Children Responsible Persons––The teaching of the old days was as bad as it could be, the training was haphazard work, reckless alike of physiology and psychology; but our grandfathers and grandmothers had one saving principle, which, for the last two or three decades, we have been, of set purpose, labouring to lose. They, of the older generation, recognised children as reasonable beings, persons of mind and conscience like themselves, but needing their guidance and control, as having neither knowledge nor experience. Witness the queer old children’s books which have come down to us; before all things, these addressed children as reasonable, intelligent and responsible (terribly responsible!) persons. This fairly represents the note of home-life in the last generation. So soon as the baby realised his surroundings, he found himself a morally and intellectually responsible person. Now one of the secrets of power in dealing with our fellow-beings is, to understand that human nature does that which it is expected to do and is that which it is expected to be. We do not mean believed to do and to be, with the fond and foolish faith which Mrs. Hardcastle bestowed on her dear Tony Lumpkin. Expectation strikes another chord, the chord of ‘I am, I can, I ought’ which must vibrate in every human breast, for ’tis our nature to.’ The capable, dependable men and women whom we all know were reared upon this principle.
The Legacy of the Past––Exceedingly fine men and women were brought up by our grandfathers and grandmothers, even by our mother’s and fathers; and the wise and old amongst us, though they look on with great sympathy, yet have an unexpressed feeling that men and women were made on the old lines of a stamp which we shall find it hard to improve upon. This was no mere chance result, nor did it come out of the spelling-book or the Pinnock’s Catechisms which we have long ago consigned to the limbo they deserve.
Its Importance––It is hardly possible to overestimate the force of this league of educated parents. When we think of the part that the children being brought up under these influences will one day play in the leading and ruling of the land, we are solemnised with the sense of a great responsibility, and it behoves us to put to ourselves, once again, the two searching queries by which every movement should from time to time be adjudged––Whence? and Whither?
Whence? The man who is satisfied with his dwelling-place has no wish to move, and the mere fact of a ‘movement’ is a declaration that we are not satisfied, and that we are definitely on our way to some other ends than those commonly accepted. In one respect only we venture boldly to hark back.
Chapter 23 Whence And Whither
A Question for Parents––I. Whence?
Progress of the Parents’ National Educational Union––’The Union goes on,’ an observer writes, ‘without puff or fuss, by its own inherent force’; and it is making singularly rapid progress. At the present moment thousands of children of thinking, educated parents, are being brought up, more or less consciously and definitely, upon the lines of the Union. Parents who read the Parents’ Review or other literature of the Society, parents who belong to our various branches, or our other agencies, parents who are influenced by these parents are becoming multitudinous; and all have one note in common––the ardour of persons working out inspiring ideas.