CHAPTER XVI DISCIPLINE A Serious Study for Parents           Discipline is not Punishment.—‘What part does Discipline play in your system of education?’ We should hail the query as manifesting a cheering degree of interest if we were not quite sure that our interlocutor uses discipline as a euphuism for punishment. That conviction puts one’s mind into the attitude of protest. In the first place, we … Continue reading Volume 2 Chapter 16

CHAPTER XVIS IT POSSIBLE? The Attitude of Parents towards Social Questions           A Moral Crisis.—The economic aspects of the great philanthropic scheme[1] which brought timely relief to the national conscience before the setting in of the hard winter of 1891, are, perhaps, outside our province; but it has educational aspects which we are, in some measure, bound to discuss. In the first place, the children … Continue reading Parents and Children Volume 2 Chapter 15

CHAPTER XIVPARENTS ARE CONCERNED TO GIVE THE HEROIC IMPULSE[1]           Heroic Poetry Inspires to Noble Living.—“To set forth, as only art can, the beauty and the joy of living, the beauty and the blessedness of death, the glory of battle and adventure, the nobility of devotion—to a cause, and ideal, a passion even—the dignity of resistance, the sacred quality of patriotism, dignity of resistance, the … Continue reading Parents and Children Volume 2 Chapter 14

CHAPTER XIII FAITH AND DUTY Man lives by Faith, Godward and Manward         Things ‘Sacred’ and Things ‘Secular’ an Irreligious Classification.—There is a little involuntary resistance in our minds to any teaching which shall draw the deep things of our faith within the sphere of the laws which govern our development as human beings. We prefer that the commerce between God and the soul, in … Continue reading Parents and Children Chapter 13

CHAPTER XII FAITH AND DUTY Claims of Philosophy as an Instrument of Education           English Educational Thought tends towards Naturalism.—Since Locke established a school of English educational thought, based on English philosophy, our tendency has been exclusively towards naturalism, if not materialism; to the exclusion of a vital element in education—the force of the idea.         Madame de Staël has a remarkable passage concerning this tendency in … Continue reading Parents and Children Volume 2 Chapter 12

CHAPTER XI FAITH AND DUTY (REVIEWS ) Parents as Teachers of Morals           Laws of Nature and Ways of Men.—Education, properly understood, is the science of life, and every attempt to formulate this science is to be hailed with interest, and with a measure of gratitude in proportion to its success. Thinking minds everywhere are engaged in furnishing their quota towards this great work, in … Continue reading Parents and Children Chapter 11

CHAPTER X BIBLE LESSONS Parents as Instructors in Religion           “The history of England is now reduced to a game of cards,—the problems of mathematics to puzzles and riddles. . . . There wants but one step further, and the Creed and Ten Commandments may be taught in the same manner, without the necessity of the grave face, deliberate tone of recital, and devout attention … Continue reading Parents and Children Volume 2 Chapter 10

CHAPTER IX THE CULTURE OF CHARACTER The Treatment of Defects           The Ultimate Object of Education.—Suppose the parent see that the formation of character is the ultimate object of education; see, too, that character is, in the rough, the inherited tendencies of the child, modified by his surroundings, but that character may be debased or ennobled by education; that it is the parents’ part to … Continue reading Parents and Children Volume 2 Chapter 9

CHAPTER VIII THE CULTURE OF CHARACTER Parents as Trainers “What get I from my father?Lusty life and vigorous will:What from my gentle mother?Cheerful days and poet’s skill,”[1] says Goethe; for poets, like the rest of us, are born, not made, and get the most of what they are from their parents. But it did not take poet or modern scientist to discover this; people have … Continue reading Parents and Children Volume 2 Chapter 8

CHAPTER VII THE PARENT AS SCHOOLMASTER          ‘The Schoolmaster will make him sit up!’—‘Sit up,’ that is, ‘come when he’s called,’ apparently, for the remark concerned a young person who went on spinning his top with nonchalance, ignoring an intermittent stream of objurgations from his mother, whose view was that bedtime had arrived. Circumstances alter cases, but is it unheard of in higher ranks of life … Continue reading Parents and Children Volume 2 Chapter 7