The Sunday Eight O'Clock/Wholesome Neglect
OUR neighbor across the street, who was the mother of nine children all of whom were a credit to themselves and to the community, used to say when asked how she succeeded unaided in rearing her family so successfully, that there was nothing better for children than a good dose of neglect. I have wondered sometimes if the fact that youngest sons and only children have so little independence and initiative is not because they have never been let alone. The host of parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles which incessantly hovers around makes any moments of heavenly neglect impossible. The child is never given a chance to think for himself or to work himself out of a difficult corner.
A student with whom I talked only a short time ago assured me that he thought the best service I had ever done him during the four years of his undergraduate course was to leave him alone—to refrain from giving him advice when he knew I wanted to do so and when there was evident reason for it, to keep from calling him to account for his wrong doing when he knew that I was aware of what he had done and disapproved of it. If I had reproved him he would have argued; as I did not, he changed his conduct.
It is a difficult lesson for parents and teachers and organization officers to learn, but it is often true, nevertheless, that the best way to reform children is not to notice them; the best way to teach students a lesson is to set them an example and say nothing; the best way to impress freshmen is not to lay down so many rules and to preach less. I have often felt that the reason men outside of organizations frequently have a higher scholastic average than those inside, is that, like the old lady's children, they have been given a dose of neglect—they have been allowed to work out their own salvation. When we know that some one will coddie us and wait on us and run after us and think for us—when some is always at hand to bear our sorrows and carry our burdens and pull us back from danger we grow to expect it. I know husbands who could not pack a hand bag if they were going on a journey; I know seniors who can not get up in the morning without being called; I know freshmen who never get out the books unless they are told. If our education is worth anything it ought to teach us to be independent.
We need a little more neglect.
December