Delaware state journal. [volume] (Wilmington, Del.) 1870-1883, 1873-03-08
Training Children.

That you must cut your coat according
to your cloth, is a very old and true adage,
and IN nothing is it truer than in the train
ing of children. Aud in nothing is 1t so
much di-regardc1. That coat and cloth
must bear some proportion the one to the
other, is obvious to men in every other
affair. But with child they seem to be-
lieve themselves able to do what they
please. They will make of him not what
they can but what they will.
The management Of children will never
be on d right basis until we clearly recog-
nize what we can and what we cannot do.
No man is iit to govern who does not
know that, however much ho may improve
his pumpkins by proper cultivation, he
cannot change them into watermelons.
| What he might do with pumpkins by
working on Darwinian principles, If his
| life was three Methuselahs long we cannot
| tell. But we know that, not in one sea-
son, or in one lif, time, can such a change
he made. But half of the mothers, and
nearly all the fathers in the country are
trying to do something of this sort-tO
translate pumpkins to watermelOus, TO
transform ducks inlo chickens, to change
holyhocks to lilies.
We have spent two genaratlOns now in
praising education and in endcavoring to
ontdo one another in our estimates oi
what il was possible for education to do.
Bnt In om enthusiasm we have over
praised. There are many things that the
most careful education cannot do. And
the sooner we come to understand oul
limitations, the more wisely we shall carry
forward our work.
Take even the matter of temper. The
child who Is quick or violent in his passion
will always he so. How many mother'
have sunk down in dependency beeausI
they could not eradicate a violent temper
You could more easily make blue eye
black. People talk of suhduing a strong
wiled child Of breaking the force of hi
will. You may change the manner of thu
action of his will, but you cannot breal
the will unless you break the boy.
And just such hopeless things are un
dertaken in educational Institutions. Boy
are sent to college who should have beel
sent anywhere else. 1t matters little tina
You will develope deficient faculties. Tha
can be done within limits. But when yo
try to turn a boys whole life in directlo
in viii h he is poorest, you condemn hir
, to failure and to intellectual peuury
Strengthen the weak side, but let the lif,
r work lie in the direction of the stron
I side. If your boy is a mechanic by nature
do not make him preacher. Give NIL
large general culture if he will take i
e and then let him lift his burden with HI
a strongest arm, his constructive faculty.
But shal we give over trying TO do an
thing for the high tempered child Sha
we let his passions run rotl Certainl
}. not. What we insist on is that they ca
n be regulated, but not eradicated. Thel
S was near a city a crooked stream thi
3, wandered round and obstructed travel an
i injured the value of property. Nobod
i dreamed of drying it up. But the citizeI
is straightened it, and walled it in, and en-
e banked against its overflow, and cleart
r distractions from its bed, and built mil
$ upon IS margin. The unpleasant trait
v a child's character may be walled by habi
}, of self-control, may be utilized by givr
e il right direction, may be made more
{, blessing and less curse than it would
" without discipline. But it cannot be d
ss streyed.
Ie Education can do almost anything
Y. the sphere of habit. IL can do little in u
le sphere of ingrained quality. Powers ov
x nature, sovereign over second nature.
h Hearth and Home.