Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 3.djvu/706

688 sagacity which inferior creatures display in the care of their young are often commented upon; and every one may see that parenthood produces a mental exaltation not otherwise producible. That it is so among mankind is daily proved. Continually we remark that men who were random grow steady when they have children to provide for; and vain, thoughtless girls, becoming mothers, begin to show higher feelings, and capacities that were not before drawn out. In both there is a daily discipline in unselfishness, in industry, in foresight. The parental relation strengthens from hour to hour the habit of postponing immediate ease and egoistic pleasure to the altruistic pleasure obtained by furthering the welfare of offspring. There is a frequent subordination of the claims of self to the claims of fellow-beings; and by no other agency can the practice of this subordination be so effectually secured. Not, then, by a decreased, but by an increased, sense of parental responsibility is self-control to be made greater and recklessness to be checked. And yet the policy now so earnestly and undoubtingly pursued is one which will inevitably diminish the sense of parental responsibility. This all-important discipline of parents' emotions is to be weakened that children may get reading, and grammar, and geography, more generally than they would otherwise do. A superficial intellectualization is to be secured at the cost of a deep-seated demoralization.

Few, I suppose, will deliberately assert that information is important and character relatively unimportant. Every one observes from time to time how much more valuable to himself and others is the workman who, though unable to read, is diligent, sober, and honest, than is the well-taught workman who breaks his engagements, spends days in drinking, and neglects his family. And, comparing members of the upper classes, no one doubts that the spendthrift or the gambler, however good his intellectual training, is inferior as a social unit to the man who, not having passed through the approved curriculum, nevertheless prospers by performing well the work he undertakes, and provides for his children instead of leaving them in poverty to the care of relatives. That is to say, looking at the matter in the concrete, all see that, for social welfare, good character is more important than much knowledge. And yet the manifest corollary is not drawn. What effect will be produced on character by artificial appliances for spreading knowledge is not asked. Of the ends to be kept in view by the legislator, all are unimportant compared with the end of character-making; and yet character-making is an end wholly unrecognized.

Let it be seen that the future of a nation depends on the natures of its units; that their natures are inevitably modified in adaptation to the conditions in which they are placed; that the feelings called into play by these conditions will strengthen, while those which have diminished demands on them will dwindle; and it will be seen that