4. Discovering Causes
I am thus led to the second branch of my subject. I have tried to meet the objection of the parent who says, "I know the character of my child; I know my child is obstinate," by replying, "If you only know that your child is obstinate you know very little; you need to know what are the causes of his obstinacy, and vary your treatment accordingly." Or if any one says, "My child is untruthful," I reply, "You need to find out what the cause is of this untruthfulness and vary your treatment accordingly." Or again, in the case which we have just considered, I have pointed out that laziness in a child may have no serious meaning whatever or may give just cause for the most serious alarm, according to the group of characteristic traits of which it is one. On this point I wish to lay stress. If you desire to obtain a correct impression of a human face, you do not look at the eye by itself, then at the nose, then fix your attention on the cheeks and the chin and the brow, but you regard all these features together and view them in their relations to one another. Or let us recur to the simile of the physician. What would you think of the doctor who should judge the nature of a disease by some one symptom which happened to obtrude itself, or should treat each symptom as it appears separately, without endeavoring to reach the occult cause which has given rise to the symptoms, of which they are all but the outward manifestation?
And yet that is precisely the incredible mistake which every one of us, I venture to say, is apt to make in the treatment of children's characters. We judge of them by some one trait, as obstinacy, which happens to obtrude itself on our attention, and we prescribe for each symptom as it arises; we treat obstinacy by itself, and untruthfulness and indolence separately, without endeavoring to get at the underlying cause of all these symptoms. The point I desire to make is that in the education of our children it is necessary not only to study individual traits, but each trait in connection with the group to which it belongs.
Take for an illustration the case last mentioned—that of laziness. There is a well-known type group or group of characteristic traits, of which laziness is one. The chief components of this group are the following: The sense of shame is wanting, that is one trait. The will is under the control of random impulses, good impulses mingle helter-skelter with bad. There is an indisposition on the part of such a child to prolonged exertion in any direction, even in the direction of pleasure. That is perhaps the most dangerous trait of all.
If you try to deal, as people actually do, with each of these traits separately, you will fail. If you try to influence the sense of shame, you will meet with no response; if you disgrace such a child, you will make it worse; if you whip it, you will harden it. If you attempt to overcome indolence by the promise of rewards, that will be useless. The child forgets promised rewards just as quickly as it forgets threatened punishment.
This forgetfulness, this lack of coherency in its ideas, is particularly characteristic. The ideas of such a child are imperfectly connected. The ties between causes and their effects are feeble. The contents of the child's mind are in a state of unstable equilibrium. There is no point of fixity in its mental realm. And the cure for such a condition is to establish fixity in the thoughts, to induce habits of industry and application by steady, unrelaxing discipline, and especially by means of manual training.
The immense value of mechanical labor as a means of moral improvement has been appreciated until now only to a very imperfect extent. Mechanical labor wisely directed secures mental fixity because it concentrates the child's attention for days and often for weeks upon a single task. Mechanical labor stimulates moral pride by enabling the pupil to produce articles of value and giving him in this way the sense of achievement. Mechanical labor also overcomes indolence by compelling settled habits of industry, whereby the random impulses of the will are brought under control.
The type group which we have just considered is one of the most clearly marked and easily recognized. It is a type which we often meet with among the so-called criminal classes, where its characteristic features can be seen in exaggerated proportions. Without attempting to analyze any additional types (a task of great delicacy and difficulty), the truth that the underlying fault of character is often unlike the symptoms which appear most conspicuously on the surface may be further illustrated by the following example. I have known of a person who made himself obnoxious to his friends by his overbearing manners and apparent arrogance. Casual observers condemned him on account of what they believed to be his overweening self-confidence, and expressed the opinion that his self-conceit ought to be broken down. But the real trouble with him was not that he was too self-confident, but that he had not self-confidence enough. His self-confidence needed to be built up. He was overbearing in society because he did not trust himself, because he was always afraid of not being able to hold his own, and hence he exaggerated on the other side. Those who take such a person to be in reality what he seems to be will never be able to influence him. If we find such a trait in a child, and simply treat it as if it were arrogant, we shall miss the mark entirely. We must find the underlying principle of the character the occult cause of which the surface symptoms are the effects.
Our knowledge of the great type groups is as yet extremely meager. Psychology has yet to do its work in this direction, and books on education give us but little help. But there are certain means by which the task of investigation may possibly be assisted. One means is the study of the plays of Shakespeare. That master mind has created certain types of character which repay the closest analysis. The study of the best biographies is a second means. The study of the moral characteristics of the primitive races—a study which has been begun by Herbert Spencer in his work on Descriptive Sociology, and by Waitz in his Anthropologie der Naturvölker—is perhaps another means; and honest introspection, when it shall have become the rule among intelligent persons, instead of being the exception, will probably be the best means.
I am afraid that some of my hearers, from having been over-confident as educators in the beginning, may now have become over-timid; from having said to themselves, "Why, of course we know the characteristics of our children," may now, since the difficulties of studying character have been explained, be disposed to exclaim in a kind of despair, "Who can ever understand the character of a single human being?" A perfect understanding of any human being is indeed impossible. We do not perfectly know even those who are nearest and dearest to us. But there are means of reaching at least approximate results, so far as children are concerned, and a few of these permit me to briefly summarize.
Try to win the confidence of the child so that it may disclose its inner life to you. Children accept the benefactions of their parents as unthinkingly as they breathe the air around them. Show them that your care and untiring devotion must be deserved, not taken as a matter of course. In this way you will deepen their attachment and lead them to willingly open their hearts to you. At the same time enter into the lesser concerns of their life. Be their comrades, their counselors; stoop to them, let them cling to you.
Observe your children when they are at play, for it is then that they throw off their reserve and show themselves as they are. Some children, for instance, will not join a game unless they can be leaders; is not that a sign of character? Some children will take an unfair advantage at play, and justify themselves by saying, "It is only in play." Some are persistent in a game while others tire of any game after a little while. Others are sticklers for a strict observance of the rules. Observe how your sons or daughters are regarded by their companions; children are often wonderfully quick to detect one another's faults.
Try to find out what the favorite pursuits and studies of your child are, by what it is repelled, by what attracted, and to what it is indifferent. Above all, keep a record of your child's development. Do not shun the labor involved in this. You know very well that nothing worth having can be obtained without labor, yet most parents are unwilling to give sufficient time and attention to the education of their children. Keep a record of the most significant words and acts of the child. Thus after a while you may have a picture of the child's inward condition before you, an assemblage of characteristic traits, and by comparing one trait with another, you may find the clue to a deeper understanding of its nature.
What I have said about children applies equally to ourselves. I started out by saying that not one parent in a thousand knows his child's character. I conclude by saying that not one man or woman in a thousand knows his or her own character. We go through life cherishing an unreal conception of ourselves which is often inspired by vanity.
I am well aware that it is difficult to know oneself, but there are helps in this direction also. We can look over our own past record, we can honestly examine how we have acted in the leading crises of our lives, we can summon our own characteristic traits before our minds—the things that we like to dwell upon, and the things which we would gladly blot out of our memories if we could—and by comparing this trait with that, we may discover the springs by which we have been moved. It is difficult to attain self-knowledge, but it is imperative that we should try to attain it. The aim of our existence is to improve our characters, and clearly we cannot improve them unless we know them.
I have undertaken to grapple with a most difficult subject, but I shall have accomplished the purpose which I had in mind if I have awakened in you a deeper desire to ask yourselves, first, "What is the character of my child?" and, second, "What is my own character?" The most serious business of our lives is to try to find the answers to these two questions.