The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-03-14

his children, so the most important, the most honorable and desirable task which can be set any woman is to be a good and wise mother in a home marked by self-respect and mutual for bearance, by willingness to perform duty, and by refusal to sink into self indulgence or avoid that which entails effort and self-saerifice. Of course there are exceptional men and excep- tional women who can do and ought to do much more than this, who can lead and ought to lead to great careers of outside usefulness in addition to- not as substitutes for-their home work; but am not speaking of excep- tfons; I am speaking of the primary duties, I am speaking of the average citizens, the average men and women who make up the nation.
 Inasmuch as am speaking to an as- semblage of mothers, shall have noth- ing whatever to say in praise of an easy life. Yours is the work which is never ended. No mother has an easy time, and most mothers have very hard times; and yet what true mother would, 0tNA VI 4AC4 SApcIlclIC VI JOy lLlh SOl- row in exchange for a life of cold sell fishness, which insists upon perpetual amusement and the avoidance of care, and which often finds its fit dwelling place in some flat designed to furnish with the least possible expenditure of effort the maximum of comfort and of luxury, but in which there is literally no place for children? ..i@
 The woman who is a good wife, a
 good mother, is entitled to our respect
 as is no one else; but she is entitled to it only because, and so long as, she is! worthy of it. Effort and self-sacrifice
 are the law of worthy life for the man
 as for the woman. though neither the effort nor the self-sacrifice may be the
 same for the one as for the other. Il. do not in the least believe in the pa-3 l tient Griselda type of woman, in the woman who submits to gross and long continued ill-treatment, any more than I believe in a man who tamely submits to, wrongful aggression. No wrong doing is so abhorrerlt as Wrongdoing by
 man towards the wife and the chill dren who should arouse every tender feeling in his nature. Selfishness to- Itwards them, lack of tenderness towards them, lack of consideration for them,
 above all. brutality in any form to- wards them, should arouse the hearti-
 est scorn and indignation in every up- right soul.
 l. believe in the wernan's keeping her fself-respect just, as I believe in the
 mans doing so. I believe in her rights
 just as much as believe in the man S,
 and, indeed, a little more; and regard marriage as a partnership, in which
 leach partner is in honor bound to think
 of the rights of the other as well as of 1 his or her own. But I think that the duties are even more important than
 the rights; and in the long run think
 that the reward is anpler and greater
 for duty well done than for the insist
 ence upon individual rights, necessary l though this, too, must often be. Your duty is hard, wour responsibility great; I but greatest of all is your reward. I do not pity you in the least. On the.
 contrary, feel respect and admiration for you.
 l Into the womaifs keeping is commit i ted the destiny of the generations to
 come after us. In bringing up your. children you mothers must remember
 that while it is essential to be loving.
 and tender it is fiB less essential to be, I wise and firm. Foolishness and affec- 1 ton must not be. treated as inter- Manageable terms; and besides training your sons and daughters in the softer
 and milder virtues you must seek to 1 give them those stern and hardy quail l ities which in after life they will surely
 need. Some children will go wrong in spite. of the best training, and some will go right even when their surround ipgs are most unfortunatei neverthe- ! less, an immense amount depends upon | the family training. If you mothers
 through weakness bring up your sons
 to be selfish and to think only of them-
 selves, you will be responsible for much
 sadness among the women who are to-
 be their wives in the future. If you 1 let your daughters grow up idle, per-
 Eaps under the mistaken impression
 that as you yourselves have had to
 work hard they shall know only enjoy ment, you are preparing them to be
 useless to others and burdens to them.
 selves. Teach boys and girls alike that
 they are not to look forward to lives
 spent in avoiding difficulties, but to lives spent in overcoming difficulties.
 Teach them that work, for themselves
 and also for others, is not curse, butt
 blessing; seek to make them happy,
 to make them enjoy life, but seek also
 to make them face life with the stead
 fast resolution to wrest success from
 labor and diversity, and to do their whole duty before God and to man. Surely she who can thus train her sons
 and her daughters is thrice fortunate
 among women. @ss'
 There are many good people who are
 denied the supreme blessing of children,
 and for these we have the respect 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 woman who deliberate
 ly forgoes these blessings, whether from viciousness, coldness, shallow -hearted-
 ness, self-indulgence, or mere failure to appreciate alright the difference between | the all-important and the unimportant why, such creature merits contempt l o- Iaa ,+xr oe a,,x,a nj ci fad 11nnIr fha ca1-