Religious Education in the FamilyCope, Henry Frederick
Religion
Religious Education in the Family
Cope, Henry Frederick
Families -- Religious life; Religious education
Citizenship is the condition of full communal, social living in a
democracy. It is not a special department or activity of a man's life
which he exercises once in a while, as at the primary or at the polls or
through the political campaign; it is a permanent condition, the
condition of his social living in a democracy. It seems to be worth
while to think of this enough to be quite sure of it, for we have
thought too long of citizenship as a special aspect of one's life or as
an occasional duty; we have called for good citizenship at times of
election and have been content with dormant citizenship at other times;
we have said that one was exercising his citizenship when he voted, and
have forgotten that he was exercising it or abusing or neglecting it as
he walked the streets, talked with his neighbors, or in any way lived
the life that has relations to other lives.
Matters of citizenship are simply matters of social living, as social
living expresses itself through what we call government; that is,
through communal, civic, national administration and regulation.
Citizenship is social control in action, not through political activity
alone, but through all that concerns civic and communal life. In view of
this it may be worth while to look a little more closely into the
relations of family life to this matter of the determination of the
character of our citizenship.
The family is an agency for religious training in citizenship. The
family is the first, smallest, and still the most common and potent
social group. It is the community in which we nearly all learn communal
living. At first it is a child's world, then comes his city, and then
his nation, but ere long again the family is his own kingdom. Its
ideals, constantly interpreted in action, determine our ideals. Where
the father is greedy, self-centered, regarding the home as solely for
his convenience as his private boarding-house, where he is a despotic
boss, why should not the son at least tolerate bossism in his city if he
does not himself pattern after his father on a wider scale and regard
the city or the state as his private boarding-house and the treasury as
his private manger? Where the mother is a petty parasite, what wonder
the children regard with indifference, if not even with admiration, the
whole system of civic and social barnacles, leeches, and other
parasites?
The very organization of the home must prepare for civic duty by laying
upon all appropriate duties and activities. It ought to be an ideal type
of community. But that can never be until we take the training of
parents seriously in hand; until we cease to delegate the pedagogy of
courtship, marriage, and home-founding to the comic supplements of the
Sunday papers and to the joke columns. Parents must themselves be
trained for the business of the organization of homes as educational
agencies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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