The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1913-09-21

the respect and affection in which young
men hold their mothers, and that it is
not surprising that Chinese children
honor their parents, since they are
taught to do so by means OF the very
first reader.
wonder if il would be possible to
borrow any of these Chinese first read
ers for use in American schools and
honest
We have spent Il lot of effort and
money In sending missionaries over to
the so.called heathen Chinee. Here's a
chance for China 20 repay the debt and
send over some first readers to hoodlum
America.
While the good ladies in China, how.
ever, arc holding oyster suppers, and
church fairs, and sewing bees to raise
the money for their missionary enter
prise for our benefit, it may not be
amIss for American parents to take
note of the fact that the volume that
is found so efficacious IN instilllng re
spect for parents in the youthful breast
is the FIRST READER. IT is not the
Diherential Calculus, or Kant on Pure
Reason, or any Of the high-browed lit
erature that a man peruses in his ma
ture years
Which is to say, that if you want
your child TO treat you with reverence
and respect, You must instil those SEN
timents in him while he is young and
not wait for him to acquire them when
he comes to the years of discretion.
Conduct is nine-tenths habit. Uncon-
sciousiy we go on treating people the
way we have always treated them, and
the son and daughter who have run
rough shod over their parents in their
childhood continue to run rough shod
over them in their manhood and woman
hood.
We Americans are very scornful be
cause the Chinese worship their an
cestors, but ancestor worship is much
less dangerous religion than the child
worship that prevails among us. IT
does great grandfather's spirit no
harm to be PRAYED to, but it ever
lastingly ruins the child for its par
ents to 1owtow and knock their fore
heads before it.
How other godlings. act we do not
know, but it fills the American brand
with an insufferable selfcomplacency
and self-esteem, and makes ii grind
ing tyraut who tramples its slaves into
the dust The modern car of JuGger
paut is the perambulator. and millions
Of Americans parents cast themselves
before it and let it crush out all Of
the comfort and happiness of their
lives.
Practically in every family YOU know
the children are the Ones Who Must
Be Obeyed. Their will is law. Their
opinions decide matters. They have
the best clothes. They go to places
Of amusement while the parents stay
at home. The father and mother are
merely upper servants to look after
the children IS wants.
And the children repay this attitude
of their parents just as you would ex
pect. They arc insolent and overbear
81 1Ge, a1NaI Innf no
cause they have been taught to be.
They have been brought up, tacitly
at least, to look down upon their par
ents and desplse them. They have
never been made to consider their par"
ents. and it never occurs to them to
do so.
The other day prosperous looking
man entered subway car with a much
dressed up little boy about six years
old. There was only one vacant seat
and the child made dart for it and
got it, The man said: 'Son, let father
have that seat and you can sit III his
lap.' 'tHuh. responded SON. 81 got
it first, and I'm going to keep it, And
he did, while the man hung on to a
strap.
Everybody round about looked bale
fully at the child and as if they'd give
five dollars to have him turned across
lHell huSSS III Soou POSiIiou
for about five minutes, but | thought
there should be some sort Of commits
sion appointed to commit such parents
to the asylum for the feeble minded.
For that man, and parents of his ilk,
are not only raising up their children to
be heartbreak to themselves but a
curse TO the community. 1t is these
children who are brought up without
any respect for their parents, or regard
for others, and who are greedily in
tent on getting the best for themselves,
who make countless thousands mourn
by their inhumanity.
Of course it seems TO the adoring par
ents that it's cute for tiny tot to
defy them. They make hundred ex
euses when Johnnie is impertinent TO
them. and Mary talks back when they
dare to reprove her. They even think
il funny when their child openly criti
cizes their ways, because they are so
sure that when it grows up it Will ap-
preciate all they have done for it and
the sacrifices they have made
It is a fallacious hope. Unless you
have established an authority over a
child before it is three years old, un-
less you have bred respect and reverence
in 1t from its very cradle YOU will not
get anything from that child but con-
tempt, And it really all you deserve,
because you hao your chance ana you
threw it away. The Chinese are an older
and, in many respects, wiser people
than we. That's why the child's les.
son in its duty to its parents begins
in the First Reader.
There is no other feature In Ameri-
can life that is so pathetic and SO alto
gether wrong as the relationship that
exists between parents and children, and
the fact that in the average family the
father and mother are so afraid Of their
children that they dare not call their
souls their own must make angels weep.
Often the parents have given the
children, at incredible sacrifices to them
selves. advantages that they never had
IN their own youth, but instead of the
sons and daughters being filed with
ashamed Of their father and mother
and correct them so often about their
Grammar and their manners and their