|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 79
The important fact, then, of the great influence of personal character,
can never be too much impressed upon all; but it is peculiarly needful
that women be impressed with it, because their personal character must
necessarily influence that of their children, and be the source of their
personal character. For, if the active performance of the duties of a
citizen interfere, and it undoubtedly does so, with the duty of
self-education, of what importance is it that men enter upon them with
such a personal character as may insure us confidence while it secures
us from temptation? The formation of such a character depends mainly on
mothers, and especially on their personal character and principles. The
character of the mother influences the children more than that of the
father, because it is more exposed to their daily, hourly observation.
It is difficult for these young, though acute observers, to comprehend
the principles which regulate their father's political opinions; his
vote in the senate; his conduct in political or commercial relations;
but they can see,--yes! and they can estimate and imitate, the moral
principles of the mother in her management of themselves, her treatment
of her domestics, and the thousand petty details of the interior. These
principles, whether lax or strict, low or high in moral tone, become, by
an insensible and imperceptible adoption, their principles, and are
carried out by them into the duties and avocations of future life. It
would be startling to many to know with what intelligence and accuracy
motives are penetrated, inconsistencies remarked, and treasured up with
retributive or imitative projects, as may best suit the purpose of the
moment. Nothing but a more extensive knowledge of children than is
usually possessed on entering life, can awaken parents to the perception
of this truth; and awakened perception may, perhaps, be only awakened
misery. How important is it, then, that every thing in the education of
women should tend to enlighten conscience, that she may enter on her
arduous task with principles requiring only watchfulness, not
reformation; and such a personal character as may exercise none by
healthy influences on her children!
FOOTNOTES:
[112] Gibbon.
ON THE MEANS OF SECURING PERSONAL INFLUENCE.
The qualities which seem more especially needful in a character which is
to influence others, are, consistency, simplicity, and benevolence, or
love.
By consistency of character, I mean consistency of action with
principle, of manner with thought, of _self_ with _self_. The want of
this quality is a failing with which our sex is often charged, and
justly; but are we to blame? Our hearts are warm, our nerves irritable,
and we have seen how little there is, in existing systems of female
education, calculated to give wide, lofty, self-devoted principles of
action. Without such principles, there can be no consistency of conduct;
and without consistency of conduct, there can be no available moral
influence.
The peculiar evil arising from want of consistency, is the want of trust
or faith which it engenders. This is felt in the common intercourse with
the world. In our relations with inconsistent persons, we are like
mariners at sea without a compass. On the other hand, intercourse with
consistent persons gives to the mind a sort of tranquillity, peculiarly
favourable to happiness and to virtue. It is like the effect produced by
the perception of an immutable truth, which, from the very force of
contrast, is peculiarly grateful to the inhabitants of so changeable a
world as this. It is moral repose.
This sort of moral repose is most peculiarly advantageous to children,
because it allows ample scope for the development of their mental and
moral faculties; banishing from their minds all that chaotic
bewilderment into which dependence on inconsistent persons throws them.
It is advantageous to them in another, and more important way,--it
prepares them for a belief in virtue; a trust in others, which it is
easy to train up into a veneration for the source of all virtue; a trust
in the origin of all truth. There can be no clearness of moral
perception in the governed, where there is no manifestation of a moral
rule of right in the governor. In speaking of moral perception, I do not
mean to say that children have, properly speaking, a moral perception of
inconsistency; but it affects their comfort and well-being,
nevertheless. There is, in the nature of man, as great a perception of
moral, as of physical order and proportion; and the absence of the moral
produces pain and disgust to the soul, as the absence of the physical
does to the senses. This state of pain and disgust is felt, though it
can never be expressed, by children, who are under the management of
inconsistent persons,--that is, persons whose conduct is guided solely
by feeling, (good or bad,) by caprice, or impulse; and how injurious it
is to them, we may easily conceive. If, however, their present comfort
only were endangered by it, the evil would be of comparatively small
magnitude; but it affects their character for life. They cease to trust,
and they cease to venerate; now, trust is the root of faith, and
veneration of piety:--and when the root is destroyed, how can the plant
flourish? Perhaps we may remark that the effect here produced upon
children is the same as that which long intercourse with the world
produces in men: only that the effect differs in proportion to their
differing intellectual faculties. The child is annoyed, and knows not
the cause of annoyance; the man is annoyed, and endeavours to lose the
sense of discomfort in a universal skepticism as to human virtue, and a
resolving of all actions into one principle, self-interest. He thus
seeks to create a principle possessing the stability which he desires,
but seeks in vain to find; for, be it remembered, our love of moral
stability is precisely as great as our love of physical change;--another
of the mysteries of our being. The effects on the man are the same as on
the child,--he ceases to believe, and he ceases to venerate; and the end
is the most degrading of all conditions,--the abnegation of all abstract
virtue, generosity, or love. Now, into this state children are brought
by the inconsistency of parents,--that is, these young and innocent
creatures are placed in a condition, moral and intellectual, which we
consider an evil, even when produced by long contact with a selfish and
unkind world. And thus they enter upon life, prepared for vice in all
its forms,--and skepticism, in all its heart-withering tendencies. How
can parents bear this responsibility? There is something so touching in
the simple faith of childhood,--its utter dependence,--its willingness
to believe in the perfection of those to whom it looks for
protection--that to betray that faith, to shake that dependence, seems
almost akin to irreligion.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|