Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-11-24
THE Mexicans have a proverb that
says: strangers bread makes po-

THE Mexicans have a proverb that
says: Strangers bread makes po-
- lite children"
Every father and mother have had occa-
sion to observe this interesting social phe-
nomena, and to marvel at how much bet
ter their offspring behave away from home
than they do at home. Children who are
little hoodlums under their own roof are
angels and cherubs under a neighbours.
Mother has reproved little Mary a million
times about the way she holds her fork and
spots the table cloth, without, apparently,
producing any results, but when little Mary
goes visiting her table manner are those
of finishing school for fashionable young
ladies.
At home little Johnny's hat is glued to
his head so firmly han ten thousand re-
proofs have not suffced to remove it when
he enters room and his general demeanor
in the family circle is that of wild Indian
on the war path, but when little Johnny
goes off on visit to Aunt Sallie she
writes back about what perfect little gen
tleman he is and how he is being hated by
all the other little boys in the community
because their mothers are holding him up as
a model for them to copy.
Whereat parents marvel. They cannot
understand why their children seem to shed
their irritability, their surliness, their un-
accommodating spirit, and their bad man
ners as soon as they get away from home.
Yet the explanation is perfectly simple. The
children have escaped from the eternal, and
irritating paterna1 nagging. They are in a
different atmosphere where they are sooth-
ed instead of riled. They are among peo-
pie who are looking for their virtues in
stead of being on the watch tower to pounce
on every fault. They are on their own, with
a sense of responsibility for themselves so
that they feel they must make good by be-
having properly.
OF course children's faults have to be
corrected. They mus: be taught the ele-
mentary principles of good manners and
good morals. They must be restrained, and
guided along the right road. .-
But surely parents could do this more eff
fectively if they would do it more subtly
and less continuously. All human experience
goes to show that the salve-spreader IS
mightier than the hammer, and that you
can beguile people into doing things that
you couldn't drive them into doing to save
your life. The one place where diplomacy
is needed more than anywhere else in the
world is in dealing with children, and yet
there is not one father or mother in a
million who even thinks of jollying their
children into the straight and narrow road
instead of bounding them into it. Which is
| the reason that so many little feet stumble
! into the pits along the primrose path.
| Nearly every father and mother fall into
the DON'T habit. They say DON'T auto
matically every. time child starts to do
| thing, or wants to do anything without
| ever taking the trouble to first investigate
| and see whether there is any real reason
why the youngster shouldn't do tnat partlc-
u1ar thing. This breeds in the child spirit
| of revolt based on perfectly natural sense
| of injustice.
| Also it puts his little back up, and makes
him determine to do it anyway. In tne' Ds-
! ginning he may not have cared very mucn
about the thing, and If no opposition nao