The world is working in the direction of justice to children, but as
yet only the elementary steps have been taken. Only the rankest
brutality is punished ; the most glaring inhumanity repressed. Many
forms of injustice to children cannot be reached by organizations of
a philanthropic kind ; the education of men and women in the direc-
tion of marriage and parentage is the preliminary work. Societies
may ameliorate the condition of the child of a drunken brute by tak-
ing it from his control, but they cannot reach the incompetent and
selfish father who fills the sacred office of parent unworthily. The
births of unhealthy, disorganized children cannot be prevented by
law; moral elevation alone will make men and women refuse to assume
the responsibilities of parentage until they can rightly train and
develop their offspring. People marry too young, as a rule, and
women are mothers frequently before their own girlhood is over.
This is not as it should be, and until the evil of heedless marriages
is corrected the characters and health of children will not improve.
The pathetic picture of young mothers, scarcely more than girls
themselves, bearing the burdens of motherhood, hampered by ignor-
ance and poor health, is one all too familiar. The sight is one pitiable
and discouraging. Life is saddened to the wise by the repetition
of such examples, and the enthusiasts who in the quiet of their own
studies see the dawn of the day when a healthier and nobler race
of men will come upon the scene of action, put aside their bright
hopes when they look upon such mothers as these, engaged in the
rearing and training of the young. As a matter of fact, the children
362 THE hearthstone; or, life at home.
of such mothers get no training and very Httle of the right kind of
care. They are dragged through the different stages of their growth
and arrive at the age of ten or twelve years without having had other
attention than pertained to their bodies, and that inadequately. The
middle class in tlie United States comprehends a large society. In
it are some of the best people the nation has produced, and again
very many who are the natural products of ill-advised marriages.
These are the ordinary common-place, and, generally speaking, the
morbid and unhealthy men and women who see no beauty in life,
and whose minds are wholly shut to the higher truths of philosophy.
Their children are not improvements upon themselves, and the world
is hardly benefited by their existence.
The home that is without children is lonely and wanting in the love
element, but such a home is preferable to those in which is apparent
the injustice of parents to the children they have brought into the
world under discordant or ignorant circumstances, and who are maimed
before the battle in which they are to enter upon is begun.
Page 237
Presented as published in 1883. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
The world is working in the direction of justice to children, but as yet only the elementary steps have been taken. Only the rankest brutality is punished ; the most glaring inhumanity repressed. Many forms of injustice to children cannot be reached by organizations of a philanthropic kind ; the education of men and women in the direction of marriage and parentage is the preliminary work. Societies may ameliorate the condition of the child of a drunken brute by taking it from his control, but they cannot reach the incompetent and selfish father who fills the sacred office of parent unworthily. The births of unhealthy, disorganized children cannot be prevented by law; moral elevation alone will make men and women refuse to assume the responsibilities of parentage until they can rightly train and develop their offspring. People marry too young, as a rule, and women are mothers frequently before their own girlhood is over. This is not as it should be, and until the evil of heedless marriages is corrected the characters and health of children will not improve.
The pathetic picture of young mothers, scarcely more than girls themselves, bearing the burdens of motherhood, hampered by ignorance and poor health, is one all too familiar. The sight is one pitiable and discouraging. Life is saddened to the wise by the repetition of such examples, and the enthusiasts who in the quiet of their own studies see the dawn of the day when a healthier and nobler race of men will come upon the scene of action, put aside their bright hopes when they look upon such mothers as these, engaged in the rearing and training of the young. As a matter of fact, the children
362 THE hearthstone; or, life at home.
of such mothers get no training and very little of the right kind of care. They are dragged through the different stages of their growth and arrive at the age of ten or twelve years without having had other attention than pertained to their bodies, and that inadequately. The middle class in the United States comprehends a large society. In it are some of the best people the nation has produced, and again very many who are the natural products of ill-advised marriages. These are the ordinary common-place, and, generally speaking, the morbid and unhealthy men and women who see no beauty in life, and whose minds are wholly shut to the higher truths of philosophy. Their children are not improvements upon themselves, and the world is hardly benefited by their existence.
The home that is without children is lonely and wanting in the love element, but such a home is preferable to those in which is apparent the injustice of parents to the children they have brought into the world under discordant or ignorant circumstances, and who are maimed before the battle in which they are to enter upon is begun.