The Tragedies of Modern Education

Sound insights in criticism of modern education, worth pausing over — by Miss A. Saab.

Joseph de Maistre wrote: "We have never yet seen woman compose an Iliad or an Aeneid, nor has she devised any theory worth mention-ing in algebra or geometry. But she has created, and goes on creating, something more important than all of that. Upon her knees is reared and grows that being for whose sake everything was created good — the human being, male or female... The virtue of mothers, all their virtue, consists in ordering the home, in making the husband happy, and in rearing the children... And how many a girl whose upbringing, refinement, and guidance were well tended went on in her turn to rear, after her own example, sons who became among the greatest masterpieces history has immortalized."

It is truly regrettable to see so many mothers disappointing the hope of history and depriving society of good, strong elements, since they are ignorant — or feign ignorance — of the mission of motherhood and of the rights and obligations of upbringing, and so shirk the shouldering of its responsibilities and its direction, as an effective means, in a logical and well-ordered way toward the lofti-est goal. Our sorrow grows worse when we watch painful tragedies being played out upon the stages of home education because of mothers heedless of grasping the first rules that must be taken as the point of departure in all discipline, guid-ance, and direction — so that the work of education may come not as the product of tyranny and coer-cion, nor as the grievous outcome of reckless liberties and high-flying whims, but as the result of an enlightened interplay between the methods of the mother-educator and the psychology of her child. For the work of education is noth-ing but the provision of material

and moral support that assures the child a well-rounded growth, so that he grows up a strong human being, free of disturbance and deviation. On this the scholars of education are agreed when they say: our task consists in guiding the child toward what he does not know and helping him in what he does, and — while continuing to give him our affection, our love, and our tenderness — in making him, at the earliest possible moment, able to do without us, our intervention no longer always necessary for the running of his affairs, so that one day he may manage them by his own powers and cut his own road in the strug-gle of life. The means of reaching this end is practice in conscious obedience and gradual indepen-dence. Indeed, if mothers were to count how many warnings and admonitions they have been forced to address to a son or daughter in the course of a meal, an outing, or a lesson, they would be astounded, and despair would creep over them at how little their negative remarks avail in reforming the child. Whereas if a mother took care to pierce straight to the child's core and understand the windings of his soul, and set about training him to will this thing, or to refrain from that, of his own accord, she would be able — by this positive method, built upon trial — to reach satisfy-ing results in which her conscience could rest and her parental heart find comfort. But it is rare in our surroundings to find a mother who adopts this method, because of the unbroken toil it demands in watch-ing over the child's every motion and stillness, his inclinations and his qualities. It is easier for her to say to him "Don't do that!" than to set him a task and say "Do this!" — and yet the latter is the sounder course, for the child has a logic that differs from the logic of grown-ups: he is too small to grasp the meaning of life, or what he wants and how he wants it.

Among the manifestations of mental laziness in mothers is their proclaiming of their perplexity and helplessness before the stubborn-ness of children, until the question of obedience has become for them one of those intractable problems whose crises they face daily. But the source of this problem is often not the child but the mother herself. For there are mothers to whom motherhood seems a throne from whose height they issue commands and prohibitions with violence and hauteur, without rule or reflection, taking in hand the child's every motion and stillness without regard for his feelings, his being, or his free will — which they would have be a deaf machine, to be governed at their whim and for their own benefit, even should the child come to harm thereby. If this method proves anything, it proves the short-sightedness of whoever embraces it. For wills that are governed by pressure and intimidation are not long in falling prey to paralysis, sluggishness, and failure in the exercise of free acts; and when one day it becomes possible for them to slip free of surveillance, they prove unable to recover their accustomed vitality — or they become a hotbed of intellectual revolt and moral chaos.

Georgie Club Extra

Mr. Georgie Club Extra Extra advises keeping the nearest packet of the fragrant Rodianek cigarette tobacco at hand.

May the hand of the Merciful long continue preserving the brands by which the man does his cigarette justice,

according to his taste and his desire —

an administration in the shape of smoke...