The effort to break the child’s will has long been recognized as disastrous by all educators.  A broken will is worse misfortune than a broken back.  In the latter case the man is physically crippled; in the former, he is morally crippled.  It is only a strong, unbroken, persistent will that is adequate to achieve self-mastery, and mastery of the difficulties of life.  The child who is too yielding and obedient in his early days is only too likely to be weak and incompetent in his later days.  The habit of submission to a more mature judgment is a bad habit to insist upon.  The child should be encouraged to think out things for himself; to experiment and discover for himself why his ideas do not work; and to refuse to give them up until he is genuinely convinced of their impracticability.

[Sidenote:  Emergencies]

It is true that there are emergencies in which his immature judgment and undisciplined will must yield to wiser judgment and steadier will; but such yielding should not be suffered to become habitual.  It is a safety valve merely, to be employed only when the pressure of circumstances threatens to become dangerous.  An engine whose safety valve should be always in operation could never generate much power.  Nor is there much difficulty in leading even a very strong-willed and obstinate child to give up his own way under extraordinary circumstances.  If he is not in the habit of setting up his own will against that of his mother or teacher, he will not set it up when the quick, unfamiliar word of command seems to fit in the with the unusual circumstances.  Many parents practice crying “Wolf! wolf!” to their children, and call the practice a drill of self-control; but they meet inevitably with the familiar consequences:  when the real wolf comes the hackneyed cry, often proved false, is disregarded.

[Illustration:  Herbert Spencer]

[Sidenote:  Disobedience]

When the will is rightly trained, disobedience is a fault that rarely appears, because, of course, where obedience is seldom required, it is seldom refused.  The child needs to obey—­that is true; but so does his mother need to obey, and all other persons about him.  They all need to obey God, to obey the laws of nature, the impulses of kindness, and to follow after the ways of wisdom.  Where such obedience is a settled habit of the entire household, it easily, and, as it were, unconsciously, becomes the habit of the child.  Where such obedience is not the habit of the household, it is only with great difficulty that it can become the habit of the child.  His will must set itself against its instinct of imitativeness, and his small house, not yet quite built, must be divided against itself.  Probably no cold even rendered entire obedience to any adult who did not himself hold his own wishes in subjection.  As Emerson says, “In dealing with my child, my Latin and my Greek, my accomplishments and my money, stead me nothing, but as much soul as I have avails.  If I a willful, he sets his will against mine, one for one, and leaves me, if I please, the degradation of beating him by my superiority of strength.  But, if I renounce my will and act for the soul, setting that up as an umpire between us two, out of his young eyes looks the same soul; he reveres and loves with me.”