Evening star., 1953-10-09
Rod or Reason?
M. M. Chesy.

SNO0 W uNS0SOnt
Recently The Star has carried an
editorial, several articles and numerous
letters dealing with the problem of
juvenile delinquency-nearly all offer
ing one solution-the rod. No better
solution than this in paper that pub
fishes the articles of the thoroughly
experienced and deeply wise Angelo
Patri!
A few weeks ago he wrote that he
cannot say definitely what will make
child obey-that varies in each case
heredity, environment, many factors
but he does know what will not work
and that is force.
A recent series of articles in your
paper dealt with vandalism by chill
dren. Like nearly every one, I was
shocked-until / began to. remember
to think back over our own behavior
we grown-ups who sit in Judgment on
our children. I remembered Hiroshima
and Nagasaki and saturation bombings
over Germany. Did we not destroy more
than parks, more than schools? Did
we not destroy the lives of human
beings? And arson? I read in your
own newspaper the statement of one
of our idolized American pilots-one
whom we have taugh. our children to
admire-a Dragging statement about
the beautiful sight of plane burning
from the fire he set. There was a
human being dying in agony in that
plane.
What do we want to make of our
children? Carbon copies of us? am
afraid they are already too much like
us . like our older generation. raised
by force, knowing no answer but force.
Much of the criticism is aimed at
the new ideas on rearing children, at
the child psychologists. Do those who
make those criticisms really believe that
the parents who allow their children to
roam the streets at nights are those
who keep abreast of child psychology?
Can your paper present proof that the
delinquents are the gently reared Off
spring. of modern" parents with new
tangled" notions for rearing the young?
I challenge you to do so {. to search
into the lives of these children . :.
to find out what their homes are like
. what their parents are like. I
suggest that you will find that they
are usually the ones who resort to brute
force, who, not mature themselves,
choose the rod instead of reason.
The SNUG, self-satisf1ed author of
recent letter attributed his own perfect
behavior to the fact that his parents
used the rod often and that when, as a
child, he spoke when his elders were
speaking, they promptly slapped him
across the mouth. They made him go
to Sunday School, too :. . and did he
learn there that Jesus also hit children
across the mouth? If he did, would
suggest that he was taught distorted
version of the New Testament. He
should read it again F.. . and he will
find there Jesus who taught the fu-
tility of force, who warned man to look
at the mote in his own eye to
look closely at the world for which he,
as a grown-up human being, is respon-
sible I. world brought close to its
death pangs by force E. world where
we demand from our children their blood
and sweat in endless wars . . to look
without f1inching at the madness for
which he who was raised SO we'll is
guilty he and his parents who
welded the rod :. . to look and try to
do better /. if his soul and mind have
not been atrophied by the rod.
Where children are taught to be laws
to themselves, and to depend on them
selves =" that was what Walt Whit
man wanted for our children. We
have never raised them that way. If
and when we do, ours will be mature
country =. fit for democracy, fit for
freedom. It is not now!
Emma d. Higgins.