The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1897-05-12

1
knowing boys and girls told the TRUTH
which our grandmothers should have
presented in the most delicate, natural
and beautiful way.
TO assume that mother can guide
her children is to assume that she il
wise. In many, great many cases
her children know more than she does.
Many mothers hamper their children
instead of developing them.
Even to-day children are too much
restricted in many cases, as they have
too much latitude in others. The most
GRIPPING influence in human develop
ment is fear. The young hundred
years ago had to contend with it, and
they are contending with it to-day.
Children are trained by their parents to
fear God-I know his omnipotent eye
used to make me half crazy-to fear
the devil, to fear their parents, their
teachers, to fear almost everybody and
everything. / speak from my own ex-
perience. My mother was splendid
woman, but she believed in the mill
tary discipline, Go and he goeth,'
Come and he cometh.' 1 was afraid
of her and of everybody else. Nothing
is 80 conducive to human happiness
and development as liberty, and chill
dren don't have half enough of it. 1
and my sisters were restricted in our
reading. We were trotted to the old
Presbyterian church every Sunday, and
made to listen to q sermon over an
hour long, and then we were trotted
home and made to study the catechism
and read the Bible for the rest of the
day. Fortunately, my Bible had an
apocrypha and l could read about Bel
and the Dragon. The devil was con-
stantly held up to US, and nearly every
day when our childish spirits broke
loose we were told, you must surely
be child of the devil
Peter, an old colored man, whose
sole business was to look after my two
sisters and me, was the only human
being we were not afraid Of. We
gained some freedom through him.
Things went on this way until one of
my sisters married Mr.. Bayard of
Maine, an uncle of Thomas T. Bayard,
who was an ambassador to England
under President Cleveland. He had
for those days very queer ideas about
training girls, and good deal of free
dom slipped into our home when he
entered it. We never had any chaper-
oning. My father was,a judge of the
supreme court, and when he'd hold
court we'd 90 along and dine at the
hotel with the lawyers and spend the
evenings playing chess and dancing
with them. The young have always
had freedom in the country, so far as
conduct goes.
"Children have more latitude in
their education, reading, and amuse-
ments than formerly, but there are still
few fools left. One woman actually
said to me that the mothers of to-day
arrogate to themselves the right of
counseling their young sons, byswhich
the sons find that she knows things the
very knowledge of which, to a sons
mind, lowers his ideal of woman.
That's perfect tommy rot. If there
was ever a time when man had this
ideal of woman, how comes it that he |
never revealed it in the laws and con-
stitution, in religion and theology? |
How comes it that she is mere sub
ject in the state, church and home?
'Did boys ever make confessions to |
their fathers? No, nor fathers have
never talked to their sons. l call it |
talking to child to sit down and give |
it the basic principles of life. Neither
mothers or fathers do this. Parents |
can't know what their children are
thinking about. Where a child has a
very strong desire to do something, un-
less it is actually hurtful, it should be |
allowed to do it. l shall never forget |
the experience l had with my little
granddaughter. Her mother had gone
to London on business, and she stood |
looking at the colts scampering in the |
pasture. The rain was pouring in tor
rents. She said to me with sigh:
"'I wish 1 was colt, so l could run
in the rain
"You don't have to be colt to do |
that said l. Come and let me take !
off your clothes and you can run in the
rain all you please
eff you could have seen her. She
tore around like mad child and came
in crying: 'It's grand to be colt,
grandmother l told her when no.
body was there but she and that she
must tell me everything she wanted to
do very much, and that would let her
do it. She'll be much better girl for
that liberty.
"This thing of saying, Don't, don't
DON'T to child doesn't pay. Things
that seem to us unfit for a child aren't
unfit at all. Sometimes it is book,
Let the child have it. 1t won't under
stand it and will skip the unfit parts as
uninteresting. Maybe it is play.
The same truth will hold good. Child
rem are often overburdened with
sense of wrong. Anyway, how are the
young to meet the dangers of life I'M
less they understand them? If our
girls were always sure of having good
right arm to lean on until they are safe
on the other side of Jordan it would do
very we'll to treat them like canary
birds. But once thrown out on the
world the question confronts them,
Am 1 prepared to meet the condi-
tions?' When innocence is ignorance
it is almost criminal, and generally the
fault lies not with the ignorant one,
but with the parents. New York Sun.