Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/155

 NOTES AND ABSTRACTS.

The Influence of Social Habits on the Spirit of Initiative. The idea that the spirit of initiative is dying out in France is widespread. Although it may have been somewhat exaggerated, there are justifiable grounds for the belief. We shall consider the causes at work in the nineteenth century which have opposed the spirit of initiative. No one can doubt that the kind of life, the occupation, the means of employing the time, and the customs which control the establishment and develop- ment of the family have a strong influence over personal effort. It will, therefore, not be useless to attempt to determine the relations existing between the social habits and the spirit of initiative. The subject will be discussed under two divisions : (i) the family ; (2) the method of gaining a livelihood or the occupation.

I. The family. The family is the principal factor in the formation of social habits. In the family the child receives the most permanent and efficient motives of life. The conception of the parents as to the kind of life the child should lead and the ends it should attain has a decisive influence in favoring or suppressing the spirit of initiative. If there existed the custom that the young people in entering upon marriage would be compelled to depend upon their own resources for their living, it would act as an incentive to independent activity and initiative. But the young Frenchman is confronted by no such problems. Custom and law assure to him a part of the family fortune. This he anticipates on the day of his marriage, not only in the form of the dowry, but also in that of an annuity. It would never occur to a PVench family to reduce a young man to those pecuniary resources which he can sup- ply for himself. Such customs, far from stimulating a young man to take up an occu- pation where he may be able to make for himself a bright future, lead him to pursue for several years those studies which allow much leisure, and finally he takes up some very mediocre position. From early childhood the children see the efforts which their parents make to remove for them every necessity of personal effort and to make their pathway entirely smooth. It is the ambition of most parents that their children may have an occupation in which the cares and responsibilities of life may be avoided to the largest possible extent, such as employment under the government, in the army, and in administration, the whole tendency being to kill every desire for per- sonal effort. Many of the sons of rich business-men and of the aristocracy are utterly incapable of filling a useful position, and squander in vulgar pleasures the fortunes of their parents, acquired by work and intelligence. If a young man should escape these influences and desire to make a place for himself in a foreign country, he meets with the resistance of the love of his parents, especially that of his mother. The force of the bonds attaching parents to children in France is very great, and we are not attacking this tie; but the perversion of it that kills the initiative of the young man is disastrous. Many very capable young men are induced to remain in Paris on a meager salary, when they know that they could earn many times as much in Amer- ica or Africa, simply because their parents fear they will not be cared for so well there as at home. It is this egoistic affection of the parents which causes many young men to vegetate in mediocrity, kills all initiative and independence, and deprives our commerce and industry and our colonies of the better elements in development and prosperity.

The same influence which directs the sons toward government careers leads the parents to desire a government officer for a son-in-law. There is a feeling against the young men in commercial and industrial occupations, and young women are not willing to leave the large cities of France or accept a marriage that involves any cares or responsibilities. The habits in regard to both choice of an occupation and to marriage are opposed to the spirit of initiative.

In addition to these obstacles to initiative may be mentioned those of the mar- riage relation in France. It no longer furnishes the strong motive that it naturally

141