Training Children Properly
The failure, however, is not in the Scripture, but in the mistaken application of it. The text says, “Train up a child,” &c., but the child is not trained and does not go in the right way, and thus the failure is charged to the Scripture. To let the child run subject to hap-hazard influences247all the week and then take him to meeting or Sabbath-school, or both, on the Sabbath, is that to train him? Is that the way in which men train themselves, their horses, or any of their animals? No, the term "train" would never be applied to such treatment of anything—but a child. When a man wants to train a colt, he spends hours at it every day. If he wants to train himself for a foot-race, a boxing match, or any other athletic sport, he puts himself through severe discipline every day. And so everybody understands and applies the word "train," except in the application of this text of Scripture. But here, as a general thing, all special instruction is given on the Sabbath alone, and then in most cases by others than the parents. Such is not to train up a child in the way he should go, and so he has no fixed habitual principle to keep him in the way he should go.