Editorial May 6, 1916 Issue

The Fifth Commandment

Archibald McLellan

It may be only a characteristic consequent of a rapidly growing and prosperous people, or it may be the swing of the pendulum from one extreme to the other, but it seems to be quite generally conceded that the tendency of the present generation to look upon the fifth commandment as obsolete or out of date is one that may easily have serious consequences. It is an age and a people where freedom of speech and action may unwittingly be carried to an extreme, yet there should be a happy medium between this and the rigid obedience exacted from the children of earlier generations that would make for mutual comfort in the home. Just recently Governor Brumbaugh of Pennsylvania, speaking on the dignity and potency of law, said:—

Is it at all conceivable that we regard the infraction of law too lightly? Have we, perhaps, in the discipline of the home and of the school grown so lax that the youth of today attach too little meaning to law? Many years' experience in the training of children leads me to long for a return to simple but effective discipline in our American homes and in our American schools. I plead not for harsh, but for resolute treatment of children. They need to know the value and necessity of obedience. For if in the games they play and in the studies they pursue they are not required steadily to do the thing they are set to do, it will be difficult later on to impress upon them the meaning and the necessity of living under law.

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