Not doing is always as important, in its time and place, as doing; and this truth is as applicable in the realm of child-training as elsewhere. Child-training is a necessity, but there is a danger of over-doing in the line of child-training. The neglect of child-training is a great evil. Over-doing in the training of a child may be even a greater evil. Both evils ought to be avoided. In order to their avoidance, their existence and limits as evils must be recognized.

Peculiarly is it the case that young parents who are exceptionally conscientious, and exceptionally desirous of being wise and faithful in the discharge of their parental duties, are liable to err in the direction of over-doing in the training of their[Pg 84] children. It is not that they are lacking in love and tenderness toward their little ones, or that they are naturally inclined to severity as disciplinarians; but it is that their mistaken view of the methods and limitations of wise child-training impels them to an injudicious course of watchful strictness with their children, even while that course runs counter to their affections and desires as parents. Their very love and fidelity cause them to harm their children by over-doing in their training, even more than the children of parents less wise and faithful are harmed by a lack of systematic training. It is, in fact, because they are so desirous of well-doing, that these parents over-do in the line of their best endeavors for their children.

A young father who was an earnest student of methods of child-training, and who sincerely desired to be faithful in the training of his first child at any cost to his feelings of loving tenderness toward that child, made a mistake in this direction, and received a lesson accordingly. His child was[Pg 85] as full of affection as she was of life and spirit. She had not yet learned what she might do and what she might not do, but she was rapidly developing impulses and tastes in various directions; and her strength of personal character was showing itself in her positiveness of purpose in the line of her tastes and impulses for the hour. Her father had heard much about the importance of parental training and discipline, but had heard nothing about the danger of over-doing in this line; hence he deemed it his duty to be constantly directing or checking his child, so as to keep her within the limits of safety and duty as he saw it.

To his surprise and regret, the father found that, while his little daughter was not inclined to waywardness or disobedience, she was steadily coming into a state of chronic resistance to his attempts at her stricter governing. This resistance was passive rather than active, but it was none the less real for that. She would not refuse to obey, but she would not be ready or prompt to obey. She would[Pg 86] not be aroused to anger or show any open sign of disrespect, but she would seem unable or unwilling to act as she was told to. Kind words and earnest entreaties were of no avail at this point, neither were they ever resented or explicitly rejected. If punishment was attempted, she submitted to it with a good grace, but it seemed to have no effect in the way of removing the cause of original trouble. The father never, indeed, lost his temper, or grew less loving toward his child; he prayed for guidance, and he gave his best thoughts to the problem before him; but all to no apparent purpose. The matter grew more and more serious, and he was more and more bewildered.

One day, after a serious struggle with his little daughter over a matter that would have been a trifling one except as it bore on the question of her character and welfare, the father left his house with a heavy heart, and almost in despair over this question of wise child-training. At the door he met a friend, much older than himself, with whom he had been a co-worker in several spheres of Chris[Pg 87]tian activity. Seeing his troubled face, that friend asked him the cause of his evident anxiety, and the young father opened his heart, and told the story of his trouble. “Isn’t the trouble, that you are over-doing in the training of your child?” asked the listener; and then he went on to give his own experience in illustration of the meaning of this question.

“My first child was my best child,” he said; “and I harmed her for life by over-doing in her training, as I now see, in looking back over my course with her. I thought I must be training her all the time, and I forced issues with her, and took notice of little things, when I would have done better to let her alone. So she was checked unduly, and shut up within herself by my course with her; and she grew up in a rigid and unnatural constraint which ought n............