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The New Method
“The Gentler View,” Harper’s Weekly (November 4, 1911) : 19
Purdue copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link
 

      The belief that the individuality must be given room and that children should be allowed to develop theirs in the way natural to them is taking deep root. It is even being practised, as witness the mother who exclaimed: “Don’t disturb Ronald, he is out in the back yard, thinking.” “Don’t disturb Ronald, he is out in the back yard, thinking.” When a theory is acted upon one feels so nervous and apprehensive. One’s mood is perturbed, if vague, a sort of “It’s all very well to talk about a thing, but, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear —” We cannot, much as we believe in the abstract idea, feel sure that it will be good for children to be brought up too perfectly. We will not know for another twenty years, and then it will be too late to rectify the mistake, and the children who were given room in which their individuality could grow may do something dreadful to their children by way of reaction.
      In fact, the change is a big one, and as we see it taking place in the nurseries of our friends we wonder if it is not great deprivation that the children are no longer to be misunderstood, possessed body and soul by their parents, badgered, and disciplined. They learned things when they were told to be like everybody else. They learned by the distaste of imitation what they were really like, and got a fairly clear idea of what the majority of people were like. If they were possessed they came to understand that it is not a comfortable thing, and as they grew up they gave room to their friends. If they were badgered they broke away and took the generation’s step forward. They stood on their own legs and saw the generations behind and before, and, taking in their differing viewpoints, learned leniency. The old, well-meaning, hopelessly bungling method was educational by its very drawbacks. It refused one knowledge of many things, but it was unconsciously illuminating as far as human nature and human relations were concerned. Also it engendered high ideals, particularly regarding the bringing up of children. It will be seen that what was most trying in it had its compensations, while the new régime appals even us who are only watching its application on those too young to protest. Fancy being told to be individual, and, every time that one made an unsuccessful attempt to do what was correct, having affable elders say: “If that is your own way stick to it, dear; it is right for you.”
      Picture the embarrassment of having space given you in which to be spontaneous. Doubtless everyone would be very tactful and try not to let you see the mechanism of the arrangement, but it would tingle in the atmosphere, and spontaneity would be a thing difficult to achieve. The majority have no personality at an early age; they only have no manners. Personality is attained later, through trials and revolt, so that the new way places a child in the awkward position of being obliged to fail its parents. If we can only grow by revolting from what we do not approve of, it is slow extinguishment to have about us only that of which everyone must approve. The whole thing is so hard on the child. A really charming father and mother desire that it should show individuality, and the child, not wishing to be ungracious, is yet handicapped by lack of experience and a placid, amenable disposition. It is very, very difficult to be individual if you do not feel that way. One’s heart is wrung by the possibilities of the situation. people have not got it in them even after maturity is reached. They resemble everyone else from the beginning to the end, and for them to be encouraged to develop along their own lines would be torture. They might die from lack of supporting admonishments. Of course, with all the colorless folk dying off in early childhood and just the ones with character remaining, the interest of living would be greatly enhanced; yet there is something wasteful and sweeping in such a result.
      The only hope for a plan that, on consideration, seems full of trials for all concerned, is that it would be just as bad a way of being brought up as the old one, and because of its badness would give the education needed and make its victims invent a still different way for following generations. Growing up is irksome and harassing, no matter what the road followed. For a long time it has seemed that it all might be obviated if education could be arranged so that we became conscious human beings at the age of seven or so, and from then on accepted all that was presented to us with the heart of a philosopher and the mind of a highly perceptive being. Somehow we don’t and won’t, and so, no matter what is done, it seems wrong; for if it is bad we blame it for not having made the child conscious before twenty-five, and if it is good it is pure waste to try to instil it into an unconscious entity. We rail endlessly at the time we wasted on inadequate books, but think how these scientifically educated children are going to rail at their parents. They will have a genuine grievance, for half the best things in life will have become stale to them before they are old enough to appreciate their merit. Parents should be uncommonly relieved when the children reach maturity sound of limb, with their mental faculties only slightly impaired and their disposition only partly warped. The child can, after twenty, blame all his failings on his parents, the parents can say it was because the child never did as he was told, and both should chummily congratulate each other that the bothersome time is over and no great harm done.
      It seems so reasonable to think that he may be strained beyond all hope of comfort in after life. To be pulled out of one’s native stratum and raised to those above will result in nothing but unhappy old ladies and gentlemen floundering about in an effort to undo the harm their parents did. They were given such chances and opportunities to be something, and it was not in them, and the chances given showed this beyond thought of concealment. Discouragement and remorse are only to be expected, and these are not agreeable companions for middle age, especially as those soothing “ifs” cannot be indulged in, particularly that one beginning, “If as a child I had only been allowed to —”
 

7 August 2026