The Washington herald., 1917-07-06
Helping the Young to Find Themselves.
By DOROTHY DIX
By DOROTHY DIX.
The Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer

mood and tense, by noting how II
plays, what it reads, in what it finds
its chief enjoyment, by keeping il
| forever under the microscope of dis
passionate investigation. And the
\ more commonplace the child seems,
the more important for The parent
/ to do this. Not even all peas in a
pod are alike or fitted for the sam
| careers.
1t is not that the ordinary child
does not give plenty of indications
of its bent, but that parents are too
! blind, and too careless and too pre-
| occupied with other things to notice
| them, and the child itself is too young
and too ignortant to be aware of
| their significance.
When Tommy is 10 years old he is
| tinkering with tools and m-ndinS all
| the doorsills and fixing all the clocks
and sewing machines in the neigh
borhood, and knows by intuition what
is the matter with the most tempera-
mental of automobiles. But that
| doesn't suggest a thing to Tommy's s
: father. He never thinks of having
all of Tommy's studies directed to
developing Toms mechanical ability
| to the end that when he Is through
| school he will know exactly what
niche in the world he Is prepared to
/ fill, and go to it.
Sammy makes no brilliant record a:
school. but he has outtraded every
| boy for blocks around, so that he pos
sesses the whole visible supply of
marbles and jack knives in his COM
, munity. Nobody-nO grown person
takes the slightest notice of this sig
nificant fact, or sees to 1t that Sammy
gets the best possible education in a
good business school; nor does his
| father say to him when he Is through
school, Business Is fine, son, come
on in"
| When Ernest was little they called
him SISSY" and Miss Lizzie" be-
cause he would rather play with his
( sisters dolls and make clothes for
| them than to play football with the
| other boys. As he grew older he
quit that in shame, but he's always
been Iinicky about colors and fabrics
and has such exquisite taste that his
mother and sister depend on him for
advice about their clothes.
But when Ernest is grown up,
does 1t occur to his family to sug-
gest to him that his talents lie in
the dry goods and millinery line?
Not at all. His parents say they
really don't know what to advise
him to go into. He has not particu-
lar bent
It's the little straws that show
which way the winds of aptitude
\ blow In a child's character, and
that is why parents should be for
ever watching out for them. 1t
< doesn't make any difference about
the boys and girls with great gifts.
They will come to their own
through every obstacle and diff
Guilty.
Few children are lowered with
with the great arc light of genius,
but practically every child has a
little penny candle of talent that
enough to light it comfortab bly,
| telligent enough to do il.
This makes its parents highest
duty to help their children find
themselves and realize on what
ever capital with which nature las
endowed them. The child cannot
do this for himself He is too
young and inexperienced to take
his own measure or realize the
value of his wares, or know how TO
I market them, but parents should
know and be ready to hold out a
helping hand and say, in the slang
or the day, this Is where you get
! on" when their boys and girls
start forth on their life Journey.
That parents 20 often admit that