There has been, however, a colossal change in discipline, from the
days when disobedience was punishable with death to the agreeable
moral suasion of the nineteenth century, as exemplified in the "fin de
siecle" nonsense rhyme:--
"There once was a hopeful young horse
Who was brought up on love, without force:
He had his own way, and they sugared his hay;
So he never was naughty, of course."
The results of this delightful method of treatment seem rather
problematic, and the modern child is universally acknowledged to be no
improvement upon his predecessors in point of respect and filial piety
at least.
A superintendent's report, written thirty years ago for one of the New
England States, regrets that, even then, home government had grown
lax. He wittily says that Young America is _rampant_, parental
influence _couchant_; and no reversal of these positions is as yet
visible in 1892.
To those who note the methods by which many children are managed, it
is a matter of wonderment that the results in character and conduct
are not very much worse than they are.
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