Winchester journal. [volume] (Winchester, Indiana) 1862-1863, 1863-05-08
TITCOMB ON FAMI-
IY GOVERNMENT.

q. Hollands Letters 10 the
Joneses, now in course OF publl-
cation in the Springfield, Mass,
Republican. After some things
about Deacon Jones's way Of
governing his neighborhood, he
goes on:
A man does not usually have
one set OF notions concerning
neighborhood government and
another concerning family gov
ernment. You managed your
own family very much as you
undertook to manage your viii
lage. | can, indeed, bear wit
ness that you gave your family
line upon line and preeept upon
precept, but | am not so ready
to concede that you trained them
up in the right way Your fam
lily was an orderly one, ] admit,
but l have seen Jail, and houses
Of correction that were more or
derry still. An orderly house is
quite as liable to be governed too
much, as a disorderly house is to
be governed too little.
| alwavs noticed this fact,
with relation TO your mode Of
family training. You enforced
blind obedience to your COM
mands, and never deemed it ne
cessary or desirable to give a
reason for them. Nay, you told
your children. distinctly, that il
was enough for them that you
commanded a thing to be done.
You refused TO give them a rea-
son beyond your own wish and
will. You placed yourself be-
tween them and their own con-
sciences; you placed yourself be-
tween them and their own sense
of that which is just and proper
and good; nay, you placed your
self between them and God, and
demanded that they should obey
you because you willed it-be-
cause you commanded them to
obey you.
1t is comparatively an easy
thing to get up an orderly family.
on such a plan of operations as
this. A man needs only to have
a strong arm and a broad palm
and a heart that never opens to
parental tenderness, to secure the
most orderly family in the world.
1t is not a hard thing for a man
who weighs two hundred pounds,
more or less, to make boy who
weighs only fifty pounds, so
much afraid Of him as to obey his
minutest commands. Indeed, il
is not hard thing to break
down his will entirely, and make
craven of him. | declare to
you, Deacon Jones, that the most
orderly families | have ever
known were the worst gov
erned; and one of these same
families was your own. You
are not the first man who has
brought up "an orderly family"
and fitted them for the devils
hand by this system of govern
ment.
Now will you just think for
moment what you did for your
children? know their history,
and in many respects it has been
bad one and sad one. You
governed them. You laid your
law uDon them. You forced
upon them your will as their su-
preme rule Of action. They did
not fear God half as much as
they did you, though, if | remem-
Der correctly, you represented
Him to be a sort ofintinlte Dea-
con Solomon Jones. They did
not fear to lie halt as much as
they feared to be fogged They
became hypocrltes through their
fear of you, and they learned TO
hate YOU because you persisted in
treating them as serviie dePen-
dents. You put yourself before
them and thrust yourself into
their life in the place of God.
You bent them to your will with
those strong hands of yours, and
you had san orderly family"
Nv friend, when think of the
! families that have been trained
and ruined in this way, | shud-
der. Your children were never
permitted TO have any will, and
when they went forth from your
threshold, they went forth eman-
cinated slaves. and untried chill