prerogative? Does it consist in the fact that we are older and
more experienced? Good God of Heaven! Thou seest old and young
children, nothing else. And in whom Thou hast more joy, Thy Son
announced ages ago. But people believe in Him and do not hear
Him--that, too, is an old trouble, and they model their
children after themselves." The same criticism might be applied
to our present educators, who constantly have on their tongues
such words as evolution, individuality, and natural tendencies,
but do not heed the new commandments in which they say they
believe. They continue to educate as if they believed still in
the natural depravity of man, in original sin, which may be
bridled, tamed, suppressed, but not changed. The new belief is
really equivalent to Goethe's thoughts given above, i.e., that
almost every fault is but a hard shell enclosing the germ of
virtue. Even men of modern times still follow in education the
old rule of medicine, that evil must be driven out by evil,
instead of the new method, the system of allowing nature
quietly and slowly to help itself, taking care only that the
surrounding conditions help the work of nature. This is
education.

Neither harsh nor tender parents suspect the truth expressed by
Carlyle when he said that the marks of a noble and original
temperament are wild, strong emotions, that must be controlled
by a discipline as hard as steel. People either strive to root
out passions altogether, or they abstain from teaching the
child to get them under control.

To suppress the real personality of the child, and to supplant
it with another personality continues to be a pedagogical crime