AMERICAN WAYS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 94, 22 April 1911, Page 13

AMERICAN WAYS.

The American child has a bad reputation abroad. A foreigner asked offhand to give an example of an imp will reply unhesitatingly, "An American child, aged between 2 and 14 years," and in many hotels on the Continent there is a standing rule never to admit American children. Max O'Rell wondered how it wye possible such little demons as the American children became such passable men and women. The American child, however, is not wholly of this description — a " selfraiser,"' emotionally surcharged with an aggressive independence, and a strident voice, calculated to upset the comfort of a whole dining-room car or steamship. The bringing up 0? children has now become a study. Their manners, if not remedied, are at leaet modified ; their vivacity put under some control, and their voices trained.' They are not allowed to eat indigestible food ab late hours, and an intense desire for improvement has been -lpplied to motherhood, nursery schools. The American childien of well-to-do parents are gentlemannered, perfectly obedient, outwardly civil, quick to take a- hint, and not at all disagreeable companions. The American boy has instilled in him in his home a chivalrous attitude towards his sisters and other little girls. He is, in fact, tyrannised over by thoso selfish little maids to an extent which led one observing Englishman to see in the "giving in" demanded of the av«vago male child, &$ begtauigg o| the so.*.

called slavery of the American man to the American woman. And it has ite humorous aspects. "I remember," remarks the waiter, " once coming upon a small boy and his sister, when the young lady, for some slight offence, had precipitated herself upon tho male offender and was doing considerable damage to hk countenance. The youngster made no resistance, beyong spreading wide his arms as a martyr and calling, ' Oh, do take her off ! Do take her off ! I can't hit her, you know.' And the general attitude is expressed by another youngster, who said, when a girl playmate claimed a beloved mechanical toy, ' Oh, ! well, take it ; I s'pose you've got to have everything, 'cause you're the lady.' The American parent encourages i this attitude in the belief that it makes for gallantry and courtesy to women." Baby rules the home in America. The young mother in America is possessed of a love madness for her tiny which, while very poetical and picturesque, is harmful in many ways. The husband and the other children are always "hushed" when there is a baby in the house, and the household is turned topsy-turvy for the benefit of the smallest member. "The doctor brought the baby in a bottie," the other > children are told, and on this score, rather 'than because of any personal grudge for powder or pill ministration, is many a family physician cordially hated and glared at on" his visits, from behind doors and stairway fastnesses by small rebellious spirits. American children are permitted an extraordinary amount of amusement. The circus, the hippodrome, and the "shoot the chute" style of entertainment are their diveivion from their earliest years, and thoy become so accustomed to amusements that terrify and fascinate, that any offering in the line of poetic imaginative child drama misses fire. A youngster who watched the final descent of the curtain on a "Peter Pan'" performance, with a discontented scowl, asked ; "Ain't there going to be any moving pictures of a bank robbery? The greatest good is being done for the children of the poor by the juvenile courts now established in every large oity, on the principle that it is wiser and less expensive to save children than to punish criminals. The small offenders are treated to a fatherly talk and given every opportunity to reform. One youngster whose sole offence lay in a yielding to the wander lust, was brought before a children's judge, who discovered in his confidential talk that the boy longed to be a '.soldier and to play in. a military band. Tho judge petitioned the Commander at the marine barracks that ho be given a trial. The boy returned next morning, and, looking sullenly at the judge, mumbled, "He won't take me. Saj's I'm a bad character." "Well, you're not. "I'd stake my life on that, John," said the judge. "You've the making of a splendid fighter in you. Now, I'm going to send you the National Training School— they've got ;i, band there, and if you're good you can play in it, and in a couple of years you can begin as a soldier with a good record.'" The boy straightened his shoulders as he shook hands with the judge, and it certainly looked as if a vagabond had been transformed into- a future defender for Uncle Sam. In the South the children are given over as babies to the care of a coloured nurse or "mammae," and she exists for nothing else except the cherishing of her particular charge. One Southerner mother told the writer that she figured hardly at all in, her children's lives until they were old enough to be sent away to school. When the last baby was born it was handed over as usual to the family "mammae," and when \b was a few months old the mother went to Europe with her husband, and did not return until the child had passed its first birthday. The meeting between mother and baby was effusive on the mother's part., but screamingly resentful on the part «f the infant. "Don't you know mothei V the parent reproached, as the baby regarded her suspiciously trom the haven of its mammies arms. Lor, Miss Florence," exclaimed oho o d darky propitiatingly, "what dis yer child know about dis yer mother business, anyhow?" The young girl in the American home is given very little less than idolatry by her parents. She leads the household, and her mother is too often her worshipful slave. She. carries the spirit of unchaperoned, unrestrained liberty to the extent of assertion and selfishness, but beneath her emphatic self-pos-session is a frank, bright, shrewd, generally unaffected personality, beside whom the French young person, with her pretty deference to eldeTs -and charm of manner, will seem colourless and mentally anaemic. A German prince travelling in America, asked for his impression ot American women, drew a long sigh or rapture, and proceeded :— 'In the first place they have a rare and individual type of beauty. Don't you know the difference in taste between wild strawberries and the cultivated varieties? How much more delicious the wild ones are. Well, that is the difference between the beauty of the American woman and her Continental prototype. When one sees an American girl one exclaims, 'How beautiful she is !' When one sees a lovely lady elsewhere, the remark is 'How beautiful ,<=he looks. The American housewife is constantly arraigned for . her careless household management and her scorn for economy. When a new want develops in the average American family, retrenchment in other directions is never contemplated as a solution, but a greater income is managed by the male provider to meet the increased expenditure. All chops ape 'stores" in America, and the desire which is instinct in the American woman is expressed in the statement of the child brought to New York to spend her spring holidays among the sights of the city :— "I tell you what let's do, mamma! Let) s go down town to the shops and just spend money." Advertising has risen to the dignity of a profession in America, and large department stores will easily devote £50,000 annually to advertising bargains. In amusements the "big show," all glamour and glitter, with absolutely no plot and no dramatic ability, pleases most the popular taste. "I don't want to go to the theatre to think : I wanl) to be amused," is the stock remark. — From "Home Life in America," by Katherine G. Busbev.

In connection with the In'uTan Factories Bill there is strong criticism of the proposal advanced in Calcutta by the jute interest to increase the working hours of children from six to six and a half hours, in order to secure an agreement on the Bill, tt is recalled \hal the Factories Commission made out an unanswerable case for thp reduction of the working hours of children, and recorded that children working in factories are somewhat below the normal standard. Protest is made against sacrificing the interests of children to secure an agreement.

FOR FORTY YEARS. Chambei lain's Cough Remedy has been in use nearly forty years, which is time to thoroughly test its qualities, and no eas-e of a cold lesulting in pneumonia when Chamberlain's Cough Remedy was taken has ever been reported to the manufactuiers, which leads us to believe it to be a certain "preventive of that dangerous disease.—* i Advt, " 1