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akin to that shadowed forth in the poems | thrust before us the pervading selfishness, of Shelley, that would mankind give up their old institutions, prejudices, and errors, all the evils in the world would at once disappear; neither notion being acceptable to such as have dispassionately studied human affairs.

Not that we are without sympathy with those who entertain these too sanguine hopes. Enthusiasm, pushed even to fanaticism, is a useful motive power-perhaps an indispensable one. It is clear that the ardent politician would never undergo the labors and make the sacrifices he does, did he not believe that the reform he fights for is the one thing needful. But for his conviction that drunkenness is the root of almost all social evils, the teetotaler would agitate far less energetically. In philanthropy as in other things, great advantages result from division of labor; and that there may be division of labor, each class of philanthropists must be more or less subordinated to its function - must have an exaggerated faith in its work. Hence, of those who regard education, intellectual or moral, as the panacea, we may say that their undue expectations are not without use; and that perhaps it is part of the beneficent order of things that their confidence can not be shaken.

dishonesty, brutality. Yet when we criticise nursery management, and canvass the misbehavior of juveniles, we habitually take for granted that these culpable men and women are free from moral delinquency in the treatment of their offspring! So far is this from the truth, that we do not hesitate to say that to parental misconduct is traceable a great part of the domestic disorder commonly ascribed to the perversity of children. We do not assert this of the more sympathetic and self-restrained, among whom we hope most of our readers may be classed, but we assert it of the mass. What kind of moral discipline is to be expected from a mother who, time after time, angrily shakes her infant because it will not suckle her, which we once saw a mother do? How much love of justice and generosity is likely to be instilled by a father who, on having his attention drawn by his child's scream to the fact that its finger is jammed between the window-sash and the sill, forthwith begins to beat the child instead of releasing it? Yet that there are such fathers is testified to us by an eye-witness. Or, to take a still stronger case, also vouched for by direct testimony

what are the educational prospects of the boy who, on being taken home with Even were it true, however, that by a dislocated thigh, is saluted with a castisome possible system of moral government gation? It is true that these are extreme children could be moulded into the desired instances - instances exhibiting in human form; and even could every parent be beings that blind instinct which impels duly indoctrinated with this system; we brutes to destroy the weakly and injured should still be far from achieving the ob- of their own race. But extreme though ject in view. It is forgotten that the they are, they typify feelings and conduct carrying out of any such system pre-sup- daily observable in many families. Who poses, on the part of adults, a degree of has not repeatedly seen a child slapped by intelligence, of goodness, of self control, nurse or parent for a fretfulness probably possessed by no one. The great error resulting from bodily derangement? made by those who discuss questions of Who, when watching a mother snatch up juvenile discipline, is in ascribing all the a fallen little one, has not often traced, faults and difficulties to the children and both in the rough manner and in the none to the parents. The current as- sharply-uttered exclamation-" You stusumption respecting family government, pid little thing!" an irascibility foretellas respecting national government, is, that ing endless future squabbles? Is there the virtues are with the rulers and the not in the harsh tones in which a father vices with the ruled. Judging by educa- bids his children be quiet, evidence of a tional theories, men and women are en- deficient fellow-feeling with them? Are tirely transfigured in the domestic rela- not the constant, and often quite needless, tion. The citizens we do business with, thwartings that the young experience the people we meet in the world, we all the injunctions to sit still, which an active know to be very imperfect creatures. In child can not obey without suffering great the daily scandals, in the quarrels of nervous irritation, the commands not to friends, in bankruptcy disclosures, in law-look out of the window when traveling suits, in police reports, we have constantly by railway, which on a child of any intel

ligence entails serious deprivation—are | nation so in a family, the kind of governnot these thwartings, we ask, signs of a ment is, on the whole, about as good as terrible lack of sympathy? The truth is, the general state of human nature perthat the difficulties of moral education mits it to be. It may be said that in the are necessarily of dual origin-necessarily one case, as in the other, the average charesult from the combined faults of parents racter of the people determines the quali and children. If hereditary transmission ty of the control exercised. It may be is a law of nature, as every naturalist inferred that in both casos amelioration of knows it to be, and as our daily remarks the average character leads to an amelioraand current proverbs admit it to be; then, tion of system; and further, that were it on the average of cases, the defects of possible to ameliorate the system without children mirror the defects of their pa- the average character being first amelio rents; on the average of cases, we say, rated, evil, rather than good, would folbecause, complicated as the results are by low. It may be urged that such degree the transmitted traits of remoter ances- of harshness as children now experience tors, the correspondence is not special but from their parents and teachers, is but a only general. And if, on the average of preparation for that greater harshness cases, this inheritance of defects exists, which they will meet with on entering then the evil passions which parents have the world; and that were it possible for to check in their children imply like evil parents and teachers to behave towards passions in themselves: hidden, it may be, them with perfect equity and entire symfrom the public eye; or perhaps obscured pathy, it would but intensify the sufferby other feelings; but still there. Evi- ings which the selfishness of men must, in dently, therefore, the general practice of after life, inflict on them.* any ideal system of discipline is hopeless: parents are not good enough.

Moreover, even were there methods by which the desired end could be at once effected, and even had fathers and mothers sufficient insight, sympathy, and self-command to employ these methods consistently, it might still be contended that it would be of no use to reform family discipline faster than other things are reformed. What is it that we aim to do? Is it not that education of whatever kind has for its proximate end to prepare a child for the business of lifeto produce a citizen who, at the same time that he is well conducted, is also able to make his way in the world? And does not making his way in the world (by which we mean, not the acquirement of wealth, but of the means requisite for properly bringing up a family)-does not this imply a certain fitness for the world as it now is? And if by any system of culture an ideal human being could be produced, is it not doubtful whether he would be fit for the world as it now is? May we not, on the contrary, suspect that his too keen sense of rectitude, and too elevated standard of conduct, would make life alike intolerable and impossible? And however admirable the result might be, considered individually, would it not be self-defeating in so far as society and posterity are concerned? It may, we think, be argued, with much reason, that as in a

"But does not this prove too much ?” some one will ask. "If no system of moral culture can forthwith make children altogether what they should be; if, even were there a system that would do this, existing parents are too imperfect to carry it out; and if, even could such a system be successfully carried out, its results would be disastrously incongruous with the present state of society; does it not follow that a reform in the system now in use is neither practicable nor desirable ?" No. It merely follows that reform in domestic government must go on, pari passu, with other reforms. It merely follows that methods of discipline

*This is the plea put in by some for the rough treatment experienced by boys at our public schools; ture world whose imperfections and hardships prewhere, as it is said, they are introduced to a miniapare them for those of the real world: and it must be admitted that the plea has some force. But it is a very insufficient plea. For whereas domestic and school discipline, though they should not be very much better than the discipline of adult life, should at any rate be somewhat better; the disciplino which boys meet with at Eton, Winchester, Harrow, etc., is much worse than that of adult life-much more unjust, cruel, brutal. Instead of being an aid culture of our public schools, by accustoming boys to human progress, which all culture should be, the to a despotic form of government and an intercourse regulated by brute force, tends to fit them for a lower state of society than that which exists. And those who are brought up at these schools, this barchiefly recruited as our legislature is from among barizing influence becomes a serious hindrance to national progress.

neither can be nor should be ameliorated, | against the table, it suffers a pain, the reexcept by installments. It merely follows membrance of which tends to make it that the dictates of abstract rectitude more careful for the future; and by an will, in practice, inevitably be subordinated by the present state of human nature -by the imperfections alike of children, of parents, and of society; and can only be better fulfilled as the general character becomes better.

occasional repetition of like experiences, it is eventually disciplined into a proper guidance of its movements. If it lays hold of the fire-bars, thrusts its finger into the candle-flame, or spills boiling water on any part of its skin, the resulting burn or scald is a lesson not easily forgotten. So deep an impression is produced by one or two such events, that afterwards no persuasion will induce it again to disregard the laws of its constitution in these ways.

Now in these and like cases, Nature

super

"At any rate, then," may rejoin our critic, "it is clearly useless to set up any ideal standard of family discipline. There can be no advantage in elaborating and recommending methods that are in advance of the time." Again we must contend for the contrary. Just as in the case of political government, though pure rec-illustrates to us in the simplest way, the titude may be at present impracticable, it true theory and practice of moral disciis requisite to know where the right lies, pline-a theory and practice which, howso that the changes we make may be to- ever much they may seem to the wards the right instead of away from it; ficial like those commonly received, we so in the case of domestic government, an shall find on examination to differ from ideal must be upheld, that there may be them very widely. gradual approximations to it. We need fear no evil consequences from the maintenance of such an ideal. On the average the constitutional conservatism of mankind is always strong enough to prevent a too rapid change. So admirable are the arrangements of things that until men have grown up to the level of a higher belief, they can not receive it: nominally, they may hold it, but not virtually. And even when the truth gets recognized, the obstacles to conformity with it are so persistent as to outlive the patience of philanthropists and even philosophers. We may be quite sure, therefore, that the many difficulties standing in the way of a normal government of children, will always put an adequate check upon the ef forts to realize it.

The

Observe, in the first place, that in bodily injuries and their penalties we have misconduct and its consequences reduced to their simplest forms. Though, according to their popular acceptations, right and wrong are words scarcely applicable to actions that have none but direct bodily effects; yet whoever considers the matter will see that such actions must be as much classifiable under these heads as any other actions. From whatever basis they start, all theories of morality agree in considering that conduct whose total results, immediate and remote, are beneficial, is good conduct; while conduct whose total results, immediate and remote, are injurious, is bad conduct. happiness or misery caused by it are the ultimate standards by which all men judge of behavior. We consider drunkenness wrong because of the physical degeneracy and accompanying moral evils entailed on the transgressor and his dependents. Did theft uniformly give pleasure both to taker and loser, we should not find it in our catalogue of sins. Were it conceivable that benevolent actions multiplied human pains we should condemn them-should not consider them benevolent. It needs but to read the first newspaper leader, or listen to any conversation touching social affairs, to see that acts of parliament, political movements, philanthropic agitations, in common with the doings of individuals, are judged by their anticipated results in When a child falls, or runs its head multiplying the pleasures or pains of men.

With these preliminary explanations, let us go on to consider the true aims and methods of moral education-moral education, strictly so called, we mean; for we do not propose to enter upon the question of religious education as an aid to the education exclusively moral. This we omit as a topic better dealt with separately. After a few pages devoted to the settlement of general principles, during the perusal of which we bespeak the reader's patience, we shall aim by illustrations to make clear the right methods of parental behavior in the hourly occurring difficulties of family government.

And if on looking under all secondary superinduced ideas, we find these to be our ultimate tests of right and wrong, we can not refuse to class purely physical actions as right or wrong according to the beneficial or detrimental results they produce. Note, in the second place, the character of the punishments by which these physical transgressions are prevented. Punishments, we call them, in the absence of a better word; for they are not punishments in the literal sense. They are not artificial and unnecessary inflictions of pain; but are simply the beneficent checks to actions that are essentially at variance with bodily welfare-checks in the absence of which life would quickly be destroyed by bodily injuries. It is the peculiarity of these penalties, if we must so call them, that they are nothing more than the unavoidable consequences of the deeds which they follow: they are nothing more than the inevitable reäctions entailed by the child's actions.

The

are checked when they go wrong. After home education has ceased, and when there are no longer parents and teachers to forbid this or that kind of conduct, there comes into play a discipline like that by which the young child is taught its first lessons in self-guidance. If the youth entering upon the business of life idles away his time and fulfills slowly or unskillfully the duties intrusted to him, there by and by follows the natural penalty: he is discharged, and left to suffer for a while the evils of relative poverty. On the unpunctual man, failing alike his appointments of business and pleasure, there continually fall the consequent inconveniences, losses, and deprivations. avaricious tradesman who charges too high a rate of profit, loses his customers, and so is checked in his greediness. Diminishing practice teaches the inattentive doctor to bestow more trouble on his patients. The too credulous creditor and the over-sanguine speculator alike learn by Let it be further borne in mind that the difficulties which rashness entails on these painful reäctions are proportionate them, the necessity of being more cauto the degree in which the organic laws tious in their engagements. And so have been transgressed. A slight acci- throughout the life of every citizen. In dent brings a slight pain, a more serious the quotation so often made apropos one, a greater pain. When a child tum- of these cases-"The burnt child dreads bles over the door-step, it is not ordained the fire" we see not only that the that it shall suffer in excess of the amount analogy between this social discipline and necessary, with the view of making it Nature's early discipline of infants is unistill more cautious than the necessary suf-versally recognized; but we also see an fering will make it. But from its daily experience it is left to learn the greater or less penalties of greater or less errors; and to behave accordingly.

And then mark, lastly, that these natural reäctions which follow the child's wrong actions, are constant, direct, unhesitating, and not to be escaped. No threats: but a silent, rigorous performance. If a child runs a pin into its finger, pain follows. If it does it again, there is again the same result: and so on perpetually. In all its dealings with surrounding inorganic nature it finds this unswerving persistence, which listens to no excuse, and from which there is no appeal; and very soon recognizing this stern though beneficent discipline, it become extremely careful not to transgress.

Still more significant will these general truths appear, when we remember that they hold throughout adult life as well as throughout infantine life. It is by an experimentally-gained knowledge of the natural consequences, that men and women

implied conviction that this discipline is of the most efficient kind. Nay more, this conviction is not only implied, but distinctly stated. Every one has heard others confess that only by "dearly bought experience" had they been induced to give up some bad or foolish course of conduct formerly pursued. Every one has heard, in the criticisms passed on the doings of this spendthrift or the other speculator, the remark that advice was useless, and that nothing but "bitter experience" would produce any effect: nothing, that is, but suffering the unavoidable consequences. And if further proof be needed that the penalty of the natural reaction is not only the most effi cient, but that no humanly-devised penalty can replace it, we have such further proof in the notorious ill-success of our various penal systems. Out of the many methods of criminal discipline that have been proposed and legally enforced, none have answered the expectations of their advocates. Not only have artificial pun

ishments failed to produce reformation, | check upon such delinquency. It is unbut they have in many cases increased the questionable that the scoldings, and criminality. The only successful reforma- threats, and blows, which a passionate pa tories are those privately-established ones rent visits on offending little ones, are ef which have approximated their régime to fects actually produced in such a parent by the method of Nature-which have done their offenses; and so are, in some sort, little more than administer the natural con- to be considered as among the natural resequences of criminal conduct: the natural actions of their wrong actions. And we consequences being, that by imprisonment are by no means prepared to say that or other restraint, the criminal shall have these modes of treatment are not relativehis liberty of action diminished as much ly right-right, that is, in relation to unas is needful for the safety of society; controllable children of ill-controlled and that he shall be made to maintain adults; and right in relation to a state of himself while living under this restraint. society in which such ill-controlled adults Thus we see not only that the discipline make up the mass of the people. As by which the young child is so success- already suggested, educational systems, fully taught to regulate its movements is like political and other institutions, are also the discipline by which the great generally as good as the state of human mass of adults are kept in order, and nature permits. The barbarous children more or less improved; but that the dis- of barbarous parents are probably only to cipline humanly devised for the worst be restrained by the barbarous methods adults, fails when it diverges from this which such parents spontaneously employ; divinely ordained discipline, and begins to while submission to these barbarous mesucceed when it approximates to it. thods is perhaps the best preparation such children can have for the barbarous society in which they are presently to play a part. Conversely, the civilized members of a civilized society will spontaneously manifest their displeasure in less violent ways will spontaneously use milder measures: measures strong enough for their better-natured children. Thus it is doubtless true that, in so far as the expression of parental feeling is concerned, the principle of the natural reäction is always more or less followed. The system of domestic government ever gravitates towards its right form.

Have we not here, then, the guiding principle of moral education? Must we not infer that the system so beneficent in its effects, alike during infancy and maturity, will be equally beneficent throughout youth? Can any one believe that the method which answers so well in the first and the last divisions of life will not answer in the intermediate division? Is it not manifest that as "ministers and interpreters of Nature" it is the function of parents to see that their children habitually experience the true conse quences of the conduct-the natural re- But now observe two important facts. actions neither warding them off, nor in- In the first place, observe that, in states tensifying them, nor putting artificial con- of rapid transition like ours, which witsequences in place of them? No unpre- ness a long-drawn battle between old and judiced reader will hesitate in his assent. new theories and old and new practices, Probably, however, not a few will con- the educational methods in use are apt to tend that already most parents do this- be considerably out of harmony with the that the punishments they inflict are, in times. In deference to dogmas fit only the majority of cases, the true conse- for the ages that uttered them, many paquences of ill-conduct-that parental an-rents inflict punishments that do violence ger, venting itself in harsh words and deeds, is the result of a child's transgression-and that, in the suffering, physical or moral, which the child is subject to, it experiences the natural reäction of its misbehavior. Along with much error this assertion, doubtless, contains some truth. It is unquestionable that the displeasure of fathers and mothers is a true consequence of juvenile delinquency; and that the manifestation of it is a normal

to their own feelings, and so visit on their children unnatural reäctions; while other parents, enthusiastic in their hopes of immediate perfection, rush to the opposite extreme. And then observe, in the second place, that the discipline on which we are insisting is not so much the experience of parental approbation or disapprobation, which, in most cases, is only a secondary consequence of a child's conduct; but it is the experience of those re

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