The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1897-07-08
Lines of Distinction Among Children.

Children are susceptible to many pains
which we escape as our knowledge in
creases. To them the fact that the friend
who sat all winter at an adjoining desk
without suggesting great differences in
condition is ON first appearance before
an admiring public, able to suddenly out
slime them in splendor, arouses pain all
the more bitter because in its ori Gin it is
misunderstood The laws of cause and
ettect-sO much study and so much gain,
so much application and SO many good
marks-haye been those by which they
have been guided in the schoolroom, by
which they have been taught TO measure
their every day progress. But here on IL
platform, where the fruits of all their
labors are supposed to be displayed, where
for the first time the world is admitted
in iudgment-here for the first time Ger
tain superiorities never formulated be-
fore are all at once felt and accented
superiorities which, SO far as these chill
dren can see, bear no relation whatever
either to individual excellence or endea-
vor, and which, though arbitrary and
seemingly artificial, are as subtle and
powerful in their influence as those which
owe their origin to virtue.
1t takes us who are older a long time to
get our bearings among the shoals of So
cial discrepancies. What wonder then that
child should sometimes founder in
the effort! The boy understands the
pain of the effort as we'll as the girl,
though he will not often confess it until he
has boy OF his own to guard. Then, and
then only, he confesses what We're some
of these agonies of his youth.
One cannot but applaud the wisdom and
too e al,
problem they are trying to solve is diff
fcult one, and cannot be easily settled
For the rules they make for Commence
ment day, judicious as they are, are not
the rules which the scholar can profitably
carry into the rest of life, unless there
goes with them an understanding of prin-
ciples involved-the principles of taste,
for instance, of general fitness, which is
but another word for the same thing, and
of modesty and kindly consideration.
For the requirements of life vary with
varying conditions, and one is as stupid
not to obey them as one is vain in obtrud-
ing individual advantages. Not to Gress
properly for great function is as vulgar
as to overdress for a small one. And de-
fiance of convention and taste is often but
another form OF expression chosen by
spirit that is vain. For the vanity of
opinion is as subtle in its suggestions for
display as the vanity of person.
1t is a difficult task to make the Young
understand the distinctions To teach
them certain well established ways of do
ing things-of eating, walking. moving,
for instance-when their own ways or those
of an injudicious acquaintance are prefer
red; to So train them in the use of fine ap-
pointments that they are at home among
them, and SO cease to be self conscious or
awkward in their presence; to instil into
them sense of prophecies without which
they are in danger of being vugar-to do
these things, and while doing them to help
cultivate in the mind of the child Il consid-
GRAFTON having no touch of condescension
in it for those who have not had the same
advantages-to do all this requires an abil-
ity, a delicacy and refinement. to which
we owe all honor.
For children at times are terrible snobs
worse snobs than grown-up people. A
little girl i'll carriage on her way to dane
ing school last winter saw friend, also 60
ing to dancing school, get into stage.
" l don't think I ought to dance with
her any more,' said the child in the car
riage to her mother. "She goes to dances
in omnibuses.'' 'You will go that way
yourself for the rest of the winter,' the
very wise mother remarked. And at great
Inconvenience to herself she made the child
60 in stages for the rest of the year. [Har-
pers Bazaar.
"If taken into the head by the nostrils
tyUn hro