Every family is a little state, or empire within itself, bound together by the most endearing attractions, and governed by its patriarchal head, with whose prerogative no power on earth has a right to interfere. Nations may change their forms of government at pleasure, and may enjoy a high degree of prosperity under different constitutions; and perhaps the time will never come, when any one form will be adapted to the circumstances of all mankind. But in the family organization there is but one model, for all times and all places. It is just the same now, as it was in the beginning, and it is impossible to alter it, without marring its beauty, and directly contravening the wisdom and benevolence of the Creator. It is at once the simplest, the safest and the most efficient organization that can be conceived of. Like everything else, it may be perverted to bad purposes; but it is a divine model, and must not be altered.

Every father is the constituted head and ruler of his household. God has made him the supreme earthly legislator over his children, accountable, of course, to Himself, for the manner in which he executes his trust; but amenable to no other power, except in the most extreme cases of neglect, or abuse. The will of the parent is the law to which the child is bound in all cases to submit, unless it plainly contravenes the law of God. Children are brought into existence and placed in families, not to follow their own wayward inclinations, but to look up to their parents for guidance; not to teach, but to be taught; not to govern but to be governed. You may think that your neighbor’s family is badly managed. You may see and know, that the education of his children is greatly neglected, and that he has not a single patriarchal qualification. Under these circumstances you may advise him as earnestly as you please — you may point out his duties — you may expostulate with him — you may adjure him by all that is tender and sacred, to consider where he stands, and to think of the account which he must render; but if he turns a deaf ear, you have no remedy. God has placed him and not you at the head of his family. You have no right, if you had the inclination, to enter his house, and order him to stand aside, and assume the reins of government yourself, and absolve his children from their natural allegiance. It may be true that they would be infinitely better off under your control and instruction than his; but you may not thus interfere with one of God’s ordinances. Such a general allowance would subvert the whole domestic system.

Nor has civil government any right to interfere with the head of a family, unless it be where he is guilty of extreme neglect, or abuse. If he becomes a sot, or a reprobate in any other form of abandonment; or if he plays the tyrant in his own house, so as to put the lives of his children in jeopardy, it is no doubt the right and the duty of the magistrate to come to their rescue. It is an extreme case, and none but extreme remedies will reach it. But in all ordinary cases, even of great delinquency, the guilty parent must be left to answer for his abuse of power, or neglect of duty, to him who “ruleth over all.” It would be impossible for any government in the world, to take upon itself parental authority and discharge parental duties; and if it were possible, such an innovation would soon derange and destroy the whole social system.

And as no power on earth may forcibly take the reins out of a parent’s hands, neither may he abandon his post, or refuse to act as the viceregent of God in his own house. When a father finds himself surrounded by a rising family, it is too late for him to decide whether or not he will assume the responsibility of supporting and educating his children. That question is already settled. “Necessity is laid upon him.” . . . However unfit he may find himself to discharge the duties of a parent, or however anxious he may be to shift them off upon somebody else, he must stand in his lot and meet them the best way he can. He is not indeed precluded from availing himself of the assistance of others, by sending his children abroad for a part of their education, when he thinks it will be for their advantage; but let him not forget that he is accountable to God for the judicious exercise of this discretion. The authority which he cannot exercise over his children when they are away from home, he must delegate to those who receive them under their care; and in no case may he place them where they will be left to themselves, and exposed without counsel or restraint, to bad influences.

... It is not enough for parents to bring their children early under proper subjection, and then leave their authority to take care of itself. There is no such executive energy in any domestic code, however wise or reasonable. The work is only commenced, when you have subdued the refractory spirit of your child. It is indeed an auspicious beginning; and if you keep the advantage which you have gained, the task will ever after be comparatively easy. But you must never let go the reins. If you relax, if you leave the child after it has once yielded, to follow its own depraved inclinations, it will soon becomes as head-strong as ever; and if it does not get entirely beyond your reach, it may cost you infinite trouble to regain the ground which you have lost. All the natural tendencies in the minds of our children are downward; and there is no overcoming this gravitating power, but by constant effort. “Line must be upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little.”

A judicious parent will not use exactly the same means to govern a boy of eight years old, as he does to govern a child of two; nor will he deal with a grown up son of fifteen, just as he does with a lad of ten. But though the means will be different, the end is the same. The young man of twenty, in his father’s house, has no more right to say that he will use his own discretion, in regard to observing the rules and regulations of the family, than a child of ten; and that parent sins against God, against the community in which he lives, and against his own family, who throws up his authority, before his children can safely be left to govern and take care of themselves.

Heman Humphrey, Domestic Education (Amherst, Mass., 1840), pp. 16-19, 27-29, 36-37. (Graduate of Yale and president of Amherst College from 1823 to 1845.)