Social ethics; Social sciences; United States -- Social conditions -- 1865-1918
This attempt to take the parental relation somewhat away from mere
personal experience, as well as the increasing tendency of parents to
share their children's pursuits and interests, will doubtless finally
result in a better understanding of the social obligation. The
understanding, which results from identity of interests, would seem to
confirm the conviction that in the complicated life of to-day there is
no education so admirable as that education which comes from
participation in the constant trend of events. There is no doubt that
most of the misunderstandings of life are due to partial intelligence,
because our experiences have been so unlike that we cannot comprehend
each other. The old difficulties incident to the clash of two codes of
morals must drop away, as the experiences of various members of the
family become larger and more identical.
At the present moment, however, many of those difficulties still exist
and may be seen all about us. In order to illustrate the situation
baldly, and at the same time to put it dramatically, it may be well to
take an instance concerning which we have no personal feeling. The
tragedy of King Lear has been selected, although we have been accustomed
so long to give him our sympathy as the victim of the ingratitude of his
two older daughters, and of the apparent coldness of Cordelia, that we
have not sufficiently considered the weakness of his fatherhood,
revealed by the fact that he should get himself into so entangled and
unhappy a relation to all of his children. In our pity for Lear, we fail
to analyze his character. The King on his throne exhibits utter lack of
self-control. The King in the storm gives way to the same emotion, in
repining over the wickedness of his children, which he formerly
exhibited in his indulgent treatment of them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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