Part 6 (1/2)

So more than mere external compliance with a rule or a command is needed to constitute obedience In other words, not only the act itself ht

If I am led to do what , or by the expectation of cakes or pennies or proive so ratification, the coht aof oats for a bag of corn A great deal of what passes for obedience in falosses and disguises, and the naked truth remains, that children are hired to do what the parent or the teacher wants to have done They do not obey, in any legitimate and wholesome use of the word They are quiet when they should be quiet, they learn the lessons which they should learn, they abstain fros they should abstain froain the indulgences which they desire The parent and the teacher use a motive adequate to secure the outward act, but they do not secure obedience

It is not obedience for a child to do a thing because his reason and conscience tell him that the act in itself, without reference to his parents' wishes, is right and proper At least it is not filial obedience Itheir children, satisfy the with theitimate appeal to the reason and conscience of a child Children, at the proper age, should be taught to reason and to judge for the of actions, just as they should learn to walk alone, and not be forever dependent upon leading strings Only, let it be understood that just so far as the child acts on its own independent judgment, the act is not one of filial obedience

Obedience is doing a thing because another, having competent authority, has enjoined it The motive necessary to constitute any act an act of obedience, is a reference to the will and authority of another It is submission of our will to the will of another The child receives as true what his parents say, and because they say it; so, he does as right what they command, and because they command it That fact is, and in the first instance it should be, to the child'sor doing--for faith or obedience

This faith and obedience rendered to my earthly father, which is only partial and te a well-ordered household and my own best interests as a child, has the further end of training me for that unqualified faith and obedience, which I am to render to my heavenly Father, and which is of universal and peration One object of the parental relation seeher obedience I must, however, learn to obey my father simply because he is ht to command me, if thereby I am to learn, for a like reason, to obey my heavenly Father No lower motive will secure the end

Submission to parental authority is not always the instinctive impulse of childhood Where this submission is not yielded, it must be enforced

Authority, in other words, requires sanctions The father has no right to coht to punish in case of disobedience

Furthermore, if he does not, especially in the early childhood of his offspring, train them to a habit of real obedience and sub He deprives them of the benefit of that habit of obedience, which will be of the utious life

A reen apples The child abstains That abstinence is not necessarily an act of obedience

Heso, to give hiar-plums to the apples This is not obedience

Or, his reason and experience reen fruit will cause him sickness and pain, and so he abstains for the same reasons that his father, mother, or anybody else does This is not obedience

But children often have not the forethought to look at reth of purpose to deny a present gratification for the sake of a distant good, and especially for a good of which they have only a vague idea through the representations of their parents or teachers Suppose such a case Suppose a child with a strong inclination and desire for the thing forbidden, and with no clear apprehension that there is anything wrong or hurtful in the indulgence, except in the fact that the father has forbidden it, and with no te If, in such a case, the child abstains, he performs a true act of obedience He really subjects his will to the will of his father

This kind of ireatly needed It is to be secured just as our heavenly Father secures obedience to soer into the candle, he violates a law, and he instantly suffers for it We are surrounded by many such laithout the observance of which we could not live a day To teach us obedience to these laws, the penalty of transgression is immediate and sharp

There are other laws of our physical well-being, the penalties of which are reard to those we have roo powers Now in childhood, there areas promptly as he forbears to thrust his hand into the fire Yet for these things there is no natural penalty Here the coression should be promptly followed by penalty The authority of the parent and the penalties by which he sustains it, guide the child during those years when reason and the power of self-denial are weak

But to make this discipline easy and effective, there should be no hesitation or uncertainty about the exercise of it Parents often have to strain their authority, and use very largely their right of punishular in their er into the fire

Fire is not a thing which burns one day, and may be safely tampered with the next So, if disobedience, invariably and promptly, without passion or caprice, and with the unifors such a penalty as to ression and little need of punishment A child does not fret because he cannot play with fire He will not fret because he cannot transgress a father's direct command, if he once knows that such commands _must_ be obeyed

XXI

RAREY AS AN EDUCATOR

Parents, teachers, and all who are charged with the duty of training the young, may learn important lessons from the example of the late Mr

Rarey The principles on which the horse is rendered obedient and docile do not differ essentially froovernment of children or of men

Some of the accounts of Mr Rarey's system, however, which have been published, are liable to mislead, and to foster a entle The horse became fully assured that no harm was intended towards hi a perfect and willing obedience, whether from brute or human But the distinctness hich this feature of the treatht out in Mr Rarey's exhibitions, led some apparently to think that this was the main, if not the only feature Kindness alone, however, will not taovern, brutes or men There overned, a full conviction that the power of the other party is superior to his own--that there is, in the party clai obedience, an ample reserve of power fully adequate to enforce the claim The more complete this conviction is, the less occasion there will be for the exercise of the power Thehorse, once convinced that he is helpless in this contest of strength, and convinced at the same time that his master is his friend, h various preliminary steps, the object of which was to ht or panic But obedience was not claiiven, until there had been a demonstration of power--until the horse was convinced that the man was entirely too much for him By a very simple adjustment of straps to the forefeet of the animal, he becale, indeed, was soood while The horse put forth his prodigious strength to the utmost He became almost wild at the perfect ease and quietude hich all his efforts were baffled, until at length, fully satisfied that further struggles were useless, he made a complete surrender, and lay down as peaceful and submissive as an infant

This point is of some importance I do not underrate the value of kindness and love in any systeovernment, whether in the household, the school, the stable, the overnment Obedience is yielded to authority, and authority is based on right and power The child who complies with his father's wishes, only because a different course would ive his mother a headache, or because his parents have reasoned with hiood, or who has been wheedled into compliance by petty bribes and promises, has not learned that doctrine of obedience which lies at the foundation of all governht to the obedience of his children, and the power to enforce it That parent has failed in his duty who has not trained his child, not only to love him, but to obey him, in the strict sense of the word, that is to yield his will to the will of a superior, frohtful authority This sense of subordination and of obedience to appointed and rightful authority, is of the very essence of civil government, and the place where it is to be first and chiefly learned is in the household To teach this is a main end of the parental relation The parent who fails to teach it, fails to give his child the first eleood citizenshi+p, and leaves him often to be in after-years the victim of his own uncontrolled passions and tempers The want of a proper exercise of parental authority is, in this age of the world, the htful disorders that pervade society, and that threaten to upturn the very foundations of all civil govern of reverence, the sense of a respect for authority, the consciousness of being in a state of subordination, the feeling of obligation to do a thing siht to obedience--all these old-fashi+oned notions see out of the minds of men The popular cry is, Don't make your children fear you Govern them by love Conquer them by kindness

Treat theainst the notion It is a mistake of Mr Rarey's systeovernment, whether of brutes or men