Gazette Of The United States

MISCELLANY
THE TABLET.
No. XXXIII.

"Prohibition often creates eager and intemperate wishes towards objects; which we should otherwise seek after moderately, if at all."

IT is not an easy question to decide, whether it is a more common fault in education to indulge children too far in certain instances, or to restrict them too rigorously in others.

If we take a critical view of human life, we shall probably find a considerable proportion of the most abandoned characters, that disturb and disgrace society, to have originated from parents of very scrupulous piety, and severe and exalted morality. Such over-exact people draw the cords of discipline so hard, that they must inevitably break asunder. They express the strongest detestation, and bear unrelenting testimony against many recreations and pastimes, which only cease to be innocent when carried to excess, and which would seldom be carried to excess, were a proper medium of indulgence reasonably observed.

The children of austere, unaccommodating parents discover a stronger inclination for some pleasures and amusements, which are prohibited, than they do for others, more tempting in themselves, which are not barred by such prohibitions. It is evident therefore that the prohibition itself gives the principal edge to the temptation.

There are two sources of inordinate love of pleasure that should be guarded against. One of them consists in indulging recreation to so great a degree, that we feel pain in refraining from it, because it has become so fixed a habit as not to be laid aside without reluctance. The habit of enjoying constitutes, in this instance, the principal stimulus to gratification. The other source depends on a cause exactly the reverse. Some youth, by being prohibited from diversions, affix an imaginary delight to the enjoyment so much greater than the reality would afford, that their desire to trespass becomes irresistible. They are tempted to taste what is forbidden. Had they been left free, it is ten chances to one, whether the object had contained charms sufficient to attract their attention. Imagination is on the wing, stamps a value on what is indifferent, and creates a passion which runs into extremes. The ardor of inclination is heightened, by the satisfaction that is felt in violating an unreasonable command, and passing over restrictions that are founded in superstition or austerity.

But this is not the worst of it. When attempts are made to draw children into a belief that all pleasures are vices, and that all vices are equally abominable and injurious, they make no distinction between actions of moral demerit, and those which are only deemed wrong by the caprice, the ignorance or over-exact maxims of their parents. The consequence of such an error is dreadful to think of. A child of common sense may persuade himself that he is forbidden many gratifications which are not intrinsically wrong. From a sprightliness of imagination he will easily be enticed to break over parental authority in such things, as he sees other people practice without inconvenience or reproach. The effect of this disobedience is, that he gradually accustoms himself to disregard the admonitions of his parents, and is instigated into actions which he would never commit, had his parental restrictions been confined within reasonable limits.

The ideas suggested in this number deserve a more ample consideration than can be allowed in a single paper. In my next the subject shall be again introduced.