The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1937-09-15

BOake Carter

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Teaching Disregard of Law
A Thought for Parents
The Old Discipline Gone
IT SEEMS to me that a goodly
Aportion of the disrespect for law
that we seem to have as a ma
ton can be traced to parents
and, more especially, to parents
of today.
Consider three items in the
news: In Trevorton, Pa, stu
dents of the high school struck
because they wanted to retain
an interim principal and were
against the reinstated supervis-
ing principal. Carrying placards
and banners, 260 students
marched round and round the
school for two days, led by
parents. The interim principal
pleaded with the parents and
their children, but they laughed
at him, defied the town con-
stable and pranced around the
building.
In York, Pa, the students of a
township high school walked out
on strike in protest against the
dismissal of a teacher.
In East Wenonah, N. j., par.
ents barred their children from
school because the school au.
thorities transferred the pupils
from one school to another.
HEAVEN alone knows we
A learn enough ways to cheat
authority when we grow older,
but it seems to me to be pretty
poor state of affairs when par
ents themselves encourage in
their own children an utter dis
regard for law, order and con-
stituted authority-wit bout
which three things the world
would be simply chaos.
Encouraging or worse-per-
mittin,. small children of school
age to strike constitutes gross
betrayal of the privilege of par
enthood. If parents will lend
support to their children who
come home and proclaim I'm
not going to school tomorrow.
I don't like my teacher!" what
kind of irresponsible future citi-
zens are being made?
Surely there are enough heart
burns for parents and for the
children themselves later on in
life when they resent any au-
thority and decline any more
mature advice from an elder.
What are they going to do
when they are grown up and
out in the business world and
don't like the man they're work
ing for? Are they going to walk
out? What if they don't like
the man or the woman they
married? Will they just walk
out? Will they have any sense
Of responsibility?
Parents may consider it anus.
ing and something of a lark to
foster strikes of their own chill
dren against the schools and
the school authorities, but there
is no lark or amusement in it
to thinking people. 1t is, on the
contrary, a tragedy, because
such conduct breeds contempt
of law in immature minds.
x X *
7 WONDER if nowadays we are
L not becoming too chicken
hearted and paying too much at
tention to the likes and dislikes
of children? There were thou
sands of things that I hated as
a child to do, but we had to go
through with them because we
thought that our parents knew
what was best for us.
Now I'm not saying that such
parents were always infallible,
or that their dictums always
turned out 100 per cent perfect.
But I do insist that there was a
stronger spirit of discipline
which taught us that we had
to put up with things we didn't
like because such restraint was
spiritually and morally develop
ing to character,
Today that spirit seems to
have gone. Few seem to be
ready to tackle something I'M
pleasant. We seem to have
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