The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-05-06
Home Discipline Should be Gentle and Strong
BY MARGARET E sANGsTER
{. SANGSTER.

We make one Of our comrnonest
mistakes when we limit the word dis
icipilne Co harshness and punishment
Pm the minds of far too many parents
At stands for repressive measures for
keeping little children stiIi when we
want TO talk, and sending them 10 bed
when they do what we do from morn
mig till night: namely, try to have their
Town way With older boys and girls,
there are fathers and mothers who
tfancy that discipline means thwarting
inclination, fencing young lives about
WIN rigid prohibitions, bouncing with
sharpness upon blunders due to mex
perience, and generally making tyrants
Sof ourselves and puppets Of our juniors.
Nature being on their side, those Of us
who have these false ideals of disci-
lpline seldom come off victorious. If
there is good stuff. in the children. they
develop after all along the lines that
mature intends. If they have been well
lboTn in the sense of a good ancestry,
Pr the people back of them were clean
minded, pure-hearted and strong
Fwilled, the children will thrive, nOtwith-
standing the blunders of martinets, and
Fthe fuss made by Over-anXiOus self
tstyled disciDlinarians.
What is discipline? The old proverb:
Train up a child in the way he should
go, and when he is old he Will not de-
part from it, is an apt condensation
Aof the whole matter. LAS the twis is
Fbent, the tree is inclined" I remem-
FDtE seeing q OWdIIG4. SLQutGQ- Ill
lshaped pear tree in the orchard one
hay. I asked the farmer why it looked
Fso different from the other trees.
Somebody stepped on II when IT was
P0Warfed and Stunted lives that some
Fbody stepped on in the formative pc
hriod. Discipline comes from the same
root that gives US disciple. 1t implies
ecarefui, loving, gentle, faithful, cOnsci-
eentious. daily teaching. pursued year in
EanH while children q
mig up. Given an infant in the first
Ehelpless stages of it's being, and why
sshouid the parent fail to shape and
bmOld the little creature according to
Hnis or her pattern of perfectiOn2
Unfortunately, too many parents de-
ner their shaping until it is rather late
hn the day. The first years are the all
important ones. The trend for life is
indicated before nursery days are
lover. We need not go far. to observe
Fthe paTsimOny which trusts little chill
rdren to the care of the ignorant, ir-
responsible and illiterate peasantry of
other lands. l can think Of families
of little children whose early discipline
BsuCh as it is has been committed to
fsome clumsy untaught and vulgar
person WITHOUT any fitness for the pO-
sition of nursery maid, except that She
possesses a certain measure of TOugh
hxindliness. If we would have we'll
Ebred young people, if we would see our
sons and daughters growing around US
IN beauty and COmelineSS and good be
Ehavior we must not delegate their first
obstruction in the arts OF civilized life
10 those who are not at least our
equals i'm refinement
Fathers and mothers should either
personally train the children, or engage
as helpers tutors and gOVerneSSes, peO-
pie socially their equals.
If you would see what discipline does
for those who come under it's sway. pay
4 visit to Annapolis or West Point.
Those young men, than who none are
more entitled to be the pride OF the re-