The Washington herald., 1912-04-23
THE GIFT OF LIFE
has LITTLE VALUE.
ut Is Kept on a Low, sOrdid
Basis.
b. FRANCES sHAFFER.

EE2ANGEC GIlAE In
In a speech on The Family and Race
survival. DR.. Franklin H. G8ddings
Ct Columbia University, deplores the
passing Of the large family. He says IT
Is the latest immigrants who are main
tsining the race and that the great hu-
man family Of the future will not be
descended from people OF inherited
wealth and morals and all the manifest
benefits OF higher civilization. but VIII
beadravn from ''the ignorant and bru-
TALKED people
Doubtless he is right. SO many of our
public speakers and writer's are m ac-
cord with him that one scarcely dares
lift her voice to wish that there might
be as many to plead in behalf Of the
quality and the rights Of childhood. In
a way, that Is what DR.. Giddings is urg-
ing when he says that families OF six
are the need Of the day, but that they
must represent homes where high ideals
can be passed on to the little folk.
Pity of the Poor.
But while he and the many are talking
OF big families. don't you sometimes
think that more should be said of the
pity Of poor families so big that the boys
and girls have no chance at all, unless
they happen to be Of the rare type that
viii rise above poverty and make op-
portunities?
For while college professors are ad-
dressing the cultured families with their
steadily decreasing number Of children.
there are the poor homes where the little
ones come in the big numbers that are
30 deplored, and no one tells the parents
Of the child's inherent right to certain
number Of years when he shall be hedged
about with the best kind Of training.
Poverty may not cut him of from
the best, but it imposes barriers that
ofttimes start him wrong in life and keep
him wrong to the end OF his time on
earth.
And no one tells those parents that
they have no real right to be respon-
sible for lives which they are unable or
unfit to safeguard. 1t Is a tragedy to
see boys and girls grow up. cut of from
everything that counts. Possibly the ex-
perience does not hurt them so much
in the end, but in homes Of poverty,
little mothers" are made to carry far
too many burdens for their tender years.
Do you ever read a newspaper recital in
which one Of these little mothers" fg-
Cre, these little girls, women long be-
fore their time, without a feeling of
pity for the lost childhood, the dearth Of
play and the lack Of opportunity?
Talk Falls Dead.
And the big-famiIy talk sane ana
needfal as it may be In its proper chan
mel, may sometimes fail dead and use
less among the very folk whom the re-
formers would reach, for they. with
their culture, their training, and their
wealth, have views all their own, and
they will live theDhves as they see ht.
And the echoes may go to the poor
homes where there are already more wee
morsels Of humanity than are given
chance to grow in physical, moral. and
educational grace. And there, il seems
to some of us, is the trouble
Along with those echoes, one wishes |
some one would tell them that Il is
quality that counts; that 1t is not fair
10 child to withhold from him the
very things that will make his life |
worth while; and that the mere gift of |
life is not of any value to him or to |
the world IL it is kept on a low, sordid |
basis.
There is something inexpressibly sad |
in the sight Of boys and girls growing |
up in the midst of cheapness, duIlness. |
ana ab1ect poverty. with no preparation |
Tor anything better or higher than their /
fathers and their mothers knew
Al best life has much to offer; at |
worst-does just life, without its best
fruits, seem such a great boon? Up /
where there is a wholesome outlook, Il /
is beautiful; but down where there IS
poverty and little chance to grow, who /
Of us. with free choice, would want it?
What Are His ChancesF
And that is why, when some Of US read
a, plea for the big family. we straight
way long for some one to go down where
they tell us the big family is supreme,
down among the very poor, down among
the latest immigrants, as Dr. Giddings
put il, and there tell the story of the
child his rights, and his possibilities to
grow up or to sink down.
For one believes that those poor, un-
happy folk do not always realize that
their big families of boys and girls are
simply likely to repeat their own sorry
tragedies.
And II one Of the great needs of our
time is the big family. isn't there on
setting need to teach the poor that II
Is unfair to send boys and girls adrift
without half a chance, often with no
chance at all?