Excerpts from Some Thoughts concerning Education
(1693)
by John Locke
I
think I may say, that, of all the men we meet with, nine parts of ten [i.e.,
90%] are what they are, good or evil, useful or not, by their education. It is that which makes the great difference
in mankind . . .
It
seems plain to me, that the principle of all virtue and excellency lies in a
power of denying ourselves the satisfaction of our own desires, where reason
does not authorize them. This power is
to be got and improved by custom, made easy and familiar by an early
practice. If therefore I might be heard,
I would advise, that, contrary to the ordinary way, children should be used to
submit their desires, and go without their longings, even from their very
cradles. The very first thing they
should learn to know, should be, that they were not to have any thing, because
it pleased them, but because it was thought fit for them. If things suitable to their wants were
supplied to them, so that they were never suffered to have what they once cried
for, they would learn to be content without it; would never with bawling and
peevishness contend for mastery; nor be half so uneasy to themselves and others
as they are, because from the first beginning they are not thus handled. If they were never suffered to obtain their
desire by the impatience they expressed for it, they would no more cry for
other things than they do for the moon.
I
say not this as if children were not to be indulged in any thing, or that I
expected they should . . . have the reason and conduct of counsellors. I consider them as children, who must be
tenderly used, who must play, and have play things. That which I mean is, that whenever they
craved what was not fit for them to have, or do, they should not be permitted
it, because they were little and desired it: nay, whatever they were
importunate for, they should be sure, for that very reason, to be denied.
Those
therefore that intend ever to govern their children, should begin it whilst
they are very little; and look that they perfectly comply with the will of
their parents. Would you have your son
obedient to you, when past a child? Be
sure then to establish the authority of a father, as soon as he is capable of
submission, and can understand in whose power he is. . . . [They] mightily
misplace the treatment due to their children, who are indulgent and familiar
when they are little, but severe to them, and keep them at a distance, when
they are grown up. For liberty and indulgence
can do no good to children: their want [i.e., lack] of judgment makes them
stand in need of restraint and discipline.
And, on the contrary, imperiousness and severity is but an ill way of
treating men, who have reason to their own to guide them, unless you have a
mind to make your children, when grown up, weary of you . . .
I
imagine every one will judge it reasonable, that their children, when little,
should look upon their parents as their lords, their absolute governors; and,
as such, stand in awe of them: and that, when they come to riper years, they
should look on them as their best, as their only sure friends: and, as such,
love and reverence them. . . .
[To]
avoid the danger that is on either hand is the great art: and he that has found
a way how to keep up a child's spirit, easy, active, and free; and yet, at the
same time, to restrain him from many things he has a mind to do, and to draw
him to things that are uneasy to him; he, I say, that knows how to reconcile
these seeming contradictions, has, in my opinion, got the true secret of
education.
The
usual lazy and short way by chastisement, and the rod which is the only
instrument of government that tutors generally know, or ever think of, is the
most unfit of any to be used in education. . . .
Beating
then, and all other sorts of slavish and corporal punishments, are not the
discipline fit to be used in the education of those who would have wise, good,
and ingenuous men; and therefore very rarely to be applied, and that only on
great occasions, and cases of extremity.
On the other side, to flatter children by rewards of things that are
pleasant to them, is as carefully to be avoided. He that will give to his son apples, or
sugar-plums, or what else of this kind he is most delighted with, to make him
learn his book, does but authorise his love of pleasure, and cocker up [i.e.,
encourage] that dangerous propensity, which he ought by all means to subdue and
stifle in him. You can never hope to
teach him to master it, whilst you compound for the check you give his
inclination in one place, by the satisfaction you propose to it in
another. To make a good, a wise, and a
virtuous man, it is fit he should learn to cross his appetite, and deny his
inclination to riches, finery, or pleasing his palate, &c. whenever his
reason advises the contrary, and his duty requires it. But when you draw him to do any thing that is
fit, by the offer of money; or reward the pains of learning his book, by the
pleasure of a luscious morsel; when you promise him a lace-cravat, or a fine
new suit, upon performance of some of his little tasks; what do you, by
proposing these as rewards, but allow them to be the good things he should aim
at, and thereby encourage his longing for them, and accustom him to place his
happiness in them? . . .
First,
children (earlier perhaps than we think) are very sensible of praise and
commendation. They find a pleasure in
being esteemed and valued, especially by their parents, and those whom they
depend on. If therefore the father
caress and commend them, when they do well; show a cold and neglectful
countenance to them upon doing ill; and this accompanied by a like carriage of
the mother, and all others that are about them; it will in a little time make
them sensible of the difference: and this, if constantly observed, I doubt not
but will of itself work more than threats or blows, which lose their force,
when once grown common, and are of no use when shame does not attend them; and
therefore are to be forborn, and never to be used . . . [excepting extreme
cases]
[Let]
your rules to your son be as few as is possible . . . For if you burden him
with many rules, one of these two things must necessarily follow, that either
he must be very often punished, which will be of ill consequence, by making
punishment too frequent and familiar; or else you must let the transgressions
of some of your rules go unpunished, whereby they will of course grow
contemptible, and your authority become cheap to him. Make but few laws, but see they be well observed,
when once made. . . .
He
therefore, that is about children, should well study their natures and
aptitudes, and see, by often trials, what turn they easily take, and what
becomes them: observe what their native stock is, how it may be improved, and
what it is fit for: he should consider what they want, whether they be capable
of having it wrought into them by industry and incorporated there by practice;
and whether it be worth while to endeavour it.
For, in may cases, all that we can do, or should aim at, is, to make the
best of what nature has given, to prevent the vices and faults to which such a
constitution is inclined, and give it all the advantages it is capable of. . .
.
It
will perhaps be wondered, that I mention reasoning with children: and yet I
cannot but think that the true way of dealing with them. They understand it [i.e., reason] as early as
they do language; and, if I misobserve not, they love to be treated as rational
creatures sooner than is imagined. It is
a pride should be cherished in them, and, as much as can be, made the greatest
instrument to turn them by.
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