--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Smith, Joseph F. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 8 number: 5 published: 1905-03 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Joseph F. Smith, "Editor’s Table," *Improvement Era* 8, no. 5 (March 1905): 385–388.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0805unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera0805unse start_page: 385 end_page: 388 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1905-03) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0805unse publication_year: 1905 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1905, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Editor’s Table EDITOR'S TABLE. THE IDEAL HOME. More and more it is realized that to succeed in the training of children, the home must be ideal in which they shall receive their primary impressions. Their education in practical religion, and in the principles of the gospel, may no more be left to chance than their development in grammar and mathematics, if we would have them proficient. Neither must it be left entirely to our public institutions—the schools and the. auxiliary and priesthood organizations of the Church—no matter how excellent these may be. The home, which is the most important factor in ethical training, must bear its proper burden in this labor, to insure results that will reflect credit upon the community, and at the same time guarantee to the rising generation that legacy of thorough discipline to which they are entitled. It is encouraging and commendable, therefore, to note, that Church workers are seeking to awaken parents to the importance of home influences in the training of children. It is in harmony with the commandments of the Lord to the Latter-day Saints, wherein they are instructed to teach their children faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, to pray and to walk uprightly before the Lord. I had the pleasure recently of attending a convention of Sunday School workers, and listening to the addresses of a number of speakers, who urged eloquently upon parents and children such practices as would enhance their progress toward ideal homes. Much was said about the ideal home. The remarks caused me to reflect, and I asked myself, What is an ideal home? For little among all that was said would tend to answer that question. It 386 IMPRO VEMENT ERA. became evident to my mind that there is great elasticity to the sentiment—ideal home. It was not clear what is meant by the term; at least, there are a variety of opinions upon the subject, judging as well from the remarks made, as from the homes that are to be seen about us. These opinions may differ almost as men differ in disposition. Let me illustrate my meaning. Here is one ideal: an immense mansion, containing billiard hall, ball room, and every modern convenience and adjunct for pleasure and a good time. The man is dressed in costly raiment, cut in the latest fashion; his wife, clad in rich silks and satins, pets a poodle; the three are the family. Their home is childless—merely a social resort; and yet to them it is ideal, for their lives are spent in luxurious pleasure and social enjoyment. But here is another: These people consider wealth the essential to a happy home. It is paramount, and without it there could be no ideal home. But they go a step further in the matter of family, and reach out beyond the poodle to one or two children. That is as great a burden as they care to bear. Aside from the nurture of these, their time is principally devoted to social enjoyment. They also go one step farther and believe in certain forms of religion, a feature entirely foreign to the first class, who neither feel the need of devotion, nor believe in the efficacy of any power but gold. Then we may see yet a third class with their ideal: These enlarge upon the second somewhat and believe in more children, but the joy and responsibility of their training is delegated to nurses, servants and other employed help. The ambition of the husband and wife is to enjoy to the fuil every worldly pleasure— the luxuries and ease of life, foregoing its responsibilities and setting aside as of little or no consequence its spiritual essentials. Such is their ideal home. Passing from the wealthy classes, there are the more modest homes, yet differing as largely in ideals. Men and women seek their ideals in various ways. Each has an ambition: to increase the acreage of the farm; to add fifty more animals to the herd; to build a house; to fence a farm; to secure a suburban home with the monthly savings; to have the home neat, tidy, well-furnished. EDITOR'S TABLE. 387 To these might be added a thousand other ambition?, all of which may be necessary, it is true, but still should scarcely be classed essentials to the ideal home. These classes generally have large families, but it can scarcely be truthfully said that the children constitute a part of their ideal. They are often left to themselves to seek their own companionships: their training, while not delegated to hired help, is largely left to chance; their likes and dislikes are seldom studied; they are permitted to form tastes and habits as they please;their religious education is gladly transferred from father and mother to the public workers and institutions. The ideal home of these people includes many good things, but among them is seldom the spiritual, the essential,training of their children by the parents. Reflecting further, I thought, what then is an ideal home,—a model home such as it should be the ambition of the Latter day Saints to build; such as a young man starting out in life should wish to erect for himself? And the answer came to me: It is one in which all worldly considerations are secondary. One in which the father is devoted to the family with which God has blessed him, counting them of first importance; and in which they, in turn, permit him to live in their hearts. One in which there is confidence, union, love, sacred devotion, between father and mother, and children and parents. One in which the mother takes every pleasure in her children supported by the father—all being moral, pure, God fearing. As the tree is judged by its fruit, so also do we judge the home by the children. In the ideal home, true parents rear loving thoughtful children, loyal to the death, to father and mother and home! In it there is the religious spirit, for both parents and childrf-n have faith in God, and their practices are in conformity with that faith; the members are free from the vices and contaminations of the world, are pure in morals, having upright hearts beyond bribes and temptations, ranging high in the exalted standards of manhood and womanhood. Peace, order, and contentment reign in the hearts of the inmates, let them be rich or poor, in things material. There are no vain regrets; no expressions of discontent against father, from the boys and girls, in which they complain: "If we only had this or that, or were like this family or that, or could do like so and so!"—complaints that 388 IMPROVEMENT ERA. have caused fathers many uncertain steps, dim eyes, restless nights and untold anxiety. In their place is the loving thoughtfulness to mother and father by which the boys and girls work with a will and a determination to carry some of the burden that the parents have staggered under these many years. There is the kiss for mother, the caress for father, the thought that they have sacrificed their own hopes and ambitions, their strength, even life itself to their children—there is gratitude in payment for all that has been given them! In the ideal home, the soul is not starved, neither are the growth and expansion of the finer sentiments paralyzed, for the coarse and the sensual pleasures. The main aim is not to heap up material wealth, which generally draws further and further from the true, the ideal, the spiritual life; but it is rather to create soul-wealth, consciousness of noble achievement, an outflow of love and helpfulness. It is not costly paintings, tapestries, priceless bric-a-brac, various ornaments, costly furniture, fields, herds, houses and lands, which constitute the ideal home, nor yet the social enjoyments and ease so tenaciously sought by many; but it is rather beauty of soul, cultivated, loving, faithful, true spirits; hands that help and hearts that sympathize, love that seeks not its own, thoughts and acts that touch our lives to finer issues—these lie at the foundation of the ideal home. Joseph F. Smith. ANNUAL REPORTS. Secretaries of M. I. A. are reminded that the end of the working year is close at hand, and that the date for their annual reports is near by. In this connection it is well to remember that the records should be so kept posted that as soon as the last meeting is held, a report can be made to the proper officers. Judging from the experience of the past, many secretaries are careless in preparing and completing their reports, and no end of trouble is therefore experienced by the stake officers in obtaining them. This should not be. Prepare your reports now; have them complete, and in the hands of the proper officers before you separate or the season, so that this matter may be off ycur mind. It is a good practice to finish work while it is still fresh in your memory. Let it not drag, and linger, and be forgotten.