Erasmus argues that parents must take absolute control over their child's upbringing and education from a young age. He claims that without proper instruction, a child will be no better than a beast, driven by impulses and passions. A father who does not provide the best education for his son is abandoning him to these bestial forces. Erasmus asserts that it is a parent's duty to instill a love of virtue and hatred of vice in a child from an early age, as failing to do so exposes the child to monsters like lust, extravagance, drunkenness, anger, and ambition.
Erasmus argues that parents must take absolute control over their child's upbringing and education from a young age. He claims that without proper instruction, a child will be no better than a beast, driven by impulses and passions. A father who does not provide the best education for his son is abandoning him to these bestial forces. Erasmus asserts that it is a parent's duty to instill a love of virtue and hatred of vice in a child from an early age, as failing to do so exposes the child to monsters like lust, extravagance, drunkenness, anger, and ambition.
Erasmus argues that parents must take absolute control over their child's upbringing and education from a young age. He claims that without proper instruction, a child will be no better than a beast, driven by impulses and passions. A father who does not provide the best education for his son is abandoning him to these bestial forces. Erasmus asserts that it is a parent's duty to instill a love of virtue and hatred of vice in a child from an early age, as failing to do so exposes the child to monsters like lust, extravagance, drunkenness, anger, and ambition.
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. -