Raising the Family's Children

The conclusion of the practical guidance article we published in the last issue, by the able educator Mrs. Nazik Sarkis.

Here are some of the habits which become traits that stay with the child through life, if their planting and direction are done well. I shall mention four of them:

First — Economy. Ibn al-Wardi said:
Between extravagance and miserliness there is a station,
and either of the two, grown excessive, kills.

And this truth we see every day in our country and in our circle.

The child cannot grasp the efforts his father expends to earn money, nor the hardships he endures to provide him with comfort and a sufficiency of food, drink, and clothing; and however much you tell him about this, he cannot understand its meaning. So it is well to apply this lesson practically. Suppose you assign him a monthly sum to spend as he pleases, since it is his own property: persuade him of the necessity of saving a part of it — however small — in a money box you provide him for this purpose, and he will learn the pleasure of saving out of income. It will often happen that before the month's end he spends this allowance and comes to you asking to buy some thing or other: beware of giving it to him. Let him taste the bitterness of the punishment of squandering and heedlessness. And it is well to fix a wage for certain tasks you ask of him, so that he grows used to the pleasure of earning by work, and learns that money does not come of itself but in return for the work a person does — the payment matching the work, small if it is small and large if it is large.

Second — Self-reliance. The child has by nature a searching, probing mind. When he looks at the sea or the sun or the stars or the moon or the airplanes, these appear to him as great mysteries, and often he wants to know how they came to be, and why they came to be, and who made them; so we must encourage him to ask questions and to inquire, and explain every question to him fully.

In his lessons and his games we should encourage him to work out causes and arrive at results, and give him the chance to handle all the tasks that call for some resourcefulness and invention in a way that is his own, not in a way that is ours. A learned man once said: "Nothing is ever done but that there exists another sound way of doing it." This direction must be given to boy and girl alike; for we have accustomed our girl to a life of dependence and reliance on others, so that she has settled into being lazy and dependent, without personality, content in life with the food and clothing her father or brother provides her — her gifts overgrown with rust, buried in the cradle before anyone could learn whether there were gifts in her at all.

Third — The Value of Time. Our children begin life possessing a precious capital: time, which is theirs and which no rival disputes with them. Human nature demands eight hours for nourishment and rest; school demands another eight hours; and the remaining eight hours are theirs to dispose of as they please. Here lies our sacred duty: to direct them and accustom them to the use of these hours. Let us set aside a portion for stories — and in these the children find delight — telling them of the lives of the great self-made men who, by using their leisure hours, achieved discoveries and inventions by which they benefited humanity, provided us with comfort and ease, and delivered mankind from deadly plagues that used to destroy millions of children and grown-ups alike

before their inventions — men such as Avicenna, Pasteur, Edison, Marconi, Madame Curie, and others; they benefited humanity, and history has inscribed their names in the first rank of the great.

Let us also tell them of some of the poor who used to occupy their leisure hours with certain pursuits, and whose diligence and effort became the road to a discovery that raised them to the ranks of the rich and the great.

For example, Anthony Leeuwenhoek, an Irishman who earned his living cleaning the town hall, and who in his spare time tried his hand at polishing and shaping small lenses; thanks to these lenses the astonishing world — the world of the microbe — was revealed, and this counts among the greatest discoveries in the history of medicine.

Our children will never be able to be men of renaissance and invention unless we teach them how to devote a part of their energy to preparing for the future, and to use their leisure time in practical pursuits.

Fourth — Courage. Courage is of two kinds. The first is a natural impulse when the instincts are roused to meet a sudden danger; the second is that which stands firm and endures despite repeated failure and hardship — the resolve to rise from every fall. Every beginner is in the direst need of this courage, and our children will need a great deal of it when they face the world of tomorrow.

It is our duty to explain to them the inventions whose fruits they enjoy — the telephone, the radio, electricity, ships, trains, and so on: who first conceived them and how, the effort that was expended and the long years that were spent in the work, what they were like at first and the improvements that others completed. Make them understand well that works do not come out perfect at the first attempt, and that failure is like a whetting of the powers that leads on to success. Tell them of the failures of these great men and how people mocked them, yet their courage, their confidence, their resolve, and their steadfastness never left them until they arrived at success. If the child understands this and is convinced of it, he will be braver, firmer of will, and steadier when he collides with obstacles that cannot be avoided.

It is well for you to direct him from childhood by choosing for him games that call for patience, precision, and discrimination — such as geometric shapes for building a factory or a ship or a building or an airplane or a garment, and the like; for the pleasure the child finds when he completes the assembling or the making of one of these strengthens his steadfastness and patience, creates delight, and brings out his gifts.

And let us not forget that when courage departs, much of personal dignity departs with it: no confidence remains to us in our opinions and judgments, and we lose the power to press out the essence of experience by ourselves.

Young people: "Do not let yourselves be corrupted by barren doubt, nor let the sorrows of those passing hours that come over nations dishearten you. Live in the serenity of the peace that books and laboratories prepare for you. Let each of you first ask himself: What have I done to educate myself? Then, as you go forward, ask it: What have I done for my country? — until the time comes when you feel the overwhelming flood of happiness: the happiness of thinking that you have contributed in some way to the progress and good of humanity."