--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 8 number: 7 published: 1905-05 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "Topics of the Moment," *Improvement Era* 8, no. 7 (May 1905): 526–534.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0807unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera0807unse start_page: 526 end_page: 534 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1905-05) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0807unse publication_year: 1905 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1905, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Topics of the Moment TOPICS OF MOMENT. President Roosevelt's Speech on Home and Mother. No speech lately uttered is of more value than the address delivered by President Theodore Roosevelt to the late Mothers' Congress, held in Washington. It is so important that the Era prints it herewith in full, and recommends that it be carefully read by boys and girls and parents. It is worth engrossing in the hearts of all American citizens; and should be placed where it can be frequently read and carefully studied in every home: In our modern industrial civilization there are many and grave dangers to counterbalance the splendors and the triumphs. It is not a good thing to see citiesgrow at disproportionate speed relatively to the country; for the small landowners, the men who own their little homes, and therefore to a very large extent the men who till the farms, the men of the soil, have hitherto made the foundation of lasting national life in every state; and if the foundation becomes either too weak or too narrow, the superstructure, no matter how attractive, is in imminent danger of falling. But far more important than the question of the occupation of our citizens is the question of how their family life is conducted. No matter what their occupation be, as long as there is a real home,and as long as those who make up that home do their duty to one another, to their neighbors and to the state, it is of minor consequence whether the man's trade is plied in the country or the city, whether it calls for the work of the hands or for work of the head. But the nation is in a bad way if there is no real home, if the family is not of the right kind,if the man is not a good husband and father, if he is brutal or cowardly or selfish, if the woman has lost her sense of duty, if she is sunk in vapid self-indulgence, or has let her nature be TOPICS OF MOMENT. 527 twisted so that she prefers a sterile pseudo-intellectuality to that great and beautiful development of character which comes only to those whose lives know the fulness of duty done, or effort made and self-sacrifice undergone. In the last analysis, the welfare of the state depends absolutely upon whether ©r not the average family, the average man and woman and their children, represent the kind of citizenship fit for the foundation of a great nation; and if we fail to appreciate this.we fail to appreciate the root morality upon which all healthy civilization is based. No piled-up wealth, no splendor of material growth, no brilliance of artistic development, will permanently avail any people, unless its homelife is healthy, unless the average man possesses honesty, courage, common sense and decency; unless he works hard and is willing, at need, to fight hard; and unless the average woman is a good wife, a good mother, peform the and greatest duty of womanand able and willing to first hood—able and willing to bear,and to bring up as they should be brought healthy children, sound in body, mind and character, and numerous up, enough so that the race shall be increased and not decreased. world There are certain old truths which will be true as long as the endures, and which no amount of progress can alter. One of these is the primary duty of the husband is to be the homethe truth that bread-winner for his wife and children, and that the maker, the primary duty of the woman is to be the helpmate, the housewife, and advantages; but, mother. The woman should have ample educational the man must be, and she need not be, and save in exceptional cases, career as the family generally ought not to be, trained for a lifelong the training of the bread-winner; and, therefore, after a .pertain point, duties of the two are nortwo must normally be different, because the of function, but it does mally different. This does not mean inequality must be dissimilarity of function. On the mean that normally there more important, the more whole, I think the duty of the woman the two; on the whole, I respect the difficult, and the more honorable of the respect the man who does woman who does her duty even more than I llS or responsible as No ordinary work done by man is either as hard ' a family of small children; for the work of a woman who is bringing up upon her time and strength demands are made not only every hour of night. She may have to get up the day, but often every hour of the of a sick child, and yet must by day connight after night to take care well; and if the family means are tinue to do all her household duties as her rare holidays taking her whole scant, she must usually enjoy even 528 IMPR VEMENT ERA . brood of children with her. The birth pangs make all men the debtors of all women. Above all,our sympathy and regard are due to the struggling wives among those whom Abraham Lincoln called the plain people, and whom he loved and trusted; for the lives of these women are often led on the lonely heights of quiet, self-sacrificing heroism. Just as the happiest and most honorable and most useful task that can be set any man is to earn enough for the support of his wife and f amily,for the bringing up and starting in life of his children, so the most important, the most honorable and most desirable task which can be set any woman is to be a good and wise mother, in a home marked by selfrespect and mutual forbearance, by willingness to perform duty, and by refusal to sink into self-indulgence, or avoid that which entails effort Of course, there are exceptional men and exceptional and self-sacrifice. women, who can do and ought to do much more than this;who can lead.and ought to lead, great careers of outside usefulness in addition to — not as substitutes for —their home work; but am not speaking of exceptions; I I am speaking of the primary duties, I am speaking of the average citizens —the average men and women who make up the nation. Inasmuch as I am speaking to an assemblage of mothers, I have nothing whatever to say in praise of an easy life. Yours is the work which is never ended. No mother has an easy time, and most mothers have very hard times; and yet, what true mother would barter her experience of joy and sorrow in exchange for a life of cold selfishness, which insists upon perpetual amusement and the avoidance of care, and which often finds its fit dwelling place in some flat designed to furnish, with the least possible expenditure of effort,the maximum of comfort and luxury, but in which there is literally no place for children? The woman who is a good wife, a good mother, is entitled to our reis entitled to it only because, and so spect as is no one else; but she long as, she is worthy of it. Effort and self-sacrifice are the law of worthy life.for the man as for the woman; though neither the effort nor the self-sacrifice may be the same for the one as for the other. I do not in the least believe in the patient Griselda type of woman, in the woman who submits to gross and long-continued ill treatment, any more than I believe in a man who tamely submits to wrongful aggression. No wrongdoing is as abhorrent as wrongdoing by a man towards the wife and the children who should arouse every tender feeling in his nature. Selfishness towards them, lack of tenderness towards them, lack of consideration for them, above all, brutality, in any form, towards them, should arouse the heartiest scorn and indignation in every upright sohI. TOPICS OF MOMENT. 529 I believe in the woman's keeping her self-respect, just as I believe in the man's doing so. I believe in her rights just as much as I believe in the man's, and, indeed, a little more; and I regard marriage as a partnership, in which each partner is in honor bound to think of the rights of the other as well as of his or her own. But I think that the duties are even more important than the rights; and in the long run, I think that the reward is ampler and greater for duty well done, than for the insistence upon individual rights, necessary though this, too, must often be. Your duty is hard, your responsibility great; but greatest of all is your reward. I do not pity you in the least. On the contrary, I feel respect and admiration for you. Into the woman's keeping is committed the destiny of the generation to come after us. In bringing up your children, you mothers must remember that, while it is essential to be loving and tender, it is no less essential to be wise and firm. Foolishness and affection must not be treated as interchangeable terms; and besides training your sons and daughters in the softer and milder virtues, you must seek to give them those stern and hardy qualities which in after life they will surely need. Some children will go wrong in spite of the best training; and some will go right, even when their surroundings are most unfortunate; nevertheless, an immense amount depends upon the family training. If you mothers through weakness bring up your sons to be selfish, and to think only of themselves, you will be responsible for much sadness among the women who are to be their wives in the future. If you let your daughters grow up idle, perhaps under the mistaken impression that as you yourselves have had to work hard they shall know only enjoyment, you are preparing them to be useless to others and burdens to themselves. Teach boys and girls alike that they are not to look forward to lives spent in avoiding difficulties, but to lives spent in overcoming difficulties. Teach them that work, for themselves and also for others, is not a curse but a blessing; seek to make them happy, to make them enjoy life, but seek also to make them face life with the steadfast resolution to wrest success from labor and adversity, and to do their whole duty before God and to man. Surely she who can thus train her sons and daughters is thrice fortunate among women. There are many good people who are denied the supreme blessing of children; and for these we have the respect and sympathy always due to those who, from no fault of their own, are denied any of the other great blessings of life. But the man or woman who deliberately foregoes these blessings, whether from viciousness, coldness, shallow-heartedness, self-indulgence, or mere failure to appreciate aright the difference be — tween the all-important and the unimportant why, such a creature merits contempt as hearty as any visited upon the soldier who runs away in battle, or upon the man who refuses to work for the support of those dependent upon him, and who, though ablebodied, is yet content to eat in idleness the bread which others provide. The existence of women of this type forms one of the most unpleasant and unwholesome features of modern life. If anyone is so dim of vision as to fail to see what a thoroughly unlovely creature such a woman is, I wish he would read Judge Robert Grant's novel, Unleavened Bread, ponder seriously the character of Selma, and think of the fate that would surely overcome any nation which developed its average and typical woman along such lines. Unfortunately, it would be untrue to say that this type exists only in American novels. That it also exists in American life is made unpleasantly evident by the statistics as to the dwindling families in some localities. It is made evident in equally sinister fashion by the census statistics as to divorce, which are fairly appalling; for easy divorce is now, as it ever has been, a bane to any nation, a curse to society, a menace to the home, an incitement to married unhappiness and to immorality, an evil thing for men and a still more hideous evil for women. These unpleasant tendencies in our American life are made evident by articles such as those which I actually read not long ago in a certain paper, where a clergyman was quoted, seemingly with approval, as expressing the general American attitude when he said that the ambition of any save a very rich man should be to rear two children only, so as to give his children an opportunity "to taste a few of the good things of life." This man, whose profession and calling should have made him a moral teacher, actually set before others the ideal, not of training children to their duty, not of sending them forth with stout hearts and ready minds to win triumphs for themselves and their country, not of allowing them the opportunity, and giving them the privilege of making their own place in the world, but, forsooth, of keeping the number of children limited that they might "tast a few good things!" The way to give a child a fair chance in life is not to bring it up in luxury, but to see that it has the kind of training that will give it strength of character. Even apart from the vital question of national life, and regarding only the individual interests of the children themselves, happiness, in the true sense, is a hundredfold more apt to come to any given member of a healthy family of healthy-minded children, well brought up, well educated, but taught that they must shift for themselves, must TOPICS OF MOMENT. 531 win their own way, and by their own exertions make their own positions of usefulness, than it is apt to come to those whose parents themselves have acted or, and trained their children to act on, the selfish and sordid theory that the whole end of life is "to taste a few good things." The intelligence of the remark is on a par with its morality, for the most rudimentary mental process would have shown the speaker that if the average family, in which there are children, contained but two children, the nation as a whole would decrease in population so rapidy that in two or three generations it would very deservedly be on the point of extinction, so that the people who had acted on this base and selfish doctrine would be giving place to others with braver and more robust ideals. Nor would such a result be in any way regretable; for a race that practiced such a doctrine — that a race that practiced race is, suicide — would thereby conclusively show that was toit andunfit exist, that it would better give place to people who had not forgotten the primary laws of their being. To sum up, then, the whole matter is simple enough. If either a race or an individual prefers the pleasures of mere effortless ease, of self-indulgence, to the infinitely deeper, the infinitely higher pleasures that come to those who know the toil and the weariness, but also the joy, of hard duty well done, why, that race or that individual must inevitably in the end pay the penalty of leading a life both vapid and ignoble. No man and no woman really worthy of the name can care for the life spent solely or chiefly in the avoidance of risk and trouble and labor. Save in exceptional cases, the prizes worth having in life must be paid for, and the life worth living must be a life of work for a worthy end, and, ordinarily, of work more for others than for one's self. The man is but a poor creature whose effort is not rather for the betterment of his wife and children than for himself; and as for the mother, her very name stands for loving unselfishness and self-abnegation, and, in any society fit to exist, is fraught with associations which render it holy. The woman's task is not easy—no task worth doing is easy— but in doing it, and when she has done it, there shall come to her the highest and holiest joy known to mankind; and having done it, she shall have the reward prophesied in scripture; for her husband and her children, yes, and all the people who realize that her work lies at the foundation of all national happiness and greatness, shall rise up and call her blessed. Jules Verne. "Idol of boys,— two generations of them— king of romancers, author of a hundred books, his name has been carried by innumerable translations into every country where youth loves to hearken to tales of the marvelous." He died on March 24, in Amiens, at the age of seventy-seven, having been born in Nantes, France, February 8, 1828. In 1863, when he was thirty- five, he finished Weeks in a Balloon, but h8 began to write his first novel, Five when twenty-two years old, and during his life he produced in all about eighty novels. His first novel was printed in Hetzel's Magazine, whose publisher recognized in him the creator of a new idea, that of scientific and geographic romance. So he proposed a long contract by which Verne should produce for him two novels a year. This contract was drawn, so it is said, for fifty years, and the price was four thousand dollars a year. Verne accepted it,and continued to write under it for the rest of his life, faithfully producing two books a year. He married his wife, a widow, in 1857 and in his later years made his home in Amiens, her city of birth. He traveled much, and visited the United States at one time, crossing the ocean in the Great Eastern. He saw Niagara ice-bound, and made use of the wonderful scene in one of his novels. Great Britain, Scandinavia, and Southern Europe, about the Mediterranean, were his favorite haunts, and he always wove tales of thrilling adventure from his experiences. He wrote fro the last, having this year issued The Master of the World and A Drama in Livonia; this, notwithstanding ill health and partial blindness. He was town councilor of Amiens for several years, and was officer of the Legion of Honor, having the distinction of being the last man decorated by the Empire, which expired two hours after his decoration. His tales may well be styled the modern "Arabian Nights." The following incidents of his life are culled from the Baltimore News: One of the peculiar traits of Jules Verne was his love for the boys for whom he wrote. On one occasion he walked into a school reading club in Ramsgate, England, and, laying a letter written in a boyish hand on the table, he said in his quaint French-English: "Boys, I am M'sieu' Verne. I thank you for your invitation. Let us now put some more coal on the fire and tell stories." An interesting story is passed around in French literary circles with regard to the contract by which Verne issued two books a year. It is said that this contract was made forty years ago, and called for two TOPICS OF M0MEN2. 533 stories a year for a remuneration of twenty thousand francs per annum, or about four thousand dollars. It is said that, despite the enormous circulation of his works, which have been translated even into Persian and Japanese, Jules Verne never received a penny more than his stipulated salary. His publisher, however, gave the author valuable presents from time to time. Verne secured the basis for his novels by wide reading, especially of works of geography and travel and of the reports of scientific societies. Then he permitted his imagination to run riot, though with a method that made his inventions seem possible and plausible. To many Verne has appeared as a prophet, since he forestalled in his mythical adventures, the submarine boat, the airship, the automobile and other modern wonders, among them several of the most important developed in warfare. In speaking of his manner of collecting material for his books, which always dealt with the latest scientific problems, M. Verne once said: "I am a great reader, and always read with pencil in hand. I carry a note book with me, and always jot down anything that may appear to be of possible use in my books. Every day after lunch I read through fifteen different papers, bulletins of scientific societies, and whatever I can obtain that is new on geography. I have thus amassed thousands of notes on all subjects. Some of the leading and most popular books by Verne are The Mysterious Island, which appeared in 1870; A Journey to the the Earth, in 1872; Michael Strogoff, in 1876; 2 he Green Center of Southern Star, in Ray, in 1882; Christopher Columbus, in 1883; The 1892. 1884; and The Carpathian Chateau, in Two New States in Canada. Canadian federation, The bill to admit two new states into the submitted to the Canadian under the name of provinces, has been parliament at Ottawa. They will be made out of the four NorthAssinaboia, and Saskatchewest territories of Alberta, Athabasca, Alberta and Saskatchewan, wan The names to be given them are and west will be the 110th and the dividing line between the east is to be the capital of the former, line of west longitude. Calgary of the North-west territories, the and Regina, the present capital capital of Saskatchewan. political advantages to the people of This will give important the new provinces, without adding materially to the burden of taxation. The federal government, at Ottawa, is to pay $50,000 a year for the support of executive and legislature of the two new provinces. It will also pay them eighty cents per head of population, until the grant reaches $640,000 a year, when it will be fixed' at that amount. Each province will receive $92,000 a year for public buildings, for five years, and then each is to receive $405,- 375, annually, as an offset to the assumption of the debts of Upper and Lower Canada, in 1867, by the federal government. As a compensation for the release of public lands, by the new provinces, each is to receive $375,000 a year, until the population reaches 400,000; and three times as much, when the population shall exceed 1,200,000. It will be seen from the above figures that each will start with an income of over a million a year, to be paid by the Dominion government. The population of each is now about 250,000. In addition to such a liberal provision, it may be noted that the provinces will not be under any burden for the support of the militia and the judges. The burden of taxation will be so very light that one may easily discern an invitation to American farmers to settle in these provinces, where land will, no doubt, continue to be wholly free from taxation. The rush from this country has been extraordinary; and Canadians feel very jubilant over the outlook for the North-west. The colonists already located there will feel relieved to learn that under provincial government their lands will not bear any new burdens, i. e. the farm lands. The bill admitting these territories to provincial government provides that public funds may be used for private schools. This provision, it is believed, has been inserted at the instigation of themembers of parliament from the province of Quebec which is almost wholly Catholic. At the same time, the liberals who are Protestants strongly oppose such support of private schools, even where secular branches are given. If the provinces are left tothemselves, they will keep entirely separate all private schools from a public school system which will enjoy all funds set apart for education.