WHAT ARE GENTLE MEASURES?
It being thus distinctly understood that the gentle measures in the
training of children herein recommended are not to be resorted to as a
_substitute_ for parental authority, but as the easiest and most effectual
means of establishing and maintaining that authority in its most absolute
form, we have now to consider what the nature of these gentle measures is,
and by what characteristics they are distinguished, in their action and
influence, from such as may be considered more or less violent and harsh.
Gentle measures are those which tend to exert a calming, quieting, and
soothing influence on the mind, or to produce only such excitements as
are pleasurable in their character, as means of repressing wrong and
encouraging right action. Ungentle measures are those which tend to inflame
and irritate the mind, or to agitate it with _painful_ excitements.
_Three Degrees of Violence_.
There seem to be three grades or forms of violence to which a mother may
resort in controlling her children, or, perhaps, rather three classes of
measures which are more or less violent in their effects. To illustrate
these we will take an example.
_Case supposed_.
One day Louisa, four years old, asked her mother for an apple. "Have you
had any already?" asked her mother.
"Only one," replied Louisa. "Then Bridget may give you another," said the
mother.
What Louisa said was not true. She had already eaten two apples. Bridget
heard the falsehood, but she did not consider it her duty to betray the
child, so she said nothing. The mother, however, afterwards, in the course
of the day, accidentally ascertained the truth.
Now, as we have said, there are three grades in the kind and character of
the measures which may be considered violent that a mother may resort to in
a case like this.
_Bodily Punishment_.
1. First, there is the infliction of bodily pain. The child may be whipped,
or tied to the bed-post, and kept in a constrained and uncomfortable
position for a long time, or shut up in solitude and darkness, or punished
by the infliction of bodily suffering in other ways.
And there is no doubt that there is a tendency in such treatment to correct
or cure the fault. But measures like these, whether successful or not, are
certainly violent measures. They shock the whole nervous system, sometimes
with the excitement of pain and terror, and always, probably, with that
of resentment and anger. In some cases this excitement is extreme. The
excessively delicate organization of the brain, through which such
agitations reach the sensorium, and which, in children of an early age, is
in its most tender and sensitive state of development, is subjected to a
most intense and violent agitation.
_Evil Effects of Violence in this Form_.
The evil effects of this excessive cerebral action may _perhaps_ entirely
pass away in a few hours, and leave no trace of injury behind; but then,
on the other hand, there is certainly reason to fear that such commotions,
especially if often repeated, tend to impede the regular and healthful
development of the organs, and that they may become the origin of
derangements, or of actual disorganizations, resulting very seriously in
future years. It is impossible, perhaps, to know with certainty whether
permanent ill effects follow in such cases or not. At any rate, such a
remedy is a violent one.
_The Frightening System_.
2. There is a second grade of violence in the treatment of such a case,
which consists in exciting pain or terror, or other painful or disagreeable
emotions, through the imagination, by presenting to the fancy of the child
images of phantoms, hobgoblins, and other frightful monsters, whose ire, it
is pretended, is greatly excited by the misdeeds of children, and who come
in the night-time to take them away, or otherwise visit them with terrible
retribution. Domestic servants are very prone to adopt this mode of
discipline. Being forbidden to resort to personal violence as a means of
exciting pain and terror, they attempt to accomplish the same end by other
means, which, however, in many respects, are still more injurious in their
action.
_Management of Nurses and Servants_.
Nurses and attendants upon children from certain nationalities in Europe
are peculiarly disposed to employ this method of governing children placed
under their care. One reason is that they are accustomed to this mode of
management at home; and another is that many of them are brought up under
an idea, which prevails extensively in some of those countries, that it
is right to tell falsehoods where the honest object is to accomplish a
charitable or useful end. Accordingly, inasmuch as the restraining of the
children from wrong is a good and useful object, they can declare the
existence of giants and hobgoblins, to carry away and devour bad girls and
boys, with an air of positiveness and seeming honesty, and with a calm and
persistent assurance, which aids them very much in producing on the minds
of the children a conviction of the truth of what they say; while, on the
other hand, those who, in theory at least, occupy the position that
the direct falsifying of one's word is _never_ justifiable, act at a
disadvantage in attempting this method. For although, in practice, they are
often inclined to make an exception to their principles in regard to truth
in the case of what is said to young children, they can not, after all,
tell children what they know to be not true with that bold and confident
air necessary to carry full conviction to the children's minds. They are
embarrassed by a kind of half guilty feeling, which, partially at least,
betrays them, and the children do not really and fully believe what they
say. They can not suppose that their mother would really tell them what
she knew was false, and yet they can not help perceiving that she does not
speak and look as if what she was saying was actually true.
_Monsieur and Madame Croquemitaine_.
In all countries there are many, among even the most refined and highly
cultivated classes, who are not at all embarrassed by any moral delicacy
of this kind. This is especially the case in those countries in Europe,
particularly on the Continent, where the idea above referred to, of the
allowableness of falsehood in certain cases as a means for the attainment
of a good end, is generally entertained. The French have two terrible
bugbears, under the names of Monsieur and Madame Croquemitaine, who are as
familiar to the imaginations of French children as Santa Claus is, in a
much more agreeable way, to the juvenile fancy at our firesides. Monsieur
and Madame Croquemitaine are frightful monsters, who come down the chimney,
or through the roof, at night, and carry off bad children. They learn from
their _little fingers_--which whisper in their ears when they hold them
near--who the bad children are, where they live, and what they have done.
The instinctive faith of young children in their mother's truthfulness is
so strong that no absurdity seems gross enough to overcome it.
_The Black Man and the Policeman_.
There are many mothers among us who--though not quite prepared to call
in the aid of ghosts, giants, and hobgoblins, or of Monsieur and Madame
Croquemitaine, in managing their children--still, sometimes, try to eke out
their failing authority by threatening them with the "black man," or the
"policeman," or some other less, supernatural terror. They seem to imagine
that inasmuch as, while there is no such thing in existence as a hobgoblin,
there really are policemen and prisons, they only half tell an untruth by
saying to the recalcitrant little one that a policeman is coming to carry
him off to jail.
_Injurious Effects_.
Although, by these various modes of exciting imaginary fears, there is no
direct and outward infliction of bodily suffering, the effect produced on
the delicate organization of the brain by such excitements is violent in
the extreme. The paroxysms of agitation and terror which they sometimes
excite, and which are often spontaneously renewed by darkness and solitude,
and by other exciting causes, are of the nature of temporary insanity.
Indeed, the extreme nervous excitability which they produce sometimes
becomes a real insanity, which, though it may, in many cases, be finally
outgrown, may probably in many others lead to lasting and most deplorable
results.
_Harsh Reproofs and Threatenings_.
3. There is a third mode of treatment, more common, perhaps, among _us_
than either of the preceding, which, though much milder in its character
than they, we still class among the violent measures, on account of
its operation and effects. It consists of stern and harsh rebukes,
denunciations of the heinousness of the sin of falsehood, with solemn
premonitions of the awful consequences of it, in this life and in that to
come, intended to awaken feelings of alarm and distress in the mind of the
child, as a means of promoting repentance and reformation. These are
not violent measures, it is true, so far as outward physical action is
concerned; but the effects which they produce are sometimes of quite a
violent nature, in their operation on the delicate nervous and mental
susceptibilities which are excited and agitated by them. If the mother
is successful in making the impression which such a mode of treatment is
designed to produce, the child, especially if a girl, is agitated and
distressed. Her nervous system is greatly disturbed. If calmed for a time,
the paroxysm is very liable to return. She wakes in the night, perhaps,
with an indefinable feeling of anxiety and terror, and comes to her
mother's bedside, to seek, in her presence, and in the sense of protection
which it affords, a relief from her distress.
The conscientious mother, supremely anxious to secure the best interests
of her child, may say that, after all, it is better that she should endure
this temporary suffering than not be saved from the sin. This is true. But
if she can be saved just as effectually without it, it is better still.
_The Gentle Method of Treatment_.
4. We now come to the gentle measures which may be adopted in a case of
discipline like this. They are endlessly varied in form, but, to illustrate
the nature and operation of them, and the spirit and temper of mind with
which they should be enforced, with a view of communicating; to the mind of
the reader some general idea of the characteristics of that gentleness of
treatment which it is the object of this work to commend, we will describe
an actual case, substantially as it really occurred, where a child, whom
we will still call Louisa, told her mother a falsehood about the apple, as
already related.
_Choosing the Right Time_.
Her mother--though Louisa's manner, at the time of giving her answer, led
her to feel somewhat suspicious--did not express her suspicions, but gave
her the additional apple. Nor did she afterwards, when she ascertained the
facts, say any thing on the subject. The day passed away as if nothing
unusual had occurred. When bed-time came she undressed the child and laid
her in her bed, playing with her, and talking with her in an amusing manner
all the time, so as to bring her into a contented and happy frame of
mind, and to establish as close a connection as possible of affection and
sympathy between them. Then, finally, when the child's prayer had been
said, and she was about to be left for the night, her mother, sitting in
a chair at the head of her little bed, and putting her hand lovingly upon
her, said:
_The Story_.
"But first I must tell you one more little story.
"Once there was a boy, and his name was Ernest. He was a pretty large boy,
for he was five years old."
Louisa, it must be recollected, was only four.
"He was a very pretty boy. He had bright blue eyes and curling hair. He
was a very good boy, too. He did not like to do any thing wrong. He always
found that it made him feel uncomfortable and unhappy afterwards when he
did any thing wrong. A good many children, especially good children, find
that it makes them feel uncomfortable and unhappy when they do wrong.
Perhaps you do."
"Yes, mamma, I do," said Louisa.
"I am glad of that," replied her mother; "that is a good sign."
"Ernest went one day," added the mother, continuing her story, "with his
little cousin Anna to their uncle's, in hopes that he would give them
some apples. Their uncle had a beautiful garden, and in it there was an
apple-tree which bore most excellent apples. They were large, and rosy, and
mellow, and sweet. The children liked the apples from that tree very much,
and Ernest and Anna went that day in hopes that their uncle would give them
some of them. He said he would. He would give them three apiece. He told
them to go into the garden and wait there until he came. They must not take
any apples off the tree, he said, but if they found any _under_ the tree
they might take them, provided that there were not more than three apiece;
and when he came he would take enough off the tree, he said, to make up the
number to three.
"So the children went into the garden and looked under the tree. They found
_two_ apples there, and they took them up and ate them--one apiece. Then
they sat down and began to wait for their uncle to come. While they were
waiting Anna proposed that they should not tell their uncle that they had
found the two apples, and so he would give them three more, which he would
take from the tree; whereas, if he knew that they had already had one
apiece, then he would only give them two more. Ernest said that his uncle
would ask them about it. Anna said, 'No matter, we can tell him that we did
not find any.'
"Ernest seemed to be thinking about it for a moment, and then, shaking his
head, said, 'No, I think we had better not tell him a lie!'
"So when he saw their uncle coming he said, 'Come, Anna, let us go and tell
him about it, just how it was. So they ran together to meet their uncle,
and told him that they had found two apples under the tree, one apiece,
and had eaten them. Then he gave them two more apiece, according to his
promise, and they went home feeling contented and happy.
"They might have had one more apple apiece, probably, by combining together
to tell a falsehood; but in that case they would have gone home feeling
guilty and unhappy."
_The Effect_.
Louisa's mother paused a moment, after finishing her story, to give Louisa
time to think about it a little.
"I think," she added at length, after a suitable pause, "that it was a
great deal better for them to tell the truth, as they did."
"I think so too, mamma," said Louisa, at the same time casting down her
eyes and looking a little confused.
"But you know," added her mother, speaking in a very kind and gentle tone,
"that you did not tell me the truth to-day about the apple that Bridget
gave you."
Louisa paused a moment, looked in her mother's face, and then, reaching up
to put her arms around her mother's neck, she said,
"Mamma, I am determined never to tell you another wrong story as long as I
live."
_Only a Single Lesson, after all_.
Now it is not at all probable that if the case had ended here, Louisa would
have kept her promise. This was one good lesson, it is true, but it was
only _one_. And the lesson was given by a method so gentle, that no
nervous, cerebral, or mental function was in any degree irritated or
morbidly excited by it. Moreover, no one who knows any thing of the
workings of the infantile mind can doubt that the impulse in the right
direction given by this conversation was not only better in character, but
was greater in amount, than could have been effected by either of the other
methods of management previously described.
_How Gentle Measures operate_.
By the gentle measures, then, which are to be here discussed and
recommended, are meant such as do not react in a violent and irritating
manner, in any way, upon the extremely delicate, and almost embryonic
condition of the cerebral and nervous organization, in which the gradual
development of the mental and moral faculties are so intimately involved.
They do not imply any, the least, relaxation of the force of parental
authority, or any lowering whatever of the standards of moral obligation,
but are, on the contrary, the most effectual, the surest and the safest way
of establishing the one and of enforcing the other.