Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 14.djvu/70

60 to be exercised, is to contribute to the illumination of each. There has, undoubtedly, in former times been very great mismanagement in almost every one of the regions of repressive authority—in the state, in the family, and in the school, in all which an excess of human misery is habitually engendered by badness in the manner of exercising control. It is perhaps in the family that the mischief is most widely spread and most baneful.

By degrees we have become aware of various errors that ran through the former methods of discipline, in the several institutions of the state, as well as in the family. We have discovered the evil of working by fear alone, and still more by fear of coarse, painful, and degrading inflictions. We have discovered that occasions of offense can be avoided by a variety of salutary arrangements, such as to check the very disposition to unruly conduct. We consider that a great discovery has been made in regard to punishments, by the enunciation of the maxim that certainty is more important than severity; to which should be added, proportion to the offense. We also consider that by a suitable training, or education, the dispositions that lead to disorder and crime can be checked in the bud; and that, until there has been room for such training to operate, the mind should not be exposed to temptation. We have become accustomed to lay more stress in cultivating the amicable relations of human beings, all which tend to abridge the sphere of injurious conduct on the part of individuals.

The consideration of discipline in education supposes the relation of a teacher to a class, one man or woman exercising over a body of pupils the authority requisite for the work in hand. Nevertheless, it is not lost time to advert, in the first instance, to the maxims pertaining to authority in general.

Authority, government, power over others, is not an end in itself; it is but a means. Further, its operation is an evil; it seriously abates human happiness. The restraint upon free agency, the infliction of pain on individuals, the setting up a reign of terror—all this is justified solely by the prevention of evils out of all proportion to the misery that it inflicts. This might seem self-evident, but is not so. The deep seated malevolence and lust of domination in the human mind makes the necessity of government a pretext for excesses in severity and repression; to which must be added the opportunity of preying upon the substance of the governed.

Mankind have had their eyes gradually opened to this state of things; the philosophy of society now endeavors to formulate the limits to authority, and to the employment of repressive severities. Not only is it restricted to the mildest penalties that will answer its purpose, but its very existence has to be justified in each case.

Authority is not necessary to every teaching relation. A willing pupil, coming up to a master to be taught, is not entering into a relationship of authority; it is a mere voluntary compact, terminable at