Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 10.djvu/296

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS

whom he so loved and trusted; for the lives of these women are often led on the lonely heights of quiet, self-sacrificing heroism.

Just as the happiest and most honorable and most useful task that can be set any man is to earn enough for the support of his wife and family, for the bringing up and starting in life of his children, so the most important, the most honorable and desirable task which can be set any woman is to be a good and wise mother in a home marked by self-respect and mutual for- bearance, by willingness to perform duty, and by refusal to sink into self-indulgence or avoid that which entails effort and self-samfigej Of course there are exceptional men and exceptional women who can do and ought to do much more than this, who can lead and ought to lead great careers of outside usefulness in addition to — not as substitutes for — their home work; but I am not speaking of exceptions ; I am speaking of the primary duties, I am speaking of the average citizens, the average men and women who make up the nation.

Inasmuch as I am speaking to an assemblage of mothers, I shall have nothing whatever to say in praise of an easy life. Yours is the work which is never ended. No mother has an easy time, the most mothers have very hard times; and yet what true mother would barter her ex- perience of jo3' and sorrow in exchange for a life of cold selfishness, which insists upon perpetual amusement and the avoidance of care, and which 256

�� �