Heart and Soul by Maveric Post

by Victor Mapes

One of the loveliest and most helpful occupations any mother can have is to learn to tell stories to her children. Many mothers may find themselves a little deficient in this ability, at first; but, with the inspiration of love and their holy cause, almost any mother can soon acquire a charming facility in doing it. And the advantage to the children, as well as to mother, which may be derived from this method is very considerable. A story told by mother is easier to understand, more sympathetic, more delightful, less set and cumbersome than nearly any story which has to be read methodically from the printed pages of a book. A mother is in close touch with the needs and natures of her own flock—she can embellish and interpret and add her own loving comments, as such and as often as she feels the call for it.

I have found by experience that so many stories which are supposedly designed for children, make use of big and stilted words, complicated ideas, and tedious, long-winded explanations. Mother can read them so quickly by herself and then preserve the pith and point of them in her own manner of recounting. There is practically no limit to the variety of kinds and subjects which may be interpreted and rendered available in this way. The story of Ivanhoe, or Quentin Durward, or Lohengrin, may be just as readily told in this way as Cinderella, or Robin Hood, or Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp. But set any child the task of reading for itself a great volume of Ivanhoe, or many of the other world classics, or of listening to any one who waded through the long descriptions for hours on end, is hardly to be thought of.

Fortunately there are a number of books which seem to have been written by people who love children and understand them. These a mother can search out and select from and make good use of.

One of the curious things about youth is that children love to hear the same stories over and over again, even after they know them almost by heart. This is undoubtedly due to the fact that the appeal is principally to the feelings and not to the intellect. Intellectual people, when once they know the contents of a book, seldom have any further interest in it. But music and painting and poetry do not lose interest through familiarity, even for mature natures. Their appeal is more like that which stories have for children.

Owing to this condition of affairs, a mother need never be at a loss for stories to tell or stories to read. This part of child life should not be an exceptional occurrence due to her mood or whim, but a constant feature of the daily life to be counted on and treasured up. The lovely atmosphere which surrounds it, the moral and spiritual ideals which are engendered by it, combine in making it a precious influence in the rearing of a new generation.

"But," exclaims the up-to-date woman, of enlightened intellect, "what kind of old-fashioned, benighted mother are you prating about! This is the era of woman's rights and woman's emancipation! What time would a woman have for her own affairs—for the exercise of her rights, which have been won with so much effort—if she had to keep bothering her head with that sort of thing?"

That is true. It would seem as if we had forgotten about the self-interest and selfishness of the modern movement, which is there on all sides to poke its tongue at a mother's devotion to her sacred cause.

Indeed, we have no answer to give to that kind of selfishness. The essence of our thought is love and faith in the love of motherhood. There is no selfishness in it and the language it uses is not translatable into terms which the rule of reason can hope to understand.

But to those mothers whose hearts are still in the right place, even if their heads have become more or less confused by the shouting and example of intellectual leaders, there is a very simple observation to suggest, as an answer to such objections.

Is it of much importance or benefit to you, yourself, or to anybody, or any thing, that you should spend so much of your time in gambling at the bridge table? Or gossiping at an afternoon tea? Or attending a meeting at the woman's club? Or at the hair-dresser's and manicure's? Or in intellectual pursuits of any kind? Is it not more important to you and to your family and to the future of your race and kind, to devote a considerable amount of your time and energy to the children, who love you and need you and can profit greatly by your help?