The Washington herald., 1916-02-04

One OF our mothers wrote to me a
short time ago to say that her child.
a girl OF twelve, had be'u doing very
well in school until within few months.
but that suddenly her zeal had seemed
to nag and she was no longer interested
In her studies.
she has to be urged to her books
all the time now" the mother wrote,
instead Of getting at them herself early
and late, as she has for the past two or
three years. Il am a little worried
IbOUt her." she went on, because she is
sleepless at night and the other day
when her father asked her to recite
piece she has always done very well, she
forgot her lines in the second stanza
and could not go on with it. What do
you think We ought to do about her?
She will not finish high school with her
class II We let her stay out of school
this year, as some friends advise, and
that means a year late in entering col
leEe. Please write to me, for If ever
any OF OuI members needed your help,
I do about this 1t is the ambition of
my life to give this girl a good educa-
tiOn, because I missed one myself"
1 am not going to write as forcibly in
my lecture to the club today as l did
to that mother, because 1 have had
time to cool off a little, and because, too,
l am sure that none OF the rest Of you
Is shining against your child as she is!
But for fear some Of you may be mis-
lead by your ambition for your children
to urge them far beyond their strength
and their capacity in their studies,
am going to tell you some Of the things
] said to her.
In my opinion, that mother was COM
mitting a crime against her child sim
ply in order to crafty her own foolish
and selfish ambition.
BY the time she began to notice the
little girls failure to keep up the pace
the mother had set for her in her studies
the child had undoubtedly suffered a
serious nervous break by which she will
be incapacitated all her life. According
to the letter. the little girl had been pre-
pared to enter high school when she was
only IL years OF age by a special course
in a private school. To do this, she had
to study through two consecutive sum-
mers after the years sessions, without
stopping for even a weeks vacation. She
carried six studies all the time in order
TO make the first year Of high school and
get ahead with the requirements for en-
trance into the freshman year at college
at the end Of three years they allowed
for her graduation In order to be pre-
pared for her daily recitations. she had
to get out OF bed at 5 o'clock every morn
ing. winter and summer. and she pored
over her books from then until the half
past seven o'clock breakfast hour. Do
you wonder that nature set up a protest
at last after three years of such treat
ment? The real wonder Is that nothing
worse than sleeplessness and loss Of
memory resulted!
One Of the saddest cases Of the over
urging Of a bright child by parents too
zealous for his advancement In his stu
dies occurred in a family I knew in my
girlhood. In this case II was boy with
an unusually hne mind who seemed to
promise to his rather mediocre parents a
cheap renovn for ability they could never
achieve for themselves. And so they
urged him to his studies just as this
mother wrote me she is doing with her
girl. First. the boys eyes began to fail,
but they gave no heed to the alarming
symptoms By the time the poor child 5
sight was blurred so that he could not
distinguish the lines on the printed page,
he was taken to an oculist. only to be
told that the optic nerve was seriously
impaired and the boy must do no study
ing for at least a year. In spite Of this