Step by step, dealing with each excitement of anger, train him in self-control.  Self-mastery is a matter of learning to direct and apply our own powers at will.  It is developed by habitual practice.  It is the largest general element in character.  The temper that smashes a toy is the temper that kills a human being when it opposes our will, but it is the same temper that, being controlled, patiently sets the great ills of society right, fights and works to remove gigantic wrongs and to build a better social order.  That patience which is self-control saves the immensely valuable dynamic of the emotions and harnesses them to Godlike service.  And that patience is not learned at a single lesson, not acquired in a miraculous moment; it is learned in one little lesson after another, in every act and all the daily discipline of home and school and street.

Children must learn to qualify and govern temper by love in order to save it from hatred.  When the irritating object is a personal one the rights, the well-being, of that one must gain some consideration.  There will be but little feeling of altruism in children under thirteen; we must not expect it; but egoism is one way to an understanding of the rights, the feelings, and needs of others.  The child can put himself in the other’s place.  He is capable of affection; he loves and is willing to sacrifice for those he loves, and when he is angry with them, or with strangers, he must be helped to think of them as persons, as those he loves or may love.  He also can be aided to see the pain of hatred, the misery of the life without friends, the joy of friendships.

Anger against persons is the opportunity for learning the joy of forgiveness and, if the occasion warrants, the dignity and courage of the apology.  The self-control, consideration, and social adjustment involved must be learned early in life.  It is part of that great lesson of the fine art of living with others.  Little children must be habituated to acknowledging errors and acts of rudeness or temper with suitable forms of apology.  Above all, they must, by habit, learn how great is the victory of forgiveness.[48]

     I. References for Study

     The Problem of Temper. Pamphlet.  American Institute of Child
     Life, Philadelphia, Pa.

     E.P.  St. John, Child Nature and Child Nurture, chap. v.  Pilgrim
     Press, $0.50.

     J. Sully, Children’s Ways, chap. x.  Appleton, $1.25.

     II.  Further Reading

     Patterson Du Bois, The Culture of Justice, chaps. i-v.  Dodd, Mead
     & Co., $0.75.

     E.H.  Abbott, The Training of Parents.  Houghton Mifflin Co.,
     $1.00.

     M. Wood-Allen, Making the Best of Our Children. 2 vols.  McClurg,
     $1.00 each.

     H.Y.  Campbell, Practical Motherhood.  Longmans, $2.50.

     III.  Topics for Discussion