Locke: Shame

Some Thoughts Concerning Education - by John Locke, 1693

§ 60 Shame. Frequent beating or chiding is therefore carefully to be avoided; because it never produces any good, farther than it serves to raise shame and abhorrence of the miscarriage that brought it on them. And if the greatest part of the trouble be not sense that they have done amiss, and the apprehension that they have drawn on themselves the just displeasure of their best friends, the pain of whipping will work but an imperfect cure; it only patches up for the present, and skins it over, but reaches not to the bottom of the sore. Shame, then, and apprehension of displeasure, being that which ought alone to give a check and hold the reins, 'tis impossible but punishment should lose that efficacy, when it often returns. Shame has in children the same place as modesty in women, which cannot be kept, and often transgressed against. And as to the apprehension of displeasure in the parents, that will come to be very insignificant, if the marks of that displeasure quickly cease. And therefore I think parents should well consider, what faults in their children are weighty enough to deserve the declaration of their anger: but when their displeasure is once declared to a degree that carries any punishment with it, they ought not presently to lay by the severity of their brows, but to restore their children to their former grace with some difficulty; and delay till their conformity, and more than ordinary merit, make good their amendment. If this be not so ordered, punishment will be by familiarity but a thing of course; and offending, being punished and then forgiven, be as natural and ordinary as noon, night, and morning, following one another.

§ 61 Reputation. Concerning reputation, I shall only remark this one thing more of it: that, though it be not the true principle and measure of virtue, (for that is the knowledge of a man's duty, and the satisfaction it is to obey his Maker, in following the dictates of that light God has given him, with the hopes of acceptation and reward), yet it is that which comes nearest to it: and being the testimony and applause that other people's reason, as it were, by common consent, gives to virtuous and well-ordered actions, is the proper guide and encouragement of children, till they grow able to judge for themselves, and to find what is right by their own reason.

§ 62 This consideration may direct parents how to manage themselves in reproving and commending their children. The rebukes and chiding, which their faults will sometimes make hardly to be avoided, should not only be sober, grave, and unpassionate words, but also alone and in private: but the commendations children deserve, they should receive before others. This doubles the reward, by spreading their praise; but the backwardness parents show in divulging their faults, will make them set a greater value on their credit themselves, and teach them to be the more careful to preserve the good opinion of others, whilst they think they have it: but when being exposed to shame, by publishing their miscarriages, they give it up for lost, that check upon them is taken off, and they will be the less careful to preserve other's good thoughts of them, the more they suspect that their reputation with them is already blemished.