Everybody recognizes in the education of children two distinct things: instruction and education properly so called: the first has for its object the mind; and the second the character. These two things must not be separated: for, without instruction, all education is powerless; and without a moral education, instruction may be dangerous.
Parents should then—and it is a strict duty—give to their children the instruction their resources and condition allow; but they are not permitted to leave them in ignorance if they have the means to educate them. Some narrow minds still believe that instruction is of no use to the people, and is even a dangerous thing. This has been sufficiently refuted. The greatest number of crimes and offenses are committed by the most ignorant classes: the more they learn, the better will they understand the duties of their condition and the dignity of human nature. It has been justly said that little knowledge may be more dangerous than ignorance: for this reason should men be raised above the dangerous point, and be put in possession of as much knowledge as their condition warrants.
Instruction has two useful effects: first, it increases the resources of a man, renders him better qualified for a greater variety of things; it is then, as political economy styles it, a capital. Parents, in having their children taught, give them thereby a far more substantial and productive capital than what they could transmit to them by gift or legacy. In the second place, instruction elevates man and ennobles his nature. If it is reason that distinguishes man from the brute, knowledge enlarges and heightens reason. Instruction thus works together with moral education and forms one of its essential parts.
The head of a family who then, from personal interest, negligence, ill-will, or, in fine, from ignorance, deprives his children of the instruction which is their due, fails thereby in an essential duty.[79]
It must, moreover, be admitted, that instruction alone does not suffice; science alone does not form character; persuasion, authority, example, the moral action of every instant is necessary thereto. It is a great problem to know how much of fear and gentleness, restraint and liberty should enter in paternal education. All agree that a child should not be brought up through fear alone, as the animals are. As Fénélon admirably puts it, “Joy and confidence should be the natural state of mind of children; otherwise their intelligence becomes obscured, their courage droops; if they are lively, fear will irritate them; if soft, it will make them stupid; fear is like the violent remedies employed in extreme illnesses: they purge; but they injure the constitution and wear out its organs; a soul led by fear is always the feebler for it.”
On the other hand, everybody admits also that an excessive indulgence is as dangerous as a despotic authority. Rousseau ingenuously remarks: “The best means of making your child miserable is to accustom it to obtaining all it wants; for its desires will incessantly grow with the facility with which it can satisfy them; sooner or later the inability to content it, will, despite yourself, oblige you to refuse, and this unexpected denial will give it more pain than the deprivation of the thing itself. First it will want the cane you have in your hand; then your watch; then the bird in the air; the bright star in the sky; in short, all that it sees: and unless you were a god, how could you satisfy it?” This remark of Rousseau refers to the earliest childhood, but it can be applied to all ages.
It is evident that all the duties we have here mentioned relate principally to the first of the three periods distinguished by Grotius. As the children grow up, their own personal responsibility gradually takes the place of the paternal responsibility, and there comes the time of the third state above mentioned, when both father and mother no longer owe their children any thing more than love or advice. Instead of being answerable for their existence, it is rather the reverse. It is the children’s turn to become responsible for the happiness and safety of their parents.
But, as we have said, the really difficult moment is that when the young man, awakening to himself, becomes conscious of a will, and, without experience and sense of proportion, wishes to exercise this will without restraint. It is here especially that the paternal will must show itself firm without despotism, and persuasive without flattery and weakness, and where it becomes necessary that the paternal authority be firmly rooted in the first age and upon solid foundations, so that the young man, even in his fits of self-will, may submit to this authority with confidence and respect. There is no particular formula which could set forth a rule of conduct obligatory under all circumstances. Tact in this case is better than rules.
127. Duties of children.—The German philosopher Fichte, in his book on Ethics, has said some very good things touching the duties of children; we will cite from it some of the pages devoted to this subject.[80]
“The right of parents to set limits to the liberty of their children cannot be questioned. I should respect the liberty of another man, because I regard him as a being morally educated, whose liberty is the necessary means whereby he may reach the end reason points out to him. I cannot be his judge, for he is my equal. But it is not the same in the case of my child. I regard my child not as a moral creature already formed, but to be formed; and it is precisely for this reason that it is my duty to educate it. The same reason which commands me to respect the liberty of my equals, commands me to limit that of my child.