I Am Not a Criminal

A word that came from the mouth of a criminal as he met his death by hanging. He looked at the great crowds standing fixed before him on the morning of one of the harsh days of winter, and behold, he repeated in the hearing of every one of those onlookers: "I am not the criminal — my mother is."

My mother is a criminal because she did not attend to my upbringing in the ideal way; rather she overlooked my faults and did not look upon me with the look of a mother upon her young son. She did not plant in my heart, from earliest childhood, the love of honor and duty, nor did she light my conscience with the lamp of justice and perfection; she contented herself with feeding my body, and never thought of directing my mind and my morals aright. She smiled at my slips when I was a child, petted me and kissed me, content with the act of natural instinct, and neglected the greater part of my life — the growth of my faculties and their direction toward the highest ideals, and the training of my character through stories and parables.

I grew up with a grudge in my heart against my playmates, who stood above me in knowledge and dignity, and I spent my effort seeking some means to vex them and lower their station.

And my mother was blind in her love for me and defended me instead of chiding and rebuking me. And so there grew up beside me the specter of rancor and rebellion against society, until it became a present reality that drove me down to the lowest and vilest depths — and here I am today, as you see, condemned to death by hanging in expiation of my crimes.

Upbringing, then, is the first foundation in setting society aright, and upbringing is nothing other than the mother. Napoleon said in this regard: "The mother who rocks the cradle with her right hand rocks the world with her left."

Since the dawn of time, when man came out of the savagery of the cave and formed a small society bound to him by law and blood, he has felt the responsibility of duty toward the partner of his life and toward his little ones. And behold, upbringing arose with the generations, and its methods grew, until it became a science that must be practiced in the family and the school, to secure perfection in society and to bring about happiness within it.

The child looks out upon existence with smiling face and radiant brow; he is the garden of life and the hope of the future. It is for the parents, then, to watch over his health and to attend to rearing him soundly — a rearing that wins him the beauty of health joined to goodness of character and the nourishment of the mind, so that there are imprinted on his soul the images of praiseworthy qualities and the love of sacrifice and nobility.

How many a mother has done well in the raising of her sons, and known how to plant in their hearts the love of honor and justice, of learning and culture. How many a mother has repeated in her children's hearing the lives of great men, so that they longed to follow their example and to weave upon their pattern.

And how many a mother has shut her eyes to the faults of her children, and so made criminals of them and brought them down to the lowest depths — and behold, they fill the prisons, despised, cut off from human society, like beasts of prey.

There is no doubt that the mother is the foundation of upbringing and the foundation of society. It is for her to watch over her sons, who are nothing less than the men of tomorrow and the hope of life.

It is for her to carry out the responsibility that God has laid upon her shoulders, singling her out to be, alone, the first worker in the ordering of society.

If the mother's morals are corrupt, the morals of the family are corrupted; and by the corruption of the family, society is corrupted. And society is nothing but families bound together by virtue of law and blood.

Refine the girl, kindle in her inmost being the fire of zeal and duty, and cultivate her character, for it is she who carries on her arms the men of tomorrow.

And when the child reaches the age that fits him for entering school, his teachers must complete the family's upbringing by nourishing the mind, and the love of tolerance and of self-denial for the sake of others, so that the sentiment of solidarity and the spirit of mutual support prevail among the pupils, the mind is enlightened, and its possessor becomes a man uniting in himself the qualities of heroism and gallantry.

So when the family rises to a complete and sound upbringing, and the girl understands the supreme responsibility laid upon her shoulders in the bond of marriage, she will succeed in raising her children an ideal raising, and will help to build a flourishing society of which the generations will sing and for which immortality will be decreed.