labor laid upon children beyond what is best for their own
character is intolerable and inexcusable oppression. Parents have no
right to lighten their own burdens by imposing them upon the children.
The poor things had nothing to do with being born. They came into the
world without any volition of their own. Their existence began only to
serve the pleasure or the pride of others. It was a culpable cruelty,
in the first place, to introduce them into a sphere where no adequate
provision could be made for their comfort and culture; but to shoulder
them, after they get here, with the load which belongs to their parents
is outrageous. Earth is not a paradise at best, and at worst it is
very near the other place. The least we can do is to make the way as
smooth as possible for the new-comers. There is not the least danger
that it will be too smooth. If you stagger under the weight which you
have imprudently assumed, stagger. But don't be such an unutterable
coward as to illumine your own life by darkening the young lives which
sprang from yours. I wonder that children do not open their mouths and
curse the father that begat and the mother that bore them. I often
wonder that parents do not tremble lest the cry of the children whom
they oppress go up into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, and bring down
wrath upon their guilty heads. It was well that God planted filial
affection and reverence as an instinct in the human breast. If it
depended upon reason it would have but a precarious existence.

I wish women would have the sense and courage,--I will not say, to say
what they think, for that is not always desirable,--but to think
according to the facts. They have a strong desire to please men, which
is quite right and natural; but in their eagerness to do this, they
sometimes forget what is due to themselves. To think namby-pambyism
for the sake of pleasing men is running benevolence into the ground.
Not that women consciously do this, but they do it. They don't mean to
pander to false masculine notions, but they do. They don't know that
they are pandering to them, but they are. Men say silly things, partly
because they don't know any better, and partly because they don't want
any better. They are strong, and can generally make shift to bear
their end of the pole without being crushed. So they are tolerably
content. They are not very much to blame. People cannot be expected
to start on a crusade against ills of