Middletown transcript., 1895-11-09
THE CLOTHING OF CHILDREN.
DON'T MAKE IT RIDICULOUS.

+ DON'T MAKE 1T RIDICULOUS.
wish that every mother possessed
artistic taste, at least so far as the
dress of her children is concerned. In.
deed it is not so much matter of
money as of taste and neatness, that
makes difference between we'll
dressed person and dowdy.
believe that children suffer beyond
the comprehension of their elders,
from ill-ftting, i'll made or out of date
clothing. A friend told me the other
day that no one could understand the
suffering he had undergone from being
obliged. when child, to wear to
school a blue and white checked ging-
ham blouse, when other boys of his
age were wearing cloth jackets. With
the hope of getting jacket, he had re-
peatedly made hole in his blouse by
putting it over a sharp picket fence,
only to have it patched or replaced by
new garment of the same material
and shape. He has been careful to
guard his own boys against a similar
experience.
A woman of most retiring temper.
ament said that she had suffered agony
when child, while wearing a dress
of orange-colored merino trimmed
with rows of wide black velvet.
A farmers Wi fe once told. me that
having no money to buy an overcoat
for her eight year-old boy and possess
ing no skill to make one from material
in the house, she had obliged him to
wear an out-of- f-date jacket of her own.
The brave little fellow came home in
tears for several days, but afterward
endured his suffering like martyr for
for the rest of the winter. 1t seems to
me cruel to subject sensitive boy or
girl to ridicule and its consequent dis
tress.
l am not an advocate of overdressed
children. l wish to see them simply
and neatly dressed with enough comfor-
nifty to the prevailing styl TO prevent
any undue attention on account of odd
ness. "When was little girl" "said
another friend, ''it was the custom in
making children's clothing, to allow
for growth. Accordingly we never
had anything that fitted US we'll until it
was about worn out. That seemed very
ridiculous in our family as there were
several children and if the clothes had
been made to fit each one, they could
have been passed to the younger ones
as fast as outgrown and the necessary
economy would still have been prac-
tised."
Some one has said: "The conscious
ness of being well dressed affords more
comfort than the consolation of re-
l:gion."
To be well dressed is TO be properly
dressed for ones occ upation. The boy
who milks the cows in the suit he
wears to school, will soon render it un-
fit for school, and will find it of no es-
pecial comfort to him in the cow-yard.
If he has suit, or at least overalls, to
don for milking, his self-respect willin-
crease rather than diminish whenever
he arrays himself for the cow-yard.
A mother who has sense of form
and color, and a certain degree of imi-
tati We faculty, is capable of dressing
her children we'll at comparatively
small expense.
Some mothers 6nd it impossible to
make their children's clothes with
neatness and taste. In this case they
would better employ dressmaker to
cut and fit than to wear out the gray
matter of their own brains in trying to,
do something for which they aIe en-
uufi. ted = Country Gentlemen.