Practicable Socialism, New SeriesBarnett, S. A. (Samuel Augustus)
Religion
Practicable Socialism, New Series
Barnett, S. A. (Samuel Augustus)
Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Social problems; Working class
II.--To suit those affectionate mothers who are too untutored to do
without set tasks of employment and daily supervision, there might be
some sort of modification of the plan. Some twenty of these women could
be placed in small cottages, or tenements in a quadrangle, and employed
for part of the day at one of the giant official institutions for the
infirm or imbecile which are scattered all over the country. The
children could be kept at school for dinner, and care taken that the
women’s hours of labour were short enough to enable them to home-make
morning and evening when the children return from school.
III.--For other women, who, as the Report says, are “too ignorant to
be effective mothers,” and yet whose only thought is their children,
teaching colonies might be established, the mothers putting themselves
into training, with the hope of being ultimately counted as worthy to
rear their own children at the expense of the State--a goal to strive
for when they have mastered the skilled trade of “mothering”.
IV.--For women who are already employed at suitable work, special
arrangements could be made as the condition of their receiving
out-relief, either concerning their hours of labour or to secure the
household assistance necessary to maintain their children as children of
every class ought to be kept. I can imagine certain employers, such as
the ever public-spirited Mr. Cadbury, being willing to arrange shifts of
labour to suit these needs.
V.--From other mothers the children should be removed altogether, and
for these children I should counsel emigration, for all workers can
cite cases of the ruin of young people, when they reach wage-earning
ages, by bad parents claiming their rights over them.
To turn these suggestions into facts would take much work, thought,
patience, prayer. “Each case,” as the Majority report says, “seems to
call for special and individual attention.” But is it not worth while?
Can we as Christians allow the present condition of things to go on?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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