The parents
are too busy accumulating or preserving a fortune and climbing a social
ladder to bother with their children. Their raising is delegated to
servants. At times the little ones are put on display for a few minutes
and then the parents are as proud of them as they are of the expensive
paintings that adorn the walls or the blooded dogs and horses in kennels
and stables. No amount of paid service can compensate for the lack of
parental love.
The ideal today, especially for female children, seems to be to make
ornaments of them, to train them to be useless. Girls, as well as boys,
should be taught to be useful. They should be taught that those who do
not labor are parasites. If some do not work, others have to work too
hard. The story is told of Mark Twain that he dined with an English
nobleman who boasted that he was an earl and did not labor. "In our
country," said Mark Twain, "we do not call people of your class earls;
we call them hoboes."
It does not matter how wealthy parents are, they should teach their
children how to earn a living, and they should instill into them the
ideal of service, for a life of idleness is a failure.
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