HINTS ON CHILD-TRAINING
BY
H. CLAY TRUMBULL
EDITOR OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TIMES; AUTHOR OF TEACHING AND TEACHERS,
YALE LECTURES ON THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL, ETC.
PHILADELPHIA
JOHN D. WATTLES, PUBLISHER
1891
COPYRIGHT, 1890
BY
H. CLAY TRUMBULL
PREFACE.
Hints on Child-Training may be helpful, where a formal treatise on the
subject would prove bewildering. It is easier to see how one phase or
another of children’s needs is to be met, than it is to define the
relation of that phase of the case to all other phases, or to a system
that includes them all. Therefore it is that this series of Hints is
ventured by me for the benefit of young parents, although I would not
dare attempt a systematic treatise on the entire subject here touched
upon.
Thirty years ago, when I was yet a young father, a friend, who
knew that I had for years been interested in the study of methods
of education, said to me, “Trumbull, what is your theory of
child-training?” “Theory?” I responded. “I have no theory in that
matter. I had lots of theories before I had any children; but now I
do, with fear and trembling, in every case just that which seems to
be the better thing for the hour, whether it agrees with any of my old
theories or not.”
Whatever theory of child-training may show itself in these Hints, has
been arrived at by induction in the process of my experiences with
children since I had to deal with the matter practically, apart from
any preconceived view of the principles involved. Every suggestion in
these Hints is an outcome of experiment and observation in my life as a
father and a grandfather, while it has been carefully considered in the
light of the best lessons of practical educators on every side.
These Hints were begun for the purpose of giving help to a friend. They
were continued because of the evident popular interest in them. They
are sent out in this completed form in the hope that they will prove of
service to parents who are feeling the need of something more practical
in the realm of child-training than untested theories.
H. CLAY TRUMBULL.
PHILADELPHIA, _September 15, 1890_.
CONTENTS.
I. PAGE
CHILD-TRAINING: WHAT IS IT? 11
II.
THE DUTY OF TRAINING CHILDREN 17
III.
SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS OF CHILD-TRAINING 23
IV.
DISCERNING A CHILD’S SPECIAL NEED OF TRAINING 29
V.
WILL-TRAINING, RATHER THAN WILL-BREAKING 37
VI.
THE PLACE OF “MUST” IN TRAINING 53
VII.
DENYING A CHILD WISELY 61
VIII.
HONORING A CHILD’S INDIVIDUALITY 71
IX.
LETTING ALONE AS A MEANS OF CHILD-TRAINING 83
X.
TRAINING A CHILD TO SELF-CONTROL 93
XI.
TRAINING A CHILD NOT TO TEASE 101
XII.
TRAINING A CHILD’S APPETITE 109
XIII.
TRAINING A CHILD AS A QUESTIONER 119
XIV.
TRAINING A CHILD’S FAITH 129
XV.
TRAINING CHILDREN TO SABBATH OBSERVANCE 139
XVI.
TRAINING A CHILD IN AMUSEMENTS 155
XVII.
TRAINING A CHILD TO COURTESY 165
XVIII.
CULTIVATING A CHILD’S TASTE IN READING 175
XIX.
THE VALUE OF TABLE-TALK 187
XX.
GUIDING A CHILD IN COMPANIONSHIPS 197
XXI.
NEVER PUNISH A CHILD IN ANGER 205
XXII.
SCOLDING IS NEVER IN ORDER 217
XXIII.
DEALING TENDERLY WITH A CHILD’S FEARS 223
XXIV.
THE SORROWS OF CHILDREN 239
XXV.
THE PLACE OF SYMPATHY IN CHILD-TRAINING 247
XXVI.
INFLUENCE OF THE HOME ATMOSPHERE 257
XXVII.
THE POWER OF A MOTHER’S LOVE 263
XXVIII.
ALLOWING PLAY TO A CHILD’S IMAGINATION 277
XXIX.
GIVING ADDED VALUE TO A CHILD’S CHRISTMAS 283
XXX.
GOOD-NIGHT WORDS 291
INDEX 301
I.
_CHILD-TRAINING: WHAT IS IT?_
The term “training,” like the term “teaching,” is used in various
senses; hence it is liable to be differently understood by different
persons, when applied to a single department of a parent’s duties in
the bringing up of his children. Indeed, the terms “training” and
“teaching” are often used interchangeably, as covering the entire
process of a child’s education. In this sense a child’s training
is understood to include his teaching; and, again, his teaching is
understood to include his training. But in its more restricted sense
the training of a child is the shaping, the developing, and the
controlling of his personal faculties and powers; while the teaching of
a child is the securing to him of knowledge from beyond himself.
It has been said that the essence of teaching is causing another
to _know_. It may similarly be said that the essence of training is
causing another to _do_. Teaching gives knowledge. Training gives
skill. Teaching fills the mind. Training shapes the habits. Teaching
brings to the child that which he did not have before. Training enables
a child to make use of that which is already his possession. We teach a
child the meaning of words. We train a child in speaking and walking.
We teach him the truths which we have learned for ourselves. We train
him in habits of study, that he may be able to learn other truths
for himself. Training and teaching must go on together in the wise
upbringing of any and every child. The one will fail of its own best
end if it be not accompanied by the other. He who knows how to teach a
child, is not competent for the oversight of a child’s education unless
he also knows how to train a child.
Training is a possibility long before teaching is. Before a child is
old enough to know what is said to it, it is capable of feeling, and
of conforming to, or of resisting, the pressure of efforts for its
training. A child can be trained to go to sleep in the arms of its
mother or nurse, or in a cradle, or on a bed; with rocking, or without
it; in a light room, or in a dark one; in a noisy room, or only in a
quiet one; to expect nourishment and to accept it only at fixed hours,
or at its own fancy,—while as yet it cannot understand any teaching
concerning the importance or the fitness of one of these things. A very
young child can be trained to cry for what it wants, or to keep quiet,
as a means of securing it. And, as a matter of fact, the training of
children is begun much earlier than their teaching. Many a child is
well started in its life-training by the time it is six weeks old; even
though its elementary teaching is not attempted until months after that.
There is a lesson just at this point in the signification of the Hebrew
word translated “train” in our English Bible. It is a noteworthy fact,
that this word occurs only twice in the Old Testament, and it has no
equivalent in the New. Those who were brought up in the household of
Abraham, “the father of the faithful,” are said to have been “trained”
(Gen. 14: 14). A proverb of the ages gives emphasis to a parent’s duty
to “train up” his child with wise considerateness (Prov. 22: 6). And
nowhere else in the inspired record does the original of this word
“train,” in any of its forms, appear.
The Hebrew word thus translated is a peculiar one. Its etymology shows
that its primary meaning is “to rub the gullet;” and its origin seems
to have been in the habit, still prevalent among primitive peoples,
of opening the throat of a new-born babe by the anointing of it with
blood, or with saliva, or with some sacred liquid, as a means of giving
the child a start in life by the help of another’s life. The idea of
the Hebrew word thus used seems to be that, as this opening of the
gullet of a child at its very birth is essential to the habituating of
the child to breathe and to swallow correctly, so the right training of
a child in all proper habits of life is to begin at the child’s very
birth. And the use of the word in the places where we find it, would
go to show that Abraham with all his faith, and Solomon with all his
wisdom, did not feel that it would be safe to put off the start with a
child’s training any later than this.
Child-training properly begins at a child’s birth, but it does not
properly end there. The first effort in the direction of child-training
is to train a child to breathe and to swallow; but that ought not to
be the last effort in the same direction. Child-training goes on as
long as a child is a child; and child-training covers every phase of a
child’s action and bearing in life. Child-training affects a child’s
sleeping and waking, his laughing and crying, his eating and drinking,
his looks and his movements, his self-control and his conduct toward
others. Child-training does not change a child’s nature, but it does
change his modes of giving expression to his nature. Child-training
does not give a child entirely new characteristics, but it brings him
to the repression and subdual of certain characteristics, and to the
expression and development of certain others, to such an extent that
the sum of his characteristics presents an aspect so different from
its original exhibit that it seems like another character. And so it
is that child-training is, in a sense, like the very making of a child
anew.
Child-training includes the directing and controlling and shaping of
a child’s feelings and thoughts and words and ways in every sphere of
his life-course, from his birth to the close of his childhood. And that
this is no unimportant part of a child’s upbringing, no intelligent
mind will venture to question.
II.
_THE DUTY OF TRAINING CHILDREN._
It is the mistake of many parents to suppose that their chief duty is
in loving and counseling their children, rather than in loving and
training them; that they are faithfully to show their children what
they ought to do, rather than to make them do it. The training power of
the parent is, as a rule, sadly undervalued.
Too many parents seem to take it for granted that because their
children are by nature very timid and retiring, or very bold and
forward; very extravagant in speech and manner, or quite disinclined
to express even a dutiful sense of gratitude and trust; reckless in
their generosity, or pitiably selfish; disposed to overstudy, or given
wholly to play; one-sided in this, or in that, or in the other, trait
or quality or characteristic,—therefore those children must remain
so; unless, indeed, they outgrow their faults, or are induced by wise
counsel and loving entreaty to overcome them.
“My boy is irrepressible,” says one father. “He is full of dash and
spirits. He makes havoc in the house while at home; and when he goes
out to a neighbor’s he either has things his own way, or he doesn’t
want to go _there_ again. I really wish he had a quieter nature; but,
of course, I can’t change him. I have given him a great many talks
about this; and I hope he will outgrow the worst of it. Still he is
just what he is, and punishing him wouldn’t make him anybody else.” A
good mother, on the other hand, is exercised because her little son
is so bashful that he is always mortifying her before strangers. He
will put his finger in his mouth, and hang down his head, and twist
one foot over the other, and refuse to shake hands, or to answer the
visitor’s “How do you do, my boy?” or even to say, “I thank you,” with
distinctness, when anything is given to him. And the same trouble is
found with the tastes as with the temperaments of children. One is
always ready to hear stories read or told, but will not sit quiet and
look at pictures, or use a slate and pencil. Another, a little older,
will devour books of travel or adventure, but has no patience with
a simple story of home life, or a book of instruction in matters of
practical fact.
Now it is quite inevitable that children should have these
peculiarities; but it is not inevitable that they should continue
to exhibit them offensively. Children can be trained in almost any
direction. Their natural tendencies may be so curbed and guided as no
longer to show themselves in disagreeable prominence. It is a parent’s
privilege, and it is a parent’s duty, to make his children, by God’s
blessing, to be and to do what they should be and do, rather than what
they would like to be and do. If indeed this were not so, a parent’s
mission would be sadly limited in scope, and diminished in importance
and preciousness. The parent who does not recognize the possibility of
training his children as well as instructing them, misses one of his
highest privileges as a parent, and fails of his most important work
for his children.
The skilled physician in charge of a certain institution for the
treatment of feeble-minded and imperfectly developed children, has
said, that some children who are brought to him are lacking in just one
important trait or quality, while they possess a fair measure of every
other. Or it may be said, that they have an excess of the trait or
quality opposite to that which they lack.
One girl, for example, will be wholly without a sense of honesty; will
even be possessed with a love of stealing for stealing’s sake, carrying
it to such an extent that when seated at the table she will snatch a
ball of butter from a plate, and wrap it up in a fold of her dress.
If she should be unchecked in this propensity until she were a grown
woman, she might prove one of the fashionable ladies who take books or
dry goods from the stores where they are shopping, under the influence
of “kleptomania.”
Again, a boy has no sense of truth. He will tell lies without any
apparent temptation to do so, even against his own obvious interests.
All of us have seen persons of this sort in mature life. Some of them
are to-day in places of prominence in Christian work and influence. Yet
another child is without any sense of reverence, or of modesty, or of
natural affection. One lacks all control of his temper, another of his
nerves. And so on in great variety.
The physician of that institution is by no means in despair over any of
these cases. It is his mission to find out the child’s special lack,
and to meet it; to learn what traits are in excess, and to curb them;
to know the child’s needs, and to _train_ him accordingly.
Every child is in a sense a partially developed, an imperfectly formed
child. There are no absolutely perfect children in this world. All of
them need restraining in some things and stimulating in others. And
every imperfect child can be helped toward a symmetrical character by
wise Christian training. Every home should be an institution for the
treatment of imperfectly developed children. Every father and every
mother should be a skilled physician in charge of such an institution.
There are glorious possibilities in this direction; and there are
weighty responsibilities also.
III.
_SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS OF CHILD-TRAINING._
Child-training can compass much, but child-training cannot compass
everything, in determining the powers and the possibilities of a child
under training. Each child can be trained in the way _he_ should go,
but not every child can be trained to go in the same way. Each child
can be trained to the highest and fullest exercise of _his_ powers, but
no child can be trained to the exercise of powers which are not his.
Each child can be trained to _his_ utmost possibilities, but not every
child can be trained to the utmost possibilities of every other child.
Child-training has the fullest scope of the capacity of the particular
child under treatment, and child-training is limited in every case by
the limitations of that child’s capacity.
A child born blind can be trained to such a use of his other senses
that he can do more in the world than many a poorly trained child
who has sight; but a blind child can never be trained to discern
differences in colors at a distance. A child who has by nature a dull
ear for music can be trained to more or less of musical skill; but a
child who is born without the sense of hearing can never be trained
to quickness in the discerning of sounds. A child can be trained to
facility in the use of every sense and faculty and limb and member
and muscle and nerve which he possesses; but no training will give to
a child a new sense, a new faculty, a new limb, a new member, a new
muscle, a new nerve. Child-training can make anything of a child that
can be made of that child, but child-training cannot change a child’s
nature and identity.
The limitations of child-training are more likely to be realized than
its extensive scope. Indeed, the supposed limitations of child-training
are very often unreal ones. Many a parent would say, for example,
that you cannot change a child’s form and features and expression
by training; yet, as a matter of fact, a child’s form and features
and expression can be, and often are, materially changed by training.
The chest is expanded, the waist is compressed, a curved spine is
straightened, or a deformity of limb is corrected, by persistent
training with the help of mechanical appliances. Among some primitive
peoples, the form of every child’s head is brought to a conventional
standard by a process of training; as, among other primitive peoples,
the feet or the ears or the eyes or the lips are thus conventionally
trained into—or out of—shape. And in all lands the expression of the
face steadily changes under the process of persistent training.
As it is with the physical form, so it is with the mental and moral
characteristics of a child; the range is wide within the limitations
of possible results from the training process. A nervous temperament
cannot, it is true, be trained into a phlegmatic one, or a phlegmatic
temperament be trained into a nervous one; but a child who is quick and
impulsive can be trained into moderation and carefulness of speech and
of action, while a child who is sluggish and inactive can be trained
to rapidity of movement and to energy of endeavor. An imbecile mind
can never be trained into the possibilities of native genius, nor can
a moral nature of the lowest order be trained to the same measure of
high conscientiousness as a nature that is keenly sensitive to every
call of duty and to the rights and the feelings of others; but training
can give unsuspected power to the dormant faculties of the dull-minded,
and can marvelously develop the latent moral sense of any child who is
capable of discerning between right and wrong in conduct.
The sure limitations of a child’s possibilities of training are
obvious to a parent. If one of the physical senses be lacking to the
child, no training will restore that sense, although wise training
may enable the child to overcome many of the difficulties that meet
him as a consequence of his native lack. And so, also, if the child
have such unmistakable defects of mind and of character as prove him
to be inferior to the ordinary grade of average humanity, the wisest
training cannot be expected to lift him above the ordinary level of
average humanity. But if a child be in the possession of the normal
physical senses, and the normal mental faculties, and the normal moral
capacities, of his race, he may, by God’s blessing, be trained to the
best and fullest use of his powers in these several spheres, in spite
of all the hindrances and drawbacks that are found in the perversion or
the imperfect development of those powers at his start in life.
In other words, if the child be grievously deformed or defective at
birth, or by some early casualty, there is an inevitable limitation
accordingly to the possibilities of his training. But if a child be
in possession of an ordinary measure of faculties and capacity, his
training will decide the manner and method and extent of the use of his
God-given powers.
It is, therefore, largely a child’s training that settles the question
whether a child is graceful or awkward in his personal movements,
gentle or rough in his ways with his fellows, considerate or
thoughtless in his bearing toward others; whether he is captious or
tractable within the bounds of due restraint; whether he is methodical
and precise, or unsystematic and irregular, in the discharge of his
daily duties; whether he is faithful in his studies, or is neglectful
of them; whether he is industrious or indolent in his habits; whether
the tastes which he indulges in his diet and dress and reading and
amusements and companionships are refined, or are low. In all these
things his course indicates what his training has been; or it suggests
the training that he needed, but has missed.
IV.
_DISCERNING A CHILD’S SPECIAL NEED OF TRAINING._
Some one has said, that a mother is quite right when she declares
enthusiastically of her little one, “There never was such a child as
this, in the world, before!” for in fact there never before was such a
child. Each child starts in life as if he were the only child in the
world, and the first one; and he is less like other people then than
ever he will be again. He is conformed to no regulation pattern at the
outset. He has, to begin with, no stock of ideas which have been passed
on and approved by others. He neither knows nor cares what other people
think. He is a law unto himself in all matters of thought and taste and
feeling. He is, so far, himself; and, just so far, he is different from
everybody else.
Left to himself, if that were a possibility, every child would continue
to be himself; but no child is left to himself: he is under training
and in training continually. And so it is that the training of a child
is quite as likely to change him from his best self to a poorer self,
as it is to develop and perfect that which is best in his distinctive
self. Child-training is, in many a case, the bringing of a child into
purely conventional ways, instead of bringing out into freest play,
in the child, those qualities and characteristics which mark him as a
unique and individual personality among the sons of men. How to learn
wherein a child’s real self needs stimulating, and wherein it needs
curbing or changing, is a question of questions in child-training.
No quality of a good physician is of more importance than skill in
making a diagnosis of a patient’s case. If a master-mind in this realm
were to pass with positiveness on the disease of every patient, the
treatment of that disease would be comparatively easy. A young graduate
from the medical school, or a trained nurse, would then, in most
instances, be capable of knowing and doing that which was needful in
the premises. But until the diagnosis is accurate, the best efforts
of the ablest physician are liable to be misdirected, and so to be
ineffective for good. As it is with the physician and his patient,
so it is with the parent and his child. An accurate diagnosis is an
essential prerequisite to wise and efficient treatment. The diagnosis
secured, the matter of treatment is a comparatively easy matter. A
parent’s diagnosis of his child’s case is in the discerning of his
child’s faults, as preliminary to a process of training for their
cure. Until _that_ is secured, there is no hope of intelligent and
well-directed treatment.
Yet it is not the easiest thing in the world to say what are a child’s
peculiar faults, and what is, therefore, that child’s peculiar need of
training. Many a parent is disturbed by a child’s best traits, while
he underestimates or overlooks that child’s chief failings. And many
another parent who knows that his child is full of faults cannot say
just what they are, or classify them according to their relative
prominence and their power for evil. “That boy’s questions will worry
my life out. He is always asking questions; and _such_ questions. I
can’t stand it!” This is said by many a father or mother whose child is
full of promise, largely because he is full of questions.
But if a boy has a bright mind and positive preferences, and is ready
to study or to work untiringly in the line of his own tastes, and in no
other line, it does not always occur to his parents that just here—in
this reluctance to apply himself in the line of wise expediency rather
than of personal fancy—there is a failing which, if not trained out of
that boy, will stand as a barrier to his truest manhood, and will make
him a second-rate man when he might be a first-rate one; a one-sided
man instead of a well-proportioned man. Such a boy is quite likely to
be looked upon as one who must be permitted to have his own way, since
that way is evidently not a bad way, and he shows unusual power in its
direction. So that boy may be left untrained in this particular until
he is hopelessly past training, merely because his chief fault is
unrecognized by those who could correct it, and who would gladly do so
if they saw it in its due proportions.
Careful study and a wise discrimination are needed on a parent’s part
to ascertain a child’s peculiar faults. Each parent would do well to
ask himself, or herself, the questions, “What are the special faults
of my child? Where is he weakest? In what direction is his greatest
strength liable to lead him astray, and when is it most likely to fail
him? Which of his faults is most prominent? Which of them is of chief
importance for immediate correction?” Such questions as these should
be considered at a time favorable to deliberate judgment, when there
is least temptation to be influenced by personal feeling, either of
preference or dissatisfaction. They should be pondered long and well.
The unfriendly criticisms of neighbors, and the kind suggestions of
friends, are not to be despised by a parent in making up an estimate
of his child’s failings and faults. Rarely is a parent so discerning,
so impartial, and so wise, that he can know his children through and
through, and be able to weigh the several traits, and perceive the
every imperfection and exaggeration, of their characters, with unerring
accuracy and absolute fairness. A judge is supposed to be disqualified
for an impartial hearing of a case in which he has a direct personal
interest. A physician will not commonly make a diagnosis of his own
disorders, lest his fears or hopes should bias his judgment. And a
parent is as liable as a judge or a physician to be swayed unduly by
interest or affection, in an estimate of a case which is before him for
a decision.
Even though, therefore, every parent must decide for himself concerning
the interests and the treatment of his own children, he ought to be
glad to take into consideration what others think and say of those
children, while he is making up his mind as to his duty in the
premises. And what is written or said on this subject by competent
educators is worthy of attention from every parent who would train
his children understandingly. There is little danger that any parent
will give too much study to the question of his child’s specific needs,
or have too many helps to a wise conclusion on that point. There is
a great deal of danger that the whole subject will be neglected or
undervalued by a parent.
If a parent were explicitly to ask the question of a fair and
plain-speaking friend, familiar with that parent’s children, and
competent to judge them, What do you think is the chief fault—or the
most objectionable characteristic—of my son—or daughter? the frank
answer to that question would in very many cases be an utter surprise
to the parent, the fault or characteristic named not having been
suspected by the parent. A child may be so much like the parent just
here, that the parent’s blindness to his or her own chief fault or lack
may forbid the seeing of the child’s similar deformity. Or, again,
that child may be so totally unlike the parent, that the parent will
be unable to appreciate, or even to apprehend, that peculiarity of
the child which is apparent to every outside intelligent observer.
A child’s reticence from deep feeling has often been counted by an
over-demonstrative parent as a sign of want of sensitiveness; and so
_vice versa_.
Parents need help from others, from personal friends whom they can
trust to speak with impartiality and kindness, or from the teachers of
their children, in the gaining of a proper estimate and understanding
of their children’s characteristics and needs. The parent who does
not realize this truth, and act on it, will never do as well as might
be done for his or her child. God has given the responsibility of the
training of that child to the parent; but he has also laid on that
parent the duty of learning, by the aid of all proper means, what are
that child’s requirements, and how to meet them.
V.
_WILL-TRAINING, RATHER THAN WILL-BREAKING._
The measure of will-power is the measure of personal power, with a
child as with an adult. The possession or the lack of will-power is
the possession or the lack of personal power, in every individual’s
sphere of life and being. The right or the wrong use of will-power is
the right or the wrong exercise of an individual’s truest personality.
Hence the careful guarding and the wise guiding of a child’s will
should be counted among the foremost duties of one who is responsible
for a child’s training.
Will-training is an important element in child-training; but
will-breaking has no part or place in the training of a child. A broken
will is worth as much in its sphere as a broken bow; just that, and
no more. A child with a broken will is not so well furnished for the
struggle of life as a child with only one arm, or one leg, or one eye.
Such a child has no power of strong personality, or of high achievement
in the world. Every child ought to be trained to conform his will to
the demands of duty; but that is bending his will, not breaking it.
Breaking a child’s will is never in order.
The term “will” as here employed applies to the child’s faculty of
choosing or deciding between two courses of action. Breaking a child’s
will is bringing the pressure of external force directly upon that
will, and causing the will to give way under the pressure of that
force. Training a child’s will is bringing such influences to bear upon
the child that he is ready to choose or decide in favor of the right
course of action.
To break a child’s will is to crush out for the time being, and so far
to destroy, the child’s privilege of free choice; it is to force him
to an action against his choice, instead of inducing him to choose in
the right direction. A child’s will is his truest personality; the
expression of his will in a free choice is the highest expression of
his personality. And a child’s personality is to be held sacred by
God’s representative who is over the child, even as God himself holds
sacred the personality of every human being created in the image of God.
God never says unqualifiedly to a human being, “You shall not exercise
your faculty of choice between the way of life and the way of death;
you shall walk in the way which I know to be best for you.” But, on the
contrary, God says to every one (Deut. 30: 15): “See, I have set before
thee this day life and good, and death and evil,”—for thy choice.
Here, as everywhere, God concedes to man the privilege of exercising
his will-power in the direction of life and good, or of death and
evil. The strictest Calvinist and the broadest Arminian are at one in
their opinion so far. Whatever emphasis is laid, in their philosophy,
on God’s influencing or enabling the human will to its final choice,
neither of them disputes the fact that man is actually permitted to use
that will in the direction of his choice. “It is God that worketh _in_
man to _will_ and to work for His good pleasure.” It is not that God
worketh above man to crush out man’s faculty of willing whether to act
for or against His good pleasure. In other words, God has fore-ordained
that every man shall have the freedom of his will—and take the
consequences.
It is true that God holds out before man, as an inducement to him in
his choosing, the inevitable results of his choice. If he chooses good,
life comes with it. If he chooses evil, death is its accompaniment. The
rewards and the punishments are declared in advance; but after all, and
in spite of all, the choice is man’s own. And every soul shall have
eternally the destiny of its own choosing. The representative of God
clothed with power, as he stood before the people of Israel, did not
say, “You _shall_ choose God’s service now; and if you deliberately
refuse to do so, God will break your will so that you do do it;” but he
said, “If it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day
whom ye will serve” (Josh. 24: 15).
As God, our wise and loving Father in heaven, deals with us his
children, so we, as earthly fathers, should deal with our children. We
should guard sacredly their privilege of personal choice; and while
using every proper means to induce them to choose aright, we should
never, never, never force their choice, even into the direction of our
intelligent preference for them. The final responsibility of a choice
and of its consequences rests with the child, and not with the parent.
A child’s will ought to be strong for right-doing. If it be not so at
the start, it is the parent’s duty to guide, or train, it accordingly.
But to break, or crush, a child’s will, is inconsistent with the
educating and training of that will. A conflict between a parent and a
child, where the only question is, Whose will shall yield to the other?
is, after all, neither more nor less than a conflict of brute force.
Whether, in any instance, the will of the parent be set on having his
child commit some repulsive crime against which the child’s moral
nature recoils, or whether the will of the parent be set on the
child’s reciting a Bible text or saying a prayer, the mere conflict of
wills as a conflict of wills is a conflict of brute force; and in such
a conflict neither party ought to succeed,—for success in any such case
is always a failure. If the parent really wills that the child shall do
right, the parent’s endeavor should be to have the child will in the
same direction. Merely to force one will into subjection to the other
is, however, an injury both to the one who forces and to the one who
submits.
A hypothetical illustration may make this matter clearer. A father says
to his strong-willed child: “Johnny, shut that door.” Johnny says, “I
won’t.” The father says, “You shall.” Johnny rejoins, “I won’t.” An
issue is here made between two wills—the father’s and the son’s. Many
a parent would suppose that in such a case the child’s will ought to
be broken, subjugated, forced, if need be, under the pressure of the
father’s will; and the more conscientious the parent, the firmer is
likely to be his conviction of duty accordingly.
It is at such a point as this that the evil of breaking a child’s will,
instead of training it, finds its foothold in many a Christian home.
The father is determined not to yield his will to his child’s will. The
child is determined not to yield his will to his father’s will. It is
the old conflict between “an irresistible force and an immovable body.”
In such a case, brute force may compel the child to do that which he
chooses not to do, just as the rack and thumb-screws of the Inquisition
could compel the tortured one to deny a belief which he chooses to
adhere to; but in the one case, as in the other, the victim of the
torturing pressure is permanently harmed, while the cause of truth and
right has been in no sense the gainer by the triumph. Oh, what if God
should treat his children in that way!
What, then, it may be asked, should be done with such a child in an
issue like this? It certainly would have been better, it would have
been far better, for the parent not to make a direct issue by following
the child’s first refusal with the unqualified declaration, “You
shall.” But with the issue once made, however unfortunately, then what?
Let the parent turn to the child in loving gentleness,—not _then_ in
severity, and never, never, never in _anger_,—and tell him tenderly of
a better way than that which he is pursuing, urging him to a wiser,
nobler choice. In most cases the very absence of any show of angry
conflict on the father’s part will prompt the child to choose to do
that which he said he would not do. But if worst comes to worst (for
we are here taking the extremest supposable issue, which ought indeed
rarely, if ever, to occur), let the parent say to the child: “Johnny, I
shall have to give you your choice in this matter. You can either shut
that door or take a whipping.” Then a new choice is before the boy, and
his will is free and unbroken for its meeting.
Be it understood, the father has no right to say, “I will whip you
until you shut that door;” for that would be to deprive the boy of
a choice, to deprive the boy of his will-power in the direction of
his action: and that no parent is ever justified in doing. If the boy
chooses to be whipped rather than to obey, the father must accept the
result so far, and begin again for the next time; although, of course,
there must be no undue severity in a child’s punishment; even the
civil law forbids that. The father as a father is not entitled to have
his will stand in the place of his child’s will; even though he is
privileged to strive to bring the child to will in the same direction
that the father’s will trends.
All the way along through his training-life, a child ought to know
what are to be the legitimate consequences of his chosen action, in
every case, and then be privileged to choose accordingly. There is
a place for punishment in a child’s training, but punishment is a
penalty attached to a choice; it is not brute force applied to compel
action against choice. No child ought ever to be punished, unless he
understood, when he chose to do the wrong in question, that he was
thereby incurring the penalty of that punishment.
In most cases it is better, as has been said, for a parent to _avoid_
a direct issue with a child, than to seek, or even than to recognize
and meet, an issue. And in the endeavor to train a child’s will, there
is often a gain in giving the child an alternative consequence of
obedience or disobedience. _That_ is God’s way of holding out rewards
and punishments. For example, a wise young mother was just giving her
little boy a bit of candy which was peculiarly prized by him, when,
in speaking to a lady visitor he called her by the familiar term used
by older members of the family in addressing her. The mother reminded
him of the manner in which he should speak to the lady. He refused to
conform to this. “Then I cannot let you have this candy,” said the
mother. “All right,” was the wilful reply. “I’d rather go without the
candy than call her what you tell me to.” The mother turned quietly
away, taking the candy with her. An hour later that child came to his
mother, saying, “Mamma, perhaps you can give me that candy now; for
I will always call that lady just what you tell me to.” A few added
words from the mother at that juncture settled that point for all time.
Thenceforward the child did as he had thus been led to will to do. His
will had not been broken, but it had been newly directed by judicious
training.
But, it may be asked, if a child be told by his mother to leave the
room, at a time when it is peculiarly important that he should not
remain there, and he says that he will not go, what shall be done with
him? Shall he be permitted to have his own way, against his own true
welfare? If the chief point be to get him out of the room, and there
is no time just then for his training, the child can be carried out by
main strength. But that neither breaks nor trains the child’s will. It
is not a triumph of will, but of muscle. The child, in such a case,
leaves the room against his will, and in spite of it. His will has
simply been ignored, not broken. And there are times when a child’s
bodily removal from one place to another is more important for the
time being than is, just then, the child’s will-training. Such would
be the case if the house were on fire, or if the child were taken
suddenly ill. But that is apart from the question of will-training or
will-breaking. The distinction here noted ought not to be lost sight of
in considering this question.
If, however, in the case above cited, the purpose of the mother be to
meet the issue which is there raised, and to have it settled once for
all whose will shall triumph, right or wrong, the mother can bring the
pressure of brute force to bear on the child’s will, in order to its
final breaking. Under that pressure, the child’s life may go out before
his will is broken. In many an instance of that sort, this has been the
result. Or, again, the child’s will may then be broken. If it be so,
the child is harmed for life; and so is his mother. The one has come
into a slavish submission to the conscientiously tyrannical demands of
the other. Both have obtained wrong conceptions of parental authority,
wrong conceptions of filial obedience, and wrong conceptions of the
plan and methods of the Divine-Paternal government. But if, on the
other hand, now be the time for teaching a child to use his own will
aright, at the summons of one who is older and wiser than himself, and
who is over him in the plan of God for his guidance and training, there
is a better way than either the forcing a child out of the room against
his will, or the breaking of his will so that that will is powerless to
prompt him to stay or to go.
The course to be pursued in this case is that already suggested in
the case of the child whose father told him to shut the door. Let the
mother give herself, at once, to firm and gentle endeavors to bring
that child to use his own will, freely and gladly, in the direction of
her commands to him. If necessary, let there be no more of sleeping or
eating in that home until that child, under the forceful pressure of
wise counsel and of affectionate entreaty, has willed to do that which
he ought to do,—has willed to be an obedient child. Here, again, is the
difference between the wise training of the will, and the always unwise
and unjustifiable breaking of the will.
Even in the matter of dealing with the lower animals, it has been
found that the old idea of “breaking” the will as a substitute for,
or as a necessary precedent of, the “training” the will, is an
erroneous one; and the remarkable power of such horse-trainers as
Rarey and Gleason grows out of the fact that they are _trainers_, and
not _breakers_, of horses. A standard work on Dog Training, by S. T.
Hammond, is based on the idea, indicated in one of its titles, of
“Training _versus_ Breaking.” It might seem, indeed, that the counsel
of this latter writer, concerning the wise treatment of a young dog
taken newly in hand for his training, were given to a parent concerning
the wise treatment of a young child when first taken in hand for this
purpose.
“Do not fail to abundantly caress him and speak kindly words,” he says;
“and never under any circumstances, no matter what the provocation,
allow yourself to scold, or [in this early stage] strike him, as this
is entirely at variance with our system, and is sure to result in
the defeat of our plans.... Be very gentle with him at all times.
Carefully study his disposition, and learn all of his ways, that you
may the more readily understand just how to manage him. You should be
in perfect sympathy with him, and humor all his whims and notions, and
endeavor to teach him that you truly love him. In a short time you
will find that this love will be returned tenfold, and that he is ever
anxiously watching for your coming, and never so happy as when in your
presence and enjoying your caresses.” This, be it borne in mind, is in
a line of work that seeks to bring the entire will of the trained in
loving subjection to the will of the trainer. And that which is none
too high a standard for a young dog ought not to be deemed too high for
attainment by a rational child.
Surely that which is found to be the best way for a trainer of dogs on
the one hand, and which, on the other hand, is God’s way with all his
children, may fairly be recognized as both practicable and best for a
human parent’s dealing with his intelligent little ones. And all this
is written by one who in well-nigh forty years of parental life has
tried more than one way in child-training, and who long ago learned
by experience as well as by study that God’s way in this thing is
unmistakably the best way.
VI.
_THE PLACE OF “MUST” IN TRAINING._
With all the modern improvements in methods of dealing with
children,—and these improvements are many and great,—it is important to
bear in mind that judicious _discipline_ has an important part in the
wise training of the young. Discipline is not everything in the sphere
of child-training; but discipline is much, in that sphere. Discipline
is an important factor in will-training; and will-training is an
important factor in wise child-training, although will-breaking is not.
Formerly, discipline was the great feature, if not, indeed, the only
feature, in the training of children. There was a time when children
were not allowed to sit in the presence of their parents, or to speak
to them unless they were first spoken to, or to have a place with
their parents at the home table or in the church pew; when the approved
mode of teaching was a primitive and very simple one. “They told a
child to learn; and if he did not, they beat him.” The school-days
of children were then spoken of as “when they were under the rod.”
Even the occasional celebration of a holy day did not bring unalloyed
delight to the little ones; as, for instance, “on Innocents’ Day, an
old custom of our ancestors was to flog the poor children in their
beds, not as a punishment, but to impress on their minds the murder of
the innocents.”
But all this is in the long past. For a century or more the progress of
interest in and attention to the children has been steady and rapid.
And now the best talent of the world is laid under contribution for
the little ones. In the provisions of song and story and pictures and
toys and games, as well as in school buildings and school appliances
and school methods, the place of the children is foremost. At home they
certainly do not hesitate to sit down when and where they please, or
to speak without waiting to be spoken to. Indeed, there are parents
who wonder if _they_ will ever get a chance to sit down while their
children are in the house; or if ever those children will stop asking
questions. Meanwhile in secular schools and in Sunday-schools the aim
seems to be to make learning as attractive as possible to children, and
to relieve study, as far as may be, of all tediousness and discomfort.
Now, that this state of things is, on the whole, a decided improvement
over that which it displaced, there is no room for fair doubt. Yet
there is always a danger of losing sight of one important truth in
the effort to give new and due prominence to another. Hence attention
should be given to the value of judicious discipline in the training
of children. Children need to learn how to do things which they do
not want to do, when those things ought to be done. Older people have
to do a great many things from a sense of duty. Unless children are
trained to recognize duty as more binding than inclination, they will
suffer all their lives through from their lack of discipline in this
direction.
Children ought to be trained to get up in the morning at a proper hour,
for some other reason than that this is to be “the maddest, merriest
day in all the glad new year.” They ought to learn to go to bed at a
fitting time, whether they are sleepy or not. Their hours of eating,
and the quality and quantity of their food, ought to be regulated
by some other standard than their inclinations. In their daily life
there must be a place for tasks as tasks, for times of study under the
pressure of stern duty, in the effort to train them to do their right
work properly. It is not enough to have children learn only lessons
which they enjoy, and this at times and by methods which are peculiarly
pleasing to them. President Porter, of Yale, said, in substance, that
the chief advantage of the college curriculum is, that it trains a
young man to do what he ought to do, when he ought to do it, whether he
wants to do it or not. Any course of training for a young person that
fails to accomplish thus much, is part of a sadly imperfect system.