The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1901-10-04
RIGHTS OF CHILDREN.
They Are Not ChatteIs and Are En-
titled to Certain Things from
Their Parents.

The1r P1rcntS.
from time immemorial the rights of
parents over their children have been
emphasized with all the force of law,
of public opinion and the rod. In the
present degree of civilization it is be-
ginning to dawn upon mankind that
children may have some rights which
should be respected, and that these
would have been needed long ago had
not children themselves been too ig-
norant and weak to recognize or de-
.mand them, says Winnifred IL. Cooley,
in the st. Louis Globe-Democrat.
All ancient peoples required filial
obedience and parental or ancestor
worship. Moses, the reputed giver of
the Ten Commandments, demanded
that honor be paid father and mother
in order that one enjoy length of days;
and this may be a vital source of the
strict and admirable Jewish family
life. The Chinese Holy Writ also com
mands the most abject slavery to the
wants or caprices of parents-moth-
ers-in-law especially to be waited upon
and obeyed. So do all orientals con-
slider the child the chattel of the par
ent, to be given in marriage without
choice, the property rights lasting as
long as the life of the parent.
Doubtless American youth may
profit by lessons learned from the Chi
certain rights which children have, by
virtue of the fact that they are here
without their own volition. Brought
into the world with no choice of
heridity or environment, they have the
inalienable right to tender care during
infancy, to a harmonious home, to the
example of every possible moral quail,
ity in father and mother, to an educa-
tion, to as much liberty in personal life
as is compatible with their youth and
inexperience, to freedom of choice in
vocation and marriage.
Many more subtle and less evident
conditions they also have right to eX-
pect-to be born in wedlock, to be con-
ceived in deepest affection and to be
of a family sufficiently small to admit
,of personal comfort, good education
and financial ease; to the stimulus OF
an intellectual and moral home; to a
wise enlightenment upon the nature OF
vice, which may prevent sins of igno-
rance and folly.
1t is a sad reflection with the better
class of this generation how children
once were beaten, neglected, kept ST.
lent, put to bed hungry and Indifferent
Iy educated. Yet such was the case,
and, though a ''hardy race" may have
been thus developed, it is noticeable
that it never desires its own offspring
10 suffer like hardships.
When Froebel, the loving German
with his marvellous perception, gath
cred few little ones about him in his
kindergarten garden of the children
his conception of child nature anG
esthetic training was wholly new, and
consequently unpopular. That chill
dren should be happy, artistic, trained
to sing and dance, to rejoice in life for
the mere sweetness of living, was &
preposterous and devil-inspired idea
10 our Puritan antecedents even of re-
cent date. We now have kindergartens
in every city of any size in the United
States, and in several states they are
adjunucts to the public school system
Mothers meetings in artistocratit
neighborhoods and in slums, a ma
tional mothers congress and scores OF
educational mothers clubs show the
growing tendency to study the prob
lens of parents and rights of children
There are, however, many more diff
cult and intricate problems for indi
vidual families to settle than can be
comprehended under any general reel
pes for the training of children. The
parent who speaks curly and indiffer
emily to child often wounds its sensi
tive soul as permanently as one
brushes a delicate flower. The father
who permits himself vices, small OF
great, either lessons his influence with
his sons, often causing them to lose
all faith in human nature, from the
shock of finding their idolized father
capable of sin; or he assists then
along the downward path by his OWL
example of frailty or viciousness
Thus, the child either goes with him o.
against him. In the one case its NOR
ais are destroyed; in the other its
happiness. The mother who. either
from too great laXity and Indifference
or too much "discipline," loses hel
daughters confidence, forfeits the
finest vocation in the world-the de
velopment of the expanding child
mind; and she also incurs serious risk.
of having the young life blighted b,
it's ignorance of existing condition,
and the moral laws of the universe fol
want of a mothers counsel.
This being the case, how can thost
who have the temerity to assume til,
responsibility of parenthood be indif
iferent to the delicate duties involved
and ignore the indisputable rights O
those little ones who did not ask Il
be born, and sometimes in their infant
misery, as well as their mature years
wish that they never had been?
Their Second Meeting.
1