"SKELPING" THE RISING GENERATION.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7679, 1 February 1904, Page 6

"SKELPING" THE RISING GENERATION.

Some Sensible Observations

Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child.

I was talking the other day to an English visitor, and in the course of our conversation, he said that what had Btruck him most in colonial social life was the weakening of parental control. " You don't seem to know the meaning of the phrase out here," he remarked, " or else parents have voluntarily abdicated their position as rulers of the household. Children seem to do as they please, and go where they like, and behave in any way they choose." This criticism is not new, but unfortunately it is still true. Colonial youth is under scarcely any parental discipline, and the result is precisely what we should expect on board a man-o-war were the captain and officers to leave the men to their own sweet will. Without discipline you cannot have obedience, and without obedience —well, where are you, whether on tbe quarter-deck or in a sitting room? Misrule is writ large over family life in the colonies. I happened to mention the matter to a Scotch friend of mine, McMuckle, a bit of a philosopher in his way. " Of course," said he, "we did'nt need anybody from England to tell us that. A blind man knows it. And the cause of it is as plain as a pikestaff. When I went to school do you think I sat at my desk as quiet as a mouse poring over a slate or a book because of my love of learning? Not a bit of it. It was because I was afraid of the • tawse,' the hard leather strap cut at the end into thongs, which the dominie used to keep always bandy for use. And what made me a good boy at home ? Because I knew if I misbehaved myself I would get a good skelping, if you know what that is. Well, there's tbe whole secret of parental

control for you, and the reason why you have no parental control in the colonies is because you have no skelping. Maybo you have heard a mother say to a naughty boy, ' My word, wait until your father comes home.' Well, the father comes home, and what happens ? Nothing. Johnnie is not skelptd. I tell you skelping has died out. It's too much trouble nowadays for fathers to skeip their children. But, mark my woids, until you have Bkelpitig jou can't have parental control. ' Spare the rod and spoil the child'; that's what Solomon said thousands of years ago, and my own experience confirms tht wisdom of Solomon. Now, you can put that into your pipe and smoke it."— •' Mercutio " in the Auckland Herald.