Teaching the Child Patriotism

by Kate Upson Clark

He was talking of the education of the schools; but Emerson somewhere says, in effect, that though we send our children to the schoolmaster, it is, after all, their environment which does most of the educating.

Emerson speaks of the shop-windows along the child's way; but it is his home which forms the most influential factor in his environment; and the part of the home usually dearest to him is his mother. It is a common saying, especially in our cities, that fathers see their children only when they are asleep, leaving them at breakfast-time, and returning after they have gone to bed. Up to the age of twelve, or thereabout, children should retire shortly after eight o'clock. During the next few years, even though they sit up later, they generally have to study. Thus, during their formative period, it is upon the mother that the home training of the children chiefly devolves.

A distinguished clergyman in a public address once eulogized his mother. He attributed to her every virtue and a wonderful mind. He was a violent anti-suffragist, and supposed that he was presenting a strong argument for his side when he said, "But though my incomparable mother counseled us upon almost every subject that could engage our attention, she never mentioned to us the subject of politics."

Had he not struck, perhaps, the main reason for the corruption of our politics? The fathers have no chance to instruct their young children in the rudiments of politics,—yet those children ought to be so instructed by somebody. They get little or nothing of it in school. If their mother does not teach them something about it, they will probably grow up ignorant of many of its snares and its opportunities.

To-day the anti-suffragists are wiser. They say that women should understand civic duties and should canvass them thoroughly with their children. The sin and the shame come only, in their opinion, when women actually vote for the best men and women to fill the offices.

The case is as if a woman should furnish a house, supplying its kitchen with every facility for cooking and cleaning; fitting its dining-room with the proper linen, silver and china; arranging its bedrooms for comfortable sleep; making its parlors beautiful for guests; and then, though she has known so well the needs of a household and how to provide for them, she draws back from the responsibility of running her model house, as if to say: "My sisters and I are not competent to manage this house. You men are far abler. Please make and enforce all the rules to govern it."

Let the men and the women work together, dividing the responsibility according to the fitness of each individual. There are stupid men and stupid women and there are bright men and bright women. Women are human beings before all else and all human interests are their interests. There is among us too much of cowardice and laziness, posing as hyper-refinement and modesty. Women as voters, "weavers of peace," as the old Saxons called them, are bound to be a helpful force in many departments, and especially in this great work of establishing universal peace, and teaching men how to use it. They should begin with the child in its cradle.

For, let us repeat, it cannot be too strongly impressed that the underlying and fundamental principles of politics must be taught by the mother, if they are taught at all; and like everything else that is good, they can be and should be taught. It does not seem to be generally understood, but it is a fact, that a training in politics is possible, and if our great experiment in government is to succeed, such a training should be given to every child, and the mother seems to be the natural, and often the only person to give it.

A mother was one day walking along the streets of the great city in which she lived, when she saw that a new liquor-saloon had been opened within two blocks of her home.

"Oh, dear!" she said to her little boy of eight, who held her hand, "Here is another saloon,—another place where men will spend their money foolishly and perhaps become drunkards,—and so near our own home! We have never had one so near before."