Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young | Page 6

went one day," added the mother, continuing her story, "with
his little cousin Anna to their uncle's, in hopes that he would give them
some apples. Their uncle had a beautiful garden, and in it there was an
apple-tree which bore most excellent apples. They were large, and rosy,
and mellow, and sweet. The children liked the apples from that tree
very much, and Ernest and Anna went that day in hopes that their uncle
would give them some of them. He said he would. He would give them
three apiece. He told them to go into the garden and wait there until he
came. They must not take any apples off the tree, he said, but if they
found any under the tree they might take them, provided that there were

not more than three apiece; and when he came he would take enough
off the tree, he said, to make up the number to three.
"So the children went into the garden and looked under the tree. They
found two apples there, and they took them up and ate them--one apiece.
Then they sat down and began to wait for their uncle to come. While
they were waiting Anna proposed that they should not tell their uncle
that they had found the two apples, and so he would give them three
more, which he would take from the tree; whereas, if he knew that they
had already had one apiece, then he would only give them two more.
Ernest said that his uncle would ask them about it. Anna said, 'No
matter, we can tell him that we did not find any.'
"Ernest seemed to be thinking about it for a moment, and then, shaking
his head, said, 'No, I think we had better not tell him a lie!'
"So when he saw their uncle coming he said, 'Come, Anna, let us go
and tell him about it, just how it was. So they ran together to meet their
uncle, and told him that they had found two apples under the tree, one
apiece, and had eaten them. Then he gave them two more apiece,
according to his promise, and they went home feeling contented and
happy.
"They might have had one more apple apiece, probably, by combining
together to tell a falsehood; but in that case they would have gone home
feeling guilty and unhappy."
The Effect.
Louisa's mother paused a moment, after finishing her story, to give
Louisa time to think about it a little.
"I think," she added at length, after a suitable pause, "that it was a great
deal better for them to tell the truth, as they did."
"I think so too, mamma," said Louisa, at the same time casting down
her eyes and looking a little confused.

"But you know," added her mother, speaking in a very kind and gentle
tone, "that you did not tell me the truth to-day about the apple that
Bridget gave you."
Louisa paused a moment, looked in her mother's face, and then,
reaching up to put her arms around her mother's neck, she said,
"Mamma, I am determined never to tell you another wrong story as
long as I live."
_Only a Single Lesson, after all_.
Now it is not at all probable that if the case had ended here, Louisa
would have kept her promise. This was one good lesson, it is true, but it
was only one. And the lesson was given by a method so gentle, that no
nervous, cerebral, or mental function was in any degree irritated or
morbidly excited by it. Moreover, no one who knows any thing of the
workings of the infantile mind can doubt that the impulse in the right
direction given by this conversation was not only better in character,
but was greater in amount, than could have been effected by either of
the other methods of management previously described.
How Gentle Measures operate.
By the gentle measures, then, which are to be here discussed and
recommended, are meant such as do not react in a violent and irritating
manner, in any way, upon the extremely delicate, and almost
embryonic condition of the cerebral and nervous organization, in which
the gradual development of the mental and moral faculties are so
intimately involved. They do not imply any, the least, relaxation of the
force of parental authority, or any lowering whatever of the standards
of moral obligation, but are, on the contrary, the most effectual, the
surest and the safest way of establishing the one and of enforcing the
other.

CHAPTER III.
THERE MUST BE AUTHORITY.
The first duty which devolves upon the mother in the training of her
child is the establishment of her authority over him--that is, the forming
in him the habit of immediate, implicit, and unquestioning obedience