in schools, families, and the State is felt to-day much more widely than
it was in 1858, when he wrote his essay on moral education. His proposal
that children should be allowed to suffer the natural consequences of
their foolish or wrong acts does not seem to the present generation--any
more than it did to him--to be applicable to very young children, who
need protection from the undue severity of many natural penalties; but
the soundness of his general doctrine that it is the true function of
parents and teachers to see that children habitually experience the
normal consequences of their conduct, without putting artificial
consequences in place of them, now commands the assent of most persons
whose minds have been freed from the theological dogmas of original sin
and total depravity. Spencer did not expect the immediate adoption of
this principle; because society as a whole was not yet humane enough. He
admitted that the uncontrollable child of ill-controlled adults might
sometimes have to be scolded or beaten, and that these barbarous methods
might be "perhaps the best preparation such children can have for the
barbarous society in which they are presently to play a part." He hoped,
however, that the civilised members of society would by and by
spontaneously use milder measures; and this hope has been realised in
good degree, with the result that happiness in childhood is much
commoner and more constant than it used to be. Parents and teachers are
beginning to realise that self-control is a prime object in moral
education, and that this self-control cannot be practised under a regime
of constant supervision, unexplained commands, and painful punishments,
but must be gained in freedom. Some large-scale experience with American
secondary schools which prepare boys for admission to college has been
edifying in this respect. The American colleges, as a rule, do not
undertake to exercise much supervision over their students, but leave
them free to regulate their own lives in regard to both work and play.
Now it is the boys who come from the secondary schools where the