New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1881-01-19
Tie Rod and the Lad,

There may have been discipline
enough in the family of certain citizen
OF Riverhead, Long Island, for theirs
was imminent danger threatening that
citizens son. This lad had incurred
his fathers displeasure, and the stern
parent was about to correct him with
the rod, which was suppose to be good
for him and to have a tendency to make
him better boy. So many attempts
had been made at improving the
morals and manners of this lad that he
seemed to be getting continuously worse
and worse. He feared his father and
hated him, which, under the circum-
stances, does not seem strange. Hav-
ing endured thrashing after thrashing
and finding no salutary result from
them, the poor boy naturally wanted to
flee away and be where thrashings are
no more. So when the last thrashing
was announced, and he was hidden to
prepare himself for it, he did so by
swallowing dose of corrosive SUBJ
Innate, just as if he lad been cockroach
or bedbug. The poison nearly carried
him beyond the reach of the parental
rod, but not quite. The child survives
in agony, with the prospect of speedy
death. Perhaps man has right thus
to terrify a thirteen-year-old son to the
brink of suicide, but it must make him
feel badly if, owing to the exercise of
that right, the poor child is driven to a
sorrowful death. To exercise such a
right is brutal. A father can always
get along better with his boy by
treating him as a friend and companion
than by keeping MIN down as a slave
or lording it over him as if he were a
conquered enemy. A rebellious boy
may seem to be subjugated by fear.
He yields sullen obedience, which is
totally lacking in respect and which has
not spark of affection in it. This may
pass for compliance with parental de-
mands. but it is a wretched substitute
for that cheerful and loving regard
which child should show toward parent.
Many parents make sorry and
troublesome mistakes in the way they
treat their boys and girls. They are
not necessarily as cross and severe as
the Riverhead man, and yet they man
age to int1ict on the young ones of their
families great deal of needless worry.
They regard the children as interiors,
which in some respects they are. They
are interiors as to age, but of that they
will in due time mend. Socially thew
are interiors, for the parents crowd
them down like puppies. As to
muscular strength they are also the
interiors of the Old folks and are sorry
for it, too. They long for the time to
come when they can knock their per-
secutors flat in the dust as some slight
compensation for indignities committed.
Instead of feeling penitent when pun
ished they are stimulated to deeds of
greater iniquity. The great aim of
their lives is to study methods by which
they may Illustrate the purposes of their
unlovely parents and to execute ven
geance upon them. Asa matter of mere
economy, the parents who work their
offspring into this frame of mind sadly
miss it. AS TO the helpful service these
children might render it is not a 1.-THE of
what it might be if the children gave it
| cheerfully.
The need for the use of the rod is
sadly and mischievously overestimated.
There are some children who have no
more need of it than of coats of tar and
feathers. There are others who need
it but seldom. The boys and girls who
need it frequently are rare exceptions.
In many instances they seem to need it
because injudicious parents have hard
ened them by its use. Many a man
who owns a horse will needlessly and
rudely pull and jerk the bit in the
mouth of the suffering animal under the
mistaken impression that he is improv-
ing the creatures manners, or his
mode of travelling. In this he is wrong.
He is hardening the delicate and sensf-
| tive tissue of the horses mouth. He is
irritating the beast and doing him no
good whatsoever. A child's moral and
physical makeup is infinitely more del
icate than that of horse. 1t is easy to
irritate and worry and frighten child
almost to death. Most children, even
if they come of brutal parents, are wor-
thy of better treatment than this. A
boy is none the less manly when grown
up because kindly treated and with de-
cent consideration when small enough
to thrash. The parent who will cruelty
thrash twelve or thirteen Y ear-old boy
is a coward, who dare not lay hands on
the same boy when grown to eighteen,
lest he should himself receive the
thrashing he intended for the wavward
youth. The law of love is a capital
thing in its way, and it will bear ex-
perimenting with in thousands of cases
in which it has not been tried.-PAila-
delp1ti0 Times.