Official proceedings of the annual meeting: 1923

290

THE HOME

It is none too soon for this interest to show itself. In the education of children
there has been very little which fitted them for the art of parenthood. Most of the
contributions toward home-making have been in terms of labor saving machinery,
budgets, and mastery of the domestic arts. We have gone serenely along in the belief
that the solidarity of the family group under the leadership of parents could be preserved on the old basis of parental control and such measure of companionship as an
assortment of human beings could spontaneously achieve. In the meantime, more and
more of us have been educated, deeper and deeper have sunk ideas of liberty and selfexpression. All of which has been approved by our philosophers and deliberately
fostered by our leaders. No one would claim that we have yet achieved an undue
capacity for independent thought, but the result of the process of education and the
result of our struggle for liberty have nevertheless tended toward independent thinking.
Whatever else a desire for independent thinking and for the selection of one's own
authorities may lead to, they have clear indications with regard to the organization of
family life. If respect for parents is an important element in holding the family
together, that respect must not only be accorded by children, but it must also be won
by parents. It is not possible in this brief discussion to consider what this means in
terms of the education of parents. We need only suggest that respect is ordinarily
accorded those who one feels share one's own interests and to some extent have an
authoritative judgment regarding them. The authority of a father over his son totters
on its foundations when the son asks for assistance with his arithmetic lesson and is met
by complete indifference. It totters only slightly less when he is met by cordial interest
and abysmal arithmetical ignorance. The interests of childhood are not the interests
of the adult or vice versa. Nevertheless, the two have points of contact, and authority
in the household hinges very largely upon the success of the parents in making their
leadership attractive at these points of contact.
It may be too much to expect that middle age or old age can ever wholly appreciate the point of view of youth, but we can no longer be content with a philosophy of
family life which makes it one of the first responsibilities of parenthood to secure in the
children the greatest measure of conformity with adult standards. The yearning for
authoritative leadership on the part of youth can be satisfied only by authority which is
inherent. The whole trend of our education, the whole atmosphere of modern life is
toward the acceptance of inherent authority, and toward the distrust of any authority,
however firmly constituted, which is not also inherent.
Respect for authority as bearing upon the family goes farther than the responsibilities of parenthood. Others than parents are exercising authority with regard to the
form and functions of the family. The church, as it has always done, exerts a powerful
influence upon the institution of the home. For the greater part of mankind the ceremony of the church is still the gateway through which family life is entered. Its interpretation of morality and its doctrines with regard to divorce largely determine both
flexibility and permanence in the family. Like parents, the church is a constituted
authority. Behind its doctrines is all the momentum of tradition and sanctity. It
may well be, however, that with respect to the family the same tendency to insist that
authority be inherent as well as constituted may in the long run affect its influence.
No thoughtful person would urge that the influence of the church upon family life should
be lessened, any more than one would urge that the influence of parents over their children should be lessened. Certainly this discussion points in no such direction. Its