The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1911-10-14
A Bad Idea To Know Too Much

sively coarse, common, banal and vul-
gar
1t may be the correct dope, this
mothers way; but somehow l always
remember the dumb sort of way
that that father gazed at his boy
across the table when the little lad
was unspooling his French, and ] feel
sort O. sorry, and l can't think that
any part of that game was right.
All of this was brought back to me
when the other day l came upon a
situation that reminded me greatly
of it.
1t was in a prosperous, busting but
not particularly interesting little in
dustrial city in New York State.
The family consisted of five folks,
viz: Father, successful business man
of sixty; mother, extremely nice,
motherly woman of about fifty-seven;
daughter of twenty-seven (the central
figure of this little stingless preach
menD; son of twenty-four, in bust
ness with the old man, and another
son of twenty tired early of schooling.
and in the automobile business on his
own hook
The father and mother and the two
sons lived together in a beautiful
home. The daughter lived in the
boo,,t;f,,1 homo oroo IN a ,,,b;Io ,,,I,o,,
she wasn't away getting herself over
educated, that is. l seem always to
have known his family and remem-
Der all of the grown-up children when
they were tots. The girl, before she
went to Vassar at the age of eighteen,
was pretty, peachy, healthy as
woodsman, a wife-morsel for some
high and honest chap who might
come along in due time and be lucky
%a&
She returned from Vassar after five
years, blue-stocking of the most pro-
nounced type. She had a good head
and she'd been successful in her stu
dies from the start. This made her
ambitious. She went in for honors,
and wore herself to the bone. Meant
to remain pretty and wholesome all
her life, she dug so hard that she be-
came angular and sickly. Her looks
permanently departed from her. But
she'd won an ethical philosophy fell
lowship at Vassar, which was doing a
! lot.
Her mother looked her over and
considered her wonderful. Her father
looked her over-he loved her very
dearly, as only the fathers of only
daughters can-and in his heart he
felt-he didn't tell me, but | knew it
that he wisehd she knew a little less
ethical philosophy and had remained
more of a girl and had retained her
looks. He sat silent and somewhat
wondering while she discoursed pro
foundry at the table. Then, without
comment, he got up and went back to
the carriage-building works where he
gained the coin for all of this bead
tiful educationalizing. The daughter
had had her picture taken after leav-
ing college. But the old man kept
on his desk at the office the picture
that she'd had taken before she went
to college. That picture looked more
like the girl who'd been his daughter
who'd sat on his knee and wheedled
him in the old days She hadn't sat
on his knee or done anything so non.
ly-philosophicalish since her re
turn
She fingered at home for a littla
while, wrote some colossally owlish
articles on ethical philosophy for a
philosophical ournal, and thereby
won a postgraduate fellowship at an.
other school for girls. She went
away dry-eyed from her folks to take
that fellowship-she was way above
the feminine imbecility of Weeping
and dabbing at her nose in parting
from her folks for a period of two
years or so-and at this school she
won more distinction and gave hel
health a few more hard, irremedia
} BILE rdps from overstudy She came
back home from the vacation lookin.
a hOmely wrath.
Her dad and the two boys-keer
business boys, but not very strong fol
} the ethical philosophy thing-woulC
sit and listen to the young woman
J picking flaws in Nietzsche, Schopen
} hauer, Kant, Schlegel, Huxley, Tyn
dali, Spencer, Darwin and a few folks
z Of that sort; and they'd wonder what
J it was all about. Then, after a while
. the boYs,d begin to drum q hit nor