SOCIAL CONTROL AND FAMILY FUNCTION 707 



tional amendment, to appeal to the federal power. What service 

 could a national legislature render more beneficent than the creation 

 of a code embracing every division of the intricate law of marriage 

 and divorce? Aside from its educational value as a moral force, 

 such a code in material ways would prove a powerful guaranty of 

 social order and stability. 



Far more important in the solution of the problem is the function 

 of education. Apparently the salvation of the family must come 

 mainly through the vitalizing, regenerative power of a more efficient 

 moral, physical, and social training of the young. The home and 

 the family must enter into the educational curriculum. In the 

 sphere of the domestic institutions, even more imperatively than in 

 that of politics or economics, there is need of light and publicity. 

 It is vain to turn back the hand on the dial. The process of indi- 

 vidualization for the sake of socialization should be frankly accepted. 

 The old coercive bonds of the family cannot be restored. A way 

 must be found to replace them by spiritual ties which will hold 

 father, mother, and child together in the discharge of a common 

 function in the altered environment. 



The new social education must grapple fundamentally with the 

 whole group of problems which concern the family, marriage, and 

 the home. Through conscious effort the home should become an 

 educational institution in which the family receives its most intimate 

 training. In the work every grade in the educational structure from 

 the university to the kindergarten must have its appropriate share. 

 Already departments of sociology, social science, domestic science, 

 and physical culture are giving instruction of real value; but the 

 training should be broadened and deepened. Moreover, the elements 

 of such a training in domestic sociology should find a place in the 

 public school programme. Where now, except perchance in an indirect 

 or perfunctory way, does the school-boy or girl get any practical 

 suggestion as to home-building, the right social relations of parent 

 and child, much less regarding marriage and the fundamental 

 question of the sexual life? Indeed, almost the entire methodology 

 of such instruction has yet to be devised. Is it visionary to hope 

 that right methods may be developed for safely dealing even with 

 such matters? 



In the future educational programme sex questions must hold an 

 honorable place. Progress in this direction may be slow because of 

 the false shame, the prurient delicacy, now widely prevalent touching 

 everything connected with the sexual life. The folly of parents in leav- 

 ing their children in ignorance of the laws of sex is notorious; yet how 

 much safer than ignorance is knowledge as a shield for innocence! 



It is of the greatest moment to society that the young should 

 be trained in the general laws of heredity. Everywhere men and 



