Essays 16 to 20
Essay No. 16.
Discipline and Training in the Prevention of Nervous Diseases
BY
W. A. Marris, M.D.
(Late House Physician, National Hospital for the Paralysed and Epileptic, Queen Square, W.C.)
MUCH has been said and written about the increase of lunacy in our nation, and in the discussion as to whether the increase is apparent or real, recourse is naturally had to the statistics annually published by the Commissioners in Lunacy. Unfortunately, for the equally important discussion on the increase of lesser forms of mental weakness than those which come under the attention of the Commissioners, no such statistics are available, and we are driven back on the general impression of those best qualified to judge, namely, the general medical practitioners of this country, the home doctors.
These are the men who know the great prevalence of mental weakness, hysteria, hystero-epilepsy, nervous debility, neurasthenia, mental depression, excitability, weak nerves, with their disastrous effect upon individual character and upon the mental and moral stamina of our nation as a whole.
Whether these troubles are on the increase matters
67
68
not for the moment, but that they are appallingly widespread cannot be denied by those of us who are in a position to know- Every doctor realises what a large proportion of his time and nervous energy is spent in allaying unnecessary fears, in fighting the depression produced in so many patients by the slighter ailments—a depression which his patients of a robuster nervous system, or, to put it bluntly, of a greater self-control, would be ashamed to show. As one doctor expressed it, "Half of a general practitioner's work consists in ' bucking up ' the weaklings." It is a commonplace of the novelist that the doctor's manner should be a mingling of authority, sympathy, and cheerfulness, inspiring confidence while he is in the sick-room, and leaving brightness and hope behind him. To the public this is the picture of the ideal doctor at times of critical and terrible illness. The doctor knows, however, that all his skill and tact in the judicious blending of sympathy, raillery, and authority are strained to the breaking point in dealing, not with cases of life and death, but with his list of weaklings who are overpowered by little troubles, or by no real troubles at all.
A little thought will show that this strain is not the doctor's alone. The whole family of the patient is affected. The adult members suffer by the constant demands on their sympathy, by the loss of the work which the patient should be able to do, and by the
69
expenditure of the family funds on extra help in the house, repeated "changes of air," and doctors' bills, including all the modern expensive cures by massage, Weir-Mitchell rest cures, special diets, specialists' opinions, vibration and electrical treatment, etc.
The strain on the breadwinner of a middle-class family, should his wife belong to the army of nervous sufferers, through the expense, and through the lack of happy restfulness in his home life, is almost intolerable. On the other hand, when the breadwinner is the afflicted one, wife and children are permanently handicapped by the drain on the family resources. In the wealthier ranks of society the evil results may be even more morally serious. An incapacitated, complaining husband or wife easily serves as cause or excuse for the healthier partner to seek consolation from others, even to the breaking of the marriage vows-
It must ever be a matter of deepest thankfulness that out of these evil and often unnecessary conditions there emerges from time to time, to rejoice our hearts, the picture of the perfect saint ; the mother taking up the burden of money-earning and settling her boys in life in addition to performing her own true home work ; or the father who, in addition to his long day's work, returns home at night to take up endless domestic tasks and dreary nursing.
As with all the other ills of human life, this curse of unwholesome nerves cannot be cut short by, any
70
drastic policy. It can, however, and it must be reduced far below its present extent, if the physical, moral, and economic position of our nation is to be maintained. Modern medicine, up till now, has expended its energies in two directions towards this end, firstly in a serious attempt to gain a scientific knowledge of the nature of the perversion of the nervous system underlying this trouble, and secondly in the invention of cures for the individual sufferers, as previously mentioned. It has almost forgotten in this connection its own old watchword, that "Prevention is better than cure."
It is on this line that most work needs to be done at the present time, and needs to be done by the family doctor.
In so far as the tendency to nervous ailments depends on heredity there is little scope for the doctor to work, under our present social code. The regulation of marriages is not yet, at any rate, a practical subject, though a word in season may occasionally be given to a young man or young girl who appears to be attracted by a partner of this most undesirable type. Advice is also asked at times from the family doctor on the marriage of cousins, and the probability of continuation of family weaknesses will not be forgotten by the wise practitioner.
The real scope for the doctor's powers of prevention, however, lies in the home, in the upbringing of the young children. Daily and hourly he is con-
71
suited on the management of children, and by his own handling of little patients he can often give a practical lesson to the mother, nursemaid, or guardian.
Let it be laid down once and for all that hereditary weaknesses are not hopeless, but can often be cured and can always be mitigated by right treatment from the earliest years. Unfortunately, this is not admitted by vast numbers of parents. "He is such a nervous child ; I can do nothing with him," is a complaint that will be recognised by family doctors everywhere. According as the doctor passively acquiesces in this complaint, or can imbue the mother with further strength and help to battle with the child's weakness, so will be its future. In many cases the doctor can see for himself that the child is not naturally of nervous temperament, and that the natural excitability of youth has been mistaken by an over-anxious parent for evidence of "highly-strung nerves." The mistake once made, the home treatment resolves itself into a process of making life easy for the child; all scoldings are avoided, punishment is unheard of, and, worst of all, little ailments are magnified, and treated with the elaborate care and anxiety that would be suitable for illness involving danger to life. Is it to be wondered at that the child grows up fretful and distressed at every little jar in the routine of life ?
What sort of upbringing and training, then, is the doctor to advise for the general management of
72
normal children and for the correction of many forms of nervous weakness in children ? Undoubtedly he should advise a stricter and sterner discipline than is now practised in many homes.
There is one motive which, above all others, enables both normal men and women, as well as the neurasthenic and the vacillating, excitable, nervous weakling, to look beyond their own sufferings and interesting feelings, and to fit themselves into the scheme of life around them. This motive is the sense of compulsion, of duty, of obedience, of " must." Amongst the labouring classes we see less of these forms of illness and moral failure, and the reason is clear. They have no time for it. They must go on working. Work must be done, and done immediately, that food may be provided- The husband must bring home wages, the wife must go and buy and cook the food. This forced participation in the daily life reduces to its minimum the duration of and the suffering from these nervous maladies and their evil effects on those around the patient.
Again, many of the best recoveries from such troubles as the mental depression that follows some attacks of influenza are seen amongst good Christian men and women who have trained themselves for years in unselfishness and obedience to duty, and have daily striven for the fulfilment of the prayer of the English Church : "Lord, make Thy chosen people j oyf ul
73
For large numbers of patients in the middle and upper classes of society the immediate compulsion of work to be done is inoperative. Duties can be easily shirked or thrown on the shoulders of others, either servants, relatives, or business partners. To protect this class and aid them in their weaknesses, there must therefore be implanted in them, and cultivated in them, a strong sense of obedience to duty and a wholesome realisation of the laws of consequence. Surely the time to get this ingrained into the moral and mental fibre is during childhood ?
The practical difficulty lies in the fact that the natural trainers of the child are themselves often of unstable mental equilibrium, or of self-indulgent habits; and yet the medical man's help for the children must in most cases be given indirectly by urging on the parents, as frequently as tact will find opportunity, the necessity of firm moral control of their children.
A few of the practical points in which it is possible to give this advice will illustrate what is being urged here. It is hardly necessary to multiply instances of the endless opportunities that occur to medical men to give help in this matter.
To a young mother in an unnecessary fever of anxiety at the crying of her little baby but an hour or two old, a few cheerful words may convey the invaluable lesson that a baby's crying is not such a terrible thing that it must be stopped at all costs in the shortest possible space of time. Can she once
74
assimilate the fact that babies cry over a thousand things that are very good for them, such as dressing and undressing, she will not be so desperately anxious in a year or two's time to keep the little child good by giving in to its every desire. The old nursery excuse that "Crying is so bad for children " has been responsible for untold evils. The rupture that is occasionally found in children who have cried excessively is due, not to the crying, but to the debilitated health that caused the excessive crying. In children about two years old, of strong desires, and also in placid children at a later age, there is at times a passionate sobbing when their will is—rightfully —thwarted, to which none but the most callous could listen unmoved, and which, if not harmful physically, is probably an unwise strain on their nervous system, and must be stopped. If a few moments of soothing, or of distraction of the attention—without a yielding of the original bone of contention between mother and child—is not successful, a sound smack of the hand on a harmless part of the body—never on the head—will enable the child to regain its lost self-control, and will leave the mother in a strong position of authority which will be of infinite value in the future. One of the best ways in which medical men can help the parents is by assuring them that, however painful to themselves, physical punishment is more than harmless--that it is often of great good for the child.
75
When the home atmosphere is unresponsive to all promptings towards wholesome discipline and sustained regularity, the kindest advice that the doctor can give is one which many mothers hail with relief, though others have to have it urged on them over and over again, and that advice is to hand over the work of training the child to others, and to entrust it to them entirely. When circumstances permit, the institution of a governess of strong nerves and will, but of kindly disposition, who shall be given a free hand to carry out the task of regaining control of a spoilt or nervous child, is often the best solution of the trouble. In other cases it is the doctor's duty to press for an early resort to school—either day school or boarding school, according to the age and circumstances of the child—and no dread of overworking the young brain should be allowed for a moment to weigh against the value of the moral training of good school discipline. Overwork is easily guarded against by control of home work in the case of day school, and by half-term inspection in the case of boarding school ; and in younger children by forbidding all "playing at school " when at home. This last simple device will stop the "going over her lessons in her sleep " of which so many mothers complain.
In these and many similar ways the medical man can—and, one is glad to think, does—give help to parents and children alike. But I think it behoves
76
us to look out for more frequent opportunities of speaking to parents about the upbringing of their families, and to urge on them the enormous advantages that are gained, both for normal children and for children with any tendency to nervous weakness, by a stricter discipline than that now in fashion.
It is not easy for a family practitioner in full practice to engage in public work, especially while so much of it involves partisanship ; but, by bringing all his weight and authority to bear in favour of a sturdier home life, every medical man may feel that he is doing his share for his country. He is helping to ward off the deterioration of our national life with which we are threatened, not only in the matter of bodily inches, but in the infinitely more serious matter of intellectual and moral vigour.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Essay No. 17.
Lack of Discipline in the Training of Children—and the Remedy
BY
The Most Reverend J. F. Peacocke, D.D.
(Archbishop of Dublin.)
THERE can be no doubt that children are brought up, in these days, more softly than in days not so far distant but that some of us can remember them. There is less of training for life and its duties because there is less discipline. What has been the effect of this change on the character and moral stamina of the people of these islands ? Has it been good or bad? I cannot think that it has been altogether for good. It is quite true that the discipline to which children were subjected fifty or a hundred years ago was, in some respects, too severe, but it produced men and women self-controlled and self-reliant, with a strong sense of duty, prepared to do what was right because it was right, even though it was sometimes unpleasant and had to be done against the grain. Is there no danger that this modern softness in the training of children, if persevered in, may result in a moral deterioration in the community generally ? Some of us think that we see signs of it already. But whether this point has been reached or not, un-
77
78
doubtedly the danger exists, and should be reckoned with.
But wherein lies the danger ? It lies in the fostering of self-will, and impatience of control on the part of the young—in the encouraging of an unwillingness to deny themselves either for their own sakes or for the sake of others, or at the call of duty ; and in the awakening of a desire to get through life with as little hard work as may be possible, and with as much of ease and enjoyment as may be procurable.
And if this be the tendency of slackness of discipline in early days, what may we expect to be the result in after-life ? We must be prepared to find a lowering of the moral standard—an absence of the moral grit and robustness without which a character is flaccid and unreliable; and if this condition should unhappily become widespread amongst our people, it will certainly lead to a national degeneracy which may end, as in the case of ancient Rome, in the nation losing its moral fibre, and finally reaching such a state that it becomes no longer able to stand up in the face of a more virile, because better disciplined, people.
In what direction, then, are we to look for a safeguard against such a possible national failure, and for a remedy for any mischief that may have been already done ? I give the general answer in one sentence—in the inculcation of moral and religious
79
principles, and of a sense of duty in the minds of our children from their early days, and by backing up this teaching by careful and judicious training in the paths of virtue and of duty.
But this general statement needs to be supplemented by some more particular counsel. May I, then, urge one or two considerations on the attention of parents and others into whose hands the training of children has been committed ? It is admitted, I think, on all sides, that love should be the ruling principle in our dealing with children—in our efforts to prepare them for the duties and responsibilities of life. But we have to be careful that it is really love, and not mere fondness, which rules our action. Love consults only and always for the highest and ultimate well-being of the child; mere fondness will have regard to its pleasure and gratification at the moment. A parent who loves his child will deny him what he knows to be injurious to health or to moral wellbeing, and will punish him when he wilfully does wrong; in other words, he will submit him to discipline. A merely fond parent, on the other hand, will indulge his child in every wish and whim of his, so far as may be possible ; and will shrink from punishing when it is his plain duty to do so. In many cases he is too indolent or too selfish to punish his child—it would disturb his own ease and give him pain and trouble. This is not love; it is, at bottom, a form of selfishness.
80
Then, again, it should be borne in mind that character is largely built up by habits, and that childhood and youth are pre-eminently the time of life at which habits are formed. Tell me what a man's habits are, and I will form a shrewd estimate of his character.
Now, it will be agreed, I suppose, that truthfulness is an essential element in a solid, virtuous character. Truth is a cardinal virtue. Truthfulness, which is truth in practice, is a habit. If this habit be not formed in early life, it will be difficult to acquire it in later years. It is almost essential in the training of children in this and in every other good habit that parents should lay themselves out to gain the confidence of their children. The habit of untruthfulness in children in some cases grows out of undue strictness and harshness on the part of their parents in their treatment of them. They come to the conclusion that their parents do not care to enter into their feelings—they seem to them to be unreasonable in what they require of them—and thus they get into the habit of trying to deceive them in order to hide some delinquency on their part. If parents have secured the confidence of their children, the temptation to attempt concealment and deception is immensely reduced. And it should be borne in mind that children are quick to detect inconsistency between the parents' teaching and action. If the parent be himself untruthful, the child very
81
soon finds it out, and thenceforward all exhortation to be truthful, and all punishment for lying, will count for little or nothing.
Another habit to be acquired in childhood is obedience. No one is fitted for the duties of life who has not learned to obey. Obedience implies self-control, and the submission of the will to that of another who his the right to direct. There is no really sterling character where the habit of obedience is wanting. The moral state of the man or woman who has not learned this virtue is as that of a city whose walls are broken down and which is open and defenceless. Passion and selfish impulse and desire gain the mastery, and a wilful, uncontrolled, disordered life is the result, issuing only too often in moral and physical and social ruin. It is a cruel wrong to a child to allow him to have his own way, and not to insist on unquestioning obedience.
But in order that this training may be effective and accomplish its object, wisdom and common sense on the part of the parent is much needed. Arbitrary, unreasonable commands should not be given. Threats of punishment which there is no intention to carry out should never be used. The child should be made to understand that once a command has been given it must be obeyed. When a child understands that a father's and a mother's love is prompting the command there will not be much difficulty in securing obedience.
82
These two habits (the habits of truthfulness and obedience—truthfulness implying honour, uprightness and straightforwardness; obedience carrying with it self-control, self-repression, self-denial and regard for others) will, by God's blessing, help to build up a character which will bear the stamp of moral strength; by which the man who has been trained in these habits will be enabled to fulfil, at least in a measure, the responsibilities that rest upon him in life—be they small or great—discharging faithfully the duty that he owes to God, to his country, to his neighbour, and to himself.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Essay No. 18.
A Magistrate's View of Slack Discipline
BY
J.Face Smith, J.P.
(Metropolitan Magistrate for London).
I HAVE been asked if I would write a short paper or leaflet on the Training of Our Children ; but, after reading several of those already printed, I felt myself coming to the conclusion that all had been said that could be said, and one could only wish that the leaflets already published could be in the hands of every father and mother throughout the land, and that they would read them again and again, and derive profit from them. But, on the other hand, I. could see that each writer had approached the question from a different point of view, and had something fresh to say ; and, as I did not find a leaflet from a magistrate among the number, I began to think perhaps my more than twenty years' experience in a Police Court might create a new impression, and the subject would be
"Set in all lights by many minds To close the interests of all."
In the London Police Courts children are often charged with serious crimes, or with less serious
83
84
offences, such as wandering, begging, etc., and often the crimes or offences are brought about by want of discipline or by the neglect of parents; but a great deal more of insight into the conduct of parents with respect to their children can be gained in the investigation of "Education Cases" or "School Board Cases," as they used to be called, than in the investigation of the crimes of children.
Here, in the "School Board" cases, the whole question is one of home discipline. In curious and abnormal crimes it may be difficult to trace the source of the evil; but in non-attendance at school the fault, almost invariably, is the parents'. Of course the reason why the child does not go to school is very often that the child is neglected, that the parents are negligent or drunken, that sometimes the poor child cannot go to school because of the violent ill-treatment or the disgraceful neglect of the parents; but in a vast number of cases the child does not attend school because of the slackness and indulgence of the child by its parents. From a baby its mother has foolishly given the child all it cried for, and the father has treated it as a plaything. As it grew up, both father and mother gave it pennies to buy "goodies," which the parents of children in the upper classes would not think of doing. There is no check given—no moral responsibility inculcated. It is all chance and happy-go-lucky. Well, perhaps it is better than brutal ill-treatment and the open teaching of vice.
85
In an essay which I wrote some years ago, I moralised upon a baby in a cradle : "As time goes on, the infant will soon have other surroundings, either of its own seeking or forced upon it; and it will be taught, not so much by the process of direct teaching, but by the pressure of numberless external influences, perhaps unnoticed by other persons. It will begin to form tastes, purposes, and habits, some of which, though apparently trivial at first, will grow into mastering passions. . . . If that child could ' feed on the roses and lie in the lilies of life ' all its days, it might remain beautiful for ever ; but it will have to deal with thorns and thistles mostly, and not with lilies and roses, and so it must grow up hardy and strong, and its beauty must be marred in the process of bringing up. And yet, for all that, we must educate the infant almost from its earliest breath. It must be taught obedience, love, fairness, honesty, truth. It must learn that every wish cannot be gratified and every bad temper have its way. This is where poor parents fail. Be they ever so poor, they contrive to indulge their babies, and treat them merely as pets to be spoilt. What wonder if, before their children reach the age of eight years, they take them before a magistrate as being ' beyond control,' or find that they have to flog instead of play with them ?"
An infant of six years of age was brought before me charged with " wandering." I sent for the mother, and she assured me he was beyond control. I asked,
86
"How comes that about ? " She replied, "He keeps such bad company." "My good woman ! " I exclaimed, "yours is the only company he ought to keep," and I asked the N.S.P.C.C. officer to inquire into the case. A youth of about thirteen was brought up by his father, who had been summoned to produce him. I asked him, "Why don't you go to school ?" "Boo-hoo ! because I don't like it." "Well, but why don't you like it ?" "Boo-hoo ! because they wants me to learn poetry." Really, I think that youth had not been trained in the school of discipline.
I do not say that it is easy for a parent wisely and temperately to restrain his or her child; and I do not say that the child's life should be rendered quite miserable by incessant nagging and restraint ; but I do say that parents have obvious and plain duties to perform, and often from mere slackness they fail to perform them.
I should like to add one word as to the new institution of Children's Courts. Ever since I was appointed a magistrate I have been careful to avoid their being present in Court while cases unfit for publication are being tried; and I quite agree that, if feasible, separate Courts should be provided for children. But I am afraid lest the new Court and its surroundings, and its judgments and ways of dealing with children, may lead children and parents to think that it does not much matter what they do, and that the State will do all that is necessary.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Essay No. 19.
A New Way of Life*
BY
John St. Loe Strachey
(Editor of "The Spectator.")
"SOLOMOM tells us of a poor wise man who saved a city by his counsel. It hath often happened that a private soldier, by some unexpected brave attempt, hath been instrumental in obtaining a great victory. How many obscure men have been authors of very useful inventions, whereof the world now reaps the benefit ? The very example of honesty and industry in a poor tradesman will sometimes spread through a neighbourhood, when others see how successful he is; and thus so many useful members are gained for which the whole body of the public is the better. Whoever is blessed with a true public spirit, God will certainly put it into his way to make use of that blessing for the ends it was given him, by some means or other. And therefore it hath been observed in most ages, that the greatest actions for the benefit of the commonwealth have been performed by the wisdom or courage, the contrivance or industry, of particular men, and not of numbers; and that the
* This leaflet is made up from passages taken from a little book with a similar title, published by me with Messrs. Macmillan this spring.—J. Sr. L. S.
87
88
safety of a kingdom hath often been owing to those hands from whence it was least expected."
The above quotation is to be found in Swift's sermon on "Doing Good." Swift shows that no man can deem service to his country too high for his endeavour. Those who give way to the feeling that they are too weak to affect the great march of events, and that all they can do is to submit in anxious acquiescence to the decrees of destiny, are guilty of a crime against the State. Such impotent pessimism is base. In patriotism as in every scene of life the victory is won in the spirit. If the nation with a single heart will determine that, no matter what the sacrifice, she will be worthy of herself and of her mission, there can be no doubt as to the result. All that is wanted is the will to insist that no effort shall be neglected which will secure the moral strength of the nation.
We have got as a nation to face a situation which can only be adequately met by a "new way of life." When I say this I must not be thought to be yielding to the pessimism which has affected a certain section of the population, or to give encouragement to the notion that we have become decadent as a people. I am not among those who think that the nation has suffered in its moral health, or that we are worse from that point of view than our forefathers. On the contrary, I believe that the nation was never better in this respect, and that there never was a
89
larger proportion of the population anxious to do right, and to act in accordance with what it believes to be the will of God. Again, I doubt whether there ever was a time when men were more sincerely patriotic and more anxious to maintain the Empire "in health and wealth long to live." It is true, no doubt, that now, as when Wordsworth wrote his famous sonnet, there is much to deplore in the national character, and much that needs change; we are far too much given to luxury and softness. Our life is still too often the "mean handiwork of craftsman, cook, or groom." But though these are evils that cry aloud for remedy, and though I do not forget them, they are not the evils on which I want to dwell at the present moment. While I do not deny the continuous need for higher moral ideals, what I specially desire to emphasise is the need of a greater steadfastness of outlook. What we have got to change is a certain light-heartedness or complacency of temper that has lately marked our people—the easy belief that everyone must admire and respect our good intentions and our noble and humanitarian point of view. We have got in future to face the world, not as we should like it to be, but as it is.
Marston in the prologue to one of his tragedies warns his audience that if they have been too long "nuzzled 'twixt the breasts of happiness," and if they dare not face life as it is, and realise what men have been and will be, they had better avoid his play.
90
As far as the great external national responsibilities are concerned, we as a nation have been too long "nuzzled 'twixt the breasts of happiness "; or, as another Elizabethan poet has said, we have come very near to being "drowned in security." Like the Anglo-Saxons so well described by Carlyle, we have gone about our business in " pot-bellied equanimity," good-temperedly oblivious of the hard realities of life, and sure that nothing disastrous could ever overtake us. Carlyle, remember, went on to point out how the Norman invasion woke the Anglo-Saxon out of this "pot-bellied equanimity," and braced him for higher things.
If I am asked specifically how we are to reach the new way of life, I should answer, in the first place, by refusing to feed ourselves any longer upon what Wordsworth called "emasculating food "—the food of sentiment and unreality. We must not pretend that the world is better than it is or different from what it is, but take its true measure and face the facts like men. The new way of life which I desire to see in this country must not be confined to the political outlook or to naval and military preparations, though these are of vast importance. It must go deep into the fibre of the people. Every man, whether he is tilling the soil, hewing coal, laying bricks, writing books, organising business, or planning some industrial work, great or small, must accustom himself to feel that he is doing it, not for
91
himself or his family alone, but partly for his country. In every form of activity the Motherland must be the silent partner who calls upon him for an extra margin of effort, energy, and self-sacrifice.
I can best put the matter in concrete form by recalling a criticism made of this country by a very friendly and most able German professor. " You Englishmen," he said in effect, "differ from us Germans in the way in which you regard your business, whether it is writing books, manufacturing industrial products, or doing work under Government. The Englishman is always looking forward to the time when he will be able to give up the boredom of the shop or office, and retire to amuse himself by field sports, or golf, or travel, or literature, or whatever interests him as an individual. His object is to make enough money to become what he calls a free man. In Germany a man's object is different. He wants to be able to feel that he has done the particular work in which he has been engaged better than anyone else has ever done it—that he has written the very best book or compiled the very best table of statistics on the special matter which he has in hand, or that he has produced the very best material product that the world has ever seen, or developed the best organisation conceivable, either in his own trade or in a -Government office. His work is not a servitude to be got over, but a passion. He believes himself to
92
be doing patriotic and public work, no matter what the particular drudgery in which he is engaged, and he knows that his fellow-countrymen as a whole will understand this, and will give him the reward of praise and sympathy according as he shall deserve it. Hence he does not look for his reward in relief from his work, but in its more complete accomplishment."
That the contrast was too strongly drawn may be true, but it is a criticism which is endorsed from many quarters. For example, our latest Transatlantic critic, Mr. Collier, tells us very wittily that an American is always "going to business," while an Englishman is always "going home."
Our new way of life as a nation must be to copy the German spirit. It ought not to seem the most natural thing in the world to say that a man is going to give up work, not because his health and energy are exhausted, but because he has earned the right to go and amuse himself. Hitherto Englishmen have thought that rather a fine thing and a noble thing to say, and a proof of how little they care for money and material concerns. I trust it will not be so regarded in future, but that instead a man may feel proud to say : "I could leave off work if I liked, but I mean to stick to my job, pleasant or unpleasant, as long as I feel I can do it thoroughly and well, because what I want is not an easy time, but to do my share of the nation's work as a whole."
93
At the crisis of the Revolution Danton, copying Bacon, told his countrymen that what was needed was "Boldness, Boldness, and again Boldness." It is not necessary for me, or for anyone else, to say that to the British people, for they have enough, perhaps too much, of boldness and recklessness in their composition. The word that they need said to them, and I hope it may be said to them by voices that will reach farther than my own, is "Prepare, Prepare, and again Prepare." Preparation is the need of the moment—moral, physical, and intellectual. But want of preparation has always been, though I trust it may not be in future, the chief of our national weaknesses. Our new way of life must be a way of preparing ourselves to maintain our national ideals, to carry out our mission, and to do our duty as a nation in that state to which it has pleased God to call us. Wordsworth said that the Happy Warrior must "make his moral being his prime care." The time has come when it is the duty of every Briton to remember his words, and to act upon them. If not, we and our Empire must fail as miserably as the old Empires of Egypt and Assyria, of Rome and Carthage.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Essay No. 20.
An Appeal to British Women
BY
The Right Hon. the Earl of Meath, P.C., K.P.
AN article recently appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette, headed : "Is Modern Education a Failure ? " in which the writer stated that the head of a large wholesale firm had lately said : "The boys we get nowadays are not nearly so well educated as those we used to get fifteen and twenty years ago."
"Here," said the writer, "we have not the wild sayings of a faddist, or the wholesale condemnation of everything modern by a survivor of the good old days, but the testimony of an experienced business man, one who has moved among young men for over fifty years, and through whose hands hundreds of young men have passed."
Now, if the above testimony were an isolated case, we might afford to ignore it ; but if we inquire of employers of labour, the answer is almost invariably the same, not only in regard to what is usually known as education, but in regard to general efficiency and reliability in the performance of all descriptions of work which need the possession of grit, and the determination to ignore temptations to
95
96
idleness and to the half-performance of duty. And why is this ? I venture to suggest that one reason is, that neither boys nor girls are now taught that the call of duty must be cheerfully obeyed, whether or not its due performance entails hardship or suffering. In our desire to give the children a good time we are weakening their moral fibre and producing a generation of men and women which is in large measure content to shirk hard work, and to pass through life without ever making the fullest use of the powers with which it has been endowed.
There are few of us who are enamoured of hard work ; we prefer ease and comfort to the strenuous life, however much we may recognise in theory its advantages to the human race. Whether we be children or adults, some external stimulus to exertion is needed if we are to make the best of our powers. Love of wife or children, ambition, the fear of hunger, and the eternal lack of pence keep most of us adults up to the mark.
As regards the children, our virile ancestors in pre-sentimental days were at no loss to discover means of encouraging them in the strenuous performance of duty. In our wish to make things easy, all round, and in our kind-hearted desire to avoid all coercion, we have endeavoured to withdraw most stimuli to exertion. Mother Nature, however, declines to be a party to this sentimental policy, so that, to a certain extent, which we are rapidly doing
97
our best to neutralise, the old primitive inducements to exertion, such as hunger and thirst, still continue to exercise their influence, but these principally operate in the case of adults. In the case of children, all stimulus is rapidly disappearing, hence the general inefficiency of which so many are complaining. It is not the fault of the teachers ; it is the fault of society.
"I should be afraid to say," says Prebendary Carlile,* founder of the Church Army, "what proportion of the men who throng our Labour Homes can trace their downfall, in part at any rate, to parental weakness. In our prison work we meet with innumerable men and lads who need never have been in prison at all if there had been even a moderate degree of parental wisdom and control." And one of our most prominent metropolitan magistrates t has said : "In the London police courts children are often charged with serious crimes, or with less serious offences, such as wandering, begging, etc., and often the crimes and offences are brought about by want of discipline."
Can nothing be done to stem this tide of parental neglect ?
Dr. Savage, # one of our most eminent experts in nervous and mental diseases, has said that he
* Duty and Discipline Series, Leaflet N o. 12 " The Decay of Parental Responsibility," by Prebendary Carlile.
# Duty and Discipline Series, Leaflet No. 18 : " A Magistrate's View of Slack Discipline," by Horace Smith, J.P.
Duty and Discipline Series, Preface.
98
"frequently sees the morbid mental and moral growths due to lack of early training."
The Earl of Cromer, in a letter published in the preface to this series, has pointed out the dangers to which the Empire would be exposed if English men and women were in any large numbers to lose those virile moral qualities which enabled their ancestors to build up the greatest Empire the world has ever known. He says :
"My time is so much occupied that I fear I cannot write at any length on the very important and interesting question to which you have drawn my attention. But I wish to express my very entire sympathy with the objects which you and your coadjutors have in view.
"I trust you will not think it foreign to the subject if I add that, although we naturally have to occupy ourselves mainly with the moral training and discipline of the children of this country, the subject is very far from being British, in the strictly insular sense of the term. It is of a more far-reaching character. The greatest of all Eastern problems is to discover some means by which Western civilisation and education can be introduced into countries such as India and Egypt, without undermining the moral basis on which the whole fabric of society rests. For obvious reasons, the difficulties of finding any solution to this problem—if, indeed, it can be solved at all—are enormous; but there is one thing
99
we can do, and ought to do, and that is to spare no efforts in order to strengthen the moral fibre of our own children, some of whom will be destined in the future to exercise, both by precept and example, an abiding influence on the characters of those large Eastern communities whose interests are, to a greater or less extent, committed to our care, and whose institutions and habits of thought are now in a state of flux and transition, which renders them highly impressionable and receptive."
In view of the above facts, and of the opinions of those entitled to respect, I venture to make my humble appeal to British women to stem the tide of sentimental degeneracy. Why do I appeal to women ? Because it is their right and privilege to mould the minds of the next generation during the earliest years of life, and because most women, whether married or unmarried, are able to influence the characters of some children. What a noble responsibility, and what a blessed privilege !
My appeal is a personal one. What efforts are you making to influence the rising generation, so that British citizens shall in the future be more alive than in the past to their responsibilities and duties ?
Consider for a moment. Is, or is not, this Empire of ours worth preserving ? If it is not-, it is surely our duty to endeavour to make it worth preservation ; if, on the other hand, notwithstanding all the national crimes and shortcomings, of which we are
100
heartily ashamed, recorded by history against our race, the general beneficence of British rule makes the Empire worthy of preservation, then surely we should throw ourselves with heart and soul into the work of preparing the next generation, so that it may be able fitly to carry on the noble work commenced by its forefathers, and to bring it to a successful and glorious issue.
If the British Empire, formed, as we are told by an eminent writer, in a fit of absence of mind, has benefited mankind, what might it not accomplish if all its citizens were trained in youth to recognise their national responsibilities, to prepare themselves for the due fulfilment of their duties, and were taught to subordinate selfish or class interests, and to regard themselves as stewards of a priceless inheritance, placed in their hands for the regeneration of the world.
This is the view of the Imperial question which I appeal to you British women to impress on the minds of the rising generation. Is it an impossible or exaggerated one ? I think not ; but if it be, let us remember that "Who aimeth at the sky, shoots higher much than he that means a tree." Nations live by sentiment, not by bread alone. When the vision faileth, the people perish. High ideals may not always be capable of attainment, but they are the oxygen of national life, purifying the blood, and giving health and vitality to the body corporate.
101
Pardon me if I venture to ask all who read these lines to make a serious study of history, should they not already have done so, to examine the causes which have led to the downfall of previous Empires, and to bring the result of their reading to bear on their actions in the training of the young, and if they arrive, as I think they will, at the conclusion that indiscipline is a danger to all civilised and stable governments, and that it is far too common amongst British children, then I would ask them to use their great influence on the creation of a public opinion favourable to the upbringing of children in a more strenuous manner than is popular in the present day. We need in the future men and women who are uplifted by high ideals, who have prepared their minds and bodies for the stern conflicts of life, in which victory rests, not with the soft and luxurious, but with those who have learnt to suffer and to endure for the sake of high and noble visions.
What lessons does history teach us ? What does she show to have been the causes of the downfall in past ages of the mighty Empires which have preceded ours ? Have we any solid ground upon which to build the belief that the same causes which proved fatal to powerful States, which appeared at the time to be raised on indestructible foundations, will not operate in our case in a like manner as in the past, if they be permitted, unhindered, to effect a foothold within the British Empire?
102
Have not the principal causes of disruption in the Empires of the past been-
'. Spirifual and moral atrophy amongst individuals, leading to private and public corruption, to immorality, and to lack of public spirit.
2. The growth of enervating luxury, and the slackening of the bonds of authority and of discipline, leading to the spirit of selfishness and of anarchy, making men and women soft, weakening their minds and bodies, encouraging them to regard personal physical discomfort and pain as the greatest of earthly evils, and in their selfishness rendering them careless of the rights and wants of others, but insistent in regard to their own, and inclined to subordinate the public to personal or class interests.
3. Want of interest in and of adequate knowledge of the 'affairs of the Commonwealth, thus placing the masses at the mercy of clever and unscrupulous men seeking their own private interests to the detriment of the general welfare.
4. An inordinate love of pleasure, making men and women regard it as the one aim and object of life to the neglect of all serious duties.
These appear to have been the principal causes in the past of the decay of nations. Are there not signs in the present age that some of the seeds of the above causes of decay have already been sown in our midst ?
In addition to the above there would in the present
103
day seem to be a real danger lest some of the very virtues of which we are most justly proud, viz., those of compassion and of mercy, should, by an exaggerated sentimentality, lead us to relax unduly the bonds of discipline and the restraining influences of law and of a true justice, without which society would rapidly and inevitably degenerate into an anarchy destructive of all that is best worth preserving in the world, and especially dangerous to the interests of women and to those of the weaker elements of society. In this view I would earnestly call upon women to support the maintenance of legitimate authority, to use their influence in favour of a reasonable discipline amongst the young, both in the home and in the school, remembering that lack of discipline in youth leads to self-indulgence in later years, creating idle, selfish pleasure-seekers amongst the richer, and tramps, loafers, corner boys and hooligans amongst the poorer classes. Let us bear in mind that no nation can be permanently strong which is founded on the quicksands of indiscipline. Let us see to it, then, that no effort on our part be wanting to raise up a generation of men and women alive to their responsibilities, and fit in soul, mind and body to fulfil the honourable but arduous duties imposed upon them through the possession of the high privilege of British citizenship.
The assistance of loyal, patriotic British subjects of both sexes is required. Men and women, filled
104
with an earnest missionary spirit, imbued with patriotic feeling, swayed by no idea of self-advertisement, or of self-seeking, are needed to bring the above ideas to a practical issue by the creation of a public opinion favourable to a stricter discipline in the training of British children.
The future of the Empire rests in the hands of the Almighty. No man, however wise, dare prophesy what will be its future, but there can be no manner of doubt amongst those who keep their eyes and ears open to the signs of the times that there are dark clouds lowering on the national horizon, which forebode in the near future no quiet and peaceful seas awaiting the good ship "Empire," but, on the contrary, storms and cyclonic disturbances of no ordinary violence. In order that she may emerge victorious from the struggle, it is needful that the crew be brave and loyal, and be trained and hardened by discipline before the clouds break and the tempest be upon her. Who will help to provide such a crew ? For with such a crew alone can she reasonably hope, under wise and skilled management, to reach in safety and with honour the haven for which she would seem to have been predestined by an omniscient and omnipotent Power.
PRINTED BY CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED, LA BELLE SAUVAGE, LONDON, E.C.
