FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 235 



It is a very, very long time since there was only one person in the 

 world, and everything has grown into such conditions that there can 

 be no true happiness or development, until we have recognized the fact 

 that we belong to the great world family, that the same great life pulses 

 through us all. It is hard to acknowledge this, but we must, and it is 

 only when we know that, as we all rise, the true heaven will come, that 

 we begin to appreciate our position as mothers. 



A kindergartner said to me, not long since, "I do not look for great 

 results from kindergarten work just at first; we are planting the seed^ 

 but," and here she smiled, "the kindergarten children of this generatioii 

 are to be the fathers and mothers of the next, and after a while, after a 

 few generations have slowly grown into the thought of all around devel- 

 opment, what a world we shall have! How I wish I might see it." She 

 was right. Ideal mothers and fathers could, and will, make an ideal 

 world, and we cannot afford to scorn the least effort to bring about this 

 happy consummation. 



It is o>ir duty as mothers to know and judge of the different methods of 

 education. We have no right to be ignorant. We are engaged in the 

 noble work of making worthy, true citizens, for a worthy, grand country. 

 We must not treat our position as though it were an accident. 



Would voting make us any the more the mothers of our daughters? 

 Is it possible for any one to have a higher mission than to be the mother 

 of noble daughters? Men will be just as noble as the women who are 

 their wives. There is sometimes an exception, but take the average man,, 

 he is just as good as his wife expects him to be. We cannot hide our 

 shortcomings by saying how much better we should be, if we could only 

 vote and if men were better. 



Froebel's idea has taken hold of the world, and if we can get it into- 

 our own hearts and the hearts of our daughters, we shall have taken a 

 long step toward being ideal mothers, and making ideal mothers of our 

 daughters. His thought, briefly stated, is, that to every mother is given 

 a little bundle of possibilities. We can make of that little bundle a good 

 child or a bad child. To develop the possibilities for good, that is the 

 work of mothers; to crowd out the lower desires by filling our little ones 

 with such holy, happy thoughts, that there is no room for anything else. 

 Can any work be higher? Who can say she is fitted for such a post?" 

 We mothers should be the humblest, the most earnest, the most studious 

 and the most reverent people in the world, for we are workers whether 

 we will or no, "Workers with God." 



In the morning paper comes this little clipping — it shows us our work 

 is hardly commenced. It is in reference to a poor, brutalized man who 

 cruelly whipped his little daughter to death, and is written and signed 

 by "a mother." She says: 



"What shall be done with such fiends? Jackson is too good. 

 Wouldn't it be wise to apply the old law, 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for 

 a tooth,' in such cases? If there are not men with 'gumption' enough 

 in Michigan to whip such fiends to death, I think the mothers could 

 accomplish it. It might not be quite as comfortable as lynching, but it 

 would answer the purpose." 



A Mother. 



