From the HPR Archives – Part VI

HPR archive, v. 43, 1943

Is Uncle Sam Becoming Mother Samuela?

By EDGAR SCHMIEDELER, O.S.B., PH.D.

Uncle Sam has been over the decades an easy-going, good-natured sort of fellow. He has been characterized by many lovable qualities that have won him the affection of the people. True, some of his easy-going ways have not always pleased the people. As a matter of fact, when in recent years it became ever more notoriously evident that the common good was suffering seriously because of his do-nothing attitudes, his “hands-off” policies and his general individualistic philosophy, the people began to inquire just what useful purpose he served after all. And they did more. They began to prod him, to insist that he tend to business.

His response has been reasonably satisfactory, as is witnessed by the social legislation — not all of it perfect, to be sure — that has been placed upon our statute books during more recent years. But now we find ourselves face to face with the fact that, since Uncle has been roused to a sense of duty to the common welfare, particularly in so far as economic welfare is concerned, there is growing evidence that his enthusiasm and new-found interests may carry him too far. Some are even becoming fearful that he means to supplant his former easy-going attitude with a go-getter spirit of do-everything.

There is no question that he has suddenly taken on certain traits that are both new and strange in him. He has become a rather motherly sort of character — so much so in fact that he is bringing to the mind of not a few the rather unpopular term, “Mother State.” He has begun to manifest considerable interest in matters that are hardly within the realm of his legitimate “sphere of influence,” or at any rate, not his concern so much as that of other institutions. As a result, he is making enemies. While Americans — at least those outside the vested-interest class — are undoubtedly quite willing, and even eager, to see Uncle Sam correct his slovenly ways of the past and do faithfully what is expected of him for the common welfare, they hardly wish to see him in a position, so utterly unsuited to him, of trying to do everything, of going totalitarian. Particularly do they not want him to lay his hands on the family and the child. They do not wish to see him in the rôle of Mother Samuela. In fact, genuine Americans will strenuously object to any such metamorphosis.

But there are to-day some real reasons for concern in the latter regard. There have unquestionably been some tendencies on the part of the State to usurp the place of the family, to infringe upon parental rights with regard to the child. These tendencies call for genuine alertness. The very notion of any infringement or encroachment here should be vigorously denied any quarter whatever. It is good sense, and at the same time the traditional view of the race, that the State exists for the family and not the family for the State. And it is both Christian doctrine and American doctrine that “the child is not the mere creature of the State.” He is primarily the creature of the parents. The latter are to control him. They are to train him.

To say that the family does not exist for the State is as much as declaring that it is an institution in its own right. And the fact is that it arises spontaneously from nature. The State does not give it its rights. The family would exist even if there were no State. States crumble; the family lives on. To be sure, this is not to say that the family is entirely independent of the State. Certainly it is granted that some regulation of marriage by the State, for instance, is necessary for the common welfare. It is also accepted as approved and rightful practice that the State step in when there is abuse of the rights of family members. This simply means that family rights, like all other rights, are limited. But, while it means that when the individual rights of family members are trampled upon the State can take measures to uphold and protect them, it does not mean that the State creates family rights or can dispose of them. The State cannot, for instance, invade the family to the extent of regulating the birth rate or the begetting of children, of winning children away from their parents. Such State action would be very definitely an invasion of parental rights. It is for parents on their own responsibility to bring children into the world and to control them. It is not for the State to interfere in this regard.

Similarly it is for the parents to train their children. Indeed, they have the duty as well as the right to do this. From time immemorial parents have been the recognized teachers of their children. Down through the ages the family has been considered the school of schools, and parents the teachers par excellence. Indeed, the school as we understand it to-day is of but recent origin, and when it originated, it was considered but an extension of the home or a supplement to it.

The child is a creature of his parents. It is the plain teaching of the natural law that the hireling or the State functionary, no matter how expert, cannot be a satisfactory substitute for the parent in the training of the child.

It is acknowledged that, even in the merely physical sphere, the best that science can offer cannot be a substitute for the mother. A child will convalesce more rapidly after illness, for instance, if properly “mothered” at home, than it will under the most expert care an institution can give it. And it is much the same in the field of personality health. It may be asserted without hesitation that no artifice of the social scientist, no new type of institution or community agency, can replace the family relationship as a medium for developing and integrating the human personality. As a secular psychologist has put it: “The only reality which is ultimately worth considering is that of human beings which associate together; and the life of the family is the life in which actual fathers and mothers and children live in one another’s company. Unless there are opportunities for individuals to grow and to realize their potentialities through free contact with one another, the most highly perfected pattern of the socialist will be only an empty formula.”

It is a well-recognized fact that the orphan, even the half-orphan, who receives the best institutional care, runs a very real risk of becoming an abnormal personality, because of lack of association with father or mother or both. The truth deserves repetition in these abnormal times: very rarely indeed can a public functionary or hireling fill the parents’ place. It is the family with its natural warmth, and not the nursery school with its expert coldness, that gives the child the emotional security he needs for normal development. Indeed, foremost among the effects of the family on the child is the degree to which the family gives the child a sense of security and of belonging to a small intimate group.

The secure child, fully incorporated into a normal home, has someone to love and in turn knows that he is loved. That is a tremendously important influence in his life. Naturally, only a father and mother can supply the intangible sentiments that make the home a home and refine the personality of the child. If the feelings and attitudes which usually result from parent-child relationships within the family are denied the child in his early years, they wil hardly develop in fullest measure in later years. This will mean a great void in the child’s life. It may easily result in serious defects in his character.

Of course, it need hardly be said that of all the elements that go to make up the child’s real home world the most important is affection — the natural affection as between parent and child. As the writer stated elsewhere: “No other single factor can do so much to enrich the little one’s personality. It is the first essential to the child’s world. Without it there is no genuine home atmosphere. Without it the domestic environment cannot provide that feeling of security and confidence, that sense of fellowship and mutual sympathy which is so vital to the child’s proper development. Without it there is a void in his life which subsequent events cannot wholly fill.” This natural parental affection the hireling does not have. He can never substitute in full measure for the parents. And yet, it is precisely here, in the matter of the child’s education or training, that we find the vagaries of Statism in our day most to the fore. These vagaries reach well into the past. In the face of the constant and consistent voice of history — with at most an occasional minor discordant note heard here and there over the universal harmony — one intellectual movement after another has for many decades been in the opposite direction. The drift has been very definitely to hand the child’s education over to the State functionary, and even to do so at an increasingly early age. While these movements have taken place chiefly in Europe, they have also made their influence felt in the United States. All of them have pointed more and more clearly towards the usurpation of the educational and training function by the State.

Glancing back into history a bit, we find that the notion of the State controlling the child’s training was unequivocally stated, for example, by various French leaders of the Revolution period. Examples are Danton and Robespierre. Said the former: “Children belong to the Republic before they belong to their parents.” And the latter: “The fatherland has the right and duty to rear its children; it cannot commit this trust to family pride or to private prejudice.”

Similar notes have been sounded in a number of other countries. Already by the time of Pope Leo XIII the all-absorbing power of the State had made such advances that the Pontiff warned against it for the sake of the family. Thus, in his famous Encyclical “On the Condition of the Working Classes,” he wrote the following lines: “The State must not absorb the individual or the family; both should be allowed free and untrammelled action so far as is consistent with the common good and the interests of others.” Then stating that “the family has at least equal rights with the State in the choice and pursuit of the things needful to its preservation and its just liberty,” His Holiness went on to explain: “We say ‘at least equal rights,’ for inasmuch as the domestic household is antecedent, as well in idea as in fact, to the gathering of men in a community, the family must necessarily have rights and duties which are prior to the community and founded more immediately in nature.”

And he added: “If the citizens of a State — in other words, the families — on entering into association and fellowship were to experience at the hands of the State hindrance instead of help, and were to find their rights attacked instead of upheld, that association [the State] would rightly be an object of detestation, rather than of desire.”

In our own day the State has in many countries become more and more powerful and arrogant. This is true with regard to education as well as other fields. It is perhaps most apparent in the National Socialism of Germany and the Communism of Russia. In the former we see the State Absolutism of the philosopher Hegel carried to full fruition, in the latter that of Marx. As has been said, neither Hegel nor Marx understood or recognized the proper end of the State, the dignity of human personality, the nature and purpose of the family.

The Communist view of the matter is very definitely stated in “ABC du Communisme,” by N. Bucharin and E. Preobraschensky: “Society possesses an original and fundamental right to the education of children. We must accordingly reject without compromise and brush aside the claim of parents to impart through family education their narrow views to the minds of their offspring. Society remains free to entrust to parents the education of their children, but the sooner it will be in a position to intervene, the fewer will be the reasons for leaving such education to the parents.”

Then there is the situation in Nazi Germany. The writer recalls vividly the side-glances and arching of brows on the part of many in the audience when one of the representatives of the Nazis spoke at a meeting on child care and training at the Fifth International Congress on Parent Education, held on the occasion of the International Exposition at Brussels in 1935. Since that time the whole of German youth has been brought increasingly under the dominance of the Hitler Jugend and the Jungfolk. At Munich the Supreme Court and the Appellate Court saw in the action of parents who had forbidden their children to join the Hitler Jugend “a grave danger to the spiritual and moral well-being of the child and a grave abuse of the right of parents.” Mussolini, arch-spokesman of Fascist Italy, has this to say about the State laying its hands on education: “The totalitarian and integral education of the Italian man belongs exclusively to the State as one of its fundamental and primary functions, or, still better, as the basic State function.” F. L. Ferrari notes the intense Statism of Fascist Italy in the following words: “Fascist nationalism erases the individual, or at the very least it subjects him to the demands, needs and interests of the nation, the sole reality imagined by this doctrine.” It would be too much to say that Fascism does not recognize the value of the family. However, it must be granted that it has brought a considerable amount of pressure to bear on parents to entrust their children to its schools and youth organizations.

Not a little of the same doctrine is found in other countries. Sweden is a further example. Nor has it been unheard of in England. In fact, much of the talk in our country about nursery schools and other child care agencies come from England. Probably some of it comes from Sweden too. The book, “Nation and Family,” by the Swedish author, Alva Myrdal, written especially for American consumption, is full of it. It practically hands the family over to the State. Indeed, there is much reaching for the child in the whole Western World, including the democratic countries. True, the latter do not go about this in the same brusque manner as do the totalitarians. But they do so with but little less effectiveness. They have learned well the trick of putting over ideas by means of repetition, and by inching along, step by step, towards their ultimate goals.

One might perhaps argue that no Government has actually gone so far as to snatch the child from the cradle. Nevertheless, it would not be too much to say that some have advocated no less than this. For years past there have been writers, mostly feminine, who have advocated that the child be taken over much more by the State than has hitherto been the case. They have no use for the family as it has generally been known among all peoples. They wish the State to be the big mother of the child. After all, such argue, the only reason for the family has been to furnish citizens for the community; hence, the more the State has to do about the child, the future citizen, the better. As these people see matters, the father is only to beget the child; that completes his relation to the family. The care of the little one by the mother, they argue, may be advisable. Being unable to work for support herself during this period, the State should support her. It should pay her for contributing a citizen to the State. It should pay her for the professional work of motherhood, just as other professional people are paid for their contributions.

A travesty on motherhood, yes! Nevertheless, such doctrines have been taught. They are still taught. But they are often taught more cunningly to-day than in the past. It is realized that, put in all their baldness, they shock people; they create an unfavorable reaction. Hence, it is felt that the teaching should not be so forthright and blunt. Recourse is had instead to the practice of trying to reach the same goal more subtly and gradually. Under the circumstances, the Government is made a substitute for the family first in one particular activity, then in another, and again in still another. Eventually the parent, instead of being at the stearing gear, finds himself a mere sort of useless fifth wheel.

But is this true of the United States? Is the State really encroaching on the family in this country? Is Uncle Sam really becoming Mother Samuela? First of all, in answer to the questions we might well point to one or other of the recent statements by secular writers on the subject. Some of them definitely point to a growing encroachment of the State upon the family. Thus, the author of a volume on the family just off the press writes: “At the present time, federal regulation of family life is rapidly on the increase because of the Second World War. We may expect that many of the wartime regulations will be abandoned when the war ends, but some may remain, since the strengthening of federal control of the family is a current need” (Ruth Shone Cavan, “The Family,” p. 560).

Private as well as public agencies are constantly reaching out for the child. At the same time they are commonly reaching for Government funds. Dr. James S. Plant, in a paper on “Democracy turns to the Family” (cfr. Journal of Home Economics, January, 1942), speaks of the “hunger” of various groups, governmental and private, to relieve the family of its functions. He adds that it is one of the menaces of the home that must be combatted continuously.

That individuals — “non-official spokesmen,” as one. editor has called them — are constantly clamoring for Mother-State to get its fingers on the child, there can be no question. That they are feverishly working during these disturbed times of crisis to have established a chain of nursery schools, to be conducted for the most part by the Government or at least with a liberal use o f Government funds, has also for some time been crystal clear. Already as far back as 1941 the First Lady of the land came out unequivocally for such schools. Speaking on “America’s Town Meeting of the Air” on December 8 of that year, she stated: “The establishment of day nurseries and the organization of nursery schools and kindergartens in order to provide adequate care for children is now a necessity.” The statement has apparently been the cue for many another to sound off on the same subject. The week following the participation of Mrs. Roosevelt in the program of America’s Town Meeting a young, half-educated college girl was permitted to address the vast audience of “Town Meeting.” Most of her remarks dealt with the subject of getting women out of the home, and consequently of shifting the job of child care to hirelings. The following are some of her effusions, presumably gotten from American classrooms:

“I definitely disagree with J.’s statement that woman’s place is in the home, and that her influence is most useful in the so-called ‘woman’s sphere.’ . . . Housework is not conducive to the development of personality and the full use of one’s time. . . . Active women will be intellectually and spiritually closer to their husbands, if they both succeed in having their interests outside the home. . . . A member of a woman’s college faculty interviewed fifty women who had full-time jobs, and fifty who didn’t. She found that the ones with jobs actually spent more time with their children than those who were not working. . . .”

And of course there was a good bit of the “argument” so current to-day, that parents are incapable of caring for their children and therefore need to hand them over to functionaries. Thus, she stated:

“I understand that modern psychiatrists claim that there are more problem children in homes where there is too much mothering than where there is too little. . . . Some graduates of Smith College started a cooperative nursery where they could leave their children for a good part of the day under supervision of trained people.”

Is the inference to be taken from the case of the fifty not-working women who so obviously neglected their duty to their little ones, that they are to be the dutiful models of other American women? Or, in the case of the Smith College women, are we to believe that these “educated” women, who have to hand their children over to others for training, are really educated? Many millions of “uneducated” American mothers have, on the basis of parental love, native intelligence, Christian understanding, and sincere efforts to inform themselves, done excellent jobs of child training. They did not have to shift the tasks to others. Much more openly and boldly was the idea of the nursery school brought to the fore when on January 7, 1943, the Town Meeting of the Air discussed the topic: “Can War-Working Mothers Be Homemakers?”

As usual, there were two speakers on the affirmative side and two on the negative. An unbiased listener to the program, or reader of the printed copy, is forced to conclude that not one substantial argument was put forth by either of the speakers on the affirmative side. And yet one of them had the effrontery to go far beyond the question of debate and advocate day nurseries for peacetime as well as for wartime. Here are the concluding question and answer of the broadcast in which this was done:

Man: “Mrs. (Margaret Culkin) Banning, you spoke of the children in Great Britain who are better off now in day nurseries than they would be at home. Wouldn’t carrying your theory to its logical conclusion mean the taking over of the training and bringing up of all children by the State? If the children in nurseries are better cared for in wartime, why not give it to them in peacetime?”

Mrs. Banning: “I would give it to them in peacetime. I would continue these nurseries. One of the great flaws in both Great Britain and this country and in all great cities is the poor care and poor rearing of children. I think that the day nurseries will be started in war, whether we think so or not, and will be continued in peace to the great advantage of little children.”

What weird notions can get into the heads of some of the childless or near-childless members of the intelligentsia is seen in the remarks of one of their number who spoke some time ago at a New England War Conference. Referring to the women already in war work, she stated that many of them would not be willing to leave the factory when the necessity that brought them there had passed. Never again are they to be content with woman’s accepted rôle as a stay-at-home. They will continue their work. As the speaker put it: “Most of them will want to feel that they are socially useful.”

The Catholic weekly, The Wanderer, dubs as “classic nonsense” the obvious implication of the statement that intradomestic work was not socially useful. Commented the editor:

“While other ages have sinned against the family, they never thought to deny that such sins are dangerous to society and to the State. Not even the leaders of decadent Rome ever implied, even at the height of feminine folly, that housewives and mothers are not ‘socially useful.’ On the contrary, they opposed the betrayal of family life by Roman women, and strove energetically to bring them back to their senses and to their duty. It has remained for our anarchic age to insinuate that begetting and rearing children is not a ‘socially useful’ career for women.”

One could easily add similar statements.

But perhaps more important is it to point out that there has been not only talk but also action.

The fact is that considerable effort has been put forth, for instance, to get legislation in behalf of the nursery school movement. This began at least as far back as 1937, and is still being exerted to-day. Thus, there is House Bill No. 3313 referred to in the Congressional Record by Congressman Bloom On January 18, 1937. Its purpose according to the Congressman was “to promote the general welfare through the appropriation of funds to assist the States and Territories in providing more effective programs of public pre-grade education.”

The bill was referred to the Committee on Education. A corresponding measure, Senate Bill No. 2510, was introduced in the other Chamber of Congress. Again in 1939 and 1940 we meet nursery school bills, substantially the same as the foregoing if not identical. In a letter addressed to members of Congress, under date of June 3, 1940, by the National Kindergarten Association, reference is made to bills H.R.6474 and S.2510. The letter states that “the bills are identical, the House Bill introduced by Mrs. O’Dea preceding the Senate Bill, introduced by Senator Pepper.” It adds: “They are similar to the Kindergarten bills introduced in 1939 by Congressman Bloom and the late Senator Copeland. S.2510 has been reported by the Education Committee and is now on the Senate Calendar. We earnestly ask your support for this kindergarten measure.”

It is worthy of note that, whenever the Bill S.2510 is referred to in the Senate, one of its purposes is always said to be “Nursery School Education.” For instance, in the report ot accmary the measure, when sent by Senator Pepper of the Committee of Education and Labor in July, 1939, one reads the following:

“The Committee on Education and Labor, to whom was referred the bill (S.2510) to promotethe general welfarethrough the appropriation of funds to assist the States and Territories in providing more effective programs of public kindergarten or kindergarten and nursery-school education, having considered the same, report favorably thereon with amendments and recommend the bill as amended do pass.

“The amended bill authorizes to be appropriated for the fiscal years 1941 to 1916, inclusive, the following sums for making payments to the States and Territories to aid in the promotion and operation of kindergarten and nursery schools in the public schools of the States and Territories:

“It is specifically provided in the bill that all supervision, management, control, and choice of kindergarten and nursery school education means, processes, and programs are to be under the exclusive jurisdiction of the State, Territorial, and local governments.”

At this writing there is before Congress a Bill (H.R.7522) “to amend the District of Columbia Appropriation Act, 1943, so as to authorize the use of public school buildings in the District of Columbia as and for day nurseries and nursery schools and for other purposes.” The Report (No. 1831) accompanying this Bill states, among other things, that “the Committee [of the District of Columbia] recognize the need for day nurseries in the District of Columbia under present wartime conditions.” It goes on to argue that, if mothers in the District could put their children into nurseries and go to work, a local source of labor would thereby be tapped and the housing problem alleviated. “Every working mother reduces the number of persons required to be brought to the District of Columbia, and to that extent alleviates the problem of housing.” Apparently some action is being taken with the Bill still hanging fire. The local Evening Star of February 3 stated that “applications for four nursery school positions, to be paid out of the President’s emergency fund, allocated last Saturday to the District Board of Education, are coming into the office of the Acting Superintendent of Schools. The Board,” it went on to explain, “has received a grant of $2273 for the employment of two directors in an extended school program for children of working mothers and for two nursery school consultants from the Office of Defense Health and Welfare Services, which administers the President’s Emergency Fund of $400,000. . . . The fund expires on May 21, so that employees’ salaries will have to be paid from Lanham Act funds after that time.”

The Lanham Act referred to provides funds for various types of services, such as health and child care in defense communities. Grants have been made for day care of children from this fund. In still other ways has the Government supported this cause. Thus, for some years past, not a little has been allocated from WPA funds for it. Again, the work of the U.S. Housing Authority has helped it along. For example, a news release coming from the Housing Authority under date of April 24, 1939, says that nursery schools had been organized for the residents of 40 public low-rent housing projects in various States. The release asserted they were supplying “properly supervised recreational and moral training.”

Still further interest in this matter was shown by the Government, when in August, 1942, a Conference on the Day Care of Children was called by the United States Children’s Bureau. It is well to note that the term, “day care,” is constantly used in government publications, and that the term is a very broad one. Thus, in the publication of the Children’s Bureau, Standards for Day Care of Children of Working Mothers, one reads the following: “The standards described below would apply to day nurseries, nursery schools, kindergartens, child care centers, play groups, or any form of group care for preschool children.” Certainly that is sufficiently inclusive. Of course, there are some very fundamental differences between these various types of groups. The nursery school, for instance, does much more than just care for children while their mothers work. It has a full-fledged educational program.

Everything points to the fact that other action on the part of the Government will follow. This may show itself in one or more of a number of ways. Other attempts at securing legislation may be tried. Or again, funds for this work may simply be sought from Congress through the annual appropriations for the Children’s Bureau. The latter method is suggested by the fact that the question very much to the fore in the Day Care for Children meeting called last August was: “Do we need more provision for day care?” And of course with that went the further question: “Should we ask Congress for funds to carry on an enlarged program?” Such an approach implies the notion: “Why bother with legislation and risk a battle if we can get what we want without it?”

There is no question that pressure from certain individuals to have the Government help with a nursery school program increases. Many of these people even wish that, as a matter of definite policy, the State reach out increasingly for the child. It is, in fact, no less than their studied ambition to put Uncle Sam into the rôle of Mother Samuela.

Needless to say, this evolution would be most unfortunate and should be fought relentlessly. The child’s natural parents, and not a Mother State, are accountable before God for his upbringing. And normally no State hireling or public functionary can ever be a satisfactory substitute for the child’s own natural parents. Furthermore, there is the consideration that the American family sense has already been greatly weakened by such rampant evils as childlessness and near-childlessness, through the child-murder called abortion, through divorce and various immoralities, and the unquestionable fact is that the shifting of the duty of child care from the home to the State, from parent to hireling, will greatly add to this unfortunate situation. To kill the family sense would be a deadly blow to the country and its people. It would be fatal to individual, Church, and State alike. Uncle Sam must be dissuaded from attempting the rôle of Mother Samuela.