Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1868-11-20
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BREAKING THE WILL.
BY II. II.

n = .
TINS phrase is going out of use. 1t is
high time it did,, If the thing it rep
resents would also cease there would
be stronger and freer men and women.
u But the phrase is still sometimes heard !;
and there are still conscientious fathers
and mothers who believe they do God
service in setting about the thing
l have more than once said to parent
who used these words "Will you tell me
Just what you mean by thatp Of course,
You do not mean exactly what you say"
"Yes, do. mean that the child's
will is to be once for all broken-that he
Is to learn that my will Is to be his law.
The sooner he learns this the better"
But it is to your will simply as will
that he is to yieldP Simply as the weaker
yields to the stronger-almost as matter
yieldsto force?f For what reason is he to
do this?"
"Why, because know what is best for
him and what is right; and he does not"
All that is a very differentthing. He
is, then, to do the thing that you tell him to
do, because the thing is right and needful
fof him ou are his guide on road over
which you have gone and he has not; you
are an interpreter, a helper; you know
better than he does about all things, and
your knowledge is to teach his ignorance"
pretty state of things it would be If child
rem were to be allowed to think they
know as much as their parents. There is
no way except to break their wills in the
beginning"
"But you have Just said that it is not
to your will as will that he is to yield, but
to your superior knowledge and expert
ence. That surely is not breaking his
will It is of all things furthest re-
moved from it. Il is educating his will
1t is teaching him howte will!.S-a -
This sounds dangerous; but the logic is
not easily turned aside, and there is little
3 left for the advocate Of will breaking but
to fall back on some texts in the Bible,
! Which have been so often misquoted in
this connection that one can hardly hear
chem with, patience To ,"children obey
your parents J was added in the Lord"
and "because it is right" not "because
they are your parents" "Spare the rod {"
has been quite as gratuitously assumed to
mean "spare blows" "Rod" means here,
as elsewhere, simply punishment. We
are not told to train up o child to have
no will but our own" but in the way in
"when he is old" he should not "depart
from it"-i. O., that his will should be so
educated that he will choose to walk in
the right way still. Suppose child's will
to be actually broken p suppose him to
? be so trained that he has no will but to
obey his parents. What is to become of
this helpless machine, which has no CEN
tral spring of independent action? Can
we stand by, each minute of each hour of
each day, and say to the automatons, Go
here, or go there? And can we be sure of
living as long as they liver Can we wind
them up like seyenty-year clocks, and
leave them?
But this is idle It's not, thank God,
in the power of any man, or any woman,
to "break a child's will" They NAV
kill the childs body in trying, like that
still unhung clergyman in Western New
York, who whipped his three-year-olds son
to death for refusing to repeat prayer to
his stepmother. -l-r
Bodies are frail things; there are more
child-martyrs than viii be known until
the bodies terrestrial are done with. >
But, by one escape or another, the will,
the soul, goes free. Sooner or later. every
human being comes to know and prove in
his own estate that freedom of will is the
: only freedom for which there are
no chains possible, and that in Natures
o whole reign of. law nothing is so largely
provided for as liberty Sooner or later,
all this must come. But, If it comes later,
it comes through clouds of antagonism,
and after days of fight, and is hard
1t should come sooner, ike the kingdom
of God, which it is--" without observa-
tion," gracious as sunshine, sweet as dew /;
it should begin with the infant'sflrs dawn
ing of comprehension that there are two
courses of action, two qualities of conduct;
one wise, the other foolish; one right, the
other wrong it fsfat@sta HH
am sure, for have seen, that child's
moral perception can be made so clear,
and his will so strong and upright, that be-
fore he is ten years old be will see and
take his way through all common days
rightly and bravely. .ai
VIII he always act up 10 his highest
moral perceptions2 No. Do we? But
one right decision that he makes Volun-
tarily, unbiased by the assertion ofauthor-
ity or the threat Of punishment, is worth
more to him in development of moral
character than a thousand in which he
does what he is compelled to do by some
sort of outside pressure,
/ read once, in book intended for the
guidance of mothMs, q story Of little
child who, la repeating his letters one
day, suddenly refused to say A. All the
other letters he repeated again and again,
unhesitadngly; but a. he would not and
persisted in declaring that he could not
say. BE was severely whipped, but still
persisted. II now became a contest of
wills He was whipped again and again.
and again. In the intervals between the
whippings the primer was presented to
him, and he was told that he would be
Z whipped again if he did not mind his
mother and say A. forget how many
times he was whipped; but Il was almost
too many times TO be believed, The fight
was terrible one. At last, in paroxysm
of his crying under the blows, the mother
thought she heard him sob out "a" and
the victory was considered to be won.
A little boy whom ! know once had a
similar contest over q letter Of the alpha
bet but the contest was with himself, and
his mother was the faithful Great Heart
who helped him through. The story Is
so remarkable that l have long wanted all
4 mothers to know it. II is as perfect an
illustration Ofwhat Imean by educating"
the viii as the other one Is Of what Is
called breaking" it.
= Willy was about four years old he had
q large, active brain, a sensitive tempera-
ment, and indomitable spirit He was and
Is an uncommon child. Common methods
OF what Is commonly supposed TO be
q discipline" would, II he had survived
them, have made very bad boy of him.
He had great difficulty in pronouncing the
letter Csc much that he had formed a.
most q habit Of emitting Il. One daY his
mother said, not dreaming OF auv anaoial