Day 62 Despising the Child

"Children Coming Out of School," Honore Daumier c. 1847-48

(see also Born Person, Children, Code of Education)

 
“Despise: to have a low opinion of, to undervalue"––thus the dictionary; and, as a matter of fact, however much we may delight in them, we grown-up people have far too low an opinion of children.”
 
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“The most fatal way of despising the child falls under the third educational law of the Gospels; it is to overlook and make light of his natural relationship with Almighty God. ‘Suffer the little children to come unto Me,’ says the Saviour, as if that were the natural thing for the children to do, the thing they do when they are not hindered by their elders.”

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“As a matter of fact, we do not realise children, we under-estimate them; in the divine words, we 'despise' them, with the best intentions in the world, because we confound the immaturity of their frames, and their absolute ignorance as to the relations of things, with spiritual impotence: whereas the fact probably is, that never is intellectual power so keen, the moral sense so strong, spiritual perception so piercing, as in those days of childhood which we regard with a supercilious, if kindly, smile.”
 
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“Next, we depreciate children, even though most teachers lay down their lives for their charges with amazing devotion. We have been so long taught to regard children as products of education and environment, that we fail to realise that from the first they are persons; and, as Carlyle has well said, ––
‘The mystery of a person, indeed, is ever divine, to him that has a sense for the godlike.’

We must either reverence or despise children; and while we regard them as incomplete and undeveloped beings who will one day arrive at the completeness of man, rather than as weak and ignorant persons, whose ignorance we must inform and whose weakness we must support, but whose potentialities are as great as our own, we cannot do otherwise than despise children, however kindly and even tenderly we commit the offence.”
 

Examen:  It is the rule of Jesus: “offend not, despise not, hinder not.” Do I have “tender” offences I need to address?  How am I growing in my appreciation of this rule?


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Despise: to have:  Charlotte M. Mason, Home Education, 1:17.
The most fatal: 1:19–20.
As a matter:  Charlotte M. Mason,  Parents and Children, 2:260.
Next, we depreciate:  Charlotte M. Mason, Towards a Philosophy of Education, 6:238.

​Day 62 Despising Children meditation/100 days copyright Laurie Bestvater 2025

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