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Worth Woman’s While
Untruthfulness and Its Results.
More depends on the truthfulness or untruthful
ness of children than parents seem to realize. They
are so young, they do not comprehend the enormity
of falsehood and deceit; they will quit it when older,
is reasoned. And it is strange, unless the parent
recognizes the prevarication, he will, knowing the
propensity of his child, yet accept his word to the
detriment of another.
An instance of this came under our observation
a short time ago: A small boy, having lessons
with a private teacher, wished a holiday, and to gain
his end carried home to his mother a report of words
which seemed to her offensive; with the result that
the boy was taken out of school altogether (the
thing he most desired), and two families, who had
been friends for years, suffered coolness and es
trangement. The trouble, as usual in such eases, be
ing that neither would seek explanation, each side
imagining the other to be the aggressor—the teach
er would not ask why the boy came no more to
the school, and the mother, aggrieved that her
child had been, from his own account, virtually
dismissed, on her part would say nothing.
And it was only through a mutual friend that
both discovered something of the truth. Though
even then the resumption of former relations was
impossible, for the mother believed her child. And
how could it be said to her, “Your child has told
a falsehood—has misrepresented the teacher,” per
verting to his own end words which did not convey
what he made them to? All that one can ever say
under such circumstances is, “There is a mistake—
he misunderstood.” But what mother will accept
that? She who will doubt her own offspring is
an unnatural parent, and the very confidence, the
very loyalty which is the most beautiful part of
motherhood, becomes absolute injustice toward an
other—in the implicit faith in one it is simply
blind toward the other. Believing her child, how
could this mother believe the teacher at the same
time?
It is marvelous, seeing that this is so, that parents
are so careless. One of the first things held up to
the child’s sense of right and wrong is the “booger
man.” We can all recall what a real figure he was
in our early childhood: “If you don’t behave the
booger-man will catch you!” Who has not heard
it from nurse-maids or older children, or even moth
ers? Or, “The policeman will get you if you don’t
come on, now, and mind!”
Children Learn of Their Elders.
A dear little three-year-old we know is brought
to subjection by this oft-repeated threat: “I’ll
just go to the telephone and call the policeman to
come and get you!” He hears it from time to
time. And this child has lately taken to romancing
in a wonderful way. Not only does he tell little
stories outright, and seems frightened at what he
has done, but fabricates wonderful accounts of his
own doings. One evening recently at dinner, he
was boasting roundly in his baby way, when one
he loved dearly protested bluntly: “Oh, William,
you know that’s not so—you know that’s a story!”
“It’s true,” he cried; “it’s not a story; it’s
just—talk ! ”
How wise it sounded from baby lips! He compre
hended, and knew the difference between straight
out falsehood and the “make-up” with which he
was wont to be frightened or diverted. And yet
was the line distinctly defined in his baby mind?
His elders knew it was not. And since he was a
little mixed, where did culpability begin and end?
And how far should he be punished for the wrong
that he plainly knew he had done?
It seems so unfair to the little ones to pull them
up so sharply for what they have unconsciously,
but surely been taught. When they hear constantly
little prevarications around them, little promises
pr threats made in an unguarded moment and never
The Golden Age for July 12, 1906.
By FLORENCE TUCKER
meant to be executed, what is more natural than
that they should fall into the same obliquity, cul
pable before they are even responsible? And yet
the trouble must be met some way, especially when
it leads to the separation of old friends and neigh
bors.
Ruskin’s Estimate of Comparative Duty.
Generally, we are under an impression that man’s
duties are public, and a woman’s, private. But
this is not altogether so. A man has a personal
work or duty, relating to his own home, and a pub
lic work or duty, which is the expansion of the
other, relating to the State. So a woman has a per
sonal work or duty, relating to her own home, and
a public work or duty, which is also the expansion
of that.
Now, the man’s work for his own home is, as has
been said, to secure maintenance, progress, and de
fence; the woman’s, to secure its order, comfort
and loveliness.
Expand both these functions. The man’s duty, as
a member of a commonwealth, is to assist in the
maintenance, in the advance, in the defence of
the State. The woman’s duty, as a member of
the commonwealth, is to assist in the ordering, in
the comforting, and in the beautiful adornment of
the State.
What man is at his own gate, defending it, if
need be, against insult and spoil, that also, not in
a less, but in a more devoted measure, he is to be
at the gate of his country, leaving his home, if need
be, even to the spoiler, to do his more incumbent
work there.
And, in like manner, what the woman is to be
within her gates, as the centre of order, the balm
of distress, and the mirror of beauty, that she is
also to be without her gates, where order is more
difficult, distress more imminent, loveliness more
rare.
And of Woman’s Responsibility to the World
Outside.
There is not a war in the world, no, nor an in
justice, but you women are answerable for it; not
in that you have provoked, but in that you have
not hindered. Men, by their nature, are prone to
fight; they will fight for any cause, or for none.
It is for you to choose their cause for them, and to
forbid them when there is no cause. There is no
suffering, no injustice, no misery in the earth, but
the guilt of it lies with you. Men can bear the
sight of it, but you should not be able to bear it.
Men may tread it down without sympathy, in their
own struggle; but men are feeble in sympathy and
contracted in hope; it is you only who can feel the
depths of pain, and conceive the way of its healing.
Instead of trying to do this, you turn away from
it; you shut yourselves within your park walls and
garden gates; and you are content to know that
there is beyond them a whole world in wilderness
a world of secrets which you dare not penetrate,
and of suffering which you dare not conceive.
Oh, how wonderful!—to see the tender and deli
cate woman among you, with her child at her breast,
and a power, if she would wield it, over it and over
its father, purer than the air of heaven and stronger
than the seas of earth—nay. a magnitude of bless
ing which her husband would not part with for all
that earth itself, though it were made of one entire
ami perfect chrysolite— to see her abdicate this
majesty to play at precedence with her next-door
neighbor! This is wonderful—oh. wonderful! to
see her. with every innocent feeling fresh within
her. go out in the morning into her garden to play
with the fringes of its guarded flowers, and lift
their heads when they are drooping, with her happy
smile upon her face and no cloud upon her brow/,
because there is a little wal] around her place of
peace; and yet she knows in her heart, if she would
only look for its knowledge, that outside of that
little rose-covered wall, the wild grass, to the hori
zon, is torn up by the agony of men, and beat;
level by the drift of their life-blood.—Sesame and
Lilies.
Salt For Weakened Eyes.
Among our acquaintance we have heard frequent
complaint of late of trouble with the eyes, and we
are constrained to call attention here to the hot
water and salt treatment which has been our boon
for years, and of which we have just had endorse
ment in an article of some length. The writer, who
speaks so learnedly, fails to mention that the salt
bath must be hot—a tablespoonful of salt to half
a basin of water, though for best results, the water
should be added a little at a time that a degree of
heat may be maintained. And our experience teach
es that the third requisite is a soft towel, which,
dipped into the hot salt water, is pressed gently
against the eyes. We recall reading once (one may
read anything) the dictum of a physician that the
salt was unnecessary, it is the heat that does the
work, but as the world demands always some defi
nite remedy for its ailments, water alone would not
even be considered, hence the salt. It was just
one of those cases, when ignorance (with no disre
spect to the physician), gives out what it does not
know. We quote from the article, which gives bet
ter than our own words could, the reason for the
remedy, and explains its efficiency:
Salt is a combination of chlorine with sodium.
Chlorine is one of the most powerful gases known.
It can destroy anything brought near to its influ
ence. Mixed with lime it is the noted disinfectant,
named chloride of lime, used wherever fevers and
dangerous ferments are. Mingled with sodium it
becomes chloride of sodium, our invaluable, most
useful and indispensable table salt.
Sodium is a white, soft, metallic earth, which has
alkaline nature. The sodium softens the fierce,
burning, poisonous acid of chlorine, and makes a
salt of it, mild enough to be eaten. With hydro
gen gas it forms hydro-chloric acid in our stomachs,
and this is a great agent in that dissolving of
food which we call digestion.
When, therefore, salt is dissolved in water to
make our eye-bath, a part of the chlorine mixes with
the hydrogen of the water to make a powerful hy
drochloric acid, which, in such minute quantity and
so diluted, is harmless of burning powers. But it
at once attacks the ferments and baccilli that cause
styes, and so forth, on the eyelids; it draws out
their gases, alters their life; in short, eats them
up.
Being so powerful an antiseptic, the salt cleanses
and purifies everything on its passage into the tis
sues, tor it is at once’ absorbed by the tiny blood
vessels of the mucous membrane, and enters into the
circulation, which is given tone and energy by the
combinations made in it by both the sodium and
the chlorine.
Salt water, fairly strong, used regularly several
times a day, will wonderfully strengthen the mus
cles of the eyes. It acts as a tonic upon every
part of the under-lid and the cornea; and pene
trates deep even into the recesses of the tear gland.
Upon eyelids prone to granulation or to styes the
action of warm salt water is most marked and al
most immediate.
The tonic treatment braces the muscles and makes
them fit to undertake more work without yielding
as before to weariness.
In addition to the salt bath, people with weaken
ed eyes ought to sleep in a perfectly dark room at
night, so giving their optic nerves all the rest pos
sible. Sleeping in light rooms often i§ the sol?
cause of weak eyes.