A third son is apparently the darling of the gods; he is full of
charm. But, fearing that the gambling propensities of his second
brother should come out in him also, his parents keep him with special
strictness and very short of money. The same absence of all
explanations of the meaning of things has been his portion as well as
that of his brothers and sisters. He has never been enlightened as to
the possible workings of heredity, and shown how that as the vice of
gambling is in the blood it will require special will-power to
overcome it. None of these things has been pointed out to him, and so,
being restive at restraint and worried for money, he soon slips into
easy ways, and often allows women to help him in his difficulties.
Uncle Billy's instincts and his own father's have combined in him.
Both could have been checked and diverted into sane channels with
loving foresight and knowledge and sympathy.
The fourth son goes early into the Navy, and the discipline and the
inheritance of his mother's more level qualities turn him into a
splendid fellow; but this is mere chance, and cannot be counted as
accruing from his mother's care.
Here is a case where every outward circumstance seemed to be
propitious, and where both parents were good and respected members of
their class and race. But neither had the intelligence to realise an
end, or consciously to keep it in view; they were solely ruled by
tradition and what seemed to them--especially the mother--to be the
proper and well-established religious methods for the bringing up of
their children. So the remorseless laws of cause and effect rolled on
their Juggernaut car and crushed the victims.
Now, if this mother had had the end--that of her children's happiness
and welfare--really in view, she would have questioned herself as to
the best methods of obtaining that end, and would not have been
content just to go on with the narrow ideas which had held sway in her
own day, and which had perhaps then succeeded very well, because, as I
said before, they were aided by the two forces now stultified--namely,
a tremendous discipline and a spirit of the age which brought no
suggestion of a struggle for personal liberty to young minds. Had she
thought out all these things, she would have understood the
responsibilities of motherhood in their real sense, and not only in
the sense which the outward appearance judges good. She would have
poured love and sympathy on each one of her children separately and
individually, since she was the half-cause of their coming to earth.
She would have studied each one's character, and with determined
concentration have inculcated the necessary pride in fine actions in
them, knowing what their pitfalls would be likely to be. She would
have taught the simple religion of respect for the loan God has made
in giving their bodies a soul, and she would have watched for possible
signs of ill, and would finally have guided each one through the
dangerous age on to the time when every man and woman must answer for
himself and herself.
Heredity is sometimes stronger than even the wisest bringing up; but
who can say how many families might not have been saved and kept
together by a prudent and understanding mother's love?
There is a story, which exactly illustrates the point of the
importance of keeping _the end_ in view, told of the Iron Duke in the
Peninsular War. I cannot remember the exact details, and they are of
no consequence. The point is this: There was a certain tremendously
obstinate Spanish general whom the Duke (then Sir Arthur Wellesley)
found very difficult to lead. The moment had arrived when it was
absolutely necessary for success that this general should move his
troops to a certain position. He was a man filled with his own
importance, and he refused huffily to do so unless the English chief
went down upon his knees to him!
The Iron Duke is reported to have replied to this message in some such
words as these: "Good Lord! the winning of the day is the essential
thing, not the resisting of the man's vanity! I'll go down upon my
knees with pleasure if that will make him move his troops!" He did,
and the Spanish general conceded the request and the day was won.
The great commander and astute Englishman had _the end_ in view, you
see, whereas the lesser brain of the Spaniard would have sacrificed
the battle for a personal whim, having lost sight, in his vanity, of
the importance of the main issue.
How many parents do this day after day and year after year, clinging
to obsolete methods, trying to rule by worn-out precepts, all
because--when you come to analyse it--their own sense of importance
really matters to them more than their children's welfare, and no one
has opened their eyes to see themselves and their actions in the true
light.
Although the case which I have just given of the seemingly good mother
was drawn from the highest class, and so at first sight might not be
said to apply to lesser grades, yet I want to show that this is not
so, but that the same principle applies to the most modest little
family.
Every mother should study how best she can develop and elevate the
souls which by her own part-action she has brought into being, and
make that aim her first thought--for surely the satisfaction of the
feeling that one has succeeded in training one's own children to high
ideals and the attainment of happiness would be greater in old age
than any gratification from the acquirement of social supremacy or
realised personal ambitions.
I would implore every mother, of any class, ruthlessly to reject all
the rules which she has been taught for the guidance of her family,
_unless she has proved with common sense that they can be profitably
applied to each particular case_. I would ask her to keep to no
transmitted axiom, _unless it comes up to the requirements of the
ever-changing and ever-advancing day_. There is only one unchangeable
and immutable command which we should follow, and this is that we
should not soil our souls, or render them up to God degraded and
smirched when we go hence upon that journey from whence no man
returneth.
In summing up both my articles upon the responsibility of motherhood,
I find that in this second one I have made two statements which might
read as contradictions. Firstly, I spoke of young people requiring
personal gain to be held out to them as a reason for committing, or
refraining from committing, certain actions; and then, a paragraph or
two afterwards, I gave the illustration of the little girls' good
behaviour to their mother as being only caused by the fact that it was
more to their advantage so to behave. What I meant to show was that
while boys are young and full of the rising impulses of nature they
very rarely can have acquired sufficient spiritual belief to make them
refrain from indulging in certain pleasures--or what seem pleasures to
them--merely because they have been told these pleasures are wrong.
For instance, on the subject of smoking. What boy will stop smoking by
being told it is wrong and that he is sinning by his disobedience? But
there are many intelligent ones who will not indulge in it if it is
explained to them that smoking will stop their growth and make them
less likely to succeed in the cricket eleven, or, later, in the
college eight. At that period the mind cannot look into unseen worlds,
and is mainly occupied with realities from day to day, and therefore
is more likely to be influenced by a simple explanation of what
physical harm or what good in the immediate future will be the result
of actions.
The little girls' behaviour to their mother is really an example of
this same rule, only the principle for their action was not good,
being merely temporary and strictly limited gain, and not that they
should, as in the case of the boys, grow into fine, strong and healthy
people, more able to enjoy life in the future.
There is another statement which I have constantly made which possibly
might be twisted or misunderstood, and that is the one of the
importance of the end. There are people who would turn it into the
Jesuitical motto of "The end justifies the means." That is not what I
wished to convey at all, but that if an end is good--and the main
object, admittedly, is to obtain it--then there is no use in using
methods which once might have accomplished this, but which no longer
are practical because of the changed conditions, and if continued in
will only lose all possibility of success.
How many fathers and mothers in past days have driven their offspring
to disgrace and even death by adhering to harsh, Puritanical systems,
out of date even at that time! And how many more to-day let them slip
into the same abysses by their too indulgent rule!
As I have said, over and over again, the proof of any pudding is in
the eating of it; so let every mother _examine her methods with her
children by this standard: Are the children developing in moral and
physical welfare by those which she is using, or are they
retrogressing?_ Is she employing tact to guide their young fierce
spirits, or is she trying to crush them by old-fashioned rules?
Questions such as these ought to be honestly asked by each mother of
herself, and if the answer proves that retrogression is in progress,
then she should not be so incredibly stupid as to continue in her old
lines, but should examine herself and see how she can find the right
new ones for her particular cases. La Rochefoucauld was wise when he
said that vanity was at the root of most human mistakes. If a woman is
not willing to undertake the true responsibility of motherhood, then
she had far better be that sad thing which is a growing quantity in
modern civilisation, namely, a childless wife devoted to dogs.
Hundreds of selfish, neurotic females show the utmost unselfish
devotion to wretched little pet animals, when the slightest
self-denial asked of them for little human atoms is more than they can
accord. What does this mean? Is it a writing upon the wall?