From Safe Counsel, published 1904
The above bright little girl represents thousands in our homes to-day. Happy, loving and sunny-dispositioned. Parents, what responsibilities are yours! If not wisely trained and taught, she may follow the course pictured to the left and bring down your gray hairs with sorrows to the grave.
At fifteen, in the company of boys of questionable character; at twenty, modesty and self-respect lost; at twenty-six, immoral and an outcast from home and society; and at forty, prematurely old, with life wrecked, hope gone, and poverty and wretchedness her lot.
On the other hand, wisely trained, she may be for the rest of your days a source of joy and pride. At fifteen, modest (a girl’s rarest quality) and studious; at twenty, victorious in her studies and pure as a sunbeam; at twenty-six, a proud mother in her own home; and at seventy, well-preserved, loved and honored.
Thousands of boys such as the above illustration represents are growing up in this fair country of ours. Bright, manly little fellows. How many of them through ignorance and improper training will take the course pictured on the left, wrecking their lives and breaking mothers’ hearts. Will yours be one of them?
At sixteen playing truant and smoking cigarettes; at twenty-one impure in thought and deed and a saloon loafer; at thirty a thug and desperate character; and at forty-five a confirmed criminal and physical wreck.
Or through Christian influence and mothers’ prayers how many will be at sixteen possessed of clean habits, and studious; at twenty possessed of manly purity, and industrious; at thirty rewarded with success and manhood’s best gifts; and at seventy looking back over an honorable and useful career.
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