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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



their children. ... In proof of this, 

 look at the streets of our cities after 

 nightfall, swarming with rude, un- 

 mannerly boys taking their first les- 

 sons in hoodlumism. Parents fail to 

 realize their responsibility toward 

 their children." When this is the 

 case, what more can we expect than 

 the prevalence of lawlessness in town 

 as well as city, in the East as well as 

 the West, in the North as well as the 

 South ? Children that have not been 

 subjected to the firm but gentle dis- 

 cipline of the home, that have not 

 been taught by their parents the 

 habits of order, decency, and virtue, 

 are not likely to grow up with a sense 

 of their duty to themselves or to their 

 fellows. They are almost certain to 

 grow up as loafers, or corruptionists, 

 or as citizens indifferent to the de- 

 moralization around them. It is still 

 as true as it ever was in the old copy 

 book that as the twig is bent so is the 

 tree inclined. 



But why are parents lax in bring- 

 ing up their children ? Why do they 

 fail to realize their responsibility 

 toward their offspring ? Nothing is 

 more important in the world than 

 parenthood ; it is the basis of society 

 and civilization. Nothing is better 

 fitted to give pleasure. We believe 

 that some German pessimist has con- 

 demned it on the ground that as long 

 as it prevails the desire to live will 

 never be extinguished. When men 

 and women lose their interest in the 

 world itself, they cling to it because 

 of their interest in their children; 

 and when their children have grown 

 up, it is still maintained by their in- 

 terest in their grandchildren, ever 

 hoping to see realized in the lives 

 of the new generation the dreams of 

 happiness and fame that were never 

 realized in their own. However cyn- 

 ical and depressing this may be, it 

 has unquestionably much of truth. 

 The survival of those children whose 

 parents took the best care of them 



has given birth to a set of powerful 

 feelings that can be gratified only 

 through parenthood. These feelings, 

 sacred above all others, respond to 

 efforts to protect the child from harm, 

 to develop its intellect, to cultivate 

 its manners, to intensify its affec- 

 tions in a word, to make it a good 

 man or woman, capable and high- 

 minded. 



Yet how recklessly and amazing- 

 ly have parents strayed from the 

 path that will lead them to the great- 

 est happiness vouchsafed to any hu- 

 man being ! How ceaseless have been 

 the efforts to convince them that 

 there is another way for them to at- 

 tain this bliss and at the same time 

 hasten the advent of the millenni- 

 um ! So successful have these efforts 

 been that it is now expected that the 

 public schools shall do all the work 

 that Nature herself designed for more 

 fit and tender hands. Only last sum- 

 mer the Superintendent of Public 

 Education of the State of New York 

 set forth very elaborately the new 

 theory of parenthood, or, rather, re- 

 vived the old Greek theory with 

 slight modifications. "The State," 

 he said, u has a right to demand from 

 the schools that children be trained, 

 first of all, to a thorough mastery of 

 the studies in the elementary course. 

 . . . But with these studies," he con- 

 tinued, demanding the impossible, 

 " should be taught courtesy of man- 

 ner, politeness of speech, refinement 

 of thought, and genuine culture of 

 life. The State has the right to ex- 

 pect also that pupils from the begin- 

 ning of their course be imbued with 

 the spirit of honesty, with the love 

 of truth and purity, with integrity 

 of thought and action. . . . While 

 it is never the province of the State 

 to teach religious truth after the dis- 

 tinctive tenets of any form of belief, 

 it is emphatically the duty of the 

 State to see that children are taught 

 the highest and purest morality." 



