All religious, educational, benevolent, and industrial societies combined, working harmoniously together, can not do as much in a life-time of effort, toward the elevation of mankind, as can parents in the nine months of pre- natal life. Locke took the ground that the mind of every child born into the world is like a piece of blank paper, that you may write thereon what- ever you will; but science proves that such idealists as Descartes were nearer right when they declared that each soul comes freighted with its own ideas, its individual proclivities; that the pre-natal influences do more in the form- ation of character than all the education that come after. | Let the young manj indulging in all manner of excesses, remember that in considering the effect of dissipation, wine, and tobacco, on himself and his own happiness or misery, he does not begin to measure the evil of his life. As the High Priest at the family altar, his deeds of darkness will entail untold suffering on generation after generation. Let the young woman with wasp-like waist, who lives on candies, salads, hot bread, pastry, and pickles, whose listless brain and idle hands seek no profitable occupation, whose life is given to folly, remember that to her ignorance and folly may yet be traced the downfall of a nation. . a One of the most difficult lessons to impress on any mind is the power and extent of individual influence; and parents above all others, resist the belief that their children are exactly what they make them; no more, no less; like producing like. If there is a class of educators who need special prepara- tion for their high and holy calling, it is those who assume the responsibility of parents. Shall we give less thought to the creation of an immortal being than the artist devotes to his statue or landscape? We wander through the. art galleries in the old world, and linger before the works of the great mas- ters, transfixed with the grace and beauty, the glory and grandeur, of the ideals that surround us; and, with equal preparation, greater than these are possible in living, breathing humanity. The same thought and devotion in real life would soon give us a generation of saints, scholars, scientists, and (460) ee ee ee ee ee Re ee eee : i haapys ite Pie ALK wap Aad 4s what See ie Dat Riis OME Ly Tye Pan Ne Ma fie vad TIENTS Oa eraOhe ba mone ae re t nase Ky aN iy ee AU ILE a eI aE NO Paice mah Ie te aa i 8 we ind k Rat mh : iy Wea toe Rg ee ik 4 ; raat PAL er 6 RYN Nie We Z 5 Relies 1 Ae hoy vend ASE A i ni hd Na ea ) ‘ < Y Yat ' BA ade haat ‘ ¢ y A 5 Me Ls SOMETHING ABOUT BABIES 461 4 ; ~ _ statesmen, of glorified humanity; such as the world has not yet seen. To Nein this hour, we have left the greatest event of life to chance, and the result is Ae the blind, the deaf and dumb, the idiot, the lunatic, the epileptic, the crim- inal, the drunkard, the glutton—thousands of human beings, in our young republic, that never should have been born; a tax on society, a disgrace to their parents, and a curse to themselves. Well, born—a child’s next right is to intelligent care. If we buy a rare plant, we ask the florist innumerable questions as to its proper training; but the advent of an immortal being seems to suggest no new thought, no anxious investigation into the science of human life. Here we trust every thing to an ignorant nurse, or a neighbor who knows perchance less than we do ourselves.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

All religious, educational, benevolent, and industrial societies combined, working harmoniously together, can not do as much in a life-time of effort, toward the elevation of mankind, as can parents in the nine months of prenatal life. Locke took the ground that the mind of every child born into the world is like a piece of blank paper, that you may write thereon whatever you will; but science proves that such idealists as Descartes were nearer right when they declared that each soul comes freighted with its own ideas, its individual proclivities; that the pre-natal influences do more in the formation of character than all the education that come after. | Let the young manj indulging in all manner of excesses, remember that in considering the effect of dissipation, wine, and tobacco, on himself and his own happiness or misery, he does not begin to measure the evil of his life. As the High Priest at the family altar, his deeds of darkness will entail untold suffering on generation after generation. Let the young woman with wasp-like waist, who lives on candies, salads, hot bread, pastry, and pickles, whose listless brain and idle hands seek no profitable occupation, whose life is given to folly, remember that to her ignorance and folly may yet be traced the downfall of a nation. . a One of the most difficult lessons to impress on any mind is the power and extent of individual influence; and parents above all others, resist the belief that their children are exactly what they make them; no more, no less; like producing like. If there is a class of educators who need special preparation for their high and holy calling, it is those who assume the responsibility of parents. Shall we give less thought to the creation of an immortal being than the artist devotes to his statue or landscape? We wander through the. art galleries in the old world, and linger before the works of the great masters, transfixed with the grace and beauty, the glory and grandeur, of the ideals that surround us; and, with equal preparation, greater than these are possible in living, breathing humanity. The same thought and devotion in real life would soon give us a generation of saints, scholars, scientists, and (460) ee ee ee ee ee Re ee eee : i haapys ite Pie ALK wap Aad 4s what See ie Dat Riis OME Ly Tye Pan Ne Ma fie vad TIENTS Oa eraOhe ba mone ae re t nase Ky aN iy ee AU ILE a eI aE NO Paice mah Ie te aa i 8 we ind k Rat mh : iy Wea toe Rg ee ik 4 ; raat PAL er 6 RYN Nie We Z 5 Relies 1 Ae hoy vend ASE A i ni hd Na ea ) ‘ < Y Yat ' BA ade haat ‘ ¢ y A 5 Me Ls SOMETHING ABOUT BABIES 461 4 ; ~ _ statesmen, of glorified humanity; such as the world has not yet seen. To Nein this hour, we have left the greatest event of life to chance, and the result is Ae the blind, the deaf and dumb, the idiot, the lunatic, the epileptic, the criminal, the drunkard, the glutton—thousands of human beings, in our young republic, that never should have been born; a tax on society, a disgrace to their parents, and a curse to themselves. Well, born—a child’s next right is to intelligent care. If we buy a rare plant, we ask the florist innumerable questions as to its proper training; but the advent of an immortal being seems to suggest no new thought, no anxious investigation into the science of human life. Here we trust every thing to an ignorant nurse, or a neighbor who knows perchance less than we do ourselves.

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