But children often have not the forethought to look at remote consequences, or they have not the strength of purpose to deny a present gratification for the sake of a distant good, and especially for a good of which they have only a vague idea through the representations of their parents or teachers. Suppose such a case. Suppose a child with a strong inclination and desire for the thing forbidden, and with no clear apprehension that there is anything wrong or hurtful in the indulgence, except in the fact that the father has forbidden it, and with no temptation of a higher indulgence as a reward for abstaining. If, in such a case, the child abstains, he performs a true act of obedience. He really subjects his will to the will of his father.
This kind of implicit obedience is greatly needed. It is to be secured just as our heavenly Father secures obedience to some of his laws. If a child thrusts his finger into the candle, he violates a law, and he instantly suffers for it. We are surrounded by many such laws, without the observance of which we could not live a day. To teach us obedience to these laws, the penalty of transgression is immediate and sharp. There are other laws of our physical well-being, the penalties of which are remote, and in regard to those we have room for the exercise and cultivation of our reasoning powers. Now in childhood, there are many things which a child should be taught to forbear doing as promptly as he forbears to thrust his hand into the fire. Yet for these things there is no natural penalty. Here the command of the parent should be interposed, and transgression should be promptly followed by penalty. The authority of the parent and the penalties by which he sustains it, guide the child during those years when reason and the power of self-denial are weak. But to make this discipline easy and effective, there should be no hesitation or uncertainty about the exercise of it. Parents often have to strain their authority, and use very largely their right of punishment, because they are so unequal and irregular in their methods of government. A child soon ceases to thrust his finger into the fire. Fire is not a thing which burns one day, and may be safely tampered with the next. So, if disobedience, invariably and promptly, without passion or caprice, and with the uniformity of a law of nature, brings such a penalty as to make the disobedience painful, there will be little transgression and little need of punishment. A child does not fret because he cannot play with fire. He will not fret because he cannot transgress a father's direct command, if he once knows that such commands must be obeyed.
XXI.
RAREY AS AN EDUCATOR.
Parents, teachers, and all who are charged with the duty of training the young, may learn important lessons from the example of the late Mr. Rarey. The principles on which the horse is rendered obedient and docile do not differ essentially from those to be employed in the government of children or of men.
Some of the accounts of Mr. Rarey's system, however, which have been published, are liable to mislead, and to foster a mischievous error. His procedure was eminently kind and gentle. The horse became fully assured that no harm was intended towards him. This conviction is essential to success in securing a perfect and willing obedience, whether from brute or human. But the distinctness with which this feature of the treatment was brought out in Mr. Rarey's exhibitions, led some apparently to think that this was the main, if not the only feature. Kindness alone, however, will not tame, and will not govern, brutes or men. There must be power. There must be, in the mind of the party to be governed, a full conviction that the power of the other party is superior to his own—that there is, in the party claiming obedience, an ample reserve of power fully adequate to enforce the claim. The more complete this conviction is, the less occasion there will be for the exercise of the power. The most headstrong horse, once convinced that he is helpless in this contest of strength, and convinced at the same time that his master is his friend, may be led by a straw.
Mr. Rarey went through various preliminary steps, the object of which was to make the horse acquainted with him, and to prevent fright or panic. But obedience was not claimed, and was not given, until there had been a demonstration of power—until the horse was convinced that the man was entirely too much for him. By a very simple adjustment of straps to the forefeet of the animal, he became perfectly helpless in the hands of his tamer. The struggle, indeed, was sometimes continued for a good while. The horse put forth his prodigious strength to the utmost. He became almost wild at the perfect ease and quietude with which all his efforts were baffled, until at length, fully satisfied that further struggles were useless, he made a complete surrender, and lay down as peaceful and submissive as an infant.
This point is of some importance. I do not underrate the value of kindness and love in any system of government, whether in the household, the school, the stable, the menagerie, or in civil society. But love is not the basis of government. Obedience is yielded to authority, and authority is based on right and power. The child who complies with his father's wishes, only because a different course would make his father grieve, or give his mother a headache, or because his parents have reasoned with him and shown him that compliance is for his good, or who has been wheedled into compliance by petty bribes and promises, has not learned that doctrine of obedience which lies at the foundation of all government, human and divine. God has given to the parent the right to the obedience of his children, and the power to enforce it. That parent has failed in his duty who has not trained his child, not only to love him, but to obey him, in the strict sense of the word, that is to yield his will to the will of a superior, from a sense of appointed subordination and rightful authority. This sense of subordination and of obedience to appointed and rightful authority, is of the very essence of civil government, and the place where it is to be first and chiefly learned is in the household. To teach this is a main end of the parental relation. The parent who fails to teach it, fails to give his child the first element of good citizenship, and leaves him often to be in after-years the victim of his own uncontrolled passions and tempers. The want of a proper exercise of parental authority is, in this age of the world, the most prolific source of those frightful disorders that pervade society, and that threaten to upturn the very foundations of all civil government. The feeling of reverence, the sense of a respect for authority, the consciousness of being in a state of subordination, the feeling of obligation to do a thing simply because it is commanded by some one having a right to obedience—all these old-fashioned notions seem to be dying out of the minds of men. The popular cry is, Don't make your children fear you. Govern them by love. Conquer them by kindness. Treat them as Mr. Rarey did his horses.
I protest against the notion. It is a mistake of Mr. Rarey's system, and it is not the true basis for government, whether of brutes or men. The doctrine may seem harsh in these dainty times. But, in my opinion, a certain degree of wholesome fear in the mind of a child towards its parent, is essential, and is perfectly compatible with the very highest love. I have never known more confiding, affectionate, and loving children, than those who not only regarded their parents as kind benefactors and sympathizing friends, but who looked up to them with a certain degree of reverence. The fear spoken of in the Bible, as being cast out by perfect love, is quite a different emotion. It is rather a slavish fear, a feeling of dread and terror. It sees in its object not only power but hostility. It awakens not only dread but hate. The child's fear, on the contrary, sees power united with kindness. It obeys the one, it loves the other. It is the exact attitude of mind to which Mr. Rarey brought the horse that was subjected to his management.