The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-03-14

to lives spent in overcoming difficulties.
Teach them that work, for themselves
and also for others, is not curse but a
! bleSSing.f seek to make them happy, TO
make them enjoy life, but seek also to
make them face life with the steadfast
resolution to Wrest success from labor
and adversely, and to do their whoIe
duty before God and to man. Surely
she who can thus train her sons and her
daughters is thrice fortunate among
women.
There are many good people who
are denied the supreme blessing OF
children, and for these we have the re-
Spect and sympathy always due to
those who. from no fault of their own,
are denied any of the other great
blessings of life. But the man or wo-
man who deliberately foregoes these
blessings, whether from viciousness,
GOODNESS, shallow-heartedness self-in-
diligence, or mere failure to appre-
ciate Alright the difference between the
all-important and the unimportant-
why, such a creature merits contempt
as hearty as any visited upon the SOL
der who runs away in battle. or upon
tn man who refuses to work for the
support of those dependent upon him,
and who though ablebodied is yet
content to eat in idlenesS the bread
which others provide.
The existence of women of this type
forms one of the most unpleasant and
unwholesome features of modern life.
If any one is so dim of vision as to fail
to see what a thoroughly unlovely
creature such a woman is I wish they
would read judge Robert Grants
novel stUnleavened Bread ponder
seriously the character of Selma, and
think of the fate that would surely
overcome any nation which developed
it's average and typical woman along
such lines. Unfortunately it would be
untrue to say that this type exists only
in American novels. That it also ex-
lists in American life is made un-
pleasantly evident by the statistics as
to the dwindling families in some To-
calities. 1t is made evident in equally
sinister fashion by the census statistics
as to divorce, which are fairly appal-
ling; for easy divorce is now as it ever
has been, a bane to any nation. a
curse to society, a menace to the home,
an Indictment to married unhappinesS
and to immortality, an evil thing for
men and a still more hideous evil for
women. These unpleasant tendencies
in our American life are made evident
by articles such as those which
actually read not long ago in a certain
paper, where a clergyman was quoted,
ing the general American attitude
when he said that the ambition of any
save a very rich man should be to
rear two children only. so as to give
his children an opportunity Ito taste
a few of the good things of life"
calling should have made him a moral
teacher, actually set before others the
ideal, not of training children to do
their duty, not of sending them forth
with stout hearts and ready minds to
win triumphs for themselves and their
country, not of allowing them the OPP
portunity, and giving them the privi-
Iege of making their own place in the
world, but forsooth, of keeping the
number of children SO limited that
they might taste a few good thingsi"
The way to give a child a fair chance !
in life is not to bring it up in luxury,
but to see that it has the kind of
training that viii give it strength of
character. Even apart from the vital
question of national life, and regard !
ing only the individual interest of the |
children themselves, happiness in the
true sense is q hundredfold more apt
to come to any given member of a |
healthy family of healthy-m minded
children, well brought up, well edu-1
Gated, but taught that they must shift
for themselves. must win their own
way, and by their own exertions make /
their own positions of usefulness, thanl
it is apt to come to those whose par