First Moral Lessons for Children

by Allan Kardec

Of all the moral wounds of society, selfishness seems the most difficult to eradicate. Indeed, it is more so the more powered it is by the same habits of education. One gets the impression that, from the cradle, we strive to excite certain passions that would later become a second nature, and admire the vices of society, when children suck them on the milk. Here is an example, as each one can judge, belongs more to the rule than the exception.

In a family of our knowledge there is a four to five years old girl, of rare intelligence, but who has small defects of spoiled children, that is, she is a bit fickle, whiny, stubborn, and not always grateful when you give her something. Her parents take to heart to correct them, because outside of these minor defects, they said, she has a heart of gold, consecrated phrase. Let's see how they act to take away these small spots and keep the gold in its purity.

One day they brought a sweet to the child and, as usual, told her: "Thou shalt eat, if you're sensible." First lesson in greed. How many times at the table, one does not happen to say to a child who will not eat such a delicacy, if she cries. They say: "Do this or do that and you will have the cream", or anything else that the child desires, and she is constrained, not by reason, but in view of the satisfaction of a sensual desire that the parents encourage. It's even worse when they say, which is not less frequent, that her share will be given to another. Here is not just greed that is at stake, it is envy. The child will do what they ask, not only to have the object of her desire, but that another may not have it. If they wished to give her a lesson on generosity, then they would say: "Give this fruit or that toy to someone." If she refused, then they would add, to estimate a good feeling in her: "I will give you another." Thus, the child decides to be generous only when she is sure she has nothing to lose.

One day we witnessed a very usual case in this genre. He was a child of about two and a half years, to whom they had made a similar threat, adding: "We'll give it to your little brother and you shall not eat it." And, to make the lesson bolder, they put a portion on his plate; but the younger brother, taking it seriously, ate the portion. In view of this, the other was red, and it did not require to be a parent to notice the flash of anger and hatred that grew out of his eyes. The seed was sowed, could it produce good grain?

Let us return to the girl we spoke. Since she did not take into account the threat, knowing from experience that they were rarely fulfilled, this time the parents were firmer, as they understood the need to master this little character, and not wait until age had made her acquire a bad habit. They said that we must train children early, a very wise statement, and in order to put it into practice, here is what they did: "I promise you - said the mother - if you do not obey, tomorrow morning I will give your cake to the first poor child that will pass by." Said and done. This time they did not give in and gave her a good lesson. So the next morning, having been sighted a small beggar on the street, they made her get in, forced her daughter to take her hand and give her the cake herself. About this action, they praised her docility. Morality: the daughter said: "If I knew this would happen, I would have eaten the cake in a hurry yesterday." And everyone applauded this spirited response. Indeed, the child had received a strong lesson, but a lesson of pure selfishness, of which she will certainly make use again, because now she knows what is the cost of forced generosity. The question that remains is what type of fruits this seed will bear, when older, the child applies this moral lesson on things that are more serious than a simple cake. Do they know all sorts of thoughts that this single fact may have sprout in her little head? After this, how can a child not be selfish when, instead of waking in her the pleasure of giving, to represent to her the happiness of the recipient, they impose a sacrifice as punishment? Will it not inspire in her an aversion to the act of giving to those in need?

Another habit, equally frequent, is to punish a child by sending them to eat in the kitchen with the servants. The punishment is less in the exclusion from the table and more in the humiliation of going to the table of the servants. So the child is inoculated from an early age, with the virus of sensuality, selfishness, pride, contempt for the inferiors, passions, in short, they are, and rightly, regarded as the scourges of humanity. One must be endowed with an exceptionally good nature to resist such influences, produced at the most impressionable age and when they can not find the counter balance of will nor of experience. Thus, even if this accounted for just a little for the evil seeds, which is the most common case, considering the nature of the majority of spirits that incarnate on Earth, these passions can only develop under these influences, while it would be necessary to peek at their smallest traces in order to smother them.

No doubt, the parents are at fault; albeit, often they sin more through ignorance than by ill will. In many there are, unquestionably, a culpable carelessness, however in others the intention is good, but the remedy is worthless, or is misapplied. Being the first physicians of the soul of their children, the parents should be educated, not only of their duties, but of the means of accomplishing them. It is not enough for a doctor to know that she should heal: she must know how to proceed. But for parents, where are the means of instruction in this so important task? Today much instruction is given to women, they undergo rigorous exams, but never they demanded a mother she knew how to act to form the moral of her children. They teach her homemade recipes, but do not start her in the thousand secrets of governing the young hearts. Thus parents are left on their own devices, without a guide; that is why so often they seek out false routes; why they also collect in the imperfections of grown children, the bitter fruit of their inexperience or misunderstood tenderness, and the whole society receives the backlash.

Given that selfishness and pride are the source of most of human misery, while they reign on earth, one can not expect neither peace nor love, nor fraternity. We must therefore attack them in the state of embryo, without expecting that they become perennial.

Can Spiritism remedy this evil? Without any doubt; and we do not hesitate to say it's the only powerful enough to terminate it, as follows: for a new point of view under which the parents may face their mission and responsibility; making known the source of innate qualities, good or bad; showing the influence that one may exert on incarnate and discarnate spirits; giving the unshakeable faith that sanctions duties; in short, moralizing the parents themselves. Spiritism already proves its efficiency by the more rational way in which children are raised in truly spiritist families. The new horizons that Spiritism opens enable the mind to see things very differently; its goal being the moral progress of mankind, necessarily it must shed light on the serious issue of moral education, the first source of the moralization of the masses. One day they will realize that this branch of education has its principles, its rules, like intellectual education, in one word, that it is a true science; perhaps one day, too, they will impose every parent the obligation to have such knowledge, as lawyers are required to know the law.

Source: Spiritist Magazine - Journal of Psychological Studies - Year VII - February 1864 - 2