The Moral Instruction of Children - Felix Adler (new ebook reader .txt) 📗

equals, be they kinsmen or not. As between brothers, the respect of each for the rights of the other is made comparatively easy by natural inclination. The tie of blood, close and constant association in the same house, common experience of domestic pleasures and sorrows—all this tends to link the hearts of the brothers together, and thus the first lessons in one of the hardest duties are given by Love, the gentlest of school-masters. But the word equality must not be misconceived. Equality is not to be taken in its mathematical sense. One brother is gifted and may eventually rise to wealth and fame, another is Nature's step-child; one sister is beautiful, another the opposite. If the idea of equality be pressed to a literal meaning, it is sure to give rise to ugly feelings in the hearts of the less fortunate. How, then, shall we define equality in the moral sense? A superior, as we have seen, renders services which the inferior can not adequately return. Equals are those who are so far on the same level as to be capable of rendering mutual services, alike in importance, though not necessarily the same in kind. Equals are correlative to one another. The services of each are complementary to those of the other. The idea of mutual service, therefore, is characteristic of the relation of brothers, and the rule of duty may be formulated simply, Serve one another. From this follow all the minor commands and prohibitions which are usually impressed upon children,[18] and also the far loftier counsels which apply only to adults.

It will be perceived that the rule of mutual service, when carried to its highest applications, presupposes the principle of individual differentiation, to which we have already attached so much weight. This principle is fundamental to fraternal as well as to paternal and filial duty. For precisely to the extent that brothers are distinctly individualized can they supplement each other and correlate their mutual services. One can not indeed overlook the patent fact that brothers who are unlike in nature frequently repel each other, and that in such cases the very closeness of the relation often becomes a source of extreme irritation, and even of positive agony. But, on the other hand, there is no surer sign of moral ripeness than the ability to enter into, to understand, to appreciate a nature totally unlike one's own, and thus to some extent to appropriate its excellences. The very fact, therefore, that we at first feel ourselves repelled should be taken as a hint that this natural repulsion is to be overcome. For every type of character needs its opposite to correct it. The idealist, for instance, needs the realist, if he would keep his balance. And our uncongenial brothers, precisely because they are at first uncongenial, if we will but remember that they are, after all, our brothers, and that it is our duty to come into harmonious relations with them, can best help us to this fine self-conquest, this true enrichment and enlargement of our moral being.

A word may be added as a caution to parents and teachers. The way to create brotherly feeling among the young is to treat them impartially, to love them with an equal love. Those who love and are beloved by the same person are strongly induced to love one another. In the next place, when disputes arise, as is perhaps unavoidable, the parent or teacher should, as a rule, enter patiently into the cause and not cut off inquiry because the whole matter seems trivial. The subject matter of the dispute may be insignificant enough, but the satisfaction of the sense of justice of the young is of the greatest significance. When the sense of justice is outraged, be the cause never so trivial, a feeling of distrust against the parent is generated, and of incipient hatred against the brother who may have provoked the unjust decision.

I have yet to speak of the duties of older to younger brothers and sisters. If it is difficult to serve two masters, it is hardly pleasant to be asked to serve half a dozen. The youngest children in a large family are often placed in this position. There is, in the first place, the authority of the parents, which must be respected; then, in addition, each of the grown-up sons and daughters is apt to try to exercise a little authority on his or her own account. The younger ones naturally resent this petty despotism, and disobedience and angry recriminations are the unpleasant consequences. It is often necessary that elder sons and daughters should have partial charge of the younger. They can in all cases make their authority acceptable by representing it as delegated, by having it understood that they regard themselves merely as substitutes in the parents' place. There must be unity of influence in the home, or else the moral development of the young will be sadly interfered with. There must be only a single center of authority, represented by the parents, and all minor exercise of authority should be referred back to that center. "Father and mother wish me to help you"; "Father and mother will be pleased if you do so and so; let me try to show you how"—if the method of management implied in such words as these be adopted, the younger children will look upon the elder as their friends and be glad to accept advice and direction.

Lastly, a word about the relation between brothers and sisters, and conversely. This relationship is qualified by the difference of sex. A certain chivalry characterizes the attitude of the brother toward the sister, a certain motherliness that of the sister toward the brother. The relation may be and often is a very beautiful one. The peculiar moral responsibility connected with it is that the sister is usually the first woman whom the brother knows at all intimately and as an equal, and that his notions of womanhood are largely influenced by the traits which he sees in her, while the brother is usually the first man whom the sister knows as a companion, and her ideas of men are colored by what she sees in him.

To illustrate the fraternal relation I have been in the habit of recalling the stories from the Old Testament which bear upon this subject. I have also given an account of the life of the brothers Jacob and William Grimm. There was only a year's difference between them. Jacob Grimm, in the eulogy on William, which he delivered before the Berlin Academy in the year 1860, says: "During the slowly creeping years of our school life we slept in the same bed and occupied the same room. There we sat at one and the same table studying our lessons. Later on there were two tables and two beds in the same room; and later still, during the entire period of our riper manhood, we still continued to occupy two adjoining rooms, always under the same roof." All their property, and even their books, they held in common; what belonged to the one belonged to the other. They visited the university together in the same year; they both took up, in deference to their mother's wish, the same study, that of the law, which they alike hated, and then they turned in common to the study of philology, in which both delighted and both achieved such great distinction. They published their first important works in the same year; and as they slept together in the same bed when they were children, so now they sleep side by side in the grave.

I refer to the story of Lear and his daughters to show that the common love for the parents is necessary to sustain the love of brothers and sisters toward one another. Lear had estranged the affection of Goneril and Regan through his partiality for Cordelia. The two women, who had no love for their father, hated each other; and Goneril, who was the first to cast him out, poisoned her sister.

To illustrate the relations of brothers to sisters, I give an account of the beautiful lives of Charles and Mary Lamb. To show the redeeming power of womanhood as represented in a sister, I explain to older pupils the story which underlies Goethe's drama of Iphigenia. Orestes is sick; and what is his malady? His soul has been poisoned by remorse. Believing himself to be the executive arm of justice, he committed a great crime, and now he is torn by the pangs of conscience, and his mind is forever dwelling on that scene in which he was a fatal actor. And how does Iphigenia heal him? She heals him by the clear truthfulness of her nature, which the play is designed to bring out. With the light of genuine womanhood which emanates from her she illuminates anew his darkened path. By the force of the good which he learns to recognize in her he is led to a new trust in the redeeming power of the good in himself, and thus to start out afresh in a life of courage, hope, and active effort. The teacher should analyze and cause to be committed to memory the various beautiful proverbs which bear upon the subject of fraternal duty.