To seize every opportunity to unfold thought in a natural way, to consider duty, to awaken and keep alive conscience, and cultivate a mutual confidence and forbearance between the young, should be the aim in such a little world as a school. The flow of happy spirits should be unchecked, and no deep memory of faults should remain with a child, unless they are of the deepest dye, such as falsehood and selfishness. A serious invasion of each other's rights should be made a prominent subject of blame, but the only retribution of which a child should be made to have a permanent consciousness, is that of the injury, or the danger of injury to itself, and I firmly believe if this can be made apparent to a child, it may be the strongest possible motive to keep it in the path of rectitude. It seems to me indeed the only legitimate motive to present to a human soul. I do not mean a selfish regard to the welfare even of one's own soul, but that regard which includes the welfare of others as well as of one's own. I do not like to say to a child, "do not so because if you do I cannot love you," for that is an outside motive, but rather "because you cannot grow any better if you do so and then you cannot respect yourself or be worthy of any one's love." "Do not grieve dear mother by doing wrong, for then she cannot be happy." "Are you not afraid if you do so, that by and by you can do something more naughty?" "Is there not something in you, that makes you feel very uncomfortable when you have done wrong? That is the way God has made us, so that we may grow better and not worse." I have arrested very naughty doings by such remarks, where defiance of human authority was very strong and determined. I have awakened a similar fear in many a child by relating what a dread I had in my own childhood of growing worse. Nothing is easier than to make a child false by frightening it or blaming it too much; but nothing will make a child so ingenuous as to convince it that you are interested in its progress, and would like to help it cure its own faults. But we must often wait long before a child is capable of taking this view so fully as to be influenced by it, in opposition to the dictates of passion and the weakness or immaturity of intellect; experience teaches us that the volatile, the obstinate, the self-indulgent, the crafty, and even the indolent must be influenced by the apprehension of a nearer penalty or the power of a more direct authority than that can always be understood to be. Self-control is often the first virtue to be cultivated, and a fear of present evil must sometimes be the instrument of its cultivation. A distinguished and most successful superintendent of an insane hospital once assured me, that in the majority of cases, self-control was all that was needed as a remedy for insanity. I asked him if he had ever known of insane children? He said he had known many; and that it usually appeared in the form of unmanageableness. If we concede that all evil in our race is partial insanity (and if we believe in the soul, we must finally think that the crust of organization into which it is built for a time is the only obstacle to its right action, and to put one parenthesis within another, which I know is not canonical, does not this point to the duty of providing against evil organizations?), why should we not treat all evil as insanity should be treated, and believe that if the power of self-government is cultivated, the soul will take care of itself? In this connection I always take health into consideration; for one wise mother of my acquaintance suggested a new idea to me by once telling me that for certain faults in her children she always gave medicine, being convinced that the difficulty lay in the stomach.
I am always very careful to disarm all fear before I use any authority. I find much timidity in children, as if they had been harshly dealt with. I have seen fearful looks of terror in little faces when I have approached them to enforce a request, and in such cases I either take them gently in my arms or draw them close to me with a caressing motion, which is sometimes all the punishment they need, if you will allow me such an Irishism. They are at the same time convinced of my earnestness, and disarmed of all opposition, and when I approach another time, if occasion requires, I can lead them to another seat or even out of the room, and enjoin obedience without exciting either fear or opposition. I never threaten any penalties, but execute my own requisitions decidedly at the moment, "because this is the right thing to be done." I think it is not well to threaten for next time; and where punishments are mild, such as changing a child's seat, or putting it into a room alone, or going to its mother and talking the matter over in presence of the child, a repetition of the offence may be avoided. I have one child in my school who would crouch down upon the floor, if opposed, or required to do any thing she did not wish to, and go into a sort of hysteric, protesting that she was dying. I laughed at her a little at first, but I soon saw she was very obstinate and very passionate, and several times on such occasions I took her up in my arms, though she was pretty heavy, and carried her to a bed, where I laid her down and left her to enjoy her performance alone. After a while she would sneak down into the school-room again looking very much ashamed, but I took no notice of this, and after two or three experiments she was entirely cured. I learned afterward that she had practised this device successfully upon a doting mother and her nursery-maid, who really feared she would die. They were much obliged to me for having the courage to meet it resolutely. She has become a charming little scholar, for she is as full of talent and affection as of self-will, and has been sent, by my urgent entreaty, to learn calisthenic exercises, where she expends the extra fluid which, when bottled up by inaction, works mischief in her. She was formerly unable to tie her own bonnet or draw on her own gloves, but in six months she has so changed that she can dress other children as well as herself, and climbs the banisters and perches herself fearlessly upon the tops of the doors, greatly to the terror of other little children of luxury like herself.
We should never prevaricate or in any way deceive a child for the sake of an immediate result, for that is not being true to principle, but we may be allowed sometimes, in our characters of mothers and teachers, to act as that "near Providence," which the mother has so happily been said to be. In God's government, some penalty, though often a hidden one, is the consequence of every transgression of law; and do we not in a small measure act to the child as his representatives? It is a dangerous power to have dominion over another soul, even for a time; but since it is actually given to us, are we not bound to make use of it, conscientiously and tenderly, but still to make use of it? I once knew a father who thought, because he was not himself perfect, that he had no right to exact obedience from his children. His retribution for this morbid conscientiousness was most deplorable. One child became insane from want of self-control, which he would not allow her to be taught; and another failed to have any sentiment of duty toward God or man, but passed many years of life without apparently knowing that any duty was required of him. Worldly prosperity in his case only increased the evil, for he was never obliged to make an exertion for himself or others. I have never heard that he was vicious, but he could not live even with the parent who had allowed him to grow up unrestrained. The parents surely are designed to represent to the child the Heavenly Father whom they cannot see, and who must later become an object of faith through that beautiful analogy of parental love and care.
I agree too with one of the best and wisest, who has said that it is not necessary to reward children for doing right, since God has so made man that doing right is, like loving, its own reward. Only those who have thought deeply can make such discriminations as these, yet to what noble mind, when the thing is once said, does it not seem base to give an outward reward for a lofty action? And is it not a brotherly act to help our fellow-pilgrims on their way, by giving a friendly warning when a stumbling-block is in the path? I think children can be made to understand that a judicious punishment is a friendly warning, if not the first time we administer it, then the second, or the third, or even the fiftieth time; for as we should forgive, so we should warn our brother, "not seven times, but seventy times seven." I learn to feel that if I am actuated by the right motive in my dealings with their souls, (and one learns to be very conscientious in meddling with them,) my pupils will find it out sooner or later; and then they will see all that I have done, as well as all that I may do, in a new light.
I have a bright little fellow in my school who had acquired a sad habit of sucking his thumb. I thought he actually began to grow thin upon it. I had checked him many times, and he was good about it, but the habit was too strong for him. One day I drew on a little conversation about helping each other out of difficulties, which all agreed to; and all professed themselves willing to be helped and to listen to warnings. I then said there was one in the school whom I wished to cure of a bad habit, and I had a plan for doing it, but its success must depend upon whether he was willing, and upon whether the rest would be really friendly and not laugh at him, or tease him, but help him in every way they could. They were very desirous to know who and what it was, and very sure they would do all that was desired. I then spoke to little W——, who was only six, or at most, seven years old, and asked him if he was willing to let me tie that hand behind him that he might be cured of sucking his thumb; for I knew of no other way. I told him it would try his patience; for it was his right hand, and he would have to be dependent upon others for many things, and often would find it very inconvenient and annoying. After I had impressed him fully with the importance of the matter, he consented, and the rest of the children promised to be attentive to his wants. I never tied the hand behind him till he put the thumb into his mouth; but it had to be done every day for a fortnight. He bore it, and all the inconveniences, like a hero, and not one child forgot to be considerate and helpful. He was cured of the trick, and he has been an object of great interest among his companions ever since, because they helped to do him good.
Perhaps, dear A——, you will think I dwell longer than necessary upon this subject, knowing as we do that the usual fault of schools is too much penalty, and too much low motive; but you and I are surrounded by those who are inclined, by their tendency of thought, to forget practical wisdom; who, in their lively sense that immortality begins now, and is not a distant good,—a sort of reward for well-doing, are in danger of forgetting that we are to be educated by circumstances, and that circumstances will educate us, whether we direct them or not, in this beginning of our long career. Those who have most faith in the soul and its ultimate power to work itself free from all impediments, are most apt to despise all the minor aids that may help its first steps.
Then there is another class of persons, who do not believe in the soul enough to think education of any use. They cannot very well tell you what they do believe; in truth they have no faith in anything, but finding it hard to control circumstances, and seeing instances of great failure where there have been most appliances, (they do not consider whether these appliances were wisely administered,) they give all up to chance, and believing neither in innate ideas nor in the use of means, rest satisfied with a low standard of action, and go through life without ever having a glimpse of anything better than themselves. Indeed, if they see anything better, they understand it so little, that they think it must be a delusive appearance, and that an earnest view of any subject is extravagance, or even insanity. But I do not think so great a want of faith is very common.
This is too long a letter, so good-by for the present. When I think you are rested from this, I will write again.
M.