The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1909-02-05

60 out from our SCHOOLS To-Day Will
out knowledge of some of most vital
principles of life. And-more is the
pity!-this failure. of the schools to
meet crying need has often not
been rectified by honest home train
ing. Our false modesty is gaining us
nothing, either as individuals or as, a
people, but it is seriously damaging ,
us. We look with horror at the man
or woman who would discuss in pub
lie some of the most vital conditions
of our existence. We criticise boys
and girls, men and women for Ego
ing wrong. But we have nothing to
say of the schools or. the parents that
failed to instruct them how to walk
Alright. We seem to expect that the
forces of good in the universe will
miraculously sweep down out Of the
clouds and even more miraculously
step between the tempter and the
tempted, and we forget that many
young men and women have started
on the road to ruin without in the
least being conscious of their danger.
We have established a thing that
we call the mystery OF life.' It is
mystery because we have made it
such. BY our attitude we have
started millions of inquisitive chil-
dren along the highway of life under
the impression that there is some
thing within them, something about
them, that is God-giyen but wrong.
And one result is that we have there
! by made real wrongs wrongs that
have ruined the lives of thousands of
| women and made many more thous-
ands unhappy. For there must some
| day be an awakening. The girl who
goes into life ignorant of self will
eventually pay the penalty of the ne
| elect of her teachers and parents,
| She will some day know. The obi
cation that rests on us is insuring
| that she comes by her knowledge
safely, sanely and decently.
Our mystery system fosters per-
verified curiosity. The very first ques-
lions Of child, as every mother
| knows, concern itself 1t wants to
know how it came into being. There
are some wise mothers who answer
the question honestly. There are
many thousands more who perjure
themselves in false modesty's name
by reciting certain untruth, some
times called fable, regarding
lOng-legged bird. This convenient
myth saves the mother or the father
present embarrassment, perhaps, but
what does it do for the child? The
child some day learns of the false
hood. 1t gains it's information secret
ly- perhaps from older boys or girls
in the school yard. 1t learns in one
of hundred different, but equally
unhealthy ways that there is no
stork and that race propagation is
power within the race and not pow
er of the air. Its innocence has now
been preserved by ignorance as long
asst is possible to so preserve it.
Thereafter it sets about finding out
more. Much of this information is
naturally inaccurate. Much of 1t. is
positively dangerous. But what else
is logically to be expected of such
system. Who may we reasonably ex-
pect to instruct the little folks truth
fully If their parents tell them false
| hoods and their teachers frown upon
or evade their questions? Innocense-
in the sense of freedom from moral
corruption-is necessary, but that
sort OF innocence is not fostered by
ignorance. We sometimes speak of
the young man or woman who knows
nothing of the world as innocent. 1t
is this sort of innocence that is peril
GUS. We had better pity than admire
such children. As Sharlot M. Hall
has well said: "The sweetest inno-
cence is knowledge that closes ears
and mind and to all low influences"
And this knowledge can never be i'm
parted by secret whisperings on the
playground.
Methods Of informing children
what they should know about them
selves must be largely governed by
circumstances A wise parent will
lead up to the subject slowly, perhaps
preparing the way by explaining the
mysteries of plant and tree life. But
the truth-in part at least-s should
have been taught by the time the boy
or girl has reached the age OF 10 or
~ years. 1t is easy afterward to
build upon the foundation thus laid.
Editorial in Woman's National
Daily.
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