Keep The Children At Home

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Title:     Keep The Children At Home
Author: Lemuel K. Washburn [More Titles by Washburn]

Fathers and mothers want to see their children grow up into good, moral, respectable men and women. How to insure this desirable result is a serious problem. It is seen that the school is not sufficient to insure character, nor does the church exert sufficient influence to guide the feet in right paths.

We have the deepest faith in what the school is doing and trying to do, and would help it in every way to promote the instruction in those branches of knowledge which are deemed essential to a sound and useful education, but we cannot fail to see that the school, however much it may assist the child in the formation of good habits, is not of itself competent to build up character. The school cannot take the place of the home, nor can the teacher do the work of the parent. We believe that the best way to have good boys and girls, and therefore good men and women, is to have good homes for them to live in. If parents gave more attention to making their homes attractive to their children, they would not be so apt to seek amusement in other places. The more a child is kept at home, the more certain it will be to escape the evils of life. A good home is the first and most powerful factor in forming the character of children.

There is too much thought given by parents generally to the church and too little to the home. They shirk their duty and their responsibility, and pray God to look after what they neglect. With the father at work and the mother at mass, the children will be in the street. Those parents who put the home above the church are throwing around their children the best influences that earth affords. When children are left to the care of God they too often fall into the hands of the policeman. Let the path between the home and the school be well worn, but never mind if the grass grows in the road that leads to the church.

The child will usually love home if home is made lovely. If parents wish to drive their children into temptation, let them shut the sunshine of joy out of the house, forbid the playing of games, burn up the pack of cards that is found in one of the boy’s rooms, call a ball-room the “devil’s headquarters,” and pronounce a malediction upon all youthful sports. It is easy enough to drive a boy or girl out into the dark. Put out the lights at home. Those parents who know the evil influences of the world will make their homes bright and beautiful and then keep their children there as long as they can.

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The doctrine of salvation by faith is a libel on justice and has done more to undermine the virtue of the world than vice itself.

[The end]
Lemuel K. Washburn's essay: Keep The Children At Home

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