The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-11-20
FOR FEMININE READERS
PROTEST AGAINST soRDID VIEW OF
LIFE THAT NOW PREVAILS.
A Protest Against Feminine over
work ut Fairs-Lesson in Bread-
MaLing-The Size OF the waist.

and women or our day jars painfully on
those Of their elders who, nourished in a
simpler school, have never forgotten to be
young in heart says a writer in the New
York Evening Post. The difficulty of rous-
ing enthusiasm in the average city-bred
youth Of either sex. unless it may be for an
athletic contest or a favorite actor. is
really incomprehensible to their grand
parents. Many dear wrinkled face will
light up with quick appreciation and sim
cere eagerness of admiration which arises
from hearts younger in every element of
feeling than those which mark the ebb and
flow Of the hfeblood Of men and women
fifty years their juniors.
Charles p
Smith, he
Says Christmas is an exploded idee"
was the comical methodswith which a man
drolly expressed his final opinion of the
feast Of good will; in many a weary mans
worried brain the same thought to-day
makes the same assertion, after a more
serious formula, The spirit is dead, and it
means to him now a time when his wife is
fatgued and irritable. his children covetous
Of all manner of extravagant gifts, and his
purse taxed to a degree so disproportionate
to his income that he is conscious of dis
honor connected with the costly gifts
heaped about his house ready for bestowal
A sordid view of life and it's necessities
has possessed this generation The value.
the moneyed value, of things is the touch
stone Of regard for what we get, and the
eagerness to have what our neighbors pos
sess is born in our children. TON Jones
has a pony; am tired of my goat" is as
sure to be our boys cry as that he sees
the grander step towards manhood and pos
session that his neighbor has taken Love
for his faithful nd nd
" tried little companion will rarely be Wis
ible in the child of to-day, but in its place
a quick readiness to get rid of him. and
proud display of that which has displaced
There can be no doubt that this is the re-
Election of the eagerness with which the old
is pushed out of sight by the heads of the
house to make way for the new and more
expensive whatever form the acquisition
may take, from the curtain at the window
to the home whole To move into a
better neighborhood, to own a handsomer
home, to have the latest fad in fashionable
color and form, lies far nearer the modern
housewives heart than to hold fast to that
made precious by association.
1t is necessarily true that enthusiasm, the
indwelling of the spiritual in us, which gives
Insight into the essence hidden in the form,
must die where material value is the COM
mon standard of comparison. Far happier
Is the poor child on the doorsteps of q tene-
ment, who, looking at the battered face of
the tattered doll. sees something to love AMI
cherish than she who knows that her pet
IS from Paris and takes pride in knowing
that it is five times as costly as little Helen
Dayton's, next door.
In the heart Of home and at our firesides
must our children learn, not by our preach
ing, but by our practice and example, TO
love those noble things which lift the people
Of our. country beyond the level of "a ma
ton OF shopkeepers." They must learn to
value nature, art, home, friends, books, not
Tor what they cost TO see or own or ac-
quire or for what other men think of them
but for what they convey to themselves of
uplHung, ennobing experience.
1t lies easily In the power OF the young
mothers and fathers Of to-day to restore to
their children what their parents once
owned but which they failed to hand down
to them: to give them insight into the hidden
spiritual value and beauty of human ties
and earthly possessions; to teach them to
form strong, faithful affections for home
and friends, and to adhere tenderly to them
to guide them to value a book for what il
their hearts and minds, and not for the mis-
used talent which has made ii an absorbing
delight to study crime and read of earth's
darkest deeds made fascinating by the
agery; to help them to be happy without
excitement and interested without being
amazed.
Better that they should lead narrow lives
In the new definition of narrow" as an ex-
preston of experience, and that they should
commit the folly of believing what is their
own to be the finest and best in the world,
than that they should look forth upon other
disconnected, and to find everything which
does not produce a new sensation flat, stale
and Improbable" Let them dream dreams,
If they are pure and bright with youth S
become weighers of values and counters of
dollars and diSbelevers in truth and good
ness and in the priceless value of friendship
and love.