Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-11-01
THE FIRST COMMANDMENT
WITH PROMISE
BY DR.. Frank Crane


The Fifth Commandment of the Deca-
logue is called the First Commandment with
Promlse. 1t is the Injunction to "Honor thy
rather and thy mother; that thy days may
be long in the land
Ihls idea may seem little antiquated in
Inese times. But 1t is based upon the I'M
changing principles of human nature; and
a neglect of it cannot fail to bring the dis
aster which always comes to an infraction
of natural law.
In a great city the other day peculiar
case was brought before a magistrate.
silly mother, of type all too frequent,
sustained her two half-grown daughters
says the daily news item, in resisting their
fathers authority when he reproved their
manners and forbade them to go out alone
at night, whittier they visited, and to remain
out until all hours. "The father complained
to the magistrate. The mother, rudely
brought to reason by experience, seconded
him, confirming all that he said. The mag
istrate confessed, however, his inability un-
der the law to coerce the hayward girls So
there is no alternative for these parents be.
tween submitting to the disorderly will OF
their children and the disastrous expedient
Of turning them out of the house to pursue
their own headstrong and probably vicious
course"
This sorry drama will find an echo and
a parallel in many a home.
The problem Of bringing UP children is
not one that can be dismissed with an axiom.
1t is complicated and battling; for it is,
after all, the problem of life itself
1t is all the more complex because the in
tention of the parents is almost uniformly
good. They want their children to be hap
by, and whatever mistake they make is usu-
ally traceable to that cause, and not to any
Ill intent.
The difficulty usually is that the quick
and thoughtless road to this objective is
indulgence. The parents do not wish their
children to think hard of them and there
fore subject them to as little restraint as
possible.
Of course there are other parents who ex-
ercise too much restraint from an equally
right motive, and, unfortunately, the re.
IS of one error are often as disastrous as
those of the opposite. The tendency, how
ever, OF modern times is to overindulgence.
This arises from ignorance of the Importance
of discipline.
There is no foundation for happiness ex-
cept self-mastery; and children who are
trained to know no masters but their own
desires and to obey no will except their
own Whim are pretty sure to come to grief.
The spectacle of young people who have
no regard for the advice of their parents is
all too common.
1t is perhaps the bitterest experience of
fathers that the wisdom and judgment which
they have accumulated by long years and
many hard knock is often lightly disre-
garded by the child
In other times the parent exercised the
right of life and death over the child. We
have gone far from this; and many parents
have renowned even the right of discipline
and abandoned the sacred duty of season
7e correction.
One thing at least young people might
learn: that there is nothing quite so vulgar
in the eyes of cultured people as disrespect
on the part of the young for Father and
other.
Copyright, 1921, by Frank Crane)