Page:Women of distinction.djvu/461

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WOMEN OF DISTINCTION.
379

the more intelligent, as a rule, are the offspring of that home. It is here the child gets an idea of its own intellectual powers. It is in the home it seems to get its first ideas of becoming wdiat it seems to see in others of its surroundings, whether good or evil. It is generally true that a child reared in an intelligent home has a more tenacious memory than one of opposite situation, yet this may not always prove true. The fact that one child at some time, or at all times in its history, shows more aptness and acquires more readily than another is no argument in favor of the superiority of one mind, b}' creation, over the other; no more than the fact that one organ or one set of organs in the same body; is created superior to the other, simply because one organ or one set of organs in that body is better developed than the other; nor is it any more so than the fact that the muscles of one arm are better developed than those of the other arm, because one arm has had the advantage of a more complete development. Suffice it to say, however, that the home should be as intelligent as circumstances will allow, and yet there are many good homes that are not so brilliant as those some would call intelligent, and yet they are intelligent; they are full of good sense, wdsdom, virtue, piety and thrift. From these homes have come many of our best men and women. Such homes are practical and greatly beneficial.

II. As a sister she may wield an influence at times more powerful than the mother, for many times she can find out the tendencies of a brother or sister long before the mother observes them. She is often taken more into