The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1917-08-04

home-making mother, and not that OF
q hired servant, without a spark of
maternal love.
Some people contend that the world
is growing better-that moral condi-
tons are better than they were fifty
or sixty years ago; but, l say it with
sorrow, that cannot see it that way
The only way / know of to determine
the question is to compare conditions
as we find them today with condi-
tons existing fifty or sixty years ago,
and this / am able to do from actual
experience and observation and am
not dependent entirely upon books
| legends and traditions; and by such
comparison it is too plain to admit of
argument that in the old, old days
the moral condition of the world was
better than it is today. How much
| of it is due to the fact that many,
very many women have stepped down
from the pedestal upon which the
Creator placed them, and gone out of
the sphere in which they were design
ed by God himself to live and move
and have their being?
| read somewhere once where some
one writing on this same subject
used language, as we'll as can recall
it now, about like this: In those old
old times it was the fashion for men
and women to mate in love. In love
they planned and builded their homes.
In love they brought forth children
and reared them, with queer old-fash-
Toned notions about marriage, to
serve the race. In those times, now
so sadly old and out of date, men
planned and labored for homes and
children and women were home max
ers and mothers. But the world is
now far from those ancient ways and
out of date ideals. Marriage has lit
tie to do with home making in these
modern days. 1t has almost nothing
to do with children. We have in our
down to-date-ism, come to be ma
ton of childless wives and homeless
husbands. We are jewellers in flats,
apartments, hotels, where children
would be in the way, but where dogs
are welcome if only they be useless
dogs. We live in houses which are
always for sale or rent. 1t is our
proud boast that we possess nothing
that is not on the market for a price.
The thought of selling home is not
painful for we do not know the value
of home. We have, for convenience,
to crafty our modern, down-to-date,
ever changing tastes, populariZed the
divorce court as though husband or
wife of more than three seasons is
old-fashioned and should be discarded
for one of newer pattern, more in
harmony with our modern ideals of
marriage.
To my mind that is all too true.
and l add this: From the down-to-
date-the all-the-way-down-to-date
woman, one gains new and modern
ideas of the service that womankind
is to render to the race. Almost it is
as though God did not know what he
was about when he made woman. To
place home above a club; nursery
above the public platform; freside
above politics; the prattle of children
above newspaper notoriety; the love
of boys and girls above the excite
ment of social conquest; the work OF
bearing and rearing strong men anc
true women for the glory of the race
above the near intellectual pursuits
and the attainments of shallow think,
ing; all this is to be sadly old fash.
toned.
l beg pardon of the down-to-date
powers that be, and pray that they
will graciously forgive my boorish.
ness. 1 assure you that after all,
am not so benighted that | do moi
realize how seriously babies would in
terfere in the affairs of those down.
to-date women who are elevating the
race. By all means let the race be
elevated though it perish, childless, ir
the process. Very soon now woman.
hood itself will be out-of-date for the
= world, in this also, seems to be evolv.
t ing something new. The world wants
something new, and down-to-date-isn
does not want it's work to last longer
than the dollar it brings. Never fear
the world is getting something new!
Il OH for the moral conditions thai
existed in the old, old days of sixty
and more years ago! Think you that
if they prevailed now, that we would
be called upon to see, feel and endurs
. the shameful and humiliating spec.
Z tacle of thousands of thin-blooded
cold-feeted, unpatriotic men all ovel
our great country, who are using al
manner of subterfuges, schemes anc
D devices to shirk doing that which
every brave, patriotic lover of liberty
owes to his country. Oh! for the gooC
old days when men and women raised
a good, strong, red-blooded boys ant
girls who felt and lived up to the
motto, "Animis oppibusqui parati."
L. T. Izlar.