Criminality and economic conditions

by Willem Adriaan Bonger

The first condition, without doubt, that might be demanded of one who is to make a child into a moral man, a man of character, is surely this, that he should be himself a man of character. It goes without saying that no person can give more than he has. Leaving aside for the moment the criminal class, of whom I shall treat later, it is clear that no one without character, or weak in character, can ever train children to have well developed moral sentiments. He may be able, it is true, to teach them to distinguish good from bad, but such lessons concern only the intellectual part of the nature and not the moral part, and they cannot transform children into persons who feel morally. It cannot be denied that the number of persons who do not feel morally is great, and that these have children. Without forgetting the fact that it is the father to whom the law gives especially the parental authority, we must recognize that it is the mother upon whom the task of education generally rests, because the father is almost always away from home. But the inferior position of woman, maintained now for centuries, has been extremely harmful to her character, and thus it often happens that this lack of character passes to the children as well.[70]

A second condition without which successful education is impossible is that educators shall have the innate qualities necessary for their task. We should doubt, and not without reason, the common sense of anyone who dared to assert that every person was capable of becoming a good sculptor or even carpenter. Just so no one could say [[313]]that everyone possesses the qualities necessary for an art as difficult as that of education.

To be a good educator it is necessary to be very fond of children, to have much patience and zeal, to know how to put one’s self on a plane with the child, to have a clear and practical intellect, especially when the teacher has a great affection for the child, since without intelligence the excess of affection will only be harmful. There are parents who possess these qualities in a very high degree, and it is only to be regretted that they teach only their own children, and not those also of parents in whom the teaching faculty is entirely lacking. Next comes the group of those who have a modicum of the requisite qualities, and finally a smaller group who have little or no aptitude for the task. The least fit to give a good education, however, are psychopathic individuals, because of their changeable disposition, their quick fits of temper, etc.

Just as educators differ greatly in their innate fitness for teaching, so different children need to be guided in different ways. If there are children who require little care in order that they may presently be able to adapt themselves to the requirements of society, others, who form the great majority, require more; while there remains a second minority who, if they are to be made fairly useful men and women, must have constant and minute attention. Among these last are to be classed the victims of heredity. If they have parents without great teaching ability, as is often the case with these psychopathic individuals, the results are even worse.

Aside from innate fitness it is necessary that an educator should have received the necessary education. The teacher without notions of psychology, of pedagogy, etc., often deceives himself, even if he has all the necessary innate qualities, and consequently warps the character of his pupils.

The instructor must learn his trade, and if this is so, why should not the educator in charge of the moral education of the child need an apprenticeship, since moral education is a task no less difficult than intellectual education (which is about all that our present schools undertake)? However, it is incontestable that in all classes of society today moral education is practiced in dilettante fashion, as was formerly the case with intellectual education.[71]

Finally, there remains the condition that the teacher should have the time necessary to perform his task, for without this the most [[314]]capable cannot attain good results. Having now laid down the general conditions, let us go on to examine in a few words education as it is actually practiced in the different classes.

Let us begin with the bourgeoisie. As has already been remarked, the children in this class are often spoiled by the great luxury that surrounds them, and further by the fact that their intellect is developed at the expense of their moral qualities. As my remarks concerning capacity, character, etc., apply to all classes, it is unnecessary here to speak of them more fully. Only it must be observed that, as far as positive knowledge of pedagogy is concerned, the bourgeoisie is much superior to the proletariat, from which there follows among other things a corresponding superiority of the bourgeois education. The character of the bourgeois woman, who occupies, like all women, a lower rank in society, has generally suffered still more from her easy mode of life, and her weakness of character is transmitted to her children if she brings them up herself. This condition must be added, for society life, or in other words, the habit of doing nothing at all, is often the cause of mothers’ having their children brought up by some one who has neither natural aptitude nor acquired capacity for this task, but only takes charge of the children for the sake of a place. There are even children who are not suckled by their mothers but by nurses, since the mothers are afraid of diminishing their own charms. This proves once more the weakness of the allegation that the parents are the natural educators of the child; for we see in this case that the social environment can lead to the renunciation of duties that are really natural.[72]

The moral education of the children of the bourgeoisie is generally superficial, and has especially in view the task of teaching the children to conduct themselves according to the proprieties, much more than that of developing their real moral nature.[73] In the second place this education develops among them a very strong feeling of class, so that they consider the members of the proletariat as inferior beings, born by nature to serve the bourgeoisie, in place of seeing in them only their own fellows, who have become different merely because of fortuitous circumstances.

In the third place, our present educational system makes children egoistic, those of the bourgeoisie more than those of the proletariat. This assertion contradicts, it is true, the numerous authors who are convinced that our present education in the family is a source of [[315]]altruism.[74] They are right when they say that altruistic sentiments between the members of the family themselves have their rise within the circle of the family. For a long time the life within the family constituted a man’s whole life (as it still does for a very great number of women), but in the society of today a great part of the time is passed outside of the family circle, and for this reason the opinion of these authors, though shared by many persons, is not correct. In the family circle the child, especially when he has neither brothers nor sisters,[75] soon discovers that his own interests come first, that the outside world is his enemy, and that when he grows up he must make himself as large a place there as possible. It matters little that the interests of others will then be injured. It must be added further, that if on the one side the family is an economic unity, and that the interests of the members of the family are so far parallel, on the other hand there exist opposing interests, such as inheritance, which may destroy the homogeneity of interest.