Page:The lady or the tiger and other stories, Stockton (Scribner's 1897 ed).djvu/176

 ON THE TRAINING OF PARENTS.

ORTY or fifty years ago, when the middle-aged and old people of the present day were children or young people, the parent occupied a position in the family so entirely different from that in which we find him to-day, that the subject of his training was not perhaps of sufficient importance to receive attention from those engaged in the promotion of education. The training of the child by the parent, both as a necessary element in the formation of its character and as a preparation for its education in the schools, was then considered the only branch of family instruction and discipline to which the thought and the assistance of workers in social reform should be given.

But now that there has been such a change, especially in the United States, in the constitution of the family, when the child has taken into its own hands that authority which was once the prerogative of the parent, it is time that we should recognize the altered condition of things, and give to the children of the present day that assistance and counsel in the government and judicious training of their parents which was 166