From time to time the present age is criticised, as if its corruption contrasted with the moral strictness of earlier periods. Such charges are as crude and as groundless as is most of the same kind of criticism that is common to every generation of man's history. They have been repeated ever since man began to strive consciously for other ends than the momentary gratification of his undisciplined impulses.

One need only to consult the men of the present generation and the still living representatives of the past generation, to be assured that bad conduct at school is not characteristic of our time. Let any one read the account of life at universities in earlier periods when the younger students were of the same age as schoolboys in high schools and it will soon be plain that the cause of the evil is not modern literature nor modern belief.

The really direct causes of this difficulty[Pg 192] must be looked for in human emotions. This side of the question I do not intend to discuss here. It can only be solved by an expert in psychology and physiology; by one who, along with this capacity, is a pedagogical genius. There might not be sufficient material for such a task, even if an individual could be found able to put together the original elements in the systems of Socrates, Rousseau, Spencer, and give them life. Under no other condition could a real contribution be made adequate to meet the requirements of the present day in the field of education. My intention is only to make some remarks on the secondary cause of the evil, for not sufficient attention has been devoted to this side of the problem. The cause I have in view is the increasing homelessness of all branches of society. Living with one's parents as children do who go to school in the city is not the same as living at home. Family life in the working classes is unsettled by the mother working out of the house. In the upper classes the same result is produced by the constantly increasing pressure of social pleasures and obligations.

Formerly it was only the husband and father whom outside interests took from the home. Now the home is deserted by the wife[Pg 193] and mother also, not alone for social gatherings but for clubs for self-improvement, meetings, lectures, committees; one evening after another, just at the time which she should be devoting herself to her children who have been occupied in the morning at school.

The ever-growing social life, the incessant extension of club and out-of-door life, result in the mother sending her children as early as possible to school, even when there is nothing but the conditions above mentioned to prevent her from giving the children their first instruction herself. As a rule the present generation of mothers who have had school training could do this quite well, in the case of children who do not need the social stimulus of the school. Indeed before the school time begins, and in the hours out of school, children are as a rule taken by a maid servant to walk or to skate and so on. Children of the upper classes in most cases receive just as much, perhaps more, of their education from the nursery maid or from the school than from the mother. The father need not be mentioned at all, for as a rule he is an only occasional and unessential factor in the education of the child.

Many will say by way of objection, that at[Pg 194] no time has so much been done for the education of children as at present; that parents were never so watchful over the physical and psychical needs of the children; that at no time has the intercourse between children and parents been so free; at no time have schools been so actively at work.

This is true but much of this tends to increase the homelessness of which I am speaking. The more the schools develop the more they are burdened with all the instruction for children, the more hours of the day they require for their demands. The school is expected to give instruction even in such simple matters as making children acquainted with their national literature, and handwork, which mothers could do perfectly well, certainly as well as our grandmothers. The greater the attention given at school to such essentially good things as gymnastics, handwork, and games, the more children are withdrawn from home. And even when at home, they are hindered by lessons and written exercises from being with their father and mother, on those exceptional occasions when the parents are at home. If we take into consideration the way in which the modern school system uses up the children's time, and pre[Pg 195]sent social and club life take up the time of parents, we come to the conclusion I began with, that domestic life is more and more on the decline.

The reforms that must be demanded from the schools in order to restore the children to the home cannot be discussed now, since it is my intention to deal here only with those matters which must be reformed by the family itself, if reforms at school are to really benefit the young.

Reforms of this kind have been made in schools but mothers complain that children have too little work at home or too few hours at school; that they, the mothers, absolutely do not know how they can keep the children occupied in so much free time.

What may justly be considered the great progress in the family life of the present day, the confidential intercourse between parents and children, has not taken an entirely right direction. The result has been that children have been permitted to behave like grown people, sharing the habits and pleasures of their parents, or that the parents have ceased to live their own life. In neither of these two ways can a deep and sound relation between children and parents be produced.[Pg 196]

We see on the one side a minority of conscientious mothers and fathers, who in a real sense live only for the children. They mould their whole life for the life of the children; and the children get the idea that they are the central point of existence. On the other side, we see children who take part in all the life and over-refinements of the home. They demand like adults the amusements and elegancies of life; they even give balls and suppers at home or in hotels for their school companions. In these social functions, the vanity and stupidity of adults are conscientiously imitated.

Then we require from these boys and girls, when they reach a time of life in which the passions awake, a self-control, a capacity of self-denial, a stoicism towards temptations to which they have never been trained, and which they have never seen their parents exercise.

Most homes of the upper classes have not the means to keep up the life that is lived in them. By the money of creditors, or by an exorbitant profit made at the cost of working people, or by careless consumption of the very necessary savings to be laid by for hard times, or against the death of the family provider, a luxurious style of living is maintained. But even when in rare cases there is real ability to live in this[Pg 197] way, parents would not do it, if the best interests of the children we............