OCR Text |
Show n !, WHIPPING CHILDREN. J. Do you spank the children' If you do, read this quotation from Robert Ingersoll. "If there,. is one of you here that ever expect to whip your child again, let me ask you something. Have your photograph taken at the time and let it show your face red with vulgar anger, and the face of the little one with eyes swimming in tears, and the litle chin dimpled with fear, looking like a piece of water struck by a sudden cold wind. If that little child should die, I cannot think of a sweeter 'way to spend an Autumn afternoon to to take that photograph and go to the cemetery, when the maples are cladj in tender gold, and when the little scarlet runners are coming from tlie sad heart of the earth, sit down upon that mound, and look upon that photograph, and think of the flesh, now dust, that you beat. Just think of it 1 I could not bear to die in the arms of a child that I had whipped. I could not bear to feel upon my lips, when they were withered with the touch of death, the kiss of one that I had struck. m Just at present a strong campaign against harsh treatment of : ft children in-being made by the Humane Press Bureau and one of the 1 1 bulletins sent out says : ' 'U The faults of little children arc largely the results of t ignorance, accidents, and the grown person's point of view. Grown k " i i i i , ,... , .. ... . persons would justly resent any punishment visited upon them for ignorance, accident, or an unknown point of view. Corporal punishment by teachers is disappearing, but parents still claim they have the right to strike their own children. They have no such right. Slowly the race advances to higher standards for parents. ' ' The following acts arc related. Slapping the hands of babies, spanking small children, whipping big children. Then the grownup grown-up stage of action when the strong take advantage of the weak; when people disregard the rights of others, in the family, in business, bus-iness, and in society,- when men are flogged or hanged; when armies fight each other on the battlefield. The one thing aimed at by parents is to correct the unruly child by appealing to the child-mind, and yet the blows struck do nothing more than arouse the passion of resentment and hatred, coupled with fear. The child driven to obey purely through fear, and whose littlo mind is not made to sec that which the parent sees as to the necessity of obedience, often sullenly obeys until later fear is overcome and then he fights back. The child drawn close to mother and father by love and affection af-fection can be depended on in maturer years to do more in response re-sponse to those love ties than fear could possibly command. When the children are small and their minds arc receiving their strongest impressions, then is tho tinio to win their souls, their minds, their hearts. A little reprimand now and then can do no harm, if for every reprimand you have given a dozen caresses. |