Charles H. Chapin.

One university has established a course in the care of children, much
to the amusement of the press. The United States Commissioner of
Education has, however, been a responsible mover in the idea.

But real progress by means of family education means the stable family
and the permanent dwelling. Where is the family in the permanent
dwelling today? Among any class, except the agricultural, where is the
stable family?

Since industry has taken woman's work from her, and she has to follow
it out into the world, the means of education for the child has gone
from the home. Its atmosphere is artificial, if the attempt is made.

To work exclusively on the family, for the sake of the child, is a
very slow process. As in all American life, the quicker method appeals
most strongly. The school is today the quickest means of reaching
both child and home; the present home through the child, and the
future homes through the children when they grow up.

And time presses! A whole generation has been lost because the machine
ran wild without guidance, and all attempt at improvement was met by
futile resistance.

It is very difficult to present the socionomist's view of the child in
the home so that it may appeal to the two extremes of opinion. There
are those who still apply mediaeval rules to twentieth century living;
those who believe, honestly, that the ideal life was found in the days
when the mother was the manufacturer in her own home and the children
were her helpers in all the varied processes. "There was never any
artificial teaching devised so good for children as the daily helping
in the household tasks." The inference is made that therefore the same
restriction for the mother and the children leads to an ideal life
today. Such persons fail to realize that the twentieth century is
practically a new world. The old rules which related to material
things hardly hold more closely than they would on the planet Mars.
The fundamental moral principles of reverence, obedience, love, and
unselfish sacrifice must be worked in on a new background.

To keep the eighteenth century habit, so carefully taught the girl, of
courtesying as she stepped aside to allow the rider or the ox cart to
pass, in these days of the swift automobile, which would be out of
sight before the knee could bend, is no more ridiculous than to expect
the average young mother to follow the methods of her grandmother. Her
mother's ways are