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THE IDEOLOGY OF CHILDHOOD

ERASMUS , FROM ON EDUCATION FOR CHILDREN (1530 )

TO be a true father, you must take absolute control of
your son's entire being; and your primary concern must
be for that part of his character which distinguishes
him from the animals and comes closest to reflecting
the divine.
SO what are we to expect of man? He
will most certainly
turn out to be an unproductive brute unless at once
and without delay he is subjected to a process of
intensive instruction.
IT is beyond argument that a man who has never been
instructed in philosophy or in any branch of learning
is a creature quite inferior to the brute animals.
Animals only follow their natural instincts; but man,
unless he has experienced the influence of learning
and philosophy, is at the mercy of impulses that are
worse than those of a wild beast. There is no beast
more savage and dangerous than a human being who is
swept along by the passions of ambition, greed,
anger, envy, extravagance, and sensuality. Therefore
a father who does not arrange for his son to receive
the best education at the earliest age is neither a
man himself nor has any fellowship with human nature.
THERE are severe laws against people who expose
their children and abandon them in some forest to
be devoured by wild animals. But is there any form
of exposure more cruel than to abandon to bestial
impulses children whom nature intended to be raised
according to upright principles to lie a good
life? If there existed a Thessalian witch who had
the power and the desire to transform your son into
a swine or a wolf, would you not think that no
punishment could be too severe for her? But what you
find revolting in her, you eagerly practice yourself.
Lust is a hideous brute; extravagance is a devouring
and insatiable monster; drunkenness is a savage
beast; anger is a fearful creature; and ambition is
a ghastly animal. Anyone who fails to instill in his
child , from his earliest years onward, a love of
good and a hatred of evil is, in fact, exposing him
to these cruel monsters; and what is even worse, not
only does he abandon his child to these bestial
forces, which is the cruelest form of exposure
imaginable, he also nurtures a grim, destructive
monster within his own home and to his own ruin.
BUT what is man's real nature? Is it not to live
according to reason? This is why he is called a
rational being, and this is what sets him apart from the
animals. And what is the most harmful influence upon
man? Surely it is ignorance. Nothing will the child
learn more readily than goodness, nothing will it
learn to reject more than stupidity, if only parents
have worked to fill the natural void from the start.Of
course, we often hear extravagant complaints that
children are inclined by nature to evil, and that it
is very difficult to instill in them a love of the
good. But these accusations against nature are
unfair. The evil is largely due to ourselves; for it is
we who corrupt young minds with evil before we expose
them to the good. -