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The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis By: Ellice Hopkins |
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A BOOK FOR PARENTS, AND THOSE IN
LOCO PARENTIS BY ELLICE HOPKINS AUTHOR OF "LIFE AND LETTERS OF JAMES HINTON,"
"WARS AMONG WORKINGMEN," ETC.
Sow an act, and you reap a habit:
Sow a habit, and you reap a character:
Sow a character, and you reap a destiny.
NEW YORK
E.P. DUTTON & COMPANY
31 West Twenty Third Street
1901 Copyright, 1899
Copyright, 1899
By
E.P. DUTTON & CO.
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
PREFACE
This little book has been written under great physical disabilities,
chiefly while wandering about in search of health, and consequently far
from the libraries which would have enabled me to give proper references
to all my quotations. Often for a whole year I have been unable to touch
it; but again and again I have returned to my task, feeling it worth any
risk to mind or body if only in the end its words might prove of some
service to the educated mothers of England and America. Under these circumstances, I know I may plead for indulgence as to any
defects its pages may present. But now that, after six years, I have realized the pretty Eastern
proverb, "By patience and perseverance, and a bottle of sweet oil, the
snail at length reaches Jerusalem," now that by God's unfailing help I
have finished my difficult task, I can but commit the book into the
hands of the women who have implanted in me, next to my faith in God,
faith in the "Power of Womanhood," and whose faithful adherence and
co operation remain the deepest and most grateful memory of my life.
Most of the ordinary means of circulation are closed to a book of this
nature. The doors of circulating libraries are for the most part shut;
notices in papers for the general public are necessarily few; nor can I
any longer hope, as I once did, to visit America, and give it a wide
circulation by my own efforts. I can but stretch out my hands to my many
dear unknown friends in America, hands which have grown too weak to
hold the sword or lift the banner in a cause for which I have laid down
my all, and ask any mother who may find help or strength in this book
to help me in return by placing it in the hands of other mothers of boys
she may know, especially, I would plead, young mothers. Do not say
they are too young to know. If they are not too young to be the mothers
of boys, they are not too young to know how to fulfil the responsibility
inherent in such motherhood. They at least can begin at the beginning,
and not have occasion to say, as so many mothers have said to me, with
tears in their eyes, "Oh, if I could only have heard you years ago, what
a difference it would have made to me! But now it is too late." Enable me thus, by your aid, to do some helpful work for that great
country which I have ever loved as my own; and which with England is
appointed in the Providence of God to lead in the great moral causes of
the world. If, indeed, each mother whom, either by word or deed, I may have helped
would do me this service of love now that I am laid aside, not yielding
to the first adverse criticism, which is so often only a cry of pain or
prejudice, but patiently working on at enlightening and strengthening
the hands of other mothers in her own rank of life, what vital work
would be done: work so precious in its very nature, so far reaching in
its consequences, that all the travail and anguish I have endured, all
the brokenness of body and soul I have incurred, would not so much as
come into mind for joy that a truer manhood is being born into the
world, even the manhood of Him who "Came on earth that He might show mankind
What 'tis to be a MAN: to give, not take;
To serve, not rule; to nourish, not devour;
To help, not crush; if needs, to die, not live." 2 BELLE VUE GARDENS,
WALPOLE ROAD, BRIGHTON,
Nov. 1, 1899 .
CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. INTRODUCTORY 1 II. "WHY SHOULD I INTERFERE?" 13 III. FIRST PRINCIPLES 26 IV... Continue reading book >>
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