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Show Baaaaaaaa BaaaBaaaai aaaaMaaaBBaaaaaaaHaaBaaaM Dorothy Dix Talks THE STITCH IN TIME UilJiILI PeUd Voman Writer A heart broken mother Is helplessly 'watching her little dnughtci take hci urst sl-ps on the downward road. The girl la 17 and utterly beyond control, she -fuaea to go to school. She declines lo work. She sleeps holf the dav. and dla-sIpateH dla-sIpateH throe fourths of the night Her i companions are loud, brazen. Jazzv hoys 'any girls, and when her mother r. mon I atrates with her for associating with such undeslrabli rteopje .be bangs the t door behind her. and dashes off In an automobile to h-iiven knows where The gill will not listen to her mother's ; warning Bhe is d. af to her mother's antreatlea, n,i adamant before hor prav I era and tears, and so I he pooi woman waves her Impotent hands und asks what shall sh .jo to save her daughter The question comes Juat 17 veais too late. No on. . an tell a mother how to loniiol d wuywaid girl of 17 who has never be. n taught to do anything but to gratify h-r own .1. lrs, who has never been dtselplln. ii. or had the sens, of dutv br. d in In The prodigal daughter is a far more dlflb ult problem tO deal with than the prodib-al urn, because one dare not use In.- tern measur..fl in dealing with n glil that ofiin one can use effectively w';.h a lo Neiuotlm.F tin ho can be slopped from sowing hbi wild oats b) pulling him In a roform school, but to lend a girl to s re foi in s. boot I to make her the associate associ-ate of tho women of the streets and to smirch hei l ime oi all time. Sometimes It makes a man ol the boy who Is Idle and lazy, to chuck him out of tho homo and tell blm that he must work or starve but to close the dooi on a young girl Is to lb iow her to the beasts who proy on youth and beauty. So there is in. va In which one can estop the gnl Who has started tobugan-ning tobugan-ning down the primrose path She Is pleasure mad She thinks only of the Joy of the moment She is read) to sell hei soul for a dance, und a drink and a motor J' Sin li t ,oung to ivallzv what sb- la doing She is too ignorant to coiintl tho tost she is loo selfish to care for iho sorrow she is causing, and the dls pace she may bring on others She is as i hard as a rock, and no appeals to her ! heart or her conscience touch her. Sometimes !od. in liia mercy, saves SUch a girl, but there Is nothing that any human agency . uii do to pi event the calaatrophe. The mother can only stand by and suffer, and if ahe la honeat. aay ' to herself. "This Is my work. I am wholly to blame llttlo white aoul was given In my keeping and thla poor, lewd rj rag of femlnlnit;. la whet 1 have made of It." . For a mother's responsibility for lier datighlct Is complete. There Isn't s woman wo-man in the world vho doesn't know this, but the fad thai women refuse lo face la that a mother's work must be done with her girl3 while thej are little And It takes strength and courage to wrestle with strong joung wills and conquer Ihem, It Interferes ton much with hrldg.-. teas, riuba and matinees to be alwavs I pruning, shaping, forming the thoughts ai 'I ha bus ot chil.lien So the avenue.-'mother avenue.-'mother side steps the Job. and waits until Her daughters are grown to reason with them, and It's forever too late Mothers havi- two aecuraed phrases , with which they dope their conscience and stultify theh intelligence One ll t "f "ope and pray that my children Will turn out well " The other is something' about their children outgrowing their faults Vel in her heart, every mother knows that rlianre ploys no more pan In the bringing up of children than It does in the multiplication table and that unleaa a child's faults sre corrected, she does not 'grow out of them, but grown Into them I more deeply I If mother gives little Mamie everything she howls for as a baby. What rlghl has she to expect that Mamie will be ,. self denying grown girl? If Mamie i i has a wish thwarted In her childhood, who can expoet hor to be willing to forego her desires whan she is older? If Mamll tamper Is never controlled. If she never learns obedience, or lo sacrifice h-is.-lf I for others, when she Is Utile who . an ex-I ex-I peel her to be a dutiful. eonM.b rato daughter when she la at the time of life j win ii one's craving for th pleasure of youth are at (belt highest? 1 If mother has taught Mamie, du. i tlj or Indirectly, that fine clothes and iroua m. nt. ond the admiration ot men are tho j chief objoct of a woman's life, whose fault is it that she gets them how and whore she can, in the hoy-day of her oulh ? It Mamie has not had the habit i oi.cl- i. mi- bred in her. If a sriife of on.' has not boon Ingi allied In her until It In a part of the very fiber of bee being1, how Is one going to expect her to yield to the u, other who has never laught her to r sprct her. or lo have anv high' r law I than her own selfish pleasure? Mutbers cull t raise their children w rong, and then expect ihem suddenly to fnce about anil go right, and that I w h lb. woman with the wayward daughter van do nothing with her By the lime a girl Is 17. her character la formed for good or evil If she had been brought up from her babyhood to be obedient and w ith a senae of her responsibility to others, oth-ers, if she had been bred to modeaty and high Idealgj if ehc had been taught mod eratlon and self-control, she would not have run wild She would have had that within her own soul that would ha-.-.- held her to the light road She would have aaved horaelf, as wo must all save our selves In the end. A mother's Influence has been plorl fled in song and story as tlvc most sa red of nil things II Is well to teallzc that a mother's Influence is as all-powerful tor evil as It Is for good, nnd that H can send a girl or boy to perdition, as well aa take them to heaven. |