XV.
SOCIAL PARENTAGE.
The mother does her duty by her children as best she can. The father does his duty by his children. But we do not do our duty by our children. The relation of the State to the child is little thought of, much less understood. We have discussed it only as an alternative to the parental relation, involving the removal of the child from the home and family, and the substitution of civic for domestic care. Such a proposal naturally excites the hot opposition of parental love and instinct, and cannot stand. It has been tried more or less thoroughly, as in Sparta, but does not appeal to the human heart or head, and is not in the least what is here under discussion. The true relation of the State to the child includes the parental relation, and in no way controverts the love and instinct of those invaluable public functionaries.
It is not necessary, or in any way desirable, for the State to remove the child from the parent. Parents are evolved for the purpose of rearing children, and possess highly specialised and urgent impulses in that direction,—far too useful forces to be ignored.
But the civilised human parent lives as part of an elaborate society,—a State; and, as a member of the State, he holds a new relation to his child—she holds a new relation to her child: they—and they are the State—hold a new relation to their children. This is what we so generally ignore.
The individual parents do their individual duty fairly well; but the collective parents, who constitute society, fail shamefully in their collective duties. What is a society? It is an organisation of human beings, alive, complex, exquisitely developed in co-ordinate inter-service. What is it for? It is for development, growth, progress, like any other living thing. How does a society improve? By combinations of individuals evolving social processes which react favourably upon the individual constituents, and develope in them better social faculties. For instance, early combinations of individuals evolve low forms of legal protection for the citizens of the early State. Under those protective enactments, citizens grow up in comparative peace, and become capable of enacting further and superior laws.
In recent and particular instance, our American forefathers established a system of public education under which many citizens were developed to a degree of intelligence sufficient to see the need and the means of extending and improving that education. Education is a social process, impossible—in any human degree—among detached individuals.
The education of children is a distinctly social process. Much of it may be carried on by the parents, but it is for social improvement and as a member of society that they do this. Here is where our parents, who constitute society, fail to see the nature and extent of their work. They have an exaggerated idea of "parental responsibility" to the child, and no idea at all of social responsibility to the child. That social development which has enlarged the mind and soul of the beast-savage to our present capacity for love and service we still imagine to be purely parental, and endeavour to concentrate it all on our own children, failing utterly in our duty to each other's children.