Chapter 3
Despite all the new talk of individuality the greatest mistake in training children is still that of treating the "child" as an abstract conception, as an inorganic or personal material to be formed and transformed by the hands of those who are educating him. He is beaten, and it is thought that the whole effect of the blow stops at the moment when the child is prevented from being bad. He has, it is thought, a powerful reminder against future bad behaviour. People no not suspect that this violent interference in the physical and psychical life of the child may have lifelong effects. As far back as forty years ago, a writer showed that corporal punishment had the most powerful somatic stimulative effects. The flagellation of the Middle Ages is known to have had such results; and if I could publish what I have heard from adults as to the effect of corporal punishment on them, or what I have observed in children, this alone would be decisive in doing away with such punishment in its crudest form. It very deeply influences the personal modesty of the child. This should be preserved above everything as the main factor in the development of the feeling of purity. The father who punishes his daughter in this way deserves to see her some day a "fallen woman." He injures her instinctive feeling of the sanctity of her body, an instinct which even in the case of a small child can be passionately profound. Only when every infringement of sanctity (forcible caressing is as bad as a blow) evokes an energetic, instinctive repulsion, is the nature of the child proud and pure. Children who strike back when they are punished have the most promising characters of all.
Numerous are the cases in which bodily punishment can occasion irremediable damage, not suspected by the person who administers it, though he may triumphantly declare how the punishment in the specific case has helped. Most adults feel free to tell how a whipping has injured them in one way or another, but when they take up the training of their own children they depend on the effect of such chastisement.
What burning bitterness and desire for vengeance, what canine fawning flattery, does not corporal punishment call forth. It makes the lazy lazier, the obstinate more obstinate, the hard, harder. It strengthens those two emotions, the root of almost all evil in the world, hatred and fear. And as long as blows are made synonymous with education, both of these emotions will keep their mastery over men.
One of the most frequent occasions for recourse to this punishment is obstinacy, but what is called obstinacy is only fear or incapacity. The child repeats a false answer, is threatened with blows, and again repeats it just because he is afraid not to say the right thing. He is struck and then answers rightly. This is a triumph of education; refractoriness is overcome. But what has happened? Increased fear has led to a strong effort of thought, to a momentary increase of self-control. The next day the child will very likely repeat the fault. Where there is real obstinacy on the part of children, I know of cases when corporal punishment has filled them with the lust to kill, either themselves or the person who strikes them. On the other hand I know of others, where a mother has brought an obstinate child to repentance and self-mastery by holding him quietly and calmly on her knees.
How many untrue confessions have been forced by fear of blows; how much daring passion for action, spirit of adventure, play of fancy, and stimulus to discovery has been repressed by this same fear. Even where blows do not cause lying, they always hinder absolute straightforwardness and the down-right personal courage to show oneself as one is. As long as the word "blow" is used at all in a home, no perfect honour will be found in children. So long as the home and the school use this method of education, brutality will be developed in the child himself at the cost of humanity. The child uses on animals, on his young brothers and sisters, on his comrades, the methods applied to himself. He puts in practice the same argument, that "badness" must be cured with blows. Only children accustomed to be treated mildly, learn to see that influence can be gained without using force. To see this is one of man's privileges, sacrificed by man through descending to the methods of the brute. Only by the child seeing his teacher always and everywhere abstaining from the use of actual force, will he come himself to despise force on all those occasions which do not involve the defence of a weaker person against physical superiority. The foundation of the desire for war is to be sought for less in the war games than in the teachers' rod.
To defend corporal discipline, children's own statements are brought in evidence, they are reported as saying they knew they deserved such discipline in order to be made good. There is no lower example of hypocrisy in human nature than this. It is true the child may be sincere in other cases in saying that he feels that through punishment he has atoned for a fault which was weighing upon his conscience. But this is really the foundation of a false system of ethics, the kind which still continues to be preached as Christian, namely; that a fault may be atoned for by sufferings which are not directly connected with the fault. The basis of the new morality is just the opposite as I have already shown. It teaches that no fault can be atoned for, that no one can escape the results of his actions in any way.
Untruthfulness belongs to the faults which the teacher thinks he must most frequently punish with blows. But there is no case in which this method is more dangerous.
When the much-needed guide-book for parents is published, the well-known story of George Washington and the hatchet must appear in it, accompanied by the remark which a clever ten-year-old child added to the anecdote: "It is no trouble telling the truth when one has such a kind father."
I formerly divided untruthfulness into unwilling, shameless, and imaginative lies. A short time ago I ran across a much better division of lying; first "cold" lies, that is, fully conscious untruthfulness which must be punished, and "hot" lies; the expression of an excited temperament or of a vigorous fancy. I agree with the author of this distinction that the last should not be punished but corrected, though not with a pedantic rule of thumb measure, based on how much it exceeds or falls short of truth. It is to be cured by ridicule, a dangerous method of education in general, but useful when one observes that this type of untruthfulness threatens to develop into real untrustworthiness. In dealing with these faults we are very strict towards children, so strict that no lawyer, no politician, no journalist, no poet, could exercise his profession if the same standard were applied to them as to children.
The white lie is, as a French scientist has shown, partly caused by pure morbidness, partly through some defect in the conception. It is due to an empty space, a dead point in memory, or in consciousness, that produces a defective idea or gives one no idea at all of what has happened. In the affairs of everyday life the adults are often mistaken as to their intentions or acts. They may have forgotten about their actions, and it requires a strong effort of memory to call them back into their minds; or they suggest to themselves that they have done, or not done, something. In all of these cases, if they were forced to give a distinct answer, they would lie. In every case of this kind, where a child is concerned, the lie is assumed to be a conscious one, and when on being submitted to a strict cross-examination, he hesitates, becomes confused, and blushes, it is looked upon as a proof that he knows he has been telling an untruth, although as a rule there has been no instance of untruthfulness, except the finally extorted confession from the child that he has lied. Yet in all these complicated psychological problems, corporal punishment is treated as a solution.
The child who never hears lying at home, who does not see exaggerated weight placed on small, merely external things, who is not made cowardly by fear, who hears conscious lies always spoken of with contempt, will get out of the habit of untruthfulness simply by psychological means. First he will find that untruthfulness causes astonishment, and a repetition of it, scorn and lack of confidence. But these methods should not be applied to untruthfulness caused by distress or by richness of imagination; or to such cases as originate from the obscure mental ideas noted above, ideas whose connection with one another the child cannot make clear to himself. The cold untruth on the other hand, must be punished; first by going over it with the child, then letting him experience its effect in lack of confidence, which will only be restored when the child shows decided improvement in this regard. It is of the greatest importance to show children full and unlimited confidence, even though one quietly maintains an attitude of alert watchfulness; for continuous and undeserved mistrust is just as demoralising as blind and easy confidence.
No one who has been beaten for lying learns by it to love truth. The accuracy of this principle is illustrated by adults who despise corporal punishment in their childhood yet continue to tell untruths by word and deed. Fear may keep the child from technical untruth, but fear also produces untrustworthiness. Those who have been beaten in childhood for lying have often suffered a serious injury immeasurably greater than the direct lie. The truest men I ever knew lie voluntarily and involuntarily; while others who might never be caught in a lie are thoroughly false.
This corruption of personality begins frequently at the tenderest age under the influence of early training. Children are given untrue motives, half-true information; are threatened, admonished. The child's will, thought, and feeling are oppressed; against this treatment dishonesty is the readiest method of defence. In this way educators who make truth their highest aim, make children untruthful. I watched a child who was severely punished for denying something he had unconsciously done, and noted how under the influence of this senseless punishment he developed extreme dissimulation.
Truthfulness requires above everything unbroken determination; and many nervous little liars need nourishing food and life in the open air, not blows. A great artist, one of the few who live wholly according to the modern principles of life, said to me on one occasion: "My son does not know what a lie is, nor what a blow is. His step-brother, on the other hand, lied when he came into our house; but lying did not work in the atmosphere of calm and freedom. After a year the habit disappeared by itself, only because it always met with deep astonishment."
This makes me, in passing, note one of the other many mistakes of education, viz., the infinite trouble taken in trying to do away with a fault which disappears by itself. People take infinite pains to teach small children to speak distinctly who, if left to themselves, would learn it by themselves, provided they were always spoken to distinctly. This same principle holds good of numerous other things, in children's attitude and behaviour, that can be left simply to a good example and to time. One's influence should be used in impressing upon the child habits for which a foundation must be laid at the very beginning of his life.
There is another still more unfortunate mistake, the mistake of correcting and judging by an external effect produced by the act, by the scandal it occasions in the environment. Children are struck for using oaths and improper words the meaning of which they do not understand; or if they do understand, the result of strictness is only that they go on keeping silence in matters in which sincerity towards those who are bringing them up is of the highest importance. The very thing the child is allowed to do uncorrected at home, is not seldom corrected if it happens away from home. So the child gets a false idea that it is not the thing that deserves punishment, but its publicity. When a mother is ashamed of the bad behaviour of her son she is apt to strike him--instead of striking her own breast! When an adventurous feat fails he is beaten, but he is praised when successful. These practices produce demoralisation. Once in a wood I saw two parents laughing while the ice held on which their son was sliding; when it broke suddenly they threatened to whip him. It required strong self-control in order not to say to this pair that it was not the son who deserved punishment but themselves.
On occasions like these, parents avenge their own fright on their children. I saw a child become a coward because an anxious mother struck him every time he fell down, while the natural result inflicted on the child would have been more than sufficient to increase his carefulness. When misfortune is caused by disobedience, natural alarm is, as a rule, enough to prevent a repetition of it. If it is not sufficient blows have no restraining effect; they only embitter. The boy finds that adults have forgotten their own period of childhood; he withdraws himself secretly from this abuse of power, provided strict treatment does not succeed in totally depressing the level of the child's will and obstructing his energies.
This is certainly a danger, but the most serious effect of corporal punishment is that it has established an unethical morality as its result. Until the human being has learnt to see that effort, striving, development of power, are their own reward, life remains an unbeautiful affair. The debasing effects of vanity and ambition, the small and great cruelties produced by injustice, are all due to the idea that failure or success sets the value to deeds and actions.
A complete revolution in this crude theory of value must come about before the earth can become the scene of a happy but considerate development of power on the part of free and fine human beings. Every contest decided by examinations and prizes is ultimately an immoral method of training. It awakens only evil passions, envy and the impression of injustice on the one side, arrogance on the other. After I had during the course of twenty years fought these school examinations, I read with thorough agreement a short time ago, Ruskin's views on the subject. He believed that all competition was a false basis of stimulus, and every distribution of prizes a false means. He thought that the real sign of talent in a boy, auspicious for his future career, was his desire to work for work's sake. He declared that the real aim of instruction should be to show him his own proper and special gifts, to strengthen them in him, not to spur him on to an empty competition with those who were plainly his superiors in capacity.
Moreover it ought not to be forgotten that success and failure involve of themselves their own punishment and their own reward, the one bitter, the other sweet enough to secure in a natural way increased strength, care, prudence, and endurance. It is completely unnecessary for the educator to use, besides these, some special punishments or special rewards, and so pervert the conceptions of the child that failure seems to him to be a wrong, success on the other hand as the right.
No matter where one turns one's gaze, it is notorious that the externally encouraging or awe-inspiring means of education, are an obstacle to what are the chief human characteristics, courage in oneself and goodness to others.
A people whose education is carried on by gentle means only (I mean the people of Japan), have shown that manliness is not in danger where children are not hardened by corporal punishment. These gentle means are just as effective in calling forth selfmastery and consideration. These virtues are so imprinted on children, at the tenderest age, that one learns first in Japan what attraction considerate kindliness bestows upon life. In a country where blows are never seen, the first rule of social intercourse is not to cause discomfort to others. It is told that when a foreigner in Japan took up a stone to throw it at a dog, the dog did not run. No one had ever thrown a stone at him. Tenderness towards animals is the complement in that country of tenderness in human relationship, a tenderness whose result is observed, among other effects, in a relatively small number of crimes against life and security.
War, hunting for pleasure, corporal discipline, are nothing more than different expressions of the tiger nature still alive in man. When the rod is thrown away, and when, as some one has said, children are no longer boxed on their ears but are given magnifying glasses and photographic cameras to increase their capacity for life and for loving it, instead of learning to destroy it, real education in humanity will begin.
For the benefit of those who are not convinced that corporal punishment can be dispensed with in a manly education, by so remote and so distant an example as Japan, I should like to mention a fact closer to us. Our Germanic forefathers did not have this method of education. It was introduced with Christianity. Corporal discipline was turned into a religious duty, and as late as the seventeenth century there were intelligent men who flogged their children once a week as a part of spiritual guardianship. I once asked our great poet, Victor Rydberg, and he said that he had found no proof that corporal punishment was usual among the Germans in heathen times. I asked him whether he did not believe that the fact of its absence had encouraged the energetic individualism and manliness in the Northern peoples. He thought so, and agreed with me. Finally, I might note from our own time, that there are many families and schools, our girls' schools for example, and also boys' schools in some countries, where corporal punishment is never used. I know a family with twelve children whose activity and capacity are not damaged by bringing them under the rule of duty alone. Corporal punishment is never used in this home; a determined but mild mother has taught the children to obey voluntarily, and has known how to train their wills to self-control.
By "voluntary obedience," I do not mean that the child is bound to ask endless questions for reasons, and to dispute them before he obeys. A good teacher never gives a command without there being some good reason, but whether the child is convinced or not, he must always obey, and if he asks "why" the answer is very simple; every one, adults as well as children, must obey the right and must submit to what cannot be avoided. The great necessity in life must be imprinted in childhood. This can be done without harsh means by training the child, even previous to his birth, by cultivating one's self-control, and after his birth by never giving in to a child's caprices. The rule is, in a few cases, to work in opposition to the action of the child, but in other cases work constructively; I mean provide the child with material to construct his own personality and then let him do this work of construction. This is, in brief, the art of education. The worst of all educational methods are threats. The only effective admonitions are short and infrequent ones. The greatest skill in the educator is to be silent for the moment and then so reprove the fault, indirectly, that the child is brought to correct himself or make himself the object of blame. This can be done by the instructor telling something that causes the child to compare his own conduct with the hateful or admirable types of behaviour about which he hears information. Or the educator may give an opinion which the child must take to himself although it is not applied directly to him.
On many occasions a forceful display of indignation on the part of the elder person is an excellent punishment, if the indignation is reserved for the right moment. I know children to whom nothing was more frightful than their father's scorn; this was dreaded. Children who are deluged with directions and religious devotions, who receive an ounce of morality in every cup of joy, are most certain to be those who will revolt against all this. Nearly every thinking person feels that the deepest educational influences in his life have been indirect; some good advice not given to him directly; a noble deed told without any direct reference. But when people come themselves to train others they forget all their own personal experience.
The strongest constructive factor in the education of a human being is the settled, quiet order of home, its peace, and its duty. Open-heartedness, industry, straightforwardness at home develop goodness, desire to work, and simplicity in the child. Examples of artistic work and books in the home, its customary life on ordinary days and holidays, its occupations and its pleasures, should give to the emotions and imagination of the child, periods of movement and repose, a sure contour and a rich colour. The pure, warm, clear atmosphere in which father, mother, and children live together in freedom and confidence; where none are kept isolated from the interests of the others; but each possesses full freedom for his own personal interest; where none trenches on the rights of others; where all are willing to help one another when necessary,--in this atmosphere egoism, as well as altruism, can attain their richest development, and individuality find its just freedom. As the evolution of man's soul advances to undreamed-of possibilities of refinement, of capacity, of profundity; as the spiritual life of the generation becomes more manifold in its combinations and in its distinctions; the more time one has for observing the wonderful and deep secrets of existence, behind the visible, tangible, world of sense, the more will each new generation of children show a more refined and a more consistent mental life. It is impossible to attain this result under the torture of the crude methods in our present home and school training. We need new homes, new schools, new marriages, new social relations, for those new souls who are to feel, love, and suffer, in ways infinitely numerous that we now can not even name. Thus they will come to understand life; they will have aspirations and hopes; they will believe; they will pray. The conceptions of religion, love, and art, all these must be revolutionised so radically, that one now can only surmise what new forms will be created in future generations. This transformation can be helped by the training of the present, by casting aside the withered foliage which now covers the budding possibilities of life.
The house must once more become a home for the souls of children, not for their bodies alone. For such homes to be formed, that in their turn will mould children, the children must be given back to the home. Instead of the study preparation at home for the school taking up, as it now does, the best part of a child's life, the school must get the smaller part, the home the larger part. The home will have the responsibility of so using the free time as well on ordinary days as on holidays, that the children will really become a part of the home both in their work and in their pleasures. The children will be taken from the school, the street, the factory, and restored to the home. The mother will be given back from work outside, or from social life to the children. Thus natural training in the spirit of Rousseau and Spencer will be realised; a training for life, by life at home.