Year: 1875

Rev. Dr. Bellows, of New York, in the
course of a lecture on "Obstacles to
Domestic Happiness and Household
Training in our Age and National Cir
cumstances," said that probably the
best educated nation in our day was not
one of the two freest, America or Eng
land, but Prussia, where government
undertakes not only the intellectual and
physical, but also the moral discipline of
its young subjects. But the best and
most efficient training was also the most
difficult In this country we had no op.
tion in the matter. We were committed
to separation between the Church and
the State, and between mental and
moral government. What was under
taken as duty by other States was in
this country thrown back upon the
parents themselves. That accounted for
the unsatisfactory condition which ex-
listed in the training of American youth.
1t was the testimony of slillful school
teachers abroad, that American boys and
girls were least governable. 1t was for
this reason almost impossible to get en-
trance for them into the German
gymnasium. The only training con-
sistent with our form of society was also
the most costly, and implied the largest
amount of experience, wisdom and self
devotion. 1t also implied the necessi-
ties of a generation. But how was this
to be effected when the teachers them
selves were ignorant of parental train
ing, having received their own discipline
in the school of adversity at time when
the exigencies of our country formed a
sort of national education in themselves ?
The parents now on the stage grew up
under exceptionaln national circumstances
circumstances which constituted the
moral discipline and the school of CHAR
acter in themselves. They naturally ex-
| pect their children to find amid ease
and prosperity the same moral training
which they attained through adversely
the necessities of toll and continued self
control. Their children, no doubt,
found something wholesome in the at
mosphere of such parents, but they got
no training from them; a thing the
parents did not think necessary for
them, never having any such themselves.
And now the training of the youth of
the country was in the hands of a genera
tion of parents with little training of
their own.


Everything entirely depended on the
energy of the individual family. There
was little or no public sentiment to help
the moral training of youth, and there
fore the household became q sort OF
private experiment in education. One
family pursued one system, another
quite the opposite. One adopted a sys.
tenn of indulgence, the other one of re.
striction. One controls, the other aban.
dons them to almost unbounded liberty.
One has them taught in the public
schools, the other by private masters in
their own households. One thinks chill.
dren should never learn anything which
they cannot understand, the other in.
culcates and communicates ideas with
the expectation that they may become
useful in after years. In the midst Of
this individual difference of caprice, nc
one is encouraged by the support of his
neighbors. On the contrary, by the op
posite course pursued by his neighbors
it is easy to see how difficult is the tasl
of bringing up children wisely and vel
in our American society.


There was another fundamental diff
Guilty to be met with. The entire mora
life of the country and the state of things
brought about by our material develop
ment of resources, and by prosperous
times, the domestic and social ambition
which animates our people, the pride o
life, the high living so general, tn,
dangerous competition in business, tht
corrupting of morals, the separation o
husbands and wives, the one providin,
the means, the other spending it to keel
up extravagant household expenditure
the separation of children from an,
knowledge or participation in family life
the earl sense of personal importanc
they imbibe, the gradual weakening o
self-denial, the false views of life an,
character-all these things were present
ed as the result of our national pros
perity. And it had been asked, HOY
could parents, wearied with busines
anxiety and social solicitude, have an
time for the direct labors and systemati
training of their children? Were nc
such parents in the greatest Temptation
to think that family government was nc
intended to be the most important il
fluence for the training of children2
Their Latin.