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THE HOUSEHOLD
A DEPARTMENT OF EXPRESSION FOR THOSE WHO FEEL AND THINK, CONDUCTED BY ADDIE L. LINDSEY.
The Gentle Sister That We Lost
ARTHUR M. GOODENOUGH.
The gentle sister that we lost!
How clear in memory’s crystal
frame
Her likeness shows; how reverently
We breathe the dear, familiar
name!
The merry heart—the wholesome
life—
The sunshine and the song of birds,
All these were hers and skillfully
She linked her pleasant thoughts in
words.
Here was the soul of simple faith—
Not hers to question but to trust,
And rarely has a human soul
Shown brighter through its human
dust.
Fain would I trace her praises here
Webster tells us that a gossip is
a person who “runs about telling and
hearing news.”
But Webster was a chivalrous gen
tleman, and times have changed
since his day. His definition of a
gossip has become weak and lacking
in descriptive force.
But common consent is more up
to date —more accurate and just in
its verdict—and by common consent
the professional gossip has been des
ignated as a thing in human shape
with more mouth than brains.
The small town gossip can do more
harm in one hour than a whole com
munity of people can overcome in a
lifetime of effort.
The gossip is the buzzard of socie
ty, the bane of humanity and the
advance agent of the devil.
The gossip has but one creed, and
that is the crucifixion of innocence
and the perpetuation of infamy.
The tongue of the gossip is so
forked it would bring the blush of
shame to the face of that other rep
tile of the split tongue species—the
snake.
The gossip lives but to revel in
the slime of insinuations and innuen
does and calumnies.
Scandal is the bread of life to the
gossip, and the greatest desire and
most intense longing of the profes
sional is for “more gossip.”
The stock in trade of the gossip
is like the rainbow—it has no end.
It just keeps on going and enlarging
and crucifying until it blights every
thing it encounters.
It is like the breath of hell upon
the fair cheek of an angel.
The gossip’s tongue begins to wag
in the morning, wags all day keeps
on wagging into the night and like
cascarets wags while you sleep.
The gossip construes the idle pass
time of the innocent maiden into the
intrigues of a subtle and poisoned
brain.
If a man looks twice at a woman
the gossip rips his character to
WHAT IS GOSSIP?
For many people to admire;
But I may not my wish attain
And vainly I the task aspire!
What boots the meager verse of
men ?
The Angels saw her virtue, too;
And prized her smiles, and told her
worth
More fittingly than we can do.
And even death (I like to think)
When he approached her cottage
porch
Assumed his least repellant guise—
The youth with the inverted torch.
Ah, time to us shall bring the rain,
The wind, the canker and the frost,
But nothing of it all shall stain
The gentle sister that we lost!
shreds and nails his hide to the wall
of obloquy.
The gossip meddles in the private
affairs of everybody within reach of
the vitriolic tongue, peers behind the
curtains of every home, and erects
skeletons in closets where none exist.
The tongue of the gossip is the
most poisonous and deadly instru
ment of torture in existence, for it
has no regard for truth, or for hu
man suffering.
The poisonous reptile strikes and
inflicts a mercifully quick death.
But the gossip maims and lacer
ates and crucifies until the human
soul is seared with its burden of
agony.
When God created the heavens and
earth He inflicted humanity with the
presence of snakes and other slimy
and oozy and pestiferous and odori
ferous objects of loathing.
And He also inflicted us with the
gossip—for what reason only He in
His superior wisdom can tell.
Is there a hereafter for the gos
sip? And if so WHERE IS IT?
Heaven won’t have them, and hell
don’t want them .
Are they to pass down through the
ages of eternity as a people without
a final place of abode?
Or are they, like the reptile, a thing
without a soul?
The question is to deep for the
human mind to solve. .
But perhaps the gossip can tell.
ANTI-GOSSIP.
PUTTING OFF.
The other day I came across an
article which was printed in the old
New York Ledger way back in 1868.
It read as follows: “No good work
that can be commenced at once
should ever be postponed. Men
sometimes compromise with their
consciences by promising to abandon
some pet vice at a future day. We
have no faith in post dated promises
of reform. Persons who make them
may think they are earnest, but they
deceive themselves. Why not resolve
THE GOLDEN AGE
and execute simultaneously?. If a
habit is evil and dangerous, give it
no quarter. Slay it on the spot. Re
spited vices are rarely conquered.”
And the above is as true today as
it was when it was written almost
fifty years ago. “Procrastination,”
says Edward Young, “is the thief of
time.” You can not catch a train if
you arrive at the station after it has
gone. And so it is with our lives.
We can not reclaim an opportunity
which we have let slip by. “Never
put off till tomorrow what you can
do today.”
FRANK OWEN.
SECOND LETTER ON HINDRAN
CES TO EDUCATION.
Dear Household Sisters:
In thinking over the things that will
help instead of hinder the education
of children, I make a strong plea for
music and pictures in the home. Many
children are developed through a
love for music. Many are fond of
pictures and can be stimulated to
questions through them. We need
to find the trend of the little minds—
to know which way the thoughts in
cline before we can help the develop
ment. I do not like suggestion as a
child soon gets to depend on it, and
it is death to originality.
The best part of education is not
•between the coVers of books and can
be best begun by surrounding chil
dren with things to draw out their
originality by asking questions—or
better still, by waiting for questions
to be asked and then answering them
with careful attention to using words
that the little ones can understand.
When I find out what a child wants
to know—what he takes most inter
est in, then I can get the trend of
his faculties and his preferences; it
is best to try to guide the general
trend of a child’s preferences and his
own line of thinking, than to try to
make him think along certain lines
of your own chosing. In the first
case you develop natural faculties
and tendencies, and in the second
place you begin to make an artificial
mentality that will soon react.
I like to let a child have his wishes
as far as possible—for instance if I
had two boys—one liking to stay out
doors and ride horses and dig in the
ground and climb trees and wade
mudholes and chase rabbits. I would
certainly encourage him in all out
door sports and teach him botanical
things and natural history, etc.; and
if the other boy seemed inclined to
stay indoors and read and look at
pictures and strum on the piano or
listen to a musical instrument of any
kind and did not care for out-door
things I would fix him a room with
pictures and books and art materials
and allow him to follow his natural
bent along as wisely directed lines,
as possible, only urging necessary rec
reation and exercise.
The girl who writes neatly and cor
rectly, having what is called a pret
ty penmanship, but misspelling half
the words and never getting her
arithmetic, can be depended on to
make beautiful embroidery and do
neat sewing, always following pat
terns and being able to do nothing
original; the girl who writes scraw
ly, spells correctly covering many,
many tablets with her examples, but
gets it correctly before she stops,
can be definitely located as one who
is original and becomes disgusted
with following, wanting to do things
her own way. I like originality, but
there are very fine characters who
will always have to follow.
In the play grounds there are us
ually leaders who just develop and
can’t be suppressed and so have to
be considered in the scheme of things
as leaders, and when there are two
of this type in a crowd friction re
sults, and the director of the play
ground must take care of these vary
ing personalities as best she can in
order not to discourage the leading:
capacity of a really fine child.
Books could be written along this
line and many have been written but
teachers and parents seem not to be
inclined to adopt any method other
than the old way or making all chil
dren in the family or school follow
the same rules no matter how un
wise or unsuited to the nature or
temperament of the child.
Parent—Teacher Association.
This plan has caused the loss of
many fine personalities—just repress
ed and suppressed and discouraged
and restrained and warped into in
sipid weaklings, because of a lack of
knowledge on the part of parents and
teachers. This should not go on, and
we can correct it by forming Par
ent-Teacher Associations in all com
munities and allowing the persons
who deal with the children to discuss
the needs of the little ones from a
scientific and broad point of view.
Many times the teacher has a
knowledge of the personalities of
(.Continued from page 11.)
FINDS A
PELLAGRA
All Skin Eruptions Gone? Doctors
Now Convinced Mrs. Vaughn
Is Entirely Well.
Mrs. G. H. Vaughn, Millville, Ark.,
writes:—“There is nothing I ever
could do but what I can do it now.
There is no sign of skin eruption.
One of our local doctors told me that
my cure was one of the greatest thing*
that ever happened—not only for me,
but for the whole community, to let
them know that there is a cure for
Pellagra.”
“All the doctors that waited on m»
are convinced that your remedy is a
real cure.”
There’s the true word from a cured
patient. If you have Pellagra or know
of anyone who suffers from Pellagra it
is your duty to consult the resourceful
Baughn, who has fought and conquer
ed the dreadful malady right in the
heart of the Pellagra belt in Alabama.
The symptoms—hands red like sun
burn, skin peeling off; sore mouth, the
lips, throat and tongue a flaming red
with much mucous and choking; indi
gestion and nausea; either diarrhoea
or constipation.
There is hope. Get Baughn’e Big
Free Book on Pellagra, and learn
about the remedy for Pellagra that has
at last been found. Address American
Compounding Company, Box 587-W,
Jasper, Ala., remembering money is
refunded in any case where the remedy'
fails to cure.
April 22, 1915