*
Here is a question from Detroit.
"I entirely agree with you in believing that children should be governed by reason, and that coercion is a mistake; but how would you suggest dealing with a child before it can possibly understand reason?"
The writer then speaks of the selfishness and rudeness of undisciplined children, and goes on:
"I have always thought that the training of a child should begin from a very early age, long before they can listen to reason at all."
She is quite right. Child culture should begin as soon as the child begins. The difficulty of the average parent is that he or she assumes "reason" to mean reasoning—oral argument.
In the reaction from our old violent discipline, they use no discipline; and for repression substitute gross indulgence.
When a child learns that fire burns by a mild, safe burning, he learns reasonably; the fire reacts—which is not a punishment, but a consequence. He should learn the rights of others as early as his own, and by similar processes. Real child culture calls for far more care and training than the old rule of thumb, but it is of a different kind.
*
"I am very much interested in your 'Androcentric Culture.' Is it your idea that the female organism was the stronger before consciousness existed only, or after that period in prehistoric times?"