Left this should affect but little those Parents, who are more solicitous that their Children should be fair in Face, and strong in Body, than beauteous in Mind, and pure of Heart, let me convince even these, that it is dangerous too to the bodily Welfare of Children, to neglect cultivating their Reason from their earliest Infancy; or to be careless of eradicating their little Humours, as soon as discover’d. And to this end they need only view the Majority of them on a sick Bed; where they will see this melancholy Truth (for such indeed we may call it) in its full Light.
Diseases are one Part of the Portion of human Nature, in a State of Mortality: no Stage of our Existence is exempt from them, and Childhood as little as any. Let then an unmanag’d, humour’d, pamper’d Child be sick; and besides the Abundance of otherwise unnecessary Trouble and Affliction it brings on the Parents and the whole Family, what Danger is not the Child itself exposed to, beyond what the Disease brings with it!
All wise Men agree, that Providence has furnished the World with Remedies for most human Diseases, at least in their first Stages, and Men with Knowledge to apply them. When skilful People are consulted in Time, the Medicines good, duly prepared and given, the Nurse attentive, and the Patient tractable, there is but little to be apprehended from the first Stage of any Disease which is not mortal of itself, where the Habit of Body is otherwise sound; barring such Accidents as cannot be foreseen, nor consequently obviated. But what can Physicians, Medicines, Nurses, all avail, in the Disease (otherwise ever so curable) of an untoward Creature, against whom perhaps there are great Odds that it shall not be conquered to swallow the least Portion of the most absolutely necessary Remedy; nor to submit in Sickness to the least Controul; indulged, perhaps, as it has been, in a Habit of slighting and baffling all Authority while in Health? Just nothing. No; the Trouble indeed of attending it, is doubled and trebled to those who are constantly about it; the Expence is at least the same, if not considerably augmented; and the Confusion, Affliction, and Alarms of the Parents, at the growing Danger of their spoil’d Darling, immoderately encreas’d, on finding all Remedies rendered ineffectual to it, by an Obstinacy which they (whether conscious of it or not) have heretofore been the foolish Encouragers of. In the mean time, the Disease gathers Strength, and the Child’s Wilfulness with it; and the little ungovernable Patient falls an untimely Victim to the former Mismanagement of the mistakenly fond Parents, and its own present Unruliness. To see a fond Father, in Spite of the Impotence of Tears, so general to his Sex, weeping over his Child, his Heir, his only Hope of Joy, and vainly entreating him, whom he might command, to take an easy Remedy! To behold a tender Mother, herself half spent with Grief and Fears, prostrate at her sick Favourite’s Pillow, expostulating with all the Eloquence of maternal Anxiety, and entreating, praying, coaxing it to swallow a necessary Medicine, but still in vain! To view the Parents at such a Juncture, inwardly divided, torn, and almost consumed, between the alternate Motions of Tenderness, Impatience, Love, and Anger, fruitlessly insist, where a Habit of Subjection should have already made a Word or a Look sufficient; and yet to find the humour’d Thing as resolutely bent on refusing, merely, perhaps, because so much entreated! To eye all this, I say, were surely sufficient to convince us, that it is a strange Inversion of the natural Order of Things; and has a something in it extremely absurd: and the more so, when we reflect, that the whole is an Effect of Folly in the Parents, and chiefly owing to their former Neglect of exerting a little prudential Authority.
If this be too frequent a Case, as the Experience of many People must convince them it is, let Parents in general remember, that their watchful Industry to conquer and regulate the little growing Passions and Humours of their tender Offspring, is as necessary towards the Preservation of their Bodies, as for the Culture of their Minds.
That this Difficulty of conquering Children, and rendering them tractable while sick, is no Exaggeration, I might appeal to the Consciousness of most Parents throughout the Kingdom; nay, I could support the Charge by many Instances within my own Knowledge; but shall content myself with producing a very few from the Relation of others. A Friend of mine, who had the Care of a young Gentleman, lately received a Letter from his Boarding School, with this Information; “Master has been much out of order, and what is worse, was out of the Reach of the Means of being easily made better. He had indeed three Doses of Physic prescrib’d him, but could not be prevailed on to swallow one; in short, they were all spilt on the Sheets, for not a Drop went down his Throat.” A little Miss not yet able to speak plain (as I was informed by a Person present) had a Medicine to take which she obstinately refus’d; Mamma interferes, and after many fruitless Entreaties gently corrects her; Miss still persists in the Refusal, and is chastised with additional Severity, even to the sixth time; at length, half breathless with crying, and ready in appearance to burst with Passion, she has still her Spirit so little conquered as to say in her imperfect Gibberish, “Well, if you till me, I won’t take it.” So Mamma overcome, lays down the Rod; and obstinate Miss coming off with the Victory, shewed she had more Courage to receive Correction, than the Mother Resolution to bestow it. The Truth was, that Mamma had never had a Dispute with the Child, in which she had not the Weakness to suffer it to get the better of her. A Lady of Rank I have the Honour to be acquainted with, and who I’m sure in other Respects has good Understanding, forfeited it greatly on a like Occasion. She told me her Daughter, when in the Country, having a Fever, all usual Means were try’d to prevail on her to take the necessary Remedies, but in vain! So far from being mov’d to Compliance, she was thrown into such vehement Fits of crying, whenever they were offered to her, that it was apprehended her Fever would encrease, and endanger her Life: ’till at length by good Fortune the Lady reflecting she had a Kitten which Miss was extravagantly fond of, she resolved to try an Experiment. Accordingly, as often as any thing was to be taken by Miss, Mamma holding Puss in her Hands, protested it should be thrown out of the Window and killed, if she did not take what was given her; and by this Stratagem brought the Child to a Compliance, which nothing else could effect. I own the Expedient was ingenious, and the Lady gave a Proof of her great Presence of Mind in turning to the Child’s Advantage an innocent Foible she had been indulg’d in. But surely at the same time she betrayed how much she had before forfeited her Understanding as well as the true Tenderness of the Parent, by the little Care she had taken to inculcate and enforce such Principles of Obedience and Gratitude, as should have taught her on the like Occasions to do at least as much out of Love and Duty to a fond Parent, as she did out of childish Attachment to a Kitten. Now however lightly People may think of these Things, who are not immediately concerned, they must and will be acknowledged great Afflictions to all Parents who love their Children, and see them in such Circumstances.
’Tis certain that Children may have Disorders which are not of a dangerous Nature, and may therefore be got through without a nice Observance of Rule; but then it is equally certain, that they have oftentimes very dangerous ones, which necessarily require both Medicines and Rule. And very eminent Physicians have declared it as their Opinion, that many of these tender Lives have been lost, purely for want of Submission to the Medicines and Rules prescribed them. Who then can look back on the Causes of a Loss so detrimental to Society, and not be offended at the general Neglect of Parents to remove them?
Nor can one, reasonably speaking, be less offended and concerned at the universal Custom among Parents of remedying on such Occasions their former Neglects, by present Falsehoods: that is, I mean, by attempting to impose on their Children’s Senses and Understandings by manifest Untruths. When a Child is to take a Medicine, is it not ridiculous to call a bitter Draught sour, or a sour one sweet? Is it less absurd to insist on a nauseous thing’s being pleasant, than it is to shew them what is black, and endeavour to persuade them it is white? And yet this is the Method commonly made use of with Children, to beguile down their Medicines. It is true it may furnish People with an easy Pretext to expatiate on their Children’s Capacity; but I am sure it adds no Honour to their own. They may tell their Apothecary how much Pains they took to cheat the Child, but the little Rogue was so cunning it would not be cheated! They may display his Genius by telling how they called it Wine, and gave it in the dark; or said it was Tea, and put it into his own Cup; still nothing could deceive him: Oh! it is a sensible little Creature! But what all this while is become of the Sense of the Parents? For after all this Address, this mighty Juggle, it must still perhaps be owned, that the Child does not take the Dose: or if it should, with a Superiority of Sense, it justly reproaches the Parents with having told it a Falsehood. “You said it was good, but I find it is nasty Stuff, and I’ll take no more of it.” And too generally do they keep their Word. Can Parents so palpably mislead their Children, and not be sensible of their Mistake? Or can they be sensible of it, and not blush at their own Folly?
Thus far we have considered the Untowardness of Children, with some of its Consequences, in that Stage of Life we usually call their Childhood; that is, to seven Years old; for according to the Custom of familiar Life, every Septenary is reckoned a Stage; tho’ Physical Writers divide Life otherwise. With them there are eight Stages. From the Birth to three Years old, is one; viz. the Infancy; from three to ten another; and so on to Decrepidity. But as this Treatise attempts to reach no farther than the Dominion of Parents generally extends, that is, till they become Men and Women; it will not be consistent with my Design, to carry on either Observation or Precept beyond the third Stage of Life.
Let us therefore proceed to take some Observation of them in the second Septenary; when on all Hands it is agreed their Understandings are open, and capable of receiving more important Impressions.
Now if we view the Generality of Children from seven to fourteen, I am afraid we shall be obliged to confess, that however far they advance in what is commonly called Learning, they gain but very little in the Science of Manners. In William of Wickham’s famous School at Winchester there is this Motto, Manners maketh Man: Whereby we are reminded, that all Learning which does not improve our Manners, is vain and unprofitable; the Perfection of Manners being the End, which Learning is only design’d as a Means to conduct us to. Yet so it happens, that Parents are frequently misled by confounding Names, by taking one thing for another, and concluding their Children have Manners because they have Learning. Whereas in reality, a Child may, from want of proper Care, have a great deal of Learning, and no Manners at all: or, on the other hand, by timely and proper Tuition, advance greatly in the Improvement of genuine Manners, with little or no School Learning: which is all that is generally understood by the Word Learning, with regard to Children in the second Septenary.