ABSTRACT
Many readers may think that I have hitherto unaccountably neglected affection, which is, in some sense, the essence of a good character. I hold that love and knowledge are the two main requisites for right action, yet, in dealing with moral education, I have hitherto said nothing about love. My reason has been that the right sort of love should be the natural fruit resulting from the proper treatment of the growing child, rather than something consciously aimed at throughout the various stages. We have to be clear as to the kind of affection to be desired, and as to the disposition appropriate to different ages. From ten or twelve years old until puberty a boy is apt to be very destitute of affection, and there is nothing to be gained by trying to force his nature. Throughout youth there is less occasion for sympathy than in adult life, both because there is less power of giving effective expression to it, and because a young person has to think of his or her own training for life, largely to the exclusion of other people’s interests. For these reasons we should be more concerned to produce sympathetic and affectionate adults than
to force a precocious development of these qualities in early years. Our problem, like all problems in the education of character, is a scientific one, belonging to what may be called psychological dynamics. Love cannot exist as a duty: to tell a child that it ought to love its parents and its brothers and sisters is utterly useless, if not worse. Parents who wish to be loved must behave so as to elicit love, and must try to give to their children those physical and mental characteristics which produce expansive affections.
