MH page 351

It is by the youth and children of today that the future of society is to be determined, and what these youth and children shall be depends upon the home. To the lack of right home training may be traced the larger share of the disease and misery and crime that curse humanity. If the home life were pure and true, if the children who went forth from its care were prepared to meet life's responsibilities and dangers, what a change would be seen in the world!

The future of society is determined by youth, and deficiencies in home training are a major source of human disease, misery, and crime. Contains an empirical assertion linking early home training and childhood upbringing to societal disease, misery, and crime.

Great efforts are put forth, time and money and labor almost without limit are expended, in enterprises and institutions for reforming the victims of evil habits. And even these efforts are inadequate to meet the great necessity. Yet how small is the result! How few are permanently reclaimed!

Institutional efforts to reform individuals with established evil habits require vast resources and often yield limited permanent results. Discusses the limitations of institutional reform efforts for established habits without proposing specific clinical hypotheses.

Multitudes long for a better life, but they lack courage and resolution to break away from the power of habit. They shrink from the effort and struggle and sacrifice demanded, and their lives are wrecked and ruined. Thus even men of the brightest minds, men of high aspirations and noble powers, otherwise fitted by nature and education to fill positions of trust and responsibility, are degraded and lost for this life and for the life to come.

Individuals struggling with habit find it difficult to break away due to the sacrifices and effort demanded, leading to ruined potential. Explores the psychological and motivational barriers to breaking bad habits.

For those who do reform, how bitter the struggle to regain their manhood! And all their life long, in a shattered constitution, a wavering will, impaired intellect, and weakened soul power, many reap the harvest of their evil sowing. How much more might be accomplished if the evil were dealt with at the beginning!

Reforming established evils is difficult, and individuals often suffer lasting physical, mental, and moral impairments from past bad habits. Makes empirical claims about the long-term physiological and psychological consequences of past negative behaviors.