The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1894-09-07
HINTS FOR MOTHERS BANDS.
Written by Mrs. Barber and Printed by
Request of the w. G. T. u
Convention.

Written by Mrs. Barber and Printed by
Request of the w. c. T. U.
Convention.
One of the advancements of the
present time is the attention which is
being given to the study of childhood,
the realization that all reform, all adj
vancement, must begin at the beginn-
ing of life IL it would be sure ofsuccess.
If the fountain head be sullied and
impure, how can we hope to cleanse,,or
purify the stream later on? The
truth, that to form is better than to
reform, is impressing itself upon the
hearts and brains of all earnest work
ers for humanity. The Women's
Christian Temperance Union has for
years striven to save the boys from
the pollution of the saloon. Boys
free reading rooms, gymnasiums.
temperance bands, and the like have
been organized; mother-wit extend
ing its loving arms around them, di-
verting their attention from the OBJ
scene newspapers and the tempting
attractions of the bar room, areusing
in them a desire to develop their
bodies into stalwart manliness, in
spring them with higher ideals than
can be found in the street or stable.
All this is well, but the Kindergar-
ten comes to you and says, "Not yet
can you stop. Farther on still must
your training be pushed. Nearer to
Gods hand must you take the hand
of the little child. Begin at the be-
ginning. Remember that "the ten
denotes Of infancy crystalize into the
character of maturity"
More than this, it says: You must
not watch and pray only, but you
must study the child, that you may
work with God, not against him, by
his divinely implanted in
stincts. There is a science to be
studied and mastered before this
great work can be accomplished.
Mothers clubs are springing up all
over the land. Let not their work be
hap-hazard work, but
broad, scientific investigation of what
are the natural instincts of all child
rem, what environments have tended
in the past to upbuild noble manhood |
and womanhood; what seemingly in
significant things have tendency to
urn the child's appetite, activities
md emotions, downward instead of
upward.
Each child is born into the world
with all the possibilities which are
'ver afterwards to develop within
him just as each seed contains the
and possibilities
which the after-plant or blossom may
display. Let US watch then the first
Unfolding of the child's nature.
Every after-relation ship, or possible
relationship, must show itself in the
hild's early activities. First con-
ider him as an individual. If we
ook abroad over the world, what is
he chief cause of such dwarfed and
tunted characters as we see about us,
nd why do want and misery stare
t us on every hand? For what rea-
ons do crime and wickedness pollute
ur moral atmosphere, until our great
tiles are fatal to half the youths and
naidens who come to them? Why do
ur clergy and reformers, have to
abor so hard to attract the hearts of
zen to what is, in itself, glorious and
eautiful? Is it not, in a majority of
asses, because the man or woman can
OF, or does not, subordinate his ply
ical nature to his spiritual nature?
treat and glorious as is temperance
Movement in our land, it has not yet
cached the root of the evil it would I
One cannot listen to
UGH a woman as Frances Willard,
Tho has given her life and her talent
n others, without thanking God that
lch women live. And yet, as 1 have
stoned to her give an account of the ]
importance movement L have seen
lat one more round was needed to be
ided to the ladder Not strong
rink alone, but strong appetites in n
Tery form, need to be brought under 1
le control of the rational element in d
an. Nor is the age of six or seven
on enough to begin. The mother
lould begin this greatest lesson in E
Ie as soon as the child ceases to OBJ 8
in his neurishment from her breast, :
: play, and song, and loving talk, is ii
% to call his attention to the differ b
100 between sweet and sour, thus in Il