These are illustrations of the imperfect success of the Smiths’ home as an organisation for making Harry happy. Useless for Mr. Smith to argue that it is “all for Harry’s own good.” He would simply be aggravating his offence. Discipline, the enforcement of regulations, is necessary for Harry. I strongly favour discipline. But discipline can be practised with sympathy or without sympathy; with or without the accompaniment of hypocritical remarks that deceive no one; with or without odious assumptions of superiority and philanthropy.
I trust that young John and young Mary will take note, and that their attitude to _their_ Harrys will be, not: “You ought to be glad you’re alive,” but: “We thoroughly sympathise with your difficulties. We quite agree that these rules and prohibitions and injunctions are a nuisance for you, but they will save you trouble later, and we will be as un-cast-iron as we can.” Honesty is the best policy.
The cry is that the institution of the home is being undermined, and that, therefore, society is in the way of perishing. It is stated that the home is insidiously attacked, at one end of the scale, by the hotel and restaurant habit, and, at the other, by such innovations as the feeding-of-school-children habit. We are asked to contemplate the crowded and glittering dining-rooms of the Midland, the Carlton, the Adelphi, on, for instance, Christmas Night, when, of all nights, people ought! to be on their own hearths, and we are told: “It has come to this. This! is the result of the craze for pleasure! Where is the home now?”
To which my reply would be that the home remains just about where it was. The spectacular existence of a few great hotels has never mirrored the national life. Is the home of the Smiths, for example, being gradually overthrown by the restaurant habit? The restaurant habit will only strengthen the institution of the home. The most restaurant-loving people on the face of the earth are the French, and the French home is a far more powerful, more closely-knit organisation than our own. Why! Up to last year a Frenchman of sixty could not marry without the consent of his parents, if they happened to be alive. I wonder what the Smiths would say to that as an example of the disintegration of the home by the restaurant habit!