CORPORAL PUNISHMENT.
It might, perhaps, be thought that, in a book which professes to show
how an efficient government can be established and maintained by _gentle
measures_, the subject of corporal punishment could have no place. It seems
important, however, that there should be here introduced a brief though
distinct presentation of the light in which, in a philosophical point of
view, this instrumentality is to be regarded.
_The Teachings of Scripture_.
The resort to corporal punishment in the training of children seems to be
spoken of in many passages contained in the Scriptures as of fundamental
necessity. But there can be no doubt that the word _rod_, as used in those
passages, is used simply as the emblem of parental authority. This is in
accordance with the ordinary custom of Hebrew writers in those days, and
with the idiom of their language, by which a single visible or tangible
object was employed as the representative or expression of a general
idea--as, for example, the sword is used as the emblem of magisterial
authority, and the sun and the rain, which are spoken of as being sent with
their genial and fertilizing power upon the evil and the good, denote not
specially and exclusively those agencies, but all the beneficent influences
of nature which they are employed to represent. The injunctions, therefore,
of Solomon in respect to the use of the rod are undoubtedly to be
understood as simply enjoining upon parents the necessity of bringing up
their children _in complete subjection_ to their authority. No one can
imagine that he could wish the rod to be used when complete subjection to
the parental authority could be secured by more gentle means. And how this
is to be done it is the object precisely of this book to show.
In this sense, therefore--and it is undoubtedly the true sense--namely,
that children must be _governed by the authority of the parent_, the
passages in question express a great and most essential truth. It is
sometimes said that children must be governed by reason, and this is true,
but it is the reason of their parents, and not their own which must hold
the control. If children were endowed with the capacity of seeing what is
best for them, and with sufficient self-control to pursue what is best
against the counter-influences of their animal instincts and propensities,
there would be no necessity that the period of subjection to parental
authority should be extended over so many years. But so long as their
powers are yet too immature to be safely relied upon, they must, of
necessity, be subject to the parental will; and the sooner and the more
perfectly they are made to understand this, and to yield a willing
submission to the necessity, the better it will be, not only for their
parents, but also for themselves.
The parental authority must, therefore, be established--by gentle means,
if possible--but it must by all means be established, and be firmly
maintained. If you can not govern your child without corporal punishment,
it is better to resort to it than not to govern him at all. Taking a wide
view of the field, I think there may be several cases in which a resort to
the infliction of physical pain as the only available means of establishing
authority may be the only alternative. There are three cases of this kind
that are to be specially considered.
[Illustration: THE RUNAWAY]
_Possible Cases in which it is the only Alternative.--Savages_.
1. In savage or half-civilized life, and even, perhaps, in so rude a state
of society as must have existed in some parts of Judea when the Proverbs of
Solomon were written, it is conceivable that many parents, owing to their
own ignorance, and low animal condition, would have no other means at their
command for establishing their authority over their children than scoldings
and blows. It must be so among savages. And it is certainly better, if the
mother knows no other way of inducing her boy to keep within her sight,
that she should whip him when he runs away, than that he should be bitten
by serpents or devoured by bears. She _must_ establish her authority in
some way, and if this is the best that she is capable of pursuing, she must
use it.
_Teachers whose Tasks surpass their Skill_.
2. A teacher, in entering upon the charge of a large school of boys made
unruly by previous mismanagement, may, perhaps, possibly find himself
unable to establish submission to his authority without this resource. It
is true that if it is so, it is due, in a certain sense, to want of skill
on the teacher's part; for there are men, and women too, who will take any
company of boys that you can give them, and, by a certain skill, or tact,
or knowledge of human nature, or other qualities which seem sometimes
to other persons almost magical, will have them all completely under
subjection in a week, and that without violence, without scolding, almost
without even a frown. The time may, perhaps, come when every teacher, to
be considered qualified for his work, must possess this skill. Indeed, the
world is evidently making great and rapid progress in this direction. The
methods of instruction and the modes by which the teacher gains and holds
his influence over his pupils have been wonderfully improved in recent
times, so that where there was one teacher, fifty years ago, who was really
beloved by his pupils, we have fifty now. In Dr. Johnson's time, which was
about a hundred and fifty years ago, it would seem that there was no other
mode but that of violent coercion recognized as worthy to be relied upon in
imparting instruction, for he said that he knew of no way by which Latin
could be taught to boys in his day but "by having it flogged into them."
From such a state of things to that which prevails at the present day there
has been an astonishing change. And now, whether a teacher is able to
manage an average school of boys without physical force is simply a
question of tact, knowledge of the right principles, and skill in applying
them on his part. It is, perhaps, yet too soon to expect that all teachers
can possess, or can acquire, these qualifications to such a degree as to
make it safe to forbid the infliction of bodily pain in any case, but the
time for it is rapidly approaching, and in some parts of the country it
has, perhaps, already arrived. Until that time comes, every teacher who
finds himself under the necessity of beating a boy's body in order to
attain certain moral or intellectual ends ought to understand that the
reason is the incompleteness of his understanding and skill in dealing
directly with his mind; though for this incompleteness he may not himself
be personally at all to blame.
_Children spoiled by Neglect and Mismanagement_.
3. I am even willing to admit that one or more boys in a family may reach
such a condition of rudeness and insubordination, in consequence of neglect
or mismanagement on the part of their parents in their early years, and
the present clumsiness and incapacity of the father in dealing with the
susceptibilities and impulses of the human soul, that the question will lie
between keeping them within some kind of subordination by bodily punishment
or not controlling them at all. If a father has been so engrossed in his
business that he has neglected his children, has never established any
common bond of sympathy between himself and them, has taken no interest in
their enjoyments, nor brought them by moral means to an habitual subjection
to his will; and if their mother is a weak, irresolute woman, occupying
herself with the pursuits and pleasures of fashionable society, and leaving
her children to the management of servants, the children will, of course,
in general, grow up exacting, turbulent, and ungovernable; and when,
with advancing maturity, their increasing strength and vigor makes this
turbulence and disorder intolerable in the house, and there is, as of
course there usually will be in such a case, no proper knowledge and skill
in the management of the young on the part of either parent to remedy the
evil by gentle measures, the only alternative in many cases may be either
a resort to violent punishment, or the sending away of the unmanageable
subjects to school. The latter part of the alternative is the best, and,
fortunately, it is the one generally adopted. But where it can not be
adopted, it is certainly better that the boys should be governed by the rod
than to grow up under no government at all.
_Gentle Measures effectual where Rightfully and Faithfully employed_.
However it may be with respect to the exceptional cases above enumerated,
and perhaps some others, there can, I think, be no doubt that parents who
should train their children from the beginning on the principles explained
in this volume, and upon others analogous to them, would never, in any
case, have to strike a blow. They would accomplish the end enjoined by the
precepts of Solomon, namely, the complete subjection of their children to
their authority, by improved methods not known in his day, or, at least,
not so fully developed that they could then be relied upon. They who
imagine that parents are bound to use the rod as the instrumentality,
because the Scriptures speak of the rod as the means of establishing
parental authority best known in those days, instead of employing the more
effective methods which the progress of improvement has developed and made
available at the present day, ought, in order to be consistent, to insist
on the retention of the harp in religious worship, because David enjoins
it upon believers to "praise the Lord with harp:" to "sing unto him with
psaltery, and an instrument of ten strings." The truth is, that what we are
to look at in such injunctions is the end that is to be attained, which is,
in this last case, the impressive and reverential exaltation of Almighty
God in our minds by the acts of public worship; and if, with the
improvements in musical instruments which have been made in modern times,
we can do this more satisfactorily by employing in the place of a psaltery
or a harp of ten strings an organ of ten or a hundred stops, we are bound
to make the substitution. In a word, we must look at the end and not at
the means, remembering that in questions of Scripture interpretation the
"letter killeth, the spirit maketh alive."
_Protracted Contests with Obstinacy_.
It seems to me, though I am aware that many excellent persons think
differently, that it is never wise for the parent to allow himself to
be drawn into a contest with a child in attempting to compel him to do
something that from ill-temper or obstinacy he refuses to do. If the
attempt is successful, and the child yields under a moderate severity
of coercion, it is all very well. But there is something mysterious and
unaccountable in the strength of the obstinacy sometimes manifested in such
cases, and the degree of endurance which it will often inspire, even in
children of the most tender age. We observe the same inexplicable fixedness
sometimes in the lower animals--in the horse, for example; which is the
more unaccountable from the fact that we can not suppose, in his case, that
peculiar combination of intelligence and ill-temper which we generally
consider the sustaining power of the protracted obstinacy on the part of
the child. The degree of persistence which is manifested by children
in contests of this kind is something wonderful, and can not easily be
explained by any of the ordinary theories in respect to the influence of
motives on the human mind. A state of cerebral excitement and exaltation is
not unfrequently produced which seems akin to insanity, and instances have
been known in which a child has suffered itself to be beaten to death
rather than yield obedience to a very simple command. And in vast numbers
of instances, the parent, after a protracted contest, gives up in despair,
and is compelled to invent some plausible pretext for bringing it to an
end.
Indeed, when we reflect upon the subject, we see what a difficult task we
undertake in such contests--it being nothing less than that of _forcing the
formation of a volition_ in a human mind. We can easily control the bodily
movements and actions of another person by means of an external coercion
that we can apply, and we have various indirect means of _inducing_
volitions; but in these contests we seem to come up squarely to the work of
attempting, by outward force, to compel the _forming of a volition_ in the
mind; and it is not surprising that this should, at least sometimes, prove
a very difficult undertaking.
_No Necessity for these Contests_.
There seems to be no necessity that a parent or teacher should ever become
involved in struggles of this kind in maintaining his authority. The way to
avoid them, as it seems to me, is, when a child refuses out of obstinacy to
do what is required of him, to impose the proper punishment or penalty for
the refusal, and let that close the transaction. Do not attempt to enforce
his compliance by continuing the punishment until he yields. A child, for
example, going out to play, wishes for his blue cap. His mother chooses
that he shall wear his gray one. She hangs the blue cap up in its place,
and gives him the gray one. He declares that he will not wear it, and
throws it down upon the floor. The temptation now is for the mother,
indignant, to punish him, and then to order him to take up the cap which he
had thrown down, and to feel that it is her duty, in case he refuses, to
persist in the punishment until she conquers his will, and compels him to
take it up and put it upon his head.
But instead of this, a safer and a better course, it seems to me, is to
avoid a contest altogether by considering the offense complete, and the
transaction on his part finished by the single act of rebellion against her
authority. She may take the cap up from the floor herself and put it in its
place, and then simply consider what punishment is proper for the wrong
already done. Perhaps she forbids the boy to go out at all. Perhaps she
reserves the punishment, and sends him to bed an hour earlier that night.
The age of the boy, or some other circumstances connected with the case,
may be such as to demand a severer treatment still. At any rate, she limits
the transaction to the single act of disobedience and rebellion already
committed, without giving an opportunity for a repetition of it by renewing
the command, and inflicts for it the proper punishment, and that is the end
of the affair.
And so a boy in reciting a lesson will not repeat certain words after his
mother. She enters into no controversy with him, but shuts the book and
puts it away. He, knowing his mother's usual mode of management in such
cases, and being sure that some penalty, privation, or punishment will
sooner or later follow, relents, and tells his mother that he will say the
words if she will try him again.
"No, my son," she should reply, "the opportunity is past. You should have
done your duty at the right time. You have disobeyed me, and I must take
time to consider what to do."
If, at the proper time, in such a case, when all the excitement of the
affair is over, a penalty or punishment apportioned to the fault, or some
other appropriate measures in relation to it, are _certain to come_, and
if this method is always pursued in a calm and quiet manner but with
inflexible firmness in act, the spirit of rebellion will be much more
effectually subdued than by any protracted struggles at the time, though
ending in victory however complete.
But all this is a digression, though it seemed proper to allude to the
subject of these contests here, since it is on these occasions, perhaps,
that parents are most frequently led, or, as they think, irresistibly
impelled, to the infliction of bodily punishments as the last resort, when
they would, in general, be strongly inclined to avoid them.
_The Infliction of Pain sometimes the speediest Remedy_.
There are, moreover, some cases, perhaps, in the ordinary exigencies of
domestic life, as the world goes, when some personal infliction is the
_shortest_ way of disposing of a case of discipline, and may appear, for
the time being, to be the most effectual. A slap is very quickly given, and
a mother may often think that she has not time for a more gentle mode of
managing the case, even though she may admit that if she had the time at
her command the gentle mode would be the best. And it is, indeed, doubtless
true that the principles of management advocated in this work are such as
require that the parents should devote some time and attention, and, still
more essentially, some _heart_ to the work; and they who do not consider
the welfare and happiness of their children in future life, and their own
happiness in connection with them as they advance towards their declining
years, as of sufficient importance to call for the bestowment of this time
and attention, will doubtless often resort to more summary methods in their
discipline than those here recommended.
_The Sting that it leaves behind_.
Indeed, the great objection, after all, to the occasional resort to the
infliction of bodily pain in extreme cases is, as it seems to me, the sting
which it leaves behind; not that, which it leaves in the heart of the child
who may suffer it--for that soon passes away--but in the heart of the
parent who inflicts it. The one is, or may be, very evanescent; the other
may very long remain; and what is worse, the anguish of it may be revived
and made very poignant in future years.
This consideration makes it specially imperative on every parent never,
for any cause, to inflict punishment by violence when himself under the
influence of any irritation or anger awakened by the offense. For though
the anger which the fault of the child naturally awakens in you carries you
through the act of punishing well enough, it soon afterwards passes away,
while the memory of it remains, and in after years, like any other sin, it
may come back to exact a painful retribution. When the little loved one who
now puts you out of patience with her heedlessness, her inconsiderateness,
and, perhaps, by worse faults and failings--all, however, faults which
may very possibly, in part or in whole, be the result of the immature and
undeveloped condition of her mental or bodily powers--falls sick and dies,
and you follow her as she is borne away, and with a bursting heart see her
laid in her little grave, it will be a great comfort to you then to reflect
that you did all in your power, by means of the gentlest measures at your
command, to train her to truth and duty, that you never lost patience with
her, and that she never felt from your hand any thing but gentle assistance
or a loving caress.
And your boy--now so ardent and impulsive, and often, perhaps, noisy,
troublesome, and rude, from the exuberant action of his growing
powers--when these powers shall have received their full development, and
he has passed from your control to his place in the world as a man, and he
comes back from time to time to the maternal home in grateful remembrance
of his obligations to his mother, bringing with him tokens of his affection
and love, you will think with pain of the occasions when you subjected him
to the torture of the rod under the impulse of irritation or anger, or to
accomplish the ends of discipline which might have been attained in other
ways. Time, as you then look back over the long interval of years which
have elapsed, will greatly soften the recollection of the fault, but it
will greatly aggravate that of the pain which was made the retribution of
it. You will say to yourself, it is true, I did it for the best. If I had
not done it, my son would perhaps not be what he is. He, if he remembers
the transaction, will doubtless say so too; but there will be none the less
for both a certain sting in the recollection, and you will wish that the
same end could have been accomplished by gentler means.
The substance of it is that children must, at all events, be governed. The
proper authority over them _must be_ maintained; but it is a great deal
better to secure this end by gentle measures, if the parent have or can
acquire the skill to employ them.