MANNERS.
Manners comes next under my Consideration: it implies such a Government of our Children as tends to regulate their Conduct, by making their Actions what they ought to be. And though Health has been treated first, from it’s being generally thought the most immediately necessary, yet if this Regulation, this due Government does not accompany every Endeavour to preserve their Children’s Health, Parents will often be disappointed, and find their Labour fruitless.
The Basis of Government is Authority: without that, in vain do we expect any Order in our Children, any Happiness to ourselves. Cities, Armies, Kingdoms, all are sustain’d by it: and so too must private Families be. By Authority I do not mean that stern Brow, that trembling awful Distance, nor that Bashaw-like Behaviour, which favours more of the Tyrant than of the Parent; no: I mean a rational, yet absolute Exercise of a Degree of Power, necessary for the regulating the Actions and Dispositions of Children, ’till they become wise enough to govern themselves. But because some Children attain this necessary Knowledge sooner than others, and one Child will be better able to conduct itself at fifteen, than another at twenty, or even thirty; there is but one general way of ascertaining the length of Time our Authority should be exercised in it’s full Force; which is that settled by the Laws of our Kingdom; viz. ’till the Age of twenty-one. And if we can once seriously resolve to employ this Term so critical to Children, solely to their Advantage, Authority will thenceforward become useless: it’s Terrors will vanish, and be wholly absorbed in the united Considerations of the Parent, the Friend, and the Companion: in a Word, our Children well conducted to this Age will afterwards take as much Pains to make us happy, as we have done to make them wise. But to proceed.
As soon as a Child discovers the first Dispositions to Perversity and Self-will (which as sure as it is born it will too soon begin to do) I advise most earnestly that it be attended to; for much depends upon it. Here I must caution my Fair Readers in particular, not to suspect me of Cruelty; since the Pains I am taking is intended to prevent the Necessity of using any Severity during our whole Lives. But what! you’ll say, should a Child be corrected before it can speak? I answer, that the first Principle in human Nature is Self-love; Reason, the second Principle, opens only by degrees. Now as soon as the Passions of Children shew themselves, they should certainly be checked: and as the Fear of Chastisement is included in Self-love, it is easy to turn this to their Advantage, ’till Reason shall have gained so much Strength as to render it unnecessary: no one can absolutely fix the Time, but within the Year most Parents will find a Necessity to begin; and before half the first Septenary is past much may be done.
In the Government of Children Parents should be obstinately good; that is, set out upon right Principles, and then pursue them with Spirit and Resolution: otherwise their Children will soon grow too cunning for them, and take the Advantage of their Weakness.
Severe and frequent Whipping is I think a very bad Practice; it inflames the Skin, it puts the Blood into a Ferment, and there is besides, a Meanness, a degree of Ignominy attending it, which makes it very unbecoming: still there may be Occasions which will render it necessary; but I earnestly advise that all the milder Methods be first try’d. A coarse clamorous manner of enforcing Obedience is also to be avoided; it is vulgar, and nothing vulgar should be seen in the Behaviour of Parents to their Children, because through the Eyes and Ears it taints their tender Minds: still, let Parents make their Children both see and feel the Power they have over them.
If a Child is passionate and wilful, a Look, or a little Tap on the Hand, will, without hurting it, sometimes suffice to convince it that it is doing wrong; and will often cure the Fault, or at least keep it under. A Child, in a perverse Mood, throws down it’s Play-things; if they are taken up fifty times successively, they are still thrown down as long as the Spirit of Contradiction lasts: now the Remedy here should be to take them away; or by a serious Countenance shew you are displeased; and the Child will very probably not only soon be quiet, but be less prone to do the like another Time. I have seen Children that could not speak, distinguish perfectly those who were disposed to spoil them, from those who were not; scratch Faces, break China, and play the tyrant over all who humour’d them, and yet not offer to lift a Finger against those who did not. By all means let Children be play’d with, and have every Amusement; but great care must be taken to distinguish Play from Mischief; innocent Freedom, from a growing Perversity.
The Humours even of Infants are innumerably various. One Child will not sleep but on a Lap; another there is no Peace with unless rock’d in a Cradle; a third will cry when a Candle is taken away; and to shew us why it cry’d, it is quiet the Moment it is brought back again; a fourth will swill Tea or some other improper Liquor out of measure and out of time; and a fifth will eat Trash ’till it can eat nothing else, nor that itself. In these Cases I advise Parents to consider if their Children are acting for themselves, or they for their Children: one Grain of Judgment will set them right; one Minute’s Reflection will shew them their Error; but, when they once see it they must resolve to avoid it for the future. I call’d some time ago on a Friend, and took a Family Dinner; when to my great Astonishment I saw little Master, not yet a Year old, drinking Porter. What, said I, do you give the Child strong Drink? Oh! Sir, reply’d Mamma, he’ll drink nothing else. Now is not the Fault of such Proceeding obvious? and is not the Remedy as obvious? Parents surely cannot be so blind as not to see their Children’s Health impair’d, and their Humours strengthen’d, by this misplac’d Indulgence; and all for want of a little Resolution, a gentle Correction, or a seasonable Reprimand; nay perhaps only a Look; which given with an authoritative Air, would often have the desired Effect. Constant Experience proves how wrong, nay how ineffectual, the opposite Practice to this is; those who give a Child every thing it cries or asks for, strengthen indeed its Wilfulness, but are far from making it happy. How many improper Things are there which Parents give a Child because they cannot quiet it? Who has not seen a Picture, a Book, a Watch, and other valuable things exposed to be destroyed by it through this mistaken Management? But surely it is right that even among the Baubles contrived on purpose, the Parents, not the Child, should have the Command of them; that is, they should be given or taken away at Discretion; and this without Passion or Ill-nature on one Side, and without Clamour or Fretfulness on the other. Parents should every Day more and more convince their Children of their Power over them, by restraining their little Irregularities, and by weakening their Passions; now this they cannot do without an early Attention to their various Dispositions and Tempers; that they may thence learn what Propensity is strongest, what Foible is most predominant.
Nature, ’tis true, is not alike bountiful to all; nor does she give the same Propensity, the same Temper to all. One Child is born with sweet and mild Dispositions; another more sanguine, and full of Fire; a third has a Redundance of Acrimony; and so on: yet different Tempers are sometimes a kindness bestow’d on us by Nature, on purpose for us to act some certain Part on the great Stage of Life. It is therefore the Parents Business to watch the Temper of their Children; to check any evil Tendency, any ill Dispositions, and prevent every Excess from growing into a Habit; nay more, to change the bad Humour into a good one; as Physicians administer Medicines to alter the Blood and Juices. That famous Reply of Socrates to the Phisiognomist was excellent: “Nature (says he) intended me a Monster; but Reason has made me what I am.” Cardinal Richlieu (speaking of external Graces) says, “Every thing to a Gentleman should be natural.” Now it cannot be supposed that he means, we should know how to speak, or move, or dance gracefully, without being taught; no, but these Things by Acquisition should so far enter into us as to seem interwoven in our Nature. Thus did Philosophy change the Vices of Socrates into Virtues; and thus should Parents correct and alter the irregular Dispositions of their Children: they must temper and moderate the Fire of one, lest it grow too impetuous; they must animate the Mildness of another with a Degree of Warmth, lest it become sluggish; and they must blunt and sweeten the Acrimony of a third, lest it degenerate into Rancour; which last Frame of Mind, as it is of all others the most detestable in itself, and the most dangerous to Society, so of all others it requires the nicest Care to manage; in short Parents, as I have already observed, are to let their Children see and feel their Affection for them, and their Power over them; and then regulate their Actions as they find necessary.