Ashland weekly tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1919-1924, 1922-09-06
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Whipping Children

You read in the news columns
that New York justice has SEN
fenced a father to the penitentiary
for cruelty beating his little son. The
body of the boy was found covered
with welts from blows with a whip.
Any parent who uses blows to en-
force his will ought to be ashamed
thereafter to look any other fellow
being, child or adult, in the face.
Striking child is not only brutal,
but it is cowardly. Prizefighters,
who have trained for weeks to with
stand punishment, quibble over a
pound or two difference in weight,
but some big, burly 200-pound faith
er or mother will take a strap or
stick In his or her hand and admin
lister punishment to a child that
doesn't weigh one fourth as much,
and whose lack of strength makes
effective resistance imposs BILE. He
thinks he Is educating the child to
mind him. The only education he Is
giving is one of hatred and resent
ment He Is killing both respect
and affection with one act He is
teaching that child that his father
is brute and coward unworthy
his love and fit only for his con-
tempt and his revenge.
There was time when the lash
and the marlinspke were looked up
on as necessities in the iails, on the
ships and in armies. Beating was
thought to be the only way to main
tain discipline. But the world grad
ually woke up to the fact that bru
tallty bred brutality; that you could
not beat morals into a man. or re-
form habits with blows, and one by
one the hdeous forms OF punish
ment were made unlawful.
In only one place is whipping still
in general vogue, and that Is In the
private home, and the subject or the
punishment is the defenseless little
child, whose very innocence OF the
law and helplessness makes him or
her the less able to invoke protec-
tion. Whatever was the custom or
the teaching of ancient times, mod
ern fathers and mothers should be
above striking a child. There are
other and better ways OF maintain
ing discipline and obedience. /
II you believe that there Is no
other way of making your child con-
form to your wishes than inflicting
bodily pain. then you confess that
YOU are the parent of an offspring
who Is so mentally deficient that he
cannot be appealed to through his
power of reasoning but only through
his sense OF feeling. The attitude
Of the parent to the child should be
by code OF morals as
strict as that which Is required be-
tween grown-up people. A parent
has no right to lie to child ana
hen blame the child II 1t lies In
turn. A parent has no right 10
break a promise, no right to appro-
pirate the property or the time which
has been definitely given the child
rs its own.
Love and truth should be the
guiding Influences OF the child. Ter
,or fear or dread should have no
place In the home The little soul,
which has been committed to your |
are and upbringlng. came to you
insoiled and pure. Your duty Is to
,eep Il as near to its God-given ex-
,ellence as you can. The punish
nent of a mistake seldom corrects
/. The wllfHll infllctlon OF pain
,rands the giver as a bully. incom-
,etent of teaching by any other
means than a cowardly display Of
arger strength. Z
How disqualified TO be parent
'ou confess yourself when you re-
Iort to brutality to make a little
hid do right.
A CITIZEN.