In Darkest England and The Way Out [36]
which exact a certain acquaintance with A B C and pothooks and figures, but educated they are not in the sense of the development of their latent capacities so as to make them capable for the discharge of their duties in life. The new generation can read, no doubt. Otherwise, where would be the sale of "Sixteen String Jack," "Dick Turpin," and the like? But take the girls. Who can pretend that the girls whom our schools are now turning out are half as well educated for the work of life as their grandmothers were at the same age? How many of all these mothers of the future know how to bake a loaf or wash their clothes? Except minding the baby--a task that cannot be evaded--what domestic training have they received to qualify them for being in the future the mothers of babies themselves?
And even the schooling, such as it is, at what an expense is it often imparted! The rakings of the human cesspool are brought into the school-room and mixed up with your children. Your little ones, who never heard a foul word and who are not only innocent, but ignorant, of all the horrors of vice and sin, sit for hours side by side with little ones whose parents are habitually drunk, and play with others whose ideas of merriment are gained from the familiar spectacle of the nightly debauch by which their mothers earn the family bread. It is good, no doubt, to learn the ABC, but it is not so good that in acquiring these indispensable rudiments, your children should also acquire the vocabulary of the harlot and the corner boy. I speak only of what I know, and of that which has been brought home to me as a matter of repeated complaint by my Officers, when I say that the obscenity of the talk of many of the children of some of our public schools could hardly be outdone even in Sodom and Gomorrha. Childish innocence is very beautiful; but the bloom is soon destroyed, and it is a cruel awakening for a mother to discover that her tenderly nurtured boy, or her carefully guarded daughter, has been initiated by a companion into the mysteries of abomination that are concealed in the phrase--a house of ill-fame.
The home is largely destroyed where the mother follows the father into the factory, and where the hours of labour are so long that they have no time to see their children. The omnibus drivers of London, for instance, what time have they for discharging the daily duties of parentage to their little ones? How can a man who is on his omnibus from fourteen to sixteen hours a day have time to be a father to his children in any sense of the word? He has hardly a chance to see them except when they are asleep. Even the Sabbath, that blessed institution which is one of the sheet anchors of human existence, is encroached upon. Many of the new industries which have been started or developed since I was a boy ignore man's need of one day's rest in seven. The railway, the post-office, the tramway all compel some of their employes to be content with less than the divinely appointed minimum of leisure. In the country darkness restores the labouring father to his little ones. In the town gas and the electric light enables the employer to rob the children of the whole of their father's waking hours, and in some cases he takes the mother's also. Under some of the conditions of modern industry, children are not so much born into a home as they are spawned into the world like fish, with the results which we see.
The decline of natural affection follows inevitably from the substitution of the fish relationship for that of the human. A father who never dandles his child on his knee cannot have a very keen sense of the responsibilities of paternity. In the rush and pressure of our competitive City life, thousands of men have not time to be fathers. Sires, yes; fathers, no. It will take a good deal of schoolmaster to make up for that change. If this be the case, even with the children constantly employed, it can be imagined what kind of a home life is possessed by the children of the tramp, the odd jobber, the thief, and the harlot.
And even the schooling, such as it is, at what an expense is it often imparted! The rakings of the human cesspool are brought into the school-room and mixed up with your children. Your little ones, who never heard a foul word and who are not only innocent, but ignorant, of all the horrors of vice and sin, sit for hours side by side with little ones whose parents are habitually drunk, and play with others whose ideas of merriment are gained from the familiar spectacle of the nightly debauch by which their mothers earn the family bread. It is good, no doubt, to learn the ABC, but it is not so good that in acquiring these indispensable rudiments, your children should also acquire the vocabulary of the harlot and the corner boy. I speak only of what I know, and of that which has been brought home to me as a matter of repeated complaint by my Officers, when I say that the obscenity of the talk of many of the children of some of our public schools could hardly be outdone even in Sodom and Gomorrha. Childish innocence is very beautiful; but the bloom is soon destroyed, and it is a cruel awakening for a mother to discover that her tenderly nurtured boy, or her carefully guarded daughter, has been initiated by a companion into the mysteries of abomination that are concealed in the phrase--a house of ill-fame.
The home is largely destroyed where the mother follows the father into the factory, and where the hours of labour are so long that they have no time to see their children. The omnibus drivers of London, for instance, what time have they for discharging the daily duties of parentage to their little ones? How can a man who is on his omnibus from fourteen to sixteen hours a day have time to be a father to his children in any sense of the word? He has hardly a chance to see them except when they are asleep. Even the Sabbath, that blessed institution which is one of the sheet anchors of human existence, is encroached upon. Many of the new industries which have been started or developed since I was a boy ignore man's need of one day's rest in seven. The railway, the post-office, the tramway all compel some of their employes to be content with less than the divinely appointed minimum of leisure. In the country darkness restores the labouring father to his little ones. In the town gas and the electric light enables the employer to rob the children of the whole of their father's waking hours, and in some cases he takes the mother's also. Under some of the conditions of modern industry, children are not so much born into a home as they are spawned into the world like fish, with the results which we see.
The decline of natural affection follows inevitably from the substitution of the fish relationship for that of the human. A father who never dandles his child on his knee cannot have a very keen sense of the responsibilities of paternity. In the rush and pressure of our competitive City life, thousands of men have not time to be fathers. Sires, yes; fathers, no. It will take a good deal of schoolmaster to make up for that change. If this be the case, even with the children constantly employed, it can be imagined what kind of a home life is possessed by the children of the tramp, the odd jobber, the thief, and the harlot.