Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/188

176 punishments. Slaps may be needful in the early stages, even though they do lead to little tussles; a mother assures me that these battles with her several children have all fallen between the ages of sixteen months and two years. It is, however, conceivable that such fights might be avoided altogether; yet a man should be chary of dogmatizing on this delicate matter.

What is beyond doubt is that the slovenly discipline—if indeed discipline it is to be called—which consists in alternations of gushing fondness with almost savage severity, or fits of government and restraint interpolated between long periods of neglect and laisser faire, is precisely what develops the rebellious and law-resisting propensities. But discipline can be bad without being a stupid pretense. Everything in the shape of inconsistency, saying one thing at One time, another thing at another, or treating one child in one fashion, another in another, tends to undermine the pillars of authority. Young eyes are quick to note these little contradictions, and they sorely resent them. It is astonishing how careless disciplinarians can show themselves before these astute little critics. It is the commonest thing to tell a child to behave like his elders, forgetting that this, if indeed a rule at all, can only be one of very limited application. Here is a suggestive example of the effect of this sort of teaching sent me by a mother: "At three years and six months, when some visitors were present, she was told not to talk at dinner time. 'Why me no talk? Papa talks.' 'Yes, but papa is grown up and you are only a little girl; you can't do just like grown-up people.' She was silent for some time, but when I told her ten minutes later to sit nicely with her hands on her lap like her cousins, she replied, with a very humorous smile, 'Me tan't (can't) sit like grown-up people, me is only a little girl.'"

We can fail and make children disloyal instead of loyal subjects by unduly magnifying our office, by insisting too much on our authority. Children who are over-ruled, who have no taste of being left unmolested and free to do what they like, can hardly be expected to submit graciously. Another way of carrying parental control to excess is by exacting displays of virtue which are beyond the moral capabilities of the child. A lady sends me this reminiscence of her childhood: She had been promised sixpence when she could play her scales without fault, and succeeded in the exploit on her sixth birthday. The sixpence was given to her, but soon after her mother suggested that she should spend the sixpence in fruit to give to her (the mother's) invalid friend. This was offending the sense of justice, for if the child, is jealous of anything as her very own, it is surely the reward she has earned; and was, moreover, a foolish attempt to call forth generosity where generosity was wholly out of place. An even