No nobler social work, no deeper religious work, no higher educational work is done anywhere than that of the men and women, high or humble, who set themselves to the fitting of their children for life’s business, equipping them with principles and habits upon which they may fall back in trying hours, and making of home the sweetest, strongest, holiest, happiest place on earth.

Heaven only knows the price that must be paid for that; heaven only knows the worth of that work.  But if we are wise we shall each take up our work for our world where it lies nearest to us, in co-operation with parents, in service and sacrifice as parents or kin, our work in the shop where manhood is in the making, where it is being made fit to dwell long in the land, in the family at home.

     I. References for Study

     Edward Lyttleton, The Corner-Stone of Education, chaps. i, vii. 
     Putnam, $1.50.

     A. Gandier, “Religious Education in the Home,” Religious
     Education, June, 1914, pp. 233-42.

     II.  Further Reading

     The Family a Religious Agency

     C.F. and C.B.  Thwing, The Family.  Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, $1.60.

     J.D.  Folsom, Religious Education in the Home.  Eaton & Mains,
     $0.75.

     G.A.  Coe, Education in Religion and Morals.  Revell, $1.35.

     The Place of the Family

     A.J.  Todd, The Family as an Educational Agency.  Putnam, $2.00.

     W.F.  Lofthouse, Ethics and the Family.  Hodder & Stoughton, $2.50.

     J.B.  Robins, The Family a Necessity.  Revell, $1.25.

     III.  Topics for Discussion

1.  Describe the changes within recent times in the conditions of the home, its work, housing, and supplies.  How far have these changes affected the community of the family, the continuity of its personal relationships, and its religious service?

2.  What are the fundamental causes of family disasters?  Admitting that there are sufficient grounds for divorce in numerous instances, what other causes enter into the high number of divorces?

     3.  State in your own terms the ultimate reasons for the maintenance
     of a family.

     4.  What are the motives which would make people willing to bear the
     high cost of founding and conducting a home?

     5.  What points of emphasis does this study suggest in the matter of
     the education of public opinion?

     6.  State your distinction between the family and the home; which is
     the more important and why?

FOOTNOTES: 

[1] The Corner-Stone of Education, by Edward Lyttleton, headmaster of Eton, is a striking argument on the determinative influence of parental habits and attitudes of mind.