OCR Text |
Show I DISEESPECTFUL CHDLDREN ARE C0MH0X. Every now and then some one comes out in a letter to the press in denunciation of heartlc? landlords who show a disposition not to mi: houses or apartments to families with children. But at last a man has stepped forward to champion the much-abused landlord. A real estate broker writes thus in the New York Sun: . "I am a real estate broker and also manage ser-cral ser-cral estates. It is not infrequent for us to hear from some man or woman, when told that children are. not wanted in our flats, remarks like this: 'Do you want us to kill our children V 'What are we to do with our children V 'You must hate children.' And other similar asinine comments. "Children of today are not brought up as they should be. Discipline is not taught and applied as in the old days. In my boyhood it meant respect to your elders, subordination to authority, education in morals and manners, as well as in schooling. It also meant punishment for errors committed as a preventive for the future. Nowadays a mother seems tothink her child can do no wrong; that he is above reprimand or correction. "What a folly! The result of this mistaken kindness kind-ness is that a big percentage, of the children of today to-day are nuisances and objectionable in many ways especially to owners of realty, whose property is destroyed, wasted or disfigured by these young free lances. The old proverb, 'Spare the rod and sped the child' is just as good now as when it was written... writ-ten... "Children have not the reasoning faculties they have to be developed through experience and training. train-ing. While there may be little angels of both sexes, lovely, refined, intelligent and above doing harm and wrong, the fact remains that they are the exceptions, ex-ceptions, ' The igreat majority of juveniles need to be taught through pain and fear the lessons of selt-control selt-control and to respect others' rights and privileges. ' "It was a great mistake, in my judgment, to abolish abol-ish corporal punishment in the public schools. The majority of school teachers in all the boroughs will tell -you that impudence and disrespect arc more-common more-common and pronounced than in the days when the rattan was applied to the hoodlums and the vicious. Little- roughs and toughs now defy their teachers and laugh at such light punishment as being 'kept for a few minutes after school hours.' Their example ex-ample contaminates other children who sit in the ; classes with the bad. ones. "The result you know; and you cannot blame owners, own-ers, janitors and agents who draw strict rules against children. They have suffered from children's chil-dren's misdeeds and lack of discipline, and have to safeguard themselves against further troubles, annoyance? an-noyance? and Toss by what seems to some person -(who do not think or care to think) selfishness and injustice. Actually the selfishness and wrong are all on the side, of families with undisciplined children chil-dren the parents and guardians who object to proper rules and requirements." '"" ' : |