Norwich bulletin., 1911-01-07


 Cwritten Specially for The Bulletin.) )
 Some time ago, I remember talking one day about what seems to me big mistake of too fond parents,-the mis- take of trying to make life over easy for the youngsters. Others beside myself have seen this danger. In a recent western farm paper I find a mighty sens- ble article in the same
 general line. It is openly and frankly devoted to the booming of three train ing schools-"Broom' college, Hoe college and Washing college. Listen an instant, if you please:
 Nothing so trains boy for busi- ness success as the actual experience as an office boy. sweeping out the of flee. The office broom will do more towards starting a good. industrious boy towards the top of the commer- cial ladder than aE the commercial schools Dut togetb,er And thrice blessed is the little girl who haS learned to take her place in the world of useful folks by washing the dishes while mother does harder things.
 The parents who let their children play away their youth with the apology that we don't want our syoys and girls to have to work as We did are making the gravest mistake of their Hives"
 Amen, and ameni This world. wasn't made so that people 7Culd live in 1t very long or very honorably without sharpers who would rather lie than iabor and a few sponges who would rather soak than exert themselves Do you want your sons to be either slmrpers or sponges? There are in the insect world few butterflies faablw in the soft breezes of the summer sunshine, only to bs drenched and pounded to pitiful death by the summer thunder storms Do you want your daughters to pc mere butterflies? In every hive or ten or twenty thousand bees there are % few drones, who live lazily and lux uriousry on tho honey others gather, till their time comes. when they are rnercileSsly stung to death by the bet ter bees and their bodies swept out of 4he hive they are no use to. Do we want our children to i'll the place in the human hive occupied so briefly and ingioriously by the buzzing trones?
 It is born into almost every child 10 want to help Papa or Mamma" They are often bothersome in their childish attempts to initiate. But the instinct is in them, almost universal gy. and 1t is one which should not be h warted. It should be encouraged. Of course 1t is unpardonable to set young children to such hard and frk- some tasks that they are fairly driven ,1 to hate work and all that is suggest ed by 1t. There is a golden mean in shis as in all other directions which may often be very difficult to follow in practice, but which should always be desired and aimed at
 The most of us have to work. whether we want to or not. It is work and work alone which keeps the world habitable and makes life worthy. Those who, by reason of their weak ness or their laziness or their per- nicious cunning, manage to win or keep a place in the world without earning it, do not exist without work. They simply compel the rest of us to do their share. They bind heavy bur dens and grievous to be borne and lay them on other mems shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with their fingers. To such a greater and wiser than you or I has denounced woe;-woe that is un- speakable even though it must creep through three generations to finish its dOomful work. Why should We de- sire such a lot for the children whom we love- We may,-and 1t is duty that we should hold up the little hands till they become strong enough to do the tasks which God and nature have assigned them. We may,-and t is a duty that we should lift their little feet across obstacles too great for them to overpass alone, until they have grown sturdy enough to follow the path for themselves. But the coddling "kindness' which sends ahead to sweep every chip out of the path, so they may not have to overcome even trifling obstacles is not kindness, but short si ghted cruelty. The love" which forbids the little hands all practice towards inuring them selves to the tasks which, sooner or later. they must take up is not love but a silly sent1mentalism as harmful tO the child as it is unpardonable in the parent.
 It's very easy to preach about the nobility of labor. That's all the good tt does. Tn at one ear and out of the other But there's one grim fact ehat doesn' need to have anybody preach it for it breaches itself. That Is the fact that nine out of ten of us, Co put the proportion generously, have got to work, no matter what we think about labor as an abstract proposi- ton, nor whether we want to or not The goal of life is always on the heights up which is no road other than the trail we each can make for himself. The higher the goal. so much the sleeper and harder and longer the climb. The only possible success to any life is in the attainment, more or less complete, of the goal it aspires after Failure to reach it or to attain at least near to it is the failure of a life. It is failure which can be smoothed over by no bankruptcy court, and which is never pardoned by