c. 1. DISHONESTY

Many parents appear to think that the child's concepts of property
rights and of fair dealing are without importance. Habits of pilfering
are permitted to develop and success in cheating wins admiration. Low
standards are accepted and religion is divorced from moral questions.
The family attitude practically assumes that all persons cheat more or
less and that it is necessary only to use wisdom to insure freedom from
conviction.

Responsibility lies at home. We shall never have an honest generation
until we have honest men and women to breed and train it. It is folly to
think we can lay on the public schools the burden of the moral education
of the young. Much is already being attempted there; yet little seems to
be accomplished because the home, having the child before and after
school and for a longer period each day, furnishes no adequate basis in
habits, ideals, and instruction for the moral work of the school. If
parents assume that one cannot succeed with absolute integrity, that
dishonesty in some degree is necessary to prosperity, then children will
learn that lesson despite all that may be said elsewhere. Honest
children grow where, in answer to the false statement, "You will starve
if you do business honestly," parents say, "Then we will starve."

But the very home life itself can be a teacher of dishonesty. Is it
largely a matter of sham and pretense for the sake of social glory? Does
it prefer a cheap veneer to a slowly acquired genuine article? Is the
front appearance that of a dandy while the backyard looks like a
slattern? Is the home striving for more than it deserves? Is it trying
to get more out of life than it puts in? Evading taxes, avoiding duties,
a community parasite, does it commend to children the arts of social
cheating and lying? Such homes teach so loudly that no voice could be
heard in them.

Given the atmosphere, ideals, and practices of the honest life in the
home itself, the problems of conduct, in the realm of these rights, are
more than half solved. Here in the home the real training for the life
of business takes place. Not for an instant can we afford to lower
standards here, nor to lose sight of the life-long power of our ideals,
our habits, and our attitudes on the conduct of the next generation. Do
parents know that the problems of lying, cheating, quarreling are the
great, vital questions for their children, much more important than
industrial or professional