The Tendency of Evolution.—With the passage of the years, the importance of education continually increases. The seductions and the temptations encountered by young people to-day are at once far more frequent and far more subtle than was the case in former times. To enable them to withstand these allurements, the young require a better and a more careful education. In the early stages of evolution, alike in the struggle for existence between individuals and in the struggle for existence between competing tribes, physical strength was the decisive factor of success; but in the later stages of human evolution it is upon intellectual and moral well-being that victory in the struggle depends. Hence intellectual and moral education become of ever greater importance. To-day, one whose intellectual and moral education has been neglected is far less able to meet with success the demands made by modern life than one living some hundreds of years ago, whose education had been neglected, would have been able to meet the demands made by the life of his own time. In such a case, in our own day, the likelihood that one whose education has been neglected will be useless and even dangerous to society, is far greater than it would have been in former times; and as time goes on the differences between those who have had an appropriate education and those whose education has been neglected will become more and more extensive.
It is well known that the majority of habitual criminals are persons who began to commit punishable offences in the earlier years of their life. It is only in the rarest instances that by legal punitive methods we prevent a juvenile offender from developing into a habitual criminal; the object of the punishment is seldom attained. The question therefore presses itself upon our attention, whether the prevention of crime cannot best be attained in another way than by the use of penal methods, namely, by the proper education of children.
Education has no bearing upon the life of persons living in complete isolation; it is a postulate of social life alone, and becomes impregnated to a continually greater extent with social elements. The modern tendency of social evolution is to relieve the family of the cares of education, which becomes to an increasing extent a communal duty; whilst the share of the parents in the education of their children is limited, social institutions providing more generally and more thoroughly for that education. England offers us a typical example of the working of this modern tendency; for England is commonly regarded as pre-eminently individualistic, and yet there is no country in which more limitations have been imposed upon parental authority, or in which compulsory and universal education is more thoroughly enforced by the State.
The elements of educational science depend mainly upon the social conditions that obtain in the country with which we have to do; as time passes, the science undergoes a progressive alteration, and leads us from individual education to social education. The elements of the education of the future will depend upon the general configuration of social life, upon the characteristics of domestic life, and upon the regulation of parental authority. The individual household of our own time has no regard at all for the special needs of the child, and the various occupations carried on in such a household constitute a hindrance to the proper upbringing of children. The labours of the kitchen expose children to constant accidents—from fire, boiling water, sharp instruments, &c. The parents, and more especially the mother, will in times to come be much less occupied than at present in domestic drudgery, and will consequently have more time to devote to the upbringing of their children. The parents will also themselves stand at a much higher level of culture, and this cannot fail to lead to an effective demand for the more suitable upbringing of children. The modern dwelling and its furniture take no account at all of the needs of children; at every turn there are sharp corners and hard objects, by contact with which children may be, and often are, seriously injured. In former times various occupations were carried on in the individual household which hardly any one now dreams of doing at home: among these may be mentioned, spinning, weaving, laundry-work, soap-boiling, the slaughtering of animals and the preparation of their flesh, the grinding of meal, &c. &c. In the United States of America even to-day many families take all their principal meals at public restaurants; in America also, to an increasing degree, heating, ventilation, and lighting of the houses is provided from central establishments. The household of to-day is inconvenient and uneconomical. Much work is still done at home which could be done more cheaply, more effectively, and more conveniently elsewhere. As time goes on, one labour after another which is now done at home will be removed altogether from the sphere of the domestic economy, and this will necessarily lead ultimately to the disappearance of the individual household. In the future, human beings will occupy separate dwellings, but not separate households; or, to put the matter more intelligibly, most of the work now carried on in the individual household will be arranged for from centralised organisations. It is obvious that these changes will lead to extensive modifications of our present individual methods of domestic architecture.
The educational developments of the future will depend, not only on the changes that have been foreshadowed in domestic life, but also on the future development of the institution of the family. Naturally, the characteristics of the family and the characteristics of the household are intimately associated. But, whatever changes may ensue in these respects, the fundamental principle that the parents are responsible for the upbringing of their children is not likely to be abandoned, for it is based upon an instinct deeply rooted in the very nature of human beings. But the actual work of education will probably be in the hands of educational specialists almost exclusively, as soon as the days of infancy and very early childhood are outgrown. When physically able to do so, mothers will, of course, suckle their own children. The transformation of our domestic economy and our domestic architecture will result in giving enormously increased importance to institutions for the upbringing of children; crèches, kindergartens, and elementary schools will play a far greater part than at present in social life; such institutions will probably care for children in every possible way, and will aim at the satisfaction of all their elementary needs.
[CHAPTER V]
PROS AND CONS OF CHILD-PROTECTION
Introductory.—The lex minimi (“law of parsimony”) is not merely a natural law, but is also the guiding principle both of legislative and of executive activity. From this law we learn, among other things: “When we wish to attain any end, we must arrange to do this with the smallest possible expenditure of means; with the means available we must secure the greatest possible result; the cost of production must not exceed the value of the finished product. No institution should be maintained if its utility is less than the equivalent of the cost of its maintenance. However fine an aim may be, it must never be forgotten that society and the State have other aims in addition to this one, and that if for the attainment of this particular aim an excessive expenditure of wealth is requisite, some wealth will be used up which is needed for the attainment of other aims.”
Prevention is better than cure. One whose actions are guided by foresight will use preventive methods all the more readily because prevention is a part of the natural order of things. It is applicable not only in domestic life, but also in the general life of society; and as evolution proceeds, the importance of repression continually diminishes, whilst the importance of prevention continually increases.