The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1899-03-10
The Lack of Obedience.

III tNcSe progressive uUSSi NnCu We UIC
advancing SO fast. some of us can't see
just where, we are going, we have dis
car,led and left behind us as useless lug
gage many Of the opinions held sacred
by our forefathers. In nothing is this
more sharply illustrated than in the mat
ter of teaching children obedience, not
theoretical, but practical; which seems to
have fallen intQ state of such innocu-
GUS desuetudSahats nobody even attempts
to revive the sRlstom. Many reasons are
given for this, and we are gravely told of
the danger of breaking proud spirits; of
the brutaiizing effects of using force, and
of the tyranny of forcing ones own will
upon child.
No one will attempt to deny that, what
ever the cause. the truth remains that
so far as the modern child is concerned
obedience is lost virtue. On every side
and imploring little Johnny to come off
the street, and little Janey not to make
herself i'll eating too much, while those
sweet infants go on their own way as
serenely, and paying no more attention to
their parents than if they were deaf.
Worse and more significant still, after
that feeble effort the mother makes no
further attempt to assert her authority.
A child of today that, in old-fashioned
phrase, would mind when spoken to-"
without any fuss, or argument, or being
bribed or cajOled, would be a good deal
more of curiosity than the two-headed
lady, or the bearded wonder in side
show.
To dispassionate observer the situa-
to Johnny's mother of little Importance
whether he obeys about some tri1e, but
what of the time when he will need the
strong restraining habit of obedience, and
it is not there? Not long ago such a
child, belonging to such weak and ten
der mother, was taken violently i'll, and
his life depended upon his taking a, GER
clan in charge said to his mother, You
must make him do it. 1t is his only
chance The woman turned to him
weeping, and replied, II cannot. l have
never made him obey me in his life, and
be- will not now" ''Then, madame" said
the physician. Your weakness will cost
your child his life And it did.
Obedience is so completely the ground
work on which all social and moral law
is founded that it seems strange that
mothers cannot realize its Importance in
character building. The obedient boy
grows up into the law-abiding citizen.
He has learned to control himself, and
he meyer recruits the ranks of the drunk
ards and loafers. He knows how to sub
NIT his will to those i'll authority over
him, and he is not forever qlarreliny
with his employers and throwing up his
situation. 1t is impossible to know how
many of the failures in life deserve to
be laid at the doors of parents who were
too lazy or too cowardly to teach their
children obedience.
With girls it is just as important.
There is not one of us who does not
know some poor girl who wrecked her
life by marrying an unworthy man.
| whose cheap attractions had caught her
young and undisciplined fancy. Her pa
rents knew him for What he was, and
plead with her in vain, but they had no
| authority of obedience to appeal to, and
she went her way in misery and tears.
And even, in happier fortune than that,
how much of so many women's discon-
tent and unhappiness is merely the re-
| suit of their never having learned to give
| up their own will, until fate taught the
lesson, cruelty and remorselessly, that
| one should have learned at her mother
knee. The question of obedience is not
one that they insist upon in mothers
! conventions, but any woman who is
bringing up child who doesn't obey her
may be very certain that she is failing
in the very first duty of a mother.-Ncw
Orleans Picayune.