o's DU JA Po New York State College of Agricultur: At Cornell University Ithaca, N.Y. Library Cornell University Library HQ 769.G84S Sons and daughters, SONS AND DAUGHTERS By SIDONIE MATZNER GRUENBERG Author of Your Child Today and Tomorrow NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1916 CopyRiaHt, 1916, BY HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY Published April, 1916 Ook bg ee eH te C4°/3 99 9 THE QUINN & BODEN CO, PRESB RAHWAY, Ne Je CONTENTS MODERN PARENTHOOD Tue Day or THe Cuitp . Tue Moruer as TEACHER : Tue PretensE or PARENTAL PERFECTION SELFISHNESS AND SACRIFICE , Tue Dancer or Too Littte isawipoe J THE PHYSICAL BASIS HeattH anp Disposition Nervous Days : RestiEss For NEED OF Reet A ForcrsteE Frrepine EVERY ONE IN HIS OWN WAY No Two ALIKE . 2 Your CHILD AND THE Avene Grats anv Boys . Tue QGrav’s OvTLooK . THE CHANGING CHILD Tue UNFINISHED CHILD . Tue Passtne IpEats . Tue Dassiinc ADOLESCENT WatcHFruL WAITING . : ‘ GrapInc THE CuHILp’s TEMPTATIONS RESPONDING TO THE ENVIRONMENT Tue Wonverine CHIL . EXaMrLe aND PRECEPT Tue Lazy CHILD iii PAGE 12 16 20 29 33 37 41 AT 51 55 61 67 71 %5 79 85 91 96 100 iv CONTENTS Tue Younc Miser 4 . Tue SENSIBILITY OF THE CHILD . ComBaTING CRUELTY . 2 #2 & Bene OBsstInate Tue STUBBORN rene THE CHILD’S PUGNACITY To Ficut or Nor to Ficur . Cuttrivatinc IJNDIRECTION Piayinc SoLpier 3 CuHILDREN AND THE War . SuBsTITUTES FoR FIGHTING ij : 5 INITIATIVE AND SPONTANEITY Tue Cravinc ror ADVENTURE . Tue Cuitp’s CHANCE FOR Seoraimeme Mice at Pray CHARACTER AS HABIT Controt or Hasrr Formation Rutes anp Exceptions . z # e Tue Minp anp CHARACTER OF THE Conn e THE CHILD’S ACTIVITIES Toys ror Activity Books anp THE CHILD ‘ : Tue Arts In THE Lire of THE CHILD . Kerprine Pers APPRECIATION OF EFForT . Curtpren’s Parties Work and Pay as THE Maeve OF Pinch Coitivatinc Hossrs JUSTICE AND THE CHILD Bertnc Goop anp Brine Bap . 5 4 EncouracEMENT ann NecGlecT . . . . , PAGE 104 108 112 116 120 197 131 135 139 143 151 155 159 167 172 176 183 192 198 203 207 211 215 219 225 233 CONTENTS Eavuity Amonc BrorHers AND SISTERS Tue Parent as ARBITER . “ § Tue Curtp and Detecateo AvutTHority THE MANAGEMENT OF CHILDREN Tue “NaturaL” Meruop in PunisHMENT Principtes orf PUNISHMENT . . Barcatn Counter GoopNEss . Tue Time ann Pace Wauat THE Cuitp Tuinxs HE Wine Inverest anp Discipline . Tue Evertastinc Nay THE CHILD AND SOCIETY Tue CuHiLy’s Manners ImpupeNce True anv Fatse Tue Boy’s Taste For Society CuHILDREN’s FRIENDSHIPS Parents Versus TEACHERS Bucasoos aND FRIENDS CHILDREN anpdD Money UNconTROLLED CHILD Innnoniress PAGB 237 241 245 251 256 261 266 270 274 278 285 289 293 297 301 306 310 319 MODERN PARENTHOOD THE DAY OF THE CHILD Tuts has been called the day of the child. Within two decades various reform movements have forced the attention of the public upon the child. Whether it is the care of infants, health supervision, and preventive hygiene, or playgrounds, child labor, and improved schooling facilities, the conservation and the amelioration of child life seem to be the central concern of thousands of people working together in societies and committees. Not alone parents and teachers, who may be said to have a direct and pro- fessional interest in the welfare of children; but editors and publicists, scientists and statesmen, are giving to the child an amount of thought that would justify the conclusion that the child is either the most important factor or the most perplexing problem in modern life. From a politica] no less than from a humanitarian or sentimental point of view, we are realizing the impor- tance of providing for all the children adequate oppor- tunities for fullest development. More than ever before are efforts being made to help children in all possible ways, to direct their physi- cal and spiritual growth according to the laws of their nature on the one hand, and according to their deepest interests on the other. It is a mistake, however, to suppose that everything which is being done and advo- cated represents a distinct addition to the service in the interests of children. 4 MODERN PARENTHOOD In the first place, there is more “ publicity ” in these matters now, so that we hear relatively more about each thing that is done. An alderman was complaining at his club about the annoyance caused him by delegations of citizens coming to petition for various things. He said that a delegation from a mothers’ club had come the day before to urge the establishment of a play- ground; then a charity organization had petitioned for a playground; then a ministers’ association had done the same thing. Fifteen distinct delegations, he said, had petitioned for playgrounds. “ But what can a city of this size do with all those playgrounds? ” asked a visitor. ‘Oh,’ said the alderman, “ they all want the same playground.” And it is much the same way with what we hear about child welfare. In the second place, much of what is nowadays urged for the welfare of children is in the nature of a substi- tute to take the place of some advantage of which the children have been deprived. In the cities, especially, where most of the thinking and fretting and talking about the child takes place, he seems to be “ always in the way,” to use the words of the sentimental song. Our city houses are not surrounded by trees and open lots for climbing and romping—they have not even attics to use on rainy days as playrooms and work- shops. We have to think of the children’s play because they have been robbed of the chance to play by the encroachments of the growing cities. ‘ When we were young” the cities had no playgrounds, nor did they need any. Today we are called upon to supply them, because our children cannot get along without them. THE DAY OF THE CHILD 5 Organized play seems to older people an absurd contradiction in terms, for the thought of play suggests freedom and abandon. But play is free only in the sense that it is not carried on under compulsion. As children grow older they instinctively desire play in the form of games that involve considerable organiza- tion and team work. But the modern child has lost the art of play. If you should try to regulate the play of children who have all outdoors, and unbroken tradi- tions of children’s games, and the enthusiasm of the carefree youngsters of certain rural and semi-rural districts, your interference would probably not be wholesome. But to neglect the children who “ hang around ” because they don’t know what to do with themselves, and would have no opportunity to do it if they did know, is certainly not meeting their needs. The traditions that carried the rules of the games and the spirit of the games, have somehow been broken, and children need again to be taught what to play and how to play. Workshops in schools and in homes seem to many people rather artificial. But they do not realize that, a generation or two ago, nearly everybody had an op- portunity to become acquainted with various kinds of tools and materials through direct contact and trial. Theoretically we realize the educative value of these experiences with materials and forces, but practically we neglect the children’s needs and then wonder that they grow up indifferent to work, or even hostile to it. To bring twigs and butterflies and tadpoles into a schoolroom or into the home as a means of becoming 6 MODERN PARENTHOOD acquainted with “nature”? does seem rather stilted. Certainly the children who live in the country do not need to have this done for them. But the children in the cities must either get their “nature” by way of samples and occasional excursions, or not get it at all. The great organized efforts being made to further the welfare of children do, indeed, often urge upon the public new activities for the benefit of babies and of older children. Pure milk and fresh air for tenement babies, for example, are new things in the history of the world. Yet from another point of view, these too are largely substitutes for what practically every child formerly had as a matter of course. The conditions of crowded living bring a lack of air and a super- abundance of disease germs, and thus make the new methods of treating children necessary. But still they are substitutes, and not altogether new additions to the burden of looking after children. At the same time we must recognize that our knowl- edge of the factors influencing child life—on the mental and moral sides, as well as on the physical side—has increased so rapidly during the past generation, that it would really be stupid of us not to make use of some of this knowledge. And it is not difficult to get some measure of the value of this knowledge in a practical way. In the matter of health, we like to believe that the old times were also the good times. But wherever there are re- liable records we can see that children are sick less than was formerly the case, and the death rates have been cut down in a most startling manner. The gain THE DAY OF THE CHILD 7 is to be seen on the mental and moral sides as well. Scientific principles applied to the play and work of children, the best knowledge applied to the more formal education of children, all bring returns that would have been thought impossible a short time ago. With all this knowledge, the parent is called upon to do more and to keep more in mind, so that the child occupies a larger place in our everyday thought. This is the day of hope and promise. Having built up a civilization of steam-heated flats with kitchenettes we are at last forced to take notice that our architects were bachelors and made no provisions for the precious— though sometimes inconvenient—little dears. And this is true not only of our houses, but of all our modern arrangements. We must give a great deal of serious thought to the problem of providing for our children artificial condi- tions that will compensate so far as possible for the opportunities of which they have been deprived. The educational toys and playground apparatus have to a very large extent not been added to what children had before, but have for the most part been devised to take the place of what our civilization has taken from the child. And to know their needs, we must study the children as thoroughly and as systematically at least as the dog fancier studies the animals with which he is most concerned. Children are getting more, much more, than they have ever had before, but not so much as we think we are giving them, and perhaps, in view of all that is known, not as much as they need. MOTHER AS TEACHER As our conception of the dignity and responsibility of motherhood rises, we come to expect of women a larger and larger share in the education of their children. It has been taken for granted that the physical care of the child, and to some extent the moral training—at least in so far as this grows out of the usual relations of the home—should be provided by the mother. But there has been noticeable a tendency to demand of the mother more and more mental training, more of the sort of instruction for which we usually provide schools. Some have even gone so far as to advocate that all of the child’s instruction, until well past the primary grades, be furnished by the mother herself. This point of view apparently assumes that every woman naturally has the kinds of ability that are essen- tial to successful imparting of knowledge—or at any rate, that the mother’s “ instincts” make up for any shortcomings in this direction. But wide observation brings out the fact that the knack of getting along with young children, while possessed by very many women, is by no means a universal characteristic of the sex. Moreover, it is conspicuously absent in many women who are eminently qualified in several other directions to be excellent mothers. Mrs. Swift had been for years a successful teacher 8 MOTHER AS TEACHER 9 of singing. As her little girl was growing up, she thought it would be fine to do all the teaching for the little one herself. She found to her sorrow, however, that she was temperamentally unfitted to carry out effectively this self-imposed task. While she had no difficulty in teaching adults, and children in the reason- ing age, she was quite unable to assume that sprightli- ness of imagination, that playfulness of spirit, so essen- tial for reaching the interest and attention of the young child. She found that the love-task bored her—and that it also bored the child. That there are many women, as there are many men, who have what may be called a natural talent for teach- ing, cannot be questioned. And the children of such people are no doubt fortunate, at least so far as con- cerns the acquisition of various kinds of information. But for such women to turn about and say to the other women: “You can do what we have done,” is to betray a fundamental misconception as to the true nature of the relation between the teacher and the pupil. Such women, since their talents are of great value to society, and comparatively rare, should be utilized so far as may be, as teachers for others as well as for their own children. We must recognize also that there are many women who have special talents in other directions. It may therefore be questioned whether there is not, from a social point of view, more to be gained by the develop- ment of such talents on the part of every woman who has them, than by allowing every woman to become a fourth rate teacher of her own children. There is no 10 MODERN PARENTHOOD doubt that during the early years, when the mother should be with the child a great deal, she will often have the opportunity to assist in the mental develop- ment. In general, mothers have not yet begun to take advantage of this opportunity; this opens a wide field for thought and effort. But we must be on our guard against the faddists who would lead us to look for marvelous results from the application of a few simple rules. Aside, however, from the mother’s having or not having the ability to impart the information required by the young children, there is another important mat- ter to consider—and that is the child himself. Even before he gets to be three years old, ordinarily, the child is in need of companionship; he must have about him children of nearly his own age. This does not mean that he must be thrown into a vast crowd, wherein he may lose his identity. Nor is the alternative to the crowd a carefully guarded and sterile isolation. In groups of moderate size the child learns not only social adjustments, but a great deal of the essential knowledge about people and things, which is just as important as anything his mother can teach him. Although you may send your child to school, or even to kindergarten, there will still remain a great deal for the home to do. The home is the place where the child gets most of his moral training. And even on the intellectual side, what the child accomplishes in school will be very largely determined by the background supplied by the home. It is here that the mother can most profitably make her contact with the mental life MOTHER AS TEACHER 11 of the child. By being a sympathetic guide to the child’s bewildered wanderings in the world of mystery around him, she can supplement the school to good purpose. She should be the one to know his needs and his capacities better than any other person; and she should also make it her business to know the resources available to meet those needs. Through her companion- ship in the fields or in the museums, in the streets or in the library, she will continue her own education while helping the child to find his way. The ideal mother must be the child’s best guide, philosopher, and friend. She may also be a good cook ; but if she is not, never mind; there are many good cooks to be had. She may be able to nurse one through sickness; it is well to be able to do that, for children will get sick. But if she is not, there are trained nurses who can do it better. She may know as much as an encyclopedia. That’s always convenient; but if not, there are trained teachers to impart information. But whether she has all of these accomplishments or not (and a training for motherhood would include something in each of these departments) she is certainly not an expert in all. Yet she must always be for the child the source of counsel in meeting life’s trials, and a refuge from life’s tribulations. THE PRETENSE OF PARENTAL PERFECTION To err is human, as any healthy child can find out for himself rather early in life. But most parents seem to be invoived in a conspiracy to maintain the doctrine that to err is childish. They will sometimes go to des- perate lengths to uphold the pretense that adults—or at least parents—can do no wrong, that they are prac- tically infallible. Every adult who has to deal with younger people feels a certain authority and “ discipline ” to be abso- lutely necessary for maintaining right relations. And there is the feeling that authority would be weakened by the slightest intimation that the adult had committed an error. For many people it is quite impossible to acknowledge frankly that they have made a mistake. The result of this attitude, however, instead of strengthening authority, actually destroys the respect which we wish the young to have for the old. Children do not believe that anyone is infallible, in spite of all the pretense. There will of necessity be errors of judgment, there will be misunderstanding; but it is not necessary to add to these dishonesty. If you make a mistake in your dealings with the child, you will naturally give occasion for ill-feeling; but if you acknowledge your mistake as soon as you discover it, there will be a reconciliation. With the repetition of the evidence that you are human and sincere, the 12 PRETENSE OF PARENTAL PERFECTION 13 child will come to a realization that you are always acting for the best, even when you make mistakes. Then, though misunderstandings arise, there will still be respect and confidence. Even with very young children, it is well to deal in a thoroughly frank and honest manner. I was much impressed by this attitude toward a little girl of about two and a half years, on the part of a neighbor. The child wanted to go out to play in the grass, but as it had rained in the morning, the mother forbade her leaving the porch. ‘No, my dear,” she said, “ you must. not go in the grass, because it is wet.” The child cried; the mother tried to soothe her, and presently all was quiet again. Some minutes later the mother had occasion to cross the lawn, and putting her hand on the grass found that it was sufficiently dry. She went back to the child and said, “ Mother made a mis- take. She thought the grass was still wet. But it is dry enough, and you may go out to play now.” Of course this child was too young to understand, but she no doubt had a vague feeling that she was being fairly dealt with. And it is an accumulation of such feelings that will finally form the child’s habitual atti- tude toward the mother’s judgments. Only tao frequently do parents vent the annoyance caused by business or domestic irritations upon the innocent head of the child who happens to come along with some indifferent request at the critical moment. It is so easy to say “ Don’t bother me now,” or “ Run along, don’t you see I am busy?” It was a large- minded mother that apologized to her son for scolding 14 MODERN PARENTHOOD him unfairly after a scene with an impudent cook. He had come in with his friend after skating, at the inop- portune time, to ask for jam and bread, and to deposit the wet skates on the hall carpet. The scolding would have destroyed the appetite of ordinary people; in this case it only made Joe feel very sorry for himself. But later his mother said, ‘I am very sorry, Joe, for the way I treated you this afternoon. I was irritated and tired, but I did not mean to be rude.” Then Joe was so sorry for his mother, he just went up and hugged her, and forgot to be sorry for himself. The cases in which parents misuse their authority, judge children falsely, forget to keep their promises, or otherwise act unfairly are common enough. How common is it for parents to apologize to their children? Most people would think. offhand that to apologize would be to weaken our position. But the very opposite is true. As Edward Howard Griggs says, “Suppose the parent acknowledges his fault and apolo- gizes for it: when he turns to the further question of the child’s impudence his hands are strengthened. He meets the child on the plane of moral equality in reference to right action, the only plane on which any moral question can be solved. The child straightens up; it is no longer five years old or three feet high, but a human spirit to whom you have said—by your action, not in words—‘ My child, I see in you a spirit intrusted through some mystery of the universe for a little time to my care, and I recognize it as my earnest duty to give you whatever treatment will help you out into the sanest and sweetest life.’ PRETENSE OF PARENTAL PERFECTION 15 “Tt is in the latter case that the real respect of the child is kept—not the notion of our supposed infallibility, sure to be shattered sooner or later, but the reverence that comes from seeing more and more clearly that, through all our mistakes, we have been striving, not for our ease and comfort, but for the child’s welfare.” But if we resolve to deal with the child frankly and sincerely as a human being, we need not multiply mis- takes for the purpose of making occasions to exercise the virtue of confession and apology. With the best of care we shall make mistakes enough. We shall need to use all our wits and all our wisdom to consider well every word and every deed that we may not have to apologize so often that the child will at last get the notion that, after all, parents are not much better than children. Apologize whenever you need to; but do not need to too often. SELFISHNESS AND SACRIFICE WueEN we consider the thousands of people whose childhood has been neglected, the people whose abilities have not been cultivated, we are apt to think that we should all be happier if parents were more unselfish in the care of the young. We are apt to think that these neglected children needed but a little more sacri- fice on the part of their parents. But in the bringing up of children the important dis- tinction is not between selfish parents and unselfish ones, but between wise parents and those that are other- wise. We are all acquainted with the devoted and sin- cere mother whose own dress approaches dangerously near to the shabby in order that her children may be dressed a little better than she can afford to have them; who will deny herself necessities that her children may have additional comforts, or even luxuries. Certainly, such mothers are sufficiently unselfish. But are they wise mothers? If the mother derives any satisfaction from making these sacrifices—and we know that there are women who instinctively seek opportunities to make them— we must not begrudge her these pleasures. But she must not delude herself with the belief that she is doing these things for the benefit of her children. For what is the effect of this relationship upon those children? The most that can be expected is that the children will 16 SELFISHNESS AND SACRIFICE 17 profit from the example of the sacrificing mother, and will grow up in a spirit that is prepared to make sac- rifices for others. But usually it does not work out that way. The probabilities are that the children indulged in this manner will grow up to be the selfish wives and selfish husbands of the next generation. They will grow up expecting that their whims and conveniences will be indulged and petted, as a matter of course. We learn to make sacrifices, not by watching other people make them, but by means of practice in making them our- selves ; and the children can learn only in this same way. In every family, indeed in every community, there is always need for sacrifice; it is only by a constant give and take that we can get along together. Except- ing only the younger children, whose healthy growth and development call for first consideration, there is no reason why the children should not share in the neces- sary sacrifices that a family has to make. This is especially true in regard to the material conveniences. To know the limitations of the family’s resources, and to learn to live accordingly, will contribute more to the child’s character than can be gained by the sacri- fices of other members of the family. But the material sacrifices are not the most impor- tant. If the mother wishes to be unselfish for the benefit of her children, let her learn to restrain her temper; let her learn to suspend judgment until she has heard all the facts, before condemning a child for acts committed. That is the kind of unselfishness that will produce results which are worth while. Let her sacrifice the time necessary to enable her to keep abreast 18 MODERN PARENTHOOD of the times in which her children are going to live, that they may not outgrow her too soon. A woman of good judgment, whose station in life happens to be that of washing clothes for other people, was telling of a wealthy patroness who had taken her daughter of eleven years to the country, had bought her dresses, had taken her out riding in the motor-car, and had shown other kindnesses. The listener was im- pressed. “How lovely!” she exclaimed. “ Yes, it looks lovely now; but it all means trouble later,” re- plied the mother. ‘A summer like this can’t help but make her selfish, and dissatisfied with things when she comes back, and I’ll have my troubles with her. But I had to choose the lesser of two evils. It was either letting her get spoiled and pampered in the country while her mother is slaving in the city, or letting her get spoiled loafing in the city streets. I thought I could cure her of the faults she got out there quicker than of some of the faults she would get in the city, so I let her go.” The mother’s instinct is to get for her child as much pleasure and satisfaction as possible. But this mother saw the thorn on the rose. The ordinary indulgent mother would have jumped blindly at this excellent chance for the daughter; so far as the daughter’s programme for the summer is concerned, the result is the same here. But the ordinary mother would have been surprised and grieved at the child’s ingratitude upon her return, when the child showed any signs of dissatis- faction; this mother was prepared to deal with the situation, for she knew what to expect. SELFISHNESS AND SACRIFICE 19 This thoughtful balancing of costs and returns is not to be condemned as selfishness on the part of the mother. It is the selection of dwellings whose rooms or neighborhoods are not suitable for the children— where a choice is possible—it is the planning of the home’s routine with sole regard to the convenience and interests of the adults that constitute culpable selfish- ness. It is the blind pursuit of adult interests without regard to the developing children that is the unpardon- able sin in child training. Just as the indulgent parent harms the child and defeats the end of her own efforts, so the selfish parent, instead of getting increasing com- fort as the years go on, finds troubles growing upon her. Being selfish or being unselfish may be a matter of temperament, or one’s “nature ”’—and that, we are often told, cannot be changed. But we recognize that habits can be acquired, by parents as well as by children, although perhaps with greater effort. In this matter as in others, we must judge a line of con- duct not by the arbitrary rule of selfish or unselfish, but by considering as reasonably as we can what will be for the largest interest of the children. THE DANGER OF TOO LITTLE KNOWLEDGE Ar the club, Saffron was reading the paper to him- self and making comments to all within hearing. Sud- denly he sat up and put down the paper. ‘ Was that White’s boy,” he asked, “that was mixed up in that affair down at the lake?” No one seemed to know. Didn’t even know there had been an affair. In that case, Saffron had to read to them. It was the story of a boy who had gone over the edge of a pier, and was pulled out by another boy who happened to be passing. The boy who happened to be passing was young Bob White, and he happened along at a time when he was supposed to be in school. That was the point. Although no one denied that it was eminently proper for him to jump into the water and save the ragged stranger, all were agreed that he had no busi- ness there. He was obviously playing truant. “Tf a boy of mine did that,” said Saffron, “ I’d let him take all the medals and fine speeches that were coming to him, and after the celebration was all over I would take him into the woodshed and give him the worst licking of his young life.” That sounded very heroic and very reasonable. After all, it’s wicked to play truant. It was only a lucky chance that the boy came along in time to save the other child—perhaps this one had been a truant also. The chances were even that another time he’d 20 DANGER OF TOO LITTLE KNOWLEDGE 21 get run over by a fire engine. The boy’s place is in the school, and he had no business along the lake front. He needed a lesson that would teach him his place. It made Saffron quite angry to think of a son of his committing an outrage upon law and morals. And the things he had in mind to do were—well, they were just the expressions of his anger. They were not thought out policies of applying force where it would do the most good. They were the instinctive appeals to violence and had just about as much moral value as Bob’s own dereliction. And Brown, who had not been saying anything, could see that. And so he joined the conversation. He would not approve of truancy. He knew it was a bad thing, and liable to lead to worse things. But there’s no use getting excited over it. Didn’t we all do the same thing when we were young? Or at least, we were all tempted to. And if we did not yield, it was just our good fortune, or perhaps sheer cowardice, and not our superior virtue. Besides, it’s the sort of thing that a child will do just because he is a child. When he gets to be as old es we are, he won’t be tempted to go down to the lake. Remember that boys will be boys. Give him a chance to grow up and he'll be all right. This did not sound so heroic, but. it did seem reason- able. After all, a day out of school breathing the fresh air and taking good exercise won’t hurt any boy. He could make up his school work just as easily as though he had been absent on account of sickness; and this was better than sickness. Thousands of boys play 22 MODERN PARENTHOOD “hooky ” and then grow up to be decent citizens— some of them even become teachers, or ministers. Let him alone, and he’ll grow up all right. Young Blank, whose children had not yet reached the age of truancy, was interested but bewildered. He had expected to lay up a supply of practical wisdom to use in possible emergencies in the future. But he did not find the conflicting counsel very helpful. Evil-doers ought to be punished, of course. Otherwise there would be no premium on doing the right thing. But if a child does what we consider “ evil” without malice, should he still be made to suffer—especially when he is very likely to outgrow the instincts that lead to such acts? The trouble with the angry Saffron was that he had not taken the pains to think out the right and the wrong of children’s actions, nor the right and wrong of punishing children. He was just as impulsive as the truant himself, with this difference: Whereas the boy had an uncomfortable feeling that he was doing some- thing that was wrong—because it was disapproved— the man had the assurance that he was in the right. For in the punishment of children he was countenanced by generations of parents and most of his contem- poraries. The trouble with Brown was that whereas he had learned enough to know that the misdeeds of children are in most cases the outward expressions of perfectly healthy instincts, and not evidences of “ wickedness,” and whereas he knew that most children will outgrow these misdeeds, he had no idea that there was anything DANGER OF TOO LITTLE KNOWLEDGE 23 to be done about it except to permit the fates to finish the story. It is well for all of us to know what Brown knew. But that is not enough. Children will outgrow their childish impulses, but what will take their place? One of the ways in which the grown-ups acquired that feel- ing of righteousness in the presence of childish mis- deeds, was through the impressive indignation of their parents on the occasions of their own childish errors. It may be wrong for Saffron to put so much stress upon the wickedness of truancy; but it is just as wrong to evade the issue and treat it like teething, as some- thing that will pass away of itself. Saffron needed to learn there was something else to do besides whipping children; Brown needed to learn that there was some- thing to do. When they get to be our age, our boys will not be playing truant or stealing apples from the neighbor’s orchard. They will have outgrown the temptation for such things, just as we have, and just as they have already outgrown the desire to play horse with a broomstick. It is well for parents to know that these instincts, and many others, come up in the course of the child’s development, have their little days, and then are gone again. It is well for them to know that Johnnie is not a moral pervert because he does this or that which you and I would not do. It is well for them to know that there is hope for his character in spite of stealing and in spite of lying. If they cannot remember that they did these things themselves when they were young, they 24 MODERN PARENTHOOD will have to accept the assurance of those who have made a special study of the working of children’s minds, that all children lie, more or less, for a longer or shorter period. Later, when some of these children grow up to be merchants and judges and parents, they are in turn shocked because Johnnie stole apples or because Mamie told a lie. But it is also well for parents to know that among the forces that help children get over these impulses to do the thing that you and I do not approve, is just. this very fact that we do not approve them, the very vehe- mence of our disapproval, the lickings, perhaps, as in the case of Saffron, or the heart-to-heart talks, or the appeal of a strong personality that arouses admiration. When we know that these instincts are “ natural,” we should be saved a great deal of worry; but we should not then leave everything to fate and the school teacher. Our knowledge should go far enough to enable us to make use of the instincts as they arise, far enough to put us on our guard as to what to expect. I said that. Brown represents a transition stage. But you must not take that to show that he has found the golden mean. In reality this transition stage which so many parents have reached is but an opposite extreme from the position of Saffron. The one acts on impulse, giving expression to his disapproval of the son’s conduct in the direct, simple way of our primitive ancestors. The other restrains his elemental impulses, and feels a glow of satisfaction in his superior knowl- edge, the while he does nothing. One does too much of the wrong kind of thing; the other lets nature take DANGER OF TOO LITTLE KNOWLEDGE 25 her course. The golden mean is found when the supe- rior knowledge not only prevents foolish actions, but guides helpful action. To make use of the fundament- ally healthy disapproval of truancy or of stealing, and at the same time to make use of an understanding of the nature of the developing child—that is the problem for all parents. When a child manifests cruelty toward a bird or a cat, we need not fear that he will become a criminal. Neither need we restrain his cruel impulses by mani- festing the residue of our own by whipping him. The young child is probably not really cruel. Someone has said that many of the child’s actions that seem cruel to us are merely the expressions of his curiosity about the structure and behavior of animals, in the presence of his ignorance about their feelings or sufferings. To give a child an opportunity to know and to love a pet is a much more effective way of overcoming innate “cruelty,” than either to ignore his actions or to pun- ish him. We can utilize his instinct to protect and help what is weaker and what is liked, to fight and overcome the instinct to pull tails or to tease. At every stage in his development. the child has in- stincts that need to be encouraged and others that need to be suppressed, or transferred to new modes of action. The parent must be constantly on his guard to recog- nize the manifestations of these instincts, and be always prepared to stimulate, to restrain, and to substitute. To do these things effectively, he must know a great deal more than Brown does. It it better, indeed, that he know nothing at all about these things, and continue 26 MODERN PARENTHOOD to govern his hopeful in the good, old-fashioned way, with all its blunders and heartbreakings, than to know just enough to shrug his shoulders and look the other way. We must know when to let alone, but we must know when not to. In the rearing of children, as in the gathering of mushrooms, a little knowledge may prove to be a dangerous thing. THE PHYSICAL BASIS HEALTH AND DISPOSITION WHEN grown-ups are unusually irritable, or when they have the blues, sympathetic friends think of nerv- ousness or overwork, or they suggest indigestion or lack of sleep as sufficient explanation. When a child does not behave as well as we are accustomed to expect, we are apt to think he is “ naughty ” and we sometimes throw up our hands and exclaim “ Whatever has gotten into that child!” In more recent times, since the physicians and statis- ticians have gotten together to show us just how far adenoid growths or eyestrain are responsible for mental shortcomings and unsatisfactory conduct, we are more likely to suspect a physical condition behind everything unusual in a child’s behavior. But most of us do not know where to look, or how to recognize the trouble when we see it. A little boy who had a very cheerful disposition— most of the time—gave his mother much concern, and all the relatives and neighbors much annoyance, by having spells of whining and sulking at irregular in- tervals. Sometimes he would be cheerful and happy for weeks without a break; and sometimes not more than a few days. The family physician had occasion to examine the child during one of his spells and found that he was bilious. On making inquiry into the child’s diet, the physician hit upon the idea that the youngster 29 30 THE PHYSICAL BASIS was unable to digest eggs properly, and recommended leaving these out for a while and watching develop- ments. The suspicion was well founded; and the change in the diet restored the child to his happy disposition. In another case, one of a pair of twins developed a most annoying case of irritability and was becoming “ nasty ” when a careful study of his digestion showed that milk did not agree with him. Again a change of diet brought about a most satisfying change in the child’s mode of behavior and in his disposition. A kindergarten teacher was disturbed by the mother of one of her children, who always attributed every irregularity to some abnormality in the health of the child. The kindergartner felt that the mother was demoralizing the child by her own attitude, since she never required any effort or exertion on the part of the little girl. When the mother called for Lucy one day, the teacher complained that she had been naughty again—inattentive and disobedient and as wicked as a little girl in a kindergarten can be—and added, “ You cannot say that her health had anything to do with it this time!”’ with an air of triumph. But the mother happened to know that the child had lost three hours’ sleep the night before on account of toothache. This was something that the kindergartner could not know beforehand, and it was something that would in most cases have a very decided effect on the child’s behavior. In the case of a boy who had an attack of malaria and was being drugged to prevent the recurrence of the chills, it developed that the quinine was having a marked effect upon his disposition and the consequent HEALTH AND DISPOSITION 31 behavior. His periodic spells of ‘“ naughtiness” in school led the principal to make an investigation, and he satisfied himself that while the medical treatment was preventing a recurrence of the malaria, it was also having its effect upon the child’s nerves. With the reduction of the medicine, and with close watch upon his digestion and sleep, the child’s health steadily im- proved and his outbreaks became rarer and rarer. One night a girl of two years, who had been a model of regularity, began to call for her nurse after being put to bed. She had a slight “ cold in the head,” but that did not seem to be serious enough to account for her irritability. The next day she repeated the per- formance with her afternoon nap, and so for three days. In the meanwhile the mother also contracted a cold, and on retiring placed in her nostrils the drops that had been prescribed for the baby. This medicine irritated her so that she could not fall asleep, and then it occurred to her that the child’s unusual behavior might be due to the medicine. The drops were omitted the next time, and the child returned at once to her earlier habits of going to sleep immediately. Investigators have found many interesting cases of mental backwardness, and even of moral delinquency, that could be traced to unfavorable physical conditions. But where a child seems to be normal in every way and then gets into a spell of sulks or contrariness or other annoying manifestation of unhealthy spirit from time to time, we may be sure that the most likely cause is some derangement in his bodily health. A few years ago every special case that came before 32 THE PHYSICAL BASIS a physician or educator led to a search for eyestrain. Then it was the fashion to look for adenoids or “ glands.” A little later defective teeth were suspected of being the source of all the trouble. But the fact is that there is no one thing that is the cause of all the trouble. The child’s body is a bundle of hundreds of physical elements, and any one of them may bring about derangements in the orderly workings of his nerv- ous system. It may be the liver, or it may be an in- testinal parasite; it may be lack of sleep, or it may be ill-fitting shoes. Or it may be a combination of several troubles. It is useless to search for one cause of all our trou- bles. We must learn to know our children from as many angles as possible, so as to be able to survey the whole being for the purpose of catching any irregular- ity as early as possible. NERVOUS DAYS Is it not most exasperating that the children are so naughty and irritating just the day you expect com- pany? Of course no one expects the children to be perfect all the time; they have their blue days, just the same as adults. But it’s just our luck that the children are “naughty” on the very days when we have most to do! When you have to apologize to visitors, and explain that Herbert “is not always like that,” you hardly expect your friends to believe all you say. You expect them to accept your explanations with several grains of salt. You say you don’t know “ what has gotten into that child!” And you really don’t know. The cynical guest will think to herself, “If it isn’t one thing, it’s another,” and she will shake her head and try to look sympathetic, and she will thank goodness that her children are not like yours, although they are. But an experienced mother ought to understand that something will get into children, once in a while, and it is most likely to do so just when she is expecting company, or just when she is exceptionally busy. Are the little imps then deliberately annoying you because they know that company is coming, or because they like to irritate you? Not at all. They do not need to know what’s going to happen; they do not even need 33 34 THE PHYSICAL BASIS to know that you are very busy. The trouble is first of all with the mother. You will notice that the same kind of annoyances will come from the baby, on those very trying days— from the baby that is too young to know anything about company or being busy or being annoyed. If you will watch yourself the next time that you expect to have an unusually busy day, you will perhaps find out how it is that the children come to be so naughty. You will notice that you are perhaps a little more fussy than usual, in the morning; you are in a hurry to get breakfast out of the way. Instead of giving all of your attention to the children while at their meal, or when one of them asks you a question, your mind is in the middle of the afternoon, thinking of how the curtains look, or of some detail that will need to be looked after when you go to do the marketing. As a result, the child repeats his request for a muffin or his question about whether he can go to Charlie’s house after school; and in two seconds the child’s voice has become peevish and you come back to the immediate present to find that something is not quite right. So far as the children are concerned, this is the beginning of the whole trouble. Your thoughts are elsewhere and the children do not get from you the accustomed attention. You are impatient with them, because you are so eager to get at the important tasks of the day. You are short in your answers, because you are anxious to make a good impression on the visitors, or you are anxious to have the day’s work finished before father comes home from his work. In NERVOUS DAYS 35 your absent look, in your short answers, in your im- patience, you quite upset the children. Even under ordinary conditions an unusual bit of excitement will upset them; when your excitement lasts all day, the children cannot help but feel it. A man who sent his family away to the country for the summer, because he believes that that is the best place for children, took a week-end off and managed to spend two days and a night with them. Now of all the nights during that summer, this was the one night when the baby cried and made sleep impossible. The infant was not naughty, she was not sick, she did not understand that anything unusual was going on; but she cried that night, so that the father’s expensive little vacation was spoiled, and he went back to his work in a little worse condition than he had left it. Can you blame the baby? Every nursing mother knows that excitement is poison for the baby. The physicians explain the trouble by saying that the wastes given off by the nerves during great excitement get into the blood and eventually reach the milk in the mother’s breast. The baby cried all night not be- cause father was there, but because mother was excited. In this case the excitement was all of the pleasurable kind; they were all glad to have father with them. But the effect on the baby was the same as though it had been war news. This little experience, which can be duplicated many times from nearly every household, shows how our ex- citements affect the whole body in ways of which we are not aware at the time. And we show our excitement 36 THE PHYSICAL BASIS in a hundred ways of which we are not aware, but to which the children are very sensitive. It may be the expression on the face, it may be the tone of the voice, it may be jerky movements of the hands, or it may be something else. But when you are excited, you cannot very well hide it; and however you may show it, it must affect the children. You transfer your uneasi- ness and lack of self-control to them, and neither you nor they can tell what the trouble is. It sometimes happens that a mother can manage all the household arrangements without in the least losing her composure, and that the child will then behave in an unusual way when company comes. In such cases we must look out for a certain incompatibility between the child and the guest. Some people uniformly upset the equanimity of children. There is something fussy about their manner, something in their expression, or something in the voice, from which children instinctively shrink. High-strung children are especially sensitive to the lack of calm in the spirit of strangers, and you can depend upon such children to disgrace you when certain visitors arrive. But do not blame the children. It is our business to shield them from our own disconcerting moods, and from visitors that have an unhappy effect upon them, until they are old enough to learn how to master their own moods. RESTLESS FOR NEED OF REST To say that a child is fatigued but does not feel tired may seem like splitting hairs, or refining the use of the scientist’s new-fangled words. But there is a real difference between being fatigued and feeling tired ; and it is well for parents to know how it applies to their children. When one feels tired, he knows it and usually takes the next opportunity for rest or sleep. Young children show by their behavior that they do not feel energetic enough to go on with the work or play in hand, when they feel tired. And it is thus a comparatively simple matter to provide the conditions for suitable recovery from the “ tired feeling.” It is an unusually inexperi- enced person that would not be able to distinguish between the actions of a “naughty” child and those of a really tired child. It is different, however, when it comes to dealing with a child that suffers from what the physiologists call “ chronic fatigue.” Such a child, instead of pre- ferring rest and quiet, is likely to be constantly restless and eager for something to do, or for some new adven- ture. He is not likely to stick very long to any occu- pation or game, and his eagerness for something new is not satisfied, but continues to reject every novelty in his insatiable search for something else. A little girl of eight who is ordinarily capable of 37 38 THE PHYSICAL BASIS working at a single task from twenty to sixty minutes at a stretch, showed her fatigued condition one morning by doing all of these things in much less than half an hour: She jumped about aimlessly until directed to find something to play with. She took down her little express-wagon and pulled it at full speed up and down the road several times, finally abandoning it in the middle of the roadway. She declared she would go rowing, went down to the boat and sat there several minutes, swaying to and fro, without pushing the boat into the water. She ran up to the house and asked for materials to write a letter to her cousin; by the time the paper, etc., were ready, she had changed her mind and decided to cut out some paper dolls. She finished nearly one doll, and shifted to a box of puzzle pictures, which she left without making any progress. The characteristic thing about the conduct of the child that is “ fatigued” is the lack of concentration. This shows itself not only in the rapid shifting of interest and activity, but also in the inability to attend consecutively to conversation, or study. In school fatigue is one of the common causes of “ inattention.” The connection lies in the fact that the child has lost the ability to resist impulses. Every sensation, every suggestion, every thought that pops into his head im- pels him to a new line of action, and he is too feeble to do anything but obey the impulse. We know that the trained person, the “ able ” person, is just the one who selects what sights and what sounds he will attend to, what impulses he will obey and what ones he will ignore. To make this selection requires RESTLESS FOR NEED OF REST 39 experience, and a large part of our education consists of training in this kind of selection. Moreover, the selection requires energy, and this the over-fatigued child cannot command. Certain types of children are much more apt than others to acquire this state of chronic fatigue. The very sensitive child is most likely of all to develop the condition, because here every sensation starts an im- pulse that either produces some muscular action, or it stretches the muscles without leading to any obvious movements. In either case the muscles are actually expending energy in a way that contributes to the fatigue. Not only impulses that come from the outside through the senses, but the wanderings of his own imagination are likely to start muscular contractions that add to the fatigue without seeming to produce any “real work.” In addition to these sources of wasted energy is the further fact that this type of child usually does not “ know when to stop.” It is therefore particularly important that those who have the care of such a child should know when to make him stop. For this kind of child we often need to devise interesting and restful occupa- tions. An experienced teacher made the observation that certain of her pupils showed on first coming to school in the morning that they had before them a restless and unprofitable day. On comparing notes with the parents she found that the restless day in school was also the irritable and “naughty” day at home. She then wished that school work could be so arranged as to permit her to relieve the fatigued child 40 THE PHYSICAL BASIS of the usual programme, and let him spend his time more profitably in the shop or laboratory, the playground, or perhaps the library. Even a vigorous and exhaust- ing turn in the gymnasium, until the child is “ good and tired ” and feels like taking a rest, is to be pre ferred to the aimless and disconnected fidgetings. It will no doubt be a long time before the schools can undertake to adjust their daily work to the varying needs of each: individual child. But it is certainly not too much to expect the home to take note of the more common symptoms of chronic fatigue, and to adjust itself accordingly. In addition to restlessness, irrita- bility and lack of concentration, the child’s fatigued condition may sometimes show itself in uneasy sleep, or in lack of appetite, or in general languor. When any of these symptoms show themselves, it is well to increase the amount of sleep, adding an after- noon nap where possible. The attention of an adult who can help to hold the child’s interest in some con- tinuous occupation, and the removal, so far as possible, of all distractions, would be helpful. FORCIBLE FEEDING Ir was the last. day of school, and Edith had gone to her friend’s house for the afternoon. When she came home, it was with a glow of excitement. Martha was to spend a week with her aunt in the country—and Edith was invited to “come with.” Edith’s mother had several good reasons in her mind for not allowing Edith to go with Martha, and she felt that she could not tell the most important ones to the child. So she told some, and left the rest to her authority. But of course Edith was not satisfied. She really wanted very much to go. And from teasing her mother to change her mind she worked herself into a state of resentment, not unmixed perhaps with rage. So it came about that when dinner was served, the little girl was in anything but an amiable mood, and she an- nounced sullenly that she did not wish to eat. This brought the father upon the scene. He was not concerned with the details of the events that led up to the rebellion. It was his business to maintain the dignity of the established order of domes- tic ceremonials, and to uphold the authority of the mother in exercising her discretion in affairs of moment. “ What, not eat?” he cried, in a voice suited to his part. ‘ What nonsense is this? She must eat!” Edith sat at her place. She sipped at the soup. She chewed mechanically at the food placed before her, 41 42 THE PHYSICAL BASIS She nibbled at the dessert without enthusiasm. And throughout the meal there was silence while the feelings were estranged and the minds wandered from the im- mediate business of the hour. Now the results of many investigations and experi- ments made by scientists would lead us to conclude that a meal eaten as was this one, represents a quantity of good food gone to waste. Nobody enjoyed the taste or the flavor, nobody appreciated the effort to make the table and settings attractive, and so far as nourish- ment is concerned, it would seem that the child espe- cially would have been better off without the meal. For these experiments show that whereas the flow of digestive juices and the vigor of the muscular action in the digestive organs are both increased by pleasant emotions, they are both retarded when the feelings are too deeply stirred. And when there is anger or worry or fear, both the glands and the muscles of the diges- tive organs may stop work altogether. Under these circumstances the food remains in the stomach only to cause distress later. In this particular case, it would have been the part of wisdom for Edith’s mother to separate her momen- tous decision—momentous for the child—as much as possible from the impending meal. It is true that in so many households the people see each other very little except in the neighborhood of meal-time. But for this very reason we should reserve for the meetings the most cheerful and stimulating of the day’s topics and problems. In any case, the disagreeable and the depressing should be removed from the danger zone. FORCIBLE FEEDING 43 It often happens that disagreeable decisions must be made. And they will, of course, affect the child’s mood unfavorably. But a mood cannot last very long; if the decision is made early enough, the nervous system may have time to regain its equilibrium before it is again time to eat. But should the distressing scene come too close to meal-time, so that the child has lost all appetite, it is better for him to forego the eating. Of course there are other things to consider besides the child’s feelings for the time being. It is important to maintain a certain regularity in the children’s lives. There must be fixed times for many of the routine things. There is also much to be said for the moral value of “ controlling ” the feelings so that they do not break out at inopportune times to interfere with the programme, or with the convenience of others. But when all is said and done, it still remains true that in cases of extreme agitation it is best not to resort to forcible feeding. With older children in fairly good health there is seldom an indisposition to eat at the usual time, except as a result of an emotional disturbance. But with younger children, who have not yet established the eat- ing routine, the problem arises very frequently to per- plex and distress the mother. Sometimes the child will refuse to eat this or that of what is offered. And sometimes the appetite will be so fickle that it seems impossible to fix regular hours for eating. In the first case, no matter how desirable the spinach or beef-juice, that the child refuses to take, it is prac- tically worthless if it is forced upon the child under 44 THE PHYSICAL BASIS circumstances that are agitating. You may wheedle or trick the child into taking it, you may disguise the food by combining it with something attractive, you may bribe the child or cajole him in any way your ingenuity suggests. But the moment you apply force and arouse resentment you bring about within the child conditions that tend to neutralize all the benefits of the special dish. It is better to let the child go hungry than to feed him by force. Children who are solicit- ously guarded are not in danger of suffering from a fast of several hours. The same applies to the child whose refusal to eat at your time makes it impossible to fix regular habits. A mother who complained that her two-year-old could never be induced to eat admitted that she gave the child a cracker or some other trifle between meals. But on adopting the advice to give the child absolutely nothing except at meal-time, she was able in two days to develop a marvelous appetite three times a day. Children must be fed; but force must not be used as an appetizer. EVERY ONE IN HIS OWN WAY NO TWO ALIKE Ir we were only consistent in our theory as to what we may expect of children, perhaps parents would more quickly come to understand the little animals for whose up-bringing they are responsible. But when it suits our purposes to assume absolute equality of ability, we do not hesitate to say to George, “I know you can learn to spell because Mrs. Johnson’s boy is a very good speller, and he is three months younger than you are.” On the other hand, we do not hesitate to boast—-when the occasion presents itself—that our George won two medals in athletics and made the handsomest book- rack in the school shop, and that it is now on the prin- cipal’s desk in the office, where all visitors can see it, and that it has George’s name on it, too! Does it never occur to us that only the fastest runner can win the medal for running, and that it is impossible for all the boys to be fastest runners? When Mrs. Hall dropped in on her neighbor one afternoon, she could not help but admire the zeal and thoroughness with which Lily was cleaning up the china closet, and the neatness with which she then replaced the contents. And when she got home she could not resist the impulse to give expression to her admiration in the presence of her own daughter, in a tone that carried something more than a suspicion of reproach for Myra’s own deficiencies in the direction of certain kinds 4% 48 EVERY ONE IN HIS OWN WAY of household work. It is no secret to anyone except Lily and Myra that only the week before Mrs. Morgan was saying, “I don’t see why my girl should be behind that Myra in school. She’s every bit as smart, but I suppose she doesn’t try.” Why should you expect your daughter to have all the capacities and talents of your neighbor’s daughter? And why should you expect your younger son to have all the capacities and talents of your older son? But if you know that each child is quite unique in his com- bination of abilities and limitations, what right have you to reproach one with letting Nellie get ahead of her in music, while you reproach Nellie for not coming up to the other’s standard in sewing or cooking? Our easy transition from praise to blame for condi- tions that are for the most part entirely beyond the control of the children may have several unexpected and quite undesirable results. To praise George for his superior handwork, or Harry for his superior spell- ing is likely to make the boy unduly conceited. Praise in due measure for effort and industry has its uses in stimulating further effort until the habit of industry is fixed. But praise for a native interest or aptitude is as misplaced as praise for good looks or long hair. On the other hand, to reproach a child by emphasiz- ing his failure to approach a standard set by his neighbor or cousin, is not going to encourage him to try harder. It is more likely to engender a dislike or positive hatred for the unconscious model of virtue or achievement. Each one of us may recall some pet aversion to a perfectly innocent and harmless child NO TWO ALIKE 49 brought about by the constant reference to Nellie or Harry as examples worthy of emulation in the very things that came hardest to us. Let us first of all recognize that no two children can do exactly the same kinds of work in exactly the same way. Instead of adopting as our guide the abstract “average child ” that occupied the attention and, solici- tude of educators but a few years ago, let us recognize that this average child does not exist; but that instead the world is full of a multitude of diverse little person- alities, each with his own set of native interests and skills and tastes and awkwardnesses, with his own range of appreciations and his own blind spots. Let us make it our business to understand the few children in whose development and welfare we are most concerned, recog- nizing their talents and weaknesses. Then we shall be in a position to guide them most helpfully. If we get away from the superstitious belief that all individuals can do all things that any one can do, we shall change our expectations and reduce our disap- pointments. We need not on that account lower our standards. On the contrary, we shall then be in a position to set standards that are reasonable, and standards that will in many cases be in advance of what we are accustomed to expect of our children. There is George’s spelling, for example, or Myra’s housework. While spelling is a very desirable accom- plishment, it is by no means an essential to happy and effective living, or to good citizenship. Moreover, it is quite within the limits of the probable that the teacher who failed to teach George spelling has over- 50 EVERY ONE IN HIS OWN WAY looked the one way through which alone he could possi- bly learn the art. George should be encouraged, to learn to spell for a variety of good reasons; but the fact that Harry is a good speller is not one of the reasons—that fact is quite irrelevant. It is an imper- tinence to mention it. George should be encouraged to learn to spell, in a variety of ways; but a comparison with Harry’s superiority in this direction is not one of the legitimate ways. George should be encour- aged—as Myra should be encouraged—to do somewhat better today than he did yesterday or last week, and this, whether it be in spelling or in cleaning house. We should cultivate in our children an interest in developing all of their abilities for all they are worth, and not merely to equal the attainments of a rival. The standard should be the best that a given child can do, in every way, not as good as certain others can do in some ways. YOUR CHILD AND THE AVERAGE Waite visiting a large factory employing hundreds of girls, I became interested in a very ingenious system for keeping records and for maintaining standards of speed. Each girl was going through a few simple motions, making a very small fraction of a part of the factory’s product. Every hour the record of her out- put was sent to the chief of the division. If her output fell below a certain figure for two consecutive hours, she was quietly informed that her work had fallen below her “ average” or below the average for her depart- ment. Then the girl would speed up her work, and begin cultivating nervous prostration, dropping out of the factory in a few days or weeks; or she would “make good” and help raise the “ average ” for the department. The manager told me with some pride that in less than a year he had been able to raise the “ average” output for all departments more than fifty per cent. through these methods. He did not tell me, however, that he had taken pains to explain to the girls just what the “ average” is. A little thought will show anyone who understands the elements of arithmetic that this manager perpetrated a cruel fraud upon the girls every time he called atten- tion to the output falling below the “ average.” The average is a figure that results from combining the lowest and the highest with all the others, and our 51 52 EVERY ONE IN HIS OWN WAY everyday experience would lead us to expect that about as many individuals would rise above the average, as drop below it—no more and no fewer. But the young worker feels a certain stigma attaching to the grade “below average” and either does not understand enough or has not assurance enough to reply that it is impossible for all to be average or better. “ Average” assumes below as well as above, and within certain limits it is quite as “normal ” to be below the average as above. It is the failure to recognize the meaning of “ aver- age’? that leads to much of the failure in the training of children, whether in school or at home, as well as to many injustices in all of our relations. In school, the teacher attempts to apply certain rules of pedagogy, based on generalizations about the “average.” Too frequently she attempts to make her idea of the average fit every single child in the class. She knows the aver- age distance between the printed page and the eye, and she may insist on every child maintaining the same distance, notwithstanding the fact that no two pair of eyes are exactly alike. She realizes she cannot maintain a uniform distance between the blackboard and the eyes, so she usually does nothing about that, although she might, for example, seat her children so that each would have the most favorable location with regard to his own eyesight. She knows the average time required for completing a given task in number work; she frequently insists that every child finish within the given time, and she frequently suspects YOUR CHILD AND THE AVERAGE 53 slovenliness or inaccuracy in the child that takes less than the allotted time. A similar failure to apply common sense is shown when teachers apply their rules and their programmes— based as these are on “ average” experiences—to all children without discrimination. And the same failure is frequently found among parents. From the parent who becomes worried because her child does not weigh as much as the “average” for his age, to the parent who finds out the “ right ” amount of time that a child should give to his home lessons or his piano practice, and then insists upon the “ average utes, no more and no less, are found all the anxious and eager mothers, deluded by a formula. When the teacher reports to you that your Mar- garet’s handwriting is not up to the average, you rather resent the complaint. Of course her handwrit- ing is below the average; you always knew that Mar- garet was not very strong in hand control; and you are satisfied that Margaret more than holds her own in other kinds of effort. But you yourself are con- >? number of min- stantly applying “‘ average ” standards to Margaret’s conduct at home, with this disadvantage; whereas the school’s standards are derived from large numbers, the home standards are usually based on comparatively few experiences. You will compare Margaret’s be- havior with Georgiana’s, or with that of some restricted group; but at home, as in school, it is necessary to recognize that one child may be able to do what many others cannot do, or that one may fail where many others succeed. 54 EVERY ONE IN HIS OWN WAY In many families, the first child establishes the rules and expectations for the others. If the later children exceed the expectations, or easily adapt themselves to the routine which they find awaiting them, all is well. But if they fall short, the parents are likely to feel aggrieved, and to make frantic efforts to force the children up to the standard. Ernest was never afraid; why should any of the other children ever be afraid? Ernest slept from six to six when he was less than three months old; why should not the other children do the same? But if Ernest, the oldest, had been afraid, would you frighten the others into being afraid also? Or if Ernest had broken your sleep at five every morn- ing, would you wake the others at five, although they were quite willing to sleep until after six? Records are of value in industry and in government, and in school and in the home. And the averages de- rived from records are important. It is valuable to know what may be expected of groups, according to age, or sex, or training, or according to any other classification. But each individual] must in the end be studied and treated for his own levels of capacity, or limitations. Averages show us, in general, what many have in common; but every child is “ different” and his differences demand consideration. GIRLS AND BOYS Ir is not so many years since the champions of woman’s rights” (there were no “ Feminists” in those days) felt it incumbent upon them to prove that woman is man’s equal in every respect. To do this they made the mistake of many champions of ‘“ democ- racy”; they confused equality with identity. Great emphasis was laid on the stray examples of women who had achieved noteworthy results in mathematics or music; and someone went so far as to point the finger of derision at weakly males who achieved nothing. Obviously this method does not bring us very far toward an understanding of what it were best to do in education and legislation. Through this method, how- ever, men as well as women gradually awakened to the realization that there are great individual differences, so that it is impossible to make universal and exclusive statements about human beings, or about either sex. Fortunately we have reached the point at which we are able to face facts frankly and to put them to good use. It has always been difficult to make sure just what are the original characteristics of human nature; that is, we cannot tell whether a given trait is the result of tradition and environment, or the spontaneous mani- festation of something innate. It is easy to assume that boys are more aggressive than girls; but it is also easy to argue that girls affect a certain demureness 55 \éc 56 EVERY ONE IN HIS OWN WAY because tradition has made it reputable. For ages we have been expecting—and demanding—one kind of conduct from boys and a different kind of conduct from girls. It has become customary to tolerate boisterous- ness in boys and (let us say) indirection in girls. Whether boys are “by nature” more boisterous, or whether girls are “by nature” more diplomatic, we have not taken the pains to find out. Modern studies by scientists and educators show us that there are de- cided differences between the sexes. Whatever they are, we want to know them and not let ourselves be guided in our treatment of boys and girls merely by our traditional prejudices or by our theories of “ equal- ity.” Now the differences are not easily formulated. Whenever a generalization is made, exceptions will at once occur to us. Thus, when someone says that men are taller than women, we will at once think of the many women of our acquaintance who are taller than the “ average ” man, or the many men who are shorter than the “average”? woman. But the generalization simply means that most of the men are taller than most of the women, and not that every man is taller than any woman. It is in this general way that we are to understand the findings of the investigators. If you watch the girls and boys at home, you will probably find that girls think in terms of persons more than boys do. Henry may decide to take Latin when he goes to High School because his friend Robert does, but Dorothy is much more likely to make her choice for such a reason. Whatever influenced Henry’s choice and however much he may love his teacher, it will be GIRLS AND BOYS 57 almost impossible for him to study his lesson when the ball game calls. But Dorothy will wear herself out over her Latin—which she hates—and will sacrifice a much desired walk—because she has fallen in love with her teacher. The same general difference is shown by the obser- vation that when the children get into the “ gang” stage, the boy will have a great deal of loyalty toward the group, although he may care little for more than one or two particular individuals in the group. The girl, on the other hand, sticks to individuals. Another difference that shows itself when one has experience with large numbers of girls and boys is the tendency of girls to be more submissive to authority. They accept the word of the teacher without question in much larger proportions. This does not mean that girls are necessarily more “ law-abiding ” than boys, although they may be. But, as someone has said, “ girls may be more contrary, but boys are more re- bellious.” There are very many more differences and girls and boys are superior to each other in many respects. But the differences are all subtle and so difficult to apply to individual cases that nothing can be gained by enumer- ating them, even if we knew them all. Yet if we recog- nize that there are differences we should adapt our treatment of boys and girls accordingly. We can see that in a household full of girls who have no brother, there is something lacking in the children’s development. The same thing is true of a lot of boys who have no sisters. Now we cannot distribute brothers and sisters 58 EVERY ONE IN HIS OWN WAY at will to meet the needs of every family, but to a cer- tain extent we can assure to all children the advantages of association with the opposite sex. One mother blessed with seven sons who had grown up with a very satisfactory understanding of girls and women, was asked how she had managed to bring about this result. She explained that she had made it a point to bring to the house every girl in whom any of her sons has shown the slightest interest. She had done this from their earliest childhood, so that in a certain sense her sons had had “ sisters.” If a corresponding plan were adopted by a mother of seven daughters, she might be suspected of matrimonial intentions, but she could avoid the suspicion if she began while the children were still very young; and she might avoid much of the inconvenience by placing the children in a co- educational school. Whether boys and girls should be educated together is a question that has agitated parents and educators for many years, and no person who has real doubts on the subject can be convinced by an offhand answer. There are certain aspects of the problem that deserve more attention than they have commonly received. Quite apart from any of the specific objects we have in mind in sending our children to school, we must re- member that we expect the children eventually to be- come men and women, and as such, we shall expect them to know how to conduct themselves in mixed company of all degrees of complexity. Now the only way that children can learn how to conduct themselves in the presence of the opposite sex is by being brought up in GIRLS AND BOYS 59 the presence of the opposite sex. Those who have traveled widely with open eyes can tell you how ap- parent are the awkwardness and the self-consciousness of children brought up almost exclusively with members of their own sex. We may expect the home to do some- thing to offset the bad effects of exclusive schools, but sisters and brothers do not quite satisfy the needs of the situation—there are not enough of them, usually, and they are likely to be more familiar than are girls and boys found in school and on the playground. We may differ as to whether girls and boys should be taught altogether the same subjects in school, and as to whether they should be taught in altogether the same way. But there can hardly be any question that much of the daily activity of the growing child should be the same for both sexes, and that they should share a great deal of each other’s company. In every large city, any day, you may go into a classroom and find fifty or more growing, squirming, restless boys in charge of a tired woman on the verge of nervous prostration. This combination is not fair to the boys and it is not fair to the teacher. The boys certainly need the benefits of feminine associations, but do not get it from confinement with a woman teacher who has no sympathy for or understanding of their instincts and desires and needs. Girls are just as much in need of an opportunity to become acquainted with the masculine elements of our civilization. The boy needs to learn more about feminine nature than he can learn from his teacher and mother, and the girl needs to know more about masculine nature than she can learn 60 EVERY ONE IN HIS OWN WAY from her father and the dancing master. It would thus seem desirable, as it is quite feasible, to have girls and boys in the same school, doing much of their work in the same classes, but separating, when necessary, for some of the exercises, and gradually differentiating their work as the interests and needs of the sexes diverge. We have seen boys subjected to the “ feminization ” of ladylike teachers and mothers, burst out in good season with all the manly virtues—and at least some of the vices. We have also seen girls given the com- panionship and freedom of their brothers and grow “very women.” If nothing else, this will show us that there is something distinctly masculine or fem- into inine in the child quite independent of its environment. We must give girls and boys the fullest opportunity to develop the very best that is in them as girls and boys, and this they can do in an environment that is broad enough to include all the activities and interests of girls as well as of boys. THE GIRL’S OUTLOOK Sooner or later every boy begins to build his dreams of man’s estate about activities and interests related to the world’s work. It is expected of him that he will grow up to do somcthing, and even if he has no special predilection for work of any kind, he cannot altogether escape the feeling that he will have to take his share when the time comes. With girls, however, the matter is different. Not because girls are necessarily different “by nature.” It is apparently a difference arising out of old traditions, for children will do their part to meet the prevailing expectations. This is shown by the fact that in certain classes of society, the only picture the girls can form of their adult state is that of managing a household or acting as hostess; whereas among others it is the regular thing to look forward to work at wages. It is taken for granted that the girl will become a wife and mother; or it is taken for granted that the girl will earn her living. With comparatively rare exceptions, the as- sumptions thus made will give color to the girl’s out- look and tone to her work of preparation. In spite of the fact that women are entering gainful occupations in ever increasing numbers, and in spite of the fact that women remain at “work” longer and longer periods, it is still to be expected that most girls will marry, and that they will become heads of house- 61 62 EVERY ONE IN HIS OWN WAY holds and of families. The problem of training for the adult years is thus complicated for the girl, in a way that does not appear with the boy. With the boy grown up, the vocation is the main concern of his time and thought; marriage and family are considered to. be rather incidental. With the girl grown up, on the contrary, the home must be the chief concern, whereas any other occupation is considered incidental. Since it is impossible to know beforehand, in any given case, whether your daughter will or will not marry and have the opportunities and the responsibili- ties of wife and mother, it would seem to be necessary to give all girls preparation suitable for the married state. And since, whether she marries or not, every girl should be prepared to meet the requirements of modern life in the way of useful service, she must carry the additional burden of preparation for some kind of remunerative work. ‘With the girl who feels a “call” for special work, the problem usually settles itself. This girl is likely to neglect. everything and concentrate her efforts on preparation for the one thing important to her. She will throw herself into her work with the singleness of purpose that we usually expect of a good worker. Later, if chance and changing in- terests direct her thoughts to the traditional “ place ” for women, her problem is an individual one, and she will make her preparations in the thorough and sys- tematic manner that she previously applied to her voca- tional training. With the vast majority of girls there is no “ call,” and there is the need to look ahead and to prepare. THE GIRL’S OUTLOOK 63 Every girl should therefore be trained for some occu- pation worth entering, and this with the standards not of the transient or casual worker, but with those of one who means to make a life work of it. But this at once raises the question whether it is worth while to spend the time and effort and money necessary for such train- ing, in view of the probability that it may not be used to the full after it is acquired. It may be said that it is worth while for every girl to become an expert in some line of activity, even if she does not need to depend upon it for her livelihood. It gives one a certain sense of confidence to feel this reserve strength of fitness. Moreover, according to the newer views in education, the culture and training to be gained through becoming an expert worker in some useful line are just as valu- able as those to be acquired through the old-fashioned ‘“* general”? education. And yet we cannot help feeling that there is a certain element of unreality in training girls for work with a mental reservation or hope that they will not make use of the training. Is it quite sincere to drill Dorothy in designing or telegraphy, while wishing, and while teaching her to wish, that she may escape the necessity of applying her skill? It is impossible to solve Dorothy’s problem in an entirely satisfactory way, unless we are willing to face the larger question of woman’s work, and of woman’s place in the new society. The rising generation will have to solve the problem. Can we help them better by ignoring it and making our individual adjustments as best we may, or can we accomplish more by looking 64 EVERY ONE IN HIS OWN WAY at it squarely and, accepting the conditions, fight through to some conclusion? Our daughters are growing up, yours and mine. Must we anticipate for them the choice between a life of idleness on the one hand, and the unsatisfactory conditions that prevail in most women’s occupations on the other? Must we accept for them either casual work, and all this implies—perhaps for a short while, perhaps for a lifetime—or as the only alternative an ex- pensive training for high grade efficiency that may be utilized for but a short period and then go to waste? Must we have them look forward to an empty and idle middle age (after their children shall no longer need their continuous attention) either because they are not prepared for work worth doing, or because the organ- ization of work does not permit them to utilize their training after the necessary interruptions? This is not Dorothy’s problem, it is your problem and mine, and any of you women who have the time and the energy would do well to consider this problem of woman’s work, as it is bound to affect your daugh- ters—and your sons, too. THE CHANGING CHILD THE UNFINISHED CHILD Tue famous saying, “ Give me the first few years of the child’s life and I care not who has the rest,” has be- come classic. The importance of these early years in the making of character is shown by the fact that teachers of primary grades and of kindergartens often complain of children being “ spoiled ” before they come to school age. There is no doubt that many children have acquired at the age of six or seven years undesir- able or even vicious habits. Moreover, many a child has had good habits started in his infancy, and even lofty ideals inculcated before leaving the mother’s apron strings. It is therefore a very easy matter to conclude that the character and the talents of the child are fixed, and fixed irrevocably, in the earliest years of life. But the implication of our classic saying, that the work of training the child or of giving him his “ bent,” can be finished during these early years, is essentially false. For the child is a growing “system” of in- stincts and capacities, and at every stage the further development may be influenced by the surroundings. At every stage it is therefore necessary that he be guided into habits which will be worth while, and that he be protected from influences which may be injurious. It is impossible in three years, or in thirteen years, to provide a training that will insure sound habits for the 67 68 THE CHANGING CHILD rest of life. The reason for this is not hard to under- stand. At birth the child has but few instincts, and these have to do chiefly with sucking when something is placed in the mouth, and grasping when something is placed in the hand. On the basis of these instincts very little education is possible. In the course of the first year of life the child can learn to go to sleep when placed in a certain position, he can learn to wait for his food, he can learn to handle various objects more or less awk- wardly, he can learn to associate happy or unhappy feelings with various expressions of the face, or with the tones of the voice, and he can learn to follow certain suggestions—such as to refrain from touching particu- lar things, or to lie down, or to clap his hands, and so on. This kind of ‘ obedience” is a good beginning; it lays the foundations for the future, but will not in- sure obedience later. Regular habits of eating and sleeping and playing will be very useful for the time being, and they will serve as a basis for maintaining regularity later. But they will not, if abandoned at this point, insure regularity in the years to come. In the second year, the child gives evidence of a growing curiosity about the doings of people and about the workings of things. He will imitate movements of animals and machines as well as of human beings. He will learn to walk and he will learn to talk. He will begin to discern between himself and what is not him- self. He will come to recognize expressions of approval and of disapproval, and will begin to care. At this time he can learn to walk correctly, and to speak cor- THE UNFINISHED CHILD 69 rectly, so far as the vocabulary and the control of the speech organs will let him. But we cannot insure the future gait and the future speech by concentrating our attention on the correct use of the locomotor and speech organs during the first few years. Being imitative, it is well the child should have good models; but the best models now will hardly protect him against bad models later. Being sensitive to approval and disapproval, he will profit from our high standards of conduct—child conduct, of course—for the present and for some time to come; but these standards will not last forever. From year to year, new instincts will appear. And as each arises, the time will be most favorable for learning to control those activities that are related to the instinct in question. When later the native interests begin to shift from joy in the mere doing of something to satisfaction in the results of the activity, it is time to develop ideas of perseverance and ideals of work- manship and thoroughness. It is absolutely impossible to do this, however, before the seventh or eighth year of the child’s life because the child cannot before this time look far enough ahead to understand the relation of present effort to future achievement. In the same way, it is impossible for a child to learn to codperate in work or in play with others before he has acquired an interest in carrying undertakings to a conclusion, and before he has acquired certain skill in doing things, and can therefore take part in “ team ” operations. No matter how solicitous parents and teachers may be with the younger children, the virtues of the team play must be developed when the instincts 10 THE CHANGING CHILD are ready to be molded into the forms that society con- siders best. One of the reasons why children of different ages do not get along well together lies, of course, in the varied experiences they have had. The older children know so much more and understand so much more. But a much deeper reason lies in the fact that the interests and capacities are so distinct at different ages that these children do not have sufficient in common. It is the fact that the instincts arise in succession that is important in grading the work and play of children, rather than differences in experience, although these are also important. We should not, however, seek to isolate the child in the home, as we sagregate children of about the same age in school. A part of the child’s education consists in his learning to adjust himself to living with those of different interests and tastes, through the give and take of the home. We may thus see that it is a serious mistake to assume that careful attention to the details of a child’s life for the first few years will, without regard to later circumstances, provide a suitable basis for all the future development. Not only are there innumerable examples of the disaster that comes from later neglect; there are also countless cases of children who were sadly neg- lected during the first few years of life and then came out triumphantly as a result of proper later treatment. In the development of the child every day counts, and must be used to its full capacity, until the personality is a completely formed character that can be relied upon to continue its own development. THE PASSING IDEALS Every normal child is bound to shock his elders by giving voice to ideals that those elders have already outgrown. The latter are shocked only because they have forgotten that they ever entertained similar ideals themselves. If they could only think back to the days when they longed for the careers of pirates or Indian squaws they would recognize that these comparatively crude ideals nevertheless represent real reachings towards the best and highest. It is important for parents to guard against impos- ing ready-made ideals upon their children, regardless of fit. The ideals of the child, if they are to be of any use in life, are to be his ideals, the outgrowths of his experiences and thinking, the developments of his per- sonality. Moreover, our ideals must be as fluid and as expansive as life itself. It is therefore out of the ques- tion to set up any finality as the aim of the child’s ambitions. While eating his lunch with his mother one day, Georgie remarked, apropos of nothing in particular, that he wished to be like Sir Galahad. Mother was delighted, but of course she did not show it too forcibly ; and later she told father, and he was delighted, too. But father could not contain his joy so easily, and casually observed, the following Sunday, that he knew where there was a nice picture of Sir Galahad, that ve 72 THE CHANGING CHILD might be suitable for Georgie’s room. This was just to draw the boy out, you understand. Georgie was delighted with father’s suggestion; but he volunteered nothing further. Father was at last driven to asking rather bluntly what Georgie admired so in the famous knight. “Oh,” explained the boy, “I wish I could be like Sir Galahad and wear armor and go around and fight people and kill ’em!” This was really shocking; and both parents were at a complete loss. Here they had been cherishing the satisfying delusion that their hopeful was fired by lofty ideals; and suddenly they realized that Georgie was just as barbarous and cruel as—as other boys of his age. It was more than disappointing. When the young son of a certain minister announced that he intended to be a policeman, the mother tried to hide her chagrin in recognition of the fact that every individual has his limitations; and she tried to resign herself with the reflection that a policeman may be a useful member of society. But the father was wiser— this time. He encouraged Donald to emulate all the virtues of a policeman that the child was old enough to appreciate. The mother had feared that this would get Donald fixed in the resolve; the father simply sought to take advantage of the temporary interest to establish all the good habits that the situation would allow. We know why parents feel more pride and satisfaction when the child’s ambition turns toward the professions or finance than when it turns toward the more violent forms of human activity. But there is really something THE PASSING IDEALS 3 uncanny about the child who jumps—in his mind, that is—from his building blocks to being bank president or mayor, without ever dreaming of being a motorman or jockey or conductor or hunter. Should your son de- clare his intention of becoming a judge, you would no doubt be sufficiently pleased to show it, and your neigh- bors would not be long in finding it out. But should he set his heart on becoming a miner or a bricklayer, you would probably discourage his further confidences, and take pains to hide his ambitions from all your friends. But unless you know just what it is that is so attrac- tive to him in the career of the judge or of the miner, you are really not in a position to do very much that is helpful. If the judge means to the child sitting on a bench and doing nothing, and living in a fine house with many attendants, the ideal is of very little moral value. If being a bricklayer means being active and procuring visible results it has great possibilities for moral development. In any case, the young person’s ideals are not to be laughed away; the sneer will do more than you intend. However unworthy the childish ambition may at first seem, it is more important to preserve the ability to dream dreams, it is more important to preserve faith in ideals, than it is to correct values. Perhaps your child is capable of aspiring to something loftier than the career of traveling showman; but to sneer the show- man out of his life is not to substitute your ideal of service—it is to discourage all attempts to look into the future. 74 THE CHANGING CHILD Every ideal that the child can formulate, no matter how simple, may be made to serve a useful purpose. There are virtues in every line of activity, and whether the model for the time be a savage chief or a school- teacher, whether it be a sailor or a trained nurse, the fact that the child’s imagination has been touched must be used for fixing right habits, and for developing prin- ciples of action. There is little danger that these childish ideals will restrict the girl or boy in his development. They are rather to be looked upon as the means whereby the child acquires the habit of thinking of life’s problems in terms of the ideal. And this habit is worth so much that it offsets any disadvantages that may appear for the time being. As children become older, their ambitions will be in- fluenced by more and more practical considerations— such as questions of income and social standing associ- ated with each occupation; but while they may, let them dream dreams. THE DABBLING ADOLESCENT Arter dinner the grown-ups sat about on rockers down on the lawn, while the younger people danced on the wide veranda, to the music of a phonograph. A father was saying that so far as he could observe, the chief reason for the high cost of living was to be found in the fact that the young people are so fickle in their tastes. He did not remember just how many dollars—but they were many—his son Percy had in- vested in cameras and ruby lights and dishes and chemi- cals less than a year ago; and now he did not care a bit about photography. Was going in for geology, and had decided to go to college just to have a chance to study that. Father thought that he might have stuck to photogra- phy and finally worked into the business—it is a pretty good. business—or he might have made up his mind about geology last year and have saved all that money. Mrs. Darling felt the same sort of grievance, for her Genevieve had made such a muss about the house with her photographs and things, and now she hardly ever takes her camera out. Indeed, Genevieve has had four hobbies since she took up with the camera—there was raising pansies, and hand-painted china, and the foreign missions, and now it’s dancing. The Darlings never mention the cost of anything; but such shifting and restlessness is very, distracting. 1 76 THE CHANGING CHILD Another mother observed that, after all, we have to expect to do a great deal for our children, but she did fear that her son was frittering away altogether too much time in ways that would prove to be unprofitable. He gave up collecting stamps when his album was far from full, and there it was, after all that work, doing nobody any good. And it was the same way with his wireless telegraph. They had had so much trouble get- ting a permit for the masts, and he had worked so hard studying the codes until he was able to pick up all sorts of curious and interesting messages (the mother could not conceal her pride behind her com- plaints) and now all was abandoned since he met that North boy who got him interested in ants! What all this would lead to, goodness only knew, and she was patient enough, goodness also knew. Mr. Burrowes, who dreaded the water, felt the same way about it; for had not his son dabbled about in a dozen—yes, a score—of useless hobbies, only to turn around suddenly with his mind made up to enter the Naval Academy next year, when he will be old enough? As if there were not a hundred excellent things to do on the solid earth! And Mr. Burrowes proceeded to enumerate some of them, though he stopped long before he reached ten. But the fathers and mothers in the party worried altogether more than they had a right to. Or at least, if they were entitled to all that worry, they worried in the wrong direction. The young people, if they are fairly healthy, and if they are fairly free to find out about what’s going on in the world, and if they are THE DABBLING ADOLESCENT v7 fairly free to go in for things that do not bring in money—or especially if they have a chance to go in for things that cost money—are quite sure to take up one absorbing hobby after another. It is just because there are so many excellent things to do on the solid earth—and in the air, and in the water, too—that they need several years to find out which they would rather do. And apparently the only way to find out is by trying the feel of them. Of course this is rather expensive, because the things with which they clutter up the house are never entirely used, and they form a worthless collection of junk to mark the meanderings of the adolescent mind. But the most serious concern is not the cost in money, for, where the money is not to be had, we find the same tendency to jump from one interest to another. The fear of adults is always that the growing girl or boy will become a dabbler, a “ rolling stone,”’ an unsettled wanderer without definite purpose or goal. And it must be admitted that once in so often, a person reaches years of maturity without finding a guiding aim in life. For the adolescents in general, however, this rapid shifting of interest seems to be the normal manifesta- tion of the rapid development going on within the organism. The changes in the nervous system bring forth a multitude of new interests and new impulses which simply cannot all find expression at the same time, and which crowd upon each other in such fashion that now one and now another breaks to the surface in quick succession. To people of comparatively fixed 78 THE CHANGING CHILD habits and conventionalized standards, these fickle ways are not only annoying, but often even alarming. Those of us who cannot remember the golden days when we wavered between the operatic stage and a lonely island in the South Sea, or between saving the world from selfishness and sin and becoming the chief of a band of brigands, simply cannot understand this fickleness. It does seem so inconsistent, so unreasonable—and what will it all lead to? But a more serious problem is the adolescent who does not show a wide range of interests, who does not experiment with many possibilities. The adolescent years are those in which the child feels that he can do anything that human beings can ever do; and in truth no one has yet found the limits of what he can do. The rapid growth in physical and mental strength gives rise to the feeling of unlimited growth; and past performances quickly lose their in- terest with the advent of new powers. All the possibili- ties of the child come to the front and it is only as these are tried out that the most profitable lines of development can be discovered. The danger for most children during this period of growth and impression is not in the dissipation through contact with too many lines of interest, but in the lack of opportunity to try out enough to give a broad sym- pathy, a far outlook, and a wise choice of permanent interest. Let the children dabble while the dabbling is good; soon it will be too late. WATCHFUL WAITING. Parents naturally harbor secret ambitions as to the future of the children; we know that, because they sometimes let the secret out. And it is quite natural that they should because they transfer to their children the hopes of their own youth, the hopes that never crystallized into reality. We can therefore understand why the scribblings of Alice should suggest fine writing to the mother, or why Tommy’s tinkering with the decrepit alarm-clock should remind the father of that other Thomas, the great inventor. Not only is it easy to understand why parents dream these dreams—which must appear rather stupid or con- ceited to spinsters, and to the parents of other children —but it is very desirable that they should continue their dreaming and planning. Alice, nearly three, very busy scribbling forest and cloud effects on the back of a circular letter, was quite oblivious to the presence and conversation of her mother and a visitor. ‘‘ Can she write yet?” asked the visitor. “ Oh, no,” beamed the mother, “ we do not wish to hurry her. But she does love to play with pencils and paper, and I think she is going to be an author.” The visitor smiled indulgently, and said, ‘‘ Isn’t that interesting!” But this is what she thought: “ Bosh! She is just as likely to become a cheap clerk or a fourth rate stenographer.” 79 80 THE CHANGING CHILD Which is quite true; only there is no use discouraging parents too early in the game. For entertaining hopes concerning children is about the surest way of guiding our plans and bringing unity into our treatment of the developing personality. The hopes can certainly do no harm—unless they blind us. But that is the real danger. For if we have nothing to guide us but our hopes, we are just as likely to be moved—or paralyzed—by our fears. It is “natural” for parents to translate the occasional interesting activities of their children into possibilities for achievement. But it is just as “natural” to translate the annoying or unconven- tional activities into gnawing fear. We are wonderfully ignorant about the kinds of qualities and capacities that are required in the various occupations. And we are just as ignorant about the possible development of the various characteristics that children show at the successive stages of their growth. We do know that there are misfits in every line of en- deavor, and in nearly every family. But usually we do not know the reason in detail—until it is too late—nor what use could have been made of the interests and native abilities of each child. Charles Darwin tells us in his autobiography of being rebuked by the schoolmaster for wasting his time on such subjects as chemistry. We should explain this by saying that the schoolmaster had no appreciation of a subject of which he was totally ignorant. But he tells us further that he was greatly mortified when his father once said to him, “ You care for nothing but shooting, WATCHFUL WAITING 81 dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family.” Now Darwin’s father was not an ignorant man, and he was not unsympa- thetic; but his imagination was not equal to interpret- ing the child’s interests and activities in terms other than those of loafing, shooting, and rat-catching. But if the experience of Darwin should lead anyone to predict a great scientific career for the son of similar proclivities, he must be warned. For the youth of Patrick Henry was characterized by alternating spasms of running wild and hunting in the woods and spells of extreme laziness. “ No persuasion could bring him either to read or to work,” his biographer writes, “and every omen foretold a life, at best of mediocrity, if not of insignificance.” Which only supports the old suspicion that you must not put too much trust in omens. Again and again, we find cases of children who filled their parents with despair and their teachers with dis- gust, only to emerge later into men and women of dis- tinction and high social value. A timid youth, back- ward in school and slow to give any sign of internal fires, develops occasionally into a leader in thought or in action. Henry Ward Beecher was so bashful and reticent as a boy that he gave the impression, according to his sister, of “stolid stupidity.” In addition to this he was a poor writer and speller, and had a “ thick utter- ance.” No one would have guessed that this ten-year- old boy was to become a brilliant orator, especially when compared with other children of the family who 82 THE CHANGING CHILD memorized their lessons readily and recited them with grace and eloquence, in marked contrast to the con- fused and stammering Henry. John Adams gave no sign of abilities beyond the ordinary until well along in years. And, but for the circumstances of the Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant would have remained an obscure, uninteresting and “ unsuc- cessful ” drifter. On the other hand, many a precocious child seems to stop short in his development long before there is the maturity or the opportunity to begin to accomplish things of importance. In many cases the failure to fulfil the early promises is due to an arrest of develop- ment, which is apparently of organic origin. In other cases, however, the child of ability is either discour- aged by the lack of appreciation, or an excess of appre- ciation may remove the stimulus for further effort. But we are not to suppose that every brilliant child will necessarily become a mediocre adult, nor that every backward child is to develop into a genius. The fact is that the “ abilities ” of a child are in a state of constant change. At no time may we say of the child that he has exhibited a final manifestation of his possibilities or of his limitations. Furthermore, the individuality of a child need not take the form of specialized fitness for some particular occupation. In- deed, it is probable that only very few children have naturally such specialized fitness. Most children are sufficiently plastic and adaptable to be trained for a large variety of occupations, and it is a mistake to ex- pect of the ordinary child a specialized interest (in a WATCHFUL WAITING 83 vocational sense) or to feel disappointment when the interest shifts from one line of work to another. Nor is it desirable that children be encouraged too early to specialize their studies in a way that will force a choice of occupation. We must utilize every interest as it appears, for there is no stronger source of motives for applications and exertions and sacrifice. But we must not let the current interests and activities exclude fur- ther development. Another danger of early specialization lies in the fact that through such specialization the child is likely to be shut out from associations and experiences with children of diverse tastes and outlooks, and thus become narrowed in his sympathies and appreciations. From a practical point of view, it is well to realize that the conditions and requirements in all occupa- tions—the professional and commercial as well as the industrial—are changing very rapidly. This makes it impossible to anticipate very far ahead the special adaptabilities of a given boy or girl. The qualities that made a man a successful family physician a gen- eration ago will not insure his son a satisfactory career in the same calling. Even if we could gage with a fair degree of accuracy the capacities of children, we should not be in a posi- tion to guide most of them very definitely until they are well along in their adolescence. But we have not yet learned to gage the possibilities of growing young organisms. The “ inattentive ” Isaac Newton, the “ dul- lard’ Robert Fulton, the “ indolent’? James Russell Lowell, the “ weak-minded ” David Hume, and hundreds 84 THE CHANGING CHILD of others challenge our methods of estimating the powers and characters of children. These, more than the disappointments we feel in the failure of our children to realize our great expectations, make us question our standards and systems and signs. In view of the common failure to anticipate the ulti- mate achievements of children, it would seem much wiser to draw all possible encouragement and stimulus from the positive manifestations, to watch constantly for the best, rather than to fear and despair for the weaknesses. We must not, however, fall into the too common error of looking to some form of leadership as the sole meas- ure of success in our children’s development. In the first place, those peculiar combinations of qualities that make for leadership are simply not present in every child, and we cannot cultivate what is not there. It is therefore unwise to set our hearts upon the attaining of what is precluded from the start. In the second place, from the very nature of things, it is impossible for all to become leaders. It is therefore unwise to cherish a philosophy of success that condemns most of us to failure in advance. Society does not need every child to become a leader, nor does every child need to become one for his own happiness. We may well expect that the application of more thought and more knowl- edge to the problems of child training will result in increasing proportions of successful living, but this will come about not necessarily through increasing the proportions of leaders, but through elevating the level of all our lives, by enlarging our appreciations, by re- fining our sensibilities, by expanding our resources. GRADING THE CHILD’S TEMPTATIONS In the books we read, many of the interesting inci- dents turn on the more or less ingenious and more or less successful contrivances of the young people to escape or circumvent the prohibitions or orders of the older people. The circus is to come to town next week, and Billy is explicitly told that he is not to attend; yet somehow Billy manages to be there when the clown tumbles off the elephant’s back—and somehow the stern and righteous parents fail to know about it until too late. Caroline was very anxious to go to the dance they were going to have at Cobb’s, and said so. But her mother was equally anxious that she should not go—for reasons of her own—and also said so. But on the night of the dance Caroline was there, while her parents supposed she was spending the night with her friend Jenny, and had forgotten all about the dance. This sort of thing happens so frequently in real life that even those who never read any books can multiply instances. What I am most curious about in this con- nection is not explained either in the books or in the ordinary conversation of the people we meet. Just what is it that parents have in mind when they lay down their orders, in direct and obvious opposition to the wishes of the children? Do they feel satisfied that the issuing of an order is sufficient to bring about the desired result? Do they expect the children to accept 85 86 THE CHANGING CHILD the word of authority and immediately dismiss their own longings and yearnings? To make a child do something that is contrary to his liking, you have but to employ sufficient coercion—and he will go through the motions. But unless he comes to like it, the temptation will always be to shirk or evade the imposed task. It is therefore unwise to leave a child too long to himself with the responsibility of completing the unpleasant duties. And it is unfair, when he falls down, to upbraid him for his failure. The younger the child, the more difficult it is for him to keep before his mind the desirability of doing the un- pleasant. And the more difficult is it for him to keep in mind the penalty of failure. What we require of children should be adapted to their growing ability to bear responsibility. This, it seems, is what the parents of the Billies and the Carolines have overlooked. They have issued their forbiddings and then turned to other affairs; the children, however, do not forget the heart’s desires. The embargo, is merely an obstacle to be overcome; if teasing will not lift the embargo, then the blockade must be run. It would be a good plan for the parents to keep a calendar and then prepare themselves to meet critical periods in advance. Billy’s father, for exam- ple, fearing the demoralizing effects of the circus, whether wisely or not, should have arranged for some other event to absorb the interests and energies and the time that went normally to the circus. In like manner, Caroline’s mother should have anticipated the night of the dance with provisions for a different way of spend- GRADING THE CHILD’S TEMPTATIONS 87 ing the time. There are many ways of substituting one interest for another; but ignoring the wishes of children or forbidding their satisfaction will either tempt to intrigue and disobedience, or arouse resent- ment and bitterness. Four-year-old Richard, about to leave after a visit with his mother, was given two candies for himself and two to take home to his brother. He promptly dis- posed of his own, and the others were wrapped and placed in his pocket. Later in the day, when the brother came home, he was informed that Richard had some candy for him; but when Richard was questioned, he declared that “they all melted away.” Of course they had not melted away, except in his mouth; the story simply indicated the limit of his resources in inventing an explanation for their disappearance that would not react too severely upon himself. He had to admit, finally, that he had eaten them, and he then showed the appropriate kind and amount of remorse. While it was proper to intrust the child with the can- dies to take home to his brother, it was really too much to expect him to remain their custodian, unwatched, for two hours. The confidence in the child was not pro- portioned to his ability to resist the temptation, and was therefore misplaced. The candies should have been taken from him after he came home; he had ful- filled his duty in bringing them home without invading their integrity. A child of seven or eight could easily have carried the burden of temptation for a longer period, but for the younger child it is usually too much. Elizabeth, when she was eight years old, developed 88 THE CHANGING CHILD an unusual appetite for sugar, and was constantly at the sugar bowl. The mother at last resorted to a locked cupboard, where she unostentatiously placed the sugar bowl, beyond the reach of temptation. Some of her friends criticised this action, on the theory that she was thus weakening Elizabeth’s will. But the mother was probably right. Nothing is to be gained by intrusting the child with a duty that she is unable to meet; and nothing is gained by exposing her to ex- cessive temptation. While it is true that the will is strengthened by overcoming temptations, it is equally true that it suffers when compelled to yield too often. Too much trust is virtually too much temptation. Con- fidence in a child, like responsibility, should be propor- tioned to the child’s ability to use it properly. Mrs. Annie Winsor Allen well says in her Home, School and Vacation: ‘Life is full of temptations. We should not unnecessarily multiply them by asking of a child more self-restraint than he has yet fully learned. It is fair to trust a child of ten not to run away, but it is not fair to trust a child of three. It is not fair to leave ‘ yellow journals’ round and then tell a child of any age that you trust him not to read them. The temptation is too strong and constant.” RESPONDING TO THE ENVIRONMENT THE WONDERING CHILD Curiosity has been called the mother of all knowl- edge and the nuisance of all mothers. No doubt there is some truth in both characterizations, although much of our knowledge comes to us quite uninvited and many mothers do not find the perpetual queries of their children at all annoying. The normal child begins to ask questions in the fourth year of his life, usually, and how long he will keep it up depends very largely on outside circum- stances. It is quite possible to make him stop very soon, as by making sure that the questions never bring any satisfying results. It is also possible to make him continue the practice for many years, as by making sure that the asking of a question always brings an interesting or satisfying result. The great explorers and discoverers were the boys and girls who retained the habit of asking questions, and at the same time acquired some skill in getting their questions an- swered. We must not suppose, however, that all questions are worth while, or that all kinds of questions are equally worth encouraging. On the contrary, it is very easy for the little boy or the little girl to get the habit of asking questions that should be promptly and de- cidedly discouraged. 91 92 RESPONDING TO THE ENVIRONMENT Little Henry missed his father after two days of absence, and asked his mother, “ Where is papa?” The mother answered that he had to go to Chicago. “Why did he have to go to Chicago?” asked Henry. This question was the natural response of the child to a new intellectual situation; it was the first time that he had ever heard of anyone being obliged to do such a thing. The mother then answered, “He had to go on some business.” But Henry still pursued her: “Why did he have to go on some business?” By this time the child had lost interest in the mysteries of Chi- cago and in his father’s absence, and was prepared to meet each statement with a “ Why? ” Strings of questions of this kind usually indicate not a live curiosity on the successive problems suggested by the answers, but a mechanical habit of saying the thing that will bring some sort of response—they are the precursors of what later in life becomes the waste- ful and stupid habit of “ making conversation ”. While recognizing fully the child’s right to have all sincere questions answered, we must also resist the tendency to encourage empty talk masquerading as curiosity. These questions certainly have the same form as those that are actuated by a genuine desire for knowledge or for understanding, and we must be constantly on our guard against being deceived by the form. This does not mean that the child deliberately seeks to de- ceive us by making his conversation take the form of questions. Without meaning to deceive us, however, the child soon learns what kind of talk will keep the ball rolling—if we let him. THE WONDERING CHILD 93 The questions that spring from curiosity are of two main kinds, one pertaining entirely to facts, the other seeking for explanations. In answering the child’s questions, there is one thing that the sincere parent must learn early—that is, how to say “I don’t know.” This, as you have no doubt observed, is a very difficult thing for most people to learn; but it is absolutely essential if you are to retain the confidence and respect of the learning child for a long time. Many people fear to say these words, on the supposition that to admit ignorance is to weaken the regard of the ques- tioner. The other side of the problem is to retain the regard of the child after he finds out that you have been pretending to knowledge and understanding which you do not possess. When it comes to questions about matters of fact— such questions as have to do with names and dates and places and authorship and geographical or scientific data—you will often be cornered for lack of the necessary knowledge. Having learned to say “I don’t know ” next step is to accept your share of the child’s burden, and make the problem a common one for the two of in such situations, is not sufficient. The you. “TI don’t know, but let us see how we can find out.” This should express the attitude of the helpful companion. You might send your daughter to the encyclopedia, or to some other repository of knowl- edge, or you might arrange to look the matter up to- gether. When a child is actually in search of informa- tion on any subject, he ought to get it and he ought to get it while his interest is still active. 94 RESPONDING TO THE ENVIRONMENT Questions as to how and why things are thus and so need to be treated in a somewhat different way. The easiest thing to do when Henry asks, “ Why has the elephant such a long nose?” is to tell him that it is natural to elephants, or that God made it that way, or that this enables him to pick his food from the ground without too much effort. A little reflection will show us that such answers really do not explain. And as a matter of fact, such questions cannot be answered in a common-sense way. The best we can do is to direct the child’s attention to the relation of the ele- phant’s long nose to the conditions under which the elephant lives and gets his food and to get him inter- ested in finding out just how the organs of the animal work. In the same way the working of a mechanism of any kind—which is likely to be especially interesting to boys—can be explained by referring to the connec- tions between the parts, or to the relations between the processes and the products. Where the explanations can be connected with the child’s earlier experiences this should always be done. So far as possible the child should be encouraged to think out the answers to his questions in terms of what he already knows; careful questioning in return for his questions will often bring the desired result. Not only should the child’s past experience be util- ized in helping him answer his own questions, but so far as may be all of his past experience and knowledge should be related to every new question. To show the child that his question about where cocoa comes from means more that getting the name of a country is to give THE WONDERING CHILD 95 him more than he knew enough to ask for. Show him that getting cocoa means industry and trade and navi- gation and the hard work of thousands of men and women, and so make every question worth while that drivel will find no place in the child’s day. EXAMPLE AND PRECEPT Tue separation of precept from the actual practices of the people who surround the child is seen in many ways. When Agnes loses her patience with her puppy or with her sewing, we rebuke her gently and tell her that it is not ladylike to scold or fret in such a manner. Agnes is duly impressed. But when we are trying to add up a column of figures on the grocer’s bill and the child’s senseless and interminable babble irritates us to— a certain point—we blurt out something that is neither polite in manner nor parliamentary in substance. And again Agnes is duly impressed. In time she will no doubt learn to control herself; but we must not wonder that our repeated admonitions fail to bring quicker results. The admonitions produce their effects; but our outbursts produce their counter effects. At a gathering of mothers, the ever recurring prob- lem of children’s lies was under discussion. One of those present told of a troublesome case. The more experienced suggested various remedies, such as dis- covering the type of lie, to see whether it was over- activity of the imagination, or fear, or slovenly think- ing, or whatever else it might be that led the child along the path of untruthfulness. “Oh, his mother has tried everything; she has punished him and prom- ised him rewards, but he keeps on lying,” said the woman who had introduced the horrible example. 96 EXAMPLE AND PRECEPT 97 As the family of the child in question was not known to those present, the suggestions were soon exhausted; but one of the mothers made the casual observation, “ Of course, a great deal depends upon the home envi- ronment of the child. If the people at home lie—even about little things—the threats and promises will not break the child. One bad exan.ple will offset ten good precepts.” This was very illuminating. The first speaker said: “Now that I come to think of it, there is something in that. I was taking David’s younger brother with me to the museum last week, and just before we got to the car he said, ‘ You do not have to pay my fare be- cause mother never does; I can say I am only five.’ Now I do not suppose the child invented that himself.” This incident illusrates one class of cases in which we expect the child to do as we say, in spite of all that we do. The hundreds of “ white lies ” that grown-ups tell day after day, without even being aware that they are using inflated or figurative language, are accepted by the children as literally true, or as models of diplo- macy. When we consider how difficult it is for the young child to attain to habits and ideals of truthfulness, we must see the importance of giving him all the help pos- sible through sympathetic understanding and through the removal of all unnecessary temptations—especially the temptation to imitate his elders in untruthfulness. We wish our children to be friendly in their manner to all with whom they come in contact. We never tire of preaching friendliness to them. Nay, we go even 98 RESPONDING TO THE ENVIRONMENT farther; we set them excellent examples by our con- duct in the presence of guests, or when on a visit. But have the children ever heard us make derogatory re- marks about these very people to whom we have taken so much pains to appear friendly? Have they heard us decry Mrs. Brown’s extravagance or ridicule the Briggs’ taste in house-furnishing? No adult is expected to be so saintly or so lacking in standards as to refrain from criticising others. But criticisms of persons should not be made in the presence of young children, and they should never be made in a flippant or sarcastic spirit. Children will hear a great deal of casual comment or table talk without giving any outward sign of having noticed. But when they throw back a phrase we had heedlessly dropped, we are greatly shocked at their saying such things! Arthur’s mother complained that it was impossible for her to keep a servant for any length of time, be- cause Arthur was so ugly and impudent in his manner toward the help. The listening friend sympathized with her, for she knew how difficult it was to adjust the harmonies of a complex household without the added burden of unfriendly children. But when she visited Arthur’s mother shortly afterward, she was en- tertained (in the presence of Arthur himself) with a long and vigorous tirade against servants in general and her own Mary in particular. She could not help but feel that here at least was one of the factors in the mother’s problem. It is hardly to be expected that a boy of ten will conduct himself courteously or even EXAMPLE AND PRECEPT 99 humanely towards people of whom his parents con- stantly speak contemptuously. In making the resolve to be suitable models for the conduct of our children, it is not necessary to go to the extreme of adopting only such speech and manner as is fit for children. Even young children can learn that there are some things which it is proper enough for their elders to do, but not permissible in them- selves. Thus, parents may stay up into the mysterious hours of the night, but children sometimes “ go to bed by day ”; some food is suitable for grown-up folks, but taboo for children, and so on. Nevertheless, the devel- opment of many good habits and the establishment of high ideals will depend directly upon the examples furnished by the parents. In this fact lies the greatest educational advantage to adults in having children about, for if they realize this it will hold them up to their own best standards. THE LAZY CHILD Tue controversy as to whether people must be driven by fear of hunger or of punishment to do their work will probably continue for many years to come. But it should not be difficult for the parent who really cares, to make up his mind as to the best way of get- ting his own children to do their share of the world’s work. We have used the word “ lazy’ to cover up a heap of ignorance about human nature, and it is the easiest thing in the world to resort to this adjective— certainly much easier than trying to understand peo- ple, and especially children. Those who have given most attention to the problem of child nature are pretty well agreed that it is im- possible for a healthy boy or girl to be lazy. It is a contradiction of terms to say that a young human being would prefer to do nothing. Indeed, it is the irresistible impulse to be up. and doing that makes the healthy child so much of a nuisance to people who wish to have everything quiet and “ orderly.” The first thing to do when a child shows symptoms of “ laziness,” is to have him thoroughly examined by a competent physician. Now this sounds as though we considered laziness a disease. And several years ago when Dr. Stiles of the U. S. Public Health Service announced his discoveries in regard to the hookworm, it was quite the fashion for respectable people (who have a great deal 100 THE LAZY CHILD 101 of contempt for lazy folks) and for the newspapers to think up jokes about the “laziness germ.” But seri- ously, laziness is very commonly an indication of im- paired health, if not of actual disease. This is espe- cially true when it occurs in young children. When a child sits or lies about without caring to do anything, without even getting into mischief, there is generally something wrong. But perhaps we all know older children who are “pictures of health ” and at the same time lazy enough to exasperate their parents and teachers. When we have made sure that the picture of health is not a de- ceptive appearance, it is time to look for other causes, and not till then. Judging from the experience of the schools, there are lazy children who have good health. But the usual attitude toward indifference to work is hardly effective in making children get over it. To scold and to drive may help in getting a particular task finished, but they have not been very helpful in establishing habits of industry. And that is the whole problem, in most cases—to establish habits of industry. By nature the child adapts himself very readily to the establishment of such habits. In the first place there are the instincts for activity, the native curiosity and the imitativeness. And in the next place, there is the ease with which repeated acts become organized into habit. Could anything be easier than making a child get into the habit cf doing something all of his waking time? But children do certainly grow up “lazy”; so what can be the trouble? We are quite sure that it cannot be anything wrong with his muscles, for ex- 102 RESPONDING TO THE ENVIRONMENT ample, because the amount of energy that a child puts into his play after he is tired out by his ‘“ work,” is enough to do the work several times over. That ought to give us a clew. The energy that is expended in play has meaning to the child; too often the energy required of him in work—whether it is home work or school work or work that earns money—has no meaning to him whatever. In other words, where there is interest and enthusiasm there is effort and exertion; when there is indifference or repugnance, there is lethargy and in- dolence. Children will acquire the habits of industry only where they have practice in exerting themselves with purpose and enthusiasm. But we cannot Jet the children play all the time; it is necessary to study, sometimes, and to do other things that are not very pleasant in themselves. Indeed that is true. But it has been found possible to organize study and other necessary work in such a way as to get the children to do it cheerfully and effectively, and so to get the habit of doing what needs to be done without shirking and without complaining. To most older people this would seem to be demoralizing; but experience shows that work done under conditions that arouse interest is at least as valuable for “ discipline ” as work done under compulsion. For children can cer- tainly learn the various processes involved in the handling of tools, for example, by making things in which they are interested ; and they can as easily acquire skill in such work as in monotonous work. But the “moral” habit of application to the disagreeable for the purpose of carrying out a more remote end, which THE LAZY CHILD 103 is the essential thing in what we call our “ discipline,” has been successfully developed by parents and teachers who have known how to use interest in leading children from play to work. It is the children who have been driven to do the unpleasant things that have no meaning for them who resort to “ laziness ” as the only escape from the dis- agreeable tasks. They have never learned to be inter- ested either in the work itself, or in the work as a means to something desirable, that should crown all labor. They have acquired laziness because their im- pulses to activity had been thwarted by association with stupid, monotonous, fatiguing effort. And this suggests a third type of laziness. In spite of the beautiful poems and the stirring orations on the “dignity of labor” the children do not have to be very shrewd to discover that society honors many of its members in inverse proportion to the amount of useful work they do. It is a short step to acquire a contempt for real honest work, since the workers that the child sees about him receive anything but respect from “the better classes.” If a clever girl or boy half-unconsciously makes up his mind that it does not pay to work, if he adopts the attitude expressed by the cant phrase “ Let George do it,” we must look seriously to the conditions that make for laziness in our own habits and views of life. Finally, there are a few children who naturally take to the contemplative life—they are dreamers, poets, philosophers. They have their uses even if they do not do “ useful work.” THE YOUNG MISER WHENEVER we are especially apprehensive lest a child develop a certain unlovely trait, we are told to stop it in infancy. But sometimes it seems necessary to develop the trait in infancy, to make sure that it does not crop out later in life. This is perhaps on the theory that every dog has his day, if not sooner, then later. For example, it would seem that about the only way to prevent a person from becoming an old miser is by giving him a chance to be a young miser. The collecting instinct appears in the child at about seven or eight years of age, and shows itself in number- less ways. The saving of buttons and pins may give way to the collecting of sea-shells or cigarette pictures. The little girl saves scraps of ribbon and lace quite as much because her instinct to collect is developing as because the ribbons and laces appeal to her sense of beauty. At first. there is not much consciousness in the process. The little boy will gather in pebbles and bits of colored glass without much discrimination. It is just the primal instinct to appropriate whatever is not too securely fastened to be carried off. And the little boy’s pocket is notorious for the variety of its contents not merely because he has a great variety of interests and must be prepared for many different kinds of emergencies. In large part his pocket’s contents reflect 104 THE YOUNG MISER 105 the scenes of his most recent experiences; the pocket contains samples of what has come within the boy’s reach. For a while this unconscious impulse to pocket what is touched and to touch what is seen may be a source of great annoyance to the other inhabitants of the house. It may help you at times to locate the missing tape-measure or the key to the bathroom; but it is a nuisance nevertheless. However, there soon comes a time when this instinct to gather expands into a con- scious purpose to make a collection. If we have patiently and wisely allowed the child to pass through the shapeless appropriation of nothing in particular, we shall find it easier to make use of the later stage to good purpose. For with the desire to make collec- tions comes an opportunity to cultivate system and orderliness, that is hardly exceeded by anything found in the home or the school. To make a collection means to have a fairly definite idea of species and genera and orders. If it’s “ trans- fers” that make up the collection, they can be sorted by colors and sizes and car-lines; they can be arranged in chronological order, or in alphabetical order; they can be bundled by tens and by hundreds or by dozens and gross. If we are collecting “ coupons ” that come with soap or with cereals, we have similar opportunities to sort and classify and arrange. Later, when we come to collect postage stamps, the opportunities for classi- cation are just as great, although they are apparently restricted by the traditional conventions of the game. And the parent will be interested to note that all of this 106 RESPONDING TO THE ENVIRONMENT gathering and classifying implies a place for every- thing and everything in its place—a much more force- ful implication here than ever came from precept or example or moral stories about the child that missed the chance to go to a picnic because the cap could not be found. Gathering street-car transfers and coupons is an inexpensive pastime, and is generally not noticed by parents. When noticed it is likely to seem trivial and wasteful of precious time that might be put to better use, and is accordingly apt to receive discouragement. When it comes to cigarette pictures, parents will ques- tion the good taste of the pictures; when it comes to picture postals and postage stamps, they will balk at the expense. Nevertheless, we shall find it worth while to encourage, if only passively, this impulse to make a collection and to develop it intensively. Let the child gather according to his interests, according to the best taste of the surroundings, according to the material that is most promising. In the country there is the opportunity to collect leaves of all the kinds of trees or shrubs; or to collect flowers or flying seeds or insects. If we discourage the collection of birds’ nests or eggs, or of skins of animals, it is not because these things take up more space in the house, or cost more money to get and to preserve, but because they involve cruelty that the child can understand. At the sea- shore, one can gather sea-weeds and mount them neatly on white cardboard squares, or sea-shells or other queer flotsam cast up by the tides. In time one’s interest in collecting butterflies as THE YOUNG MISER 107 curios may disappear entirely, or give way to a scien- tific interest. In time one’s interest in picture postals may disappear entirely or give way to an interest in etchings or oil paintings. Whatever happens, however, may be considered in the nature of a safety-valve, if the collecting interest has really had its opportunity. For this is where the miser comes in. Sooner or later every young person, and especially every boy, will be confronted with the need to gather the symbols of material wealth—money will come to be considered not only very desirable, but even necessary. If the child begins to concentrate his collecting interests on money, he will have every opportunity to develop this interest as the main concern of his life. And that is what we mean by a miser, one whose interest is in the accumulation of money for its own sake, as we say, one who is concerned with having more, but not with using. This is the childish instinct to gather directed towards coins and bills—instead of buttons and trans- fers. The misery of the miser lies in the narrowness of his interests, not in the nature of the instinct which he indulges. To save children from becoming misers, we must broaden the interests through which these instincts may find their outlet. THE SENSIBILITY OF THE CHILD “Tur heart knoweth its own bitterness,’ but seems to be unaware that others have troubles of their own. This is especially true in our dealings with children. We take it for granted that what is childish is trivial, and what is trivial is not serious. But the troubles of a child are just as serious—to the child—as the worries of a statesman are—to the statesman. Our understanding of children, and our sympathy, show themselves in our attitude toward the trifles that make up the substance of a child’s emotional life. When Towser found Ida’s rag doll and shook it and tore it, Ida was nearly beside herself. Mother felt that the little girl needed consolation and earnestly tried to help the child. But she blundered miserably. She pointed out the beauty and the other merits of the large china doll, contrasting her virtues with the homeliness of the mutilated rag doll. She promised to buy Ida another doll, a prettier one, a larger one. But mother did not understand. It was the suffering of the rag doll that troubled Ida, not the loss of an indifferent plaything. This the mother did not understand. The death of a pet animal is a more intimate loss to the child than most adults can appreciate. In Carl Ewald’s charming little book, My Little Boy, the child sees in every group of factory chimneys that they pass on the train, the place where his friend Jean, the 108 THE SENSIBILITY OF THE CHILD 109 dog, is buried. An elderly gentleman in the coach tries to explain that this is not the same factory; but the father understands better. It is the mystery of death and the loss of Jean that trouble the child, and he is continuously reminded of these things. The father wisely ignores the really trifling fact that one locality is confused with another, and sympathizes with his little boy in his deep grief. Sadie and her parents were to go to the sea-shore when school closed. But best of all, a favorite teacher was tc go by the same train. When the time of depar- ture arrived, mother calmly informed the child that they had changed their plans, and would go tomorrow. But is Miss Jones going tomorrow, too? No, she goes as originally planned, and will not be on our train. Sadie was dreadfully disappointed, and neither father nor mother could understand why a child that was usually so sensible should weep nearly half a day and far into the night for such slight cause. Besides, had she not been seeing Miss Jones every day for a whole year? We are too apt to assume that slight details in our arrangements mean no more to the children than they do to us. A little more thought given to the fact that events have meaning to children, would doubtless make us more careful in a hundred little things. We wound the sensi- bilities of the children more through our thoughtless- ness than through cruelty and indifference. Children are almost without exception sensitive to sarcasm—and that until they are well along in years. Whatever justification one’s ingenuity may find for 110 RESPONDING TO THE ENVIRONMENT using sarcasm with adults, there is absolutely none for addressing it to children. A child seldom understands sarcasm on the intellectual side, and seldom fails to be hurt by it. Wise people know that in matters of taste there is no disputing. But how many parents are wise enough to refrain from making disparaging remarks about the friends of their children? A child’s friend is a matter of taste, a matter of admirations and aspirations. No doubt your taste is superior to your child’s; neither can there be any doubt that when your child reaches your present age his taste will be better than it is now. To cast any reflections upon the other child is to wound your own child’s pride and self-esteem in a way that is hardly ever warranted. Even if the choice of a play- mate is entirely bad—which would be a very rare case, indeed—your task is to develop your child’s standards, and not to tear away the friend upon whom the heart is for the time being set. To make disparaging comments upon people in gen- eral is likely to hurt the child’s sensibilities in a way that is quite unnecessary, and certainly undesirable. Unkind remarks about acquaintances, made in the pres- ence of children, will at first hurt them. In time, how- ever, this procedure will probably make the children cynical. If they lose their faith in human nature with the advancing years, if they lose their feeling of rever- ence, to what extent are these losses due to the stinging and cynical conversation that they hear at home? Another source of needless wounds to children is ridicule directed against their games or other activities. THE SENSIBILITY OF THE CHILD 111 How silly it would be for a business man or a society woman to sit on the floor and roll a ball against the wall and catch it on its return! But how sensible it is for a little girl or boy to do just that! The silly thing is for grown up people to gage the activities of children in terms of their own maturer judgment, wider experi- ence and trained, not to say sophisticated, tastes. The child’s game is the game for him, here and now. If you know a better game for him, teach it to him, play it with him; but do not kill the joy of all play by laughing at what is after all a good enough activity— since the child finds in it satisfaction. No intelligent parent would willingly hurt a child by means of false accusations, or even by insinuations. Aside from the unnecessary suffering this may cause at the time, we must recognize how easy it is for the child to assume the attitude expressed by the saying, “ [ve got the name, I may as well have the game.” Parents can afford to make great sacrifices for the sake of retaining the confidence and companionship of their children. One of the essential means to this end is the patient effort to understand the effect of seeming trifles upon the feelings of the child. We should seek to avoid unnecessary suffering that is just as real and just as acute, for all it is childish. We are certainly anxious to avoid the resentment and the estrangement that must follow repeated heartbreaks and misunder- standings. And we must consider, finally, how much of the callousness and indifference we find among men and women is the direct result of the constant bruising that their feelings suffered during childhood. COMBATING CRUELTY Haro.p caught a butterfly and ran with it joyously, to show his mother. It was very pretty, and everyone admired it. As the insect made struggles to escape, the child handled it rather gingerly. ‘“‘ How tender he is,’ mused the mother and went on with her sewing. Presently the butterfly stopped struggling; perhaps it was exhausted. In the course of the exhibition the scales were rubbed from its wings, and it was no longer so pretty to behold. As attention wandered from the butterfly and the child, the boy sought new diversions, and soon he was observed sitting in a corner of the porch, deliberately pulling off one wing after another, and proceeding to the legs. Mother was shocked, as any person of feeling would be. ‘‘ How cruel he is,” she thought, and scolded him roundly for being so un- kind to the pretty little butterfly. Whenever a child proceeds to dismember an insect or to throw a stone at a bird, he should be stopped. No child should be allowed to acquire the habit of inflicting pain on lower animals, or to cultivate delight in the sufferings of others. But neither should any parent. condemn Harold for his cruelty just because he pulled a butterfly apart. You do not think your child is cruel because he is over-anxious to open every parcel that comes into the house, or because he once cut a doll open to see what the stuffing was made of. A child 112 COMBATING CRUELTY 113 with a certain amount of initiative and curiosity will investigate the structure and insides of everything that he can possibly take apart. While he is still young and inexperienced, he makes no discrimination between dissecting a toy dog and a live insect. It is therefore not necessarily his cruelty that makes him do such shocking things, but a combination of his curiosity and his. ignorance, and these are the factors we have to deal with. Now the curiosity is in no way objectionable. It is an instinct to be cultivated. The child will need to be trained to satisfy his curiosity in certain directions, and in effective ways. But his ignorance has to be overcome, and that is the end of much of the experience that we deliberately put in his way under the name of “education.” There is a suspicion of cruelty only when the child is old enough to have a clear idea what suffering means, and to realize that other beings can suffer as he can, and from the same causes as those that make him suffer. Moreover, we must distinguish between the brutality that is a rather negative callousness or indifference to suffering, and the positive cruelty that derives satisfac- tion from the suffering of others. There are very few children who manifest cruelty in the latter sense. It would be obviously unwise to treat such acts of cruelty by means of whippings or other punishments that are in their way as cruel as what the child does. To give a child a pet dog or cat or bird, to let the child learn to love the pet, will do more to cultivate his sympathy than a whole year of daily sermons on being kind. 114 RESPONDING TO THE ENVIRONMENT There is so much evidence of unkindness and cruelty all about us that we should really not be astonished when the child manifests the same kinds of hardness. Everywhere he may witness whippings—whipping of children and of horses and of dogs. He is hardly to be blamed if he becomes indifferent to the sight of such acts, and grows up to take part in them himself, as the aggressor. Indeed, the prevailing cruelty among adults is a sort of self-perpetuating affair; adults are cruel because they became so as children, and the children acquire the habit because they see so much of it in the adults. We are parts of a vicious circle from which escape is very difficult, and for many impossible. Children see chickens killed, they hear of war, perhaps take part in hunting expeditions, and are constantly admonished to “swat the fly.” Now no sensible person would for a moment try to cultivate the sentiments of the children on behalf of the poor little fly. The thoughtless senti- mentalism behind the adage “Live and let live” is as pernicious as the doctrine “ Each for himself.” But it is fair to question whether young children should be engaged in any kind of killing campaign. We may teach the children to hate the fly and the mosquito, without reserve; but it would be wiser to teach them how to prevent the birth of the flies and the mosquitoes than to let the animals come to maturity and then give our children practice in killing without compunction. Older children should learn that it is sometimes neces- sary to inflict pain, or even to kill. They should, how- ever, come to have the same abhorrence of wanton in- COMBATING CRUELTY 115 jury to other human beings or to lower animals, as they have of the most noxious animals that call for slaughter. In large part the attitude of children towards pain and suffering is a reflection of the attitude that prevails about them. In some homes the mention of hunting calls up thoughts of the chase, the excitement of stalk- ing, the steady aim, the effective shot. In others it calls up the harrying of the beasts, their struggles, and their sufferings when wounded. In some homes, the army and navy are discussed in terms of the handsome appearance on parade, the excellent discipline, the ad- ventures in traveling, and so on. In other homes war always means hell. It means fathers and sons and brothers going away from their dear ones to be shot and sometimes killed. It means suffering from wounds and thirst and separation—not brass buttons and brass bands. To some, the trophies of war are stripes and medals; to others, empty sleeves or widows’ weeds. In combating cruelty, as in combating lying, the atmosphere of the environment is more important than the wisdom of the precepts. Children learn to be kind by doing kind things; they learn to be cruel by doing the brutal things, thinking the indifferent thoughts. BEING OBSTINATE Wuen Tommy was three and a half years old, his mother engaged a nurse who did not at once win the affection of the children. Mother hoped that the children would learn to like her, and let her stay. One day Tommy asked for a drink of water, and the girl fetched it; but Tommy refused to say “ Thank you” to her. Mother was in the room at the time, and coaxed Tommy to say “ Thank you.” Tommy replied, “Tl say it to you, but I shan’t say it to her.” The mother insisted, but Tommy persisted in his obstinate refusal to acknowledge his gratitude to the young woman who had brought him the water. The mother thought it her duty to force from the child a formal compliance with the demands of decency, and she spent an hour in the struggle with the child. But Tommy did not change his position. Then the mother left him alone in a room, calling him from time to time to say the magic words and be restored to grace. But Tommy was obstinate, and at last fell asleep from exhaustion. After he woke up, they found him playing with his toys, cheerfully enough. A repetition of the command would no doubt have thrown him into the mental state that held him during the conflict of the two wills. The mother had the good sense, however, not to raise the issue again, for while the child was asleep she had the 116 BEING OBSTINATE 117 time to collect her senses and to view the situation more calmly and more rationally. In every home there are opportunities for such con- flicts of wills between parents and children, in which the issue culminates either in a disastrous defeat for the authority of the elders, or in an equally disastrous, because brutal and unreasoning victory of the adult strength. But all students of child nature are agreed that the occasion for such clashes should be studiously avoided—by the parents, of course, since the children do not know what is happening and the parents should know. In nearly every case of the kind mentioned, the per- sistence of the child in his refusal to do what is asked of him is due not to the moral perversity or to the motive that we call obstinacy, but to a certain mental difficulty, a certain obstacle in the child’s mind which he cannot himself overcome. In the case of Tommy it was unwise for the mother to struggle for an hour, be- cause the child was obviously not in need of elementary lessons in politeness. He knew enough to say “ Thank you” on all suitable occasions; he had in fact already acquired the habit of doing so. His failure to say the desired words in the instance cited was due entirely to a combination of feelings aroused by the personality of the nurse. The struggle was really not to make the child polite, or even to make him obedient; it was essen- tially an attempt to make him love someone who was from the first repugnant to him. And we know very well that love will not be compelled. The father of Lyman Abbott recognized that such 118 RESPONDING TO THE ENVIRONMENT obstinacy cannot be altogether a matter of deliberate contrariness, and he compared these fits with what is sometimes observed in lower animals, as the horse. In the case of the horse, he says, “ We cannot suppose that peculiar combination of intelligence and ill-temper which we generally consider the sustaining power of the protracted obstinacy on the part of a child. The degree of persistence which is manifested by children in con- tests of this kind is something wonderful, and cannot easily be explained by any of the ordinary theories in respect to the influence of motives on the human mind. A state of cerebral excitement and exaltation is not infrequently produced which seems akin to insanity, and instances have been known in which a child has suffered itself to be beaten to death rather than yield obedience in a very simple command.” Very often a child’s failure to do what he is told is due to the paralysis of fear. A girl or boy suddenly interrupted in the flow of thought, or in the imagina- tive wanderings of play, simply cannot grasp what is wanted of him, and repetitions of the order accompanied as these usually are with loud tones and other manifes- tations of anger, only make matters worse. Parents frequently have difficulties that lead to “ obstinacy ” in connection with making children put away their toys after playing. Now some children will put so much energy and interest into their play, that they become quite exhausted before they stop. In this fatigued condition it is not reasonable to ask too much of them. In such cases the parent must anticipate the fatigue point, by suggesting at the beginning of the play, or BEING OBSTINATE 119 during the course of it, that the blocks will have to be put away later. It is well, for example, to warn the child that the play must stop in five or ten minutes, and that the toys must then be replaced before supper, or before going out; and the time should be gaged ac- cording to what experience has shown to be the child’s limit of endurance. In other matters, also, the idea of anticipating a crisis will be found very helpful. We must learn to know each child well enough to recognize his dangerous spot, whether it be fatigue, or personal likings (or an- tipathies), or absent-mindedness, or fear, or whatever it may be. In all cases, a conflict of wills is sure to arouse a great deal of feeling, and then it is essential that the parent keep perfectly cool, for nothing is ever gained by having more than one person angry at any one time. If we remember that most of the child’s actions or refusals are quite without motive, or at least without conscious motive, and if we keep calm, we shall be less likely to meet obstinacy. THE STUBBORN SCATTERBRAIN In certain emergencies, swift, blind obedience is absolutely necessary. But there is never any justifica- tion for swift, blind commands. It is the sudden, ill- considered command that is frequently the cause of dis- obedience and stubbornness on the one hand, and an ob- stacle to the development of concentration on the other. The mother of a little scatterbrain listened with resignation to the complaints of the child’s teacher that she could not make him “ concentrate.” The mother knew too well that he would not concentrate. Get him started at any task, and before it is half done he is off wool-gathering or begging to be let off. It was therefore with some astonishment that Tommy’s mother observed the boy working a whole Saturday on a set of paper furniture for a doll’s house he had started to make for his little sister. So great was his concentration that it was difficult to get him away to his lunch—and impossible to make him go out to play in the park. How is it that the same child is one day so stubborn that you cannot make him do what you want him to, and on others so shifting that he is acquiring a reputa- tion for lack of concentration? The stubbornness of the child means his sticking fast to that upon which he has set his mind or his heart— concentration upon his own personal purpose—which is often not apparent to those who would divert him 120 THE STUBBORN SCATTERBRAIN 121 to a new line of action. His stubbornness lies in the fact that what is demanded of him is foreign to his im- mediate aims. We do not sufficiently realize how our simple requirements may be rude interruptions of his own work or of his line of thought, and how a sequence of such interruptions will result in making the child resent all kinds of requests—thus developing an antag- onistic attitude of ‘ stubbornness ””—or making him feel that there is no use starting anything—thus devel- oping an attitude of dallying and indifference. To be sure, children have to be called. They never know when it’s time to eat or to go to sleep; and they are often needed to help with errands and other tasks. But when Ethel is busy with her dolls, it is certainly not fair to her at the moment to ask her to stop in- stantly, and come to bed. For the sake of her feelings, it would be well to suggest to her that it is time to get the dolls ready for bed, before her own bedtime comes. When Stephen is busy whittling a boat, which is a long way from completion, you might set an arbitrary limit for the day’s work, so that when it is time for supper, the break will not be too violent. The child hates an interruption in the middle of a thought just as much as you hate an interruption while writing a difficult letter. But more important than the effect on the momentary feelings, is the effect of such interruptions on the child’s later habits of work and play. Jane Addams tells us that she believes that city children have lost so largely the art of playing, because of the constant interrup- tions to their street games by the traffic; the children 122 RESPONDING TO THE ENVIRONMENT get to feel that it is not worth while to start anything serious. Miss Addams describes the games she used to play as a little girl, lasting for hours, being continued sometimes day after day; and she contrasts with her home the conditions that make such games impos- sible in the cities today. Is it any wonder that so many children “hang around” without knowing what to do with themselves? The regular interruptions in the child’s activities that are necessitated by meals and bedtime can certainly be anticipated, so that there need ordinarily be no excuse for a swift call that leaves no time for putting away toys or other materials before getting ready for the new duty. It is not the child’s fault if he has been allowed to play without warning so that you must have him come this instant, instead of a few minutes later. Interruptions that are due to the necessity for doing various tasks about the house seem to fall into a dif- ferent class. Yet most errands can be arranged for in advance. It should not be too difficult in most homes to arrange for certain hours when the child’s share of the day’s work is to be done. It is only where the child feels that he has a considerable stretch of time to himself that he will be inclined to plan an undertaking that is worth while; and it is only when the child has an opportunity to carry out his undertakings that he will develop the habit of sticking to a task until it is finished. Moreover, a regular daily programme has a beneficial influence on the physical and mental health of the child. THE STUBBORN SCATTERBRAIN = 123 Still, emergencies do arise when the work of the mo- ment must be interrupted and replaced by a task of a different kind. In such cases, the command may be swift, but it need not be blind. We all approach a busy person with a necessary interruption in something of an apologetic mood—unless the person happens to be a child (or perhaps a servant). If we did all of our interrupting in the same mood, we should probably get more cordial responses; and when children understand our attitude, we shall no doubt get swifter responses. It is very likely that children differ considerably in their native ability to concentrate on their work and play. But we must make sure that the lack of concen- tration is not due to the fact that the child is inter- rupted too frequently or too inconsiderately. We must also be sure that the lack of concentration does not come from the lack of sufficiently interesting occupa- tions. THE CHILD’S PUGNACITY TO FIGHT OR NOT TO FIGHT TuE principal of a large city school tells me that he finds among the parents of his pupils just two attitudes towards children’s fighting. Either they encourage the fighting instinct without regard to circumstances, or they lay down the rule that the boys must never fight. One attitude is just as arbitrary as the other, and neither fits all cases. Some boys need to be encouraged to stand up to show the stuff they are made of; and others need just as much to be discouraged in their belligerent activities. Each individual has to be judged by himself. And each boy has to learn to judge each fighting opportunity by itself. Little Harold came home crying bitterly and rather disheveled. There was every evidence of his having gone through a deranging as well as a distressing ex- perience. “ What’s the matter, Harold?” his mother asked. “A boy hit me,” he sobbed out. “What did you do? ” asked the father. “JT didn’t do anything,” was Harold’s answer. “ Well, next time you hit him first,” counseled the father and the incident was considered closed, for there was no serious damage as a result of the beating. A few days later Harold came home triumphant. He had hit the other boy on sight, and accounts were squared. 127 128 THE CHILD’S PUGNACITY Many parents will be shocked by the advice given by Harold’s father. That sort of thing leads to quar- reling and contentiousness among children; and it de- velops into bickering and rowdyism when the boys grow up. But however much men may desire an era of peace, we must recognize that boys’ fights cannot be dismissed with a formula. The trouble is really with our own point of view. Most of us assume that we are obliged to choose between having children become bullies or aggressive trouble- makers, and having them become molly-coddles. If a boy is taught that it is wicked to fight, and if he is inclined to comply with the wishes of his parents or teachers, he may go so far as to stand still while he is being battered up by one of the “ tougher ” boys in the neighborhood. No self-respecting boy likes to do that; yet many are forced to do just that by the pressure of the home. On the other hand, the normal boy does not need to be encouraged to fight. He will find plenty of occasions and plenty of temptations to engage in physical com- bat. What he needs is to be taught what is worth fighting for and what isn’t. Fighting has its value as an exercise, for developing control of the muscles, especially during moments of excitement. But this is not worth having at the risk of becoming a bully. Every boy should take pride in the ability to defend himself against attack; and with many boys this ability no doubt needs to be cultivated by means of lessons in wrestling, boxing, etc. But that is very different from cultivating pride in the ability TO FIGHT OR NOT TO FIGHT 129 to “lick ” other boys for no particular reason. It is the latter sort of thing that is in danger of degenerating into a cowardly, swaggering, overbearing attitude towards the weaker ones. In learning to defend him- self, a boy should also learn that physical force is not a just basis for making his way in the world. Two boys were playing at the home of one of them when the latter was sent on an errand, and his friend went with him. On the street they met a “ gang” of boys spoiling for a fight. One of the two had been taught to fight whenever he was attacked, and no ques- tions asked. The other had been taught to defend him- self, but to avoid unnecessary fighting. The latter sized up the situation at a glance. It was impossible for the two boys to stand up against the gang, and he had no pride that required him to undertake an im- possible task. He was prepared to fight one at a time; but he had that better part of valor which suggested a discreet retreat, with an appeal to the police or some adult. We should guard against cultivating that false sense of “ honor ” which will lead a boy to do foolhardy things in upholding a perverted ideal. There is no honor or glory in getting smashed by little brutes whose in- stincts have not been properly trained. In contrast with the boy who knows when to fight and when not to, is the case of one who would not fight under any circumstances. This boy was the delight of a dozen tormentors who would chase him after school until he took refuge in some store, from which he would telephone home to his mother to come and fetch him! The moral effect of one’s attitude towards fighting 1380 THE CHILD’S PUGNACITY is even more important than the physical effect. While aggressive combativeness is to be discouraged, we should try to retain enough of the fighting instinct in each child to make sure that the young people do not grow up with a soft indifference to injustice. The late William T. Stead used to say that he was so anxious to have peace that he was willing to fight for it. That is a distinctly sane attitude for young people to acquire. CULTIVATING INDIRECTION Hexen and Martin had to be reproved several times in the course of the meal. This was very mortifying, since there was company at the table. Martin was teasing Helen in a very exasperating undertone. Mother suggested to Helen that she better treat her brother “ with silent contempt.” This advice seemed to be effective, and things were quiet for a while. Pres- ently, however, Martin chirped up, “ Mother, she is treating me with silent contempt over the table, but she is kicking me under the table.” For some reason that has not yet been made per- fectly clear, the conduct of Helen, above and below the table, seems to be characteristic of girls of nearly all ages. This does not mean that boys would never resort to such tactics, nor that all girls do. But in general girls do that sort of thing more than boys. When boys have a difference they seem to be unhappy until the matter is settled definitely one way or the other. In their youth they will take to fists, as the simplest and most direct method for settling differ- ences. Gradually, when they have the opportunity, they learn to use other methods. The normal evolution of a boy is from the savage who fights with his fists— yes, and feet and teeth, too—to the statesman who fights with diplomacy. With a girl it is different. It is very seldom that 131 132 THE CHILD’S PUGNACITY a girl is allowed to give expression to her impulses in the fighting line—that is, where parents and teachers and governesses are always on the lookout to preserve the proprieties. We think it is unladylike for a little girl to fight, if not positively wicked; so we do not let her discharge her emotions through those particular channels. And what is the result? Does this enforced restraint of impulse bring about a calmer judgment, a more detached and disinterested view of life, a deeper sympathy for the affairs of others? Those who have made a special study of the charac- teristics of boys and girls have observed that in general girls are more submissive than boys; the latter are inclined to be more masterful. Here is no doubt a real difference. But girls are much more submissive than they need to be. In addition to the native tend- ency to yield, there has been imposed upon the growing girl the conventional requirement that she yield on all occasions, proper and improper. As a result, probably, of the many restraints that the girl feels about her, she almost instinctively resorts to indirect methods for obtaining her ends. When two little girls in the park the other day were forcibly separated by their attendants and taken to opposite sides of a drive, they did not forget their grievances or differences instantly, nor did they cast off the desire to inflict injury upon each other. But as they were out of reach of each other’s arms, they began to contort their faces and tongues, and to de- liver certain cabalistic signs to each other that appar- ently had the effect of making each one feel that she CULTIVATING INDIRECTION 133 was being avenged in some mysterious way. Now it is a fair question to ask whether—leaving aside the matter of torn clothes or soiled hands—it would not be better for these little girls to have it out with their fists and be done with it, than to be separated with rankling bosoms, to be obliged to resort to such slow and ineffective methods of relieving their feelings as the weak muscles of the face and tongue could supply. And the worst of it is that the feelings are never satisfied and the children carry about with them the rags and tatters of unsettled quarrels and disputes, without even being aware of what makes them feel like cats. What has been said about fighting in regard to boys is in a large measure equally true of girls. To prohibit fighting altogether is not only a violation of the child’s nature, but it exposes him—or her—to the abuses of companions. It is the children who do not fight that enable others to become bullies. On the other hand, it is only by fighting and feeling defeat that the child comes to realize the responsibility of power. And the girl needs the lessons to be learned from these experi- ences no less than the boy. There is the further likelihood that if girls were permitted greater freedom of physical action in giving expression to their displeasure, they would be more frank in dealing with each other, and they would more quickly eliminate backbiting and _hair-pulling from their offensive armaments. But you must not consider this a plea for the encour- agement of militancy among girls. No child needs to 134 THE CHILD’S PUGNACITY be encouraged to fight. The most that any of them needs is an opportunity. The point is that while boys are for the most part permitted to make use of what opportunities come their way, the girls are almost universally suppressed to the point of appearing in- different “over the table ”’—but nature will have her way, and so they adopt sly, underhand methods “ under the table.” It is fair to suppose, from what we know of the way the child’s mind develops, that only by indulging in her native impulses to fight as her brother fights, will the girl truly learn that the fist is not the best instru- ment for settling differences. As it is she learns that the fist is not the accepted weapon, but she does not learn a good, direct way of doing the work. If girls are to learn to do their share of work in codperation with their fellows, and if they are to learn to play fair in the serious battles of life, they must have a chance to fight frankly and heartily and aboveboard. PLAYING SOLDIER In times of peace, many of us can visualize the hor- rors of war clearly enough to make us oppose every- thing that encourages militarism. But with half of the civilized world bleeding, the horrors are before the minds of all of us constantly, and we are moved to do something more effective than shut our eyes. We realize the importance of inculcating in the young a type of patriotism that is free from aggressiveness or jingoism. Confident of our patriotism we turn our attention to a crusade against “ military” toys and the playing of soldiers by the children. There is of course no use in over-stimulating children in these plays. Nothing is to be gained by urging a more lively interest in details of military campaigns, or in making the children more familiar with the in- struments of destruction. But neither is it wise to forbid boys playing soldier. When boys play soldier it is in response to two facts which cannot be entirely removed. The child, at a certain age, will not only imitate what he sees going on around him, but he will dramatize all the activities of which he learns. This instinct is there, if the child is normal. Any outside regulation, to be effective, must consist, not of rules regarding what may or what may not be played, but of a selection of all the ideas that are to enter the child’s mind. This is obviously 135 136 THE CHILD’S PUGNACITY an impossible task. With all his devices and resources, the father of the Buddha failed in his efforts to keep from the child all knowledge of suffering and death as he had planned to do. Nor can we hope to keep our children long in ignorance of suffering and death, of war and murder, of robbery and other crimes. And whatever they learn they will incorporate into their plays just as certainly as they have any opportunity to play at all. Forbidding certain types of play will not modify the natural impulses to imitate and to dramatize. Neither will it destroy the child’s natural interest in the unusual and in the “ dramatic.”’ On the contrary, forbidding is one of the surest ways of arousing inter- est, one of the surest ways of tempting to action. But even if we could prevent the children’s partici- pation in these mimic paradings and warrings, it is very doubtful whether it would be worth while to do so. The injury that may come from playing soldier has been strikingly similar to the rumors of Mark Twain’s death—grossly exaggerated. The fact is that children do all of their playing, at least during the years before adolescence, entirely without prejudice. They are al- ternately Indians and Puritans; they impersonate the parish priest or Captain Hook with equal sincerity and abandon. When they enact a stage robbery there is no moral implication in the assignment of réles, and as they view the drama of life from the unsophisticated level of three to four feet, every character has his proper place and is worthy of a fair presentation. The perfect naiveté of the child in adopting the PLAYING SOLDIER 137 character which he is for the time being impersonating is shown by the answer that little Tommy gave when his prim Aunt Sabrina discovered him dancing about in the nursery without a scrap of clothing on. ‘“ What- ever are you doing in this state, child? ” asked the aunt in a tone that was meant to express reproach as well as disapproval. ‘Don’t you see?” returned Tommy, pointing to his ankles, which were ornamented with bits of colored worsted; “I am one of the Early Sea Peo- ple.” Tommy had not invented the character; he had merely adopted him from the book they had been read- ing in school. The question of the moral effect of impersonating the soldier is very much like the older question of what happens to the actor who takes the part of the villain in the play. Should the children’s play be quite without its villains or bad fairies? Then it is incomplete and not sufficiently true to life to be interesting, to be satis- fying. On the other hand, if the evil spirit is to ap- pear, will it harm your child or mine to play his réle? Experience shows that children may play robber and pirate with great gusto and yet grow up to be upright and honored citizens—and even judges! In the same way it is quite possible for children to play soldier and then become advocates of “‘ peace at any price.” The literary editor of a well known woman’s magazine, the editor of an educational magazine, and a prominent minister all told me that they had had ambitions toward a military career—not during childhood, but during late adolescence. The editors both made strenuous but futile efforts to get into the West Point Military Acad- 1388 THE CHILD’S PUGNACITY emy; and the minister actually joined the army. All three are now earnestly combating militarism. And thousands of similar cases can no doubt be found in all parts of our population. When there is so much constructive work that may be done in the development of children’s characters, the worry about playing soldiers seems a pitiful waste of energy. It is a pity to snatch from Bobby his tin sol- diers, or to look daggers at him when he admires a toy gun; let the child have his play and he will be a better man for it. What is needed is not the hiding of drums and muskets, but the positive cultivation of ideals of peace and humanity. Moreover, at each stage of in- terest the play of the child affords an opportunity to formulate standards and ideals of conduct that should be seized and utilized. It is when he is playing soldier that the child can learn the meaning of loyalty and devotion and self-sacrifice and fortitude; and these may remain when the drum and tinsel are discarded for another character. CHILDREN AND THE WAR Ir is curious that so many people who take it as a matter of course that children’s questions about nature and machines should be fully answered, nevertheless hesitate when it comes to children’s questions about war, and particularly about the present European war. It is as though we elders felt somewhat ashamed before our children that such a stupendous unreason could be carried on by grown-ups, and like the ostrich of the fable we pretend that there is no such thing, although we cannot hide the fact from the alert youngsters. It is futile to ask whether children should be told about the war. Unless they are kept in solitary con- finement, they are constantly getting information and misinformation in large instalments. The important question to ask is, What shall they be told?—or, How shall they be told? We must make up our minds how we wish to have our children look upon war in general, and upon the facts of this particular war. We must decide whether they are to cultivate, through what they now learn, a spirit of militarism, or a narrow partisanship for this or that party to the conflict. Is information about war and fighting to develop an admiration for the sol- dier as the highest type of hero, or is it to establish the conviction that war is the normal and rational method for settling differences among nations? 139 140 THE CHILD’S PUGNACITY It is because we fear the narrowing effects of par- tisanship, and the possibly brutalizing effects of mili- tancy that most of us hesitate to encourage our children’s interest in the war. But if our reasons are of this kind, we should go a step farther. We should recognize that a partisan is not a suitable person to give children information about the great struggle. Nor is such a person the one to explain to a child the causes of the war. Yet a parent may well take occa- sion to explain that because of birth, or early associa- tions, or business interests, or family connections, he is very decidedly prejudiced one way or the other, and that he must therefore refrain from attempting to bias the judgment of others—especially of his children. To state frankly that you are prejudiced is no easy matter. But there is no better opportunity to teach the child the importance of suspending judgment and there is no better illustration of the fact that our judg- ments are not only colored, but badly warped by our feelings. It is the parent who hesitates because he does not wish to warp the child’s mind, who should now find the best opportunity to review his history and acquire a perspective through which to study the events of the day. When a child is old enough to ask a question, he should have the best answer available, up to the limit of his understanding and interest. If he is old enough to be shocked by the reports of “ atrocities ”’ he is old enough to be taught that the whole miserable business is but a tangle of atrocities, and from the nature of things can never be anything else. CHILDREN AND THE WAR 141 The child with ideals easily has his sensibilities out- raged by the accounts of a treaty violated, or of a neutral nation ruthlessly crushed to clear the way for a more powerful people. And we do well in trying to preserve these sensibilities against the hardening in- fluences of the bloody story. But we must go farther. It is not enough to arouse the child’s resentment against those who commit the wicked deeds. One does not need to go very far back in the history of our own times to discover that none of the nations now at war is entirely with clean hands. Nor is it enough to arouse resent- ment against the outrageous deeds. If feelings are to be aroused, they are to be directed against the whole scheme of life and thought that makes war a possibility. It is not those parents who see in the military virtues the basis of the moral life, who hesitate about discuss- ing the war with their children. On the contrary, these take advantage of every detail to impress upon their children the glories of sacrifice and hardship, or the nobility of this particular kind of public service. Those who hesitate are the very ones who fear that too much preoccupation with the war and its events will bias the mind of the child toward interest in martial affairs. Thus they lose a great opportunity to instil in them early a determination to use their powers to combat war. They lose the opportunity to impress the children with the tremendous destructiveness of war and with the importance of holding it in reserve for the most serious tasks of humanity. They lose the opportunity to counteract the military spirit that is only too ready to break loose on the slightest pretext. 142 THE CHILD’S PUGNACITY Now that the interests of so many millions of people are centered about the war, we shall find it easier for children to learn important historical and geographical facts than ever they could under the ordinary condi- tions supplied by the school or the home. In a few short years our children will be getting this informa- tion as school “lessons” with the usual travail and hardship. They will then have a real grievance that we did not let them learn what is important in the whole matter while the interest was most alert to assimi- late all that came to the mind. Children can profit from table-talk about the war in the same way as they can profit from home discussions about political or religious subjects. They uncon- sciously absorb a great deal of information, and learn a great deal about forming judgments. But if the dis- cussion of the war consists of an exchange of vitupera- tion, it is of course worth no more than a similar dis- cussion of “ politics ” or religion. In fact, we must discuss with our children every topic of interest to them and of importance in life, to the best of our ability and to the best of their understanding—and then hope that they will better the instruction. SUBSTITUTES FOR FIGHTING Tuere are three possible attitudes toward the in- stincts of children. At one extreme we find the rather crude naturalism which assumes that whatever is * natural ” must be right; this leads to indifference and indulgence. At the other extreme is the somewhat less crude but equally arbitrary puritanism which sus- pects every desire and impulse of being satanic in origin; this leads to suppression and sterility. Then there is a more or less rational eclecticism that chooses to encourage some impulses and to suppress others. When we take into account the teachings of modern psychology and biology, we shall make our selections and adapt our methods more effectively. Today we do not simply repress or indulge; we try to utilize the driving forces of the growing child to forward our own ideals of what a child should be. We take the child as we find him, and try to make him a little stronger here, and to rub off a little there. In the matter of fighting, it is particularly difficult to form balanced judgments and to develop sane plans. With our usual habit of emphasizing one aspect of a problem to the exclusion of all others, we either fix our attention on the injuries resulting from conflict, and become extreme pacifists, or we fix the attention upon the need for resisting aggression, 143 144 THE CHILD’S PUGNACITY for defending our “rights”, and become belligerent. In one case we make fighting an end in itself, in the other case we make the avoidance of fighting the goal of effort. With the child, however, fighting means more than defense, and it need not always mean that; it means something different from the consequences to person and property. It is almost entirely a matter of exertion, or overcoming difficulties, of conquest—or defeat—sometimes, but even then chiefly as incidental to the conflict. Our problem is therefore to make full use of youth’s eagerness to exert effort, to sacrifice, to devote itself. But we must guard, on the one hand, against drawing upon the anti-social and inhuman motives; and on the other hand, against allowing the exertions to result in injuries, whether personal or economical. In childhood, playing soldier means, usually, merely parading or hunting, or stalking. Presently, however, the children become interested in each other as mem- bers of groups. Because of this interest it becomes possible for us to cultivate an attitude of exclusiveness or antagonism toward all who are not members of the immediate group. In extreme cases this attitude ends in anti-social group action, and at best it ends in a rather narrow kind of nationalism or “ patriotism”. But it is also possible to make use of the social interests and impulses in cultivating an ever widening conscious- ness of identity with other people. In the first case we have a perpetual source of antagonism or animosity toward strangers and foreigners. In the latter case there is the opportunity to direct the fighting instinct SUBSTITUTES FOR FIGHTING 145 against the enemies of the race, the obstructions to human welfare. But even before the child becomes interested in team plays or group action of any kind, we utilize essentially the same interest in conflict when we encourage rivalry, whether at home or in school, through prize contests and spelling matches, and in athletics we have races of vari- ous kinds. In these the individual is encouraged to put forth his best efforts, not for the purpose of cultivating his own abilities, but for the purpose of excelling some other particular child. The bread-baking contests and the dress-making competitions for girls, like the corn-raising or shop contests for boys, utilize the same motives of rivalry as we find in the ordinary athletic contests or street fights. But the form of the conflict and the material consequences are in no way objectionable. When the older’children are organized for team play, we begin to get the kinds of sacrifice that the group always demands of the individual, and in many respects the more vigorous forms of athletic sports are quite the equivalent of good fighting, so far as the partici- pants are concerned. ‘The motives are still those of rivalry, but the prospective gain of victory is now no longer for the individual, but for the group. And when boys all but exhaust themselves for the “ glory of the school,” the moral results are of the highest kind. We go a step farther when the corn-clubs conquer insects and fungi, and control the soil and the seasons for the glory of their county or district, for soon the interest may be extended from the mere “ beating” of 146 THE CHILD’S PUGNACITY the rivals to the increased contribution to the corn- crib at home. The same kinds of results morally are obtained when we utilize the group rivalries in a “ clean- up contest.” The girls will make their streets and yards and porches as attractive as possible, at first for the purpose of making a better showing than those of the next street. Presently, however, the interest may be directed so as to center upon the chasing of Dirt as the villain of the drama. Now the older children can be led to abandon the group rivalries as they had already outgrown the in- dividual rivalries, and the object of attack can now be made some impersonal enemy, rather than some par- ticular person or group. There is enough to fight for and to fight against. The fundamental differences be- tween extreme pacifists and extreme advocates of war as a means for solving human problems, are probably “temperamental,” but they do not corfcern the principle of the right or wrong of fighting. These differences center about the values of life and life relations, and about the best way of attaining various major ends. All fairly healthy children are fighters, in the narrower sense, at some time in their development. Some con- tinue through life to resort to force as a means of settling disputes, or of obtaining what is desired. Others abandon physical force in dealing with their neighbors and friends, but continue to use it in relation to more remote groups and individuals. It would seem that there are also differences as to the objects for which people would use force; some would justify ** fighting for a principle,” but would condemn fighting SUBSTITUTES FOR FIGHTING 147 for material gain—and others would just reverse this attitude. But in the end it is a question of how far we have evolved in our sympathies, in our imagination, in our self-control. Boys and girls who have learned to codperate in various kinds of group contests need not abandon the fighting motives and the powerful organizing influences that these motives exert upon our activities, as they grow older. But they must be taught to select more and more worthy enemies, as well as more and more worthy causes. Disease still remains to be conquered, for example, and the best physicians and nurses ap- proach their work in the spirit of the soldier. Still more imagination, still wider sympathy are required to attack the enemy, Disease, through the refined instru- ments of research of a modern scientific institute. Here all the fighting instinct is directed toward the solving of complex problems, toward the conquering of obscure yet formidable obstacles. Here the element of rivalry is at a minimum, for the contest is with im- personal forces. Here the motives are of the loftiest, for the beneficiary of the struggle is no narrow group, but the whole race. Here the stimulus to effort is far removed from such emotions as anger, envy, or hatred. In similar ways, vast engineering and economic and social problems furnish worthy foes for the fighting in- stincts of our boys and girls. It is necessary to recon- cile our loftiest sentiments with the inescapable fact that all life is struggle. We can shift the plane of the struggle from that of personal or group aggrandize- ment at the expense of others; we can shift the motives 148 THE CHILD’S PUGNACITY of the struggle from fear and hatred; we can shift the methods of the struggle from brute force and cunning. But to live is to fight, and we must teach our children to make the best fight possible. INITIATIVE AND SPONTANEITY THE CRAVING FOR ADVENTURE Every little while the newspapers shock us with an account of a girl from an excellent home disappearing mysteriously, to be found later as a waitress in a cheap restaurant, or as a “ hand” in the factory of a neigh- boring city. The corresponding escapades of boys are not quite so shocking to us, and if it appears that the child’s home is not all that it should have been, we shake our heads and say, “ Well, what could you expect? ” But we have no right to shake our heads, or to dis- criminate against the boys. All healthy children are born with a remnant of that racial restlessness that led to the migrations of whole peoples in ancient times, that started the knights on their errant quests in the Middle Ages, and that swells our “tramp” population after every wave of economic depression today. ‘The im- pulse to wander from the familiar to the unknown ap- pears about as soon as the child can walk, and is re- strained chiefly by the fear of the unknown. At one time or another, every one of us probably felt the desire to run away from home—girls as well as boys. And if you and I did not run away, it was not because of our superior virtue; more likely it was because of our inferior courage. To say, however, that the impulse to fare forth in search of the new and exciting is a common heritage of 151 152. INITIATIVE AND SPONTANEITY the race, will hardly satisfy the parent who receives a note from the venturesome son announcing that the latter has departed for the “ West” to kill Indians. Nor will our understanding of this deep-seated instinct help at all if it merely leads us to bolt our doors and bar our windows. The child who has been carefully guarded at home is in just as great need of an outlet for his impulses to seek new experiences as is the com- paratively neglected child who may come and go without the obligation to account for his time. Indeed, it is the closely restrained child that is more likely, when the opportunity presents itself, to break his bonds and escape his solicitous but rather tiresome guardians. The monotony of a well-regulated life is obnoxious not only to the spirited boy or girl; it is equally obnoxious to more “ settled” adults. But burdened as we are with responsibilities, or with conscience, or with a lack of imagination, we seek to make a virtue of necessity and preach the righteousness of humdrum and convention. Yet all the time we remain true to our deeper instincts and attempt to compensate the tedium of the common life through vicarious adventures on the stage or in the book. The masses of cheap fic- tion, the lurid melodrama, and the moving picture shows appeal to millions of grown-ups not so much as pictures of life to be appreciated or criticised; they appeal chiefly as substitutes for the romance and adventure that every person craves. It is a common mistake to attribute to the highly colored detective stories and wild-west literature the boys’ desire to forsake the happy homes we have pro- THE CRAVING FOR ADVENTURE 153 vided for them. It is true that these tales help to stimulate and encourage the inclination to experi- ment with life. And it is also true that the reading and the theater will largely determine the form that the adventures take. Boys who never read about killing Indians will never set forth to kill Indians; boys who never read tales of the sea will not run away from an inland town to seek out the mysteries of the fo’castle. But the restlessness that drives us from our routine is one thing; while the path we follow once we start is quite another. The kind of reading that children get and the kind of theatricals they witness, are important because they serve as guides to the land of high ro- mance, and they should therefore be carefully selected. But the books and the shows are not to be blamed for the heart’s desire to explore beyond the border of bore- dom. We must recognize that the nomadic instincts that make many tribes and races incapable of developing a high type of civilization, are of the same stuff as the spirit of research and adventure that have made prog- ress and civilization possible for the more settled peoples of the earth. The explorers and scientists and inves- tigators are those who departed from the beaten path, those who cut trails where there were no paths at all. At the same time we must also recognize that it is extremely inconvenient, to say the least, to have John or Mary leave the home we have tried to make so attrac- tive, in search of more excitement than we have pro- vided. The child that runs away from home and is then left to his own resources may indeed turn out to be a 154 INITIATIVE AND SPONTANEITY great inventor or discoverer; but he is more likely to turn out a worthless wanderer on the face of the earth. In facing this deep instinct in our children it is well to abandon all attempts to overcome it. The way to prevent the burglars from blowing up the safe is to leave the safe unlocked; and the way to prevent Johnnie from breaking out of the home is to leave the door wide open. We must provide, in other words, for an abun- dance of experiences and adventures that carry the boys and girls into new surroundings and that bring new stimulations. Long tramps and camping expeditions, trolley rides into the remoter corners of the county and visits to distant relatives, opportunity for boating or a tent in the woods—these are the things that will make life so interesting that the temptation to go beyond will be minimized. If children do not so frequently seek to escape from the homes of the more prosperous, it is not because of better training or more comfortable surroundings; it is because those who can afford it travel with their children or send their children on travels, and thus open the door that can be kept closed only as a temptation to youth to force it. THE CHILD’S CHANCE FOR SPONTANEITY Ir was at a tea party, and children had not even been mentioned, since the weather was fine and none had been ailing of late. But then the baby of the house was brought home by her attendant, and of course she was immediately taken into the assemblage for exhibition and admiration. ‘The little lady behaved very nicely; she made the rounds of the company, shook hands, and said “ How do?” and courtesied in the approved fashion. Everyone was charmed, and the talk did at last drift to children. One mother was particularly impressed. ‘“ Would your child do all that in com- pany?” she asked of her nearest neighbor. But she evidently took it for granted that he or she would not, for she went right on to explain about her own Rosalynd. “Rosalynd is going on five, and she is so timid. When there is a stranger in the house you can’t get her to say a word. I cannot make her greet people properly, she’s so shy. I wonder how you make your children less timid.” The nearest neighbor could not tell just how she did make her children less timid. Did they always speak up as nicely as little Lucille had done? No, not always; though sometimes they did, and you never could tell in advance. But the mother did not 155 156 INITIATIVE AND SPONTANEITY insist. Sometimes one person will affect a child so that he is not like his usual self. He becomes fright- ened, or he is antagonized. And some people make a child self-conscious, more than others. Well, Rosalynd had a chance to go to a picnic party with a round dozen other children, most of them strangers, and six grown-ups. The mother hesitated about letting her go, she was so sure the child would be nervous and shrinking. She thought it would be well to send the nurse along, to save possible embarrassment. The child, being of the shrinking kind, would be a nuisance among strangers. But the party was a grand success. The strangers, children and adults, never suspected that Rosalynd was one of the shrinking kind. She engaged freely in conversation, and when there was none about for her to engage in, she started some on her own initiative. She made suggestions for improv- ing the luncheon for “ next time”, and she asked for what she wanted without any outward sign of hesita- tion. She helped herself to the toys that had been brought for the children, without ceremony, and ex- pressed preferences and dislikes as to food and games with the composure of an experienced miss of at least six years—and she was only “ going on five’. If she had any doubts or misgivings of any kind, she managed to conceal them most artfully. On the whole, she was as self-possessed a young person as one would wish to meet. Now, why did her mother consider her such a timid child? And why did she at home give the impression of being shy? It is probable that the only thing that CHILD’S CHANCE FOR SPONTANEITY 157 troubled the little girl at home was too much care on the part of the mother and the nurse. She had always been closely watched, and helped with every trifle. She had no chance to use her own initiative and resourceful- ness, and the advent of strangers usually meant a per- formance calculated to make the child conscious of herself. Under such circumstances, it is to be expected that she would “ shrink” on very slight provocation. When the child gets among strangers in a new situa- tion, where there is little to remind him of his daily associations, the naturally timid child will feel lost and uncomfortable. He may be “ scared” to the point of being unable to do anything at all. On the other hand, a fairly healthy child who is not self-conscious will find in the new surroundings all sorts of stimulation for his activity. Huis curiosity will be aroused and he will be tempted to explore the nooks and the objects with refreshing simplicity. A city child taken to the country will be tempted to “et himself out”? in run- ning and shouting; and if that is very different from his accustomed conduct, it is because his daily life does not give the necessary opportunities for free and spon- taneous activity. The children of the poor, as compared with those of the well-to-do, are not overburdened with the solici- tous attentions of anxious parents and nurses. The anxieties there are directed toward other concerns. These children develop more rapidly, because circum- stances demand of them quick decisions and the constant exercise of whatever resources they may have. The casual observer frequently notes that the newsboy on 158 INITIATIVE AND SPONTANEITY the busy corner is such a “ bright ” lad; but he does not as frequently notice the handicap that goes with the brightness and opportunities of the newsboy or of the child whose playground is the street. Nor does he note that the temptations of the street are so frequently too strong for the ordinary child to resist. On the other hand, the children of the more prosper- ous families are handicapped by too monotonous an environment, which fails to develop self-reliance— which is not the same as self-satisfaction. These children do not so readily show what they have in them; they are called upon merely to exhibit what the parents or nurses and teachers call for. The routine of the daily visit to Riverside Drive, the conventions of the home and of the summer at a fashionable sea- side resort, do not give the mother a chance to know her child, because these conditions do not give the child a chance to express himself through a sufficiently wide range of relationships. The only thing I can say to Rosalynd’s mother is, “Give your child at least as good a chance as ordinary folks give their children; let her show what she can do when she is not coached or prompted.” MICE AT PLAY As we look about among our acquaintances, we may see that in some households the absence of the mother, even for a day, is sure to result in a great deal of irregularity—to say the least—in the conduct of the children. In other homes, on the contrary, almost any adult in charge would find the children going on about their games and_ other activities as though nothing un- usual had occurred. The difference between these two types of homes does not show so much a difference between children, as one between the viewpoints or habits of parents. In some cases parents rule with a high hand, and the children have constantly in their presence a feeling of restraint. To the child, what may be done and what may not be done are altogether arbitrary matters, de- termined by the authority of parent or teacher. That is to say, “ right ” and “ wrong” are somehow vaguely synonymous with permitted and forbidden. Whenever, therefore, a prohibition is removed, there will be the impulse to try the forbidden experience; and where the absence of parents withdraws the restraints, children will take advantage of their absence to indulge in what they are usually forbidden. Whoever is left in author- ity when the parents are away, whether she be a friend, a relative, or a servant, is sure to find a strong tend- ency to break out. 159 160 INITIATIVE AND SPONTANEITY Many years ago the school reader contained a story entitled ‘ Mice at Play,” which described the naughty antics of a houseful of children during the temporary absence of their parents. All sorts of forbidden deeds were indulged in, mysterious cupboards were explored, and the pantry was raided. ‘This nearly forgotten tale was brought forcibly to my memory recently by a friend whose sister had to leave her children for a few days. My friend telephoned to her sister’s house to find out how the children were getting on, and was assured by the maid that they were very well. And with much emphasis the maid added the further item that the children were also very good. It was the stress that the maid laid upon this fact that the children were very good, although the parents were away, that made such an impression. Now, what is the matter with those children who are just as “ good” when the cat’s away as they are at other times? You might think there is something un- canny about such children. But really, they are quite normal and full of fun. I know them myself and can say that they have the same instincts for play and mis- chief as other children. It appears that there are many people who expect, as a matter of course, that children will be “ naughty ” when the restraining influence of the parents is removed. No doubt the proverb “ When the cat’s away the mice will play ” had its origin in the fact that the pres- ence of parents or of other adults was a severe restraint upon the activities of the children. And no doubt this fact is to many a sufficient argument for the constant MICE AT PLAY 161 exercise of some restraint in the form of “ discipline.” Yet it should not be difficult to see that for practical purposes just the opposite point of view is likely to lead to more effective results. The mother must learn to suppress her own instinct to say “don’t”? every time one of the children starts to do something that is not on her programme. The children have the impulse to do a thousand things that seem foolish to you and me; but most of them are quite harmless and need not be stopped unless the adults are very selfish and irritable. There is no harm done when Mary Jane skips and hops into the next room, instead of walking decorously, after being sent to fetch some- thing. Nor is it a very serious thing for Bobby to use the wash-basket as a boat—on the dining-room floor. I do not mean to say that children should feel free to use everything about the house without permission. But if permission is given to use everything that can be used without harm, or to displace things that can easily be replaced, they are not likely to feel the temptation to do these things when your back is turned. In fact, the fewer the forbidden acts, the fewer temptations there will be. The problem is by no means confined to the home. It has its counterpart in the school, in industry, and in government. Many a teacher who prides herself on her “ discipline,” can show visitors any day perfect order on the part of her pupils. The work proceeds with mechanical regularity; every child seems to know his place—and keeps it. There are no unnecessary movements or sounds. But the same children, once 162 INITIATIVE AND SPONTANEITY out of sight of the teacher, are declared by other teachers in the school to be the most unruly and the most unreliable. What then avails all this discipline if it can be made to “ function” only in the presence of a police force? And so, working with more mature people, under somewhat different conditions of temptation and mo- tive, the manager whose shops or offices produce high records of “ efficiency,” as long only as he keeps his hands firmly on the machinery of administration. For the time being, the mother, the teacher, the manager may be satisfied with the results. Sooner or later, how- ever, the over-restrained and the over-managed may be expected to be separated from the machinery of discipline. Then the inevitable result is chaos. For the order and unity of the regulated lives, instead of being the result of growth in self-control and self- direction, were but the temporary impress of outward necessity. We have too often treated the expanding force of growing children as we treat the expanding force of a kettleful of steam. The latter may be made to work properly only as it is confined to fixed channels—and when the lid comes off, all escapes. The child, on the contrary, is an organism quite as capable of becoming a self-directing and purposeful personality as is the parent or policeman who undertakes to “ discipline ” him. And this he becomes not through restraint and suppression, but through guidance and spontaneity. The child must have an abundance of spontaneous action, because only thus can he try out his various MICE AT PLAY 163 possibilities in relation to things and people. Only thus can he get the opportunity to select and evaluate the activities that are worth while, to reject what is not worth while, what is injurious, what leads to pain and sorrow. And it is through such selection and rejection that he comes at last to be the master of his thoughts and conduct. It is true, on the other hand, that the child needs guidance, for if left quite to himself, his random and spontaneous actions would soon lead to his undoing. But guidance must be something more than the mother’s habit of saying “ Don’t do that!” The dependence of the child upon the mother should be for leadership and counsel, and not for constant admonition of the terrors of the law. The removal of the usual head of a group should not result in an outbreak of suppressed feelings. On the contrary, there should be an increased sense of responsi- bilty, a keen desire on the part of each to do his part fittingly under the novel conditions. The difference between the two points of view is very much like that between an absolute monarchy in the hands of a tyrant, and a well-governed democracy. In the former, the slightest relaxation of vigilance on the part of the repressive forces gives occasion for a violent outbreak. In the latter, the populace does not look upon the government as an enemy to be resisted or an authority to be overthrown, but rather as a part of its own machinery for carrying out its wishes. CHARACTER AS HABIT CONTROL OF HABIT FORMATION Every person who has had even a slight opportunity to observe children and adults, will have noticed the one great fact about the economy of habit. The thou- sand things that you do during a single day, from the time you dress yourself to the time you brush your teeth at night, are mostly acts of habit. If each act were not habitual, it would require so much thought. and attention, that you could hardly do much more than get past your breakfast before bedtime. Habits enable us to do the necessary everyday things without conscious effort, thus leaving the mind free to do the new things, to attend to the really interesting things, to solve the new problems that constantly arise. A great thinker has said that habit is nine-tenths of life. Whatever the exact proportion may be, the im- portance of habit is so great that we cannot afford to neglect the habits that our children are acquiring. And it is well for us to appreciate how far the habits of our children depend upon ourselves. Most of the habits that have to do with everyday things are fixed in childhood. When children get to the high school age, they acquire new sets of habits as a result of their thinking about life and character. That is, they de- velop ideals and try to live up to them. It is therefore the first duty of the mother to see that her younger child acquires the fundamental habits that are necessary 167 168 CHARACTER AS HABIT for his welfare and for his happy association with others. And it’is her next duty to see to it that as the child approaches adolescence, he has the oppor- tunity and stimulus to acquire lofty ideals. The forming of a habit has been compared to the wrinkling of a garment that has been worn a great deal. The cloth is bent along certain lines a number of times, and sooner or later it stays bent. In much the same way a series of actions that have been per- formed in connection with a given situation is repeated. After you have changed your wardrobe from one closet to another, you will find yourself going to the first for many days, whenever you start to get some clothes. If you have been answering the telephone call, you will start at the ring of the bell, even in another person’s house, like an old war horse at the sound of the bugle. A child forms new habits much more easily than an older person, and there is therefore the greater danger of the formation of undesirable habits. On the other hand, the young child is for the same reason all the more teachable, and can more easily learn good habits. A baby of eleven months, whose mother had carefully watched her development, and had especially guarded against the forming of bad habits, was awakened one evening by some noisy visitors. These insisted on see- ing the baby, who, when she was taken into the lighted room, seemed to enjoy the fun as much as the admiring friends did. But the following night she awoke again, and this time she cried until someone came to her. She had no pain; she was not hungry and there was apparently nothing else the matter with her; for as CONTROL OF HABIT FORMATION _ 169 long as anyone staid with her and talked, she was happy, but when she was left alone, she began to cry again. Her mother concluded that she was simply calling for a repetition of the previous evening’s amuse- ment and let her cry for half an hour. Had she been indulged a second and a third time, it would have, no doubt, been very difficult later to get her back into her regular ways. For she would have established a new habit through a few repetitions of the experience, ac- companied by pleasurable feelings. It is possible to begin the training of the child’s habits much earlier than most people believe. At the age of only a few days most children can be trained in regular hours of feeding. As they sleep most of the time at first, the habit of going to sleep does not concern the mother. But in a few weeks it may be observed that the child’s going to sleep at fixed hours can be controlled by putting him in the right position, darkening the room, etc. Modern mothers do not rock their children, and some of the older women find it hard to understand how the child can be put to sleep without rocking. But dependence upon rocking is an acquired habit on the part of the child; and he can acquire a different habit just as easily. It is one of the fundamental principles of human conduct that any act which leads to a happy conclusion tends to repeat itself. And this is just as true of thinking and feeling as it is of doing something with the hands. So if you make it worth while for Jimmy to persist in teasing for what he wants, he will surely repeat the act, until he gets the habit. 170 CHARACTER AS HABIT A mother spoke rather complainingly of her incon- siderate son, who was shrewd enough to make his cam- paign for air-rifles or tickets for the circus, or what- ever else he wanted, just when the mother had a head- ache and was unable to resist his importunate demands. The boy had probably learned from experience that certain conditions were more favorable for his suit than others, and he naturally took advantage of this knowl- edge. There was no calculation in the matter, and the boy was no more inconsiderate than other boys of his age. His mother had simply allowed him to acquire the habit of recognizing certain “signs” as “ lucky ” for his purpose. Every habit is the result of repetitions. If we wish a child to acquire any particular habit, whether it has to do with learning to play some instrument, or with a manner of speech, we must make sure that he repeats the desired act a sufficient number of times—and the habit will be there. The problem is thus largely one of providing suitable inducements for repeating the act. This does not mean that we must offer children some reward for practicing, or for doing things in general the right way. There are various ways of providing the inducements for repetition. Thus, the child who mispronounces words from infancy, needs usually but to hear the words pronounced properly, and through imitation he will repeat the correct sounds until they become habitual with him. Most habits are acquired by children because certain acts which they perform bring with them various satisfactions, which CONTROL OF HABIT FORMATION 171 in turn furnish the inducements for further repetition, until the habits are fixed. When we are trying to fix habits in a young child we should introduce the desired actions into the child’s routine, and insist upon their performance on every occasion—whether it is saying the prayers nightly or putting the toys away. And the desired bits of conduct must be practiced at the time when they have meaning in relation to other affairs. It is not enough to take the single step correctly all by itself. The dancing master makes the child go back and start over again, so that the right step may become one of the fixed series of right steps. Until the habits are fixed, allow no exceptions to occur. Every exception has its dangers, because it may introduce new interests, new satisfactions, tempt- ing to a repetition of the exception and making this the new order. The same principle applies to the breaking of habits. Every exception is like a switch that may let the train of events get side-tracked, with possibly disastrous re- sults. The child must stop chewing his gum at once. Whatever it is that must be stopped, must be stopped the instant the action is noticed, and not allowed a little extension of time for practice in the objectionable act. “Just this once” is the greatest enemy to the development of good habits; and it is the greatest obstacle to the conquest of bad habits. RULES AND EXCEPTIONS Wirx very young children it is essential to have a fixed regularity in the daily routine, if it can possibly be carried out. In the matter of eating and sleeping, in dressing and the toilet, in putting away toys and clothes, in table manners and in the details of courteous conduct, the routine must be observed, with never an exception. This is necessary because it is the only way of getting the children into the habit of disposing of the daily necessities in a routine way. It is apparently the only way of achieving these results. Yet wise folks know that all rules are meant to be broken, although it is not safe to let the children find this out—too soon. So it happens that some grow up without ever finding this out, and a hard time they have of it ever after. We can understand the astonishment of Aunt Jo who dropped in unexpectedly one evening and found eight-year-old Marion sitting up and reading, and the hour long after the usual bedtime. “Why, I thought your children never stay up after seven o’clock!” was her way of showing that she knew that rules were rules. That had been the rule; that was still the rule for the younger children. “ But now,” explained the mother, “ Marion stays up a half hour later on Saturday night, because we can 172 RULES AND EXCEPTIONS 173 sleep later on Sunday, and because father comes home later on Saturday.” These were very good reasons for staying up later; but to some people there never seems to be a good reason for breaking a rule, and that is really what bothers them—the difficulty of using discretion. Aunt Jo was one of those people, and she was one of a very large company. You know the saying about being offered an inch and taking a yard or so. Well, that seems to be par- ticularly true of children on the way to learning the rules of Life’s game. A change from the ordinary means a license to ignore the rule. During this period, therefore, every departure from the routine involves a serious setback. When habits are being acquired, no exception should be permitted. But after habits have been formed they must not be allowed to interfere with common sense or with our happiness. A friend out shopping with her little girl met me on a crowded street on a warm day. After talking of nothing in particular for a few moments, she told me half-apologetically that they were about to get some ice-cream soda, and asked whether I would join them. She explained her hesitation by saying, “‘I did not think you would approve of children drinking ice-cream soda.” And of course I would not—as a steady diet. There are no doubt many children who consume too much of the colored and sweetened juices that are sold under various fancy names. And there is no doubt that children should learn to quench their thirst by means of plenty of good, clean water. It is also true 174 CHARACTER AS HABIT that if you give them a chance, they will nag and nag until you yield the nickle or dime that the soda-water man wants. But for all that it is perfectly legitimate to satisfy the taste for the cold and the sweet and the flavored confections—on occasion, and in moderation. It is a bad rule to indulge the soda-water habit; but it’s also a bad rule to be absolute in our approvals or disapprovals. We are not compelled to say to a child either “You may always have what you wish,” or “You may never have what you wish.” It is this always-or-never attitude, this inflexibility of judgment that antagonizes and estranges the growing child, and makes us old before our time. And it is quite unneces- sary, for it is possible to give the developing youngster a wholesome routine mitigated by more and more variety. It is possible for children to learn that there are justi- fiable exceptions to the usual way of doing things. Children love novelty so much, in general, that they are quite eager for everything that is out of the ordi- nary. Sometimes, however, they quickly become at- tached to the comfort of fixed routine. This seemed to be the case with little Alfred when his mother wanted him to go to sleep in a different room one evening, as she expected company and wished him to be farther from the noise. Alfred stuck to rules and traditions. He had always slept in that bed, and he would not change now. He was promised that he would be taken back to his own bed during the night, and would not be dis- turbed. But he held out against the irregularity of the proceeding—it was an unheard of thing to go to sleep in one place and wake up somewhere else. But RULES AND EXCEPTIONS 175 father called attention to the fact that people could go to sleep in a railway car in one city and wake up in an- other city many miles away. That was interesting; and Alfred fell into the game of playing that he was to take a journey from a distant city, and was to wake up in his own bed in the morning. This worked very well as a trick. But if that were repeated too fre- quently, it would soon break up any sense of order— or rather, the new way might gradually replace the old order. That is indeed the danger in making exceptions; but we must not be deterred by the danger. We must vary the routine as need arises and thus teach the children that a rule is not something absolute, but a convenience. We must teach them also to be the masters of their habits, and not the slaves. Children must re- tain as long as possible that peculiar power of youth— the ability to change from one set of habits to another. With advancing years and judgment, this means the ability to use discretion without rejecting the benefits of regularity. THE MIND AND CHARACTER OF THE CHILD Many a bright child absorbs the teachings offered him and develops a character that is very far from satisfactory; while among less “ gifted” children are evolved useful and lovable spirits that amply compen- sate for the relatively feeble intellects. This is all common knowledge; yet we continue to be puzzled about it without making any efforts to clear up our under- standing. Or we continue to think and to act as though the development of the intellect were of itself sufficient to insure suitable training of the character. If we think of character in lowest terms, we shall find that it has to do with the way a person behaves in relation to others. Now for most people, this be- havior has very little to do with his learning or with his reason. We all know of comparatively ignorant people who have really high characters. They are honest in their dealings with their fellows, they are kindly, they are industrious, they are reliable in every way, without knowing much of the great outside world, without knowing anything of history or literature, without having any taste in music or art. On the other hand, every college has its share of graduates who are scamps. Every art center has its exquisite profligates. Every profession has its learned quacks and hypocrites. 176 MIND AND CHARACTER OF THE CHILD 177 The fact is that while knowledge may be converted into power, it is in itself very far from being a substi- tute for wisdom. And still more remote is it from character. We know that children can acquire knowl- edge; the important question for us is, can they develop character? When we compare an infant with an older child and with an adult, we may see that the lack of “ character” on the part of the infant means that the child has not yet developed fixed habits in regard to certain things, whereas the older person has. You do not know just what the child will do under given circumstances, while you do know what the grown-up will do. It is the mass of habits that make up the foundation of the character which the child acquires. Habits of courteous speech, for example, may be mere imitations of other people’s speech, and very different from what the child would use if neglected in this regard. Yet, as it becomes a habit, it constitutes a distinctive part of the person’s character. The same is true of habits pertaining to all of our conduct as it affects others, whether it is merely turning to the right when passing, or stepping aside for an older person. It is through these little tricks of deference and politeness that a child learns respect, and it is from this that he develops an appre- ciation of the qualities that we wish him to lock up to. It is possible to train every normal child into certain common habits of courtesy and table manners, if we only begin early enough with the right models for them to imitate, and keep it up persistently. A slouching 178 CHARACTER AS HABIT gait is hard to remedy; but rather easy to prevent. It is safe to say that a child may be made to acquire almost any habit that a human being can observe in another. The important question is to select the habits that are worth while, for the character we have in mind. And that suggests the second element that enters into the “ character ” that can be trained or cultivated. The comparison between young children and adults shows us that another difference in their characters lies in the comparative instability of the child’s likes or dislikes, and of his standards of right and wrong. Beginning with nearly direct imitation of what he sees his parents do, he comes in a few years to imag- ine himself doing things that he hears of others doing. When he begins to read about the exploits of great heroes, he projects himself into the characters of his- ‘tory or legend, and for the time being he lives in the character that is uppermost in his interest. In this way, he absorbs from his immediate surroundings and from his reading and associates the ideals and princi- ples that will give stability and color to his conduct— that is, his character. How do these acquired or cultivated ideals, these so-called attitudes, give color to the character? They do this by determining largely the choice a person makes in solving a problem of conduct. Shall I do the easiest thing, or shall I do the “right” thing, whether it is easy or difficult? Shall I do the thing that will bring the quickest returns or shall I consider remoter results? Shall I do the thing that is best for MIND AND CHARACTER OF THE CHILD 179 the greatest number, or shall I sacrifice all considera- tions to my own gain or convenience? Shall I adver- tise my gifts before the world, or shall I conceal my pride from the eyes of men? Of course, none of us ever asks himself these ques- tions; and of course we do not want the children to ask themselves these questions. But it is precisely such questions that are answered when we make our moral decisions. They are answered not by argument or debate, but by our habitual attitudes toward life values and life problems. And these habits, like our other habits, are largely the result of training. When we see a person with little or no intellectual training, but with a high character, we must recognize either that in the development of the child a rigid conformity to a certain type of conduct had been required until the habits were fixed, or that there had been held up high ideals that have become realized in conduct. It is of course true that children differ very much from one another not only in the readiness with which they form habits, but also in the readiness with which they can form active ideals. Nevertheless, the prob- lem for the parent is very largely that of cultivating the habits. The character finally consists of the habits of thought, the habits of action, the habits of feeling or attitude. Let us remember, however, that we do not cultivate habits by repeating rules and proverbs. There must be first of all good models for the child to imitate. Then there must be a preponderance of stimulation to do the “right ” things, as against the temptation to 180 CHARACTER AS HABIT do the undesirable. There must be experience in give and take—at work and at play. And there must be a prevailing atmosphere in which all things are recog- nized to have their relative values. The rest belongs to the fates. THE CHILD’S ACTIVITIES TOYS FOR ACTIVITY In one of the largest toy shops in one of our largest cities, a group of children, different enough in ages to be brothers and sisters, are inspecting the attractive display. In front of one counter they linger, five, ten, fifteen minutes. Other counters they pass by with marked indifference. Here one of the clerks is demon- strating a mechanical railway. The little train of cars shoots through the tunnels and flies over the bridges. It completes the circuit, coming back to the starting point, but the children continue to watch it on another round—and then another, and another. There is something fascinating in the movement of the toy cars. But time is pressing, and there is still much to see. Then we notice for the first time that the parents of the children have also become fascinated by the tiny railroad. But they recover themselves first, and urge the children to move on. And to move on, they need urging. At another counter are to be seen mechanical clowns and monkeys. One of the clerks winds up a toy, starts it on its round of contortions, and then winds up the next. Here a large crowd is always to be seen—and heard. For the antics of these performers are so amus- ing that everyone who comes within sight of them lingers and laughs. 183 184 THE CHILD’S ACTIVITIES On a broad, low counter, completely surrounded by children’s faces, is a miniature landscape upholstered in green excelsior, and bearing on its ample expanse a complete village, with surrounding farms and dairies. There is the church with the upward-pointing spire; and the schoolhouse, with its tiny flag. And there is the blacksmith shop, with its stained-cotton smoke. And all the people and all the horses and cows—and, look !—there’s even a cat on the back fence! Well, we have almost forgotten the children, as we stand here admiring one detail after another. It would take at least an hour to catalogue all that is to be seen in this marvelous imitation of a real village. And it is hard to tear ourselves away—to say nothing of the children. The parents of the children seem highly pleased. They are not merely reflecting the joy of the children, they are not merely revealing their own amusement in the wonderful things they have seen. They are con- gratulating themselves on the success of their shrewd scheme to make the children tell them what to buy for Christmas, without letting the children know that they are doing it. They have been making mental notes of how the children behaved as each novelty presented itself. They hope thus to discover what will most interest the children. And can anything be more reasonable than consult- ing these interests when you plan to get children toys? The only mistake that these thoughtful and painstaking parents made was in confusing the attractiveness of novelty and motion and color with the real interests of the children. They did not realize that the toys to TOYS FOR ACTIVITY 185 reach these interests were lying in boxes on the coun- ters that were passed quickly by. The child should have the opportunity to admire the beautiful, in nature and in art; but it is not for this that he should have toys. The child needs on occasion to be entertained, or amused; but it is not for this that he needs toys. He wants toys to play with. They have been making such beautiful toys for us in recent years, and such clever mechanical contrivances, which interest the old as well as the young, that we have almost forgotten what a toy is for. In thinking of a toy, the question should not. be, What can the toy do? We should rather ask, What can the child do with it? Most of us experience much perplexity when it comes to selecting toys for children. We should be relieved of much of this if we accepted as our first principle: The toy is an object that will enable the child to do something. In selecting toys we must keep in mind what the particular child is already able to do, and what he needs to learn to do. These are the real interests of the child, who likes nothing better than to be doing. Oc- casionally a child will show marked individual tastes: and special abilities. But aside from these compara- tively rare cases, the child’s interests are largely deter- mined by his age. When the baby has acquired sufficient control of his arms and legs to be able to find his toes and fingers, he needs to have something to handle and to grasp. The rattle, the ring, and the ball are quite sufficient to keep him busy and to interest him. 186 THE CHILD’S ACTIVITIES When the child learns to move about, it is no longer sufficient that he have something to grasp and to shake. He must now have something to lift and carry. Moder- ately large blocks, for which the small finger muscles are not put into play, nests of boxes and of balls will enable him to do as much as he can possibly think of doing. We must not be carried away by the “ cute- ness” of very small blocks and boxes, and think that they are especially appropriate for the small child. For several years to come, the child will need to handle objects that he can grasp with the whole hand, rather than such as are picked up with the tips of the fingers. The fine movements come much later in the develop- ment of the child’s nerves and muscles. Presently the child comes to know things, as we can tell by his knowing the names of things. Now a doll will be welcome to the little girl—or to the little boy, for that matter. And representations of all the familiar animals are nice to hug and to drag about. But the first consideration in the selection of a wagon or cow or teddy-bear should be its ability to endure a great deal of hugging and dragging—and even of throwing, if need be. It is not at all necessary for these objects to be so much like the “ real” things that they repre- sent as to arouse admiration. They need merely to suggest the dog or the horse, or whatever it is, for the child is largely concerned now in imagining, and the objects are symbols, or lay figures. There are tough, wooden animals in various sizes, that are quite as use- ful in every way as the woolly or fuzzy ones. The furs and feathers often found on toys of this class TOYS FOR ACTIVITY 187 may be impressive to adults, and they may make it possible to spend more money on a toy for a young child; but they are entirely superfluous from the child’s point of view, and they frequently render the toy less durable, to say nothing of catching dirt. From the time that the child is about two years old, until well along into school days, blocks of various kinds are useful for the child’s happiness and develop- ment. A chest of large blocks, while comparatively expensive, is in the long run a good investment. They should be large enough for the young child to use, and there should be enough of them for the older child to erect “real” stairways and forts. Large blocks are not so likely to get lost as smaller ones, and they will last for years, and will serve not only a succession of children, but several of them simultaneously, if necessary. Small blocks of wood or of artificial stone should be given to a child only when he is old enough to handle rather small objects, and after he has learned to put his things away, as otherwise too many pieces would get lost. With such blocks it is possible to develop rather elaborate architectural ideas, and they can be bought in small lots, so that a collection of them may grow to considerable size in the course of years. Many children will continue to find interest in these blocks until they are twelve or thirteen years old. The durability of a toy may do much to unify the interests of a child over a prolonged period. This is especially important when children come to the age in which they can understand the relations of things 188 THE CHILD’S ACTIVITIES to each other. A doll that has made a home for herself in the heart of a child, soon comes to need a carriage. Later she comes to need a wardrobe; and later still she must have a suitable habitation. In the same way, the horse must have a wagon, and this must have a suitable load; and both require a stable. As the child becomes more familiar with the activities going on around, his play interest will call for the materials and objects necessary to represent these occupations. It thus becomes possible to add gradually one toy after another that will contribute to this interest. The doll’s house, instead of being completely fur- nished, as something good to look upon, should rather be a bare framework that may serve as the basis for ‘a long series of interesting and profitable activities. The furnishing of the house, the sewing of hangings and covers, the cutting out of pictures, and so on, will not only keep the child busy and out of mischief. These activities will stimulate thought, will exercise ~' resourcefulness and invention, will cultivate applica- tion, as well as give training in the special skills de- manded by the work. There is a wide range of choice when it comes to equipping the kitchen and the laundry. All the things needed can be bought singly; and it is better to get one or two well-made pieces at a time than to buy a whole “ set ” of flimsy contraptions. The same principles apply to getting toys for other play interests that are modeled on the occupations of the community. The girl or boy who is playing store, or farm, or dairy will welcome gifts of toys that add to the equipment—as a pair of scales, or a new milk TOYS FOR ACTIVITY 189 wagon. Getting toys in relation to some central idea has the further advantage of holding the child’s inter- est by giving him something to look forward to. Children from the age of three or four years need, in addition to toys for their make-believe play, mate- rials for making “real” things. All kinds of “ cut- outs,” scrapbooks for pasting, paper, pasteboard and wooden strips for weaving and basketry, prepared “clay ” for modeling will give the child a great deal of satisfaction as he finds himself producing visible effects and controlling the materials. The ground- glass drawing frames and water colors are very useful, as they furnish pleasurable activity that develops the child’s powers over his eye and hand. For employing the constructive interests, there have been recently offered several ingenious contrivances in metal and wood. Some of these consist of strips of perforated iron, with rods, wheels, screws, nuts, etc., out of which the child can construct trusses, bridges, cranes, wagons, and dozens of other objects. The sets come in different sizes, but all the parts are inter- changeable, and can also be bought separately, so that a collection can grow as the inventiveness of the child calls for more material. Wooden construction blocks on the same principle are made in several styles. Here the parts are joined together by dowel pins. These can be used by younger children, as the parts are larger, and their handling does not require such fine movements. But I would not give any of these to a child until after he had had considerable experience with free blocks, from which he could learn something 190 THE CHILD’S ACTIVITIES about balance, and stability; for the locked blocks often lead to structures that would be architecturally or mechanically impossible. Of the hundreds of new indoor games, there is little to be said except that nothing has yet appeared as an improvement on chess, checkers, and authors. If we are looking for something “new,” let us remember that to the child all things are new. But if we must buy a novelty, we should be careful to avoid any game in which the chance element is too prominent. All the games that are accompanied by a set of dice or a spin- ning wheel should come under suspicion. Common sense will tell us that in buying tools and the implements for outdoor games, quality should be the first consideration. We must not let ourselves be tempted to get “complete sets,” for if these are of good quality the prices are likely to be prohibitive. It is better to get one or two good pieces and slowly build up a collection. It is better also to combine the gift funds of several members of the family and buy a few substantial articles than to get a larger number of things that look gay enough at first, but soon go to Pieces, and to the scrap heap. Durability in toys is of primary importance. Size and beauty of finish are secondary. In dolls, for ex- ample, it is possible now to get, if not quite the inde- structibility claimed by the manufacturers, at least a practical immunity to the loving caresses and neglect of the young owners. I have tried to suggest what we should keep in mind in selecting toys, and to show why it is not safe to be TOYS FOR ACTIVITY 191 guided merely by the attractiveness of the display, or by the interest aroused in us, or even in the children. Thus, the mechanical toys hold the attention for a time, but they are cast aside too soon. The best that can be said for them is that once in a while a boy will break one open to see what it is that makes it go. The elaborate detail of the miniature village will arouse admiration, but it gives the children nothing to do; and after the novelty has worn off the “toy” means nothing. Unfortunately much of what is offered us in the shops is made to catch our eyes and our coin. The decrepit dolls, lame ducks, and wheelless wagons con- stitute a monument to an unenlightened parenthood, too easy-going to determine what it wants, too ready to accept uncritically what is offered. The effective reform must come from parents who know what they want, and consistently buy only durable and worth- while toys, refusing to support the manufacturer of tawdry and flimsy imitations of real toys. BOOKS AND THE CHILD Wuere there is no vision the people perish; and that is just as true of the individual as it is of the nation. Moreover, it is the youth who shall see the visions and draw from them the inspiration for higher and better things. The richest source of visions for the child of today is the printed page that he reads himself or that is read to him in his early years. How important, therefore, is it that the child shall read only what is worth while, even though he does not read always what is best. With this thought in mind the selection of books for children’s reading becomes as serious a task as the selection of his other teachers. But ‘there are several distinct. purposes that the reading of books may promote, and every one of them quite legitimate in its way. Thus you may place be- fore the child a book for the purpose of imparting certain information, or for the purpose of arousing certain sentiments. You may seek to modify his moral point of view, or you may wish to cultivate his faith in certain doctrines. A book may be a convenient means for lazy pastime, or a source of indulgence. But no one book will be useful for all of these pur- poses; and we must know both what we want of a book, and what may be expected of books, if we are to make the best use of these instruments in the child’s education. 192 BOOKS AND THE CHILD 193 In selecting a book for a child, we must be careful to avoid on the one hand the temptation to get what is best or most pleasant for ourselves, and on the other hand that which is most pleasant for the child. We must take into consideration the child’s mental develop- ment, his inclinations, his needs; and we must keep a clear purpose steadfastly before us. It is not enough that a book be “ harmless”; it must have something positive to recommend it. It must be not only a “ good” book, but “ good for something.” By this is not meant that every book given to a child should inculcate all the virtues, nor that it should be “ instruc- tive ” in the ordinary sense. It is perfectly legitimate to use a book for purposes of recreation or amusement. But an amusing book may be of a kind that is in bad taste, or it may be one that is in good taste. An exciting tale of adventure may be devoid of the slight- est geographical information, but it need not be false in sentiment, it need not be one to give the child a perverted notion of human relations. The child, however, must be the basis upon which our judgment of the suitability of a book must be finally based; and we should therefore begin with the child. The book must reach the child’s interest; it must supply his needs, and it must meet his intellectual level. No matter how good a book may be from a lit- erary or from a scientific point of view, it will fail of its purpose if it shoots “ over the head ” of the reader; but no less so if it is too simple or elementary. Other standards are to be found outside of the child. A book that is to give information must give 33 194 THE CHILD’S ACTIVITIES reliable information. A book that deals with human relations must be imbued with sound sentiment. In all cases it is desirable that a book shall be in good taste. Even if it is meant merely to amuse the child, we should be sure that the amusement it offers is of a wholesome kind, and not the crude horseplay of the type found in certain “ Sunday supplements.” These standards, if they are to be of any help to us, must be used with discretion. We know already that the interests of the child are constantly shifting. Not only has each child his own individuality, but the changing years must be taken into account. And fashions cannot be overlooked. There are the seasonal variations in sports and games and other activities; there are also the reflections of the larger events and movements. There are the publicly celebrated amnni- versaries and centennials, the great expositions and pageants. A convention meets in town, and a new in- terest comes into the life of the child, as it comes into the life of many an adult. The objective standards are no more fixed. Indeed, if they were, we should never need any new books. There are new discoveries from the laboratories and the exploring expeditions. There are new inventions in engineering and agriculture and medicine. There are new experiments in government, and new prob- lems in life. There are changes also in the fine arts, and new times bring new men into the foreground. All these ripples and larger waves in the stream of human affairs make their impressions upon the written record, and in selecting books we are selecting the BOOKS AND THE CHILD 195 portions of the record that our children are to make their own. It is a simple pedagogical device to study the life of a hero at a time when the children are making preparations to celebrate in some dramatic way the life of the hero. In like manner, we may take advan- tage of a current interest in some engineering enter- prise to advance acquaintance with the more difficult problems in this field. Or while the interest in nation- alities is uppermost, it may be utilized for imparting information about the peoples in the center of public attention. For this purpose good histories and biogra- phies are of great value; and. of these there is for- tunately a good selection to be had. More important in some ways, especially for younger children, are the collections of the folk and fairy tales of different races and nationalities; it is from these that one most read- ily gets that peculiar flavor that is distinctive of the thoughts and feelings of a people. From these, too, the child may learn a great deal about the customs and manners of different peoples, as they show them- selves in matters that are usually considered too trivial to merit special description—as the ways of eating and dressing, saluting and sleeping, etc. The excellent pictures found in so many of the recent books are particularly helpful in this connection. Although the public that buys and reads books has not been very critical, or at least not very clear as to its standards, the older books have been obliged to pass through a process of selection—they have had to stand the test of time, as we say—and only the best of them 196 THE CHILD’S ACTIVITIES survive. Upon many of these the later writers of children’s books have not been able to improve. Yet many of the old favorites cannot be recommended for the children now, because our children must get a new vision for a new day; and these old favorites do not help. This is especially true of books that deal with nature and science topics, and of books that picture social relations. Thus, some nature books, although they approach the animal world in terms of the peren- nial question “ Why?” give their answers in the spirit of modern science, as against that of the older mysti- cism of the natural history books. Again, some of the travel stories picture child life in various foreign lands with a real sympathy that is in harmony with the modern spirit of international friendship. Another point at which the newer books are better than most of the older ones is in their deeper appre- ciation of the workings of the child’s mind. We all remember the goody tales of a generation or more ago, that forced the “ moral” to the front with such vigor that they made of the children either little hypocrites or little pharisees. The moral value of the best recent books is greater because the moral purpose in them is attained more effectively if less obtrusively. The most valuable and the most significant of the newer books for children are those that inspire interest in and regard for those human activities that deal especially with the overcoming of nature’s obstacles to our well-being, and with the making of the results of these triumphs available to all mankind. They con- tain the elements of the heroic that appeal to all BOOKS AND THE CHILD 197 healthy children, and they are free from the narrowly partisan that too frequently belittles the heroic in past history. With the rapid growth of free libraries, and espe- cially with the development of the children’s depart- ments, most children probably have access to more books—more worth-while books—than they can ever use profitably. This makes the selection still more urgent, although the danger of getting objectionable books is greatly diminished. But with the greater op- portunity to get at books, there goes very often a cer- tain separation between the book and the home. The book comes to be, as it were, a temporary visitor in the home, instead of being a permanent part of the estab- lishment. This is unfortunate because it prevents the cultivation of that intimacy with books which is possi- ble only if they are about to be opened frequently for short communion, as the mood may dictate, instead of being kept only for “ reading through.” Children should, of course, be able to read books through, and there are many books that are to be read through and then dismissed. But the child needs also to learn how to get from a book but a chapter or a paragraph at a time, how to come back to a book again and again, how to make his own just that which concerns him. This means learning to discriminate, to select; but this is possible only with books that belong in the home, and not with books that are borrowed for a limited period. THE ARTS IN THE LIFE OF THE CHILD Some time during the last century, parents with solicitude for the higher life of their children, and with the means to give the children fuller opportunities, discovered that training in the “ arts ” would add both to the enjoyment of life and to the esteem of their fellows. But in providing the instruction in music or painting, they had to resort to musicians and painters. And these specialists in art taught the children from the point of view of training specialized performers which most of the children were never going to become. The result was in most cases a rather superficial “ ac- complishment ”—which has indeed its social value, but which meant very little either as performance or as enrichment of life. Several things have happened to make us change our attitude in these matters. With all the bad perform- ing, extending to ever larger circles of our population, there came a more critical recognition of the real qual- ity of our vulgarized playing and painting. There came also, quite incidentally as it were, a growing appreciation of the arts—the mechanical reproduction of good music and of good pictures being very largely responsible for this, in making accessible to almost every person the opportunity to hear and see the best as well as the tawdry. Moreover, our thinking about the development of the mental and emotional life, as 198 THE ARTS IN THE LIFE OF THE CHILD 199 problems in education and training, has brought us to a realization of the more valuable part of the child’s contact with art forms. We are thus in a position to look upon the arts in the life of the child in terms of enlarging the child’s life, and not in terms of performing for the approval or admiration of others. And we are in a position to think of the training from the lay point of view, rather than from the professional side. If then, we still place before the child the clay or the paint brush, the piano or the violin, it is not so much in the hope of making a name for the family. Rather is it in the expectation that the child may thus be enabled to find himself, that he may acquire further means of expression, that he may add to his enjoyment of life through acquaint- ance with the emotional resources of the various arts. For most children, that is to say, the study of music and drawing should be not primarily for the purpose of cultivating technical proficiency, but for the purpose of cultivating deeper appreciations through an under- standing of form, design, etc. This is quite the same as our teaching of literature to children; some of them may become creative artists—and this often in spite of the schooling—but for most children we hope merely to increase and to refine the appreciation of good liter- ature. Both for the purpose of refining the appreciation, and for the purpose of discovering the child’s capaci- ties, we should provide as many points of contact with art expression as we can possibly command. If you provide piano lessons for your child, even though you 200 THE CHILD’S ACTIVITIES do so just because everybody is doing it, it is well. If you provide dancing lessons, or singing, or painting, it is well. If you provide two or three or four oppor- tunities, it is still better. But how can we afford all these things for every child—and how can the child possibly get the time for all these various “ lessons ” ? If we attempted to add these special lessons to the full day, we should be attempting the impossible; nor would this be desirable if we could manage it. The aim should be rather to incorporate the arts into the life of the child, as we already do in part. The hand- work of the early school years—clay modeling and beadwork, for example—and the music the young child hears, are, together with his other activities and experi- ences, of the very substance of his life. It is largely because our modern conditions of life give most of us only the finished products of the vari- ous arts, that so many children grow up in total igno- rance of the activities and the opportunities of art ex- pression. And it is for this reason that the contact must be increasingly supplied by the schools. We use textiles and pottery, we hear music and see pictures, we develop taste in architecture and in house furnish- ing and in motor-cars, but we know very little about how these things come to be what they are, or as they are—and that means that we either accept without discrimination, or that we receive our standards ready made. But the result of this situation is that we have all about us altogether more ugliness than is good for us. When we undertake to cultivate the arts for our THE ARTS IN THE LIFE OF THE CHILD 201 children, outside of the school, the most important con- sideration in the selection of instructors is commonly considered to be the artistic achievement or the stand- ing in his craft. But more important for our purpose is the teacher’s character, his attitude toward children. We may indeed find a talented artist who is also a sat- isfactory teacher; but the combination is extremely rare. The accomplished artist is likely to see in the pupil a potential performer or creator, and to have little patience when the symptoms of talent are slow to manifest themselves. When talent is discovered it will be time enough to train for specialization. Whether we provide special instruction for children or not, we can at least. put forth an effort to make the surroundings in the home contribute as much as possi- ble to the cultivation of taste. This requires an effort, but is worth what it costs. Unless we have well de- veloped tastes and standards ourselves, we are very easily imposed upon by the “ fashions” and by the tendency to imitate, often unconsciously, those for whom we have some regard. If we devote some thought to the children’s dress and to the way our rooms are furnished, we shall be carrying on an education in art. This does not mean that we must buy only the expen- sive or the fashionable. It means taking the trouble to find out what is best. It is possible to get cheap reproductions of the best pictures, just as we can get cheap editions of the world’s best books. In the mat- ter of pictures, it is well to have before the child only a few at a time, and to change them at intervals. For this purpose, frames with removable backs may be used, 202 THE CHILD’S ACTIVITIES or a screen made of burlap stretched on a wooden frame. Let us remember that the younger children are likely to see very little in a black and white picture until after colored pictures have made them familiar with seeing the world in a flat surface. We must do what we can to expand the child’s hori- zon by visits to the museums, by providing opportuni- ties to see and to hear the best that the human spirit has brought forth. But we must not overlook the fact that the most continuous and the most impressive molders of his tastes lie in the immediate surround- ings—his clothes and his furniture, his books and his conversation, and his opportunities to express himself through his own activities. When we set out with the idea of elevating the taste of our surroundings, we must be on our guard against assuming that the task may some day be completed. We shall need to adjust the child’s surroundings to his level of appreciation, and to advance it constantly as this develops. Moreover, there is no best in an ab- solute sense. We must consider not only the child’s development, but his individuality and peculiarities. KEEPING PETS CuILprEN of today have many advantages that grow directly out of the searchings of the scientific spirit of the age. Their health is guarded as never before, and the details of their diet are calculated to fractions of an ounce. Their schooling is much more efficient and even their play has been improved through scientific investigation. But the same scientific spirit has deprived the mod- ern child of certain elements that were of great signifi- cance in development and training. It has taken from the home the many processes related to the preparation of food and clothing, and with them certain educative influences that the schools have scarcely learned to compensate. Most important of all, our modern home has had taken from it that intimacy with lower animals which formerly contributed so much to the informal education of children. Girls and boys used to grow up with a knowledge about the ordinary life processes that the child of today seems hardly to suspect. To be sure, they gath- ered also a great deal of superstition and false tradi- tion; but they did really know something fundamen- tally sound about horses and cats and dogs and chickens, The domestic animals taught the children about life, even where there was no chance to get close to the wood folks. Where the children had to help in the 203 204 THE CHILD’S ACTIVITIES care of animals, they learned responsibility that knew no compromise with convenience or the weather. Everything else in life can wait, perhaps, but never the regular feeding and watering of the animals. The children learned the close relations that exist between the physical conditions and the health and wel- fare of the animals, so that careful measurement of feed, and the protection of the animals against over- work or against unfavorable weather furnished a basis for standards of conduct in relation to living things. In spite of defective understanding, there was devel- oped what we might call sound sentiment in the treat- ment of the dumb creatures. Now it ought to be possible for most children to get the benefits that may be derived from association with the lower animals. Even in large cities, where there are serious objections to the keeping of dogs and cats, nearly every home could manage to keep a few live fish in a jar of water, or a bird in a cage. Guinea pigs or pet mice occupy little space, and that is some- thing to consider in a small city flat. The keeping of live pets in the house will, of course, give the child an opportunity to learn a great deal about the ways of the animals. This may not be very valuable in itself, but it is valuable as a stimulus to thought. Theodore asked more questions per hour for the two weeks after he got his pair of guinea pigs than he had asked at any time before—or than he was likely ever to ask again. The interest aroused could not be equaled by any mechanical contrivance that the shops may offer. KEEPING PETS 205 Very few enlightened parents today doubt the wis- dom of giving children instruction about sex and re- production. And it is quite generally recognized that such instruction should, so far as possible, be imparted by the parents themselves. This is important, first, because the child’s questions should be answered when he is still too young to go to others for information. In the second place, it furnishes the basis for a rela- tion of intimacy and confidence between the parent and child that hardly anything else can supply. At the same time we realize how few are the opportunities, and how rare the natural approach to the subject. This difficulty is well met by the presence in the home or about the premises of some lower animals with their broods. But more important than any intellectual gain is the probable effect on the child’s character and sentiments. To have the care of the animals, and to realize what depends upon the regular performance of his share of the daily routine, will furnish a most effective lesson in the bearing of responsibility. The effect of Helen’s neglecting to put her toys or her clothes away in their proper places, was some arbi- trary punishment. But the effect of Helen’s neglecting to clean the aquarium for two or three days was the death of one of the pretty goldfish. And nothing more impressive had ever happened to Helen before. She had learned to love the animals, and there was no escape from the responsibility for the loss. It was too bad to sacrifice the goldfish, but the lesson to Helen was probably worth several little fish, At any rate, 206 THE CHILD’S ACTIVITIES she never again neglected the creatures in her charge. But the impressiveness of the lesson was due in large measure to the fact that the child did love the fish. And it is this affection that the child can have for his pets that is the most valuable feature, from the educa- tional side. It is this that makes the child learn the meaning of devotion and sacrifice and service. But it is for this reason also that a pet should never be forced upon a child. As Mrs. Comstock says in her The Pet Book: “If the child tires of a pet, it should be given to someone else, or chloroformed. It is a cruel act to make a pet dependent upon a careless or unloving master, and it teaches a child cruelty and hardness of heart to be obliged to give unloving care.” Most children quickly learn to love pet animals of almost any kind. We should consult the preferences of the children, and we should guard against selecting an animal that is likely to be a burden to his human companion. Of course the conditions of the home must be considered in selecting the fellow-inmates. In the country, or even in the suburbs, it is possible to select from a much wider range of animal life. But there is sufficient choice in the world of life to meet the condi- tions in all but the humblest of city homes. For learning about animals, the museums and _ the zoological gardens are no doubt excellent contrivances. But for learning responsibility and devotion, each child should have a pet he can love. APPRECIATION OF EFFORT Tue child works in the spirit of the artist. He is not seeking material rewards; he wants the satisfaction of doing something that has meaning, and he wants appreciation. Without these he will become either a shirker, shunning all effort, or a perfunctory grind, laboring under compulsion of one kind or another. It is therefore necessary not only that opportunities be furnished for doing various kinds of work, but that the first awkward attempts be appreciated in a way that will lead to further effort. And this is just as true of attempts at singing or invention—invention of a song or story, for example—as it is of attempts at making some object or drawing that others may handle or exhibit. In a kindergarten, one day, each child stepped for- ward as his name was called, and received from the kindergartner the result of his efforts at “ making something’? for some member of the home. The children were gay, and they were anticipating the joy of giving. It was a pleasure to watch them. But when Genevieve’s name was called, a new note was struck. ‘ Please, Miss White,” she said, ‘“‘ my mother does not want me to bother her any more with the things I make.” And Miss White laid Genevieve’s calendar aside. It is not difficult to see the point of view expressed 207 208 THE CHILD’S ACTIVITIES in Genevieve’s plaintive abnegation. There is really no room for all these things at home—we have all the calendars and blotters and picture frames and shaving pads that we really need. And as for ornaments, these things are not particularly beautiful; and if they are, as may sometimes happen, they do not harmonize with the scheme of things already installed. Besides, they gather dust, and there are few homes that have not already too many dust catchers. We can well under- stand that Genevieve’s mother was weary of calendars and book-marks. But Miss White is also weary of calendars and book- marks. Where one mother has had half a dozen, she has had hundreds. She manages to smile, however, in spite of the clutter and in spite of the obvious monot- ony, through a curious trick of the mind which it would be well for Genevieve’s mother and other mothers to learn. The trick is this: Instead of dealing with calendars and book-marks, she fixes her mind upon the efforts of the tots, she sees trial and tribulation, she sees wonder and experiment, where the rest of us see only crude imitations of tulips or apple-blossoms. Notwithstanding the high rentals we have to pay nowadays, it ought to be possible for every mother to keep each child’s tokens of struggle and conquest, for some time at least. For nothing is more important to the child than that his meager and unsuccessful at- tempts at mastering his material surroundings should receive generous encouragement. And while much is gained by having someone stand by to spur him on when he falters, that is not enough. The product, poor APPRECIATION OF EFFORT 209 though it be, is the symbol of his struggle, it is the embodiment of an idea, an inspiration, and deserves the courtesy of serious and dignified attention from parents and other elders. The calendar is as worthy of a place on the wall as anything you can buy at the store, for by honoring it you teach the child that his efforts are not wasted. As for taste in calendars, leave that to the years. Of course it is not necessary to display all of the child’s creations, or to convert the home into an indus- trial museum. It is, in fact, the latest trophy that carries the greatest interest, and the latest may be made to displace its predecessor, each effort thus receiving its due share of attention and appreciation. Where there are several children, it should be possible to pro- vide large paper envelopes, and boxes in which these early treasures may be kept. Every mother knows that young children can be a nuisance, and in the way, just when they are trying to help with some “ work.” The number of peas that the baby can shell, or the area that the child can sweep, will contribute little to lightening the day’s work. But the value of the contribution is not to be measured thus. It is to be measured in good will, in application, and in the satisfaction that comes—or should come—from having made a worthy effort at doing something useful. We should therefore not belittle the achievement, or make the child feel that his assistance is worthless. While this doctrine of appreciation dces not permit us to belittle the child’s efforts, it still leaves us free to help him with criticisms calculated to enable him to 210 THE CHILD’S ACTIVITIES improve his work. We should, however, call attention to such defects only as he is in a position to remedy himself, and without too much effort. If the doll’s dress is too long, it’s a simple matter to cut it down. But if it’s too short, we note that it’s a very nice dress, and think we'll make the next one a little longer. The repeated emphasis on the defects of design or execu- tion may’ have the effect of improving the child’s taste or judgment; but they are more likely to discourage all effort. A child that sees too clearly the shortcomings of his efforts will refuse to do anything at all. This was the case with four-year-old Herbert, whose sense of form was so far ahead of his muscular control, that he could get no satisfaction out of the paper stars he cut out himself, and so refused, after one or two attempts, to try again. When little Allan’s mother failed to recognize the child’s drawing as that of a “lamp” she was wise enough to take to herself the blame. “ How stupid of me!” For, after all, you can recognize even the lamp if you are told what it is supposed to be. And so the burden of keeping keen the edge of effort rests upon us. But don’t let the child become conceited. CHILDREN’S PARTIES Tue parties that a child attends do not come with such frequency that they are likely to be serious factors in the molding of his life habits. Nevertheless, when they do come, they ought to be made to count as far as possible; and they certainly should be made to inter- fere as little as possible with the general scheme of things. There is indeed some question whether we have not allowed too much sophistication to creep into the gatherings of the little people. Most of us have so little imagination and so little inventiveness at work, that we too easily repeat the satisfying adult experi- ences for the benefit of children—for whom they are not at all satisfying or satisfactory. It is no doubt for this reason that there has been a reaction against children’s parties. There are now many parents who will not allow their children to take part in such functions. They feel that there is too much of being entertained, too much of a certain un- healthy rivalry for prizes and favors, and too much, perhaps, that upsets the stomach. But there is a place in life for the happy gathering of children on festive occasions. These parties have their value not alone for the immediate pleasure that the children derive from them, but for the opportunity they furnish to try out the social accomplishments and resources of the children. But they should be first of 211 212 THE CHILD’S ACTIVITIES all children’s parties, and not adults’ parties in minia- ture to which children are invited for the amusement of the elders, or to be passively entertained. The children who are to be the hosts should take an active part in the preparations. So far as possible they should share in arranging the programme of enter- tainment, the decorations, the refreshments. Except for very young children, who are naturally dependent upon others for everything they get, the success of a party should be to a large degree related to the amount of thought and effort that the children themselves put into it. It is easy enough to hire professional enter- tainers and decorators and caterers. The eclaborate- ness and perfection of the preparations that they make for a party are only a measure of how much money the host has to spend on the occasion. With children the unshared preparations are largely wasted in a double sense. There is the wasted opportunity to apply thought and effort for others; and there is the likeli- hood that the entertained children cannot appreciate what is done for them in proportion to the outlay. The entertainment should be of a kind that calls for the direct participation of as many of the children as possible. The younger children require a great deal of directing and assistance in their games. But as the children grow older, they should be left more and more to their own resources, even in the management of the games and the selection of leaders. One of the most valuable features that can be introduced into a children’s party is some form of dramatization. With children from about six years up this always has a CHILDREN’S PARTIES 213 strong appeal, and gives opportunity for a wide vari- ety of ingenuity and inventiveness. It is not necessary to select a regular “ play” for this purpose. Indeed, it is better not to do so, but to let the children “ make up ” their play. This they will readily do with a little encourage- ment, and perhaps a few concrete suggestions. It is very amusing to see in these improvised plays the direct reflections of the familiar fairy tales, or of domestic or neighborhood incidents. Thus, at one party, a boy of six commandeered his father for participation in what the child called “The Giant and the Soldier.” The father had to capture his son and yield to his entreaties to spare him; in the second act, the father as giant lies entangled in the clothes-line while the * soldier ” with his tin sword liberates him in com- pensation for his former kindness. The children will agree on a “ plot ” and then carry out their plays with impromptu conversation of a most interesting kind. They will use the chairs as trees or houses in true Shakespearean fashion, and any unattached garment will be assimilated into their wardrobe with an ingenu- ity that too seldom finds exercise in the ordinary affairs of the child’s life. One good thing about this form of entertainment is that each performance or “ stunt ” stimulates the other children to try their skill, and there is then a true exchange of services in entertain- ing, instead of letting some do all the giving and others all the taking.* * Plays for the Home, by Augusta Stevenson, will be very helpful and suggestive. 214 THE CHILD’S ACTIVITIES The conventional assault upon the digestive system by means of a superfluity of sweets between meals can be avoided by a little planning. By having the party come well along in the afternoon, the refreshments may be made to conclude the festivities and take the place of the children’s supper. They can be made sufficiently attractive and interesting, and include the indispensable ice cream, to give the true party effect, and yet be sufficiently nourishing and filling to make another meal quite unnecessary. Where the weather and other conditions permit, having the party out of doors will add a great deal to the freedom and activity of the children. Success- ful children’s parties have taken the form of outings to the park or to the country. But whether indoors or out, the essential thing about a children’s party is that the children should do the entertaining as well as the enjoying. WORK AND PLAY AS THE MEASURE OF TIME **Losine time ” means nothing to the child until he has learned to appreciate time for himself. In this the watch as a marker of time units is of great value. We appreciate time as the substance of life. To the child it means the enjoyment of activities and sensa- tions that are marked not only by intensity but also by duration. To enjoy the games and the reading and the dreaming of dreams is to live. To be able to measure the duration of these things, by noting from time to time the passing of an hour or two, is to learn the value of minutes in terms of how much life the minutes can yield. As I was leaving the house to meet a dinner engage- ment, a neighbor with her little boy came along, the mother greatly agitated, and the child only slightly perturbed. The mother was speaking, “ Now you'll have to go to bed without supper, as you did last night. I will not have you coming home so late.” And the boy protested, “I didn’t know it was so late. I meant to come early.” The next day, when I met my neighbor in a calmer mood, she felt that she had to explain the scene of the previous evening. She always lets her children go out unattended; she expects them thus to learn how to take care of themselves and to acquire “ self-reliance.” 215 216 THE CHILD’S ACTIVITIES And she punishes them if they come home late; she expects them thus to learn to know time, and the value of time. There is no doubt that in the course of months, or of years, these children will learn to come home be- times, and to keep engagements, through the method pursued by their mother. But I wonder whether the same results could not be attained without the irrita- tions and ill feeling that this method seemed to bring forth. The method of rewards and punishments is the most ancient method, and has produced valuable re- sults. But it is in many ways crude as well as ancient, and it is certainly not universally the best. I asked the mother whether her child had a watch, or any other means of knowing the time. ‘“ No,” she said, “‘ he is too careless to have a watch. If he had one, I’m sure he would forget to wind it, or he would get it out of order in a week.” “Js it fair,” I asked her, “ to expect the child to know what time it is, when he has no means for finding out? I wonder how many adults, with all their experi- ence, would know that it was time to stop, when in the midst of some interesting pastime, if they had no out- ward sign or warning?” It would seem that the burden of responsibility for supplying the information or the means for getting it, in a matter of this kind, should be assumed altogether by the parent. Where there is no public clock in the vicinity of the children’s play, arrangements should be made for informing them of the passage of time. We should see to it that at least one of the children WORK AND PLAY 217 in the group has a watch, for children that are old enough to play without supervision are old enough to learn how to care for a watch, as well as how to read the time. They can also be taught to look at the watch from time to time, until they have learned to feel about how much play they can accomplish in an hour or in half an hour. Watches that are sufficiently reliable for all ordinary purposes are cheap enough nowadays, so that every child should have the advantages of own- ing one. For the watch can be made a useful instrument in the education of the child. As soon as he is able to read time, he can become his own timekeeper, although some children learn this much more easily than others. Providing some positive means for keeping track of the passing minutes is a much more satisfactory way of teaching the child, than letting him flounder about and then punishing him for his blunders. It is hard to imagine the child having any feeling except that of galling injustice, on being deprived of his supper for doing the most natural thing in the world—that is, continuing to play: so long as there is anyone to play with. It is very likely that with most children the imposition of: a penalty in a case of this kind will have practically no value toward the acquisition of a “ time sense” since children generally look upon penalties in the light of retribution for disobedience, or for infrac- tion of laws, bub seldom connect them specifically with their shortcomings leading to the misconduct. To the analytical adult mind, the purpose suggests the con- nection; but in the child’s mind the connection is absent. 218 THE CHILD’S ACTIVITIES We are not all equally endowed with the “ time sense,” and in some people it is conspicuously lacking. But a great deal can be done to cultivate it in the home. The most important element in this training is a regular daily programme, in which as much as possible of the routine finds a fixed point. Through this all the members of the household should come to a realization of the responsibility of each to observe the programme so far as it has to do with the common activities of the family. Being late should come to mean an infringement upon the time of others. We will make allowances for delays, but we should not be made to wait unnecessarily. This is the lesson that the child should learn first of all in the matter of time and appointments. Penalties and reproofs may direct the child’s atten- tion to the fact that adults attach some significance to time. But they will not teach him to evaluate time for himself. For this he must have guidance and assistance of a positive kind. CULTIVATING HOBBIES WHEN a person has completed his share of the world’s work, it is considered proper for him to “ retire.” And in accordance with this tradition, old Mr. Stewart withdrew from active participation in his business, when he knew that he had enough money and when his family thought that he “needed a rest.” After a few weeks of “ resting,” the old gentleman became very uneasy and unhappy. He wanted to visit the office, but this was strictly forbidden, and as he could not think of anything else to do, he moped around, ex- tending his own misery to those about him. Cases of this kind are common enough, and in a large propor- tion of them, the man does return to his old affairs, there to remain to the end. But in other cases, there is too much opposition from those who look upon work as a hardship, and the old man withers away. Many a business man, before reaching this stage, is merely tired. But why should the business man be more tired than other people? He does not work any harder than the professional man or the artisan. And the others are probably doing their share of worrying. It is very likely that the person who is always repre- sented to us in the comic papers and in the theater as being in need of: entertainment that calls for no exer- tion whatever on his part, is tired because he does not do enough. That is to say, he does not do enough 219 220 THE CHILD’S ACTIVITIES different kinds of things. The tired business man suffers from all the evil consequences of early special- ization. We may be sorry for him; but it is difficult to remedy his condition. What we can do is to prevent our children acquiring this same malady. We may find the preventive in the lives of men and women who never grow old. The essential difference between one of these people, or a healthy child, and a “tired business man’? lies in the wide range of prob- lems and activities that can interest the former, as against the narrow interests and sympathies of the latter. It should be part of our aim in the training of children, to keep open for them all the lines of com- munication with ideas and feelings that may come to them. But this is not a passive affair. Ideas and feelings do not come to us because we sit still. The child must learn to go forth and meet the new experience a little more than half way. We must cultivate the attitude which seeks satisfaction in doing, in overcoming diffi- culties, in solving problems. We must discourage con- tentment with passive comfort, always receiving and never giving, with “ letting well enough alone.” This will mean retaining the versatility and the aggressive- ness of youth as long as possible. In practice we shall frequently be annoyed by the intensity with which the girl or boy will pursue a hobby. We realize only too well the folly of setting the heart too firmly upon this or that. But the child is, in these things, often wiser than his elders. For whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing with all CULTIVATING HOBBIES 221 the energy and enthusiasm that can be mustered. Nor must we determine for the child what is worth doing. We have learned the folly of air-rifles or of reading all the writings of a favorite author, not by suffering any injury from these interests, but by finding things that were better worth while. And the children need not take our preference for etchings or first editions as indicating absolute values. At every stage the child should be encouraged to pursue his hobby as intensively as time and chance permit. Some hobbies will last but a short time; others may last into the riper years. But in any case these represent interests that carry with them motives for application and effort and sacri- fice, and they carry with them stimulation and recrea- tion that are nowhere else to be found. The selection of a hobby, like the selection of an occupation or a spouse, must always be left to the person most concerned. You may give your children a certain bias, however, that will have a value propor- tioned to your judgment and insight. As it is legiti- mate to have a prejudice against your son’s becoming a bartender, or your daughter’s marrying a gambler, so you may tolerate certain types of hobbies and dis- courage others. But these influences should not rest on our own tastes; there are more fundamental consid- erations. Thus, you and I are fond of going to the theater, but it is better for Louise to cultivate amateur theatricals than a fascination for a popular actress. It is better for Harold to play baseball until sunset than to become a baseball “‘ fan.” Again, it is for the child to determine whether he will make a study of 222 THE CHILD’S ACTIVITIES medieval armor, or of orchids, whether she will conduct a propaganda for the protection of the native birds, or for clean streets. Parents should realize the advantage of a hobby that calls for some kind of activity, over one that involves being entertained or amused. In the same way, a hobby that means doing something is more valuable than a collecting hobby, which means having some- thing, although this is better than no hobby at all. On the physiological side, entertaining a wide range of interests means keeping a large part of the brain surface in action. Specialization of interests, in the narrowing sense, means allowing a large part of the brain to remain unused, and thus to be a possible source of ill health. Boys and girls who are encouraged to look upon, as legitimate, all appeals to curiosity, to inventiveness, to the impulse to do and to make, will not be likely to fall into old Mr. Stewart’s plight, when they are some day kindly relieved of their regular occupations. JUSTICE AND THE CHILD BEING GOOD AND BEING BAD Ir is still quite common for people to look upon children as embodiments of one or the other of the two conflicting spirits of right and wrong. Too many of us think that every child is either an angel or a devil, and that our chief concern in life is to adore the children of the first class and to suppress those of the second. Every day your child is likely to do something that annoys you, something that you do not wish to have him do, something that it were better that he did not do. But it is very seldom indeed that the child does anything that is really wicked. Yet you are tempted to characterize the annoying acts as “bad,” or even to call the child “bad” for performing them. In the same way the child does many things that please you—plays for an hour, sometimes, without causing a disturbance; or fetches what you ask for without protest or complaint. And then the tempta- tion to call him “ good ” is very strong. It is no doubt very largely through the approval or disapproval of elders that the child comes to form desirable habits of conduct, or to avoid habits of a different kind. And it is doubtlessly through such approval and disapproval that the child comes to form his ideas of right and wrong. But there is a real danger in our indiscriminate distribution of adjectives 225 226 JUSTICE AND THE CHILD of commendation or condemnation in the course of the day’s work. One thing that modern studies in child nature have taught us is that young children are neither virtuous nor wicked, they are not moral and they are not “immoral.” They do many things that are quite ac- ceptable to older people, or even pleasing. They do many other things that are decidedly objectionable. They do still more that are quite indifferent. But whatever they do is, at least at first, without any moral significance. When a young child is in good health and has found something interesting to do, he will be happy and cheer- ful—so long as he is undisturbed. If the mother has been particularly anxious to be undisturbed herself, she will appreciate how helpful Willie was in sticking to his own affairs the whole morning. But by telling him that he has been a “ good” boy and perhaps re- warding his virtue with a piece of candy or a banana, what will be the effect upon the child? It is well to concentrate one’s attention on the task before him— whether it is work or play; but Willie will hardly dis- cover that he is being praised for the virtue of concen- tration. He is more likely to associate playing trains or building castles and having a good time with the reward of virtue. On the other hand, when the child does the annoying or even the forbidden thing, what is the effect of calling him “bad” ? “ Bad” is likely to acquire the meaning ** doing-what-you-like-to-do.”” And when the child is restless, whether it is because he has not found some- BEING GOOD AND BEING BAD 227 thing interesting to occupy him, or whether it is be- cause his liver is out of order, he is likely enough to get into mischief. Now in most cases the motives or purposes of the child are just as unconscious and just as innocent of evil intent when he is doing something you dislike, as when he is doing something you approve. Our classification of his acts into good and bad has meaning to us in relation to their effects upon our own comfort; but it has no meaning whatever to the child in relation to his own will. It is for this reason that the quiet, unobtrusive child, lacking often enough in vigor and initiative, may become the intolerable prig without a trace of healthy purpose, of self-directed achievement. Such a child comes to consider himself ‘* good ” because he has been praised for doing nothing in particular, or for being docile and amenable to the direction of other people’s wishes. And it is for this reason too that a child of energetic curiosity, a child with many and varied interests and purposes, becomes bewildered in the moral chaos that condemns him for awkwardness in carrying out per- fectly legitimate and essentially good undertakings. To explore and investigate are not in themselves bad. It is unfortunate that you had something in the attic that you did not wish Robert to see. It is unfortunate that the glass slipped out of Jenny’s hand when she was trying to repeat a “trick” that she had seen in a newspaper picture. But it is not wicked to explore attics; it is not wicked to experiment with glass tum- blers or dinner plates. 228 JUSTICE AND THE CHILD Donald and Louise, cousins several times removed, were becoming acquainted for the first time, Donald visiting the city with his mother. They were getting along beautifully, Louise’s mother observed. They were playing railroad with the chairs and hassocks. “Don’t move that!” shouted Donald, “ you’ll get right in front of the train.” Louise continued to push the chair against which she was leaning. ‘‘ Don’t do that,” repeated Donald, with a little more warmth. The chair moved over about half a yard. Bang! Louise rolled over as if struck by an automobile. She was struck by Donald. Up jumped the mothers. ‘“ You naughty boy!” came from both, as though they had rehearsed for the chorus. Louise did not make a demonstration of severe suffering, so they were able to give all of their atten- tion to the naughty boy. ‘“‘ Who would ever have thought it of him?” asked the girl’s mother, not ex- pecting anyone to answer her. And Donald really did not look very vicious, with his pale hair and eyes, and soft voice and shrinking manner. Certainly his mother had never thought him capable of so violent and so ungallant a deed. But there could be no mistake; he had pushed Louise over very roughly, very unkindly, almost cruelly. And Louise, standing by her mother’s side, a picture of injured innocence, was absorbing the warm sympathy of the elders and gloating in the discomfiture of the naughty boy. Her mother already knew how angelic she was; and now Donald’s mother was finding out. Donald’s mother had always supposed that her child BEING GOOD AND BEING BAD 229 was an angel, too, and she could not understand what had happened to change him. A vestige of primitive superstition popped into her head, and she reflected that having been “too good” for so long, he was about to even things up by giving the devil the upper hand for a while. Louise’s mother did not need to wonder at all. She knew that her child was one of the angelic kind; and now she saw that Donald was one of the other kind. The fact is that Donald was just as angelic as Louise, and just as angelic as he had ever been. Louise explained that she had only moved the chair, yet Donald had not only told her—at least twice—not to do so, but he had very good reason on his side. ‘She put that pile of wood right in front of where the train was coming, and it would have been wrecked, and all the people killed.” Any boy who would hesitate to use violence in such an emergency is not quite enough of a boy for the practical affairs of life. When all the facts in the case are considered, one is tempted to suspect that Louise was actuated by the imp of perversity and that Donald was moved by a finer spirit. However, his conduct was unbecoming a gentleman, and Louise had only moved the chair. In the judgments we pass upon the conduct of children, the problem is always to separate the formal side of every act from the fundamental movements of thought and feeling that go on beneath the surface and determine the activities almost, if not quite, auto- matically. Much of the young child’s conduct is imitative. 230 JUSTICE AND THE CHILD When a boy goes through the motions of lighting a pipe and puffing clouds of smoke toward the ceiling, you must not believe that he has begun his descent to perdition, no matter what you think of smoking in general, or of your curtains in particular. On the other hand, when a little girl begs for pennies to give to the blind beggar or to the grind-organ man, you have no warrant for assuming that she is a natural born philanthropist, no matter what your views are on charity. Much of the young child’s conduct results from purely instinctive impulses. So every child will lie under suitable provocation, without thereby indicating a streak of untruthfulness; or Louise may do just what she is told not to do without yielding altogether to the demon of unrighteousness. The child who gets into trouble because he does not know what to do with himself, is perhaps aware that things are not just right with him. But he certainly does not know what ails him, or how to remedy the situation. It is distinctly the duty of the parent (or of the person who has charge of the child) to diagnose the source of the “badness” to provide a remedy. In the same way when the improper conduct is due to physical discomfort, the child cannot be expected to discover the cause of the irritation. We must make sure that the child is in good health, and that he is provided with an opportunity to do interesting things that are worth while. If the children under these circumstances behave themselves acceptably we must take their conduct as BEING GOOD AND BEING BAD 231 a matter of course and not praise them for what they cannot help, any more than we may blame them for what they cannot help. We may urge them to greater exertion, or we may caution them to be more careful; but good and bad are not the qualities of their ordinary everyday acts, no matter how pleasing or displeasing the consequences may be to our feelings, or how disas- trous they may be. A mother once asked me, “Do you believe in the spiritual interpretation of child nature, or in the scien- tific interpretation?” This question assumes that there is a conflict between scientific truth and spiritual truth, It is a mistake to think that assuming “ spiritual ” qualities that are not there is a spiritual explanation of children’s conduct. The scientists have shown that the ability to choose one’s actions, and the consciousness of purpose and of consequences, develop very slowly in the child’s mind. Until there is con- sciousness of right and wrong, and until the child is quite able to choose what he does and what he does not do, it is useless to speak of the moral quality of his acts, no matter what their actual consequences may be, or how they harmonize with our notion of what ought to be done. In ascribing goodness or badness to the doings that have not in themselves any moral qualities, we are not only confusing the child in his own searchings for the right and wrong; we are also defeating the larger pur- pose of every parent by disarming ourselves against the day when something is done that really is good or bad—something that calls for a definite stand, for 232 JUSTICE AND THE CHILD unequivocal condemnation or enthusiastic approval. In acquiring the habit of classifying every act that pleases or displeases us through its consequences as good or bad, we are in the further danger of transfer- ring these qualities to the child. Now we do not wish the young child to get the notion that he is bad, for it is a short step in human logic from being bad to being irresponsible. Once assure the child that he is bad, and he will be certain that there is no use trying. But a moral snob, content with his own ‘ is no less undesirable. * goodness,” To say that a child’s conduct is unmoral does not take from him the possibility of spiritual development. On the contrary, the assumption that the child is a moral being would seem to leave nothing for growth. The sense of righteousness and the feeling of guilt are not born in the child; they have to be achieved through trial and suffering. We must reserve our praise and blame for conduct that involves good will or purposefulness. We may admire skill in action or soundness of judgment, but we must not condemn instincts, however much we may wish to modify their manifestations. ENCOURAGEMENT AND NEGLECT A new baby is always interesting, and usually re- ceives attention out of all proportion to his needs, and also out of all proportion to his special merits. Still, he may escape without receiving any real injury from the eyes and hands of doting friends and relatives. But when the child gets to the “ cunning” age, it is dif- ferent, especially if he happens to be one of the “ ir- resistible ” kind. For then the child must receive all kinds of sense stimulations, and opportunity to exer- cise his limbs, thus to acquire control of his muscles. But there is no special need for him to become con- scious of his own charms. Indeed, the greatest charm of childhood, its utter unconsciousness, too quickly loses its bloom just because we find the cunning tricks and the awkward speech so irresistible. A mother of three children was comparing notes with a mother of four. The former observed that her youngest had reached the point where she would call mother and nurse and the older children to witness everything she was doing. At first this was looked upon as just a cunning little trick; then it became a nuisance. Finally the mother began to have misgiv- ings. Perhaps, she had thought, the child is getting too much notice? What had happened was that the child, having derived much satisfaction from the ap- proving smiles and admiring remarks of the elders, 233 234 JUSTICE AND THE CHILD had acquired the habit of depending upon these mani- festations of affectionate regard for her own comfort and happiness. The mother feared that perhaps the child was becoming too conceited. The other mother had had a similar experience; but she thought that it was only the youngest child who passed through this stage. The youngest receives attention from the adults, as did the older children; but he gets the same kind of attention from the older sisters and brothers. If the youngest child in the family is “ spoiled” more frequently than any of the others, it is probably because of the over-stimulation of his self-regard no less than because of the various indulgences showered upon him by the other members of the household. He suffers for the want of an opportunity to work out some of his own problems in his own way. When the child gets to be in the neighborhood of nine or ten years, when all the cunningness of child- hood has worn off, and before the new interests of adolescence have made their appearance, he is likely to be least attractive. It is now that he reflects most com- pletely the manners of the elders, and it has been ob- served that these reflections are not always of a most agreeable kind. One can therefore understand that people are apt to overlook the girl and boy at this period. If they are the older children in the family, the younger ones take all of our attention. And if at this age they are the youngest, the parents are likely to have grown somewhat weary; and the novelty has worn off. Thus it happens that at the very time when the ‘ENCOURAGEMENT AND NEGLECT 235 young child can find enough to keep him busy exploring the qualities of the objects and materials he finds about him, we intrude upon his mind with irrelevant praise of his awkward performances, in a manner that draws his attention from the outside world to his own feelings, his own likes and dislikes, his own moods. And thus it happens that later in life, when the child comes to be concerned with questions of mine and thine, when he is wondering about relations between man and the outside world, when he longs for the power to give expression to his uneasy stirrings, we leave him to his own resources, we let him flounder about as best he can, we allow him to take his disillusionments from the hands of unkind strangers and unkind chance. When sympathy and encouragement are most needed, the supply is apparently exhausted. The demand that the youngest makes upon the other children must be considered chiefly from its effect upon the youngest. Bessie happened to be “ sensible” and accommodating as a child, so that there was no difficulty whatever in getting her to make concessions to the younger Jeanie. Tearing Bessie’s book was readily for- given because Jeanie was so young and did not under- stand. Bessie would take a dose of bitter medicine just to encourage Jeanie. Bessie stayed home from the picnic or the party because Jeanie would cry to be left behind. Bessie divided her apple and her cake, because Jeanie wanted more after consuming her own. If Bessie suf- fered from this excess of sacrifice and “ considerate- ness” it was probably in the direction of becoming more and more indifferent. to the things that a normal 236 JUSTICE AND THE CHILD child should care about. But the injury to Jeanie was the cultivation of the attitude that took for granted the satisfaction of every desire and every whim. To have allowed Jeanie to cry after Bessie went to, her party, to have reprimanded her for injuring Bessie’s property, to have left her without more cake after her own was eaten, would have helped her more than the indulgences she received. A household consisting of adults and children of various ages is a complex establishment to manage; and it takes thought and tact and insight to allot to each what is his due. And in considering what is due to children, we must not overlook their share of educa- tion—the education which comes through neglect and disappointment, as well as that which comes from sym- pathy and encouragement. EQUITY AMONG BROTHERS AND SISTERS Ir is bad enough to be the youngest; and it is bad enough to be the only boy—or the only girl. But the combination of the two handicaps is in many house- holds quite insurmountable. Father was glancing at the papers while waiting for his son to join him for their Sunday morning walk. Presently he noticed that he had read more of the paper than he had expected to, and looked at his watch. The delay was unusually long, and he called to William. William’s voice came back, sobbing, “ They won’t dress me!” Father did not like that. He went right to the children’s quarters to see what it all meant. The oldest sister spoke up. She thought that William, aged seven, was quite old enough to dress himself, and he wouldn’t even try. The silence and the expressions on the faces of the other sisters suggested a conspiracy. This would never do. Father pronounced final judgment. “ A boy who has three older sisters ought to be able to get help when he had to be dressed, and not be neg- lected.”’ William had to be dressed at once, and the girls would see to it that the task was accomplished with neatness and dispatch. To have the opportunity to look after younger brothers or sisters is no doubt of great value to any girl. And to be obliged to dress William through all 287 238 JUSTICE AND THE CHILD those years must have been an education for the girls. But it is certain that whatever they gained was more than counterbalanced by the boy’s loss. And it is also certain that the experience and “ discipline ” that the girls gained were counterbalanced by the resentment and sense of injustice which they developed, as William became old enough—at least in their judgment—to relieve them of the responsibility. William was no less a victim of circumstances than his sisters. It was his fate to be the youngest—and the only boy. But every child is unique, if not in one way then in another. And so every child is likely to derive advan- tages from his peculiarities, as well as to be handi- capped by them. The older of two brothers was of the “accommodating” kind.