324 1!(»A1!I) OF AfilUCUI.TURK. 



she hasn't nearly so good a mother as her father had. I believe (and I 

 know a jn'eat many will disagree with me, and some will agree), that 

 children are born good or bad. I don't mean that a little sweet child is 

 a bad child or a bad baby, but I do believe that it has certain traits for 

 good or evil that tend to bias its life. I think it is possible for a mother 

 to make a bad child out of a naturally good one, and equally possible 

 to make a fairly good one out of a naturally bad one. The trouble is 

 we all thinli our children are good. I think mine is a little bit extra, 

 not extra good, but she suits me. I believe we indulge them too much 

 sometimes, and I believe we are entirely too strict with them at other 

 times. It depends, with me, on the humor I am in. There are days 

 when I really think our daughter is unusually provoking, and I usually 

 find that that is the day that I am unusually pi-ovoking, and there seems 

 to be days when she is unusually good and everything goes pretty 

 well, but I find that these are the days that I have been in my better 

 state of mind. I don't believe we ought to train children in this hap- 

 hazard manner. I believe the mothers of the future will not do this as 

 we mothers are doing it present and past. I believe mothers are realiz- 

 ing the importance of training and teaching the children more than they 

 have ever done before. I think it is right, that in all of the schools of 

 higher education, girls should be taught how to be good mothers and how 

 to be good wives, and thereby realize the importance of it. We are com- 

 ing to realize that by the time our children are grown up and are old 

 enough to go away to school, that we have done all that we can do for 

 them. Whether we have been successful or not we have practically done 

 all that we could do. Then the underlying principles governing character 

 are established and we must leave the remainder largely to our children. 

 I feel that I have done about all that I can, whether for good or evil, and 

 I am now seriously studjing how to remedy the faults I have allowed her 

 to grow into when she was younger, and I am fully realizing that it would 

 have been much easier ten years ago than now. I believe that, in edu- 

 cating children, we are making too much difference between the gii'ls and 

 the boys. There is nothing on earth as fine as a boy unless it is a girl. 

 I don't believe one is any finer than the other. I don't think a man or 

 woman is quite as tine as a boy or girl, and I don't believe we are to 

 make too much difference between them. I heard a young man in the 

 room today say that he didn't think a girl should be educated to go out 

 and earn her living. I have decided for myself at least that girls should 

 be given the same opportunity to earn their living that the boys are given. 

 The boy explained that any girl that went out to earn a living was taken 

 away from the home as a home factor, and the boys were crowded out of 

 their jobs. In other words there are two seel?ing the same job. If the 

 girls would not work the boys would get better wages and they would be 

 in greater demand than they now are. I have not had time to think over 

 this a great deal, but I intend to study it very carefully, as it is too im- 



