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tion on both sides, that attend upon the ordinary methods of supplying children's wants-to say nothing of the incalculable benefit to the boy himself of such a training, as a part of his preparation for future life.

Evil Results to be feared.

Nor is it merely upon the children themselves, and that after they enter upon the responsibilities of active life, that the evils resulting from their having had no practical training in youth in respect to pecuniary responsibilities and obligations, that evil consequences will fall. The great cities are full of wealthy men whose lives are rendered miserable by the recklessness in respect to money which is displayed by their sons and daughters as they advance towards maturity, and by the utter want, on their part, of all sense of delicacy, and of obligation or of responsibility of any kind towards their parents in respect to their pecuniary transactions. Of course this must, in a vast number of cases, be the result when the boy is brought up from infancy with the idea that the only limit to his supply of money is his ingenuity in devising modes of putting a pressure upon his father. Fifteen or twenty years spent in managing his affairs on this principle must, of course, produce the fruit naturally to be expected from such seed.

The great Difficulty.

It would seem, perhaps, at first view, from what has been said in this chapter, that it would be a very simple and easy thing to train up children thus to correct ideas and habits in respect to the use of money; and it would be so—for the principles involved seem to be very plain and simple-were it not that the qualities which it requires in the parent are just those which are most rare. Deliberateness in forming the plan, calmness and quietness in proposing it, inflexible

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but mild and gentle firmness in carrying it out, perfect hon. esty in allowing the children to exercise the power and responsibility promised them, and an indulgent spirit in relation to the faults and errors into which they fall in the exercise of it-these and other such qualities are not very easily found. To make an arrangement with a child that he is to receive a certain sum every Saturday, and then after two or three weeks to forget it, and when the boy comes to call for it, to say, petulantly, "Oh, don't come to bother me about that now-I am busy; and besides, I have not got the money now;" or, when a boy has spent all his allowance on the first two or three days of the week, and comes to beg importunately for more, to say, "It was very wrong in you to spend all your money at once, and I have a great mind not to give you any more. I will, however, do it just this time, but I shall not again, you may depend;" or, to borrow money in some sudden emergency out of the fund which a child has accumulated for a special purpose, and then to forget or neglect to repay it-to manage loosely and capriciously in any such ways as these will be sure to make the attempt a total failure; that is to say, such management will be sure to be a failure in respect to teaching the boy to act on right principles in the management of money, and training him to habits of exactness and faithfulness in the fulfillment of his obligations. But in making him a thoughtless, wasteful, teasing, and selfish boy while he remains a boy, and fixing him, when he comes to manhood, in the class of those who are utterly untrustworthy, faithless in the performance of their promises, and wholly unscrupulous in respect to the means by which they obtain - money, it may very probably turn out to be a splendid suc

cess.

CHAPTER XXI.

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT.

Ir might, perhaps, be thought that, in a book which professes to show how an efficient government can be established and maintained by gentle measures, the subject of corporal punishment could have no place. It seems important, however, that there should be here introduced a brief though distinct presentation of the light in which, in a philosophical point of view, this instrumentality is to be regarded.

The Teachings of Scripture.

The resort to corporal punishment in the training of children seems to be spoken of in many passages contained in the Scriptures as of fundamental necessity. But there can be no doubt that the word rod, as used in those passages, is used simply as the emblem of parental authority. This is in accordance with the ordinary custom of Hebrew writers in those days, and with the idiom of their language, by which a single visible or tangible object was employed as the representative or expression of a general idea-as, for example, the sword is used as the emblem of magisterial authority, and the sun and the rain, which are spoken of as being sent with their genial and fertilizing power upon the evil and the good, denote not specially and exclusively those agencies, but all the beneficent influences of nature which they are employed to represent. The injunctions, therefore, of Solomon in respect to the use of the rod are undoubtedly to be understood as simply enjoining upon par

ents the necessity of bringing up their children in complete subjection to their authority. No one can imagine that he could wish the rod to be used when complete subjection to the parental authority could be secured by more gentle means. And how this is to be done it is the object precisely of this book to show.

In this sense, therefore-and it is undoubtedly the true sense-namely, that children must be governed by the authority of the parent, the passages in question express a great and most essential truth. It is sometimes said that children must be governed by reason, and this is true, but it is the reason of their parents, and not their own which must hold the control. If children were endowed with the capacity of seeing what is best for them, and with sufficient self-control to pursue what is best against the counter-influences of their animal instincts and propensities, there would be no necessity that the period of subjection to parental authority should be extended over so many years. But so long as their powers are yet too immature to be safely relied upon, they must, of necessity, be subject to the parental will; and the sooner and the more perfectly they are made to understand this, and to yield a willing submission to the necessity, the better it will be, not only for their parents, but also for themselves.

The parental authority must, therefore, be establishedby gentle means, if possible-but it must by all means be established, and be firmly maintained. If you can not govern your child without corporal punishment, it is better to resort to it than not to govern him at all. Taking a wide view of the field, I think there may be several cases in which a resort to the infliction of physical pain as the only available means of establishing authority may be the only alternative. There are three cases of this kind that are to be specially considered.

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