Los Angeles herald., 1909-07-10

ures, trials and even the petty details
of their every day life, there sprang up
a friendship between father and chill
dren that increased in intensity and
depth with years. To speak for my
self, he was the best friend-the only
true friend-I ever had. At once he
was our intimate friend and our self
constituted adviser; unfatherly in that
our feeling for him lacked that fear and
restraint that makes boys call their
father the governor.
No success in professional or business,
political or social life can possibly atone
for having neglected the care of your
own home and the training of your own
children.
However well the devoted mother may
do her duty, her faithfulness cannot
atone for the fathers unfaithfulness.
A home is not merely a spot in which
to eat and sleep, to rest when tired to
be nursed when sick, to receive ones
friends, to keep ones treasures and a
place to go to when you can go no
where else.
Most married people aim to have a
shoWy house. But home is not merely
four square walls. 1t is a place for
growth, for growing together, like to a
double cherry, seeming parted" 1t is
place for children to grow into phys
ical vigor and moral health
Don't surfeit your children with Sc
we're religion unless you want to turn
them against it. Let the surroundings
of the home be cheerful and attractive.
However small the home, let it be neat
the decorations, however simple, should
be pleasing to the eye; no room should
be too fine for the children to romp in,
while the playroom should be the
brightest and the sleeping room the
airiest.
Few people can indulge in fine paint
ings-tne aristocracy Of art-but the
masters are now reproduced in litho-
graphs-the democracy of art-and it is
possible for a few cents each to have
fine reproductions of the worlds great
est masters.
The value of pictures and pretty
things in the house in influencing the
life of a child few people appreciate,
AS people advance in civilization they
not only build better houses, but put
beautiful things in them.
The degraded live in novels. The
first step to improve the masses is to
provide better houses They need not
be elegant and expensive. A few days
since [ spent night in the gaudy
show place of millionaire It was op-
pressive, and this, | was told, cost so
much. The next day l spent with an
artistic friend who lived with his love-
ly bride in a log cabin. 1t was cheerful
and attractive, chaste and pleasing to
the eye. There was love in the cabin,
misery in the palace, for a few days
later the newspapers told the story of
the milllonaire's separation from his
young wife, who married him for his
money.
If, like my artistic friend, you can af-
ford but two rooms for your home, put
into them just as much educating pow
er as possible.
The law of unselfishness must be the
essential element of the home spirit
Perfect love casts out selfishness. one
selfish soul in the home not only like an
ugly thorn bush in the midst of a gar
den of flowers mars the joy, but it
destroys the sweetness of the home.
Fill your home with sunshine. Don't
keep all your brightness for strangers
abroad and sternness and dullness for
home consumption. No child can grow
up in rich development i'm an unhappy
and gloomy home. Don't drive your
children to seek their amusements
away from home. Better a billiard table
in your own home than the boys down
town in public poolrooms.
Many children of the most pious peo-
pie in every community turn out badly
because their parents narrow notions
drive them forth into the wilderness
of life An unhappy childhood is the
fate of too many children of otherwise
good parents, but their antipathy to
amusements. which may be innocent
enough in themselves under favorable
environments. Many an unhappy child
hood in severely religious homes has
so filled life's fountains with bitterness
as to sadden all the after years
Fill the young lives with sweetness
and make your home a garden of
flowers, where joy shall bloom through
childhood hours.