THE ART OF TRAINING.
It is very clear that the most simple and the most obvious of the modes by
which a parent may establish among his children the habit of submission
to his authority, are those which have been already described, namely,
punishments and rewards--punishments, gentle in their character, but
invariably enforced, as the sure results of acts of insubordination; and
rewards for obedience, occasionally and cautiously bestowed, in such a
manner that they may be regarded as recognitions simply, on the part of
the parent, of the good conduct of his children, and expressions of his
gratification, and not in the light of payment or hire. These are obviously
the most simple modes, and the ones most ready at hand. They require no
exalted or unusual qualities on the part of father or mother, unless,
indeed, we consider gentleness, combined with firmness and good sense, as
an assemblage of rare and exalted qualities. To assign, and firmly and
uniformly to enforce, just but gentle penalties for disobedience, and to
recognize, and sometimes reward, special acts of obedience and submission,
are measures fully within the reach of every parent, however humble may be
the condition of his intelligence or his attainments of knowledge.
_Another Class of Influences_.
There is, however, another class of influences to be adopted, not as a
substitute for these simple measures, but in connection and co-operation
with them, which will be far more deep, powerful, and permanent in their
results, though they require much higher qualities in the parent for
carrying them successfully into effect. This higher method consists in
a _systematic effort to develop in the mind of the child a love of the
principle of obedience_, by express and appropriate training.
_Parents not aware of the Extent of their Responsibility_.
Many parents, perhaps indeed nearly all, seem, as we have already shown,
to act as if they considered the duty of obedience on the part of their
children as a matter of course. They do not expect their children to read
or to write without being taught; they do not expect a dog to fetch and
carry, or a horse to draw and to understand commands and signals, without
being _trained_. In all these cases they perceive the necessity of training
and instruction, and understand that the initiative is with _them_. If a
horse, endowed by nature with average good qualities, does not work well,
the fault is attributed at once to the man who undertook to train him. But
what mother, when her child, grown large and strong, becomes the trial and
sorrow of her life by his ungovernable disobedience and insubordination,
takes the blame to herself in reflecting that he was placed in her hands
when all the powers and faculties of his soul were in embryo, tender,
pliant, and unresisting, to be formed and fashioned at her will?
_The Spirit of filial Obedience not Instinctive_.
Children, as has already been remarked, do not require to be taught
and trained to eat and drink, to resent injuries, to cling to their
possessions, or to run to their mother in danger or pain. They have natural
instincts which provide for all these things. But to speak, to read, to
write, and to calculate; to tell the truth, and to obey their parents;
to forgive injuries, to face bravely fancied dangers and bear patiently
unavoidable pain, are attainments for which no natural instincts can
adequately provide. There are instincts that will aid in the work, but none
that can of themselves be relied upon without instruction and training. In
actual fact, children usually receive their instruction and training in
respect to some of these things incidentally--as it happens--by the rough
knocks and frictions, and various painful experiences which they encounter
in the early years of life. In respect to others, the guidance and
aid afforded them is more direct and systematic. Unfortunately the
establishment in their minds of the principle of obedience comes ordinarily
under the former category. No systematic and appropriate efforts are
made by the parent to implant it. It is left to the uncertain and fitful
influences of accident--to remonstrances, reproaches, and injunctions
called forth under sudden excitement in the various emergencies of domestic
discipline, and to other means, vague, capricious, and uncertain, and
having no wise adaptedness to the attainment of the end in view.
_Requires appropriate Training_.
How much better and more successfully the object would be accomplished if
the mother were to understand distinctly at the outset that the work of
training her children to the habit of submission to her authority is a
duty, the responsibility of which devolves not upon her children, but upon
her; that it is a duty, moreover, of the highest importance, and one that
demands careful consideration, much forethought, and the wise adaptation of
means to the end.
_Methods_.
The first thought of some parents may possibly be, that they do not know of
any other measures to take in order to teach their children submission to
their authority, than to reward them when they obey and punish them when
they disobey. To show that there are other methods, we will consider a
particular case.
Mary, a young lady of seventeen, came to make a visit to her sister.
She soon perceived that her sister's children, Adolphus and Lucia, were
entirely ungoverned. Their mother coaxed, remonstrated, advised, gave
reasons, said "I wouldn't do this," or "I wouldn't do that,"--did every
thing, in fact, except simply to command; and the children, consequently,
did pretty much what they pleased. Their mother wondered at their
disobedience and insubordination, and in cases where these faults resulted
in special inconvenience for herself she bitterly reproached the children
for their undutiful behavior. But the reproaches produced no effect.
"The first thing that I have to do," said Mary to herself, in observing
this state of things, "is to teach the children to obey--at least to obey
_me_. I will give them their first lesson at once."
_Mary makes a Beginning_.
So she proposed to them to go out with her into the garden and show her
the flowers, adding that if they would do so she would make each of them a
bouquet. She could make them some very pretty bouquets, she said, provided
they would help her, and would follow her directions and obey her
implicitly while gathering and arranging the flowers.
This the children promised to do, and Mary went with them into the garden.
There, as she passed about from border to border, she gave them a great
many different directions in respect to things which they were to do, or
which they were not to do. She gathered flowers, and gave some to one
child, and some to the other, to be held and carried--with special
instructions in respect to many details, such as directing some flowers to
be put together, and others to be kept separate, and specifying in what
manner they were to be held or carried. Then she led them to a bower where
there was a long seat, and explained to them how they were to lay the
flowers in order upon the seat, and directed them to be very careful not to
touch them after they were once laid down. They were, moreover, to leave a
place in the middle of the seat entirely clear. They asked what that was
for. Mary said that they would see by-and-by. "You must always do just as
I say," she added, "and perhaps I shall explain the reason afterwards, or
perhaps you will see what the reason is yourselves."
After going on in this way until a sufficient number and variety of flowers
were collected, Mary took her seat in the vacant place which had been left,
and assigned the two portions of the seat upon which the flowers had been
placed to the children, giving each the charge of the flowers upon one
portion, with instructions to select and give to her such as she should
call for. From the flowers thus brought she formed two bouquets, one for
each of the children. Then she set them both at work to make bouquets for
themselves, giving them minute and special directions in regard to every
step. If her object had been to cultivate their taste and judgment, then it
would have been better to allow them to choose the flowers and determine
the arrangement for themselves; but she was teaching them _obedience_, or,
rather, beginning to form in them the _habit_ of obedience; and so, the
more numerous and minute the commands the better, provided that they were
not in them selves unreasonable, nor so numerous and minute as to be
vexatious, so as to incur any serious danger of their not being readily and
good-humoredly obeyed.
[Illustration: THE LESSON IN OBEDIENCE.]
_THE ART OF TRAINING_. 101
When the bouquets were finished Mary gave the children, severally, the
two which had been made for them; and the two which they had made for
themselves she took into the house and placed them in glasses upon the
parlor mantel-piece, and then stood back with the children in the middle of
the room to admire them.
"See how pretty they look! And how nicely the work went on while we were
making them! That was because you obeyed me so well while we were doing it.
You did exactly as I said in every thing."
_A Beginning only_.
Now this was an excellent _first lesson_ in training the children to the
habit of obedience. It is true that it was _only_ a first lesson. It was a
beginning, but it was a very good beginning. If, on the following day, Mary
had given the children a command which it would be irksome to them to obey,
or one which would have called for any special sacrifice or self-denial on
their part, they would have disregarded it. Still they would have been a
little less inclined to disregard it than if they had not received their
first lesson; and there can be no doubt that if Mary were to continue her
training in the same spirit in which she commenced it she would, before
many weeks, acquire a complete ascendency over them, and make them entirely
submissive to her will.
And yet this is a species of training the efficacy of which depends on
influences in which the hope of reward or the fear of punishment does not
enter. The bouquets were not promised to the children at the outset, nor
were they given to them at last as rewards. It is true that they saw
the advantages resulting from due subordination of the inferiors to the
superior in concerted action, and at the end they felt a satisfaction
in having acted right; but these advantages did not come in the form of
rewards. The efficacy of the lesson depended on a different principle
altogether.
_The Philosophy of it_.
The philosophy of it was this: Mary, knowing that the principle of
obedience in the children was extremely weak, and that it could not stand
any serious test, contrived to bring it into exercise a great many times
under the lightest possible pressure. She called upon them to do a great
many different things, each of which was very easy to do, and gave them
many little prohibitions which it required a very slight effort of
self-denial on their part to regard; and she connected agreeable
associations in their minds with the idea of submission to authority,
through the interest which she knew they would feel in seeing the work
of gathering the flowers and making the bouquets go systematically and
prosperously on, and through the commendation of their conduct which she
expressed at the end.
Such persons as Mary do not analyze distinctly, in their thoughts,
nor could they express in words, the principles which underlie their
management; but they have an instinctive mental perception of the
adaptation of such means to the end in view. Other people, who observe how
easily and quietly they seem to obtain an ascendency over all children
coming within their influence, and how absolute this ascendency often
becomes, are frequently surprised at it. They think there is some mystery
about it; they say it is "a knack that some people have;" but there is no
mystery about it at all, and nothing unusual or strange, except so far as
practical good sense, considerate judgment, and intelligent observation and
appreciation of the characteristics of childhood are unusual and strange.
Mary was aware that, although the principle of obedience is seldom or
never entirely obliterated from the hearts of children--that is, that
the impression upon their minds, which, though it may not be absolutely
instinctive, is very early acquired, that it is incumbent on them to obey
those set in authority over them, is seldom wholly effaced, the sentiment
had become extremely feeble in the minds of Adolphus and Lucia; and that it
was like a frail and dying plant, which required very delicate and careful
nurture to quicken it to life and give it its normal health and vigor. Her
management was precisely of this character. It called the weak and feeble
principle into gentle exercise, without putting it to any severe test, and
thus commenced the formation of a _habit of action_. Any one will see that
a course of training on these principles, patiently and perseveringly
continued for the proper time, could not fail of securing the desired end,
except in cases of children characterized by unusual and entirely abnormal
perversity.
We can not here follow in detail the various modes in which such a manager
as Mary would adapt her principle to the changing incidents of each day,
and to the different stages of progress made by her pupils in learning to
obey, but can only enumerate certain points worthy of the attention of
parents who may feel desirous to undertake such a work of training.
_Three practical Directions_.
1. Relinquish entirely the idea of expecting children to be _spontaneously_
docile and obedient, and the practice of scolding or punishing them
vindictively when they are not so. Instead of so doing, understand that
docility and obedience on their part is to be the result of wise, careful,
and persevering, though gentle training on the part of the parent.
2. If the children have already formed habits of disobedience and
insubordination, do not expect that the desirable change can be effected by
sudden, spasmodic, and violent efforts, accompanied by denunciations and
threats, and declarations that you are going to "turn over a new leaf." The
attempt to change perverted tendencies in children by such means is like
trying to straighten a bend in the stem of a growing tree by blows with a
hammer.
3. Instead of this, begin without saying at all what you are going to do,
or finding any fault with the past, and, with a distinct recognition of the
fact that whatever is bad in the _native tendencies_ of your children's
minds is probably inherited from their parents, and, perhaps, specially
from yourself, and that whatever is wrong in their _habits of action_ is
certainly the result of bad training, proceed cautiously and gently, but
perseveringly and firmly, in bringing the bent stem gradually up to the
right position. In doing this, there is no amount of ingenuity and skill,
however great, that may not be usefully employed; nor is there, on the
other hand, except in very rare and exceptional cases, any parent who has
an allotment so small as not to be sufficient to accomplish the end, if
conscientiously and faithfully employed.