Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1905-03-01

suffices for distinction, and, above all,
do not carelessly increase by their
clothes and their habits of life the
distance which already separates them
from other children, Dress them SIM
ply. And IL, on the contrary 1t SHOULD
be necessary for you to economic to
give your children the pleasure of fine
clothes, would that might dispose
You to reserve your spirit of sacrifice
for better cause. You risk seeing 1t
lily recompensed You dissipate your
money when it would much better
avail to save it for serious needs, and
you prepare for yourself, later on, a
harvest of ingratitude. How danger
GUS 1t is to accustom your sons and
daughters to a style of living beyond
your means and theirs! In the first
place, 1t is very bad for your purse. In
the second place, it develops a con-
temptuous spirit in the very bosom of
the family. If you dress your children
like little lords and give them to under
stand that they are superior to you,
is it astonishing if they end by dis
daining you? You will have nourished
at your table the declassed-a product
which costs dear end Is worthless.
Any fashion Of instructing children
1 whose most evident result Is to lead
them to despise their parents and the
customs and activities among which
they have grown up is calamity. 1t
is effective for nothing but to produce
legion of malcontents, with hearts
totally estranged from their origin,
their race. their natural interests-ev
erything, in short, that makes the fun
damental fabric of a man. Once de-
tached from the vigorous stock which
produced them, the wind of their restless
ambition drives them over the earth
like dead leaves that will in the end be
lheaped up to ferment and rot together.
Nature does not proceed by leaps and
bounds, but by an evolution slow and
certain. In preparing career for our
children let us initiate her. Let US not
confound progress and advancement
with those violent exercises called
somersaults; let us not so bring up
our children that they will come to
despise work and the aspirations and
simple spirit of their fathers; let us not
expose them to the temptation of being
ashamed of our poverty If they them
selves come to fortune. A society is
indeed diseased when the sons Of peas
ants begin to feel disgust for the fields,
when the sons Of sailors desert the sea,
when the daughters Of workingmen, in
the hope of being taken for heiresses,
prefer to walk the streets alone rather
than beside their honest parents. A So
ciety is healthy, on the contrary, when
each of its members applies himself to
doing very nearly what his parents
have done before him, but doing 1t
better, and, looking to future elevation,
is content first to fulfill conscientious
ly more modest duties.
Education should make Independent
men. If you wish to train your chill
dren for liberty. bring them up simply
and do noe for a moment fear that in
so doing you are putting obstacles in
the way of their happiness. 1t will be
quite the contrary. The more costly toys
a child has, the more feasts and curious
entertainments, the less is he amused.
In this there is a sure sign. Let us
tanning youth. and especially let us not
thoughtlessly create for them artificial
needs. Food, dress, nursery, amuse-
ments-let all these be as natural and
simple as possible. With the idea of
making life pleasant for their children
some parents bring them up in habits
of gormandizing and idleness. accus-
tom them to sensations not meant for
their age, multiply their parties and
entertainments. Sorry gifts these! In
place of free man you are making
slave. Gorged with luxury, he tires of
it in time, and yet when for one rea-
son or another his pleasures fail him
he will be miserable, and you with
him. and. what Is worse, perhaps In
some capital encounter Of life you will
be ready-you and he together-to sac
riice manly dignity. truth and duty
from sheer sloth.
Let us bring up our children simply
had almost said rudely. Let us en-
tice them to exercise that gives them
endurance, even to privations. Let
them belong to those who are better
trained to fatigue and the earth for
bed than to the comforts of the table
and couches of luxury. So we shall
i make men of them, Independent and
stanch, who may be counted on, who
will not sell themselves for pottage
and who will have withal the faculty
Of being happy.
A too easy life brings with it a sort
of lassitude in vital energy. One be-
comes blase disillusioned, an old young
man, past being diverted. How many
young people are in this state! Upon
them have been deposited, like sort
of mold, the traces of our decrepitude,
our skepticism, our vices and the bad
habits they have contracted in our
company. What reflections upon our.
selves these youths weary of life force
us to make, What announcements are
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