Old Noah Webster, in that charming book of his entitled “Dictionary,” of which Bill Nye says his chief criticism is that it changes the subject too often, gives the following definition of discipline:
“Education, instruction, cultivation, and improvement; comprehending instruction in arts, sciences, correct sentiments, morals, and manners, and due subordination to authority.”
These are not all the elements Webster says constitute discipline, but they are quite enough upon which to base a paper, and it is well enough to keep this definition in mind, especially for such as may have the impression that discipline consists solely and alone in administering punishments for real or imaginary, deliberate or unintentional, breaches of good conduct.
To the unthinking, the sole object of imprisoning a convict may be regarded as the making him suffer for the crime he committed, and that the judge in imposing sentence should calculate how much suffering will be commensurate with the crime, and adjust the sentence accordingly, the prison authorities then taking hold of him, holding him in “durance vile” for the period of his sentence, keeping him as quiet and orderly as they can, and when his sentence has expired, discharging him without further concern or responsibility for him or his future.
THE SCOPE OF DISCIPLINE
Discipline comprehends in its fullest scope absolutely everything that has to do with the convict, as to his training physically, morally, intellectually, and spiritually, and embraces in its application every agency that has to do with his development as a laborer, his advancement as a student and a thinker, his uplifting morally and spiritually, and his complete and perfect rounding out as a man.
It does not refer alone to the agency of the dark cell, the strap, the taking of good time, the bath, the ball and chain, and similar devices; and in a properly conducted, well-ordered, and painstaking institution, these agencies are far and away the smallest, least used and least effective of all those which make and promote this thing called “discipline.”
In a rightfully planned and properly manned prison, the officers maintain much the same attitude toward the heterogeneous population there gathered—most of whom are children in mental attainments, children in moral culture, children in industrial bent—that a parent occupies toward his child. The motive, the hope, the desire, the object, the plans, and the efforts should be much the same, changed and modified only as the conditions necessarily demand a modification of plans.
The thoughtful and intelligent parent ponders and studies about the future of his child. He knows that he must fit and prepare him for the solemn duties of life, and upon the preparation or lack of preparation he gives him, the discipline or the lack of discipline the child undergoes, will depend that child’s future welfare or misery.
If the parent is wise he carefully arranges for the child’s physical well-being, he plans for his mental cultivation and discipline, and provides systematically for proper environments and training for his moral and spiritual growth and strength. Nothing is left to chance, little to precept, much to example, and the use of the rod or other correctional methods or devices, is an obvious confession of a failure on the part of the parent to take all the necessary care and precaution in training or drilling the child. No child ever needed physical correction at the hand of its parent, that the parent was not also some to blame in neglecting precautions that would have obviated this necessity.