San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1895-05-26

grand army OF liars that conquer
confidence and destroy all trust
and make business integrity their
prey.
The little lips that learn to lie SO
readily soon take to smutty lam
gusge and profanity. That clean.
ness OF speech that is so sweet a
thing in child is lost. Unfortu-
lately it is not necessary to go out
into the street to learn this, for the
Language that falls from the lips Of
fashionable ladies and church
workers is too often riddled with
coarsness and punctuated with
slang. More than this, the chief
stock in trade Of some popular
preachers is their unlimited vocab-
ulsry OF cuss words. All this how
ever is accumulated in the street
and soon degenerates into down.
right profanity and bald-headed
swearing Of the most revolving
kind. Stand aside and listen to a
knot of street gamins. The oaths
that roll from their lips with the
smoke of their cigarettes would
have astonished that army in
Flanders. The vulgarism Of their
conversation passes belief.
This is another of the early
learned lessons of the street. Coarse
ness OF idea and conversation, that
soon degenerates into coarseness in
every fibre of the child's nature.
The truth OF this statement can be
verified on every corner where
street children congregate. 1t is
only necessary to keep still and
listen and be convinced. The
child that grows thus coarse in
grain, in fibre and particle, until
the whole nature is stepped in
coarseness, is lost to all sense of
that fineness of inner feeling and
outer manner that is the essential
charm of association. What is
more suggestive Of future degrade
ton than to hear a child, hardly
weaned from the maternal breast,
using the language caught up from
the curbstone, out to which the
carelessness of mother or nurse
has permitted it to toddle. And
yet this is done continually here in
San Antonio and no one seems to
think it an unusual thing, and
mother says: at does not know
what it says, it will learn better
when it grows older"
The LIGHT says to you, mothers
OF San Antonio, it is not light
thing for your little ones to lose
their reverence for home, their
love N the fireside group, their
truthfulness and their trust, their
cleanness of lips and of thought,
their sweetness of manner and
their fine consideration of others.
1t is not in the least improving
their prospects for the coming
days to have them grow bold, rest
less of restraint, ready at any mo-
ment to escape the parental eye
and rush into the street to take in
all the sights and sounds of that
uncanny school. Better far exer-
else a little wholesome restraint
and leave them to understand the
wisdom of it in after days.
Let these suffice for the present.
This Sunday morning as you sit
around your breakfast tables and
look lovingly into the faces Of your
little ones, look beyond their pres
emit innocence and lovableness, and
truthfullness, and purity Of speech,
and gentleness of manner to the
unsightliness Of these other child
rem whose street education has we'll
progressed and ask yourself IL this
is what you desire for your little
girls and boys. In the light OF your
conclusion train them to keep out
, of the street, as substitute fol
home. By so doing you will pre-.
vent much evil to them and great
sorrow to yourself in the after
days.
This first sermon on the "street
SphOO1O ia andad