Notebook Leaflets from the Elmshaven Library, vol. 1

Words to Parents

Is it at all necessary that there should be so large a number of feeble, helpless women in our world? No; I answer, decidedly; no. The opinion prevails in this generation that women do not need active, vigorous muscles and strong, sturdy frames; but does not reason tell us differently? It is argued that by nature their muscles are softer and feebler, and their strength and power of endurance less. We admit that this is the case, but why? Because for many generations back false ideas, degenerating in their influence, have been brought in through their efforts to meet the standard of fashion. The great master worker, Satan, has not been idle. He has brought in a variety of fashions, and has led men and women to encourage delicate idleness. 1NL 91.2

If food were prepared with more simplicity and in less variety, if mothers dressed their children in neat, modest apparel, without striving to meet the demands of fashion, there would be far more well-balanced minds, calm nerves, and sweet tempers. Mothers wear out their nerves by doing needless things, in order to keep pace with fashion. One third of the time now devoted to this work should be spent with their children in the open air, weeding the garden, picking berries, teaching the children to help. Enough time is wasted on fashionable dress and in the preparation of articles of food that irritate the digestive organs, to purchase a spot of ground which the children could have as their own, and from which mothers and fathers could derive precious lessons, to be given to their children. Teach your children that the garden in which they place the tiny seed represents the garden of the heart, and that God has enjoined upon you, their parents, to cultivate the soil of their hearts, as they cultivate the garden. 1NL 91.3