Essays On Education And Kindred Subjects (Fiscle Part- 11), Herbert Spencer [historical books to read .txt] 📗
- Author: Herbert Spencer
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The Obstacles To Conformity With It Are So Persistent As To Outlive The
Patience Of Philanthropists And Even Of Philosophers. We May Be Sure,
Therefore, That The Difficulties In The Way Of A Normal Government Of
Children, Will Always Put An Adequate Check Upon The Efforts To Realise
It.
With These Preliminary Explanations, Let Us Go On To Consider The True
Aims And Methods Of Moral Education. After A Few Pages Devoted To The
Settlement Of General Principles, During The Perusal Of Which We Bespeak
The Reader's Patience, We Shall Aim By Illustrations To Make Clear The
Right Methods Of Parental Behaviour In The Hourly Occurring Difficulties
Of Family Government.
When A Child Falls, Or Runs Its Head Against The Table, It Suffers A
Pain, The Remembrance Of Which Tends To Make It More Careful; And By
Repetition Of Such Experiences, It Is Eventually Disciplined Into Proper
Guidance Of Its Movements. If It Lays Hold Of The Fire-Bars, Thrusts Its
Hand Into A Candle-Flame, Or Spills Boiling Water On Any Part Of Its
Skin, The Resulting Burn Or Scald Is A Lesson Not Easily Forgotten. So
Deep An Impression Is Produced By One Or Two Events Of This Kind, That
No Persuasion Will Afterwards Induce It Thus To Disregard The Laws Of
Its Constitution.
Now In These Cases, Nature Illustrates To Us In The Simplest Way, The
True Theory And Practice Of Moral Discipline--A Theory And Practice
Which, However Much They May Seem To The Superficial Like Those Commonly
Received, We Shall Find On Examination To Differ From Them Very Widely.
Observe, First, That In Bodily Injuries And Their Penalties We Have
Misconduct And Its Consequences Reduced To Their Simplest Forms. Though,
According To Their Popular Acceptations, _Right_ And _Wrong_ Are Words
Scarcely Applicable To Actions That Have None But Direct Bodily Effects;
Yet Whoever Considers The Matter Will See That Such Actions Must Be As
Much Classifiable Under These Heads As Any Other Actions. From Whatever
Assumption They Start, All Theories Of Morality Agree That Conduct Whose
Total Results, Immediate And Remote, Are Beneficial, Is Good Conduct;
While Conduct Whose Total Results, Immediate And Remote, Are Injurious,
Is Bad Conduct. The _Ultimate_ Standards By Which All Men Judge Of
Behaviour, Are The Resulting Happiness Or Misery. We Consider
Drunkenness Wrong Because Of The Physical Degeneracy And Accompanying
Moral Evils Entailed On The Drunkard And His Dependents. Did Theft Give
Pleasure Both To Taker And Loser, We Should Not Find It In Our Catalogue
Of Sins. Were It Conceivable That Kind Actions Multiplied Human
Sufferings, We Should Condemn Them--Should Not Consider Them Kind. It
Needs But To Read The First Newspaper-Leader, Or Listen To Any
Conversation On Social Affairs, To See That Acts Of Parliament,
Political Movements, Philanthropic Agitations, In Common With The Doings
Of Individuals Are Judged By Their Anticipated Results In Augmenting The
Pleasures Or Pains Of Men. And If On Analysing All Secondary
Superinduced Ideas, We Find These To Be Our Final Tests Of Right And
Wrong, We Cannot Refuse To Class Bodily Conduct As Right Or Wrong
According To The Beneficial Or Detrimental Results Produced.
Note, In The Second Place, The Character Of The Punishments By Which
These Physical Transgressions Are Prevented. Punishments, We Call Them,
In The Absence Of A Better Word; For They Are Not Punishments In The
Literal Sense. They Are Not Artificial And Unnecessary Inflictions Of
Pain; But Are Simply The Beneficent Checks To Actions That Are
Essentially At Variance With Bodily Welfare--Checks In The Absence Of
Which Life Would Be Quickly Destroyed By Bodily Injuries. It Is The
Peculiarity Of These Penalties, If We Must So Call Them, That They Are
Simply The _Unavoidable Consequences_ Of The Deeds Which They Follow:
They Are Nothing More Than The _Inevitable Reactions_ Entailed By The
Child's Actions.
Let It Be Further Borne In Mind That These Painful Reactions Are
Proportionate To The Transgressions. A Slight Accident Brings A Slight
Pain; A More Serious One, A Severer Pain. It Is Not Ordained That An
Urchin Who Tumbles Over The Doorstep, Shall Suffer In Excess Of The
Amount Necessary; With The View Of Making It Still More Cautious Than
The Necessary Suffering Will Make It. But From Its Daily Experience It
Is Left To Learn The Greater Or Less Penalties Of Greater Or Less
Errors; And To Behave Accordingly.
And Then Mark, Lastly, That These Natural Reactions Which Follow The
Child's Wrong Actions, Are Constant, Direct, Unhesitating, And Not To Be
Escaped. No Threats; But A Silent, Rigorous Performance. If A Child Runs
A Pin Into Its Finger, Pain Follows. If It Does It Again, There Is Again
The Same Result: And So On Perpetually. In All Its Dealing With
Inorganic Nature It Finds This Unswerving Persistence, Which Listens To
No Excuse, And From Which There Is No Appeal; And Very Soon Recognising
This Stern Though Beneficent Discipline, It Becomes Extremely Careful
Not To Transgress.
Still More Significant Will These General Truths Appear, When We
Remember That They Hold Throughout Adult Life As Well As Throughout
Infantine Life. It Is By An Experimentally-Gained Knowledge Of The
Natural Consequences, That Men And Women Are Checked When They Go Wrong.
After Home-Education Has Ceased, And When There Are No Longer Parents
And Teachers To Forbid This Or That Kind Of Conduct, There Comes Into
Play A Discipline Like That By Which The Young Child Is Trained To
Self-Guidance. If The Youth Entering On The Business Of Life Idles Away
His Time And Fulfils Slowly Or Unskilfully The Duties Entrusted To Him,
There By And By Follows The Natural Penalty: He Is Discharged, And Left
To Suffer For Awhile The Evils Of A Relative Poverty. On The Unpunctual
Man, Ever Missing His Appointments Of Business And Pleasure, There
Continually Fall The Consequent Inconveniences, Losses, And
Part 1 Chapter 3 (Moral Education) Pg 41
Deprivations. The Tradesmen Who Charges Too High A Rate Of Profit, Loses
His Customers, And So Is Checked In His Greediness. Diminishing Practice
Teaches The Inattentive Doctor To Bestow More Trouble On His Patients.
The Too Credulous Creditor And The Over-Sanguine Speculator, Alike Learn
By The Difficulties Which Rashness Entails On Them, The Necessity Of
Being More Cautious In Their Engagements. And So Throughout The Life Of
Every Citizen. In The Quotation So Often Made _Apropos_ Of Such
Cases--"The Burnt Child Dreads The Fire"--We See Not Only That The
Analogy Between This Social Discipline And Nature's Early Discipline Of
Infants Is Universally Recognised; But We Also See An Implied Conviction
That This Discipline Is Of The Most Efficient Kind. Nay Indeed, This
Conviction Is More Than Implied; It Is Distinctly Stated. Every One Has
Heard Others Confess That Only By "Dearly Bought Experience" Had They
Been Induced To Give Up Some Bad Or Foolish Course Of Conduct Formerly
Pursued. Every One Has Heard, In The Criticism Passed On The Doings Of
This Spendthrift Or The Other Schemer, The Remark That Advice Was
Useless, And That Nothing But "Bitter Experience" Would Produce Any
Effect: Nothing, That Is, But Suffering The Unavoidable Consequences.
And If Further Proof Be Needed That The Natural Reaction Is Not Only The
Most Efficient Penalty, But That No Humanly-Devised Penalty Can Replace
It, We Have Such Further Proof In The Notorious Ill-Success Of Our
Various Penal Systems. Out Of The Many Methods Of Criminal Discipline
That Have Been Proposed And Legally Enforced, None Have Answered The
Expectations Of Their Advocates. Artificial Punishments Have Failed To
Produce Reformation; And Have In Many Cases Increased The Criminality.
The Only Successful Reformatories Are Those Privately-Established Ones
Which Approximate Their Regime To The Method Of Nature--Which Do Little
More Than Administer The Natural Consequences Of Criminal Conduct:
Diminishing The Criminal's Liberty Of Action As Much As Is Needful For
The Safety Of Society, And Requiring Him To Maintain Himself While
Living Under This Restraint. Thus We See, Both That The Discipline By
Which The Young Child Is Taught To Regulate Its Movements Is The
Discipline By Which The Great Mass Of Adults Are Kept In Order, And More
Or Less Improved; And That The Discipline Humanly-Devised For The Worst
Adults, Fails When It Diverges From This Divinely-Ordained Discipline,
And Begins To Succeed On Approximating To It.
Have We Not Here, Then, The Guiding Principle Of Moral Education? Must
We Not Infer That The System So Beneficent In Its Effects During Infancy
And Maturity, Will Be Equally Beneficent Throughout Youth? Can Any One
Believe That The Method Which Answers So Well In The First And The Last
Divisions Of Life, Will Not Answer In The Intermediate Division? Is It
Not Manifest That As "Ministers And Interpreters Of Nature" It Is The
Function Of Parents To See That Their Children Habitually Experience The
True Consequences Of Their Conduct--The Natural Reactions: Neither
Warding Them Off, Nor Intensifying Them, Nor Putting Artificial
Consequences In Place Of Them? No Unprejudiced Reader Will Hesitate In
His Assent.
Probably, However, Not A Few Will Contend That Already Most Parents Do
This--That The Punishments They Inflict Are, In The Majority Of Cases,
The True Consequences Of Ill-Conduct--That Parental Anger, Venting
Itself In Harsh Words And Deeds, Is The Result Of A Child's
Transgression--And That, In The Suffering, Physical Or Moral, Which The
Child Is Subject To, It Experiences The Natural Reaction Of Its
Misbehaviour. Along With Much Error This Assertion Contains Some Truth.
It Is Unquestionable That The Displeasure Of Fathers And Mothers Is A
True Consequence Of Juvenile Delinquency; And That The Manifestation Of
It Is A Normal Check Upon Such Delinquency. The Scoldings, And Threats,
And Blows, Which A Passionate Parent Visits On Offending Little Ones,
Are Doubtless Effects Actually Drawn From Such A Parent By Their
Offences; And So Are, In Some Sort, To Be Considered As Among The
Natural Reactions Of Their Wrong Actions. Nor Are We Prepared To Say
That These Modes Of Treatment Are Not Relatively Right--Right, That Is,
In Relation To The Uncontrollable Children Of Ill-Controlled Adults; And
Right In Relation To A State Of Society In Which Such Ill-Controlled
Adults Make Up The Mass Of The People. As Already Suggested, Educational
Systems, Like Political And Other Institutions, Are Generally As Good As
The State Of Human Nature Permits. The Barbarous Children Of Barbarous
Parents Are Probably Only To Be Restrained By The Barbarous Methods
Which Such Parents Spontaneously Employ; While Submission To These
Barbarous Methods Is Perhaps The Best Preparation Such Children Can Have
For The Barbarous Society In Which They Are Presently To Play A Part.
Conversely, The Civilised Members Of A Civilised Society Will
Spontaneously Manifest Their Displeasure In Less Violent Ways--Will
Spontaneously Use Milder Measures--Measures Strong Enough For Their
Better-Natured Children. Thus It Is True That, In So Far As The
Expression Of Parental Feeling Is Concerned, The Principle Of The
Natural Reaction Is Always More Or Less Followed. The System Of Domestic
Government Ever Gravitates Towards Its Right Form.
But Now Observe Two Important Facts. The First Fact Is That, In States
Of Rapid Transition Like Ours, Which Witness A Continuous Battle Between
Old And New Theories And Old And New Practices, The Educational Methods
In Use Are Apt To Be Considerably Out Of Harmony With The Times. In
Deference To Dogmas Fit Only For The Ages That Uttered Them, Many
Parents Inflict Punishments That Do Violence To Their Own Feelings, And
So Visit On Their Children _Un_Natural Reactions; While Other Parents,
Enthusiastic In Their Hopes Of Immediate Perfection, Rush To The
Opposite Extreme. The Second Fact Is, That The Discipline Of Chief Value
Is Not The Experience Of Parental Approbation Or Disapprobation; But It
Is The Experience Of Those Results Which Would Ultimately Flow From The
Conduct In The Absence Of Parental Opinion Or Interference. The Truly
Instructive And Salutary Consequences Are Not Those Inflicted By
Parents When They Take Upon Themselves To Be Nature's Proxies; But They
Are Those Inflicted By Nature Herself. We Will Endeavour To Make This
Distinction Clear By A Few Illustrations, Which, While They Show What We
Mean By Natural Reactions As Contrasted With Artificial Ones, Will
Afford Some Practical Suggestions.
In Every Family Where There Are Young Children There Daily Occur Cases
Of What Mothers And Servants Call "Making A Litter." A Child Has Had Out
Its Box Of Toys, And Leaves Them Scattered About The Floor. Or A Handful
Of Flowers, Brought In From
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