The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1912-03-01
rhine SO much as negation.

renthood. Under parental tutelage
the moral sense develops, conscience
awakens and is quickened. Taking
two Jumps of sugar when but one is
allowed is shown to be dishonest.
Slipping away when absence is for
hidden, on the ground of forgetful-
ness, is taught to be disobedience and
| falsehood. Hence the inherent, he
reditary, race-wide and age-long ten
dency to err is wisely bent that the
Bonded twig may rightly incline the
full grown tree.
Now, if this parenthood, and the
wider social conditions were ideal,
then training would be ideal, and this
paper would be unnecessary. But
they are not. Furthermore, they are
far from it. Parental duty or respon-
sibility are often ignored or neglect
ed, and even when instruction is &C
corded the lessons impaired are neg
affixed or neutralized too often by pa
rental lapses and inconsistencies.
Take some concrete examples. A
father says: "Son, it is wicked, Grim
inal to steal, /. e., to take that which
belongs to another, without his knowl-
edge or consent, and without return
ing an equivalent" Bye and bye
this boy hears this same father boast
of having secured the big end of a
trade, due to ignorance of all the
facts by the other party. Do you
wonder that the boy asks, mentally at
least: what is honestly"
Here is another case: A father
fondly counsels his son: "Son, look
not upon the wine when it is red,
when Il moveth itself Alright, when
it giveth it's color in the cup, for at
last IL biteth like serpent and sting
eth like an adder" Then that son
sees his father take his toddy, sees
him work and vote to make toddy-
traffieking legal, and asks: what is
integrity" A mother says: MARY,
you must always tell the truth. 1t is
wicked to lie, and leads to other
forms OF crime" Mary does not re-
member when she first heard that
lesson taught. She does remember,
back there in her pinafores, with
cruel acuteness, that one day mother
washed her mouth with soap to get
the STORY stain" out. But one day
Mrs. Jones drops in on her way from
marketing to see Mary's mother. And
Mary's mother greets Mrs. Jones most
cordially, with a kiss of welcome,
and after an interminable visit, as
Mrs. Jones rises to leave, "Oh, do
stay longer: must you go? Don't be
in a hurry. Come again real soon,
won't your" The door closes, and
Mary's mother, with disguised weari-
ness. says: "Why will that Jones wo-
man keep coming here? l can hard
ly tolerate herr" Poor Mary, with
open-eyed and ill-concealed wonder,
asks. deep down in her uniformed and
unframed soul, What is TRUTH"
Furthermore, and more unfortunate
still, even the semblance of moral re-
sponsibility and disciplinary regula-
ton is repudiated in many so-called
homes. While beyond the radii of
home influences, there opens an en-
vironment which permitted, tolerated
and even legalized. touches the child
life. ministering to or magnifying it's
eyil warp and bent, till Icing be-
comes chronic. dishonesty indemic,
and vulgarity and profanity habit of
thought and life. Then, up springs
some school of Phariseeism, preach
ing a doctrine of degeneracy, and
with Pecksniffian assumption, de-
cleares. lab nihil. nihil est"
over against this bald assumption,
Il must be recognized that degenera-
cy Is an effect. and just such an eff
feet as may be expected, given the
conditions 10 produce it, Out of such
parental indifference, neglect, incon-
sisteney or incapacity, plussed by an
evil environment beyond the portals
Of home life, the average child will
develop degenerative tendencies, and
II Il from such sources and because of
these things that an army of young
sters soon become a law unto them
selves. This quickly brings them up
I against the Thou shalt not" of civ
ilized man. impersonated in a burly
officer Of the law. whose right hand
holds billy" and whose left hand
opens a prison door, that the SEN
tence Of prescription may be enforc-
ed
The immature child, the neglected
child. the child of a negative or i'm
moral environment thus receives a
rude awakening to the fact that i'm
morality Is positive, and that he has