A professor is someone who talks in someone else’s sleep. Excellence in education is the key to our nation’s future. If we are truly to prepare for the challenges of tomorrow, we must empower all our students with the best schools and guidance possible. At a time when we face stark choices about how best to strengthen our economic future, our commitment to education and to children must stand absolutely firm. We have a sacred obligation to put our children’s needs first and to make the essential investments that will help them to succeed. The importance of the family for the moral development of individuals was far more often recognized by political theorists of the past than it is by those of the present. Hegel, Rousseau, Tocqueville, Mill, and Dewey are obvious examples that come to mind. Rousseau, for example, shocked by Plato’s proposal to abolish the family, says that it is “as though there were no need for a natural base on which to form conventional ties; as though the love of one’s nearest were not the principle of the love one owes the state; as though it were not by means of the small fatherland which is the family that the heart attaches itself to the large one.” Defenders of both autocratic and democratic regimes have recognized the political importance of different family forms for the formation of citizens. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22

On the one hand, the nineteenth-century monarchist Louis de Bonald argued against the divorce reforms of the French Revolution, which he claimed had weakened the patriarchal family, on the grounds that “in order to keep the state out of the hands of the people, I is necessary to keep the family out of the hands of women and children.” Taking this same line of thought in the opposite direction, the United States Supreme Court decided in 1879 in Reynolds v. Nebraska that familial patriarchy fostered despotism and was therefore intolerable. Denying Mormon men the freedom to practice polygamy, the Court asserted that it was an offense “subversive of good order” that “leads to the patriarchal principle, [and] when applied to large communities, fetters the people in stationary despotism, while that principle cannot long exist in connection with monogamy.” However, while de Bonald was consistent in his adherence to an hierarchical family structure as necessary for an undemocratic political system, the Supreme Court was by no means consistent in promoting an egalitarian family as an essential underpinning for political democracy. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22

 For in other decisions of the same period—such as Bradwell v. Illinois, the famous 1872 case that upheld the exclusion of women from the practice of women from the practice of law—the Court rejected women’s claims to legal equality, in the name of a thoroughly patriarchal, though monogamous, family that was held to require the dependence of women and their exclusion from civil and political life. While bigamy was considered patriarchal, and as such a threat to republican, democratic government, the refusal to allow a married woman to employ her talents and to make use of her qualifications to earn an independent living was not considered patriarchal. It was so far from being a threat to the civil order, in fact, that it was deemed necessary for it, and as such was ordained by both God and nature. Clearly in both Reynolds and Bradwell, “state authorities enforced family forms preferred by those in power and justified as necessary to stability and order.” The Court noticed the despotic potential of polygamy, but was blind to the despotic potential of patriarchal monogamy. This was perfectly acceptable to them as a training ground for citizens. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22

Most theorists of the past who stressed the importance of the family and its practices for the wider World of moral and political life by no means insisted on congruence between the structures of practices of the family and those of the outside World. Though concerned with moral development, they bifurcated public from private life to such an extent that they had no trouble reconciling inegalitarian, sometimes admittedly unjust, relations founded upon sentiment within the family with a more just, even egalitarian, social structure outside the family. Rousseau, Hegel, Tocqueville—all thought the family was centrally important for the development of morality in citizens, but all defended the hierarchy of the material structure while spurning such a degree of hierarchy in institutions and practices outside the household. Preferring instead to rely on love, altruism, and generosity as the basis for family relations, none of these theorists argued for just family structures as necessary for socializing children into citizenship in a just society. The position that justice within the family is irrelevant to the development of just citizens was not plausible even when only men were citizens. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22

John Stuart Mill, in The Subjection of Women, takes an impassioned stand against justice in the family being considered irrelevant to the development of just citizens. He argues that the inequality of women within the family is deeply subversive of justice in general in the wider social World, because it subverts the moral potential of men. Mill’s first answer to the questions, “For whose good are all these changes in women’s rights to be undertaken?” is: “the advantage of having the most universal and pervading of all human relations regulated by justice instead of injustice.” Making marriage a relationship of equals, he argues, would transform this central part of daily life from “a school of despotism” into a “s school of moral cultivation.” He goes on to discuss, in the strongest of terms, the noxious effect of growing up in a family not regulated by justice. Consider, he says, “the self-worship, the unjust self-preference,” nourished by a boy growing up in a household in which “by the mere fact of being born a male he is by right superior of all and every one of an entire half of the human race.” Mill concludes that the example set by perpetuating a material structure “contradictory to the first principles of social justice” must have such “a perverting influence” that it is hard even to imagine the good effects of changing it. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22

All other attempts to educate people to respect and practice justice, Mill claims, will be superficial “as long as the citadel of the enemy is not attacked.” Mill felt as much hope for what the family might be as he felt despair at what it was not. “The family, justly constituted, would be the real school of the virtues of freedom,” primary among which was “justice, grounded as before on equal, but now also on sympathetic association.” Mills bot saw clearly and had the courage to address what so many other political philosophers either could not see, or saw and turned away from. Despite the strength and fervor of his advocacy of women’s rights, however, Mill’s idea of a just family structure falls short of that of many feminists even of his own time, including his wife, Harriet Taylor. In spite of the fact that Mill recognized both the empowering effect of earnings on one’s position in the family and the limiting effect of domestic responsibility on women’s opportunities, he balked at questioning the traditional division of labour between the genders. For him, a woman’s choice of marriage was parallel to a man’s choice of a profession: unless and until she has fulfilled her obligations to her husband and children, she should not undertake anything else. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22

But clearly, however equal the legal rights of husbands and wives, this position largely undermines Mill’s own insistence upon the importance f marital equality for a just society. His acceptance of the traditional division of labour, without making any provision for wives who were thereby made economically dependent upon their husbands, largely undermines his insistence upon family justice as the necessary foundation for social justice. Thus even those political theorists of the past who have perceived the family and the wider social order, which suggests that families themselves need to be just. Even when they have, as with Mill, they have been unwilling to push hard on the traditional division of labour within the family in the name of justice or equality. Contemporary theorists of justice, with few exceptions, have paid little or no attention to the question of moral development—of how we are to become just. Most of them seem to think, to adapt slightly Hobbes’s notable phrase, that just men spring like mushrooms from the Earth. Not surprisingly, then, it is far less often acknowledged in recent than in past theories that the family is important for oral development, and especially for instilling a sense of justice. As I have already noted, many theorists pay no attention at all to either the family or gender. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22

In the rare case that the issue of justice within the family is given any sustained attention, the family is not viewed as potential school of social justice. In the rare case that a theorist pays any sustained attention to the development of a sense of justice or morality, little if any attention is likely to be paid to the family. Even in the rare event that theorists pay considerable attention is likely to be paid to the family. Even in the rare event that a theorist pays any sustained attention to the development of a sense of justice or morality, little if any attention is likely to be paid to the family. Even in the rare event that theorists pay considerable attention to the family as the first major locus or moral socialization, they do not refer to the fact that families are almost all still thoroughly gender-structured institutions. Among major contemporary theorists of justice, John Rawls alone treats the family seriously as the earliest school of moral development. He argues that a just, well-ordered society will be stable if its members continue to develop a sense of justice. And he argues that families play a fundamental role in the stages by which this sense of justice is acquired. From the parents’ love for their child, which comes to be reciprocated, come the child’s “sense of one’s own value and the desire to become the sort of person that they are.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 22

The family, too, is the first of that series of “associations” in which we participate, from which we acquire the capacity, crucial for a sense of justice, to see things from the perspectives of others. This capacity—the capacity for empathy—is essential for maintaining a sense of justice of the Rawlsian kind. Rawlsian justice is a theory of justice as fairness describes a society of free citizens holding equal basic rights and cooperating within an egalitarian economic system. The goal is to create a permanently peaceful and tolerant international order. For the perspective that is necessary for maintaining a sense of justice is not that of the egotistic or disembodied self, or of the dominant few who overdetermine “our” traditions or “shared understandings,” or (to use Nagel’s term) of “the view from nowhere,” but rather the perspective of every person in the society for whom the principles of justice are being arrived at. The problem with Rawls’s rare and interesting discussion of moral development is that it rests on the unexplained assumption that family institutions are just. If gendered family institutions are not just, but are, rather, a relic of caste or feudal societies in which responsibilities, roles, and resources are distributed, not in accordance with innate differences that are imbued with enormous social significance, then Rawls’s theory of moral development would seem to be built on uncertain ground. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22

This problem is exacerbated by suggestions in some of Rawls’s most recent work that families are “private institutions,” to which it is not appropriate to apply standards of justice. However, if families are to help form just individuals and citizens, surely they must be just families. In a just society, the structure and practices of families must give women the same opportunities as men to develop their capacities, to participate in political power and influence social choices, and to be economically secure. However, in addition to this, families must be just because of the vast influence that they have on the moral development of children. The family is the primary institution of formative moral development. And the structure and practice of the family must parallel those of the larger society if the sense of justice is to be fostered and maintained. While many theorists of justice, both past and present, appear to have denied the importance of at least one of these factors, my own view is that both are absolutely crucial. A society that is committed to equal respect for all of its members, and to justice in social distributions of benefits and responsibilities, can neither neglect the family nor accept family structures and practices that violate these norms, as do current gender-based structures and practices. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22

It is essential that children who are to develop into adults with a strong sense of justice and commitment to just institutions spend their earliest and most formative years in an environment in which they are loved and nurtured, and in which principles of justice are abided by and respected. What is a child of either gender to learn about fairness in the average household with two full-time working parents, where the mother does, at the very least, twice as much family work as the father? What is a child to learn about the value of nurturing and domestic work in a home with a traditional division of labour in which the father either subtly or not so subtly uses the fact that he is the wage earner to “pull rank” on or to abuse his wife? What is a child to learn about responsibility for others in a family in which, after many years of arranging her life around those needs of her husband and children, a woman is faced with having to provide for herself and her children but is totally ill-equipped for the task by the life she agreed to lead, has led, and expected to go on leading? Difficulties already present in partnerships are sometimes brought in the open in person-centered climates. A young could had been living together and were planning to marry. They were together in an encounter group and asked the group’s permission to explore their relationship with the help of the participants. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22

As they began to open up to each other, it was clear that they knew each other hardly at all. They had differing goals and sharply differing perceptions. For example, the young woman thought of herself as reasonably adequate, certainly not inferior. She was astonished and hurt to find that her lover saw her as much inferior to him in social status and intellect. As they explored their differences, they became much more open with each other, but their partnership seemed highly precarious. Yet a letter more than a year later told me of their marriage, their growing areas of mutual interest and work, and their current satisfaction with their relationship. Evidently the risk they took in exploring their profound differences had deepened the bonds of partnership rather than breaking them. The areas of difference may occur in a variety of fields. In one couple the husband is hedonistic, works when he had to, regards himself as essentially “a lazy bum,” while his wife is strongly imbued with a work ethic. Says she, “My heart skips a beat when I hear him say, ‘I just want to be rich and have fun.’” She thinks he should be more serious about his work. It is an indication of the incredible complexity of human relationships that the work-oriented wife is, with her husband’s consent, a topless go-go danger, while the “lazy bum” is business! However, exploration of their differing goals is helping to bring them together. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22

At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus enjoined His followers to prayerful tenacity: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; known and the door will be opened to you,” reports Matthew 7.7. The language is unusually compelling because the three verbs (“ask…seek…knock”) indicate an ascending intensity. “Ask” implies requesting assistance for a conscious need. It also suggests humility, for the Greek word here was commonly used by one approaching a superior. “Seek” involves asking, but adds action. The idea is not just to express need, but to get up and look around for help. “Knock” includes asking, plus seeking, plus persevering—for example, one who keeps pounding on a closed door. The stacking of these verbs is powerful, and the fact that they are present imperatives gives them even more punch. Jesus’ words actually read: “Keep on asking, and it shall be given to you; keep on seeking, and you will find; keep on knocking, and it shall be opened to you.” Such tenacity is exactly what Paul has in mind in his call to petitionary prayer when he says to “be alert and always keep on praying.” Men and women, do we pray with Scriptural persistence for our families? For the Church? Are there individuals, groups, causes, souls for which we hold up our hands in prayer? There ought to be, for God answers persistent prayer. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22

Now, the simplicity of spiritual formation is possessed in its intention. Its aim is to bring every element in our being, working from inside out, into harmony with the will of God and the kingdom of God. This is the simple focus. We must keep it constantly before us and not be distracted by other things, no matter how good they may appear. Of course, we cannot realize this goal on our own. However, there is no need for that. God has made provision for achieving this aim. To “grow in grace” means to utilize more and more grace to live by, until everything we do is assisted by grace. Then, whatever we do in word or deed will all be done in the name of the Lord Jesus. “And whatever you do whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him,” reports Colossians 3.17. The greatest saints are not those who need less grace, but those who consume the most grace, who indeed are most in need of grace—those who are saturated by grace in every dimension of their being. Grace to the is like breath. Spiritual formation is holistic. Each dimension of spirituality is not separate, so we must keep a sharp awareness that they are always profoundly influencing one another in the flow of real life. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22

Real life means the totality of the events we are actually involved in and the actions we actually carry out. In Spiritual formation the process and the outcome in Christ is beneficial to our lives. There are no formulas—no definitive how-tos—for growth in the inner character of Jesus. Such growth is a way of relentless seeking. However, there are many things we can do to place ourselves at the disposal of God, and “if with all our hearts we truly seek him, we shall surely find him,” reports Jeremiah 29.13. Or, as the prophet Azariah said, “If you seek Him, He will let you find him,” We can count on God’s goodness. The Second Book of Nephi—an account of the death of Lehi. Nephi’s brethren rebel against him. The Lord warns Nephi to depart into the wilderness. His journeyings in the wilderness, and so forth. In chapter 1, Lehi prophesies of a land of liberty—his seed will be scattered and smitten if they reject the Holy One of Israel—he exhorts his sons to put on the armor of righteousness. About 588-570 Before Chris. “And now it came to pass that after I, Nephi, had mad an end of teaching my brethren, our father, Lehi, also spake many things unto them, and rehearsed unto them, how great things the Lord had done for them in bringing them out of the land of Jerusalem. And he spake up them concerning the rebellious upon the waters, and the mercies of God in sparing their lives, that they were not swallowed up in the sea. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22

“And he also spake unto them concerning the land of promise, which they had obtained—how merciful the Lord has been in warning us that we should flee out of the land of Jerusalem. For, behold, said he, I have seen a vision, in which I know that Jerusalem is destroyed; and had we remained in Jerusalem we should also have perished. However, he said, notwithstanding our afflictions, we have obtained a land of promise, land which is choice above all other lands; a land which the Lord God hath covenanted with me should be a land for the inheritance of my seed. Yea, the Lord hath covenanted this land unto me, and to my children forever, and also all those who should be led out of other countries by the hand of the Lord. Wherefore, I, Lehi, prophesy according to the workings of the Spirit which is in me, that there shall none come into this land save they shall be brought by the hand of the Lord. Wherefore, this land is consecrated unto him who he shall bring. And if it so be that they shall serve him according to the commandments which he hath given, it shall be a land of liberty unto them; wherefore, they shall never be brought down into captivity; if so, it shell be because of iniquity; for if iniquity shall abound cursed shall be the land for their sakes, but unto the righteous it shall blessed forever. And behold, it is wisdom that this land should be kept as yet from the knowledge of other nations; for behold, many nations would over run the land, that there would be no place for an inheritance. #RandolphHarris 16 of 22

“Wherefore, I, Lehi, have obtained a promise, that inasmuch as those whom the Lord God shall bring out of the land of Jerusalem shall keep his commandments, they shall prosper upon the face of this land; and they shall be kept from all other nations, that they may possess this land unto themselves. And if it so be that they shall keep his commandments they shall be blessed upon the face of this land, and there shall be none to molest them, nor take away the land of their inheritance; and they shall dwell safely forever. However, behold, when the time cometh that they shall dwindle in unbelief, after they have received so great blessings from the hand of the Lord—having  a knowledge of the creation of the Earth, and all people, knowing the great and marvelous works of the Lord from the creation of the World; having power given them to do all things by faith; having all the commandments from the beginning, and having been brought by his infinite goodness into this precious land of promise—behold, I say, if the day shall come that they will reject the Holy One of Israel, the true Messiah, their Redeemer and their God, behold the judgments of him that is just shall rest upon them. Yea, he will bring other nations unto them, and he will give unto them power, and he will take away from them the lands of their possessions, and he will cause them to be scattered and smitten. #RandolphHarris 17 of 22

“Yea, as one generation passeth to another there shall be bloodsheds, and great visitations among them; wherefore, my sons, I would that ye would remember; yea, I would that ye would hearken unto my words. O that ye would awake; awake from a deep sleep, yea, even from the sleep of hell, and shake off the awful chains by which ye are bound, which are the chains which bind the children of humans, that they are carried away captive down to the eternal gul of misery and woe. Awake! And arise from the dust, and hear the words of a trembling parent, whose limbs ye must soon lay down in the cold and silent grave, from whence no traveler can return; a few more days and I go the way of all the Earth. However, behold, the Lord hath redeemed my soul from hell; I have beheld his glory, and I am encircled about eternally in the arms of his love. And I desire that ye should remember to observe the statuses of the judgments of the Lord; behold, this hath been the anxiety of my soul from the beginning. My heart hath been weighed down with sorrow from time to time, for I have feared, lest for the hardness of your hearts the Lord your God should come out in the fullness of his wrath upon you, that ye are visited by sword, and by famine, and are hated, and are led according to the will and captivity of the devil. O my sons, that these things might be a choice and a favoured people of the Lord. However, behold, his will be done; for his ways are righteous forever. #RandolphHarris 18 of 22

“And he hath said that: Inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments ye shall prosper in the land; but inasmuch as ye will not keep my commandments ye shall be cut off from my presence. And now that my soul might have joy in you, and that my heart might leave this World with gladness because of you, that I might not be brought down with grief and sorrow to the grave, arise from the dust, my sons, and be men, and be determined in one mind and in one heart, united in all things, that ye may not come down into captivity; that ye may not be cursed with a sore cursing; and also, that ye may not incur the displeasure of a just God upon you, unto the destruction, yes, the eternal destruction of both soul and body. Awake, my sons; put on the armour of righteousness. Shake off the chains with which ye are bound, and come forth out of obscurity and arise from the dust. Rebel no more against your brother, whose views have been glorious, and who hath kept the commandments from the time that we left Jerusalem; and who hath been an instrument in the hands of God, in bringing us forth into the land of promise; for were it not for him, we must have perished with hunger in the wilderness; nevertheless, ye sought to take away his life; yea, and he hath suffered much sorrow because of you. #RandolphHarris 19 of 22

“And I exceedingly fear and tremble because of you, lest he shall suffer again; for behold, ye have accused him that he sought power and authority over you; but I know that he hath not sought for power nor authority over you, but he hath sought the glory of God, and your own eternal welfare. And ye have murmured because he hath been plain unto you. Ye say that he hath used sharpness; ye say that he hath been angry with you; but behold, his sharpness was the sharpness of the power of the word of God, which was in him; and that which ye call anger was the truth, according to that which is in God, which he could not restrain manifesting boldly concerning your iniquities. And it must needs be that the power of God must be with him, even unto his commanding you that ye must obey. However, behold, it was not he, but it was the Spirit of the Lord which was in him, which opened his mouth to utterance the he could not shut it. And now my son, Laman, and also Lemuel and Sam, and also my sons who are the sons of Ishmael, behold, if ye will hearken unto the voice of Nephi ye shall not perish. And if ye will hearken unto him I leave unto you a blessing, yea, even my first blessing. However, if ye will not hearken unto him I take away my first blessing, and it shall rest upon him. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22

“And now, Zoram, I speak unto you: Behold, thou art the servant of Laban; nevertheless, thou hast been brought out of the land of Jerusalem, and I know that thou art a true friend unto my son, Nephi, forever. Wherefore, because thou hast been faithful thy seed shall be blessed with his seed, that they dwell in prosperity long upon the face of this land; and noting, save shall be iniquity among them, shall hard or disturb their prosperity upon the face of this land forever. Wherefore, if ye shall keep the commandments of the Lord, the Lord hath consecrated this land for the security of thy seed with the seed of my son,” reports 2 Nephi 1-32. All-sufficient King, when I come into Thy presence I see the gory of Thy perfections, the throne f eternal and universal empire, the ten thousand times ten thousand who minister to Thee. Impress my mind with the consciousness of Thy greatness, not to drive me from Thee but to inspire me to approach thee; not to diminish my confidence in Thee, but to lead me to admire Thy great condescension. Thou has been mindful of me and visited me, taken charge of me from birth, cared in all conditions for me, fed me at Thy table, drawn the curtains of love around me, given me new mercies every morning. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22

Suffer me not to forget that I look for yet greater blessings—a hope beyond the grave, the earnest and foretastes of immortality, holiness, wisdom, strength, peace, joy—all these thou hast provided for me in Christ. I grieve to think how insensible I have been of the claims of Thy authority, and the endearments of Thy love; how little I have credited Thy truth, trusted Thy promises, feared Thy threats, obeyed Thy commands, improved my advantages, welcomed Thy warnings, responded to Thy grace; but notwithstanding my desert I yet live. May Thy goodness always lead me to repentance, and Thy longsuffering prove my salvation. O God, by Whose command the moments of our life run their course; receive our prayers for Thy servants lying sick, on whose behalf we implore Thy mercy; that our fears on account of their danger may be turned into joy at their recovery; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Almighty and everlasting God, the eternal Salvation of believers, hear us for Thy servants, for whom we implore the assistance of Thy mercy; that their healthy may be restored to them, and they may give thanks to Thee in Thy Church; through Jesus Christ our Lord. O God, Who didst add fifteen years to the life of Thy servant Hezekiah; please let Thy power raise up Thy servants from the bed of sickness unto health; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 22 of 22

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