514 
March 22, 1924 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Some years * ago there lived in New 
England a woman whose life was sacri¬ 
ficed on the altar of education. She is 
dead now—buried in one of those lonely 
little hill graveyards such as Whittier 
had in mind when he wrote: 
“The dreariest spot in all the land, 
To death they set apart 
■With little aid from Nature’s ^hand 
And none from that of art.” 
Few pass that. way. A simple head¬ 
stone, leaning over a little, stands up 
through the tangle of briers and weeds. 
The shadow of the mountain passes slow¬ 
ly up the long valley. Clouds drift over 
the sky. Now and then an adventurous 
bird rests for a moment on one of the 
cedars which have come in along the wall 
—and then flies hastily away as though 
oppressed by the loneliness. That is all. 
The woman lies beneath the tangle of 
wild growth—forgotten. She never did 
anything which her little world thought 
worth recording. Who would think of 
finding in this lonely spot some great 
thrilling message for the world- worked 
out through human sacrifice? Yet those 
of us who understand know it is there. 
* * * * * 
It was hardly what you could call a 
typical Yankee family. It had the size 
and the home-loving instinct, but some¬ 
how the thrift and energy were lacking. 
Father sometimes looked at mother s thin 
chest and shoulders, long since bowed by 
work, and concluded that his aimless, in¬ 
ert children come from her side of the 
house. As for mother, she was usually 
too tired to speculate about such matters. 
It was an inert, colorless family all but 
two, Sarah the oldest girl, and Henry, 
the third boy. They somehow retained 
the vigor and brain of the old stock. \ ery 
likely you have seen some old apple tree 
growing in the pasture. There will bo 
numberless branches starting out aim¬ 
lessly into a tangle of useless top, and 
two or three strong, vigorous limbs grow¬ 
ing up straight and clean through the 
tangle—straight up to the sun and free¬ 
dom. No one can tell how it happened. 
There seems to be an inherent vigor, a 
dominating strength which pushes these 
few limbs on to power and superiority. It 
seemed to be just that way with barah 
and Henry. With the same parentage 
and environment, they were different 
from their brothers and sisters. I hey 
grew up and away from them. Unseen 
mysterious forces had leaped out of the 
past, over and through generations of 
plain commonplace people and given them 
power somewhat as electrical power is 
made to pass through space from a wheel 
beside a mountain brook so that it may 
turn a great machine in the city. In 
most large families such things are evi¬ 
dent in the children. They come to us 
as a heritage from the past. Our problem 
is to utilize them fairly by the training 
we give our children. They are not 
likely to be passed on from them. 
*}* ijc sjs ^ 
Both Sarah and Henry undoubtedly had 
the human power which when properly 
belted to character may produce great¬ 
ness: yet they were different. Sarah was 
a shy, silent girl—too deep and serious- 
minded to give full expression to her 
thought. Henry was what one would 
properly call a bluffer. Brilliant and 
quick-minded, he could grasp a thought 
instantly and retain it in memory, but 
he could not apply it, because that meant 
work, and he would not dig. You have 
all seen such boys. They are good selt- 
advertisers; capable of great Bungs, yet 
they will not work, so that in the end 
their very brilliancy proves their undoing. 
Sarah had character, but lacked the ad¬ 
vertising power necessary to display it 
properly. Henry had little of real char¬ 
acter, but much of that selfish egotism 
which enables some men to surround 
■ themselves with such a dazzle of light 
that their true self is obscured. Mother 
looked at her daughter and accepted her 
patience and silent sacrifice as a matter 
of course. She looked at her brilliant 
son and remembered the family legend of 
some old Senator and lawyer back sev¬ 
eral generations behind her. In truth, 
the old fellow was a man of little account 
—an accident of politics—but when one 
desires a brilliant decoration to hang on 
the breast of a smart son it is easy to 
imagine one—back in the years! And 
mother straighened up and took on new 
energy as she convinced herself that she 
had given the world some great statesman 
or clergyman who was to change the 
thought of the people. 
***** 
And so there grew up in that family 
the fixed determination to educate the 
brilliant one. It was to be a family of¬ 
fering to America, and every penny was 
measured and every expense was con¬ 
sidered with that end in view. Father 
and mother made it clear to the other 
children that it was the family duty to 
invest all they had, all they could pro¬ 
duce, in educating the smart one. It 
would be impossible to educate all. there¬ 
fore the rest must give way in order that 
the well-favored one might be given 
power. This has been worked out in many 
a humble family. When the right can¬ 
didate for honors is selected it results in 
a sacrifice which brings a noble reward. 
When a wrong selection of “smart oue” 
is made it results in a heart-breaking 
tragedy. Which should he the chosen one 
in this family and which should make the 
sacrifice—Sarah or Henry? It led to a 
contest between father and mother. 
Father felt instinctively that his silent 
and dutiful daughter would make a finer 
use of education than his selfish boy; 
mother roused to unexpected energy in 
defending the rights of her son. It is an 
interesting and serious question as to 
whether the mother’s judgment of the pos¬ 
sibilities of her children is wiser or safer 
than that of father’s. The mother dreams 
of the future of her children in terms of 
imagination. She wants to give the world 
a great preacher or lawyer or artist, or 
at least some one who will in. coming 
years carry out some of her own dreams. 
Many a woman with her hands in the 
dishwater or engaged in hard, disagree¬ 
able tasks sees her narrow kitchen walls 
“fade away into marble halls’” as she 
dreams' of the life which her children are 
to lead. For in that far-off fairyland of 
success she fondly dreams that the great 
judges and Senators and millionares 
which have been envolved through educa¬ 
tion from her little children will regard 
their plain uneducated mother just as they 
did when she was all they had. Thus it 
is that mother often puts on the spectacles 
of love and pride and they often obscure 
the view. Most women, I think, perhaps 
unconsciously, put the gilded frame of the 
future around the picture of their sons. 
They seem to accept the permanence of 
their daughters’ love as a matter of 
course, and do not dream great dreams 
for them as they do for their sons. On 
the other hand, father does not spend 
much time dreaming of what his children 
are to become. As a rule the battle for 
bread and shelter is too fierce. He has 
been a boy himself. lie knows the lim¬ 
itations and the temptations of boyhood. 
In his heart he knows that, in spite of his 
own mother’s dreams he is more or less 
of a failure. He may “put up a bluff” 
as he struts along the road of life, but 
well he knows that after all he is some¬ 
thing of a footsore traveler. And so his 
judgment of his own children must be 
different from that of mother’s. She 
sees them as ideals—he knows them as 
they are. She dreams of their power of 
moral expansion. He knows only too 
well and too sadly how the fierce struggle 
for life may petrify in a man the desire 
for that human sacrifice which alone can 
bring moral expansion. So it is hard to 
say whether mother’s judgment about 
children is superior to father’s. As the 
world has gone on mother’s idea has usu¬ 
ally prevailed, and that has been par¬ 
ticularly true in matters of education. 
Thus society has been largely influenced 
from the top by so-called great men—yet 
more profoundly influenced from the bot¬ 
tom by women who never dreamed of 
being great except through their children. 
It has always seemed a rather curious 
thing to me that father is usually far 
more likely to see the truth of the old 
adage “a son is a sou till he gets him a 
wife, but a daughter’s a daughter for all 
of her life!” 
:1c * * * 
The struggle in this family to select 
its world representative might have 
turned out differently if father had lived. 
From early childhood Henry had been 
known as the self-appointed flower of 
the family, and it cannot be said that he 
was born'to blush unseen—even if he had 
been he would have broken away from 
the limitations of heritage. He early 
became the ornament on the family man¬ 
telpiece. As a little fellow' he was ex¬ 
pected to entertain company, by standing 
on a cricket in the corner and reciting 
“The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck” 
or some other masterpiece. Or he would 
displav his great wisdom by singing the 
multiplication table to the tune of Yan¬ 
kee Doodle. That was a favorite method 
of showing off the smart one of the family 
when I was a boy. Now Sarah with a 
little training and encouragement could 
have given a far superior performance 
of all this than Henry, but no one thought 
of pushing her to the front. She, with 
the other children, was expected to sit 
by and express their great admiration of 
the smart oue, and enjoy the reflected 
glory of being known as brothers and 
sisters of such a marvel—for when 
Henry became President of the United 
States such relationship could be capital¬ 
ized. One of the great compensations of 
deafness is the fact that these precocious 
youngsters are not trotted out to display 
their pow 7 er before us. I can hardly 
think of any surer way of spoiling a 
child than to show 7 him off in this way. 
I am told that it gives tlie child “con¬ 
fidence” in himself. There is such a thing 
as having too much of that quality. I 
have often seen little Mary or Billy put 
up to “speak their piece” before company. 
The little things are ill at ease, and feel 
that their dignity and self-respect are 
being pulled in the mud. Mother or sis¬ 
ter sits near by, their lips working freely 
as they repeat the recitation along with 
their hopeful. The company, thoroughly 
bored, smile approval . or applaud—all 
the time feeling sorry for the child. It 
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