ON REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS.
To avoid, in education, all unnecessary severity, and all dangerous
indulgence, we must form just ideas of the nature and use of rewards
and punishments. Let us begin with considering the nature of
punishment, since it is best to get the most disagreeable part of our
business done the first.
Several benevolent and enlightened authors[62] have endeavoured to
explain the use of penal laws, and to correct the ideas which formerly
prevailed concerning public justice. Punishment is no longer
considered, except by the ignorant and sanguinary, as vengeance from
the injured, or expiation from the guilty. We now distinctly
understand, that the greatest possible happiness of the whole society
must be the ultimate object of all just legislation; that the partial
evil of punishment is consequently to be tolerated by the wise and
humane legislator, only so far as it is proved to be necessary for the
general good. When a crime has been committed, it cannot be undone by
all the art, or all the power of man; by vengeance the most
sanguinary, or remorse the most painful. The past is irrevocable; all
that remains, is to provide for the future. It would be absurd, after
an offence has already been committed, to increase the sum of misery
in the world, by inflicting pain upon the offender, unless that pain
were afterwards to be productive of happiness to society, either by
preventing the criminal from repeating his offence, or by deterring
others from similar enormities. With this double view of restraining
individuals, by the recollection of past sufferings, from future
crimes, and of teaching others, by public examples, to expect, and to
fear, certain evils as the necessary consequences of certain actions
hurtful to society, all wise laws are framed, and all just punishments
are inflicted. It is only by the conviction that certain punishments
are essential to the general security and happiness, that a person of
humanity can, or ought, to fortify his mind against the natural
feelings of compassion. These feelings are the most painful, and the
most difficult to resist, when, as it sometimes unavoidably happens,
public justice requires the total sacrifice of the happiness, liberty,
or perhaps the life, of a fellow-creature, whose ignorance precluded
him from virtue, and whose neglected or depraved education prepared
him, by inevitable degrees, for vice and all its miseries. How
exquisitely painful must be the feelings of a humane judge, in
pronouncing sentence upon such a devoted being! But the law permits of
no refined metaphysical disquisitions. It would be vain to plead the
necessitarian's doctrine of an unavoidable connection between the past
and the future, in all human actions; the same necessity compels the
punishment that compels the crime; nor could, nor ought, the most
eloquent advocate, in a court of justice, to obtain a criminal's
acquittal by entering into a minute history of the errours of his
education.
It is the business of education to prevent crimes, and to prevent all
those habitual propensities which necessarily lead to their
commission. The legislator can consider only the large interests of
society; the preceptor's view is fixed upon the individual interests
of his pupil. Fortunately both must ultimately agree. To secure for
his pupil the greatest possible quantity of happiness, taking in the
whole of life, must be the wish of the preceptor: this includes every
thing. We immediately perceive the connection between that happiness,
and obedience to all the laws on which the prosperity of society
depends.--We yet further perceive, that the probability of our pupil's
yielding not only an implicit, but an habitual, rational, voluntary,
happy obedience, to such laws, must arise from the connection which
_he_ believes, and feels, that there exists between his social duties
and his social happiness. How to induce this important belief, is the
question.
It is obvious, that we cannot explain to the comprehension of a child
of three or four years old, all the truths of morality; nor can we
demonstrate to him the justice of punishments, by showing him that we
give present pain to ensure future advantage. But, though we cannot
demonstrate to the child that we are just, we may satisfy ourselves
upon this subject, and we may conduct ourselves, during his non-age of
understanding, with the scrupulous integrity of a guardian. Before we
can govern by reason, we can, by associating pain or pleasure with
certain actions, give habits, and these habits will be either
beneficial or hurtful to the pupil: we must, if they be hurtful
habits, conquer them by fresh punishments, and thus we make the
helpless child suffer for our negligence and mistakes. Formerly in
Scotland there existed a law, which obliged every farrier who, through
ignorance or drunkenness, pricked a horse's foot in shoeing him, to
deposit the price of the horse until he was sound, to furnish the
owner with another, and in case the horse could not be cured, the
farrier was doomed to indemnify the injured owner. At the same rate of
punishment, what indemnification should be demanded from a careless or
ignorant preceptor?
When a young child puts his finger too near the fire, he burns
himself; the pain immediately follows the action; they are associated
together in the child's memory; if he repeat the experiment often, and
constantly with the same result, the association will be so strongly
formed, that the child will ever afterwards expect these two things to
happen together: whenever he puts his finger into fire, he will expect
to feel pain; he will learn yet further, as these things regularly
follow one another, to think one the cause, and the other the effect.
He may not have words to express these ideas; nor can we explain how
the belief that events, which have happened together, will again
happen together, is by experience induced in the mind. This is a fact,
which no metaphysicians pretend to dispute; but it has not yet, that
we know of, been accounted for by any. It would be rash to assert,
that it will not in future be explained, but at present we are totally
in the dark upon the subject. It is sufficient for our purpose to
observe, that this association of facts, or of ideas, affects the
actions of all rational beings, and of many animals who are called
irrational. Would you teach a dog or a horse to obey you; do you not
associate pleasure, or pain, with the things you wish that they should
practise, or avoid? The impatient and ignorant give infinitely more
pain than is necessary to the animals they educate. If the pain, which
we would associate with any action, do not _immediately_ follow it,
the child does not understand us; if several events happen nearly at
the same time, it is impossible that a child can at first distinguish
which are causes, and which are effects. Suppose, that a mother would
teach her little son, that he must not put his dirty shoes upon her
clean sofa: if she frowns upon him, or speaks to him in an angry tone,
at the instant that he sets his foot and shoe upon the sofa, he
desists; but he has only learned, that putting a foot upon the sofa,
and his mother's frown, follow each other; his mother's frown, from
former associations, gives him perhaps, some pain, or the expectation
of some pain, and consequently he avoids repeating the action which
immediately preceded the frown. If, a short time afterwards, the
little boy, forgetting the frown, accidentally gets upon the sofa
_without his shoes_, no evil follows; but it is not probable, that he
can, by this single experiment, discover that his shoes have made all
the difference in the two cases. Children are frequently so much
puzzled by their confused experience of impunity and punishment, that
they are quite at a loss how to conduct themselves. Whenever our
punishments are not made intelligible, they are cruel; they give pain,
without producing any future advantage. To make punishment
intelligible to children, it must be not only _immediately_, but
_repeatedly_ and _uniformly_, associated with the actions which we
wish them to avoid.
When children begin to reason, punishment affects them in a different
manner from what it did whilst they were governed, like irrational
animals, merely by the direct associations of pleasure and pain. They
distinguish, in many instances, between coincidence and causation;
they discover, that the will of others is the immediate cause,
frequently, of the pain they suffer; they learn by experience, that
the _will_ is not an unchangeable cause, that it is influenced by
circumstances, by passions, by persuasion, by caprice. It must be,
however, by slow degrees, that they acquire any ideas of justice. They
cannot know our views relative to their future happiness; their first
ideas of the justice of the punishments we inflict, cannot, therefore,
be accurate. They regulate these first judgments by the simple idea,
that our punishments ought to be exactly the same always in the same
circumstances; when they understand words, they learn to expect that
our words and actions should precisely agree, that we should keep our
promises, and _fulfil_ our threats. They next learn, that as they are
punished for voluntary faults, they cannot justly be punished until it
has been distinctly explained to them what is _wrong_ or _forbidden_,
and what is _right_ or _permitted_. The words _right_ or _wrong_,
and _permitted_ or _forbidden_, are synonymous at first in the
apprehensions of children; and obedience and disobedience are their
only ideas of virtue and vice. Whatever we command to be done, or
rather whatever we associate with pleasure, they imagine to be right;
whatever we prohibit, provided we have uniformly associated it with
pain, they believe to be wrong. This implicit submission to our
authority, and these confined ideas of right and wrong, are
convenient, or apparently convenient, to indolent or tyrannical
governours; and they sometimes endeavour to prolong the reign of
ignorance, with the hope of establishing in the mind an opinion of
their own infallibility. But this is a dangerous, as well as an
unjust, system. By comparison with the conduct and opinions of others,
children learn to judge of their parents and preceptors; by reading
and by conversation, they acquire more enlarged notions of right and
wrong; and their obedience, unless it then arise from the conviction
of their understandings, depends but on a very precarious foundation.
The mere association of pleasure and pain, in the form of reward and
punishment, with any given action, will not govern them; they will now
examine whether there is any moral or physical _necessary_ connection
between the action and punishment; nor will they believe the
punishment they suffer to be a consequence of the action they have
committed, but rather a consequence of their being obliged to submit
to the will of those who are stronger or more powerful than they are
themselves. Unjust punishments do not effect their intended purpose,
because the pain is not associated with the action which we would
prohibit; but, on the contrary, it is associated with the idea of our
tyranny; it consequently excites the sentiment of hatred towards us,
instead of aversion to the forbidden action. When once, by reasoning,
children acquire even a vague idea that those who educate them are
unjust, it is in vain either to punish or reward them; if they submit,
or if they rebel, their education is equally spoiled; in the one case
they become cowardly, in the other, headstrong. To avoid these evils,
there is but one method; we must early secure reason for our friend,
else she will become our unconquerable enemy. As soon as children are
able, in any instance, to understand the meaning and nature of
punishment, it should, in that instance, be explained to them. Just
punishment is pain, inflicted with the reasonable hope of preventing
greater pain in future. In a family, where there are several children
educated together, or in public schools, punishments may be inflicted
with justice for the sake of example, but still the reformation and
future good of the sufferer is always a principal object; and of this
he should be made sensible. If our practice upon all occasions
correspond with our theory, and if children really perceive, that we
do not punish them to gratify our own spleen or passion, we shall not
become, even when we give them pain, objects of their hatred. The pain
will not be associated with us, but, as it ought to be, with the fault
which was the real cause of it. As much as possible we should let
children feel the natural consequences of their own conduct. The
natural consequence of speaking truth, is the being believed; the
natural consequence of falsehood, is the loss of trust and confidence;
the natural consequence of all the useful virtues, is esteem; of all
the amiable virtues, love; of each of the prudential virtues, some
peculiar advantage to their possessor. But plum-pudding is not the
appropriate reward of truth, nor is the loss of it the natural or
necessary consequence of falsehood. Prudence is not to be rewarded
with the affection due to humanity, nor is humanity to be recompensed
with the esteem claimed by prudence. Let each good and bad quality
have its proper share of praise and blame, and let the consequences of
each follow as constantly as possible. That young people may form a
steady judgment of the danger of any vice, they must uniformly
perceive, that certain painful consequences result from its practice.
It is in vain that we inflict punishments, unless all the precepts and
all the examples which they see, confirm them in the same belief.
In the unfortunate son of Peter the Great, we have a striking instance
of the effects of a disagreement between precept and example,[63]
which, in a less elevated situation, might have escaped our notice. It
seems as if the different parts and stages of his education had been
purposely contrived to counteract each other. Till he was eleven years
old, he was committed to the care of women, and of ignorant bigotted
priests, who were continually inveighing against his father for the
abolition of certain barbarous customs. Then came baron Huysen for his
governour, a sensible man, who had just begun to make something of his
pupil, when prince Menzikof insisted upon having the sole management
of the unfortunate Alexey. Prince Menzikof abandoned him to the
company of the lowest wretches, who encouraged him in continual
ebriety, and in a taste for every thing mean and profligate. At length
came Euphrosyne, his Finlandish mistress, who, upon his trial for
rebellion, deposed to every angry expression which, in his most
unguarded moments, the wretched son had uttered against the tyrannical
father. Amidst such scenes of contradictory experience, can we be
surprised, that Alexey Petrovitch became feeble, ignorant, and
profligate; that he rebelled against the father whom he had early been
taught to fear and hate; that he listened to the pernicious counsels
of the companions who had, by pretended sympathy and flattery,
obtained that place in his confidence which no parental kindness had
ever secured? Those historians who are zealous for the glory of Peter
the Great, have eagerly refuted, as a most atrocious calumny, the
report of his having had any part in the mysterious death of his son.
But how will they apologize for the Czar's neglect of that son's
education, from which all the misfortunes of his life arose?
But all this is past for ever; the only advantage we can gain from
recalling these circumstances, is a confirmation of this important
principle in education; that, when precept and example counteract one
another, there is no hope of success. Nor can the utmost severity
effect any useful purpose, whilst the daily experience of the pupil
contradicts his preceptor's lessons. In fact, severity is seldom
necessary in a well conducted education. The smallest possible degree
of pain, which can, in any case, produce the required effect, is
indisputably the just measure of the punishment which ought to be
inflicted in any given case. This simple axiom will lead us to a
number of truths, which immediately depend upon, or result from it. We
must attend to every circumstance which can diminish the quantity of
pain, without lessening the efficacy of punishment. Now it has been
found from experience, that there are several circumstances which
operate uniformly to this purpose. We formerly observed, that the
effect of punishment upon the minds of children, before they reason,
depends much upon its _immediately_ succeeding the fault, and also
upon its being certainly repeated whenever the same fault is
committed. After children acquire the power of reasoning, from a
variety of new motives, these laws, with respect to punishment, derive
additional force. A trifling degree of pain will answer the purpose,
if it be made inevitable; whilst the fear of an enormous proportion of
uncertain punishment, will not be found sufficient to govern the
imagination. The contemplation of a distant punishment, however
severe, does not affect the imagination with much terror, because
there is still a secret hope of escape in the mind. Hence it is found
from experience, that the most sanguinary penal laws have always been
ineffectual to restrain from crimes.[64] Even if detection be
inevitable, and consequent punishment equally inevitable, if
punishment be not inflicted as soon as the criminal is convicted, it
has been found that it has not, either as a preventative, or a public
example, the same power upon the human mind. Not only should the
punishment be immediate after conviction, but detection should follow
the offence as speedily as possible. Without entering at large into
the intricate arguments concerning identity and consciousness, we may
observe, that the consciousness of having committed the offence for
which he suffers, ought, at the time of suffering, to be strong in the
offender's mind. Though proofs of his identity may have been legally
established in a court of justice; and though, as far as it relates to
public justice, it matters not whether the offence for which he is
punished has been committed yesterday or a year ago; yet, as to the
effect which the punishment produces on the culprit's own mind, there
must be a material difference.
"I desire you to judge of me, not by what I was, but by what I am,"
said a philosopher, when he was reproached for some of his past
transgressions. If the interval between an offence and its punishment
be long, it is possible that, during this interval, a complete change
may be made in the views and habits of the offender; such a change as
shall absolutely preclude all probability of his repeating his
offence. His punishment must then be purely for the sake of example to
others. He suffers pain at the time, perhaps, when he is in the best
social dispositions possible; and thus we punish the present good man
for the faults of the former offender. We readily excuse the violence
which a man in a passion may have committed, when, upon his return to
his sober senses, he expresses contrition and surprise at his own
excesses; he assures us, and we believe him, that he is now a
perfectly different person. If we do not feel any material ill
consequences from his late anger, we are willing, and even desirous,
that the passionate man should not, in his sober state, be punished
for his madness; all that we can desire, is to have some security
against his falling into any fresh fit of anger. Could his habits of
temper be instantly changed, and could we have a moral certainty that
his frenzy would never more do us any injury, would it not be
malevolent and unjust to punish him for his old insanity? If we think
and act upon these principles with respect to men, how much more
indulgent should we be to children? Indulgence is perhaps an improper
word--but in other words, how careful should we be never to chain
children to their dead faults![65] Children, during their education,
must be in a continual state of progression; they are not the same
to-day that they were yesterday; they have little reflection; their
consciousness of the present occupies them; and it would be extremely
difficult from day to day, or from hour to hour, to identify their
minds. Far from wishing that they should distinctly remember all their
past thoughts, and that they should value themselves upon their
continuing the same, we must frequently desire that they should forget
their former errours, and absolutely change their manner of thinking.
They should feel no interest in adhering to former bad habits or false
opinions; therefore, their pride should not be roused to defend these
by our making them a part of their standing character. The character
of children is _to be_ formed--we should never speak of it as
positively fixed. Man has been defined to be a bundle of habits; till
the bundle is made up, we may continually increase or diminish it.
Children who are zealous in defence of their own perfections, are of
all others most likely to become stationary in their intellectual
progress, and disingenuous in their temper. It would be in vain to
repeat to them this sensible and elegant observation--"To confess that
you have been in the wrong, is only saying, in other words, that you
are wiser to-day than you were yesterday." This remark will rather
pique, than comfort, the pride of those who are anxious to prove that
they have been equally wise and immaculate in every day of their
existence.
It may be said, that children cannot too early be made sensible of the
value of reputation, and they must be taught to connect the ideas of
their past and present _selves_, otherwise they cannot perceive, for
instance, why confidence should be placed in them in proportion to
their past integrity; or why falsehood should lead to distrust. The
force of this argument must be admitted; yet still we must consider
the age and strength of mind in children in applying it to practice.
Truth is not instinctive in the mind, and the ideas of integrity, and
of the advantages of reputation, must be very cautiously introduced,
lest, by giving children too perfect a theory of morality, before they
have sufficient strength of mind to adhere to it in practice, we may
make them hypocrites, or else give them a fatal distrust of
themselves, founded upon too early an experience of their own
weakness, and too great sensibility to shame.
Shame, when it once becomes familiar to the mind, loses its effect; it
should not, therefore, be used as a common punishment for slight
faults. Nor should we trust very early in education to the delicate
secret influence of conscience; but we should take every precaution to
prevent the necessity of having recourse to the punishment of
disgrace; and we must, if we mean to preserve the power of conscience,
take care that it be never disregarded with impunity. We must avoid
opposing it to strong temptation; nor should we ever try the integrity
of children, except in situations where we can be perfectly certain of
the result of the experiment. We must neither run the risk of
injuring them by unjust suspicions, nor unmerited confidence. By
prudent arrangements, and by unremitted daily attention, we should
absolutely prevent the possibility of deceit. By giving few commands,
or prohibitions, we may avoid the danger of either secret or open
disobedience. By diminishing temptations to do wrong, we act more
humanely than by multiplying restraints and punishments.
It has been found, that no restraints or punishments have proved
adequate to ensure obedience to laws, whenever strong temptations, and
many probabilities of evasion, combine in opposition to conscience or
fear. The terrors of the law have been for years ineffectually
directed against a race of beings called smugglers: yet smuggling is
still an extensive, lucrative, and not universally discreditable,
profession. Let any person look into the history of the excise
laws,[66] and he will be astonished at the accumulation of penal
statutes, which the active, but ineffectual, ingenuity of prohibitory
legislators has devised in the course of about thirty years. Open war
was declared against all illegal distillers; yet the temptation to
illegal distilling continually increased, in proportion to the heavy
duties laid upon the fair trader. It came at length to a trial of
skill between revenue officers and distillers, which could cheat, or
which could detect, the fastest. The distiller had the strongest
interest in the business, and he usually came off victorious.
_Coursing officers_, and _watching officers_ (once ten _watching
officers_ were set upon one distiller) and _surveyors_ and
_supervisors_, multiplied without end: the land in their fiscal maps
was portioned out into _divisions_ and _districts_, and each gauger
had the charge of all the distillers in his division: the watching
officer went first, and the coursing officer went after him, and after
him the supervisor; and they had _table-books_, and _gauging-rods_,
and _dockets_, and _permits_; permits for sellers, and permits for
buyers, and permits for foreign spirits, printed in red ink, and
permits for British spirits, in black ink; and they went about night
and day with their hydrometers, to ascertain the strength of spirits;
and with their gauging-rods, to measure _wash_. But the pertinacious
distiller was still flourishing; permits were forged; concealed pipes
were fabricated; and the proportion between the _wash_ and _spirits_
was seldom legal. The commisioners complained, and the legislators
went to work again. Under a penalty of one hundred pounds, distillers
were ordered to paint the words _distiller, dealer in spirits_, over
their doors; and it was further enacted, that all the distillers
should furnish, at their own expense, any kind of locks, and
fastenings, which the revenue officers should require for locking up
the doors of their own furnaces, the heads of their own stills, pumps,
pipes, &c. First, suspicions fell upon the public distiller for
exportation; then his utensils were locked up; afterwards the private
distiller was suspected, and he was locked up: then they set him and
his furnaces at liberty, and went back in a passion to the public
distiller. The legislature condescended to interfere, and with a new
lock and key, precisely described in an act of parliament, it was
hoped all would be made secure. Any person being a distiller, who
should lock up his furnace or pipes with a key constructed differently
from that which the act described, or any person making such illegal
key for said distiller, was subject to the forfeiture of one hundred
pounds. The padlock was never fixed upon the mind, and even the lock
and key, prescribed by act of parliament, were found inefficacious.
Any common blacksmith, with a picklock in his possession, laughed at
the combined skill of the two houses of parliament.
This digression from the rewards and punishments of children, to the
distillery laws, may, it is hoped, be pardoned, if the useful moral
can be drawn from it, that, where there are great temptations to
fraud, and continual opportunities of evasion, no laws, however
ingenious, no punishments, however exorbitant, can avail. The history
of coiners, venders, and utterers, of his majesty's coin, as lately
detailed to us by respectable authority,[67] may afford further
illustration of this principle.
There is no imminent danger of children's becoming either coiners or
fraudulent distillers; but an ingenious preceptor will not be much
puzzled in applying the remarks that have been made, to the subject of
education. For the anticlimax, in descending from the legislation of
men to the government of children, no apology is attempted.
The fewer the laws we make for children, the better. Whatever they may
be, they should be distinctly expressed; the letter and spirit should
both agree, and the words should bear but one signification, clear to
all the parties concerned. They should never be subject to the ex post
facto interpretation of an angry preceptor, or a cunning pupil; no
loose general terms should permit tyranny, or encourage quibbling.
There is said[68] to be a Chinese law, which decrees, that whoever
does not show _proper respect_ to the sovereign, is to be punished
with death. What is meant by the words _proper respect_, is not
defined. Two persons made a mistake in some account of an
insignificant affair, in one of their court gazettes. It was declared,
that _to lie_ in a court gazette, is to be wanting in _proper respect_
to the court. Both the careless scribes were put to death. One of the
princes of the blood inadvertently put some mark upon a memorial,
which had been signed by the emperor Bogdo Chan. This was construed to
be a want of _proper respect_ to Bogdo Chan the emperor, and a
horrible persecution hence arose against the scrawling prince and his
whole family. May no schoolmasters, ushers, or others, ever (even as
far as they are able) imitate Bogdo Chan, and may they always define
to their subjects, what they mean by _proper respect_!
There is a sort of mistaken mercy sometimes shown to children, which
is, in reality, the greatest cruelty. People, who are too angry to
refrain from threats, are often too indolent, or too compassionate, to
put their threats in execution. Between their words and actions there
is hence a manifest contradiction; their pupils learn from experience,
either totally to disregard these threats, or else to calculate, from
the various degrees of anger which appear in the threatener's
countenance, what real probability there is of his being as good or as
bad as his word. Far from perceiving that punishment, in this case, is
_pain given with the reasonable hope of making him wiser or happier_,
the pupil is convinced, that his master punishes him only to gratify
the passion of anger, to which he is unfortunately subject. Even
supposing that threateners are exact in fulfilling their threats, and
that they are not passionate, but simply wish to avoid giving pain;
they endeavour to excite the fears of their pupils as the means of
governing them with the least possible pain. But with fear they excite
all the passions and habits which are connected with that mean
principle of action, and they extinguish that vigorous spirit, that
independent energy of soul, which is essential to all the active and
manly virtues. Young people, who find that their daily pleasures
depend not so much upon their own exertions as upon the humour and
caprice of others, become absolute courtiers; they practise all the
arts of persuasion, and all the crouching hypocrisy which can
deprecate wrath, or propitiate favour. Their notions of right and
wrong cannot be enlarged; their recollection of the rewards and
punishments of their childhood, is always connected with the ideas of
tyranny and slavery; and when they break their own chains, they are
impatient to impose similar bonds upon their inferiors.
An argument has been used to prove, that in some cases anger is part
of the _justice_ of punishment, because "mere _reproof_, without
sufficient marks of _displeasure_ and _emotion_, affects a child very
little, and is soon forgotten."[69] It cannot be doubted, that the
expression of indignation is a just consequence of certain faults, and
the general indignation with which these are spoken of before young
people, must make a strong and useful impression upon their minds.
They reflect upon the actions of others; they see the effects which
these produce upon the human mind; they put themselves in the
situation alternately of the person who expresses indignation, and of
him who suffers shame; they measure the fault and its consequences,
and they resolve to conduct themselves so as to avoid that just
indignation of which they dread to be the object. These are the
general conclusions which children draw when they are _impartial
spectators_; but where they are themselves concerned, their feelings
and their reasonings are very different. If they have done any thing
which they know to be wrong, they expect, and are sensible that they
deserve, displeasure and indignation; but if any precise penalty is
annexed to the fault, the person who is to inflict it, appears to them
in the character of a judge, who is bound to repress his own feelings,
and coolly to execute justice. If the judge both reproaches and
punishes, he doubles the punishment. Whenever indignation is
expressed, no vulgar trivial penalties should accompany it; the pupil
should feel that it is indignation against his fault, and not against
himself; and that it is not excited in his preceptor's mind by any
petty personal considerations. A child distinguishes between anger and
indignation very exactly; the one commands his respect, the other
raises his contempt as soon as his fears subside. Dr. Priestley seems
to think that, "it is not possible to express displeasure with
sufficient _force_, especially to a child, when a man is perfectly
cool." May we not reply to this, that it is scarcely possible to
express displeasure with sufficient _propriety_, especially to a
child, when a man is in a passion? The propriety is, in this case, of
at least as much consequence as the force of the reprimand.--The
effect which the preceptor's displeasure will produce, must be, in
some proportion, to the esteem which his pupil feels for him. If he
cannot command his irascible passions, his pupil cannot continue to
esteem him; and there is an end of all that fear of his
disapprobation, which was founded upon esteem, and which can never be
founded upon a stronger or a better basis. We should further consider,
that the opinions of all the bystanders, especially if they be any of
them of the pupil's own age, have great influence upon his mind. It is
not to be expected that they should all sympathize equally with the
angry preceptor; and we know, that whenever the indignation expressed
against any fault, appears, in the least, to pass the bound of exact
justice, the sympathy of the spectators immediately revolts in favour
of the culprit; the fault is forgotten or excused, and all join in
spontaneous compassion. In public schools, this happens so frequently,
that the master's displeasure seldom affects the little community with
any sorrow; combined together, they make each other amends for public
punishments, by private pity or encouragement. In families, which are
not well regulated, that is to say, in which the interests of all the
individuals do not coalesce, the same evils are to be dreaded. Neither
indignation nor _shame_ can affect children in such schools, or such
families; the laws and manners, public precept and private opinion,
contradict one another.
In a variety of instances in society, we may observe, that the best
laws and the best principles are not sufficient to resist the
combination of numbers. Never attempt to affix infamy to a number of
people at once, says a philosophic legislator.[70] This advice showed
that he perfectly understood the nature of the passion of shame.
Numbers keep one another in countenance; they form a society for
themselves; and sometimes by peculiar phrases, and an appropriate
language, confound the established opinions of virtue and vice, and
enjoy a species of self-complacency independent of public opinion, and
often in direct opposition to their former _conscience_. Whenever any
set of men want to get rid of the shame annexed to particular actions,
they begin by changing the names and epithets which have been
generally used to express them, and which they know are associated
with the feelings of shame: these feelings are not awakened by the new
language, and by degrees they are forgotten, or they are supposed to
have been merely prejudices and habits, which _former methods of
speaking_ taught people to reverence. Thus the most disgraceful
combinations of men, who live by violating and evading the laws of
society, have all a peculiar phraseology amongst themselves, by which
jocular ideas are associated with the most disreputable actions.
Those who live by depredation on the river Thames, do not call
themselves thieves, but _lumpers_ and _mudlarks_. Coiners give regular
mercantile names to the different branches of their trade, and to the
various kinds of false money which they circulate: such as _flats_, or
_figs_, or _fig-things_. Unlicensed lottery wheels, are called _little
goes_; and the men who are sent about to public houses to entice poor
people into illegal lottery insurances, are called _Morocco-men_: a
set of villains, hired by these fraudulent lottery keepers, to resist
the civil power during the drawing of the lottery, call themselves
_bludgeon-men_; and in the language of robbers, a receiver of stolen
goods is said to be _staunch_, when it is believed that he will go all
lengths rather than betray the secrets of a gang of highwaymen.[71]
Since words have such power in their turn over ideas, we must, in
education, attend to the language of children as a means of judging
of the state of their minds; and whenever we find, that in their
conversation with one another, they have any slang, which turns moral
ideas into ridicule, we may be certain that this must have arisen from
some defect in their education. The power of shame must then be tried
in some new shape, to break this false association of ideas. Shame, in
a new shape, affects the mind with surprising force, in the same
manner as danger in a new form alarms the courage of veterans. An
extraordinary instance of this, may be observed in the management of
Gloucester jail: a blue and yellow jacket has been found to have a
most powerful effect upon men supposed to be dead to shame. The keeper
of the prison told us, that the most unruly offenders could be kept in
awe by the dread of a dress which exposed them to the ridicule of
their companions, no new term having been yet invented to counteract
the terrors of the yellow jacket. To prevent the mind from becoming
insensible to shame, it must be very sparingly used; and the hope and
possibility of recovering esteem, must always be kept alive. Those who
are excluded from hope, are necessarily excluded from virtue; the loss
of reputation, we see, is almost always followed by total depravity.
The cruel prejudices which are harboured against particular classes of
people, usually tend to make the individuals who are the best disposed
amongst these sects, despair of obtaining esteem; and, consequently,
careless about deserving it. There can be nothing inherent in the
knavish propensity of Jews; but the prevailing opinion, that avarice,
dishonesty and extortion, are the characteristics of a Jew, has
probably induced many of the tribe to justify the antipathy which they
could not conquer. Children are frequently confirmed in faults, by the
imprudent and cruel custom which some parents have of settling early
in life, that such a thing is natural; that such and such dispositions
are not to be cured; that cunning, perhaps, is the characteristic of
one child, and caprice of another. This general odium oppresses and
dispirits: such children think it is in vain to struggle against
nature, especially as they do not clearly understand what is meant by
nature. They submit to our imputations, without knowing how to refute
them. On the contrary, if we treat them with more good sense and
benevolence, if we explain to them the nature of the human mind, and
if we lay open to them the history of their own, they will assist us
in endeavouring to cure their faults, and they will not be debilitated
by indistinct, superstitious fears. At ten or eleven years old,
children are capable of understanding some of the general principles
of rational morality, and these they can apply to their own conduct in
many instances, which, however trivial they may appear, are not
beneath our notice.
June 16, 1796. S---- (nine years old) had lost his pencil; his father
said to him, "I wish to give you another pencil, but I am afraid I
should do you harm if I did; you would not take care of your things if
you did not feel some inconvenience when you lose them." The boy's
lips moved as if he were saying to himself, "I understand this; it is
just." His father guessed that these were the thoughts that were
passing in his mind, and asked whether he interpreted rightly the
motion of the lips. "Yes," said S----, "that was exactly what I was
thinking." "Then," said his father, "I will give you a bit of my own
pencil this instant: all I want is to make the necessary impression
upon your mind; that is all the use of punishment; you know we do not
want to torment you."
As young people grow up, and perceive the consequences of their own
actions, and the advantages of credit and character, they become
extremely solicitous to preserve the good opinion of those whom they
love and esteem. They are now capable of taking the future into their
view as well as the present; and at this period of their education,
the hand of authority should never be hastily used; the voice of
reason will never fail to make herself heard, especially if reason
speak with the tone of affection. During the first years of childhood,
it did not seem prudent to make any punishment lasting, because young
children quickly forget their faults; and having little experience,
cannot feel how their past conduct is likely to affect their future
happiness: but as soon as they have more enlarged experience, the
nature of their punishments should alter; if we have any reason to
esteem or love them less, our contempt and displeasure should not
lightly be dissipated. Those who reflect, are more influenced by the
idea of the duration, than of the intensity of any mental pain. In
those calculations which are constantly made before we determine upon
action or forbearance, some tempers estimate any evil which is likely
to be but of short duration, infinitely below its real importance.
Young men, of sanguine and courageous dispositions, hence frequently
act imprudently; the consequences of their temerity will, they think,
soon be over, and they feel that they are able to support evil for a
short time, however great it may be. Anger, they know, is a
short-lived passion, and they do not scruple running the hazard of
exciting anger in the hearts of those they love the best in the world.
The experience of lasting, sober disapprobation, is intolerably
irksome to them; any inconvenience which continues for a length of
time, wearies them excessively. After they have endured, as the
consequence of any actions, this species of punishment, they will long
remember their sufferings, and will carefully avoid incurring, in
future, similar penalties. Sudden and transient pain appears to be
most effectual with persons of an opposite temperament.
Young people, of a torpid, indolent temperament, are much under the
dominion of habit; if they happen to have contracted any disagreeable
or bad habits, they have seldom sufficient energy to break them. The
stimulus of sudden pain is necessary in this case. The pupil may be
perfectly convinced, that such a habit ought to be broken, and may
wish to break it most sincerely; but may yet be incapable of the
voluntary exertion requisite to obtain success. It would be dangerous
to let the habit, however insignificant, continue victorious, because
the child would hence be discouraged from all future attempts to
battle with himself. Either we should not attempt the conquest of the
habit, or we should persist till we have vanquished. The confidence,
which this sense of success will give the pupil, will probably, in his
own opinion, be thought well worthy the price. Neither his reason nor
his will was in fault; all he wanted, was strength to break the
diminutive chains of habit; chains which, it seems, have power to
enfeeble their captives exactly in proportion to the length of time
they are worn.
Every body has probably found, from their own experience, how
difficult it is to alter little habits in manners, pronunciation, &c.
Children are often teased with frequent admonitions about their habits
of sitting, standing, walking, talking, eating, speaking, &c. Parents
are early aware of the importance of agreeable, graceful manners;
every body who sees children, can judge, or think that they can judge,
of their manners; and from anxiety that children should appear to
advantage in company, parents solicitously watch all their gestures,
and correct all their attitudes according to that image of the "_beau
ideal_," which happens to be most fashionable. The most convenient and
natural attitudes are not always the most approved. The constraint
which children suffer from their obedience, obliges them at length to
rest their tortured muscles, and to throw themselves, for relief, into
attitudes the very reverse of those which they have practised with so
much pain. Hence they acquire opposite habits in their manners, and
there is a continual struggle between these. They find it impossible
to correct, instantaneously, the awkward tricks which they have
acquired, and they learn _ineffectually_ to attempt a conquest over
themselves; or else, which is most commonly the catastrophe, they
learn to hear the exhortations and rebukes of all around them, without
being stimulated to any degree of exertion.[72] The same voices which
lose their power on these trifling occasions, lose, at the same time,
much of their general influence. More _power_ is wasted upon trifling
defects in the manners of children, than can be imagined by any who
have not particularly attended to this subject. If it be thought
indispensably necessary to speak to children eternally about their
manners, this irritating and disagreeable office should devolve upon
somebody whose influence over the children we are not anxious to
preserve undiminished. A little ingenuity in contriving the dress,
writing desks, reading desks, &c. of children, who are any way
defective in their shape, might spare much of the anxiety which is
felt by their parents, and much of the bodily and mental pain which
they alternately endure themselves. For these patients, would it not
be rather more safe to consult the philosophic physician,[73] than the
dancing master who is not bound to understand either anatomy or
metaphysics?
Every preventative which is discovered for any defect, either in
manners, temper, or understanding, diminishes the necessity for
punishment. Punishments are _the abrupt, brutal resource of ignorance,
frequently_,[74] to cure the effects of former negligence. With
children who have been reasonably and affectionately educated,
scarcely any punishments are requisite. This is not an assertion
hazarded without experience; the happy experience of several years,
and of several children of different ages and tempers, justifies this
assertion. As for corporeal punishments, they may be necessary where
boys are to be _drilled_ in a given time into scholars; but the
language of blows need seldom be used to reasonable creatures. The
idea that it is disgraceful to be governed by force, should be kept
alive in the minds of children; the dread of shame is a more powerful
motive than the fear of bodily pain. To prove the truth of this, we
may recollect that few people have ever been known to destroy
themselves in order to escape from bodily pain; but numbers, to avoid
shame, have put an end to their existence. It has been a question,
whether mankind are most governed by hope or by fear, by rewards or by
punishments? This question, like many others which have occasioned
tedious debates, turns chiefly upon words. Hope and fear are sometimes
used to denote mixed, and sometimes unmixed, passions. Those who speak
of them as unmixed passions, cannot have accurately examined their own
feelings.[75] The probability of good, produces hope; the probability
of evil, excites fear; and as this probability appears less or
greater, more remote or nearer to us, the mind fluctuates between the
opposite passions. When the probability increases on either side, so
does the corresponding passion. Since these passions seldom exist in
absolute separation from one another, it appears that we cannot
philosophically speak of either as an independent motive: to the
question, therefore, "which governs mankind the most, hope or fear?"
we cannot give an explicit answer.
When we would determine upon the probability of any good or evil, we
are insensibly influenced, not only by the view of the circumstances
before us, but also by our previous habits; we judge not only by the
general laws of human events, but also by our own individual
experience. If we have been usually successful, we are inclined to
hope; have we been accustomed to misfortunes, we are hence disposed to
fear. "Caesar and his fortune are on board," exclaimed the confident
hero to the mariners. Hope excites the mind to exertion; fear
represses all activity. As a preventative from vice, you may employ
fear; to restrain the excesses of all the furious passions, it is
useful and necessary: but would you rouse the energies of virtue, you
must inspire and invigorate the soul with hope. Courage, generosity,
industry, perseverance, all the magic of talents, all the powers of
genius, all the virtues that appear spontaneous in great minds, spring
from hope. But how different is the hope of a great and of a little
mind; not only are the objects of this hope different, but the passion
itself is raised and supported in a different manner. A feeble person,
if he presumes to hope, hopes as superstitiously as he fears; he keeps
his attention sedulously fixed upon all the probabilities in his
favour; he will not listen to any arguments in opposition to his
wishes; he knows he is unreasonable, he persists in continuing so; he
does not connect any idea of exertion with hope; his hope usually
rests upon the exertions of others, or upon some fortuitous
circumstances. A man of a strong mind, reasons before he hopes; he
takes in, at one quick, comprehensive glance, all that is to be seen
both for and against him; he is, from experience, disposed to depend
much upon his own exertions, if they can turn the balance in his
favour; he hopes, he acts, he succeeds. Poets, in all ages, have
celebrated the charms of hope; without her propitious influence, life,
they tell us, would be worse than death; without her smiles, nature
would smile in vain; without her promises, treacherous though they
often prove, reality would have nothing to give worthy of our
acceptance. We are not bound, however, to understand literally, the
rhetoric of poets. Hope is to them a beautiful and useful allegorical
personage: sometimes leaning upon an anchor; sometimes "waving her
golden hair;" always young, smiling, enchanting, furnished with a rich
assortment of epithets suited to the ode, the sonnet, the madrigal,
with a traditionary number of images and allusions; what more can a
poet desire? Men, except when they are poets, do not value hope as the
first of terrestrial blessings. The action and energies which hope
produces, are to many more agreeable than the passion itself; that
feverish state of suspense, which prevents settled thought or vigorous
exertion, far from being agreeable, is highly painful to a well
regulated mind; the continued repetition of the same ideas and the
same calculations, fatigues the mind, which, in reasoning, has been
accustomed to arrive at some certain conclusion, or to advance, at
least, a step at every effort. The exercise of the mind, in changing
the views of its object, which is supposed to be a great part of the
pleasure of hope, is soon over to an active imagination, which quickly
runs through all the possible changes; or is this exercise, even while
it lasts, so delightful to a man who has a variety of intellectual
occupations, as it frequently appears to him who knows scarcely any
other species of mental activity? The vacillating state of mind,
peculiar to hope and fear, is by no means favourable to industry; half
our time is generally consumed in speculating upon the reward, instead
of earning it, whenever the value of that reward is not _precisely
ascertainable_. In all occupations, where judgment or accurate
observation is essential, if the reward of our labour is brought
suddenly to excite our hope, there is an immediate interruption of all
effectual labour; the thoughts take a new direction; the mind becomes
tremulous, and nothing decisive can be done, till the emotions of hope
and fear either subside or are vanquished.
M. l'Abbe Chappe, who was sent by the king of France, at the desire of
the French Academy, to Siberia, to observe the transit of Venus, gives
us a striking picture of the state of his own mind when the moment of
this famous observation approached. In the description of his own
feelings, this traveller may be admitted as good authority. A few
hours before the observation, a black cloud appeared in the sky; the
idea of returning to Paris, after such a long and perilous journey,
without having seen the transit of Venus; the idea of the
disappointment to his king, to his country, to all the philosophers
in Europe; threw him into a state of agitation, "which must have been
felt to be conceived." At length the black cloud vanished; his hopes
affected him almost as much as his fears had done; he fixed his
telescope, saw the planet; his eye wandered over the immense space a
thousand times in a minute; his secretary stood on one side with his
pen in his hand; his assistant, with his eye fixed upon the watch, was
stationed on the other side. The moment of the total immersion
arrived; the agitated philosopher was seized with an universal
shivering, and could scarcely command his thoughts sufficiently to
secure the observation.
The uncertainty of reward, and the consequent agitations of hope and
fear, operate as unfavourably upon the moral as upon the intellectual
character. The favour of princes is an uncertain reward. Courtiers are
usually despicable and wretched beings; they live upon hope; but their
hope is not connected with exertion. Those who court popularity, are
not less despicable or less wretched; their reward is uncertain: what
is more uncertain than the affection of the multitude? The Proteus
character of Wharton, so admirably drawn by Pope, is a striking
picture of a man who has laboured through life with the vague _hope_
of obtaining universal applause.
Let us suppose a child to be educated by a variety of persons, all
differing in their tastes and tempers, and in their notions of right
and wrong; all having the power to reward and punish their common
pupil. What must this pupil become? A mixture of incongruous
characters; superstitious, enthusiastic, indolent, and perhaps
profligate: superstitious, because his own contradictory experience
would expose him to fear without reason; enthusiastic, because he
would, from the same cause, form absurd expectations; indolent,
because the _will_ of others has been the measure of his happiness,
and his own exertions have never procured him any certain reward;
profligate, because, probably from the confused variety of his moral
lessons, he has at last concluded that right and wrong are but
unmeaning words. Let us change the destiny of this child, by changing
his education. Place him under the sole care of a person of an
enlarged capacity, and a steady mind; who has formed just notions of
right and wrong; and who, in the distribution of reward and
punishment, of praise and blame, will be prompt, exact, invariable.
His pupil will neither be credulous, rash, nor profligate; and he
certainly will not be indolent; his habitual and his rational belief
will, in all circumstances, agree with each other; his hope will be
the prelude to exertion, and his fear will restrain him only in
situations where action is dangerous.
Even amongst children, we must frequently have observed a prodigious
difference in the quantity of hope and fear which is felt by those who
have been well or ill educated. An ill educated child, is in daily,
hourly, alternate agonies of hope and fear; the present never occupies
or interests him, but his soul is intent upon some future
gratification, which never pays him by its full possession. As soon as
he awakens in the morning, he recollects some promised blessing, and,
till the happy moment arrives, he is wretched in impatience: at
breakfast he is to be blessed with some toy, that he is to have the
moment breakfast is finished; and when he finds the toy does not
delight him, he is _to be blessed_ with a sweet pudding at dinner, or
with sitting up half an hour later at night than his usual bed-time.
Endeavour to find some occupation that shall amuse him, you will not
easily succeed, for he will still anticipate what you are going to say
or to do. "What will come next?" "What shall we do after this?" are,
as Mr. Williams, in his able lectures upon education, observes, the
questions incessantly asked by spoiled children. This species of idle,
restless curiosity, does not lead to the acquisition of knowledge, it
prevents the possibility of instruction; it is not the animation of a
healthy mind, it is the debility of an over-stimulated temper. There
is a very sensible letter in Mrs. Macaulay's book upon education, on
the impropriety of filling the imagination of young people with
prospects of future enjoyment: the foolish system of promising great
rewards, and fine presents, she clearly shows creates habitual
disorders in the minds of children.
The happiness of life depends more upon a succession of small
enjoyments, than upon great pleasures; and those who become incapable
of tasting the moderately agreeable sensations, cannot fill up the
intervals of their existence between their great delights. The
happiness of childhood peculiarly depends upon their enjoyment of
_little_ pleasures: of these they have a continual variety; they have
perpetual occupation for their senses, in observing all the objects
around them, and all their faculties may be exercised upon suitable
subjects. The pleasure of this exercise is in itself sufficient: we
need not say to a child, "Look at the wings of this beautiful
butterfly, and I will give you a piece of plum-cake; observe how the
butterfly curls his proboscis, how he dives into the honeyed flowers,
and I will take you in a coach to pay a visit with me, my dear.
Remember the pretty story you read this morning, and you shall have a
new coat." Without the new coat, or the visit, or the plum-cake, the
child would have had sufficient amusement in the story and the sight
of the butterfly's proboscis: the rewards, besides, have no natural
connection with the things themselves; and they create, where they are
most liked, a taste for factitious pleasures. Would you encourage
benevolence, generosity, or prudence, let each have its appropriate
reward of affection, esteem, and confidence;[76] but do not by
ill-judged bounties attempt to force these virtues into premature
display. The rewards which are given to benevolence and generosity in
children, frequently encourage selfishness, and sometimes teach them
cunning. Lord Kames tells us a story, which is precisely a case in
point. Two boys, the sons of the earl of Elgin, were permitted by
their father to associate with the poor boys in the neighbourhood of
their father's house. One day, the earl's sons being called to dinner,
a lad who was playing with them, said that he would wait until they
returned--"There is no dinner for me at home," said the poor boy.
"Come with us, then," said the earl's sons. The boy refused, and when
they asked him if he had any money to buy a dinner, he answered, "No."
"Papa," said the eldest of the young gentlemen when he got home, "what
was the price of the silver buckles you gave me?" "Five shillings."
"Let me have the money, and I'll give you the buckles." It was done
accordingly, says Lord Kames. The earl, inquiring privately, found
that the money was given to the lad _who had no dinner_. The buckles
were returned, and the boy was highly commended for being kind to his
companion. The commendations were just, but the buckles should not
have been returned: the boy should have been suffered steadily to
abide by his own bargain; he should have been let to feel the
pleasure, and pay the exact price of his own generosity.
If we attempt to teach children that they can be generous, without
giving up some of their own pleasures for the sake of other people, we
attempt to teach them what is false. If we once make them amends for
any sacrifice they have made, we lead them to expect the same
remuneration upon a future occasion; and then, in fact, they act with
a direct view to their own interest, and govern themselves by the
calculations of prudence, instead of following the dictates of
benevolence. It is true, that if we speak with accuracy, we must
admit, that the most benevolent and generous persons act from the hope
of receiving pleasure, and their enjoyment is more exquisite than that
of the most refined selfishness; in the language of M. de
Rochefoucault, we should therefore be forced to acknowledge, that the
most benevolent is always the most selfish person. This seeming
paradox is answered, by observing, that the epithet _selfish_ is given
to those who prefer pleasures in which other people have no share; we
change the meaning of words when we talk of its being selfish to like
the pleasures of sympathy or benevolence, because these pleasures
cannot be confined solely to the idea of self. When we say that a
person pursues his own interest more by being generous than by being
covetous, we take into the account the general sum of his agreeable
feelings; we do not balance prudentially his loss or gain upon
particular occasions. The generous man may himself be convinced, that
the sum of his happiness is more increased by the feelings of
benevolence, than it could be by the gratification of avarice; but,
though his understanding may perceive the demonstration of this moral
theorem, though it is the remote principle of his whole conduct, it
does not occur to his memory in the form of a prudential aphorism,
whenever he is going to do a generous action. It is essential to our
ideas of generosity, that no such reasoning should, at that moment,
pass in his mind; we know that the feelings of generosity are
associated with a number of enthusiastic ideas; we can sympathize with
the virtuous insanity of the man who forgets himself whilst he thinks
of others; we do not so readily sympathize with the cold strength of
mind of the person, who, deliberately preferring _the greatest
possible share of happiness_, is benevolent by rule and measure.
Whether we are just or not, in refusing our sympathy to the man of
reason, and in giving our spontaneous approbation to the man of
enthusiasm, we shall not here examine. But the reasonable man, who has
been convinced of this propensity in human nature, will take it into
his calculations; he will perceive, that he loses, in losing the
pleasure of sympathy, part of the sum total of his possible happiness;
he will consequently wish, that he could add this item of pleasure to
the credit side of his account. This, however, he cannot accomplish,
because, though he can by reason correct his calculations, it is not
in the power, even of the most potent reason, suddenly to break
habitual associations; much less is it in the power of cool reason to
conjure up warm enthusiasm. Yet in this case, enthusiasm _is the thing
required_.
What the man of reason cannot do for himself after his associations
are strongly formed, might have been easily accomplished in his early
education. He might have been taught the same general principles, but
with different habits. By early associating the pleasures of sympathy,
and praise, and affection with all generous and benevolent actions,
his parents might have joined these ideas so forcibly in his mind,
that the one set of ideas should never recur without the other.
Whenever the words benevolence or generosity were pronounced, the
feelings of habitual pleasure would recur; and he would, independently
of reason, desire from association to be generous. When enthusiasm is
fairly justified by reason, we have nothing to fear from her
vehemence.
In rewarding children for the prudential virtues, such as order,
cleanliness, economy, temperance, &c. we should endeavour to make the
rewards the immediate consequence of the virtues themselves; and at
the same time, approbation should be shown in speaking of these useful
qualities. A gradation must, however, always be observed in our
praises of different virtues; those that are the most useful to
society, as truth, justice and humanity, must stand the highest in the
scale; those that are most agreeable, claim the next place. Those good
qualities, which must wait a considerable time for their reward, such
as perseverance, prudence, &c. we must not expect early from young
people. Till they have had experience, how can they form any idea
about the future? Till they have been punctually rewarded for their
industry, or for their prudence, they do not feel the value of
prudence and perseverance. Time is necessary to all these lessons, and
those who leave time out in their calculations, will always be
disappointed in whatever plan of education they may pursue.
Many, to whom the subject is familiar, will be fatigued, probably, by
the detailed manner in which it has been thought necessary to explain
the principles by which we should guide ourselves in the distribution
of rewards and punishments to children. Those who quickly seize, and
apply, general ideas, cannot endure, with patience, the tedious
minuteness of didactic illustration. Those who are actually engaged in
_practical education_, will not, on the contrary, be satisfied with
general precepts; and, however plausible any theory may appear, they
are well aware that its utility must depend upon a variety of small
circumstances, to which writers of theories often neglect to advert.
At the hazard of being thought tedious, those must be minute in
explanation who desire to be generally useful. An old French
writer,[77] more remarkable for originality of thought, than for the
graces of style, was once reproached _by a friend_ with the frequent
repetitions which were to be found in his works. "Name them to me,"
said the author. The critic, with obliging precision, mentioned all
the ideas which had most frequently recurred in the book. "I am
satisfied," replied the honest author; "you remember my ideas; I
repeated them so often to prevent you from forgetting them. Without my
repetitions, we should never have succeeded."
FOOTNOTES:
[61] V. The Inquirer, p. 101.
[62] Beccaria, Voltaire, Blackstone, &c.
[63] See Cox's Travels, vol. ii. 189.
[64] See Beccaria, Blackstone, Colquhoun.
[65] Mezentius. _Virgil._
[66] V. An Enquiry into the Principles of Taxation, p. 37, published
in 1790.
[67] Colquhoun. On the Police of the Metropolis.
[68] V. The grand instructions to the commissioners appointed to frame
a new code of laws for the Russian empire, p. 183, said to be drawn up
by the late Lord Mansfield.
[69] V. Dr. Priestley's Miscellaneous Observations relating to
Education, sect. vii. of correction, p. 67.
[70] V. Code of Russian Laws
[71] Colquhoun.
[72] See the judicious Locke's observations upon the subject of
_manners_, section 67 of his valuable Treatise on Education.
[73] See vol. ii. of Zoonomia.
[74] We believe this is Williams's idea.
[75] Hume's Dissertation on the Passions.
[76] See Locke, and an excellent little essay of Madame de Lambert's.
[77] The Abbe St. Pierre. See his Eloge by D'Alembert.