Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-10-10
NEEDLESS OF
PARENTS-TO-BE
What Are You Laying Up in
Way of Good Morals
and Habits

man you probably have an ideal of
marriage and fatherhood before you
You imagine yourself at the head of
happy home with a lovely wife and
beautiful children installed in that
home. You are, no doubt, trying to
lay up a bank account ready for that
occasion and you hope to be the pos
SCISSOR of great wealth to bestow upon
your family.
But what are you laying up in the
way of good morals. good habits,
good health and pure blood to be-
stow upon your children?
What do you know about good ia
therhood that will enable you to pro-
tect your wife before the birth of
your children so that she will be
enabled to bring into the world de-
sirable offspring? Do you know any
thing about parental influences?
Do you know how important it is
that child should be guarded and
protected before its birth as we'll as
afterward? If you know nothing
about these things you are not fitted
to become father.
New York City provides fund
for a large aquarium. The Zoologi-
cal Park is another city institution
where young animals are protected
before birth and after; and should
the male animal indicate dangerous
tendencies toward his mate before
the birth of the young or afterward
toward his offspring, he is at once
placed where he cannot do damage.
All Over Country Expectant Mothers
Are Left to Ignorance
No stock breeder would permit his
brood animal to suffer injury at such
a period; she is protected in every
way in order that her offspring may
be strong and well.
Yet all over the United States ex-
pectant mothers are left to the care
less and ignorant treatment of men
who know no more about the respon-
sibilities of fatherhood, or of paren-
tai influence, than they know of the
social conditions of Mars.
In the lower walks of life, where
people are crowded in small rooms
and obliged to live in close quarters,
expectant mothers are forced to en-
dure the odors of cheap drink and
tobacco and to hear taunts and in
suits from intoxicated husbands, who
have never been told that a woman is
sensitive to an abnormal degree at
this period of her life; and in the
higher walks thousands of mothers
are suffering from neglect and indif-
ference or from refined abuse from
husbands who are college graduates
and who occupy important positions
socially.
It would be an admirable under
taking for the Government to estab-
lish in each large city a free institu-
tion where such women could pass
two or three hours each day, when
conveniently located, with cheerful
surroundings, and three or four
at nominal price, if un-
fortunately situated at home
Whatever the original expense Of
such an undertaking might necessi-
tate it would be saved in a generation
by the lessening of disease and crime
and poverty among the masses.
Colleges Should Have Compulsory
Courses to Instruct Youth for
Marriage
Added to this, every college should
be obliged to add a department
through which every young man must
pass before granted a diploma. The
most skilled physicians should be en-
ployed as instructors in this depart
ment. 1t is quite as important to
the world that young men know what
1t means to propagate the species as
that they become expert athletes.
Many cases might be found, if the
annals of the courts were studied,
where men who graduated with bril-
liant honors from famous colleges
proved brutal husbands to wives who
were eXpectant mothers. The mans
brain had been filled with all kinds of
knowledge save that which gave him
an understanding of fatherhood and
motherhood. However disillusioned
or enraged he may become with
woman he has chosen as his wife.
there is not one man in a million
who would misuse his own unborn
child once he understood the vital in
fiuence of the mothers mind upon 1t
during those months.
Women are beginning to under
stand these matters, and mothers are
awakening to the fact that daughters
must be educated along these lines if
they ever contemplate marriage.
But how is it possible for mother
to give her child wholesome and sane
and healthful parental conditions if
men continue to walk in blind, black
ignorance, and If the laws of the
land make no provision for the
mothers protection and offer no asy-
lum for her retreat from disastrous
environment at this important time?
1t is the great work of the future,
the vital subject of the present. Not
until the intelligent and educated
classes realize this and call science
to aid in the education Of men as
fathers can Wa hana for q .,,a=l.aa