SOLOMON AND THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN.
By W. H. Littlejohn
The wise man has said, “Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Prov. 22 : 6. To this declaration the infidel has taken exception, and endeavored to plant thereupon a battery with which to hurl at the book of God the shot and shell of his determined unbelief. With these words, also, some believers, even, have apparently been troubled. Their difficulty has consisted in an inability to make this statement harmonize with the facts. “Why,” say they, “how often it occurs that the children of good men turn out badly. Is it not true that ministers’ sons are notoriously reckless and unprincipled?” To these queries we reply, first, It is true that the children of good men sometimes turn out badly; secondly, It is not true—common rumor to the contrary notwithstanding—that ministers’ sons furnish a larger percentage of wild, unprincipled youth than do those of other men. A gentleman has recently been to the labor of inquiring into the facts in the case, and his investigation proves that the reverse of the common supposition represents the actual state of things; i. e., a larger proportion of the sons of clergymen grow up to be men of principle and usefulness than are found among those of other classes. But without enlarging upon this point, we inquire, Even though what is claimed were true, would this invalidate the correctness of the proverb under consideration? This we unhesitatingly answer in the negative. Solomon does not declare that all children of good men will grow up and fill positions of usefulness and of honor; for a man may be a person of unexceptionable life and principles, and yet fail to comply with the condition which would enable him to claim at the hands of the Almighty, in the persons of his offspring, the fulfillment of the promise in Prov. 22 : 6. In other words, though upright himself, he may be utterly destitute of those qualities which would enable him to govern a family successfully. Mark you, the condition is not that he should desire or try to bring up a child in the way that he should go, and that when doing so that child should not depart from that way; but it is that he should actually accomplish the fact of training him up in that way. In other words, that he should make a success of training his child up aright from infancy to manhood. This done, the prediction is that he will not in subsequent life depart from the path of rectitude. Nay, more; when we stop and consider for a moment, we shall discover that there is even another limitation. The candid reader will have no trouble in coming to the conclusion that there might be an occasional lapse of individuals who have been properly brought up, into bad habits and evil practices, without falsifying the teaching of the passage in question. That passage constitutes one of a large number of useful proverbs. But what is a proverb? Webster defines it to be a wise saying, maxim, aphorism, apothegm, adage, etc. Now who does not know that apothegms, aphorisms, and adages express in a forcible manner, and in few words, truths which, though general in their character, may nevertheless have their exceptions? Take for example the following: “As the twig is bent the tree inclines.” Is not this proverbially true? Does it not illustrate a general fact with which all are familiar? Do not ninety and nine out of every hundred trees show in their mature development those peculiarities of form which were manifest in them as saplings? The reply must be in the affirmative. But may not there be one in a hundred which through natural influences, or the application of artificial force, may have overcome the tendencies of its earlier life? You reply that this may be so; for you have seen the expert gardener, by pressure and trimming, cause his fruit or ornamental trees to assume at his pleasure a variety of shapes. Is, then, the incorrectness or unwisdom of the adage about the twig and the tree substantiated? You reply that it is not; assigning very correctly as a reason that the adage in question, like others of its character, accurately sets forth a general principle or rule which as such remains true notwithstanding the exception to which I have called attention. So likewise I rejoin it is with the statement made by Solomon. What he said in this proverb, as in nearly all which he uttered, contains a general proposition which is verified by the experience of all ages and of all observers. It may be true that in one case in a hundred there might be found a man who, though properly reared, instructed, and indoctrinated, in early life, has nevertheless in later years overcome the effects of his education so far as to utterly depart from the road which he had habitually traveled in early manhood; but if we can find one of whom this is true, we can find ninety and nine whose general course has been the same in the after portion of their days as that upon which they had entered at twenty-five years of age. That such is the case the very maxim of the twig and the tree, sanctioned as it is by all, furnishes proof; for it is to illustrate the point in hand that it is almost universally employed. How many times as individuals we have used it in this manner, either as a prophecy of what would be the end of an ill begun life in one, or as an explanation of the career of another ending in crime and wretchedness. Why is it that Romanists and Protestants vie with each other in establishing Sunday schools and day schools, as well as seminaries and colleges of learning, if it be not that they are acting upon the principle in question, experience having taught them that in one sense, the boy is father of the man? But we need not multiply words. We lay it down as a proposition which cannot be successfully controverted, that, in the great majority of cases, the characters of young men are almost universally fixed and permanent at twenty-five years of age; also, that were we able so far to discriminate as to determine at that point who had been so trained up that they had obeyed from the heart the form of sound doctrine, we could readily decide what would be the future history of all who had thus been indoctrinated. Do you reply that in this way we make the man the creature of circumstances and education? We answer, by no means. Other young men may have had equally favorable surroundings, and yet failed to be affected in like manner by the training which their parents had sought to administer. Two things are required; first, there must be on the part of the parent, the ability to govern wisely and well; secondly, there must be on the part of the child a hearty submission to the discipline administered. When21these two conditions meet, and fail to produce in the majority of cases a life of virtue, then, and not till then, can Solomon be impeached. As already remarked, he is not talking about men who should try to train up children in the way they should go, but those who shall succeed in so doing. Here we leave the subject, believing that we have demonstrated to the satisfaction of every candid mind that the infidel objection is a mere cavil.