Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/721

Rh following: "Proper food and clothing for children; care of the body, cleanliness, the way to prevent the formation of injurious habits; the rights of children; proper reading in the home; how to teach the children self-control and to have a proper regard for the rights of others; the duties of true citizenship; and various other subjects to be taken up by the mothers in the home."

Now, nothing could be better than this, except that we do not see why the movement should have been confined to the mothers. Why were the fathers not thought worthy to take a share in the good work? Mrs. Gamble states that in Detroit the movement has received a check. "At the very outset it was observed." so she tells us, "that petty jealousies and a fear of the growing influence of women would make it difficult for the work to continue." We do not see why there should be any dread of the growing influence of women so long as the latter are working judiciously toward good ends. We can imagine, however, that an exclusively feminine movement might perhaps be conducted upon lines or might become committed to positions that would excite not wholly unreasonable opposition. Zeal for reform is a noble thing, but to be successful it requires to be tempered by tact and a sense for the practicable. The matter is not one in which women solely are interested, and if the best results are to be achieved there must be a co-operation of the sexes. If the ideas of men lag behind those of women in some particulars, compensation may be found in the assistance which the former are able to lend in carrying certain limited reforms into actual practice and so preparing the way for further advance.

Mrs. Gamble raises a serious question when she asks, "Has society reached that stage where such results (those, namely, contemplated by the Educational Union) are desired?" There is, unfortunately, room to doubt whether some parents really desire the best training for their children. A parent, for example, who has no worthy ideal in life would not care to have his child indoctrinated with the idea that worldly success is not everything. Such teaching is looked upon as harmless in the pulpit; but many parents, if we are not mistaken, would be disposed to object if their children were taught anything like this at school. It is very desirable that we should know just where as a community we stand in regard to this matter. If all parents do not desire the best moral teaching for their children, all the greater need is there for an educative campaign that shall embrace parents as well as children. Certain it is that the children have a right to the best teaching—the most rational, the most humane, the most inspiring teaching—that can be given them, and no effort should be spared that could in any way tend to put the instruction given in our public schools on a right level or to supplement it by suitable home influence. The subject is one upon which too much public attention can not be concentrated, and we are glad to find from Mrs. Gamble's letter that she and her fellow-workers have no intention, despite some discouragements, to intermit their efforts. It is satisfactory to think that whatever may be done with right motives in the direction indicated must have some good effect. To interest even one mother or one father in what—using the words not quite in their usual sense, but in a sense more important than the usual one—may be called the higher education of their children is so far a gain; but to interest, as by proper measures might