Page 4
THE FEDERATION JOURNAL
May, 1953
,-ir
W
r ii -l^riMi/'itrKfir-rf-^
The State Teachers College Library which offers excellent The State Teachers College Library which offers excellent
opportunities for study and recreational reading. ped. (Teachers Cottage is shown in background.)
The Elizabeth City State Teachers Col
lege located in Elizabeth City, North Car
olina, is a four-year teachers college, ac
credited by the North Carolina State
Department of Education, the Southern
Association of Secondary Schools and
Colleges, and the American Association
of Colleges for Teacher Education.
The main purpose of the college is the
training of citizens who will teach in the
elementary schools. Great progress in the
achievement of this purpose is being made
under the efficient leadership of President
S. D. Williams.
A TRIBUTE TO MOTHERS
Continued from Page 1
the same token bad mothers make bad
men.
History proves this. Men and women
who have exerted the greatest influence
for good in the world had, as a rule, pious
mothers. George Washington’s mother
made it a practice to hold family prayer
every morning. It is well known that the
life of the great Emancipator, Abraham
Lincoln, was shaped in a large degree by
his mother. Lincoln himself said, “All I
am and all I hope to be I owe to my
sainted mother.” The lives of John and
Charles Wesley stand out as monuments
of a mother’s influence. Although she had
eighteen children, so powerful was her
training that it is said she even taught
them to cry softly when they were pun
ished.
We can name hundreds of mothers
within our own Negro race whose lives
and influence shaped those of sons and
daughters who have done many outstand
ing deeds and whose achievements rank
with those of any race. Whenever God
has need of a man for a special work for
the human race he searches out a good
woman to be the mother of such a man.
The training of a mother is never erased
from the life of an individual. For twelve
years the Mother of Moses had him for
her pupil. After this he became the son
of Pharoah’s daughter and prospective
heir to the Eg3^ptian throne, but when he
was come to the fullness of years he chose
to suffer with his own people rather than
enjoy the pleasures of an Egyptian court.
The Bible also tells of mother influence
upon such characters as John the Baptist,
Timothy, a young associate of Saint Paul,
also of Jesus whose mother was Mary.
One of the greatest concerns for the
safety of modern society is the breakdown
of the home, the queen of which should
be the mother. We are going through a
social and political revolution and never
has there been a time when mothers—
real queenly mothers—were more needed
than today.
The breaking of the marriage bond, and
the spread of moral erosion appalls us.
Eight years ago the Census Bureau re
ported that information from thirty-eight
states and the District of Columbia showed
that illegitimates increased nearly five
thousand over that of the year before.
These figures are more appalling now than
at that time. In Time Magazine, March
5, 1944, nine years ago, there was a report
from an eminent physician which showed
that in 1940—13 years ago now—there
were 681,000 abortions every year, killing
eight thousand mothers and prospective
mothers. Young mothers who read this
or you who are prospective mothers, your
child may change the destiny of an entire
nation some day. May no woman contem
plate motherhood with fear but with joy.
In this connection I think it is fitting
to quote from an editorial from a leading
North Carolina daily on the selection of
the late Mrs. Clarissa Clement of Louis
ville, Kentucky, as the American Mother
of the Year, 1946. Quotation as follows:
“The reminder that Mrs. Clement is the
first Negro to be honored as the outstand
ing American Mother for a year since the
National Foundation initiated this pro
gram evokes some wonderment as to why
the race which has produced many noble
characters in its mothers and housewives
has so long been neglected.
“Much credit for the remarkable prog
ress of the Negro people within the few
decades following slavery and the deso
lation of reconstruction is due to the
Negro wives and mothers whose habits of
thrift, patience, fortitude, Christian spirit
and resolution has done so much towards
lifting their families out of the slough of
abject poverty and blinding ignorance.
“The whole South should rejoice with
Mrs. Clement in the honor which has come
to her—an honor she has so richly de
served, and which is reflected upon all
women like her who have contributed
much more than they could know to the
making of a finer America.” End of quo
tation.
There is a saying that “the hand that
rocks the cradle is the hand that rules
the world.” As long as women are what
they ought to be, even if men go wrong,
so long as there is hope for the future,
but when women go wrong there is noth
ing for which to hope. If this happens the
world will go from bad to worse, until
social conditions become as awful as they
were when Abraham visited the wicked
cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. God grant
that that time may never come.
May this Mother’s Day celebration be
prophetic of that better time “when na
tions shall beat their swords into plow
shares and their spears into pruning
hooks,” when love and justice shall be
the inheritance of all.