Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1917-05-19

I.Nh o.,
i when women were beginning to de-
nand formal celebration of motherhood
nv setting apart a day in its honor. pro-
tasted against ignoring the father. He
insisted that fatherhood also deserved
.one honor. and said as much to a COM
pary of women. But he is a comedian
and the women did not take him seriously.
,But why shouldn't we honor the
father?" asked Doctor McFabre, with
Shom I had been discussing the recent
observance of Mothers Day. I'm the
Decaloeue we are enjoined to honor father
and mother, and the father comes first"
"The Decaogue, you know, was origi-
nally the code of an Oriental people" said
I "and it has often surprised me that the
mother was mentioned at all. Women
among the Orientas do not hold very
high place. Christianity has lifted them
from the position of slaves to that of part.
rers. We know now that motherhood
Ais so large place in the general scheme
NJ things that We cannot realize that it
was not always So You know that there
are men now talking about the mother
hood of Cod"
IAN tommyrot," exclaimed young
Ames, who had come in with his uncle.
Before either of us had time to make
any reply Senator" owen and his sister
Dorothy we're shown in.
what do you think, Owen, Of having
A national holiday to honor the fathers?'
asked.
Theoretically it seems desirable" said
he but practically do not think much
OF II. All that there is in fatherhood is
included in motherhood, and motherhood
includes so much more that ! do not think
Fathers Day would arouse much in
terest."
81 did not know you Aad so high an
opinion of motherhood Dick" his sister
remarked She was looking tenderly at
him
Ames glanced in her direction and he
apparently saw her for the first time, al
though he had met her at my house on
many previous evenings. The mother
instinct shining ou. Of her face seemed
to appeal to something in him. Was it a
desire to be mothered? He pulled him
self together as if ashamed of his un-
conscious tribute to womankind and de-
manded
''Why does not some one write a book
about fathers? Literature is full of
mother stuff"
Some one has done it," said l. And
It is more than book about fathers. It
ia book about a family from the point
of view Of the father"
THAT is certainly a novel point of
view" remarked Doctor McFabre,
THE book is called His Family and
the hero is a man about sixty years old"
How interesting!" exclaimed Dorothy
Novels are usually written about young
people and are mostly love stories"
yes know. But the little love stories
serve to amuse us while we read them
We forget them when another Is in our
hands. II takes more than the courtinS
of two young persons to make book
that will live This book will interest
full-grown men and women more than
young people"
who wrote it?' from Ames.
1T is by Ernest Poole, a Princeton
graduate in the class of 1902, who was
engaged in university settlement work
in New York for several years. He has
written some short stories, two plays and
another novel, The Harbor,' which was
published last year. He gives promise
Of developing into one of the biggest men
writing fiction in America. This book
iA one of the best things which I have
read in a long time. Poole has attempted
to describe the career of an American
family in New York and to show how 1t
touches the various interests Of life and
how 1t is affected by them. II is bound
together by the way the activities Of the
three daughters affect the father. One of
the daughters is married when the story
opens and has a family of growing chill
dren. Another is the principal OF school
on the East Side and the third is inter
ested in nothing but her own pleasures.
The motive is found in the remark OF the
mother on her deathbed ten or fifteen
years earlier, that the father would live
on In the lives of his children. He does