Locke: Dominion

Some Thoughts Concerning Education - by John Locke, 1693

§ 103 Dominion. I told you before, that children love liberty, and therefore they should be brought to do the things that are fit for them, without feeling any restraint laid upon them. I now tell you, they love something more; and that is dominion: and this is the first original of most vicious habits, that are ordinary and natural. This love of power and dominion shews itself very early, and that in these two things.

§ 104 We see children (as soon almost as they are born, I am sure long before they can speak) cry, grow peevish, sullen, and out of humour, for nothing but to have their wills. They would have their desires submitted to by others; they contend for a ready compliance from all about them, especially from those that stand near or beneath them in age or degree, as soon as they come to consider others with those distinctions.

§ 105 Another thing, wherein they show their love of dominion, is their desire to have things to be theirs; they would have propriety and possession, pleasing themselves with the power [which] that seems to give, and the right they thereby have to dispose of them as they please. He that has not observed these two humours working very betimes in children, has taken little notice of their actions: and he that thinks that these two roots of almost all the injustice and contention that so disturb human life, are not early to be weeded out, and contrary habits introduced, neglects the proper season to lay the foundations of a good and worthy man. To do this, I imagine, these following things may somewhat conduce.

§ 106 1. Craving. That a child should never be suffered to have what he craves, or so much as speaks for, much less if he cries for it. What then, would you not have them declare their wants? Yes, that is very fit; and 'tis as fit that with all tenderness they should be hearkened to, and supplied, at least whilst they are very little. But 'tis one thing to say, I am hungry; another to say, I would have roast-meat. Having declared their wants, their natural wants, the pain they feel from hunger, thirst, cold, or any other necessity of nature, 'tis the duty of their parents, and those about them, to relieve them: but children must leave it to the choice and ordering of their parents what they think properest for them, and how much; and must not be permitted to choose for themselves, and say, I would have wine, or white-bread; the very naming of it should make them lose it.

§ 107 This is for natural wants which must be relieved; but for all wants of fancy and affectation, they should never, if once declared, be hearkened to, or complied with. By this means they will be brought to get mastery over their inclinations, and learn the art of stifling their desires as soon as they rise up in them, and before they take vent, when they are easiest to be subdued, which will be of great use to them in the future course of their lives. By this I do not mean that they should not have the things that one perceives would delight them; 'twould be inhumanity and not prudence to treat them so. But they should not have the liberty to carve or crave anything to themselves; they should be exercised in keeping their desires under, till they have got the habit of it, and it be grown easy; they should accustom themselves to be content in the want of what they wished for; and the more they practised modesty and temperance in this, the more should those about them study to reward them with what is suited and acceptable to them; which should be bestowed on them, as if it were a natural consequence of their good behaviour; and not a bargain about it. But you will lose your labour, and what is more, their love and reverence too, if they can receive from others what you deny them. This is to be kept very stanch, and carefully to be watched. And here the servants come again in my way.