



Produced by Charles Keller





THE EDUCATION OF THE CHILD

by Ellen Key




INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Edward Bok, Editor of the "Ladies' Home Journal," writes:

"Nothing finer on the wise education of the child has ever been brought
into print. To me this chapter is a perfect classic; it points the way
straight for every parent and it should find a place in every home in
America where there is a child."




THE EDUCATION OF THE CHILD

Goethe showed long ago in his Werther a clear understanding of
the significance of individualistic and psychological training, an
appreciation which will mark the century of the child. In this work he
shows how the future power of will lies hidden in the characteristics
of the child, and how along with every fault of the child an uncorrupted
germ capable of producing good is enclosed. "Always," he says, "I repeat
the golden words of the teacher of mankind, 'if ye do not become as
one of these,' and now, good friend, those who are our equals, whom we
should look upon as our models, we treat as subjects; they should have
no will of their own; do we have none? Where is our prerogative? Does it
consist in the fact that we are older and more experienced? Good God
of Heaven! Thou seest old and young children, nothing else. And in whom
Thou hast more joy, Thy Son announced ages ago. But people believe in
Him and do not hear Him--that, too, is an old trouble, and they model
their children after themselves." The same criticism might be applied to
our present educators, who constantly have on their tongues such words
as evolution, individuality, and natural tendencies, but do not heed
the new commandments in which they say they believe. They continue to
educate as if they believed still in the natural depravity of man, in
original sin, which may be bridled, tamed, suppressed, but not changed.
The new belief is really equivalent to Goethe's thoughts given above,
i.e., that almost every fault is but a hard shell enclosing the germ of
virtue. Even men of modern times still follow in education the old rule
of medicine, that evil must be driven out by evil, instead of the new
method, the system of allowing nature quietly and slowly to help itself,
taking care only that the surrounding conditions help the work of
nature. This is education.

Neither harsh nor tender parents suspect the truth expressed by Carlyle
when he said that the marks of a noble and original temperament are
wild, strong emotions, that must be controlled by a discipline as hard
as steel. People either strive to root out passions altogether, or they
abstain from teaching the child to get them under control.

To suppress the real personality of the child, and to supplant it with
another personality continues to be a pedagogical crime common to
those who announce loudly that education should only develop the real
individual nature of the child.

They are still not convinced that egoism on the part of the child is
justified. Just as little are they convinced of the possibility that
evil can be changed into good.

Education must be based on the certainty that faults cannot be atoned
for, or blotted out, but must always have their consequences. At
the same time, there is the other certainty that through progressive
evolution, by slow adaptation to the conditions of environment they may
be transformed. Only when this stage is reached will education begin to
be a science and art. We will then give up all belief in the miraculous
effects of sudden interference; we shall act in the psychological sphere
in accordance with the principle of the indestructibility of matter. We
shall never believe that a characteristic of the soul can be destroyed.
There are but two possibilities. Either it can be brought into
subjection or it can be raised up to a higher plane.

Madame de Stael's words show much insight when she says that only the
people who can play with children are able to educate them. For success
in training children the first condition is to become as a child
oneself, but this means no assumed childishness, no condescending
baby-talk that the child immediately sees through and deeply abhors.
What it does mean is to be as entirely and simply taken up with the
child as the child himself is absorbed by his life. It means to
treat the child as really one's equal, that is, to show him the same
consideration, the same kind confidence one shows to an adult. It means
not to influence the child to be what we ourselves desire him to become
but to be influenced by the impression of what the child himself is; not
to treat the child with deception, or by the exercise of force, but with
the seriousness and sincerity proper to his own character. Somewhere
Rousseau says that all education has failed in that nature does not
fashion parents as educators nor children for the sake of education.
What would happen if we finally succeeded in following the directions of
nature, and recognised that the great secret of education lies hidden in
the maxim, "do not educate"?

Not leaving the child in peace is the greatest evil of present-day
methods of training children. Education is determined to create a
beautiful world externally and internally in which the child can grow.
To let him move about freely in this world until he comes into contact
with the permanent boundaries of another's right will be the end of
the education of the future. Only then will adults really obtain a deep
insight into the souls of children, now