CARE OF THE POWERS.--TRUTHFULNESS.
We come now to consider a moral quality whose importance cannot be
overrated, yet about which there is more unsettledness of view and
perplexity of heart among parents than about, perhaps, any other. Every
parent is anxious about the truthfulness of his child: but whether this
virtue is to come by nature, or by gift, or by training, many an one is
sorely perplexed to know. So few children are truthful in all respects
and without variation, that we may well doubt whether the quality can be
inborn. And the cases are so many of children otherwise good--even
conscientious in other respects--who talk at random, and say things
utterly untrue, that I do not wonder that those who hold low views of
human nature consider this a constitutional vice, and a hereditary
curse. I am very far from believing this: and I will plainly say what I
do believe.
I believe that the requisites of a habit of truthfulness lie in the
brain of every child that is born; but that the truthfulness itself has
to be taught, as the speech which is to convey it has to be taught; by
helping the child to the use of his natural powers. The child has by
nature the ear, the lungs, the tongue, the palate, and the various and
busy mind,--the requisites for speech: but he does not speak unless
incited by hearing it from others, and by being himself led on to attain
the power. In a somewhat resembling manner, every child has more or less
natural sense of what is just in feeling and action, and what is real in
nature, and how to present his ideas to another mind. Here are the
requisites to truthfulness of speech: but there is much to be learned,
and much to overcome, before the practice of truthfulness can be
completely formed, and firmly established. If the case is once
understood, we shall know how to set about our work, and may await the
event without dismay in the worst cases, though in all with the most
careful vigilance.
Is it not true that different nations, even Christian nations, vary more
in regard to truthfulness than perhaps any other moral quality? Is it
not true that one or two continental nations fall below us in regard to
this quality, while they far excel us in kindliness and cheerfulness of
temper, and pleasantness of manners? And does not this difference arise
from their thinking kindliness and cheerfulness more important than
sincerity and accuracy of speech? And is not our national superiority in
regard to the practice of truth chiefly owing to its being our national
point of honour, and our fixed supposition as a social habit? Do not
these facts tend to show that the practice of truthfulness is the result
of training? and that we may look for it with confidence as the result
of good training?
Now, what are the requisites, and what the difficulties that we have to
deal with?
Has not every child a keen sense of right and justice, which he shows
from the earliest time that he can manifest any moral judgment at all?
He may be injurious and unjust to another, from selfishness and passion:
but can he not feel injustice done to himself with the infallibility of
an instinct, and claim his rights with the acuteness of a lawyer? Is
there anything more surprising to us in the work of education than every
child's sense of his rights, and need of unerring justice, till he is
far enough advanced generously to dispense with it? Here we have the
perception of moral truth for one requisite.
Another requisite is such good perceptive power as informs a child truly
of outward facts. There is no natural power which varies more in
different subjects than this. One child sees everything as it is, within
its range. Another child sees but little, being taken up with what it
thinks or imagines. A third sees wrongly, being easily deceived about
colours and forms, and the order in which things happen, from its senses
being dull, or its faculties of observation being indolent. I have known
a child declare an object to be green when it was grey; or a man in a
field to be a giant; or a thing to have happened in the morning which
took place in the afternoon: and one need but observe how witnesses in a
court of justice vary in their testimony about small matters regarding
which they are quite disinterested, to see that the same imperfection in
the perceptive faculties goes on into mature age. It is plain that these
faculties must be exercised and trained very carefully, if the child is
to be made accurate in its statements.
Another and most important requisite is that the child should, from the
beginning, believe that truthfulness is a duty. This belief must be
given on authority: for the obligation to truth is not, as I have said,
instinctive, but a matter of reasoning, such as a child is not capable
of entering into. He will receive it, easily and permanently, from the
assurance and example of his parents; but he does not, in his earliest
years, see it for himself. An affectionate child, thinking of a beloved
person, will tell his parent that he has just seen and talked with that
person, who is known to be a hundred miles off. The parent is shocked:
and truly there is cause for distress; for it is plain that the child
has as yet no notion of the duty of truthfulness; but the parent must
not, in his fear, aggravate the case, and run into the conclusion that
the child loves lying. The case probably is that he says what is
pleasant to his affections, without being aware that there is a more
serious matter to be attended to first: a thing which he may hereafter
be shocked not to have known. I happen to remember at this moment, three
persons, now conscientiously truthful, who in early childhood were in
the habit of telling, not only wonderful dreams, but most wonderful
things that they had seen in their walks, on the high-road or the heath;
giants, castles, beautiful ladies riding in forests, and so on. In all
these cases, the parents were deeply distressed, and applied themselves
accordingly, first to check the practice of narration, and next to
exercise the perceptive and reflective powers of the children, so as to
enable them to distinguish clearly the facts they saw from the visions
they called up before their mind's eye. The appeal to conscience they
left for cases where their child had clearer notions of right and wrong.
Any one of these children would, I believe, at that very time, have
suffered much rather than say what he knew to be false, from any motive
of personal fear or hope. As I said, all these three are now eminently
honourable and trustworthy persons.
The chief final requisite is, of course, conscientiousness. When the
child becomes capable of self-knowledge and self-government, this alone
can be relied on for such a confirmation of the habit of truth telling,
or such a correction of any tendency to inaccuracy, as may carry the
young probationer through all temptations from within and from without,
steady in the practice of strict truth. When all these requisites are
combined,--when the child feels truly, sees truly, and is aware of the
duty of speaking truly, the practice of truthfulness becomes as natural
and unfailing as if it originated in an instinct.
I remember an instance of the strange, unbalanced, unprincipled state of
mind of a child, who was capable of telling a lie, and persisting in it,
at the very time that she was conscientious to excess about some of her
duties, and her sense of justice (in regard to her own rights) ran riot
in her. It is an odd and a sad story; but instructive from its very
strangeness. She was asked by her mother one day whether she had not
played battledore and shuttlecock before breakfast. From some levity or
inattention at the moment, she said "No," and was immediately about to
correct herself when her mother's severe countenance roused her pride
and obstinacy, and she wickedly repeated her denial. Here it was temper
that was the snare. There was nothing to be afraid of in saying the
truth, no reason why she should not. But she had a temper of such pride
and obstinacy that she was aware of even enjoying being punished, as
giving her an opportunity of standing out; while the least word of
appeal to her affections or her conscience, if uttered before her temper
was roused, would melt her in a moment. The question was repeated in
many forms; and still she, with a terrified and miserable conscience,
persisted that she had not played battledore that morning; whereas her
mother had heard it, and knew from her companion who it was that had
played. The lying child was sent to her own room, where she was in
consternation enough till a mistake of management was made which spoiled
everything, and destroyed the lesson to her. She was sent for to read
aloud, before the family, the story of Ananias and Sapphira. She was
sobbing so that the reading was scarcely possible, till her thoughts
took a turn which speedily dried her tears, and filled her with an
insolent indignation which excluded all chance of repentance. She well
knew the story of Ananias and Sapphira; and she happened to have a great
admiration of the plan of the early Christians, of throwing all their
goods into a common stock. She knew that the sin of Ananias and his wife
lay chiefly in the selfish fraud which was the occasion of their lie,
and that their case was therefore no parallel for hers: and in the
indignation of having it supposed that she had sinned in their way,--she
who longed above everything to have been an early Christian (a pretty
subject truly!)--that she could be thought silly enough to suppose that
they were struck dead for their fib, and not for their fraud,--in this
insolent indignation she put her one sin out of sight, and felt herself
an injured person. This adventure certainly did not strengthen her
regard to truth. She dared not state her objection to the story in her
own case: and perhaps she also disdained to do it: she remained sullen;
and her mother had at last to let the matter drop.
This was a case to make any parent's heart sink: but the worse the case,
the more instructive to us now. Here was sufficient moral sense and
insight, in one direction, to hear an appeal, if any had been made.
Disgrace was the worst possible resort, and especially when untenable
ground was taken for it. The best resort would have been a tender and
solemn private conversation, in which the entanglement of passionate
feelings might have been unravelled, and the seat of moral disease have
been explored. When a moral disease so fearful as this appears, parents
should never rest till they have found the seat of it, and convinced the
perilled child of the deadly nature of its malady. In this case, the
child was certainly not half-convinced, and morally worse after the
treatment, while the material for conviction, repentance and
reformation, was in her.
The method of training must depend much on the organisation of the child
in one respect; whether he is ingenuous and frank, or reserved and (I
must say it)--sly. Some children are certainly prone to slyness by
nature; but there is no reason why, under a wise training, they should
not be as honourable as the most ingenuous soul that ever was born. And
they may even, when thoroughly principled, be more reliable than some
open-minded persons, from being more circumspect.
There is something very discouraging in seeing little creatures who
ought to be all fearlessness and confidence hiding things under their
pinafores, or slipping out at the back-door for a walk which they might
have honestly by asking for it; or putting round-about questions when
plain ones would do; or keeping all their little concerns to themselves
while spending their whole lives among brothers and sisters. If one
looks forward to their maturity, one recoils from the image of what they
will be. But they must not grow up with these tendencies. Their fault
may turn to virtue, under wise and gentle treatment. Their confidence
must be tenderly won, and their innocent desires gratified, while every
slyness is quietly shown to be as unavailing as it is disagreeable, and
every movement towards ingenuousness cheerfully and lovingly encouraged.
The child's imagination must be engaged on behalf of everything that is
noble, heroic, and openly glorious before the eyes of men. His
conscience and affections must be appealed to, not in words, but by a
long course of love and trust, to return the trust he receives. Of
course, the parental example must be that of perfect openness and
simplicity; for the sight of mystery and concealment in the house is
enough to make even the ingenuous child sly, through its faculty of
imitation, and its ambition to be old and wise; and much more will it
hinder the expansion of a reserved and cunning child. If these things be
all attended to--if he sees only what is open, free, and simple, and
receives treatment which is open, free, and encouraging, while it
convinces him of a sagacity greater than his own, there is every hope
that he will yield himself to the kindly influences dispensed to him,
and find for himself the comfort and security of ingenuousness, and turn
his secretive ingenuity to purposes of intellectual exercise, where it
may do much good and no harm. That ingenuity and sagacity may be well
employed among the secrets of history, the complexities of the law, or
the mysteries of mechanical construction or chemical analysis, which may
make a man vicious and untrustworthy, if allowed to work in his moral
nature, and to shroud his daily conduct.
As for the training of the candid and ingenuous child, it is of course
far easier and pleasanter; but it must not be supposed that no care is
required to make him truthful. He must be trained to accuracy, or all
his ingenuousness will not save him from saying many a thing which is
not true. Dr. Johnson advised that if a child said he saw a thing out of
one window, when in fact he saw it out of another, he should be set
right. I think the Dr. was right; and that a child should consider no
kind of misstatement a trifle, seeing always that the parents do not. An
open-hearted and ingenuous child is likely to be a great talker; and is
in that way more liable to inaccuracy of statement than a reserved
child. Oh! let his parents guard him well, by making him early the
guardian of the "unruly little member" which may, by neglect, deprive
him of the security and peace which should naturally spread from his
innocent heart through his open and honest life! Let them help him to
add perfect truth of speech to his native truth of heart, and their
promising child cannot but be a happy man.
It may seem wearisome to say so often over that the example of the
parents is the chief influence in the training of the child; but how can
I help saying it when the fact is so? Is it not true that when the
father of a family comes home and talks before his children, every word
sinks into their minds? If he talks banter--banter so broad that his
elder children laugh and understand, how should the little one on its
mother's lap fail to be perplexed and misled? It knows nothing about
banter, and it looks up seriously in its father's face, and believes all
he says, and carries away all manner of absurd ideas. Or, if told not to
believe what he hears, how is he to know henceforth what to believe; and
how can he put trust in his father's words? The turn for exaggeration
which many people have is morally bad for the whole family. It is only
the youngest perhaps who will believe that "it rains cats and dogs"
because somebody says so; but a whole family may be misled by habitual
exaggeration of statement. The consequence is clear. Either they will
take up the habit, from imitation of father or mother, or they will
learn to distrust their fluent parent. But how safe is everything made
by that established habit of truth in a household which acts like an
instinct! If the parents are, as by a natural necessity, always accurate
in what they say, or, if mistaken, thankful to be set right, and eager
to rectify their mistake, the children thrive in an atmosphere of such
sincerity and truth: and any one of them to whom truthfulness may be
constitutionally difficult, has the best chance for the strengthening of
his weakness. Such an one must have sunk under the least aggravation of
his infirmity by the sin of his parents: and the probability is, that
the whole household would have gone down into moral ruin together; for
it cannot be expected that any natural aptitude for truth in children
should improve, or even continue, if discouraged by the example of the
parents who ought to hail it as a blessing upon their house.
Of all happy households, that is the happiest, where falsehood is never
thought of. All peace is broken up when once it appears that there is a
liar in the house. All comfort is gone, when suspicion has once entered;
when there must be reserve in talk, and reservation in belief. Anxious
parents, who are aware of the pains of suspicion, will place generous
confidence in their children, and receive what they say freely, unless
there is strong reason to distrust the truth of any one. If such an
occasion should unhappily arise, they must keep the suspicion from
spreading as long as possible; and avoid disgracing their poor child,
while there is any chance of his cure by their confidential assistance.
He should have their pity and assiduous help, as if he were suffering
under some disgusting bodily disorder. If he can be cured, he will
become duly grateful for the treatment. If the endeavour fails, means
must of course be taken to prevent his example doing harm: and then, as
I said, the family peace is broken up, because the family confidence is
gone.
I fear that, from some cause or another, there are but few large
families where every member is altogether truthful. Some who are not
morally guilty, are intellectually incapable of accuracy. But where all
are so organised and so trained as to be wholly reliable, in act and
word, they are a light to all eyes, and a joy to all hearts. They are a
public benefit; for they are a point of general reliance: and they are
privately blessed, within and without. Without, their life is made easy
by universal trust: and within their home and their hearts, they have
the security of rectitude, and the gladness of innocence. If we do but
invoke wisdom, she will come, and multiply such homes in our land.