The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1893-11-29
Thesell.Deuiai OF Parents.

That parents should deny themsel
YES superfuities for The sake of theil
children, is not in the least to theil
credit; it is meet, right and ther boun'
den duty. That they should give
their children better advantages 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, C. culture
of opportunity and of privilege. The
self-denial of parents is the tribute
the race demands; 1t is not especially
notable nor particually praisWorthy,
because it is the appointed and expect.
ed role which is given to people when
they take upon them the obligation
Of parentho0d.
But self.denial.on the part OF parents
is one thing, and self-effacement quite
another. The plain man and the
plain woman who have scrimped and
stinted and saved, contrived managed,
risen early and sat up late, to send
their sons and daughters to college, 10
educate them literally, to place them
we'll in the world, are not 10 be SET
aside as Of small account when their
children arriveat maturity.
They are wrong to allow themselves
to be-pusAea to The wall set In the
background, as they sometimes are
The mother may not know Euclid, or
have the fain'est acquaintance with
the Greek poets; the music her daugh-
ter plays may be q Chinese puzzle to
her comprehension; bat she does know
a 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
nacular than lis boys vocabulary; but
he has the shrewdness, the acqualn-
tance with men, which comes only
by intercourse with ones fellows, by
Joy and sorrow, and the different
phases through which all pass who live
long enough. 1t should not be part OF
the self-deulal of parents to do with
out the Difference, the tenderness, the
regard, Of those whom they have
brought up.
One finds it oftener in compara-
lively 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 farm houses in our frontier
States where women, not yet mlhdle.
aged, have put on gray hairs ana
wrinkles, lost the beauty aud elastl-
city of youth years before their time,
resignedly accepting privation and
toll and loneliness to give their girls a
chance. If the girls are noble, sweet
natured and true, they will hold the
dear mother in the greatest esteem be-
cnuse of all that she has done for them:
Far from entertaining feeling OF
pride OF, of complacency, they will re-
paw the beautiful self.deEial of their
parents by a devotion With never
shade Of diminution. 1t is an
ignoble nature alone which is capable
of feeling ashamed of those who be-
long to,one's kith aud kin on account
of any simplicity of manuer or plaili-
ness of speech. Self-denial must not
become seif-efacement.
A few years ago 1t was not uncom-
mon to find the parents Of young peo-
pie rather crowded out Of the way,
The drawing-rnoms given up 10 The
youthful daughters and their friends,
while the mother aud father sat by
themselves in basement dining room,
or their own chamber. A better state
of things obtains now, and young peo-
pie have learned that society is crude
and unsatisfactory in which parents
have not their fitting place.