Evening star., 1927-11-08
The "Why" Of Discipline.

This is one of the hardest of easy
uuestions-easy to start with, hard
when you get by the first part OF the
answer. Discipline is necessary, be-
cause nobody is so built as to have
lust the right tendencies in all direc-
tions to do the right thing, or the
| wrong thing, either. We are by ma
ture neither saints nor sinners, just
human.
Nor is there any quarrel to begin
with about what is right. Tne Dig
! moralities are not in dispute. IL all
children were as naturally unseihsh
as they are selfish there would be no
need Of discipline to make them less
selfish. And remember that there are
tendencies both ways. There is some
thing in human nature on the basis
of which we can be disciplined toward
selfishness, if the good or society
| found that necessary, and toward uh-
selfishness, which we find so necessary
as to keep hammering at 1t, wisely
! and unwisely, in and out OF season.
| And so for pugnacity or anything else.
| If you have by nature strong nght-
| ing trend, you may be in need or dls-
| cipline to keep it down; IL you haven't
| fight enough, you may beneht by
training to have more aggressiveness
| put into you.
What men at all ages have done is
| to look over the whole range of human
F.! trends, especially in the moral sphere,
and decide which were too strong for
| the best interests of all and keep them
| down; which were too weak, and en-
courage Them
That's the easy part of the answer.
| though even that has been often over
| looked. Nor is it so very hard to
| agree on the main list of traits that
| we want to discourage because they
| are by nature too strong. and on those
we want to encourage because by ma
| ture too weak. We agree also that
| this must be adjusted to personal diff
ferences and conditions. Training
must fit your special nature as well
| as general human nature.
The purpose of discipline Is to pro-
| duce a we'll balanced, well controlled
person. It's value depends on such
service. Anything that will do that
for you Is good for you.
The hard part of the question is
how to do it. It's hard for several
reasons-first, because it's hard to
trace the effects of such discipline as
you decide to use, and, second, be-
cause it's hard to say what other
effects may be the result Of such dis
cipline. You may be doing some good
along the route you want yourself or
others to take and some harm in direc-
tions that you haven't sufficiently con-
sidered. This applies to self-discipline
as we'll as to disciplining others.
Even this statement of why the
| question is a hard one will help in
that it shows where the trouble lies.
| When your auto won't go, the first
thing is to find out why; the next
Is to repair it If you can. Now
! we haven't been as sensible in our
methods Of going about discipline,
especially with children, as in our atti-
tudes about engine trouble or faulty
connections. There is no temptation
to discipline an auto to make it go
right. Children's behavior is so much
| more complicated than an autos be-
havior that finding out what's wrong
| with them and setting it right is the
most complicated job any human can
| undertake. 1t may be so simple a
| thing as running out of gas: a good
meal may work as well as a visit to
a nlling station. Or the trouble may
require q general Overhauling.
The problem of discipline centers
! about freedom and restraint, release of
impulse and it's repression or adjust.
ment, following your own will,
whether sweet or not, or yielding to
another. II you always yield, you'll
be too submissive; if you never yield,
you'll be too aggressive or obstinate
for the kind of world and neighbors
you have to live with. But there's