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Show I j 'Dorothy Dix Talks II j: THE REFORMATION OF PARENTS V V I; By DOKOTHV DlX. The World's Highest I'md Woman W.r:ter iff sTt lon?: a in d'scussin tlie Ques-111 Ques-111 tion of corporal punishment In schools, II J the superintendent of education of tin III eastern school declared it was the par-Ill1 par-Ill1 ents of bad children who should be lift whipped instead of the children th'om-llt th'om-llt selves, for it was the parents who were Ifi responsible for sending to school the It' unruly and uncontrollable boys and w girls, the impossibility of dealing with ta whom on any other platform than that lift of physical fear had brought up again I IE tno Prob'cm of reinstating the rod in III 11,0 school room. Ik" Never was there a truer or a wiser III Ihing said, and the most crying need of lv the day is for some humanitarian to llm start a movement for the reform of II parents They need it more than any 111 other class of people in the world. m No other such crime is being com- K mitted as the way in which children E rxe being reared, and life offers no m other moral phenomenon so strange W and so inexplicable as the attitude that intelligent, refined, ivuight, noble peo- pie take on this subJecL One can easily understand .that K criminal parents might raise up a W brood of young crfminals to prey upon! society, without giving th6 wrong they jE are doing to the community a single M, regretful thought. One can under- stand ho'w the ignorant, unrefined mo-M mo-M thers and fathers of the slums, where a whole family is herded together in w one room, might rear up children who K aro little savages with no regard for 3 anybody else's right, or comfort, or property. M One can understand how hoodlum ft mothers and fathers can bring up hoodlum children with neither man- ft ncrs nor courtesy, nor any regard for ft the amenities of life. I But whn men and women who are m- gentlemen and ladies themselves, who 'mi 'aro schooled in all the graciousness of, f civilization, permit their children to . flaunt tho decencies of life in the face. and to ruthlessly trample upon the comfort and peace of everybody who ft, is unfortunate enough to come within-W within-W i their ninge, the matter becomes one K for the investigation of the alienist, I and the interference of the police. m So far as the victim of the modern child can see, when people pass into the blessed estate of parenthood a mir- i acle Is wrought whereby they become : deaf and blind to what their own children chil-dren do and dumb so far as correcting them is concerned. Every woman who has to ride in the street cars has daily illustrations ) of how willing mothers are to sacrifice sacri-fice the good clothes of other women if it affords their own children the slightest enjoyment. Children with, .muddy Jittlo shoes are encouraged to. kneel on the seats and wipe their feet ; on the frocks of every passerby. Children Chil-dren eating bananas and candy smear J their devastating way as they go, and mothers smile serently at the wreck they leave behind. Johnny and Susie . have a good time. As for the travel-1 1 ing public, mothers should worry! That no one has any rights "that parents feel that their children should , respect is too familiar a fact to argue here. Who has not agonized while J mothers sat calmly by and permitted i their children to scratch pictures on their hostess' mahogony table? Who has not seen mothers give their children chil-dren costly illustrated books belonging belong-ing to someone else to play with ? Who has not had children deliberately take the sotip out of their plates and pour it on the cloth at dinner, with never a word of reproof from the besotted parents? Now why is this? None of these women would have been vandal enough to destroy your property themselves, but they are mortally offended when you rise to the protection of your j household goods and chattels against j their children. People always speak with the loudest loud-est condemnation of landlords who refuse re-fuse to rent their property to tenants who have children. But the ones who should be indicted at the bar of public pub-lic opinion are not the landlords, but the parents whose children have been so badly brought up that they are a menace to the public welfare and a danger to property. The worst feature of parental encouragement en-couragement of terrorism and frlght-fulneas frlght-fulneas in children is not the harm that they do to property, or tho nuisance nui-sance they are to grown people, but it is the injury that is done the child itself. For it is these children who aro never controlled, who are never taught to obey, who are never taught' to .re-ispect .re-ispect the old. or regard the rights of others, who grow up Into the hoodlums hood-lums that break their parents' hearts, and bring their gray hairs down in sorrow to the grave. We talk a lot about environment, and we have societies for the improvement improve-ment of the environment of the poor, but we fail to reflect that the environment environ-ment of millions of children in rich homes is just as demoralizing as anything any-thing that the slums can offer. Every child that lives in a home where it is spoiled, and its egotism pampered, and it is taught to he" selfish and disro-gardful disro-gardful of others is in an environment that is a hothouse forcing all that is worst in its character Into bloom, and that produces wayward sons and daughters. I say again that the crvinir need of this day is for reformation of parents. But it is a Utopian dream that will never be realized, for it requires more nerve and backbone than the average human being possesses. |
