San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1897-07-18

ring their lives.
The instincts of the child are more
to be trusted than the artificial conclu-
sions of a parent who knows no more
than that power and strength and ply
steal ability to conquer a baby are
theirs and they will exercise them. Tie
damnable laws of the present give pa
rents the right of life and death over
the child, because these laws take for
granted that the parents who brought
the little life into being will be its
wisest n best director. The theory
is splendid. The practice is a failure.
The idea is born of heaven. The re-
suit is born of hell. Parents are the
embodiment of s~elfishness in the care
of children. They are all salt or sug-
ar. With the mass the child has it
all his own way or the parents theirs.
1t is a mistake to suppose that the
child has no well defined ideas of his
own. Every thoughtful mother knows
better. Men have no business with ba-
bies anyway. They know nothing
about them. They only NEEDLE with
them to their hurt. Physical hurt if
they handle their bodies. Mental and
HiO oAN ohCNNlOildA hui II liSy udu-
die their souls. Babies lie very near
the source of being and are wise above
what is written. Because they are |
strange to earth it is not true that they
are ignorant of all things. The places
from whence they came are peopled
with thoughts n these are working
in the little brain. Baby may have
brought the raw material for more wis
dom than mother dreams of from that
behind.
The plain meaning of all this is, do
not NEEDLE with the children. Do not
mind their business instead of your
own. 1t is your business to understand
them, If you can. If you cannot then
let them lone. The chances are they
are nearer right than you, for they are
nearer the sources of things and are
moved by that past of which they are
a part and of which yourself can only
approximately. Arbitrary
interference with a child il a crime.
III interfered with it must be for rea-
sons. Good reasons and valid. The
child is under law, a law higher than
any you can lay down for it, the law of
its W being. What that law is you
should strive with heart and mind to
understand, but where not understood
is safer to trust to the law that the
child itself finds written in itself.
All life goes right thai is lived in
accordance with law. The law that
is within. Every life has such a law.
II is no doubt perverted through
wrong direction and malign influence,
on this side of it's coming and on
that, but it is the one thing that must
be consulted as the only means of in
terpreting the movement of the child
nature. Do not go off half cooked now,
and say that the Light preacher says
that children must be left to run at
Will. No such thing. but the child
must first be understood. Until this
Is done, there is no direction possible.
no right of direction ex-
lists. If this is true of the parents
Of the child, mother particularly, it is
doubly true of others.
The mother who strives hardest and
most patiently and conscientiously to
understand her child is most fearful
Of that child passing out from under
hand under other directions, be-
cause she fears the i'll timed nature of
such direction. 1t is her knowledge
that makes her cautious. 1t is a truth
that in the best homes, in the best
sense of that term, there is the least
interference with the children's natural
tendencies. These tendencies are stud
n the care is to direct. Direction
Is life. Misdirection is death. This ,
is all there is of it. Let the children
as much alone a is possible. Physical
habits a be formed so early that they
will not be resented by the child as it
grows.
The physical health of the child as
sured by a knowledge of its bodily
constitution it will be in watching the
little intelligence that the law of its
mind will be known. This known it is
the only right thing to permit that
law its legitimate and free operation.
That is, MIND your own business and
let the child mind it's own. Do not
NEEDLE with the kids. Do not let
others do it. Direct your own boys
and girls. Suffer no one else to do it.
Remember that as you opened the door
for the coming you are to stand the
consequences, and If any self denial
is needed it is your part to exercise it
and not demand it of the child. The
child's rights come before yours. Earth
would be infinitely better, the home
happier and the future more secure if
over every home door was printed in
bold type do not NEEDLE with the
children