Elmore County Republican. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1910-1915, 1912-04-13

the SeCCn0 aftlcle IN the series con
tributed by Ida M. Tarbell, entitled
THE Homeless Daughter
"The most essential thing for a
, woman to understand is that her bus
ness Is not to order her daughter
life but to assist the daughter tc
shape it herself. She should be pre-
pared to say to her: THE most in
teresting and important thing in the
world fer you is to work out your
own particular life. You must build
1t from the place where you stand
ard with the materials in your
hands. Nobody else ever stood in
your particular place or ever will
stard in che Identical; nobody ever
/ has or can possess the same materi-
ais. You alone can fuse the ele-
ments. Hold your place; do not try
to Shift into the place that another
occupies. Keep your eye ON what
you have to work with, not on what
somebody else has. The ultimate re-
suit, the originality, the flavor dis
tinctive usefulness of your life de-
| rend on the care, the reverence,
and the intelligence with which you
work up and out from where you are
and with what you have"
1t is only the woman who is pre-
Jared to say something like this to
her argIter, to help her to see it,
and to rise to it that has brought in
to her home the spirit of to-day.
Where there is failure at any one
of these points, and If one fails, all
probably will, since they are obvious
elements in the liberal view of life,
the girl must go forth If her life is
to go progressively on. She must
seek work, less for the sake of work
tIan fer the sake of life, to remain
where she is unproductive in group
which does not recognize the call of
the present world and where another
person-for the mother who tries to
force the individuality becomes an
other person-insists on shaping her
course-to do this is to quench the
spirit, to stop the very breath of lift
The gnawng loneliness of the girl
who has lett home to make her way
is one of the NEST fruitful causes of
the questionable relations which we'll
bern girls form, more of them than
society realizes. The girl seizes
eagerly every chance for companion
ship or pleasure Her keen need OF
it makes her over appreciative and
under critical Moreover, she has
the confidence of ignorance. Most
American girls are brought up as If
wrong doing were impossible to them.
Nobody has ever suggested to them
that they have the possibility of all
crimes In their makeup. Parents
and teachers ordinarily have extra
ordinary skill in evading, but little in
facing the facts of life.
Disarned by her ignorance, the
girl gees out to freedom such as no
country has ever before believed it
safe to allow to the young, either
girl or boy. This freedom is of
course the logical result of what We
call the emancipation of women"
1t is the swinging of the pendulum
from the old system of chaperonage. |
Tie weak Joint is in the fact that
the girl has not knowledge enough |
for her freedom. 1t is not return
of the old system of guarded girls
which is needed. That Is impossible
under modern conditions, out of har-
mony with modern ideas The great
need is that women of the country
realize that freedom unaccompanied
by knowledge is one of the most dan
gereus tools that can be put into a
human beings hands. The reluctance
CT women to face this fact is the
most discouraging side of the woman
question.
The girl who gees forth should 60
armed with knowledge. She should
EEL the pull Of the home in every mo-
nent of loneliness so strong that she
IS literally jerked back when she Is
teady to slip. This hold of the ,
nome is no chimerical thing. 1t is
/ positive, living reality. The home ,
las a power of projecting itself into /
he lives of those who go out from it. ,
t is where the girl does not carry :
rom the home sense of an unin- i,
errupted relation--a certainty that :
The is part CT the group and that a. ,
'hievement, that she is only carrying ,
IN, enlarging, helping to extend, q
and ripen it's work, that she 8
S not homeless. Nothing can so =
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