Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

6 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.