The Punishment of Children

by Felix Adler

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.