THE SOVEREIGN GRACES OF THE HOME 127

CHAPTER I

FACING THE PROBLEM

One way of averting what I have called the irrepressible conflict is
to insist that, in view of the fundamental change of attitude toward
the whole problem, the family is doomed. Even if the family were
doomed, some time would elapse before its doom would utterly have
overtaken the home. In truth, the family is not doomed quite yet,
though certain views with respect to the family are,--and long ought
to have been,--extinct. Canon Barnett[A] was nearer the truth when he
declared: "Family life, it may be said, is not 'going out' any more
than nationalities are going out; both are 'going on' to a higher
level." To urge that the problem of parental-filial contact need not
longer be considered, seeing that the family is on the verge of
dissolution, is almost as simple as the proposal of the seven-year-old
colored boy in the children's court, in answer to the kindly inquiry
of the Judge: "You have heard what your parents have to say about you.
Now, what can you say for yourself?" "Mistah Judge, I'se only got dis
here to say: I'd be all right if I jes had another set of parents."

For the problem persists and is bound to persist as long as the
relationships of the family-home obtain. The social changes which have
so markedly affected marriage have no more elided marriage than the
vast changes which have come over the home portend its dissolution. It
is as true as it ever was that the private home is the public hope. A
nation is what its homes are. With these it rises and falls, and it
can rise no higher than the level of its home-life. Marriage, said
Goethe, is the origin and summit of civilization; and Saleeby[B]
offers the wise amendment: "It would be more accurate to say 'the
family' rather than marriage." Assuming that the family which is the
cellular unit of civilization will, however modified, survive modern
conditions, the question to be considered is what burdens can the
home be made to assume which properly rest upon it, if it is to remain
worth while as well as be saved?

Nothing can be more important than to seek to bring to the home some of
the responsibilities with which other agencies such as school and church
are today unfitly burdened. False is the charge that school and church
fail to co-operate with the home. Truer is the suggestion that church
and school have vainly undertaken to do that which the home must largely
d