The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1894-06-07
cAlLpaeN.s RIGHTS.
A Phase of 1.-THE Universal Problom III
C0nfronts goetetv

n fh0se OF sthe Universal froDloM THAI |
C0nfronts Society.
There is no substitute for q genuine
free, serene, healthy, bread-and- butter |
childhood A fine manhood or woman.
hood can be built on no other founda
ton, and yet our American homes are
so often filed with hurry and worry,
our manner Of living is so keyed to
concert pitch, our plan of existence so
complicated, that we drag the babies
along in our wake and force them to
our artificial standards, forgetting that
"sweet flowers are slow, and weeds
make haste"
If we must or fancy that we must,
lead this false, too feverish life, let us
at least spare them. by keeping them
forever on tiptoe we are in danger of
producing an army Of conventional
little prigs, who know much more than
they should about matters which are
proiitess even to their elders.
AS to keeping children too clean for
any mortal use, ] suppose nothing is
more disastrous. The divine right to
be gloriouslY dirty large portion of
the time, when dirt is necessary con-
sequence of direct, useful, friendly con-
tact with all sorts of interesting help
| full things, is too clear to be denied.
The children who have to think of
their clothes before playing with the
dogs, digging in the sand, working m
the she'd building bridge or wedding
the garden never get half their legiti-
mate enjoyment out of life.
| have a good deal of sympathy for
the little people during their first eight
or ten years, when they are just begin
ming to learn life's lessons, and when
the laws which govern them must
often seem SO strange and unjust.
The child has right toa place of his
own, to things of his own, to surround
ings which have some relation to his
size, his desires and his capabilities
How should we like to live half the
time in a place where the piano was
twelve feet tall, the door knob at an
impossible height, and the mantel shelf
in the sky; where every mortal thing
was out of reach except collection of
highly-interesting objects on dressing
tables and bureaus, guarded, however,
by giants three times as large and pow
erful as ourselves, forever saying,
"Musn't touch, and if we did touch we
should be spanked, and have no other
method of revenge save to spank back
symbolically on the ipoffensive persons
of our dolls?
The child problem is merely one
phase Of the universal problem that
confronts society. "Let the history OF
domestic rule typify in little the his
, tory of our political rule; at the outset
autocratic control, where control is
really needful; by and by an incipient
, constitutionalism, in which the liberty
of the subject gains recognition, extern
, sions Of this liberty of the subject grad
ually vending in paternal abdication."
We must not expect children to bC
too good Intellectual and moral pre-
cocity produced by stimulation will bC
at the expense of the future character
In these matters the child has righ
+, to expect examples He lives in tn,
: senses, he can only learn through oh
ject lessons, can only pass from tn,
concrete examples of goodness to
: vision of abstract perfection. -Jenness
! Miller Monthly