In another volume in the chapter on funerals we have spoken of the influence of dress, especially of the influence of the constant presence of black on young children. This is only one small phase of a very big subject.
In the home the chief requisite of one's dress is neatness. A man will find it much easier to accord the little courtesies of well-bred society to his wife if she is neatly and becomingly dressed, however simple the gown may be, than if she is slatternly and untidy. The children also will find it much easier to love, honor and obey if their parents give a reasonable amount of time to taking care of their personal appearance. It is not the most important thing in life but it is one of the little things "that of large life make the whole" and one that has much to do with making it pleasant or unpleasant.
In one of O. Henry's stories a little girl down on Chrystie Street asks her father, "a red-haired, unshaven, untidy man sitting shoeless by the window" to play a game of checkers with her. He refuses and the child goes out into the street to play with the other children "in the corridors of the house of sin." The story is not a pretty one. Six or seven years later there is a dance, a murder and a plunge into the East River. And then the great short story writer says that he dreamed the rest of the story. He thought he was in the next world and "Liz," for that was the girl's name, was being tried for murder and self-destruction. There was no doubt but that she had committed the crimes ascribed to her, but the verdict of the officer in the celestial court was, "Discharged." And he added, "The guilty party you've got to look for in this case is a red-haired, unshaven, untidy man, sitting by the window reading, in his stocking feet, while his children play in the streets." It is not so much that dress in itself is important but that it is an index to so much else, and while it is not an infallible one it is about as near right as any we have.
There can be nothing quite so humiliating to a child as to be dressed in an outlandish fashion that renders him conspicuous. Some mothers, delighting in the attractive clothes that they buy for their children, do not realize what havoc they are causing to the tastes of the child. A little boy should be dressed like a little boy, and he should be allowed to develop his own tastes in the selection of his suits and blouses. A little girl should by all means be allowed to make her choice of the clothes she is to wear, guided by mother's superior knowledge and experience. But to force a child to wear a garment against which its very soul revolts, is to crush whatever natural instincts the child may have for the beautiful and artistic.