Note 70 — Chapter III

The first condition, without doubt, that might be demanded of one who is to make a child into a moral man, a man of character, is surely this, that he should be himself a man of character. It goes without saying that no person can give more than he has. Leaving aside for the moment the criminal class, of whom I shall treat later, it is clear that no one without character, or weak in character, can ever train children to have well developed moral sentiments. He may be able, it is true, to teach them to distinguish good from bad, but such lessons concern only the intellectual part of the nature and not the moral part, and they cannot transform children into persons who feel morally. It cannot be denied that the number of persons who do not feel morally is great, and that these have children. Without forgetting the fact that it is the father to whom the law gives especially the parental authority, we must recognize that it is the mother upon whom the task of education generally rests, because the father is almost always away from home. But the inferior position of woman, maintained now for centuries, has been extremely harmful to her character, and thus it often happens that this lack of character passes to the children as well.70