The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1897-04-21
BILL ARP'S LETTER.
Arp Writes About how Children Ought 10
be Brought Up.
atlanta Constitution.

family Of children SO that they will all
behave, the boys make good citizens,
good husbands, good fathers and the
girls make good wives and good moth
ers. "Is it possible to do this p he
asks.
When the lawyers determine that a
thing cannot be legally done they say it
is "ultra wires, which means beyond
strength. In the first place, it is not
possible to devise any plan or method
by which all children can be raised to
do right and behave. 1t is "ultra
wires" and even if it were possible, it
is "ultra wires with me to make it
known. Ever since the failure Of
Adam to raise Cain, this thing Of
raising all the children to be good has
been an unsolved problem, Whether
the difference in children of the same
family is due to the laws of heredity
or the doctrine of election or to differ
ent environments and associations or
to the devil himself we cannot tell,
but one or more of these causes have
been at work. My wife and / were
discoursing about this last night and
in all our acquaintance of half cen
tury We could not name single family
of six or more children of whom all
were good. Anxiety and grief Of
trouble because Of children is the
common lot. 1t began with Adam and
came on down to Noah and Jacob and
David and Solomon, and yet these
men had the special favor Of God and
were blessed by Him in every way ex-
cept in the conduct of some Of their
children. Poor old Eli, the high
priest and judge of Israel for forty
years, was cursed with two bad boys
and God at the last cursed him for not
retaining them. "There shall not be
an old man in thy house forever, and
all the increase of thy house shall die
in the flower Of their age. Because
his sons made themselves vile and he
restrained them not. What an aw-
full curse was that. These sons of
Belial! This word means worthless
bad d-naughty-vile, and fits many
a bad boy in our day. 1t is fact that
reflects on our sex that the sons Of
Belial are mentioned more than a |
dozen times in the scriptures, but |
there is no daughter of Belial. "He
restrained them not. Well, the |
good old man did talk to them and re-
prove them most earnestly. 'Why |
do ye such things. 1t is no good re-
port that I hear. Ye make the Lords |
people to transgress. If one man sin
against another the Judge shall Judge
him, but if man sin against the Lord |
who shall entreat for him p
I Iwonder what kind Of restraint the
Lord expected or required of Eli. 1t |
was not talking or pleading with them,
of course, for he did that. I wonder
if the old man dident experiment on
the modern Atlanta plan of raising
the boys on his love and their honor,
for fear of breaking their spirits. It
makes an old mau very tired to read
the wise utterances of the modern So
Ions against corporal punishment OF
bad boys in the public schools. | had
rather go and ask the convicts in the
chaingangf for an opinion. Nine-tenths
Of them would say began in disobedi-
ence and was not restrained. The
lamentable fact is that at least one
fourth Of the boys at these schools
have no restraint at home and if they
are not punished at school they get it
nowhere, and so these sons Of Belial
go to the bad very early and become
victims to the rigor of the law and the
courts. There is many boy in these
schools who is right now on his way
to the chaingang. These Solons say
that corporal punishment is brutal and
barbarous and must give away to the
progress and refinement Of the age.
About what time did the youths of
this generation become better than
those of half century ago? Read
the daily papers and answer. How
many houses in Atlanta are in mourn
ing because of the bad conduct Of
their boys? What good results can
come from expulsion of a bad boy
from school ? He is not wanted any
where by decent people, and SO he
associates with this kind and becomes
worse and soon comes to grief and
brings sorrow to his kindred.
Obedience to law, to government, to
parents is absolutely necessary for the
peace and welfare Of society. This
obedience is enforced among bad men
by the fear of the law. It. cannot be
enforced among bad boys except by
fear of corporal punishment. Their
honor or their shame is too feeble
factor to be considered. Obedience
must begin early, even in infancy.
My little two-y -year-old grandchild loves
to play in the dirty coal box. "Caro-
line, you must not do that, her
mother says, and enforces her COM
mand by slapping her little hands and
then washing them. That is corporal
punishment, and is just as severe to
the little child as the rod is to boy
of ten, and both are right and both
effectual. The enforcement Of obedi-
ence in early childhood saves all ne
cessity for punish in later years,
and it saves sight of scolding. What
a world of worry bad children are to
other people What comfort are
good ones at home and abroad. Some
mistaken parents say that their boys
are too highstrung to be whipped:
Yes, and those boys are in danger OF
being still higher strung when in fit
of passion they kill somebody. The
poet Shelley said "Obedience is the
bane of genius, virtue, freedom and
truth makes slaves of men and of
the human frame a mechanical auto
maton." He was one Of these high
strung sublimated creatures whose
rule Of life was to do as he pleased, to
follow his own sweet will. What a
miserable life he lived, and was
drowned when only thirty years old.
He alarmed his schoolmates by his
storms of passion. Was expelled
from Oxford when nineteen. The
same year he eloped with a hotel
keepers daughter and married her at
Gretna Green. Three years later he
abandoned her and she drowned her
self from grief. Soon after this he
married another woman, with whom
he had been living previous to his
first wife's death. He was the init