198 MORAL CONDITION OF THE CHILD 



and the fruitage for parent and child will be as 

 bitter as if the course had been adopted from 

 sheer evil purpose. When the request is based 

 in a natural demand of nature it should be ac- 

 ceeded to, but not always in the form which the 

 child has urged it. Young people need social life. 

 They should have it. The gratification of this 

 need has in it the weal or the woe of the child. 

 The easy way of providing for it is to turn chil- 

 dren out into the street. In the case of boys this 

 is the course in many cases. In the unwillingness 

 of parents to pay the price of a better way lies 

 more danger to our future than there is in all the 

 battleships of all our possible national enemies. 

 The other way is the creation of social life in the 

 home, where it may be guided to high ends. This 

 is costly. It wears out the carpets and mars the 

 furniture. But there is more reward, greater divi- 

 dends in saving boys and girls than in saving car- 

 pets. 



A mother sometimes says : " I did not believe 

 my boy ought to go out this evening; but he 

 pleaded so hard that I let him go." That is an 

 illustration oft repeated in families in which spir- 

 itual guidance loses its grip and lawless inclina- 

 tion takes the reins. This course is assumed as 

 defensible by many people under the pressure of 

 present-day tendencies the tendency of finding 

 what the animal wants, and giving it that. If this 

 is correct theory, then the assumption that human 

 beings are moral and that moral control is the 



