The Democrat. (Scotland Neck, Halifax Co., N.C.) 1884-1896, 1894-03-01
MIND FOOD IMPORTANT.
What Are The Children Feeding Or:
BY MIRA CALDWELL.

full in regard to what the children ate.
She spent almost all her time in get
ting up palatable yet wholesome dish
es.
"If my boys and girls do not have
sound bodies, they cannot blame their
mother for it," she was wont to com
placently remark. And the sequel?
Well, those children grew TO manhood
and womanhoOd One OF the boys now
fills a murderer cell.
II am what 1 am because OF the
books and papers ] read from from ear
" childhood" is his own statement.
One daughter fills an early and dis
honored grave, the legitimate outcome
of the mental food upon which she fed
during the wears when character was
forming and the youthful imagination
needed careful, healthy training.
The other daughter admits that she
cannot endure to read anything that
is not highly colored and sensational :
and home and family suffer while she
wecps over the woes Of some imaginary
being, or sits In her room, with
locked door, porting over literature that
she dare not let her husband and chill
dren see.
An exaggerated case, perhaps, but
not so exaggerated as you may think,
mothers.
All over the land children are being
carefully fed and dressed they are sent
to school everything possible is being
done for them-so their parents think
but steadily and stealthily they are
being poisoned and ruined.
Sister, do you know what compan-
ionship your sons and daughters keep
In the world of books and papers?
You say, Il think l CO."
But it we're better to be sure
1t is an indisputable fact that chill
dren try to hide anything that is OF
doubtful nature from their parents
they are less secretive with every one
else This is all wrong, but it seems to me
each must find remedy for his own or
her particular case though it appears
that wise parent should so cultivate
and treat the confidence of child
that it will never become estranged II
were better to neglect the milk in the
evening than to neglect the little bed
time chat, in the alluring twilight.
School children tell each other every
thing, and the mother must be Judi
ciOus indeed who manages this miscel
laneous information in such way that
the boy or girl be uninjured but woe
to the one who indlscreetly dams the
stream of confidence.
1t will be no use to say, "Who tells
you such stuff" Little children mus
not talk So" or II will explain whe1
you are older )" it won't do, the stream
will run on. And then there are the
books, papers and pictures that the,
are secretly feeding on; what are vol
going to do about them? One boy o.
girl in neighborhood, possessed O.
just one bad picture or pamphlet, ma,
be the ruin of dozens of.promising chill
dren.
Some people grow old so fast thai
they seem to forget how alluring for
hidden fruit used to appear to them o.
else they just happened to escape temp
tation in their youth, anyway they seen
to imagine that their young people arr
thinking no thoughts, reading no lit
erature and meeting no temptations tina
do not appear on the surface.
Most people, old and young, lead ,
sort OF dual life few of us are lust wha
we seem ; and we are only safe whe1
we accustom ourselves to remember
Thou God seest me-" and regulat,
our lives accordingly.
But what can parents or guardians dc
In the premises? remains the question
One thing, besides gaining and holdins
their children's confidence. we can 50,
should be done. and that is the provid
ing OF pure, wholesome, entertainine
literature
Don't tell the children that the,
must not read novels rather teach then