The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1899-11-20
Mr.. Soudder Thinks Obe-
dience Can Be Taught
Without Corporal
Punishment.
HOW PARENTS SHOULD BE TREATED
Difference and Respect Should
Take the Place of Flip
pancy and Irreyer-
ence.

First Congregational Church last night 70
a crowded house. Man children were
present. He said in part
Fathers and mothers are entitled to,
obedience and respect by virtue of their
position as parents, and yet how many
families are cursed with disobedient ana
disrespectful children. In some rebellion
starts in the cradle and develops into life
long mutiny. Parental authority is ignored
because violation of commands bring no
unpleasant consequences. This lack OF dis
cipline acts disastrously upon the rising
generation. making them headstrong, pert
and defiant of law. Our Puritan fathers,
who brought up their children on prayer
and hickory certainly had the virtue OF
making their children mind. Corporal
punishment is brutal, is becoming obso-
lete. and 1t ought never to be employed
save as a last resort; but In some way or
other boys and girls should be taught to
obey promptly and cheerfully. Some say
a boy is like a horse; he travels better
when the whip is in sight, but I think
the same purpose may be accomplished
by adopting milder methods.
CLOSELY allied to this spirit of in
subordination is that fiippancy and undue
familiarity with parents so noticeable in
American children by foreigners visiting
our shores, and which the Chinese and
japanese, who revere their parents, can
not understand. We call it Young America
and smile, when we ought to frown. Being
an independent, self-assertiye people, who
Defy push and exalt expansion, 1t is
easy to see how the Anglo-Saxon young
sters overstep the bounds of propriety
and allow their self-re-sance to verge
upon arrogance and impudence. especially
among the children of the rich When
George Augustus Sala was in this country
he said: I object to two things in Amer
lea; one is pie and the other is the hotel
child, and not until that child is made into
pie will I tolerate either There comes a
time in the life of almost every American
cAsld when it is attacked by the disease
commonly known ais 'swelled head The
child knows more than both parents put
together; is apt to be discourteous. IL not
positively rude and saucy. 1t has the
faculty Of making itself thoroughly dis
agreeable; or the malady assumes another
phase and the boy thinks himself su-
premely funny, and takes all manner OF
liberties with his superiors.
Again. all children should be taught
to assist their parents about the home and
be made to assume their share of respon-
sibiIity in the domestic economy. Boys
and girls should be compelled to do a
certain amount of work in their younger
days. that they may become industrious
and reliable men and women. This may
be irksome to the children. who prefer
to play, but it is s~alutary and building up |
character. 1t ineulcates diligence, neat
ness and order, and fits them for the
severer labors of adult life. Successful
men were usually obliged to work in their
youth. / believe in abundance of play for
children, especially out Of doors, but all
play and no work makes loafers and
libertines, Make the burdens light, but
compel the children to carry them. IL
does not hurt a boy to cut the grass, nor
a girl to dust the parlor and water the
plants. They may pout and try to shirk,
keep at them kindly and firmly. The
camel is always ~snarling and showing his
upper teeth, but he becomes in time a
magnificent burden bearer. But work
should be lifted above the domain Of COM
pulsion, and the children should feel that
home is a cooperative institution, where
each should contribute his quota OF labor.
because each enjoys his share Of the
benefits. In some households the children
the notion that everything must
be done for them, that they are juvenile
kings and queens to be waited OF by papa
mamma. These would-be autocrats
in knee pants need to be taken down and
set to work. Nothing dissipates high
handedness like physical labor.
again children should treat their par
ents with affection and reQuite the love
that has been lavished upon them. There
is nothing a mother so yearns for as the
Of her children. Her life is wrapped
In them and she prizes their express
sions of endearment more than precious
I know boys who treat their motn-
ers more like lovers than parents. Such
mothers live in paradise. / believe in these
boys, and think the greatest act
OF James A. Garfield was kissing his aged
mother in front of the Capitol as soon as
he was sworn in as President of these
United States. No boy need ever be
of being tied to mothers apron
strings. They are the best and safest
things to tie to on this earth. They are
than cables to o him back In
noun Of temptation. The best way TO
father and mother is to tell them
you love them and will be true to the
teachings Of the home as long as life shall
yrr Yrr