The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1905-04-27
Simple Life
HARLES WAGNER
g the French by Mary Louise Hendee
1901. by Mcclure. Phillips e Co.

your means and theirs, In the first
place, it 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 and is worthless.
Any fashion of instructing children
whose most evident result is to lead
them - deSpise their parents and the
customs and activities among which
they have grown up is a calamity. 1t
is effective for nothing but to produce
4 legion Of malcontents, with hearts
totally cstranged from their origin,
their race. their natural interests-ev-
erythng, in short, that makes the fun
damental fabric of 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
heaped up to ferment and rot together.
Nature does not proceed by leaps and
bounds, but by an evolution slow and
certain In preparing a 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. \ 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. 4 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 it
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 not for 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
Il child has, the more feasts and curious
entertainments. the less is he amused.
In this there is a sure sign. Let US
be temperate in our methods of enter
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-
ION them to sensations not meant for
their age, multiply their parties and
entertainments Sorry gifts thesei In
place of a free man you are making a
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
ritice manly dignity, truth and duty
from sheer sloth.
Let us bring up our children simply
I 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
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.
y too easy life brings with it sort
d lasstude in vital energy. One be-
ZONES blase, disillusioned, an old young
man, past being diverted. How many
young people are in this state. Upon
them have been deposited, like a sort
VI ilAOih' AiS ILfiNOo VI Jul hCNItpIlbdC,
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
craven on their brows.
These shadows say to us by contrast
that happiness lies in a life true, ac-
tive, spontaneous, ungalled by the yoke
Of the passions, of unnatural needs. of
unhealthy stimulus, keeping intact the
physical faculty of enjoying the light
of day and the air we breathe and in
the heart the capacity to thrill with
the love of all that is generous, simple
and fine.
The artificial life engenders artificial
thought and a speech little sure of it.
self. Normal habits, deep impressions,
the ordinary contact with reality, bring
frankness with them. Falsehood is the
vice Of slave, the refuge of the cow
ardly and weak. He who is free and
strong is unflinching in speech. We
should encourage in our children the
hardihood to speak frankly. What do
we ordinarily do? We trample on
natural disposition, level it down to
thr o.,