Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1868-11-20
Ssleftsa MiseslIaay.
F0.a BREAKING THE WILL.


THIS 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.
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.
| have more than once said to parent
who used these words: VIII you tell me
just what you mean by that ? Of course,
you do not mean exactly what you say"
eyes, I 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 yieldg Simply as the weaker
yields to the stronger almost as matter
yields to force? For what reason is he to
do this?"
Why, because I know what is best for
him and what is right; and he does not"
sez"A All that is a very different thing. He
is, then, to do the thing that you tell him to
do, because tho ething is right and needful
for him; on are his guide on a road over
which you have gone and he has not; you
are an interpreter, helper; you know
better than he does about all things, and
"Certainly, that is what | mean. A
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 1t is Of all things furthest re-
moved fromit. 1t is educating his will.
1t is teaching him how to will"
sd This sounds dangerous; but the logic is
not easily turned aside, and there is little
left for the advocate of will l-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
them with patience. TO children obey
your parents was added "in the Lord"
and "because it is right" not "because
they are your parents" "Spare the rod p"
has been quite as gratuitously assumed to
mean "spare blows" "Rod" means here,
as elsewhere, simply punishment. We
are not told to "train up child to have
no will but our own," but " in the way in
which he should CO." and to the end that
"when he is old" he should not "depart
from it 80. g., that his will should be so
educated that he will choose to walk in
the right way still. Suppose a chilQ's will
to be actually broken. 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 GEN.
trail 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 live? Can we wind
them up like seventy-year clocks, and
leave them?
But this is idle. 1t is not, thank God,
in the power of any man, or any woman,
to "break" a child's "will" They may
he child's body in trying, like that
clergyman in Western New
whipped his three-yea son
refusing to repeat a prayer to
Ter.
frail things; there are more
RS than will be known until
terrestrial are done with.
~ one escape or another, the will
Ill, goes free. Sooner or later, every
u being comes to know and prove in
wn estate that freedom ofwill is the
freedom for which there are
possible, and that in Natures
of law nothing is so largely
liberty. Sooner or later
But If it comes later
ouds of 'antagonism
ght, and is hard
IKE the kingdom
Nout observs
-eet as dew
srst dawn