And who can doubt the amount of mental and moral dwarfing that is going on side by side with this physical shortage? - nonfiction literature
Now, it may be argued that this is not a fair sample of our general population, that these facts have been culled from a special section of the population,
And if York and London will not satisfy, let the reader take Edinburgh, whose Charity Organization Society has produced an admirable but infinitely distressing report of the physical conditions of the school children there. It gives a summary account of the homes of fourteen hundred children in one of the Edinburgh Elementary Schools, selected because it represented a fair mixture of prosperous and unprosperous people.
“4. The father a complete wreck through intemperate and fast living; speculation first brought him down. Was later moved to hospital, where he died. Had worked on railway a little time. Mother hard-working, works out, home untidy owing to her being out so much. She pays rent regularly, and does her best. An elder boy groom, fed and clad by his master, sends home what he can. Eldest boy does odd jobs, but seems a wastrel. Parish gave 7/6 after father ill, and feeds four children now.
“8. Fairly decent family; mother washes out, and man has very early work. He drinks, and his employment is somewhat irregular. A son in the country on a farm, and two dead. They were married at 21 and 18. The food is erratic, the children getting ‘pieces’ at dinner-time, or free school dinners; or when mother comes home, soup with her. The children are rather neglected, and the police give the parents an indifferent character. The eldest child has Eustacian catarrh and nasopharyngitis; glands.
born, fourteen are dead; and of the remainder we can hardly regard more than thirteen as being tolerably reared. the parents consented, that is, but it was not admitted that the community as a whole was concerned in the matter. Parents were allowed to starve their children, leave them naked, prey upon their children by making them work in factories or as chimney-sweeps and the like; the law was silent, the State acquiesced.
and “accessory consciences” have been thrust in between the supremacy of the parent and the child within the century. Consider, for instance, the circumstances of parentage among the large section of the working classes whose girls and women engage in factory labour. In many cases the earnings of the woman are vitally necessary to the solvency of the family budget, the father’s wages do not nearly cover the common expenditure. In some cases the women are unmarried, or the man is an invalid or out of work. Consider such a woman on the verge of motherhood.
For while the least fortunate sort of children have at any rate the protection of the police and school inspectors, and the baser sort of parent has all sorts of public and quasi-public helps and doles, the families that make the middle mass of our population are still in the position of the families of a hundred years ago, and have no help under heaven against the world.
The State will not even insist that a sufficiency of comfortable, sanitary homes shall be built for his class; if he wants the elementary convenience of a bathroom, he must pay extra toll to the water shareholder; his gas is as cheap in quality and dear in price as it can be; his bread and milk, under the laws of supply and demand, are at the legal minimum of wholesomeness; the coal trade cheerfully raises his coal in mid-winter to ruinous prices.
then that throughout this more comfortable but more refined and exacting class, the skilled artisan and middle-class, there goes on something even more disastrous, from the point of view of the State, than the squalor, despair and neglect of the lower levels, and that is a very evident strike against parentage? While the very poor continue to have many children who die or grow up undersized, crippled or half-civilized, the middle mass, whichcontrive with a struggle and sacrifice to rear fairly...
No doubt there is in the richer strata of the community a certain proportion of families with a real tradition of upbringing and service; such English families as the Cecils, Balfours and Trevelyans, for example, produce, generation after generation, public-spirited and highly competent men. But the family tradition in these cases is an excess of virtue rather than any necessary consequence of a social advantage; it is a defiance rather than a necessity of our economic system.
negligent, incompetent, selfish or wicked parents, and we do not sufficiently aid and encourage good parents; parentage is too much a matter of private adventure, and the individual family is too irresponsible.
Singapore Latest News, Singapore Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
This Chicago-Area Main Street is in the Running for ‘Merriest Main Street' in the USThe historical Main Street is being recognized for it’s holiday atmosphere thanks to array of local businesses, holiday events, thousands of Christmas lights and its historical outdoor square and gazebo — which was used as the backdrop to film all the outdoor scenes in the iconic 1993 movie Groundhog Day.
Read more »
Group of Chicago students take first place in first-ever Catholic Schools' Spelling Bee in Spanish'It was so close,' said fourth grader Ana Gonzalez. 'We won by one point. In the last round it was a tie, and we beat them — just by one point.'
Read more »
Mesa PD investigating death of man found dead inside his business near Center and Main streetsMesa PD is seeking information from any customers who visited Lamb's Boot Repair on December 6 after the store's owner was found dead inside.
Read more »
Investigators responding to fatal shooting in southwest Houston near South Main neighborhoodA man was found dead from apparent gunshot wounds near the South Main neighborhood of...
Read more »
Water main break no longer gushing, but neighbors say flooding nothing new in Greenway Plaza areaA water main break is no longer gushing, but the problem isn't resolved just yet. Houston Public Works now must replace several feet of pipe.
Read more »