Part 30

As regards consideration for others, with the constant help and guidance and example of a devoted mother, this can be made to grow and thrive, too, until it becomes a beautiful and sensitive part of second nature.

With such feelings nourished and cherished in this way, there is ground for hope that one of a parent's sweetest and most fundamental aspirations, in regard to the off-spring, will not be disappointed. The heart will be in the right place.

Now, on the other hand, it is only too easy to see what may happen and what does frequently happen, if this sacred responsibility of a mother is neglected.

Suppose the child is left, for the greater part of the time, day in and day out, to the companionship and care of a hired substitute, a nurse or governess? In the first place, the substitute is very apt to have no love at all, or what little it has, may be a very thin and shoddy variety. Frequently a nurse is unsympathetic, irritable, and selfish. That does not provide either good nourishment, or good example, for the tender heart feelings.

When a child does wrong, the nurse scolds it and displays an ill-feeling which is the very contrary of tenderness and affection. That is bad enough, but it is not half so bad as the fact that this same repellent treatment is very often accorded a child when it has not done wrong at all, but has merely obeyed some spontaneous and beautiful impulse of its little nature, which an irritable nurse does not bother to understand. The way that a nurse wishes a child to go is not usually prompted by any loving consideration for the heart feelings of the child, but a very selfish consideration for the convenience and prejudices of the nurse.

I have known many cases where the sensitive feelings of a little boy or girl have been turned to violent dislike by a nurse, or a governess. For days and weeks and months they have been obliged to live in the constant companionship and under the constant influence of an antipathy which sours and freezes their affections. I have known cases where a nurse, in order to achieve her own ends and relieve herself of trouble, has told a child to lie quietly in bed, when the light goes out, or a big and horrible bugaboo will creep out of the darkness and spring upon it. In such cases, the nurse takes good care to keep the child from giving a hint of this to mother or father, under pain of equally terrifying consequences. I have friends to-day, grown up men and women, who cannot go into a dark room, anywhere, without a shiver and shudder of nameless dread, which began with that same black bugaboo.

I have known countless cases, where a nurse has said to a child, who has done something wrong or annoying: "I don't love you any more. I don't like you now at all." And I have known countless cases where mothers, themselves, have said and acted the same thing. And the effect of that is to belittle and corrupt in the child's heart a bigger and deeper conception of love, as a loyal and steadfast thing, with no string attached to it. If a nurse, or a mother, can withdraw her love, for a slight cause, then a child when it grows up can expect to do the same; a wife can withdraw her love from her husband, if he does something to displease her; a husband from his wife; a son and a daughter from their parents; a sister from her brother. How sad that seems, at first, and how it hurts! But little by little, as one sees and learns, and as the twig is bent--do not many up-to-date young people adapt themselves very comfortably to that belittled conception of love? Do not the divorce courts and remarriages and scattered children and the talk and acts of emancipated women give ample evidence of it?

How glibly a certain kind of woman talks about sons and daughters lacking affection, and being so selfish, and so inconsiderate of others! How many of those women have taken the trouble to consider whether the heart feelings of those sons and daughters were nourished and cherished and guided, by the devotion of a loving mother?

This is a woefully inadequate sketch of one of the most important elements of life, one of the most vital factors in the formation of human character, about which volumes might be written. It may be enough, however, to suggest reflection and a better understanding on the part of some mothers, well-intentioned, but confused by progressive theories, who are really in need of help.

We may now move on to the moral and spiritual feelings.

The most casual observer has no difficulty in noting the fact that most children to-day are lacking in discipline, obedience, respect, consideration for others, and many other qualities, which have been regarded as essential to a well-bred person. There has been no end of talk about it lately, as we know.

As far as I have been able to learn, there is a fairly general consensus of opinion that this is due to a lack of the proper kind of early training in the home. As often as this question has come up in my presence, it has always been answered readily and confidently to this same effect, and the answer has met with unanimous approval of men and women alike.

But I have never heard one single woman attempt to explain how it is that, with all the emancipation, and higher education, and scientific enlightenment, which has been placed at her disposal, modern mothers should fail to give their children a better training than ever, instead of a worse. Is it good for the children? No, of course not, they admit. Don't modern mothers love their children? How absurd! Every mother loves her children--more than a man can understand. Then why is it modern children don't receive proper training by their modern mothers? Oh, well, a good many women, nowadays, have so many other things to do, they haven't the time. Are these other things more important than the welfare of their children? Not that--nothing could be more important. Then, why--?

If anybody gets that far with the average modern woman, he has done very well. She usually shrugs her shoulders, tells you not to be silly and parries with some feeling remarks about husbands and fathers. What do they do? And how do they do it? And who's really to blame?

If you ask a modern man the same question, and no women are present, he may express himself confidentially, that most women, nowadays, are so fed up on civic committees, or recreation centers--bridge parties or pink teas--uplift movements or school boards--golf, tennis, automobiling--that they don't know what's going on in their own homes. They have advanced ideas about everything--principally themselves. When it comes to the children, their advanced ideas result, pretty much, in letting them get along without any home training at all.

The women, when left to themselves, usually have little trouble in convincing themselves that if men had the proper kind of love for their wives and showed them the consideration and devotion which every feminine heart craves and is entitled to, there would be no trouble at all about the home. Every true woman would be found to respond magnificently. In nearly every case, the fault begins with the man--in his neglect and selfishness--and then man-fashion, he turns around and tries to lay it at the door of the woman. And so forth and so on.

But again, no one attempts to suggest, or explain, why it is that the modern husband, who is better educated and more enlightened than husbands ever were before, should be behaving so badly. It is enough to agree and expatiate on the fact, without countless examples, that that is how it is.

And the average mother, to-day, will be found expressing the fervent hope that her son will not grow up to be as self-centered and neglectful of his wife, as most husbands are.

The effect of such talk, naturally, is to becloud the point at issue and confuse the mind. The point is that even in the minds of the women, the unseemly behavior of young people of both sexes is due to a lack of proper training in childhood. No enlightened woman believes, or claims, that two wrongs make a right. She does not believe that a man could, or should, take the place of a mother in dealing with children. She does not believe that he should become soft and effeminate, for the tender training of infants, but on the contrary, should be energetic and manly, for the battle of success.

As far as the children are concerned, she cannot but admit that the immediate responsibility has nowhere else to rest but in her. If she chooses to pass it over to a nurse or governess, that is her affair. It is for her to engage or discharge the nurse and governess as she sees fit. And it is rare indeed to find a mother anywhere who would think of allowing any interference with what she considers her fundamental right.

If she neglects her responsibility, or fails in it, and the results are more or less disastrous, it is a very feminine excuse, to argue that she has a selfish and inconsiderate husband. The care of the children was her affair, not his; both herself and nature agree upon insisting that this should be so.

In this connection, therefore, it is to the mothers, principally, that we should address ourselves. At some other time, we may, if we choose, enter upon a discussion of that complex and much confused question of husband and wife in their relation to each other.

Under present-day conditions, curiously enough, the first thing it seems necessary to ask a mother is this:

Did you ever stop to reflect upon the tremendous and wonderful importance which may attach to the bringing up of one single child? Even if your heart feelings are rather anemic and your soul-feelings have become so muddled and confused by practical considerations that you no longer get any real message or inspiration from those two divine sources, yet you still have left a modern and enlightened brain. Even that is enough to make you almost dizzy at the thought of this thing, if you will pause long enough to give it careful attention.

A modern battleship, or an airplane, or an automobile, is a vastly complicated and efficient piece of machinery. If you, yourself, left to your own resources, had the ability to turn out a complete battleship of the most improved design, you would doubtless consider that you had achieved something to be immensely proud of. But the greatest battleship on earth is not one-hundredth part as complicated and efficient a piece of machinery as your little son. And one of a dozen different faculties with which your son is equipped--the power of memory, for instance--is infinitely more intricate and more wonderful than anything and everything about a battleship put together.

You might have an ambition to paint a beautiful picture, or compose beautiful music, or write beautiful poetry, or do something else with your life which you deem to be useful or beneficial to your fellow men. But by cherishing such ambitions in your son and transmitting to him all that is best in your own self, this same result may be obtained for the use and benefit of your fellow men. And in addition to that, you will have given to the world a wonderful human being, who may be able to achieve many bigger and better things than you could hope to do. More than that, your son may be able to transmit the ambitions and feelings which you have given him, to his children and their children, until your one achievement in making a splendid son, may expand and multiply into a wonderful lot of men and women, each and every one of whom may achieve more useful and beautiful things for the benefit of mankind than you could hope to do. All this may readily come about, if you apply yourself unsparingly to the unique and glorious task of making your son the right kind of man.

This is only one part of the wonder. If you are willing to devote your heart and soul to this one task, another recompense is in store for you--a multitude of sublime recompenses. Each and every fine and beautiful thing your son does, as long as you live, will fill you with deeper gladness, more intense joy, than anything you yourself could possibly accomplish, through your own efforts. That is the crowning miracle of a mother's love and every mother who loves her own with all her heart, knows that it is eternally true. Just to look at your son and feel that he is fine and right and worthy of all the love you have lavished on him, is to taste an exquisite contentment, to which no other kind of earthly pleasure is comparable.

And this same feeling of contentment will be waiting to steal into your heart upon the coming of your son's children--each and every one. Your mother's love will find a renewal of its glory in your grandchildren. For they, too, have in them the same mysterious spirit of you which you cherished in your son. And so, as you sit back, in old age, in brooding contentment over the young lives, so full of possibilities, you may reflect, in the sweetest way imaginable, that it is going on indefinitely, this essence of you and yours, on and on, to the end of time, fulfilling on earth the unfathomed but divine purpose of the all-wise Creator.