Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1904-05-13

The rule is that boys and girls become
Maynard and gradually drift easily with
passing years aud increasing experience
into aud along the AVENUES of crime. Ii
there are TO be criminals in the coming |
generations We can see them in the boys |
and girls of today, if We can but take |
the time to stop aud look. IL is an
awful thought for parents to picture
those who are so precious now, in
houses of correction aud prisons a few
years in the future. 1t is important for
us to make presidents and governors,
but it is vastly more important for us to
take the boys and girls and build them
into honest, upright, noble and pure
men and women. We have but to look
about us to fluid plenty of work to do.
We are speaking to all classes, those
parents who imagine or say they know
''their children are alright" as well as
to those whose homes do not seem as
attractive to the youth as the street, the
card room and the saloon. History and
experience both teach us that not one is
absolutely safe. 1t is easier to fall than
to rise, but the consequence is as far
apart as hades and heaven, as life aud
death.
A contemporary recently suggested
letting local option as an issue have a
rest, and we devote our attention to the
great subject of temperance. We heart
lily agree to this proposition, and think
it would be well for the press of the state
and nation to enter the arena of public
thought in advocacy of those things
which tend to make the world better and
liberty more secure in its eternal rights.
In every community today the boys and
girls see their elders break the laws of
the land, and do those things which tend
to lessen the influence of those condi-
tions which we all know are for the
best; and they will follow in the same
way, as the needle seeks the pole. They
notice men Keeling along the sidewalks
and stumbling into the cutters, while
men and women look on and laugh
They are compelled to listen to the
tales of SANDER and the threats of mad
ness, to the foulness of obscenity anC
degrading and blasphemous profanity
| they see their elders influenced princi
pally by selfishness and narrow love o
q gain, dumb to the voice of charity; the,
= see the Christian Sunday, the holy in
e huences of which have wrought grandly
q through the centuries for the civiiz
j. alton of the world, desecrated to NEE
!. the demands of business and whims o
pleasure. The life of the future is il
a the youth of today, and it is worth pro
= tecting by wise laws, rigidly enforced,
q even at the expense of little so calle'
d personal liberty. Our personal libert,
d is secondary; the highest good of tn
e. whole is primary. If the we'll being o
n the boys and the girls calls for the Civ
l. ing up of rum and tobacco and the gam
ing table, and the places of resort wher
a obscenity and profanity pollute the all
t. we men and women are in duty bounc
e to forcefully do away with such cond
s. tions. If desecrated Sunday given II
y. to ball playing, and horse racing, an
TO card playing, and pleasure going ha
re tendency to lead the mind of you'll
If away from the sacredness of the da,
,e and the necessity for religious though
If and sentiment, then we should sSriv
to for return to conditions from whic
rs we have been straying in these lat
10 years. The home should hold the boy
II instead of the club room and the plat
ts of amusement; the fire side should a
Of tract the girls instead of the card part
We and the dance hall; and the home
a. largely what the parents make it.
n they are much absent from it the chi
v dren have right to be and will be.
Nv the home under the influence of til
Of parents is alright, then the future Offer
ne a promise of great reward to the childre
" who at that shrine of love and devotio
r. are given their direction. The increas
al of crime What is the occasion of i
H. and where shall the remedy be found
d. Give us less politics and more morality
d give us less of that liberty which PEI
n. mits to us those things which we desir
,e and more of the spirit of self sacrifice
rs order that our children may be bette
A men and women than we are. 1t is safe
ar for us to rebel against some of the III
q wholesome rules of society life, than t
,e disoEey wise laws for the preservatio
re of order and the sobriety of men. 1t
q wiser to be lover of the Lords Day an
az obedient to the laws of God, than t
,e bow before the shrine of pleasure c
+ ride with avarice. Give us the curfe
10 bell for both old and young; build d.
+ fensive battlements about the home
d advocate technical obedience to law an
k maintain personal dignity and cleanl
r. ness, and then, with no beam in on