It is necessary to be cautious and not to ascribe to environment, as some do, the sole influence. Every individual is the creature of heredity plus environment plus his own will. But it is not possible to overlook environment as some do, and expect by a miracle to make or preserve character in the midst of conditions of spiritual asphyxiation. If social life is to be pure and strong, communities and families, through the official care of overseers of health and industry and through the loving care of parents in the homes, must see that children grow up with the advantages of nourishing food, pure air, proper clothing, and means for cleanliness; that at the proper age they be given mental and moral instruction and fitted for a worthy vocation; that wholesome social relations be established by means of playgrounds, clubs, and societies; that industrial conditions be properly supervised, and young people be able to earn not alone a living but a marriageable wage; and that some means of social insurance be provided sufficient to prevent suffering and want in sickness and old age. In such an environment there is opportunity to realize the value that will accrue from a good inheritance, and there is incentive to make the most of life's possibilities as they come and go.

Ever since the importance of environment was made plain in the nineteenth century, social physicians have been trying all sorts of experiments in community therapeutics. Many of the remedies will be discussed in various connections. It is enough to remark here that social education, social regulation, and social idealism are all necessary, and that a social Utopia cannot be obtained in a day.

53. The Right to Proper Care.—Granted the right of the child to be well-born and the right to a favorable environment, there follows the right to be taken care of. This may be involved in the subject of a proper environment, but it deserves consideration by itself. There is more danger to the race from neglect than from race suicide. It is better that a child should not be born at all, than that he should be condemned to the hard knocks of a loveless home or a callous neighborhood. There is first the case of the child born out of wedlock, often a foundling with parentage unacknowledged. Then there is the child who is legitimately born as far as the law is concerned, but whose parents had no legitimate right to bring him into the world, because they had no reasonable expectation that they could provide properly for his wants. The wretched pauper recks nothing of the future of his offspring. Since the family group can never remain independent of the community, it may well be debated whether society is not under obligation to interfere and either by prohibition of excessive parenthood or by social provision for the care of such children, to secure to the young this right of proper care.

Cruelty is a twin evil of neglect. The history of childhood deserves careful study side by side with the history of womanhood. In primitive times not even the right to existence was recognized. Abortion and infanticide, especially in the case of females, were practices used at will to dispose of unwelcome children, and these practices persisted among the backward peoples of Asia and Africa, until they were compelled to recognize the law of the white master when he extended his dominion over them. In the patriarchal household of classic lands, the child was under the absolute control of his father. Religious regulations might demand that he be instructed in the history and obligations of the race, as in the case of the Hebrew child, or the interests of the state might require physical training for its own defense, as in the case of Sparta, but there was no consideration of child rights in the home. Until the eighteenth century European children shared the hardships of poverty and discomfort common to the age, and often the cruelty of brutal and degraded parents; they were often condemned to long hours of industry in factories after the new industrial order caught them in its toils. In the mine and the mill and on the farm children have been bound down to labor for long and weary hours, until modern legislation has interfered.

There are a number of reasons why child labor has been common. Hereditary custom has decreed it. Children have been looked upon by many races as a care and a burden rather than a responsibility and a blessing. Their economic value was their one claim to be regarded as a family asset. Even the religious teaching of Jews and Christians about the value and responsibility of children has not been influential enough to compel a recognition of their worth, though their innocence and purity, their faith and optimism are qualities indispensable to the race of mankind if social relations are to approach the ideal.

54. The Value of Work.—Labor is a social blessing rather than a curse. There can be no doubt that habits of industry are desirable for the child as well as for the adult. Idleness is the forerunner of ignorance, laziness, and general incapacity. It is no kindness to a child to permit him to spend all his time out of school in play. It gives him skill, a new respect for labor, and a new conception of the value of money, if he has a paper route, mows a lawn, shovels snow, or hoes potatoes. Especially is it desirable that a boy should have some sort of an occupation for a few hours a day during the long summer vacation. The child on the farm has no lack of opportunity, but for the boy of the city streets there is little that is practicable, outside of selling papers or serving as messenger boy or bootblack; for the girl there is little but housework or department-store service. Both need steady employment out of doors, and he who devises a method by which boys and girls can be taught such an occupation as gardening on vacant lots or in the city outskirts, and at the same time can be given a love for work and for the growing things of the country, will help to solve the problem of child labor and, incidentally, may contribute to the solution of poverty, incipient crime, and even of the rural problem and the high cost of living.

READING REFERENCES

BOSANQUET: The Family, pages 299-314.

GODDARD: The Kallikak Family.

EAMES: Principles of Eugenics.

SALEEBY: Parenthood and Race Culture, pages 213-236.

MCKEEVER: Farm Boys and Girls, pages 171-196.

GALTON: Inquiries into Human Faculty.



CHAPTER VII

WORK, PLAY AND EDUCATION.

55. Child Labor and Its Effects.—Excessive child labor away from home is one of the evils that has called for reform more than the lack of employment. The child has a right to the home life. It is injurious for him to be kept at a monotonous task under physical or mental strain for long hours in a manufacturing establishment, or to be deprived of time to study and to play. Yet there are nearly two million children in the United States under sixteen years of age who are denied the rights of childhood through excessive labor.

This evil began with the adoption of the factory system in modern industry. The introduction of light machinery into the textile mills of England made it possible to employ children at low wages, and it was profitable for the keepers of almshouses to apprentice pauper children to the manufacturers. Some of them were not more than five or six years old, but were kept in bondage more than twelve hours a day. Children were compelled to hard labor in the coal-mines, and to the dirty work of chimney sweeping. In the United States factory labor for children did not begin so soon, but by 1880 children eight years old were being employed in Massachusetts for more than twelve hours a day, and in parts of the country children are still employed at long hours in such occupations as the manufacture of cotton, glass, silk, and candy, in coal-mines and canning factories. Besides these are the newsboys, bootblacks, and messengers of the cities, children in domestic and personal service, and the child laborers on the farms.

The causes of child labor lie in the poverty and greed of parents, the demands of employers, and often the desire of the children to escape from school and earn money. In spite of agitation and legislation, the indifference of the public permits it to continue and in some sections to increase.

The harmful effects of child employment are numerous. It is true that two-thirds of the boys and nearly one-half of the girls employed in the United States are occupied with agriculture, most of them with their own parents, an occupation that is much healthier than indoor labor, yet agriculture demands long hours and wearisome toil. In the cities there is much night-work and employment in dangerous or unhealthy occupations. The sweating system has carried its bad effects into the homes of the very poor, for the younger members of the family can help to manufacture clothing, paper boxes, embroidery, and artificial flowers, and in spite of the law, such labor goes on far into the night in congested, ill-ventilated tenements. Children cannot work in this way day after day for long hours without serious physical deterioration. Some of them drop by the way and die as victims of an economic system and the social neglect that permits it. Others lose the opportunity of an education, and so are mentally less trained than the normal American child, and ultimately prove less efficient as industrial units. For the time they may add to the family income, but they react upon adult labor by lowering the wage of the head of the family, and they make it impossible for the child when grown to earn a high wage, because of inefficiency. The associations and influences of the street are morally degrading, and in the associations of the workroom and the factory yard the whole tone of the life of individuals is frequently lowered.

56. Child-Labor Legislation.—Friends of the children have tried to stop abuses. Trade-unions, consumers' leagues, and State bureaus have taken the initiative. Voluntary organizations, like the National Child Labor Committee, make the regulation of child labor their special object. They have succeeded in the establishment of a Federal Children's Bureau in Washington, and have encouraged State and national legislation. Most of the States forbid the employment of children under a certain age, usually twelve or fourteen years, and require attention to healthful conditions and moderate hours. They insist also that children shall not be deprived of education, but there is often inadequate provision made for inspection and proper enforcement of laws.

The friends of the children are desirous of a uniform child-labor law which, if adopted and enforced by competent inspectors, would prevent factory work for all under fourteen years of age, and for weak children under sixteen would prescribe a limited number of hours and allow no night-work, would require certain certificates of age and health before employment is given, and would compel school attendance and the attainment of a limited education before permission is granted to go into the factory. Without doubt, it is a hardship to families in poverty that strong, growing children should not be permitted to go to work and help support those in need, but it is better for the social body to take care of its weak members in some other way, and for its own sake, as well as for the sake of the child, to make sure that he is physically and mentally equipped before he takes a regular place in the ranks of the wage-earners.

57. The Right to Play.—The play group is the first social training-ground for the child outside of the home, and it continues to be a desirable form of association, even into adult life, but it is only in recent years that adults have recognized the legitimacy of such a claim as the right to play. It was thought desirable that a boy should work off his restlessness, but the wood-pile provided the usual safety-valve for surplus energy. Play was a waste of time. Now it is more clearly understood that play has a distinct value. It is physically beneficial, expanding the lungs, strengthening muscle and nerve, and giving poise and elasticity to the whole body. It is mentally educational in developing qualities of quickness, skill, and leadership. It is socially valuable, for it requires honesty, fair play, mutual consideration, and self-control. Co-operation of effort is developed as well in team-play as in team-work, and the child becomes accustomed to act with thought of the group. The play group is a temporary form of association, varying in size and content as the whim of the child or the attraction of the moment moves its members. It is an example of primitive groupings swayed by instinctive impulses. Children turn quickly from one game to another, but for the time are absorbed in the particular play that is going on. No achievement results from the activity, no organization from the association. The rapid shifting of the scenes and the frequent disputes that arise indicate lack of control. Yet it is out of such association that the social mind develops and organized action becomes possible.

If these are the advantages of play, the right to play may properly demand an opportunity for games and sports in the home and the yard, and the necessary equipment of gymnasium and field. It may call for freedom from the school and home occupations sufficient to give the recreative impulse due scope. As its importance becomes universally recognized, there will be no neighborhood, however congested, that lacks its playground for the children, and no industry, however insistent, that will deprive the boy or girl of its right to enjoy a certain part of every day for play.

58. The Right to Liberty.—The present tendency is to give large liberty to the child. Not only is there freedom on the playground; but social control in the home also has been giving place during the last generation to a recognition of the right of the individual child to develop his own personality in his own way, without much interference from authority. It is true that there is a nominal control in the home, in the school, and in the State, but in an increasing degree that control is held in abeyance while parent, teacher, and constable leniently indulge the child. This is a natural reaction from the discipline of an earlier time, and is a welcome indication that children's rights are to find recognition. Like most reactions, there is danger of its going too far. An inexperienced and headstrong child needs wise counsel and occasional restraint, and within the limits of kindness is helped rather than harmed by a deep respect for authority. Lawlessness is one of the dangers of the current period. It appears in countless minor misdemeanors, in the riotous acts of gangs and mobs, in the recklessness of corporations and labor unions, and in national disregard for international law; and its destructive tendency is disastrous for the future of civilized society unless a new restraint from earliest childhood keeps liberty from degenerating into license.

59. The Right to Learn.—There is one more right that belongs to children—the right of an opportunity to learn. Approximately three million children are born annually in the United States. Each one deserves to be well-born and well-reared. He needs the affectionate care of parents who will see that he learns how to live. This instruction need not be long delayed, and should not be relegated altogether to the school. There is first of all physical education. It is the mother's task to teach the child the principles of health, to inculcate proper habits of eating, drinking, and bathing. It is for her to see that he learns how to play with pleasure and profit, and is permitted to give expression to his natural energies. It is her privilege to make him acquainted with nature, and in a natural way with the illustration of flower and bird and squirrel she can give the child first lessons in sex hygiene. It is the function of the mother in the child's younger years and of the father in adolescent boyhood to open the mind of the child to understand the life processes. The lack of knowledge brings sorrow and sin to the family and injures society. Seeking information elsewhere, the boy and girl fall into bad habits and lay the foundation of permanent ills. The adolescent boy should be taught to avoid self-abuse, to practise healthful habits, and to keep from contact with physical and moral impurity; the adolescent girl should be given ample instruction in taking care of herself and in preparing for the responsibility of adult life.

60. Mental and Moral Education.—Mental education in the home is no less important. It is there that the child's instinctive impulses first find expression and he learns to imitate the words and actions of other members of the home. The things he sees and handles make their impressions upon him. He feels and thinks and wills a thousand times a day. The channels of habit are being grooved in the brain. It is the function of the home to protect him from that which is evil, to stimulate in him that which is good. Mental and moral education are inseparably interwoven. The first stories told by the mother's lips not only produce answering thoughts in the child mind, but answering modes of conduct also. The chief function of the intellect is to guide to right choice.

Character building is the supreme object of life. It begins early. Learning to obey the parent is the first step toward self-control. Learning to know the beautiful from the ugly, the true from the false, the good from the evil is the foundation of a whole system of ethics. Learning to judge others according to character and attainment rather than according to wealth or social position cultivates the naturally democratic spirit of the child, and makes him a true American. Sharing in the responsibility of the home begets self-reliance and dependableness in later life.

The supreme lesson of life is to learn to be unselfish. The child in the home is often obliged to yield his own wishes, and finds that he gets greater satisfaction than if he had contended successfully for his own claims. In the home the compelling motive of his life may be consecrated to the highest ideals, long before childhood has merged into manhood. Such consecration of motive is best secured through a knowledge of the concrete lives of noble men and women. The noble characters of history and literature are portraits of abstract excellences. It is the task of moral education in the home to make the ideal actual in life, to show that it is possible and worth while to be noble-minded, and that the highest ambition that a person can cherish is to be a social builder among his fellows.

61. Child Dependents.—Many children are not given the rights that belong to them in the home. They come into the world sickly or crippled, inheriting a weak constitution or a tendency toward that which is ill. They have little help from environment. One of a numerous family on a dilapidated farm or in an unhealthy tenement, the child struggles for an existence. Poverty, drunkenness, crime, illegitimacy stamp themselves upon the home life. Neglect and cruelty take the place of care and education. The death of one or both parents robs the children of home altogether. The child becomes dependent on society. The number of such children in the United States approximates one hundred and fifty thousand.

In the absence of proper home care and training, society for its own protection and for the welfare of the child must assume charge. The State becomes a foster-parent, and as far as possible provides a substitute for the home. The earlier method was to place the individual child, with many other similar unfortunates, in a public or private philanthropic institution. In such an environment it was possible to maintain discipline, to secure instruction and a wholesome atmosphere for social development, and to have the advantage of economical management. But experience proved that a large institution of that kind can never be a true home or provide the proper opportunity for the development of individuality. The placing-out system, therefore, grew in favor. Results were better when a child was adopted into a real home, and received a measure of family affection and individual care. Even where a public institution must continue to care for dependent children, it is plainly preferable to distribute them in cottages instead of herding them in one large building. The principle of child relief is that life shall be made as nearly normal as possible.

It is an accepted principle, also, that children shall be kept in their own home whenever possible, and if removal is necessary that they be restored to home associations at the earliest possible moment. In case of poverty, a charity organization society will help a needy family rather than allow it to disintegrate; in case of cruelty or neglect such an organization as the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children will investigate, and if necessary find a better guardian; but the case must be an aggravated one before the society takes that last step, so important does the function of the home seem to be.

62. Special Institutions.—It is, of course, inevitable that some children should be misplaced and that some should be neglected by the civil authorities, but public interest should not allow such conditions to persist. Social sensitiveness to the hard lot of the child is a product of the modern conscience. Time was when the State remanded all chronic dependents to the doubtful care of the almshouse, and children were herded indiscriminately with their elders, as child delinquents were herded in the prisons with hardened criminals. Idiots, epileptics, and deformed and crippled children were given no special consideration. A kindlier public policy has provided special institutions for those special cases where under State officials they may receive adequate and permanent attention, and for normal dependent children there is a variety of agencies. The most approved form is the State school. This is virtually a temporary home where the needy child is placed by investigation and order of the court, is given a training in elementary subjects, manual arts, and domestic science, and after three or four years is placed in a home, preferably on a farm, where he can fill a worthy place in society.

63. Children's Aid Societies.—Another aid society is the private aid society supervised and sometimes subsidized by the State. This is a philanthropic organization supported by private gifts, making public reports, managed by a board of directors, with a secretary or superintendent as executive officer, and often with a temporary home for the homeless. With these private agencies the placing-out principle obtains, and children are soon removed to permanent homes. The work of the aid societies is by no means confined to finding homes. It aids parents to find truant children, it gives outings in the summer season, it shelters homeless mothers with their children, it administers aid in time of sickness. In industrial schools it teaches children to help themselves by training them in such practical arts as carpentry, caning chairs, printing, cooking, dressmaking, and millinery.

Efficient oversight and management, together with co-operation among child-saving agencies, is a present need. A national welfare bureau is a decided step in advance. Prevention of neglect and cruelty in the homes of the children themselves is the immediate goal of all constructive effort. The education of public opinion to demand universal consideration for child life is the ultimate aim.

READING REFERENCES

MANGOLD: Problems of Child Welfare, pages 166-184, 271-341.

CLOPPER: Child Labor in the City Street.

MCKEEVER: Training the Boy, pages 203-213.

MCKEEVER: Farm Boys and Girls, pages 26-36.

LEE: Constructive and Preventive Philanthropy, pages 123-184.

FOLKS: Care of Destitute and Neglected Children.



CHAPTER VIII

HOME ECONOMICS

64. The Economic Function of the Home.—Up to this point the domestic function of the family has been under consideration. Marriage and parenthood must hold first place, because they are fundamental to the family and to the welfare of the race. But the family has an economic as well as a domestic function. The primitive instinct of hunger finds satisfaction in the home, and economic needs are supplied in clothing, shelter, and bodily comforts. Production, distribution, and consumption are all a part of the life of the farm. Domestic economy is the foundation of all economics, and the family on the farm presents the fundamental principles and phenomena that belong to the science of economics as it presents the fundamentals of sociology. The hunger for food demands satisfaction even more insistently than the mating instinct. Birds must eat while they woo each other and build their nests, and when the nest is full of helpless young both parents find their time occupied in foraging for food. Similarly, when human mating is over and the family hearth is built, and especially when children have entered into the home life, the main occupation of man and wife is to provide maintenance for the family. The need of food, clothing, and shelter is common to the race. The requirements of the family determine largely both the amount and the kind of work that is done to meet them. However broad and elevated may be the interests of the modern gentleman and his cultured wife, they cannot forget that the physical needs of their family are as insistent as those of the unrefined day laborer.

65. Primitive Economics.—In primitive times the family provided everything for itself. In forest and field man and woman foraged for food, cooked it at the camp-fire that they made, and rested under a temporary shelter. If they required clothing they robbed the wild beasts of their hide and fur or wove an apron of vegetable fibre. Physical wants were few and required comparatively little labor. In the pastoral stage the flocks and herds provided food and clothing. Under the patriarchal system the woman was the economic slave. She was goatherd and milkmaid, fire-tender and cook, tailor and tent-maker. It was she who coaxed the grains to grow in the first cultivated field, and experimented with the first kitchen garden. She was the dependable field-hand for the sowing and reaping, when agriculture became the principal means of subsistence. But woman's position has steadily improved. She is no longer the slave but the helper. The peasant woman of Europe still works in the fields, but American women long ago confined themselves to indoor tasks, except in the gathering of special crops like cotton and cranberries. Home economics have taught the advantage of division of labor and co-operation.

66. Division of Labor.—Because of greater fitness for the heavy labor of the field and barn, the man and his sons naturally became the agriculturists and stock-breeders as civilization improved. It was man's function to produce the raw material for home manufacture. He ploughed and fertilized the soil, planted the various seeds, cultivated the growing crops, and gathered in the harvest. It was his task to perform the rougher part of preparing the raw material for use. He threshed the wheat and barley on the threshing-floor and ground the corn at the mill, and then turned over the product to his wife. He bred animals for dairy or market, milked his cows, sheared his sheep, and butchered his hogs and beeves; it was her task to turn then to the household's use. She learned how to take the wheat and corn, the beef and pork, and to prepare healthful and appetizing meals for the household; she practised making butter and cheese for home use and exchange. She took the flax and wool and spun and wove them into cloth, and with her needle fashioned garments for every member of the household and furnishings for the common home. She kept clean and tidy the home and its manufacturing tools.

When field labor was slack the man improved the opportunity to fashion the plough and the horseshoe at the forge, to build the boat or the cart in the shop, to hew store or cut timber for building or firewood, to erect a mill for sawing lumber or grinding grain. Similarly the woman used her spare time in knitting and mending, and if time and strength permitted added to her duties the care of the poultry-house.

67. The Servant of the Household.—Long before civilization had advanced the household included servants. When wars broke out the victor found himself possessed of human spoil. With passion unrestrained, he killed the man or woman who had come under his power, but when reason had a chance to modify emotion he decided that it was more sensible to save his captives alive and to work them as his slaves. The men could satisfy his economic interest, the women his sex desire. The men were useful in the field, the women in the house. Ancient material prosperity was built on the slave system of industry. The remarkable culture of Athens was possible because the citizens, free from the necessity of labor, enjoyed ample leisure. Lords and ladies could live in their mediaeval castles and practise chivalry with each other, because peasants slaved for them in the fields without pay. Slowly the servant class improved its status. Slaves became serfs and serfs became free peasants, but the relation of master and servant based on mutual service lasted for many centuries.

The time came when it was profitable for both parties to deal on a money basis, and the workman began to know the meaning of independence. The actual relation of master and servant remained about the same, for the workman was still dependent upon his employer. It took him a long time to learn to think much for himself, and he did not know how to find employment outside of the community or even the household where he had grown up. In the growing democracy of England, and more fully in America, the workman learned to negotiate for himself as a free man, and even to become himself a freeholder of land.

68. Hired Labor on the Farm.—In the process of production in doors and out it was impossible on a large farm for the independent farmer and his wife to get on alone. There must be help in the cultivation of many acres and in the care of cattle and sheep. There must be assistance in the home when the birth and care of children brought an added burden to the housewife. Later the growing boys and girls could have their chores and thus add their contribution to the co-operative household, but for a time at least success on the farm depended on the hired laborer. Husband and wife became directors of industry as well as laborers themselves. In the busy summer season it was necessary to employ one or more assistants in the field, less often indoors, and the employee became for a time a member of the family. Often a neighbor performed the function of farm assistant, and as such stood on the same level as his employer; there was no servant class or servant problem, except the occasional shortage of laborers. Young men and women were glad of an opportunity to earn a little money and to save it in anticipation of the time when they would set up farming in homes of their own. The spirit and practice of co-operation dignified the employment in which all were engaged.

69. Co-operation.—The control of the manufacturing industry on a large scale by corporations makes hearty co-operation between the employing group and the employees difficult, but on the farm the personal relations of the persons engaged made it easy and natural. The art of working together as well as living together was an achievement of the home, at first beginning unconsciously, but later with a definite purpose. The practice of co-operation is a continual object-lesson to the children, as they become conscious of the mutual dependence of each and all. The farmer has no time to do the small tasks, and so the boy must do the chores. There is a limit to the strength of the mother, and so the daughter or housemaid must supplement her labors. Without the grain and vegetables the housewife cannot provide the meals, but the man is equally dependent upon the woman for the preparation of the food. Without the care and industry of the parents through the helpless years of childhood, the children could not win in the struggle for existence. Nor is it merely an economic matter, but health and happiness depend upon the mutual consideration and helpfulness of every member of the household.

70. Economic Independence of the Farm.—Until well into the nineteenth century the American farm household provided for most of its own economic needs. A country store, helped out if necessary by an occasional visit to town, supplied the few goods that were not produced at home. Economic wants were simple and means of purchase were not abundant. On the other hand, most of the products of the farm were consumed there. In the prevailing extensive agriculture the returns per acre were not great, methods of efficiency were not known or were given little attention, families were large and children and farm-hands enjoyed good appetites, and production and consumption tended to equalize themselves. In the process of the home manufacture of clothing it was difficult to keep the family provided with the necessary comforts; there was no thought of laying by a surplus beyond the anticipated needs of the family and provision for the wedding store of marriageable daughters.

The distribution of any accumulated surplus was effected by the simplest mechanism of exchange. If the supply of young cattle was large or the wood-lot furnished more firewood than was needed, the product was bartered for seed corn or hay. There was swapping of horses by the men or of fruit or vegetable preserves by the women. Eggs and butter disposed of at the store helped to pay for sugar, salt, and spices. New incentives to larger production came with the extension of markets. When wood and hay could be shipped to a distance on the railroad, when a milk route in the neighborhood or a milk-train to the city made dairy products more profitable, or when market gardening became possible on an extensive scale, better methods of distribution were provided to take care of the more numerous products.

71. Social and Economic Changes in the Family.—The fundamental principles that govern the economic activities of the family are the same as they used to be. Industry, thrift, and co-operation are still the watchwords of prosperity. But with the development of civilization and the improvements in manufacture, communication, and transportation, the economic function of the family has changed. Instead of producing all the crops that he may need or the tools of his occupation, the farmer tends to produce the particular crops that he can best cultivate and that will bring him the largest returns. Because of increasing facilities of exchange he can sell his surplus and purchase the goods that will satisfy his other needs. The farmer's wife no longer spins and weaves the family's supply of clothing; the men buy their supply at the store and often even she turns over the task of making up her own gowns to the village dressmaker. Where there is a local creamery she is relieved of the manufacture of butter and cheese, and the cannery lays down its preserves at her door. Household manufacturing is confined almost entirely to the preparation of food, with a varying amount of dressmaking and millinery. In the towns and cities the needs of the family are even more completely supplied from without. Children are relieved of all responsibility, women's care are lightened by the stock of material in the shops, and the bakery and restaurant help to supply the table. Family life loses thereby much of its unity of effort and sympathy. The economic task falls mainly upon the male producer. Even he lives on the land and in the house of another man; he owns not the tools of his industry and does business in another's name. He hires himself to a superior for wage or salary, and thereby loses in a measure his own independence. But there is a gain in social solidarity, for the chain of mutual dependence reached farther and binds more firmly; there is gain in community co-operation, for each family is no longer self-sufficient.

READING REFERENCES

BOSANQUET: The Family, pages 221-227, 324-333.

THOMAS: Sex and Society, pages 123-146.

SMALL AND VINCENT: Introduction to the Study of Society, pages 105-108.

MASON: Woman's Share in Primitive Culture.

WEEDEN: Economic and Social History of New England, I, pages 324-326.



CHAPTER IX

CHANGES IN THE FAMILY

72. Causes of Changes in the Family.—The family at the present time is in a transition era. Its machinery is not working smoothly. Its environment is undergoing transformation. A hundred years ago the family was strictly rural; not more than three per cent of the people lived in large communities. Now nearly one-half are classified as urban by the United States census of 1910, and those who remain rural feel the influences of the town. There is far less economic independence on the farm than formerly, and in the towns and cities the home is little more than a place in which to sleep and eat for an increasing number of workers, both men and women. The family on the farm is no longer a perfectly representative type of the family in the more populous centres.

These changes are due mainly to the requirements of industry, but partly at least to the desire of all members of the family to share in urban life. The increasing ease of communication and travel extends the mutual acquaintance of city and country people and, as the city is brought nearer, its pull upon the young people of the community strengthens. There is also an increasing tendency of the women folk to enter the various departments of industry outside of the home. It is increasingly difficult for one person to satisfy the needs of a large family. This tends to send the family to the city, where there are wider opportunities, and to drive women and children into socialized industry; at the same time, it tends to restrict the number of children in families that have high ideals for women and children. Family life everywhere is becoming increasingly difficult, and at the same time every member of the family is growing more independent in temper. The result is the breaking up of a large number of homes, because of the departure of the children, the separation of husband and wife, the desertion of parents, or the legal divorce of married persons. The maintenance of the family as a social institution is seriously threatened.

73. Static vs. Dynamic Factors.—There are factors entering into family life that act as bonds to cement the individual members together. Such are the material goods that they enjoy in common, like the home with its comforts and the means of support upon which they all rely. In addition to these there are psychical elements that enter into their relations and strengthen these bonds. The inheritance of the peculiar traits, manners, and customs that differentiate one family from another; the reputation of the family name and pride in its influence; an affection, understanding, and sympathy that come from the intimacy of the home life and the appreciation of one another's best qualities are ties that do not easily rend or loosen.

On the other hand, there are centrifugal forces that are pushing the members of the family apart. At the bottom is selfish desire, which frets at restriction, and which is stimulated by the current emphasis upon personal pleasure and individual independence. The family solidarity which made the sons Democrats because their father voted that party ticket, or the daughters Methodists because their mother's religious preferences were for that denomination, has ceased to be effective. Every member of the family has his daily occupations in diverse localities. The head of the household may find his business duties in the city twenty miles away, or on the road that leads him far afield across the continent. For long hours the children are in school. The housewife is the only member of the family who remains at home and her outside interests and occupations have multiplied so rapidly as to make her, too, a comparative stranger to the home life. Modern industrialism has laid its hand upon the women and children, and thousands of them know the home only at morning and night.

74. The Strain on the Urban Family.—The rapid growth of cities, with the increase of buildings for the joint occupancy of a number of families, tends to disunity in each particular family and to a reduction in the size of families. The privacy and sense of intimate seclusion of the detached home is violated. The modern apartment-house has a common hall and stairway for a dozen families and a common dining-room and kitchen on the model of a hotel. The tenements are human incubators from which children overflow upon the streets, boarders invade the privacy of the family bedroom, and even sanitary conveniences are public. Home life is violated in the tenement by the pressure of an unfavorable environment; it perishes on the avenue because of a compelling desire to gain as much freedom as possible from household care.

The care of a modern household grows in difficulty. Although the housekeeper has been relieved of performing certain economic functions that added to the burden of her grandmother, her responsibilities have been complicated by a number of conditions that are peculiar to the modern life of the town. Social custom demands of the upper classes a far more careful observance of fashion in dress and household furnishings, and in the exchange of social courtesies. The increasing cost of living due to these circumstances, and to a constantly rising standard of living, reacts upon the mind and nerves of the housewife with accelerating force. And not the least of her difficulties is the growing seriousness of the servant problem. Custom, social obligations, and nervous strain combine to make essential the help of a servant in the home. But the American maid is too independent and high-minded to make a household servant, and the American matron in the main has not learned how to be a just and considerate mistress. The result has been an influx of immigrant labor by servants who are untrained and inefficient, yet soon learn to make successful demands upon the employer for larger wages and more privileges because they are so essential to the comfort and even the existence of the family. Family life is increasingly at the mercy of the household employee. It is not strange that many women prefer the comfort and relief of an apartment or hotel, that many more hesitate to assume the responsibility of marriage and children, preferring to undertake their own self-support, and that not a few seek divorce.

75. Family Desertion.—While the burden of housekeeping rests upon the wife, there are corresponding weights and annoyances that fall upon the man. Business pressure and professional responsibility are wearying; he, too, feels the strain upon his nerves. When he returns home at evening he is easily disturbed by a worried wife, tired and fretful children, and the unmistakable atmosphere of gloom and friction that permeates many homes. He contrasts his unenviable position with the freedom and good-fellowship of the club, and chafes under the family bonds. In many cases he breaks them and sets himself free by way of the divorce court. The course of men of the upper class is paralleled by that of the working man or idler who meets similar conditions in a home where the servant does not enter, but where there is a surplus of children. He finds frequent relief in the saloon, and eventually escapes by deserting his family altogether, instead of having recourse to the law. This practice of desertion, which is the poor man's method of divorce, is one of the continual perplexities of organized charity, and constitutes one of the serious problems of family life. There are gradations in the practice of desertion, and it is not confined to men. The social butterfly who neglects her children to flutter here and there is a temporary deserter, little less culpable than the lazy husband who has an attack of wanderlust before the birth of each child, and who returns to enjoy the comforts of home as soon as his wife is again able to assume the function of bread-winner for the growing family. From these it is but a step to the mutual desertion of a man and a woman, who from incompatibility of temper find it advisable to separate and go their own selfish ways, to wait until the law allows a final severance of the marriage bond.

It is indisputable that this breaking up of the home is reacting seriously upon the moral character of the present generation; there is a carelessness in assuming the responsibility of marriage, and too much shirking of responsibility when the burden weighs heavily. There is a weakening of real affection and a consequent lack of mutual forbearance; there is an increasing feeling that marriage is a lottery and not worth while unless it promises increased satisfaction of sexual, economic, or social desires and ambitions.

76. Feminism.—There can be no question that the growing independence of woman has complicated the family situation. In reaction against the long subjection that has fallen to her lot, the modern woman in many cases rebels against the control of custom and the expectations of society, refuses to regard herself as strictly a home-keeper, and in some cases is unwilling to become a mother. She seeks wider associations and a larger range of activities outside of the home, she demands the same rights and privileges that belong to man, and she dreams of the day when her power as well as her influence will help to mould social institutions. The feminist movement is in the large a wholesome reaction against an undeserved subserviency to the masculine will. Undoubtedly it contains great social potencies. It deserves kindly reception in the struggle to reform and reconstruct society where society is weak.

The present situation deserves not abuse, but the most careful consideration from every man. In countless cases woman has not only been repressed from activities outside of the family group, but has been oppressed in her own home also. America prides itself on its consideration for woman in comparison with the general European attitude toward her, but too often chivalry is not exercised in the home. Often the wife has been a slave in the household where she should have been queen. She has been subject to the passion of an hour and the whim of a moment. She has been servant rather than helpmeet. Upon her have fallen the reproaches of the unbridled temper of other members of the family; upon her have rested the burdens that others have shirked. Husband and children have been free to find diversion elsewhere; family responsibilities or broken health have confined her at home. Her husband might even find sex satisfaction away from home, but public opinion would be more lenient with him than with her if she offended. The time has come when it is right that these inequalities and injustices should cease. Society owes to woman not only her right to her own person and property, but the right to bear, also, her fair share of social responsibility in this modern world.

Yet in the process of coming to her own, there is danger that the wife will forget that marriage is the most precious of human relations; that the home has the first claim upon her; that motherhood is the greatest privilege to which any woman, however socially gifted, can aspire; and that social institutions of tried worth are not lightly to be cast upon the rubbish heap. It is by no means certain that society can afford or that women ought to demand individualistic rights that will put in jeopardy the welfare of the remainder of the family. The average woman has not the strength to carry properly the burden of home cares plus large political and social responsibilities, nor has she the money to employ in the home all the modern improvements of labor-saving devices and skilled service that might in a measure take her place. Nor is it at all certain that the granting of individual rights to women would tend to purify sex relations, but it is quite conceivable that the old moral and religious sanctions of marriage may disappear and the State assume the task of caring for all children. It is clear that the rights and duties of women constitute a very serious part of the problem of family life.

77. Individual Rights vs. Social Duties.—The greatest weakness to be found in twentieth-century society is the disposition on the part of almost all individuals to place personal rights ahead of social duties. The modern spirit of individualism has grown strong since the Renaissance and the Reformation. It has forced political changes until absolutism has been yielding everywhere to democracy. It has extended social privileges until it has become possible for any one with push and ability to make his way to the top rung of the ladder of social prestige. It has permitted freedom to profess and practise any religion, and to advocate the most bizarre ideas in ethics and philosophy. It has brought human individuals to the place where they feel that nothing may be permitted to stand between them and the satisfaction of personal desire. The disciples of Nietzsche do not hesitate to stand boldly for the principle that might makes right, that he who can crush his competitors in the race for pleasure and profit has an indisputable claim on whatever he can grasp, and that the principle of mutual consideration is antiquated and ridiculous. Such principles and privileges may comport with the elemental instincts and interests of unrestrained, primitive creatures, but they do not harmonize with requirements of social solidarity and efficiency. Social evolution in the past has come only as the struggle for individual existence was modified by consideration for the needs of another, and social welfare in the future can be realized only as men and women both are willing to sacrifice age-long prejudice or momentary pleasure and profit to the permanent good of the larger group.

READING REFERENCES

COOLEY: Social Organization, pages 356-371.

BRANDT AND BALDWIN: Family Desertion.

DEALEY: The Family in Its Sociological Aspects, pages 85-95, 109-118.

GOODSELL: The Family as a Social and Educational Institution, pages 456-477.

HOWARD: History of Matrimonial Institutions, III, pages 239-250.



CHAPTER X

DIVORCE

78. The Main Facts About Divorce.—An indication of the emphasis on individual rights is furnished by the increase of divorce, especially in the United States, where the demands of individualism and industrialism are most insistent. The divorce record is the thermometer that measures the heat of domestic friction. Statistics of marriage and divorce made by the National Government in 1886 and again in 1906 make possible a comparison of conditions which reveal a rapid increase in the number of divorces granted by the courts. Certain outstanding facts are of great importance.

(1) The number of divorces in twenty years increased from 23,000 to 72,000, which is three times the rate of increase of the population of the country. If this rate of progress continues, more than half the marriages in the United States will terminate in divorce by the end of the present century.

(2) In the first census it was discovered that the number of divorces in the United States exceeded the total number of divorces in all the European countries; in the second census it was shown that the United States had increased its divorces three times, while Japan, with the largest divorce rate in the world, had reduced its rate one-half.

(3) Divorces in the United States are least common among people of the middle class; they are higher among native whites than among immigrants, and they are highest in cities and among childless couples.

(4) Two-thirds of the divorces are granted on the demands of the wife.

(5) Divorce laws are very variable in the different States, but most divorces are obtained from the States where the applicants reside.

79. Causes of Divorce.—The causes recorded in divorce cases do not represent accurately the real causes, for the reason that it is easier to get an uncontested decision when the charges are not severe, and also for the reason that State laws vary and that which best fits the law will be put forward as the principal cause. Divorce laws in the United States generally recognize adultery, desertion, cruelty, drunkenness, lack of support, and crime as legitimate grounds for divorce. In the five years from 1902 to 1906 desertion was given as the ground for divorce in thirty-eight per cent of the cases, cruelty in twenty-three per cent, and adultery in fifteen per cent. Intemperance was given as the direct cause in only four per cent, and neglect approximately the same. The assignment of marital unfaithfulness in less than one-sixth of the cases, as compared with one-fourth twenty years before does not mean, however, that there is less unfaithfulness, but that minor offenses are considered sufficient on which to base a claim; the small percentage of charges of intemperance as the principal cause ought not to obscure the fact that it was an indirect cause in one-fifth of the cases.

It is natural that the countries of Europe should present greater variety of laws and of causes assigned. In England, where the law has insisted on adultery as a necessary cause, divorces have been few. In Ireland, where the church forbids it, divorce is rare, less than one to thirty-five marriages. In Scotland fifty per cent of the cases reported are due to adultery. Cruelty was the principal cause ascribed in France, Austria, and Rumania; desertion in Russia and Sweden. The tendency abroad is to ascribe more rather than less to adultery.

The real causes for divorce are more remote than the specific acts of adultery, desertion, or cruelty that are mentioned as grounds for divorce. The primary cause is undoubtedly the spirit of individual independence that demands its rights at the expense of others. In the case of women there is less hesitancy than formerly in seeking freedom from the marriage bond because of the increasing opportunity of self-support. The changing conditions of home life in the city, with the increasing cost of living, coupled with the ease of divorce, encourage resort to the courts. The unscrupulousness of some lawyers, who fatten their purses at the expense of marital happiness, and the meddlesomeness of relatives are also contributing causes. Finally the restraint of religion has relaxed, and unhappy and ill-mated persons do not shrink from taking a step which was formerly condemned by the church.

80. History of Divorce.—The history of divorce presents various opinions and practices. The Hebrews had high ideals, but frequently fell into lax practices; the Greeks began well but degenerated sadly to the point where marriage was a mere matter of convenience; the Romans, noted for their sterling qualities in the early days of the republic, practised divorce without restraint in the later days of the empire.

The influence of Christianity was greatly to restrict divorce. The teaching of the Bible was explicit that the basis of marriage was the faithful love of the heart, and that impure desire was the essence of adultery. Illicit intercourse was the only possible moral excuse for divorce. True to this teaching, the Christian church tried hard to abolish divorce, as it attempted to check all sexual evils, and the Catholic Church threw about marriage the veil of sanctity by making it one of the seven sacraments. As a sacrament wedlock was indissoluble, except as money or influence induced the church to turn back the key which it alone possessed. Separation was allowed by law, but not divorce. Greater stability was infused into the marriage relation. Yet it is not possible to purify sex relations by tying tightly the marriage bond. Unfaithfulness has been so common in Europe among the higher classes that it occasioned little remark, until the social conscience became sensitive in recent decades, and among the lower classes divorce was often unnecessary, because so many unions took place without the sanction of the church. In Protestant countries there has been a variable recession from the extreme Catholic ground. The Episcopal Church in England and in colonial America recognized only the one Biblical cause of unfaithfulness; the more radical Protestants turned over the whole matter to the state. In New England desertion and cruelty were accepted alongside adultery as sufficient grounds for divorce, and the legislature sometimes granted it by special enactment.

81. Investigation and Legislation in the United States and England.—The divorce question provoked some discussion in this country about the time of the Civil War, and some statistics were gathered. Twenty years later the National Government was induced by the National Divorce Reform League to take a careful census of marriage and divorce. This was published in 1889, and revised and reissued in 1909. These reports aroused the States which controlled the regulation of marriage and divorce to attempt improved legislation. Almost universally among them divorce was made more difficult instead of easier. The term of residence before divorce could be obtained was lengthened; certain changes were made in the legal grounds for divorce; in less than twenty years fourteen States limited the privilege of divorced persons to remarry until after a specified time had elapsed, varying from three months to two years. Congress passed a uniform marriage law for all the territories. It was believed almost universally that the Constitution should be amended so as to secure a federal divorce law, but experience proved that it was better that individual States should adopt a uniform law. The later tendency has been in this direction.

At the same time, the churches of the country interested themselves in the subject. The Protestant Episcopal Church took strong ground against its ministers remarrying a divorced person, and the National Council of Congregational Churches appointed a special committee which reported in 1907 in favor of strictness. Fourteen Protestant churches combined in an Interchurch Committee to secure united action, and the Federal Council of Churches recorded itself against the prevailing laxness. The purpose of all this group action was to check abuses and to create a more sensitive public opinion, especially among moral and religious leaders.

In Great Britain, on the other hand, divorce had always been difficult. There the strictness of the law led to a demand for a study of the subject and a report to Parliament. The result was the appointment of a Royal Commission on Divorce and Matrimonial Causes, consisting of twelve members, which investigated for three years, and in 1912 presented its report. It recognized the fact that severe restrictions were in force, and a majority of the commission regarding marriage as a legal rather than a sacramental bond, favored easier divorce and a single standard of morality for both sexes. It was proposed that the grounds for legal divorce should be adultery, desertion extending over three years, cruelty, incurable insanity after confinement for five years, habitual drunkenness found incurable after three years, or imprisonment carrying with it a sentence of death. A minority of the committee still regarding marriage as a sacrament, favored no relaxation of the law as it stood.

82. Proposed Remedies.—Various remedies have been proposed to stem the tide of excessive divorce. There are many who see in divorce nothing more than a healthy symptom of individual independence, a revolt against conditions of the home that are sometimes almost intolerable. Many others are alarmed at the rapid increase of divorce, especially in the United States, and believe that checks are necessary for the continued existence of the family and the well-being of society. The first reform proposed as a means of prevention of divorce is the revision of the marriage laws on a higher model. The second is a stricter divorce law, made as uniform as possible. The third is the adoption of measures of reconciliation which will remove the causes that provoke divorce.

The proposed laws include such provisions as the prohibition of marriage for those who are criminal, degenerate, or unfitted to perform the sex function; the requirement of six months' publication of matrimonial banns and a physical certificate before marriage; a strictly provisional decree of divorce; the establishment of a court of domestic relations, and a prohibition of remarriage of the defendant during the life of the plaintiff. These are reasonable restrictions and seem likely to be adopted gradually, as practicable improvements over the existing laws. It is also proposed that the merits of every case shall be more carefully considered, and the judicial procedure improved by the appointment of a divorce proctor in connection with every court trying divorce cases, whose business it shall be to make investigations and to assist in trying or settling specific cases. Experiment has proved the value of such an officer.

83. Court of Domestic Relations.—One of the most significant improvements that has taken place is the establishment of a court of domestic relations, which already exists in several cities, and has made an enviable record. In the early experiments it seemed practicable in Kansas to make such a court a branch of the circuit and juvenile courts, so arranged that it would be possible to deal with the relations of the whole family; in Chicago the new tribunal was made a part of the municipal court. By means of patient questioning, first by a woman assistant and then by the judge himself, and by good advice and explicit directions as to conduct, with a warning that failure would be severely treated, it has been possible to unravel hundreds of domestic entanglements.

84. Tendencies.—There can be no question that the present tendency is in the direction of greater freedom in the marriage relation. Society will not continue to sanction inhumanity and immorality in the relations of man to woman. Marriage is ideally a sacred relation, but when it is not so treated, when love is dead and repulsion has taken its place, and especially when physical contact brings disease and suffering, public opinion is likely to consider that marriage is thereby virtually annulled, and to permit ratification of the fact by a decree of divorce. On the other hand, it is probable that increasing emphasis will be put on serious and well-prepared marriage, on the inculcation of a spirit of mutual love and forbearance through the agency of the church, and on the exhaustion of every effort to restore right relations, if they have not been irreparably destroyed, before any grant of divorce will be allowed. In this, as in all problems of the family, the spirit of mutual consideration for the interests of all concerned is that which must be invoked for a speedy and permanent solution. Education of young people in the importance of the family as a social institution and in the responsibility which every individual member should feel to make and keep the family pure and strong as a bulwark of social stability, is the surest means of preventing altogether its dissolution.

READING REFERENCES

"Report on Marriage and Divorce," 1906, Bureau of the Census, I, pages 272-274, 331-333.

"Reports of the National League for the Protection of the Family."

POST: Ethics of Marriage and Divorce, pages 62-84.

DEALEY: The Family in Its Sociological Aspects, pages 96-108.

HOWARD: History of Matrimonial Institutions, III, pages 3-160.

WILLCOX: The Divorce Problem.



CHAPTER XI

THE SOCIAL EVIL

85. Sexual Impurity.—A prime factor in the breaking up of the home is sexual impurity. The sex passion, an elemental instinct of humanity, is sanctified by the marriage relation, but unbridled in those who seek above all else their own pleasure, becomes a curse in body and soul. It is not limited to either sex, but men have been more self-indulgent, and have been treated more leniently than erring women. Sexual impurity is wide-spread, but public opinion against it is steadily strengthening, and the tendency is to hold men and women equally responsible. For the sake of clearness it is advisable to distinguish between various forms of impurity, and to observe the proper terms. The sexual evil appears in aggravated form in commercial prostitution, but is more prevalent as an irregularity among non-professionals. Sexual intercourse before marriage, or fornication, was not infrequent in colonial days, and in Europe is startlingly common; very frequently among the lower classes there is no marriage until a child is born. Sexual infidelity after marriage, or adultery, is the cause of the ruin of many homes. In the cities and among the well-to-do classes the keeping of mistresses is an occasional practice, but it is far less common than was the case in former days, when it was the regular custom at royal courts and imitated by those lower in the social scale.

86. Prostitution.—Prostitution, softened in common speech to "the social evil," is a term for promiscuity of sex relationship for pay or its equivalent. It is a very old practice, and has existed in the East as a part of religious worship in veneration of the power of generation. In the West it is a frequent accompaniment of intemperance and crime. Modern prostitutes are recruited almost entirely from the lower middle class, both in Europe and America. Ignorant and helpless immigrant girls are seduced on the journey, in the streets of American cities, and in the tenements. Domestic servants and employees in factories and department stores seem to be most subject to exploitation, but no class or employment is immune. A great many girls, while still in their teens, have begun their destructive career. They are peculiarly susceptible in the evening, after the strain of the day's labor, when they are hunting for fun and excitement in theatres, dance-halls, and moving-picture shows. In summer they are themselves hunted on excursion steamers, and at the parks and recreation grounds. The seduction and exploitation of young women has become a distinct occupation of certain worthless young men, commonly known as cadets, who live upon the earnings of the women they procure. Three-fourths of the prostitutes have such men dependent on them, to whom they remain attached through fear or need of pecuniary relief in case of arrest, or even through a species of affection, though they receive nothing but abuse in return. Once secured, the victim is not permitted to escape. Not many women enter the life of prostitution from choice, but when they have once yielded to temptation or force, they lose their self-respect and usually sink into hopeless degradation, and then do not shrink from soliciting business within doors or on the streets.

87. Promotion and Regulation of Vice.—The social evil is centred in houses of ill fame managed by unprincipled women. The business is financed and the profits enjoyed by men who constantly stimulate the trade to make it more profitable. As a result of investigations in New York, it is estimated that the number of prostitutes would be not more than one-fourth of what it is were it not for the ruthless greed of these men. The houses are usually located in the poorer parts of the city, but they are also to be found scattered elsewhere. In cases where public opinion does not warrant rigid enforcement of the law against it, the illicit traffic is disregarded by the police, and often they are willing to share in the gains as the price of their leniency. As a rule the business is kept under cover and not permitted to flaunt itself on the streets. Definite segregation in a particular district has been attempted, and has sometimes been favored as a means of checking vice, but this means is not practised or favored after experiment has shown its uselessness as a check upon the trade. Government regulation by a system of license, with registration of prostitutes and regular though superficial examination of health, is in vogue in parts of western and southern Europe, but it is not favored by vice commissions that have examined into its workings.

88. Extent of the Social Evil.—It is probable that estimates as to the number of prostitutes in the great urban centres has been much exaggerated. In the nature of the case it is very difficult to get accurate reports, but when it is remembered that the number of men who frequent the resorts is not less than fifteen times the number of women, and that in most cases the proportion is larger, it is not difficult to conceive of the immense profits to the exploiters, but also of the enormous economic waste, the widely prevalent physical disease, and the untold misery of the women who sin, and of the innocent women at home who are sinned against by those who should be their protectors.

A "white-slave traffic" seems to have developed in recent years that has not only increased the number of local prostitutes, but has united far-distant urban centres. It is very difficult to prove an intercity trade, but investigation has produced sufficient evidence to show that there is an organized business of procuring victims and that they have been exported to distant parts of the world, including South America, South Africa, and the Far East.

89. The Causes.—The social evil has usually been blamed upon the perversity of women and their pecuniary need, but investigation makes it plain that the causes go deeper than that. The first cause is the ignorance of girls who are permitted to grow up and go out into the world innocently, unaware of the snares in which they are liable to become enmeshed. Added to this ignorance is the lack of moral and religious training, so that there is often no firm conviction of right and wrong, an evil which is intensified in the city tenements by the conditions of congested population. A third grave cause is the public neglect of persons of defective mentality and morality. Women who are not capable of taking care of themselves are allowed full liberty of conduct, and frequently fall victims to the seducer. An investigation of cases in the New York Reformatory for Women at Bedford in 1913 showed one-third very deficient mentally; the Massachusetts Vice Commission in 1914 reported one-half to three-fourths of three hundred cases to be of the same class. It seems clear that a large proportion of prostitutes generally belong in this category. It has been estimated that there are now (1915) as many defective women at large in Massachusetts as there are in public institutions.

Poverty is an important factor in the extension of the sexual evil. It is notorious that thousands of women workers are underpaid. In factories, restaurants, and department stores they frequently receive wages much less than the eight dollars a week required by women to maintain themselves, if dependent on their own resources. The American woman's pride in a good appearance, the natural human love of ease, luxury, and excitement, the craving for relaxation and thrill, after the exacting labor of a long day, all contribute to the welcome of an opportunity for an indulgence that brings money in return. The agency of the dance-hall and the saloon has also an important place in the downfall of the tempted. Intemperance and prostitution go together, and places where they can be enjoyed are factories of vice and crime. Many so-called hotels with bar attachment are little more than houses of evil resort. Especially notorious for a time were the Raines Law hotels in New York City, designed to check intemperance, but proving nurseries of prostitution. Commercial profit is large from both kinds of traffic, and one stimulates the other.

Among minor causes of the social evil is the postponement or abandonment of marriage by many young people, the celibate life imposed upon students and soldiers, the declaration of some physicians that continence is injurious, and lax opinion, especially in Europe.

90. The Consequences.—It is impossible to measure adequately the consequences of sexual indulgence. It is destructive of physical health among women and of morals among both sexes. It results in a weakening of the will and a blunting of moral discernment. It is an economic waste, as is intemperance, for even on the level of economic values it is plain that money could be much better spent for that which would benefit rather than curse. But the great evil that looms large in public view is the legacy of physical disease that falls upon self-indulgent men and their families. The presence of venereal disease in Europe is almost unbelievable; so great has it been in continental armies that governments have become alarmed as to its effects upon the health and morale of the troops. College men have been reckless in sowing wild oats, and have suffered serious physical consequences. Most pathetic is the suffering that is caused to innocent wives and children in blindness, sterility, and frequent abdominal disease. This is a subject that demands the attention of every person interested in human happiness and social welfare.

91. History of Reform.—Spasmodic efforts to suppress the social evil have occurred from time to time. The result has been to scatter rather than to suppress it, and after a little it has crept back to its old haunts. Scattering it in tenements and residential districts has been very unfortunate. The cure is not so simple a process. Neither will segregation help. It is now generally agreed, especially as a result of recent investigations by vice commissioners in the large cities, that there must be a brave, sustained effort at suppression, and then the patient task of reclaiming the fallen and preventing the evil in future.

Organization and investigation are the two words that give the key to the history of reform. International societies are agitating abroad; other associations are directly engaged in checking vice in the United States, most prominent of which is the American Vigilance Association. Rescue organizations are scattered through the cities. Especially active have been the commissions of investigation appointed privately and by municipal, State, and Federal Governments, which have issued illuminating reports. The United States in 1908 joined in an international treaty to prevent the world-wide traffic in white slaves, and in 1910 Congress passed the Mann White Slave Act to prevent interstate traffic in America.

92. Measures of Prevention and Cure.—The social evil is one about which there have been all sorts of wild opinions, but the facts are becoming well substantiated by investigations, and these investigations are the basis upon which all scientific conclusions must rest, alike for public education and for constructive legislation. No one remedy is adequate. There are those who believe that the church has it in its power to stir a wave of indignation that would sweep the whole traffic from the land, but it is not so simple a process. It is generally agreed that both education and legislation are necessary to check the evil. The first is necessary for the public health, and to support repressive laws. As a helpful means of repression it is proposed that the social evil, along with questions of social morals, like gambling, excise, and amusements, shall be taken out of the hands of the municipal police and the politicians, and lodged with an unpaid morals commission, which shall have its own special corps of expert officers and a morals court for the trial of cases appropriate to its jurisdiction. This experiment actually has been tried in Berlin. Measures of prevention as well as measures of repression are needed. Restraint is needed for defectives; protection for immigrants and young people, especially on shipboard, in the tenements, and in the moving-picture houses; better housing, better amusements, and better wages for all the people. Finally, the wrecks must be taken care of. Rescue homes and other agencies manage to save a few to reformed lives; homes are needed constantly for temporary residence. Private philanthropy has provided them thus far, but the United States Government has discussed the advisability of building them in sufficient numbers to meet every local need. Many old and hardened offenders need reformatories with farm and hospital where they can be cared for during a long time; some of the States have provided these already. The principles upon which a permanent cure of the social evil must be based are similar to those that underlie all family reform, namely, the rescue as far as possible of those already fallen, the social and moral education of youth to nobler purpose and will, the removal of unfavorable economic and social conditions, and the improvement of family life until it can satisfy the human cravings that legitimately belong to it.

READING REFERENCES

ADDAMS: A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil.

WILLSON: The American Boy and the Social Evil.

MORROW: Social Diseases and Marriage, pages 331-353.

KNEELAND: Commercialized Prostitution in New York City, pages 253-271.



CHAPTER XII

CHARACTERISTICS AND PRINCIPLES

93. Social Characteristics Illustrated by the Family.—A study of the family such as has been made illustrates the characteristics of social life that were noted in the introductory chapter. There is activity in the performance of every domestic, economic, and social function. There is association in various ways for various purposes between all members of the family. Control is exercised by paternal authority, family custom, and personal and family interest. The history of the family shows gradual changes that have produced varieties of organization, and the present situation discloses weaknesses that are precipitating upon society very serious problems. Present characteristics largely determine future processes; always in planning for the future it is necessary to take into consideration the forces that produce and alter social characteristics. Specific measures meet with much scepticism, and enthusiastic reformers must always reckon with inertia, frequent reactions, and slow social development. In the face of sexualism, divorce, and selfish individualism, it requires patience and optimism to believe that the family will continue to exist and the home be maintained.

94. Principles of Family Reform.—It is probably impossible to restore the home life of the past, as it is impossible to turn back the tide of urban migration and growth. But it is possible on the basis of certain fundamental principles to improve the conditions of family life by means of methods that lie at hand. The first principle is that the home must function properly. There must be domestic and economic satisfactions. Without the satisfaction of the sexual and parental instincts and an atmosphere of comfort and freedom from anxiety, the home is emptied of its attractions. The second principle is that social sympathy and service rather than individual independence shall be the controlling motive in the home. As long as every member of the family consults first his own pleasure and comfort and contributes only half-heartedly to create a home atmosphere and to perform his part of the home functions, there can be no real gain in family life. The home is built on love; it can survive on nothing less than mutual consideration.

95. The Method of Economic Adjustment.—The first method by which these principles can be worked out is economic adjustment. It is becoming imperative that the family income and the family requirements shall be fitted together. Less extravagance and waste of expenditure and a living wage to meet legitimate needs, are both demanded by students of economic reform. It is not according to the principles of social righteousness that any family should suffer from cold or hunger, nor is it right that any social group should be wasteful of the portion of economic goods that has come to it. There is great need, also, that the expense of living should be reduced while the standards of living shall not be lowered. The business world has been trying to secure economies in production; there is even greater need of economies in distribution. Millions are wasted in advertising and in the profits of middlemen. Some method of co-operative buying and selling will have to be devised to stop this economic leakage. It would relieve the housewife from some of the worries of housekeeping and lighten the heart of the man who pays the bills. A third adjustment is that of the household employee to the remainder of the household. The servant problem is first an economic problem, and questions of wages, hours, and privileges must be based on economic principles; but it is also a social problem. The servant bears a social relation to the family. The family home is her home, and she must have a certain share in home comforts and privileges. A fourth reform is better housing and equipment. Attractive and comfortable houses in a wholesome environment of light, air, and sunshine, built for economical and easy housekeeping, are not only desirable but essential for a permanent and happy family life.

96. The Method of Social Education.—A second general method by which the principles of home life may be carried out is social education. Given the material accessories, there must be the education of the family in their use. Children in the home need to know the fundamentals of personal and sex hygiene and the principles of eugenics. In home and in school the emphasis in education should be upon social rather than economic values, on the significance of social relationships and the opportunities of social intercourse in the home and the community, on the personal and social advantages of intellectual culture, on the importance of moral progress in the elimination of drunkenness, sexualism, poverty, crime, and war, if there is to be future social development, and on the value of such social institutions as the home, the school, the church, and the state as agencies for individual happiness and group progress. Especially should there be impressed upon the child mind the transcendent importance of affectionate co-operation in the home circle, parents sacrificing personal preferences and anticipations of personal enjoyment for the good of children, and children having consideration for the wishes and convictions of their elders, and recognizing their own responsibility in rendering service for the common good. Sanctioned by law, by the custom of long tradition, by economic and social valuations, the home calls for personal devotion of will and purpose from every individual for the welfare of the group of which he is a privileged member. The family tie is the most sacred bond that links individuals in human society; to strengthen it is one of the noblest aspirations of human endeavor.

READING REFERENCES

DEALEY: The Family in Its Sociological Aspects, pages 119-134.

POST: Ethics of Marriage and Divorce, pages 105-127.

HOWARD: History of Matrimonial Institutions, III, pages 253-259.

THWING: The Recovery of the Home. A Pamphlet.



PART III—SOCIAL LIFE IN THE RURAL COMMUNITY

CHAPTER XIII

THE COMMUNITY AND ITS HISTORY

97. Broadening the Horizon.—Out of the kindergarten of the home the child graduates into the larger school of the community. Thus far through his early years the child's environment has been restricted almost entirely to the four walls of the home or the limits of the farm. His horizon has been bounded by garden, pasture, and orchard, except as he has enjoyed an occasional visit to the village centre or has found playmates on neighboring farms. He has shared in the isolation of the farm. The home of the nearest neighbor is very likely out of sight beyond the hill, or too far away for children's feet to travel the intervening distance; on the prairie the next door may be over the edge of the horizon. The home has been his social world. It has supplied for him a social group, persons to talk with, to play with, to work with. Inevitably he takes on their characteristics, and his life will continue to be narrow and to grow conservative and hard, unless he enlarges his experience, broadens his horizon, tries new activities, enjoys new associations, tests new methods of social control, and lets the forces that produce social change play upon his own life.

Happy is he when he enters definitely into community life by taking his place in the district school. The schoolhouse may be at the village centre or it may stand aloof among the trees or stark on a barren hillside along the country road; physical environment is of small consequence as compared with the new social environment of the schoolroom itself. The child has come into contact with others of his kind in a permanent social institution outside the home, and this social contact has become a daily experience. Every child that goes to school is one of many representatives from the homes of the neighborhood. He brings with him the habits and ideas that he has gathered from his own home, and he finds that they do not agree or fuse easily with the ideas and habits of the other children. In the schoolroom and on the playground he repeats the process of social adjustments which the race has passed through. Conflicts for ascendancy are frequent. He must prove his physical prowess on the playground and his intellectual ability in the schoolroom. He must test his body of knowledge and the value of his mental processes by the mind of his teacher. He must have strength of conviction to defend his own opinions, but he must have an open mind to receive truths that are new to him. One of the great achievements of the school is to fuse dissimilar elements into common custom and opinion, and thus to socialize the independent units of community life.

98. Learning Social Values in the Community.—The school is the door to larger social opportunity than the home can provide, but it is not the only door. The child in passing to and from school comes into touch with other institutions and activities. He passes other homes than his own. He sees each in the midst of its own peculiar surroundings, and he makes comparisons of one with another and of each with his own. He estimates more or less consciously the value of that which he sees, not so much in terms of economic as of social worth, and congratulates or pities himself or his schoolmates, according to the judgments that he has made. He stops at the store, the mill, or the blacksmith shop, through frequent contact becomes familiar with their functions, and thinks in turn that he would like to be storekeeper, miller, and blacksmith. He sees the farmer on other farms than his own gathering his harvest in the fall, hauling wood in the winter, or ploughing his field in the spring, and he becomes conscious of common habits and occupations in this rural community. He gets acquainted with the variety of activities that enter into life in the country district in which his home is located, and he learns to appreciate the importance of the instruments upon which such activity depends for travel from place to place. By all these means the child is learning social values. After a little he comes to understand that the community, with its roads, its public buildings, and its established institutions, exists to satisfy certain economic and social needs that the single family cannot supply. By and by he learns that, like the family, it has grown out of the experience of relationships, and can be traced far back in history, and that as time passes it is slowly changing to adapt itself to the changing wants and wishes of its inhabitants. He becomes aware of a present tendency for the community to imitate the larger social life outside, to make its village centre a reproduction in miniature of the urban centres; later he realizes that the introduction of foreign elements into the population is working for the destruction of the simple, unified life of former days, and is introducing a certain flavor of cosmopolitanism.