{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_988/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_988","id":"gutenberg_988","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/988","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Parenthood & Family Relations","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Psychiatry/Psychology","Category: Teaching & Education","Education"],"text":"Produced by Charles Keller\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE EDUCATION OF THE CHILD\n\nby Ellen Key\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTORY NOTE\n\nEdward Bok, Editor of the \"Ladies' Home Journal,\" writes:\n\n\"Nothing finer on the wise education of the child has ever been brought\ninto print. To me this chapter is a perfect classic; it points the way\nstraight for every parent and it should find a place in every home in\nAmerica where there is a child.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE EDUCATION OF THE CHILD\n\nGoethe showed long ago in his Werther a clear understanding of\nthe significance of individualistic and psychological training, an\nappreciation which will mark the century of the child. In this work he\nshows how the future power of will lies hidden in the characteristics\nof the child, and how along with every fault of the child an uncorrupted\ngerm capable of producing good is enclosed. \"Always,\" he says, \"I repeat\nthe golden words of the teacher of mankind, 'if ye do not become as\none of these,' and now, good friend, those who are our equals, whom we\nshould look upon as our models, we treat as subjects; they should have\nno will of their own; do we have none? Where is our prerogative? Does it\nconsist in the fact that we are older and more experienced? Good God\nof Heaven! Thou seest old and young children, nothing else. And in whom\nThou hast more joy, Thy Son announced ages ago. But people believe in\nHim and do not hear Him--that, too, is an old trouble, and they model\ntheir children after themselves.\" The same criticism might be applied to\nour present educators, who constantly have on their tongues such words\nas evolution, individuality, and natural tendencies, but do not heed\nthe new commandments in which they say they believe. They continue to\neducate as if they believed still in the natural depravity of man, in\noriginal sin, which may be bridled, tamed, suppressed, but not changed.\nThe new belief is really equivalent to Goethe's thoughts given above,\ni.e., that almost every fault is but a hard shell enclosing the germ of\nvirtue. Even men of modern times still follow in education the old rule\nof medicine, that evil must be driven out by evil, instead of the new\nmethod, the system of allowing nature quietly and slowly to help itself,\ntaking care only that the surrounding conditions help the work of\nnature. This is education.\n\nNeither harsh nor tender parents suspect the truth expressed by Carlyle\nwhen he said that the marks of a noble and original temperament are\nwild, strong emotions, that must be controlled by a discipline as hard\nas steel. People either strive to root out passions altogether, or they\nabstain from teaching the child to get them under control.\n\nTo suppress the real personality of the child, and to supplant it with\nanother personality continues to be a pedagogical crime common to\nthose who announce loudly that education should only develop the real\nindividual nature of the child.\n\nThey are still not convinced that egoism on the part of the child is\njustified. Just as little are they convinced of the possibility that\nevil can be changed into good.\n\nEducation must be based on the certainty that faults cannot be atoned\nfor, or blotted out, but must always have their consequences. At\nthe same time, there is the other certainty that through progressive\nevolution, by slow adaptation to the conditions of environment they may\nbe transformed. Only when this stage is reached will education begin to\nbe a science and art. We will then give up all belief in the miraculous\neffects of sudden interference; we shall act in the psychological sphere\nin accordance with the principle of the indestructibility of matter. We\nshall never believe that a characteristic of the soul can be destroyed.\nThere are but two possibilities. Either it can be brought into\nsubjection or it can be raised up to a higher plane.\n\nMadame de Stael's words show much insight when she says that only the\npeople who can play with children are able to educate them. For success\nin training children the first condition is to become as a child\noneself, but this means no assumed childishness, no condescending\nbaby-talk that the child immediately sees through and deeply abhors.\nWhat it does mean is to be as entirely and simply taken up with the\nchild as the child himself is absorbed by his life. It means to\ntreat the child as really one's equal, that is, to show him the same\nconsideration, the same kind confidence one shows to an adult. It means\nnot to influence the child to be what we ourselves desire him to become\nbut to be influenced by the impression of what the child himself is; not\nto treat the child with deception, or by the exercise of force, but with\nthe seriousness and sincerity proper to his own character. Somewhere\nRousseau says that all education has failed in that nature does not\nfashion parents as educators nor children for the sake of education.\nWhat would happen if we finally succeeded in following the directions of\nnature, and recognised that the great secret of education lies hidden in\nthe maxim, \"do not educate\"?\n\nNot leaving the child in peace is the greatest evil of present-day\nmethods of training children. Education is determined to create a\nbeautiful world externally and internally in which the child can grow.\nTo let him move about freely in this world until he comes into contact\nwith the permanent boundaries of another's right will be the end of\nthe education of the future. Only then will adults really obtain a deep\ninsight into the souls of children, now an almost inaccessible kingdom.\nFor it is a natural instinct of self-preservation which causes the child\nto bar the educator from his innermost nature. There is the person who\nasks rude questions; for example, what is the child thinking about? a\nquestion which almost invariably is answered with a black or a white\nlie. The child must protect himself from an educator who would master\nhis thoughts and inclinations, or rudely handle them, who without\nconsideration betrays or makes ridiculous his most sacred feelings, who\nexposes faults or praises characteristics before strangers, or even uses\nan open-hearted, confidential confession as an occasion for reproof at\nanother time.\n\nThe statement that no human being learns to understand another, or at\nleast to be patient with another, is true above all of the intimate\nrelation of child and parent in which, understanding, the deepest\ncharacteristic of love, is almost always absent.\n\nParents do not see that during the whole life the need of peace is\nnever greater than in the years of childhood, an inner peace under all\nexternal unrest. The child has to enter into relations with his own\ninfinite world, to conquer it, to make it the object of his dreams. But\nwhat does he experience? Obstacles, interference, corrections, the whole\nlivelong day. The child is always required to leave something alone,\nor to do something different, to find something different, or want\nsomething different from what he does, or finds, or wants. He is\nalways shunted off in another direction from that towards which his\nown character is leading him. All of this is caused by our tenderness,\nvigilance, and zeal, in directing, advising, and helping the small\nspecimen of humanity to become a complete example in a model series.\n\nI have heard a three-year-old child characterised as \"trying\" because\nhe wanted to go into the woods, whereas the nursemaid wished to drag him\ninto the city. Another child of six years was disciplined because she\nhad been naughty to a playmate and had called her a little pig,--a\nnatural appellation for one who was always dirty. These are typical\nexamples of how the sound instincts of the child are dulled. It was a\nspontaneous utterance: of the childish heart when a small boy, after an\naccount of the heaven of good children, asked his mother whether she\ndid not believe that, after he had been good a whole week in heaven, he\nmight be allowed to go to hell on Saturday evening to play with the bad\nlittle boys there.\n\nThe child felt in its innermost consciousness that he had a right to be\nnaughty, a fundamental right which is accorded to adults; and not only\nto be naughty, but to be naughty in peace, to be left to the dangers and\njoys of naughtiness.\n\nTo call forth from this \"unvirtue\" the complimentary virtue is to\novercome evil with good. Otherwise we overcome natural strength by weak\nmeans and obtain artificial virtues which will not stand the tests which\nlife imposes.\n\nIt seems simple enough when we say that we must overcome evil with good,\nbut practically no process is more involved, or more tedious, than to\nfind actual means to accomplish this end. It is much easier to say what\none shall not do than what one must do to change self-will into\nstrength of character, slyness into prudence, the desire to please\ninto amiability, restlessness into personal initiative. It can only be\nbrought about by recognising that evil, in so far as it is not atavistic\nor perverse, is as natural and indispensable as the good, and that it\nbecomes a permanent evil only through its one-sided supremacy.\n\nThe educator wants the child to be finished at once, and perfect. He\nforces upon the child an unnatural degree of self-mastery, a devotion to\nduty, a sense of honour, habits that adults get out of with astonishing\nrapidity. Where the faults of children are concerned, at home and in\nschool, we strain at gnats, while children daily are obliged to swallow\nthe camels of grown people.\n\nThe art of natural education consists in ignoring the faults of children\nnine times out of ten, in avoiding immediate interference, which is\nusually a mistake, and devoting one's whole vigilance to the control\nof the environment in which the child is growing up, to watching the\neducation which is allowed to go on by itself. But educators who, day in\nand day out, are consciously transforming the environment and themselves\nare still a rare product. Most people live on the capital and interest\nof an education, which perhaps once made them model children, but has\ndeprived them of the desire for educating themselves. Only by keeping\noneself in constant process of growth, under the constant influence of\nthe best things in one's own age, does one become a companion half-way\ngood enough for one's children.\n\nTo bring up a child means carrying one's soul in one's hand, setting\none's feet on a narrow path, it means never placing ourselves in danger\nof meeting the cold look on the part of the child that tells us without\nwords that he finds us insufficient and unreliable. It means the\nhumble realisation of the truth that the ways of injuring the child are\ninfinite, while the ways of being useful to him are few. How seldom does\nthe educator remember that the child, even at four or five years of age,\nis making experiments with adults, seeing through them, with marvellous\nshrewdness making his own valuations and reacting sensitively to each\nimpression. The slightest mistrust, the smallest unkindness, the least\nact of injustice or contemptuous ridicule, leave wounds that last for\nlife in the finely strung soul of the child. While on the other side\nunexpected friendliness, kind advances, just indignation, make quite as\ndeep an impression on those senses which people term as soft as wax but\ntreat as if they were made of cowhide.\n\nRelatively most excellent was the old education which consisted solely\nin keeping oneself whole, pure, and honourable. For it did not at least\ndepreciate personality, although it did not form it. It would be well\nif but a hundredth part of the pains now taken by parents were given to\ninterference with the life of the child and the rest of the ninety\nand nine employed in leading, without interference, in acting as an\nunforeseen, an invisible providence through which the child obtains\nexperience, from which he may draw his own conclusions. The present\npractice is to impress one's own discoveries, opinions, and principles\non the child by constantly directing his actions. The last thing to be\nrealised by the educator is that he really has before him an entirely\nnew soul, a real self whose first and chief right is to think over the\nthings with which he comes in contact. By a new soul he understands only\na new generation of an old humanity to be treated with a fresh dose of\nthe old remedy. We teach the new souls not to steal, not to lie, to save\ntheir clothes, to learn their lessons, to economise their money, to obey\ncommands, not to contradict older people, say their prayers, to fight\noccasionally in order to be strong. But who teaches the new souls to\nchoose for themselves the path they must tread? Who thinks that the\ndesire for this path of their own can be so profound that a hard or\neven mild pressure towards uniformity can make the whole of childhood a\ntorment.\n\nThe child comes into life with the inheritance of the preceding members\nof the race; and this inheritance is modified by adaptation to the\nenvironment. But the child shows also individual variations from the\ntype of the species, and if his own character is not to disappear during\nthe process of adaptation, all self-determined development of energy\nmust be aided in every way and only indirectly influenced by the\nteacher, who should understand how to combine and emphasise the results\nof this development.\n\nInterference on the part of the educator, whether by force or\npersuasion, weakens this development if it does not destroy it\naltogether.\n\nThe habits of the household, and the child's habits in it must be\nabsolutely fixed if they are to be of any value. Amiel truly says that\nhabits are principles which have become instincts, and have passed over\ninto flesh and blood. To change habits, he continues, means to attack\nlife in its very essence, for life is only a web of habits.\n\nWhy does everything remain essentially the same from generation to\ngeneration? Why do highly civilised Christian people continue to plunder\none another and call it exchange, to murder one another en masse, and\ncall it nationalism, to oppress one another and call it statesmanship?\n\nBecause in every new generation the impulses supposed to have been\nrooted out by discipline in the child, break forth again, when the\nstruggle for existence--of the individual in society, of the society in\nthe life of the state--begins. These passions are not transformed by the\nprevalent education of the day, but only repressed. Practically this\nis the reason why not a single savage passion has been overcome in\nhumanity. Perhaps man-eating may be mentioned as an exception. But what\nis told of European ship companies or Siberian prisoners shows that\neven this impulse, under conditions favourable to it, may be revived,\nalthough in the majority of people a deep physical antipathy to\nman-eating is innate. Conscious incest, despite similar deviations, must\nalso be physically contrary to the majority, and in a number of women,\nmodesty--the unity between body and soul in relation to love--is an\nincontestable provision of nature. So too a minority would find\nit physically impossible to murder or steal. With this list I have\nexhausted everything which mankind, since its conscious history began,\nhas really so intimately acquired that the achievement is passed on\nin its flesh and blood. Only this kind of conquest can really stand up\nagainst temptation in every form.\n\nA deep physiological truth is hidden in the use of language when one\nspeaks of unchained passions; the passions, under the prevailing system\nof education, are really only beasts of prey imprisoned in cages.\n\nWhile fine words are spoken about individual development, children are\ntreated as if their personality had no purpose of its own, as if they\nwere made only for the pleasure, pride, and comfort of their parents;\nand as these aims are best advanced when children become like every one\nelse, people usually begin by attempting to make them respectable and\nuseful members of society.\n\nBut the only correct starting point, so far as a child's education in\nbecoming a social human being is concerned, is to treat him as such,\nwhile strengthening his natural disposition to become an individual\nhuman being.\n\nThe new educator will, by regularly ordered experience, teach the child\nby degrees his place in the great orderly system of existence; teach him\nhis responsibility towards his environment. But in other respects, none\nof the individual characteristics of the child expressive of his life\nwill be suppressed, so long as they do not injure the child himself, or\nothers. The right balance must be kept between Spencer's definition\nof life as an adaptation to surrounding conditions, and Nietzsche's\ndefinition of it as the will to secure power.\n\nIn adaptation, imitation certainly plays a great role, but individual\nexercise of power is just as important. Through adaptation life attains\na fixed form; through exercise of power, new factors.\n\nThoughtful people, as I have already stated, talk a good deal about\npersonality. But they are, nevertheless, filled with doubts when their\nchildren are not just like all other children; when they cannot show in\ntheir offspring all the ready-made virtues required by society. And so\nthey drill their children, repressing in childhood the natural instincts\nwhich will have freedom when they are grown. People still hardly realise\nhow new human beings are formed; therefore the old types constantly\nrepeat themselves in the same circle,--the fine young men, the sweet\ngirls, the respectable officials, and so on. And new types with\nhigher ideals,--travellers on unknown paths, thinkers of yet unthought\nthoughts, people capable of the crime of inaugurating new ways,--such\ntypes rarely come into existence among those who are well brought up.\n\nNature herself, it is true, repeats the main types constantly. But she\nalso constantly makes small deviations. In this way different species,\neven of the human race, have come into existence. But man himself does\nnot yet see the significance of this natural law in his own higher\ndevelopment. He wants the feelings, thoughts, and judgments already\nstamped with approval to be reproduced by each new generation. So we get\nno new individuals, but only more or less prudent, stupid, amiable, or\nbad-tempered examples of the genus man. The still living instincts\nof the ape, double, in the case of man, the effect of heredity.\nConservatism is for the present stronger in mankind than the effort to\nproduce new types. But this last characteristic is the most valuable.\nThe educator should do anything but advise the child to do what\neverybody does. He should rather rejoice when he sees in the child\ntendencies to deviation. Using other people's opinion as a standard\nresults in subordinating one's self to their will. So we become a part\nof the great mass, led by the Superman through the strength of his will,\na will which could not have mastered strong personalities. It has been\njustly remarked that individual peoples, like the English, have attained\nthe greatest political and social freedom, because the personal feeling\nof independence is far in excess of freedom in a legal form. Accordingly\nlegal freedom has been constantly growing.\n\nFor the progress of the whole of the species, as well as of society, it\nis essential that education shall awake the feeling of independence; it\nshould invigorate and favour the disposition to deviate from the type\nin those cases where the rights of others are not affected, or where\ndeviation is not simply the result of the desire to draw attention to\noneself. The child should be given the chance to declare conscientiously\nhis independence of a customary usage, of an ordinary feeling, for this\nis the foundation of the education of an individual, as well as the\nbasis of a collective conscience, which is the only kind of conscience\nmen now have. What does having an individual conscience mean? It means\nsubmitting voluntarily to an external law, attested and found good by\nmy own conscience. It means unconditionally heeding the unwritten law,\nwhich I lay upon myself, and following this inner law even when I must\nstand alone against the whole world.\n\nIt is a frequent phenomenon, we can almost call it a regular one, that\nit is original natures, particularly talented beings, who are badly\ntreated at home and in school. No one considers the sources of conduct\nin a child who shows fear or makes a noise, or who is absorbed in\nhimself, or who has an impetuous nature. Mothers and teachers show in\nthis their pitiable incapacity for the most elementary part in the art\nof education, that is, to be able to see with their own eyes, not with\npedagogical doctrines in their head.\n\nI naturally expect in the supporters of society, with their conventional\nmorality, no appreciation of the significance of the child's putting\ninto exercise his own powers. Just as little is this to be expected of\nthose Christian believers who think that human nature must be brought\nto repentance and humility, and that the sinful body, the unclean beast,\nmust be tamed with the rod,--a theory which the Bible is brought to\nsupport.\n\nI am only addressing people who can think new thoughts and consequently\nshould cease using old methods of education. This class may reply that\nthe new ideas in education cannot be carried out. But the obstacle is\nsimply that their new thoughts have not made them into new men; the old\nman in them has neither repose, nor time, nor patience, to form his own\nsoul, and that of the child, according to the new thoughts.\n\nThose who have \"tried Spencer and failed,\" because Spencer's method\ndemands intelligence and patience, contend that the child must be taught\nto obey, that truth lies in the old rule, \"As the twig is bent the tree\nis inclined.\"\n\nBENT is the appropriate word, bent according to the old ideal which\nextinguishes personality, teaches humility and obedience. But the new\nideal is that man, to stand straight and upright, must not be bent at\nall only supported, and so prevented from being deformed by weakness.\n\nOne often finds, in the modern system of training, the crude desire for\nmastery still alive and breaking out when the child is obstinate. \"You\nwon't!\" say father and mother; \"I will teach you whether you have a\nwill. I will soon drive self-will out of you.\" But nothing can be driven\nout of the child; on the other hand, much can be scourged into it which\nshould be kept far away.\n\nOnly during the first few years of life is a kind of drill necessary, as\na pre-condition to a higher training. The child is then in such a high\ndegree controlled by sensation, that a slight physical pain or pleasure\nis often the only language he fully understands. Consequently for some\nchildren discipline is an indispensable means of enforcing the practice\nof certain habits. For other children, the stricter methods are entirely\nunnecessary even at this early age, and as soon as the child can\nremember a blow, he is too old to receive one.\n\nThe child must certainly learn obedience, and, besides, this obedience\nmust be absolute. If such obedience has become habitual from the\ntenderest age, a look, a word, an intonation is enough to keep the child\nstraight. The dissatisfaction of those who are bringing him up can\nonly be made effective when it falls as a shadow in the usual sunny\natmosphere of home. And if people refrain from laying the foundations of\nobedience while the child is small, and his naughtiness is entertaining,\nSpencer's method undoubtedly will be found unsuitable after the child is\nolder and his caprice disagreeable.\n\nWith a very small child, one should not argue, but act consistently\nand immediately. The effort of training should be directed at an early\nperiod to arrange the experiences in a consistent whole of impressions\naccording to Rousseau and Spencer's recommendation. So certain habits\nwill become impressed in the flesh and blood of the child.\n\nConstant crying on the part of small children must be corrected when it\nhas become clear that the crying is not caused by illness or some\nother discomfort,--discomforts against which crying is the child's only\nweapon. Crying is now ordinarily corrected by blows. But this does not\nmaster the will of the child, and only produces in his soul the idea\nthat older people strike small children, when small children cry.\nThis is not an ethical idea. But when the crying child is immediately\nisolated, and it is explained to him at the same time that whoever\nannoys others must not be with them; if this isolation is the absolute\nresult, and cannot be avoided, in the child's mind a basis is laid for\nthe experience that one must be alone when one makes oneself unpleasant\nor disagreeable. In both cases the child is silenced by interfering with\nhis comfort; but one type of discomfort is the exercise of force on\nhis will; the other produces slowly the self-mastery of the will,\nand accomplishes this by a good motive. One method encourages a base\nemotion, fear. The other corrects the will in a way that combines it\nwith one of the most important experiences of life. The one punishment\nkeeps the child on the level of the animal. The other impresses upon him\nthe great principle of human social life, that when our pleasure\ncauses displeasure to others, other people hinder us from following our\npleasures; or withdraw themselves from the exercise of our self-will.\nIt is necessary that small children should accustom themselves to\ngood behaviour at table, etc. If every time an act of naughtiness is\nrepeated, the child is immediately taken away, he will soon learn\nthat whoever is disagreeable to others must remain alone. Thus a right\napplication is made of a right principle. Small children, too, must\nlearn not to touch what belongs to other people. If every time anything\nis touched without permission, children lose their freedom of action one\nway or another, they soon learn that a condition of their free action is\nnot to injure others.\n\nIt is quite true, as a young mother remarked, that empty Japanese rooms\nare ideal places in which to bring up children. Our modern crowded rooms\nare, so far as children are concerned, to be condemned. During the year\nin which the real education of the child is proceeding by touching,\ntasting, biting, feeling, and so on, every moment he is hearing the\ncry, \"Let it alone.\" For the temperament of the child as well as for\nthe development of his powers, the best thing is a large, light nursery,\nadorned with handsome lithographs, wood-cuts, and so on, provided\nwith some simple furniture, where he may enjoy the fullest freedom of\nmovement. But if the child is there with his parents and is disobedient,\na momentary reprimand is the best means to teach him to reverence the\ngreater world in which the will of others prevails, the world in which\nthe child certainly can make a place for himself but must also learn\nthat every place occupied by him has its limits.\n\nIf it is a case of a danger, which it is desirable that the child\nshould really dread, we must allow the thing itself to have an alarming\ninfluence. When a mother strikes a child because he touches the light,\nthe result is that he does this again when the mother is away. But let\nhim burn himself with the light, then he is certain to leave it alone.\nIn riper years when a boy misuses a knife, a toy, or something similar,\nthe loss of the object for the time being must be the punishment. Most\nboys would prefer corporal punishment to the loss of their favourite\npossession. But only the loss of it will be a real education through\nexperience of one of the inevitable rules of life, an experience which\ncannot be too strongly impressed.\n\nWe hear parents who have begun with Spencer and then have taken to\ncorporal punishment declare that when children are too small to repair\nthe clothing which they have torn there must be some other kind of\npunishment. But at that age they should not be punished at all for such\nthings. They should have such simple and strong clothes that they can\nplay freely in them. Later on, when they can be really careful, the\nnatural punishment would be to have the child remain at home if he is\ncareless, has spotted his clothes, or torn them. He must be shown that\nhe must help to put his clothes in good condition again, or that he will\nbe compelled to buy what he has destroyed carelessly with money earned\nby himself. If the child is not careful, he must stay at home, when\nordinarily allowed to go out, or eat alone if he is too late for meals.\nIt may be said that there are simple means by which all the important\nhabits of social life may become a second nature. But it is not possible\nin all cases to apply Spencer's method. The natural consequences\noccasionally endanger the health of the child, or sometimes are too\nslow in their action. If it seems necessary to interfere directly, such\naction must be consistent, quick, and immutable. How is it that the\nchild learns very soon that fire burns? Because fire does so always.\nBut the mother who at one time strikes, at another threatens, at another\nbribes the child, first forbids and then immediately after permits some\naction; who does not carry out her threat, does not compel obedience,\nbut constantly gabbles and scolds; who sometimes acts in one way and\njust as often in another, has not learned the effective educational\nmethods of the fire.\n\nThe old-fashioned strict training that in its crude way gave to the\ncharacter a fixed type rested on its consistent qualities. It was\nconsistently strict, not as at present a lax hesitation between all\nkinds of pedagogical methods and psychological opinions, in which the\nchild is thrown about here and there like a ball, in the hands of grown\npeople; at one time pushed forward, then laughed at, then pushed aside,\nonly to be brought back again, kissed till it, is disgusted, first\nordered about, and then coaxed. A grown man would become insane if\njoking Titans treated him for a single day as a child is treated for\na year. A child should not be ordered about, but should be just as\ncourteously addressed as a grown person in order that he may learn\ncourtesy. A child should never be pushed into notice, never compelled to\nendure caresses, never overwhelmed with kisses, which ordinarily torment\nhim and are often the cause of sexual hyperaesthesia. The child's\ndemonstrations of affection should be reciprocated when they are\nsincere, but one's own demonstrations should be reserved for special\noccasions. This is one of the many excellent maxims of training that are\ndisregarded. Nor should the child be forced to express regret in begging\npardon and the like. This is excellent training for hypocrisy. A small\nchild once had been rude to his elder brother and was placed upon a\nchair to repent his fault. When the mother after a time asked if he\nwas sorry, he answered, \"Yes,\" with emphasis, but as the mother saw a\nmutinous sparkle in his eyes she felt impelled to ask, \"Sorry for what?\"\nand the youngster broke out, \"Sorry that I did not call him a liar\nbesides.\" The mother was wise enough on this occasion, and ever after,\nto give up insisting on repentance.\n\nSpontaneous penitence is full of significance, it is a deeply felt\ndesire for pardon. But an artificial emotion is always and everywhere\nworthless. Are you not sorry? Does it make no difference to you that\nyour mother is ill, your brother dead, your father away from home? Such\nexpressions are often used as an appeal to the emotions of children. But\nchildren have a right to have feelings, or not have them, and to have\nthem as undisturbed as grown people. The same holds good of their\nsympathies and antipathies. The sensitive feelings of children are\nconstantly injured by lack of consideration on the part of grown people,\ntheir easily stimulated aversions are constantly being brought out. But\nthe sufferings of children through the crudeness of their elders belong\nto an unwritten chapter of child psychology. Just as there are few\nbetter methods of training than to ask children, when they have behaved\nunjustly to others, to consider whether it would be pleasant for them to\nbe treated in that way, so there is no better corrective for the trainer\nof children than the habit of asking oneself, in question small and\ngreat,--Would I consent to be treated as I have just treated my child?\nIf it were only remembered that the child generally suffers double as\nmuch as the adult, parents would perhaps learn physical and psychical\ntenderness without which a child's life is a constant torment.\n\nAs to presents, the same principle holds good as with emotions and marks\nof tenderness. Only by example can generous instincts be provoked. Above\nall the child should not be allowed to have things which he immediately\ngives away. Gifts to a child should always imply a personal requital\nfor work or sacrifice. In order to secure for children the pleasure of\ngiving and the opportunity of obtaining small pleasures and enjoyments,\nas well as of replacing property of their own or of others which they\nmay have destroyed, they should at an early age be accustomed to perform\nseriously certain household duties for which they receive some small\nremuneration. But small occasional services, whether volunteered or\nasked for by others, should never be rewarded. Only readiness to serve,\nwithout payment, develops the joy of generosity. When the child wants to\ngive away something, people should not make a presence of receiving\nit. This produces the false conception in his mind that the pleasure of\nbeing generous can be had for nothing. At every step the child should be\nallowed to meet the real experiences of life; the thorns should never be\nplucked from his roses. This is what is least understood in present-day\ntraining. Thus we see reasonable methods constantly failing. People find\nthemselves forced to \"afflictive\" methods which stand in no relation\nwith the realities of life. I mean, above all, what are still called\nmeans of education, instead of means of torture,--blows.\n\nMany people of to-day defend blows, maintaining that they are milder\nmeans of punishment than the natural consequences of an act; that blows\nhave the strongest effect on the memory, which effect becomes permanent\nthrough association of ideas.\n\nBut what kinds of association? Is it not with physical pain and shame?\nGradually, step by step, this method of training and discipline has\nbeen superseded in all its forms. The movement to abolish torture,\nimprisonment, and corporal punishment failed for a long time owing to\nthe conviction that they were indispensable as methods of discipline.\nBut the child, people answer, is still an animal, he must be brought up\nas an animal. Those who talk in this way know nothing of children nor of\nanimals. Even animals can be trained without striking them, but they can\nonly be trained by men who have become men themselves.\n\nOthers come forward with the doctrine that terror and pain have been the\nbest means of educating mankind, so the child must pursue the same road\nas humanity. This is an utter absurdity. We should also, on this theory,\nteach our children, as a natural introduction to religion, to practice\nfetish worship. If the child is to reproduce all the lower development\nstages of the race, he would be practically depressed beneath the level\nwhich he has reached physiologically and psychologically through the\ncommon inheritance of the race. If we have abandoned torture and painful\npunishments for adults, while they are retained for children, it is\nbecause we have not yet seen that their soul life so far as a greater\nand more subtle capacity for suffering is concerned has made the same\nprogress as that of adult mankind. The numerous cases of child suicide\nin the last decade were often the result of fear of corporal punishment;\nor have taken place after its administration. Both soul and body are\nequally affected by this practice. Where this is not the result, blows\nhave even more dangerous consequences. They tend to dull still further\nthe feeling of shame, to increase the brutality or cowardice of the\nperson punished. I once heard a child pointed out in a school as being\nso unruly that it was generally agreed he would be benefited by a\nflogging. Then it was discovered that his father's flogging at home had\nmade him what he was. If statistics were prepared of ruined sons, those\nwho had been flogged would certainly be more numerous than those who had\nbeen pampered.\n\nSociety has gradually given up employing retributive punishments because\npeople have seen that they neither awaken the feeling of guilt, nor\nact as a deterrent, but on the contrary retribution applied by equal to\nequal brutalises the ideas of right, hardens the temper, and stimulates\nthe victim to exercise the same violence towards others that has been\nendured by himself. But other rules are applied to the psychological\nprocesses of the child. When a child strikes his small sister the mother\nstrikes him and believes that he will see and understand the difference\nbetween the blows he gets and those he gives, that he will see that the\none is a just punishment and the other vicious conduct. But the child\nis a sharp logician and feels that the action is just the same, although\nthe mother gives it a different name.\n\nCorporal punishment was long ago admirably described by Comenius, who\ncompared an educator using this method with a musician striking a badly\ntuned instrument with his fist, instead of using his ears and his hands\nto put it into tune.\n\nThese brutal attacks work on the active sensitive feelings, lacerating\nand confusing them. They have no educative power on all the innumerable\nfine processes in the life of the child's soul, on their obscurely\nrelated combinations.\n\nIn order to give real training, the first thing after the second\nor third year is to abandon the very thought of a blow among the\npossibilities of education. It is best if parents, as soon as the child\nis born, agree never to strike him, for if they once begin with this\nconvenient and easy method, they continue to use corporal discipline\neven contrary to their first intention, because they have failed while\nusing such punishment to develop the child's intelligence.\n\nIf people do not see this it is no more use to speak to them of\neducation than it would be to talk to a cannibal about the world's\npeace.\n\nBut as these savages in educational matters are often civilised human\nbeings in other respects, I should like to request them to think over\nthe development of marriage from the time when man wooed with a club and\nwhen woman was regarded as the soulless property of man, only to be kept\nin order by blows, a view which continued to be held until modern times.\nThrough a thousand daily secret influences, our feelings and ideas have\nbeen so transformed that these crude conceptions have disappeared, to\nthe great advantage of society and the individual. But it may be hard\nto awaken a pedagogical savage to the conviction that, in quite the same\nway, a thousand new secret and mighty influences will change our crude\nmethods of education, when parents once come to see that parenthood must\ngo through the same transformation as marriage, before it attains to a\nnoble and complete development.\n\nOnly when men realise that whipping a child belongs to the same low\nstage of civilisation as beating a woman, or a servant, or as the\ncorporal punishment of soldiers and criminals, will the first real\npreparation begin of the material from which perhaps later an educator\nmay be formed.\n\nCorporal punishment was natural in rough times. The body is tangible;\nwhat affects it has an immediate and perceptible result. The heat of\npassion is cooled by the blows it administers; in a certain stage of\ndevelopment blows are the natural expression of moral indignation, the\ndirect method by which the moral will impresses itself on beings of\nlower capacities. But it has since been discovered that the soul may be\nimpressed by spiritual means, and that blows are just as demoralising\nfor the one who gives them as for the one who receives them.\n\nThe educator, too, is apt to forget that the child in many cases has\nas few moral conceptions as the animal or the savage. To punish for\nthis--is only a cruelty, and to punish by brutal methods is a piece\nof stupidity. It works against the possibility of elevating the child\nbeyond the level of the beast or the savage. The educator to whose mind\nflogging never presents itself, even as an occasional resource, will\nnaturally direct his whole thought to finding psychological methods of\neducation. Administering corporal punishment demoralises and stupefies\nthe educator, for it increases his thoughtlessness, not his patience,\nhis brutality, not his intelligence.\n\nA small boy friend of mine when four years old received his first\npunishment of this kind; happily it was his only one. As his nurse\nreminded him in the evening to say his prayers he broke out, \"Yes,\nto-night I really have something to tell God,\" and prayed with deep\nearnestness, \"Dear God, tear mamma's arms out so that she cannot beat me\nany more.\"\n\nNothing would more effectively further the development of education than\nfor all flogging pedagogues to meet this fate. They would then learn\nto educate with the head instead of with the hand. And as to public\neducators, the teachers, their position could be no better raised than\nby legally forbidding a blow to be administered in any school under\npenalty of final loss of position.\n\nThat people who are in other respects intelligent and sensitive continue\nto defend flogging, is due to the fact that most educators have only a\nvery elementary conception of their work. They should constantly keep\nbefore them the feelings and impressions of their own childhood in\ndealing with children. The most frequent as well as the most dangerous\nof the numerous mistakes made in handling children is that people do\nnot remember how they felt themselves at a similar age, that they do\nnot regard and comprehend the feelings of the child from their own past\npoint of view. The adult laughs or smiles in remembering the punishments\nand other things which caused him in his childhood anxious days or\nnights, which produced the silent torture of the child's heart, infinite\ndespondency, burning indignation, lonely fears, outraged sense of\njustice, the terrible creations of his imagination, his absurd shame,\nhis unsatisfied thirst for joy, freedom, and tenderness. Lacking these\nbeneficent memories, adults constantly repeat the crime of destroying\nthe childhood of the new generation,--the only time in life in which the\nguardian of education can really be a kindly providence. So strongly do\nI feel that the unnecessary sufferings of children are unnatural as well\nas ignoble that I experience physical disgust in touching the hand of a\nhuman being that I know has struck a child; and I cannot close my\neyes after I have heard a child in the street threatened with corporal\npunishment.\n\nBlows call forth the virtues of slaves, not those of freemen. As early\nas Walther von der Vogelweide, it was known that the honourable man\nrespects a word more than a blow. The exercise of physical force\ndelivers the weak and unprotected into the hands of the strong. A child\nnever believes in his heart, though he may be brought to acknowledge\nverbally, that the blows were due to love, that they were administered\nbecause they were necessary. The child is too keen not to know that such\na \"must\" does not exist, and that love can express itself in a better\nway.\n\nLack of self-discipline, of intelligence, of patience, of personal\neffort--these are the corner-stones on which corporal punishment rests.\nI do not now refer to the system of flogging employed by miserable\npeople year in and year out at home, or, particularly in schools, that\nof beating children outrageously, or to the limits of brutality. I\ndo not mean even the less brutal blows administered by undisciplined\nteachers and parents, who avenge themselves in excesses of passion or\nfatigue or disgust,--blows which are simply the active expression of a\ntension of nerves, a detestable evidence of the want of self-discipline\nand selfculture. Still less do I refer to the cruelties committed by\nmonsters, sexual perverts, whose brutal tendencies are stimulated\nby their disciplinary power and who use it to force their victims to\nsilence, as certain criminal trials have shown.\n\nI am only speaking of conscientious, amiable parents and teachers who,\nwith pain to themselves, fulfil what they regard as their duty to the\nchild. These are accustomed to adduce the good effects of corporal\ndiscipline as a proof that it cannot be dispensed with. The child by\nbeing whipped is, they say, not only made good but freed from his evil\ncharacter, and shows by his whole being that this quick and summary\nmethod of punishment has done more than talks, and patience, and the\nslowly working penalties of experience. Examples are adduced to prove\nthat only this kind of punishment breaks down obstinacy, cures the habit\nof lying and the like. Those who adopt this system do not perceive that\nthey have only succeeded, through this momentarily effective means,\nin repressing the external expression of an evil will. They have\nnot succeeded in transforming the will itself. It requires constant\nvigilance, daily self-discipline, to create an ever higher capacity for\nthe discovery of intelligent methods. The fault that is repressed is\ncertain to appear on every occasion when the child dares to show it.\nThe educator who finds in corporal punishment a short way to get rid\nof trouble, leads the child a long way round, if we have the only real\ndevelopment in view, namely that which gradually strengthens the child's\ncapacity for self-control.\n\nI have never heard a child over three years old threatened with corporal\npunishment without noticing that this wonderfully moral method had an\nequally bad influence on parents and children. The same can be said of\nmilder kinds of folly, coaxing children by external rewards. I have seen\nsome children coaxed to take baths and others compelled by threats. But\nin neither case was their courage, or self-control, or strength of will\nincreased. Only when one is able to make the bath itself attractive is\nthat energy of will developed that gains a victory over the feeling of\nfear or discomfort and produces a real ethical impression, viz., that\nvirtue is its own reward. Wherever a child is deterred from a bad habit\nor fault by corporal punishment, a real ethical result is not reached.\nThe child has only learnt to fear an unpleasant consequence, which lacks\nreal connection with the thing itself, a consequence it well knows\ncould have been absent. Such fear is as far removed as heaven from the\nconviction that the good is better than the bad. The child soon becomes\nconvinced that the disagreeable accompaniment is no necessary result of\nthe action, that by greater cleverness the punishment might have been\navoided. Thus the physical punishment increases deception not morality.\nIn the history of humanity the effect of the teaching about hell and\nfear of hell illustrates the sort of morality produced in children's\nsouls by corporal punishment, that inferno of childhood. Only with the\ngreatest trouble, slowly and unconsciously, is the conviction of the\nsuperiority of the good established. The good comes to be seen as more\nproductive of happiness to the individual himself and his environment.\nSo the child learns to love the good. By teaching the child that\npunishment is a consequence drawn upon oneself he learns to avoid the\ncause of punishment.\n\nDespite all the new talk of individuality the greatest mistake in\ntraining children is still that of treating the \"child\" as an abstract\nconception, as an inorganic or personal material to be formed and\ntransformed by the hands of those who are educating him. He is beaten,\nand it is thought that the whole effect of the blow stops at the moment\nwhen the child is prevented from being bad. He has, it is thought, a\npowerful reminder against future bad behaviour. People no not suspect\nthat this violent interference in the physical and psychical life of\nthe child may have lifelong effects. As far back as forty years ago,\na writer showed that corporal punishment had the most powerful somatic\nstimulative effects. The flagellation of the Middle Ages is known to\nhave had such results; and if I could publish what I have heard from\nadults as to the effect of corporal punishment on them, or what I have\nobserved in children, this alone would be decisive in doing away with\nsuch punishment in its crudest form. It very deeply influences the\npersonal modesty of the child. This should be preserved above everything\nas the main factor in the development of the feeling of purity. The\nfather who punishes his daughter in this way deserves to see her some\nday a \"fallen woman.\" He injures her instinctive feeling of the sanctity\nof her body, an instinct which even in the case of a small child can\nbe passionately profound. Only when every infringement of sanctity\n(forcible caressing is as bad as a blow) evokes an energetic,\ninstinctive repulsion, is the nature of the child proud and pure.\nChildren who strike back when they are punished have the most promising\ncharacters of all.\n\nNumerous are the cases in which bodily punishment can occasion\nirremediable damage, not suspected by the person who administers it,\nthough he may triumphantly declare how the punishment in the specific\ncase has helped. Most adults feel free to tell how a whipping has\ninjured them in one way or another, but when they take up the training\nof their own children they depend on the effect of such chastisement.\n\nWhat burning bitterness and desire for vengeance, what canine fawning\nflattery, does not corporal punishment call forth. It makes the lazy\nlazier, the obstinate more obstinate, the hard, harder. It strengthens\nthose two emotions, the root of almost all evil in the world, hatred and\nfear. And as long as blows are made synonymous with education, both of\nthese emotions will keep their mastery over men.\n\nOne of the most frequent occasions for recourse to this punishment is\nobstinacy, but what is called obstinacy is only fear or incapacity.\nThe child repeats a false answer, is threatened with blows, and again\nrepeats it just because he is afraid not to say the right thing. He\nis struck and then answers rightly. This is a triumph of education;\nrefractoriness is overcome. But what has happened? Increased fear\nhas led to a strong effort of thought, to a momentary increase of\nself-control. The next day the child will very likely repeat the fault.\nWhere there is real obstinacy on the part of children, I know of cases\nwhen corporal punishment has filled them with the lust to kill, either\nthemselves or the person who strikes them. On the other hand I know of\nothers, where a mother has brought an obstinate child to repentance and\nself-mastery by holding him quietly and calmly on her knees.\n\nHow many untrue confessions have been forced by fear of blows; how\nmuch daring passion for action, spirit of adventure, play of fancy, and\nstimulus to discovery has been repressed by this same fear. Even\nwhere blows do not cause lying, they always hinder absolute\nstraightforwardness and the down-right personal courage to show oneself\nas one is. As long as the word \"blow\" is used at all in a home, no\nperfect honour will be found in children. So long as the home and the\nschool use this method of education, brutality will be developed in the\nchild himself at the cost of humanity. The child uses on animals, on\nhis young brothers and sisters, on his comrades, the methods applied to\nhimself. He puts in practice the same argument, that \"badness\" must be\ncured with blows. Only children accustomed to be treated mildly, learn\nto see that influence can be gained without using force. To see this\nis one of man's privileges, sacrificed by man through descending to the\nmethods of the brute. Only by the child seeing his teacher always and\neverywhere abstaining from the use of actual force, will he come himself\nto despise force on all those occasions which do not involve the defence\nof a weaker person against physical superiority. The foundation of the\ndesire for war is to be sought for less in the war games than in the\nteachers' rod.\n\nTo defend corporal discipline, children's own statements are brought\nin evidence, they are reported as saying they knew they deserved such\ndiscipline in order to be made good. There is no lower example of\nhypocrisy in human nature than this. It is true the child may be sincere\nin other cases in saying that he feels that through punishment he has\natoned for a fault which was weighing upon his conscience. But this is\nreally the foundation of a false system of ethics, the kind which still\ncontinues to be preached as Christian, namely; that a fault may be\natoned for by sufferings which are not directly connected with the\nfault. The basis of the new morality is just the opposite as I have\nalready shown. It teaches that no fault can be atoned for, that no one\ncan escape the results of his actions in any way.\n\nUntruthfulness belongs to the faults which the teacher thinks he must\nmost frequently punish with blows. But there is no case in which this\nmethod is more dangerous.\n\nWhen the much-needed guide-book for parents is published, the\nwell-known story of George Washington and the hatchet must appear in it,\naccompanied by the remark which a clever ten-year-old child added to the\nanecdote: \"It is no trouble telling the truth when one has such a kind\nfather.\"\n\nI formerly divided untruthfulness into unwilling, shameless, and\nimaginative lies. A short time ago I ran across a much better division\nof lying; first \"cold\" lies, that is, fully conscious untruthfulness\nwhich must be punished, and \"hot\" lies; the expression of an excited\ntemperament or of a vigorous fancy. I agree with the author of this\ndistinction that the last should not be punished but corrected, though\nnot with a pedantic rule of thumb measure, based on how much it exceeds\nor falls short of truth. It is to be cured by ridicule, a dangerous\nmethod of education in general, but useful when one observes that this\ntype of untruthfulness threatens to develop into real untrustworthiness.\nIn dealing with these faults we are very strict towards children, so\nstrict that no lawyer, no politician, no journalist, no poet, could\nexercise his profession if the same standard were applied to them as to\nchildren.\n\nThe white lie is, as a French scientist has shown, partly caused by pure\nmorbidness, partly through some defect in the conception. It is due\nto an empty space, a dead point in memory, or in consciousness, that\nproduces a defective idea or gives one no idea at all of what has\nhappened. In the affairs of everyday life the adults are often mistaken\nas to their intentions or acts. They may have forgotten about their\nactions, and it requires a strong effort of memory to call them back\ninto their minds; or they suggest to themselves that they have done, or\nnot done, something. In all of these cases, if they were forced to give\na distinct answer, they would lie. In every case of this kind, where a\nchild is concerned, the lie is assumed to be a conscious one, and when\non being submitted to a strict cross-examination, he hesitates, becomes\nconfused, and blushes, it is looked upon as a proof that he knows he has\nbeen telling an untruth, although as a rule there has been no instance\nof untruthfulness, except the finally extorted confession from the child\nthat he has lied. Yet in all these complicated psychological problems,\ncorporal punishment is treated as a solution.\n\nThe child who never hears lying at home, who does not see exaggerated\nweight placed on small, merely external things, who is not made cowardly\nby fear, who hears conscious lies always spoken of with contempt, will\nget out of the habit of untruthfulness simply by psychological means.\nFirst he will find that untruthfulness causes astonishment, and a\nrepetition of it, scorn and lack of confidence. But these methods should\nnot be applied to untruthfulness caused by distress or by richness of\nimagination; or to such cases as originate from the obscure mental ideas\nnoted above, ideas whose connection with one another the child cannot\nmake clear to himself. The cold untruth on the other hand, must be\npunished; first by going over it with the child, then letting him\nexperience its effect in lack of confidence, which will only be restored\nwhen the child shows decided improvement in this regard. It is of the\ngreatest importance to show children full and unlimited confidence,\neven though one quietly maintains an attitude of alert watchfulness; for\ncontinuous and undeserved mistrust is just as demoralising as blind and\neasy confidence.\n\nNo one who has been beaten for lying learns by it to love truth. The\naccuracy of this principle is illustrated by adults who despise corporal\npunishment in their childhood yet continue to tell untruths by word\nand deed. Fear may keep the child from technical untruth, but fear also\nproduces untrustworthiness. Those who have been beaten in childhood for\nlying have often suffered a serious injury immeasurably greater than\nthe direct lie. The truest men I ever knew lie voluntarily and\ninvoluntarily; while others who might never be caught in a lie are\nthoroughly false.\n\nThis corruption of personality begins frequently at the tenderest\nage under the influence of early training. Children are given untrue\nmotives, half-true information; are threatened, admonished. The child's\nwill, thought, and feeling are oppressed; against this treatment\ndishonesty is the readiest method of defence. In this way educators\nwho make truth their highest aim, make children untruthful. I watched\na child who was severely punished for denying something he had\nunconsciously done, and noted how under the influence of this senseless\npunishment he developed extreme dissimulation.\n\nTruthfulness requires above everything unbroken determination; and many\nnervous little liars need nourishing food and life in the open air, not\nblows. A great artist, one of the few who live wholly according to the\nmodern principles of life, said to me on one occasion: \"My son does not\nknow what a lie is, nor what a blow is. His step-brother, on the other\nhand, lied when he came into our house; but lying did not work in the\natmosphere of calm and freedom. After a year the habit disappeared by\nitself, only because it always met with deep astonishment.\"\n\nThis makes me, in passing, note one of the other many mistakes of\neducation, viz., the infinite trouble taken in trying to do away with\na fault which disappears by itself. People take infinite pains to teach\nsmall children to speak distinctly who, if left to themselves, would\nlearn it by themselves, provided they were always spoken to distinctly.\nThis same principle holds good of numerous other things, in children's\nattitude and behaviour, that can be left simply to a good example and to\ntime. One's influence should be used in impressing upon the child habits\nfor which a foundation must be laid at the very beginning of his life.\n\nThere is another still more unfortunate mistake, the mistake of\ncorrecting and judging by an external effect produced by the act, by the\nscandal it occasions in the environment. Children are struck for using\noaths and improper words the meaning of which they do not understand; or\nif they do understand, the result of strictness is only that they go\non keeping silence in matters in which sincerity towards those who are\nbringing them up is of the highest importance. The very thing the child\nis allowed to do uncorrected at home, is not seldom corrected if it\nhappens away from home. So the child gets a false idea that it is not\nthe thing that deserves punishment, but its publicity. When a mother\nis ashamed of the bad behaviour of her son she is apt to strike\nhim--instead of striking her own breast! When an adventurous feat fails\nhe is beaten, but he is praised when successful. These practices produce\ndemoralisation. Once in a wood I saw two parents laughing while the\nice held on which their son was sliding; when it broke suddenly they\nthreatened to whip him. It required strong self-control in order not\nto say to this pair that it was not the son who deserved punishment but\nthemselves.\n\nOn occasions like these, parents avenge their own fright on their\nchildren. I saw a child become a coward because an anxious mother struck\nhim every time he fell down, while the natural result inflicted on the\nchild would have been more than sufficient to increase his carefulness.\nWhen misfortune is caused by disobedience, natural alarm is, as a rule,\nenough to prevent a repetition of it. If it is not sufficient blows have\nno restraining effect; they only embitter. The boy finds that adults\nhave forgotten their own period of childhood; he withdraws himself\nsecretly from this abuse of power, provided strict treatment does\nnot succeed in totally depressing the level of the child's will and\nobstructing his energies.\n\nThis is certainly a danger, but the most serious effect of corporal\npunishment is that it has established an unethical morality as its\nresult. Until the human being has learnt to see that effort, striving,\ndevelopment of power, are their own reward, life remains an unbeautiful\naffair. The debasing effects of vanity and ambition, the small and great\ncruelties produced by injustice, are all due to the idea that failure or\nsuccess sets the value to deeds and actions.\n\nA complete revolution in this crude theory of value must come about\nbefore the earth can become the scene of a happy but considerate\ndevelopment of power on the part of free and fine human beings. Every\ncontest decided by examinations and prizes is ultimately an immoral\nmethod of training. It awakens only evil passions, envy and the\nimpression of injustice on the one side, arrogance on the other. After I\nhad during the course of twenty years fought these school examinations,\nI read with thorough agreement a short time ago, Ruskin's views on the\nsubject. He believed that all competition was a false basis of stimulus,\nand every distribution of prizes a false means. He thought that the\nreal sign of talent in a boy, auspicious for his future career, was\nhis desire to work for work's sake. He declared that the real aim of\ninstruction should be to show him his own proper and special gifts, to\nstrengthen them in him, not to spur him on to an empty competition with\nthose who were plainly his superiors in capacity.\n\nMoreover it ought not to be forgotten that success and failure involve\nof themselves their own punishment and their own reward, the one bitter,\nthe other sweet enough to secure in a natural way increased strength,\ncare, prudence, and endurance. It is completely unnecessary for the\neducator to use, besides these, some special punishments or special\nrewards, and so pervert the conceptions of the child that failure seems\nto him to be a wrong, success on the other hand as the right.\n\nNo matter where one turns one's gaze, it is notorious that the\nexternally encouraging or awe-inspiring means of education, are an\nobstacle to what are the chief human characteristics, courage in oneself\nand goodness to others.\n\nA people whose education is carried on by gentle means only (I mean\nthe people of Japan), have shown that manliness is not in danger where\nchildren are not hardened by corporal punishment. These gentle means are\njust as effective in calling forth selfmastery and consideration. These\nvirtues are so imprinted on children, at the tenderest age, that one\nlearns first in Japan what attraction considerate kindliness bestows\nupon life. In a country where blows are never seen, the first rule of\nsocial intercourse is not to cause discomfort to others. It is told that\nwhen a foreigner in Japan took up a stone to throw it at a dog, the dog\ndid not run. No one had ever thrown a stone at him. Tenderness towards\nanimals is the complement in that country of tenderness in human\nrelationship, a tenderness whose result is observed, among other\neffects, in a relatively small number of crimes against life and\nsecurity.\n\nWar, hunting for pleasure, corporal discipline, are nothing more than\ndifferent expressions of the tiger nature still alive in man. When the\nrod is thrown away, and when, as some one has said, children are\nno longer boxed on their ears but are given magnifying glasses and\nphotographic cameras to increase their capacity for life and for loving\nit, instead of learning to destroy it, real education in humanity will\nbegin.\n\nFor the benefit of those who are not convinced that corporal punishment\ncan be dispensed with in a manly education, by so remote and so distant\nan example as Japan, I should like to mention a fact closer to us.\nOur Germanic forefathers did not have this method of education. It was\nintroduced with Christianity. Corporal discipline was turned into\na religious duty, and as late as the seventeenth century there were\nintelligent men who flogged their children once a week as a part of\nspiritual guardianship. I once asked our great poet, Victor Rydberg, and\nhe said that he had found no proof that corporal punishment was usual\namong the Germans in heathen times. I asked him whether he did not\nbelieve that the fact of its absence had encouraged the energetic\nindividualism and manliness in the Northern peoples. He thought so, and\nagreed with me. Finally, I might note from our own time, that there\nare many families and schools, our girls' schools for example, and also\nboys' schools in some countries, where corporal punishment is never\nused. I know a family with twelve children whose activity and capacity\nare not damaged by bringing them under the rule of duty alone. Corporal\npunishment is never used in this home; a determined but mild mother\nhas taught the children to obey voluntarily, and has known how to train\ntheir wills to self-control.\n\nBy \"voluntary obedience,\" I do not mean that the child is bound to ask\nendless questions for reasons, and to dispute them before he obeys. A\ngood teacher never gives a command without there being some good reason,\nbut whether the child is convinced or not, he must always obey, and if\nhe asks \"why\" the answer is very simple; every one, adults as well as\nchildren, must obey the right and must submit to what cannot be avoided.\nThe great necessity in life must be imprinted in childhood. This can\nbe done without harsh means by training the child, even previous to his\nbirth, by cultivating one's self-control, and after his birth by never\ngiving in to a child's caprices. The rule is, in a few cases, to work\nin opposition to the action of the child, but in other cases work\nconstructively; I mean provide the child with material to construct his\nown personality and then let him do this work of construction. This is,\nin brief, the art of education. The worst of all educational methods are\nthreats. The only effective admonitions are short and infrequent ones.\nThe greatest skill in the educator is to be silent for the moment and\nthen so reprove the fault, indirectly, that the child is brought to\ncorrect himself or make himself the object of blame. This can be done\nby the instructor telling something that causes the child to compare his\nown conduct with the hateful or admirable types of behaviour about which\nhe hears information. Or the educator may give an opinion which the\nchild must take to himself although it is not applied directly to him.\n\nOn many occasions a forceful display of indignation on the part of the\nelder person is an excellent punishment, if the indignation is reserved\nfor the right moment. I know children to whom nothing was more frightful\nthan their father's scorn; this was dreaded. Children who are deluged\nwith directions and religious devotions, who receive an ounce of\nmorality in every cup of joy, are most certain to be those who will\nrevolt against all this. Nearly every thinking person feels that the\ndeepest educational influences in his life have been indirect; some good\nadvice not given to him directly; a noble deed told without any direct\nreference. But when people come themselves to train others they forget\nall their own personal experience.\n\nThe strongest constructive factor in the education of a human being\nis the settled, quiet order of home, its peace, and its duty.\nOpen-heartedness, industry, straightforwardness at home develop\ngoodness, desire to work, and simplicity in the child. Examples of\nartistic work and books in the home, its customary life on ordinary\ndays and holidays, its occupations and its pleasures, should give to the\nemotions and imagination of the child, periods of movement and repose,\na sure contour and a rich colour. The pure, warm, clear atmosphere\nin which father, mother, and children live together in freedom and\nconfidence; where none are kept isolated from the interests of the\nothers; but each possesses full freedom for his own personal interest;\nwhere none trenches on the rights of others; where all are willing to\nhelp one another when necessary,--in this atmosphere egoism, as well as\naltruism, can attain their richest development, and individuality\nfind its just freedom. As the evolution of man's soul advances to\nundreamed-of possibilities of refinement, of capacity, of profundity;\nas the spiritual life of the generation becomes more manifold in\nits combinations and in its distinctions; the more time one has for\nobserving the wonderful and deep secrets of existence, behind the\nvisible, tangible, world of sense, the more will each new generation of\nchildren show a more refined and a more consistent mental life. It is\nimpossible to attain this result under the torture of the crude methods\nin our present home and school training. We need new homes, new schools,\nnew marriages, new social relations, for those new souls who are to\nfeel, love, and suffer, in ways infinitely numerous that we now can\nnot even name. Thus they will come to understand life; they will\nhave aspirations and hopes; they will believe; they will pray. The\nconceptions of religion, love, and art, all these must be revolutionised\nso radically, that one now can only surmise what new forms will be\ncreated in future generations. This transformation can be helped by the\ntraining of the present, by casting aside the withered foliage which now\ncovers the budding possibilities of life.\n\nThe house must once more become a home for the souls of children, not\nfor their bodies alone. For such homes to be formed, that in their\nturn will mould children, the children must be given back to the home.\nInstead of the study preparation at home for the school taking up, as\nit now does, the best part of a child's life, the school must get\nthe smaller part, the home the larger part. The home will have the\nresponsibility of so using the free time as well on ordinary days as on\nholidays, that the children will really become a part of the home both\nin their work and in their pleasures. The children will be taken from\nthe school, the street, the factory, and restored to the home. The\nmother will be given back from work outside, or from social life to the\nchildren. Thus natural training in the spirit of Rousseau and Spencer\nwill be realised; a training for life, by life at home.\n\nSuch was the training of Old Scandinavia; the direct share of the child\nin the work of the adult, in real labours and dangers, gave to the life\nof our Scandinavian forefathers (with whom the boy began to be a man at\ntwelve years of age), unity, character, and strength. Things specially\nmade for children, the anxious watching over all their undertakings,\nsupport given to all their steps, courses of work and pleasure specially\nprepared for children,--these are the fundamental defects of our present\nday education. An eighteen-yearold girl said to me a short time ago,\nthat she and other girls of the same age were so tired of the system of\nvigilance, protection, amusement, and pampering at school and at home,\nthat they were determined to bring up their own children in hunger,\ncorporal discipline, and drudgery.\n\nOne can understand this unfortunate reaction against an artificial\nenvironment, the environment in which children and young people of the\npresent grow up; an existence that evokes a passionate desire for\nthe realities of life, for individual action at one's own risk and\nresponsibility, instead of being, as is now the case, at home and in the\nschool, the object of another's care.\n\nWhat is required, above all, for the children of the present day, is\nto be assigned again real home occupations, tasks they must do\nconscientiously, habits of work arranged for week days and holidays\nwithout oversight, in every case where the child can help himself.\nInstead of the modern school child having a mother and servants about\nhim to get him ready for school and to help him to remember things, he\nshould have time every day before school to arrange his room and brush\nhis clothes, and there should be no effort to make him remember what\nis connected with the school. The home and the school should combine\ntogether systematically to let the child suffer for the results of his\nown negligence.\n\nJust the reverse of this system rules to-day. Mothers learn their\nchildren's lessons, invent plays for them, read their story books to\nthem, arrange their rooms after them, pick up what they have let fall,\nput in order the things they have left in confusion, and in this and\nin other ways, by protective pampering and attention, their desire for\nwork, their endurance, the gifts of invention and imagination, qualities\nproper to the child, become weak and passive. The home now is only a\npreparation for school. In it, young people growing up, are accustomed\nto receive services, without performing any on their part. They are\ntrained to be always receptive instead of giving something in return.\nThen people are surprised at a youthful generation, selfish and\nunrestrained, pressing forward shamelessly on all occasions before their\nelders, crudely unresponsive in respect of those attentions, which in\nearlier generations were a beautiful custom among the young.\n\nTo restore this custom, all the means usually adopted now to protect the\nchild from physical and psychical dangers and inconveniences, will have\nto be removed. Throw the thermometer out of the window and begin with\na sensible course of toughening; teach the child to know and to bear\nnatural pain. Corporal punishment must be done away with not because\nit is painful but because it is profoundly immoral and hopelessly\nunsuitable. Repress the egoistic demands of the child when he interferes\nwith the work or rest of others; never let him either by caresses or by\nnagging usurp the rights of grown people; take care that the servants do\nnot work against what the parents are trying to insist on in this and in\nother matters.\n\nWe must begin in doing for the child in certain ways a thousand times\nmore and in others a hundred thousand times less. A beginning must be\nmade in the tenderest age to establish the child's feeling for nature.\nLet him live year in and year out in the same country home; this is one\nof the most significant and profound factors in training. It can be held\nto even where it is now neglected. The same thing holds good of making\na choice library, commencing with the first years of life; so that the\nchild will have, at different periods of his life, suitable books for\neach age; not as is now often the case, get quite spoilt by the constant\nchange of summer excursions, by worthless children's books, and costly\ntoys. They should never have any but the simplest books; the so-called\nclassical ones. They should be amply provided with means of preparing\ntheir own playthings. The worst feature of our system are the playthings\nwhich imitate the luxury of grown people. By such objects the covetous\nimpulse of the child for acquisition is increased, his own capacity for\ndiscovery and imagination limited, or rather, it would be limited if\nchildren with the sound instinct of preservation, did not happily smash\nthe perfect playthings, which give them no creative opportunity, and\nthemselves make new playthings from fir cones, acorns, thorns, and\nfragments of pottery, and all other sorts of rubbish which can be\ntransformed into objects of great price by the power of the imagination.\n\nTo play with children in the right way is also a great art. It should\nnever be done if children do not themselves know what they are going\nto do; it should always be a special treat for them as well as their\nelders. But the adults must always on such occasions, leave behind every\nkind of educational idea and go completely into the child's world of\nthought and imagination. No attempt should be made to teach them\nat these times anything else but the old satisfactory games. The\nexperiences derived from these games about the nature of the children,\nwho are stimulated in one direction or another by the game, must be kept\nfor later use.\n\nGames in this way increase confidence between children and adults. They\nlearn to know their elders better. But to allow children to turn all the\nrooms into places to play in, and to demand constantly that their elders\nshall interest themselves in them, is one of the most dangerous species\nof pampering common to the present day. The children become accustomed\nto selfishness and mental dependence. Besides this constant educational\neffort brings with it the dulling of the child's personality. If\nchildren were free in their own world, the nursery, but out of it had\nto submit to the strict limits imposed by the habits, wills, work,\nand repose of parents, their requirements and their wishes, they would\ndevelop into a stronger and more considerate race than the youth of the\npresent day. It is not so much talking about being considerate, but the\nnecessity of considering others, of really helping oneself and others,\nthat has an educational value. In earlier days, children were quiet\nas mice in the presence of elder persons. Instead of, as they do now,\nbreaking into a guest's conversation, they learned to listen. If the\nconversation of adults is varied, this can be called one of the best\neducational methods for children. The ordinary life of children, under\nthe old system, was lived in the nursery where they received their most\nimportant training from an old faithful servant and from one another.\nFrom their parents they received corporal punishment, sometimes a\ncaress. In comparison with this system, the present way of parents and\nchildren living together would be absolute progress, if parents could\nbut abstain from explaining, advising, improving, influencing every\nthought and every expression. But all spiritual, mental, and bodily\nprotective rules make the child now indirectly selfish, because\neverything centres about him and therefore he is kept in a constant\nstate of irritation. The six-yearold can disturb the conversation of the\nadult, but the twelve-year-old is sent to bed about eight o'clock, even\nwhen he, with wide open eyes, longs for a conversation that might be to\nhim an inspiring stimulus for life.\n\nCertainly some simple habits so far as conduct and order, nourishment\nand sleep, air and water, clothing and bodily movement, are concerned,\ncan be made the foundations for the child's conceptions of morality. He\ncannot be made to learn soon enough that bodily health and beauty must\nbe regarded as high ethical characteristics, and that what is injurious\nto health and beauty must be regarded as a hateful act. In this sphere,\nchildren must be kept entirely independent of custom by allowing the\nexception to every rule to have its valid place. The present anxious\nsolicitude that children should eat when the clock strikes, that they\nget certain food at fixed meals, that they be clothed according to the\ndegree of temperature, that they go to bed when the clock strikes, that\nthey be protected from every drop of unboiled water and every extra\npiece of candy, this makes them nervous, irritable slaves of habit. A\nreasonable toughening process against the inequalities, discomforts, and\nchances of life, constitutes one of the most important bases of joy of\nliving and of strength of temper. In this case too, the behaviour of the\nperson who gives the training, is the best means of teaching children\nto smile at small contretemps, things which would throw a cloud over the\nsun, if one got into the habit of treating them as if they were of great\nimportance. If the child sees the parent doing readily an unpleasant\nduty, which he honestly recognises as unpleasant; if he sees a parent\nendure trouble or an unexpected difficulty easily, he will be in honour\nbound to do the like. Just as children without many words learn to\npractice good deeds when they see good deeds practiced about them; learn\nto enjoy the beauty of nature and art when they see that adults enjoy\nthem, so by living more beautifully, more nobly, more moderately, we\nspeak best to children. They are just as receptive to impressions of\nthis kind as they are careless of those made by force.\n\nSince this is my alpha and omega in the art of education, I repeat now\nwhat I said at the beginning of this book and half way through it. Try\nto leave the child in peace; interfere directly as seldom as possible;\nkeep away all crude and impure impressions; but give all your care and\nenergy to see that personality, life itself, reality in its simplicity\nand in its nakedness, shall all be means of training the child.\n\nMake demands on the powers of children and on their capacity for\nself-control, proportionate to the special stage of their development,\nneither greater nor lesser demands than on adults. But respect the joys\nof the child, his tastes, work, and time, just as you would those of an\nadult. Education will thus become an infinitely simple and infinitely\nharder art, than the education of the present day, with its\nartificialised existence, its double entry morality, one morality for\nthe child, and one for the adult, often strict for the child and lax for\nthe adult and vice versa. By treating the child every moment as one does\nan adult human being we free education from that brutal arbitrariness,\nfrom those over-indulgent protective rules, which have transformed him.\nWhether parents act as if children existed for their benefit alone, or\nwhether the parents give up their whole lives to their children, the\nresult is alike deplorable. As a rule both classes know equally little\nof the feelings and needs of their children. The one class are happy\nwhen the children are like themselves, and their highest ambition is\nto produce in their children a successful copy of their own thoughts,\nopinions, and ideals. Really it ought to pain them very much to see\nthemselves so exactly copied. What life expected from them and required\nfrom them was just the opposite--a richer combination, a better\ncreation, a new type, not a reproduction of that which is already\nexhausted. The other class strive to model their children not according\nto themselves but according to their ideal of goodness. They show their\nlove by their willingness to extinguish their own personalities for\ntheir children's sake. This they do by letting the children feel that\neverything which concerns them stands in the foreground. This should be\nso, but only indirectly.\n\nThe concerns of the whole scheme of life, the ordering of the home, its\nhabits, intercourse, purposes, care for the needs of children, and their\nsound development, must stand in the foreground. But at present, in most\ncases, children of tender years, as well as those who are older, are\nsacrificed to the chaotic condition of the home. They learn self-will\nwithout possessing real freedom, they live under a discipline which is\nspasmodic in its application.\n\nWhen one daughter after another leaves home in order to make herself\nindependent they are often driven to do it by want of freedom, or by\nthe lack of character in family life. In both directions the girl\nsees herself forced to become something different, to hold different\nopinions, to think different thoughts, to act contrary to the dictates\nof her own being. A mother happy in the friendship of her own daughter,\nsaid not long ago that she desired to erect an asylum for tormented\ndaughters. Such an asylum would be as necessary as a protection against\npampering parents as against those who are overbearing. Both alike,\ntorture their children though in different ways, by not understanding\nthe child's right to have his own point of view, his own ideal of\nhappiness, his own proper tastes and occupation. They do not see that\nchildren exist as little for their parent's sake as parents do for their\nchildren's sake. Family life would have an intelligent character if each\none lived fully and entirely his own life and allowed the others to do\nthe same. None should tyrannise over, nor should suffer tyranny from,\nthe other. Parents who give their home this character can justly\ndemand that children shall accommodate themselves to the habits of the\nhousehold as long as they live in it. Children on their part can ask\nthat their own life of thought and feeling shall be left in peace at\nhome, or that they be treated with the same consideration that would be\ngiven to a stranger. When the parents do not meet these conditions they\nthemselves are the greater sufferers. It is very easy to keep one's son\nfrom expressing his raw views, very easy to tear a daughter away from\nher book and to bring her to a tea-party by giving her unnecessary\noccupations; very easy by a scornful word to repress some powerful\nemotion. A thousand similar things occur every day in good families\nthrough the whole world. But whenever we hear of young people speaking\nof their intellectual homelessness and sadness, we begin to understand\nwhy father and mother remain behind in homes from which the daughters\nhave hastened to depart; why children take their cares, joys, and\nthoughts to strangers; why, in a word, the old and the young generation\nare as mutually dependent as the roots and flowers of plants, so often\nseparate with mutual repulsion.\n\nThis is as true of highly cultivated fathers and mothers as of simple\nbourgeois or peasant parents. Perhaps, indeed, it may be truer of the\nfirst class, the latter torment their children in a naive way, while the\nformer are infinitely wise and methodical in their stupidity. Rarely\nis a mother of the upper class one of those artists of home life who\nthrough the blitheness, the goodness, and joyousness of her character,\nmakes the rhythm of everyday life a dance, and holidays into festivals.\nSuch artists are often simple women who have passed no examinations,\nfounded no clubs, and written no books. The highly cultivated mothers\nand the socially useful mothers on the other hand are not seldom those\nwho call forth criticism from their sons. It seems almost an invariable\nrule that mothers should make mistakes when they wish to act for the\nwelfare of their sons. \"How infinitely valuable,\" say their children,\n\"would I have found a mother who could have kept quiet, who would have\nbeen patient with me, who would have given me rest, keeping the outer\nworld at a distance from me, with kindly soothing hands. Oh, would that\nI had had a mother on whose breast I could have laid my head, to be\nquiet and dream.\"\n\nA distinguished woman writer is surprised that all of her\nwell-thought-out plans for her children fail--those children in whom\nshe saw the material for her passion for governing, the clay that she\ndesired to mould.\n\nThe writer just cited says very justly that maternal unselfishness\nalone can perform the task of protecting a young being with wisdom\nand kindliness, by allowing him to grow according to his own laws. The\nunselfish mother, she says, will joyfully give the best of her life\nenergy, powers of soul and spirit to a growing being and then open all\ndoors to him, leaving him in the broad world to follow his own paths,\nand ask for nothing, neither thanks, nor praise, nor remembrance. But to\nmost mothers may be applied the bitter exclamation of a son in the book\njust mentioned, \"even a mother must know how she tortures another; if\nshe has not this capacity by nature, why in the world should I recognise\nher as my mother at all.\"\n\nCertain mothers spend the whole day in keeping their children's nervous\nsystem in a state of irritation. They make work hard and play joyless,\nwhenever they take a part in it. At the present time, too, the school\ngets control of the child, the home loses all the means by which\nformerly it moulded the child's soul life and ennobled family life.\nThe school, not father and mother, teaches children to play, the school\ngives them manual training, the school teaches them to sing, to look at\npictures, to read aloud, to wander about out of doors; schools, clubs,\nsport and other pleasures accustom youth in the cities more and more\nto outside life, and a daily recreation that kills the true feeling for\nholiday. Young people, often, have no other impression of home than that\nit is a place where they meet society which bores them.\n\nParents surrender their children to schools in those years in which they\nshould influence their minds. When the school gives them back they\ndo not know how to make a fresh start with the children, for they\nthemselves have ceased to be young.\n\nBut getting old is no necessity; it is only a bad habit. It is very\ninteresting to observe a face that is getting old. What time makes out\nof a face shows better than anything else what the man has made out\nof time. Most men in the early period of middle age are neither\nintellectually fat nor lean, they are hardened or dried up. Naturally\nyoung people look upon them with unsympathetic eyes, for they feel that\nthere is such a thing as eternal youth, which a soul can win as a prize\nfor its whole work of inner development. But they look in vain for this\nsecond eternal youth in their elders, filled with worldly nothingnesses\nand things of temporary importance.\n\nWith a sigh they exclude the \"old people\" from their future plans and\nthey go out in the world in order to choose their spiritual parents.\n\nThis is tragic but just, for if there is a field on which man must sow a\nhundred-fold in order to harvest tenfold it is the souls of children.\n\nWhen I began at five years of age to make a rag doll, that by its weight\nand size really gave the illusion of reality and bestowed much joy on\nits young mother, I began to think about the education of my future\nchildren. Then as now my educational ideal was that the children\nshould be happy, that they should not fear. Fear is the misfortune of\nchildhood, and the sufferings of the child come from the half-realised\nopposition between his unlimited possibilities of happiness and the way\nin which these possibilities are actually handled. It may be said that\nlife, at every stage, is cruel in its treatment of our possibilities of\nhappiness. But the difference between the sufferings of the adult\nfrom existence, and the sufferings of the child caused by adults, is\ntremendous. The child is unwilling to resign himself to the sufferings\nimposed upon him by adults and the more impatient the child is against\nunnecessary suffering, the better; for so much the more certainly will\nhe some day be driven to find means to transform for himself and for\nothers the hard necessities of life.\n\nA poet, Rydberg, in our country who had the deepest intuition into\nchild's nature, and therefore had the deepest reverence for it, wrote as\nfollows: \"Where we behold children we suspect there are princes, but as\nto the kings, where are they?\" Not only life's tragic elements diminish\nand dam up its vital energies. Equally destructive is a parent's want\nof reverence for the sources of life which meet them in a new being.\nFathers and mothers must bow their heads in the dust before the exalted\nnature of the child. Until they see that the word \"child\" is only\nanother expression for the conception of majesty; until they feel that\nit is the future which in the form of a child sleeps in their arms, and\nhistory which plays at their feet, they will not understand that they\nhave as little power or right to prescribe laws for this new being as\nthey possess the power or might to lay down paths for the stars.\n\nThe mother should feel the same reverence for the unknown worlds in\nthe wide-open eyes of her child, that she has for the worlds which like\nwhite blossoms are sprinkled over the blue orb of heaven; the father\nshould see in his child the king's son whom he must serve humbly with\nhis own best powers, and then the child will come to his own; not to the\nright of asking others to become the plaything of his caprices but to\nthe right of living his full strong personal child's life along with\na father and a mother who themselves live a personal life, a life from\nwhose sources and powers the child can take the elements he needs for\nhis own individual growth. Parents should never expect their own highest\nideals to become the ideals of their child. The free-thinking sons of\npious parents and the Christian children of freethinkers have become\nalmost proverbial.\n\nBut parents can live nobly and in entire accordance to their own ideals\nwhich is the same thing as making children idealists. This can often\nlead to a quite different system of thought from that pursued by the\nparent.\n\nAs to ideals, the elders should here as elsewhere, offer with timidity\ntheir advice and their experience. Yes they should try to let the young\npeople search for it as if they were seeking fruit hidden under the\nshadow of leaves. If their counsel is rejected, they must show neither\nsurprise nor lack of self-control.\n\nThe query of a humourist, why he should do anything for posterity since\nposterity had done nothing for him, set me to thinking in my early youth\nin the most serious way. I felt that posterity had done much for its\nforefathers. It had given them an infinite horizon for the future beyond\nthe bounds of their daily effort. We must in the child see the new\nfate of the human race; we must carefully treat the fine threads in the\nchild's soul because these are the threads that one day will form the\nwoof of world events. We must realise that every pebble by which one\nbreaks into the glassy depths of the child's soul will extend its\ninfluence through centuries and centuries in ever widening circles.\nThrough our fathers, without our will and without choice, we are given a\ndestiny which controls the deepest foundation of our own being. Through\nour posterity, which we ourselves create, we can in a certain measure,\nas free beings, determine the future destiny of the human race.\n\nBy a realisation of all this in an entirely new way, by seeing the\nwhole process in the light of the religion of development, the twentieth\ncentury will be the century of the child. This will come about in\ntwo ways. Adults will first come to an understanding of the child's\ncharacter and then the simplicity of the child's character will be kept\nby adults. So the old social order will be able to renew itself.\n\nPsychological pedagogy has an exalted ancestry. I will not go back to\nthose artists in education called Socrates and Jesus, but I commence\nwith the modern world. In the hours of its sunrise, in which we, who\nlook back, think we see a futile Renaissance, then as now the spring\nflowers came up amid the decaying foliage. At this period there came\na demand for the remodelling of education through the great figure of\nmodern times, Montaigne, that skeptic who had so deep a reverence for\nrealities. In his Essays, in his Letters to the Countess of Gurson, are\nfound all of the elements for the education of the future. About the\ngreat German and Swiss specialists in pedagogy and psychology, Comenius,\nBasedow, Pestalozzi, Salzmann, Froebel, Herbart, I do not need to speak.\nI will only mention that the greatest men of Germany, Lessing, Herder,\nGoethe, Kant and others, took the side of natural training. In regard to\nEngland it is well known that John Locke in his Thoughts on Education,\nwas a worthy predecessor of Herbert Spencer, whose book on education in\nits intellectual, moral, and physical relations, was the most noteworthy\nbook on education in the last century.\n\nIt has been noted that Spencer in educational theory is indebted to\nRousseau; and that in many cases, he has only said what the great German\nauthorities, whom he certainly did not know, said before him. But this\ndoes not diminish Spencer's merit in the least. Absolutely new thoughts\nare very rare. Truths which were once new must be constantly renewed by\nbeing pronounced again from the depth of the ardent personal conviction\nof a new human being.\n\nThat rational thoughts on the subject of pedagogy as on other subjects,\nare constantly expressed and re-expressed, shows among other things\nthat reasonable, or practically untried education has certain principles\nwhich are as axiomatic as those of mathematics. Every reasonable\nthinking man must as certainly discover anew these pedagogical\nprinciples, as he must discover anew the relation between the angles of\na triangle. Spencer's book it is true has not laid again the foundation\nof education. It can rather be called the crown of the edifice founded\nby Montaigne, Locke, Rousseau, and the great German specialists in\npedagogy. What is an absolutely novel factor in our times is the study\nof the psychology of the child, and the system of education that has\ndeveloped from it.\n\nIn England, through the scientist Darwin, this new study of the\npsychology of the child was inaugurated. In Germany, Preyer contributed\nto its extension. He has done so partly by a comprehensive study of\nchildren's language, partly by collecting recollections of childhood on\nthe part of the adult. Finally he experimented directly on the child,\ninvestigating his physical and psychical fatigue and endurance,\nacuteness of sensation, power, speed, and exactness in carrying out\nphysical and mental tasks. He has studied his capacity of attention in\nemotions and in ideas at different periods of life. He has studied the\nspeech of children, association of ideas in children, etc. During the\nstudy of the psychology of the child, scholars began to substitute for\nthis term the expression \"genetic psychology.\" For it was found that the\nbig-genetic principle was valid for the development both of the psychic\nand the physical life. This principle means that the history of\nthe species is repeated in the history of the individual; a truth\nsubstantiated in other spheres; in philology for example. The psychology\nof the child is of the same significance for general psychology as\nembryology is for anatomy. On the other hand, the description of savage\npeoples, of peoples in a natural condition, such as we find in Spencer's\nDescriptive Sociology or Weitz's Anthropology is extremely instructive\nfor a right conception of the psychology of the child.\n\nIt is in this kind of psychological investigation that the greatest\nprogress has been made in this century. In the great publication,\nZeitschrift fur psychologie, etc., there began in 1894 a special\ndepartment for the psychology of children and the psychology of\neducation. In 1898, there were as many as one hundred and six essays\ndevoted to this subject, and they are constantly increasing.\n\nIn the chief civilised countries this investigation has many\ndistinguished pioneers, such as Prof. Wundt, Prof. T. H. Ribot, and\nothers. In Germany this subject has its most important organ in the\njournal mentioned above. It numbers among its collaborators some of the\nmost distinguished German physiologists and psychologists. As related to\nthe same subject must be mentioned Wundt's Philosophischen Studien, and\npartly the Vierteljahrschrift fur Wissenschaftlichie Philosophie. In\nFrance, there was founded in 1894, the Annee Psychologique, edited\nby Binet and Beaunis, and also the Bibliotheque de Pedagogie et de\nPsychologie, edited by Binet. In England there are the journals, Mind\nand Brain.\n\nSpecial laboratories for experimental psychology with psychological\napparatus and methods of research are found in many places. In Germany\nthe first to be founded was that of Wundt in the year 1878 at Leipzig.\nFrance has a laboratory for experimental psychology at Paris, in the\nSorbonne, whose director is Binet; Italy, one in Rome. In America\nexperimental psychology is zealously pursued. As early as 1894,\nthere were in that country twenty-seven laboratories for experimental\npsychology and four journals. There should also be mentioned the\nsocieties for child psychology. Recently one has been founded in\nGermany, others before this time have been at work in England and\nAmerica.\n\nA whole series of investigations carried out in Kraepelin's laboratory\nin Heidelberg are of the greatest value for determining what the brain\ncan do in the way of work and impressions.\n\nAn English specialist has maintained that the future, thanks to the\nmodern school system, will be able to get along without originally\ncreative men, because the receptive activities of modern man will\nabsorb the cooperative powers of the brain to the disadvantage of\nthe productive powers. And even if this were not a universally valid\nstatement but only expressed a physiological certainty, people will some\nday perhaps cease filing down man's brain by that sandpapering process\ncalled a school curriculum.\n\nA champion of the transformation of pedagogy into a psycho-physiological\nscience is to be found in Sweden in the person of Prof. Hjalmar Oehrwal\nwho has discussed in his essays native and foreign discoveries in\nthe field of psychology. One of his conclusions is that the so-called\ntechnical exercises, gymnastics, manual training, sloyd, and the like,\nare not, as they are erroneously called, a relaxation from mental\noverstrain by change in work, but simply a new form of brain fatigue.\nAll work, he finds, done under conditions of fatigue is uneconomic\nwhether one regards the quantity produced or its value as an exercise.\nRest should be nothing more than rest,--freedom to do only what one\nwants to, or to do nothing at all. As to fear, he proves, following\nBinet's investigation in this subject, how corporal discipline, threats,\nand ridicule lead to cowardice; how all of these methods are to be\nrejected because they are depressing and tend to a diminution of\nenergy. He shows, moreover, how fear can be overcome progressively,\nby strengthening the nervous system and in that way strengthening\nthe character. This result comes about partly when all unnecessary\nterrorising is avoided, partly when children are accustomed to bear\ncalmly and quietly the inevitable unpleasantnesses of danger.\n\nProf. Axel Key's investigations on school children have won\ninternational recognition. In Sweden they have supplied the most\nsignificant material up to the present time for determining the\ninfluence of studies on physical development and the results of\nintellectual overstrain.\n\nIt is to be hoped that when through empirical investigation we begin to\nget acquainted with the real nature of children, the school and the home\nwill be freed from absurd notions about the character and needs of the\nchild, those absurd notions which now cause painful cases of physical\nand psychical maltreatment, still called by conscientious and thinking\nhuman beings in schools and in homes, education.\n\n\nBy Helen Key\n\nThe Century of the Child\n\nCr. 8vo. With Frontispiece. Net, $1.50\n\nCONTENTS: The Right of the Child to Choose His Parents, The Unborn Race\nand Woman's Work, Education, Homelessness, Soul Murder in the Schools,\nThe School of the Future, Religious Instruction, Child Labor and the\nCrimes of Children. This book has gone through more than twenty German\nEditions and has been published in several European countries. \"A\npowerful book.\"--N. Y. Times.\n\nThe Education of the Child\n\nReprinted from the Authorized American Edition of \"The Century of the\nChild,\" With Introductory Note by EDWARD BOK.\n\nCr. 8vo. Net 75 cents\n\n\"Nothing finer on the wise education of the child has ever been brought\ninto print. To me this chapter is a perfect classic; it points the way\nstraight for every parent, and it should find a place in every home in\nAmerica where there is a child.\"--EDWARD BOK, Editor of the Ladies' Home\nJournal.\n\nLove and Marriage Cr. 8vo\n\nEllen Key is gradually taking a hold upon the reading public of this\ncountry commensurate with the enlightenment of her views. In Europe and\nparticularly in her own native Sweden her name holds an honored place as\na representative of progressive thought.\n\nNew York G. P. Putnam's Sons London\n\nClever, original, and fascinating The Lost Art of Reading Mount Tom\nEdition New Edition in Two Volumes\n\nI. The Child and the Book\n\nA Manual for Parents and for Teachers in Schools and Colleges\n\nII. The Lost Art of Reading or, The Man and The Book\n\nTwo Volumes, Crown 8vo. Sold separately. Each net, $1,50\n\nBy Gerald Stanley Lee\n\n\n\n\"I must express with your connivance the joy I have had, the enthusiasm\nI have felt, in gloating over every page of what I believe is the most\nbrilliant book of any season since Carlyle's and Emerson's pens were\nlaid aside. The title does not hint at any more than a fraction of\nthe contents. It is a highly original critique of philistinism and\ngradgrindism in education, library science, science in general, and life\nin general. It is full of humor, rich in style, and eccentric in form\nand all suffused with the perfervid genius of a man who is not merely\na thinker but a force. Every sentence is tinglingly alive, and as if\nfurnished with long antennae of suggestiveness. I do not know who Mr.\nLee is, but I know this--that if he goes on as he has been, we need no\nlonger whine that we have no worthy successors to the old Brahminical\nwriters of New England.\n\n\"I have been reading with wonder and laughter and with loud cheers. It\nis the word of all words that needed to be spoken just now. It makes\nme believe that after all we have n't a great kindergarten about us\nin authorship, but that there is virtue, race, sap in us yet. I can\nconceive that the date of the publication of this book may well be the\ndate of the moral and intellectual renaissance for which we have long\nbeen scanning the horizon.\"--WM. SLOANE KENNEDY in Boston Transcript.","title":"The Education of the Child","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":18226}