THE DECADENCE OF HOME LIFE.

White Ribbon, Volume 32, Issue 369, 18 March 1926, Page 5

THE DECADENCE OF HOME LIFE.

(By Gent* Stratton i’orter.)

The only time I nali.se that 1 am past twenty is when 1 recall the picture ol my childhood home, and think of the abounding Joy we got from life in keeping a clean house, in entertaining: our friends and relations, in ntiking a picture on the landscape with our door yard, and garden. I recall the pride we mok in our orchard a great aqua re of apple trees facing the spring sky like a big, delicaffe, white blanket, around which the |M*iich-blow herder of pink wi s :in exquisite sight. I'nther took justifiable pride in pruning trimming, and grafting; in having magniflcen*. Juicy, big apples, fine plums, amber cherries, cling and free•<>ne peaches, white, yellow, and beetred. many varieties of grapes, and leautiful vines and flowers, and bushes in the door yard, all contributing to make his home n lovely | Icture bis family luxuriously fed. In this setting \\< spent our lives, seeing how much we could learn, how happy we could lx*, and to what extent we could help our neighbours. Tie* giuitest pride we look was not in how beautilully we could be dressed, nor to how many different ulaecs we could go to; it was seeing how much we could crowd into our brains, and how many of our friends we could attract to our home by making it a delightful place. Hut to-day country youngsters hate ♦h* ir environment, been lse they feel ♦ hut they tire ls*ing defrauded of the lights and the music an I the things thut look to them like joy. They finish their day’s work ii the quickest way. in order to jump inm an automobile and reach the picture show and tindance In the merest village. In the cities, home, in too mr ny oases, is merely a convenience where one goes to sleep, or finds shelter if one lg ill, 0,1- ♦ hough frequently nobody at home has the time to bother with the sick, so one v hurdled up and sent to the hospital In the matter of finding entertainment in dance halls picture shows, hotels, cafes, and resorts, we have gone, as n nation, to the limit. Our boys, especially the boys of the eitv. are beginning to show’ in their physique, in their faces, in the apparent nerve stmln. nl>ove aU in brain power, ihat they are in no way fitted, physically or mentally, to cope with life ns were their futhers.

Too big a percentage of the glrto of iioth caty and country prove by their size, their physique, and their mentality. th«it they are not the equals of their mothers even. I\\ KENTS SHOULD WAKE UP. This hour and tnis minute is the time for parents to do the deepest thinking they have ever done in their lives! It lies with the fathers and mothers of the city to take the children who are young enough to be malleable, and once again begin the practice of teaching them that home is the best place on i.irth in which to entertain their friends and to have a good time; that father is thi' finest man in the world, a person to i»»> respeefed and to be instantly obeyed; that mother is a precious possession, to be taken good (tare of in order that she may get joy from life for herself, and give to her children the deep pleasure th.it can 1m- found in the wonderful things th:u’ can be done in a home.