Thoughts on Man, His Nature, Productions and Discoveries: Interspersed with Some Particulars Respecting the AuthorGodwin, William
Philosophy
Thoughts on Man, His Nature, Productions and Discoveries: Interspersed with Some Particulars Respecting the Author
Godwin, William
Human beings; Psychology -- Early works to 1850
It is further necessary, if self-respect is one of the most desirable
results of a well-conducted education, that, as we should not humble
the pupil in his own eyes by disgraceful and humiliating language, so
we should abstain, as much as possible, from personal ill-treatment, and
the employing towards him the measures of an owner towards his purchased
or indentured slave. Indignity is of all things the most hostile to the
best purposes of a liberal education. It may be necessary occasionally
to employ, towards a human creature in his years of nonage, the
stimulants of exhortation and remonstrance even in the pursuits to which
he is best adapted, for the purpose of overcoming the instability and
fits of idleness to which all men, and most of all in their early
years, are subject: though in such pursuits a necessity of this sort can
scarcely be supposed. The bow must not always be bent; and it is good
for us that we should occasionally relax and play the fool. It may more
readily be imagined, that some incitement may be called for in those
things which, as has been mentioned above, it may be fit he should learn
though with but half a will. All freaks must not be indulged; admonition
is salutary, and that the pupil should be awakened by his instructor to
sober reflection and to masculine exertion. Every Telemachus should have
his Mentor.--But through the whole it is necessary that the spirit of
the pupil should not be broken, and that he should not be treated with
contumely. Stripes should in all instances be regarded as the last
resort, and as a sort of problem set up for the wisdom of the wise to
solve, whether the urgent case can arise in which it shall be requisite
to have recourse to them.
The principles here laid down have the strongest tendency to prove to
us how little progress has yet been made in the art of turning human
creatures to the best account. Every man has his place, in which if
he can be fixed, the most fastidious judge cannot look upon him with
disdain. But, to effect this arrangement, an exact attention is required
to ascertain the pursuit in which he will best succeed. In India the
whole mass of the members of the community is divided into castes; and,
instead of a scrupulous attention being paid to the early intimations of
individual character, it is already decided upon each, before he comes
into the world, which child shall be a priest, and which a soldier, a
physician, a lawyer, a merchant, and an artisan. In Europe we do not
carry this so far, and are not so elaborately wrong. But the rudiments
of the same folly flourish among us; and the accident of birth for
the most part decides the method of life to which each individual with
whatever violence shall be dedicated. A very few only, by means of
energies that no tyranny can subdue, escape from the operation of this
murderous decree.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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