be too rough when we discover that
our children have as many.
You cannot scold or pound your chill
dren into nobility of character. The
4 Il l..
seen under cold drizzle. Above all,
avoid fretting and scolding in the
household. Better than ten years of
fretting at your children is one good,
round. old-fashioned application of the