Part 17

The "gray matter" in the colored woman's head is the same as the gray matter in any woman's head. Through the exercise of will power she may conquer inherited tendencies and even command nature as other women are doing.

There are many books which will guide and instruct a prospective mother who should read and learn all she can on the laws of reproduction. She should absorb this knowledge that she may be able to impart it to less informed women.

The early Romans are said to have surrounded a prospective mother with examples of courage and strength.

The mother of Napoleon is an example of the power of pre-natal direction. She is said to have studied military tactics and to have visited battlefields. The mother of Michael Angelo is said to have watched the painters of pictures in the Cathedral. The result was the greatest artist of the time.

As mental impressions are as active during the night as in the day, no prospective mother should carry unpleasant thoughts to bed. The sub-conscious mind receives the bad thought at bed time and acts all night under this influence. Its forces affect the same as thoughts during the day.

The prospective mother should read good books, think right, live right, and keep a pure mind and heart, thus developing a deeper nature to bequeath.

More than anything else, the prospective colored mother must practice self-control. All worry is poisonous. Strong thoughts of disgust and hatred if not controlled during the pre-natal period are liable to leave disastrous affects. The aim should be to train herself to change any thought which will create a physical disturbance.

Mothers who fail to control their tempers, passions, and indulgences too often weep bitter tears as they see in their off-spring the consequences of their own wrong doing.

Someone has said: "Parents transmit deviltry to children and then punish them for it." Instance after instance of such cruelty could be cited. Why should parents expect their children to be better than they?

Anger causes a chemical change which acts like poison to the system of an adult. It affects the heart, stomach, blood, and nerves and causes many other disturbances.

"Often the unborn child's little organism is flooded with shocks of passion and disturbed by nervous movements which cause unsound mind and body."

Altho inheritance comes from two lines of ancestry, the prospective mother may be able to control and supervise the tendencies from her line. She must do all in her power before the birth of a child to sway it for good. She may then save herself years of worry and sorrow and the race an unworthy example.

Before and after birth the colored mother beautiful will cultivate and give out the best in her. No contrary or selfish thought will be permitted because of the bad effect upon the child. These unpleasant things will enter soon enough into its life. The mother will faithfully endeavor to be an example to her children in thought, poise, speech, personal appearance and in all forms of cleanliness and politeness.

A child's ideal seldom goes higher than that of its mother. Children very accurately reflect the thought of their parents.

How can the child have high ideals and elevating thoughts unless the mother has them?

Taste is said to be a faculty of the soul. The mother bequeaths her taste.

How can the colored mother beautiful expect her children to have habits of observation and appreciation of the beautiful in Nature, Art, Science, Music and Literature, unless the mother has "walked and talked with nature, has heard the tongues in trees and brooks" as Shakespeare has said, and has pointed these out to the child?

If the starlight, the moonlight, the dawn, the sunrise, the sunset, the blue sky, the tranquility of a summer day or the grandeur of a storm have no response in the mother's soul, then how can a child be expected to lift its eyes and see the beautiful everywhere, every day and absorb the benefits from such communion?

The physical feeding of a child occurs but three times a day but the spiritual, mental and moral feeding goes on all the rest of the time. Children should be fed ideals of thought and affection to counteract the evil effect of thoughts of passion.

The colored child should be taught to think and should be given opportunity for a quiet hour for self communion and self entertainment. It should be taught to live a period of solitude so that in after life it may not always be compelled to hunt around for entertainment and excitement.

How can the child be expected to love reading if the mother does not read to it?

How can the child love music if the mother does not play or sing to it or teach it songs?

How many nights are wasted that might be spent in giving colored children ideals of home life and right habits in reading and home study?

Colored children have been left alone too much.

How many of them have a children's hour? How many have been given something to think about? How many spend their spare moments in reading? How many can recite poems or give quotations from the master writers?

The mothers themselves must put some time in exerting their minds in reading and thinking with a view towards mentally improving the next generation. They must observe and note what is passing on in the great world. History is being made every day. How can the child resist the desires of the lower nature when its mother has tantrums? The colored mother must refuse to express passion. A mother can not shame or beat her child into gentle manners when she is rough or coarse.

How can the child be careful and controlled in speech if the mother has not the power of expressing herself in good English. Language is too powerful a weapon in reaching, compelling and swaying the feelings of others and in winning friends--to be neglected.

Children always betray home training. If they have not been trained properly as they are not adepts in dissembling and they reflect their mothers in all their thought, speech and actions.