Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1905-01-06
CHAPTER XIII.

The simple life being above all, the
product Of a direction of the mind, It
is natural that education should have
a great influence in that domain.
We employ scarcely more than two
methods of bringing up children.
The first consists in bringing them
up for ourselves.
The second consists in bringing
them up for themselves.
In the first case, the child is con-
sidered as a complement of the pa
rents. He forms a part of their be-
longings and occupies a place among
the objects which they possess. Some
times that place is the noblest; when
parents appreciate the life of the af-
fectons most. Sometimes also when
material interests predominant, the
child comes in the second. third or
last place. In no case is he some
one. Young, he gravitates around his
parents. not only from obedience,
which is legitimate, but by the subor
dination of all the initiatives of his
being AS he advances in age, this
subOrdnation accentuates itself and
becomes confiscation in the widening
! thing His minority perpetuatees it.
self Instead of evoluting slowly to-
ward independence, man progresses
in slavery. He is what they permit
hir? to become, tNat which commerce,
or the industry Of his father, or the
religious beliefs, political opinion, and
aesthetic tastes of his father exact Of
him. He will think, speak, marry, add
to his family. in the sense and limit
of the paternal absOlutism. This fam
| lily absolutsm may be practiced by
| people who have no will at all; it suf-
fees that they shall be convinced that
the child shall be the thing of the pa
rents. Lacking energy, they take pos
session of him by other means, by
signs, supplications or by base educa-
| tons. If they cannot enChan him
they will take him with bird-lime, and
thus entrap him. But he will live in
them and for them, which is the only
admissible thing to their minds.
This kind of education is not only
practiced in the family, but also in
the great social organisms whose
principal educational function con-
sists in laying the hands on the new
!
most irresistible fashion in the ex-
listing frames. 1t is the reduction, the
trituration and absorption of the in
dividual IN a social body, whether it is
theocratc, communistic, or simply
bureaucratic and given to routine.
Seen from the outside, such a sytem
of education would seem to be. above
all, simple. These proceedings are,
in fact, absolutely so. And, If man
were nobody, if he were but a sample
of the race, that would be the perfect
education. AS all the wild beasts and
all the fish and insects of the same
class and kind have the same line in
the same place, SO we would be all
identical, having the same tastes, the
same language, the same beliefs, and
the same tendencies. But man is not
but sample Of the race; and it is be-
case of that that this kind of educa-
ton is far from being simple in it's
effects. Men vary so much from each
other that we must invent innumera-
BILE means to reduce, to cause to sleep
or quench individual thought. We have
but partially succeeded, and even this
is being constantly disarranged. At
force finds it's way out through some
fissure with more or less violence, and
produces explosions, connections, and
grave disorders. And there. where
nothing results, where the force SUBJ
mits to the outward authority, the
evil lies at the bottom. Under the
apparent order are hidden sullen re.
: volts, furnishings contracted in an alb
normal existence, apathy and death
1t is a bad system that produces
such fruit, and however simple it ap
. pears, at the foundation it engenders
all the complications.
The other sytem is the opposite ex
IRENE. 1t consists in bringing the
children up for themselves. The pc
sitiOn is reversed: the parents ar,
there for the child. Scarcely is he
born, when he bC5 Jmes the center
The white heads OF the grandparents
and the robust one of the father in
cline before that curly head. His
stammering is their joy; a sign from
him sufices. If he cries harder thar
usual in his cradle at night, no fatigue
counts, the whole house is up. The new
conner is not long in learning that he
holds the full power. Before he walk!
he is dizzy with it. AS he grows tina
grows with him and embellishes it
self. Parents, grandparents, domes
tics, professors, everybody are at hi.
orders. He accepts the homage, anC
even the immolation of his neighbors
he treats as a recalcitrant subjec
'' whoever does not stand aside as h
II passes. There is but him. He il
e unique; the perfect, the infallible one
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