Criticism and correction, discipline and obedience—these things are administered by the Church our Mother, gently but without weakness, so careful is she in her warnings, so slow in her punishments, so unswervingly true to what is of principle, and asking so persuasively not for the sullen obedience of slaves, but for the free and loving submission of sons and daughters.
CHAPTER III.
CHARACTER II.
"The Parts and Signes of Goodnesse are many. If a Man be Gracious and Curteous to Strangers, it shewes he is a Citizen of the World, And that his Heart is no Island cut off from other Lands, but a Continent that joynes to them. If he be Compassionate towards the Afflictions of others, it shewes that his Heart is like the noble Tree, that is wounded to selfe when it gives Balme. If he easily Pardons and Remits Offences, it shewes that his minde is planted above Injuries, So that he cannot be shot. If he be Thankfull for small Benefits, it shewes that he weighes Men's Mindes, and not their Trash. But above all, if he have St. Paul's Perfection, that he would wish to be an Anathema from Christ, for the Salvation of his Brethren, it shewes much of a Divine Nature, and a kinde of Conformity with Christ himselfe."—BACON, "Of Goodnesse."
No one who has the good of children at heart, and the training of their characters, can leave the subject without some grave thoughts on the formation of their own character, which is first in order of importance, and in order of time must go before, and accompany their work to the very end.
"What is developed to perfection can make other things like unto itself." So saints develop sanctity in others, and truth and confidence beget truth and confidence, and the spirit of enterprise calls out the spirit of enterprise, and constancy trains to endurance and perseverance, and wise kindness makes others kind, and courage makes them courageous, and in its degree each good quality tends to reproduce itself in others. Children are very delicately sensitive to these influences, they respond unconsciously to what is expected of them, and instinctively they imitate the models set before them. They catch a tone, a gesture, a trick of manner with a quickness that is startling. The influence of mind and thought on mind and thought cannot be so quickly recognized, but tells with as much certainty, and enters more deeply into the character for life. The consideration of this is a great incentive to the acquirement of self-knowledge and self-discipline by those who have to do with children. The old codes of conventionality in education, which stood for a certain system in their time, are disappearing, and the worth of the individual becomes of greater importance. This is true of those who educate and of those whom they bring up. As the methods of modern warfare call for more individual resourcefulness, so do the methods of the spiritual warfare, now that we are not supported by big battalions, but each one is thrown back on conscience and personal responsibility. Girls as well as boys have to be trained to take care of themselves and be responsible for themselves, and if they are not so trained, no one can now be responsible for them or protect them in spite of themselves. Therefore, the first duty of those who are bringing up Catholic girls is to be themselves such as Catholic girls must be later on. This example is a discourse "in the vulgar tongue" which cannot be misunderstood, and example is not resented unless it seems self-conscious and presented of set purpose. The one thing necessary is to be that which we ought to be, and that is to say, in other words, that the fundamental virtue in teaching children is a great and resolute sincerity. Sincerity is a difficult virtue to practise and is too easily taken for granted. It has more enemies than appear at first sight. Inertness of mind, the desire to do things cheaply, dislike of mental effort, the tendency to be satisfied with appearances, the wish to shine, impatience for results, all foster intellectual insincerity; just as, in conduct, the wish to please, the spirit of accommodation and expediency, the fear of blame, the instinct of concealment, which is inborn in many girls, destroy frankness of character and make people untrue who would not willingly be untruthful. Yet even truthfulness is not such a matter of course as many would be willing to assume. To be inaccurate through thoughtless laziness in the use of words is extremely common, to exaggerate according to the mood of the moment, to say more than one means and cover one's retreat with "I didn't mean it," to pull facts into shape to suit particular ends, are demoralizing forms of untruthfulness, common, but often unrecognized. If a teacher could only excel in one high quality for training girls, probably the best in which she could excel would be a great sincerity, which would train them in frankness, and in the knowledge that to be entirely frank means to lay down a great price for that costly attainment, a perfectly honourable and fearless life. [1—"A woman, if it be once known that she is deficient in truth, has no resource. Have, by a misuse of language, injured or lost her only means of persuasion, nothing can preserve her from falling into contempt of nonentity. When she is no longer to be believed no on will take the trouble to listen to her…no one can depend on her, no on rests any hope on her, the words of which she makes use have no meaning." —Madame Necker de Saussure, "Progressive Education.">[
It sometimes happens that the realization of this truth comes comparatively late in life to those who ought to have recognized it years before. Thinking along the surface of things, and in particular repeating catchwords and platitudes and trite maxims on the subject of sincerity, is apt to make us believe that we possess the quality we talk about, and as it is impossible to have anything to do with the education of children without treating of sincerity and truthfulness, it is comparatively easy to slip into the happy assumption that one is truthful, because one would not deliberately be otherwise. But it takes far more than this to acquire real sincerity of life in the complexity and artificiality of the conditions in which we live.
"And we have been on many thousand lines,
And we have shown, on each, spirit and power;
But hardly have we, for one little hour,
Been on our own line, have we been ourselves.
* * * *
"Our hidden self, and what we say and do
Is eloquent, is well—but 'tis not true!"
MATTHEW ARNOLD, "The Buried Life."