Show v I l' l I Something to Be Doing 1 By JOHN OHN BLAKE SLAKE I know a hard headed business man who Is worried worried wor wor- ried ned because his collegiate son Is more Interested In making s sure re that his trouser legs shall bo be exactly twelve Inches wide than In making sure that he will pass his next examinations I also know an old fashioned mother who Is much troubled because her daughter Insists on wearing a n skirt which Is abo about t as wide as one collegiate trouser leg Most of th the ideas about dress and dances and manners generally possessed by children give their parents a great deal deai of ot unnecessary sorrow But this Is no more true today than It was fifty years ago To all parents all all' children are strange and sur sur- I Watch Vatch the distress of a mother bird as as' as she sees her nestlings trying to fly and her manifest test astonIshment astonishment aston aston- that they cannot at will soar In n the air exactly exactly ex ex- ex- ex as she h does and you will have an excellent example of ot excessive parental solicitude Unless children are actually vicious their Idiosyncrasies nr are to fr In lose n They are som something th-I th g to to ih think about an and some some- thing to be doing And though they may be strange In adult eyes are are wholly harmless The knowledge of ot the world world that boys and girls gIrl have ha today shocks and grieves grieves' their grandmothers yet It Is really a protection Innocence was not nearly as securely guarded In the age of Innocence as it Is now when children discuss subjects frankly whose mere mention men n tion would have caused them to be besent sent to bed fifty or sixty years ago Naturally they are Interested In lii life and all al allot of Its manifestations One of ot Its Us manifestations Just now happens to be Jazz music Another Is the craze for wide trousers Jazz music may not be music at t all alt to the ears ars of ot people who vho were bro brought up on Annie Laurie and Bent Bolt but it Is real music to the younger young r generation and music still m means ans Inspiration even though It be syncopation as well Boys and girls need not only something to do but a great deal to do Their minds are alert lert and active They take their food for tor thought a as IS It comes without being especially careful about the bill of fare tare They Interest themselves mainly In things which may seem queer and bizarre and come to no harm by It College scholarship is today higher than it used to be Vice among children Is not so prevalent And underlying all the seeming f fOlly lly is a vein eln of ot common sense which Increases by contact with the world and which will saVe save them in n the if It they I do seem seem eem to their elders to- to tobe be temporarily Insane The children will be the leaders by and by and I will have worries about their own children Till Tili i then it Is Just as well to let them have their fling Copyright 1925 by the Bell Ben Syndicate Inc |