The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1913-04-07

hands and relieve us of the responsibility and
labor of training and guiding them. When we
take the trouble or consent to the pain and
cost OF bringing them into the world, we hand
them over to the world quickly as possible
and demand OF the world or the State to take
charge OF them. The tendency of our modern
thought and philosophy is toward bottle feeding
babies and machine made men and women
Statisucs collected by the doctors show that
while five per cent of the breast fed children die
IN the first two years of life, twenty per cent
Of the bottle fed children die AS it ia pbysi
cally so 1t is morally. The child bred on the
bottle is unlikely to thrive. We cannot develop
high manhood and womanhood by machinery
however elaborate and expensive II may be- The
breast feeding is not only by the mother to the
sucking child but by the father in his precept
and example his tender watchfulness and con-
tinued care for the right training of the chill.
dren. It is his part to drill into them by his
life and constant companionship and watchful-
ness high principles, clean habits of life and
thought as the mother may have given them
from her breast and strengthen their muscles
veins and vitality.
In this country we need more getting hack to
individual responsibility of woman and man
and heads of households than we do political
reforms. There is dangerous rot at the root
and in the heart of the beautiful tree of our
republic. and 1t is from fault and failure of the
leaves and twigs, the individual citizens and the
leaders of families to gather in, absorb, dis
tribute thorough the whole structure the power,
purity and strength of which the air all about
Is full. Any thinking man, however humble his
station or restricted his opportunities, can find
IN history, in his own observations of life in
what he can hear every Sunday and every We'd
nesday night in the church it costs him nothing.
or as little as he may choose, to attend. what
will give him the right ideas to drill into his
children. AS we build the family life we build
the strength, glory and beauty of our republic
AS we neglect the care of the family. as we leave
the children to the bottle fed intellectually and
morally and machine made by the State or
some unknown and paid teacher. we deprive the
republic Of the sources Of its real strength and
life The family is the foundation The lamp
around which the children and the father and
mother gather is the real source of the light we
have been sending far through the world. 1t is
the inspiration that has nerved our warriors to
splendid conquests and heroism and to immoral
deeds and has made our great leaders of thought
and purpose. 1t has given our fine women
1t is the power for temperance, soberness purity
and charity the very bottom stones on which
our civilization ond government are established
Here In Virginia we are a community of families
That is our strength. Let us keep 1t So Breast
fed men and women, home trained girls and
boys, children who not left to the training
of the schools from kindergarten up, but who
are trained and taught at homo things outside
the province Of the employed teachers, who have
instilled with them the tenderness and loyalty
of the family life and the beauty of the family
traditions; these will keep clean and high aad
controlling the world our civilization, our re-
public and its principles our State and its
power and beauty.