their tongues at others, and to act in every way without restraint; and then to excuse them by saying, “He is a child, he ought not to be irritated, he does not yet understand those things.” But you, the parents yourselves, are the children of stupidity, if, discovering this want of knowledge in your child, you do not promote its knowledge; for it was not born to remain a calf, or a young ass, but to become a rational creature. Know you not what the Scriptures declare: “Folly is bound to the heart of a young man, but it is driven from him by the rod of chastisement”? Why do you prefer the child’s being detained in its natural foolishness, rather than to rescue it from its folly, by the aid of well-timed, holy, and salutary discipline? Do not persuade yourselves that the child does not understand; for it understands how to exercise frowardness, to be angry, to rage, to grin, to puff out its cheeks, to be rude to others; assuredly it will also know what is a rod and its use.[1] Right reason does not fail the reason, but imprudent parents neither know nor care to know what will contribute to the comfort of themselves and their children. For how comes it that the majority of children afterwards become refractory to their parents, and distress them in various ways, unless it be that they had never been disciplined to reverence them?
6. Most truthful is the saying: “He who attains to manhood without discipline, becomes old without virtue.” For it behooves that the Scripture be fulfiled[2] which affirms
- ↑ Locke, Rollin, and the Port Royalists, as well as many other of the early authorities on education, discourage the use of the rod. Quintilian considers the use of the rod a token of bad teaching (1) because it is servile and degrading, (2) after a time even this form of punishment loses its effect, and (3) if the teacher does his duty in exciting interests, there will be no need of its use.
- ↑ Doubtless Comenius’ theology had much to do with coloring his views on education. The ill-timed advice of Solomon, referred to by
