Education of children
“A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit.”—Matthew 7:18
The gospel of this day tells us that a good plant cannot produce bad fruit, and that a bad plant cannot produce good fruit. Learn from this, brethren, that good fathers bring forth good children; but if parents are wicked, how can the children be good? Have you ever, the Redeemer asks in this same gospel, seen anyone gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles? “Do men gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles?” (Matt. 7:16). And so it is impossible—or rather, very difficult—to find children of good morals who have been raised by parents of bad morals.
Be attentive to this sermon, fathers and mothers, for it is of great importance to the eternal salvation of yourselves and of your children. Be attentive too, young men and young women who have not yet chosen a state of life: if you wish to marry, learn this day the obligations you take upon yourselves regarding the education of your children; and learn also that, if you do not fulfill them, you and all your children shall be damned. I will divide this sermon into two points. In the first, I will show how important it is to bring children up well; and in the second, with what care and diligence parents ought to labor to bring them up well.
First Point.—How very important it is to bring children up well.
1. A father owes two obligations to his children: to provide for their bodily wants, and to educate them well. On the first I need say no more than this—that some fathers are more cruel than wild beasts; for the beasts do not fail to feed their young, but these men eat, squander, and gamble away all they have or all they earn by their labor, and leave their children at home to die of hunger. But let us come to education, which is the subject of my discourse.
2. It is certain that a child’s future good or ill conduct depends on his being brought up well or badly. Nature itself teaches every parent to attend to the education of his offspring; those who have given them being ought also to procure their well-being. God gives children to parents, not that they may assist the family, but that they may be raised in the fear of God and directed in the way of eternal salvation. “We have a great deposit in children,” says St. Chrysostom; “let us guard them with great care” (Hom. 9 on 1 Timothy). Children have not been given to parents as a gift, to be disposed of as they please, but as a trust, for which, if it be lost through their negligence, they must render an account to God.
The Scripture tells us that when a father lives as God wishes, both he and his children shall prosper. “That it may be well with thee and thy children after thee, when thou shalt do that which is pleasing in the sight of God” (Deut. 12:25). The good or bad life of a father, even to those who never witnessed it, is known by the life his children lead: “For by the fruit the tree is known” (Matt. 12:33). Ecclesiasticus writes that when a father dies and leaves children behind, it is as though he had not died, for the son who remains displays the bearing and character of his father: “His father is dead, and he is as if he were not dead; for he hath left one behind him that is like himself” (Ecclus. 30:4). When we see a son who blasphemes, who is foul-mouthed, who brings stolen goods into the house, it is a sign that such too was the father. “For a man is known by his children” (Ecclus. 11:30).
3. Hence Origen says that on the day of judgment parents shall have to render an account for all the sins of their children. Omnia quaecumque delinquerint filii, a parentibus requiruntur—“All the sins which children commit are required of parents” (on Job, Bk. 2). Hence, too, he who knows how to teach his son to live well shall die a peaceful and happy death. “He that teacheth his son… when he died he was not sorrowful, neither was he confounded” (Ecclus. 30:3–5). And he shall be saved by means of his children—that is, by the good education he has given them. “She shall be saved through childbearing” (1 Tim. 2:15).
But, on the other hand, a very uneasy and unhappy death shall be the lot of those who have labored only to increase the possessions and honors of their family, or who have thought only of living merrily, but have kept little watch over the morals of their children. St. Paul says that such parents are like infidels, and worse than they. “But if any man have not care of his own, and especially of those of his house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel” (1 Tim. 5:8). Even were a father or a mother to lead a devout life, to pray continually and to communicate every day, yet they would be damned if they neglected the care of their children. Would to God that some parents took as much care of their children as they do of their horses! How careful they are to see that their horses are fed in due season and well tended! And yet they take no pains to see whether their children attend catechism, hear mass, or go to confession. “We take more care of our asses and horses than of our children,” laments St. Chrysostom (Hom. 10 on Matthew).
4. If all fathers watched over the good education of their children, as they are bound to do, there would be few crimes and few executions, or none at all. It is parents, says St. Chrysostom, who by their bad education are the cause of their children’s rushing headlong into so many vices, and who thereby deliver them into the hands of the executioner. Majoribus illos malis involvimus, et carnificum manibus damus—“We involve them in greater evils, and give them into the hands of executioners” (Sermon 20 on various topics). For this reason the Lacedaemonians justly punished parents, as the cause of all their children’s disorders, more severely than the children themselves whenever crimes were committed.
Great indeed is the misfortune of those poor children who have wicked parents that do not know how to raise them; and who, when they see their children mired in bad friendships, in quarrels and carousing, instead of rebuking and chastising them, rather take pity on them and say: “What can be done? They are young; they must run their course.” Oh, fine maxims! Oh, fine education! Do you really hope, father, that your son, when he grows older, will become a saint?
Listen to what Solomon says: “A young man, according to his way, even when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Prov. 22:6). A young man who lives badly and forms the habit of sin will not abandon it even in old age. Job adds: “His bones shall be filled with the vices of his youth, and they shall sleep with him in the dust” (Job 20:11). He means that when a young man has taken up an evil life, his bones will be so filled with the vices of his youth that he will carry them with him to death; and mark the words, and they shall sleep with him in the dust: the impurities, the blasphemies, the inveterate hatreds of his youth shall accompany him to the grave, and shall sleep with him among his bones, now turned to dust and ashes. As easily as children learn what is good while they are small, so hard is it for them to amend, once they have learned what is evil, when they are grown. But let us come to the second point—the practice of bringing children up well. And I beg you, fathers and mothers, to remember what I now say to you; for on it depends the eternal salvation of your own souls and of your children’s.
Second Point.—On the care and diligence with which parents ought to bring up their children in habits of virtue.
5. St. Paul teaches in a few words, and well enough, in what the good education of children consists: he says that it consists in discipline and correction. “And you, fathers, provoke not your children to anger; but bring them up in the discipline and correction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4). Discipline, which is the same as the good ordering of the morals of children, carries the obligation of instructing them in a good life by word and by example. First, by word: a good father should often gather his children about him and instill into them the holy fear of God. So did holy Tobias with his little Tobias: from childhood he taught him to fear God and to flee from sin. “And from his infancy he taught him to fear God and to abstain from sin” (Tob. 1:10).
The Wise Man says that a well-instructed son is the support and consolation of his father. “Instruct thy son, and he shall refresh thee, and shall give delight to thy soul” (Prov. 29:17). But as a well-instructed son is the delight of his father, so an ignorant son is his father’s grief; for ignorance of what one must know in order to live well always goes hand in hand with a bad life.
Cantipratensis relates (Bk. 1, ch. 20) that in the year 1248, in a certain synod, an ignorant priest was ordered to give a discourse. While he was greatly troubled at this, the devil appeared to him and prompted him to say: “The rectors of the infernal darkness salute the rectors of parishes, and thank them for their negligence in instructing the people; for from ignorance come the bad lives and the damnation of many.” The same is true of negligent parents.
In the first place, parents ought to instruct their children in the things of the faith, and especially in the four principal mysteries: first, that there is but one God, the Creator and Lord of all things; secondly, that this God is a rewarder, who in the next life rewards the good for all eternity with paradise and punishes the wicked with hell; thirdly, the mystery of the most holy Trinity—that is, that in God there are three Persons, who are yet one only God, because their essence is one; fourthly, the mystery of the incarnation of the Divine Word, the Son of God and true God, who became man in the womb of Mary, and suffered and died for our salvation.
Should a father or a mother say, “But I myself do not know these things,” can such an excuse avail—that is, can one sin excuse another? If you do not know them, you are bound to learn them, and then to teach them to your children. At the least, send your children to catechism. What a misery it is to see so many fathers and mothers who cannot instruct their children even in the most necessary truths of the faith, and who, instead of at least sending them on feast days to the catechism, send them off elsewhere to carry goods, run errands, or do other tasks of little importance—so that, once grown, their children do not know what is meant by mortal sin, by hell, by eternity! They do not even know the Creed, the Pater Noster, or the Hail Mary, which every Christian is bound to learn under pain of mortal sin.
6. Good parents instruct their children not only in these chief things, but they also teach them the acts that ought to be made every morning on rising from bed: first, to thank God for having let them rise alive; secondly, to offer to God all the good actions they will do during the day and all the sufferings they will bear; thirdly, to pray to Jesus Christ and most holy Mary to keep them that day from all sin. Every evening they teach them to make an examination of conscience together with an act of contrition. They teach them too to make each day the acts of Faith, Hope, and Charity, to recite the Rosary, and to make a visit to the Blessed Sacrament. Some good fathers of families also have mental prayer made in common at home for half an hour every day, having some book of meditations read aloud.
This is what the Holy Ghost exhorts you to do: “Hast thou children? Instruct them and bow down their neck from their childhood” (Ecclus. 7:25). See that from childhood they form a good habit of these practices, for then they will easily keep to them when they are grown. Accustom them also to go to confession and communion every eight days. And be careful to have them go to confession when they are seven years old, and to communion when they are ten, as St. Charles Borromeo advises; and as soon as they have come to the use of reason, have them receive also the sacrament of confirmation.
7. It is also very useful to instill good maxims into children while they are still small. Oh, what harm those fathers do their children who dictate to them the maxims of the world! “You must make people respect you,” some say, “and not let anyone get the better of you. God is merciful; he overlooks certain sins.” Wretched is the young man who sins on principle. Good parents, on the contrary, speak very differently. Queen Blanche, the mother of St. Louis, King of France, used to say to him: “My son, I would rather see you dead in my arms than living in sin.”
And so do you also instill into your children certain fine sayings of salvation, such as: “What does it profit to gain the whole world and lose one’s soul? Everything comes to an end; eternity never ends. Let all be lost, provided God be not lost.” One of these maxims, impressed upon a young person’s mind, will keep him always in the grace of God.
8. But parents are bound to teach their children to live well not only by word, but still more by example. If you give them bad example, how can you hope that your children will lead a good life? So it comes about that when some dissolute young man is reproved, he answers: “What do you want me to do, when my father did worse than I?” “The children will complain of an ungodly father, because for his sake they are in reproach” (Ecclus. 41:10). How is it possible for a son to turn out well-mannered when he has had before him the example of a father who blasphemed, who often spoke obscenely, who spent the whole day in the tavern gaming and getting drunk, who frequented some house of ill repute, who cheated his neighbor? How can you expect, father, that your son will go often to confession, when you yourself scarcely go once a year, at Easter?
Children are like apes: they do what they see their parents do. It is told that a crab one day saw his young walking sideways and rebuked them: “Why do you walk so crookedly?” The young ones answered: “Father, let us see how you walk.” But the father walked more crookedly than they did. So it happens with parents who give bad example; and afterward they have not even the heart to correct their children for the very sins of which they themselves are guilty.
9. But even though they should correct them by word, what does correction by word avail when they give bad example by their deeds? “Men believe their eyes rather than their ears”—so it was said in a council of bishops; and St. Ambrose said: “The eyes convince me of what they see more quickly than the ear can suggest what is past” (Sermon 23 on the Saints). St. Thomas writes that such parents, by their bad example, in a manner oblige their children to lead a bad life. Eos ad peccatum, quantum in eis fuit, obligaverunt—“They have obliged them to sin, as far as it depended on them” (on Psalm 16). Such parents, says St. Bernard, are not parents but murderers of their children—not of their bodies, but of their souls. Non parentes, sed peremptores—“Not parents, but destroyers.”
Nor does it avail to say, “My children were born with a bad nature.” That is not true, says Seneca: “You err, if you think that vices are born with us; they have been engrafted” (Ep. 94). Vices are not born with your children, but are communicated to them by the bad example of the father. Had you given your son good example, he would not be as vicious as he is. Frequent the sacraments yourself, hear the sermons that are preached, recite the Rosary every day, do not speak immodestly, do not slander, shun quarrels; and you shall see that your son will go often to confession, will hear sermons, will say the Rosary, will speak modestly, and will keep clear of slander and quarrels. And it is precisely while they are small that children must be trained to good morals: “Bow down their neck from their childhood,” as was said above; for once they are grown and have contracted a bad habit, it will be most difficult for you to see them amended by your words.
10. It belongs also to discipline, for the good governing of children, to keep from them the occasions of doing evil. And so a father must, first, forbid them to go out at night, to go to any dangerous house, and above all to keep company with bad companions. Sarah said to Abraham: “Cast out this bondwoman and her son” (Gen. 21:10). She wished Ishmael, the son of the bondwoman Hagar, to be driven from the house, lest her own son Isaac should learn the bad ways of Ishmael. Bad companions are the ruin of poor young people. And a father must not only remove the evil he sees, but is bound also to inquire into the conduct of his children, and to learn from servants and even from outsiders where his son goes when he leaves home, what he occupies himself with, and with whom he keeps company.
Secondly, he must take from them the mandolin or guitar that gives them occasion to go out at night, and the pistol or other forbidden weapon that gives them occasion for quarrels and insolence; besides, anyone who carries such weapons cannot be excused from mortal sin, for such weapons keep him always with his mind ready to avenge any affront he receives. Thirdly, he must dismiss from the house servants of bad morals, and young maidservants if he has grown sons. Some fathers pay little heed to this, and then, when the evil happens, they blame their children—as if tow thrown into the fire could fail to burn.
Fourthly, a father must forbid his children to bring stolen things into the house—poultry, fruit, and the like. Tobias, hearing the bleating of a goat in his house, said: “Take heed, lest perhaps it be stolen; restore ye it to its owners” (Tob. 2:21). Yet some mothers, when a child steals something, say to him: “Bring it here, my son.” So too a father must forbid all forbidden games that ruin families and souls, and likewise masquerades, dances, scandalous comedies, and certain dangerous conversations.
Fifthly, he must remove from the house bad books that speak of pernicious maxims, of obscenity, or of profane love—such as the romances that pervert the young.
Sixthly, he must take out of the house all scandalous pictures, which stir up evil thoughts. Seventhly, he must not let his children sleep in his own bed, nor let males and females sleep together. Eighthly, he must not permit his daughters to speak alone with men, whether young or old. “But this man teaches her to read, and he is a holy man.” A holy man indeed! The saints are in heaven; but the saints on earth are flesh, and in the proximate occasion they become devils.
Ninthly, if he has daughters, he must not let young men come into the house. Some mothers let young men into the house in order to see their daughters married, and do not care to see them in sin. These are the mothers who, as David says, sacrifice their daughters to the devil: “They sacrifice their sons and their daughters to devils” (Ps. 106:37). And then they say: “Father, there is no harm in it.” No harm! Oh, how many mothers shall we see damned on the day of judgment because of their daughters! If there were nothing else, at the very least people talk; and for all of it the parents must render an account to God. Therefore, fathers and mothers, confess these sins before the day of judgment comes for you.
11. Another obligation of parents is to correct the faults of the household. “Bring them up in the discipline and correction of the Lord.” There are fathers and mothers who look on at faults and say nothing. A certain mother did this. One day her husband took up a stick and began to beat her soundly. She cried out: “I am doing nothing; why do you beat me?” The husband answered: “That is just why I beat you—because you see and do not correct, because you do nothing.”
Through fear of displeasing their children, some fathers do not correct them. But if you saw your son fallen into a fishpond and about to drown, what cruelty it would be not to seize him by the hair and save him from death—and why? for fear of hurting him? “He that spareth the rod hateth his son” (Prov. 13:24). If you love that son, reprove him and chastise him, even with the rod when need be, while he is still young. I say with the rod, not with the stick; you must chastise him as a father, not as a galley-master; and do not strike him when you are in anger, for then it is easy to go too far, and the correction bears no fruit besides, since the son then believes the chastisement to be the effect of your rage and not of your desire to see him amended.
I said, moreover, while he is still young; for once he is grown, your corrections will avail little. And then refrain from chastising him with your hands, for he will only grow more unruly and lose his respect for you. And of what use, after all, are so many insults and so many curses for correcting a son? Take away his food, deprive him of some article of dress, shut him up in a room. But enough. From what has been said, brethren, draw this conclusion: that in the next life he who has brought up his children badly shall suffer a great punishment, and he who has brought them up well shall receive a great reward.
Points for Reflection
1. “God gives children to parents, not that they may assist the family, but that they may be raised in the fear of God and directed in the way of eternal salvation. Children have not been given to parents as a gift, to be disposed of as they please, but as a trust, for which, if it be lost through their negligence, they must render an account to God” (§2)
2. “Parents are bound to teach their children to live well not only by word, but still more by example. If you give them bad example, how can you hope that your children will lead a good life? Children are like apes: they do what they see their parents do” (§8)
3. “See that from childhood they form a good habit of these practices, for then they will easily keep to them when they are grown. One of these maxims, impressed upon a young person’s mind, will keep him always in the grace of God” (§6–7)