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Show H tWE SHOULD USE D GOOD JUDGMENT I1 One of the bitterest tragedies of H life is the responsibility for failure H that is often attached to a parent by H a child to whom every attention has H apparently been given. Without at- H tempting to bo Shavian, it must be H -confessed that parents are too often H really misguided and in Good House- H keeping for December, Miriam Finn H Scott, the famous children's dlagnos- H llclan, offers a few suggestions for H -eliminating this unhappy truth. Says H "The great reason for the falluro H of our dreams, as our diagnosis will H' show, is that wo so frequently base H our dreams upon misconceptions and H upon this foundation ot mlsconcep- H tlon wo further try to build our dreams Into realities by using unsound un-sound methods. Many a fond dream for our children chil-dren has been wrecked because ot a false valuation of the things of life; because we have based our dreams upon conventional standards rather than upon reality. And in the very process ot wrecking dreams we have wrecked them at the cost of the greatest imaginable self sacrifice on our part. And these false standards rule, and theso sacrifices aro made, in all elonomlc classes. "In my many years with what we not very happily call the working classes, I have found parents making almost Indescribable sacrifices, living on next to nothing, working day and night, in order to help their children chil-dren Into what aro considered superior super-ior positions in life and doing all this without any preliminary thought as to the qualifications of their chll- dren to occupy tho positions of their dreams. "I will not havo John a tailor, a mechanic, n working man; he shall be a doctor, a lawyer; I will not have Mary go Into a shop; she shall become be-come a teacher. Such are the cherished cher-ished determinations ot tens of thousands thou-sands of parents; Imaginable deprivation depriv-ation on tho part of the parents, at length complete n college education. And then, often after years ot hard struggle on the part of both parents and child, it Is found that John would make a far better mechanic than doctor (and as such would earn far more money) and Mary would make a very much better dressmaker than teacher." |