Discipline

The happiness of home life is so often, clouded by the need of correction that it is really a serious problem to parents how to discipline in such a way as to build up rather than to destroy the individuality of the child. The best dis¬cipline is that which leads to self-discipline. This must be true as the aim of discipline is character and character is the resultant of will trained to act habit¬ually from right motives. Virtue implies moral strength of will, desire to do that which is morally right. For the moral life there must be an awakened intelligence and an emotional nature quick to re¬spond to every sense of duty, then follows naturally upon every question of voluntary conduct, the se¬quence of a moral act, feeling, thought, decision, ac¬tion.

It has been truthfully said that every time a boy takes his first two steps, feeling and thought, with¬out proceeding further, he strengthens the habit of neglect of duty; when he adds the third step, decision, without completing it with the fourth step, action, he becomes weaker as an executive moral force. It must be borne in mind as an important fact in the train¬ing of our boys and girls that every act is an im¬portant act for it leads to habit.

Sow a thought and you reap an act;
Sow an act and you reap habit;
Sow habit and you reap character.

Character expresses itself in conduct. Knowledge awakens feeling; feeling gives direction to the will, and will determines conduct.

So often the parent, in mistaken fondness, says, “We will correct this child when he is old enough to understand.” So the little saucy word is overlooked, or the rude play act continued until the child has outgrown the “cunning” age, and then perhaps sud¬denly father awakens with displeasure to the rude¬ness he himself has encouraged. Then follow harsh correction, rebellion, misunderstanding. This de¬structive process is more often the secret of home fail¬ure in discipline than parents would be willing to admit. Sometimes the mother hesitates to set the young child right in manners at the table and habits of greediness, untidyness, thoughtlessness of others, take the place of the finer qualities that should be taking shape. Then the mother has her sharp awaken¬ing and reprimands, unjust and severe, follow upon the conduct she herself has permitted to become habit.

These are destructive rather than constructive processes in discipline. “We do not build our houses in that way. We first think out our superstructure and then stone by stone is laid with reference to the ideal plan. No one would tolerate the economic waste of foundations laid without reference to future work¬ing plans. Yet economies in human life and conduct are often, through indifference or ignorance, not so well considered.

Discipline does not necessarily mean punishment. It has a broader meaning than that. Like the words “censor,” “censure,”"criticism,” and other kindred words, discipline may signify both, favorable and unfavorable attitudes of mind, and as such it carries with it a certain amount of dread which tends to fix upon it the latter meaning. There seems to be a tendency when a word has double range in meaning, both of constructive and destructive force, to gradually reduce it to the latter. “Disci¬pline” is such a word. “To give the punishment of the strap;” “to chastise;” to punish by way of cor¬rection and training; to improve by penal methods; severe training corrective of faults; instruction by means of misfortune, suffering, these are familiar def¬initions of the word, but they cover only its lower ranges.

Discipline in its broader and happier sense in¬cludes all the constructive processes in education. It aims to educate by instruction and exercise; to ac¬custom to regular and systematic action; to bring un¬der control so as to act systematically; to train to proper subordination and obedience; to substitute good for bad; to develop all that is best in child na¬ture. This is the constructive ideal of discipline; it is formative, not reformative.

Constructive discipline assumes that with moral training there must be moral responsibility and moral accountability. “We cannot educate to goodness un¬less we believe in goodness, not in the abstract but actual goodness in the individual. Children are never made good by believing they are bad. Not, what shall I do with the child who has done wrong, but what can I do so that this child may choose to do right, are the really formative questions.

The action of the very young child is non-moral, not immoral. He is not bad. He is not consciously good. He moves but impulsively along the pathway of a motor idea, whereas the conduct of the more ex¬perienced is restrained by reflection. Under the in¬fluence of proper education, the first motor impulses are met by inhibitive ideas, then arise conflict, doubt, hesitation. It is at this point that discipline is needed, the external word of counsel or authority from parent or teacher. Conduct at first impulsive must become rational, selective.

There must be instruction in duty, concrete in¬struction, for the child lives in the world of his senses, not in the abstract ideas. The basis of true moral character must be laid in obedience. The child must learn that above him and around him there is law and that law is absolute and for his good. This is nature’s way of teaching. Authority is external at first, but to be of any worth obedience must be from motives that make for character. External force or fear may restrain from wrongdoing but the habit of such obedience is destructive to nobility of character. Love and a high sense of duty are far more com¬manding. They win the whole nature.

It is also a fact never to be ignored that moral training is not incidental, to receive now and then a spurt of effort. It is a central and vital function. In¬struction must be constant in the atmosphere of the home, in the spirit of the school, in the frequent word of instruction or criticism. Ignorance is not the mother of virtue. Line upon line, precept upon pre¬cept, is as necessary for the children of today as for the children of that long ago when Solomon was the great teacher. Wise guidance the child must have during those early years “when he is making his first reactions to the great world of stimuli—physical, social and religious.” But this guidance should never take the form of irritating commands or of ceaseless nagging, neither should the voice of authority be loud and harsh. The companionable parent makes the com¬panionable child. It is a happy home where parents and children talk with each other, not at each other.

The most effective method in discipline is positive rather than negative. Love has stronger mastery than fear. The expulsive power of a good idea cannot be measured. There is that dramatic story of legions of devils entering the herd of swine, tearing and rend¬ing them in the country of the Gadarenes. Taking the swine as the symbol of the unfilled mind that is to be directed, what a pity it was that good spirits had not first entered and taken possession of the swine before the evil spirits found them empty. High ideals, noble endeavors, leave no room for evil imaginings. Good habits of life and thought come to us as di¬rectly through unconscious processes as through di¬rect teaching, yes, even more direct, for the in¬fluence of environment is constant.

Power through suggestion of a noble personality is beyond all other teaching. ” If a teacher have mind and heart large enough, his life becomes a tremendous suggestion every hour that he is in contact with his pupils,” says Dr. George Dawson. This is equally true of parents. They constantly teach and discipline by what they are. And, alas, immoral attitudes are equally suggestive as teachers. “The mother who forever worries, grieves, fears, scolds, raves, fattens on scandal, must induce depraved states in the minds of the children growing up about her through the potency of suggestion. Is it to be wondered at if her children grow up into selfish, jealous, narrow, un¬charitable beings, when such qualities have been im¬pressed upon their intellects through all their forma¬tive years?” Such is the description of the destruc¬tive influence of an unworthy mother. Glorious be¬side it is the picture of the honored mother found in the book of Proverbs. As the crowning glory of her work, “Her children rise up and call her blessed,” says the written word and it might truthfully be added, “And they shall be like unto her.”

The discipline of the home belongs only half to the mother. The father who, by badness of life or unreasonableness of temper, puts before his boys an unworthy example, is destructive of character and alas! alas! too often the evil that he does lives after him. Whereas the father who lives nobly needs no higher honor than the sons who succeed him. It is true and we must believe it, for the optimism that it puts into life, that good habits of life are helped as truly by good companionship as they are hindered by bad.

In the application of convincing truths it is good sometimes to illustrate by familiar, oft recurring ex¬amples. Acts of constructive and of destructive dis¬cipline are both as familiar in our every-day life as the exterior of the houses upon our street. One laughs at the hypothetical mother who warned her children not to put beans in their noses and it is not hard to understand the psychology of the fact that she found their noses stuffed with beans when she returned home. Said a young mother to her little girl, “Now you have on a clean dress and I shall punish you by putting you to bed if you get it dirty.” Said another mother to her child, “Now you are my clean little lady and father will be so glad to see you so clean when he comes home.” It is easy to see which mother was constructive and which destructive.

A mother sat sewing and the child of four was playing near. As she touched the scissors or the thread or cloth or leaned on mother’s shoulder or against the sewing machine, the querulous voice ex¬claimed, “No, no, Judith must not do that.” And with equal sharpness the child’s voice exclaimed, “Me must do sumfin.” Sad, turbulent current of rebellion stirred by negative commands. If only the mother had found employment for those little fingers and turned the emotional currents into the joy of imita-”tion! Christina Rossetti’s advice is good for every day practice:

Seldom can’t.

Seldom don’t.

Never shan’t.

Never won’t.

Two boys in different schools were heard uttering oaths on the school ground. The teacher of one called the boy up before the school and whipped him. The angry boy waited only, to be out of hearing then swore in deeper profanity than before because it was an angry oath. The teacher of the other boy talked with him in such a way that he regretted the offense and thought it reasonable when, for punishment, he was forbidden the privileges of the playground. Both boys were punished, but one boy was made bitter and rebellious by his punishment. The second boy was convinced of wrong and resolved to overcome his fault.

It has been well said that “to teach a child con¬tinuously what is right without securing in some way corresponding connections with right conduct is to make the child oblivious to such relations.” He must learn by the law of consequence. Bad impulses must be followed by corresponding results, good impulses by satisfaction.

The absoluteness of moral law, hence the obligation to obedience, must be fundamental in all instruction. Knowledge of what is right and a growing disposition to do what is right, these are constructive principles that must underlie all our ends and aims in discipline.