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a treatise on parents and children(父母与子女专题研究)-第17部分

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to have him on your hands all your life; and are generally rather impatient 

for the day when he will earn his own living and leave you to attend to 

yourself; you sooner or later begin to talk to him about the need for self… 

reliance; learning to think; and so forth; with the result that your victim; 

bewildered by your inconsistency; concludes that there is no use trying to 

please you; and falls into an attitude of sulky resentment。                  Which is an 

additional inducement to pack him off to school。 

     In school; he finds himself in a dual world; under two dispensations。 

There     is  the   world    of  the  boys;    where    the   point   of  honor    is  to  be 

untameable;   always   ready   to   fight;   ruthless   in   taking   the   conceit   out   of 

anyone who ventures to give himself airs of superior knowledge or taste; 

and generally to take Lucifer for one's model。               And there is the world of 

the masters; the world of discipline; submission; diligence; obedience; and 

continual   and   shameless   assumption   of   moral   and   intellectual   authority。 

Thus   the   schoolboy   hears   both   sides;   and   is   so   far   better   off   than   the 

homebred   boy   who   hears   only   one。        But   the   two   sides   are   not   fairly 

presented。      They  are   presented   as   good   and   evil;   as   vice   and   virtue;   as 

villainy and heroism。         The boy feels mean and cowardly when he obeys; 

and selfish and rascally when he disobeys。               He looses his moral courage 

just as he comes to hate books and languages。                 In the end; John Ruskin; 

tied so close to his mother's apron…string that he did not escape even when 

he went to Oxford; and John Stuart Mill; whose father ought to have been 

prosecuted       for  laying    his  son's   childhood      waste    with   lessons;    were 

superior;   as   products   of   training;   to   our   schoolboys。     They   were   very 

conspicuously        superior    in   moral    courage;    and    though     they   did   not 

distinguish   themselves   at   cricket   and   football;   they   had   quite   as   much 



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physical hardihood as any civilized man needs。                But it is to be observed 

that Ruskin's parents were wise people who gave John a full share in their 

own life; and put up with his presence both at home and abroad when they 

must   sometimes   have   been   very   weary   of   him;   and   Mill;   as   it   happens; 

was deliberately educated to challenge all the most sacred institutions of 

his   country。     The   households   they   were   brought   up   in   were   no   more 

average households than a Montessori school is an average school。 



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         The Comings of Age of Children 



     All this inculcated adult docility; which wrecks every civilization as it 

is   wrecking   ours;   is   inhuman   and   unnatural。       We   must   reconsider   our 

institution of the Coming of Age; which is too late for some purposes; and 

too   early   for   others。   There   should   be   a   series   of   Coming   of Ages   for 

every individual。       The mammals have their first coming of age when they 

are weaned; and it is noteworthy that this rather cruel and selfish operation 

on the part of the parent has to be performed resolutely; with claws and 

teeth; for your little mammal does not want to be weaned; and yields only 

to a pretty rough assertion of the right of the parent to be relieved of the 

child as soon as the child is old enough to bear the separation。                 The same 

thing occurs with children: they hang on to the mother's apron…string and 

the   father's   coat   tails   as   long   as   they   can;   often   baffling   those   sensitive 

parents who know that children should think for themselves and fend for 

themselves; but are too kind to throw them on their own resources with the 

ferocity  of   the domestic   cat。      The  child   should   have its   first   coming   of 

age when it is weaned; another when it can talk; another when it can walk; 

another when it can dress itself without assistance; and when it can read; 

write;   count   money;   and   pass   an   examination   in   going   a   simple   errand 

involving   a   purchase   and   a   journey   by   rail   or   other   public   method   of 

locomotion; it should have  quite  a majority。              At   present   the  children   of 

laborers   are   soon   mobile   and   able   to   shift   for   themselves;   whereas   it   is 

possible   to   find   grown…up   women   in   the   rich   classes   who   are   actually 

afraid to take a walk in the streets unattended and unprotected。                  It is true 

that this is a superstition from the time when a retinue was part of the state 

of   persons   of   quality;   and   the   unattended   person   was   supposed   to   be   a 

common person of no quality; earning a living; but this has now become 

so absurd that children and young women are no longer told why they are 

forbidden to go about alone; and have to be persuaded that the streets are 

dangerous      places;    which    of  course    they   are;  but   people    who    are  not 

educated to live dangerously have only half a life; and are more likely to 

die miserably after all than those who have taken all the common risks of 

freedom from their childhood onward as matters of course。 



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     The Conflict of Wills         The world wags in spite of its schools and its 

families     because     both    schools    and    families    are  mostly     very   largely 

anarchic:      parents   and   schoolmasters   are   good…natured or   weak   or   lazy; 

and children are docile and affectionate and very shortwinded in their fits 

of naughtiness; and so most families slummock along and muddle through 

until the children cease to be children。            In the few cases when the parties 

are energetic and determined; the child is crushed or the parent is reduced 

to a cipher; as the case may be。           When the opposed forces are neither of 

them strong enough to annihilate the other; there is serious trouble:                    that 

is   how   we   get   those   feuds   between   parent   and   child   which   recur   to   our 

memory so ironically when we hear people sentimentalizing about natural 

affection。      We     even   get   tragedies;    for  there   is  nothing     so  tragic   to 

contemplate or so devastating to suffer as the oppression of will without 

conscience; and the whole tendency of our family and school system is to 

set   the   will   of  the   parent  and   the   school   despot    above   conscience      as 

something   that   must   be   deferred   to   abjectly   and   absolutely   for   its   own 

sake。 

     The strongest; fiercest force in nature is human will。               It is the highest 

organization   we   know   of   the   will   that   has   created   the   whole   universe。 

Now all honest civilization; religion; law; and convention is an attempt to 

keep   this    force   within   beneficent     bounds。     What     corrupts    civilization; 

religion;   law;   and   convention   (and   they   are   at   present   pretty   nearly   as 

corrupt     as  they   dare)    is  the  constant    attempts     made    by   the  wills   of 

individuals and classes to thwart the wills and enslave the powers of other 

individuals and classes。         The powers of the parent and the schoolmaster; 

and     of  their   public    analogues     the   lawgiver     and    the   judge;   become 

instruments of tyranny in the hands of those who are too narrow…minded to 

understand   law   and   exercise   judgment;   and   in   their   hands   (with   us   they 

mostly fall into such hands) law becomes tyranny。                  And what is a tyrant? 

Quite   simply   a   person   who   says   to   another   person;   young   or   old;   〃You 

shall do as I tell you; you shall make what I want; you shall profess my 

creed; you shall have no will of your own; and your powers shall be at the 

disposal of my will。〃        It has come to this at last:       that the phrase 〃she has 



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a   will   of her own;〃   or   〃he   has   a   will   of his   own〃   has   come   to   denote   a 

person of exceptional obstinacy and self…assertion。                And even persons of 

good     natural   disposition;     if  brought   up   to  expect    such   deference;     are 

roused to unreasoning fury; and sometimes to the commission of atrocious 

crimes; by the slightest challenge to their authority。               Thus a laborer may 

be dirty; drunken; untruthful; slothful; untrustworthy in every way without 

exhausting the indulgence of the country house。                  But let him dare to be 

〃disrespectful〃 and he is a lost man; though he be the cleanest; soberest; 

most     diligent;   most    veracious;     most    trustworthy     man     in  the   county。 

Dickens's instinct for detecting social cankers never served him better than 

when he shewed us Mrs Heep teaching her son to 〃be umble;〃 knowing 

that if he carried out that precept he might be pretty well anything else he 

liked。    The maintenance of deference to our wills becomes a mania which 

will   carry   the   best   of   us   to   any   extremity。 We   will   allow   a   village   of 

Egyptian fellaheen or Indian tribesmen to
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