VIII.

A SUGGESTED REMEDY

Back of all the discontent, unrest and disorder in Society and Politics there must exist several causes. Some of these causes are fundamental, and others are of indifferent importance. Evils cannot be remedied en masse, but if the public will address its energy to a few of the fundamental causes, it will be easier to correct the others individually.

The condition of Primary Education seems to be the most important matter, and if this difficulty is remedied it will be the most efficacious in curing the ills of the body politic.

The North Central Academic Association, in making a report, April 10, 1915, 705 answers were received from men in charge of schools, business men, heads of employment departments of large mercantile houses, probation officers, boy scout leaders and camp directors. These answers indicate that in the last generation our boys are retrograding in a fearful degree. The points of retrogression are:

Arithmetic, Spelling, Penmanship, Gambling, Honesty, Use of Tobacco, "Swiping," Habits of Industry, Thoroughness, Habit of Saving, Extravagance, Obedience, Respect for Parents, Respect for Law, Bearing Responsibility, Respect for Women, Amusements, Purpose, Time Spent in Meditation, Religious Feeling, Reading.

The points of progression are:

Physique, School Attendance, General Information, Use

of Liquors, Initiative, Obscene Stories, Personal Appearance, Interest in Politics, Personal Ambition.

Boys have lost their power of analysis and reason, in that they are deficient in arithmetic and mathematics; they are inefficient in spelling, penmanship, and consequently not competent to master the serious problems of life, nor to be valuable to either themselves or others in a business. Furthermore, they have retrograded in the habits of industry, thoroughness of action and the accumulation of capital. Their moral habits show dishonesty and no ability to contemplate or consider matters of serious importance. Their domestic habits are deteriorated, as shown by disrespect for parents, for law and for women, and disobedience to both parents and teachers, and they care very little for reading and personal improvement.

The spiritual side of the boys has degenerated in a most remarkable degree, but on the physical side they show a desire to profit by material matters in which they take more interest in their physique and their personal appearance, and their ambition to succeed in politics. Their attitude toward woman is expressed by vulgar language, contempt and impurity in morals.

There must be some basic reason for the cause of this wreck of the boys' character, the contempt for women and girls, shown by boys after their adolescent period.

It is, perhaps, caused by being mothered too late in life, and familiar association in the schools with the opposite sex, the lack of respect for law and authority and for parents, are undoubtedly due to the fact that in the schools no discipline is enforced by physical means, and under feminine management the element of fear is entirely eliminated, and the boys are not governed at all.

As the boy is the father of the next generation of men,

we are building on a very unsafe foundation. We are preparing a harvest of anarchy, immorality, dishonesty in business and unhappiness in domestic society.

All this must be avoided and a remedy devised.

The great contrast can be shown between America and Germany-in favor of Germany. The great and victorious armies of that country are victorious from the fact that they are efficient and that they obey orders as one man. This obedience was taught them during their school days, and was taught them by a discipline backed up and enforced by the element of fear as well as the element of love. In the technical schools of Germany such efficiency is produced as the world has never known, elsewhere, and as a result the greatest achievements in science and manufacture have been made. All this is due to obedience enforced on the German child.

American schools on this point are opposite to the German schools and produce disorder, inefficiency, and it is doubtful whether we could create an army from our schoolboys which would obey their officers, from the fact that they have never learned obedience in the schools, and disobedience has become to them a second nature and a habit.

FEMINISM IN SCHOOLS

The body that is not put under a physical discipline cannot contain a mind that is under mental discipline.

The disobedient body will contain a disobedient mind. The body which only labors when it pleases will not control its mind to systematic and vigorous thought.

The body that has not been subjugated to right action will not control its mind in judicious and virtuous motives and thoughts.

The mind which is controlled by an undisciplined body is weak and shuns mental exertion. Reasoning is irksome. With an undrilled body failing to control its mind the power of analysis is too laborious, and reason and judgment fail.

This explains why Feminists' lack of government of the pupils of the present day produces such inefficient graduates, such mental failures.

Such human machines who have no power of reason or of analysis.

The remedy is to put back in the schools the fear of punishment, bodily discipline, so that the mind in harmony with the training of the body may also be disciplined.

TOO MANY WOMEN

It has never occurred to many people that there could be too many women and too much woman's influence. In unthoughtedly taking this view, these careless people have forgotten the homely phrase, "There can be too much of a good thing."

There can be too much quinine, which cures malaria, but also its abnormal use wrecks nerves; too much morphine, which relieves pain, but produces drug addiction. Too much food, which supports life and health, and causes gluttony and disease. So also there may be too many women.

A man needs so many women in his life; any more than enough are harmful and "cometh of evil.”

He needs a mother to love and bless him, and to inspire him with reverence, devotion and love and build up in him idealism which will lift him above selfish materialism and make him a full man, and perfect him spiritually and morally, while at the same time she nurtures his physical body and tenderly cares for his material welfare.

Then he needs two or more sisters.

Some aunts a second line of defense.

A grandmother, to intensify the affections of the mother and inspire in the boy all the tenderness and respect toward woman that is chivalric.

Two neighbor girls.

A school madam until he is 12. When he goes on his way home he should carry her books, and bring her flowers on her birthday, and when he is a man, and his mother is with the angels, he should see that his school mother, when she is superannuated, shall not suffer for anything, love included, and shall have the support and loyalty of all her school sons.

A wife-to be his complement and fill out his life, where it is incomplete, to have the same unselfish interests as his own, to aspire and work together in harmony, and between them and their children to make a home the harmonious unit of society which is one of the bulwarks of an ideal govern

ment.

He needs two or more daughters to draw his sympathy, and to inspire the best power of his life for their protection and education, and that when he gets old they may repay in kind, at this time of need, for all he had given them in their infancy.

He needs a mother-in-law to test his patience, remembering that she is essential as a grandmother for his children. He needs two or more sisters-in-law for a second line of defense for his children, in case his wife should be taken from them.

These are all the women a man really needs in this life, and any greater quantity may be to his injury, and also to the women to whom he is under obligation.