Worldly conversation too abundant and prominent at home.
Too much indifference to the family altar.
Children are allowed to visit the theater, when parents should hold up
something better for them.
Enough attention is not paid to the associations of the children.
Want of care in the formation of the habits of the children.
Gossip in the family.
Want of promptness on all sides: in getting up, in coming to meals, in
going to bed, and in attending to duty generally.
Unfair dependence of the wife and mother upon the husband and father in
regard to money matters at home. [Laughter.]
DR. VINCENT: I could talk on that subject. I have no doubt that there
might be stories told here founded on fact, relative to the consummate
and ineffable meanness of some men, who dole out a pittance to their
wives, pocketing and otherwise managing to control their funds, leaving
the woman, who does the most of the work and bears the heaviest burden,
to feel like a beggar most of the time. [Applause.] And the contempt
with which that man should be regarded I have no words, in the English
or any other language, to describe. [Amen.]
The growing habit of beer drinking in the family, and hard cider, too.
The evil habit of criticising sermons, preachers and other Christian
people before children, and thus making sceptics and infidels of them.
Dressing children for pleasure and not for health.
The mother saying to the disobedient boy, “I will tell your father of
you:” transfer of authority from father to mother, and _vice versa_.
Repression of natural child-life in the home.
Want of the manifestation of affection which ought to be manifested in
the home. Husbands and wives don’t kiss each other as often as they
ought to.
Too much fun made of old maids; making girls marry through fear of
becoming unlovely and unlovable old maids.
Want of politeness in the family.
The husband, when he carves for the family, carving out the top pieces
for the wife and family, and keeping the tenderloin for himself.
[Laughter.]
Want of attention to the laws of health.
Assuming the inferiority of the woman’s intellect.
Failure to train the children to sit with the parents in church.
Late hours.
Want of early consecration of the children to God.
Allowing children to run at large in the street, and to select their
own playmates.
Encouraging forwardness in young children.
Trusting children to Roman Catholic servants, and sending our girls to
nunneries and those institutions that are organized for the purpose
of propagandism and proselytism. [Applause.] Americans can not be too
careful in this respect.
Failure to properly regard the Sabbath in the home.
Sending children to Sabbath-school, instead of taking them.
Allowing children to go to three or four Sabbath-schools.
The use of slang in the home.
Too little familiarity in the conversation between parents and children
on religious matters.
Lack of artistic attractions in the home.
What are people going to do, who cannot afford to buy costly oil
paintings, and fill up their houses with splendid furniture, etc.?
Keep clean; have chromos, flowers, engravings, smiles, clay modeling,
whitewash.
Good bread. There is no subject on which America needs more light than
on that of good bread and good coffee. [Laughter.]
Upholding the children as against the public school teacher.
DR. VINCENT: We are in a regular fault-finding mood to-night. Keep at
it; it is wholesome.
Mother or father allowing the child to speak disrespectfully of the
other parent, without reproof.