The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1902-07-27
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MARY M'LANE AND HER TROUBLE.
M. M. MURD X, EDITo R.

Youth today enjoys an independence of opinion
and of action it never had before. Corporal pun
ishment in public schools has passed; in great
number of homes it is omitted except in the matter
of very light tap with a very tender palm The
world votes this good No longer is the child seen
only not heard The fortunes of families shaped
for the benefit of the coming generation. Their in
terest is conserved. though the heavens fall.
Though child-life has not yet awakened to its
rights" it has them, and they have been
violated innumerable times by brutal and
immoral parents The paramount interest in di-
vorce is held by the child. but often it is disre-
garded by parents who, in favoring their own de-
sires and diskes are Indifferent to the moral pre-
negatives Of their offspring Centuries of cruelty
with the rod put on with tgerish rigor, were a
grievous wrong to child-fe, and today in most
enlightened countries, this stands corrected.
It would be strange if in the development which
Is following the new social and domestic status
of children there did not come some unusual mani
festations. Possibly Mary McLane is the extremely
perncious product of social tendency. Her
Parents may be not to blame, although parents
generally will think so. Every can tame
shrew but he that hath her. Mary McLane, who
asserts that she is in lave with the devil who,
with considerable literary talent exalts the bad
and attacks the good, may be warning production
of certain modern faults. Undoubtedly the rod
would not have corrected her But she is very
Young it is certain that she was encouraged by
her social environment to think early, and indie
pendently to read books that only maturity
properly weigh and to elaborate with theenthusasm
of youth the crude fancies of imnaturity.
Today she is before the world, chafed without
end, ridicued but by serious minded people pitied
Her trouble is a mental impudence in which she
has lost her taste her dignity and womany charm
OF course she is a freak. But information of
another freak came from Chicago this last week.
robust nineteen-year-oId boy named Carl Henric,
son of wellto-do citizen put a bullet through
his brain From earliest youth he insisted that the
world was bad, unutterably bad and irredeemable-
ale did net like people," says his brother. He
never had friend in his life. He would go and
sit by the lake and brood He was great thinker
and great reader He thought the world was
all bad"
This boy did not read dime novels. He took
to heavy standard works. His trouble was not
physical clearly; was it insanity.
1t is good that children have gained added
degree of independence. that cruel discipline has
been ruled out, that certain amount of domestic
freedom is theirs
But in youth there can be too many books;
there can be too much fool encouragement of youth
ful rebellion against form too much applause for
zoo early and false mental development.
Childlife needs books, needs encouragement to
independent thought and the incucation of ambi-
ton. but it needs too sunshine, play. companion
ship, and warning that immaturity has never
solved an ethical problem yet and never will Prac-
tically all children so understand but to keep down
more freaks it would be well if all would
The world has put the rod by it hasn't reached
the point where it can present the child with a
copy of Rants Critique of Pure Reason and
volume Of Dr. Burton on the Anatomy of Melan-
chOly.
TOPEKA AND KANSAS