The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-05-27
SOARING THE ROD.


mended for words of exceeding wis
dom concerning the relation Of the
state to the child. 1t is a significant
fact that men of good mind and keen
human sympathies see at a glance
from the viewpoint of the bench the
central truth about what the rest of
society call problems" They may not
know much about child study but
after they have had child offenders
before them day after day and seen
the social machine sending the child
into the hopper and turning out the
criminal as the finished product, they
grow a trifie impatient with theories.
These are golden words of Judge Fine
mentalist would both be vastly the bet
ter for a careful study of them:
''The wisdom Of the courts interior
ing between the child and the parent
is doubted at any time, and is excus-
able only in cases where there has been
actual excessive cruelty. 1t is far bet
ter for the parents to take the children
in hand and infiict the needed punish
ment than it is to wait until the child
is brought to the police court"
There has grown up of late years a
washy and contemplate idea that cor
poral punishment is intrinsicaly a
barbarous practice. We have banished
it from our public schools, probably
very much to the detriment of the
children. 1t is rather in disgrace in
the home, as an unworthy and bnciv-
ilized method of discipline. And this is
true if there is some other and better
method to supersede it. The parent
who brings up a child in rectitude and
obedience without inf1icting a blow has
achieved a real triumph. The child
who has learned the discipline of youth
under gentler suasion is to be congrat-
ulated. But, human nature being what
it is, these are by no means the rule.
The proyerb about sparing the rod is,
like most proverbs, unfit for absolutely
general application. Like most prov
cribs, also, there is core of truth in it
which it is folly to deny and loss to ig-
more. There are children, many of
them, so constituted that the fear of
punishment, corporal punishment, alone
is sufficient to compel obedience or to
save from habits that must be ruinous
For one that is permanently injured
by it in character there are a hundred
that are injured by the lack of it. The
physical nature predominates in the
child, and physical punishments ap-
peal to it strongly. And what are a
few red marks on the body or limbs to
the brand of the beast that is burned
into the soul of so many of the undis-
ciplined and incorrigible young?
We lament the decline of parental
discipline the Iaxness of paternaI. con-
troll that fills our streets with the idle
young who are about to become the
vicious, and burdens our courts. our
reformatories and our penitentiaries.
How much of this condition is due to
modern ideas about corporal punish
ment? 1t is easier for the parent to
pass over an offense with reprimand,
for only the brutal take pleasure in
administering chastisement But what
of the child, who learns so quickly that
there is no real restraint between him
and his indulgence in pleasures and
appetites that can lead him nowhere
but within the restraining walls of the
prison?
OF course in all that we have said
we omit actual brutality, which is but
seldom used and which should be and
is punished by the power of the state
and the force of public opinion. But
We wish to hold up to utter contempt
the sickly notion which has so wide a
vogue that corporal punishment is in
trinsically wrong and that it is unnec-
essary to the proper training of the
young. In many case it is, as the
judge says, merely a choice between
that and the reform school, the re-
formatory or the penitentiary later on.
1t is time that reason should regain
the place that sentiment has usurped
with regard to the training of the
| young. 1t is time that we ceased to
regard the rod with greater horror
than the sneak thief. the hold-up man,
the murderer and the way of her
whose steps take hold on hell.
Merely in the interest of the Repub-
I Il