The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1904-06-19
WORLD

{ heart, of steadfast courage and indorn-
table pluck a man must have had who
| could begin life without money. or
| friend, or education, and achieve sue
! cess and fortune. Then he viii begin
1 TO enroll his father among his heroes,
| but the pity of it is that this apprecia-
! ton comes too late. Between the two
| has grown up an icy wall of reserve
| that nothing can break down. The spec
/ tacle of love and confidence between
| father and son is the most beautiful
| thing in the world, and it is certainly a
! good thing that is worth purchasing at
! the price of a little forbearance and
| the exercise of n little patience.
/ 1t is also a time to drive with a light
| hand. Parents should remember that
1 the only period in ones whole life when
| they are utterly cock-sure that they
! know everything is when they are just
/ out of school. There isn't a youth that
| doesn't believe that he could run the
nation without hitch If he were elect
ed President or that he couldn't give
| Mr.. Morgan points on finance. There
! isn't a college girl who doesn't believe
| that every man in the community is
| dying to marry such n superior creature
as she is, and that she doesn't know a
great deal more about Housekeeping
| than her mother does although she has
| never tried it. Presently Jack will
start out to hunt for job, and he will
! find that business men will turn down
| his diploma in higher mathematics in
/ favor of some boy who has grown up in
, the business and gotten his education
on the street Mamie will observe that
| the little Smithkins girl who never
| heard of Vargner. and doesn't know
| lief motiV from a head of cabbage, but
nfE,a cir inn
| pick of the beaux and can marry all
| around her. Both will get the jar Of
| their lives but through ii all will soak
| down the wholesome fact that all edu-
/ cation does not come put up in college
| packages. and that they may not be so
much smarter than their parents after
| all.
Parents should respect the personal
| liberty of their children. This is the
hardest thing a father or mother ever
has to do. It is so natural to feel
that you have a right to dictate to
person if you have made sacrifices for
them, but it is a fatal mistake to try
to decide another's life, and the world
is strewn with wrecks caused by par.
ents forcing their children into oc-
equations for which they were not fit
ted. Many a bankrupt business man
would have achieved fame and fortune
if he had been permitted to study the
profession he desired. There are thou
sands of incompetent doctors, pursu-
ing their career of murder who would
have been competent business men.
Every Sunday we listen to preachers
who ought to be half-soling shoes, in
stead of trying to save the immortal
souls of human beings. We all know
lonely old maids who would have been
| happy wives if their parents had not
interfered between them and their low
ers, and the divorce courts are kept
busy with the woes of unhappy wives
who married to please their mother in
stead of themselves. Every family
! should have constitution guarantee
ing to each individual member the right
to life, liberty, and the choice of their
own career and matrimonial partner.
OF course, just as much may be said
of the duty of the young people who
are coming home from school to do their
part towards tiding over the crisis in
the family history. l never see a silly
! little goose of a girl, with a thin veneer
| of culture, and a swell headed young
| ass of a college rad, who are ashamed
of their parents without wanting to
! point out to them the herosm of the
/ sacrifices that have been made in vain
! for them, and the beauty of the rugged
| old lives, and the tineness that under
! lines old-fashioned manners. and un-
| fashionable dress, but youth does not
see these things until its eyes have
been washed by the tears of experience.
/ In the meantime it is to age-mel-
| lowed by experience and broadened by
| the real education of life-that we
must look to solve the problem offer
/ ed by these strangers who are our
own-our children who are no longer
| the boys and girls who played about
| our feet, but men and women that we
must bind to us with new ties, or else
| lose. Dorothy Dix