Herbert Spencer Quotes about Children

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The defects of the children mirror the defects of the parents.

The defects of the children mirror the defects of the parents.

Herbert Spencer

Children, Mirrors, Parent

Never educate a child to be a gentleman or lady alone, but to be a man, a woman.

Herbert Spencer

Children, Men, Gentleman

Mother, when your children are irritable, do not make them more so by scolding and fault-finding, but correct their irritability by good nature and mirthfulness. Irritability comes from errors in food, bad air, too little sleep, a necessity for change of scene and surroundings; from confinement in close rooms, and lack of sunshine.

Herbert Spencer

Mother, Children, Sleep

Education has for its object the formation of character. To curb restive propensities, to awaken dormant sentiments, to strengthen the perceptions, and cultivate the tastes, to encourage this feeling and repress that, so as finally to develop the child into a man of well proportioned and harmonious nature, this is alike the aim of parent and teacher.

Herbert Spencer

Teacher, Children, Character

Herbert Spencer (1873). “Social Statics; Or, The Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, & the First of Them Developed”, p.201

For what is meant by saying that a government ought to educate the people? Why should they be educated? What is the education for? Clearly, to fit the people for social life - to make them good citizens. And who is to say what are good citizens? The government: there is no other judge. And who is to say how these good citizens may be made? The government: there is no other judge. Hence the proposition is convertible into this - a government ought to mold children into good citizens, using its own discretion in settling what a good citizen is and how the child may be molded into one.

Herbert Spencer

Children, Government, People

"Social Statics: Great Essays".

It is the function of parents to see that their children habitually experience the true consequences of their conduct.

Herbert Spencer

Children, Inspiration, Parenting

Herbert Spencer (1866). “Education: Intellectual, Moral, and Physical”, p.178

The child takes most of his nature of the mother, besides speech, manners, and inclination.

Herbert Spencer

Mother, Children, Speech

Education has for its object to develop the child into a man of well proportioned and harmonious nature-this is alike the aim of parent and teacher.

Herbert Spencer

Teacher, Children, Men

Herbert Spencer (2016). “Social Statics: Great Essays”, p.150, VM eBooks

I had a great dislike to the annoyances entailed by baggage; and it was always with some feeling of elation that I cut myself free from everything but what I could carry about me. Like children, portmanteaus and trunks are hostages to fortune.

Herbert Spencer

Children, Cutting, Feelings

Herbert Spencer (1904). “An Autobiography: By Herbert Spencer”

If on one day we find the fast-spreading recognition of popular rights accompanied by a silent, growing perception of the rights of women, we also find it accompanied by a tendency towards a system of non-coercive education--that is, towards a practical illustration of the rights of children.

Herbert Spencer

Children, Rights, Illustration

Herbert Spencer (1873). “Social Statics; Or, The Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, & the First of Them Developed”, p.198

If there be an order in which the human race has mastered its various kinds of knowledge, there will arise in every child an aptitude to acquire these kinds of knowledge in the same order. So that even were the order intrinsically indifferent, it would facilitate education to lead the individual mind through the steps traversed by the general mind. But the order is not intrinsically indifferent; and hence the fundamental reason why education should be a repetition of civilization in little.

Herbert Spencer

Children, Knowledge, Science

Herbert Spencer (1914). “Essays on education and kindred subjects Repr”