Show Dorothy Dix ix T SHALL MOTHER SKIMP AND SAVE WHILE FATHER SCRAPES TO SEND MAUD AND JOHN TO EXPENSIVE COLLEGES OR I SCHOOLS WHICH THEY DONT DON'T APPRECIATE TIllS THIS Tills Is the time timo ot of o the year I always feel like going apart Into some convenient walling wailing place and uttering loud and heartfelt laments lamenta lamentations lions for It Is the season when thousands ot or poor misguided parents are arc preparing to make their annual sacrifice upon the tho altars of ot their childrens children's alleged edu education cation In countless homes all alt over the theland theland land mother Is turning off the hired tc girl and cutting down the grocery bill billand bIlland billand and paring the potatoes a little thinner thin thin- thinner SKI ner net and g making the coffee a little f weaker and planning how she can do doti ti t without a new dress and wear her herr r last latt winters winter's flannels and cut out every possible comfort and luxury In order that Maud may be sent off to Miss fashionable finishing school for young ladles it y AND AND father Is girding his hunger belt a lit JIt little tie tle tighter around him and working a 0 little DOROTHY DIX harder and looking a little bit more weary and careworn and hump shouldered every day and he lie is wearing his last summers summer's suit and smoking stogies Instead of cigars and eating a n sandwich instead ot of a n good lunch in order that he may send John off oU to college When I contemplate these sublime and Idiotic sacrifices I 1 never know which I want to do most most to to kneel down and kiss the feet of these misguided parents or to rise up and bat them over the heads for fop not having more common sense For ninety- ninety ninetynine nInetynine ninetynine nine times out of a hundred all of the suffering and toll toil and deprivation that fathers and mothers undergo for the sake of their childrens children's education Is absolutely wasted All that the finishing school does for Maud Is to fill her foolish head with an exaggerated Idea of the Importance of dress and society and to make her mad for pleasures that she can never have and to generally unfit her hep for fop the life she Is destined to lead All that John brings back from college Is a college yell and purple sox and a bull pup and a settled conviction conviction tion that he knows more than the old oid man EVERY girl and boy were a certified genius genius It it there was even a IF IP certainty that not being geniuses they were mad for knowledge and were bending every overy nerve and energy to make the most of the th opportunities opt or given them there them there would be bo some justification in parents half halo starving themselves and working themselves to death In order to send their children to expensive schools As a plain matter of fact however the great majority of boys and girls are not with brains They are only capable of taking a very moderate amount of culture They have small Interest In education for educations education's sake and the great majority of them when sent off to college spend their time In amusing themselves Instead of Improving their minds THIS being the case it seems to me that it is time for parents to use a little gumption ton on the subject and quit sacrificing themselves to the fetish of their childrens children's educations Tho juggernaut car ot of the college has rolled over enough prostrate forms ot of poor fathers and mothers and crushed them into the grave gra Tho present admirable school public system ot of any ot of our cities furnishes furnishes' just as much education as the average boy and girl have the mind to take After that the parents should hail hall from Missouri and before they deprive themselves and their other children of ot the com com- comforts forts torts of life to give further educational advantages to a n boy or girl he tie or she should be required to give gire unmistakable proof of unusual fitness for tor some particular calling that requires special training There are two things upon which parents stand In piteous need of enlightenment One Is that all education does not come put up In school packages and branded with the name of a fa famous fa fa- famous university on It It The most Important part of our edu edu- education education cation Is not what we get from books but what life end nd work and our fellow men can teach us successful business men ot of this age have not been trained in col colleges TIlE THE leges loges but have haye got their education in store and shop and counting room Nor need poor parents feel that because they cannot send their children oft ocr to college they are depriving them of ot the opportunity of ot developing their minds In this day day of ot cheap books and free libraries anybody can get all the tho culture ho he can assimilate Some of ot the most learned people in the world are re self self educated It would also be a good thing for parents to bear in mind the necessity necessity necessity ot of trying to find out whether their offspring are geese or swans before they offer themselves up as sacrifices before them If you are utterly sure that Maud or John has the un unmistakable mistakable earmarks of genius there Is some excuse for going hungry In order to send them abroad to study muc mu-c or art but If Mauds Maud's voice Is only fit for the village choir and Johns John's art only rises to the height of sign painting doesn't the pathos of all your sacrifices and all the deprivations you have endured to give them advantages become pathos And Instead of being a hero dont don't you feel that you have been a blooming Idiot T IS time for tor parents to look at this matter of ot education sensibly and IT I to realize that if It a boy or a n girl wants the higher culture he or she will get it for himself or herself herselt And anyway tho the college course that thatis is bought at the price of the tho fathers father's and mothers mother's slavery and lack of ot all pleasure and comfort costs too much It isn't worth it ft DOROTHY DIX DIR Copyright by Public Ledger |