vanishes the moment we see the connection between physical education, and
the whole tone of thought and feeling--nay, the entire aim of life. The
tastes for food, and dress, and amusement, cherished in children of tender
years, may be committing them to a judicious or a corrupt method of
life--may be their initiation into a school of self-control and wisdom, or
passion and extravagance. The drunkard, the sot, nay, the debauchee, may
date their wretchedness from childhood. Many a family has been ruined by
habits of extravagance that began in the finery and feasting of the
nursery. They that dwell in cities should take close heed to the prevalent
danger, and not think themselves safe merely because they do as other
people do. Consider how common the error is to mistake precocity for
promise--to disturb the sacred reserve of nature--to tear open the
curtained bud of childhood, and boast of the forced growth so ruinous to
the tender plant, and then let us learn anew to respect the bidding of the
Creator and follow his appointed way. Here we should be willing to take a
stand as nonconformists, and have it appear in the beginning, that we are
not educating our children to be the apes of the world's fashions, or
slaves of its caprices, but to be rational and moral creatures, a blessing
to their home and community, a light in the kingdom of God. Let them learn
early to find happiness in common things--to enjoy simple pleasures--to
love the glow of healthful action above the fever of artificial
excitements, the constant bounties of nature beyond the costly gifts of
luxury.
What we have said applies more directly to providing for children during
their tender years. In rude communities here the care mostly stops, and
the boy at least, as soon as he is strong enough to be master of his
limbs, is left pretty much to take care of himself. But as society becomes
more refined and luxurious, it is very obvious that the solicitude of
parents looks more towards providing for the maturer years than for the
minority of their children. It becomes, perhaps, the absorbing question,
how shall we establish them properly in life--what effort or self-denial
must we use to secure their future success?--a great question, and one
which troubles many an earnest mind, and heaves society itself with
misgivings.
It often presents itself in a very tangible form, and by some is confined
to one point--to concern for property. I will not disparage the desire of
parents to secure a comfortable living to their children. But it is safe
to say that this desire is strong enough when compared with matters more
essential even in their bearing on a comfortable living. Surely the chief
assurance of a sufficient livelihood is a good practical education. A
reasonable man will not think it important to leave more than a frugal
competence to his children, yet he ought to think himself unkind, nay
cruel, if he spare any labor or sacrifice needed to educate them to do
their part effectively and happily in the world. A large inheritance is
easily lost, and may be retained without adding any happiness or dignity
to its owner or the community, but a good education stands by its
possessor; the strength of his trials and the ornament of his joys.
We need to look well to this at a time when, under the very name of
education, foul wrong is done to the active energies, and a systematic
imbecility of mind and body has the stamp of elegance. That only is a good
education which so stores the mind and brings out the powers as to fit one
to take an honest place in life, and do well the work given us to do. Such
a culture will have an eye upon the uncertainties of fortune, and prepare
the pupil to provide for himself, and all who are reasonably dependent
upon him. Such a culture it is the duty of every parent to give, and the
right of every child to receive. It is clear, however, that it cannot be
given without going in the face of many dainty prejudices, which are so
ready to pamper unreasonable wants and slight the plain utilities. The
Hebrew laws required, that children, even those of nobles should be taught
some useful art, and the Saviour of men and the chief of his apostles were
bred in accordance with this law. There is no security against shameful
servitude short of this, that a youth shall have enough in himself, know
enough, and can do enough, to take and keep an honorable place in the
world. Too often this great truth is slighted, and men toil in such a way
as to procure for their children a dainty training that enlarges the
surface of their wants, whilst it lessens the domain of their energies,
and so puts a mill-stone upon a son's back, whilst thinking to give him
bread.
Yet more sternly we must carry out the doctrine of the need of an
education essentially self-relying. The father has and should have more
tender solicitude for the daughter than the son, and there is no
affection that the blessed God has breathed into the human heart more
beautiful and holy than this, giving as it does such grace to the rudest
and the most refined homes, teaching gentle speech to many a rough
peasant, and imbuing the most cultivated man with a delicacy and
tenderness beyond any of the charms of courts or chivalry. Yet this
sentiment needs to be wise as well as kind; nay, wise in order to be kind;
and a just father will strive to train his daughter to be equal to either
fortune. However large or small his fortune, he will remember its
uncertainties, and beware of sanctioning the too prevalent folly which
regards woman as born to be petted and dependent, and brands a rational
and self-relying education as masculine and ungraceful. If we have our
eyes open, we must see the wretchedness of this system, and regard every
daughter as cruelly treated who is not enabled without loss of
self-respect, in case of need, to take a stand for herself, and prefer to
an uncongenial marriage or a degrading dependence, reliance upon her own
arts of accomplishment or utility. The same preparation that fits her to
meet the time of trial, fits her to adorn prosperity, and to be that noble
creature, the woman who guides an affluent household with energy and love,
and who adds to the graces most prized in the social circle the grace that
is born of God and radiates the light of Heaven.
* * * * *
Of course it is utterly idle to urge the need of such an education for
sons and daughters, by limiting its uses solely to worldly advantage. We
go up to the true basis of life for firm ground to build upon. Take that
ground decidedly, and then we view all true culture as part of the
training of souls under the Kingdom of God. We are not to live by bread
alone, but by every Divine word, by all of God's gifts to us. They are
cruel parents who slight the moral and spiritual wants of their children
and train them in worldly passions. This is, in the saddest sense, giving
them a stone instead of the Bread of Life. So we all think and are ready
to say. Take care lest our conduct belies our words. Whatever its position
or professions may be, that is a wretched household, whose polity is not
based upon a Divine standard--which does not acknowledge a rectitude above
the world's ways and breathe faith in God and things eternal. The very
discipline of a true home will be modelled after the heavenly order, and
will try to win the spirit of the benignant Father of all, who tempers
firmness with kindness so wonderfully in the government of his creatures.
Firmness is not enough--kindness is not enough, but the two must go
together. Firmness without kindness becomes the stony austerity that
crushes the will into servile conformity instead of training it to filial
obedience; kindness without firmness readily becomes a feeble expediency
that changes with the hour in a facility serpentine in more senses than
one. Firmness with kindness gives a discipline authoritative and flexible,
applying just principles in a mild prudence suited to all times and needs.
Of old perhaps the rigid temper most abounded, and austerity made
parental rule a rod of iron; but now the other extreme most prevails, and
a feeble indulgence allows self-will to be the law of childhood, and
fosters in many a dwelling a juvenile jacobinism, which needs only time
and chance to ripen into utter anarchy. This error does cruel wrong to
parent and child--to the child by fostering an ungovernable temper, a
perverse caprice that scoffs at all restraint and chafes even at the
limitations which God has imposed; to the parent by bringing upon him the
contempt of those who owe him respect, and by the painful conviction that
the indulgence begun in apparent kindness has been as fatal as wilful
severity. Away with the folly and the puny sentimentalism from which it
springs! Let us look at the law of God founded in the written Word and in
the very nature of things. The family is the safeguard of society--a
government founded by Heaven itself. Parents are to rule, children are to
obey. This principle, if carried out with energy and discretion, will
adapt itself to the various ages and circumstances of life. The element of
authority will be imbued with the attractive power of the truth and love
upon which it rests, and as the child grows into youth or maturity, the
authority that trained him, without losing its dignity, will appear less
and less an arbitrary will--nay, authority itself will seem but the
sterner aspect of persuasion.
For all this we need an unworldly faith and a spiritual mind. They that
would nurture others in the true life must themselves be nurtured upon its
true element. For themselves they must breathe the prayer for daily bread
in a true sense of its meaning--a true sense of dependence on God for
moral power as for bodily strength. Nothing short of a temper and purpose
truly religious will make the household a school of faith and a home of
wisdom and peace. We are apt to be too negligent, indeed, of modes of
instruction and forms of worship. Too often a parent neglects to tell his
children what is deepest in his own heart, and with many not wholly
worldly persons, the years pass away without any regular habits of
Christian teaching and worship in the family. The remedy cannot come from
mere formalism, but it must spring from a truer heart--more of the right
spirit showing itself in the right way--in all wisdom and prudence,
charity and devotion.
Speaking thus, who of us does not see a startling thought staring us in
the face--the thought that our own personal character is the measure of
our influence, and that we cannot expect to teach or impress what we have
not taken to our own hearts. We cannot cheat our children into the virtue
which we affect, for they will find us out, and distinguish what we do and
are, from what we say. Influence cannot rise above the level of character,
nor the fountain above the fountain-head. What motive to a truer
life--what warning against vice and godlessness--what encouragement in all
good--that the chief patrimony of children is the character of their
parents, and with this treasure small gifts are wealth, and without this
treasure rich gifts are poor indeed. Unhappy is the man who leaves to his
children the influence of a heart hard as stone and a worldliness wily as
a serpent! Precious the influence--blessed the memory of a parent, whose
life has made the ways of wisdom pleasant and peaceful, secured to his
offspring a childhood pure and happy, given a sacred and cheerful
remembrance to be the handmaid of an immortal hope.
The affections, it has been said, press downward more strongly than they
rise upward, and parents love their children more than children can love
them in return. If this were so, it would but the more illustrate the
fact, that life is not utterly selfish, and men live not for themselves
alone. It is true, that we do not live for ourselves alone. The merchant
at his counting-houses has thoughts beyond his gold and
merchandize--visions more fair and kindly than these; and the hard-handed
workman who does his ruder labor, spares of his earnings for his children
at school. But the love is not all on one side, although time may be
needed to adjust the balance, and teach childhood to appreciate a true
parental care. God holds the balance, and will make it true. In the motive
and in the result, he secures the reward of fidelity. Time and eternity
will show, that the love which he has inspired shall win harvests of
blessings that cannot perish.
Reverence in Children.
REVERENCE IN CHILDREN.
The Ten Commandments, the foundations of all law, both religious and
civil, among civilized nations, are divided, all are aware, into two
tables: the first treating of duties relating directly to God--the second
treating of duties relating to man--the two covering the essential grounds
of religion and morals. The command to honor father and mother begins the
second table of the Law. Why should it not? for what so fitly stands at
the head of the moral code, as the law that puts order into the household?
The family is the form of government, first in time and first in
importance. Home is older than church or court; a parent's authority prior
to that of priest or judge. With the family, social order began--without
family union, social order must end.
There is something striking in the transition from the first to the second
table--the transition from Jehovah's assertion of his own sovereignty to
his tender regard for the welfare of men. We seem to be looking down from
the awful mountain with its barren crags into the peaceful valley with its
pleasant homes and grassy lawns, rejoicing that the summits pealing with
thunder send down refreshing breezes and fruitful showers into those
plains below.
Looking up to God, who claims of us supreme homage as his due, and then in
his own sovereign right urges upon us to fulfil our dues to each other, we
speak now of the duties of children or the honor to be rendered by them to
parents.
* * * * *
Do any ask what are the grounds of the Commandments? The grounds are
obvious, and the law, which God enacts, instead of being an arbitrary
decree, is in entire harmony with the nature of things. It would perhaps
be needless to dwell on these grounds, were there not something in the
temper of our times, that calls them in question--in fact, certain notions
of intellectual liberty among theorists, that combine with the passions
and caprices of youth to unsettle many a household, and threaten the peace
of society itself. Against the sentimentalist, who makes light of all
natural ties to glorify the individual's own intuitions or affinities, and
against the little rebel, who comes to the same conclusion by a much
shorter process, we urge the Divine law, "Honor thy father and thy
mother."
Honor them, because God bids it, and bids it not merely in the written
code, but by the whole order of his providence, by the very constitution
of society. However we may dispute about the best form or true foundation
of government--maintain monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy, to be the
best form--declare Divine law, social compact, or popular will, to be the
true foundation, all must agree in the Divine origin of the family and
the Divine right of parental government. The instincts of nature, the
words of revelation, the dictates of experience and expediency, all agree
in this, and all illustrate the mind of God, the Creator of the family.
The mind of God himself speaks or should speak through the parent to the
child, so, that filial obedience is fitly another name for piety; so, that
prayer itself borrows its most hallowed word from the reverence nurtured
at home.
Trace out the law of dependence, and see how fully it urges the
commandment--the law of dependence that rests with parents so much of the
welfare of the child. Not merely food, clothing, and home, but all the
higher goods of life, experience, wisdom, virtue, are to be looked for
thus. As a general rule, benignant Providence itself has its chosen
almoner in father and mother, and the gifts are blessed as they are
received in reverence. We may indeed suppose monstrous cases, in which
unnatural parents exact such folly or wrong, that obedience ceases to be a
virtue. Such cases are not frequent enough to alter the general law, and
even in these, a true child, in refusing to conform to what is evil in the
sight of God, will do it in such a way as still to keep the commandment,
and treat tenderly even a perverse father, and expostulate with his
tyranny in a temper fitted more to subdue than irritate its violence. Such
monstrous cases need little notice in any Christian community, where
parents are generally ready enough to do the best, and give the most in
their power for their children. In fact, for them, the Decalogue has no
law, as if nature needed no decree to enforce parental love, and the
affections of themselves pressed heavily enough downwards. The great need
was and is of enforcing the obligation, that looks upward from child to
parent. Our modern culture, with all its scope and refinement, has no
substitute for this obligation; nay, needs it more than ever to check the
wilfulness and laxity so likely to come from precocious fancy and
unbridled temper. Experience is constantly showing, that even the external
promise connected with the commandment meets the wants of our own times
also, and now, as of old, filial obedience secures an efficient life and
peaceful civilization,--"that it may be well with thee, and that thy days
may be long in the land which the Lord thy God shall give." How many
bright and dark chapters of recent history show how close is the
connection between stability of society and filial respect--between
allegiance to every worthy institution and the discipline that learns to
regard a superior authority at home. This outward sanction the Gospel
accepts, and carries it into the spiritual kingdom. By many a precept the
apostles enforce the command, and by word and example, by the beatitudes
of the mount, and the obedience of the cross, our Saviour imparts new
blessing and worth to its observance.
* * * * *
We have a foundation then to build upon, and filial respect rests upon the
Word of God, the welfare of the home, the good of society, and the peace
of the soul. Let the sentiment be worthy of the Divine foundation. If
worthy it will appear first of all as a feeling of affectionate reverence.
It will not be worship as with the Chinese absolutist, nor mere
friendship, as in the code of many a radical. The parent is of the same
nature with the child, and is not to be adored; he is superior in age,
experience and authority, and should have more than the friendly courtesy
of an equal. Superior in degree, though not in kind, he is to be regarded
with affectionate respect and deference. Any subjection more or less than
this comes of wrong, and leads to wrong. To exact utter servitude is
tyranny--to lower reasonable authority into flattery, entreaty, or
apology, is an imbecile indulgence which a child should be as unwilling to
ask as a parent to give.
If any hearers are ready to quarrel with us for presuming to define the
quality and conditions of one of the great social sentiments, and to say
that all the affections are best let alone without any forcing process, we
are not troubled for a reply. No modern folly has been more thoroughly put
down by analysis and experience, than the sentimentalist's notion, that
the affections are wholly their own law, and are not to be trained under
reason, conscience and religion. Even in those sentiments which have most
of the spontaneous play of genius--those which rejoice in poetry, music,
and all the beautiful arts, the perceptions must first be trained to the
nicest sense of the truth of things, and the rigid discipline of every
true artist shames the folly of the dreamers who would make it appear,
that the great art of life, as a school of the affections, is to be left
to itself. No--our principles have vast power over our feelings, and they
who from the beginning are trained to accept the great loyalties of a
divine kingdom, will be loyal in their affections as in their creed, and
their affections will come forth and grow up as the vine does by help of
the very trellis which overlooks it.
* * * * *
The filial sentiment thus accepted and nurtured will not be idle, but will
show itself in the tone of manners, the rule of conduct, the law of life.
Manners are but lesser morals, and closely connected with the greater
morals. Good manners begin at home, and if they do not begin there, the
desire for them is apt to end in poor affectation. The soul of politeness
is mutual deference, and where should this have its origin but in the
respect most directly sanctioned by God? Too often the true filial honor
is forgotten, and, perhaps, from thoughtlessness more than disrespect,
children are sometimes seen usurping the prerogatives of age, speaking in
tones of petulant authority, and crowding themselves into the places of
elders. The best place for them is their own place. Their own dignity, as
well as that of their parents, is best furthered by the deference, that
gives the household its best order and makes it the school of the graces,
that adorn society with its pleasing gradations, and cheer the way to its
best virtues. Full enough is the temptation, especially in cities, to fall
short of this true deference and to rob childhood and youth of their best
character. Manners, instead of being nurtured on the Christian root, are
left too much to the dancing-master, and there are hosts of boys and
girls adept in postures and airs proper for the ballet, and strangers to
the reverence and simplicity that most honor them in honoring their
elders. Precocious passion for dress and society is the bane of the one,
and ridiculous affectation of manhood, especially of its follies, is the
shame of the other. The girl, instead of being calmly at rest in a child's
healthful slumber, is aping the belle in the ball-room; and the boy is
walking the street with his cigar, perhaps boasting of his powers at the
bottle, instead of being where he should be, in his bed, getting strength
for true manliness, not fevering himself into a ludicrous manikin. "Learn
to show piety at home," is thus another form of the ancient law, "Honor
thy father and thy mother."
The sentiment so essential to good manners will show itself as a rule of
conduct, and filial honor will take the form of obedience. During the
years of dependence this obedience is to be entire, for the parent must
think and act for the child. No matter what precocity of memory or
imagination, what privileges of education or amount of attainments, may
seem sometimes to reverse the order of precedence, the child is to follow
the parent's counsels, and in so doing will gain alike in wisdom and
discipline, for the experience of age is wiser than the pert wit of youth,
and submission to a superior will is essential to a true schooling for the
vicissitudes of life. It is not well to overstrain prerogative, and to
insist on obedience as a sacrifice, where it might be made an attraction,
if the reasons of the case are fully set forth. Nor is it well to make
obedience wholly dependent upon a statement of reasons, for many things
must be done for reasons that youth cannot appreciate, and kindness is
never so decided as when the impatient shortsightedness of childhood is
overruled by the far-seeing wisdom of maturity. Reason there should be in
every request; but if the request were allowed to wait until the reasons
could be understood, parental care would cease with the first restraint,
and childhood would be left to itself at the first task or pain. God
himself is our helper here, for he, who calls us in so many things to walk
by faith without sight, has fitted youth for the same discipline, and made
mild authority in the end more attractive and efficient than premature
argument or feeble flattery.
Obedience, thus considered, will not be servile but filial, and will find
its own honor in doing honor to its guardians. It will lead children to
ask constantly what they can do for the happiness of the family and the
welfare of its members. This duty is too little thought of, especially
where there is none of that pressure of want which compels children to
help in the maintenance of the family. No matter how great the wealth of
parents or the retinue of servants on the watch for every care, there is
still place for the earnest co-operation of each member of the family, and
no refinements of living have abolished the duty of mutual help, and the
grace of mutual deference. In most families the services of the children
are needed for many friendly offices of greater or less importance, and
none will deny that the comfort of every household is closely connected
with what the children do or fail to do for its welfare. So early does the
work, the responsible work of life begin, and so early may its springs of
beneficence be opened.