Mexico weekly ledger., 1893-12-28
VALUE OF MOTHERS MEETINGS.
BY MRS. NJ. 7. FULCHER.

Read before the Annual District
Convention of the w. G. I. T.,
Springfield, Missouri, and published
by request of Convention.
AS one of the departments of oul
work, the Mothers Meeting should
occupy front rank. There is crowd
ed into the word Motherhood
greater potentiality, graver response
bllity and farther reaching oppor-
tunity than perhaps into any other
one word in our language.
While the force and energy of the
w. c. I. U. may be directed with
some hope of success against full
grown evils, yet the larger success
must attend our efforts when direct
ed against evils in embryo and evils
in their infancy.
1t may be given to men to stand
In the strong rushing current of the
broad river and by sheer force change
the course of the mighty waters, but
to woman is given to live and work
near the rivers source, when sin
gle hand-touch in weakness may
turn currents into new channels and
even as herself fountain and source
to determine in what direction and
to what destination the broad
bosomed river shall take its course.
Hence in our work our eyes are
mainly to the future and if we would
reach the generation of the future
we ought to put the firm impress of
our hand upon the mothers of the
present.
We touch a child; that is one.
We reach a mother and she, far
better than we, moulds and fashions
halt dozen lives.
We all recall the inquiry of the
gifted Madame DeStael: What does
France most need? To which the
big-minded Napoleon replied:
Mothers! mothers then were in
France in shameful plenty. That is,
mothers in the animal sense, and so
everywhere women who give life and
being to countless immortals, but
who are incapable for the real duties
of human motherhood.
Saloons, jails, brothels and peni-
tentiaries are crowded with inmates,
while the next crop matches and
swarms in alley and by-street and
public park. Inefficient motherhood
is surely larger factor in all this
evil.
A testy old gentleman on being
asked how early the training of
child should begin, gave an answer
as true as it was laconic: cat least
one generation before it is born. :"
We will do this when we reach the
mothers. In doing this we pre- empt
the territory and forestall Satan and
the saloon. Trainers of horses and
breeders of pigs and raisers Of poul-
try find profit and value in coming
together to counsel and confer, to
ideas and experience, and
to receive instruction and inspiration
from the more successful or more
gifted of their craft. II our children
are as valuable as horses, capable of
improvement as pi gs and as respon-
sive to culture as chickens, then
surely mothers meetings will issue
in great good.
Let us as women and mothers
live ever in full view of the fact that
the training of children is of all
work the most responsible and the
most difficult.
How many parents we have
known who have been strong for
every other work, brave for every
other conflict and faithful to every
other duty, yet have failed utterly
in training their own offspring
Have failed in the midst of such
eminent success and failed at the
very point when failure is most dis
astrous to society and the world at
large.
There are SO many mothers who
are well meaning and conscientious,
but who will live and die wholly
oblivious and totally ignorant of the
grave responsibilities and golden
opportunities that are theirs. How
much these Indifferent and uncon-
cerned mothers need the contact
and touch of women who have had
as the Virgin, a vision, and have
with Mary heard the voice declar-
WD q