The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1921-08-24
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST "a, 1921.
1HOMEs-PAST AND PRESENT.

II u
Home All, to be sure, you remember. Home
Home! What a word it is! What holy memories
the very word stirs in our hearts How it grows
fragrant with olden love- and beautiful with the
tenderness of Mothers face. We speak it soft
" and reyerently, and remember how once the
hollyhocks bloomed in the garden behind the old
house. and how Grandmother's face waited for us
with welcome at the old-fashioned gate! Home!
It is the sweetest of all words, as we knew it in
the olden days
But is Home still the sweetest of all words
Does the question shock you? Let us be honest
and face the facts. Is the word Home today as
beautiful as it was a quarter of a century ago?
Does it still stir in the hearts of the younger gen.
Grafton the dreams that 1t stirred in ours? Does
it still bring to the young and women the
thought of the family together in glad union, the
glory of the hour when family prayer was held,
the sense of holiness which surrounds that which
means worship and alteration?
God forbid that should try to speak sighting
ly of any lovely thing l do not want to write in
the spirit Of "Main Street." picturing only the
dark side and forgetting all that is lovely. do
not doubt that we have Homes today. L do not
doubt that many children grow up loving Home
in its most beautiful meaning, and treasuring
memories of Mothers and Fathers worthy of all
remembrance.
But is the American Home, generally speaking,
true to it's old traditions, to its old affections and
alterations? Is it's influence the same as it was
"a generation ago? Does the heart of man today
turn back to Home as yearnngly and with such
sense of loneliness the heart Of yesterday did?
Honestly, brethren, fear it does not
Look over your home block. How many fami-
lies keep the happy evenings together? In how
many homes do the children show respect and re-
verence for their elders? How many boys think
more of being helpful to Mother than Of being
popular at the dance hall? How many girls
prouder of the washing they have done than of
their powdered primping? How many mothers
prefer to laugh and weep their laundering
babies than to shine at the bridge party? How
many fathers hurry home from work that they
may make popgun for the boy?
What has happened to the American Home?
Well, the auto has happened and the movie
and the finn fam Of depravity known as Culture
and, perhaps worst of all, the cheap vanity that
wants to do everything the neighbor does. Oh
no, I do not condemn the auto and the movie. We
needed them, but we have not properly initiated
them. We have adapted ourselves to them, in
stead of adapting them to needs But our
real error has been this: In accepting the
things we have let the old go, and with the old
has gone all that could have made the new worth
while
The American Home is disintegrated because
it has failed to necessary to the young.
We have permitted the children to grow up be-
Geving that the movie was more than Home, that
dance was more interesting than Home, that
there can be no picnic that is not far away, that
there is no joy unless it be in unfamiliar places.
How did this come about? Simply by losing
of +bo foe hot low ficfa iS in
folks and not in things. What is the secret of
the spiritual starvation Of today? Merely that
we have lost the art of simplicity. Some people
profess to believe that weakness today is the
complexity of life. Not at ALL Life is no more
complex than it was in Adams time. Of course, |
it is bad enough to make life complex But we
have done worse than this. We have made life
undressing. Which is always what happens
when we lose simplicity.
All, but you say that the movie and the auto
and the greater variety of things should add to
the interest of life, and not detract from it. Not
at all. The only thing that adds to the interest
of life is interest in life, and not interest in
things. John Burroughs was richer than Rookie |
teller; Thoreau knew more than Pierpont Morgan. |
Folks are no longer easy to please, and that is
a terrible tragedy. Years ago family went to
celebration once year, and talked about it for
year afterwards. It was the event of a lifetime.
Today we go to something every day, and nothing
thrills us. I once heard describe a ten
mile journey as if it were the achievement OF
lifetime. Today men travel across the world and
remember only that it was hot or cold. Riches
generally consist in not having too much.
can recall forty years ago in small town in
This state when there was no such thing as "socie
ty," when there seldom theatrical perform
ance and when Entertainments" were few and
far between. How did folks live, you say? They
made their own entertainment, and found their
own fun. At night the family gathered together
around table, and listened while one read the
works Of the masters. Children grew up loving
Dickens and Scott, and having in their magma
tons great pageant Of the wonderful world that