A. THE AMERICAN FAMILY

1. "The endearing relation between parents and children," 1826

Mathew Carey, Reflections on the Subject of Emigration from Europe . . . (Philadelphia, 1826), p. 14.

Mathew Carey (1760-1839), publisher, economist, and civic leader in Philadelphia, emigrated from Ireland to the United States in 1824. He was the father of nine children, three of whom died young.

The endearing relation between parents and children partakes largely of the same mild character. The austerity, the harshness, and the severity which characterise this relation in some parts of Europe, are here unknown, except among a few foreigners, who have brought hither the manners of their own countries. Children are scarcely ever banished into nurseries, or entrusted wholly to the care of hired servants, as is too frequently the case there. From an early period they are made companions by their parents, which affords an opportunity of expanding their ideas long before they would reach maturity, in the seclusion to which children in Europe are often subjected. They are likewise much earlier introduced into company than in that quarter. This inspires a confidence in themselves, extremely advantageous in their progress through life. In many cases, however, indulgence is here carried to a censurable extreme, and parental authority not sufficiently exercised. But in general the happy medium is preserved between over indulgence and degrading severity. I have known some foreigners, who used a whip or other instrument of correction to their children at 18, 19, 20, and even beyond the period when minority had expired. No such case is to be found among natives of this country. A man who struck his child at that age, would be regarded with disgust.

The pernicious and unnatural system of primogeniture, whereby the rights, the happiness, and the fortunes of the junior branches of a family are sacrificed for the aggrandizement of the oldest son, is execrated in this country, and unknown to its laws and constitutions.

2. Tocqueville on the American family

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. Henry Reeve, ed. Phillips Bradley, II (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), 192-197; first published in 1835.

Tocqueville (1805-1859), traveled in the United States in 1831-1832, then returned to France to write his classic analysis of the working of the democratic principle in American society.

It has been universally remarked that in our time the several members of a family stand upon an entirely new footing towards each other; that the distance which formerly separated a father from his sons has been lessened; and that paternal authority, if not destroyed, is at least impaired.

Something analogous to this, but even more striking, may be observed in the United States. In America the family, in the Roman and aristocratic signification of the word, does not exist. All that remains of it are a few vestiges in the first years of childhood, when the father exercises, without opposition, that absolute domestic authority which the feebleness of his children renders necessary and which their interest, as well as his own incontestable superiority, warrants. But as soon as the young American approaches manhood, the ties of filial obedience are relaxed day by day; master of his thoughts, he is soon master of his conduct. In America there is, strictly speaking, no adolescence: at the close of boyhood the man appears and begins to trace out his own path.

It would be an error to suppose that this is preceded by a domestic struggle in which the son has obtained by a sort of moral violence the liberty that his father refused him. The same habits, the same principles, which impel the one to assert his independence predispose the other to consider the use of that independence as an incontestable right. The former does not exhibit any of those rancorous or irregular passions which disturb men long after they have shaken off an established authority; the latter feels none of that bitter and angry regret lift which is apt to survive a bygone power. The father foresees the limits of his authority long beforehand, and when the time arrives, he surrenders it without a struggle; the son looks forward to the exact period at which he will be his own master, and he enters upon his freedom without precipitation and without effort, as a possession which is his own and which no one seeks to wrest from him.

It may perhaps be useful to show how these changes which take place in family relations are closely connected with the social and political revolution that is approaching its consummation under our own eyes.

There are certain great social principles that people either introduces everywhere or tolerates nowhere. In countries which are aristocratically constituted with all the gradations of rank, the government never makes a direct appeal to the mass of the governed; as men are united together, it is enough to lead the foremost; the rest will follow. This is applicable to the family as well as to all aristocracies that have a head. Among aristocratic nations social institutions recognize, in truth, no one in the family but the father; children are received by society at his hands; society governs him, he governs them. Thus the parent not only has a natural right but acquires a political right to command them; he is the author and the support of his family, but he is also its constituted ruler.

In democracies, where the government picks out every individual singly from the mass to make him subservient to the general laws of the community, no such intermediate person is required; a father is there, in the eye of the law, only a member of the community, older and richer than his sons.

When most of the conditions of life are extremely unequal and the inequality of these conditions is permanent, the notion of a superior grows upon the imaginations of men; if the law invested him with no privileges, custom and public opinion would concede them. When, on the contrary, men differ but little from each other and do not always remain in dissimilar conditions of life, the general notion of a superior becomes weaker and less distinct; it is vain for legislation to strive to place him who obeys very much beneath him who commands; the manners of the time brine the two men nearer to one another and draw them daily towards the same level.

Although the legislation of an aristocratic people grants no peculiar privileges to the heads of families, I shall not be the less convinced that their power is more respected and more extensive than in a democracy; for I know that, whatever the laws may be, superiors always appear higher and inferiors lower in aristocracies than among democratic nations.

When men live more for the remembrance of what has been than for the care of what is, and when they are more given to attend to what their ancestors thought than to think themselves, the father is the natural and necessary tie between the past and the present, the link by which the ends of these two chains are connected. In aristocracies, then, the father is not only the civil head of the family, but the organ of its traditions, the expounder of its customs, the arbiter of its manners. He is listened to with deference, he is addressed with respect, and the love that is felt for him is always tempered with fear.

When the condition of society becomes democratic and men adopt as their general principle that it is good and lawful to judge of all things for oneself, using former points of belief not as a rule of faith, but simply as a means of information, the power which the opinions of a father exercise over those of his sons diminishes as well as his legal power.

Perhaps the subdivision of estates that democracy brings about contributes more than anything else to change the relations existing between a father and his children. When the property of the father of a family is scanty, his son and himself constantly live in the same place and share the same occupations; habit and necessity bring them together and force them to hold constant communication. The inevitable consequence is a sort of familiar intimacy, which renders authority less absolute and which can ill be reconciled with the external forms of respect.

Now, in democratic countries the class of those who are possessed of small fortunes is precisely that which gives strength to the notions and a particular direction to the manners of the community. That class makes its opinions preponderate as universally as its will, and even those who are most inclined to resist its commands are carried away in the end by its example. I have known eager opponents of democracy who allowed their children to address them with perfect colloquial equality.

Thus at the same time that the power of aristocracy is declining, the austere, the conventional, and the legal part of parental authority vanishes and a species of equality prevails around the domestic hearth. I do not know, on the whole, whether society loses by the change, but I am inclined to believe that man individually is a gainer by it. I think that in proportion as manners and laws become more democratic, the relation of father and son becomes more intimate and more affectionate; rules and authority are less talked of confidence and tenderness are often increased, and it would seem that the natural bond is drawn closer in proportion as the social bond is loosened.

In a democratic family the father exercises no other power than that which is granted to the affection and the experience of age; his orders would perhaps be disobeyed, but his advice is for the most part authoritative. Though he is not hedged in with ceremonial respect his sons at least accost him with confidence; they have no settled form of addressing him, but they speak to him constantly and are ready to consult him every day. The master and the constituted ruler have vanished; the father remains

Nothing more is needed in order to judge of the difference between the two states of society in this respect than to peruse the family correspondence of aristocratic ages. The style is always correct, ceremonious, stiff, and so cold that the natural warmth of the heart can hardly be felt in the language. In democratic countries, on the contrary, the language addressed by a son to his father is always marked by mingled freedom, familiarity, and affection, which at once show that new relations have sprung up in the bosom of the family.

A similar revolution takes place in the mutual relations of children. In aristocratic families, as well as in aristocratic society, every place is marked out beforehand. Not only does the father occupy a separate rank, in which he enjoys extensive privileges, but even the children are not equal among themselves The age and sex of each irrevocably determine his rank and secure to him certain privileges. Most of these distinctions are abolished or diminished by democracy.

In aristocratic families the eldest son, inheriting the greater part of the property and almost all the rights of the family, becomes the chief and to a certain extent the master of his brothers. Greatness and power are for him; for them, mediocrity and dependence. But it would be wrong to suppose that among aristocratic nations the privileges of the eldest son are advantageous to himself alone, or that they excite nothing but envy and hatred around him. The eldest son commonly endeavors to procure wealth and power for his brothers, because the general splendor of the house is reflected back on him who represents it; the younger son seek to back the elder brother in all his undertakings, because the greatness and power of the head of the family better enable him to provide for all its branches. The different members of an aristocratic family are therefore very closely bound together; their interests are connected, their minds agree, but their hearts are seldom in harmony.

Democracy also binds brothers to each other, but by very different means. Under democratic laws all the children are perfectly equal and consequently independent; nothing brings them forcibly together, but nothing keeps them apart; and as they have the same origin, as they are trained under the same roof, as they are treated with the same care, and as no peculiar privilege distinguishes or divides them, the affectionate and frank intimacy of early years easily springs up between them. Scarcely anything can occur to break the tie thus formed at the outset of life, for brotherhood brings them daily together without embarrassing them. It is not, then, by interest, but by common associations and by the free sympathy of opinion and of taste that democracy unites brothers to each other. It divides their inheritance, but allows their hearts and minds to unite.

Such is the charm of these democratic manners that even the partisans of aristocracy are attracted by it; and after having experienced it for some time, they are by no means tempted to revert to the respectful and frigid observances of aristocratic families. They would be glad to retain the domestic habits of democracy if they might throw off its social conditions and its laws; but these elements are indissolubly united, and it is impossible to enjoy the former without enduring the latter.

…Democracy loosens social ties, but tightens natural ones; it brines kindred more closely together, while it throws citizens more apart.

3. Thomas Jefferson's opinion of the effects of slaveowning on the formation of character

Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, ed. William Peden (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1955), p. 162; first published in 1787.

There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our people produced by the existence of slavery among us. The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive either in his philanthropy or his self-love, for restraining the intemperance of passion towards his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose to his worst of passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances.

4. The republican manners of American children

Harriet Martineau, Society in America (New York, 1837), III, 166-167.

Miss Martineau (1802-1876), English author and reformer, traveled in the United States between 1834 and 1836.

The early republican consciousness of which I have spoken, and the fact of the more important place which the children occupy in a society whose numbers are small in proportion to its resources, are the two circumstances which occasion that freedom of manners in children of which so much complaint has been made by observers, and on which so much remonstrance has been wasted; — I say "wasted," because remonstrance is of no avail against a necessary fact. Till the United States cease to be republican, and their vast area is fully peopled, the children there will continue as free and easy and as important as they are. For my own part, I delight in the American children; in those who are not overlaid with religious instruction. There are instances, as there are everywhere, of spoiled, pert, and selfish children. Parents' hearts are pierced there, as elsewhere. But the independence and fearlessness of children were a perpetual charm in my eyes. To go no deeper, it is a constant amusement to see how the speculations of young minds issue, when they take their own way of thinking, and naturally say all they think. Some admirable specimens of active little minds were laid open to me at a juvenile ball at Baltimore. I could not have got at so much in a year in England. If I had at home gone in among eighty or a hundred little people, between the ages of eight and sixteen, I should have extracted little more than "Yes, ma'am," and "No, ma'am." At Baltimore, a dozen boys and girls at a time crowded round me, questioning, discussing, speculating, revealing in a way which enchanted me. In private houses, the comments slipped in at table by the children were often the most memorable, and generally the most amusing part of the conversation. Their aspirations all come out. Some of these are very striking as indicating the relative value of things in the children's minds. One affectionate little sister, of less than four years old, stimulated her brother William (five) by telling him that if he would be very very good, he might in time be called William Webster; and then he might get on to be as good as Jesus Christ.

1. An authoritarian outlook on rearing children

Heman Humphrey, Domestic Education (Amherst, Mass., 1840), pp. 16-19, 27-29, 36-37.

A graduate of Yale and president of Amherst College from 1823 to 1845, Humphrey represented the views of conservative New England Congregationalism.

Every family is a little state, or empire within itself, bound together by the most endearing attractions, and governed by its patriarchal head, with whose prerogative no power on earth has a right to interfere. Nations may change their forms of government at pleasure, and may enjoy a high degree of prosperity under different constitutions; and perhaps the time will never come, when any one form will be adapted to the circumstances of all mankind. But in the family organization there is but one model, for all times and all places. It is just the same now, as it was in the beginning, and it is impossible to alter it, without marring its beauty, and directly contravening the wisdom and benevolence of the Creator. It is at once the simplest, the safest and the most efficient organization that can be conceived of. Like everything else, it may be perverted to bad purposes; but it is a divine model, and must not be altered.

Every father is the constituted head and ruler of his household. God has made him the supreme earthly legislator over his children, accountable, of course, to Himself, for the manner in which he executes his trust; but amenable to no other power, except in the most extreme cases of neglect, or abuse. The will of the parent is the law to which the child is bound in all cases to submit, unless it plainly contravenes the law of God. Children are brought into existence and placed in families, not to follow their own wayward inclinations, but to look up to their parents for guidance; not to teach, but to be taught; not to govern but to be governed. You may think that your neighbor's family is badly managed. You may see and know, that the education of his children is greatly neglected, and that he has not a single patriarchal qualification. Under these circumstances you may advise him as earnestly as you please — you may point out his duties —you may expostulate with him — you may adjure him by all that is tender and sacred, to consider where he stands, and to think of the account which he must render; but if he turns a deaf ear, you have no remedy. God has placed him and not you at the head of his family. You have no right, if you had the inclination, to enter his house, and order him to stand aside, and assume the reins of government yourself, and absolve his children from their natural allegiance. It may be true that they would be infinitely better off under your control and instruction than his; but you may not thus interfere with one of God's ordinances. Such a general allowance would subvert the whole domestic system.

Nor has civil government any right to interfere with the head of a family, unless it be where he is guilty of extreme neglect, or abuse. If he becomes a sot, or a reprobate in any other form of abandonment; or if he plays the tyrant in his own house, so as to put the lives of his children in jeopardy, it is no doubt the right and the duty of the magistrate to come to their rescue. It is an extreme case, and none but extreme remedies will reach it. But in all ordinary cases, even of great delinquency, the guilty parent must be left to answer for his abuse of power, or neglect of duty, to him who "ruleth over all." It would be impossible for any government in the world, to take upon itself parental authority and discharge parental duties; and if it were possible, such an innovation would soon derange and destroy the whole social system.

And as no power on earth may forcibly take the reins out of a parent's hands, neither may he abandon his post, or refuse to act as the vicegerent of God in his own house. When a father finds himself surrounded by a rising family, it is too late for him to decide whether or not he will assume the responsibility of supporting and educating his children. That question is already settled. "Necessity is laid upon him." . . . However unfit he may find himself to discharge the duties of a parent, or however anxious he may be to shift them off upon somebody else, he must stand in his lot and meet them the best way he can. He is not indeed precluded from availing himself of the assistance of others, by sending his children abroad for a part of their education, when he thinks it will be for their advantage; but let him not forget that he is accountable to God for the judicious exercise of this discretion. The authority which he cannot exercise over his children when they are away from home, he must delegate to those who receive them under their care; and in no case may he place them where they will be left to themselves, and exposed without counsel or restraint, to bad influences.

The rights and duties of parents . . . extend through the whole period of the child's minority. It is not enough for parents to bring their children early under proper subjection, and then leave their authority to take care of itself. There is no such executive energy in any domestic code, however wise or reasonable. The work is only commenced, when you have subdued the refractory spirit of your child. It is indeed an auspicious beginning; and if you keep the advantage which you have gained, the task will ever after be comparatively easy. But you must never let go the reins. If you relax, if you leave the child after it has once yielded, to follow its own depraved inclinations, it will soon becomes as head-strong as ever; and if it does not get entirely beyond your reach, it may cost you infinite trouble to regain the ground which you have lost. All the natural tendencies in the minds of our children are downward; and there is no overcoming this gravitating power, but by constant effort. "Line must be upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little."

A judicious parent will not use exactly the same means to govern a boy of eight years old, as he does to govern a child of two; nor will he deal with a grown up son of fifteen, just as he does with a lad of ten. But though the means will be different, the end is the same. The young man of twenty, in his father's house, has no more right to say that he will use his own discretion, in regard to observing the rules and regulations of the family, than a child of ten; and that parent sins against God, against the community in which he lives, and against his own family, who throws up his authority, before his children can safely be left to govern and take care of themselves.

2. Rearing the innocent child on the principle of affection

Lydia Maria Child, The Mother's Book (Boston, 1831), pp. 22-29.

Holding a more charitable view of human nature than that of Heman Humphrey, Lydia Child (1802-1880), a prolific authoress and humanitarian reformer, advised parents to consider their children's feelings as they guided their behavior.

The good old fashioned maxim that “example is better than precept,” is the best thing to begin with. The great difficulty in education is that we give rules instead of inspiring sentiments. The simple fact that your child never saw you angry, that your voice is always gentle, and the expression of your face always kind, is worth a thousand times more than all the rules you can give him about not beating his dog, pinching his brother, &c. It is in vain to load the understanding with rules, if the affections are not pure. In the first place, it is not possible to make rules enough to apply to all manner of cases; and if it were possible, a child would soon forget them. But if you inspire him with right feelings, they will govern his actions. All our thoughts and actions come from our affections; if we love what is good, we shall think and do what is good. Children are not so much influenced by what we say and do in particular reference to them, as by the general effect of our characters and conversation. They are in a great degree creatures of imitation. If they see a mother fond of finery, they become fond of finery; if they see her selfish, it makes them selfish; if they see her extremely anxious for the attention of wealthy people, they learn to think wealth is the only good.

Those whose early influence is what it should be, will find their children easy to manage, as they grow older.

An infant's wants should be attended to without waiting for him to cry. At first, a babe cries merely from a sensation of suffering because food, warmth, or other comforts necessary to his young existence, are withheld; but when he finds crying is the only means of attracting attention, he soon gets in the habit of crying for everything. To avoid this, his wants should be attended to, whether he demand it or not. Food, sleep, and necessary comforts should be supplied to him at such times as the experience of his mother may dictate. If he has been sitting on the floor, playing quietly by himself a good while, take him up and amuse him, if you can spare time, without waiting for weariness to render him fretful. Who can blame a child for fretting and screaming, if experience has taught him that he cannot get his wants attended to in any other manner?

Young children should never be made to cry by plaguing them, for the sake of fun; it makes them seriously unhappy for the time, and has an injurious effect upon their dispositions. When in any little trouble, they should be helped as quick as possible. When their feet are caught in the rounds of a chair, or their playthings entangled, or when any other of the thousand and one afflictions of baby-hood occur, it is an easy thing to teach them to wait by saying, "Stop a minute, and I will come to you." But do not say this, to put them off; attend to them as quick as your employments will permit; they will then wait patiently should another disaster occur. Children, who have entire confidence that the simple truth is always spoken to them, are rarely troublesome.

A silent influence, which they do not perceive, is better for young children than direct rules and prohibitions. For instance, should a child be in ill humor, without any apparent cause (as will sometimes happen) — should he push down his playthings, and then cry because he has injured them—chase the kitten, and then cry because she has run out of his reach—it is injurious to take any direct notice of it, by saying, "How cross you are today, James. What a naughty boy you are. I don't love you today." This, in all probability, will make matters worse. The better way is to draw off his attention to pleasant thoughts by saying, "I am going in the garden" — or, "I am going out to see the calf. Does James want to go with me?" If, in the capriciousness of his humor, he says he does not want to go, do not urge him: make preparations to go, and he will soon be inclined to follow. A few flowers, or a little pleasant talk about the calf, will, in all probability produce entire forgetfulness of his troubles. If the employment suggested to him combine usefulness with pleasure,—such as feeding the chickens, shelling peas for dinner, &c, so much the better. The habit of assisting others, excites the benevolent affections, and lays the foundation of industry.

When a little child has been playing, and perhaps quarrelling, out of doors, and comes in with his face all of a blaze, sobbing and crying, it is an excellent plan to take him by the hand and say, "What is the matter, my dear boy? Tell me what is the matter. But, how dirty your face is! Let me wash your face nicely, and wipe it dry, and then you shall sit in my lap and tell me all about it." If he is washed gently, the sensation will be pleasant and refreshing, and by the time the operation is finished, his attention will be drawn off from his vexations; his temper will be cooled, as well as his face. Then seat him in your lap, encourage him to tell you all about his troubles, comb his hair gently in the meantime, and in a few minutes the vexation of his little spirit will be entirely soothed. This secret of calling off the attention by little kind offices is very valuable to those who have the care of invalids, or young children. Bathing the hands and feet, or combing the hair gently, will sometimes put a sick person to sleep when they can obtain rest in no other way.

By such expedients as I have mentioned, ill-humor and discontent are driven away by the influence of kindness and cheerfulness; "evil is overcome with good." Whipping and scolding could not have produced quiet so soon; and if they could, the child's temper would have been injured in the process.

I have said that example and silent influence were better than direct rules and commands. Nevertheless, there are cases where rules must be made; and children must be taught to obey implicitly. For instance, a child must be expressly forbidden to play with fire, to climb upon the tables, &c. But whenever it is possible, restraint should be invisible.

The first and most important step in management is, that whatever a mother says, always must be done. For this reason, do not require too much; and on no account allow your child to do at one time, what you have forbidden him at another. Sometimes when a woman feels easy and good-natured, and does not expect any company, she will allow her children to go to the table and take lumps of sugar; but should visitors be in the room, or she out of humor with the occurrences of the day, she will perhaps scold, or strike them for the self same trick. How can a mother expect obedience to commands so selfish and capricious? What inferences will a child draw from such conduct? You may smile at the idea that very young children draw inferences; but it is a fact, that they do draw inferences — and very just ones too. We mistake, when we trust too much to children's not thinking, or observing. They are shrewd reasoners in all cases where their little interests are concerned. They know a mother's ruling passion; they soon discover her weak side, and learn how to attack it most successfully . . .

The necessity of obedience early instilled is the foundation of all good management. If children see you governed by a real wish for their good, rather than by your own selfishness, or capricious freaks, they will easily acquire this excellent habit. Wilful disobedience should never go unpunished. If a little child disobeys you from mere forgetfulness and frolic, it is best to take no notice of it; for his intention is not bad, and authority has greater effect when used sparingly, and on few occasions. Should he forget the same injunction again, look at him very seriously, and tell him that if he forgets it again, you shall be obliged to punish him. Should he commit the offence the third time, take from him the means of committing it; for instance, if you tell him not to tear his picturebook, and he does tear it, take it away from him. Perhaps he will pout and show ill humor;—will push off with his little chair, and say "I don't love you, mother." — If so, take no notice. Do not laugh, for that would irritate him, without performing the least use; do not seem offended with him, for that will awaken a love of power in his little mind. It excites very bad feelings in a child, to see that he can vex a parent, and make her lose her self-command. In spite of his displeasure, therefore, continue your employment tranquilly, as if nothing had happened. If his ill humor continue, however, and show itself in annoyances to you, and others around him, you should take him by the hand, look very seriously in his face, and say, "James, you are such a naughty boy, that I must punish you. I am very sorry to punish you; but I must, that you may remember to be good next time." This should be done with perfect calmness, and a look of regret. When a child is punished in anger, he learns to consider it a species of revenge; when he is I punished in sorrow, he believes that it is done for his good.

The punishment for such peevishness as I have mentioned should be being tied in an armchair, or something of that simple nature. I do not approve of shutting the little offender in the closet. The sudden transition from light to darkness affects him with an undefined species of horror, even if he has been kept perfectly free from frightful stories. A very young child will become quite cold in a few minutes, at midsummer, if shut in a dark closet.

If the culprit is obstinate, and tries to seem as if he did not care for his punishment, let him remain in confinement till he gets very tired; but in the meanwhile be perfectly calm yourself, and follow your usual occupations. You can judge by his actions, and the expression of his countenance, whether his feelings begin to soften. Seize a favorable moment, and ask him if he is sorry he has been so naughty; if he says "yes," let him throw himself into your arms, kiss him, and tell him you hope he will never be naughty again; for if he is, you must punish him, and it makes you very sorry to punish him. Here is the key to all good management: always punish a child for willfully disobeying you in the most trifling particular; but never punish him in anger.

3. The way to success and respectability

Anonymous, Bosses and Their Boys (Philadelphia, ca. 1853), pp. 138-142.

This book was one of hundreds of edifying publications for children and youth of the American Sunday School Union, an interdenominational organization of evangelical churches founded in 1825 to assist in the establishment of Sunday schools for children, especially those of poor parents.

John Munson was out of his term of apprenticeship some three years before James, but he continued to work as a journeyman, and the wages that he made he was careful to lay up in the SAVINGS BANK ... By the time that James Stevens had completed his term, he too had something ahead, and they began to think about going into business for themselves.

Mr. Stone had been more and more interested in the progress of his apprentices. It was by his direction that James's wages had been increased from time to time, more rapidly than they would have been but for the favour of his employer, who had been an attentive observer of the habits of his men ever since he had been roused to a sense of his high responsibility as an employer. He had been compelled to dismiss several from his service, on the ground of unfaithfulness growing out of their bad habits; and when he saw the mischief which these were working, he could not fail to notice with approbation the deportment and abilities of such a youth as James Stevens.

Mr. Stone found in James what he had long been looking for — "one who would make his employer's interest his own" — a young man who would labour and watch with the same zeal and fidelity for the interest of his employer that he would if the establishment belonged to him. This is the secret of securing the favourable regard of one who "owns the concern." Most business men keep a bright look out for their own interest. It is not an easy matter to find help that suits. Very few young men are disposed to work for others as they would work for themselves. They do not think that they are working for themselves when they are serving an employer for wages. It is very shortsighted in them to take such a view of the case; for it will be found in the long run, that he who is faithful in a few things will by-and-by have the charge of many things; and though merit is sometimes suffered to lie unobserved in this world, it is generally appreciated; and success that is not built on merit is not worth having.

Mr. Stone was a fair sample of manufacturers and merchants and capitalists generally. He was willing to do well by those who were disposed to do well by him. When he saw that a young man would do no more than just enough to keep his place and get his wages, working as if he grudged every minute and every blow, Mr. Stone set him down as a lazy and indifferent fellow, not worthy of his regard. But he saw Stevens and Munson always ready for any thing that would promote the efficiency of the business. Early and late, in season and out of season, they were always ready; and if they had owned the shop, and were making fortunes out of the business, they could not have more faithfully laboured in it. He was now getting well on in life. Most of his children were grown up. He had taken a fancy to these young men, and he advised them to go into business on their own account. They urged the want of capital as a fatal objection; but he removed that difficulty by telling them that he would put them in the way of beginning a small concern, and they might come to him for help whenever they were in need.

They could not refuse so favourable an opening, and, taking a building of moderate dimensions, they set up business for themselves under the firm of

Stevens and Munson,

Coach and Carriage Manufacturers.

In a manufacturing community such as this, the social position of the people is of course not regulated by birth and education. There are fewer distinctions in society than elsewhere. These young men found themselves at once entitled to the respect, as they had long enjoyed the entire confidence of the community, so far as they were known. James Stevens was often at Mr. Stone's house; and it came to pass that, in the lapse of time, James Stevens became the son-in-law of Mr. Stone; and not very long after that important event, Mr. Stone proposed to James to take his business and carry it on in his name, as he, Mr. Stone, was now advanced in age, and was anxious to retire. To this James said he had but one objection; and that was, he was in partnership with John Munson, and he was not willing to leave him, however his prospects might be improved by so tempting an offer as Mr. Stone had made him. The old gentleman told him it would be very easy to get along with that matter, as Munson could come into the new arrangement, putting in whatever sum of money he might be able to command. Mr. Stone himself consented to remain, if the young men would take the entire charge of the business and let him act only as a silent partner. So they formed a new firm under the name of

Stevens, Munson and Co.,

Coach, Carriage and Car Manufacturers;

and under this firm they are doing business at this very time. Mr. Stone has ceased to give any attention to the concern, but is enjoying the evening of life with his children and grandchildren around him.

James Stevens, who sent his first dollar to his parents, was glad to spend the first thousand dollars that he was worth in improving the house they occupied in Shellton; and from time to time he added to it all the comforts which the old people could desire. The same good spirit led him to provide for the education of the younger children; and as they come on in life, he will see that they are put into the way of earning an honest livelihood as he has done before them.

4. Growing up as a Shaker in Enfield, New Hampshire

Hervey Elkins, Fifteen Years in the Senior Order of Shakers (Hanover, N.H., 1853), pp.37-38, 40-43.

The Senior Order of Shakers at Enfield consisted of those who had proved themselves worthy and fit for full membership in the Shaker community.

My mother and only brother are now members of the Society, at Enfield, being caught with my father in the meshes of Shakerism at the time that I, a tender and sensitive plant, was transplanted from my native soil, into one of a more stiff and tenacious texture. Bereft at once of the gentle accents and caresses of maternal care, by the rigidity of that regime which mildly severs man and wife, parent and child, from each other's embraces and directs them all to seek a less local, and that more general bond of union, which folds to its bosom the whole household of faith, and reduces to practice the ideal of other Christians ... yet by the novelty and systematic order which I witnessed, and by the excellent caretakers and cheerful countenances which I saw around me, I soon took root in the soil of deep and unharassed contentment. I lived with my parents in the Novitiate Order [1a] for about four months. I saw them often and conversed freely upon the harmony and exoteric beauty of our new habitation.

My father, a man of mediocre fortune, of inflexible honesty, and eccentric views, remained for a time; but at last refused implicit submission to men anointed as leaders of Christ's church and aspired, as he said, "to a more immediate communication of God's will direct from the impulse given to conscience," and returned to his old domain; leaving behind him my mother, my brother, and myself.

In the Senior Order I was placed as apprentice, with the tailor who, as I said before, is now a bishop . . . For nearly three years I was submitted to his temporal and spiritual guidance; and week after week and month after month we plied together the needles which fabricated the beautiful drab garments worn by other brethren; occasionally, however, to promote a healthy condition and development of the bodily function, I climbed the mountains in company with those of my age, or sauntered along the shores, or rowed the skiffs over the burnished surface of the lake. In spring, I sometimes helped the other boys to gather, boil and eat the delicacies of the sugar maple, and roll away from the mill the blocks of wood for fuel, cut the desired length by a large saw carried by water power horizontally across the log. In the summer I would accompany them in gathering strawberries, raspberries and blackberries: and in the hay-field, my master and all who were able, would lend a helping hand. The Senior Order was generally four or five weeks engaged in the hay harvest, in which time three hundred acres of land would be stripped of their products, by about twenty-five men and as many boys . . .

My tutor had also the supervision of the school, and the spiritual guidance of all the male children. He taught us to be honest, pure and clean; and might have been a consummate master of youth had he better understood the art of inspiring them with the ideas of beauty, nobility, and love of piety, in lieu of monotonously drilling them by admonitions for every trifling offence. He wished to urge us by a "hot-bed" process, to understand and ponder upon the abstract essences of divinity. He desired fickle and puerile minds, who could not be made sensible of a lofty conception, or a sublime sentiment, to see those spiritual beauties that he had seen, to hear those soft whispers that he had heard, and to feel the gentle impressions which he had felt. Frequent rebukes, however gentle, serve to harden the heart and fortify it for opposition. The capricious child of nature delights to break down moral, as well as physical, restraints, which are raised before him in consequence of distrust . . . His scientific knowledge was good, but from the day he joined the Shakers, he added, to his previously acquired stock, not a groat, unless we except a knowledge of music, which was all acquired after he became a member of the Shaker society. For reading or writing music, few men in this, or any other country, can excel him.

The delirium of pleasure, which I had so rapturously anticipated from the enchanting scenes of my new home, was only interrupted by my separation from my parents, and the recollection of the sweet company of my maternal parent, who knew that I was happy and well. In my new abode, I saw no very repulsive look or frowns, unless elicited by a few of my sarcastic and wayward companions, of which in spite of religious discipline, some were found. Some few aged ones, having made through life many crooks and turns and digressions from the straight road — some false movements in the great battle field with their spiritual enemy, displayed occasionally to their subsequent chagrin, a pique incompatible with their pacific rule of faith. Yet, on the whole, great harmony appeared to exist. Our juvenile meetings, where the boys, about twenty in number, and the caretakers, the one our spiritual, the other our temporal supervisor, met for worship, were conducted by my tutor with all the religious sincerity and fervor of devotion. The songs, the dances, the ministrations, the lapses into a visionary or abducted state, heightened immeasurably in interest and excitement by the announcement of angels and departed spirits, causing the instruments to join simultaneously in the evolutions and caroles of complicated dances and songs of immediate creation — scenes common in the family meetings which Sundays we attended, and not uncommon even among the children, exercised upon my mind a curiosity and inclination to investigate the cause, or else reason away, by the pretext of impossibility of such power being exercised over mortals. More than a score of new dances were performed with an attitude of grace and with the precision of a machine, by about twenty female clairvoyants. They said they learned them of seraphs before the throne of God.

I was doubtful of their assertions; for such things were to me novel. I however determined not to overstep the bounds of prudence, and declare the work an illusion, for fear that I might blaspheme a higher power. I communicated my doubts to a few of my companions, and one, less cautious than myself, immediately broke forth in imprecations against it. I never was secretly opposed, but a turbulent disposition or a love for dramatic scenes, prompted by the hope of detecting either the validity or deception of such phenomana, impelled me to wink opposition to my reckless companion. In the devotional exercises, which served as a preliminary to the entrance of the mind into a superior condition, such as whirling, twisting and reeling, we all took part. Henry, for that was the name of the youth who was so zealous in his aspersions, united awkwardly and derisively in these exercises. Amidst so many arms, legs and bodies, revolving, oscillating, staggering and tripping, it is not remarkable that a few should be thrown prostrate, (not violently however,) upon the floor. One evening, in a boy's meeting at a time of great excitement, when the spirits of some of our companions were reported to be in spiritual spheres, and other departed spirits were careering their mortal ladies in the graceful undulations of a celestial dance, Henry and many others, among whom I was seen, were whirling, staggering, and rolling, striving, in vain, by all the humility we could assume, to be also admitted into the regions of spiritual recognition, Henry suddenly tripped and fell. One of his visionary companions instantly sprang, passed his hands with great rapidity over him as though binding him with invisible cords, and then returned to his graceful employment. The clairvoyant's eyes were closed, as indeed were the eyes of all while in that condition. In vain Henry struggled to rise, to turn or hardly to move. He was fettered, bound fast by invisible manacles. The brethren were summoned to witness the sight. In the space of perhaps half an hour the clairvoyant returned, loosened his fetters and he arose mortified and confounded. Singularly disposed, he ever after treated these gifts with virulent ridicule and never was heard to utter any serious remarks concerning this transaction. The clairvoyant after this event was the butt of his satire and jests and received them without revenge, so long as Henry remained, which was about five years:—a reckless, abandoned, evil-minded person, eventually severed by that same power which he strove incessantly to ridicule. All these strange operations and gifts are attributed by the Shakers to the influence of superhuman power like that manifested in the Primitive Church.

1a. The Novitiate Order was made up of applicants for admission.

5. "Christian Nurture" in the home, 1861

Horace Bushnell, Christian Nurture (New Haven: Yale University Press 1960), pp. 12-13, 40, 44-51; first published in 1861

Bushnell (1802-1876), a Congregationalist minister of Hartford, Connecticut, appalled by the excesses and ineffectiveness of revivalistic methods in winning converts to Christ, advised parents to suffuse their children's upbringing with piety in order to lead them naturally and gradually into the Christian way. This enhanced the importance of the family in rearing children.

Christian piety should begin in other and milder forms of exercise than those which commonly distinguish the conversion of adults . . .Christ himself, by that renewing Spirit who can sanctify from the womb, should be practically infused into the childish mind; in other words, ... the house, having a domestic Spirit of grace dwelling in it, should become the church of childhood, the table and hearth a holy rite, and life an element of saving power. Something is wanted that is better than teaching, something that transcends mere effort and willwork—the loveliness of a good life, the repose of faith, the confidence of righteous expectation, the sacred and cheerful liberty of the Spirit — all glowing about the young soul, as a warm and genial nurture, and forming in it, by methods that are silent and imperceptible, a spirit of duty and religious obedience to God. This only is Christian nurture, the nurture of the Lord.

We conclude, not that every child can certainly be made to grow up in Christian piety— nothing is gained by asserting so much, and perhaps I could not prove it to be true, neither can any one prove the contrary—I merely show that this is the true idea and aim of Christian nurture as a nurture of the Lord. It is presumptively true that such a result can be realized, just as it is presumptively true that a school will forward the pupils in knowledge, though possibly sometimes it may fail to do it. And, without such a presumption, no parent can do his duty and fill his office well, any more than it is possible to make a good school, in the expectation that the scholars will learn something five or ten years hence, and not before.

What motives are laid upon all Christian parents, by the doctrine I have established, to make the first article of family discipline a constant and careful discipline of themselves. I would not undervalue a strong and decided government in families. No family can be rightly trained without it. But there is a kind of virtue, my brethren, which is not in the rod—the virtue, I mean, of a truly good and sanctified life. And a reign of brute force is much more easily maintained than a reign whose power is righteousness and love. There are, too, I must warn you, many who talk much of the rod as the orthodox symbol of parental duty, but who might really as well be heathens as Christians; who only storm about their house with heathenish ferocity, who lecture, and threaten, and castigate, and bruise, and call this family government. They even dare to speak of this as the nurture of the Lord. So much easier is it to be violent than to be holy, that they substitute force for goodness and grace, and are wholly unconscious of the imposture. It is frightful to think how they batter and bruise the delicate, tender souls of their children, extinguishing in them what they ought to cultivate, crushing that sensibility which is the hope of their being, and all in the sacred name of Christ Jesus. By no such summary process can you dispatch your duties to your children. You are not to be a savage to them, but a father and a Christian. Your real aim and study must be to infuse into them a new life, and, to this end, the Life of God must perpetually reign in you. Gathered round you as a family, they are all to be so many motives, strong as the love you bear them, to make you Christ-like in your spirit. It must be seen and felt with them that religion is a first thing with you. And it must be first, not in words and talk, but visibly first in your love—that which fixes your aims, feeds your enjoyments, sanctifies your pleasures, supports your trials, satisfies your wants, contents your ambition, beautifies and blesses your character. No mock piety, no sanctimony of phrase, or longitude of face on Sundays will suffice. You must live in the light of God, and hold such a spirit in exercise as you wish to see translated into your children. You must take them into your feeling, as a loving and joyous element, and beget, if by the grace of God you may, the spirit of your own heart in theirs.

This is Christian education, the nurture of the Lord. Ah, how dismal is the contrast of a half-worldly, carnal piety; proposing money as the good thing of life; stimulating ambition for place and show; provoking ill-nature by petulance and falsehood; praying, to save the rule of family worship; having now and then a religious fit, and, when it is on, weeping and exhorting the family to undo all that the life has taught them to do; and then, when the passions have burnt out their fire, dropping down again to sleep in the embers, only hoping still that the family will sometime be converted! When shall we discover that families ought to be ruined by such training as this? When shall we return ourselves wholly to God, and looking on our children as one with us and drawing their character from us, make them arguments to duty and constancy—duty and constancy not as a burden, but, since they are enforced by motives so dear, our pleasure and delight? For these ties and duties exist not for the religious good of our children only, but quite as much for our own. And God, who understands us well, has appointed them to keep us in a perpetual frame of love; for so ready is our bad nature to kindle with our good, and burn with it, that what we call our piety, is, otherwise, in constant danger of degenerating into a fiery, censorious, unmerciful, and intolerant spirit.

. . . Therefore God hath set Israel in families, that the argument to duty may come upon the gentle side of your nature, and fall, as a baptism, on the head of your natural affections. Your character is to be a parent character, infolding lovingly the spirits of your children, as birds are gathered in the nest, there to be sheltered and fed, and got ready for the flight. Every hour is to be an hour of duty, every look and smile, every reproof and care an effusion of Christian love. For it is the very beauty of the work you have to do that you are to cherish and encourage good, and live a better life into the spirits of your children.

It is to be deeply considered, in connection with this view of family nurture, whether it does not meet many of the deficiencies we deplore in the Christian character of our times, and the present state of our churches. We have been expecting to thrive too much by conquest, and too little by growth. I desire to speak with all caution of what are very unfortunately called revivals of religion; for, apart from the name, which is modern, and from certain crudities and excesses that go with it — which name, crudities, and excesses are wholly adventitious as regards the substantial merits of such scenes — apart from these, I say, there is abundant reason to believe that God's spiritual economy includes varieties of exercise, answering, in all important respects, to these visitations of mercy, so much coveted in our churches. They are needed. A perfectly uniform demonstration in religion is not possible or desirable. Nothing is thus uniform but death. Our exercise varies every year and day from childhood onward. Society is going through new modes of exercise in the same manner, excited by new subjects, running into new types of feeling, and struggling with new combinations of thought. Quite as necessary is it that all holy principle should have a varied exercise—now in one duty, now in another; now in public aims and efforts, now in bosom struggles; now in social methods, now in those which are solitary and private; now in high emotion, now in deliberative thought and study. Accordingly the Christian church began with a scene of extraordinary social demonstration, I and the like, in one form or another, may be traced in every period of its history since that day.

But the difficulty is with us that we idolize such scenes, and make them the whole of our religion. We assume that nothing good is doing, or can be done at any other time. And what is even worse, we often look upon these scenes, and desire them, rather as scenes of victory than of piety. They are the harvest-times of conversion, and conversion is too nearly every thing with us. In particular we see no way to gather in disciples save by means of certain marked experiences, developed in such scenes, in adult years. Our very children can possibly come to no good save in this way. Instrumentalities are invented to compass our object that are only mechanical, and the hope of mere present effect is supposed to justify them ...

. . . Let us try if we may not train up our children in the way that they should go. Simply this, if we can do it, will make the church multiply her numbers many fold more rapidly than now, with the advantage that many more will be gained from without than now. For she will cease to hold a mere piety whose chief use is to get up occasions; she will follow a gentler and more constant method, as her duty is more constant and blends with the very life of her natural affections. Her piety will be of a more even and genial quality, and will be more respected. She will not strive and cry, but she will live. The school of John the Baptist will be succeeded by the school of Christ, as a dew comes after a fire. Families will not be a temptation to you, half the time hurrying you on to get money and prepare a show, and the other half a motive to repentance and shame, and profitless exhortation; but all the time an argument for Christian love and holy living.

Then, also, the piety of the coming age will be deeper, and more akin to habit than ours, because it began earlier. It will have more of an air of naturalness, and will be less a work of will. A generation will come forward, who will have been educated to all good undertakings and enterprises — ardent without fanaticism, powerful without machinery. Not born, so generally, in a storm, and brought to Christ by an abrupt transition, the latter portion of life will not have an unequal war to maintain with the beginning, but life will be more nearly one and in harmony with itself. Is not this a result to be desired? Could we tell our American churches, at this moment, what they want, should we not tell them this? Neither, if God, as many fear, is about to bring upon his church a day of wrath and stormy conflict, let any one suspect that such a kind of piety will want vigor and nerve to withstand the fiery assaults anticipated. See what turn the mind of our apostle took when he was arming his disciples for the great conflict of their age. Children, obey your parents—Fathers, provoke not your children—Servants, be obedient to your masters — Masters, forbear threatening—Finally, to include all, put on the whole armor of God. As if the first thought, in arming the church for great trials and stout victories, was to fill common life and the relations of the house with a Christian spirit. There is no truer truth, or more sublime. Religion never thoroughly penetrates life, till it becomes domestic. Like that patriotic fire which makes a nation invincible, it never burns with inextinguishable devotion till it burns at the hearth.

Parents who are not religious in their character, have reason, in our subject, seriously to consider what effect they are producing, and likely to produce, in their children. Probably you do not wish them to be irreligious; few parents have the hardihood or indiscretion to desire that the fear of God, the salutary restraints of religion, should be removed from their children. Possibly you exert yourselves, in a degree, to give them religious counsel and instruction. But, alas! how difficult is it for you to convince them, by words, of the value of what you practically reject yourselves. Have I not shown you that they are set in organic connection with you, to draw their spirit, and principles, and characters from yours? What, then, are they daily deriving from you, but that which you yourselves reveal in your prayerless house and at your thankless table? Is it a spirit of duty and Christian love, a faith that has its home and rest in other worlds, or is it the carnal spirit of gain, indifference to God, deadness to Christ, love of the world, pride, ambition, all that is earthly, nothing that is heavenly?

Do not imagine that you have done corrupting them when they are born. Their character is yet to be born, and, in you, is to have its parentage. Your spirit is to pass into them, by a law of transition that is natural, and well nigh irresistible. And then you are to meet them in a future life, and see how much of blessing or of sorrow they will impute to you—to share their unknown future, and look upon yourselves as father and mother to their destiny. Such thoughts, I know, are difficult for you to meet; difficult because they open real scenes, which you are, one day, to look upon. Loving these your children, as most assuredly you do, can you think that you are fulfilling the office that your love requires? Go home to your Christless house, look upon them all as they gather round you, and ask it of your love faithfully to say, whether it is well between you? And if no other argument can draw you to God, let these dear living arguments come into your soul and prevail there.