Judge — February 24, 1917 — page 4: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Expert Advice REARING children is an old, old game. The race has been playing it for a good many years. Until recently almost everybody sooner or later, jumped in and tried out his theories at first hand, perhaps without realizing that he had any theories. Nowadays it has become fashionable to try out the theories without having the children. That is the reason we have f so few children and so many child ex- perts. If we had more children we wouldn’t need the specialists, and if they wrote and lectured anyhow (as . they do), we wouldn’t listen to them. The child expert is a more or less loquacious person who proposes a. method for rearing children that sounds reasonable and beautiful and uplifty—and won't work. He emphasizes suggestion, artifice and moral suasion and pooh-poohs paddles, discipline and authority. He insists that the three-year-old work out his own destruction in his own sweet way. If Willie wants to touch the red-hot poker, low a safety pin or jump in front of a motorcycle, let him do it. He'll learn much more quickly that way than if you’d tell him he must not. If you wish Mary to do something, suggest it to her in a pleasant, naive manner. But don’t let her even suspect that you really care one way or the other. Don’t make her mind if she doesn’t want to. That is discipline, and discipline is bad. And so the child expert runs on, utterly oblivious to the persistent part that dis- cipline plays in the world about him. He never seems to consider that Willie and Mary are going to run into a world of law and order the minute they slip from the kindly clutches of mother and father and grandma and Aunt Jane and Uncle Bob. But Willie and Mary will do that very thing. There are paddles a-plenty in the world. There are thorns on every rose- bush and a sting to the little animal that makes honey for us. Business is ninety per cent. command and obey, and ten per cent. moral suasion. . Life out in the world is made up PS J P ~ OD lee a he ae S THE principally of hot pokers, barbed wire and brickbats turned cornerwise for toes that haven't learned to go where they are told to go. All games—everything from dominoes to matrimony—have rules, and games must be played accord- ing to rule if anything but anarchy is to result. Society disciplines people, and nature disciplines people, and the god of things as they have to be dis- ciplines people. It is to be hoped that a few of us remain ignorant enough to discipline our children at least in a mild, common-sense manner. Then when a score of years have passed away we can compare results with our friends who have had the advantage of expert advice. Sixes and Sevens FoREIGN powers may suspect Mr. Wilson of something up his sleeve, but there isn’t a thing in the cabinet. 2 If the rival candidates next time should be Roosevelt and Bryan, a lot of us are going to feel pretty sheepish when St. Peter introduces us to old King George the Third. 2 When Ethan Allen made his demand “in the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress” the British up and surrendered, without thinking to inquire if he was armed with power of subpoena and inquisition by joint reso- lution of the two. * There is talk of rechristening the ish West Indics the ‘Dewey Is- Good suggestion! Not only will it perpetuate the memory of the gallant old sea dog, but the name Dewey will sound pleasantly moist to a country steadily going drier. An extraordinary ion of Congress is one which by extraordinary good luck sometimes isn’t called. £ Rear Admiral Cary T. G General Leonard Wood, will shaken before taken. yson, like be well BOSS icbooks.com