The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1894-05-23

rAE MODERN WAY.
How q Patient, Old Fashioned Mothers
Hopes, One by One, Were Dashed.

How q Patient, Old Fashioned Mothers
Hopes, One by One, Were Dashed.
It is rather hard for people to live
up to their children in these modern
times, anG the fin de steele young Wom-
an with her up to date ideas is often a
complete and not altogether agreeable
surprise to her mother, whose domestic
and social life has been running quietly
in the same grooves for years, and who
looks upon her emancipated offspring
with much the same feeling that ma
tronly hen may be supposed to expert
ence when her brood take suddenly to
the water and prove to be ducklings-
Mrs n. is friendly, social little wom-
an, who, few years ago, was wont to
talk of how much she expected to en-
Joy herself when Lena, her eldest girl,
should have grown up 1T will be so
delightful to have ones own daughter
as a congenlal companion, was her
constant cry, and she was forever longing
for the time when the child should leave
school and come home for good. I'm
fortunately, however, when Lena ar
rived at years of discretion, she discov-
cred that her vocation was social reform,
and she now spends her entire time in
the down town slums organizing news
boys clubs and starting free reading
rooms
''Most praiseworthy, of course, from
a philanthropic point of view" said
one of Mrs. N. 8 friends, who was dis
cussing the problem of the modern
daughter and the old fashioned mamma,
''but do maintain it is hard on Eliza
beth to be obliged to play second fiddle
to a lot of dirty little boys, and must
say that l felt sorry for Professor n.
when 1 happened to drop in the other
day at his luncheon hour to discover
that excellent man resignedly taking
his chop in the lobby, while the house
re-echoed to the shrilI, nasal voices of
20 or more ragged gamins, who were
rehearsing some songs for a festival in
the dining room and parlOr- Z"
Disappointed in her eldest daughter,
Mrs N, with her usual hOpefulness, re-
marked cheerfuIly: I'VE do not see as
much as we would like of dear Lena
She is such q wonderful worker and has
SO many calls ON her time that 1 tell
her she must not bother about me.
Edith is such a big girl now that shall
soon have her to go about with " But,
alas for the frailty of human hopes,
Edith had no sooner finished school than
she announced her determination to go
to college, and she has ever since been
taking courses of higher mathematics
and writing essays Oh the advanced edu-
cation of women
Again the admiring mother patiently
bore her second disappointment, feeling
sure that her third daughter at least
would be likely to resemble her and find
pleasure in the same occupations. 'fHet-
ty was such u pretty, lively little thing,
she surely wouldn't be comfortably
frivolous.
my DEAR" exclaimed the friend who
had been narrating Mrs. N. s trials and
tribulations, ''Hetty was positively the
worst of the lot. She developed a craze
for art, and nothing would do but she
must go to Paris and study, and now
she has cutie for Monet, is as i'm
pressionist Of the most advanced school
and goes in for dress reform. Poor,
poor, dear Elizabeth She cannot under
stand one of her daughters, who for
their part are utterly incapable of SYM
pathizing with their mothers simple
aims and pleasures New York Trib-
une.