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Untitled Article
this alone . So that the parent who studies to subdue it in his child , works together with God in the renewing and saving a soul . The parent who indulges it does the devil ' s work , makes religion impracticable , salvation unattainable , and does all that in him lies to damn his child , soul and body , for ever/—pp . 158 , 9 .
This is the essence and perfection of a tyranny under which children are yet often doomed to groan , to the great deterioration and suffering of humanity . We believe , and > ve know it to be quite practicable to ' train up a child in the way in which he should go , " solely by thq agency and power of Love .
We say more than that it is quite practicable ; we contend that it is immeasurably preferable ; that in the long run it is far less troublesome , and that with its efficiency there can be no comparison . We have known those who from infancy to the verge of maturity had never felt a blow : and children more
remuneratory to a parent ' s heart , for years of anxiousness and toil , never trod the earth . We have known children placed ( in that division of training which results from the separation of the school and the family ) under both the systems at different intervals ; and , as might be expected , far more docile to those who only aimed at influencing them by affection than they ever could be made to
the salutary-reverence people . It is very possible that some effects may be produced on the child by fear , which love may fail to realize ; but in proportion to the difficulty it is expedient to investigate the question , whether those effects be so desirable as to justify the means ; or whether , quoad the child ' s happiness , they be desirable at all ? The established code of morals for
children has been framed by adults , just as the powerful have ever taken especial care to define and enforce the morality of the feeble . Napoleon had his catechism ; and so have all Napoleons , great and little . The rich inculcate the duties of the poor , the clergy those of the laity , and men those of the women . No small portion of the vice in the world , both nominal and real ,
arises from our being so ready to manufacture definitions of virtue for one another . It may fairly be suspected of such , definitions that the good of the proposer and imposer is not less consulted in them than the good of those on whom they are imposed . Real virtue , we know , tends alike to the good of all y but this has not been generally evident to either the duty mongers or the duty victims . The good child , in common parlance , is the child that
gives least trouble to its elders ; and not the child whose physical and mental qualities are most finely attuned and proportioned , and best developing themselves . It may be a great nuisance that children are dirty , and noisy , and boisterous ; but the little animals enjoy it ; and it is as great a nuisance to them that Mamma will not have the carpet dirtied , nor Papa endure a noise while he is sifting the creed of a parishioner , or talking politics with a
Untitled Article
168 A Victim .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1833, page 168, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2610/page/24/
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