hild became educated,
capable of argument. In contact with more reasonable parents it grew
more reasonable. The parent, confronted with the question, "Why must I
do what you order?" ceased to say, "Because I say so." That reply did
not seem good enough to the parent, and it ceased to be good enough for
the child. If the child rebelled, the only thing to do was to strike it,
and striking is no longer done; the parent prefers argument because the
child is capable of understanding argument. The child is more lawful,
more sensitive; it is unready to obey blindly, and it is no longer
required to obey blindly, because, while the parent has begun to doubt
his own infallibility, the child has been doing so, too. The child is
more ready and more able to criticize its parents; indeed, the whole
generation is critical, has acquired the habit of introspection. The
child is a little like the supersoul of Mr. Stephen Leacock, and is
developing thoughts like, "Why am I? Why am I what I am? How? and why
how?" Obviously, such questions, when directed at one's father and
mother, are a little shattering. It is true that once upon a time the
child readily obeyed; now and then it criticized, but still it obeyed,
for it had been told that its duty was to execute, as was its parents'
to command. But duty is in a bad way, and I, for one, think that we
should be well rid of duty, for it appears to me to be merely an excuse
for acting without considering whether the deed is worthy. The man who
dies for his country because he loves it is an idealist and a hero; the
man who does that because he thinks it his duty is a fool. The
conception of duty has suffered; from the child's point of view, it is
almost extinct; it has been turned upside down, and there is a growth of
opinion that the parent should have the duties and the child the
privileges. It is the theory of _La Course du Flambeau_, where Hervieu
shows us each generation using and bleeding the elder generation. Or
perhaps it is a more subtle conception. It may be that the eugenic idea
is vaguely forming in the young generation, and that, in an unperceived
return to nature, they are deciding to eat their grandfathers, a
primitive taste which I have never been able to understand. Youth,
feeling that the world is its orange to suck, is inclined to consider
that the elder generation, being responsible for its presence, should
look after it and serve it. That is not at all illogical; it is borne
o