It is man's moral duty to act as the physician of his enemies and seek
to cure them of their wrongdoing. How much more, then, should this
attitude be taken toward those whom we love—toward our children, if we
find their characters marred by serious faults?
In discussing the subject of punishment I do not for a moment think of
covering the innumerable problems which it suggests. Many books have
been written on this subject; prolonged study and the experience of a
lifetime are barely sufficient for a mastery of its details. I shall
content myself with suggesting a few simple rules and principles, and
shall consider my object gained if I induce my hearers to enter upon a
closer investigation of the delicate and manifold questions involved.
The first general rule to which I would refer is, never administer
punishment in anger. A saying of Socrates deserves to be carefully
borne in mind. Turning one day upon his insolent servant, Speucippus,
who had subjected him to great annoyance, he exclaimed, "I should beat
you now, sirrah, were I not so angry with you." The practice of most men
is the very opposite; they beat and punish because they are angry.
But it is clear that we cannot trust ourselves to correct another while
we are enraged. The intensity of our anger is proportional to the degree
of annoyance which we have experienced, but it happens quite frequently
that a great annoyance may be caused by a slight fault, just as,
conversely, the greatest fault may cause us only slight annoyance, or
may even contribute to our pleasure. We should administer serious
punishment where the fault is serious, and slight punishment where the
fault is slight. But, as I have just said, a slight fault may sometimes
cause serious annoyance, just as a slight spark thrown into a powder
magazine may cause a destructive explosion. And we do often resemble a
powder magazine, being filled with suppressed inflammable irritations,
so that a trivial naughtiness on the part of a child may cause a most
absurd display of temper.
But is it the child's fault that we are in this irascible condition? To
show how a slight fault may sometimes cause a most serious annoyance,
let me remind you of the story of Vedius Pollio, the Roman. He was one
day entertaining the Emperor Augustus at dinner. During the banquet a
slave who was carrying one of the crystal goblets by which his master
set great store, in his nervousness suffered the goblet to fall from his
hand so that it broke into a thousand pieces on the floor. Pollio was so
infuriated that he ordered the slave to be bound and thrown into a
neighboring fishpond, to be devoured by the lampreys. The Emperor
interfered to save the slave's life, but Pollio was too much enraged to
defer even to the Emperor's wish. Thereupon Augustus ordered that every
crystal goblet in the house should be broken in his presence, that the
slave should be set free, and that the obnoxious fishpond should be
closed.
The breaking of a goblet or vase is a good instance of how a slight
fault, a mere inadvertency, may cause serious damage and great chagrin.
In the same way an unseasonable word, loud conversation, a bit of
pardonable mischief, which we should overlook under ordinary
circumstances, may throw us into a fury when we are out of sorts. When
we have urgent business and are kept waiting, we are apt, unless we keep
a curb on our tempers, to break forth into violent complaints, which
indeed are quite proportional to the amount of annoyance we experience,
but not necessarily to the fault of the person who occasions it.
Our business is to cure faults, and in order to accomplish this end the
punishment should be meted out in due proportion to the fault. Instead
of following this principle, the great majority of men when they punish
are not like reasonable beings, selecting right means toward a true end,
but like hot springs which boil over because they cannot contain
themselves.
We ought never to punish in anger. No one can trust himself when in that
state; an angry man is always liable to overshoot the mark; we must wait
until our angry feeling has had time to cool.
Do I then advise that we administer punishment in cold blood? No, we
ought to correct the faults of others with a certain moral warmth
expressed in our words and manner, a warmth which is produced by our
reprehension of the fault, not by the annoyance which it causes us.
This, then, is the first rule: Never punish in anger.
The second rule is that in correcting a child we should be careful to
distinguish between the child and its fault; we should not allow the
shadow of the fault to darken the whole nature of the child. We should
treat the fault as something accidental which can be removed. Vulgar
persons, when a child has told a falsehood, say, "You liar." They
identify the child with the fault of lying, and thereby imply that this
vice is ingrained in its nature. They do not say or imply, "You have
told a falsehood, but you will surely not do so again; hereafter you
will tell the truth"; they say, "You are a liar"; which is equivalent to
saying, "Lying has become part and parcel of your nature." In the same
way when a child has proved itself incapable of mastering a certain
task, the thoughtless parent or teacher may exclaim, impatiently, "You
are a dunce"; that is to say, "You are a hopeless case; nothing but
stupidity is to be expected of you." All opprobrious epithets of this
sort are to be most scrupulously avoided. Even to the worst offender one
should say: "You have acted thus in one case, perhaps in many cases, but
you can act otherwise; the evil has not eaten into the core of your
nature. There is still a sound part in you; there is good at the bottom
of your soul, and if you will only assert your better nature, you can do
well." We are bound to show confidence in the transgressor. Our
confidence may be disappointed a hundred times, but it must never be
wholly destroyed, for it is the crutch on which the weak lean in their
feeble efforts to walk.
Now, such language as "You are a dunce," "You are a liar," is, to be
sure, used only by the vulgar; but many parents who would not use such
words imply as much by their attitude toward their child; they indicate
by their manner, "Well, nothing good is to be expected of you." This
attitude of the parents is born of selfishness; the child has
disappointed their expectations, and the disappointment, instead of
making them more tender toward the child, makes them impatient. But this
is not the attitude of the physician whose business it is to cure evil.
We must give the child to understand that we still have hope of his
amendment; the slightest improvement should be welcomed with an
expression of satisfaction.
We should never attach absolute blame to a child, never overwhelm it
with a general condemnation. And in like manner we should never give
absolute praise, never injure a child by unlimited approbation. The
words, "excellent," "perfect," which are sometimes used in school
reports, are inexcusable. I have seen the object of education thwarted
in the case of particularly promising pupils by such unqualified
admiration. No human being is ethically perfect, and to tell a child
that he is perfect is to encourage a superficial way of looking upon
life and to pamper his conceit.
The right attitude is to say or to imply by our manner, "You have done
well thus far; go on as you have begun and try hereafter to do still
better." Such words as these fall like sunshine into the soul, warming
and fructifying every good seed.
On the other hand, to tell a child that he is perfect may induce him to
relax his effort, for having reached the summit he does not feel the
need of further exertion. We should correct faults in such a way as to
imply that not everything is lost. And we should praise merit in such a
way as to imply that not everything is yet achieved; that, on the
contrary, the goal is still far, far in the distance.
Everything, as I have said, depends upon the attitude of the parent or
instructor. Those who possess educational tact—a very rare and precious
quality—adopt the right attitude by a sort of instinct. But those who
do not possess it naturally can acquire it, at least to a certain
degree, by reflecting upon the underlying principles of punishment.
The third rule is, Do not lecture children. One feels tempted to say
to some parents: "You do not succeed as well as you might in the
training of your children because you talk too much. The less you say
the more effective will your discipline be. Let your measures speak for
you."
When punishment is necessary let it come upon the child like the action
of a natural law—calm, unswerving, inevitable. Do not attempt to give
reasons or to argue with the child concerning the punishment you are
about to inflict. If the child is in danger of thinking your punishment
unjust, it may be expedient to explain the reasons of your action, but
do so after the punishment has been inflicted.
There are parents who are perpetually scolding their children. The fact
that they scold so much is proof of their educational helplessness. They
do not know what measures of discipline to apply, hence they scold.
Often their scolding is due to momentary passion, and the child
intuitively detects that this is so. If the parent is in ill humor, a
mischievous prank, a naughty word, an act of disobedience sometimes puts
him into a towering passion; at other times the same offense may be
lightly considered, or even worse offenses passed over with meaningless
"Don't do that again." The child perceives this vacillation, and learns
to look upon a scolding as a mere passing shower, hiding its head under
shelter until the storm has blown over.
Other parents are given to delivering lengthy homilies to their
children, and then often express surprise that all their sound doctrine,
all their beautiful sermons, have no effect whatever. If they would
pause to consider for a moment, they could easily see why their lectures
have no effect, why they pass "in at one ear and out at the other."
Their lectures on right and wrong are generally too abstract for the
child's comprehension, and often do not touch its case at all. Moreover,
the iteration of the same dingdong has the effect of blunting the
child's apprehension. A stern rebuke is occasionally necessary and does
good, but it should be short, clear, incisive.
A moralizing talk with an older child sometimes does good. The parent
should not, however, indulge in generalities, but, looking over the
record of the child for the past weeks or months, should pick out the
definite points in which it has transgressed, thus holding up a picture
of the child's life to its own eyes to reenforce the memory of its
faults and stimulate its conscience. In general, it may be said that the
less the parent talks about moral delinquencies the better. On this
rule of parsimony in respect to words particular stress is to be laid.
The next rule is quite as important as the preceding ones. It is that of
undeviating consistency. Were not the subject altogether too painful,
it would be amusing to observe how weak mothers—and weak fathers
too—constantly eat their own words.
"How often have I told you not to do this thing, but now you have done
it again." "Well, what is to follow?" secretly asks the child. "The next
time you do it I shall surely punish you." The next time the story
repeats itself; and so it is always "the next time." Very often foolish
threats are made, which the parents know they cannot and will not carry
out; and do you suppose that the children do not know as well as you
that the threat you have been uttering is an idle one?
We should be extremely careful in deciding what to demand of a child.
Our demands should be determined by a scrupulous regard for the child's
own good, but when the word has gone forth, especially in the case of
young children, we should insist on unquestioning obedience. Our will
must be recognized by the child as its law; it must not suspect that we
are governed by passion or caprice.
There are those that protest that this is too stern a method, that
gentle treatment, persuasion, and love ought to suffice to induce the
child to obey. Love and persuasion do suffice in many cases, but they do
not answer in all; and, besides, I hold it to be important that the
child should sometimes be brought face to face with a law which is
superior to the law of its own will, and should be compelled to bend to
the higher law, as expressed in its parent's wishes, merely because it
is a higher law.
And so far from believing this is to be a cruel method, I believe that
the opposite method of always wheedling and coaxing children into
obedience is really cruel. Many a time later on in life its self-love
will beat in vain against the immutable barriers of law, and if the
child has not learned to yield to rightful authority in youth, the
necessity of doing so later on will only be the more bitterly felt. The
child should sometimes be compelled to yield to the parent's authority
simply because the parental authority expresses a higher law than that
of its own will.
And this leads me to speak incidentally of a subject which is nearly
allied to the one we are now discussing.
It is a well-known trick of the nursery to divert the child from some
object which it is not to have by quickly directing its attention to
another object. If a child cries for the moon, amuse it with the light
of a candle; if it insists upon handling a fragile vase, attract its
attention to the doll; if it demands a knife with which it might injure
itself, call in the rattle to the rescue.
This method is quite proper for baby children, but it is often continued
to a much later age with harmful results. As soon as the
self-consciousness of the child is fairly developed, that is, about the
third year, this method should no longer be employed. It is important
that the will power of the young be strengthened. Now, the more the will
is accustomed to fasten upon the objects of desire the stronger does it
become, while, by rapidly introducing new objects the will is distracted
and a certain shiftlessness is induced, the will being made to glide
from one object to another without fixing itself definitely upon any
one. It is far better to allow a child to develop a will of its own, but
to make it understand that it must at times yield this will to the will
of the parent, than thus to distract its attention. If it wants a knife
which it ought not to have, make it understand firmly, though never
harshly, that it cannot have what it wants, that it must yield its wish
to the parent's wish. Nor is it at all necessary every time to give the
reasons why. The fact that the parent commands is a sufficient reason.
The rules thus far mentioned are, that we shall not punish in anger,
that we shall not identify the child with its fault, that we shall be
sparing with admonitions and let positive discipline speak for itself,
and that, while demanding nothing which is unreasonable, we should
insist on implicit obedience.
There is one question that touches the general subject of punishment and
reward which is in some sense the most important and vital of all the
questions we are considering. It throws a bright light or a deep shadow
on the whole theory of life, according to the point of view we take.
I allude to the question whether the pleasures of the senses should be
treated as a reward for the performance of duty. A parent says to his
child: "You have been good to-day; you have studied your lessons; your
deportment has been satisfactory: I will reward you by giving you
sweetmeats, or by taking you on a holiday into the country." But what
connection can there possibly be between the performance of duty and the
physical pleasure enjoyed in eating sweetmeats? Is not the connection a
purely arbitrary one? Does it not depend upon the notion that there is
no intrinsic satisfaction in a moral act? We ought to see that it is
radically wrong to make such enjoyments the reward of virtue; we ought
to have the courage to make application of our better theories to the
education of our children if we would develop in them the germs of a
nobler, freer manhood and womanhood. I admit, indeed, that a child is
not yet sufficiently developed to stand on its own feet morally, and
that its virtuous inclinations need to be supported and assisted; but
we can give it this assistance by means of our approbation or
disapprobation.
To be in disgrace with its parents ought to be for a child the heaviest
penalty. To have their favor should be its highest reward. But simply
because a child is most easily taken on the side of its animal
instincts, are we to appeal to it on that side? Should it not be our aim
to raise the young child above the mere desire for physical
gratification, to prevent it from attaching too much importance to such
pleasures?
The conduct of many parents, however, I fear, tends to foster
artificially that lower nature in their offspring which it should rather
be their aim to repress. By their method of bestowing extraneous
rewards, parents contribute to pervert the character of their children
in earliest infancy, giving it a wrong direction from the start.
But, it may be objected, is there not a wholesome truth contained in
Saint Paul's saying that "he who will not work, neither shall he eat"?
Is not our conscience offended when we see a person enjoying the
pleasures of life who will perform none of its more serious duties? And
should we not all agree that, in a certain sense, virtue entitles one to
pleasure, and the absence of virtue ought to preclude one from pleasure?
To meet this point let us dwell for a moment on the following
considerations. Man is endowed with a variety of faculties, and a
different type of pleasure or satisfaction arises from the exercise of
each. Pleasure, in general, may be defined as the feeling which results
from successful exercise of any of our faculties—physical, mental or
moral. A successful rider takes pleasure in horsemanship, an athlete in
the lifting of weights. The greater an artist's mastery over his art,
the greater the pleasure he derives from it. The more complex and
difficult the problems which a scholar is able to resolve, the more
delight does he find in study. The same is true of the moral nature.
The more a man succeeds in harmonizing his inner life, and in helping to
make the principles of social harmony prevail in the world about him,
the more satisfaction will he derive from the exercise of virtue.
But the main fact which we are bound to remember is that it is
impossible to pay for the exercise of any one faculty by the pleasure
derived from the exercise of another; that each faculty is legitimately
paid only in its own coin. If you ask a horseman who has just returned
from an exhilarating ride what compensation he expects to receive for
the exercise he has taken, he will probably look at you in blank
amazement, with grave misgivings as to your sanity. If you ask a
scientist what reward he expects to receive for the pursuit of
knowledge, he will answer you, if he is an expert in the use of his
intellect, that he expects no ulterior reward of any kind; that not
positive knowledge so much as the sense of growth in the attainment of
knowledge is the highest reward which he can imagine. And the same
answer you will get from a person who is expert in the use of his moral
faculty, namely, that not virtue so much as growth in virtue, not the
results achieved by the exercise of the faculty, but the successful
exercise itself is the supreme compensation.
I have used the word "expert" in all these cases, and precisely "there's
the rub." The reason why many persons cannot get themselves to believe
that the exercise of the mental and moral faculties is a sufficient
reward is because they are not expert, because they have not penetrated
far enough along the lines of knowledge and virtue to obtain the
satisfactions of them. But the same applies to the tyro in any pursuit.
A rider who has not yet acquired a firm seat in the saddle will hardly
derive much pleasure from horseback exercise. An awkward, clumsy dancer,
who cannot keep step, will get no pleasure from dancing. There is no
help for the tyro, no matter in what direction he aims at excellence,
except to go on trying until he becomes expert.
I have said that each faculty is sovereign in its own sphere, that each
provides its proper satisfactions within itself and does not borrow them
from the domain of any of the others. Nevertheless we are constrained to
admit the important truth that is contained in the saying of Saint Paul.
And this truth, it seems to me, may be formulated in the words that,
while physical pleasure is not the reward of virtue, virtue ought to be
regarded as the condition sine qua non of the enjoyment of physical
pleasures—at least, so far as the distribution of such pleasures is
within the power of the educator or of society.
This proposition depends on the difference in rank that subsists between
our faculties, of which some are superior and others inferior, the moral
and intellectual faculties rightfully occupying the top of the scale. We
inwardly rebel when we see the indolent and self-indulgent living in
luxury and affluence. And this not because the enjoyments which such
persons command are the proper compensations of virtue, or because
physical pain would be the proper punishment of their moral faults, but
because we demand that the lower faculties shall not be exercised at the
expense and to the neglect of the higher, that the legitimate rank and
order of our faculties shall not be subverted.
Applying this idea to the case of children, I think it would be
perfectly proper to deny a child that has failed to study its lessons or
has given other occasion for serious displeasure, the privilege of going
on a holiday to the country or enjoying its favorite sports. Everything,
however, will depend—as so much in education does depend—on the
manner; in this instance on what we imply in our denial rather than on
what we expressly state.
The denial, it seems to me, should be made on the ground that there is a
proper order in which the faculties are to be exercised; that the
higher, the mental, faculties should be exercised first, and that he
who will not aim at the higher satisfactions, neither shall he, so far
as we can prevent, enjoy the lower. On the other hand, by making
physical pleasures—sports, games and the like—the reward of study, we
exalt these satisfactions so as to make them seem the higher, so as to
make the satisfactions of knowledge appear of lesser value compared with
the satisfactions of the senses.
In an ideal community every one of our faculties would be brought into
play in turn, without our ever being tempted to regard the pleasures of
the one as compensation for the exercise of the other. The human soul
has often been compared to an instrument with many strings. Perhaps it
may not be amiss to compare it to an orchestra. In this orchestra the
violins represent the intellectual faculties. They lead the rest. Then
there are the flute-notes of love, the trumpet tones of ambition, the
rattling drums and cymbals of the passions and appetites. Each of these
instruments is to come in its proper place, while the moral plan of life
is the musical composition which they all assist in rendering.
What we should try to banish is the vicious idea of extraneous reward,
the notion that man is an animal whose object in life is to eat and
drink, to possess gold and fine garments, and to gratify every lower
desire, and that he can be brought to labor only on condition that he
may obtain such pleasures. What we should impress instead is the notion
that labor itself is satisfying—manual labor, mental labor, moral
labor—and that the more difficult the labor, the higher the
compensating satisfactions.
