The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1904-06-19
OUR OWN WHO
ARE STRANGERS.

10 welcome the children who have been
off to school. and who are returning
weighted down with blue ribboned di-
plomas. and an implicit faith that they
are incarnate wisdom, and that no.
body ever knew so much before.
Many of these young people have
come out of what we call plain homes,
and are going back to them. Their
parents did not have the advantages
of education and culture that they
have given their children. 1t is the
man who had no chance of schooling
in his own hard worked youth, and
who has felt the need of wider infor-
nation every day of his life, that is
most determined that his sons shall be
college-bred. 1t is the woman whose
own girlhood was bare of accomplish
ments who is the most devout be-
lever in the higher education of wom-
en-, and who moves heaven and earth
to send her daughter off to fashionable
boarding schools.
So Jack and Mamie go off to COL
lege, and many, and many time, the
price Of their education is paid in
pinching economies, and heroic self
denial at home. Fathers STOPPING
shoulders bend lower under the weight
of college bills. Mothers hair takes on
fresh streaks of silver over the anxiety
of providing the girls with the things
their school mates have, but the old
people count the reward they are look
ing for worth the price of the sacrifices
they are making-all, all will be repaid
a thousand fold when their children
come home to comfort and bless them.
At length the eventful day arrives.
Jack and Mamie have graduated with
honor at the head of their class. They
are coming home, and nothing but that
wholesome fear of our neighbours ridi-
Guile which prevents us from making
fools of ourselves so often, keeps the
doting parents from meeting them at
the station with torch light process
sion and a brass band playing: BE
hold the conquering hero comes" The
tall young fellow, laden with golf
sticks, and the smart young woman,
the very cut of whose travelling gown
makes mothers rusty old black alpaca
look antedeluvian, are drawn across
the threshold by the trembling old
hands. There is a stif1ed cry of joy
from the old lips, a moments clinging
of the old arms that enfold their own
once more, and then-and then
And then it begins to dawn upon
both parents and children, slowly,
surely but with the dread chill of GER
tainty in it, that they are strangers to
each other. They have grown out OF
nothing in common, neither ideas, nor
taste, nor even the same language,
nothing but a thin habit of affection
The parents have educated their chill
dren out of their class. Mamie shud-
ders when her mother artlessly asks
her, as she helps unpack a cast of
the Venus de Milo" that has adorn-
ed Mamie's study walls, why she
bought a broken old thing like that
Jack sneers at his fathers political
opinions and inability to trace histor-
ical parallels The little Jones girl
who lives next door and knows the
gossip Of the neighborhood is more of
a comfort and companion to mother
than her own daughter. The freckle-
faced bill clerk who has worked up
from an errand boy and who knows
is more congenial to father than the
son he has shaved for, and on whom
he has built such hopes.
This sort of a family tragedy is so
common amongst us that Familiarity
with ii has robbed it of its significance,
but surely there is no other situation
in life more full of fateful possibilities,
and none that calls for such tactful
treatment. The suffering of the mo-
ment nobody can prevent, but there
is no earthly reason why it should
lead, as it so often does, to permanent
estrangement between parents and
children.
In the first place, it is the duty OF
parents to remember that the difficulty
is of their own making. 1t was they
who deliberately took the children out
of the sphere of life to which they were
born, and placed them in a higher one
SO far as / am concerned, / have never
been able to make up my mind
whether 1 think that people who edu-
cate their children up above them
are unselfish angels who deserve a
halo, and large white wings, even in
this life, or donkeys who get only what
is coming to them when they are mere
~ regarded as beasts of burden by
their children as a reward for theiI
folly. At any rate, nobody can es-
cape the results of their own acts, and
when parents do raise their children
above themselves they ought to have
enough grit to accept the consequences
without a moan.
More than that, it is unjust not t.
expect education to change a PERSONS
outlook and habits No man will spend
good money having speed developed iT
promising young colt and then look
for him TO strike a steady, slow gait
in the furrow as a plough horse. II
is equally absurd to expect the boy or
whom thousands of dollars have beer
and extravagances foreign to the faith.
er, to settle down at once into the
plain ways to which the old man has
been accustomed.
Every man expects his son to be JUS
like him, and in his first hurt disap-
pointment. because the boy is different
he is apt to call him a young fool and
TO scott at his raiment and derde his
amusements The boy retaliates by
considering his father a moss back ans
an old fogy, and both make the fata
mistake of undertaking each other, anf
of getting the very worst out of each
other. A family difference is two
edged sword that cuts both ways.
The time will come when Jack will
find out that there are a number o.
things in his life more important Il
know than the classics, and that an ex
haustive knowledge of ancient histor,
doesn't compare in value with a littl,
information on how TO make modern
bread and butter. He will also ascer
tain that man may have been col
lege athlete, and hold the long distance
running championship, and yet not b'
able TO sprint fast enough to overtakt
the nimble dollar. Then he will begh
TO perceive what qualities of mead am