THE HOME AS A SCHOOL[14]
The home is so mighty as a school because, requiring little time for
formal instruction, it enlists its scholars so largely in informal
activities. It trains for life by living; it trains as an institution,
by a group of activities, a series of duties, a set of habits. If the
home is to prepare for social living it will be most of all and best of
all by its organization and conduct as a social institution.
§ 1. AN IDEAL COMMUNITY
For the purposes of society homes must be social-training centers; they
must be conducted as communities if their members are to be fitted for
communal living. No boy is likely to be ready for the responsibilities
of free citizenship who has spent his years in a home under an absolute
monarchy; or, as is today perhaps more frequently the case, in a
condition of unmitigated anarchy. A free society cannot consist of units
not free. The problems of parental discipline arise and appear as
persistently irritating and perplexing stumbling-blocks in many a home
simply because that home is organized altogether out of harmony and
relation with the normal life in which it is set. Society environing the
home gives its members the habits of twentieth-century autonomy,
individual initiative and responsibility, together with collective
living and working, while the home often seeks to perpetuate
thirteenth-century absolutism, serfdom, and subjection. In social living
outside the home we learn to do the will of all; in the home we attempt
to compel children to do the will of one.
§ 2. COMMUNITY INTERESTS
The home organized as a social community will give to every member,
according to his ability, a share in its guidance and will expect from
every member the free contribution of his powers. Its rules will be made
by the will of all, and its affairs governed, not by an executive board
composed of the parents, but by the free participation and choice of
all. The young will learn to choose by choosing; will learn both how to
rule and to be ruled by a share in ruling.
To be explicit, suppose a piece of furniture is desired for the home.
Two plans at least are possible: first, the "head of the home" may go
forth and purchase it without consulting anyone, or after advising with
the other "head"; or, second, before a purchase is made, the wisdom of
such an addition to the furniture may be suggested in the open council
of the whole family and the purchase discussed and determined by all.
Such councils, usually coming at or after the principal meal, freely
participated in by all, give even to the youngest a sense of the cost of
a home, of the care that goes into it, with, what is more important, a
sense of a share in these cares and costs; they cultivate habits of
prudence, of consideration of a matter, of steady judgments, of
deference to the wishes and wisdom of others. Of still greater
importance is another practical issue of such a plan--that every member
of the household has a new sense of proprietorship with deepened
responsibility. Instead of thinking of any household possession as
father's or mother's, or even mine, it becomes _ours_. The parents no
longer need to say, "Children, do not mar the furniture; it costs money
to replace it." The children know that already, and they have the same
pride in the home possessions and the same desire to preserve them as
they have in that which is peculiarly their own. A habit of mind results
from such a course so that, by thinking in terms of common possession of
the best things of life, there is cultivated that respect for the rights
of others which is simply right social thinking.
The same plan could be pursued in relation to almost every interest of
the family--as the planning of the annual vacation and outing, the
holidays, picnics, and birthday celebrations, the church and religious
exercises. Above all, in the last mentioned, this social spirit may be
cultivated. The father may cease to be the "high priest" for his family
and become a worshiper along with the other members. The effect will be
that his children are more likely to stay as worshipers with him than if
they gazed on him as on some lonely elevation, unrelated to them in his
religious exercises. The reading, the song, the prayers, the comment and
discussion, the story-telling, and all that may make up the regular
specific religious activities of the family should be such that all may
have a share in them. Nothing could be finer, diviner, and bring larger
helpfulness for social living than the attempt of the least little
lisping child to throw herself into the unified family act of prayer, as
when one little tot, unable to say the Lord's Prayer, united in worship
at the time of that act by saying, as reverently as possible, "One, two,
three, four, five," etc., up to ten. The ability to count was her latest
accomplishment; counting to ten was bringing the very best thing she
then had and, in the act of family worship, offering her part to the
Most High. A fine sense of worship and a desire to be one with the
others in this united, communal service prompted the participation.
§ 3. COMMUNITY SERVICE
Community service may be cultivated in the home. Here is the ideal
social community, where there are neither parasites nor paupers, where
all give of their best for the best of all. No one doubts that the baby
gives its full share of happiness and cheer, and the aged their offering
of consolation and experience; but the difficulty is supposed to be with
the lad and the girl who would rather play than work. Usually this is
because the habits of co-operation in the life of this community have
been too long neglected. The small boy or girl had no share in its work.
Parents are too busy to think through the matter of finding suitable
duties for all. It is so much easier to do things one's self, even
though the child misses the benefits of participation. More frequently
the blame lies in the fact that parents desire to shield children from
labor. Some would have them grow up without knowing what they count as
the degradation of toil. But a boy who knows nothing of the "chores" has
missed half the joys of boyhood, and has a terribly hard lesson ahead of
him when he goes out to relate himself to life. No matter what one's
station may be, there is a part to be played, and one's piece of work to
be done. The greatest unkindness we can do our children is to train them
to lives that do not play their part. The home is our chance to train a
man to harmonious usefulness in his world. Not only should the family
train to social co-operation and service, but it should train to
efficiency therein. Do not let your child's duties become a farce; let
them exact as much of him as the world will exact also; that is,
efficiency, accuracy, thoroughness, and fidelity.
§ 4. A SCHOOL OF SOCIAL MINISTRY
The family trains lives for social ministry. The unsocial lives come out
of unsocial homes. The home that exists for itself alone trains lives
that exist only for themselves; these are the homes that throw the sand
of selfishness into the wheels of society; they ultimately effect social
suicide through selfishness. The attitude and atmosphere of the home are
of first importance here. As we think, so will our children act. If the
home is to us a place without responsibilities for the neighborhood,
without duties to neighbors, without social roots, then it is a school
for industrial, commercial, and social greed and warfare. As we think in
our hearts and talk at our table, so are we educating those who sit
thereat.
If we would have our homes really efficient and worthy agencies for
education in social living, the first thing to do is to seek the social
atmosphere, to cultivate all those influences which young lives
unconsciously absorb. We all know that character comes through
environment in large measure, and that the mental and spiritual
environment is by far the most potent. Here is something that affects us
more than the finest or poorest furniture and that gives the real zest
and flavor to any meal. The choice of our own reading enters here, not
only the matter of reading in sociology, but of all reading, as to
whether it blinds with class prejudices, intensifies caste feeling, or
atrophies social sympathy by pandering to selfishness and sensuousness.
The control of our own feelings and judgment enters here. Do we
sedulously cultivate charity for others? Do we stifle impatience,
bitterness, class feeling? Do we guide the conversation of visitors and
the family group so that antisocial passions are subdued and a spirit of
brotherly love and compassion for all is cultivated? Here men and women
have opportunity to give evidence of a change of heart; here they need
that awakening to social consciousness which is a new birth, a
regeneration into the life of the Son of Man who came to give his life.
By its active ministry the family is training for social living. When a
child carries a bowl of soup to some sick or needy one, he learns a
lesson never to be forgotten. The memories of hours of planning and
preparation for some neighborly service--the making of bread, the
packing of a box, the preserves for the sick--shine out like sunshine
spots along childhood's ways; they direct manhood's steps.
We are gradually learning that social duties are not learned save
through social deeds; that even the most carefully prepared and
perfectly pedagogical systems of instruction fail, standing alone. The
college student uses the laboratory method in his sociology--though we
know that sociology may be as far from social living as the poles are
apart. The Social Service Association of the Young Men's Christian
Association has given up attempts to teach social duty in favor of the
plan of undertaking specific pieces of social activity. The home must
adopt the laboratory method. The important thing is, not what the father
or mother may systematically teach about the social duties of the
children, but what kinds of service, of ministry and normal activity
they may lead the children to; that is, in what ways they may all
together discharge their functions in society.
§ 5. FAMILIES AS COMMUNITY FACTORS
Each family must clearly see its normal relations to its community, to
the social whole; first, as an association of social beings having
social duties, obligations, and privileges; then, to see that the
ordering of the daily life is the largest single factor in determining
the value of the family to the development of the community, fitting
harmoniously into the larger community, and rendering its share of
service.
The disorderly home spreads its immoral contagion beyond its walls, out
into the front yard, out and up and down the street, and all through the
village and city. The City Beautiful cannot come until we have the Home
Beautiful. Training each one to play his part in keeping the house in
order, picking up and setting in place his own tools and playthings,
preventing and removing litter, scraps, and elements of disorder and
discomfort, acquiring habits of neatness based on social motives--these
things make more for the city of beauty and health than all our lectures
on clean cities.
No family lives to itself. Young people need to see clearly how their
homes and their habits in the home impinge on other homes and lives.
This is impressed upon us in an accentuated and acute degree in city
living. One can hardly imagine a finer discipline of grace than
apartment living, though one may well question whether it is not morally
and hygienically flying in the face of the natural order. We may not
have for a long time municipal ordinances forbidding boiled dinners,
limburger, and phonographs in city apartments; but if, unfortunately, we
are compelled to live in these modern abominations, we ought to
cultivate a conscience that will not inflict our idiosyncrasies, either
in culinary aromas or in musical taste, on our neighbors. But there are
matters greater than these by which the home trains for social
thoughtfulness. No man has a right to grow weeds at home, because the
seeds never stay there. A howling dog, a disease-breeding sty, a
fly-harboring stable, must be viewed, not from the point of the family's
convenience, but from that of others' welfare.
§ 6. TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP
The family has a duty to train children for Christian citizenship. No
other institution can take its place even here. Courses of lectures in
churches and settlements effect excellent results, and the study of
civics from the moral and ideal viewpoint should be encouraged in the
schools; but the home is the place where, after all, citizens are
trained and the value or menace of their citizenship determined. If we
stop long enough to get a clear understanding of what we mean by
citizenship this will be the more evident.
Citizenship is the condition of full communal, social living in a
democracy. It is not a special department or activity of a man's life
which he exercises once in a while, as at the primary or at the polls or
through the political campaign; it is a permanent condition, the
condition of his social living in a democracy. It seems to be worth
while to think of this enough to be quite sure of it, for we have
thought too long of citizenship as a special aspect of one's life or as
an occasional duty; we have called for good citizenship at times of
election and have been content with dormant citizenship at other times;
we have said that one was exercising his citizenship when he voted, and
have forgotten that he was exercising it or abusing or neglecting it as
he walked the streets, talked with his neighbors, or in any way lived
the life that has relations to other lives.
Matters of citizenship are simply matters of social living, as social
living expresses itself through what we call government; that is,
through communal, civic, national administration and regulation.
Citizenship is social control in action, not through political activity
alone, but through all that concerns civic and communal life. In view of
this it may be worth while to look a little more closely into the
relations of family life to this matter of the determination of the
character of our citizenship.
The family is an agency for religious training in citizenship. The
family is the first, smallest, and still the most common and potent
social group. It is the community in which we nearly all learn communal
living. At first it is a child's world, then comes his city, and then
his nation, but ere long again the family is his own kingdom. Its
ideals, constantly interpreted in action, determine our ideals. Where
the father is greedy, self-centered, regarding the home as solely for
his convenience as his private boarding-house, where he is a despotic
boss, why should not the son at least tolerate bossism in his city if he
does not himself pattern after his father on a wider scale and regard
the city or the state as his private boarding-house and the treasury as
his private manger? Where the mother is a petty parasite, what wonder
the children regard with indifference, if not even with admiration, the
whole system of civic and social barnacles, leeches, and other
parasites?
The very organization of the home must prepare for civic duty by laying
upon all appropriate duties and activities. It ought to be an ideal type
of community. But that can never be until we take the training of
parents seriously in hand; until we cease to delegate the pedagogy of
courtship, marriage, and home-founding to the comic supplements of the
Sunday papers and to the joke columns. Parents must themselves be
trained for the business of the organization of homes as educational
agencies.
The life and work of the home ought to train religiously for
citizenship, by causing each to bear his due share of the burdens of
all. Where the child has been forced to do the indolent parent's share,
to support the slothful father, he can only look forward to the time
when he will be free to support only himself, and have no other than
purely egoistic obligations; this is an utterly immoral conception, and
one squarely opposed to good citizenship. Where the boy or the girl has
been trained to regard all toil as dishonorable, where each has been
taught scrupulously to avoid every burden, they come into social living
with habits set against bearing their share and toward making others
carry them. The indolent parent makes the tax-dodging citizen, as the
indulgent parent often makes the place-hunting citizen who becomes a tax
on the public.
The ideals of the family determine the needs of citizens. Its
conversation, its reading, its customs, set the standard of social
needs. Where the father laughs at the smartness of the artful dodge in
politics, where the mother sighs after the tinsel and toys that she
knows others have bought with corrupt cash, where the conversation at
the meal-table steadily, though often unconsciously, lifts up and lauds
those who are out after the "real thing," the eager ears about that
board drink it in and childish hearts resolve what they will do when
they have a chance. Where no voice speaks for high things, where no tide
of indignation against wrong sweeps into language, where the children
never feel that the parents have great moral convictions--where no
vision is, the people perish.
Yet to realize this civic responsibility of the home would be, in the
greater number of instances, to remedy it. In those other instances
where there are no civic ideals, where the domestic conscience is dead,
there rests upon the state, upon society, for its own sake, the
responsibility to train those children so that, at any rate, they will
not perpetuate homes of this type. We may do very much by the
stimulation and direction of parents. Men need but to be reminded of
their duty to make it a part of their business to train their children
in social duty.
I. References for Study
Taylor, _Religion in Social Action_, chaps. vii, viii. Dodd, Mead &
Co., $1.25.
E.J. Ward, _The Social Center_, chap. v. Appleton, $1.50.
II. Further Reading
Lofthouse, _Ethics in the Family_. Hodder & Stoughton, $1.50.
III. Topics for Discussion
1. What is the special social importance of the family?
2. How do children acquire their social ideals from the home?
3. What are the advantages which the home has as a school?
4. How do homes train for the responsibilities of citizenship?
5. Can you describe any plans of community councils in the home?
6. How would you promote community service in the family?
7. What are the dangers of unsocial and selfish lives growing in
the home?
FOOTNOTES:
[14] This chapter is, with the publisher's kind permission, taken, with
sundry minor changes, from the author's pamphlet, _The Home as a School
for Social Living_, published by the American Baptist Publication
Society in the "Social Service Series."