|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 20
With Whitechapel constantly in mind, it was difficult not to advise
these young people to use some of this muscular energy of which they
were so proud, in cleaning neglected alleys and paving soggy streets.
Their stores of enthusiasm might stir to energy the listless men and
women of East London and utilize latent social forces. The exercise
would be quite as good, the need of endurance as great, the care for
proper dress and food as important; but the motives for action would be
turned from selfish ones into social ones. Such an appeal would
doubtless be met with a certain response from the young people, but
would never be countenanced by their families for an instant.
Fortunately a beginning has been made in another direction, and a few
parents have already begun to consider even their little children in
relation to society as well as to the family. The young mothers who
attend "Child Study" classes have a larger notion of parenthood and
expect given characteristics from their children, at certain ages and
under certain conditions. They quite calmly watch the various attempts
of a child to assert his individuality, which so often takes the form of
opposition to the wishes of the family and to the rule of the household.
They recognize as acting under the same law of development the little
child of three who persistently runs away and pretends not to hear his
mother's voice, the boy of ten who violently, although temporarily,
resents control of any sort, and the grown-up son who, by an
individualized and trained personality, is drawn into pursuits and
interests quite alien to those of his family.
This attempt to take the parental relation somewhat away from mere
personal experience, as well as the increasing tendency of parents to
share their children's pursuits and interests, will doubtless finally
result in a better understanding of the social obligation. The
understanding, which results from identity of interests, would seem to
confirm the conviction that in the complicated life of to-day there is
no education so admirable as that education which comes from
participation in the constant trend of events. There is no doubt that
most of the misunderstandings of life are due to partial intelligence,
because our experiences have been so unlike that we cannot comprehend
each other. The old difficulties incident to the clash of two codes of
morals must drop away, as the experiences of various members of the
family become larger and more identical.
At the present moment, however, many of those difficulties still exist
and may be seen all about us. In order to illustrate the situation
baldly, and at the same time to put it dramatically, it may be well to
take an instance concerning which we have no personal feeling. The
tragedy of King Lear has been selected, although we have been accustomed
so long to give him our sympathy as the victim of the ingratitude of his
two older daughters, and of the apparent coldness of Cordelia, that we
have not sufficiently considered the weakness of his fatherhood,
revealed by the fact that he should get himself into so entangled and
unhappy a relation to all of his children. In our pity for Lear, we fail
to analyze his character. The King on his throne exhibits utter lack of
self-control. The King in the storm gives way to the same emotion, in
repining over the wickedness of his children, which he formerly
exhibited in his indulgent treatment of them.
It might be illuminating to discover wherein he had failed, and why his
old age found him roofless in spite of the fact that he strenuously
urged the family claim with his whole conscience. At the opening of the
drama he sat upon his throne, ready for the enjoyment which an indulgent
parent expects when he has given gifts to his children. From the two
elder, the responses for the division of his lands were graceful and
fitting, but he longed to hear what Cordelia, his youngest and best
beloved child, would say. He looked toward her expectantly, but instead
of delight and gratitude there was the first dawn of character. Cordelia
made the awkward attempt of an untrained soul to be honest and
scrupulously to express her inmost feeling. The king was baffled and
distressed by this attempt at self-expression. It was new to him that
his daughter should be moved by a principle obtained outside himself,
which even his imagination could not follow; that she had caught the
notion of an existence in which her relation as a daughter played but a
part. She was transformed by a dignity which recast her speech and made
it self-contained. She found herself in the sweep of a feeling so large
that the immediate loss of a kingdom seemed of little consequence to
her. Even an act which might be construed as disrespect to her father
was justified in her eyes, because she was vainly striving to fill out
this larger conception of duty. The test which comes sooner or later to
many parents had come to Lear, to maintain the tenderness of the
relation between father and child, after that relation had become one
between adults, to be content with the responses made by the adult child
to the family claim, while at the same time she responded to the claims
of the rest of life. The mind of Lear was not big enough for this test;
he failed to see anything but the personal slight involved, and the
ingratitude alone reached him. It was impossible for him to calmly watch
his child developing beyond the stretch of his own mind and sympathy.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|