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.