In Boston in 1899 the Society of Collegiate Alumnæ exposed a disgracefully insanitary condition in the public schools, — undisturbed filth in cellar and vault, unwashed floors, a slovenly neglect of the commonest sanitary decency worthy of an Oriental slum. Any mother in Boston would have been filled with shame to have such an exposure of her own private housekeeping. There is room for shame at this exposure of their public housekeeping, school-house-keeping, city-keeping.
Like an ostrich with his head in the sand, the mother shuts herself up in the home and imagines that she is safe and hidden, acting as if “the home” was isolated in space. That the home is not isolated we are made painfully conscious through its material connections, — gas-pipes, water-pipes, sewer-pipes, and electric wires, — all serving us well or ill according to their general management. Milk, food, clothing, and all supplies brought in bring health or disease according to their general management. The mere physical comfort of the home needs collective action, to say nothing of the psychic connection in which we all live, and where none is safe and clean till all are safe and clean.
How far does the duty of the State extend, and how much should be left to individual responsibility? This is the working point to which this discussion tends. A more serious sociological question could hardly be propounded.
Seeing that progress is the law of nature, that the human race is under pressure of every force — conscious and unconscious — to go on, to improve, to grow better, and that we, as social beings, move forward through social improvement, the main weight of care seems to rest on society rather than the individual. It is astonishing to see how far this has gone already. Whereas once the beast father and mother were the only ones to protect or serve the young, now society does far more for the child than the parents. The father does more than the mother, and that by means of his social relation. He provides for his child by being a carpenter, lawyer, mason, or other social functionary. In this social relation he is able to provide for it the comfort and safety of a modern society. Out of that relation he would be able to provide for it only with his bare hands alone, and less competent than the hardy savage.
We need not be alarmed at some new overtures on the part of society, if we but look at what society is doing now. That we do not think of this is due to our tradition that we “take care of ourselves.” We do not. No civilised man “takes care of himself.” We take care of each other. But, granting this to some degree, we have heretofore supposed that the benefits of civilisation belonged only to adults, — for that matter only to adult males! — and were to be distributed to children through the individual parent. Thus, if the parent was inferior, the child was expected not only to inherit his inferiority, but to suffer from it always through inferior maintenance, breeding, and education.
The gradual reaching out of society to protect and care for the child is one of the most interesting lines of historic development. The parent had power to kill a child. The State denied the right, and protected the child against the parent. The parent had power to sell the child. The State denied that. The parent might cast off and neglect the child. The State compels him to maintain it, if he can; and, if not, the State supports the child. The parent might teach the child, have it taught, or leave it untaught. Now the State orders that the child must be taught, either at home or at school, and furnishes the school free. So far the line of advance has been from absolute parental control to a steadily enlarging State control, from absolute parental support to more and more of State support. The question of more or less in present details may be debated indefinitely to no conclusion. The principle is what we should study.
The condition of childhood in our human sense, the long period of immaturity, is a social condition. As we advance in social relation, becoming more and more highly specialised, the gulf between infancy and maturity increases. The young animal and the adult animal are far more alike than a Gladstone and his baby.
It does not take very long to mature the group of faculties required for maintaining individual life. It does take long to mature the group of faculties required to maintain social life. To rear a man — i.e., an adult male of genus homo — is no very difficult task. It is accomplished by Bushmen, Hottentots, Eskimo, every living kind of human creature. To rear a physician, an engineer, a chemist, — this takes longer. Incidentally, this is one reason why a girl’s “majority” is placed at eighteen, a boy’s at twenty-one. She is supposed to need only individual maturity, — physical maturity. He is supposed to take more time to become a man because he is a member of society, and so has to learn more things. It is not a question of adolescence, of physiological change. The boy of eighteen could be a father as well as the girl a mother; but he is not as well able to take his social position, to serve mankind in his craft, art, trade, or profession. Note here the early maturity and marriage of the less developed grades of society, filling those simpler social functions which require less specialisation, and the proportionate postponement of this period in the more highly specialised. Our long period of immaturity is a social condition, and not an individual one. That we may reach the full growth needed in the advanced member of society, we must be minors longer than would be necessary if we were not members of society. The exceeding childishness of the civilised child is also a social condition.
The nearer we are to the animals, the more capable and bright the very little ones. In the South it was common to set a little black child to take care of an older white one: the pickaninny matures much more rapidly. So, again, in our own lower social grades the little children of the poor are sharper, better able to care for themselves, than children of the same age in more developed classes. It is no proof of greater intelligence in the adult. It is retrogression, — a mark of bad social conditions.
Civilised society is responsible for civilised childhood, and should meet its responsibilities. The sweet confidence of a modern child, as compared to the alert suspicion of a baby savage, shows what ages of social safe-guarding have done. In the beautiful union of our civilised growth, even so far, we have made possible the Child; and it is for us still further to protect and develope this most exquisite social product, — this greatest social hope and power. Society’s relation to the child is impersonal. It is not limited by parenthood. The parental relation is lower, more limited. Parentally, we care only for our own: socially, we care for all. Parentally, we are animals: socially, we learn to love one another. We become, approximately, Christians.
Christianity is a social condition. In our present degree of social progress, we produce by our specialised co-ordinate activities that safe and comfortable material environment, those comparatively developed virtues which we call “civilisation.” But, in applying this common product to the advancement of the child, — which is our best and quickest way to incorporate progress in the race itself, — we allow the incapacity of the individual parent to limit the child’s advantages. We deny to the child the conditions necessary to his best development, unless his particular father is able to provide them. Our theory here is that the father would not work so hard if the State provided for his child; some thinkers combating even the public school and public library on this ground. This is an outworn economic fallacy. The inferior father cannot work beyond a certain grade because he has not the capacity; and, if the child has only the advantages the inferior father can provide for him, he grows up to be another inferior father and low-grade worker. The most deadly result of this foolish neglect of the young citizen is seen in the ensuing action of the biological law, “Reproduction is in inverse proportion to specialisation.” Because we leave the child to grow up unspecialised, untrained, save for the puny efforts of his single low-grade parent, therefore he, in turn, helps fill the world with very numerous and very inferior progeny.
We are hampered by the rapid reproduction of the very lowest classes of society, weighted down by their defects and limitations, forced to wait — the most advanced of us — for the great rear-guard of the population. We
must wait because a society is alive, and includes all its members. It cannot outstrip its own inferior parts, however neglected and behindhand they may be. And their numbers — numbers resultant from their low condition — complicate the problem hopelessly. That is, hopelessly on this old fallacious notion that the child can have no help from all the strong, rich world, save what his father and mother can filter through their personal limitations. We are beginning to change this by our efforts at free public education. We shall change it more and more as we grow consciously awake to our true social responsibility to the child.
We cannot afford to have one citizen grow up below the standards of common comfort, health, and general education. To the scared cry, “But, if you take the responsibility off these people, they will simply flood the world with wretched babies!” comes the answer of natural law, “Improve the individual, and you check this crude fecundity.” It is because they are neglected and inferior that they have so many children. Make higher-class people of the children, and you check this constant influx of low-grade life, and gradually introduce a better-born population.
When the wise, beneficent parental love of Human Society for its young really does its duty, tenderly removing obstructions from the path of all our little ones, we shall give to them those common human advantages without which they cannot grow to the happiness which is their right, the usefulness which is their duty. All parents who are able to do more for their children would be free to do so, as those who can afford private schools, or educate their little ones at home, are not compelled to send them to the public schools.
As now society provides the school for the young citizen, on the ground of public advantage, without regard to the inability of the parent, so we must learn to provide a far richer and more complete education, and all else that the parent falls short in, because it is necessary for the good of society, and because we love our children.
THE HOME: ITS WORK AND INFLUENCE
CONTENTS
TWO CALLINGS
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
THE HOME
Shall the home be our world … or the world our home?
To every Man who maintains a Home —
To every Woman who “keeps house” —
To every House-Servant, owned, hired, or married —
To every Boy and Girl who lives at Home —
To every Baby who is born and reared at Home —
In the hope of better homes for all this book is dedicated.
TWO CALLINGS
I
I hear a deep voice through uneasy dreaming,
A deep, soft, tender, soul-beguiling voice;
A lulling voice that bids the dreams remain,
That calms my restlessness and dulls my pain,
That thrills and fills and holds me till in seeming
There is no other sound on earth — no choice.
“Home!” says the deep voice, “Home!” and softly singing
Brings me a sense of safety unsurpassed;
So old! so old! The piles above the wave —
The shelter of the stone-blocked, shadowy cave —
Security of sun-kissed treetops swinging —
Safety and Home at last!
“Home” says the sweet voice, and warm Comfort rises,
Holding my soul with velvet-fingered hands;
Comfort of leafy lair and lapping fur,
Soft couches, cushions, curtains, and the stir
Of easy pleasures that the body prizes,
Of soft, swift feet to serve the least commands.
I shrink — half rise — and then it murmurs “Duty!”
Again the past rolls out — a scroll unfurled;
Allegiance and long labor due my lord —
Allegiance in an idleness abhorred —
I am the squaw — the slave — the harem beauty —
I serve and serve, the handmaid of the world.
My soul rebels — but hark! a new note thrilling,
Deep, deep, past finding — I protest no more;
The voice says “Love!” and all those ages dim
Stand glorified and justified in him;
I bow — I kneel — the woman soul is willing —
“Love is the law. Be still! Obey! Adore!”
And then — ah, then! The deep voice murmurs “Mother!”
And all life answers from the primal sea;
A mingling of all lullabies; a peace
That asks no understanding; the release
Of nature’s holiest power — who seeks another?
Home? Home is Mother — Mother, Home — to me.
“Home!” says the deep voice; “Home and Easy Pleasure!
Safety and Comfort, Laws of Life well kept!
Love!” and my heart rose thrilling at the word;
“Mother!” it nestled down and never stirred;
“Duty and Peace and Love beyond all measure!
Home! Safety! Comfort! Mother!” — and I slept.
II
A bugle call! A clear, keen, ringing cry,
Relentless — eloquent — that found the ear
Through fold on fold of slumber, sweet, profound —
A widening wave of universal sound,
Piercing the heart — filling the utmost sky —
I wake — I must wake! Hear — for I must hear!
“The World! The World is crying! Hear its needs!
Home is a part of life — I am the whole!
Home is the cradle — shall a whole life stay
Cradled in comfort through the working day?
I too am Home — the Home of all high deeds —
The only Home to hold the human soul!
“Courage! — the front of conscious life!” it cried;
“Courage that dares to die and dares to live!
Why should you prate of safety? Is life meant
In ignominious safety to be spent?
Is Home best valued as a place to hide?
Come out, and give what you are here to give!
“Strength and Endurance! of high action born!”
And all that dream of Comfort shrank away,
Turning its fond, beguiling face aside:
So Selfishness and Luxury and Pride
Stood forth revealed, till I grew fierce with scorn,
And burned to meet the dangers of the day.
“Duty? Aye, Duty! Duty! Mark the word!”
I turned to my old standard. It was rent
From hem to hem, and through the gaping place
I saw my undone duties to the race
Of man — neglected — spurned — how had I heard
That word and never dreamed of what it meant!
“Duty! Unlimited — eternal — new!”
And I? My idol on a petty shrine
Fell as I turned, and Cowardice and Sloth
Fell too, unmasked, false Duty covering both —
While the true Duty, all-embracing, high,
Showed the clear line of noble deeds to do.
And then the great voice rang out to the turn,
And all my terror left me, all my shame,
While every dream of joy from earliest youth
Came back and lived! — that joy unhoped was truth,
All joy, all hope, all truth, all peace grew one,
Life opened clear, and Love? Love was its name!
So when the great word “Mother!” rang once more,
I saw at last its meaning and its place;
Not the blind passion of the brooding past,
But Mother — the World’s Mother — come at last,
To love as she had never loved before
—
To feed and guard and teach the human race.
The world was full of music clear and high!
The world was full of light! The world was free!
And I? Awake at last, in joy untold,
Saw Love and Duty broad as life unrolled —
Wide as the earth — unbounded as the sky —
Home was the World — the World was Home to me!
THE HOME
I
INTRODUCTORY
In offering this study to a public accustomed only to the unquestioning acceptance of the home as something perfect, holy, quite above discussion, a word of explanation is needed.
First, let it be clearly and definitely stated, the purpose of this book is to maintain and improve the home. Criticism there is, deep and thorough; but not with the intention of robbing us of one essential element of home life — rather of saving us from conditions not only unessential, but gravely detrimental to home life. Every human being should have a home; the single person his or her home; and the family their home.
The home should offer to the individual rest, peace, quiet, comfort, health, and that degree of personal expression requisite; and these conditions should be maintained by the best methods of the time. The home should be to the child a place of happiness and true development; to the adult a place of happiness and that beautiful reinforcement of the spirit needed by the world’s workers.
We are here to perform our best service to society, and to find our best individual growth and expression; a right home is essential to both these uses.
The place of childhood’s glowing memories, of youth’s ideals, of the calm satisfaction of mature life, of peaceful shelter for the aged; this is not attacked, this we shall not lose, but gain more universally. What is here asserted is that our real home life is clogged and injured by a number of conditions which are not necessary, which are directly inimical to the home; and that we shall do well to lay these aside.
As to the element of sanctity — that which is really sacred can bear examination, no darkened room is needed for real miracles; mystery and shadow belong to jugglers, not to the truth.
Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman Page 209
