Herald and tribune. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1869-current, 1894-06-13
TEMPERANCE COLUMN,
EDITED BY JoNEsBoRo W. @. T. U.
MOTHERS OF MEN.

and looms, and 80 exercised her brains
mechanically, while her husband
preached and served the church as a
priest. Behold the result. l am pro-
foundly convinced hat we have suf-
fered a loss beyond imagination to con-
ceive or language express by keeping
woman in the narrow routine of house
work. She is mother. She is maker.
She it is who stamps the babe with pa
rental bias. She touches the souls she
bears with fire of genius or the tame
ness OF platitudinous routine. Tesla
mother was a maker, a schemer. an in
ventor. She was fortunate in that her
husband was the slave of tamensss.
The consequence is a boy that has burst
the bounds of Slavic speculation and
idealism and has even come to the
front of Saxon inventors and discover
ers. A Slavic orator reproached his
people that they had never been able
to invent 30 much as a mouse trap.
But Tesla is the leader of the age of
electricity. He has even surpassed
for brilliant originality our Edison. l
am convinced that this illustration is
OF very wide application. Our mothers
are cooks and washerwomen and house
keepers. 1t tells ON the babes. We
must first see to the fountain, then to
the stream-the stream of humanity.
What wonderful care should be taken
OF the motherhood! All civilization
should bend to the purpose to furnish
the future generation with power Civ
ing mothers. Even the father is of less
importance-much less.
John Stuart Mill said that if people
ever came to be highly moral it would
be when they came to fully understand
that a single act by a man or a woman
might cause untold misery for ages to
come, and that one might blight by a
single sin her own child's eternal pros
poets. This subject of hereditary in
fiuence has been studied very much
mora thoroughly since Mr.. Mill, and it
is conceded that the amount of freedom
that a person enjoys is modified and
directed by the actions and character
OF parents to a degree never realized
until this era of scientific investigation.
But the weight of testimony goes more
and more to show that the mother is
the real maker of the child. l do not,
however, care 30 much to speak of in
dividuals, but of the general fact that
you can not raise the average tone of a
people much above the mothers. Edu.
cate them, inspire them, and the SOM
come into the world with a propulsion
for that which is noble and a necessity
in them to do something worthy and
great.
The average woman's life is too fiat,
too simple, too much occupied with the
tame and common. l am not inclined,
however, to urge any further attempts
at public speaking-the rostrum age
has fortunately waned. We care less
for actors, less for talk. The typical
men are no longer Clays and Websters,
but Edisons, Tyndalls, Huxleys. These
are men that push the world ahead in
knowledge and achievement. But they
are rare. They should abound. When
m looks over a common crowd or over
a community of people, the startling
fact is that so large a part are nobodies.
do not mean that they are merely not
distinguished, but they are insignificant
mere echoes of the world. Take out
one tenth of the people, and the nine
tenths would barely make a living.
They would do no fresh thinking and
no investigating of the unknown. Prob
lens would never be solved, rarely even
known to exist. What twaddle makes
up ordinary conversation! Or, even
worse, what vulgarityl l believe this
is not a necessity; that the nine tenths
might be the people of power and
thought and originality. The key to
this situation is with our mothers. But
they can not turn the lock for them
selves.
New England, by a fine education of
motherhood in theology, succeeded in
creating a race of t~heologians. Every
woman in New England in the eigh-
teenth century could discuss the whole
body of divinity as we'll as men could.
They had equal privileges and used
them. Both sexes went together to
church and the prayer meetings. The
New England school for intellectual
wrestling was in the church, not in the
school house. The result was an equal
capacity Of the sexes to dispute over
election, grace, the future state, free
will and DEGREES. Such women bore
splendid 9 The New Englanders
made America Intellectually. That
sort of education has passed away.
Equality now is demanded and largely
obtained in the common schools and
colleges. Women can graduate at uni
versities. But when a women is mar
ried custom drops her into the creek.
She is intended henceforth to keep a
house in order. The predominant idea
is sexual. That hers is the intellectual
force to shape the future is not com.
pretended. Men have long since fallen
into the habit of forming associations
and clubs. Women's clubs we must
have-not cooking clubs, but clubs for