Milford chronicle., 1912-04-19
MOTHERS CONGRESS
Hears fine ADDRESS,
Mrs. o. E. WoOten, of Laurel, Makes Ad-
dress at Dover Century Club For
Delaware Branch of Mothers
Congress.

When I first received our President S
letter asking me to be present to-day and
talk to you on Child Welfare, felt she
had chosen unwisely, and my impulse
was to decline, feeling incompetent to
cope with so vital and far-reaching a
subject But when later she suggested
touch upon the cooperative influence
of home and school, it seemed to me with
So many years experience as a teacher
and a few years of wonderful privilege
of motherhood. I should have a sugges-
ton or message for each.
The overwhelming mystery of life is
not death, but birth; the most awe-in-
spring miracle is the coming of a hui
man soul into the world. If children
had any choice in advance of their COM
ing, they would chose the most iEtelli-
gent society to be born in. But. is any
society more than half civilized to-day
For surely a real civilized world would
not tolerate conditions which faint the
child before it is born, and saturate him
with evil influences almost before his
babyhood has passed. But these cOndi-
tions cannot be changed in day They
are the result of centuries, of slow ascent
in civilization. This generation not re-
sponsible for present conditions, only
-
intelligence in endeavoring to change
them. If methods of education were as
luminous with vision as they are orderly
and systematic, and if parents and teach |
ers were eager and enthusiastic to avail
themselves of possible opportunities, these |
little souls placed i'll our keeping would |
more often be helped than is the case
too often dwarfed in these earliest years
years which afford the richest soil for /
culture If one speaks of the supreme |
importance of the first year of a child $
life, society smiles complacently at what
it regards as kindly illusions of ardent
women or of impractical men. It has
been said that only mothers and men of
great soul who know little children and
understand the mystery of spiritual edu-
cation, have learned that the golden
years lie at the verv beginning, and the
deepest education is impaired in the light
of dawn; an education that cannot be
measured by the tests of primary or even
collegiate education. In these earliest
years it is the mother who is the greatest
factor and influence in the child's life.
1t was not intended that it should be so
human parentage means both father and
mother, but custom having so adjusted
affairs that fathers being chiefly respon- !
sible for the material welfare of life, little
time is left to them for child nurture,
so in the mothers chiefly devolves this re- :
task, that this wonderful ma =.
chinery of the mature )ble man or :
woman snail be started right, notwith- Z
standing the complexity of its delicate =
mechanism.
Not unlike the Divine Trinity, a child :.
has a thre--fold nature to bring into Il
b lrmony. Head, Hand and Heart, or y
Soul the mental, physical and spiritual ,
that in the end spirit may rule the 7
mind and the mind guide the physical =
life Just glance over these first won
ierful years when habits are formed,
avs of gravity and balance are fixed, a
anguage learned when he gains his first
md lasting impressions of good and evil,
when all the emotions of affection kind.
less, tboughtfulness or, the reverse,
Iislike, cruelty, and selfshness are awak- h
ned. When that vital self-activity al =,
eady in motion should be guided and =
tarted in right directions. The duty 4
nd responsibility of all this, whether 8
one intelligently or ignorantly, success n
ully or as a failure, rests on the mother Il
tut now having reached that most inn Il
ortant milestone, the sixth year, when k
ONE and state judge him to be capable q
lentally, ana Doth physical and spiritual
trong enough to make his first great
enture in the world, into a new life, a
ew home, with a foster-mother and
lany little brothers and sisters. He
nters that most wonderful of all insti-
1tions, the public school. 1 wonder q
ow many ever stop to think that this Il
ay, the first long day at school, is the Il
reatest crisis in your child's life Per- c,
lps yours was the timid child who, re-