The speaker, Dr. Rayman, had very little to say about the effects that modern employment have on CHILDREN. In her short presentation she had little time to speak about the influence of parents working 7 days per week and of the American school system on children. For the future depends on our children! To put this matter in perspective I would like to discuss child-rearing in the United States 60-70 years ago (when I was a child).

On the farms of rural America, both the mother and father worked more than 80 hours per week, with no vacations and little money. Children worked with the parents and learned how to work and to respect those who did. Children obeyed adults. "No" meant "no" with no explanations of why they should not do what they wanted to do. Children were assets on the farm. Going to school was a privilege enjoyed only when work was not too demanding on the farm. Country schools taught reading, writing, arithmetic and how to memorize. I know these things were true in rural America as I experienced them.

We can't, and should not try, to return to American rural society of 50-100 years ago. My point is that hard work and low incomes do not destroy the children. The important conditions are: that mothers and fathers live with and love their children, teach them to work and respect work, and teach them to behave and to obey. We must recognize these imperatives and reinforce them in the homes, schools, and workplaces.

Today the United States has become an urban society with work now done mainly in offices and stores. The rural schools have been replaced by giant city schools and colleges. Very few people live on farms or work physically. We have become an affluent society and our kids expect to have the luxuries we now enjoy. Most American young people go to college at great expense to their parents primarily to obtain a status of high social rank and get good paying jobs.

Typically children see their parents very little due to long work hours. They are cared for in nursery schools and in day- care centers. At home they watch TV violence and play war-games on the computer. In school they do not learn to add or multiply well and seldom memorize anything. Schools are kind of day-care centers too and discipline is poor. Teachers are police. Young people are not able to do any work when they graduate from school as they lack skills and experience. Colleges confer knowledge that is quickly obsolete with the rapid march of technology. Americans are terrible linguist and poorly equipped for the global society. But young people expect to have a car, a house, and to live and eat well as soon as they emerge from college. Manual labor is beneath their dignity.

It is evident that any "economic equation" with these players (variables) is likely to collapse. When we recognize the danger to our children and to the future of our nation we should think of steps to take to avert disaster.

What institutions are culpable? Schools and universities are the primary culprits as they promulgate the virtue of bottom- line capitalism, the modern sociological concepts of pride and egotism, and hedonism of leisure, entertainment and personal pleasure.

But I am encouraged by the lecture of Dr. Rayman that universities are becoming sensitive to the cultural dilemma in the Western world. College and university teachings can alter American attitudes about work and living. Other institutions-- corporations, politics, and churches--don't have the same potency. Companies are dominated by profit-taking, political leaders magnify their postures by responding to prevailing opinions, and churches are often full of pride, are unteachable, and sure of "their" transcendental truths.

American attitudes about work need to be changed. Based on ideas prevailing in the class-societies of Europe (and reinforced by televison and movies), wealth, leisure, and avoidance of work are the important goals in life that distinguish the aristocrat and the successful person. Even the American residual work ethic is viewed as another means for achieving wealth and power.

But in fact "work is life", as reflected in the family names like Baker, Smith, and Baker. Work organizes and consumes the time that comprises much of our lives. It provides the products we need, food, clothes, houses, books, etc. It gives us exercise for our bodies and brains. These activities keep us sharp and well. Work can give us great satisfaction and even euphoria--but it also can be a wearisome drag and heavy burden. Activity for humans is as important as the air they breath or the food they eat. Time spent in work usually benefits others-the whole society. Physical work develops our bodies. Still American schools refer to manual labor in the most pejorative terms.

Some perspicacious sociologists (Veblen for one) have recognized that economic systems should be organized to give satisfying work roles to all men and women. This should be a primary goal of governments and corporations. Because Dr. Rayman understands this she is pushing on the right lever.

Capitalistic enterprises must understand the value of people. Mergers, down-sizing, profits, dividends, are not the important variables in the "economic equation". Shunting money from workers to idle stockholders who already have money will not produce a surviving society in the next millennium.

Institutionalizing avarice and injustice makes many millionaire corporation executives and a leisure class of coupon clippers. But the world population is exploding and societies with contented productive workers composed of the poorer, humble people will prevail. Our youth must be taught this truth and abandon the selfish "me-too" greediness that is dominant in our schools and culture.

Piety and spirituality should have a place in the University. Humility and unselfishness are the cornerstones of Christianity. Universities tend to approve of the rugged individualism of the business world. Competition, power, pride, acquisitiveness, and conspicuous consumption are the key concepts in much of American society. Unfortunately modern psychology and the schools are producing a generation of egotistical youth determined to acquire luxury and status but unable to work because of ignorance and lack of skills--and a disdain for manual labor and hard work.

The Christian ideas of giving, humility and care for others must restored to the educational system if we are to have a viable society. The joys and satisfactions of work need to be emphasized in colleges. Children must be taught to obey parents and adults. Wisdom and competence are passed on from earlier generations and are not generated by insolent, undisciplined children. American teachers seems to have misunderstood the basic process of evolution. Successful species must have ample progeny that learn and benefit from earlier generations.

Some foreign cultures have not fallen into our paths of error. We can continue to hire their scientists and import their manual labor. And then submit to their dominance. They will replace us on this planet.

Because academia, and the Ivy-League colleges especially, tend to set the intellectual standards for America, they have it in their power to change attitudes and values. Law makers and citizens, and especially the teachers in all our schools, will listen to leaders from Harvard or Princeton who have the courage and wisdom to critique the established orthodoxies in the worlds of economics and psychology.

Dr. Rayman's program to humanize the business environment is an important step. Although the tycoons of corporations are only interested in maximizing earnings, cogent arguments that happy, contented workers can be more efficient, and that survival of the capitalistic system depends on the children and the next generation, might persuade executives to adapt more human policies toward employees. Colleges should lead in getting these ideas popularized.

In the social sciences, the psychological theory that contends that disciplining children is wrong must be reversed. Instead, schools must show how babies and children can be taught to obey and respect adults without physical or mental injury to them. Teach them again "that humility comes before honor". Teach them how to work with their hands and minds and enjoy it. Praise the modest child, not the egotistical one.

The ideas that establish honesty, helpfulness, and humility were inculcated into American society by religions (and in the Universities of earlier days). College leaders should not continue to deprecate and ridicule religion as is typical now in Universities. Again, a courageous faculty can stop glorifying atheism, nihilism, and post-modern deconstructionalism. Philosophy could again point the directions to a better world.