The Roswell daily record. [volume] (Roswell, N.M.) 1903-current, 1907-05-08
TRAINING THE HUMAN PLANT.

- jill - WI IL 4NSSOANa
Every day children are born into
the world, and every day fond moth
ers comb the silken tresses. adjust
the little p~inafores and tie pretty rib
bons On their little cherubs and send
them out into the world to revel in
childish pleasures or to seek infan-
tile knowledge in the kindergarten
or the private school. And as the
years go by these same mothers with
loving solicitude endeavor to guide
the little feet against the pitfalls of
the way that all girls and boys must
travel on their way through life. How
well the mothers of the land succeed
in their mission of love and sacred
duty is attested by the thousands of
noble men aid women in the land
who proudly aScribe their successes
and their greatest enjoyment to the
simplest lessons of truth and honesty
of self-respect and devotion learned
at the mothers knee. The most of
the people in tlis world have had no
other inspiration for noble deeds, aid
the most of mem van 40 other, and
the old world wags along pretty ev-
emily because of it.
But when it comes to the proper
ann of raising a child, that is
quite another matter. Many a mother
mas been compelled to stay at home
and care for the children while she
read of the proper way to raise. them
in the reports of the proceedings of
the mothers congresses, and now
m Luther Burbank, the botal-
ical wizard of California, with a book
from his own pen entitled The Train
ing of the Human Plant" in which
ne tells parents how they should
bring up their children. Is it any
wonder a children of the present
age have a lard time of it. From
the title of the book one would aatu-
rally conclude that it was his expe-
rience as a botanist that had led him
to write h book, but in this one is
mistaken. Mr.. Burbank is a bachelor,
and is only following the instincts of
every bachelor and spilster when he
sets about to lecture married people
on the proper manner of raising chill
dren.
The fault of the book Is the fault
that applies to all advice of that sort
coming from this source; it consists
ii too wide a range of ge~neralities.
He lays down three broad rules for
the rearing of children which are so
far from the mark as to be practically
impossible. He denoulces 1.-The alb
surdity of running children through
the same mill in a lot with absolutely
no reference to their individuality"
This generalization is aimed at the
public schools, and because it has
some element of reason in it, makes |
it none the less absurd. There are,
of course, great disadvantages in edu-
children in "a lot" for it is
very much the same as prescribing
the same medicine for all the patients
in a hospital.
nut a child tho docs not otfn7d |
the public schools must be educated
by a tutor. and there is nothing quite
so pathetic as the spectacle of a lone
child that some day must go out into
the world n brush up against peo-
pie, saying his lessons in solitude and
The child is robbed of all the
stimulation of competition in his stu
dies. and therefore what he learns or
what he does not Learn stands apart
by itself awaiting the reconstruction
it will get when others take a
turn at 1t. The private pupil grows
without any knowledge of human
and when he goe into the
world 1t is not surprising that he is
out of the race. II Mr. Bur
bank mad not been a bachelor he
would have known that there are two
sides to the question.
Another generality is that the boy
should spend the first ten years OF
his life in the home where there is
4 n atmosphere Of love. Here again
he bachelor SHOWS himself to be en-
tirely out OF touch with the Juvenile
life of the nation Half of the great
men Of today were licked half a doz-
en- times by their companions before
the expiration of the period that Mr..
Burbank says they should be kept in
4 exclusive atmosphere of love. OF