What are Gentle Measures? : Part 3

Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young
by Jacob Abbott

(Page 4 of 26)

The Story.

"But first I must tell you one more little story.

"Once there was a boy, and his name was Ernest. He was a pretty large boy, for he was five years old."

Louisa, it must be recollected, was only four.

"He was a very pretty boy. He had bright blue eyes and curling hair. He was a very good boy, too. He did not like to do any thing wrong. He always found that it made him feel uncomfortable and unhappy afterwards when he did any thing wrong. A good many children, especially good children, find that it makes them feel uncomfortable and unhappy when they do wrong. Perhaps you do."

"Yes, mamma, I do," said Louisa.

"I am glad of that," replied her mother; "that is a good sign."

"Ernest went one day," added the mother, continuing her story, "with his little cousin Anna to their uncle's, in hopes that he would give them some apples. Their uncle had a beautiful garden, and in it there was an apple-tree which bore most excellent apples. They were large, and rosy, and mellow, and sweet. The children liked the apples from that tree very much, and Ernest and Anna went that day in hopes that their uncle would give them some of them. He said he would. He would give them three apiece. He told them to go into the garden and wait there until he came. They must not take any apples off the tree, he said, but if they found any under the tree they might take them, provided that there were not more than three apiece; and when he came he would take enough off the tree, he said, to make up the number to three.

"So the children went into the garden and looked under the tree. They found two apples there, and they took them up and ate them - one apiece. Then they sat down and began to wait for their uncle to come. While they were waiting Anna proposed that they should not tell their uncle that they had found the two apples, and so he would give them three more, which he would take from the tree; whereas, if he knew that they had already had one apiece, then he would only give them two more. Ernest said that his uncle would ask them about it. Anna said, 'No matter, we can tell him that we did not find any.'

"Ernest seemed to be thinking about it for a moment, and then, shaking his head, said, 'No, I think we had better not tell him a lie!'

"So when he saw their uncle coming he said, 'Come, Anna, let us go and tell him about it, just how it was. So they ran together to meet their uncle, and told him that they had found two apples under the tree, one apiece, and had eaten them. Then he gave them two more apiece, according to his promise, and they went home feeling contented and happy.

"They might have had one more apple apiece, probably, by combining together to tell a falsehood; but in that case they would have gone home feeling guilty and unhappy."

The Effect.

Louisa's mother paused a moment, after finishing her story, to give Louisa time to think about it a little.

"I think," she added at length, after a suitable pause, "that it was a great deal better for them to tell the truth, as they did."

"I think so too, mamma," said Louisa, at the same time casting down her eyes and looking a little confused.

"But you know," added her mother, speaking in a very kind and gentle tone, "that you did not tell me the truth to-day about the apple that Bridget gave you."

Louisa paused a moment, looked in her mother's face, and then, reaching up to put her arms around her mother's neck, she said,

"Mamma, I am determined never to tell you another wrong story as long as I live."

Only a Single Lesson, after all.

Now it is not at all probable that if the case had ended here, Louisa would have kept her promise. This was one good lesson, it is true, but it was only one. And the lesson was given by a method so gentle, that no nervous, cerebral, or mental function was in any degree irritated or morbidly excited by it. Moreover, no one who knows any thing of the workings of the infantile mind can doubt that the impulse in the right direction given by this conversation was not only better in character, but was greater in amount, than could have been effected by either of the other methods of management previously described.

How Gentle Measures operate.

By the gentle measures, then, which are to be here discussed and recommended, are meant such as do not react in a violent and irritating manner, in any way, upon the extremely delicate, and almost embryonic condition of the cerebral and nervous organization, in which the gradual development of the mental and moral faculties are so intimately involved. They do not imply any, the least, relaxation of the force of parental authority, or any lowering whatever of the standards of moral obligation, but are, on the contrary, the most effectual, the surest and the safest way of establishing the one and of enforcing the other.

About the Author

Jacob Abbott (November 14, 1803 - October 31, 1879) was an American writer of children's books. He was a prolific author, writing juvenile fiction, brief histories, biographies, religious books for the general reader, and a few works in popular science. He died in Farmington, Maine, where he had spent part of his time after 1839.