Doubtless there
is somewhere a middle to the arc, and in the lapse of ages the needle
may at last find the "pole-point of central truth" and be at rest; but
as yet, in every department of labor and thought, it is vibrating, and
after tarrying a while at one extreme it swings unsatisfied back to
the other.
Nowhere are these extremes more noticeable than in the government of
children. Centuries ago, in the patriarchal period, the father of the
family seems also to have exercised the functions of a criminal judge;
but the uniting of the two sets of duties in one person does not
appear to have inspired the children with insurmountable awe, for
laws are found both in Numbers and Deuteronomy fixing the penalty of
disobedience, and of the striking of a parent by a child.
Still later, the Roman father possessed arbitrary powers of life and
death over his children; but it is probable that natural affection and
a more advanced civilization commonly made the law a dead letter.
Though the world in time grew to feel that life belonged to the being
who held it, not to those who gave it birth, still discipline has for
ages been directed more to the body than to the mind, with an idea
apparently that the pains of the flesh will save the soul.
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