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CHAPTEE I 
 
 THE BODY. 
 
 THE INSTINCT OF ACTIVITY, OR THE TRAINING 
 OF THE MUSCLES. 
 
 All little children are active; constant 
 activity is nature's way of securing physi- 
 cal development. A seemingly superfluous 
 amount of nervous force is generated in 
 each growing child. The organs of respira- 
 tion, circulation and digestion use their need- 
 ful share. The rest of this nervous power is 
 expended by the infant, in tossing his limbs 
 about, in creeping and crawling; by the grow- 
 ing boy, in climbing and running, by the 
 young girl — who must not climb or run, as 
 such conduct is not ladylike — in twisting, 
 squirming and giggling ; thus gaining for her 
 muscles, in spite of prohibition, some of the 
 needed exercise. Making a restless child 
 " keep still " is a repression of this nerv- 
 ous energy, which irritates the whole nervous 
 system, causing ill-temper, moroseness and 
 general uncomfortableness. If this force 
 13 
 
14 The Instinct of Activity, or 
 
 could be properly expended, the child would 
 be always sunny-tempered. The mother's in- 
 stinctive feeling that the restlessness of her 
 child is necessary to its well-being, gives her 
 strength to endure what would be unendurable 
 confusion and noise to any one who has not 
 this maternal instinct. But the wise mother 
 who has changed this dim instinct into lumin- 
 ous insight, turns the riot into joyous, happy 
 play or other wholesome activity. By this 
 course not only does she lessen the strain upon 
 her own nerves, but what is of more importance, 
 often avoids a clash of will power between her- 
 self and her child ; such clashing of wills being 
 always fraught with harm to both. 
 
 In order that this activity, generally first 
 noticed in the use of the hands, might be 
 trained into right and ennobling habits rather 
 than be allowed to degenerate into wrong and 
 often degrading ones, Froebel arranged his 
 charming set of finger games for the mother to 
 teach her babe while he is yet in her arms; 
 thus establishing the right activity before the 
 wrong one can assert itself. 
 
 In such little songs as the following: 
 
 ** This is the mother, good and dear. 
 This the father, with hearty cheer. 
 This is the brother, stout and tall. 
 
The Training of the Muscles, 15 
 
 This is the sister, who plays with her doll, 
 And this is the baby, the pet of all. 
 Behold the good family, great and small! " 
 
 the child is led to personify his fingers and to 
 regard them as a small but united family over 
 which he has control. Of course, this song 
 can be varied to suit the phase of family-life 
 with which he is surrounded. For instance: 
 
 " This is the auntie, who wears a bright shawl, 
 This is the brother, who plays with his ball," 
 
 or like rhythmical descriptions. The little fin- 
 gers may be put to sleep, one by one, with 
 some such words as these: 
 
 " Go to sleep, little thumb, that's one. 
 Go to sleep, pointing finger, two, 
 Go to sleep, middle finger, three, 
 Go to sleep, ring finger, four, 
 Go to sleep, little finger, five. 
 I take them and tuck them snugly all in bed, sound asleep. 
 Let naught disturb them." 
 
 To the little fingers thus quietly closed 
 against the palm of the hand can be sung some 
 soft lullaby, and the quieting efPect upon the 
 babe is magical. 
 
 Once while travelling upon a railway train, 
 I watched for a time the vain endeavors of a 
 young mother to persuade her restless boy of 
 two years to be undressed for bed. Finally I 
 
16 The Instinct of Activity, or 
 
 went to the rescue, and began to talk to the 
 little fellow about the queer finger family thai 
 lived on his hand. I gave him a name for ead 
 member of this family, and in a few minutet 
 suggested that they were sleepy and that w( 
 had better put them to bed. He was delighted 
 Singing softly the ditty just mentioned, ] 
 showed him how to fold first one, then anothei 
 of the chubby fingers in seeming sleep. Wher 
 we had finished he was very still ; the pleasing 
 activity had called his thoughts away from hig 
 capricious, willful little self; he had something 
 to do. "Now," said I, "do you think you car 
 undress without waking these babies ? " Ht 
 nodded a pleased assent. The mother toot 
 him off and in a short time came back and 
 thanked me, saying, that while he was being 
 undressed his thoughts had been concentrated 
 upon keeping his fingers undisturbed, and thai 
 he had dropped asleep with his hand tightl}; 
 closed. She was astonished at this power ol 
 the game, yet the device was simple ; the nerv- 
 ous, restless activity of the child was turned 
 from a wrong channel into a right one. By 
 many such means, Froebel would have the 
 baby's fingers seem to him tiny people of whom 
 he has charge. 
 
The Training of the Muscles. 17 
 
 When these games are emphasized with an 
 older child who can work with his hands, there 
 is danger of his separating, in thought, him- 
 self from his fingers, making them alone res- 
 ponsible for their deeds, and of his setting 
 entirely aside his own obligation in the mat- 
 ter. For example: In my Kindergarten there 
 was a boy who had a very bad habit with his 
 hands, a fault not uncommon with children of 
 all classes. At once I laid more stress upon 
 the finger families and his care of them. After 
 a day or two had passed, I noticed that he was 
 not following directions in sewing his card. 
 *' Oh, dear! " I said, " how came these crooked 
 lines here?" 
 
 "Well, those fingers, they did it. They 
 don't care how they work," was his reply. I 
 saw that I had brought out too much their in- 
 dividuality, and too little his accountability 
 for them. "Ah," I answered, "but who has 
 charge of this family? You must help the 
 fingers take out these wrong stitches and show 
 them how to put in the right ones." 
 
 To some these incidents may seem childish, 
 yet underlying them is one of the world's 
 greatest principles of development, viz: culti- 
 vate right tendencies in humanity and the 
 wrong ones must die out. Build up the posi- 
 2 
 
18 The Instinct of Activity ^ or 
 
 five side of your child's nature and the nega- 
 tive side will not need to he unbuilt. 
 
 Let me illustrate more fully this important 
 thought. At the age of two or three years, 
 according to the immaturity or maturity of 
 the child, the instinct of investigation begins 
 to show itself, developing in various ways an 
 appalling power of destruction; such as tear- 
 ing to pieces his doll, smashing his toy -bank, 
 cutting holes in his apron, and many other in- 
 dications of seeming depravity. It is a criti- 
 cal period. Without this important instinct, 
 man would have made but little progress in 
 civilization; it is the basis of scientific and 
 mathematical research, of study in all fields. 
 This legitimate and natural investigative ac- 
 tivity needs only to be led from the negative 
 path of destruction, into the positive one of 
 construction. Instead of vainly attempting to 
 suppress the new-born power of the young 
 pioneer, or searcher after truth, guide it 
 aright. Give him playthings which can be 
 taken to pieces and put together again without 
 injury to the material; dolls which can be 
 dressed and undressed; horses which can be 
 harnessed and unharnessed; carts to which 
 horses may be fastened at will, or any like 
 toys. Blocks which can be built into various 
 
The Training of the Muscles. 19 
 
 new forms are admirable playthings for child- 
 ren; the more of their own ideas they can put 
 into the re-arrangement, the better. It is the 
 divine right of each human being to re-con- 
 struct in his own way, when that way does not 
 interfere with the care of property, or the rights 
 of others. The glorious instinct of creativity 
 — one of the best evidences that man is made 
 in the image of God — also is cultivated. 
 
 Froebel's system of child-culture is based 
 upon laws that are supported by the three-fold 
 testimony of nature, history, and revelation. 
 We see these positive and negative possibili- 
 ties of which I have just been speaking, in all 
 creation. In the physical world they appeal 
 to our senses for recognition. Look at any 
 wayside field with its luxuriant crop of weeds ; 
 one may plow and harrow, may prepare the 
 soil with diligence, but unless the right kind 
 of seeds are planted, the weeds will again have 
 full possession. I was told by a leading phy- 
 sician in the Engadine Valley in Switzerland, 
 who had made a life-time study of diseases of 
 the lungs, that if a person inheriting consump- 
 tive tendencies were placed in the right cli- 
 mate, his constitution could so be built up 
 that the dread tendency would die out, or re- 
 main dormant and not develop, even though 
 
20 The Instinct of Activity, or 
 
 the inheritance had been continuous through 
 many generations. This statement was con- 
 firmed by a prominent London physician, and 
 I believe is now the accepted theory. 
 
 The same principle is shown in the world of 
 history, that our reason may assent to it. As 
 we thoughtfully turn its pages, what is the 
 record we find? Is it not as soon as a 
 nation has arrived at a period when pioneer 
 work ceases, when conquest over surrounding 
 nature, or adjacent nations, is no longer a 
 necessity, when wealth has brought leisure, 
 that then, and not until then, self-indulg- 
 ing vice and destroying corruption creep in? 
 The positive activity of the nation has ceased, 
 and its negative activity at once begins. 
 
 With equal clearness is this proclaimed in 
 the world of revelation that we may know it 
 to be the truth of God. What lesson is 
 taught in the Scripture parable of the man 
 who drove out the devil, then swept and gar- 
 nished his house and left it empty, when seven 
 other demons came and dwelt therein? 
 
 This thought was well understood by the 
 mother whose boy of fourteen was coming 
 home alone for a summer vacation, a journey 
 of a day and a half. Knowing that he had 
 Duce before fallen into the habit of reading 
 
The Training of the Muscles. 21 
 
 bad books, and fearing that his will-power 
 was not yet strong enough to resist the temp- 
 tation to read the trash sold upon the train, 
 she bought new copies of the " St. Nicholas" 
 and " Youths' Companion " and sent them to 
 him with the loving message that he would 
 probably wish something to read on the way. 
 When he reached home he began at once to 
 tell her of an article in the "St. Nicholas" 
 which had attracted him, and of a " boss 
 story " he had found in the " Youth's Com- 
 panion." No thought had entered his mind 
 of buying other reading matter, nor had there 
 been any chafing sense of prohibition. The 
 success of our Young Men's Christian Associa- 
 tions is to be attributed to this same positive 
 upbuilding principle. When they wish to 
 close a saloon, they start a coffee-house near 
 by ; to draw idle and listless young men from 
 the attractions of gambling hells, they open 
 lecture halls and free reading rooms; the ex- 
 hilaration of healthful exercise in the gymna- 
 sium counteracts the excitement of the low 
 dance hall. They say to the young men of 
 our citiee, not simply, *' Don't go there," but, 
 "Do come here." To all thinking observers, 
 such facts as these must bring more or less 
 convictiott ihai it is by supplying positive 
 
22 The Instinct of Activity^ or 
 
 right activities for our children that we sup- 
 press the wrong ones. 
 
 More than this, a negative method trains a 
 child inevitably into a critical, pessimistic 
 character very depressing to us all. For in- 
 stance: a mother came to me in utter discour- 
 agement, saying: "What shall I do with my 
 five-year-old boy ? He is simply the personi- 
 fication of the word wonH^ After the les- 
 son was over, I walked home with her. A 
 beautiful child, with golden curls and great 
 dancing black eyes, came running out to meet 
 us and with all the impulsive joy of childhood, 
 threw his arms around her. What were her first 
 words ? " Don't do that, James, you will muss 
 mamma's dress." I had already suspected 
 where the trouble lay ; now I knew that I was 
 right. In a moment it was: " Don't twist so, 
 my son." " Don't make that noise." In the 
 four or five minutes we stood at her steps, she 
 had said donH five times. Can you wonder 
 that when she said, *' Run in the house now, 
 Mamma is coming in a minute." he replied: 
 " No, I don't want to." Such training devel- 
 opes unduly the critical faculty and criticism 
 leads to separation from our fellow-beings. 
 Therefore, care must be taken, not only that 
 the child himself be not over-criticised, but 
 
The Training of the Muscles. 23 
 
 also that other people shall not be criticised 
 in his presence; he is injured far more than 
 they are helped. Unless some principle is in- 
 volved, let the people about him pass for he- 
 roes and heroines. 
 
 Again, a year or two ago, I was visiting at 
 a friend's house, when in the course of con- 
 versation, she said: "I do not know what is 
 the difficulty in my sister's family. She tries 
 to train her children aright, and yet they are 
 almost unmanageable." The difficulty was re- 
 vealed to me in a call made soon after. The 
 mother sat with her two-year-old babe on her 
 lap. She told me that the child could say 
 only a few words ; that he was not yet able to 
 talk. Two of her children were playing in an- 
 other part of the room. In a short time they 
 became rather boisterous. The mother did not 
 notice it, but the two-year-old turned around 
 and in an impatient tone called out: "Boys 
 * top'." Here was the trouble. Babies, like 
 parrots, learn to say first the words which they 
 most frequently hear. Consequently this little 
 one must have repeatedly heard the words, 
 *'Boys, stop!" which was merely the suppres- 
 sion of some annoying or wrong thing, and not a 
 substitution of a right one in its place. It had 
 not been: "Boys, run out in the yard and 
 
24: The InsUnd of Activity, or 
 
 gather some flowers for the tea-table," or, 
 "Boys, go up stairs and finish your sawing," 
 or some like directing of their energy, but 
 merely, "Boys, stop!" So they had undoubt- 
 edly "stopped" one prohibited thing and 
 gone to another. 
 
 "We find the same elements in literature. In 
 my opinion such teachers as George Eliot are 
 not healthful factors in the spiritual growth 
 of young lives. Do not such writers em- 
 phasize the discordant side of life, rather 
 than the harmonious one ? In one of the num- 
 bers of the British Review, the author just 
 spoken of has given to the world the true stand- 
 ard of measurement for a great writer. She 
 says: " We do not value a writer in proportion 
 to his freedom from faults, but in proportion 
 to his positive excellences, to the variety of 
 thought he contributes or suggests, to the 
 amount of gladdening and energizing emotion 
 he excites.'''' This is in accordance with Froe- 
 bel's doctrines, but her literary work failed to 
 rise to the height of her insight. If we take 
 her own words as the test, what must be the 
 judgment of the reader who, as he turn the last 
 page of " Middlemarch," realizes that every 
 worthy or lovable character in it has been 
 so warped and marred by circumstances, that 
 
The Training of the Muscles. 25 
 
 admiration has half turned into loving pity. 
 " Daniel Deronda " and her other books leave 
 us in the same depressed state. From this 
 standpoint, must we not admit that the great 
 English woman is not as helpful or as whole- 
 some as many a writer who has far less brain 
 power and artistic skill than she, but who 
 leaves us with a strong feeling that right 
 rules in God's universe ? Emerson has said: 
 *' Even Schopenhauer preaching pessimism is 
 odious." 
 
 If the power of optimism is so great in lit- 
 erature, it is even greater in life. The posi- 
 tive method of training builds up the cheering, 
 optimistic character which is so much needed. 
 Who are the men and women that are lifting 
 the world upward and onward? Are they not 
 those who encourage more than they criticise f 
 who do more than they undo? The strongest, 
 most beautiful characters are those who see 
 the good that is in each person, who think the 
 best that is possible of everyone, who as soon 
 as they form a new acquaintance see his fine- 
 est characteristics. The Kindergarten world 
 gives innumerable illustrations of how this 
 type of character may be developed. 
 
 A small child was brought to me who was 
 the most complete embodiment of the result of 
 
26 The Instinct of Activity, or 
 
 negative training with which I have ever come 
 in contact. It was, " No, I don't want fco 
 play;" " No, I won't sit by that boy"; "No, I 
 don't like the blocks." It was one continual 
 " No." No one pleased him; nothing satisfied 
 him. Though not yet five years old, he was 
 already an isolated character, unhappy himself 
 and constantly making others uncomfortable. 
 I saw that the child needed more than any- 
 thing else positive encouragement, to be led 
 into a spirit of participation with others. The 
 third day after his arrival another child 
 chanced to bring a small pewter soldier to the 
 Kindergarten. As is usual with each little 
 treasure brought from home, it was examined 
 and admired and at play -time it was allowed to 
 choose a game. This last privilege brought 
 to the new boy's face a look of contempt, which 
 sharply contrasted with the happy, sympathe- 
 tic faces of the other children. Soon after we 
 had taken our places at the work-tables with 
 the toy-soldier standing erect in front of little 
 Paul, his proud owner, I heard a whizzing 
 sound and Paul's voice crying out: *' Joseph 
 has knocked my soldier off the table and he 
 did it on purpose, too!" I turned to the scene 
 of disaster ; the soldier lay on the other side of 
 the room, and Joseph, the iconoclastic inva- 
 
The Training of the Muscles, 27 
 
 der into our realm of peace, with defiance in 
 his face, sat looking at me. The first impulse 
 was to say: "Why did you do that? It was 
 naughty; go and pick up the soldier." That, 
 however, would have been another negation 
 added to the number which had already been 
 daily heaped upon him, so, instead, I said, 
 '' Oh well, Paul, never mind. Joseph does not 
 know that we try to make each other happy in 
 kindergarten." 
 
 " Come here, Joseph, I want you to be my 
 messenger boy." The role of messenger boy, 
 or helper to distribute the work, is always a 
 much-coveted office; partly, from an inborn 
 delight in children to assist in the work of 
 older people ; partly, from the distinction which 
 arises in the imaginary wearing of the brass 
 buttons and gilt band. As if expecting some 
 hidden censure Joseph came a little reluctant- 
 ly to where I was sitting. In a few minutes 
 he was busy running back and forth giving to 
 each child the envelope containing the work 
 of the next half hour. As soon as the joy of 
 service had melted him into a mood of com- 
 radeship, I whispered: *' Kun over now and get 
 Paul's soldier." Instantly he ran across the 
 room, picked up the toy and placing it on the 
 table before its rightful owner, quietly slipped 
 
28 The Instinct of Activity, or 
 
 into his own place and began his work. His 
 whole nature for the time being was changed 
 into good-humored fellowship with all man- 
 kind. 
 
 Similar opportunities for like transforma- 
 tions may be found in the home life. A friend 
 came to me and said: "What shall I do with 
 my Willie? He dallies so about everything 
 that he has to do. If I send him upstairs 
 after my thimble or thread, it may be a half 
 hour or even an hour before he returns. I 
 have scolded him and scolded him, but it 
 seems to do no good." 
 
 " By scolding," I replied, " you have em- 
 phasized the fault you wished to cure and 
 have separated yourself from your boy. Now, 
 try to emphasize the opposite virtue, prompt- 
 ness, by praising him for it when you have the 
 opportunity." 
 
 " Oh, there's no use in talking of that," she 
 answered, "he is never prompt." 
 
 " Then," said I, " if he is never so volun- 
 tarily, make an occasion. Ask him to go to the 
 kitchen, or some other part of the house on an 
 errand for you ; tell him that you will count 
 while he is gone. When he gets back, praise 
 him for having returned more quickly than 
 usual. At dinner tell his father as if it were 
 
The Training of the Muscles. 29 
 
 a fine bit of news. This will make it a meri- 
 torious achievement in your son's eyes." 
 
 The next week she came to me with her 
 face fairly radiant and said: "I have been 
 counting and Willie has been trotting ever 
 since last week." I laughed and told her that 
 her mother-wit would soon have to hunt up 
 some new device. 
 
 In Harriet Martineau's "Household Educa- 
 tion " is a chapter on " Keverence." She 
 shows how a child, lacking this virtue, should 
 not be constantly criticised for his disrespect 
 or irreverence, but instead needs to have his 
 eyes opened to the wonders of creation, that 
 the majesty and power of God displayed in 
 His works may fill his heart with awe and 
 hush it into the needed reverence. On the 
 other hand, the child who is fearful and timid, 
 over-reverent, really superstitious, ought not to 
 be laughed at and ridiculed, but to have the 
 power which is within himself developed, until 
 courage and self-reliance restore the lacking 
 balance to his character. This method of treat- 
 ment bears at once practical results. 
 
 Many a mother says earnestly to herself: 
 "What shall I do with my half-grown boy, his 
 tone and manner are so lacking in respect? 
 Or, the troublesome girl who almost defies 
 
30 The Instinct of Activity, or 
 
 authority." Reproof but calls forth a pert re- 
 ply, perhaps long argument which establishes 
 something of equality between parent and 
 child. The real question is not how to sup- 
 press this lack of respect for authority, but 
 how to develop the opposite virtue. One of 
 the favorite sayings of Dr. William T. Harris, 
 the well-known educator, is this: that every 
 man has two selves, the great self of humanity 
 and the institutional world, and the little self 
 of individuality. Such a child should learn 
 to compare his great self with his individual 
 self, then egotism and self-assertion will cease. 
 What has he done, compared with the achieve- 
 ments of mankind? What are his rights, 
 when the rights of the State at large are ex- 
 amined? All true patriotism, which demands 
 the glad laying down of life for country, arises 
 from the realization of this larger self. 
 
 With this principle in mind, let the mother 
 study the line of thought which most attracts 
 her child, that he may perceive that she has a 
 deeper, stronger grasp of the subject than he 
 can at present hope to have. As a rule, child- 
 ren worship skill of brain or hand. To illus- 
 trate: a mother completely cured her eight- 
 year-old daughter of a spirit of contradiction 
 by reading ahead of the child some books on 
 
The Training of the Muscles. 31 
 
 Natural History, and telling the contents to 
 her in their daily walks. The girl soon 
 learned to look up to the mother as a marvel 
 of wisdom and authority on all Natural His- 
 tory subjects, and the feeling of respect in 
 this realm was easily transferred to others. 
 Over and over again have I seen similar chan- 
 ges brought about in a child's attitude towards 
 older people, by like training. 
 
 Mothers, so cultivate the rational element in 
 yourselves, that you can see that every fault in 
 your child is simply the lack of some virtue. 
 In the inner chamber of your own souls study 
 your children; confess their faults to your- 
 selves, not to your neighbors, and ask what is 
 lacking that these defects exist. Like Nehe- 
 miah of old, build up the wall where it is the 
 weakest ; if your child is selfish, it is unselfish- 
 ness he needs; if he is untruthful, it is accuracy 
 which is lacking; perhaps he is tyrannical 
 to the younger brother or sister; it is the ele- 
 ment of nurture or tenderness which should be 
 developed. 
 
 There is one caution which must be given 
 in regard to the matter of approval. One 
 should be sure the effort is a genuine one, else 
 commendation will foster a species of hypocri- 
 sy which is worse than the fault sought to be 
 eradicated. 
 
82 The InsUnct of Activity, 
 
 Dante in his Divine Comedy places heathen 
 philosophers and poets in Limbo, a place 
 neither heaven nor hell, but he gives them 
 the privilege of appreciating the merits of the 
 lost souls as they pass along. This is enough 
 to make of Limbo, or any other spot, a heaven. 
 You have it in your power to place this heaven 
 within your child, and nothing on earth can 
 entirely quench the happiness it will create. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE INSTINCT OP INVESTIGATION, OR THE TRAIN- 
 ING OF THE SENSES. 
 
 There is perhaps no instinct of the child 
 more important and less guarded than the exer- 
 cise of his senses. The inner being awakes by- 
 means of the impressions conveyed to the young 
 brain through those avenues. The baby be- 
 gins this life-work as soon as his eyes can fix 
 themselves on any point in space, as soon as 
 his tiny hand can grasp any object of the ma- 
 terial world. Although, in reality, the three- 
 fold nature of the child cannot be separated, for 
 the sake of closer study we may consider the 
 subject from three standpoints: first, the phys- 
 ical value; second, the intellectual value; third, 
 the moral value of the right training of the 
 senses. 
 
 The one thing which prevents most of us 
 from being that which we might have been, 
 is the dull, stupid way in which we have used 
 our senses. Thousands of us having eyes to 
 see, see not; having ears to hear, hear not; 
 in the literal, as well as the spiritual, sense 
 3 33 
 
34 The Instinct of Investigation^ or 
 
 of the words. Question any two persons who 
 have listened to the same sermon or lecture, 
 and you will discover how much one has heard 
 which has escaped the other. Talk with any 
 intelligent acquaintance about a picture gallery 
 or a foreign city, which you both have vis- 
 ited, and you will be covered with chagrin 
 by the realization of how much you did not 
 see. 
 
 " The artist," says George Eliot, " becomes 
 the true teacher by giving us his higher sensi- 
 bilities as a medium, a delicate acoustic or 
 optical instrument, bringing home to our 
 coarser senses that which would otherwise be 
 unperceived by us." The joy which comes 
 from a sunset cloud, the happiness which the 
 song of a bird may produce, the poetry and 
 glory of all creation lie unseen about us be- 
 cause these windows of the soul have not been 
 opened. 
 
 Half the wealth of the world is lost to 
 most of us from lack of power to perceive. 
 The difference between so-called clever children 
 and intelligent ones is largely a difference in 
 their sense-perception. For the purpose of 
 training aright these much-neglected instru- 
 ments, the Kindergarten has games in which 
 first one sense and then another is exercised 
 
The Training of the Senses, 35 
 
 and strengthened. For example, the child is 
 allowed to shut his eyes and by touch to tell 
 the name of an object, or from his hearing 
 to tell the object struck and what struck it, or 
 by taste or smell to describe and name the 
 thing placed before him. But the teacher or 
 mother w^ho realizes the higher need does not 
 let the child rest in the mere sense-impression. 
 He is given two objects that he may contrast 
 them, or he hears two differing sounds, smells 
 two odors, tastes two flavors, and is led to con- 
 trast the one with the other, that the higher 
 faculty of comparison may also be developed 
 by the play. Thus the little ears learn to hear 
 soft notes that our duller ones can not catch; 
 thus the young eyes learn to recognize finer 
 shades of color than our less trained ones can 
 perceive. 
 
 The habit of contrasting or comparing in 
 material things leads to a fineness of distinc- 
 tion in higher matters. John Euskin and like 
 thinkers claim that a perception of and love 
 for the beautiful in nature leads directly into 
 a discernment of the beautiful in the moral 
 world. 
 
 The intellectual value of a clear and definite 
 training of the senses is usually perceived by 
 any thinking mind. The child who has early 
 
36 The Instinct of Investigation, or 
 
 learned to notice the difference between sweet 
 and sour, between smooth and rough, between 
 straight and crooked in material things, is the 
 sooner able to transfer the meaning to intellect- 
 ual qualities. He more readily understands the 
 meaning of " sweet disposition," "sour temper," 
 " smooth manner," " rough speech," " straight 
 conduct," " crooked dealings," and the like. 
 Children begin to make this higher use of their 
 vocabulary as soon as they thoroughly com- 
 prehend the physical meaning of the word. Oc- 
 casionally they put the object into the new sen- 
 tence, often making laughable mistakes, and 
 reminding the listener of the days of the child- 
 hood of the race, when a brave chieftain was 
 called a lion man, the shrewd leader was named 
 the fox. One morning we had hyacinth bulbs ; 
 we examined them and compared them with 
 some blossoming hyacinths which stood upon 
 the window-sill. A day or two after, an onion 
 was brought in by a delighted child, as another 
 fat round flower-baby for us to plant. I had 
 some difficulty in making them see the differ- 
 ence, and finally cut the onion open, and, blind- 
 ing their eyes, let them smell first the flower 
 and then the onion bulb. An hour or two later 
 one of the little girls spoke in an irritated, pet- 
 ulant tone to her neighbor who had accident- 
 
The Training of the Senses, 37 
 
 ally knocked over her blocks. *' Look out," said 
 a little one the other side of her, " or you'll 
 have an onion voice soon! " The sense of this 
 child had not been sufficiently trained to enable 
 her to abstract or detach the property " dis- 
 agreeable " from the object, so the entire onion 
 had to be dragged into her warning. The 
 sooner the child is freed from the necessity of 
 using objects to express his thought, the sooner 
 he becomes able to communicate his inner 
 thought to the outer world. When he learns 
 the finer distinctions of the physical properties 
 of matter, his vocabulary becoraes enriched ten- 
 fold, and he obtains that much-needed, much- 
 coveted gift, " the power of utterance," for the 
 lack of which most of us go like dumb crea- 
 tures about the world, so far as the giving forth 
 of our higher selves is concerned. 
 
 The moral value of the complete control of 
 the senses has not been so universally recog- 
 nized. Bain and other authorities on mental 
 science divide the senses into two groups; 
 first, the lower: taste, smell, and touch, as re- 
 lated to organic life, i. e, hunger, thirst, reple- 
 tion, suffocation, warmth, and other sensations 
 whose office relates to the upbuilding of the 
 body; and second, the higher: touch proper, 
 hearing and sight, or those which relate to 
 
38 The Instinct of Investigation, or 
 
 the outside world. The former are called the 
 lower senses from the fact that they aid less 
 directly the mental growth, by producing less 
 vivid pictures in the mind. For instance, the 
 remembrance called forth by the words " sweet 
 apple," or " odor of violets," is not so distinct 
 as that given by the words, " large apple," 
 "blue violets." To a limited extent the world 
 at large has acknowledged this distinction, in- 
 tellectually, between the lower and the higher 
 senses, has directed the training of the eye and 
 the ear, and is now struggling to place in the 
 school curriculum a systematized teaching of 
 the sense of touch. But the overwhelming 
 moral need of mankind lies in the world of the 
 lower senses. The non-training of these is ex- 
 ceedingly dangerous because they have direct 
 effect upon the will. Any child turns more 
 quickly from a bad odor than from a bad pic- 
 ture, comes with more alacrity to get a sweet- 
 meat than to hear some pleasing sound. Is it 
 not the same with most adults? Are not the 
 invitations to dinner more frequently accepted 
 than those to hear fine music ? Are not our 
 sympathies aroused more readily by a tale of 
 physical suffering than by one of demoralizing 
 surroundings? Notwithstanding these facts, 
 the two lower senses of taste and smell have 
 
The Training of the Senses. 39 
 
 been left almost entirely to the haphazard edu- 
 cation of circumstances. Sad indeed have been 
 the results. 
 
 As we look abroad over the world, what do 
 we perceive to be the chief cause of the wrecks 
 and ruins, of the wretchedness and misery which 
 lie about us? Why have we on every hand 
 such dwarfed and stunted characters? For 
 what reason do crimes, too polluting to be men- 
 tioned save where remedy is sought, poison our 
 moral atmosphere until our great cities become 
 fatal to half the young men and women who 
 come to them ? Why do our clergy and other 
 reformers have to labor so hard to attract the 
 hearts of men to what is in itself glorious and 
 beautiful ? 
 
 Is it not, in a majority of cases, because man- 
 kind has not learned to subordinate the gratifi- 
 cation of physical appetite to rational ends? It 
 is to be seen in every phase of society ; from the 
 rich and favored dame, so enervated by soft 
 chairs and tempered lights and luxurious sur- 
 roundings that she is blind to the sight of mis- 
 ery and deaf to the cry of despair, down 
 through the grades where we find the luxuries 
 of the table the only luxuries indulged in, and 
 " plain living and high thinking " the excep- 
 tion, still farther down from these respectable 
 
40 The Instinct of Investigation^ or 
 
 phases of self-indulgence to the poor drunkard 
 who sacrifices all comforts of the home, all 
 peace of the family life, for the gratification of 
 his insatiable thirst, down to the pitiable wretch 
 who sells her soul that her body may live. 
 
 Do not their lives, all of them, contradict 
 that significant question of the Son of God: 
 " Is not the body more than the raiment?" " Is 
 not the life more than the meat?" 
 
 Let us turn from these distressing pictures 
 to seek such remedy as the scientific investiga- 
 tion of the senses may ofPer. 
 
 The sense of taste has two offices, relish and 
 power to discriminate; the first, for the pro- 
 ducing of certain pleasant sensations in the 
 mouth or stomach, and the second, for the judg- 
 ing between wholesomeness and unwholesome- 
 ness of food, the latter being taste proper. 
 
 The former is the gratification of the sense 
 for the sake of the sensation, and leads through 
 over-indulgence directly into gluttony, which, 
 in its turn, leads into sensuality. In history 
 not until a nation begins to send far and wide 
 for delicacies and condiments for its markets 
 and tables does it become voluptuous and sen- 
 sual. When we speak of " the degenerate days 
 of Eome " do not pictures of their over-loaded 
 tables rise before the mind's eye? 
 
The Training of the Senses. 41 
 
 We need not have turned to other times for 
 illustrations of this truth. Who are the " high 
 livers'' of to-day? Are they not too often sen- 
 sualists as well ? 
 
 The lattej^ use of this organ of sensation leads 
 to discrimination, which discrimination pro- 
 duces wholesome restraint upon undue eating; 
 this restraint engenders self-control, making the 
 moral will-power over the bodily appetite — 
 man's greatest safeguard in the hour of temp- 
 tation. In the physical world, we know that 
 rank vegetation needs to be pruned and checked 
 if it is to give to man its best fruits ; thus na- 
 ture teaches us her lesson. 
 
 In the intellectual world, the prophets and 
 seers have always seen the close connection 
 between the right feeding of the body and the 
 control of the sensual appetites. Long ago 
 Plato in " The Eepublic " would have all books 
 banished which contained descriptions of 
 the mere pleasures of food, drink, and love, 
 classing the three under one head. What an 
 enormous amount of so-called literature would 
 have to be swept out of the libraries of to-day, 
 were that mandate sent forth! Dante, with 
 that marvelous vision of his which seemed to 
 see through all disguises and all forms of sin 
 back to the causes of the same, places gluttony 
 
42 The Instinct of Investigation, or 
 
 and sensuality in the same circle of the In- 
 ferno. At least two great branches of the 
 Christian church, the Koman Catholic and the 
 Protestant Episcopal, have realized the moral 
 value of placing the appetites under the con- 
 trol of the will, in their establishment and 
 maintenance of the season of Lent. Let him 
 who would scoff at the observance of this sea- 
 son of restraint, try for six weeks to go with- 
 out his favorite article of food, and he will real- 
 ize for himself the amount of will-power it re- 
 quires. To me, the story of Daniel derives its 
 significance, not so much from the fearless 
 courage with which that " Great Heart " dared 
 death in the lion's den, as from the fact that 
 as a child he had moral control enough to 
 turn from the king's sumptuous table and eat 
 simple pulse and drink pure water. Such 
 self-control rnust produce the courage and the 
 manhood which will die for a principle. So, in 
 telling this story, ever loved by childhood, 
 we always emphasize the earlier struggle and 
 victory rather than the later. 
 
 The perfect character is the character with 
 the perfectly controlled will; therefore, the 
 heroes of the Kindergarten stories are mightier 
 than they who have taken a city, for they have 
 conquered themselves. The greatest battles of 
 
The Training of the Senses. 43 
 
 the world are the battles which are fought 
 within the human breast ; and, alas, the great- 
 est defeats are here also ! 
 
 A writer in a recent article in The Christian 
 Union showed that a child's inheritance of cer- 
 tain likes and dislikes in the matter of food does 
 not in the least forbid the training of his taste 
 towards that which is healthful and upbuild- 
 ing, it merely adds an element to be considered 
 in the training. 
 
 Another gifted writer of our own nation, 
 Horace Bushnell, in his book called " Christian 
 Nurture " utters these impressive words: '* The 
 child is taken when his training begins, in a 
 state of naturalness as respects all the bodily- 
 tastes and tempers, and the endeavor should 
 be to keep him in that key, to let no stimula- 
 tion of excess or delicacy disturb the simplicity 
 of nature, and no sensual pleasure in the name 
 of food become a want or expectation of his 
 appetite. Any artificial appetite begun is the 
 beginning of distemper, disease and a general 
 disturbance of natural proportion. Intemper- 
 ance ! The woes of intemperate drink ! how 
 dismal the story, when it is told ; how dreadful 
 the picture when we look upon it. From what 
 do the father and mother recoil with a greater 
 and more total horror of feeling, than the pos- 
 
44 The Instinct of Investigation, or 
 
 sibility that their child is to be a drunkard? 
 Little do they remember that he can be, even 
 before he has so much as tasted the cup ; and 
 that they themselves can make him so, virtual- 
 ly without meaning it, even before he has got- 
 ten his language. Nine-tenths of the intem- 
 perate drinking begins, not in grief and desti- 
 tution, as we often hear, but in vicious feeding. 
 Here the scale and order of simplicity is first 
 broken, and then what shall a distempered or 
 distemperate life run to, more certainly than 
 what is intemperate? False feeding engenders 
 false appetite, and when the soul is burning all 
 through in the fires of false appetite, what is 
 that but a universal uneasiness? And what 
 will this uneasiness more actually do than par- 
 take itself to the pleasure and excitement of 
 drink?" Much more that is suggestive and 
 helpful to the mother is given in his chapter 
 entitled " Physical Nurture to be a means of 
 Grace." 
 
 Froebel, from whose eagle eye nothing which 
 related to the child seemed to escape, saw this 
 danger, and in his "Education of Man" says: 
 "In the early years the child's food is a matter 
 of very great importance; not only may the 
 child by this means be made indolent or active, 
 sluggish or mobile, dull or bright, inert or 
 
'Vhe Training of the Senses. 45 
 
 vigorous, but, indeed, for his entire life. Im- 
 pressions, inclinations, appetites, which the 
 child may have derived from his food, the turn 
 it may have given to his senses and even to his 
 life as a whole, can only with difl&culty be set 
 aside, even when the age of self-dependence 
 has been reached ; they are one with his whole 
 physical life, and therefore intimately connected 
 with his spiritual life. And again, parents and 
 nurses should ever remember, as underlying 
 every precept in this direction, the following 
 general principle : that simplicity and frugality 
 in food and in other physical needs during the 
 years of childhood enhance man's power of 
 attaining happiness and vigor — true creative- 
 ness in every respect. Who has not noticed 
 in children, overstimulated by spices and ex- 
 cesses of food, appetites of a very low order, 
 from which they can never again be freed — 
 appetites which, even when thoy seem to have 
 been suppressed, only slumber, and in times 
 of opportunity return with greater power, 
 threatening to rob man of all his dignity 
 and to force him away from his duty." 
 
 Then comes with an almost audible sigh 
 these words : " It is by far easier than we think 
 to promote and establish the welfare of man* 
 kind. All the means are simple and at hand, 
 
46 The Instinct of Investigation^ or 
 
 yet we see them not. You see them perhaps, 
 but do not notice them. In their simplicity, 
 availability, and nearness, they seem too insig- 
 nificant, and we despise them. We seek help 
 from afar, although help is only in and through 
 ourselves. Hence, at a later period half or all 
 our accumulated wealth can not procure for our 
 children ivhat greater insight and keener vision 
 discern as their greatest good. This they must 
 miss, or enjoy but partially or scantily. It 
 might have been theirs in full measure, had 
 we expended very much less for their physical 
 comfort." Then he exclaims in ringing tones, 
 as the enormous significance of the subject 
 grows upon him: " Would that to each young 
 newly married couple there could be shown in 
 all its vividness, only one of the sad experien- 
 ces and observations in its small and seemingly 
 insignificant beginnings, and in its incalculable 
 consequences that tend utterly to destroy all 
 the good of after education." 
 
 Next he points out the way to avoid the spd 
 consequences which he so laments. "And here 
 it is easy to avoid the wrong and to find the 
 right. Always let the food be simply for 
 nourishment — never more, never less. Never 
 should the food be taken for its own sake, but 
 for the sake of promoting bodily and mental 
 
The Training of the Senses. 47 
 
 activity. Still less should the peculiarities of 
 food, its taste or delicacy, ever become an ob- 
 ject in themselves, but only a means to make it 
 good, pure, wholesome nourishment; else in 
 both cases the food destroys health. Let the 
 food of the little child be as simple as the cir- 
 cumstances in which the child lives can afford, 
 and let it be given in proportion to his bodily 
 and mental activity." 
 
 There is no one among us who cannot recall 
 pictures of young mothers putting a spoonful 
 of sweet to the baby's mouth, and persuading 
 that unwilling little one to take the unaccus- 
 tomed food, saying with coaxing tone such 
 words of encouragement as, " So good, so good,'* 
 in this way teaching the child to dwell upon 
 and value the relish side of his food. 
 
 Not long ago I had occasion to take a long 
 ride on a street car. My attention was at- 
 tracted to a placid mother with her year-old 
 child in her arms. The little one was in 
 quiet wonder looking out on the great, new 
 world about him, with its myriads of moving 
 objects. Here was a picture of serene con- 
 tentment in both mother and child. Soon the 
 mother slipped her hand into her pocket and 
 drew forth a small paper bag, out of which 
 she took a piece of candy and put it into her 
 
48 The Instinct of Investigation^ or 
 
 mouth ; then, fearing, I suppose, that this 
 might be selfish, she took out another piece 
 and put it into the infant's mouth. The 
 child resented the intrusion upon its medita- 
 tions by ejecting the proffered sweet. The 
 mother was not to be defeated in her gener- 
 osity. She put it back into the child's mouth 
 and held it there until the little one began 
 to suck it of his own account. This oper- 
 ation was repeated a number of times, about 
 every third piece of candy being given to the 
 child. Once or twice the small recipient 
 turned its head away, but was coaxed back 
 by the cooing voice of the mother saying, 
 "Take it, darling; see, mamma likes candy," 
 illustrating the remark by eating a piece and 
 giving every sign of enjoyment during the 
 operation. The child was soon won over, and 
 began to reach out his hands for more. Af- 
 ter the unwholesome relish had been sufficient- 
 ly accumulated in the delicate little stomach 
 to make the child physically uncomfortable, 
 he began to show a restlessness, a desire to 
 move about unnecessarily. The mother grew 
 impatient, which only increased the child's un- 
 easiness ; finally she shook him, saying, " I don't 
 see what in the world is the matter with you. You 
 are a bad troublesome little thing!" At this, 
 
The Training of the Senses. 49 
 
 the unjustly accused little victim set up a lusty 
 yell, and the mother in a few minutes left the 
 car in great confusion and with a very red face, 
 wondering, no doubt, from which of his fath- 
 er's relatives the child inherited such a dis- 
 agreeable disposition. 
 
 " But," exclaimed one mother to me, " do 
 you mean to say that you would not give any 
 confectionery to a child ? I think candy is the 
 prerogative of all children. Why, I think it 
 is a crime to take it away from them!'* "I 
 think," was my reply, " that a healthy body 
 and a strong moral will-power are the pre- 
 rogatives of each child, and it is a crime to 
 take them away from him." " But," she added, 
 in an annoyed tone, '* I do love candy so my- 
 self, and I can't eat it before my child and 
 not give her a part of it ! " 
 
 I do not mean that all sweets must be 
 banished from the nursery or the table, — the 
 child would thus be deprived of a lesson in 
 voluntary self-control ; but they should be 
 given as relishes only, after a wholesome meal, 
 letting the child understand that it adds little 
 or nothing to his up-building, and must, there- 
 fore, be taken sparingly. 
 
 In " The. Tasting Song," in that wonderful 
 book of his for mothers, Froebel suggests that 
 4 
 
50 The Instinct of Investigation^ or 
 
 the child's thoughts may be playfully led to the 
 discrimination of different kinds of food and 
 the value of the same. He says, " Who does 
 not know and rejoice that you, dear mother, 
 can carry on everything as a game with 
 your child, and can dress up for him the 
 most important things of life in charming 
 play?" 
 
 It is not supposed that any mother will 
 feel herself compelled to use the rather crude 
 rhyme given in the "Mother Book," still it 
 contains the needed hint of playfully guiding 
 the child's attention to the after effects of dif- 
 ferent kinds of food. Froebel has said: "This 
 is the way in which you, mother, try to foster, 
 develop and improve each sense, playfully and 
 gaily, but especially the sense of taste. What 
 is more important for your child than the im- 
 provement of the senses, especially the improve- 
 ment of the sense of taste, in its transferred 
 moral meaning, as well." Farther on in the 
 same earnest talk with the mother (see page 
 136 "Mother Songs") he tells her that by 
 such exercising of her child's senses does she 
 teach him gradually to judge of the inner es- 
 sence of things by their appearance ; that it is 
 not necessary for any one to actually indulge 
 in wrong-doing, claiming that moral as well as 
 
The Training of the Senses. 51 
 
 physical things show their real nature to the 
 observing eye. Thus if the child is trained to 
 know the wholesomeness or unwholesomeness 
 of food by its results or after effects, he will 
 the more readily judge of the nature of a plea- 
 sure, of a companion, of a book, of a line of 
 conduct, by its after effects; and it is not, 
 therefore, necessary that he " sow his wild 
 oats," or " see the world," in the pitiable sense 
 in which that term is used, in order that he 
 may know life. His rational judgment can 
 teach him what, oftentimes, sad, bitter, deform- 
 ing experiences tell him, alas ! too late to avoid. 
 Most of you are familiar with the old Greek 
 story of Perseus, — how, when commanded by 
 the king to bring the head of the slain Medusa 
 to the court, the wise young Perseus took with 
 him a bright and shining shield in which he 
 could see reflected the image of the terrible 
 Gorgon, learn what manner of creature she was, 
 know her exact whereabouts, and study how best 
 to destroy her, without himself coming in per- 
 sonal contact with her, for well he knew fatal 
 to him would be that contact. The legend tells 
 us that he thereby returned triumphant to 
 court, having destroyed the destroyer. This 
 to me is one of the most significant of all the 
 old Greek myths. 
 
52 The Instinct of Investigation^ or 
 
 In the motto of this "Tasting Song" Froebel 
 
 says to the mother: 
 
 " Ever through the senses Nature woos the child. 
 Thou canst help him comprehend her lessons mild." 
 
 In other words, Nature, God's instrument^ 
 
 is striving to educate your child spiritually. 
 
 You are another of His instruments, dull or 
 
 sharp, according to the care you are giving to 
 
 this physical training. 
 
 *' By the senses is the inner door unsealed, 
 Where the spirit glows in light revealed." 
 
 Froebel' s convictions on this subject are defi- 
 nite. That the soul, the Divine element in each 
 child, is, as it were, sealed up when he first 
 comes into the world, and is gradually awaken- 
 ed and strengthened by the impressions which 
 come to him through the senses from the out- 
 side world; that the physical and spiritual 
 growth of the child go forward, not only simul- 
 taneously, but the one by means of the other. 
 He especially charges the mother to teach her 
 child to observe and avoid things which are 
 unripe. " Make your child notice not only the 
 fixed steps of development from the unripe to 
 the ripe, but above all have him realize that to 
 use what is unripe is contrary to Nature in 
 all relations and conditions of life, and often 
 works, in its turn, injuriously on life, on phy- 
 
The Training of the Senses, 53 
 
 sie«l but no less on intellectual and social 
 life ;" and as a closing word he exclaims, " If 
 you do this, you will be really, as a mother, 
 one of the greatest benefactors of the human 
 race." 
 
 That the opinions and consequently the ac- 
 tions of children are easily influenced through 
 play, becomes evident to any one who has ever 
 played much with them. One morning, while 
 giving a lesson with the building blocks, we 
 made an oblong form, which I asked one of the 
 children to name. "It is a table — a break- 
 fast table." " Let us play they are all break- 
 fast tables," said I; " I will come around and 
 visit each one and see what the little child- 
 ren have to eat. What is on your table, 
 Helen ?" *' Oh ! " exclaimed she, with eager 
 delight, "my children have ice-cream and 
 cake and soda-water and — " "Oh, dear! oh, 
 dear!" cried I, holding up my hands, " poor 
 little things! just think of their having such 
 a thoughtless mamma, who didn't know how 
 to give them good, wholesome food for their 
 breakfast! How can they ever grow big and 
 strong on such stuff as that? What is on 
 your table Frank?" " My children have bread 
 and butter, oatmeal and cream, and baked 
 potatoes," said the discreet young father. 
 
54 The Instinct of Investigation^ or 
 
 "Ah!" said I, in a tone of intense satisfaction, 
 "now here is a sensible mamma, who knows 
 how to take care of her children ! " " Oh," 
 broke in little Helen, *' my children's mamma 
 came into the room and when she saw what 
 they were eating she jerked the ice-cream off 
 the table." The significant gesture which ac- 
 companied the emphatic tone told of the sud- 
 den revolution which had taken place in the 
 child's mind as to the right kinds of food for 
 carefully reared children. 
 
 In a thousand such ways can children be in- 
 fluenced to form judgments concerning lines of 
 conduct which will help them to decide aright 
 when the real deed is to be enacted. I know 
 of the Kindergarten-trained five-year-old son 
 of a millionaire, who refused spiced pickles, 
 when they were passed to him at the table. 
 " Why, my son," said his father, " do you not 
 wish some pickles ? They are very nice." "No," 
 replied the boy, " I don't see any use in eating 
 spiced pickles. It doesn't help to make me any 
 stronger; my teacher says it doesn't." If this 
 kind of training can be carried out, such a 
 childhood will grow into a young manhood 
 which, when tempted, can easily say, " No. I 
 see no use in that. It will help to make me 
 neither a stronger nor a better man." 
 
The Training of the Senses. 55 
 
 Almost any Kindergartner will tell yon that 
 children are easily trained to prefer wholesome 
 to unwholesome food, even when all the home 
 influences are against the training. I had 
 charge one year of a class of children who were 
 indulged in their home life in almost every re- 
 spect. On one occasion an injudicious mother 
 sent to the Kindergarten a very large birthday 
 cake, richly ornamented with candied fruits 
 and other sweets. In cutting the cake, I quite 
 incidentally said: "We do not wish to upset 
 any of our stomachs with these sweets, so we 
 will lay them aside," suiting the action to the 
 word. After each child had eaten a good sized 
 slice of the cake (a privilege always allowed on 
 a birthday), there was at least one-third of it 
 left. Not a child out of the twenty asked for 
 a second piece, nor for a bit of the confection- 
 ery. This was not because they were in any 
 way suppressed, or afraid to make their wishes 
 known, for they felt almost absolutely free and 
 were accustomed to ask for anything de- 
 sired; it was simply that, through previous 
 plays, talks and stories, they had learned that I 
 did not approve of such things for children, so 
 when with me they did not either. Thus, easily 
 and imperceptibly are little children moulded. 
 The mother who holds herself responsible for 
 
56 The Instinct of Investigation^ or 
 
 what her child shall wear, and yet does not feel 
 that she is answerable for what he shall eat, 
 shows that she regards his outer appeardnce 
 more than his health of body or moral strength. 
 
 The danger of wrong training lies not alone 
 in the indulgence of the sense of taste. Tes- 
 timony is not wanting of the evil effects of the 
 cultivation of the relish side of the other senses 
 also. After giving a lesson on the training of 
 the senses to a class in Chicago, a stranger to 
 me introduced herself as having formerly been 
 a missionary to the Sandwich Islands. " This 
 lesson has explained," said she, " a custom 
 among the Sandwich Islanders, which I never 
 before understood. When the natives begin 
 their religious rites and ceremonies, which, 
 you know, are very licentious, the women are 
 in the habit of decking themselves with wreaths 
 of orange blossoms and other flowers, which 
 have a strongly agreeable scent, until the air 
 is heavy with the odor." 
 
 " Do you not know who are usually the over- 
 perfumed women of our land ? " asked I. " And 
 yet I know scores of mothers who unconsciously 
 train their children to revel in an excessive in- 
 dulgence in perfumery." 
 
 Mr. William Tomlins, a man who has almost 
 regenerated the musical world for children, 
 
The Training of the Senses. 57 
 
 once said, in a talk on musical education: "If 
 music ends only in fitting us to enjoy it our- 
 selves, it becomes selfishly enervating, and this 
 reacts on the musical tone,^^ Therefore, he has 
 long made a habit of teaching the hundreds of 
 children who come under his instruction, to 
 sing sweetly and to enunciate clearly, that they 
 may be worthy of singing at this or that concert 
 for the benefit of some grand charity. The 
 dissipation which is seen in the lives of so many 
 of this most ennobling profession is thus easily 
 explained. Their music has been carried for- 
 ward with too little thought of the pleasure it 
 could give to others. 
 
 Nor does this far-reaching thought stop with 
 the right and wrong training of the senses. 
 The mother who praises her child's curls or 
 rosy cheeks rather than the child's actions or 
 inner motives, is developing the relish side of 
 character — placing beauty of appearance over 
 and above beauty of conduct. The father who 
 takes his boy to the circus, and, passing by the 
 menagerie and acrobat's skill, teaches the boy 
 to enjoy the clown and like parts of the exhibi- 
 tion, is leading to the development of the relish 
 side of amusement, and is training the child to 
 regard excitement and recreation as necessarily 
 one and the same thing. 
 
58 The Instinct of Investigation, or 
 
 Fashionable parties for children, those abom- 
 inations upon the face of the earth, are but sea- 
 soned condiments of that most wholesome food 
 for the young soul, social contact with its 
 peers. That so simple, so sweet, so holy, 
 and so necessary a thing as the commingling of 
 little children in play and work with those of 
 their own age and ability, should be twisted 
 and turned into an artificial fashionable party, 
 seems, to the real lover of childhood, incredi- 
 ble, save for the sad fact that it is. 
 
 Even our Sunday Schools, with their prizes 
 and exhibitions and sensational programs, are 
 not exempt from the crime. I have seen the holy 
 Easter festival so celebrated by Sunday Schools 
 that, so far as its effects upon the younger 
 children were concerned, they might each one 
 as well have been given a glass of intoxicating 
 liquor, so upset was their digestion, so excited 
 their brains, so demoralized their unused emo- 
 tions. 
 
 Need I speak of the relish side of the dress 
 of children ? John Kuskin, the great apostle 
 of the beautiful, claims that no ornament is 
 beautiful which has not a use. 
 
 The relish, perhaps, whose demoralizing in- 
 fluence is beginning to be suspected, is that of 
 highly-seasoned literature, if we may call such 
 
The Training of the Senses, 59 
 
 writing by the name of that which stands for 
 all that is best of the thoughts and experiences 
 of the human race. Mothers and teachers can 
 not too earnestly sift the reading matter of the 
 children of whom they have charge. There 
 are, aside from the text books needed in their 
 school work, some few great books which have 
 stood the test of time and critics. Teach your 
 children to understand and to love these. Above 
 all, as a means of culture, as well as a means 
 of inspiration and a guide to conduct, would I 
 recommend that book of books, the Bible, to 
 be the constant companion of mother and 
 child. 
 
 Some may fall into the minor danger of 
 teaching the child too great discrimination, un- 
 til he becomes an epicure. The child who 
 pushes away his oatmeal because it has milk 
 instead of cream over it, is in a fair way to 
 grow into the man who will push away the mass 
 of humanity because they are unwashed. God 
 pity him if he does ! 
 
 I once knew of a call which came from a large 
 and needy district to a young woman who seem- 
 ingly longed, with all her heart, to be of use in 
 the world. *' But," said she to me, " I cannot 
 possibly go; the salary is only seven hundred 
 dollars, and that would not pay even for the ne- 
 
60 The Instinct of Investigation, 
 
 cessaries of life with me." So she continues to 
 live a barren, unsatisfied life. 
 
 I knew another fine-brained,beautiful woman, 
 whose insight was far beyond her times, to 
 whom there came a grand opportunity to ad- 
 vance a great cause. " I cannot," she said de- 
 spairingly, " do without my china and cut- 
 glass, the disease of luxury has fast hold upon 
 me." "So train your child," says Emerson, 
 " that at the age of thirty or forty, he shall not 
 have to say, ' This great thing could 1 do but 
 for the lack of tools.' " So train him, I would 
 add, that he shall not have to say, '* All my 
 time and strength is spent in obtaining super- 
 fluities, which have become necessities to me." 
 Goethe teaches us this great lesson in his 
 drama of Faust. He who studies attentively 
 this marvelous poem can be saved the sad fate 
 of becoming a Faust in order that he may solve 
 '' the Faust problem." With master strokes is 
 drawn the picture, which shows that no grati- 
 fication of human appetite, passion or ambition, 
 brings in itself satisfaction and rest, but he 
 alone who lives for others as well as for himself 
 can truly say unto his life, " Ah, still delay — 
 thou art so fair." 
 
CHAPTEE III. 
 
 THE MIND, 
 
 THE INSTINCT OF POWER, OR THE TRAINING OP 
 THE EMOTIONS. 
 
 Old Homer, back in the past ages, shows us a 
 charming picture of Nausicaa and her maidens, 
 after a hard day's washing, resting themselves 
 with a game of ball. Thus we see this most 
 free and graceful plaything connected with that 
 free and beautifully developed nation which has 
 been the admiration of the world ever since. 
 Plato has said, " The plays of children have the 
 mightiest influence on the maintenance or non- 
 maintenance of laws ;" and again, *' During ear- 
 liest childhood, the soul of the nursling should 
 be made cheerful and kind, by keeping away 
 from him sorrow and fear and pain, by sooth- 
 ing him with sound of the pipe and of rhyth- 
 mical movement." He still further advised 
 that the children should be brought to the 
 temples, and allowed to play under the super- 
 vision of nurses, presumably trained for that 
 purpose. Here we see plainly foreshadowed 
 the Kindergarten, whose foundation is " educa- 
 tion by play " ; as the study of the Kindergar- 
 
 6i 
 
62 The Instinct of Power ^ or 
 
 ten system leads to the earnest, thoughtful 
 consideration of the office of play, and the 
 exact value which the plaything or toy has in 
 the development of the child ; when this is 
 once understood, the choice of what toys to give 
 to children is easily made. 
 
 In the world of nature, we find the blossom 
 comes before the fruit; in history, art arose 
 long before science was possible ; in the human 
 race, the emotions are developed sooner than 
 the reason. With the individual child it is the 
 same; the childish heart opens spontaneously 
 in play, the barriers are down, and the loving 
 mother or the wise teacher can find entrance 
 into the inner court as in no other way. The 
 child's sympathies can be attracted towards an 
 object, person, or line of conduct, much earlier 
 than his reason can grasp any one of them. 
 His emotional nature can and does receive im- 
 pressions long before his intellectual nature is 
 ready for them ; in other words, he can love be- 
 fore he can understand. 
 
 One of the mistakes of our age is, that we 
 begin by educating our children's intellects 
 rather than their emotions. We leave these all- 
 powerful factors, which give to life its coloring 
 of light or darkness, to the oftentimes insuffi- 
 cient training of the ordinary family life — in- 
 
ITie Training of the Emotions, 63 
 
 sufficient, owing to its thousand interruptions 
 and preoccupations. The results are, that many 
 children grow up cold, hard, matter-of-fact, 
 with little of poetry, sympathy, or ideality to 
 enrich their lives, — mere Gradgrinds in God's 
 world of beauty. We starve the healthful emo- 
 tions of children in order that we may overfeed 
 their intellects. Is not this doing them a 
 great wrong? When the sneering tone is 
 heard, and the question "Will it pay?" is the 
 all-important one, do we not see the result of 
 such training? Possibly the unwise training 
 of the emotional nature may give it undue pre- 
 ponderance, producing morbid sentimentalists, 
 who think that the New Testament would be 
 greatly improved if the account of Christ driv- 
 ing the money-changers from the temple, or 
 His denunciation of the Pharisees, could be 
 omitted. Such people feed every able-bodied 
 tramp brought by chance to their doors, and 
 yet make no effort to lighten the burden of 
 the poor sewing-women of our great cities, 
 who are working at almost starvation prices. 
 This is a minor danger, however. The educa- 
 tion of the heart must advance along with that 
 of the head, if well-balanced character is to be 
 developed. 
 
 Pedagogy tells us that " the science of educa^ 
 
64 The Instinct of Power, or 
 
 Hon is the science of interesting; " and yet, but 
 few pedagogues have realized the importance 
 of educating the interest of the child. In other 
 words, little or no value has been attached to 
 the likes and dislikes of children; but in real- 
 ity they are very important. 
 
 A child can be given any quantity of infor- 
 mation, he can be made to get his lessons, he 
 can even be crowded through a series of exam- 
 inations, but that is not educating him. Unless 
 his interest in the subject has been awakened, 
 the process has been a failure. Once get him 
 thoroughly interested and he can educate himself 
 along that line, at least. 
 
 Hence the value of toys ; they are not only 
 promoters of play, but they appeal to the 
 sympathies and give exercise to the emo- 
 tions; in this way a hold is gotten upon the 
 child, by interesting him before more intel- 
 lectual training can make much impression. 
 The two great obstacles to the exercise of the 
 right emotions are fear and pity ; these do 
 not come into the toy -world, hence we can see 
 how toys, according to their own tendencies, 
 help in the healthful education of the child's 
 emotions, through his emotions the education 
 of his thoughts, through his thoughts the edu- 
 cation of his will, and hence his character. 
 
The Training of the Emotions. 65 
 
 One can readily see how this is so. By means 
 of their dolls, wagons, drums, or other toys, 
 children's thoughts are turned in certain direc- 
 tions. They play that they are mothers and fath- 
 ers, or shop-keepers, or soldiers, as the case may 
 be. Through their dramatic play, they become 
 interested more and more in those phases of life 
 which they have imitated, and that which they 
 watch and imitate they become like. 
 
 The toy-shops of any great city are, to him 
 who can read the signs of the times, prophecies 
 of the future of that city. They not only pre- 
 dict the future career of a people, but they tell 
 us of national tendencies. Seguin, in his report 
 on the Educational exhibit at Vienna a few 
 years ago, said: "The nations which had the 
 most toys had, too, more individuality, ideal- 
 ity, and heroism." And again: " The nations 
 which have been made famous by their artists, 
 artisans, and idealists, supplied their infants 
 with toys." It needs but a moment's thought 
 to recognize the truth of this statement. Child- 
 ren who have toys exercise their own imagina- 
 tion, put into action their own ideals — Ah me, 
 how much that means ! What ideals have been 
 strangled in the breasts of most of us be- 
 cause others did not think as we did ! With the 
 
 toy, an outline only is drawn ; the child must 
 5 
 
66 The Instinct of Power, or 
 
 fill in the details. On the other hand, in story 
 books the details are given. Both kinds of 
 training are needed; individual development, 
 and participation in the development of others — 
 of the world, of the past, of the All. With this 
 thought of the influence of toys upon the life 
 of nations, a visit to any large toy-shop becomes 
 an interesting and curious study. The follow- 
 ing is the testimony, unconsciously given, by 
 the shelves and counters in one of the large 
 importing establishments which gather together 
 and send out the playthings of the world. 
 The French toys include nearly all the pewter 
 soldiers, all guns and swords; surely, such 
 would be the toys of the nation which pro- 
 duced a Napoleon. All Punch and Judy 
 shows are of French manufacture; almost all 
 miniature theatres; all doll tea-sets which 
 have wine glasses and finger bowls attached. 
 The French dolls mirror the fashionable world, 
 with all its finery and unneeded luxury, and 
 hand it down to the little child. No wonder 
 Frances Willard made a protest against dolls, 
 if she had in mind the French doll. 
 
 *' You see," said the guileless saleswoman, as 
 she handed me first one and then another of 
 these dolls, thinking doubtless that she had a 
 slow purchaser whom she had to assist m 
 
The Training of the Emotions. 67 
 
 making a selection, "you can dress one of 
 these dolls as a lady, or as a little girl, just as 
 you like." And, sure enough, the very baby 
 dolls had upon their faces the smile of the 
 society flirt, or the deep passionate look of 
 the woman who had seen the world. I beheld 
 the French Salons of the eighteenth century 
 still lingering in the nineteenth century dolls. 
 All their toys are dainty, artistic, exquisitely 
 put together, but lack strength and power of 
 endurance, are low or shallow in aim, and are 
 oftentimes inappropriate in the extreme. For 
 instance, I was shown a Noah's Ark with a rose- 
 window of stained glass in one end of it. Do 
 we not see the same thing in French literature? 
 Kacine's Orestes, bowing and complimenting 
 his Iphigenia, is the same French adornment of 
 the strong, simple, Greek story that the pretty 
 window was of the Hebrew Ark. 
 
 The German toys take another tone. They 
 are heavier, stronger, and not so artistic, and 
 largely represent the home and the more prim- 
 itive forms of trade-life. From Germany we 
 get all our ready-made doll-houses, with their 
 clean tile floors and clumsy porcelain stoves, 
 their parlors with round iron center-tables, and 
 stiff, ugly chairs with the inevitable lace tidies. 
 Here and there in these miniature houses we 
 
68 The Instinct of Powers or 
 
 see a tiny pot of artificial flowers. All such 
 playthings tend to draw the child's thoughts 
 to the home-life. Next come the countless 
 number of toy butcher shops, bakers, black- 
 smiths, and other representations of the small, 
 thrifty, healthful trade-life which one sees all 
 over Germany. Nor is the child's love attract- 
 ed toward the home and the shops alone. 
 Almost all of the better class of toy horses and 
 carts are of German manufacture. The " woolly 
 sheep," so dear to childish heart, is of the same 
 origin. Thus a love for simple, wholesome 
 out-of-door activities is instilled. 
 
 And then the German dolls ! One would 
 know from the dolls alone that Germany was 
 the land of Froebel and the birthplace of the 
 Kindergarten, that it was the country where 
 even the beer-gardens are softened and refined 
 by the family presence. All the regulation 
 ornaments for Christmas trees come from this 
 nation, bringing with them memories of Luther; 
 of his breaking away from the celibacy en- 
 joined by the church ; of his entering into the 
 joyous family life, and trying to bring with him 
 into the home life all that was sacred in the 
 church — Christmas festivals along with the 
 rest. Very few firearms come from this nation, 
 but among them I saw some strong cast-iron 
 
The Training of the Emotions, 69 
 
 cannons from Berlin ; they looked as if Bismarck 
 himself might have ordered their manufacture. 
 
 The Swiss toys are largely the bluntly carved 
 wooden cattle, sheep and goats, with equally 
 blunt shepherds and shepherdesses, reminding 
 one forcibly of the dull faces of those much- 
 enduring beasts of burden called Swiss peas- 
 ants. I once saw a Swiss girl who had sold to 
 an American woman, for a few francs, three 
 handkerchiefs, the embroidering of which had 
 occupied the evenings of her entire winter; 
 there was no look of discontent or disgust as 
 the American tossed them into her trunk with 
 a lot of other trinkets, utterly oblivious of the 
 amount of human life which had been patiently 
 worked into them. What kind of toys could 
 come from a people among whom such scenes 
 are accepted as a matter of course? 
 
 The English rag doll is peculiarly national 
 in its placidity of countenance. The British 
 people stand pre-eminent in the matter of story 
 books for children, but, so far as I have been 
 able to observe, are somewhat lacking in origin- 
 ality as to toys ; possibly this is due to the 
 out-of-door life encouraged among them. 
 
 When I asked to see the American toys, my 
 guide turned, and with a sweep of her hand 
 said: " These trunks are American. All doll- 
 
70 The Instinct of Power ^ or 
 
 trunks are manufactured in this country." 
 Surely our Emerson was right when he said 
 that " the tape-worm of travel was in every 
 American." Here we see the beginning of the 
 restless, migratory spirit of our people; even 
 these children's toys suggest, " How nice it 
 would he to pack up and go somewhere ! " All 
 tool-chests are of domestic origin. Seemingly, 
 all the inventions of the Yankee mind are re- 
 produced in miniature form to stimulate the 
 young genius of our country. 
 
 The Japanese and Chinese toys are a curious 
 study, telling of national traits as clearly as do 
 their laws or their religion. They are endur- 
 able, made to last unchanged a long time ; no 
 flimsy tinsel is used which can be admired for 
 the hour, then cast aside. If " the hand of 
 Confucius reaches down through twenty-four 
 centuries of time still governing his people," 
 so, too, can the carved ivory or inlaid wooden 
 toy be used without injury or change by 
 at least one or two successive generations of 
 children. 
 
 Let us turn to the study of the development 
 of the race as a whole, that we may the better 
 grasp this thought. The toy not only directs 
 the emotional activity of the child, but also 
 forms a bridge between the great realities of 
 
The Training of the Emotions, 71 
 
 life and his small capacities. To man was 
 given the dominion over the earth, but it was 
 a potential dominion. He had to conquer the 
 beasts of the field; to develop the resources of 
 the earth ; by his own effort, to subordinate all 
 things else unto himself. We see the faint 
 foreshadowing, or presentiment, of this in the 
 myths and legends of the race. The famous 
 wooden horse of Troy, accounts of which have 
 come down to us in a dozen different channels 
 of literature and history, seems to have been 
 the forerunner of the nineteenth century bomb, 
 which defies walls and leaps into the enemy's 
 camp, scattering death and destruction in every 
 direction. At least, the two have the same ef- 
 fect; they speedily put an end to physical re- 
 sistance, and bring about consultation and 
 settlement by arbitration. The labors of Her- 
 cules tell the same story in another form — man's 
 power to make nature perform the labors ap- 
 pointed to him ; the winged sandals of Hermes, 
 Perseus' cloak of invisibility, the armor of 
 Achilles, and a hundred other charming myths, 
 all tell us of man's sense of his sovereignty 
 over nature. The old Oriental stories of the 
 enchanted carpet tell us that the sultan and his 
 court had but to step upon it, ere it rose majes- 
 tically and sailed unimpeded through the air, 
 
72 The Instinct of Power^ or 
 
 and landed its precious freight at the desired 
 destination. Is not this the dim feeling in the 
 breasts of the childish race that man ought to 
 have power to transcend space, and by his intel- 
 ligence contrive to convey himself from place 
 to place? Are not our luxurious palace cars 
 almost fulfilling these early dreams? What 
 are the fairy tales of the Teutonic people, which 
 Grimm has so laboriously collected for us? 
 They have lived through centuries of time, 
 because they have told of genii and giant, gov- 
 erned by the will of puny man and made to do 
 his bidding. Eagerly the race has read them, 
 pleased to see symbolically pictured forth man's 
 power over elements stronger than himself. In 
 fact, the study of the race development is 
 much like the study of those huge, almost- 
 obliterated outlines upon the walls of Egypt- 
 ian temples — dim, vague, fragmentary, yet giv- 
 ing us glimpses of insight and flashes of light, 
 which aid much in the understanding of the 
 meaning of to-day. We find the instincts of 
 the race renewed in each new-born infant. 
 Each individual child desires to master his 
 surroundings. He cannot yet drive a real 
 horse and wagon, but his very soul delights 
 in the three-inch horse and the gaily painted 
 wagon attached; he cannot tame real tigers 
 
The Training of the Emotions. 73 
 
 and lions, but his eyes dance with pleasure as 
 he places and replaces the animals of his toy- 
 menagerie; he cannot at present run engines 
 or direct railways, but he can control for a 
 whole half-hour the movement of his minia- 
 ture train; he is not yet ready for real father- 
 hood, but he can pet and play with, and rock 
 to sleep, and tenderly guard the doll baby. 
 
 Dr. Seguin also calls attention to the fact 
 that a handsomely dressed lady will be passed 
 by unnoticed by a child, whereas her counter- 
 part in a foot-long doll will call forth his most 
 rapt attention ; the one is too much for the 
 small brain, the other is just enough. 
 
 The boy who has a toy gun marches and drills 
 and camps and fights many a battle before the 
 real battle comes. The little girl who has a 
 toy stove plays at building a fire and putting 
 on a kettle long before these real responsibil- 
 ities come to her. 
 
 A young mother, whose daughter had been 
 for some time in a Kindergarten, came to me 
 and said, "I have been surprised to see how 
 my little Katherine handles the baby, and how 
 sweetly and gently she talks to him." I 
 said to the daughter, " Katherine, where did 
 you learn how to talk to baby, and to take care 
 of one so nicely? " " Why, that's the way we 
 
74 The Instinct of Power. 
 
 talk to the dolly at Kindergarten!" she replied. 
 Her powers of baby-loving had been developed 
 definitely by the toy-baby, so that when the 
 real baby came, she was ready to transfer her 
 tenderness to the larger sphere. Thus, as I 
 said before, toys form a bridge between the 
 great realities and possibilities of life, and the 
 small capacities of the child. If wisely select- 
 ed, they lead him on from conquering yet to 
 conquer. Thus he enters ever widening and 
 increasing fields of activity, until he stands as 
 God intended he should stand, the master of all 
 the elements and forces about him, until he can 
 bid the solid earth, " Bring forth thy treasures ;" 
 until he can say unto the great ocean, " Thus 
 far shalt thou go and no farther;" until he 
 can call unto the quick lightning, "Speak thou 
 my words across a continent;" until he can 
 command the fierce fire, " Do thou my bid- 
 ding;" and earth, and air, and fire, and water, 
 become the servants of the divine intelligence 
 which is within him. 
 
CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 THE INSTINCT OF LOVE, OR THE TRAINING OF 
 THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 With the first dawning smile upon the in- 
 fant's face the instinct of love awakes. Until 
 the last sacrifice of life itself for the loved ob- 
 ject — aye, on up to that sublime exaltation 
 which can say even though He slay me, yet 
 will I trust Him, love is the great motive 
 power which enriches and ennobles life. Can 
 we, therefore, too carefully watch and train its 
 first growth? In every stage of man's devel- 
 opment, unselfish love plays a part; it is the 
 basis of all contentment within one's own soul ; 
 of all happiness in the family life; of all 
 friendship in the social world; of all patriot- 
 ism in state affairs; of all philosophic under- 
 standing of the world-order; of all religious 
 contemplation of God. Yet this instinct, so 
 manifest in each infant as it holds out its 
 loving arms to its father, or hides its face upon 
 its mother's shoulder from the gaze of a stran- 
 ger, does not always serve the purpose for 
 which it has been assuredly given. Loving 
 warm-hearted little children grow into cold, 
 75 
 
76 The Insiind of Love^ or 
 
 selfish men and women, and many a parent 
 who has given his all to his children has to 
 exclaim with Lear, " How sharper than a ser- 
 pent's tooth it is to have a thankless child! " 
 Selfishness is the most universal of all sins, 
 and the most hateful. Dante has placed Luci- 
 fer, the embodiment of selfishness, down below 
 all other sinners in the dark pit of the Inferno, 
 frozen in a sea of ice. Well did the poet know 
 that this sin lay at the root of all others. 
 Think, if you can, of one crime or vice which 
 has not its origin in selfishness. Why is this? 
 To one who has thoughtfully and carefully 
 studied the subject, the cause of the wide- 
 spread prevalance of selfishness is not hidden. 
 It lies largely in the mother's non-apprehension 
 of the right treatment of her child's earliest 
 manifestations of love. As the instinctive ac- 
 tivity of the child can descend into destruc- 
 tion or ascend into creativity ; as the undisci- 
 plined or disciplined exercise of the senses can 
 degenerate into unbridled gratification of the 
 passions, or can grow into moral control of all 
 the life; as the spontaneous, imitative play of 
 the child can fill his mind with weak and 
 vicious examples to be copied, or inspire his 
 life with high and noble ideals to be followed ; 
 as the inborn desire for recognition can devel- 
 
The Training of the Affections. 77 
 
 op into bragging vanity, or expand into rever- 
 ent endeavor, — so too has the instinct of love 
 its two-fold tendency. There is a physical 
 love which expresses itself in the mere kiss, and 
 hug, and word of endearment. This is not the 
 all-purifying, all-glorious love, so elevating to 
 every life; it is but the door, or entrance, to 
 that other higher form of love which manifests 
 itself in service and self-sacrifice. 
 
 The love which instinctively comes from a 
 child to its mother is usually shown in the 
 caressing touch of the baby hands, the tre- 
 mendous hug of the little arms, the coaxing 
 kiss of the rosy lips, and is to the fond mother 
 an inexpressible delight. Nor need she rob 
 herself of one such moment; while her child 
 is in the loving mood, let her ask of him some 
 little service, very slight at first, but enough 
 to make him put forth an effort to aid her. 
 Thus can she transform the mere selfish love 
 of the child into the beginning of that spirit- 
 ual love which Christ commended when he 
 said, " If ye love me, keep my commandments." 
 Let her remember that against the mere pro- 
 testations of attachment. He also uttered those 
 stern words of warning, " Not every one that 
 saith unto me. Lord, Lord, shall enter into 
 the kingdom of Heaven, but he that doeth the 
 
78 The Instinct of Love, or 
 
 will of my Father which is in Heaven." The 
 parent stands, for the time being, to his child 
 as the one supreme source to whom he looks for 
 all things ; the center of all his tiny affections. 
 The relationship established between parent 
 and child is apt to become, in time, the rela- 
 tionship between the soul and its God. The 
 thought is a solemn one, but a true one. 
 
 The earthly affections are the ladders by 
 which the heart climbs to universal love. 
 " Love is to he tested always by its effect upon 
 the wilV The grace of God can turn the 
 weak, selfish will from thoughts of self to 
 thoughts of others, but it cannot make a life 
 all that the life would have been, had that will 
 from the beginning been made strong and un- 
 selfish by repeated acts of loving self-sacrifice, 
 even in human relationship. Contrast for 
 yourself the selfish, all-absorbing love of a 
 Romeo and a Juliet who could not live if the 
 physical presence of the loved one were taken 
 away, with that grandly beautiful love of Hec- 
 tor for Andromache, who, out of the very love 
 he bore her, could place her at one side and 
 answer the stern call of duty, that she might 
 never in her future memory of him have cause 
 for painful blush. It has been one of the 
 great privileges of my life to have had en- 
 
The Training of the Affections. 79 
 
 trance to an almost ideal home, where husband 
 
 and wife were filled with the most exalted 
 
 love I have ever known. In time the husband 
 
 was called hence. The wife said: '*A11 that 
 
 was beautiful or attractive in my life went out 
 
 with my husband, and yet I know that I must, 
 
 for the very love I bear him, remain and rear 
 
 our child as he would have him reared." As I 
 
 listened to these words, quietly uttered by the 
 
 courageous wife, I realized what love, real love, 
 
 could help the poor human heart to endure. 
 
 Froebel, believing so earnestly that it was 
 
 only by repeated training in many small acts 
 
 of self-sacrifice that the child attained unto 
 
 the right kind of love, would have the mother 
 
 begin with her babe in her arms, to play that 
 
 its wee fingers were weaving themselves into a 
 
 basket which was to be filled with imaginary 
 
 flowers to be presented to papa as a token of 
 
 baby's love. The motto intended for the 
 
 mother, in the little "Flower Basket" song, 
 
 says : 
 
 ' ' Seek to shape outwardly- 
 Whatever moves the heart of the child, 
 Because even the child's love can decay 
 If not nourished carefully." 
 
 A statement of the same truth in general 
 terms would be that the inward must always 
 
80 The Instinct of Love, or 
 
 find oxproHsioii in ilio outward if it would have 
 a lionltliful ('()mpl(5t(^noHH. EHpociully is this 
 true of any tonder emotion or Bontimont, which, 
 unuBod, soon do^c^ioratoB into more sontiniont- 
 nlity, becoming Hatibliod witli itbolf aB a de- 
 liglitful BoiiHation, or, worse still, shrivols up 
 into skepticism or cynical doubt as to tlio real- 
 ity of any «^(^nuiiio oniotion. 
 
 I'roobt^l would show the mother what a 
 mighty instrument in Ikh* liands such cliiUlish 
 play can become, " and," sayH Madam Maren- 
 holtz von JJulow, "none but tlioso wlio do not 
 undorHtand and observe the nature and character 
 of children, who have fcu'gotten their owji child- 
 hood, will consider it a j)iece of far-fetched 
 absurdity thus to interpret tlie earliest games 
 of children as the starting-point of the life of 
 the Soul, .ind the beginning of mental develop- 
 ment" The mother's (^ITortis iu no wise to stop 
 with the pldjiful service of lier chihl but by 
 such i)lays slie can incline hiju toward tlie 
 desired line of conduct. She is to bear ever in 
 mind the words of the beloved disciple, " He 
 that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, 
 how can he love (u)d whom he hath not seen?" 
 That there might be no mistake as to the kind 
 of brotherly h)ve here referred to, the agcnl 
 saint had already explained, " whoso hath this 
 
The Training of llic AJJ'cdions. 81 
 
 vVOTld's ^ood, and Hootli Ji'ih brother liav(niofMl, 
 and Hliiittntli up his bowula oi' coiiipaBBiou i'roiri 
 liiiri, Iiow dwolleth the love of God in him?" 
 With tho realization of the necoBsity of early 
 and conntant trainin<^ that the great end may 
 be atiain(Ml, tli(i motlier iB to exerciBO, in the 
 little immortal, tliin divine kind of I()V(i, tlirongli 
 liiB every-day (contact witli licirKcJf and his 
 father, his brotherB and BiBterB, in order that IiIb 
 offortleBB love may develop into the kind whieh 
 can not die. Of all the esBentialB of true 
 character-building, there iB [)erlia,pB none more 
 important tlian this, tliat tlie child sliould learn, 
 through lova, to giv(i u[) his own will to otln^rs; 
 for the Bake of otherB Bhould learn from the 
 very }i(5ginning of lif<i to Bubmit to thingB which 
 are un[)leaBant to him. It would not be diffi- 
 cult to make children olx^y, if this thought had 
 been carried out from the beginning, Ix^fore 
 egotiBui, Bclf-will and. BelfiBhnc.BB liad gotten 
 fast hold upon Uio young heart. "Again," 
 BayB Mfidam Marenholtz, " all work, all ex- 
 erciseB whicjli awaken the active powers, which 
 form the capacity for rendering loving service 
 to fellow creatures, will help to lay the ground- 
 work of religion in the child. The awakening 
 of love goes before that of faith; he who does 
 not love can not believe. Loving self-surrender 
 
82 The Instinct of Love, or 
 
 to what is higher than ourselves, to the Highest 
 of All, is the beginning of faith. But love 
 must show itself in deeds, and this will be im- 
 possible unless there is a capacity for doing. 
 A child can no more be educated to a life of 
 religion and faith without the exercise of 
 personal activity than heroic deeds can be ac- 
 complished with words only." 
 
 Never should the mother, through that foolish 
 desire to keep her child as long as possible 
 dependent upon her, or that worse pride which 
 would show itself to be self-sufficient, refuse 
 the proffered help of her child. If she is doing 
 something in which, from the nature of the 
 thing, he can not share, let her be careful to 
 substitute some other loving service while de- 
 clining the one proffered, remembering that 
 love, turned away, nourishes selfishness ; and 
 proffered help refused, begets idleness. She 
 may have to say, " No, dear, you can not help 
 dress the baby ; " she can add, " you may hand 
 mamma the clothes." I know of one household 
 in which it is as much the self-imposed duty 
 of the child of three to patiently hold the towel 
 and soap, until needed, as it is the mother's 
 part to bathe the year-old brother. In another 
 household in which the six-year old child had 
 long been taught that true love showed itself 
 
The Training of the Affections. §3 
 
 in service rather than protestations, the mother 
 was one day compelled by a severe headache 
 to shut herself up in a darkened room. Her 
 boy soon opened the door and asked her some 
 question. "Mamma can not talk to you to- 
 day, Philip, she has a headache. Go out and 
 shut the door." The door was quietly closed, 
 and in a few moments a mysterious bumping 
 and rolling about of the furniture was heard 
 in the next room. All was still for a short 
 time. Then softly and gently the door was 
 again opened, and little Philip stepped on tip- 
 toe to his mother's bedside. "Mamma," said 
 he, " Pve straightened the furniture in the 
 sitting-room all up so nicely, and fixed your 
 work basket; isn't your headache better?" 
 The loving little heart had prompted this 
 difficult service in order that the love called 
 forth by her suffering might find vent. 
 
 All birthdays, Christmas celebrations, and 
 other festivals, can be made occasions for the 
 uniting of the whole family in glad and loving 
 service for the honored one, who in his turn 
 may serve to an extra extent the others, because 
 the honors of the day have been conferred upon 
 him. In most of our Kindergartens, the child 
 who is selected as leader for each day has also 
 the office of distributing the work, gathering 
 
84 The Instinct of Love, or 
 
 up the luncheon baskets, and otherwise waiting 
 on the rest, that he may thereby gain the im- 
 pression that honors and responsibilities go 
 hand in hand, and begin to realize the meaning 
 of the significant words, " He that is greatest 
 among you shall be your servant." Mothers 
 have scarcely realized the value of the family 
 festival rightly kept, the opportunity it gives 
 them for exercising the loving little hearts in 
 unselfish love, more especially if they and the 
 fathers enter into the childish secrets and 
 mystery of preparation. Perhaps papa can 
 come home half an hour earlier because it is 
 Mildred's or Bradford's birthday, and mamma 
 and Mildred and Bradford can plan some little 
 surprise for papa before he gets there ; it mat- 
 ters not how trifling, provided each has made 
 an effort to complete it. 
 
 If, at the magic words, " Finish it for mam- 
 ma and let it show her how much you love 
 her," mothers could see the look of almost 
 angelic delight upon the little faces when 
 the discouraged hands have picked up the 
 tangled sewing card, or have undone the wrongly 
 woven mat, they would not so often rob them- 
 selves of this pleasure. This appeal to the 
 spiritual love can, as I have already said, be 
 made a means of the noblest form of govern- 
 
The Training of the Affections. 85 
 
 ment, that of voluntary, loving obedience. The 
 childish heart responds quickly to such an ap- 
 peal, as it does to all things noble and generous 
 and beautiful. At one time I had in my 
 Kindergarten a delicate, nervous child, who 
 occupied the chair next to me in order that I 
 might the more carefully guard him. One day 
 he chanced to be absent, and a rosy little Scotch 
 lad asked if he might not take the place. I 
 consented. Next morning, little Jean, the 
 frailer child, was again with us ; but my sturdy 
 young Scotchman was in the chair, and with 
 the persistence of his race, refused to give it 
 up, even holding on to my dress in his deter- 
 mined way. "Oscar," said I, "why do you 
 want to sit next to me?" "Cause I love you 
 so much," was his honest and emphatic reply. 
 " Why," said I, in a tone of assumed surprise, 
 "isn't your love strong enough to stretch 
 across the table?" "Yes, it is," he answered, 
 and at once left the contested seat and resumed 
 his usual place at some distance from me. 
 Each time during the morning that our eyes 
 met, his shone with the light of this higher 
 love ; he had made what, to him, was a sacri- 
 fice, to prove his devotion, and the added hap- 
 piness was his also. 
 
 Children usually delight to be told that 
 
86 The Instinct of Love, or 
 
 their hands and feet and bodies can tell their 
 love as well as their tongues. A little girl 
 came to me one morning saying, " My hands 
 loved you yesterday." "Did they ?" I said. 
 " Tell me about it." "Our baby tore my mat, 
 and I was just going to slap her, but I thought 
 of you, and I didn't." This explanation was 
 given withoat the slightest thought of com- 
 mendation for the self-control exercised, and 
 was passed over by me as a thing of course in 
 one of my children who really loved me. 
 There is a story often told by kindergartners 
 when they wish to establish this higher stand- 
 ard of love with a new set of children. It is 
 of the Franciscan monks, who, in order that 
 they might show their love for the Heavenly 
 Father, left their homes and all the pleasant 
 things about them, and spent their time in 
 finding wanderers who had lost their way in 
 the mountain's snow-storms, and in taking 
 care of the sick, and in helping the poor, and 
 in teaching the ignorant. From the very be- 
 ginning they established a rule that the older 
 monks should serve the younger and those 
 who were strong should wait on the weak. I 
 have never heard this story tenderly and 
 attractively told, that it did not have an im- 
 mediate effect upon the conduct of the older 
 
The Training of the Affections. 87 
 
 children. One day, on perceiving signs of 
 selfishness among my children, I told it to 
 them, making no comment or application. 
 When I had finished, it was luncheon time. 
 As the napkins were being given out, one 
 rollicksome, usually thoughtless little fellow 
 exclaimed, " Oh, I do wish I could have that 
 pretty red and blue napkin to give to Bobby I " 
 " You can have it," said I. He took the napkin 
 and spread it out before his little -cousin, who 
 was smaller than he. " I think," said a still 
 younger child, ** ihaVs the prettiest napkin in 
 the whole lot." *'Ke can have it, can't he?" 
 asked little David. " You know he's so little." 
 Thus quickly had the spirit of the Franciscan 
 love taken possession of their young hearts. 
 There lies an almost untold wealth of resource 
 in the legends of the Eoman Catholic saints, 
 nearly all of whom were canonized for their 
 deeds of self-sacrifice and service to humanity. 
 The Protestant church has robbed herself of 
 much, in shutting away from her children 
 these stories of pure, sweet lives, unto most of 
 whom it could have been said, " Well done^ 
 thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into 
 the joy of thy Lord." 
 
 The " love-force," as another has called it, 
 is woman's greatest instrument of power. 
 
88 The Instinct of Love^ or 
 
 Unmarred children implicitly believe that 
 their mother's love makes everything easy. 
 I have in my memory gallery a beautiful 
 picture illustrating this perfect trust of the 
 little child in the efficacy of his mother's love. 
 Two little cousins of about three years of age 
 are playing together on a green lawn, suggest- 
 ing to the beholder white kittens in their free 
 frolicsome gambols. One suddenly catches 
 his foot in some unseen obstacle in his path 
 and falls forward, striking his head against the 
 trunk of a tree. Instantly, of course, there 
 ensue loud cries of pain. The other little fel- 
 low is in a moment by his side, with his arm 
 around him, and pushes him with all his might 
 towards his own mother, saying as he does so, 
 in the most assuring, coaxing tones possible, 
 *' Eun to my mamma. Dean, run to my mamma, 
 she'll kiss it and make it all well. Please run 
 to her, quick! " Surely perfect love in this case 
 has cast out all fear. Love engenders love. 
 Can not this great God-gift of joyful self-sac- 
 rifice to the mother devise a thousand ways by 
 which to kindle the same fire in her child, until 
 the Kobert Falconers of fiction are no longer 
 beautiful dreams but living realities? "Ah," 
 says the doubter, " what if I ask my child to 
 do something for me, and he refuse, or begin 
 
The Training of the Affections, 89 
 
 to make excuses, or ask why his brother or 
 sister can not do it as well? " You have simply 
 mistaken the time for stretching the young 
 soul's wings. Begin the training when the 
 child is in the loving mood, and you will 
 rarely fail to get the desired response. Yet, 
 if need be, command the performance of the 
 deed, that by repeated doing, the selfish heart 
 may learn the joy of unselfishness, and thus 
 enter upon True living. 
 
 " Let us strive to follow the ideal which our 
 Lord Himself has given to us, in all its ful- 
 ness in all its grand proportions. Let us aim 
 at nothing short of a life which will embrace 
 in it all the glory of the heavens, as well as 
 the gladness of the earth ; which will put 
 *Thou,' 'Thine,' 'Thee,' in the first place, 
 'We,' 'Ours,' ' Us,' in the second." 
 
CHAPTEK V. 
 
 THE INSTINCT OF CONTINUITY, OR THE TRAINING 
 OF THE REASON. 
 
 What is it that gives the attraction to such 
 rhymes as, " This is the house that Jack 
 built ?" Is it not that each step in this nursery 
 tragedy is seen clearly to proceed out of the 
 previous one and to develop into the succeeding 
 one ? What is it which makes the child ask at 
 the end of a story, "What became of the little 
 dog ?" or, "What did the mamma say then?" 
 Does not the question plainly show the child's 
 dislike of endings, or isolations? Why do all 
 children listen with delight to stories of when 
 they were babies, or, better still, of when 
 mamma was a little girl, or papa was a little 
 boy? Is it not that this gives to them the 
 continuity of their little lives, or that of the 
 parent's larger life ? Have not the magic words 
 " Once upon a time," "A long time ago," the 
 same fascination for the very reason that they 
 show him a connection with the remote past ? 
 How a boy's face lights up when one begins to 
 talk with him about what he is going to do when 
 he gets to be a man ! The thought links him 
 90 
 
The Training of the Reason, 91 
 
 with the mysterious future. What is the 
 attraction which the steady, never- stopping 
 pendulum of the clock has for the child? It 
 marks the continuity of time. Have you never 
 soothed the restless fretting of a baby by call- 
 ing his attention to running water or falling 
 sand? This is the continuity of motion. 
 " The earliest cradles of the race were rocked 
 in rhyme to sleep," sings the poet. It is the 
 measured accentuation of sound in melody that 
 has such charm for the child; all simple 
 rhythmical measurement of music is a delight 
 to him. Without doubt this is the secret 
 charm in " Mother Goose" which has held 
 enthralled generations of little listeners. So 
 keen is the child's enjoyment of continuity in 
 sound that he will take delight in running a 
 stick along a picket fence, forming a kind of 
 Chinese music in which his young soul rejoices, 
 though older and more tired nerves may quiver 
 thereat. 
 
 I remember once amusing myself and a 
 small boy by drawing a picture of a wagon for 
 him on a fragment of paper. He was interested 
 and for a short time satisfied with it; then he 
 returned with the request that a horse be 
 drawn in front of the wagon. The scrap of 
 paper did not admit of the drawing of a horse 
 
92 The Instinct of Continuity, or 
 
 in proper proportion to the wagon, so I care- 
 lessly drew the two hind legs and rear part of 
 the animal, and handed it back to him with 
 the remark, " We can't see the other part of 
 your horse; this will do." He looked at it for 
 a moment, then a great wave of disappointment 
 swept over his face and his lips quivered; in a 
 moment more he burst into tears. I was 
 astonished, and in the thoughtless impulse of 
 the moment, said, "If you are going to be a 
 naughty boy and cry I will not play with you." 
 This was before my kindergarten days. I 
 know now that the fragmentary picture gave a 
 sense of incompleteness to the sensitive little 
 brain, which was akin to the dissatisfaction and 
 unrest which come to us oftentimes when days 
 seem dark and dreary, and we cannot see the 
 continuity of the good steadfastly shining 
 beyond the temporary cloud of interrupted 
 plans or disappointed hopes. All these and 
 scores of like incidents are but indications of 
 the child's instinctive desire to get a better 
 comprehension of process or continuity. 
 
 Let us pause and think what is the true 
 significance of a realization of continuity. It 
 is one of the central truths of life; a compre- 
 hension of it is the mark of the philosophic 
 mind, of having attained unto that rationality 
 
The Training of the Beason. 93 
 
 which brings insight. In fact, we have not 
 reached a really rational view of anything 
 until we see that all things are connected, that 
 there is no such thing as isolation. It has 
 been well said, " Most of the world is asleep 
 because it has been taught facts alone,'^ It 
 has learned to see results without studying the 
 cause of these results ; begin to show the living 
 moving process by which these results have 
 been obtained, and you begin to arouse the 
 sleeping world. The three-fold testimony of 
 nature, of history, and of revelation are not 
 wanting here. 
 
 Is it not the upheaval in primeval ages that 
 has formed our mountain ranges, which in their 
 turn determine the water courses ? By these 
 pre-determined water courses which wash down 
 and grind up the fragments of rock, is not the 
 nature and productivity of the soil more or less 
 determined ? Upon the richness or sterility of 
 the soil and the direction of the rain-bearing 
 winds, does not the nature of the vegetation 
 depend ? Even the climate, that other great 
 factor in the physical world, depends somewhat 
 upon those primeval walls of rock. The insect 
 and animal life which any locality can sustain, 
 is closely connected with the vegetation and 
 climate; man's occupation or industrial activity 
 
94 The Instinct of Continuity^ or 
 
 shapes itself according to the structure of the 
 surrounding country and the forms of vegeta- 
 ble and animal life about it; the influence of 
 those occupations is clearly seen upon the 
 mental bias of a nation, until at last the very 
 government of a people can be traced back to 
 the geography of the country. In a thousand 
 and one ways nature illustrates this great 
 law of continuity. The mist arises from the 
 ocean, ascends to the clouds, is floated across 
 the continent by the wind, comes in contact 
 with the cold mountain peak which changes it 
 into the form of rain, descends into rivulet and 
 stream, and is emptied by them back into the 
 ocean. The trees grow centuries old and die; 
 their majestic forms crumble into loam which 
 serves to enrich the soil from which a new 
 growth of trees draws nourishment. Even the 
 blood in the body is in a continual process, 
 from heart through artery and vein back to 
 heart again. Our very gestures repeated 
 become attitudes, attitudes crystallize into 
 bearing, and bearing helps to mould character; 
 for may not one's bearing be an open gate 
 which invites all mankind to come in and sup 
 with us, or on the other hand may it not be the 
 iron portcullis which shuts out with like harsh- 
 ness the glorious knight who brings a message 
 
The Training of the Reason, 95 
 
 from the king, or the trembling peasant who 
 flees to US for help? Does not this joyous 
 warmth and uniting sympathy on the one hand, 
 and isolating unconcern of manner on the 
 other hand, have much to do in their reaction 
 with the formation of character? 
 
 We are all familiar with the principle in 
 natural philosophy known as " the indestruct- 
 ibility of matter.'' We know that the accurate 
 chemist can burn a piece of wood, and present 
 us in smoke, gas and ashes every atom's weight 
 of the wood; we know that in the processes of 
 nature the elements of the earth change rela- 
 tionship but none are ever really lost. We 
 see and acknowledge all this in nafure, but we 
 fail to realize it in human affairs. H is because 
 we fail to see continuity that we fail to compre- 
 hend life. God is eternal, everlasting, ever 
 present ; therefore all His creation must reflect 
 Him — must be without isolations. 
 
 In our modern civilization is every element 
 of good for which Persian or Greek or Koman 
 ever fought. The student of history with this 
 thought of continuity in his mind, sees Provi- 
 dence bringing order out of chaos; sees the 
 why and the wherefore of the terrible struggles 
 through which the race has had to pass. The 
 enormous sacrifice which any generation may 
 
96 The Insiind of Continidiyy or 
 
 be called upon to make becomes a trifle when 
 the result of that slaughter and sacrifice is seen 
 in the next generation. What was the battle 
 of Marathon, compared to the fact that upon 
 that battle-field the world gained the first 
 dawn of the gigantic truth that all men are 
 free? What was the struggle of the Dutch 
 during their terrible thirty years war, compared 
 with the benefit which mankind has since 
 received from the firm establishment of the 
 fact that each soul shall be free to worship 
 God according to the dictates of his own con- 
 science? What were the sufferings of our 
 Puritan forefathers, compared to the protection 
 which a free government affords us, their 
 descendants, a protection bought by the very 
 courage and fortitude which their hard lot 
 engendered ? Continuity is the brightest lamp 
 of thought ; by its light we see in Caesar's 
 grasp of the Eoman Empire the beginning of 
 modern civilization ; in the Crusades, we find 
 the necessary preparation of the then narrowly 
 prejudiced nations for the future settlement of 
 America ; by those fanatical wars were broken 
 down the fear of unknown countries, the small 
 provincial ideas of greatness, and the spirit of 
 adventure was aroused. So, too, the true stu- 
 dent of history traces back the French Revo- 
 
The Training of the Reason. 97 
 
 lution far beyond the weak, vain rule of the 
 Louis to the desperate, profligate days of the 
 Popes, Julius II. and Leo X., which caused 
 the mighty soul of Michel Angelo to pour 
 itself out in pictures more terrible and sub- 
 lime than any of which art had ever dreamed. 
 Then began the loosening of the hold of the 
 Roman Catholic Church upon the hearts of her 
 children, which finally resulted in the loss of 
 respect and reverence for everything that was 
 high or holy, for all forms of authority, in the 
 days of Murat and Robespierre. 
 
 In the affairs of to-day as well as in those of 
 past times we see this great law of continuity 
 explaining and making clear the vexing prob- 
 lems of the hour. By its magic touch, as by 
 the enchanted cloak of old, things assume their 
 right degree of importance. As for example, 
 in the rapid growth and advancement of the 
 railroads of our times can be plainly foreseen 
 the downfall of European aristocracy; by 
 means of these the arable lands of our great 
 Northwest, our prairie lands, are becoming the 
 granaries of the world, are helping to send 
 food to the heretofore dependent vassals of the 
 old world, whose bread had come to them only 
 by the consent of the lords of the land. 
 
 Great as is the insight that continuity gives 
 7 
 
98 The Instinct of Continuity^ or 
 
 to the student of science or of history, greater 
 still is its aid to the student of morals. I once 
 had a man of the world tell me that for the life 
 of him he could not with any comfort go out 
 fishing or upon any pleasure expedition on 
 Sunday, because during his childhood his 
 mother had so constantly and conscientiously 
 put aside all secular occupations on that day. 
 *' Train up a child in the way he should go," 
 says the Bible, the best book on pedagogics 
 ever written, " and when he is old he will not 
 depart from it;" when seeming departure from 
 the standards acquired in early childhood 
 comes, it can almost always be traced to incon- 
 sistencies in the training. So, too, apparently 
 sudden defalcations usually bring to light a 
 train of previous actions which show to the 
 observing eyes that the rottenness had been of 
 long though hidden growth. 
 
 Froebel considered this such an important 
 part of education, that he would have the 
 mother begin to point it out to her child in such 
 trifling matters as that of showing him in song 
 or play that the bread and milk which have 
 disappeared after his supper is over are yet 
 existing in the form of fresh blood in him, 
 serving to make his cheeks *' red and white like 
 
The Training of the Reason. 99 
 
 rose and cream." In the motto to the mothei 
 in this little song of "All's Gone," he says: 
 
 •' The child, disturbed, thinks all is gone, 
 When the empty plate and cup he sees; 
 Thou canst a wiser thought make known 
 And easily his fancy please, 
 Since what has vanished from us here 
 Exists yet in another sphere. 
 What from the outer form is flown, 
 Will in another form be known." 
 
 The child sees only the empty bowl ; — ending, 
 loss, disconnection, isolation, hence discord. 
 The mother knows that the bread and milk are 
 changed into the higher form of blood and 
 muscle ; instead of ending, she sees continua- 
 tion ; instead of loss, gain ; instead of discord, 
 perfect harmony. 
 
 Do we, when we look at the more complex 
 problem of life, see with the eyes of the child 
 or the mother ? Do we see that all things work 
 together for good? It is into such a grand 
 view of life that the little child can be led as 
 naturally and as healthfully as into the realiza- 
 tion that he breathes or that he has brothers 
 and sisters. In fact, that only is the right 
 education which makes all learning serve as an 
 instrument with which to train the child to see 
 in an effect the cause ; in other words, to become 
 a rational being, to whom the great truths of 
 
100 The Instinct of Continuity^ or 
 
 life have been sliown. The question is, how 
 shall we deal with the child so that he shall 
 first feel this connection, then know it, then 
 live it ? It is with this logical training in 
 view, that the Kindergarten schools of sewing, 
 weaving, and the like, are so arranged that 
 one design grows out of another, though of 
 course due attention is paid to the free, spon- 
 taneous growth of the child's own ideas, " See 
 into what other pretty form you can change this 
 one," says the teacher, or by some like remark 
 suggesting orderly transformation rather than 
 disconnected rearrangement, yet giving full 
 scope to the child's individuality. The chairs, 
 beds, tables, etc., built of the blocks, tablets, 
 and sticks, are usually developed one from 
 another, much to the delight of the children, 
 thus giving an almost imperceptible tendency 
 to see transformation rather than mere change. 
 That this is the effect of logical play and work 
 in any child who has gone through a thorough 
 kindergarten, will be conceded by any observer. 
 In the kindergarten of a friend of mine a 
 play with the blocks was going on, in which 
 one form was thus changed into another by 
 each move of the blocks. After several such 
 changes had been made at the suggestion of 
 the teacher, one little fellow looked up with the 
 
The Training of the Reason. 101 
 
 most astonished and delighted expression of 
 face, and exclaimed; " Well, I declare! It's 
 just too funny to see how one thing busts 
 into another without breaking up." Madam 
 Marenholtz von Bulow, the valued friend and 
 interpreter of Froebel, in speaking of this logi- 
 cal play, says: " He (the child in the kinder- 
 garten) is instructed in an easy manner how to 
 invent new forms at pleasure in endless variety 
 by application of Froebel' s law of formation. 
 The forms and figures thus brought out, easily 
 proceed step by step to the most complex, only 
 appearing difficult and beyond the child's power 
 when we do not know how they proceeded from 
 each other. And again : " The child before 
 whose eyes sensible objects are brought in the 
 correct order of the parts to the whole, and in 
 the logical connection of things, will, when 
 reflected power is developed, also perceive this 
 order and logical connection clearly and defin- 
 itely in the intellectual world." 
 
 In our legendary stories of heroes, we usually 
 begin to tell of them when they were little 
 boys, letting the children see the gradual 
 growth in character. My own children are 
 never tired of listening to such stories as that 
 of the little girl who wanted to make some 
 bread all by herself, so she was referred by 
 
102 The Instinct of Continuity ^ or 
 
 mamma to the cook, by the cook to the grocer 
 for flour, b}^ the grocer to the miller, by the 
 miller to the farmer for wheat, by the farmer 
 to the ground, by the earth to the sunshine 
 and showers, and by these to the Heavenly 
 Father, who is back of all and in all. This 
 little story embodies much of the real signifi- 
 cance and the comprehension of continuity. 
 It reveals the dependence of the individual 
 upon the rest of mankind, and also man's 
 dependence upon nature, and leads up to a 
 realization of the dependence of all upon the 
 Creator, which is the grand central truth of 
 religion. 
 
 The earnest mother can give a like logical 
 training in the home. Your child has bumped 
 his head ; let him see that it was not the fault of 
 the table but of himself, because he did not 
 know where he was going; thus by learning 
 the cause, he learns to avoid further bumps. 
 He comes to you complaining of the stomach- 
 ache ; sympathize with him, if need be, but ask 
 at the same time, "What has my child been eat- 
 ing which has made his stomach ache? " One 
 little fellow who had been trained, not only to 
 trace back physical aches, but irritated moods, 
 to disordered stomachs, was with me at a hotel 
 for a few days. He was much pleased by the 
 
The Training of the Reason. 103 
 
 new experience of riding up and down in the 
 elevator. One day he surprised me by saying 
 " I guess that elevator man has got all over his 
 stomach-ache." "What!" I exclaimed. He 
 gravely repeated his remark, and then added by 
 way of explanation, " He was awful cross yes- 
 terday, and told me to keep out of the elevator, 
 and to-day he offered to sharpen my pencil for 
 me, and asked me to come and ride with him." 
 Ah me, if dear old Carlyle could only have had 
 that insight and have taken care of his diet 
 while he was exposing and trying to correct the 
 shams of society! 
 
 Two little girls in my kindergarten were 
 once telling of a quarrel they had had the 
 afternoon before with a playmate. One said: 
 " When I got home, I told my mamma, and she 
 said she wouldn't play with little girls who 
 quarreled so, if she were in my place." Then 
 turning to her companion she added, by way of 
 confirmation of the justice of the decision, " So 
 did your mamma, didn't she, Josephine?" 
 " No," answered Josephine, in a low tone and 
 coloring slightly. "My mamma said if I had 
 been pleasant and unselfish we need not have 
 quarreled." The first mother merely defended 
 her child, laying the blame of the common 
 fault elsewhere. The second mother carefully 
 
104 The Instinct of Continuity, or 
 
 pointed out to her child the cause of the quar- 
 rel, not of that quarrel only but of all quarrels. 
 One of the great benefits of logical training is 
 that each new glimpse into cause and effect 
 applies to all after like experiences. 
 
 We will have to give a separate chapter to 
 logical punishments, so misunderstood is the 
 subject, so beneficial the right line of conduct 
 in the matter. The loving mother whose 
 instinct has once been aroused into insight, 
 will find innumerable ways by which to teach 
 her child to see connection of one thing with 
 another, and the child's desire for such connect- 
 ed views of things will suggest many more. 
 In the family life, the loving anticipation of 
 how pleased papa will be when some little piece 
 of work is done, the planning beforehand for 
 some excursion to the country, or the celebra- 
 tion of some birthday, leads the child to trace 
 out the origin of unselfish happiness, and is 
 worth ten-fold the joy which is obtained from 
 impulse alone. Not that the spontaneous joy 
 of a child is ever to be checked, only it can be 
 made reasonable, and the child gradually 
 learns to subordinate the gratification of the 
 moment to a better though more distant enjoy- 
 ment; a lesson much needed by the majority of 
 mankind. In the spending of money, some 
 
The Training of the Beascn. 105 
 
 object can be placed before the child which 
 will have sufficient attraction for him to induce 
 him to save his pennies until enough are 
 acquired to purchase the desired article, rather 
 than that habit, thoughtlessly engendered in 
 most American homes, of expecting a child to 
 spend each cent, bestowed or earned, as soon as 
 he gets it. It is this wretched spend- 
 thrift propensity which shackles half the world, 
 and makes men slaves to their circumstances 
 rather than masters over them. 
 
 Even in the selection of reading matter for 
 children, this development of the power to 
 reason can be furthered. Such books as "Seven 
 Little Sisters" lead the young mind to see the 
 unity of the race, and such books as "Ten Little 
 Boys on the Eoad from Long Ago until Now" 
 lead him to trace in history the connection of 
 the civilization of the world. 
 
 In science work with the children a connec- 
 tion can be made between the animal kingdom 
 and the mineral kingdom, by following the 
 study of mollusks with that of shell rock, or 
 other fossiliferous rock; the mineral kingdom 
 can be connected with the vegetable kingdom 
 through mixing the clay and sand with the 
 vegetable loam, as together they form the food 
 of the plant-world which gives to man and the 
 
106 The Instinct of Continuity, or 
 
 lower animals nourishment. It is helpful to 
 call the child's attention to such facts as these, 
 that birds which live upon the smaller inhabi- 
 tants of the water are so constructed that they 
 can wade or swim ; that almost all weak crea- 
 tures have the power of fleeing rapidly, and the 
 added protection of having the color of their 
 usual environment, thus showing design, hence 
 connection in creation. All sympathy with the 
 varying phases of the weather aids the child. 
 The good rain is giving the flowers and grasses 
 a drink, although it is keeping us indoors ; the 
 hot sun is making the corn grow and the fruits 
 ripen, although it is uncomfortable for us ; the 
 soft snow and even the sharp frost are covering 
 up the roots of trees and plants, and putting 
 them to sleep for a new growth in the spring. 
 Almost any child, no matter how willful, can be 
 trained into logical rationality, if little by little, 
 in a bright, cheery way, he is taught to look 
 before and after. 
 
 In a visit to a friend not long ago, I had full 
 opportunity to demonstrate how quickly a child 
 responds to reason if the reason is simply 
 enough put. Her little son, a beautiful boy 
 of five, refused to eat any meat for breakfast. 
 " Please eat a little, Harvey," said the mother. 
 " No," responded the child. " Please do, for 
 
The Training of the Beason, 107 
 
 mamma's sake." "No, I don't want any," 
 almost petulantly replied the child. The mother 
 looked baffled and distressed. " Harvey," said 
 I, "do you know what the little stomach does 
 when it gets hold of some nice meat?" "No," 
 said the child, interested. " Your little stom- 
 ach, you know," continued I, " has to change 
 the food you send down to it into blood and 
 bone and muscle, so when it gets sugar and 
 cookies and things that taste nice to you 
 but do not help it to make strength, it twists 
 and turns them, and does the best it can with 
 them, but it cannot make very good blood with 
 them. But when you send it good strong meat, 
 it goes to work and grinds it up and makes it 
 into fine, rich blood, which is sent out into 
 your arms and legs and makes strong muscles, 
 so that you can climb trees and run fast and do 
 all sorts of things without getting tired." I 
 talked in an animated fashion as if these things 
 were the most desirable attainments in all life. 
 Harvey gradually drew his plate toward him 
 and began a vigorous attack upon the rejected 
 meat. 
 
 The tracing of faults in your children back 
 to the causes of them, helps much in rooting 
 them out. Everyone recognizes evil when it 
 culminates in some forbidden deed, but the 
 
108 The Instmd of ConiinuUy, or 
 
 wise mother perceives that the act is but the 
 result of a chain of previous evils. Let a child 
 steal and you are horrified, but you do not per- 
 ceive that this is only a climax; it began with 
 secretiveness, then followed meddling with 
 what belonged to another, then perhaps the 
 covetous thought or the lack of some sort of 
 ownership, finally ending in thievery — at any 
 stage it could have been checked more easily 
 than at the last. Too many mothers and 
 teachers fail in the training of children because 
 they do not recognize the law of continuity. I 
 use the two words mother and teacher almost 
 as if they were synonymous. They are as far 
 as the training of the little child is concerned ? 
 The true mother is a teacher whether she is 
 conscious of it or not, and the true teacher uses 
 the innate mother element, that which broods 
 over the child and warms it into life as much 
 as she does her acquired knowledge. The full 
 realization of the value of the first years of a 
 child comes only when we perceive the con- 
 tinuity of character building. Not alone is the 
 little child affected by having the connection of 
 things shown to him, but unthinking adults, 
 those children of a larger growth, too, feel 
 the effects. 
 
 The young man just starting upon his busi- 
 
The Training of the Reason. 109 
 
 ness career sees the man of business who has 
 accumulated capital and influence, and he is 
 stirred with desire, or perchance with envy, 
 and wishes in a vague way that he could be as 
 " lucky." Show him the process by which the 
 man made his fortune ; if it be honestly won, 
 how he denied himself luxuries in his early 
 career, how he was prompt in meeting every 
 engagement, reliable in every transaction, 
 polite, courteous, and good-natured, though 
 firm and unhesitating, and if you make the 
 young aspirant after fortune see this you 
 arouse him to do likewise, and earning a 
 fortune becomes a real possible thing, not a 
 gift of fate. Or if the fortune has not been 
 accumulated by the legitimate process of 
 business, but by wild and reckless speculation, 
 the curse of our Nation, show him the inevit- 
 able process; that as the bank account unjustly 
 swells, so surely does the conscience and 
 honor of the man shrink, until at last money 
 has taken the place of manhood, and the 
 younger man's desire for the ill-gotten gains 
 changes into commiseration of the poor deluded 
 soul which has robbed itself far more than it 
 has robbed the world. 
 
 Or again, the young student, who discovers 
 what books the philosopher has read or 
 
110 The Instinct of Co7itmuity, or 
 
 would recommend for reading, feels that he has 
 obtained possession of a ladder by which he 
 too may climb to the dizzy height of scholar- 
 ship attained; it becomes a stimulus to his 
 flagging energies. It is this realization of 
 mevitdble process in all success that does away 
 with that fatal paralysis of effort, a belief in 
 good or bad luck, with which many a young 
 man satisfies his conscience or smothers his 
 aspirations. Let him from childhood be led 
 to realize that there is no luck about it, but that 
 each man makes or mars his own fortune, and 
 if there remains a spark of the ideal in him it 
 kindles into flame. Many of the questionings 
 of the human heart as to the justice of Divine 
 dealings can be satisfied by the light of this 
 law. 
 
 ** I sent my Soul through the invisible, 
 Some letters of the after-life to spell ; 
 And by and by my Soul returned to me, 
 And answered, ' I myself am Heaven or Hell '.*' 
 
 Hell thus becomes " God's highest tribute to 
 man's freedom." 
 
 In a thousand ways we can test the import- 
 ance or non-importance of any line of progress. 
 Out of what has it grown ? Into what is it 
 leading? All events in time are links in a 
 chain. The human race is one continued 
 
The Training of the Reason. Ill 
 
 whole, each child is the heir of generations 
 unnumbered. ** Hereditary rank," says Wash- 
 ington Irving, *' may be a snare and a delusion, 
 but hereditary virtue is a patent of innate 
 nobility which far outshines the blazonry of 
 heraldry." In each of our own lives is to be 
 seen at work this great law. " We are to-day 
 what we are because our past has been what it 
 was; what we will be in the future depends 
 upon what we now are." Nor is this all. We 
 are now, by our voluntary choosing of this or 
 that line of conduct, forming character and 
 creating spiritual tendencies which shall be 
 transmitted to our descendants; thus we are 
 linked not alone with the past, but with the 
 future. Is not this thought an inspiring one 
 to every mother? By every weakness which 
 she helps her child to overcome, by every 
 inspiration which she fans into flame, is she 
 upbuilding not only her child's character, but 
 is benefiting all after generations. What 
 confidence it gives her, too, as to her child's 
 future. He must go out into the world and 
 fight his battles alone ; but she can arm him 
 with the armor of good habits, place upon his 
 head the helmet of rational self-determination, 
 put into his hand the sword of aspiration, and 
 above all, give to him the shield of faith and 
 
112 The Instinct of Continuity, 
 
 reverence, so that he goes forth ready to defy 
 the demons of appetite within and the devils 
 of temptation without. She need not fear to 
 send her son forth, or tremble for her 
 daughter's happiness — they have begun aright 
 and the law of continuity will keep them aright, 
 unless some mighty force hurl them for a 
 moment from the path of rectitude, and even 
 then the reaction will swing them back into 
 the accustomed path. 
 
 Is more evidence needed to impress upon the 
 mother's heart the importance of training her 
 child to feel and see continuity in all things 
 around him — in all he does ? 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 OR RIGHT AND 
 WRONG PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 One morning last year, I went over to one of 
 our kindergartens located in a sad part of the 
 city, only a few blocks away from the residence 
 portion where wealth and culture abound. It 
 was composed of the neglected children of the 
 dissipated and rather dissolute poor. We had 
 recently put a young girl in charge of them, 
 and I was anxious to see how she was getting 
 on. To the practiced eye of a trained kinder- 
 gartner, the handwork of each child tells his 
 mental and moral condition. The children at 
 the table where the young director was seated 
 were at work on second gift beads, stringing 
 cubes and balls by twos. All seemed to be inter- 
 ested and busy at their little task except one 
 child, whose string showed no system, definite- 
 ness, or harmony ; orange, green, purple, yellow, 
 balls, cubes, and cylinders, were strung at ran- 
 dom. The jarring inharmony in color and the 
 disorder in form showed the discord within. 
 On the cheeks of the young director were two 
 bright spots of color, though she appeared 
 8 113 
 
114 The Instinct of Justice, or 
 
 calm and quiet. When the work-time had 
 ended, she asked the children if they would not 
 like to have their beads hung up to help make 
 the room pretty for the other children. String 
 after string was taken up, and the delighted 
 little workers watched her wind them around 
 the gas-fixtures. At length she came to the 
 disordered string before mentioned. " Ah," 
 said she quietly, " I am sorry Nellie's string 
 is not nice enough to hang up. She will have 
 to wait until she can learn to string her beads 
 in some pretty fashion before we can hang them 
 up for her." Instantly the child threw the 
 string of beads petulantly upon the table, and 
 the look of sullen defiance deepened in her face. 
 The young teacher walked to the piano and 
 struck the chords which were a signal for all 
 to rise from their seats. All arose but Nellie. 
 The second chord called them into position, 
 and to the measured time of the music they 
 marched forward and formed in a line upon the 
 play-circle. The kindergartner then went over 
 to the children, saying as she passed the chair 
 of the obstinate Nellie, " Are you not coming 
 to join with us in the Good-bye song ? " " No," 
 exclaimed the child passionately, " I shan't 
 come. If you break every bone in my body, I 
 won't stir from this spot," and the look of 
 
Right and Wrong Punishments. 115 
 
 suUenness deepened into an almost fiendish ex- 
 pression. The color increased in the face of 
 the young kindergartner, but her voice was as 
 clear and as smooth as ever as she replied, " I 
 do not intend to hurt you, Nellie. When you 
 feel like doing what is right, you may come 
 and tell me." Then the Good-bye song was 
 sung and the good-bye shake of the hand was 
 given to each child, and all were dismissed to 
 their homes. Not another word was said, but 
 the young teacher sat down at a table and began 
 straightening out the mats and piling up the 
 work, preparatory to putting it away. Her face 
 was calm and serene, and save for the telltale 
 color of the cheeks one could detect no excite- 
 ment or annoyance on her part. The tick of 
 the clock was the only sound heard in the 
 room. In a few moments the child gave an 
 uneasy jerk of her chair. " Are you ready, 
 Nellie?" asked the teacher, without looking 
 up. " No," answered the child emphatically. 
 The girl went on with her work. After a time — 
 I think not more than ten minutes — the child, 
 feeling the isolation of her condition, and 
 seeing that she would gain nothing by continued 
 obstinacy, arose hesitatingly from her chair and 
 sidled, in a half-indignant, half-sullen sort of a 
 way, up to the kindergartner. Although the 
 
116 The Instinct of Justice^ or 
 
 child's dress was greasy and torn, the young 
 girl put her arm around her and drew her 
 close to her, saying gently, " Well, Nellie, are 
 we going to be friends ? " Nellie seemed ready 
 to burst into tears, and put her hand tremb- 
 lingly upon the teacher's shoulder. Nothing 
 was said in the way of reproof. After a minute 
 the kindergartner said in a cheerful tone, " Do 
 you think we can start all new to-morrow morn- 
 ing, Nellie? " and the child nodded her assent. 
 I have told this story simply to show what 
 self-control can be obtained in such trying 
 moments, through the insight which comes 
 from a knowledge of the true office of punish- 
 ment. To the misapprehension of the aim of 
 punishment is due much of the misgovernment 
 of children. Until a man has become a law 
 unto himself, he is of no great value to the rest 
 of the world ; and punishments, rightly consid- 
 ered, are not merely an atonement for offences 
 committed, but they show the nature of the 
 offence, and help the individual to build up the 
 law within and thereby to avoid repeating the 
 misdeed. The child must be led from the 
 unconscious to the conscious choosing of such 
 lines of conduct as he is to pursue. How can 
 he thus choose unless he knows these lines of 
 conduct definitely, and thus can voluntarily 
 
Right and Wrong Punishments. 117 
 
 decide which he will adopt? The deed is best 
 known through its consequences. "By their 
 fruits ye shall know them," says the Bible. 
 Therefore we rob our children of one of the 
 greatest aids to self-government and self-con- 
 trol, when by any means whatsoever we free 
 them from the consequences of their own wrong- 
 doing. That the child should early learn that 
 " the way of the transgressor is hard," is an 
 important part of his education. Could the 
 souls just entering upon a career of dissipation, 
 dissoluteness, or other form of vice, clearly see 
 the end from the beginning, surely most of 
 them would be deterred from pursuing the path 
 of sin. But the fatal thought, " Somehow Fll 
 escape," blinds many who have not learned the 
 great law of continuity, who do not realize that 
 " he who sows the wind must reap the whirl- 
 wind." As the germ of the plant can be seen 
 in the tiny seed, as the germ of the future man 
 is found in the little child, so too can the germ 
 of the inevitable consequences be perceived in 
 the deed. Thus we recognize the value of 
 training the child by means of retributive pun- 
 ishment rather than by the arbitrary punish- 
 ment too often used with children. The former 
 appeals to the child's inborn instinct of justice. 
 If he is led to feel that the inconvenience, dis- 
 
118 The Instinct of Justice, or 
 
 comfort, pain, or disgrace, is merely the natural 
 consequence of his deed, as a rule he accepts it 
 without rebellion or a revengeful thought. It 
 is in this way that Nature teaches her laws to 
 each child. The little one puts his hand upon 
 the hot stove; no whirlwind from without 
 rushes in and pashes the hand away from the 
 stove, then with loud ana vengeful blasts scolds 
 him for his heedlessness or wrong doinrj. He 
 simply is burned — the natural consequence of 
 his own deed; and the fire quietly glows on, 
 regardless of the pain which he is suffering. If 
 again he transgresses the law, again he is burned 
 as quietly as before, with no expostulation, 
 threat, or warning. He quickly learns the lesson 
 and avoids the fire thereafter, bearing no grudge 
 against it. This is always Nature's method; 
 the deed brings its own result, and nowhere is 
 arbitrary unconnected punishment inflicted. 
 
 In history, we find this same law most effect- 
 ually at work. The nations which violate the 
 laws of progress and growth, and of interna- 
 tional kindliness of feeling, suffer the conse- 
 quences in the reaction upon themselves. 
 Herodotus shows us that the Persian empire 
 conquered and tried to crush the barbarians 
 by whom it was surrounded, but in the end it 
 was crushed by these same brutally-treated 
 
Bight and Wrong Punishments, 119 
 
 provinces. The Greeks colonized and civilized 
 their border-lands, and in turn learned many- 
 useful things from them. The downfall of 
 every great empire can be traced to its viola- 
 tion of the laws of justice and right in its 
 dealings with surrounding nations. And that 
 great lay»^ by which the deed returns upon the 
 doer's head is thus written upon walls of 
 adamant by the hand of time. We see how 
 effectual retributive punishment, or rather 
 retributive justice, works in the civic world. 
 The business man who peremptorily discharges 
 a clerk upon the first offence of drunkenness, 
 has sober employees about him. The most 
 successful business men will tell you that they 
 do not dally with inefficiency. If an employee 
 can do his work satisfactorily, he is kept; if he 
 does it poorly, he is dismissed. Do we not see 
 this same law in operation in society ? Let an 
 individual fail in the courtesies of society, and 
 he is dropped by well-bred people, as the inevi- 
 table consequence of being boorish, rude, and 
 discourteous. From sacred lips came the 
 words, " With what measure ye mete, it shall be 
 measured to you again." Can not the mother 
 learn a great and needed lesson from all these 
 sources? Can she not, in a thousand and one 
 ways, serenely and calmly teach her child this 
 
120 The Instinct of Justice^ or 
 
 great lesson of life — that no sin or wrong-doing 
 can be committed that does not bring its own 
 punishment 9 The more she lets the deed do 
 its own punishing, the more impersonal her 
 own part in the affair, the sooner does the 
 child learn the lesson. 
 
 Let me illustrate again. One morning we 
 had a box of sticks upon the table. A restless, 
 nervous little girl sat near it, and in a moment 
 or two put her hand into the box; as it was 
 near the edge of the table, I cautioned her 
 concerning it. Soon the little hand went in 
 again ; the box tilted, slipped, and fell upon the 
 floor, while the sticks were scattered in a 
 hundred different directions. The child looked 
 up in a startled manner. "What a time our 
 little girl will have picking her sticks up! " I 
 said, in a matter-of-course tone; "but I think 
 you can get through in time for the play circle. 
 Alvin, please move your chair so that she can 
 get the sticks which are under it." In a 
 moment the child was on her knees, rapidly 
 picking up the scattered sticks without a word 
 of objection or a murmur. Had I censured her, 
 or imposed some arbitrary punishment upon 
 .her, I should in all probability have created a 
 spirit of rebellion, and have alienated her from 
 me, as she was a capricious and somewhat self- 
 
Eight and Wrong Punishments. 121 
 
 willed child. As it was, she had upset the box, 
 and as a consequence she must pick up the 
 sticks. I have rarely ever failed in leading a 
 child to see the justice of such commands. In 
 fact, in a short time they usually take upon 
 themselves the rectifying of the mistake or 
 misdeed as they best can. 
 
 A little five-year-old boy one morning asked 
 the privilege of going into the next room and 
 refilling the water pitcher for us. It was 
 granted, as we always accept proffered services 
 when possible. Upon his return to the kinder- 
 garten I noticed some very suspicious looking 
 drops upon the mouth of the pitcher. "John, 
 did you spill the water?" I asked. "Just a 
 little bit," was the reply. " Get the sponge,'' 
 said I, " and wipe it up quickly. We must 
 not ask anyone else to wipe up the water we 
 spill." In a few minutes he returned to the 
 room, and coming up to me with a some- 
 what troubled face, said in a puzzled manner, 
 as pondering the matter, "I guess those big 
 girls haven't got any sense." "Why?" I 
 asked. " ' Cause they laughed when they saw 
 me wiping up the water I had spilled, so I 
 guess they haven't got any sense, or they 
 wouldn't laugh at a thing of that sort, would 
 they?" His sense of justice had so acquiesced 
 
122 The Instinct of Justice, or 
 
 in the command that it seemed irrational to 
 him that anyone should be amused by the deed. 
 The mother, more than the teacher, has 
 opportunities to quietly let the deed impress 
 its nature upon the child's mind. Little child- 
 ren are naturally logical and quickly perceive 
 justice or injustice. The child who is rightly 
 treated will accept this right kind of punish- 
 ment as a matter of course. A friend of mine 
 who had been given this idea of punishment, 
 upon returning home one day found that her 
 six-year-old boy had taken his younger brother 
 over to the wagon-shop across the street, a for- 
 bidden spot, and they had smeared their aprons 
 with the wagon-grease. In telling the story 
 afterwards, she said, "My first impulse was to 
 whip the boy, because he knew better than to 
 go ; but I thought I would try the other way of 
 punishing him, and see if it would do any 
 good. So I said, ' Why, that's too bad. It will 
 be rather hard for you to get the grease off, 
 but I think I can help you, if you will get 
 some turpentine. Eun to the drug store on the 
 corner and buy a small bottle of it.' " On his 
 return she took the two aprons and spread 
 them upon the floor of the back porch, then, 
 giving him a little sponge and the bottle of 
 turpentine, she showed him how to begin his 
 
Bight and Wrong Punishments. 123 
 
 cleaning. In a few minutes he said, " Oh, 
 mamma, this stuff smells horrid! " " Yes," she 
 serenely replied, " I know it does; I dislike the 
 smell of turpentine very much, but I think you 
 will get through soon." So Willie kept on 
 scrubbing until he had cleaned the aprons as 
 well as he could. " Well," said his mother, as 
 she helped him put away the cleaning material, 
 " I think my boy will be more careful about 
 going to the wagon shop, will he not?" "You 
 het I will ! " was his emphatic reply. 
 
 A young mother who was filled with the 
 spirit of the kindergarten, and had wisely 
 guided her own children by the insight obtained 
 from her kindergarten study, was called upon 
 one summer to take charge of a little niece for 
 a few weeks. The first morning after her 
 arrival at her sister's home, she heard some 
 angry words in the child's bedroom. On open- 
 ing the door to inquire what was the matter, 
 the nurse said, " Oh, it is just the usual fuss 
 Miss Anna makes each morning over having 
 to be dressed. I am sometimes an hour at it." 
 Further inquiry showed that various means — 
 such as bribing, coaxing, and threatening — had 
 been used; but all to no avail. Even the last 
 device used — that of depriving her of marma- 
 lade, her favorite dish, at each breakfast at 
 
124 The Instinct of Justice^ or 
 
 which she was late — had proved ineffectual. 
 The next morning the aunt went into the room 
 and said quietly, " Anna, you can have Mary 
 for twenty minutes to dress you; after that 
 time I shall need her down-stairs." The child 
 looked at her for a moment in astonishment 
 then went on with her play. In vain poor Mary 
 coaxed and urged. The twenty minutes 
 elapsed; the child was but half dressed. True 
 to her word, the aunt sent for Mary to come 
 down-stairs. " But, Auntie," called the child, 
 "I am not dressed yet." " Is that so?" said 
 the aunt. "I am sorry; jump back into bed 
 and wait until Mary comes again." In 
 about fifteen minutes the child called out 
 petulantly, " Auntie, I want to get dressed, I 
 tell you. Send Mary up to me." " I cannot 
 yet," replied the aunt from below ; " she is busy 
 just now. Get into bed again, and she will 
 come as soon as she can." Breakfast was sent 
 up to the child by another servant. At the end 
 of an hour Mary came back, and it is needless 
 to say that little Miss Anna was quickly 
 dressed. The next morning the aunt again 
 gave the warning that Mary would be needed 
 down-stairs in just twenty minutes. This time 
 the warning took effect, and when Mary was 
 called the child was ready. The following 
 
Right and Wrong Punishments. 125 
 
 morning, the force of habit was too strong, and 
 again came the capricious delay. Again Mary 
 was called, and again the child was detained in 
 her room for an hour. Two or three such 
 experiences, however, were sufficient to break up 
 entirely her habit of dallying. So quickly 
 comes the lesson taught by retributive punish- 
 ment. Many illustrations of the effectiveness of 
 this method might be given, but surely are not 
 needed by the thinking mind. 
 
 Another great advantage gained is, that 
 retributive punishment is never inflicted in 
 anger. Dante very graphically pictures angry 
 souls as in a muddy, miry place, with a slow, 
 foul mist about them, which hinders them from 
 seeing clearly. If we turn to the nations of the 
 world, we see upon a large scale the effects of 
 the two ways of dealing with offenders. Among 
 the Chinese it is customary, when any official 
 has committed an offence against the law, to 
 have him taken to the public square and 
 whipped. What are the consequences of such 
 treatment? Lack of self-respect, of self- 
 reliance, and of self-government. In Great 
 Britain and America, where the laws in general 
 are but the instruments for meting out to each 
 man the after-effects of his own deed, we see 
 the growth of manliness, of self-government, 
 
126 The Instinct of Justice^ or 
 
 and of self-respect. Of course the question 
 will arise, "But what are we to do when the 
 logical punishment or consequence of a child's 
 deed will bring physical disaster? " In such 
 cases the moral disapproval of a mother should 
 be made strong and emphatic; if she has kept 
 her child in close sympathy with her, this will 
 be sufficient. On the other hand, scolding, 
 shaking, whipping, shutting up in dark closets, 
 and various other methods of arbitrary punish- 
 ment, which have no possible connection in the 
 child's mind with the deed, are apt to rouse in 
 him a sense of injustice, and a feeling that the 
 parent has taken advantage of her greater 
 physical strength. By such treatment is also 
 violated one of the finest instincts of the child, 
 which is that of expecting justice, absolute 
 justice, from his parent. His sense of freedom 
 of conduct is injured, and, as I have said 
 before, he is robbed of one of the greatest 
 lessons of life, namely, that each violation of 
 law^ physical, mental, or moral, must be paid for. 
 Learn to distinguish between mere overflow of 
 animal spirits and intentional wrong-doing ; for 
 instance, do not punish your children for such 
 offences as having torn the finery with which 
 you have injudiciously clothed them, nor for 
 
Eight and Wrong Punishments. 127 
 
 the accidents which may arise during a good- 
 natured romp. 
 
 Of course too great temptations to commit a 
 wrong deed must be avoided. There once 
 came to me a mother with a face full of 
 suppressed suffering. "What shall I do?" 
 said she. " I have discovered that my boy 
 steals money from his father's purse and from 
 mine." " Give him a purse of his own," I 
 answered, " and give him ways of earning 
 money of his own ; let a respect on your part be 
 shown for his possessions, and thereby generate 
 a respect on his part for your possessions. The 
 superintendent of a reform school once told me 
 that two-thirds of the boys who came to him 
 were sent on account of having stolen, and that 
 he always gave them, as soon as possible, a 
 plat of ground which should be their own, and 
 allowed them to raise their own vegetables, 
 small fruit, or poultry, for the nearest market, 
 in order that he might develop in them a sense 
 of ownership, the lack of which he firmly 
 believed was the cause of their transgressions." 
 The mother left me somewhat comforted. A 
 week or two after, she returned and said, " I 
 have done as you advised, and the plan worked 
 admirably; but this morning I went to the top 
 drawer in my bureau to get my purse, and dis- 
 
128 The Instinct of Justice^ or 
 
 covered that he had again been taking money 
 from it." Here was an instance where, by 
 leaving her purse within reach, the carelessness 
 of the mother had placed in her child's way a 
 temptation greater than he could resist. 
 
 Another advantage of the retributive method 
 of punishment is that each deed is punished or 
 rewarded upon its own plane. That is, material 
 defeats or conquests bring material loss or gain, 
 and spiritual defeats or conquests bring spirit- 
 ual suffering or reward. "Whereas, when this 
 logical method of procedure is not followed, 
 when a mere arbitrary punishment is substitu- 
 ted, the mistake is often made of rewarding or 
 punishing spiritual efforts with material loss or 
 gain, thereby degrading and lowering such 
 efforts in the child's eyes. Many a mother 
 thoughtlessly says to her child, " Be good to 
 little brother while I am gone, and I will buy 
 you some candy." " Give that to Httle sister, 
 and I will give you something better." Self- 
 control must not, in this way, be connected in 
 the child's mind with gratification of physical 
 appetite, nor can the child learn the sweet joy 
 of unselfishness through the feeding of his 
 greed of possession. I once discovered that a 
 little girl in a primary class had written her 
 spelling lesson upon the wrong side of the hem 
 
Bight and Wrong Punishments. 129 
 
 of her linen apron. Upon my afterwards show- 
 ing her the dishonesty of the deed, she burst 
 into tears and sobbed out, "I couldn't help it; 
 I couldn't help it. Papa promised me a 
 diamond ring if I wouldn't miss in my spelling 
 this year." The desire to obtain the coveted 
 jewel was so great that the bounds of honesty 
 and integrity had been overstepped. I once 
 knew a Sunday-school superintendent to say, 
 " Every boy who comes early for a month shall 
 have a present." Doubtless, punctuality was 
 obtained, but at the price of moral degradation. 
 Another illustration, an incident which hap- 
 pened in the childhood of a woman, shall be 
 told in her own words: " Once when I was a 
 little girl," she said, "our parents had left my 
 older sister and myself alone for the evening. 
 Getting sleepy, we went into our mother's 
 bedroom, and climbing upon the bed drew a 
 shawl over us, preparatory to a nap before their 
 return. In a little while my sister complained 
 of feeling cold. With the loving impulse of a 
 generous child, I gave her my part of the 
 shawl ; with a real pleasure I spread it over 
 her, and we were soon asleep. Upon the return 
 of our parents, the question was asked why my 
 sister had all the covering while I had none. 
 Innocently enough, explanation was made in 
 9 
 
130 The Instinct of Justice, or 
 
 the words, * She was colder than I, so I gave 
 her my part.' ' You dear, blessed, unselfish 
 little thing I ' exclaimed my father, 'here's ten 
 cents for you to reward you for your unselfish- 
 ness.' A few evenings after, our parents were 
 again invited out, and again we children were 
 left alone in our part of the house. I began at 
 once planning a scheme to coax my sister to 
 again go into our mother's bedroom for a nap, 
 in order that I might repeat the deed which had 
 earned me ten cents. I succeeded, although this 
 time it was with some coaxing that I got her to 
 accept the extra portion of the covering. For 
 nearly an hour I lay waiting for the return of 
 my father, in order that I might gain financial 
 profit by my conduct." Thus easily and 
 quickly the sweet, generous, unselfish impulse 
 of a childish heart was changed by the mere 
 thought of material gain into sordid, selfish 
 and deceptive conduct. 
 
 When the mother realizes the true nature of 
 punishment, there is never detected in the 
 tones of her voice what Emerson calls a lust of 
 power. Too often children hear beneath the 
 mere word of command the undertone which 
 says, "I'll show you that I'll have my way^ 
 The farther the child's self-government is 
 advanced, the higher his ideals of right and 
 
Right and Wrong Punishments. 131 
 
 wrong, the more will he resent this assertion of 
 your personal will-power. If possible, let the 
 instinct of justice, which is within each child, 
 feel that the command has been given because 
 the thing to be done is necessary and right. 
 A child readily realizes that scattered toys 
 must be gathered up, that soiled clothes must 
 be changed, that tardiness necessarily brings a 
 loss of opportunity, that money foolishly spent 
 by him will not be re-supplied by the parent, 
 that teasing or tormenting the younger brother 
 or sister cause a loss of the society of the mis- 
 treated one, that petulance upon his part brings 
 silence upon the part of the mother, that reck- 
 lessness when on the street causes loss of liberty. 
 When the punishments thus fall upon the plane 
 of the deed in these minor offences, the child 
 sooner learns to recognize the loss of respect 
 which comes from lying, the dissatisfaction of 
 ill-gotten gains, the weariness of hypocrisy, the 
 wretchedness of jealousy, the bitterness of 
 envy, the isolation of selfishness; he sooner 
 learns that contentment comes only with honest 
 gains, that respect follows always the upright 
 man, that love springs up around the sympa- 
 thetic soul, that happy participation is the 
 reward of the unenvious, and that joy fills the 
 unselfish heart. 
 
132 The Instinct of Justice^ or 
 
 I was walking one day with a young mother 
 whose heart was filled with wild rebellion 
 over the death of her beautiful baby. "Do 
 not talk to me," she said, "of the justice or 
 love of a God who could take from me such 
 joy and cause me to suffer so much. I can 
 not believe in such a Being." Just at this 
 time we came upon her little daughter, about 
 five years of age, who was playing in the 
 street. "My dear child," exclaimed the 
 mother, "run into the house at once. You 
 will catch a severe cold out here. The wind is 
 very sharp, and you are not sufficiently 
 wrapped." "Oh, no, mamma," exclaimed the 
 little girl, " I shall not take cold. Please let 
 me stay." " My dear," said her mother sternly, 
 "we will not argue the question; mamma 
 knows best. Go into the house at once." As 
 the child turned to obey the command, she 
 burst into a flood of tears, and sobbed, " You 
 do not love me, mamma. You do not love me, 
 or you would not take my happy times away 
 from me. You do not love me at all. I know 
 you do not." We walked on in silence for 
 some time. Suddenly my friend turned to me 
 and said, " Why do you not tell me that my 
 own child haa answered my question?" 
 
 "Remain thou in the unity of life thyself," 
 
Right and Wrong Punishments, 133 
 
 says Froebel, "or else thou canst not lead thy 
 child therein." We are not ready to teach our 
 children the true office and nature of punish- 
 ment or retribution, until we ourselves perceive 
 that the sorrow and suffering which come to 
 us are but angels in disguise; until we are 
 ready to say with such grand souls as William 
 Gannett: " Though the heart cries, ' Is there 
 no waste of sutfering?' when Nature burns 
 three hundred lives as readily as three, when 
 earthquake waves drown men like flies, when 
 the ignorance or sin of one man involves a 
 lineage or a nation in disaster, is there nothing 
 spendthrift in such tragedy? Again the mind, 
 slow-thinking, answers: That seeming spend- 
 thrift unconcern of Nature may be her deep 
 concern, that seeming waste may be some arch- 
 economy of tragedy. For see: to reach her 
 end — a ' man," an ever-growing ' man ' — as 
 speedily as possible, all fragments of experience 
 must be garnered up and utilized. To this end 
 are we bound together in one vast brotherhood 
 of acting and re-acting influences, all members 
 of the race, yea, of all races, actively and pas- 
 sively co-operating — nothing living, nothing 
 dying, to itself. That not a pang be lost, life 
 is linked to life across all time, across all spaca 
 Linked in time: hence those dread laws of 
 
134 The Instinct of Justice, or 
 
 heritage by which the crooked back and the 
 disease are transmitted to irresponsible and 
 helpless sufferers. That looks like waste of 
 woe. At last they teach the world the rule of 
 health; and clearing blood, the bones set 
 straight, the lengthening average of life, the 
 greatening powers of human joy and human 
 usefulness, — all these transmitted also attest the 
 good intent that lurked along the ages. And 
 linked in space: the tiger cholera, stealing from 
 the Ganges, strides with silent footfall through 
 the nations, leaving death behind it, and at last 
 robs homes upon the Mississippi's banks; the 
 war in America starved English weavers and 
 made the fields of Egypt white with cotton har- 
 vests. It looks like waste, but these are the 
 'vicarious atonements' of history, the great 
 give-and-take by which the generations and the 
 races bequeath and share experience, one suffer- 
 ing from and for another, to the end that ' man ' 
 may have life and have it more speedily and 
 more abundantly. And there are countless 
 small vicarious atonements of daily life, in 
 which we all unceasingly take part — the ever- 
 spread communion-table of the heart-break and 
 the blood. It is tragedy. ' How long, O 
 Lord ! ' we cry, as we gaze at the lasting, 
 circling woe. But we can see that this com- 
 
Rigid and Wrong Punishments. 135 
 
 munion hives experience the faster , and so brings 
 faster on the general good; that by the same 
 laws of communion, wisdom and saintship, also, 
 are garnered in ministries of joy ; that only by 
 such co-operation, making the race one man, 
 could life so soon have become the boon it is, 
 the ever-richening boon it will be for future 
 populations that will call us ancient. Not that 
 we can always trace the vicarious and co-opera- 
 tive suffering to its outcome in beneficence; too 
 vast and secret and complex are the connections 
 in the social organism. But when, over and 
 over again, evil is seen to be at last evolving 
 good, assurance grows in us that good will 
 always and everywhere prevail; and that the 
 seeming exceptions will, when truly under- 
 stood, prove subtler, vaster instances of the 
 fact that the world's disorder is order-in-the- 
 making." 
 
 If by your training you can give to your 
 child this exalted view of life, is it not worth 
 the self-control on your part which it requires ? 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 INSTINCT OP RECOGNITION, OR THE TRAINING OF 
 THE WILL. 
 
 "Must I do it?" exclaims the child, when 
 he is confronted by the command of another, 
 and the instinct of freedom begins to stir with- 
 in him. ''Must I do it?" This is an im- 
 portant period in each child's life, and should 
 be well understood by the mother or teacher. 
 How is the obedience to the everlasting and 
 eternal right to be obtained, and yet, at the 
 same time, the child be left to obey of his own 
 accord? The problem is as old as recorded 
 time, yet ever new, and demands a practical 
 solution each day. In other words, by what 
 process of training can the outward must be 
 changed to the inward ought, and thus the child 
 be developed into a free, self-determining 
 being? "Unless a man has a will within 
 him," says Emerson, " you can tie him to noth- 
 ing." There is no wall or safeguard which 
 love can build around its object strong enough 
 and high enough to keep away temptation. 
 The wall must be within, or else sooner or 
 later the citadel yields to the enemy. One of 
 136 
 
The Training of the Will 137 
 
 the most significant of the old Homeric stories 
 is that of the Greeks vainly endeavoring to build 
 up a wall in front of their ships which should 
 defend them from their Trojan foes, and thus 
 take the place of the strength and courage of 
 their hero, Achilles, who had withdrawn from 
 their midst. The moment of danger came ; at 
 the height of the battle the wall gave way and 
 Hector and his troops rushed in upon them. 
 The same is true to-day that was true in the 
 days of the Iliad. Sooner or later external 
 walls must give way ; the inner wall alone can 
 stem the tide of temptation. The moral will- 
 power of the child becomes strong only as his 
 conscience becomes enlightened and educated. 
 Whether the moral faculty is innate or a 
 matter of education, is a disputed point. " In- 
 herited virtue," says Washington Irving, "is 
 a patent of innate nobility which far outshines 
 the blazonry of heraldry." It was President 
 Dwight, I think, who said that each child 
 should begin his education by selecting the 
 right kind of parents. Much can and should 
 be said upon the matter of the moral responsi- 
 bility which marriage brings. But granting 
 all that is urged concerning the inheritance 
 received from parents, we must still acknow- 
 ledge that much is to be done in the training 
 
138 Instinct of Eecognition, or 
 
 of the will, and that far-reaching is the effect 
 of its strength or weakness. Therefore the 
 problem resolves itself into the question, how 
 shall we educate aright the consciences of the 
 children? Susan Blow has defined conscience 
 as "a perception of what we are, in the light 
 of what we ought to be." In the past, two 
 methods of educating the conscience have 
 been used. The first is that of requiring 
 formal obedience. The intense desire to have 
 the right thing done, created in the parent a 
 sternness which compelled the child to obey, 
 regardless of the fact that his rationality and 
 will-power were thereby weakened, or rather 
 not strengthened, and the parent's will often 
 grew into tyranny. The will, like every 
 muscle, organ, or faculty, becomes strong by 
 being judiciously exercised. These advocates 
 of formal, unhesitating, unquestioning obedi- 
 ence, frequently defend their position with 
 quotations from Scripture; for example, they 
 will cite you the words, "Spare the rod and 
 spoil the child," utterly ignoring the fact that 
 rod here means punishment, just as much as 
 the word pulpit stands for clergymen in the 
 sentence, "The pulpits endorse the move- 
 ment," or the word sail for vessel, in " They 
 captured ten sail." Again, they will frequently 
 
The Training of the Will 139 
 
 refer you to that passage of Scripture whicli 
 says, "Children obey your parents," though 
 they oftentimes forget to add, " in the Lord." 
 We grant that the mere habit of doing right is 
 something ; with very small children, it is much. 
 But the will, that safeguard in the hour of 
 temptation, does not begin to grow until 
 definite choice is made by the individual. 
 Power to choose the right comes only from 
 having chosen to do right many times. 
 Oftentimes too great dependence upon the 
 parent's will leaves the youth who has reached 
 the age of maturity still a child in strength of 
 will. This is, to me, the explanation why so 
 many boys who have been strictly brought up 
 by pains-taking, conscientious parents, sud- 
 denly enter upon a wild and reckless career as 
 soon as they merge into the world at large. 
 
 The second method of educating the con- 
 science is fully as detrimental. Many persons 
 have realized that virtue, to be virtue, must be 
 voluntary ; that will-power, to amount to any- 
 thing, must be the will-power which is within 
 and not without the individual ; they have there- 
 fore gone to the other extreme, and have re- 
 quired no obedience from the child, allowing his 
 own caprice and the humor of the moment to 
 govern him during that period of life when im- 
 
140 Instinct of Recognition^ or 
 
 pulses are strong and rationality is feeble. This 
 of course has been the extreme rebound from 
 the severity of the first method. Words are 
 scarcely needed to show the lack of wisdom 
 in the parent or teacher who yields his judg- 
 ment, which years of experience and observa- 
 tion and thought have matured, to the caprice 
 of the child. I once asked a mother if her 
 child was in any kindergarten. "No," she 
 answered, *' I took him to one, but he didn't 
 care to stay, so I let him come home, and we 
 have not attempted it since. I am sorry." 
 The momentary mood of the child had over- 
 ruled the rational judgment of the mother. 
 Compulsion is the attempt to secure obedience 
 regardless of the child's desire; this desire must 
 appear before each right exercise of the will. 
 Caprice is allowing the desire of the moment 
 to govern the conduct, regardless of future 
 consequences; whereas voluntary obedience is 
 the deed which is performed after the right 
 stages of will-growth have been passed 
 through. First, the individual is led to de- 
 sire to do a thing; second, he thinks about 
 it; third, he wills to do it; and fourth, he vol- 
 untarily does it. Compulsion is the attempt 
 to obtain the fruit of voluntary doing without 
 the planting of the right seed. The creating 
 
The Training of the Will. 141 
 
 of the desires for right conduct makes all the 
 difference between voluntary and forced obedi- 
 ence. Unfortunate indeed is the poor little 
 creature who is brought up without the idea of 
 obedience. Bitter must be the lessons which 
 experience will have to teach him if he ever 
 truly masters his life. Too many children, 
 who have never been given this idea of true 
 obedience during childhood, make failures of 
 their after careers from the simple fact that 
 they have not learned that there are certain 
 mighty laws which must he obeyed, I firmly 
 believe, however, that most children when 
 rightly trained can be brought into obedience 
 without heing forced into it. 
 
 There are of course many little devices which 
 will aid the mother in leading her child to vol- 
 untarily do the right thing. For example, a 
 strong-willed child— that is, a child with the 
 instinct of freedom largely developed within 
 him — can frequently be brought into the right 
 way of doing by having a choice between two 
 things given him. As, for example, "You 
 may be quiet, or you must leave the parlor ; 
 you may pick up your playthings, or you must 
 go without them to-morrow." Thus a certain 
 amount of freedom is given to him by this 
 opportunity to choose, and at the same time a 
 
142 Instinct of Recognition^ <yr 
 
 certain amount of obedience is exacted in that 
 he must choose one or the other of the alterna- 
 tives. Again, a regular time is a great aid in 
 the performance of a duty. The little one who 
 knows that at half-past seven he must go to 
 bed, is not apt to demur when the time comes ; 
 whereas, the child who is sent to bed at seven 
 o'clock one night, at half -past seven another, 
 and at eight a third, is very apt to feel that the 
 bed hour is a mere whim on his mother's part, 
 and the inviolability of law which aided the 
 mother in the first instance is lacking in the 
 second. A friend once sent her twelve-year- 
 old boy away from the table to wash his hands. 
 Upon his return, she said, " Will, why do you 
 persistently come to the table without washing 
 your hands, when you know that each time you 
 do it I send you away?" "No," answered 
 the boy frankly, " you forgot to do it one time." 
 That one break in the continuity of command 
 had created in his mind the hope that he might 
 again escape the disagreeable duty. Another 
 device is giving a child a definite time when he 
 must stop his play or work, with the assurance 
 that he can again begin it; as, for example, 
 "Come in now, it is time for you to practice; 
 you can go out again to-morrow," or, "We 
 must stop reading now and get ready for 
 
The Training of the Will 143 
 
 dinner ; we can read this evening." With small 
 children it is often well to prepare them for the 
 command in some such way as, " Five minutes 
 more, and my little girl must put up her 
 dollies." These, however, are mere devices 
 used by the quick-witted mother ; but Froebel 
 would have the law by which the will-power is 
 developed distinctly understood. The instinct 
 of recognition must be comprehended in order 
 that this law may be properly applied. 
 
 As soon as a child arrives at a perception of 
 his own individuality this instinct awakens — 
 he desires his individuality to be acknowledged 
 by the people about him. The recognition 
 usually comes through their expressed opin. 
 ions concerning him and his conduct. Froebel 
 says, in the motto to the little song called 
 "The Five Knights,"— 
 
 " Dear Mother, use your best and your most watchful care, 
 When first he listens to some stranger who is there; 
 Life's truest voice has struck upon Lis ear, 
 A new life-stage begins, but do not fear." 
 
 The " new life-stage " refers to the dawning 
 realization in the child's mind that he " lives 
 not in life alone." In the little game of *' Peek- 
 a-boo," common to all nurseries, Froebel traces 
 the child's pleasure in the game to this joyous 
 delight in being recognized. "It is not so 
 
144 Instinct of Recognition^ or 
 
 much," says he, *'in the hiding of your dear 
 child, as it is in the joyful anticipation of being 
 found again by you." The instinct is as old as 
 the race. We find outlined upon the walls of 
 the Egyptian tombs pictures of their rulers and 
 leaders, towering like giants above the armies 
 which followed them; not that they were phy- 
 sically larger, but these pictures were intended 
 to portray recognition of their superiority, 
 their larger individuality. Wherever man has 
 had the power to accomplish the desires of his 
 heart we have found him building for himself 
 tombs and monuments, that he as an individual 
 might be recognized by future generations. 
 From what comes the love of wearing medals 
 and badges, but from the fact that they are the 
 external sign given by some society or associa- 
 tion as a testimonial of the worthiness of the 
 individual to become a member of the organi- 
 zation? With nations it is the same. They 
 build beautiful temples, and magnificent state- 
 houses, and other grand and imposing build- 
 ings, that surrounding states or nations may 
 acknowledge their enterprise, wealth, and 
 artistic or religious superiority. It is owing to 
 this instinctive desire for recognition and 
 approval that public opinion has so strong a 
 hold upon the mass of mankind. What is 
 
The Training of the Will 145 
 
 public opinion but the aggregation of the 
 recognition of many individuals ? It is not the 
 number of people collected together which 
 makes civilization, but the influence engendered 
 by the thought of the community, or, in other 
 words, the advance of public opinion. One era 
 of time allowed the putting to death of cripples 
 and weaklings ; in our age public sentiment has 
 made it the most sacred obligation of mankind 
 to tenderly care for them. This atmosphere of 
 public opinion surrounds us at all times. The 
 hero alone rises much above it, and almost 
 beyond redemption is the soul that sinks into 
 entire indifference to it. In talking of this 
 subject an old farmer once said to me, " I 
 sometimes find a six-foot high stalk of corn in a 
 five-foot high field, and occasionally I find a 
 seven-foot high stalk in a six-foot high field; 
 but I never find a seven-foot stalk in a five-foot 
 field." It is the same thought better expressed 
 by Emerson when he said it took four hundred 
 years of culture and education and French 
 salons to produce a Madame De Stael. 
 
 Drummond refers to this same subtle influ- 
 ence of the opinions of others. In his little book 
 called "Modes of Sanctification," he says: "In 
 your face you reflect your nationality. I ask a 
 
 man a question, and I find out in ten seconds 
 10 
 
146 Instinct of Eecognition, or 
 
 whether he is a Northerner, a Southerner, a 
 Canadian, or an Englishman. He has reflected 
 his country in his very voice. I see reflected 
 in a mirror that he has read Herbert Spencer 
 and Huxley and Darwin; and as I go on 
 watching him, as he stands and talks to me, his 
 whole life is reflected from it. I see the kind 
 of state he has been living in, the companions 
 he has had; he cannot help reflecting, he can- 
 not help himself from showing the environment 
 in which he has lived, the influences that have 
 played around him. As Tennyson says, * I am 
 a part of all that I have met.' Every man is 
 influenced by the people and things that sur- 
 round him. You sometimes see husband and 
 wife, after half a century of fellowship, changed 
 entirely into the same image. They have gone 
 on reflecting one another so often that they 
 have become largely made up of the same 
 qualities and characteristics. That is the great 
 doctrine of influences: we become like those 
 with whom we associate." 
 
 The child comes into this moulding atmos- 
 phere of opinions floating about him while the 
 inborn instinct of recognition is within him, 
 reaching out eagerly for the approval of the 
 public opinion of his little world. Froebel 
 would have the mother take advantage of this 
 
The Training of the Will 147 
 
 condition of things and train tlie instinct 
 aright ; for, like all other instincts given to the 
 child, it can be trained upward or downward. 
 If the mere external surroundings, appearances, 
 or other incidentals, are what is praised or 
 approved, vanity is engendered. Vanity is all- 
 devouring, insatiable, never-satisfied, and con- 
 sequently degenerates into bragging or into 
 an exaggeration of its merits in order that it 
 may obtain more praise. Bragging naturally 
 descends into lying and other forms of deceit. 
 If, however, the approval has been given to the 
 child's endeavor rather than his appearance, to 
 his motive rather than his deed, the hungering 
 desire for more approval leads him into greater 
 effort. This engenders love; and love of this 
 sort borders close on reverence. Thus the 
 mother has in her hands the powerful instru- 
 ments of praise and censure. That which she 
 praises, the child will strive for ; that which she 
 has unvaryingly censured, the child will avoid — 
 provided, of course, that she is consistent in 
 her adherence to the standards which she 
 places before him. The real standard — that is, 
 the standard which the life and conduct show, 
 not merely the standard preached — becomes the 
 child's ideal. Care should be taken not only in 
 the approving or disapproving of the people 
 
148 Instinct of Recognition, or 
 
 about him, but much judgment must be exer- 
 cised in what to approve of in the child himself. 
 Character is to be praised rather than clothes; 
 effort which helps to strengthen the character 
 rather than any external gift or attraction what- 
 soever. 
 
 I knew of one mother whose child's beautiful 
 golden curls attracted so much attention that 
 the mother saw the effects of growing vanity and 
 self-consciousness in the child. So great was 
 her love for her little daughter, so clear her 
 insight and so strong her will-power, that with 
 her own hands she quietly cut the beautiful 
 shining curls from off the little head. I know 
 of but few mothers who have such courage. 
 The sweet, unconscious beauty of character, 
 developed at a later period in the daughter, 
 showed the wisdom of the mother. We have in 
 our kindergarten a little game in which one 
 child is placed in the center with his eyes 
 closed, and another is sent out of the circle. 
 The first opens his eyes and tries by memory to 
 tell the name of the missing one. One morning, 
 when the child who had been sent to the center 
 of the circle could not recall the name of the 
 absent one, another little one ventured to assist 
 his memory by saying, *' She had on a green 
 dress, and stood next to me." Instantly one of 
 
The Training of the Will 149 
 
 the older boys of tlie kindergarten, whose two 
 years had taught him much, exclaimed with an 
 emphatic shake of his head, " It doesn't make 
 any difference what you wear or where you 
 stand, it's what you can do." This was the 
 result of my having always described the child 
 sent from the circle when playing the game and 
 help was needed, by some of his meritorious 
 activities. I smiled to myself as I thought of 
 the change in position in the world at large 
 which such a standard set up by the emphatic 
 boy would create. Yet, is it not the true test to 
 which time finally brings all mortals ? What in 
 our eyes to-day is the finery in which the 
 monarchs of the sixteenth century arrayed 
 themselves, compared with the deeds of Luther ? 
 "What is the social rank and worship which the 
 Emperors demanded, compared to the reverence 
 which we now give to the name of Epictetus ? 
 Well-told stories, which have in them admir- 
 able traits of character, are powerful instru- 
 ments in the hands of mothers and teachers. I 
 remember at one time, as the Thanksgiving 
 season approached, I decided to lead the chil- 
 dren of whom I had charge to desire to make to 
 a certain hospital a Thanksgiving offering of 
 fruit saved through self-denial from their own 
 luncheons. Realizing that effort was best 
 
150 Instinct of Recognition, or 
 
 made when an ideal towards which to strive 
 was placed in an interesting manner before the 
 child, I told them a story of a little boy and 
 girl, taking care to make the two children in 
 the story as attractive as possible to their 
 young hearts. At the end, my little hero and 
 heroine decided to do without oranges for 
 breakfast for a week, and to send them to some 
 little children across the street who were less 
 fortunate than themselves. I then described, 
 as vividly as possible, the great pleasure and 
 delight which was experienced by the surprise 
 of the other children, and the satisfaction felt 
 by the little givers. The story ended in a 
 bright, lively manner, and nothing further was 
 said. The next day when luncheon time came, 
 one of my older boys said, " I am going to save 
 my orange to-day for some little child who 
 hasn't one." "So am I!" "And I!" "And 
 I ! " exclaimed other little children. The next 
 day I told them of the hospital which I had 
 visited, and of the pleasure I thought it would 
 give the invalids if they knew that some dear 
 little children were intending to send them part 
 of their fruit for Thanksgiving day, and pro- 
 posed that those who wished to share their good 
 things with others should put them all together 
 and send them to the hospital. The suggestion 
 
The Training of the Will. 151 
 
 was received with delight. Voluntary offerings 
 were given each luncheon-time from then to 
 the day before Thanksgiving. I do not mean 
 to claim by this that any especial influence is 
 obtained or effect produced by the " goody- 
 goody " stories in which supernatural children 
 do unnatural things; but simply that the true, 
 wholesome, generous deed, within the possibil- 
 ity of the child's performance, can be made so 
 attractive in its ideal form of story or game 
 that the child voluntarily attempts to do like- 
 wise. " The deeds attained by great souls," 
 says Alger, " become the ideals towards which 
 lesser souls strive." In fact, the greatest thing 
 that a hero does for the world is to he a hero and 
 thereby inspire others to heroic living. When 
 this holding of the ever-advancing ideal before 
 the child in so attractive a manner as to draw 
 his affections toward it is once understood, the 
 mother or teacher can lead the child io will io 
 do almost anything. 
 
 When we see the little street Arabs of our 
 large cities, ragged, dirty, and hungry, smok- 
 ing cigarettes or cigars with a triumphant air 
 of having attained a much-envied distinction, 
 we know that their standard of manhood is 
 measured by the length of the cigar or size of 
 a pipe which a man can smoke. We know that 
 
152 Instinct of Recognition, or 
 
 high ideals have never been given to their 
 little souls, and that they have reached out for 
 some standard by which to measure their 
 growing manliness, and have taken this external 
 distinction as the test. With this thought in 
 our minds, we cannot urge too strongly upon our 
 public schools the celebration of such days as 
 Washington's Birthday, Decoration Day, and 
 other days which commemorate the great heroes 
 of a nation. So, too, have the monuments and 
 statues in our parks and public squares a bene- 
 ficial influence. By these means children learn 
 to know what are the types of character which 
 a nation delights to honor. 
 
 Froebel so well understood the value of 
 placing attractive ideals before children that he 
 has given us a little dramatic game of " The 
 Five Knights." This can be used as a little 
 song or play with the baby in the nursery, in 
 which case the fingers galloping over the table 
 represent the knights galloping into the court- 
 yard of the castle. With the older children in 
 the kindergarten it is usually dramatized by 
 five children being selected to represent the five 
 knights. These are sent out, and at a certain 
 stage of the game come galloping into the 
 room, always upon an imaginary charger such 
 as would have delighted the souls of the heroes 
 
The Training of the Will. 153 
 
 of old. True to his method of always choosing 
 the symbolical thing by which to teach the 
 child, Froebel has selected the knight as a 
 symbol of the highest public opinion. They 
 not only draw forth the child's admiration of 
 the man on horseback, with his power to 
 control the brute-force beneath him, but they 
 also symbolize that class of persons who have 
 the most complete control over themselves, who 
 were universal when the rest of the race was 
 feudal and narrow. Knighthood arose among 
 the class of men who forswore all that was low 
 and debasing when the world was sunk in igno- 
 rance and sensuality, and the word still remains 
 as a title of the best of the race. When we 
 speak of knightly conduct we have reference to 
 all that is chivalrous and truly noble. Froebel 
 thus gives to the mother the hint of the class 
 of persons to whom a child shall look for 
 approval or disapproval. It is the base fear of 
 the disapprobation of the "common herd" 
 which deters many a man from stepping out of 
 the rank-and-file and placing himself on the 
 side of the new and needed reform ; but it is the 
 love of the approval of the really best people 
 which becomes an incentive for the most earnest 
 endeavor upon the part of the human soul. 
 Much, then, depends upon the one to whose 
 
154 Instinct of Recognition^ or 
 
 opinion the child listens. The final aim of the 
 mother's or teacher's training is to have him 
 bow in complete obedience to the still, small 
 voice of God within him ; but many rounds of 
 the ladder have to be patiently climbed before 
 this supreme strength of will can be obtained. 
 A regard for public opinion is but one stage of 
 the development of the will-power. 
 
 One day I noticed that a little girl who was 
 very self-willed was sewing the card given her 
 in an irregular and disorderly manner. " Oh, 
 Elizabeth," I exclaimed, " you are not doing 
 that right! come here and let me show you how 
 to do it." " No," answered the child in a self- 
 satisfied tone, " Elizabeth likes it this way." I 
 saw that I must appeal to the public opinion of 
 the table of babies about her in order that I 
 might lead her to voluntarily undo the work. 
 So I asked her to show the card to the other 
 children. As is usually the case, public opin- 
 ion decided in the right, and the children said 
 they did not like it. " But Elizabeth likes it," 
 persisted the child. *'It's Elizabeth's card, 
 and she is going to make it this way." I saw 
 that the little community of her own equals had 
 not sufficient weight to influence her, and from 
 ner manner I knew that it was mere caprice on 
 her part. So I said, " Come with me and we 
 
The Training of the Will, 155 
 
 will go over to brother's table and see what 
 they think of it." We held the card up before 
 the next older children, and I said pleasantly, 
 "Children, what do yoti think of this card?" 
 "It is wrong," they exclaimed, "the soldiers" 
 (meaning the vertical lines) " are all tumbling 
 down." By this time the public opinion of our 
 little community had begun to have an effect, 
 and the child turned to me and exclaimed, " It 
 is a bad, nasty card, and Elizabeth will throw 
 it into the fire," starting at the same time 
 toward the open grate in the room. " Oh, no, 
 my dear," I exclaimed, " let's go over to the 
 table where the big children are. Perhaps 
 they can tell us something to do with it." 
 With that we walked across the room to the 
 table at which my older and better-trained 
 children were at work. After praising the 
 forms which they were making with their 
 sticks, in order to arouse within the child's 
 mind a still higher appreciation of their judg- 
 ment, I said, " Our little Elizabeth has a card 
 she wants to show you and see if any of you 
 can tell her what to do with it." The card was 
 held up, somewhat unwillingly this time, and 
 the children without hesitation said, "She must 
 take out the crooked stitches and put them in 
 straight." The oldest boy at the table added, 
 
156 Instinct of Recognition, or 
 
 ** Come here, Elizabeth ; I'll show you how to 
 do it." With that her little chair was drawn 
 up beside his larger one, and for ten minutes 
 the two patiently worked over the tangled card. 
 At the end of that time Elizabeth brought the 
 card to me and in triumphant delight ex- 
 claimed, " Now everybody will say that Eliza- 
 beth's card is pretty!" I had no further 
 trouble with the child in this particular direc- 
 tion of taking out work when wrongly done. 
 This, of course, would not be the right method 
 of dealing with a very sensitive child. The 
 story shows the need of increasing the standard 
 of judgment by which the child is to be 
 measured, in proportion to the child's estimate 
 of the worth and value of his own opinions. 
 The chief object in appealing to public opinion 
 is to create a constantly advancing ideal toward 
 which the child is attracted, and thereby to gain 
 a constantly increasing effort on his part to 
 realize this ideal. The ideal is usually best 
 seen, as said before, in the opinions expressed 
 in the presence of the child. With this 
 thought in mind, what think you of the mother 
 who tells in the child's presence, with evident 
 amusement, of the naughty tricks performed 
 by him ? Or of the father who pours into the 
 ear of the admiring little listener, tales and 
 
The Training of the Will 157 
 
 anecdotes of what a bad boy he was, and the 
 trouble and mischief which he caused ; or of the 
 friend who places in the hands of the growing 
 boy such ideals as those portrayed with 
 sprightliness in " Peck's Bad Boy " ? 
 
 But to return to our symbolic game. The 
 knights come galloping into the supposed 
 court-yard and ask the mother the privilege of 
 seeing her good child. They sing: 
 
 " We wish thy precious child to see, 
 They say he is like the dove so good; 
 And like the lamb of merry, merry mood. 
 Then wilt thou kindly let us meet him. 
 That tenderly our hearts may greet him? " 
 
 The supposed mother then holds out the 
 imaginary child to their view, and in her turn 
 
 sings : 
 
 "Now the precious child behold, 
 Well he merits love untold.'* 
 At this point the knights take up the song 
 with the words: 
 
 "Child, we give thee greetings rare. 
 These will sweeten many a care ; 
 Worth much love the good child is. 
 Peace and joy are ever his; 
 Now we will no longer tarry, 
 Joy unto our homes we carry." 
 
 Here is dramatically pictured forth the 
 knightly characters seeking and praising the 
 good child, — the mother with joy and pride 
 
158 Instinct of Recognition, or 
 
 holding him up to their view, not because of 
 any external condition whatsoever, but he is 
 precious because he merits love. Nor is the 
 goodness left vague and indefinite, for in the 
 explanation at the back of the song -book the 
 child asks the mother what was the song the 
 knights sung as they rode away, and the 
 mother tells him that it is a description of a 
 good child. *'Now, mother, we will listen to 
 the song sung by the knights so gallant, gay, 
 and strong, 'Come children quickly come, and 
 hear the song we sing of this baby dear.' " 
 Then follows the little song in which are dis- 
 tinctly brought out the characteristics of 
 activity, perseverance, love, gratitude, and 
 reverence, all of which are virtues which the 
 childish heart can understand. Thus the ideal 
 presented in this little game is made definite 
 and distinct, and the dim feeling is aroused in 
 the child's mind that such are the characters 
 which the best mothers and the gallant knights 
 admire and praise, and this ideal becomes his 
 ideal. That these are the impressions made 
 upon the child by such games cannot be 
 doubted by any one who has seen this game 
 played in a well-organized Kindergarten ; but 
 testimony is not wanting of the after-effects of 
 such games. A little girl was in one of our 
 
The Training of the Will, 159 
 
 Kindergartens for two years, and was after- 
 wards taken to Europe by her parents and re- 
 mained away from Kindergarten influence for 
 seven or eight years. Upon her return to 
 America a friend asked her what she remem- 
 bered of her Kindergarten experience. "Very 
 little," she replied; "I have been so entirely 
 shut away from any association with the 
 thought of it that it has nearly passed out of 
 my memory. Of course," she added, "I re- 
 member some things." "What," persisted the 
 inquirer, "do you remember most distinctly?" 
 "Well, for one thing," said she slowly, "I re- 
 member a little game we used to play in which 
 some knights came galloping into the room. I 
 do not remember much about the details of the 
 game, but I can recall even now the great 
 waves of joy which used to pass over me as we 
 played the part of holding out the good child 
 for the knights to see." 
 
 In one lovely home, where the mother had 
 learned to comprehend the underlying thought 
 of this little game and had explained it to the 
 father, the latter took upon himself the role of 
 the knight. Each evening when he came home, 
 their little boy ran out to meet him, and the 
 father took him up in his arms, then turned 
 and asked the mother if Henry had tried to be 
 
160 InsUnct of Becognition, or 
 
 a good boy during the day. If she replied 
 yeSy the father and son had a royal good romp 
 until dinner-time. If her reply was no, the 
 father quietly and solemnly set the little fellow 
 down upon the floor and walked out of the 
 room. So earnestly did the child learn to look 
 forward to this nightly approval or disapproval 
 of his conduct, that he would often stop in the 
 midst of his play during the day and ask his 
 mother if he had been good enough for her to 
 say yes that night. 
 
 In the second part of the song of *'The 
 Five Knights," the knights again come and 
 greet the mother, asking to see her good child. 
 This time the mother sadly shakes her head 
 and says : 
 
 "Ah, friendly knights, I grieve to say, 
 I cannot bring him to you to-day; 
 He cries, is so morose and cross, 
 That all too small we find the house." 
 
 The knights then turn, and as they leave the 
 mother, they sing, — 
 
 " Oh, such tidings give us pain; 
 We would have sung a joyous strain; 
 We'll ride away, we'll ride afar, 
 To where the good little children are." 
 
 In this way the child gets the idea that the 
 best people of the world are attracted toward 
 
The Training of the Will. 161 
 
 that which is good, and fly from that which is 
 evil. In fact, we need scarcely say of the best 
 people, is it not the virtue which is shown in 
 each individual that causes him to be loved at 
 all? Is it not the faults of people about us 
 which separate us from them? The sooner the 
 child learns the unifying effect of good, and the 
 isolating effect of evil conduct, the more earn- 
 estly will he strive to attain unto the one and to 
 avoid the other. Censure is as necessary as 
 praise in making definite the ideal set before 
 the child. Its office should be rightly under, 
 stood, however. The supposed child in this song, 
 dramatized by the real child, gives pleasure to 
 his mother and the brave knights when he is 
 good, and sorrow and pain when he has done 
 wrong. Thus comes to the child the beginning 
 of the thought, that as a man cannot live unto 
 himself alone, so too he cannot sin unto himself 
 alone ; that every deed has its effect upon others. 
 In the third phase of the song, the knights 
 again come and inquire of the mother concern- 
 ing her child. This time she joyously replies 
 that her child has become so good that he is 
 very dear to her, and that she cannot spare him 
 to them. At this the knights wave their hands 
 in congratulation and trot swiftly away. Here 
 we have the final stage in this progressive 
 11 
 
162 InsUnct of BecognUion, or 
 
 drama, illustrating how to train the child by 
 means of holding a beautiful and attractive 
 ideal before him. Joy, praise, love and com- 
 radeship are shown to have been merited by the 
 good child; regret, sorrow, pain and isolation 
 are shown to be the consequences of wrong- 
 doing. Return of companionship, forgiveness 
 of his wrong-doing, and harmony, can be 
 restored when the child turns from his wrong- 
 doing and strives to do right. This last point 
 is an important one. It cannot be too earnestly 
 considered. The reconciliation after the wrong- 
 doing means much for the future nearness of 
 the child to the one who has forgiven him. As 
 in this little game the knights were ready to 
 come again with their welcome and approval as 
 soon as the child was worthy of it, so too should 
 the child in real life feel that it is his own 
 wrong-doing only which separates him from 
 those he loves. 
 
 If you must say, "You cannot come into 
 mamma's room," always add " until you are 
 more courteous." Never forget that little word 
 *' until 'j'^ it means that the ideal can be restored 
 and the child can again strive to realize it, 
 through patient, earnest endeavor. There must 
 be no failure of sympathy upon your part the 
 moment it is asked for. In the depth of isola- 
 
The Training of the Will. 163 
 
 tion caused by wrong-doing, let there be the 
 underlying feeling upon the part of the child 
 which prompted the prodigal son to say, " I 
 will arise and go unto my father." This is the 
 one hope which the despairing soul has. In every 
 way let the child feel that it is his wrong-doing 
 alone which causes the separation ; that under- 
 neath are the everlasting arms of love. Thus 
 will he learn the meaning of the message of 
 Christ to the world that he came not to 
 reconcile God unto man, but man unto God. 
 And little by little will come the realization that 
 free-will is not the liberty to do tvhatever one 
 likes, hut the power to compel one's self to obey 
 the laws of right, to do what ought to be done 
 in the very face of otherwise overwhelming 
 impulse. 
 
CHAPTEB VIII. 
 
 THE SOUL, 
 
 THE INSTINCT OF REVERENCE, OR THE TRAINING 
 OP THE WORSHIP. 
 
 Rightly understood, the tell-tale body pro- 
 claims every mood of the inner world. If a 
 child comes bounding forward with outstretched 
 arms and radiant smile, the mother knows that 
 there is working within no conscious remem- 
 brance of wrong which needs reproof, no 
 thought of command disobeyed. Let him 
 answer her call with dragging step or downcast 
 eyes, and she knows that something is wrong; 
 that a barrier has been raised between them. 
 In many less pronounced ways the attitude of 
 the child's body and the expression of his face 
 help the mother instinctively to read what is 
 going on within her offspring's mind, even 
 before he can tell her in words of his likes and 
 dislikes, his desires and emotions. If all 
 mothers knew that the soul could be read by 
 means of the body, there would be less misun- 
 derstood childhood and fewer great and painful 
 ^aps between parent and child. 
 164 
 
The Training of the Worship. 165 
 
 Here again we find that insight proves 
 and makes strong the natural instinct of the 
 mother. Here again we see that study, travel, 
 and breadth of culture can become aids for 
 this highest work of woman, namely, child- 
 culture. All study of art shows that the great 
 painters, sculptors, poets and dramatists, have 
 depicted certain inner states of mind or soul 
 by similar attitudes of head, hand and body. 
 For example, the clasped hands denote entreaty. 
 In Vedder's illustration of Omar Khayyam's 
 Judgment Scene, the Eecording Angel is seen 
 above with his Book of Judgment, and below 
 are seen the clasped hands of the terrified and 
 beseeching multitude. No faces are needed to 
 add to this tale of despair; the hands alone 
 tell us the story, the whole story. Over and 
 over again do we find this external bodily 
 gesture made to express the internal condition 
 of the mind. 
 
 One morning, in one of our large kindergar- 
 tens, a young and somewhat inexperienced 
 director was trying to teach the children a 
 new song in which the fingers of one hand 
 represented the pigeons flying in and out of 
 the house made by the other hand. One shy 
 little fellow did not take part in the dramatic 
 representation. I saw from the nervous 
 
166 The Instinct of Reverence^ or 
 
 twisting and clasping of his hands that it was 
 no willful disobedience, but shyness and dread 
 of being made conspicuous which prevented 
 the child from imitating the teacher's motions. 
 Unaccustomed to reading her children by their 
 bodily gestures, the young teacher turned to 
 the child and said: "Freddie, why do you 
 not show how the little birds fly?" In a 
 moment the two tiny hands were clasped in 
 entreaty. Still the unseeing director did not 
 understand the appeal for mercy, but, with the 
 best of intentions, took hold of the little fellow's 
 fingers and began to move them for him. This 
 was too much for the child, and he burst into a 
 flood of tears, which astonished the poor girl 
 who had intended only loving help, but who 
 in reality had dragged his young soul into the 
 very publicity from which he was pleading to 
 escape. 
 
 The cleyiched hands denote the struggle 
 within, and great artists often use them as the 
 only marked sign of the inward turmoil which 
 the calm face and strong will are determined 
 to conceal. 
 
 The open and extended palm, which we see 
 in so many of the pictures and statues of the 
 saints, indicates entire freedom from deceit or 
 concealment, as if the body as well as the lips 
 
The Training of the Worship. 167 
 
 were saying : " Purge me, O, Lord, cleanse 
 me with hyssop that I may be clean." Just 
 as surely do the hands of a little child tell us 
 of his inner frankness or deceit. Does not 
 the child oftentimes instinctively put his 
 hands behind him or nervously twist them into 
 the folds of his dress or apron when he is 
 being questioned, even though a forbidden 
 sweet is not now in the hidden hand? Many a 
 mother or kindergartner in a trying moment 
 could discover the truth or falsehood of a child 
 by the right understanding of this unconscious 
 language of his hands, and thus there would 
 be avoided that sad catastrophe of unjust accu- 
 sation. 
 
 In the kindergarten one morning, soon after 
 the entrance of a new child, I asked the circle 
 of children seated about me to show me the 
 little finger families, that we might learn a 
 new song about them. All the little hands 
 were held up with palms toward me, save the 
 one new child, who in a timid, shy manner 
 held his palms averted. A word was sufficient 
 to turn them into the franker position which 
 the others had taken, but in a moment or two 
 they were again turned away. After we had 
 finished the exercise and the children had 
 gone to their table for work, I said to my 
 
168 The Instinct of Eeverenee^ or 
 
 assistant, " We must watcli that new boy 
 carefully. He has too secretive a nature." 
 Before noon that day, as I passed around the 
 table to observe and commend the clay work 
 of the different children, I found none upon 
 his board. I asked where it was, and he made 
 no reply ; but the child who sat next to him 
 said, "He stuffed it all into his pocket." So 
 soon did this secretiveness, discovered by the 
 position of his hands, begin to manifest itself in 
 the hiding of material which he did not under- 
 stand was already his own. 
 
 In Leonardo di Vinci's great picture of the 
 Last Supper, the character of each of the disci- 
 ples is plainly shown by the hands. Even 
 those of Our Lord are made by this master 
 painter to express the two-fold nature of his 
 struggle. The one hand with down-turned and 
 averted palm clearly says: "If it be possible, 
 let this cup pass from me." The other, with 
 upturned and receptive palm, calmly indicates 
 the words, " Not my will but Thine be done." 
 
 The position of the head portrays the true 
 mood of the soul. The rapt and devout saint 
 who thinks not of earth or of its attractions, 
 is represented with face turned skyward: the 
 penitent and humbled Magdalene turns her 
 bowed face to the earth, and most significantly 
 
The Training of the Worship. 169 
 
 is told the story of repentance, forgiveness and 
 redemption, by that sin-stained face turned 
 upward towards heaven's light. To me the 
 church of the Madeleine in Paris is truly a 
 representative of the name it bears, in that all 
 the light within its windowless walls comes 
 from the skylight in the roof above: it is the 
 upturned face expressed in the architecture as 
 well as in the paintings on the walls. The 
 mother or teacher who understands these things 
 will quietly wait before disturbing a child, 
 whose face is thoughtfully turned toward the 
 cloud, moon, or shining star, and will not dare 
 to break in upon the reverential mood. The 
 attitude of the body will suggest to you 
 whether it is an idle day-dream in which the 
 child is indulging, or a communion of his little 
 soul with higher things. How much may be 
 learned from the childish head which bows 
 before the stern reproof or searching glance! 
 The close observer will notice that when 
 shame alone is disturbing a sensitive child, the 
 head droops ; if with shame is commingled love 
 and a desire for reconciliation, the head leans 
 a little to one side as well as downward ; if the 
 head is bowed, but averted, the conquest is but 
 half made, the sin is admitted but the heart 
 is not won. 
 
170 The Instinct of Reverencey or 
 
 The degree to which the soul can express 
 itself through its body varies of course with 
 different children. To the true mother the 
 child's eyes are too well known as the open door 
 to his soul's condition to need more words from 
 me. Perhaps no other part of the body speaks 
 in such a subtle manner of the inner rightness 
 or wrongness as the chest. It is here that the 
 sense of courage, honor, and self-respect, or 
 their absence, is plainly declared. What is it 
 which has given Mr. Daniel French's study of 
 the Minute Men at Concord the power to stir 
 every American heart? Mildness and determi- 
 nation sit upon the brow and hover around the 
 closed lips; courage and suppressed indigna- 
 tion are shown in the strong hands ; alertness 
 and readiness to act upon the moment are to be 
 read in the position of the body ; but the follow- 
 ing immortal words are as plainly declared by 
 the expanded chest as by the written historic 
 Declaration of Independence: 
 
 " When, in the course of human events, it 
 becomes necessary for one people to dissolve 
 the political bands which have connected them 
 with another, and to assume among the powers 
 of the earth the separate and equal station to 
 which the laws of nature and of nature's God 
 entitle them, a decent respect for the opinions 
 
The Training of the Worship. 171 
 
 pf mankind requires that they should declare 
 the causes which impel them to the separation. 
 
 "We hold these truths to be self-evident — that 
 all men are created equal; that they are 
 endowed by their Creator with certain inalien- 
 able rights ; that among these are life, liberty, 
 and the pursuit of happiness." 
 
 Whoever has witnessed Edwin Booth's "Shy- 
 lock " has seen the character of the sordid, self- 
 debasing usurer almost as plainly delineated by 
 the sunken chest as by the words of Shake- 
 speare. Imagine, if you can, Uriah Heap with 
 a broad, expanded chest! Of course, physical 
 disability must not be confounded with moral 
 unsoundness; the former shows its depressing 
 symptoms in all of the moods of the child, that 
 is, it is permanent; the latter affects him only 
 temporarily when the sense of self-respect is at 
 low tide. 
 
 It was my good fortune to meet once a week, 
 for a year or more, with a band of earnest 
 teachers of all grades. For weeks we discussed 
 what outer sign would help us to discover 
 whether the unfulfilled task of the child was 
 due to a physical disability, to mental disincli- 
 nation, or to mere caprice. With this thought 
 in mind we watched and studied our pupils; 
 the brightness or dullness of the eye was no 
 
172 The Instinct of Reverence^ or 
 
 criterion, as too often an inward fever gave an 
 added sparkle to the eye, an added flush to the 
 cheeks ; the clearness of the skin did not denote 
 always freshness and purity of blood, it 
 being oftentimes a matter of inheritance. Indi- 
 cation after indication was suggested, discussed 
 and tested. Finally, it was agreed that the well 
 child carried at all times an active, expanded 
 chest, except when a sense of shame or loss of 
 integrity overpowered him, when the sunken 
 chest proved the certainty of wrong conduct; 
 also that the child whose physical state is 
 a hindrance to his mental effort could be known 
 by his sunken chest which never expanded. In 
 a word, that this part of the body rarely fails 
 as a sign by which the thoughtful, alert mother 
 or teacher may read moral rectitude or its 
 opposite. 
 
 Without self-respect there is no possibility of 
 building up a law within. A human being who 
 has it not must remain forever subject to an 
 outside law: noblesse oblige must be an unknown 
 power to him. Therefore, any marring of that 
 precious germ is of incalculable injury to the 
 child's future stability and strength of char- 
 acter. Let me give you an illustration of the 
 value of this knowledge of attitudes to those 
 who must deal with that sensitive and ye^ 
 
The Training of the Worship, 173 
 
 important thing, a little child's self-respect. 
 We were playing one morning in Kindergarten 
 a game which requires a quick galloping on 
 the part of some of the children while the oth- 
 ers remained sitting. As the horsemen came 
 galloping by, one little fellow stuck out his 
 foot in an attempt to interrupt the play; it 
 was his first violation of the rule of all our 
 games, which is non-inierference with the rights 
 of others; so I smiled and shook my head; 
 again the horsemen came careering past, again 
 the little foot went out to interrupt the gallop ; 
 this time I said: *' Charlie, do not do that, it 
 spoils our game." A third time the horsemen 
 had to make their charge, and a third time the 
 obstinate little foot went out; this unmistak- 
 ably was open, conscious wrong- doing, and 
 must be effectually checked and at once. I 
 stopped the game and said: " Children, we can- 
 not finish our play ; step back to the circle ; 
 Charlie has spoiled it for all of us." There 
 was the dead silence usual upon such infre- 
 quent occasions. All took their places in the 
 play circle, and all eyes were turned toward 
 Charlie. The little head began to sink; this 
 was an indication of the inward shame which I 
 intended he should feel, as the laws of each of 
 our games are precious to us all and the train- 
 
174 The Instinct of Reverence, or 
 
 ing into absolute obedience to these laws is one 
 of the best things in the Kindergarten , but at 
 the same time that the little head went down, 
 the chest began to sink, and I saw that my 
 reproof had been too great for the little fellow ; 
 his self-respect had been injured. In a moment 
 I was on my knees beside him with my arms 
 around him , the few words of needed apology 
 were soon given by him and accepted by me. 
 but the chest did not come up to its natural 
 position until, when the play-time had ended, 
 I turned and asked him to lead in the march 
 back to the seats, thereby showing my return- 
 ing respect for him. 
 
 We have been speaking of the aid which this 
 study gives to our understanding of the child. 
 Let us now turn to the value of it in helping 
 us to train him aright. 
 
 The effect of the body upon the mind is not 
 generally appreciated. That a sound mind 
 can work freely, a well-balanced character 
 develop fully, only in a sound body, is ad- 
 mitted by all; but the more subtle influence 
 is not so easily comprehended. Of equal 
 importance is this other side of the question. 
 If mind or soul acts upon the body, the 
 outward gesture and attitude also reacts upon 
 the inward feeling. The artists of the world 
 
The Training of the Worship, 175 
 
 hare portrayed the former; the thinkers have 
 taught us the latter, and our close study of the 
 child verifies them both. The soul speaks 
 through the body, and the body in return 
 gives its command to the soul. Try for a 
 moment to think intently upon some difficult 
 subject with your body in a lazy, relaxed 
 posture, or arouse your body to a perfectly 
 erect position, similar to the one given us in 
 that beautiful portrait of the Queen Louise of 
 Prussia, and see for yourself the effect which 
 it produces upon you ; you can then understand 
 why the military position is obligatory to the 
 soldier, the constant attHiide of courage 
 engenders the soldierly virtue. What is the 
 advice of the wide-awake business man to the 
 discouraged and faint-hearted friend who comes 
 to him for counsel? " Hold up your head and 
 be a man," he says, unconsciously coupling 
 the physical attitude with the desired mental 
 condition. Plato, in his " Eepublic," claims 
 that the right training of the body in gym- 
 nastics, in time with some rhythmical music, 
 has an undoubted effect upon character, the 
 gymnastics tending to develop the spirited 
 part of man's nature and the musical accom- 
 paniment toning this development down to 
 gentleness, but not to effeminacy. He adds, 
 
176 The Instinct of Reverence^ or 
 
 "Those who devote themselves to games 
 exclusively become ruder than they ought to 
 be." 
 
 In the second part of " Wilhelm Meister," 
 Goethe's master-work on education, the chil- 
 dren in the ideal Province of Pedagogy are 
 trained to take one of three attitudes, accord- 
 ing to their degree of development, whenever 
 an overseer or teacher passes, whether it be in 
 school room, playground or field. The young- 
 est fold their arms crosswise on the breast and 
 look cheerfully towards the sky; the interme- 
 diate ones have their arms behind them and 
 look smilingly upon the ground; the oldest 
 ones stand erect boldly, with arms at the side, 
 turning their heads to the right and placing 
 themselves in a row instead of remaining alone 
 like the others. Naturally enough, Wilhelm 
 Meister inquired as to the supposed effect of 
 these strange postures upon the children. 
 " Well-bred children," replied " The Three," 
 " possess a great deal. Nature has given to 
 each everything which he needs of home and 
 abundance. Our duty is to develop this. 
 Often it is better developed by itself, but one 
 thing no one brings into the world, and yet it 
 is that upon which depends everything through 
 which a man becomes manly on every side. 
 
The Training of the Worship. 177 
 
 If you can find it out for yourself, speak out.'* 
 Wilhelm bethought himself for a short time, 
 and then shook his head. After a suitable 
 pause, they exclaimed, "Veneration!" Wil- 
 helm was startled. "Veneration," they repeated, 
 " it is wanting in all, perhaps in yourself. 
 You have seen three kinds of gestures: we 
 teach the three-fold veneration. The three 
 combine to form a whole, then widen into the 
 highest power and effort. The first is rever- 
 ence for that which is above us; the arms 
 folded on the breast, the cheerful glance toward 
 the sky. That is precisely what we prescribe 
 in our untutored children, at the same time 
 requiring witness of them that there is a God 
 above who reflects and reveals himself in our 
 parents, tutors, and superiors. Second, vene- 
 ration for that which is below us ; the hands 
 folded on the back as if tied together, the 
 lowered smiling glance bespeaks that we have 
 to regard the earth well and cheerfully. It 
 gives us the opportunity to maintain ourselves, 
 it affords unspeakable joys and it brings 
 desperate sufferings. If one hurts oneself, 
 whether intentionally or accidentally, if 
 earthly chance does one any harm, let that be 
 well with all, for such dangers accompany u^ 
 all our life long, but from this condition we 
 12 
 
178 The Instinct of Reverence^ or 
 
 deliver a pupil as soon as possible. Directly 
 we are convinced that the teachings of this 
 subject have made a sufficient impression upon 
 him, then we bid him be a man, look to his 
 companions and guide himself with reference 
 to them. Now he stands erect, when in union 
 with his colleagues, does he present a front to 
 the world." And in further conversation this 
 wonderful " Three " explained to Wilhelm 
 Meister that the three-fold gestures are to 
 impress the youth with the three-fold rever- 
 ence, and lead to the comprehension of the 
 three great stages of religion, namely: First, 
 the heathen or ethical religion; second, the 
 philosophical religion, which is based upon 
 man's recognition of the worships of the rest 
 of the universe; and finally the third, or 
 Christian religion, which recognizes the Divine 
 even in humility and poverty, scorn and con- 
 tempt, shame and misery, suffering and death." 
 This, coming from one of the world's most 
 acute observers and deepest thinkers, is a 
 strong verification of the statement before 
 made. 
 
 Froebel, the Apostle of Childhood, makes 
 use of the same thought in his " Mutter und 
 Koselieder," when he would help the mother 
 to develop aright the sense of reverence in her 
 
The Training of the Worship. 179 
 
 child. He knew well that to develop a spirit 
 of reverence was to develop a capacity for 
 religion. In a talk with the mother about the 
 little song called " Brothers and Sisters," 
 wherein the baby is taught to slowly and softly 
 fold his little hands together, as if the little 
 fingers were so many children being soothed 
 to sleep, Froebel says, " The care of the life of 
 a child's inner and higher feeling, disposition 
 and ideas belongs certainly to the most delicate 
 and yet the most important and difficult part 
 of his nature. From it springs all and develops 
 all that is highest and noblest in the life of the 
 individual and the race, and ultimately all 
 religious life which is at one with God in dis- 
 position, thought and deed." 
 
 "When and where does it begin?" he asks. 
 Then adds, " It is with it as with the germs 
 of plants and seeds in the spring; they are 
 there long before they are outwardly visible. 
 So we know not when and where this develop- 
 ment commences in the human being. If we 
 begin cultivating it too soon, we make the 
 same mistake as by exposing seeds too soon 
 and too much to the developing sunlight and 
 nourishing dampness. Both would injure the 
 tender germ. If we begin too late or too 
 feebly, we are met by the same result; what is 
 
180 The Instinct of Reverence, or 
 
 to be done then ? How does this inner religious 
 life show itself?" 
 
 The disease which is fastening itself upon 
 the Christians of to-day is se?/-activity, the 
 too great emphasis of Tvhat we must do, too 
 little of what God has done. The bustling 
 Sunday-school superintendent ; the hurried, 
 impatient mother teaching her child his cate- 
 chism while tying his necktie for Sunday- 
 school, are but modern versions of the story of 
 Tantalus, trying to satisfy infinite longings 
 with finite activities. Much of the well intended 
 primary Sunday-school work loses half of its 
 efficiency from the teacher's not understand- 
 ing that the child must be in gentle, reveren- 
 tial mood before he can be in the right religious 
 attitude. The teacher should approach this 
 holiest temple of God with reverence. Is 
 there a place holier than the soul of a child? 
 " You," said Froebel, " must keep holy the 
 being of the little child. Protect it from 
 every rough and rude impression, every touch 
 of the vulgar ; a touch, a look, a sound, is often 
 sufficient to inflict savage wounds. A child's 
 soul is often more tender and vulnerable than 
 the finest or tenderest plant." Surely this is 
 an important question for the mother who con- 
 siders the training of the divine element in her 
 
The Training of the Worship, 181 
 
 child as her highest and holiest work in life. 
 Froebel then goes on to say that there must be 
 some necessary connection between the outside 
 bodily gesture and the inward soul-attitude. 
 " That so slight a thing as the gentle folding of 
 the hands, with an external quietness, impresses 
 the little soul with an inner feeling of collected 
 force or unity, which is the germ of that great 
 and strong religious conviction which leads us 
 to speak of God as the ' Life in whom we live 
 and move and have our being.' " He tells the 
 mother that by the good things which she thinks^ 
 she can bind her child to good by many links ; 
 in other words, that the good thoughts within 
 /ler heart tell themselves unconsciously through 
 her bodily gestures and expressions of face, 
 impressing silently the chil(Ts heart. 
 
 This is the same thought which he again 
 expresses when he says, " The child's first 
 ideas of prayer come to him when an infant by 
 the mother's kneeling beside his crib in silent 
 prayer; her bowed head and kneeling body 
 tell of submission to and reverence for a power 
 greater than herself; her tone of voice when 
 she speaks of sacred things is far more effect- 
 ual with the little listener than the words she 
 says. Soft, low, sacred music, some beautiful 
 picture of a sad-faced Madonna-like mother 
 
182 the Instinct of Reverence, 
 
 watching over her sleeping child, flood his 
 little soul with reverence." It is this sense of 
 reverence which he needs more than dogmatic 
 or specific teaching at this early period of life. 
 Oh, mother! Does not the thought that your 
 real inner life inevitably tells upon that of 
 your child, rouse in you the desire to live the 
 highest, noblest spiritual life of which you are 
 capable ? 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE INSTINCT OF IMITATION, OR THE TRAINING 
 OF THE FAITH. 
 
 The instinct of imitation is one of the most 
 important factors in a child's education. This 
 instinct is universal, although the power to 
 imitate varies with different children. By uni- 
 versal instinct is meant one which manifests 
 itself in all races and conditions, and not one 
 which is the result of some peculiarity of in- 
 heritance or environment in any one class. 
 
 Imitation is the unconscious effort of a child 
 to understand life, by doing as the people 
 about him are doing. It is his natural impulse 
 to test the actions of people about him. The 
 value which the world places upon this 
 line of conduct is shown by the adage, "Put 
 yourself in his place," which is often used 
 when an appeal is made for charity of judg- 
 ment or even for justice. It is only when we 
 ourselves imitate any line of work that we get 
 into real sympathy with other workers in the 
 same direction. "It takes a hero," says Les- 
 sing, "to write the biography of a hero;" only 
 a man of equal or greater power can rightly 
 183 
 
184 The Instinct of Imitation^ or 
 
 understand the hero. Christ applied this test 
 when He told His disciples that they could 
 know the will of His father in heaven by doing 
 it. We shall find that this instinct is used as 
 an aid in human affairs, from the teaching of 
 the tiny babe to wave his hand, "By-by," on 
 through all intermediate efforts of mankind, to 
 that class which takes as its ideal the highest 
 injunction given to man, "Be ye therefore per- 
 fect, even as your Father which is in Heaven 
 is perfect." 
 
 We see the manifestation of this inborn im- 
 pulse in children of all stages of growth. The 
 child of two years is filled with delight when 
 his mother teaches him to say "Bow-wow" like 
 the dog, or "Moo-moo' like the cow, or shows 
 him how to swing his ball like a bell, or to 
 make it spring like a cat. The girl of the same 
 age, or a little older ; will nurse her doll and ten- 
 derly sing it to sleep, or shake it and scold it, 
 according to the treatment she has seen given 
 to children by mother or nurse. Often in my 
 twilight walks I have seen the various activi- 
 ties of a great city mirrored in the imitative 
 play of the street children. Here is a mere 
 speck of humanity, toddling along with a di- 
 lapidated toy wagon with stray bits of wood in 
 it, and calling in a high childish treble some 
 
The Training of the Faith, 185 
 
 indistinguishable words which an older sister 
 explains as intended for, "Kindling for sale." 
 There, rushing up the street, comes a boyish 
 form, with arms swinging, and voice shouting 
 rapidly, "Lang, lang, lang, lang!" and the im- 
 aginary fire-engine has flashed by. Again, if 
 it be near election time one may meet a flaring 
 torch-light procession consisting perhaps of 
 but three small boys ; the torch-lights may be 
 an old broom, a picket from a fence, and a 
 crooked stick, still the commanding spirit is 
 there, usually imitating a drum major, and the 
 loyal legions are marching close behind him 
 as if inspired by the strongest party feeling. 
 In yonder vacant lot a handful of boys are 
 stirring up the feeble blaze of a bonfire, zeal- 
 ously adding to the flame such stray fagots and 
 shingles as the neighborhood affords ; listen to 
 their talk, and you will perceive that some em- 
 bryo Daniel Boone among them is carrying 
 out his day-dream, and has led his comrades 
 into the hardships of pioneer life in as exact 
 an imitation of the hero of some tale as he can 
 attain unto. The real or ideal world in which 
 these children's thoughts live is going on in 
 mimic representation of the older and fuller 
 life around them. Sad is the story which the 
 student of childhood reads in the tell-tale play 
 
186 The Insiind of Imitation, or 
 
 of children in the poorer districts. There is 
 the drunkard who is unwillingly reeling home, 
 escorted by a would-be policeman ; here is the 
 daring robber who can outrun or outwit the 
 pursuing officers of justice, for which over- 
 reaching: of the law he receives the vociferous 
 applause of his companions. A five o'clock 
 morning walk in one district showed me three 
 wrecks of womanhood standing with dejected 
 lassitude, waiting for the low groggeries to 
 open their doors to them. An evening ramble 
 over the same ground presented a score of rag- 
 ged little girls playing with zest the part of 
 scolding and threatening mothers, belaboring 
 their children, who in turn squirmed and 
 twisted, cried and begged for mercy. A mother 
 needs but to watch the unguarded play of her 
 own nursery to see copied the gracious manner 
 of some visitor, the sincere welcome from the 
 kindly hostess, the wise remark of the school- 
 teacher, the courtesy bestowed upon the milk- 
 man or grocer's boy, or oftentimes the opposite 
 of all this — the affectation of the visitor, the in- 
 sincere welcome of the unwilling hostess, the 
 petulant reproof of the irritated school-teacher, 
 the lack of courtesy to the tradesman. The 
 child is but learning the life about him, and 
 
The Training of the Faith. 187 
 
 by imitating it he comes into close sympathy 
 with it. 
 
 The kindergarten games are based upon this 
 instinct of imitation and its reaction upon 
 character. In the game called "Bird's Nest," 
 two children act the part of father-bird and 
 mother-bird, and others take the part of bird- 
 lings in the nest. The former prepare the nest 
 and feed the baby birds, and finally teach them 
 how to fly. I think no one could witness this 
 game and not feel that the parental love was 
 being surely and rightly trained, and that no 
 amount of word explanation could give the 
 child as sympathetic an understanding of the 
 relationship between parent and offspring as is 
 established by such simple imitative play. We 
 have another game in which several children, 
 each with his hands upon the hips of the child 
 in front of him, creep along the floor, in imita- 
 tion of a worm, until finally they curl them- 
 selves up into a cocoon which lies quite still 
 upon the floor, while the rest of the children 
 sing "Good-bye, till you come out a butterfly." 
 Then comes a pause in which there is some- 
 times represented rain or wind, or other phases 
 of the weather, through which the cocoon re- 
 mains undisturbed. When the song takes up 
 the words, "Oh, there it is! Oh, see it fly, a 
 
188 The Instinct of Imitation, or 
 
 lovely, lovely butterfly," the head child creeps 
 out and on light tiptoe, with arms waving in the 
 air, flits about the room in imitation of a but- 
 terfly. A morning or two after the introduc- 
 tion of this game into my Kindergarten, a 
 child full of life and animal spirits came run- 
 ning to meet me with a face which proclaimed 
 some good news that he was eager to tell. He 
 began, "I saw a truly little worm this morn- 
 ing." "Did you? Did you watch him crawl?" 
 "Yes, and I picked him up and put him over 
 into a yard, so he wouldn't get stepped on, 
 cause I knowed what a nice butterfly he might 
 be some day!" All the glow of intense and 
 tender sympathy was in his face and voice; he 
 was indeed at one with God's creation ; the 
 worm and he had become brothers, through his 
 having imitated its form of activity. As I 
 looked down into his soul -lit eyes, I wondered 
 if this childish sympathy would not some day 
 help him to save, for the sake of the glorious 
 possibilities which lie in each of them, the lit- 
 tle worms of humanity which crawl about the 
 streets and gutters of our large cities. In an- 
 other game, in which one or two of the chil- 
 dren imitate scissor-grinders, and the others 
 the owners of the scissors and knives that need 
 repairing, we are accustomed not only to play 
 
The Training of the Faith, 189 
 
 that we pay the household benefactors, but 
 usually thank them quite courteously for their 
 services. At one time I called in a real scis- 
 sors-grinder, and had him sharpen and tighten 
 some scissors, in order that the children might 
 see the operation and the more perfectly imi- 
 tate it. After he had completed his work, I 
 paid him his money and opened the door for 
 him to go out, when one little girl exclaimed 
 in astonishment, *'Why, you forgot to thank 
 him, too!" She had in play been a scissors- 
 grinder, and knew that recognition was due as 
 well as money. 
 
 The parts enacted in all games of the Kin- 
 dergarten are of an ennobling kind. The at- 
 traction which the role of the wild and reckless 
 robber, who places himself outside the pale of 
 the law, has for the child, is changed in the 
 Kindergarten to a higher phase of the same 
 daring spirit — for example, that of the brave 
 and self-controlling knight, who is above law. 
 All that is beautiful in nature — ^birds, bees, 
 flowers, running water, fishes, even the stars 
 themselves — is personified by the children ; all 
 that is useful or noble among the activities of 
 man — the farmer, the miller, the baker, the 
 cobbler, the cooper, the grimy blacksmith or the 
 lordly mayor of a city — is reproduced in childish 
 
190 The Instinct of Imitation, or 
 
 play in the Kindergarten. The children's 
 hearts are put into harmony with all that ex-^ 
 ists, save wrong alone. One year my own 
 study was concentrated upon Homer, and, as is 
 natural with the true Kindergartner, that which 
 delighted me was made into childish story and 
 given again to my children. We had stories 
 of the young Achilles, who, though so strong 
 and brave, could yet control his temper, and at 
 the bidding of the goddess Pallas Athene could 
 put up his sword and leave the angry Agamem- 
 non. Thrilled and enraptured, the children 
 listened to the story of the tender and true 
 Hector, who could put aside his baby boy and 
 leave his wife that he might go and defend his 
 country. With an interest akin to that of the 
 child-race to whom the story was first sung, 
 they listened to the wise Ulysses and his plans 
 for capture of the Trojan city and the rescue 
 of beautiful Helen ; truly were our days heroic, 
 proving to me that all really- high and great 
 literature holds that which is wholesome and 
 good for the little child, when one knows how 
 to give it aright. Truth is always helpful if 
 wisely given. Great books live through cen- 
 turies of time because of their authors' insight 
 into truth. 
 
 Over and over again did my children ask for 
 
The Training of the Faith, 191 
 
 the stories of those old Greek heroes. At last 
 a child said, "Let's play Troy!" "How can 
 we?" said I. "Oh, don't you see?" was the 
 ready answer. "The chairs can be the walls 
 of Troy, just so," (arranging them in a circle, 
 backs turned outward,) "this table with four 
 legs can be the horse, ever so many of us can 
 get in under it and be the Greek soldiers 
 while the rest can push us into the city, then 
 we can get the beautiful Helen and take her 
 home." So eager were all to attempt the 
 dramatizing of the stories told, that chairs and 
 tables were soon arranged, and the various 
 names of the heroes to be represented were se- 
 lected. One chose to be the strong Achilles , 
 another the good Diomed, whom the gods helped 
 in the fight; another was Ajax, the brave; 
 another was Hector, and so on, until all the 
 more heroic characters were chosen. The beau- 
 tiful Helen was to be represented by a dear 
 little fair-haired girl of four, a favorite of all. 
 To test them I said: "Where is Prince Paris? 
 Who will be Prince Paris?" There was a 
 dead silence; then one boy of six, in 
 scornful astonishment exclaimed: "Why, 
 nobody wants to be him — he was a bad, 
 selfish man!" "Well," said I, "the tongs can 
 be Paris," and from that time forward when- 
 
192 The Instinct of Imitation^ or 
 
 ever they cared to play their improvisation of 
 the old Greek poem the royal Helen was gravely 
 led into the walled city of Troy, with the tongs 
 keeping step at her side, as a fit representa- 
 tion of the inner ugliness of weak and profli- 
 gate young princes. I merely relate this inci- 
 dent to show that when children have been led 
 to represent the good and true, they do not 
 wish to play a baser part. I firmly believe the 
 school of the future will see the noisy, boister- 
 ous, lawless "recess" of the primary depart- 
 ments replaced by lively, active impersona- 
 tions of historic scenes, or of the early life of 
 our own country, which the children are be- 
 ginning to learn. Playing these heroic parts 
 strengthens the heroic element within, and aids 
 in the building of that inner wall without 
 which no child is safe. 
 
 That a mother may know how she can 
 rightly begin the religious as well as the secu- 
 lar training of her child, Froebel uses the 
 following incident, which is an example of this 
 instinct of imitation: A child is taken out for 
 an airing on a windy day, and notices, as he 
 naturally would by the law of recognition, the 
 moving objects about him; among them a 
 weathervane, a very common object in Ger- 
 many. He sees that it moves from side to 
 
The Training of the Faith, 193 
 
 side, and instinctively imitates it so that he 
 may understand it. The mother, whose in- 
 sight tells her that this is a critical moment in 
 the child's life, playfully aids him in his at- 
 tempt to turn his hand upon his wrist as the 
 weathervane turns upon the rod, and sings 
 some such ditty as this: 
 
 " As the cock upon the tower 
 
 Turns in wind and storm and shower, 
 
 So my baby's hand is bending. 
 
 And his pleasure has no ending." 
 To show the deep meaning which lies in 
 childish play, Froebel has used an incident of 
 common everyday life for each song in his 
 "Mutter und Koselieder," carefully choosing 
 those which are the most helpful to the moth- 
 er. The earnest student will find imbedded 
 in each incident a lesson for the child which 
 may be eternal in its influence upon him. Thus, 
 in this seemingly insignificant attempt to imi- 
 tate the weathervane, Froebel, with his proph- 
 et's eye, sees that the child is attempting to 
 find the invisible cause back of the visible mov- 
 ing object; sees, too, that it is the mother's 
 opportunity to begin to impress upon him the 
 great lesson that behind all visible manifesta- 
 tions of life is a great Invisible Power. Sci- 
 ence may call it Foi^ce; Art may call it Har- 
 mony; Philosophy may call it World Order; 
 
 18 
 
194 The Instinct of Imitation, or 
 
 various religions have called it God, but 
 Christianity calls it ^^ Our Father ^ This is an 
 important moment in a child's life, this first 
 groping after the unseen. Are not the great, 
 the powerful, the lasting things of life all in- 
 visible? To again turn to nature for illustra- 
 tions, the great attractive and repulsive forces 
 have thrown up the vast mountain ranges 
 and cleft them in twain; gravitation has 
 settled their crumbling fragments into level 
 plains, and caused the water-courses to sweep 
 in given directions; capillary attraction has 
 drawn the water up into the seed cells and 
 caused plant life to germinate and vegetation 
 to cover the plains; chemical action and assim- 
 ilation have changed vegetable and animal 
 food into human blood ; appetites have caused 
 the human being to seek food and shelter and 
 the opportunity to propagate his kind ; parent- 
 al instinct has given rise to family life ; public 
 sentimeyit has maintained the sanctity of the 
 marriage tie and the safety of family posses- 
 sions; business credit has made trade life pos- 
 sihle; patriotism has banded these communi- 
 ties of civic life into national life: religion is 
 yet to unify the nations of the earth into one 
 common brotherhood. All these are invisible 
 forces. What is the tribute paid to character, 
 
The Training of the Faith, 195 
 
 over and above wealth and beauty, but a trib- 
 ute to the unseen? Without friendship, sym- 
 pathy, love, aspiration, ideality, what would 
 life be worth ? No wonder that he who lives 
 only in the visible, tangible things of this 
 world asks the question: "Is life worth living?" 
 Fill a soul with the realization of the invisi- 
 ble, and the question needs no answer; that 
 soul knows that life is worth living. Why 
 are the battles with doubt, the struggles with 
 death, the agonies of disgrace, so awful, so 
 terrible, so soul -wrecking ? Is it not that the 
 visible side of life has gained an undue foot- 
 hold in the sufferer's mind? Fill a life with 
 noble deeds, with the joy that arises from un- 
 selfish activity, and the scales will re-adjust 
 themselves, the "light afflictions will be seen 
 to work out a far more and exceeding weight 
 of glory." 
 
 Froebel, believing, as he himself expresses 
 it, that "these first impressions are the root 
 fibres of the child's understanding which is 
 developed later," calls the mother's attention 
 to this early interest in moving things mani- 
 fested by the child, and tells her that by aid- 
 ing his attempt to imitate the movements of 
 external objects, like the weathervane, she 
 helps him to understand them, and to know 
 
196 The Instinct of Imitation^ or 
 
 that as an unseen force in him turns his hand 
 so an unseen force must turn the attractive 
 weathervane. This knowledge Froebel would 
 have her aid by word and song ; for long before 
 a baby can distinguish words, much less un- 
 derstand them, he gains impressions of his 
 mother's meaning by repeated association of 
 word and act. That the little thinker does see 
 that like effects are produced by like causes, is 
 evident to anyone who has made a study of 
 children. The lisping two-year-old baby in 
 the family of a friend of mine was taught by 
 the older children to solemnly bow his head up 
 and down several times to each person present, 
 when he was brought into the breakfast room, 
 and to attempt to say: "How do you do?" with 
 each ceremonious bending of the little head. 
 The effect was absurdly droll to the other 
 children, who with like solemnity would slowly 
 and repeatedly return the salutation. One 
 breezy morning he chanced to be left alone 
 upon the veranda. The branches of the maple 
 tree in front of the house were slowly sway- 
 ing up and down, and soon attracted his atten- 
 tion. With puzzled interest he watched them 
 for a short time; then a light broke over his 
 face, and he began to bow his head in like 
 manner, and to say "How-do! How-do!" He 
 
The Training of the Faith. 197 
 
 had logically and to his satisfaction solved the 
 mystery ; the outside world was giving him a 
 morning greeting. Another friend was walk- 
 ing along a street in a city with her child of 
 three years. As they approached a railway 
 crossing, an engine passed. "Mamma, " said 
 the child, "what makes the engine go so fast?'' 
 The mother explained, as well as she could, 
 that it was the steam inside of it which caused 
 its rapid motion, and asked him if he did not 
 see the clouds of white steam coming out of the 
 top of the smoke-stack. After walking a block or 
 two farther, a girl ran swiftly across the street ; 
 the little investigator looked up questioningly 
 into the mother's face, and said, "Mamma, I 
 didn't see no white steam coming out of the 
 little girl's head," — inferring that if steam 
 caused one thing to pass rapidly across his path, 
 it must cause another like rapid motion. That 
 children's minds attempt to work logically, 
 needs no other proof than to watch their gram- 
 matical errors, two-thirds of which are at- 
 tempts to make their native tongue logical. 
 
 In the childhood of the world, when men 
 tried to express their ideas of God, the first 
 characteristic recognized and represented was 
 power. So, too, we see that the child's first 
 recognition of the unseen is ordinarily the 
 
198 The Instinct of Imitation^ or 
 
 force of the wind. With what delight do all 
 children, when out on a windy day, test this 
 manifestation! "See!" exclaimed a little child, 
 "the wind can make everything do as it likes. 
 Where does it come from?" Each mother has 
 had like questions eagerly put to her. "Mamma, 
 what makes the smoke go up?" "Mamma, what 
 makes the trees grow?" Thoughtful, indeed, 
 should be the answer given, for it is the 
 searching of the young soul after the unseen 
 power. Then is the mother's best opportunity 
 for developing a reverence for the Great Un- 
 seen, bearing in mind always that increased 
 reverence is increased capacity for religioii. 
 So great and manifold are the opportunities 
 afforded by nature for such lessons, that the 
 home and the kindergarten should bring as 
 much of the outdoor life as they can to the 
 town-imprisoned child. Eight education, in 
 the largest sense of the word, cannot go on un- 
 less that great teacher. Dame Nature, is em- 
 ployed with her gloriously illuminated text- 
 books of field and forest, of sea and sky. From 
 her the child should learn its cradle-hymn of 
 whispering breeze, its nursery-song of run- 
 ning brooks, its childhood's chant from throat 
 of bird and hum of bees, in order that maturer 
 life may catch the grander, fuller harmonies. 
 
The Training of the Faith, 199 
 
 which can come only to well-developed, rever- 
 ent natures, who are ready to worship God in 
 truth. The study of history shows us that the 
 battle is not always to the strong, nor the race 
 unto the swift. In olden times the forms of 
 gods and goddesses were seen to fight first up- 
 on this side and then upon that. Old Homer 
 tells us that " The shout of Juno filled the 
 Greeks with courage, and caused dismay to 
 spread throughout the Trojan ranks." Through 
 all history an invisible power has been felt, 
 working for victory or defeat, until in our own 
 times a Frederick Douglass could exclaim: ''One 
 with God is a majority!" We scarcely need to 
 turn to Scripture, the climax of whose revela- 
 tion is summed up in these words: " God is a 
 spirit, and they that worship him must worship 
 him in spirit and in truth." 
 
 In speaking of social contact with others, 
 Froebel says: "There is something else which 
 early awakens in your child a respect for 
 goodness, and a feeling of emulation and as- 
 piration to attain unto goodness, — that is to 
 say, to he good. These feelings are aroused in 
 him, not by the respect and acknowledgment 
 which you show to goodness in the ahsirad, 
 but by the amount which you show to good^ 
 ness in others around you; every sign of re- 
 
200 The Insiinet of Imiiaiion, or 
 
 spect shown to others, which appears to the 
 child just and merited, and above all attainable 
 by effort, spurs him on by awakening a gener- 
 ous emulation." The standard of character 
 which the child will strive to attain to will be 
 that of the people whom he meets in his home. 
 Let the child see that in dress it is the suita- 
 bility, both as to occasion and size of 
 purse, rather than the beauty or richness of 
 material, which is to be emphasized. In gifts, 
 let it be the pleasure given, instead of the 
 price of the present, which is mentioned. In 
 charities, let it be the childish effort to do and 
 to give, rather than any sum of money given 
 by the parent in the child's name. In school 
 work, let it be the effort put forth and the real 
 mastery of the point in hand, rather than the 
 per cent, gained, which is praised. In science- 
 lessons with a little child, such books as Hook- 
 er's "Child's Book of Nature" are of inestima- 
 ble value. Not only are the facts told, but that 
 wonderful side of science which is beyond all 
 explanation is always present. In story-tell- 
 ing, avoid moralizing, but emphasize the in- 
 visible power instead of the visible manifesta- 
 tion. Let me illustrate with a story, always a 
 favorite in my own kindergarten: 
 
 Once upon a time, in the middle of a small 
 
The Training of the Faith. 201 
 
 village, by the side of the great ocean, there 
 stood a little stone church; on the top of the 
 church stood a tall spire; on the top of the 
 spire stood a gilded weathervane. Most of the 
 men of the village earned a living for them- 
 selves and their wives and little ones by going 
 out in sail -boats to the deep waters of the sea, 
 and catching fish, which they took to a neigh- 
 boring city and sold for money. Each morn- 
 insr these fishermen would come out of their 
 huts, and, shading their eyes from the bright 
 sun, would look up at the gilded weathervane 
 on the tall steeple of the little stone church. If 
 it turned towards the sea, they knew that the 
 wind was favorable and would fill their sails, 
 and would help them to get out to the deep 
 water where there was good fishing. If, how- 
 ever, the weathervane turned towards the land, 
 they knew that the mighty wind was blowing 
 away from the ocean, and that it would be use- 
 less to try to get out that day. So they would turn 
 their boats upside down and stop up the leaks 
 which had begun to let in the water, or they 
 would otherwise occupy themselves on land 
 until the wind changed. The little gilded 
 weathervane noticed that each day the fisher- 
 men looked up to him to see whether he point- 
 ed out to the sea or in towards the land, and that 
 
202 The Instinct of Imitation,, or 
 
 they seemed to obey his slightest direction ; so 
 he began to feel that he was the most impor- 
 tant thing in the village. Therefore, one night 
 when the great wind came rushing down from 
 the high mountain-tops and over the hills and 
 plains, and reached the little weathervane, it 
 said, in a deep, strong whisper, "Turn, turn to 
 the sea." "No," said the little weathervane, "I 
 am not going to mind you any longer. I am 
 the most important thing in this village; why 
 should I mind you ? I shall turn which way I 
 please." The great strong wind blew stronger 
 still ; there came a cracking, snapping noise, 
 and in a moment more the little gilded weath- 
 ervane was lying broken on the ground below, 
 and the mighty wind had swept far out on the 
 ocean. The next morning when the fishermen 
 came out, they looked as usual to the top of the 
 church spire; but the little weathervane was 
 gone. So then they looked at the boughs of the 
 trees, and saw that they were all pointing to- 
 wards the deep waters of the ocean. Then they 
 got into their boats and went off to fish, and 
 the foolish weathervane was left unnoticed on 
 the ground." 
 
 As we never leave a story with a sad end- 
 ing, because the effect upon the child is un- 
 wholesome, we usually add that the sexton 
 
The Training of the Faith. 203 
 
 came along by and by, and picked up the little 
 weatliervane, mended it as best he could, and 
 after a few days put it on the top of the steeple 
 again, and that forever after the gilded weath- 
 ervane was very glad to be of use by showing 
 the fishermen which way the great wind was 
 blowing. Here the story ends. No moral is 
 pointed out. The invisible soul within such 
 stories, which has caused them to be handed 
 down from generation to generation, will speak 
 of itself to the child in the exact degree that he 
 is ready to comprehend it, and will make him 
 feel that the great invisible cause is more than 
 any special manifestation, no matter how prom- 
 inent. In a dim way at first, it will show him 
 that the importance of any life comes not from 
 its prominence, but from its usefulness. Such 
 truths are life's great lessons, and it lies in our 
 power to give them to the child. 
 
 The problem before every earnest mother is 
 how to so train her child that the unseen things 
 in life shall be as real to him as the seen. First 
 of all she must fill herself with this truth, 
 must be satisfied with no line of study or of 
 thought which deals simply with the external 
 facts. If she is studying history, it must be 
 to her not a mere compilation of dates, of kings 
 and conquests. " Of what significance to me," 
 
204 The Instinct of Imitation, or 
 
 exclaimed Carlyle, " are the births, marriages 
 and deaths of a few petty mortals who chanced 
 to be called kings and queens!" And truly, 
 what is the significance, unless we seek to see 
 the slow dawn of freedom in the rise and fall 
 of nations, — a spiritual gain in the struggling 
 steps of the race forward? Is literature to be 
 studied for the sake of the beauty of style of 
 this writer, or of the polished diction of that 
 one? Why have the great books of the world 
 lived, while thousands of rival productions have 
 sunk into oblivion? Has it not been because 
 giant brains have lived and labored amidst 
 their puny contemporaries, striving to portray 
 Truth so that the dark labyrinth of life might 
 seem less dark to some poor soul? Why is 
 Homer still the world's great poet? Not from 
 beauty of expression, not from tenderness of 
 thought, not from power of imagery. Many 
 have equaled and surpassed him in these re- 
 spects ; but who has given to us, so powerfully 
 as he, the great Soul struggling against the 
 restrictions of authority? Who has so well 
 portrayed the pitifulness of uselessness, of all 
 great Achilles sulking in their tents, even if 
 their own followers are around them, when 
 greater and more universal causes are calling 
 them? Mighty indeed are the lessons which 
 
The Training of the Faith. 205 
 
 the old bard has taught us. So it is with every 
 other great book ; it is not its form but its soul 
 which has made it immortal. It is not the 
 establishment of the Eoman Catholic doctrine of 
 hell, purgatory, and paradise; not the fierce 
 punishment of his enemies, not even his fiery 
 imagery, which has made Dante the shrine at 
 which great hearts still worship. It is rather 
 the awfulness of sin, the mighty struggle out 
 of sin, the glory of the redeemed, pictured with 
 such grandeur and majesty that the human 
 soul which has approached the magnificent 
 temple of the Divine Comedy feels that it has 
 renewed its own dignity and worth. Why is it 
 that a Carlyle cries out to the souls struggling 
 in the hell of materialism, " Close thy Byron, 
 open thy Goethe " ? Has Goethe the literary 
 polish and beauty of style of Lord Byron? Is 
 it not that his strange and unsurpassed crea- 
 tion of a Faust has proclaimed that all the cult- 
 ure and erudition, all indulgence, all activities, 
 cannot make life desirable until the great 
 secret of living for others has been discovered? 
 How much grander and more helpful becomes 
 mythology when we cease to study it as a 
 source of certain facts which every cultivated 
 person should know, and begin to realize that 
 it is the far-off voice of nations calling after 
 
206 The Instinct of Imitation, or 
 
 God! Of what use are the stories of the labors 
 of Hercules, of the wings of Mercury, of the 
 transforming powers of Circe, or a hundred 
 other tales of a childish race, save that we see 
 portrayed in them the dim feeling of the hu- 
 man heart that man must become the master of 
 creation, must control the forces of nature and 
 make them serve him, must be able to transfer 
 himself with little hindrance from place to 
 place, — aye, must govern his appetites or be- 
 come beastly; in a word, that the God-element 
 must conquer all the material outer world! 
 Such truths are of value, though put by the 
 child-race in such crude form; they are the 
 more serviceable to the mother from the fact 
 that they are expressed in simple, mythical 
 shape, as the child-mind is better able to grasp 
 truth in its poetic than in its abstract form. 
 With thorough preparation within herself, any 
 mother will naturally and almost without effort 
 lead her child to value what she has learned to 
 value. Mothers who are deprived of the gen- 
 eral culture which books bring, can yet keep 
 alive in their hearts the intense realization of 
 the all-importance of the unseen side of life ; 
 they can seek real people for their friends. 
 Over and above all other avenues of inspiration 
 they can keep their religion far beyond its 
 
The Training of the Faith. 207 
 
 mere external, visible side. They can make 
 it the sweet and holy impulse from within 
 which shall control the inmost thought as well 
 as the outmost act. They can make their lives 
 such that religion is to them not the mere go- 
 ing to church, the reading of the Bible, the 
 performance of any religious duty, but that 
 nearness to God which renders all these things 
 a joy. Not until the mother has reached this 
 state is she ready to lead her child beyond the 
 petty temporal things of life, into a realization 
 of the great and everlasting things. Truly her 
 office is priestly, and great is the reward — the 
 greatest on earth. " A life gift " Froebel calls 
 this work of hers for her child; and well may it 
 be so called. Let her once teach him to see 
 the difference between the great and little 
 things of life, and she has placed him where 
 no outside storms can trouble his serenity, 
 where no sickness nor poverty nor lack of suc- 
 cess nor lack of popularity can give him one 
 inward pang. He is master of his own life. 
 The petty aims of shallow people do not di- 
 vert him from his great purpose, and the world 
 exclaims, " Truly a great soul ! Let us draw 
 near and gain strength from it ! " 
 
 Does any mother-heart crave more recom- 
 pense than this? 
 
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