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 C0PYRI511T DEPOSIT. 
 
Study of Child Life 
 
 MARION FOSTER WASHBURNE 
 
 1 1 
 
 ASSOCIATE EDITOR MOTHER'S MAGAZINE 
 
 AUTHOR "EVERYDAY ESSAYS'' 
 
 "FAMILY SECRETS," ETC. 
 
 /£CTURER TO CHICAGO FROEBEL ASSOCIATION 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 AMERICAN SCHOOL OF HOME ECONOMICS 
 
 1911 
 
o.^'"'' K-v 
 V^^^ 
 
 COPYRIGHT, igo5. BY 
 
 AMERICAN SCHOOL OF HOUSEHOLD ECONOMICS 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1906, 1910, BY 
 
 HOME ECONOMICS ASSOCIATION 
 
 Entered at Stationers Hall, Londoo 
 AU Rig/Us Eeitrvtd 
 
 ©CI.A2l)2053 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 An Open Letter .... . v 
 
 Development of the Child .... 3 
 
 Faults and Their Remedies . „ . .26 
 
 Character Building ..... 59 
 
 Play ... ..... 76 
 
 Occupations ..... .90 
 
 Art and Literature in Child Life . joo 
 
 Studies and Accomplishments . . 119 
 
 Financial Training . . . . .126 
 
 Religious Training ..... 131 
 
 Application of Principles . , . .141 
 
 Other People's Children .... 145 
 
 The Sex Question . . . . - 149 
 
 Fathers . . . . . . .152 
 
 The Unconscious Influence . . . 157 
 
 Answers to Questions ..... 160 
 
 Bibliography . . . . . . . (70 
 
 Supplemental Study Program . , .175 
 
 [ndfx ....... 179 
 
AMERICAN SCHOOL OF HOME ECONOMICS 
 CHICAOO 
 
 January 1. 1907. 
 
 My dear Madam : 
 
 In beginning this subject of the 
 "Study of Child Life" there may be lurking doubts 
 in your mind as to whether any reliable rules can 
 really be laid down. They seem to arise mostly 
 from the perception of the great difference be- 
 tween children. What will do for one child will 
 not do for another. Some children are easily per- 
 suaded and gentle, others willful, still others 
 sullen or unresponsive. How, then, is it possi- 
 ble that a system of education and training can 
 be devised suitable for their various disposi- 
 tions? 
 
 We must remember that children are much more 
 alike than they sire different. One may have blue 
 eyes, another gray, another black, but they all 
 have two. We are, therefore, in a position to 
 make rules for creatures having two eyes and 
 these rules apply to eyes of all colors. Child- 
 ren may be nervous, sanguine, bilious, or pleth- 
 oric, but they all have the same kind of inter- 
 nal organs and the same general rules of health 
 apply to thom all 
 
 In this series of lessons I have endeavored 
 to set forth principles briefly and to confirm 
 them by instances within the experience of every 
 observer of childhood. The rules given are such 
 as are held at present by the beat educators to 
 be based upon sound philosophy, not at variance 
 with the slight array or scientific facts at our 
 command. Perhaps you yourself may be able to add 
 to the number of reliable facts intelligently re- 
 ported that must be collected before much greater 
 scientific advance is possible. 
 
There i3, to be sure, an art of application 
 of these rules both in matters of health of body 
 and of health of mind and this art must be worked 
 out by each mother for each individual child. 
 
 We all recognize that it is a long endeavor 
 before we can apply to our own lives such prin- 
 ciples of conduct as we heartily acknowledge to 
 be right. Why, then, expect to be able to apply 
 principles instantly and unerringly to a little 
 child? If a rule fails when you attempt to apply 
 it, before questioning the principle, may it not 
 be well to "question your own tact and skill? 
 
 So far as I can advise with you in special 
 instances of difficulty, I shall be very glad to 
 do so; not that I shall always know what to do 
 myself, but that we can get a little more light 
 upon the problems by conferring together. I 
 know well how difficult a matter this of child 
 training is, for every day, in the management of 
 my own family of children, I find such philosophy, 
 science and art as I can command very much put to 
 the test. 
 
 Sincerely yours. 
 
 Instructor 
 
(Copy 
 
 FKKIDKICH FROEBEL 
 By courtesy ot Tbe Perry Pictures Co.. Maiden, Mass* 
 
STUDY OF CHILD LIFE 
 
 PART L 
 
 'T'HE young of the human species Is less able to 
 care for itself than the young of any other spe- 
 cies. Most other creatures are able to walk, or at any 
 rate stand, within a few hours of birth. But the human 
 baby is absolutely dependent and helpless, unable even 
 to manufacture all the animal heat that he requires. 
 The study of his condition at birth at once suggests 
 a number of practical procedures, some of them quite 
 at variance with the traditional procedures. 
 
 HOW THE CHILD DEVELOPS 
 
 Let us see, then, exactly what his condition is. In ^ ^ 
 
 Condition 
 
 the first place, he is, as Virchow, an authority on phy- »* B^^h 
 siological subjects declares, merely a spinal animal. 
 Some of the higher brain centers do not yet exist at 
 all, while others are in too incomplete a state for serv- 
 ice. The various sensations which the baby experi- 
 ences — heat, light, contact, motion, etc. — are so many 
 stimuli to the development of these centers. If the 
 stimulus is too great, the development is sometimes 
 unduly hastened, with serious results, which show 
 themselves chiefly in later life. The child who is 
 brought up in a noisy room, is constantly talked to 
 and fondled, is likely to develop prematurely, to talk 
 
STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 Weight 
 at Birth 
 
 State of 
 Deveiopmei.t 
 
 and walk at an early age ; also to fall into nervous 
 decay at an early age. And even if by reason of an 
 unusually good heredity he escapes these dangers, it 
 is almost certain that his intellectual power is not so 
 great in adult life as it would have been under more 
 favorable conditions. A new baby, like a young plant, 
 requires darkness and quiet for the most part. As 
 he grows older, and shows a spontaneous interest in 
 his surroundings, he may fittingly have more light, 
 more companionship, and experience more sensations. 
 
 The average boy baby weighs about seven pounds 
 at birth ; the average girl, about six and a half pounds. 
 The head is larger in proportion to the body than in 
 after life ; the nose is incomplete, the legs short and 
 bowed, with a tendency to fall back upon the body 
 with the knees flexed. This natural tendency should 
 be allowed full play, for the flexed position is said to 
 be favorable to the growth of the bones, permitting 
 the cartilaginous ends of the bones to lie free from 
 pressure at the joints. 
 
 The plates of the skull are not complete and do not 
 fit together at the edges. Great care needs to be taken 
 of the soft spot thus left exposed on the top of the 
 head — the undeveloped place where the edges of these 
 bones come together. Any injury here in early life is 
 liable to affect the mind. 
 
 The bony enclosures of the middle ear r.re unfin- 
 ished and the eyes also are unfinished. It is a ques- 
 tion vet to be settled, whether a new-born baby is blind 
 
HOIV THE CHILD DEVELOPS. 5 
 
 and deaf or not. At any rate, he soon acquires a 
 sensitiveness to both light and sound, although it is 
 three years or more before he has amassed sufficient 
 experience to estimate with accuracy the distance of 
 objects seen or heard. He can cry, suck, sneeze, 
 cough, kick, and hold on to a finger. All of these acts, 
 though they do not yet imply personality, or even 
 mind, give evidence of a wonderful organism. They 
 require the co-operation of many delicate nerves and 
 muscles — a co-operation that has as yet baffled the 
 power of scientists to explain. 
 
 Although the young baby is in almost constant 
 motion while he is awake, he is altogether too weak to 
 turn himself in bed or to escape from an uncomforta- 
 ble position, and he remains so for many weeks. This 
 constant motion is necessary to his muscular develop- 
 ment, his control of his own muscles, his circulation, 
 and, very probably, to the free transmission of nerv- 
 ous energy. Therefore, it is of the first importance 
 that he has freedom to move, and he should be given 
 time every day to niove and stretch before the fire, 
 without clothes on. It is well to rub his back and 
 legs at the same time, thus supplementing his gym- 
 nastics with a gentle massage. 
 
 By the time he is four or five weeks old it is safe to 
 
 ii—iii 1 Educational 
 
 play With him a little every day, and Froebel has made Beginnings 
 his "Play with the Limbs" one o: his first educational 
 exercises. In this play the mother lays the baby, un- 
 dressed, upon a pillow and catches the little ankles in 
 
6 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 her hands. Sometimes she prevents the baby from 
 kicking, so that he has to struggle to get his legs free ; 
 sometimes she helps him, so that he kicks more freely 
 and regularly ; sometimes she lets him push hard 
 against her breast. All the time she laughs and sings 
 to him, a!id h'roebel has made a little song for this 
 purpos^. Since consciousness is roused and deepened 
 by sensations, remembered, experienced, and com- 
 parctl, it is evident that this is more than a fanciful 
 play ; that it is what Frocbel claimed for it — a real 
 educational exercise. By means of it the child may 
 gain some consciousness of companionship, and thus, 
 by contrast, a deeper self-consciousness, 
 i-irst The baby is at first unable to hold up its head, and 
 
 in this he is just like all other animals, for no animal, 
 except man, holds up its head constantly. The human 
 baby apparently makes the effort because he desires 
 to see more clearly — he could doubtless see clearly 
 enough for all jihysical purposes with his head hung 
 down, but not enough to satisfy his awakening men- 
 tality. The effort to hold the head up and to look 
 around is therefore regarded by most psychologists 
 as one of the first tokens of an awakening intellectual 
 life. And this is true, although the first effort seems 
 to arise from an overplus of nervous energy which 
 makes the neck muscles contract, just as it makes 
 other muscles contract. The first slight raisings of the 
 head are like the first kicking movements, merely im- 
 pulsive ; but the child soon sees the advantage of this 
 
 Efforts 
 
HOIV THE CHILD DEJ'RLOrS. 
 
 apparently accidental movement and tries to master it. 
 I'reyer'^ considers that the efforts to balance the head 
 are among the first indications that the child's will is 
 taking possession of his muscles. His own boy ar- 
 rived at this point when he was between three and 
 four months old. 
 
 The grasp of the new-born baby's hand has a si.r- 
 'prising power, but the baby himself has little to do 
 With it. The muscles act because of a stimulus pre- 
 sented by the touch of the fingers, very much as the 
 muscles of a decapitated frog contract when the cur- 
 rent of electricity passes over them. This is called 
 reflex grasping, and Dr. Louis Robinson,f thinking 
 that this early strength of grasp was an important 
 illustration of and evidence for evolution, tried ex- 
 periments on some sixty new-born babies. He found 
 that they could sustain iheir whole weight by the 
 arms alone when their hands were clasped about a 
 slender rod. They grasped the rod at once and could 
 be lifted ironx the bed by it and kept in this position 
 about half a minute. He argued that this early strength 
 of arm, which soon begins to disappear, was a sur- 
 vival from the remote period when the baby's ances- 
 tors were monkeys or monkey-like people who lived 
 in trees. 
 
 However this may be, during the first w^eek the 
 baby's hands are mtich about his face. By accident 
 
 *W. Preyer, Professor of Physiology, of Jena, author of 
 "The Mind of the Child." D. Appleton & Co. 
 
 tDr. Robinson, Physician and Evolutionist, paper in The 
 Eclectic, Vol. 29. 
 
 Reflex 
 Grasping 
 
 Beginnings 
 
 of Will Power 
 
Will 
 
 8 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 they reach the mouth, they are sucked ; the child feels 
 himself suck its own fist ; he feels his fist being 
 sucked. Some day it will occur ij him that that fist 
 belongs to the same being who owns the sucking 
 mouth. But at this point, as Miss Shinn* has ob- 
 served, the baby is often surprised and indignant that 
 he cannot move his arms around and at the same time 
 suck his fist. This discomfort helps him to make an 
 effort to get his fist into his mouth and keep it there, 
 and this effort shows his will beginning to take pos- 
 session of his hands and arms. 
 Growth Since any faculty grows by its own exercise, just 
 
 a5 muscles grow by exercise, every time the baby suc- 
 ceeds in getting his hands to his mouth as a result of 
 desire, every time that he succeeds in grasping an 
 object as a result of desire, his will power grows. 
 Action of this nature brings in new sensations, and 
 the brain centers used for recording such sensations 
 grow. 
 
 As the sensations multiply, he compares them, and 
 an idea is born. For the beginnings of mental devel- 
 opment no other mechanism is actually needed than a 
 brain and a hand and the nerves connecting them. 
 Laura Bridgeman and Helen Keller, both of them 
 deaf and blind, received their education almost entirely 
 through their hands, and yet they were unusually capa- 
 ble of thinking. The child's hands, then, from the 
 beginning, are the servants of his brain — instruments 
 
 *Miss Millicent Shinn, American Psychologist, author of ""Bi- 
 ography of a Baby." 
 
HOJV THE CHILD DEVELOPS. 
 
 by means of which he carries iin])ressions from the 
 outer world to the scat of consciousness, and by which 
 in turn he imprints his consciousness upon the outer 
 world. 
 
 The averag:e baby does not begin to grasp objects 
 with intention before the fourth month. The first 
 grasping seems to be done by feeling, without the aid 
 of the eye, and is done with the fingers with no at- 
 tempt to oppose the thiunb to them. So closely does 
 the use of the thumbs set opposite the fingers in 
 grasping coincide with the first grasping with the aid 
 of sight, that some Dbservers have been led to be- 
 lieve that as soon as the baby learns to use its thumb 
 in this way he proves that he is beginning to grasp 
 with intention. 
 
 The order of development seems to be, £rst, automa- 
 tism, the muscles contracting of themselves in response 
 to nervous stimuli ; second, instinct, the inherited wis- 
 dom of the race, which discovered ages ago that the 
 hand could be used to greater advantage when the 
 thumb was separated from the fingers ; and thirdly, 
 the child's own intelligence and will making use of 
 this natural and inherited machinery. This order holds 
 true of the development, not only of the hand, but 
 of the whole organism. 
 
 A little earlier than this, during the third month, 
 the baby first looks upon his own hands and notices 
 them. Darwin tells us that his boy looked at his own 
 hands and seemed to study them until his eyes crossed. 
 
 Intentional 
 Grasping 
 
 Order of 
 Development 
 
 Looking 
 
10 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 About the same time the child notices his foot and uses 
 liis hand to carry it to its mouth. It is some time later 
 that he discovers that he can move his feet without 
 his hands. 
 Tearing About this time, three or four months old, the child 
 
 begins to tear paper into pieces, and may be easily 
 taught to let the pieces that have found their way into 
 his mouth be taken out again. Now, too, he begins 
 to throw things, or to drop them ; then he wants to 
 get them back again, and the patient mother must pick 
 them up and give them back many times. Sometimes 
 a baby is punished for this proclivity, but it is really 
 a part of his development, and at least once a day he 
 should be allowed to play in this manner to his heart's 
 content. It is tact, not discipline, that is needed, and 
 the more he is helped the sooner he will live through 
 this stage and come to the next point where he begins 
 to throw things. 
 Throwing ^^ ^^^^^ stagc, of coursc, he must be given the 
 
 proper things to throw — small, bright-colored worsted 
 balls, bean-bags, and other harmless objects. If he is 
 allowed to discover the pleasure thc:"e is in smashing 
 glass and china, he will certainly be, ior a time, a very 
 destructive little person. When later he is able to 
 creep — to throw his ball and creep after it — he will 
 amuse himself for hours at a time, and so relieve those 
 who have patiently attended him up to this time. In 
 general zvc may lay down the rule that the more time 
 and attention of the right sort is given to a young 
 
The 
 
 HOJV THE CHILD DEVELOPS. ii 
 
 cJiild, the less ivill need to be given as he grozvs older. 
 It is poor economy to neglect a young- child, and try 
 to make it up on the growing boy or girl. This is 
 to substitute a complicated and difficult problem for a 
 simple one. 
 
 It is some time before a child's will can so overcome 
 his newly-acquired tendency to grasp every possible ^ScT 
 object that he can keep his hands off of anything that 
 invites him. The many battles between mothers and 
 children on the subject of not touching forbidden 
 things are at this stage a genuine wrong and injus- 
 tice to the child. So young a child is scarcely more 
 responsible for touching whatever he can reach than 
 is a piece of steel for being drawn toward a powerful 
 magnet. Preyer says that it is years before voluntary 
 inhibitions of grasping become possible. The child 
 has not the necessary brain machinery. Commands 
 and spatting of the hands create bewilderment and 
 tend to build up a barrier between mother and child. 
 Instead of doing such things, simply put high out of 
 reach and sight whatever the child must not touch. 
 
 Another way in which young children are often 
 made to suffer because of the ignorance of parents is 
 the leaving of undesired food on the child's plate. 
 Every child, when he does not want his food, pushes 
 the plate away from him, and many mothers push it 
 back and scold. The real truth is that the motor sug- 
 gestion of the food upon the plate is so strong that 
 the child feels as if he were being forced to eat it 
 
srunv or < iin.n lipr. 
 
 Tlio Tlir«o 
 Months' Baby 
 
 Danger of 
 Forcing 
 
 Creeping 
 
 I'vory limo lie hxiks at the plate; to escai)c from eating 
 it ho is obliged to push it out of sij^ht. 
 
 I'.ut this (lifficiihy comes hitcr. Now we are con- 
 eenu-d with a three-moiitlis-old baby. At this staj^e 
 thi' child is usually able to balance his head, to sit uj) 
 aj^ainst pillows, to seize and t;rasp objects, and to 
 hold out his arms when he wishes to be taken. Al- 
 thouj^h he may have made a number of efforts to sit 
 erect, and may have succet'ded for a few mimites al a 
 time, he still is f.ar from beini^^ able to sit alone, unsup- 
 l)orte<l. 'Phis he does not accomplish until the fifth 
 vv sixth month. 
 
 'inhere is nothing- to be gained by trying* to make 
 him sit alone sooner; indeed, there is danger in it — 
 danger in forcing young bones and muscles to do 
 work beyond their strength, and danger also to the 
 nerves. It is safe to say that a itoniial child always 
 exercises all ils faculties to the utmost unthout need 
 of itri^ini^, and any exercise beyond the point of natural 
 fatia^ue. if persisted in, is sure to bri)ii:^ about abnormal 
 results. 
 
 The first efforts toward creeping often ajipear in the 
 bath when the child turns over and raises himself 
 upon his hands and knees. This is a sign that he 
 might creep sooner, if he were not impeded by cloth- 
 ing. He sIk)uU1 be allowed to sj^read himself upon a 
 blanket every day for an hour or two, and to get on 
 his knees as fre(|uently as he ])l(.'ases. Often he needs 
 a little help to make him creep forward, for most 
 
iroir run child nnvRLors. 13 
 
 babies creep backward at first, their arms being 
 stronger than their legs. Here the mother may safely 
 interfere, pushing the legs as they ought to go and 
 showing the child how to manage himself; for very 
 often he becomes much excited over his inability to 
 creep forward. 
 
 The climbing instinct begins to appear by this time cumWnr 
 — the seventh month — and here the stair-case has its 
 great advantage. It ought not to be shut from him 
 by a gate, but he should be taught how to climb up 
 and down it in safety. To do this, start him at the 
 head of the stairs, and, you yourself being below him, 
 draw first one knee and then the other over the step, 
 thus showing him how to creep backward. Two les- 
 sons of about twenty minutes each will be sufficient. 
 The only danger is in creeping down head foremost, 
 but if he once learns thoroughly to go backward, and 
 has not been allowed the otlier way at all, he will never 
 dream of trying it. In going down backward, if he 
 should slip, he can easily save himself by catching 
 the stairs with his hands as he slips past. 
 
 The child who creeps is often later in his attempts 
 to walk than the child who does not; and, therefore, 
 when he is ready to walk, his legs will be all the 
 stronger, and the danger of bow-legs will be past. 
 As long as the child remains satisfied with creeping, he 
 is not yet ready either mentally or physically for 
 walking. 
 
14 
 
 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 standing H tlic cliilcl liES bceii allowcd to creep about freely, 
 
 he will soon be standing. He will pull himself to his 
 feet by means of any chair, table, or indeed anything 
 that he may get hold of. To avoid injuring him, no 
 flimsy chairs or spindle-legged tables should be allowed 
 in his nursery. He will next begin to sidle around a 
 chair, shuffling his feet in a vague fashion, and some- 
 times, needing both of his hands to seize some coveted 
 object, he will stand without clinging, leaning on his 
 stomach. An unhurried child may remain at this 
 stage for weeks. 
 
 Walking Let alone, as he should be, he will walk without 
 
 knowing how he does it, and will be the stronger for 
 having overcome his difficulties himself. He should 
 not be coaxed to stand or walk. The things in his 
 room actually urge him to come and get them. Any 
 further persuasion is forced, and may urge him be- 
 yond his strength. 
 
 Walking-chairs and baby- jumpers are injurious in 
 this respect. They keep the child from his native free- 
 dom of sprawling, climbing, and pulling himself up. 
 The activity they do permit is less varied and helpful 
 than the normal activity, and the child, restricted from 
 the preparatory motions, begins to walk too soon. 
 
 Alternate ^^ cuHous fact iu tlic growth of children is that they 
 
 Growth seem to grow heavier for a certain period, and then 
 
 to grow taller for a similar period. That is, a very 
 
 young baby, say, two months old, will grow fatter for 
 
 about six weeks, and then for the next six weeks will 
 
HOW THE CHILD DEVELOPS. 15 
 
 grow longer, while the child of six years changes his 
 manner of growth every three or four months. These 
 periods are variable, or at least their law has not yet 
 been established, but the observant mother can soon 
 make the period out for herself in the case of her 
 own child. For two or three days, when the manner 
 of growth seems to be changing from breadth to 
 length, and vice versa, the children are likely to be 
 unusually nervous and irritable, and these aberrations 
 must, of course, be patiently borne with. 
 
 In all these things some children develop earlier 
 than others, but too early development is to be re- 
 gretted. Precocious children are always of a delicate 
 nervous organization. Fiske* has proved to us that 
 the reason why the human young is so far more help- 
 less and dependent than the young of any other species 
 is because the activities of the human race have be- 
 come so many, so widely varied, and so complex, that 
 they could not fix themselves in the nervous struc- 
 ture before birth. There are only a few things that 
 the chick needs to know in order to lead a successful 
 chicken life ; as a consequence these few things are 
 well impressed upon the small brain before ever he 
 chips the shell ; but the baby needs to learn a great 
 many things — so many that there is no time or room 
 to implant them before birth, or, indeed, in the few 
 years immediately succeeding birth. To hurry the 
 
 Precocity 
 
 *John Flske, writer on Evolutionary Philosophy. His theory 
 of infancy is perhaps his most important contribution to 
 
Ripening 
 
 ifi STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 Early clcvclopmeiit, therefore, of certain few of these facul- 
 ties, Uke the faculties of talking, and walking, of 
 imitation or response, is to crowd out many other fac- 
 ulties perhaps just beginning to grow. Such forcing 
 will limit the child's future development to the few 
 faculties whose growth is thus early stimulated. Pre- 
 cocity in a child, therefore, is a thing to be deplored. 
 His early ripening foretells an early decay; and a 
 wise mother is she who gives her child ample opportu- 
 nity for growing, but no urging. 
 
 Ample opportunity for growth includes (i) Whole- 
 some surroundings, (2) Sufficient sleep, (3) Proper 
 clothing, (4) Nourishing food. We will take up these 
 topics in order. 
 
 WHOLESOME SURROUNDINGS. 
 
 The whole house in which the child lives ought to 
 be well warmed and equally well aired. Sunlight also 
 is necessary to his well-being. If it is impossible to 
 have this in every room, as sometimes happens in city 
 homes, at least the nursery must have it. In the cen- 
 tral States of the l^nion plants and trees exposed to the 
 southern sun put forth their leave? two weeks sooner 
 than those exposed to the north. The infant cannot 
 fail to profit by the same condition, for the young 
 child may be said to lead in. part a vegetative as well 
 as an animal life . and to need air and sunshine and 
 warmth as much as plants do. The very best room 
 in the house is not too gfood for the nurserv, for in 
 
JOHN B^ISKE 
 
i8 
 
 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 Tempera- 
 ture 
 
 Daily 
 Outing 
 
 no Other room is such important and delicate work 
 being done. 
 
 The temperature is a matter of importance. It 
 should not be decided by guess-work, but a ther- 
 mometer should be hung upon a wall at a place 
 equally removed from draft and from the source of 
 heat. The temperature for children during the first 
 year should be about 70 degrees Fahrenheit during the 
 day and not lower than 50 degrees at night. Children 
 who sleep with the mother will not be injured by a 
 temperature 5 to 20 degrees lower at night. 
 
 It is important to provide means for the ingress of 
 fresh air. It is not sufficient to air the room from 
 another room, unless that other room has in it an 
 open window. Even then the nursery windows should 
 be opened wide from fifteen minutes to half an hour 
 night and morning, while the child is in another room ; 
 and this even when the weather is at zero or below. 
 It does not take long to warm up a room that has 
 been aired. Perhaps the best means of obtaining the 
 ingress of fresh air without creating a draft upon 
 the floor, where the baby spends so much of his time, 
 is to raise the window six inches at the top or bot- 
 tom and insert a board cut to fit the aperture. 
 
 But no matter how well ventilated the nursery may 
 be, all children more than six weeks old need unmodi- 
 fied outside air, and need it every day, no matter 
 what the weather, unless they are sick. 
 
SLEEP. 19 
 
 The daily outing secures them better appetites, quiet 
 sleep, and calmer nerves. Let them be properly clothed 
 and protected in their carriages, and all weathers are 
 good for them. 
 
 Children who take their naps in their baby-carriages 
 may with advantage be wheeled into a sheltered spot, 
 covered warmly, and left to sleep in the outer air. 
 They are likely to sleep longer than in the house, and 
 find more refreshment in their sleep. 
 
 SmrFICIENT SLEEP. 
 
 Few children in America get as much sleep as they 
 really need. Preyer gives the record of his own child, 
 and the hours which this child found necessary for 
 his sleep and growth may be taken for a standard. In 
 the first month, sixteen, in full, out of twenty-four 
 hours were spent in sleep. The sleep rarely lasted 
 beyond two hours at a time. In the second month 
 about the same amount was spent in sleep, which lasted 
 from three to six hours at a time. In the sixth month, 
 it lasted from six to eight hours at a time, and began 
 to diminish to fifteen hours in the twenty-four. In 
 the thirteenth month, fourteen hours' sleep daily; in 
 the seventeenth, prolonged sleep began, ten hours 
 without interruption ; in the twentieth, prolonged sleep 
 became habitual, and sleep in the day-time was re- 
 duced to two hours. In the third year, the night sleep 
 lasted regularly from eleven to twelve hours, and 
 sleep in the daytime was no longer required. 
 
Naps 
 
 20 STUDY 01' CHILD LIFE. 
 
 Trcyer's record stops here. But it may be added 
 that children from three to eip^ht years still require 
 eleven hours' sleep; and, althouj;h the child o{ three 
 may not need a daily nap. it is well for him, until he 
 is six years old, to lie still for an hour in the middle 
 of the day, amusinc^ himself with a picture book or 
 paper and pencil, hut not ])layed with or talktnl to by 
 any otlu'r ])erson. Such a rest in the luiddle of the 
 day favors the relaxation of muscles and nerves and 
 hreaks the strain of a lonj;' day of intense activity. 
 
 PROPER CLOTHING. 
 
 Proper elothin^- foi- ;i eliild ineludes thrix- things: 
 (^-d) lC(|ual distnhution of waniilh. (h) ['"reedom from 
 lest ra i n 1 , ( c ) 1 J i; h I w e i l; h I . 
 
 I'.qiial (lislrihiilioii of -iCariiilli is of j^real impor- 
 tance, and is st-ldom ;iltained. The ordin.ary dress for 
 a younj^' bahv, for example, leaves the arms and the 
 upi)er part of the chest unprotected by more than one 
 thickness of (lannel and one of cotton^the shirt and 
 the dress. About (he child's middle, on the contrary, 
 Ihere are two thicknesses o{ Ikannel — a shirt and band 
 — and live of eotton, i. e.. the doid)le bands of the 
 white and Hamiel pettico;its. and the dress, (^ver the 
 leijs, attain, are two thicknesses of flannel and two of 
 cotton, i. e., the pinnius;- blanket. ilaiuieJ skirt, white 
 skirt, and dress. The child in a comfortably warm 
 house needs two thicknesses of ilannel and one of cot- 
 ton all over it. and no more. 
 
CLOTHING. 
 
 21 
 
 The practice of ptiltiiiij cxlrn wrnppinf^fs about the 
 abdomen is responsible for uiuUie tenderness of those 
 organs. Dr. Grosvenor, of Chicago, who designed a 
 model costume for a baby, which he called the Ger- 
 trude suit, says that many cases of rupture are due 
 to bandaging of the abdomen. When the child cries 
 the abdominal walls normally expand ; if they are 
 tightly bound, they cannot do this, and the pressure 
 U])on one single part, which the bandages may not hold 
 quite firmly, becomes overwhelming, and results in 
 rupture. Dr. Grosvenor also thinks that many cases 
 of weak lungs, and even of consumption in later life, 
 arc due to the tight bands of the skirts pressing upon 
 the soft ribs of the young child, and narrowing the 
 lung space. 
 
 Freedom from restraint. Not only should the 
 clothes not bind the child's body in any way, but they 
 should not be so long as to prevent free exercise of 
 the legs. The pinning-blanket is objectionable on this 
 account. I< is difficult for the child to kick in it; 
 and as we nave seen before, kicking is necessary to 
 the proper development of the legs. Undue length of 
 skirt o])crates in the same way — the weight of cloth 
 is a check upon activity. The first garment of a young 
 baby should not be more than a yard in length from 
 the neck to the bottom of the hem, and three-quarters 
 of a yard is enough for the iimer garment. 
 
 The sleeves, too, should be large and loose, and the 
 arm-size should be roomy, so as to prevent chafing. 
 
 The 
 
 Gertrude 
 
 Suit 
 
 Objection 
 to the 
 Pinning 
 Blanket 
 
22 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 The sleeves may be tied in at the wrist with a ribbon 
 to insure warmth. 
 
 Lightness of zwiglit. The underclothing- should be 
 made of pure wool, so as to gain the greatest amount 
 of warmth from the least weight. In the few cases 
 where wool would cause irritation, a silk and wool 
 mixture makes a softer but more expensive garment. 
 Under the best conditions, clothes restrict and impede 
 free development somewhat, and the heavier they are 
 the more they impede it. Therefore, the effort should 
 be to get the greatest amount of warmth with the least 
 possible weight. Knit garments attain this most per- 
 fectly, but the next best thing is all-wool flannel of a 
 line grade. The weave known as stockinet is best of 
 all, because goods thus made cling to the body and yet 
 restrict its activity very little. 
 
 Tlie best garments for a baby are made according to 
 the accompanying diagram . 
 Princess They cousist of three garments, to be worn one 
 
 over the other, each one an inch longer in every way 
 than the underlying one. The first is a princess gar- 
 ment, made of white stockinet, which takes the place 
 of shirt, pinning-blanket, and band. Before cutting 
 this out, a box-pleat an inch and a half wide should 
 be laid down the middle of the front, and a side pleat 
 three-fourths of an inch wide on either side of the 
 ])lacket in the back. The sleeve should have a tuck an 
 inch wide. These tucks and pleats are better run in 
 by hand, so that they may be easily ripped. As the 
 
CLOTHING. 
 
 23 
 
 baby grows and the flannel shrinks, these tucks and 
 pleats can be let out. 
 
 The next garment, which goes over this, is made in 
 
 J FRONT V BA^Cra 
 i^WAlSTA^ 
 
 DIAGRAM OF THE "GERTRUDE" SUIT. 
 
 the same way, only an inch larger in every measure- 
 ment. It is made of baby flannel, and takes the place 
 
24 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 of the flannel petticoat with its cotton band. Over 
 these two garments any ordinary dress may be worn. 
 Dressed in this suit, the child is evenly covered with 
 two thicknesses of flannel and one of cotton. As the 
 skirts are rather short, however, and he is expected to 
 move his legs about freely, he may well wear long 
 white wool stockings. 
 
 As the child grows older, the principles underlying 
 this method of clothing should be borne in mind, and 
 clothes should be designed and adapted so as to meet 
 these three requirements. 
 
 FOOD. 
 
 Natural The natural food of a young baby Is his mother's 
 
 milk, and no satisfactory substitute for it has yet been 
 found. Some manufactured baby foods do well for 
 certain children ; to others they are almost poison ; 
 and for none of them are they sufficient. The milk 
 of the cow is not designed for the human infant. It 
 contains too much casein, and is too difficult of diges- 
 tion. Various preparations of milk and grains are rec- 
 ommended by nurses and physicians, but no conscien- 
 tious nurse or physician pretends that any of them 
 begins to equal the nutritive value of human milk. 
 More women can nurse their babies than now think 
 they can ; the advertisements of patent foods lead 
 them to think the matter of little importance, and 
 they do not make the necessary efifort to preserve and 
 increase the natural supply of milk. The family phy- 
 
 Food 
 
FOOD. 25 
 
 sician can almost always tetter the condition of the Bottie-fed 
 mother who really desires to nurse her own child, and 
 he should be consulted and his directions obeyed. The 
 importance of a really great effort in this direction is 
 shown by the fact that the physical culture records, 
 now so carefully kept in many of our schools and col- 
 leges, prove that bottle-fed babies are more likely to 
 be of small stature, and to have deficient bones, teeth 
 and hair, than children who have been fed on mother's 
 milk. 
 
 The food question is undoubtedly the most impor- simple 
 tant problem to the physical welfare of the child, and 
 has, as well, a most profound effect upon his disposi- 
 tion and character. Indiscriminate feeding is the cause 
 of much of the trouble and worry of mothers. This 
 subject is taken up at length in other papers of this 
 course, and it will suffice to say here that the table o£ 
 the family with young children should be regulated 
 largely by the needs of the growing sons and daugh- 
 ters. The simplified diet necessary may well be of 
 benefit to other members of the family. 
 
 Diet 
 
FAULTS AND THEIR REMEDIES. 
 
 The child born of perfect parents, brought up per- 
 fectly, in a perfect environment, would probably have 
 no faults. Even such a child, however, would be at 
 times inconvenient, and would do and say things at 
 variance with the order of the adult world. Therefore 
 lie might seem to a hasty, prejudiced observer to be 
 naughty. And, indeed, imperfectly born, imperfectly 
 trained as children now are,- many of their so-called 
 faults arc no more than such inconvenient crossings 
 of an immature will with an adult will. 
 
 No grown person, for instance, likes to be inter- 
 rupted, and is likely to regard the child who inter- 
 rupts him . " wilfully naughty. No young child, on 
 the contrary, objects to being interrupted in his speech, 
 though he may object to being interrupted in his play; 
 and he cannot understand why an adult should set 
 so much store on the quiet listening which is so infre- 
 quent in his own experience. Grown persons object to 
 noise ; children delight in it. Grown persons like to 
 have things kept in their places ; to a child, one place 
 is as good as another. Grown persons have a preju- 
 dice in favor of cleanliness ; children like to swim, but 
 hate to wash, and have no objections whatever to 
 grimy hands and faces. None of these things imply 
 the least degree of obliquity on the child's part; and 
 yet it is safe to say that nine-tenths of the children 
 
JEAN PAUL RICHTER 
 
28 
 
 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 Real 
 
 Faults 
 
 Training 
 
 the Will 
 
 who are punished are punished for some of these 
 things. The remedy for these inconveniences is time 
 and patience. The child, if left to himself, without a 
 word of admonishment, would probably change his 
 conduct in these respects, merely by the force of imi- 
 tation, provided that the adults around him set him 
 a persistent example of courtesy, gentleness, and clean- 
 liness. 
 
 The faults that are real faults, as Richter* says, are 
 those faults which increase with age. These it is that 
 need attention rather than those that disappear of 
 themselves as the child grows older. This rule ought 
 to be put in large letters, that every one who has to 
 train children may be daily reminded by it ; and not 
 exercise his soul and spend his force in trying to over- 
 come little things which may perhaps be objectionable, 
 but which will vanish to-morrow. Concentrate your 
 energies on the overcoming of such tendencies as may 
 in time develop into permanent evils. 
 
 To accomplish this, you must, of course, train the 
 child's own will, because no one can force another 
 person into virtue against his will. The chief object 
 of all training is, as we shall see in the next section, 
 to lead the child to love righteousness, to prefer right 
 doing to wrong doing; to make right doing a perma- 
 nent desire. Therefore, in all the procedures about 
 
 *Jean Paul Richter, "Der cinsige." German writer and 
 philosopher. His rather whimsical and fragmentary book on 
 education, called "Levana," contains some rare scraps of wis- 
 dom much used by later writers on educational topics. 
 
FAULTS AND THEIR REMEDIES. 
 
 29 
 
 to be sugp^ested, an effort is made to convince the 
 child of the ughncss and painfuhiess of wrong doing. 
 
 Pnnishment, as Herbert Spencer" agrees with Froe- 
 belf in pointing out, should be as nearly as possible a 
 representation of the natural result of the child's 
 action ; that is, the fault should be made to punish 
 itself as much as possible without the interference of 
 any outside person; for the object is not to make the 
 child bend his will to the will of another, but to make 
 him see the fault itself as an undesirable thinsf. 
 
 The effort to break the child's will has long been 
 recognized as disastrous by all educators. A broken 
 will is a worse misfortune than a broken back. In 
 the latter case the man is physically crippled ; in the 
 former, he is morally crippled. It is only a strong, 
 unbroken, persistent will that is adequate to achieve 
 self-mastery, and mastery of the difficulties of life. 
 The child who is too yielding and obedient in his early 
 days is only too likely to be weak and incompetent in 
 his later days. The habit of submission to a more 
 mature judgment is a bad habit to insist upon. The 
 child should be encouraged to think out things for 
 himself; to experiment and discover for himself why 
 his ideas do not work ; and to refuse to give them up 
 until he is genuinely convinced of their impractica- 
 bilitv. 
 
 Natural 
 Punishment 
 
 Breaking 
 the Will 
 
 ♦Herbert Spencer. English Philosopher and Scientist. His 
 book on "Education" is sound and practical. 
 
 tFreidrich Froebel, German Philosopher and Educator, 
 founder of the Kindergarten system, and inaugurator of the 
 new education. His two great books are "The Education of 
 Man" and "The Mother Play." 
 
30 
 
 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 Emergencies 
 
 It is true that there are emergencies in which his 
 immature judgment and undisciplined will must yield 
 to wiser judgment and steadier will ; but such yield- 
 ing should not be suffered to become habitual. It is a 
 safety valve merely, to be employed only when the 
 pressure of circumstances threatens to become danger- 
 ous. An engine whose safety valve should be always 
 in operation could never generate much power. Nor 
 is there much difficulty in leading even a very strong- 
 willed and obstinate child to give up his own way 
 under extraordinary circumstances. If he is not in 
 the habit of setting up his own will against that of his 
 mother or teacher, he will not set it up when the quick, 
 unfamiliar word of command seems to fit in with the 
 unusual circumstances. Many parents practice cry- 
 ing "Wolf ! wolf !" to their children, and call the 
 practice a drill of self-control ; but they meet inevitably 
 with the familiar consequences : when the real wolf 
 comes the hackneyed cry, often proved false, is dis- 
 regarded. 
 
 When the will is rightly trained, disobedience is a 
 fault that rarely appears, because, of coursCj- where 
 obedience is seldom required, it is seldom refused. 
 The child needs to obey — that is true ; but so does 
 his mother need to obey, and all other persons about 
 him. They all need to obey God, to obey the laws of 
 nature, the impulses of kindness, and to follow after 
 the ways of wisdom. Where such obedience is a set- 
 tled habit of the entire household, it easily, and, as 
 
HERBERT SPENCER 
 
32 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 it were, unconsciously, becomes the habit of the child. 
 Where such obedience is not the habit of the house- 
 hold, it is only with great difficulty that it can become 
 the habit of the child. His will must set itself 
 against its instinct of imitativeness, and his small 
 house, not yet quite built, must be divided against 
 itself. Probably nO' child ever rendered entire obe- 
 dience to any adult who did not himself hold 
 his own wishes in subjection. As Emerson says: 
 "In dealing- with my child, my Latin and my Greek, 
 my accomplishments and my money, stead me 
 nothing, but as much soul as I have avails. If I am 
 willful, he sets his will against mine, one for one, and 
 leaves me, if I please, the degradation of beating him 
 by my superiority of strength. But, if I renounce my 
 will and act for the soul, setting that up as an umpire 
 between us two, out of his young eyes looks the same 
 soul ; he reveres and loves with me." 
 Negative Supposc the child to be brought to such a stage 
 
 that he is willing to do anything his father or moth- 
 er says ; suppose, even, that they never tell him 
 to do anything that he does not afterwards 
 discover to be reasonable and just; still, what has he 
 gained ? For twenty years he has not had the respon- 
 sibility for a single action, for a single decision, right 
 or wrong. What is permitted is right to him ; what 
 is forbidden is wrong. When he goes out into the 
 world without his parents, what will happen ? At the 
 best he will not lie, or steal, or commit murder. That 
 
 Goodness 
 
FAULTS AND Til EI R RUM EDI ES. ?,?, 
 
 Is, he will do none of these thinjijs in their bald and 
 simple form. 
 
 Hnt in their he,<;iiinin^s these are hidden under a 
 ■nask of virtue and he has never been trained to look 
 oeneath that mask ; as happened to Richard h\'veril/ 
 sin mav sprint^ upon him unaware. Some one else, 
 all his life, has labeled things for him ; he is not in 
 the habit of judging for himself. He is blind, deaf, 
 and helpless — a plaything of circumstances. It is a 
 chance whether he falls into sin or remains blameless. 
 
 Disobedience, then, in a true sense, does not mean r^^i 
 failure to do as he is told to do. It means failure to 
 do the things that he knows to be right. He must be 
 taught to listen and obey the voice of his own con- 
 science ; and if that voice should ever speak, as it 
 sometimes does, differently from the voice of the con- 
 science of his parents or teachers, its dictates must still 
 be respected by these older and wiser persons, and he 
 must be permitted to do this thing which in itself may 
 be foolish, but which is not foolish to him. 
 
 And, on the other hand, the child who will have his Liberty 
 own way even when he knows it to be wrong should 
 be allowed to have it within reasonable limits. Richter 
 says, leave to him the sorry victory, only exercising suf- 
 ficient ingenuity to make sure that it is a sorry one. 
 What he must be taught is that it is not at all a pleasure 
 to have his own way, unless his own way happens to be 
 right ; and this he can only be taught by having his own 
 way when the results are plainly disastrous. Every time 
 
 •"The Ordeal of Richard Feverll," by George Meredith. 
 
34 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 lliat a willful child docs what he wants to do, and 
 suiTcrs sharply for it, he learns a lesson that nothing 
 hut this experience can teach him. 
 Self. But his sutTering- must he plainly seen to he the re- 
 
 ^"mont '"^"It ^^ 'lis iked, and not the result ot his mother's 
 answer. l"or example, a very young child who is tleter- 
 mined to play with fire may be allowed to touch the 
 hot lamp or a stove, whenever alYairs can he so ar- 
 ranged that he is not likely to burn himself too se- 
 verely. One such lesson is worth all the hand-spat- 
 tings and cries of "No, no !" ever resorted to by 
 anxious parents. If he pulls down the blocks that 
 you have built up for him, they should stay down, 
 while you gel out of the room, if possible, in order 
 'to evade all responsibility for that unpleasant result. 
 
 Prohibitions are almost useless. In order to con- 
 vince yourself of this, get some one to command yon 
 not to move your right arm. or to wink your eye. You 
 will find it almost impossible to obey for even a few 
 moments. The desire to move your arm, which was 
 not at all conscious before, will become overpowering. 
 'I'lie iirohibilion acts like a suggestion, and is an impli- 
 cation that you wouUl do the negative act unless you 
 were commanded not to. Miss Alcott, in "Little Men," 
 well illustrates this fact in the story of the children 
 who were told not to put beans up their noses, and 
 who straightway tilled their noses with beans. 
 
 As we shall see in the next section, Froebel meets 
 this difficulty by substituting positive commands for 
 
FAULTS AND THEIR REMEDIES. 35 
 
 prohibitions ; that is, he tells the child to do instead o£ positive 
 
 , „,. , ., ,1 1 1 Commands 
 
 telling him not to do. liedeniann'- says that example 
 is the first great evolutionary teacher, and liberty is 
 the second. In the overcoming of disobedience, no 
 other teachers are needed. The method may be 
 tedious ; it may be many years before the erratic will 
 is finally led to work in orderly channels; but there 
 is no possibility of abridging the process. There is 
 no short and sudden cure for disobedience, and the 
 only hope for final cure is the steady working of these 
 two great forces, example and liberty. 
 
 To illustrate the principles already indicated, we 
 will consider some specific problems together with sug- 
 gestive treatment for each, 
 
 aUICK TEMPER. 
 
 This, as well as irritability and nervousness, very ^^^^^ ^^ 
 often springs from a wrong physical condition. The Temper 
 digestion may be bad, or the child may be overstim- 
 ulated. He may not be sleeping enough, or may not 
 get enough outdoor air and exercise. In some cases 
 the fault appears because the child lacks the discipline 
 of young companionship. Even the most exemplary 
 adult cannot make up to the child for the influence of 
 other children. He perceives the difference between , 
 himself and these giants about him, and the percep- 
 tion sometimes makes him furious. His struggling 
 individuality finds it difficult to maintain itself under 
 the pressure of so many stronger personalities. He 
 
 *TJe<Jemanil, German Psychologist, 
 
36 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 makes, therefore, spasmodic and violent attempts of 
 self-assertion, and these attempts go under the name 
 of fits of temper. 
 
 The child who is not ordinarily strong enough to 
 assert himself effectively will work himself up into a 
 passion in order to gain strength, much as men some- 
 times stimulate their courage by liquor. In fact, pas- 
 sion is a sort of moral intoxication. 
 Remedy— I^^it whether the fits of passion are physical or 
 
 and" Quiet moral, the immediate remedy is the same — his environ- 
 ment must be promptly changed and his audience re- 
 moved. He needs solitude and quiet. This does not 
 mean shutting him into a closet, but leaving him alone 
 in a quiet room, with plenty of pleasant things about. 
 This gives an opportunity for the disturbed organism 
 to right itself, and for the will to recover its normal 
 tone. Some occupation should be at hand — blocks or 
 other toys, if he is too' young to read ; a good book or 
 two, such as Miss Alcott's "Little Men" and "Little 
 Women," when he is old enough to- read. 
 
 If he is destructive in his passion, he must be put 
 in a room where there are very few breakables to 
 tempt him. If he does break anything he must be 
 required to help mend it again. To shout a threat to 
 this effect through the door when the storm of temper 
 is still on, is only to goad him into fresh acts of re- 
 bellion. Let him alone while he is in this temporarily 
 insane state, and later, when he is sorry and wants to 
 be good, help him to repair the mischief he has 
 
QUICK TEMPER. 37 
 
 wrought. It is as foolish to argue with or to threaten 
 the child in this state as it would be were he a patient 
 in a lunatic asylum. 
 
 It is sometimes impossible to get an older child to 
 go into retreat. Then, since he cannot be carried, and 
 he is not open to remonstrance or commands, go out 
 of the room yourself and leave him alone there. At 
 any cost, loneliness and quiet must be brought to 
 bear upon him. 
 
 Such outbursts are exceedingly exhausting, using 
 up in a few minutes as much energy as would suf- 
 fice for many days of ordinary activity. After the 
 attack the child needs rest, even slee]i, and usually 
 seeks it himself. The desire should be encouraged. 
 
 Every reasonable ])recaution should be taken against Precautions 
 the recurrence of the attacks, for every lapse into this 
 excited state makes more certain the next lapse and 
 weakens the nervous control. This does not mean 
 that you should give up any necessary or right regu- 
 lations for fear of the child's temper. If the child 
 sees that you do this, he will on occasion deliberately 
 work himself up into a passion in order to get his 
 own way. But while you do not relax any just regu- 
 lations, you may safely help him t(j meet them. Give 
 him warning. For instance, do not spring any dis- 
 agreeable commands upon him. Have his duties as 
 systematized as possible so that he may know what 
 to expect ; and do not under any circumstances nag 
 him nor allow other children to tease him. 
 
 to be Taken 
 
38 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 sul£enness. 
 
 This fault likewise often has a physical cause, seated 
 very frequently in the liver. See that the child's 
 food is not too heavy. Give him much fruit, and in- 
 sist upon vigorous exercise out of doors. Or he may 
 perhaps not have enough childish pleasures. For 
 while most children are overstimulated, there still 
 remain some children whose lives are unduly color- 
 less and eventless. A sullen child is below the normal 
 level of responsiveness. He needs to be roused, wak- 
 ened, lifted out of himself, and made to take an active 
 interest in other persons and in the outside world 
 Inheritance In many cases sullenness is an inherited disposition 
 
 ExanTple intensified by example. It is unchildlike and morbid 
 to an unusual degree and very difficult to cure. The 
 mother of a sullen child may well look to her own 
 conduct and examine with a searching eye the pecu- 
 liarities of her own family and of her husband's. She 
 may then find the cause of the evil, and by removing 
 the child from the bad example and seeing to it that 
 every day contains a number of childish pleasures, 
 she may win him away from a fault that will other- 
 wise cloud his whole life. 
 
 LYING. 
 
 All lies are not bad, nor all liars immoral. A young 
 child who cannot yet understand the obligations of 
 truthfulness cannot be held morally accountable for 
 his departure from truth. Lying is of three kinds. 
 
LYING. 
 
 39 
 
 (i.) The imaginative lie. (2.) The evasive lie. 
 (3.) The politic lie. 
 
 (i.) It is rather hard to call the imaginative lie 
 a lie at all. It is so closely related to the creative in- 
 stinct which makes the poet and novelist and which, 
 common among the peasantry of a nation, is respon- 
 sible for folk-lore and mythology, that it is rather an 
 intellectual activity misdirected than a moral obliquity. 
 Very imaginative children often do not know the dif- 
 ference between what they imagine and what they act- 
 ually see. Their mind's eye sees as vividly as their 
 bodily eye ; and therefore they even believe their own 
 statements. Every attempt at contradiction only brings 
 about a fresh assertion of the impossible, which to the 
 child becomes more and more certain as he hears him- 
 self affirming its existence. 
 
 Punishment is of no use at all in the attempt to 
 regulate this exuberance. The child's large statements 
 should be smiled at and passed over. In the meantime, 
 he should be encouraged in every possible way tO' get 
 a firm grasp of the actual world about him. Manual 
 training, if it can be obtained, is of the greatest ad- 
 vantage, and for a very young- child, the performance 
 every day of some little act, which demands accuracy 
 and close attention, is necessary. For the rest, wait; 
 this is one of the faults that disappear with age. 
 
 (2.) The lie of evasion is a form of lying which 
 seldom appears when the relations between child and 
 parents are absolutely friendly and open. However, 
 
 Imaginative 
 "Lying" 
 
 The Lie of 
 
 Evasion 
 
40 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 the child who is very desirous of approval may find 
 it difficult to own up to a fault, even when he is cer- 
 tain that the consequence of his offense will not be at 
 all terrible. This is the more difficult, because the 
 more subtle condition. It is obvious that the child 
 who lies merely to avoid punishment can be cured of 
 that fault by removing- from him the fear of punish- 
 ment. To this end, he should be informed that there 
 will be no punishment whatever for any fault that he 
 freely confesses. For the chief object of punishment 
 beiuij to make him face his own fault and to see it as 
 something ugly and disagreeable, that object is ob- 
 viously accomplished by a free and open confession, 
 and no further punishment is required. 
 
 But when the child in spite of such reassurance 
 still continues to lie, both because he cannot bear to 
 have you think him capable of wrong-doing, and be- 
 cause he is not willing to acknowledge to himself that 
 he is capable of wrong-doing, the situation becomes 
 more complex. All you can do is to urge upon him 
 the superior beauty of frankness ; to praise him and 
 love him, especially when he does acknowledge a fault, 
 thus leading him to see that the way to win your ap- 
 proval — that approval which he desires so intensely — 
 is to- face his own shortcomings with a steady eye and 
 confess them to you unshrinkingly. 
 The Politic (3.) The politic lie is of course the worst form 
 
 of lying, partly because it is so unchildlike. This is 
 the kind of fault that will grow with age ; and grow 
 
 Lie 
 
LYING. 
 
 41 
 
 with such rapidity that the mother must set herself 
 against it with all the force at her command. The 
 child who lies for policy's sake, in order to achieve 
 some end which is most easily achieved by lying, is a 
 child led into wrong-doing by his ardent desire to get 
 something or do something. Discover what this some- 
 thing is, and help him to get it by more legitimate 
 means. If you point out the straight path, and show 
 the goal well in view at the end of it, he may be per- 
 suaded not to take the crooked path. 
 
 But there are occasionally natures that delight in 
 crookedness and that even in early childhood. They 
 would rather go about getting their heart's desire 
 in some crooked, intricate, underhanded way than by 
 the direct route. Such a fault is almost certain to be 
 an inherited one ; and here again, a close study of the 
 child's relatives will often help the mother to make 
 a good diagnosis, and even suggest to her the line 
 of treatment. 
 
 In an extreme case, the family may unite in dis- 
 believing the child who lies, not merely disbelieving 
 him when he is lying, but disbelieving him all the time, 
 no matter what he says. He must be made to see, 
 and that without room for any further doubt, that 
 the crooked paths that he loves do not lead to the 
 goal his heart desires, but away from it. His words, 
 not being true to the facts, have lost their value, and 
 no one around him listens to them. He is, as it were, 
 rendered speechless, and his favorite means of getting 
 
 Inherited 
 Crookedness 
 
 Extreme 
 Cases 
 
42 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 his own way is thus made utterly valueless. Such a 
 remedy is in truth a terrible one. While it is being 
 administered, the child suffers to the limit of his en- 
 durance ; and it is only justified in an exertme case, 
 and after the failure of all gentler means. 
 
 JEALOUSY. 
 
 Too often this deadly evil is encouraged in infancy, 
 instead of being promptly uprooted as it ought to be. 
 It is very amusing, if one does not consider the con- 
 sequences, to see a little child slap and push away the 
 father or the older brother, who attempts to kiss the 
 mother; but this is another fault that grows with 
 years, and a fault so deadly that once firmly rooted 
 it can utterly destroy the beauty and happiness of an 
 otherwise lovely nature. The first step toward over- 
 coming it must be to make the reign of strict justice 
 Justice ij-, ^|-,g home so obvious as to remove all excuse for the 
 
 and 
 
 Love gyji 'phe second step is to encourage the child's love 
 for those very persons of whom he is most likely to 
 be jealous. If he is jealous of the baby, give him spe- 
 cial care of the baby. Jealousy indicates a tempera- 
 ment overbalanced emotionally; therefore, put your 
 force upon the upbuilding of the child's intellect. Give 
 him responsibilities, make him think out things for 
 himself. Call upon him to assist in the family con- 
 claves. In every way cultivate his power of judg- 
 ment. The whole object of the treatment should be 
 
JEALOUSY. 43 
 
 to strengthen his intellect and to accustom his emo- 
 tions to find outlet in wholesome, helpful activity. 
 
 One wise mother made it a rule to pet the next to 
 the baby. The baby, she said, was l30und to be 
 petted a good deal because of its helplessness and 
 sweetness, therefore she made a conscious effort to pet 
 the next to the youngest, the one who had just been 
 crowded out of the warm nest of mother's lap by 
 the advent of the newcomer. Such a rule would go 
 far to prevent the beginnings of jealousy. 
 
 SELFISHNESS. 
 
 This is a fault to which strong-willed children are 
 especially liable. The first exercise of will-power af- 
 ter it has passed the stage of taking possession of 
 the child's own organism usually brings him into con- 
 flict with those about him. To succeed in getting hold 
 of a thing against the wish of someone else, and to 
 hold on to it when someone else wants it, is to win a 
 victory. The coveted object becomes dear, not so 
 much for its own sake, as because it is a trophy. Such 
 a child knows not the joy of sharing; he knows only 
 the joys of wresting victory against odds. This is in- 
 deed an evil that grows with the years. The child 
 who holds onto his apple, his candy, or toy, fights tooth 
 and nail everyone who wants to take it from him. 
 and resists all coaxing, is liable to become a hard, 
 sordid, grasping man, who stops at no obstacle to ac- 
 complish his purpose. 
 
44 
 
 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 The Only 
 Child 
 
 Kindergarten 
 a Remedy 
 
 Yet in the beginning-, this fault often hides itself 
 and escapes attention. The selfish child may be quiet, 
 clean, and under ordinary circumstances, obedient. He 
 may not even be quarrelsome ; and may therefore come 
 imder a much less degree of discipline than his ob- 
 streperous, impulsive, rebellious little brother. Yet, 
 in reality, his condition calls for much more careful 
 attention than docs the condition of the younger 
 bi;other. 
 
 However, the child who has no brother at all, cither 
 older or younger, nor any sister, is almost invited 
 by the fact of his isolation to fall into this sin. Only 
 children may be — indeed, often are — precocious, 
 bright, capable, and well-mannered, but they are sel- 
 dom spontaneously generous. Their own small selves 
 occupy an undue proportion of the family horizon, 
 and therefore of their own. 
 
 This is where the Kindergarten has its great value. 
 In the true Kindergarten the children live under a 
 dispensation of loving justice, and selfishness betrays 
 itself instantly there, because it is alien to the whole 
 spirit of the place. Showing itself, it is promptly 
 condemned, and the child stands convicted by the only 
 tribunal whose verdict really moves him — a jury of 
 his peers. Normal children hate selfishness and con- 
 demn it, and the selfish child himself, following the 
 strong, childish impulse of imitation, learns to hate 
 his own fault ; and so quick is the forgiveness of chil- 
 
SELFISHNESS. 
 
 45 
 
 dren that lie needs only to begin to repent before the 
 circle of his mates receives him again. 
 
 This is one reason why the Kindergarten takes chil- 
 dren at such an early age. Aiming, as it does, to lay 
 the foundations for right thinking and feeling, it must 
 begin before wrong foundations are too deeply laid. 
 Its gentle, searching methods straighten the strong 
 will that is growing crooked, and strengthen the en- 
 feebled one. 
 
 But if the selfish child is too old for the Kindergar- 
 ten, he should belong to a club. Consistent selfishness 
 will not long be tolerated here. The tacit or outspoken 
 rebuke of his mates has many times the force of a 
 domestic rebuke; because thereby he sees himself, at 
 least for a time, as his comrades see him, and never 
 thereafter entirely loses his suspicion that they may 
 be right. Their individual judgment he may defy, 
 but their collective judgment has in it an almost magi- 
 cal power, and convinces him in spite of himself. 
 
 Whatever strong affections the selfish boy shows 
 must be carefully cultivated. Love for another is the 
 only sure cure for selfishness. If he loves animals, let 
 him have pets, and give into his hands the whole re- 
 sponsibility for the care of them. It is better to let 
 the poor animals suffer some neglect, than to take 
 away from the boy the responsibility for their condi- 
 tion. They serve him only so .far as he can be in- 
 duced to serve them. The chief rule for the cure of 
 selfishness is, then, to watch every affection, small and 
 
 Intimate 
 Association 
 a Help 
 
 Cultivate 
 Affections 
 
,ir) STUD]- Of' CHILD urn. 
 
 large, encourage it, give it room to grow, and see to 
 it that the child does not merely get delight ont of it, 
 but that he works for it, that lie sacrifices himself for 
 those whom he loves. 
 
 LAZINESS. 
 
 This condition is often normal, especially during 
 adolescence. The developing boy or girl wants to lop 
 and to lounge, to lie sprawled over the floor or the 
 sofa. Quick movement is distasteful to him, and 
 often has an undue effect upon the heart's action. He 
 is normally dreamy, languid, indifferent, and subject 
 to various moods. These things are merely tokens 
 of the tremendous change that is going on within his 
 organism, and which heavily drains his vitality. Cer- 
 tain duties may, of course, be required of him at this 
 stage, but they should be light and steady. He should 
 not be expected to fill up chinks and run errands with 
 joyful alacrity. The six- or eight-year-old may be 
 called upon for these things, and not be harmed, but 
 this is not true of the child between twelve and sev- 
 enteen. He has absorbing business on hand and should 
 not be too often called away from it. 
 
 Laziness ordinarily accompanies rapid growth of 
 any kind. The unusually large child, even if he has 
 not yet reached the period of adolescence, is likely to 
 be lazy. His nervous energies are deflected to keep 
 up his growth, and his intelligence is often temporarily 
 dulled by the rapidity of his increase in size. 
 
LAZINESS. 
 
 A1 
 
 Moreover, it is not natural for any child to hurry. 
 Hurry is in itself both a result of nervous strain and 
 a cause of it ; and grown people whose nerves have 
 been permanently wrenched away from normal quietude 
 and steadiness, often form a habit of hurry which 
 makes them both unfriendly toward children and very 
 bad for children. These young creatures ought to go 
 along through their days rather dreamily and alto- 
 gether serenely. Every turn of the screw to tighten 
 their nerves makes more certain some form of early 
 nervous breakdown. They ought to have work to do, 
 of course, — enough of it to occupy both mind and body 
 • — but it should be quiet, systematic, regular work, much 
 of it performed almost automatically. Only occasion- 
 ally should they be required to do things with a con- 
 scious effort to attain speed. 
 
 However, there is a degree of laziness difficult of 
 definition which is abnormal ; the child fails to per- 
 form any work with regularity, and falls behind both 
 at school and at home. This may be the result of (i) 
 poor assimilation, (2) of anaemia, or it may be (3) 
 the first symptom of some disease. 
 
 (i.) Poor assimilation may show itself either 
 by (a) thinness and lack of appetite; (b) fat and ab- 
 normal appetite; (c) retarded growth; or (d) irreg- 
 ular and poorly made teeth and weak bones. 
 
 (2.) Anaemia betrays itself most characteristically 
 by the color of the lips and gums. These, instead of 
 being red, are a pale yellowish pink, and the whole 
 
 Hurry- 
 Not Natural 
 
 Abnormal 
 Laziness 
 
 Anaemia 
 
48 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 complexion has a sort of waxy pallor. In extreme 
 cases this pallor even becomes greenish. As the dis- 
 ease is accompanied with little pain, and few if any 
 marked symptoms, beyond sleepiness and weakness, it 
 often exists for some time without being suspected by 
 the parents. 
 
 (3.) The advent of many other diseases is an- 
 nounced by a languid indifference to surroundings, and 
 a slow response to the customary stimuli. The child's 
 brain seems clouded, and a light form of torpor in- 
 vades the whole body. The child, who is usually active 
 and interested in things about him, but who loses his 
 activity and becomes dull and irresponsive, should be 
 carefully watched. It may be that he is merely chang- 
 ing his form of growth — i. e., is beginning to grow tall 
 after completion of his period of laying on flesh, ou 
 vice versa. Or he may be entering upon the period of 
 adolescence. But if it is neither of these things, a 
 physician should be consulted. 
 Monotony A uiildcr dcgrcc of laziness may be induced by a 
 
 too monotonous round of duties. Try changing them. 
 Make them as attractive as possible. For, of course, 
 you do not require him to perform these duties for 
 your sake, whatever you allow him to suppose about 
 it, but chiefly for the sake of their influence on his 
 character. Therefore, if the influence of any work is 
 bad, you will change it, although the new work may 
 not be nearly so much what you prefer to have him 
 do. Whatever the work is, if it is only emptying 
 
LAZINESS. 
 
 49 
 
 waste-baskets, don't nag him, merely expect him to 
 do it, and expect it steadily. 
 
 In their earher years all children love to help mother. 
 They like any piece of real work even better than 
 play. If this love of activity was properly encour- 
 aged, if the mother, permitted the child to help, even 
 when he succeeded only in hindering, he might well 
 become one of those fortunate persons who' love to 
 work. This is the real time for preventing laziness. 
 But if this early period has been missed, the next best 
 thing is to take advantage of every spontaneous in- 
 terest as it arises ; to hitch the impulse, as it were, to 
 some task that must be steadily performed. For ex- 
 ample, if the child wants to play with tools, help him 
 to make a small water-wheel, or any other interest- 
 ing contrivance, and keep him at it by various devices 
 until he has brought it to a fair degree of comple- 
 tion. Your aim is to stretch his will each time he at- 
 tempts to do something a little further than it tends 
 to go of itself ; to let him work a little past his first 
 impulse, so that he may learn by degrees to work when 
 work is needed, and not only when he feels like it. 
 
 Helping: 
 
 UNTIDINESS. 
 
 Essentially a fault of immaturity as this is, we 
 must beware how we measure it by a too severe adult 
 standard. It is not natural for any young creature to 
 take an interest in cleanliness. Even the young ani- 
 mals are cared for in this respect by their parents ; the 
 
 Neatnesi 
 Not Natural 
 
so 
 
 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 Example 
 
 Eabit 
 
 COW licks her calf ; the cat, her kittens ; and neither 
 calf nor kittens seem to take much interest in the pro- 
 cess. The conscious love of cleanliness and order 
 grows with years, and seems to be largely a mat- 
 ter of custom. The child who has always lived in 
 decent surroundings by-and-by finds them necessary 
 to his comfort, and is willing to make a degree of ef- 
 fort to secure them. On the contrary, the street boy 
 who sleeps in his clothes, does not know what it is to 
 desire a well-made bed, and an orderly room. 
 
 The obvious method of overcoming this difficulty, 
 then, is not tO' chide the child for the fault, but to make 
 him so accustomed to pleasant surroundings that he 
 cannot help but desire them. The whole process of 
 making the child love order is slow but sure. It con- 
 sists in (i) Patient waiting on nature: first, keep the 
 baby himself sweet and clean, washing the young 
 child yourself, two or three times a day, and showing 
 your delight in his sweetness ; dressing him so simply 
 that he keeps in respectable order without the neces- 
 sity of a painful amount of attention. (2) Example: 
 He is to be accustomed to orderly surroundings, and 
 though you ordinarily require him to put away some 
 of his things himself, you do also assist this process 
 by putting away a good deal to which you do not call 
 attention. You make your home not only orderly but 
 pretty, and yourself, also, that his love for you may 
 lead him into a love for daintiness. (3) Habits: A 
 few set observances may be safely and steadfastly de- 
 
UNTIDINESS. SI 
 
 manded, but these should be very few : Such as that 
 he should not come to breakfast without brushing his 
 teeth and combing his hair, or sit down to any meal 
 with unwashed hands. Make them so- few that you 
 can be practically certain that they are attended to, 
 for the whole value of the discipline is not in the su- 
 perior condition of his teeth, but in the habit of mind 
 that is being formed. 
 
 IMPUDENCE. 
 
 Impudence is largely due to, (i) lack of perception; 
 (2) to bad example and to suggestion; and (3) to a 
 double standard of morality. 
 
 (i.) In the first place, too much must not be ex- ^ack of 
 pected of the young savages in the nursery. Remem- p«'^°«p*>°'^ 
 ber that the children there are in a state very much 
 more nearly resembling that of a savage or half- 
 civilized nation than resembling your own, and that, 
 therefore, while they will undoubtedly take kindly to 
 showy ceremonial, they are not ripe yet for most 
 of the delicate observances. At best, you can only 
 hope to get the crude material of good manners from 
 them. You can hope that they will be in the main 
 kind in intention, and as courteous under provoca- 
 tion as is consistent with their stage of development. 
 If you secure this, you need not trouble yourself un- 
 duly over occasional lapses into perfectly innocent and 
 wholesome barbarism. 
 
52 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 Good manners are in the main dependent upon 
 quick sympatliies, because sympathies develop the per- 
 ceptions. A child is much less likely to hurt the feel- 
 ings or shock the sensibilities of a person whom he 
 loves tenderly than of one for whom he cares very 
 little. Ihis is the chief reason why all children are 
 so much more likely to be offensive in speech and ac- 
 tion before strangers than when alone in the bosom of 
 their families. They are so far from caring what a 
 stranger thinks or feels that they cannot even fore- 
 cast his displeasure, nor imagine its reaction upon 
 mother or father. The more, then, that the child's 
 sympathies are broadened, the more he is encouraged 
 to take an interest in all people, even strangers, the 
 better mannered will he become. 
 
 (j.) Ikul example is more common than is usual- 
 EiampiB ly supposcd. Very few parents are consistently courte- 
 ous toward their children. They permit themselves a 
 sharp tone of voice, and rough and abrupt habits of 
 speech, that would scarcely be tolerated by any adult. 
 Even an otherwise gentle and amiable woman is often 
 disagreeable in her manner toward her children, com- 
 manding them to do things in a way well calculated 
 to excite opposition, and rebuking wrong-doing in 
 unmeasured terms. She usually reserves her soft and 
 gentle speeches for her own friends and for her hus- 
 band's, yet discourtesy cannot begin to harm them as 
 it harms her children. 
 
 Bad 
 
IMPUDENCE. 53 
 
 It is true that the children are often under foot 
 when she is busiest, when, indeed, she is so distracted 
 as to not be able to think about manners, but if she 
 would acknowledi^e to herself that she ought to be 
 polite, and that when she fails to be, it is because she 
 has yielded to temptation; and if, moreover, she would 
 make this acknowledgment openly to her children and 
 beg their pardon for her sharp words, as she ex- 
 pects them to beg hers, the spirit of courtesy, at any 
 rate, would prevail in her house, and would influence 
 her children. Children are lovingly ready to forgive 
 an acknowledged fault, but keen-eyed beyond belief in 
 detecting a hidden one. 
 
 (3.) The most fertile cause of impudence is as- 
 sumption of a double standard of morality, one for standard 
 the child and another for the adult. Impudence is, at 
 bottom, the child's perception of this injustice, and 
 his rebellion against it. When to this double standard, 
 — a standard that measures up gossip, for instance, 
 as right for the adult, and listening to gossip as wrong 
 for the child — when to this is added the assumption 
 of infallibility, it is no wonder that the child fairly 
 rages. 
 
 For, if we come to analyze them, what are the 
 speeches which we find so objectionable? "Do it 
 yourself, if you are so smart." "Maybe I am rude, 
 but I'm not any ruder than you are." "I think you 
 are just as mean as mean can be; I wouldn't be so 
 mean !" Is this last speech any worse in reality than 
 
 Double 
 
Example 
 
 54 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 "You are a very naughty little girl, and I am ashamed 
 of you," and all sorts of other expressions of candid 
 adverse opinion? Besides these forms of impudence, 
 there is the peculiarly irritating: "Well, you do it 
 yourself ; I guess I can if you can." 
 
 In all these cases the child is partly in the right. 
 He is stating the fact as he sees it, and violently as- 
 serting that you are not privileged to demand more 
 of him than of yourself. The evil comes in through 
 the fact that he is doing it in an ugly spirit. He is 
 not only desirous of stating the truth, but of putting 
 you in the wrong and himself in the right, and if this 
 hurts you, so much the better. All this is because he 
 is angry, and therefore, in impudence, the true evil 
 to be overcome is the evil of anger. 
 
 Show him, then, that you are open to correction. 
 Admit the justice of the rebuke as far as you can, 
 and set him an example of careful courtesy and for- 
 bearance at the very moment when these traits are 
 most conspicuously lacking in him. If some special 
 point is involved, some question of privilege, quietly, 
 but very firmly, defer the consideration of it until 
 he is master of himself and can discuss the situation 
 with an open mind and in a courteous manner. 
 
 CORPORAL PUNISHMENT. 
 
 In all these examples, which are merely suggestive, 
 it is impossible to lay down any absolute moral re- 
 cipe, because circumstances so truly alter cases — in 
 
CORPORAL PUNISHMENT 
 
 all these no mention is made of corporal punishment. 
 This is because corporal punishment is never neces- 
 sary, never right, but is always harmful. 
 
 There are three principal reasons why it should not 
 be resorted to: First, because it is indiscriminate. To 
 inflict bodily pain as a consequence of widely various 
 faults, leads to moral confusion. The child who is 
 spanked for lying, spanked for disobedience, and 
 spanked again for tearing his clothes, is likely enough 
 to consider these three things as much the same, as, 
 at any rate, of equal importance, because they all lead 
 to the saiiie result. This is to lay the foundation for 
 a permanent moral confusion, and a man who cannot 
 see the nature of a wrong deed, and its relative im- 
 portance, is incapable of guiding himself or others. 
 Corporal punishment teaches a child nothing of the 
 reason why what he does is wrong. Wrong must 
 seem to him to be dependent upon the will of another,* 
 and its disagreeable consequences to be escapable if 
 only he can evade the will of that other. 
 
 Second : Corporal punishment is wrong because it 
 inculcates fear of pain as the motive for conduct, 
 instead of love of righteousness. It tends directly to 
 cultivate cowardice, deceitfulness, and anger — three 
 faults w^orse than almost any fault against which it 
 can be employed. True, some persons grow up both 
 gentle and straightforward in spite of the fact that 
 they have been whipped in their youth, but it is in 
 spite of, and not because of it. In their homes other 
 
 Moral 
 Confusion 
 
 Fear 
 
 versus 
 
 LoTe 
 
Blunted 
 
 56 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 good qualities must have counteracted the pernicious 
 effect of this mistaken procedure. 
 Sensibilities Third : Corporal punishment may, indeed, achieve 
 
 immediate results such as seem at the moment to be 
 eminently desirable. The child, if he be young 
 enough, weak enough, and helpless enough, may be 
 made to do almost anything by fear of the rod ; and 
 some of the things he may thus be made to do may 
 be exactly the things that he ought to do; and this 
 certainty of result is exactly what prompts many 
 otherwise just and thoughtful persons to the use of 
 corporal punishment. But these good results are ob- 
 tained at the expense of the future. The effect of 
 each spanking is a little less than the effect of the 
 preceding one. The child's sensibilities blunt. As 
 in the case of a man with the drug habit, it requires 
 ■ a larger and larger dose to produce the required 
 effect. That is, if he is a strong child capable of en- 
 during and resisting much. If, on the contrary, he 
 is a weak child, whose slow budding will come only 
 timidly into existence, one or two whippings followed 
 by threats, may suffice to keep him in a permanently 
 cowed condition, incapable of initiative, incapable of 
 spontaneity. 
 
 The method of discipline here indicated, while it is 
 more searching than any corporal punishment, does 
 not have any of its disadvantages. It is more search- 
 ing, because it never blunts the child's sensibilities, 
 
CORPORAL PUNISHMENT. 
 
 57 
 
 but rather tends to refine them, and to make them 
 more responsive. 
 
 The child thus trained should become more sus- 
 ceptible, day by day, to gentle and elevating in- 
 fluences. This discipline is educative, explaining to 
 the child why what he does is wrong, showing him 
 the painful effects as inherent in the deed itself. He 
 cannot, therefore, conceive of himself as being ever 
 set free from the obligation to do right ; for that ob- 
 ligation within his experience does not rest upon his 
 mother's will or ability to inflict punishment, but 
 upon the very nature of the universe of which he is 
 a part. The effects of such discipline are therefore 
 permanent. That which happens to the child in the 
 nursery, also happens to him in the great world when 
 he reaches manhood. His nursery training interprets 
 and orders the world for him. He comes, therefore, 
 into the world not desiring to experiment with evil, 
 but clear-eyed to detect it, and strong-armed to over- 
 come it. 
 
 We are now ready to consider our subject in some 
 of its larger aspects. 
 
 Educative 
 Discipline 
 
 Permanent 
 Results 
 
TEST QUESTIONS 
 
 The following questions constitute the "written reci- 
 tation" which the regular members of the A. S. H. E. 
 answer in writing and send in for the correction and 
 comment of the instructor. They are intended to 
 emphasize and fix in the memory the most important 
 points in the lesson. 
 
STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 Read Carefully, In answering these questions you are 
 earnestly requested not to answer according to the text-book 
 where opinions are asked for, but to answer according to 
 conviction. In all cases credit will be given for thought and 
 original observation. Place your name and full address at 
 the head of the paper ; use your own words so that your in- 
 structor may be sure that you understand the subject. 
 
 1. How does Fiske account for the prolonged help- 
 
 lessness of the human infant? To what prac- 
 tical conclusions does this lead ? 
 
 2. Name the four essentials for proper bodilv 
 
 growth. 
 
 3. How does the child's world differ from that of 
 
 the adult? 
 
 4. In training a child morally, how do you know 
 
 which faults are the most important and should 
 have, therefore, the chief attention? 
 
 5. In training the will, what end must be held stead- 
 
 ily in view ? 
 
 6. What are the advantages or disadvantages of a 
 
 broken will? 
 
 7. Is obedience important? Obedience to what? 
 
 How do you train for prompt obedience in 
 emergencies ? 
 
STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 8. What is the object of punishment? Does corporal 
 
 punishment accomplish this object? 
 
 9. What kind of punishment is most effective? 
 
 10. Have any faults a physical origin? If so, name 
 
 some of them and explain. 
 
 11. What are the two great teachers according to 
 
 Tiederman ? 
 
 12. What can you say of the fault of untidiness? 
 
 13. What are the dangers of precocity? 
 
 14. What do you consider were the errors your own 
 
 parents made in training their children ? 
 
 15. Are there any questions which you would like 
 
 to ask in regard to the subjects taken up in 
 this lesson? 
 
 Note.— After completing the test, sign your full name. 
 
■^^^■^'■ 
 
 STUDY OF CHIIJ) LIFE 
 
 PART II 
 
 -^ir 
 
"CARITAS" 
 From a Painting In the Boston Public Library, by Abbot II. Thayer 
 
STUDY OF CHILD LIFE 
 
 PART II 
 
 CHARACTER BUILDING 
 
 Although wc have taken up the question of pun- 
 ishment and the manner of deahng- with various child- 
 ish iniquities before the question of character-build- 
 ing, it has only been done in order to clear the mind 
 of some current misconceptions. In the statements 
 of Froebel's simple and positive philosophy of child Froebei'ti 
 culture, misconception on the part of the reader nuist ^»^'1os°p'« 
 be guarded against, and these misconceptions gener- 
 ally arise from a feeling that, beautiful as his opti- 
 mistic philosophy may be, there arc some children 
 too bad to profit by it — or at least that there are oc- 
 casions when it will not work out in practice. In 
 the preceding section we have endeavored to show in 
 detail how this method applies to a representative 
 list of faults and shortcomings, and having thus, we 
 hope, proved that the method is applicable to a wide 
 range of cases — indeed to all possible cases — we will 
 proceed to recount the fundamental principles which 
 h'roebel, and before him Pestalozzi,* enunciated ; 
 which those who adhere to the new education are to- 
 day working out into the detail of school-room i)rac- 
 ticc. 
 
 * Pestalozzi, Educator, Philosopher, auc', Reformer. Author of 
 ••How Gertrude Teacbes Her Uhlldreu." 
 
6o 
 
 STU/)\- Ol' Cllll.n LIFE. 
 
 Object of 
 
 Moral 
 
 Training, 
 
 The 
 
 Reason 
 
 Why 
 
 As previously stated, the object of the moral train- 
 iiii^ of the child is the inculcation of the love of right- 
 eousness. Froebel is not concerned with laying^ down 
 a mass of observances which the child must follow, 
 and which the parents must insist upon. lie thinks 
 rather that the child's nature once turned into the 
 rig^ht direction and surrounded by rii;ht inllucnces will 
 p^row straii^ht without constant yankings and twist- 
 ings. 'i'he child wild loves to do right is safe. He 
 may make luistakes as to what the right Is, but he 
 will learn by these mistakes, and will never go far 
 astray. 
 
 However, it is well to save him as far as possible 
 from the pain of these mistakes. We need to pre- 
 serve in him what has already been implanted there ; 
 the love of understanding the reasons for conduct. 
 When the child asks "Why?" therefore, he should 
 seldom be toUl "liecause mother says so." This is to 
 deny a rightful activity of his }Oung mind ; to give 
 him a monotonous and iiisuriicient reason. teni])orar}; 
 in its nature, instead of a lasting reason which will 
 remain with him through life. Dante says all those 
 who have lost what he calls "the good of the intel- 
 lect" are in the Inferno. And when you refuse to give 
 your child satisfactory reasons for the conduct you 
 require of him, you refuse to cultivate in him that 
 very good of the intellect which is necessary for his 
 salvation. 
 
( ii.iK.K I i:i< in ' 1 1. n INC. 
 
 6i 
 
 As sodii. liowcvrr, as your ooiiimands hcoonu' pusi 
 live inslrad of iK'.nalivi', \\\v (liilicully of nu'i'tiii.L; lln' 
 situation lK's;ins to disappt-'ar. it is usually u)ucli 
 easier to tell llie child why he should do a Ihini; than 
 why he should not do its opposite, i'or example, it 
 IS much easier to uiake him sei' that he ou,s;hl to \)r 
 a helpful memher of the family ihau to make hiiu 
 understand why he should slop makini; a loud noise, 
 or refrain from wakins; up tin- hahy. There is sonic- 
 Ihinj^ in the child which in calm moments recojj^nizes 
 that love demands some sacrifice. To this somethinjjj 
 you nuisl api)eal and these calm moments, for tlic 
 most pari, you must choose for makini;- the appeal. 
 'I'he effort is to prevent the appearance of evil hy the 
 active presence of s^ood. The child who is husy Iryinj^ 
 to he i!,{nH\ has little time to he naughty. 
 
 AilviinlilKO 
 of Poaitivo 
 Coinmnnda 
 
 iM-ohel's mosi characteristic ultcranci- is perhajjs 
 this: "/\ suppressi'd or perverted i^ood (|uality'-a 
 ^ood U'ndency, onl\ rt-pressi'd. misunderstood, or 
 misj^uided — lies orijL^inally al (he hottom of evi'ry 
 shortcominj^ in man. Hence the only and infallihle 
 remedv for counteraclin.^ any shortcomin.t;- and (>ven 
 wickedness is to lind ihe orii^iually i;<)o<l source, the 
 oripnally .^ood side of the human heini;- lliat has heen 
 repressed, disturbed or misled into the sliortcomint^, 
 and then to foster, l)uild up. and ])roperly ,L;uiiK' this 
 i^ood side, 'fhus the shortcomiui; will at last dis- 
 appear, altlioui;h it may involve a hard slru.ij;j.;le 
 
 Original 
 Goodnoaa 
 
Methods 
 
 62 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 against habit, but not against original depravity in 
 man, and this is accomplished so much the more rap- 
 idly and surely because man himself tends to abandon 
 his shortcomings, for man prefers right to wrong." 
 The natural deduction from this is that we should 
 say "do" rather than "don't" ; open up the natural 
 way for rightful activity instead of uttering loud 
 warning cries at the entrance to every wrong path. 
 Kindergarten It is for this rcason that the kindergarten tries by 
 
 every means to make right doing delightful. This 
 is one of the reasons for its songs, dances, plays, its 
 bright colors, birds, and flowers. And in this respect 
 it may well be imitated in every home. No one loves 
 that which is disagreeable, ugly, and forbidding; yet 
 many little children are expected to love right doing 
 which is seldom attractively presented to them. 
 
 The results of such treatment are apparent in the 
 grown people of to-day. Most persons have an under- 
 lying conviction that sinners, or at any rate unconscien- 
 tious persons, have a much easier and pleasanter time of 
 it than those who try to do right. To the imagination of 
 the majority of adults sin is dressed in glittering colors 
 and virtue in gray, somber garments. There are few 
 who do not take credit for right doing as if they 
 had chosen a hard and disagreeable part instead of 
 the more alluring ways of' wrong. This is because 
 they have been mis-taught in childhood and have 
 come to think of wrongdoing as pleasant and virtue 
 
CHARACTER BUILDING. 
 
 63 
 
 as liard, whereas the real truth is exactly the oppo- 
 site. It is wrongdoing that brings unpleasant conse- 
 quences and virtue that brings happiness. 
 
 There are those who object that by the kinder- 
 garten method right doing is made too easy. The 
 children do not have to put forth enough effort, they 
 say ; they are not called upon to endure sufficient 
 pain ; they do not have the discipline which causes 
 them to choose right no matter how painful right 
 may be for the moment. Whether this dictum is 
 ever true or not, it certainly is not true in early child- 
 hood. Tlie love of righteousness needs to be firmly 
 rooted in the character before it is strained and pulled 
 upon. We do not start seedlings in the rocky soil 
 or plant out saplings in time of frost. If tests and 
 trials of virtue must come, let them come in later life 
 when the love of virtue is so firmly established that it 
 may be trusted to find a way to its own satisfaction 
 through whatever difficulties may oppose. 
 
 In the very beginning of any effort to live up to 
 Froebel's requirements it is evident that children must 
 not be measured by the way they appear to the neigh- 
 bors. This is to reaffirm the power of that rigid 
 tradition which has warped so many young lives. She 
 who is trying to fix her child's heart upon true and 
 holy things may well disregard her neighbor's com- 
 ments on the child's manners or clothes or even upon 
 momentary ebullitions of temper. She is working 
 
 Right Doing: 
 Made Easy 
 
 Neighbors' 
 Opinions 
 
(>4 
 
 STUDY OF CHILD LIfli. 
 
 Rights 
 of Others 
 
 below the surface of things, is setting eternal forces 
 to work, and she cannot aftord to interrupt this work 
 for the sake of shining the child up with any prema- 
 ture outside polish. If she is to have any peace of 
 mind or to allow any to the child, if she is to live in any 
 way a simple and serene life, she must establish a few 
 iundamental principles by which she judges her child's 
 conduct and regulates her own, and stand by these 
 principles through thick and thin. 
 
 Perhaps the most fundamental principle is that 
 enunciated by Fichte. "Each man," he says, "is a 
 free being in a world of other free beings." There- 
 fore his freedom is limited only by the freedom of the 
 other free beings. Tinat is, they must "divide the 
 world amongst them." Stated in the form of a com- 
 mand he says again, "Restrict your freedom through 
 the freedom of all other persons with whom you come 
 in contact." This is a rule that even a three-year-old 
 child can be made to understand, and it is astonish- 
 ing with what readiness he will admit its justice. He 
 can do anything he wants to, you explain to him, except 
 bother other people. And, of course, the corollary 
 follows that every one else can do whatever he pleases 
 except to bother the child. 
 
 This clear and simple doctrine can be driven home 
 with amazing force, if you strictly respect the child's 
 right as you require him to respect yours. You should 
 neither allow any encroachments upon your own proper 
 privileges, except so far as you explain that this is 
 
Cll.lR.lCTliR IH'Il.niNi;. 65 
 
 only a loving pcrniissioti on yonr i)arl, antl nol U> be 
 assumed as a precedent or to be demanded as a rigbt ; 
 nor should you yourself encroach upon his privileges. 
 
 If you do not expect him to interrupt you, you 
 must not interrupt him. If you expect him to let you 
 alone when you are busy, you nuist let him alone 
 when he is busy, that is, when he is hard at work 
 playing. If you nuist call him away from his playing, 
 give him warning, so that he may have time to put 
 his small affaiis in order before obeying your coni- 
 inand. The more carefully you do this the more 
 willing will be his response on the infret|Uont occa- 
 sions when you must demand immediate attention. In 
 some such fashion you teach the child to respect the 
 rights of others by scrupulously respecting those rights 
 to which he is most alive, namely, his own. The next 
 step is to require him with you to think out the rights 
 of others, and both of you together should shai^e your 
 conduct so as to leave these rights uninfringed. 
 
 As soon as the young child's will has fully taken jios- ^^^ pj^^j^,, 
 session of his own organism he will inevitably try to |u"^g*'' 
 rule yours. The establishment of the law of which I 
 have just spoken will go far toward regulating this 
 new-born desire. Rut still he nuist be allowed in some 
 degree to rule others, because power to rule others 
 is likely to be at soiue time during his life of great 
 importance to him. To thwart him absolutely in this 
 respect, never yielding yourself to his imperious de- 
 mands, is alike impossible and undesirable. His will 
 
66 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 must not be shut up to himself and ,,to the things that 
 he can make himself do. In various ways, with due 
 consideration for other people's feelings, with courtesy, 
 with modesty, he may well be encouraged to do his 
 share of ruling. And while, of course, he will not 
 begin his ruling in such restrained and thoughtful 
 fashion as is implied by these limitations, yet he must 
 be suffered to begin ; and the rule for the respect of the 
 rights of others should be suffered gradually to work 
 out these modifications. 
 
 A safe distinction may be made as follows : Per- 
 mit him, since he is so liclpless, to rule and persuade 
 others to satisfy his legitimate desires, such as the de- 
 sire for food, sleep, afifection, and knowledge ; but when 
 he demands indulgencics. reserve your own liberty of 
 choice, so as to clearly demonstrate to him that you 
 are exercising choice, and in doitig so, are well within 
 your own rights. 
 Low Voice There is one simple outward observation which 
 
 omman s ,rreatly assists in the inculcation of these funda- 
 mental truths — that is the habit of using a low voice in 
 speaking, especially when issuing a command or ad- 
 ministering a rebuke. A loud, insistent voice prac- 
 tically insures rebellion. This is because the low voice 
 means that you have command of yourself, the loud 
 voice that you have lost it. The child submits to a 
 controlled will, but not to one as uncontrolled as his 
 own. In both cases he follows your example. If you 
 are self-controlled, he tends to become so; if you are 
 
of Words 
 
 CIlARACTLiR Bl'ILDlNG. 67 
 
 excited and angry, ho also becomes so, or if he is 
 already so, hi;> excitement and anger increases. 
 
 While most mothers rely altogether too much upon 
 speech as a means of explaining life to the child, yet it 
 must be admitted that speech has a great function to 
 perform in this regard. Nevertheless it is well to bear 
 in mind that it is not true that a child will always do 
 what you tell him to do, no matter how plain you may 
 tell him, nor how perfectly you may explain your rei- 
 sons. 
 
 In the first place, speech means less to children than Limitations 
 to grown persons. Each word has a smaller content 
 of experience. They cannot get the full force of the 
 most clear and eloquent statement. Therefore all 
 speech must be reinforced by example, and by as many 
 forms of concrete illustrations as can be commanded. 
 Each necessary truth should enter the child's mind 
 by several channels ; hearmg, eye-sight, motor activity 
 should all be called upon. Many truths may be 
 dramatized. This, where the mother is clever enough 
 to employ it, is the surest method of appeal. Rut in 
 any case, speech alone must not be relied upon, nor 
 the child considered a hopeless case who docs not 
 respond to it. 
 
 Denunciatory speech especially needs wise regulation. 
 As Richter says, "What is to be followed as a rule of 
 prudence, yea, of justice, toward grown-up people, 
 should be much more observed toward children, name- 
 
68 SrUDY Ol' CHILI) JJPJL 
 
 ly, that one should never judginj^ly declare, for in- 
 stance, "Ytni are a liar," or even, "Yon are a had hoy," 
 instead of sayni*^-, "You have told an nniruth," or "You 
 have done vvron^'." For since the power to coniman'' 
 yourself ini])lies at the same time the j)ower of obey- 
 ing, man feels a minute after his fault as free as Socra- 
 tes, and the brandinj^ mark of his nahirc, not his deed, 
 must seem to him blameworthy of punishment. 
 
 "To this must be added that every individual's wrong 
 actions, owing" to his inalienable sense of a moral aim 
 and hope, seem to him only short, usurped inter- 
 regnums of the devil, or comets in the uniform solar 
 system. The child, consecpiently, inuler such a moral 
 amiihilation, feels the wrong-doing of others more 
 than his own ; and this all the more because, in him, 
 want of rellection and the general warmth of liis feel- 
 ings, represent the injustice of others in a more ugly 
 light than his own." 
 Example If auy one desires to prove the superior force of 
 
 prooopt example over ])recept, let him try teaching a baby to 
 say "Thank you" or "Please," merely by being scrupu- 
 lously careful to say these things to the baby on all fit 
 occasions. No one has taken the statistics of the num- 
 ber of times every small child is exhorted to perfect 
 himself in this particular observance ; but it is safe to 
 say that in the- United States alone these injunctions 
 are spoken something like a million times a day and 
 all quite imnccessarily. The child will say "Please" 
 and "Thank vou" without being told to do so, if he 
 
to Children 
 
 CIlARACTIiR in'll.niNC. 69 
 
 merely has his attenticin calk\l to llic fact that tlie 
 pcojile around him :ill usi- these phrases. 
 
 The truth is, too many parents forj^et to speak these Poutojiess 
 aj;recable words whenever they ask favors of their 
 own children ; so the force of their example is marred. 
 What you do to the child himself, remember, always 
 outweiji^hs anything you do to others before him. This 
 is the reason why it is necessary that you shouUl ac- 
 knowledge your own shortcnn;ings to the child, if yo.i 
 expect him to acknowledge his to you. It is also 
 necessary sometimes to point out clearly the kiud and 
 considerate things that you are in the habit of doing 
 to others, lest the untrained mind of the young child 
 way fail to see and so miss the force of your example. 
 
 l^.ut in thus revealing your own good deeds to the 
 child, remember the motive, and reveal them only (a) 
 when he cannot perceive them of himself, (b) when 
 iie needs to perceive them in order that his own con- 
 duct may be inlluenced by them, and (c) at the lime 
 when he is most likely to appreciate them. This latter 
 recjuirement precludes you from announcing your own 
 righteousness when he is naughty, and compels you, 
 of course, to go directly against your native impulse, 
 wliicii is to mention your deeds of sacrifice and kind- 
 ness only when you are angry and mean to reproach 
 him with them. When you tell him how devoted you 
 have been at some moment when you are both thor- 
 oughly angry, he is in danger of either denying or 
 hating your devotion ; but when yoii refer to it tender- 
 
7C 
 
 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 Live with 
 
 Your 
 
 Children 
 
 ly, and, as your heart will then prompt you, modestly, 
 at some loving moment, he will give it recognition, 
 and be moved to love goodness more devotedly because 
 you embody it. 
 
 Another important rule is this : Do not make too 
 many rules. Some women are like legislatures in per- 
 petual session. The child who is confused and tantal- 
 ized by the constant succession of new laws learns 
 presently to disregard them, and to regulate his life 
 according to certain deductions of his own — sometimes 
 surprisingly wise and politic deductions. The way to 
 cure yourself of this law-making habit is to stop think- 
 ing of every little misdeed as the beginning of a great 
 wrong. It is very likely an accident and a combina- 
 tion of circumstances such as may not happen again. 
 To treat misdemeanors which are not habitual nor char- 
 acteristic as evanescent is the best way to make them 
 evanescent. They should not be allowed to enter too 
 deeply into your consciousness or into that of your 
 child. 
 
 In order to be able to discriminate between accidental 
 wrong-doing, and that which is the first symptom of 
 wrong-thinking, you must be in close touch with your 
 children. This brings us to Froebel's great motto, 
 "Come, let us live with our children !" This means 
 that you are not merely to talk with your child, 
 to hear from his lips what he is doing, but to live so 
 closelv with him, that in most cases vou know what 
 
CH. I K. I C TER li Un. niXG. 7 1 
 
 \\Kt is doin^^ without any need of his telHng you. When, 
 however, he docs tell you something which happened 
 in the school play-around or otherwise out of the ran^e 
 of your knowledp^e, he careful not to moralize over 
 it. Make yourself as ag-reeable a secret-keeper as his 
 best friend of his own age ; let your moralizing be so 
 rare that it is effective for that very reason. If the 
 occasion needs moral reflection at all — and that seldom 
 happens — the wise way is to lead the child to do his 
 own reflecting ; to arrive at his own conclusions, and if 
 you must lead him, by all means do so as invisibly 
 as possible. For the most part it is safe to take the 
 confessions lightly, and well to keep your own mind 
 young by looking at things from the boy's point of 
 view. 
 
 If, however, there is to be perfect confidence be- The subject 
 tween you, the one subject which is usually kept out 
 of speech between mothers and children must be no 
 forbidden subject between them ; you must not refuse 
 to answer questions about the mystery of sex. If you 
 are not the fit person to teach your child these impor- 
 tant facts, who is ? Certainly not the school-mates and 
 servants from whom he is likely to learn them if you 
 refuse to furnish the information. Usually it is suf- 
 ficient simply to answer the child's honest questions 
 honestly ; but any mother who finds herself unable to 
 cope with this simple matter in this simple spirit, will 
 find help in Margaret Morley's "Song of Life," in the 
 
n STUDY or CHILD LIFE. 
 
 Wood-Allen Publications, and the books of the Rev. 
 Sylvanus Stall.* 
 
 In respect to these matters more than in respect to 
 others, but also in respect to all matters, children often 
 do not know that they are doin^ wrong, even when it 
 it very difficult for parents to believe that they do not 
 intend wrong-doing. As we have seen from our 
 analysis of truthfulness, the child may very often lie 
 without a qualm of conscience, and he may still more 
 readily break the unwritten rules of courtesy, asking 
 abrupt and even cruel questions of strangers, and haul 
 the family skeleton out of its closet at critical moments. 
 Such things cannot be wholly guarded against, even 
 by the exercise of the utmost wisdom, but the habit of 
 reasoning things out for himself is the greatest help 
 a child can have. 
 „. . . The formation of the bent of the child's nature as 
 
 °^s^ a whole is a matter of unconscious education, but as 
 he grows in the power to reason, conscious education 
 must direct his mental activity. It is not enough for 
 him, as it is not enough for any grown person, to do 
 the best that he knows ; he must learn to know the best. 
 The word righteousness itself means right-wiseness, 
 i. e., right knowingness. 
 
 To quote Froebel again, "In order, therefore, to im- 
 part true, genuine firmness to the natural will-activity 
 
 "What a Young Girl Ought to Know" and "What a Young 
 Woman Ought to Know, ' by Dr. Mary Wood Allfn. 
 
 "What a Young Boy Ought to Know," "What a Young Man 
 Ought tn Know," I)y Rev. Sylvanus Stall. 
 
CHARACTER BUILDING. yi 
 
 of the boy, all the activities of the boy. his entire will 
 should proceed from and have reference to the develop- 
 ment, cultivation, and representation of the internal. 
 Instruction in example and in words, which later on 
 become precept and example, furnishes the means for 
 this. Neither example alone, nor words will do; not 
 example alone, for it is particular and special, and the 
 word is needed to give the particular individual exam- 
 ple universal applicability ; not words alone, for exam- 
 ple is needed to interpret and explain the word, which 
 is general, spiritual, and of many meanings. 
 
 "But instruction and example alone and in them- 
 selves are not sufficient; they must meet a good pure 
 heart and this is the outcome of proper educational 
 influences in childhood." 
 
 Lest these directions should seem to demand an al- Moral 
 most superhuman degree of control and wisdom on the 
 part of the mother, remember that moral precocity is 
 as much to be guarded against as mental precocity. 
 Remember that you are neither required to be a per- 
 fect mother nor to rear a perfect child. As Spencer 
 remarks, a perfect child in this imperfect world would 
 be sadly out of joint with the times, would indeed be 
 a martyr. If your basic principles are right and if 
 your child has before him the daily and hourly spectacle 
 of a mother who is trying to conform herself to high 
 standards, he will grow as fast as it is safe for him 
 to grow. Spencer says : "Our higher moral faculties 
 like our higher intellectual ones, are comparatively 
 
 Precocity 
 
74 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 complex. As a consequence they are both compara- 
 tively late in their evolution, and with the one as with 
 the other, a very early activity produced by stimula- 
 tion will be at the expense of the future character. 
 Hence the not uncommon fact that those who during 
 childhood were instanced as models of juvenile good- 
 ness, by and by undergo some disastrous and seemingly 
 inexplicable change, and end by being not above but 
 below par; while relatively exemplary men are often 
 the issue of a childhood not so promising. 
 
 "Be content, therefore, with moderate measures and 
 moderate results, constantly bearing in mind the fact 
 that the higher morality, like the higher intelligence, 
 must be reached by a slow growth ; and you will then 
 have more patience with those imperfections of nature 
 which your child hourly displays. You will be less 
 prone to constant scolding, and threatening, and for- 
 bidding, by which many parents induce a chronic irri- 
 tation, in a foolish hope that they will thus make their 
 children what they should be." 
 Huiesin In couclusion, the rules that may be safely followed 
 
 Character 
 
 Building m charactcr-building may be summed up thus : 
 
 (i) Recognize that the object of your training is 
 to help the child to love righteousness. Command lit- 
 tle and then use positive commands rather than prohi- 
 bitions. Use "do" rather than- "don't." 
 
 (2) Make right-doing delightful. 
 
 (3) Establish Fichte's doctrine of right, see page 
 64. 
 
CUARACl'EK BUILDING. 75 
 
 (4) Teach by example rather than precept. There- 
 fore respect the child's rights as you wish him to re- 
 spect yours. 
 
 (5) Use a low voice, especially in commanding;- or 
 rebuking-. 
 
 (6) In chiding, remember Richter's rule and re- 
 buke the sin and not the sinner. 
 
 (7) Confess your own misdeeds, by this means and 
 others securing the confidence of your children. 
 
 Finally, remember that this is an im])erfect world, 
 you are an imperfect mother, and the best results 
 you can hope for are likely to be imperfect. But the 
 results may be so founded upon eternal principles as 
 to tend continually to give place to better and better 
 results. 
 
PLAY 
 
 Aristotle 
 
 Luther 
 
 Although Froebel is best known as the educator who 
 first took advantage of play as a means of education, 
 he was not, in reality, the first to recoginze the high 
 value of this spontaneous activity. He was indeed the 
 first to put this recognition into practice and to use the 
 force generated during play to help the child to a high- 
 er state of knowledge. 
 
 But before him Plato said that the plays of children 
 have the mightiest influence on the maintenance or the 
 non-maintenance of laws ; that during the first three 
 years the child should be made "cheerful" and "kind" 
 by having sorrow and fear and pain kept away from 
 him and by soothing him with music and rhythmic 
 movements. 
 
 Aristotle held that children until they were five years 
 old "should be taught nothing, not even necessary la- 
 bor, lest it hinder growth, but should be accustomed 
 to use so much motion as to avoid an indolent habit 
 of body, and this," he added, "can be acquired by 
 various means, among others by play, which ought to 
 be neither illiberal, nor laborious, nor lazy." 
 
 Luther rebukes those who despise the plays of chil- 
 dren and says that Solomon did not prohibit scholars 
 from play at the proper time. Fenelon, Locke, Schil- 
 ler, and Richter all admit the deep significance of this 
 universal instinct of youth. 
 
 Preyer, speaking not as a philosopher or educator, 
 but as a scientist, mentions "the new kinds of pleas- 
 
PL. I V. 77 
 
 arable sensations with some adniixturc of intellectual 
 elements," which are gained when the child gradually 
 begins to play. Much that is called play he considers 
 true experimenting, especially when the child is seen to 
 be studying the changes produced by his own activity, 
 as when he tears ])aper into small bits, shakes a bunch 
 of keys, opens and shuts a box, plays with sand, and 
 empties bottles, and throws stones into the water. "The 
 zeal with which these seemingly aimless movemenls 
 are executed is remarkable. The sense of graliliealion 
 must be very great, and is i)rincipally due to the feeling 
 of his own power, and of being the cause of the various 
 changes." 
 
 All these authorities are quoted here in o'"(ler to Educational 
 
 • • r 1 I'll Value of 
 
 show that the practical recognition of play wliicli ob- puy 
 tains among the advanced educators to-day is not a 
 piece of sentimentalism. as stern critics sometimes de- 
 clare, but the united opinion of some of the wisest 
 minds of this and former ages. As Froebel says, "I'lay 
 and speech eonstilnte the element in which the child 
 lives. At this stage (the fust three years of childhood) 
 he imparts to everything the virtues of sight, feeling, 
 and speech. He feels the unity between himself and 
 the whole external world " And h'roebel conceives it 
 to be of the profoundest importance that this sense of 
 unity should not be disturbed. He finds that play is 
 the most spiritual activity of man at this age, "and at 
 the same time typical of human life as a whole — of the 
 
78 STUDY Of CHILD LIFE. 
 
 inner, hidden, natural life of man and all things ; 
 it gives, therefore, joy, freedom, contentment, inner 
 and outer rest, peace with the world ; it holds the 
 sources of all that is good. The child that plays thor- 
 oughly until physical fatigue forbids will surely be a 
 thorough, determined man, capable of self-sacrifice for 
 the promotion and welfare of himself and others." 
 
 But all play ^loes not deserve this high praise. It 
 fits only the play under right conditions. Fortunately 
 these are such that every mother can command them. 
 There are three essentials: (i) Freedom, (2) Sym- 
 pathy, (3) Right materials. 
 
 (i) Freedom is the first essential, and here the 
 child of poverty often has the advantage of the 
 child of wealth. There are few things in the pover- 
 ty-stricken home too good for Inm to play with ; in its 
 narrow quarters, he becomes, perforce, a part of all 
 domestic activity. He learns the uses of household 
 utensils, and his play merges by imperceptible degrees 
 into true, healthful work. 
 
 In the home of wealth, however, there is no such 
 freedom, no such richness of opportunity. The child 
 of wealth has plenty of toys, but few real things to 
 play with. lie is shut out of the common activity of 
 the family, and shut in to the imitation activity of liis 
 nursery. He never gets his small hands on realities, 
 but in his elegant clothes is confined to the narrow 
 conventional round that is falsely sui)posed to be good 
 for him. 
 
PLAY. 79 
 
 Froebel insists upon the importance of the child's 
 dress beintj loose, serviceable, and inconspicuous, so 
 that he may play as nuich as possible without con- 
 sciousness oi the restrictions of dress. The playinji; 
 child should also have, as we have noticed in the first 
 section, the freedom of the outside world. This does 
 not mean merely that he should go out in his baby- 
 buo;^y, or take a ride in the jjark, but that he should 
 be able to play out-of-doors, to creep on the {i^round, 
 to be a little open-air savage, and play with nature as 
 he finds it. 
 
 (2) Sympathy is much more likely to rise spon- 
 taneously in the mother's breast for the child's troubles 
 than for the child's joys. She will stop to take him 
 up and pet him when he is hurt, no matter how busy 
 she is, but she too often considers it waste of time 
 to enter into his plays with him ; \el he needs sympallu 
 in joy as much as in sorrow. ITcr presence, her inter- 
 est in what he is doing, doubles his delight in it and 
 doubles its value to him. Moreover, it offers her op- 
 portunity for that touch and direction now and then, 
 which may transform a rambling i)lay, without much 
 sequence or meaning, into a consciously usefid per- 
 formance, a dramatization, perhaps, of some of the 
 child's observations, or an investigation into the na- 
 ture of things. 
 
 (3) Riglil Malcrial. \\vvu given rrccdnni ;iii<l 
 symi)alhy, the child tiee(ls soiiK-thiug nmre in or<lcr to 
 
8o STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 play well : he needs the ri<;ht materials. The best ma- 
 terials are thdse that are eommon to him ami io the 
 rest of the world, far better than expensive toys that 
 mark him apart from the worlil of less fortunate chil- 
 dren. Such toys are not in any way desirable, and 
 they may even be harmful. What he needs are 
 various simple arrangements of the four elements — 
 earth, air, fire, and water. 
 Mud-pies (i) Earth. The child has a noted adfinity Coi' it, 
 
 and he is specially happy when he has jileuty of it on 
 hands, face, and clothes. The love of mud-pies is uni- 
 versal ; children of all nationalities and of all dei;rees 
 of civilization delight in it. No activity could be mora 
 wholesome. 
 Sand Next to uuul couics saiid. It is cleaner in appear- 
 
 ance and can be brought into the house. A tray of 
 moistened sand, set upon a low table, should be in 
 every mu'sery, and the sand pile in every yard. 
 Clay Clay is more difficult to manage indoors, because it 
 
 gets dry and sifts all about the house, but if a corner 
 of the cellar, where there is a good light, can be givi'ii 
 up for a strong table ami a jar of clay mixed with some 
 water, it will be found a groat resource for rainy 
 days. If modeling aprons of strong material, but- 
 toned with one button at the neck, be hung near the jar 
 of clay, the children may work in this material with- 
 out spoiling their clothes. Clay-modeling is an excel- 
 lent form of manual training, develo])ing without for- 
 cing the delicate muscles of the fingers and wrists, and 
 
PLAY. 
 
 8i 
 
 gwing wide opportunity for the exercise of the imagin- 
 ation. 
 
 Earth may be played with in still another way. Chil- 
 dren should dig in it ; for all pass through the digging- 
 stage and this should be given free swing. It develops 
 their muscles and keeps them busy at helpful and con- 
 
 Dig: g-ing 
 
 I'A'i ri;i;.N ok a modki.inc atkon. 
 
 structivc work. They may dig a well, make a cave, or 
 a pond, or burrow underground and make tunnels like 
 a mole. Give them spades and a piece of ground they 
 can do with as they like, dress them in overalls, and 
 it will be long before you arc asked to think of another 
 amusement for them. 
 
 In still another way the earth may be utilized, for 
 children may make gardens of it. Indeed, there are 
 those who say that no child's education is complete 
 
 Gardens 
 
82 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 until he has had a garden of his own and grown in it 
 all sorts of seeds from pansies to potatoes. But a gar- 
 den is too much for a }Oung child to care for all alone. 
 He needs the help, advice, and companionship of some 
 older person. You must be careful, however, to give 
 help only when it is really desired ; and careful also 
 not to let him feel that the garden is a task to which 
 he is driven daily, but a joy that draws him. 
 Kites (2) The Air. The next important plaything is the 
 
 Soap-bubbles air. The kite and the balloon are only two instru- 
 ments to help the child play with it. Little windmills 
 made of colored paper and stuck by means of a pin at 
 the end of a whittled* stick, make satisfactory toys. 
 One of their great advantages is that even a very young 
 child can make them for himself. Blowing soap-bub- 
 bles is another means of playing with air. By giving 
 the children woolen mittens the bubbles may be caught 
 and tossed about as well as blown. 
 
 (3) JJ''afcr. Perhaps the very first thing he learns 
 to play with is water. Almost before he knows the 
 use of his hands and legs he plays with water in his 
 bath, and sucks his sponge with joy, thus feeling the 
 water with his chief organs of touch, his mouth and 
 tongue. A few months later he will be glad to pour 
 water out of a tin cup. Even when he is two or three 
 years old, he may be amused by the hour, by dressing 
 him in a woolen gown, with his sleeves rolled high, 
 and setting him down before a big bowl or his own 
 bath-tub half full of warm water. To this may be 
 
FLAK 83 
 
 added a spong-e, a tin cup, a few bits of wood, and sonic 
 paper. They should not be given all at once, but one 
 at a time, the child allowed to exhaust the possibilities 
 of each before another is added. Still later he may 
 be given the bits of soap left after a cake of soap is 
 used up. Give him also a few empty bottles or bowls 
 and let him put them away with a solid mass of soap- 
 suds in them and see what will happen. When he is 
 older — past the period of putting everything in his 
 mouth — he may be given a few bits of bright ribbons, 
 petals of artificial ilowers, or any bright colored bits of 
 cloth which can color the water. 
 
 Children love to sprinkle the grass with the hose or 
 to water the flowers with the sprinkling can. They 
 enjoy also the metal fishes, ducks, and boats which may 
 be drawn about in the water by means of a magnet. 
 Presently they reach the stage when they must have 
 toy-boats, and next they long to go into real boats and 
 go rowing and sailing. They want to fish, wade, swim, 
 and skate. 
 
 Some of these pastimes are dangerous, but they are 
 sure to be indulged in at some time or other, with or Pastimes 
 without permission. There never grew a child to 
 sturdy manhood who was successfully kept away from 
 water. The wise mother, then, will not forbid this 
 play, but will do her best to regulate it, to make it 
 safe. She will think out plans for permitting children 
 to go swimming in a safe ]ilace with some older per- 
 son. She will let them go wading, and at holiday time 
 
 Dangerous 
 
S4 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 will take them boat-riding. If she permits as much 
 activity in these respects as possible, her refusal when 
 it does come will be respected ; and the child will not, 
 unless perhaps in the first bitterness of disappointment, 
 think her unfriendly and fussy. Above all, he is not 
 likely to try to deceive her, to run ofi and take a 
 swim on the sly, and thus fall into true danger. 
 
 (4) Fire is another ic-vitable plaything. Miss 
 Shinn reports that the first act of her little niece that 
 showed the dawn of voluntary control of the muscles 
 was the clinging of her eyes to the flame of a candle, 
 at the end of the second week. The sense of light and 
 the pleasure derived from it is one of the chief in- 
 centives to a baby's intellectual development. But 
 since fire is dangerous the child must be taught this 
 fact as quickly and painlessly as possible. He will 
 Precaution probably have to be burned once before he really under- 
 stands it, but by watching you can make this pain very 
 small and slight, barely sufficient to give the child a 
 wholesome fear of playing with unguarded fire. For 
 instance, show that the lamp globe is hot. It is not hot 
 enough to injure him, but quite hot enough to be un- 
 pleasant to his sensitive nerves. Put your own hand 
 on the lamp and draw it away with a sharp cry, saying 
 warningly, "Hot, hot !" Do not put his hand on the 
 lamp, but let him put it there himself and then be very 
 sympathetic over the result. ' Usually one such lesson 
 is sufficient. Only do not permit yourself to call every- 
 thing hot which you do not want him to touch. He 
 
 with Fire 
 
PLAY. 85 
 
 will soon discover that you are untruthful and will 
 never again trust you so fully. 
 
 Under proper regulations, however, fire may be 
 played with safely. Bonfires with some older person 
 in attendance are safe enough and prevent unlawful 
 bonfires in dangerous places. The rule should be that 
 none of the children may play with fire except with 
 permission ; and then that permission should be grant- 
 ed as often as possible that the children may be en- 
 couraged to ask for it. A stick smouldering at one 
 end and waved about in circles and ellipses is not 
 dangerous when elders are by, but it is dangerous 
 if played w'ith on the sly. Playing with fire on the sly 
 is the most dangerous thing a child can do, and the 
 only way to prevent it is to permit him to play with 
 fire in the open. A beautiful game can be made from 
 a number of Christmas tree candles of various colors 
 and a bowl of water. The candles are Hghted and the 
 wax dropped into the water, making little colored cir- 
 cles which float about. These can be linked together 
 in such a fashion as to form patterns which may be 
 lifted out on sheets of paper. 
 
 Tlie magic lantern is an innocent and comparatively 
 cheap means of playing with light. If it is well taken Lantern 
 care of and fresh slides added from time to time it can 
 be made a source of pleasure for years. Jack-o'-lan- 
 terns are great fun, and when pumpkins are not avail- 
 able, oranges may be used instead. 
 
 Besides these elemental playthings the cliild gets 
 
 Magic 
 
Rhythmic 
 Movements 
 
 86 s'ruj)y or cuiij) life. 
 
 much valuable pleasure out of the rhythmic use of his 
 own muscles. All such plays Plato thought should be 
 regulated by music, and with this I-'roebel agreed, but 
 in the household this is often impossible. The chil- 
 dren must indulge in many movements when there is 
 no one about who has leisure to make music for them. 
 Still, when they come to the quarrelsome age, a few 
 minutes' rhythmic play to the sound of music will be 
 found to harmonize the whole group wonderfully. 
 For this purpose the ordinary hippity-hop, fast or slow 
 according to the music, is sufficient. It is as if the 
 regulaticMi of the body to the laws of harmony re- 
 acted upon minds and nerves. Such an exercise is 
 particularly valuable just before bed-time. The chil- 
 dren go to sleep then with their minds under the influ- 
 ence of harmony and wake in the morning inclined to 
 be peaceful and happy. 
 
 Bongs A. book of Kindergarten songs, such as Mrs. Gay- 
 
 nor's ".Songs of the Child World" and Eleanor 
 Smith's "Songs for the Children," ought to be in every 
 household, and the mother ought to familiarize herself 
 with a dozen or so of these perfectly simple melodies. 
 Of course the children must learn them with her. 
 When once this has been done she has a valuable 
 means of amusing them and bringing them within her 
 control at any time. She may hum one of the songs 
 or play it. The children must guess what it is and 
 then act out their guess in pantomime, so that she can 
 see what they mean. Perhaps it is a windmill song; 
 
PLAY. 87 
 
 their arms fly around and around in time to the music, 
 now fast, now slow. Perhaps it is a Spring song ; the 
 children are birds building their nests. Other songs 
 turn them into shoemakers, galloping horses, or sol- 
 diers. 
 
 Dramatic plays, whether simple, like this, or elabo- Dramatic 
 rate, are, as Goethe shows in Wilhelm Meister, of the ^^^^^ 
 greatest possible educational advantage. In them the 
 child expresses his ideas of the world about him and 
 becomes master of his own ideas. He acts out whatever 
 he has heard or seen. He acts out also whatever he is 
 puzzling about, and by making the terms of his prob- 
 lem clear to his consciousness usually solves it. 
 
 As for dancing, Richter exclaims : "I know not Dancing 
 whether I should most deprecate children's balls or 
 most praise children's dances. For the harmony con- 
 nected with it (dancing) imparts to the affections and 
 the mind that material order which reveals the highest, 
 and regulates the beat of the pulse, the step, and even 
 the thought. Music is the meter of this poetic move- 
 ment, and is an invisible dance, as dancing is a silent 
 music. Finally, this also ranks among the advantages 
 of his eye and heel pleasure ; that children with chil- 
 dren, by no harder canon than the musical, light as 
 sound, may be joined in a rosebud feast without thorns 
 or strife." The dances m^y be of the simplest kind, 
 such as "Ring Around a Rosy." "Here We Go, To and 
 Fro," "Old Dan Tucker" and the "Virginia Reel." 
 The old-fashioned singing plays, such as "London 
 
88 . STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 Bridge," "Where Oats, Peas, Beans, and Barley 
 Grow," and "Pop Goes the Weasel" have their place 
 and value. Several collections of them have been 
 made and published, but usually quite enough material 
 may be found for these plays in the memories of the 
 people of any neighborhood. 
 Toys All tliese plays, it will be noticed, call for very 
 simple and inexpensive apparatus, in most cases for 
 no apparatus at all. Nevertheless there is a place for 
 toys. All children ought to have a few, both because 
 of the innocent pleasure they afford and because they 
 need to have certain possessions which are inalienably 
 their own. A simple and inexpensive list of suitable 
 toys adapted to various ages is gi\ en at the end of this 
 section. Most of them are exactly the toys that parents 
 usually buy. But it will be noticed that none of them 
 are very elaborate or expensive, and that the patrol 
 wagon is not among them. This is because the patrol 
 wagon directly leads to plays that are not only un- 
 educational but positively harmful in their tendencies. 
 The children of a whole neighborhood were once led 
 into the habit of committing various imitation crimes 
 for the sake of being arrested and carried off in a min- 
 iature patrol wagon. If any such expensive and elabo- 
 rate toys are bought, it may well be the plain express 
 wagon or the hook and ladder and fire engine. The 
 first of these leads to plays of industry, the second 
 to those of heroism. 
 
LIST OF TOYS SUITABLE FOR VARIOUS AGES. 
 
 Ball, rubber ring, soft animals and rag dolls Before 1 year 
 
 Blocks and Bells 1 year 
 
 Small chair and table IV2 years 
 
 Noah's lArk 2 years 
 
 Picture books 2 years 
 
 Materials and instruments 2 to 3 years 
 
 Carts, stick-horses, and reins 2% to 3 years 
 
 Boats, ships, engines, tin or wooden animals, dolls, 
 
 dishes, broom, spade, sand-pile, bucket, etc 3 years 
 
 Hoop, games and story-books g years 
 
OCCUPATIONS 
 
 Home 
 Xindergarten 
 
 Kindergarten 
 Methods 
 
 Tliere are a number of books designed to teach 
 mothers how to carry the Khidergarten occupations 
 over into the home ; but while such books may be help- 
 ful in a few cases, in most cases better occupations pre- 
 sent themselves in the course of the day's work. The 
 Kindergarten occupations themselves follow increasing- 
 ly the order of domestic routine. For example, many 
 children in the Kindergarten make mittens out of eider- 
 down flannel in the Fall, when their own mothers are 
 knitting their mittens, and make little hoods either for 
 themselves or for their dolls. At other periods they 
 put up little glasses of preserves or jelly, and study the 
 industry of the bees and the way they put up their 
 tiny jars of jelly. Tlieir attention is called also to the 
 preparations that the squirrels and other animals make 
 for winter, and to that of the trees and flowers. In 
 other words, the occupations in the Kindergarten are 
 designed to bring the children into conscious sympathy 
 with the life of nature and of the home. 
 
 That mother who keeps this purpose in mind and 
 applies it to the occupations that come up naturally in 
 the course of a day's work, will thereby bring the 
 Kindergarten spirit into her own home much more 
 truly than if she invests in a number of perforated sew- 
 ing cards and colored strips of paper for weaving. Not 
 that there is any harm in these bits of apparatus, prO' 
 
Helping 
 
 OCCUPATIONS. 91 
 
 vided that the sewing cards are large and so perforated 
 as not to task the eyes and young fingers of the sewer. 
 But unless for some special purpose, such as the mak- 
 ing of a Christmas or birthday gift, these devices are 
 unnecessary and better left to the school, which has less 
 richness of material at hand than has the home. 
 
 In allowing the children to enter as workers into 
 the full life of the home several good things are accom- Mother 
 plished. ( I ) The eager interest of the developing 
 mind is utilized to brighten those duties which are 
 likely to remain permanent duties. Nor does this ob- 
 servation apply only to girls. Domestic obligations 
 are suj)pose(l to rest chiefly upon them, but the truth 
 is that boys need to feel these obligations as keenly as 
 the girls, if they are to grow into considerate and 
 helpful husbands and fathers. The usual division of 
 labor into forms falsely called masculine and feminine 
 is, therefore, much to be deplored. Moreover, at an 
 early age children are seldom sex-conscious, and any 
 precocity in this direction is especially evil in its re- 
 sults ; yet many mothers from the beginning make 
 such a division between what they require of their boys 
 and of their girls as to force this consciousness upon 
 them. All kinds of work, then, should be allowed in 
 the beginning, however it may differentiate later on, 
 and little boys as well as little girls should be taught 
 to take an interest in sewing, dish-washing, sweeping, 
 dusting, and cooking — in all the forms of domestic 
 activity. 
 
92 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 This is so far recognized among educators that the 
 most progressive primary schools now teach cooking 
 to mixed classes of boys and girls, and also sewing. 
 These activities are recognized as highly educational, 
 being, as they are, interwoven with the history of the 
 race and with its daily needs. When they are studied 
 in their full sum of relationship, they increase the 
 child's knowledge of both the past and the living world. 
 
 Teaching (2) Bcsides the deepening of the child's interest in 
 
 that work which in some form or other he will have 
 with him always, is the quickening of the mother's own 
 interest in what may have come to seem to her mere 
 daily drudgery. Any woman who undertakes to per- 
 form so simple an operation as dish-washing with the 
 help of a bright happy child, asking sixteen questions 
 to the minute, will find that common-place operation 
 full of possibilities ; and if she will answer all the 
 questions she will probably find her knowledge strained 
 to the breaking pomt, and will discover there is more 
 to be known about dish-washing than she ever dreamed 
 of before ; while in cooking, if she will make an efifort 
 to look up the science, history, and ethics involved in 
 the cooking and serving of a very simple meal, she 
 will not be likely to regard the task as one beneath 
 her, but rather as one beyond her. No one can so 
 lead her away from false conventions and narrow 
 prejudices as a little child whom she permits to help 
 her and teach her. 
 
OCCUPATIONS. 
 
 93 
 
 (3) The child's spontaneous joy in being active and 
 in doing any service is being utilized, as it should be, 
 in the performance of his daily duties. We have al- 
 ready referred to the fact that all children in the be- 
 ginning love to work, and that there must be some- 
 thing the matter with our education since this love is 
 so early lost and so seldom reacquired. If when 
 young children wish to help mother they are almost 
 invariably permitted to do so, and their efforts greeted 
 lovingly, this delight in helpfulness will remain a 
 blessing to them throughout life. 
 
 But in order to get these benefits from the domestic 
 activities two or three simple rules must be observed, 
 (i) Do not go silently about your work, expecting 
 your child to be interested and to understand without 
 being talked to. Play with him while you work with 
 him and see the realization of youthfulness that comes 
 to yourself while you do it. Many tasks fit for child- 
 ish hands are in their nature too monotonous for child- 
 ish minds. Here your imagination must come into 
 play to rouse and excite his activity. For instance, 
 you are both shelling peas. When he begins to be 
 tired you suggest to him, "Here is a cage full of birds, 
 let us open the door for them ;" or you may tell a story 
 while you work, but it should be a story about that very 
 activity, or the child will form the habit of dreaming 
 and dawdling over his work. Such stories may be 
 perfectly simple and even rather pointless and yet do 
 good work; the whole object is to keep the child's fly- 
 
 The Low 
 of Work 
 
 To Make 
 "Helping" 
 of Benefit 
 
94 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 away imagination turned upon the work at hand, thus 
 lending wings to his thought, and lightness to his 
 fingers. Moreover, the mother who talks with her child 
 while working is training in him the habit of bright 
 unconscious conversation, thus giving him a most use- 
 ful accomplishment. Making a game or a play out of 
 the work is, of course, conducive to the same good re- 
 sults. When the story or the talk drags, the game 
 with its greater dramatic power may be substituted. 
 
 Fatigue (2) Qiildrcn should neither be allowed to work to 
 
 the point of fatigue nor to stop when they please. Fa- 
 tigue, as our latest investigators in physiological psy- 
 chology have conclusively proved, is productive of an 
 actual poison in the blood and as such is peculiarly 
 harmful to young children. But while work — or for that 
 matter play either — must never be pushed past the point 
 of healthful fatigue, it may well be pushed past the 
 point of spontaneous interest and desire : the child may 
 be happily persuaded by various hidden means to do a 
 little more than he is quite ready to do. By this de- 
 vice, which is one of the recognized devices of the 
 Kindergarten, mothers increase by imperceptible de- 
 grees that power of attention which makes will power. 
 
 Willing (3) Set the example of willing industry. Neither 
 
 let the child conceive of you as an impersonal necessary 
 part of the household machinery, nor as an unwilling 
 martyr to household necessities. Most mothers err in 
 one or the other of these two directions, and many of 
 them err in both : they either, (a) perform the ii?-' 
 
 Industry 
 
OCCUPATIONS. 95 
 
 niimcrahle services of the household so quietly and 
 steadily that the child does not perceive the effort that 
 the performance costs and, therefore, as far as his 
 consciousness is concerned, is deprived of the force of 
 his mother's example, or (b) they groan aloud over 
 their burdens and make their daily martyrdom vocal. 
 Either way is wrong, for it is a mistake not to let a 
 child see that your steady performance of tasks, which 
 cannot be always delightful, is a result of self-dis- 
 cipline ; and it is equally a mistake to let him think 
 that this discipline is one against which you rebel. 
 For in reality you are so far from being unwilling to 
 bind yourself in his service that if he needed it you 
 would promptly double and quadruple your exertions. 
 It is exactly what you do when he is sick or in danger ; 
 and if he dies the sorest ache of your heart is the ache 
 of the love that can no longer be of service to the be- 
 loved. 
 
 (4) Remember that monotony is the curse of labor Monotony 
 for both child and adult, but that monotony cannot exist 
 zvhcre new intellectual insights are constantly being 
 given. Therefore, while the daily round of labor, 
 shaped by the daily recurring demands for food, 
 warmth, cleanliness, and sleep, goes on without much 
 change, seize every opportunity to deepen the child's 
 perception of the relation of this routine to the order 
 of the larger worJd. For instance, if a new house is 
 being built near by, visit it with the children, comparing 
 it with your own house, figure out whether it is going 
 
96 
 
 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 Beautiful 
 Work 
 
 The Uighi 
 Spirit 
 
 to be easier to keep clean and to warm than your house 
 is and why. It you need to call in the carpenter, the 
 plumber, the paper-hanger, or the stoveman, try to 
 have him come when the children are at home, and let 
 them satisfy their intense curiosity as to his work. 
 This knowledge will sooner or later be of practical 
 value, and it is immediately of spiritual value. 
 
 (5) Beautify the work as much as possible by let- 
 ting the artistic sense have full play. This rule is so 
 important that the attempt to establish it in the larger 
 world outside of the home has given rise to the move- 
 ment known as the arts and crafts movement, which 
 has its rise in the perception that no great art can come 
 into existence among us until the common things of 
 daily living — the furniture, the books, the carpets, the 
 chinaware — are made to express that creative joy in 
 the maker which distinguishes an artistic product from 
 an inartistic one. This creative joy, in howsoever 
 small degree, may be present in most c f the things that 
 the child does. If he sets the table, he may set it 
 beautifully, taking real pleasure in the coloring of the 
 china and the shine of the silver and glass. He ought 
 not to be permitted to set it untidily upon a soiled ta- 
 blecloth. 
 
 (6) This is a negative rule, but perhaps the most 
 important of all : do not nag. The child who 
 is driven to his work and kept at it by means of a 
 constant pressure of a stronger will upon his own, is 
 deriving little, if any, benefit from it ; and as you are 
 
OCCUPATIONS. 97 
 
 not teaching him to work for the sake of his present 
 usefulness, which is small at the best, but for the sake 
 of his future development, you are more desirous that 
 he should perform a single task in a day in the right 
 spirit, than that he should run a dozen errands in the 
 wrong spirit. 
 
 (7) Besides a regular time each day for the per- 
 formance of his set share in the household work, give 
 him warning before the arrival of that hour. Children 
 have very incomplete notions of time ; they become 
 much absorbed in their own play ; and therefore no 
 child under nine or ten years of age should be expected 
 to do a given thing at a given time without warning 
 that the time is at hand. 
 
 Besides these occupations which are truly part of the 
 business of life come any number of other occupa- 
 tions — a sort of a cross between real play and steady 
 work, what teachers call "busy work" — ;and here the 
 suggestions of the Kindergarten may be of practical 
 value to the mother. For instance, weaving, already 
 referred to, may keep an active child interested and 
 quiet for considerable periods of time. Besides the 
 regular weaving mats of paper, to be had from any 
 Kindergarten supply store, wide grasses and rushes 
 may be braided into mats, raffia and rattan may be 
 woven into baskets, and strips of cloth woven into iron- 
 holders. A visit to any neighboring Kindergarten will 
 acquaint the mother with a number of useful, simple 
 objects that can be woven by a child. Whatever he 
 
 "Busy Work" 
 
98 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 weaves or whatever he makes should be appHed to some 
 useful purpose, not merely thrown away ; and while it 
 is true that a conscientious desire to live up to this rule 
 often results in a considerable clutter of flimsy and 
 rather undesirable objects about the house, still, ways 
 may be devised for slowly retiring the oldest of them 
 from view, and disposing of others among patient 
 relatives. 
 Sewing Sewing is another occupation much used in the Kin- 
 dergarten as well as in the home. Beginning with the 
 simple stringing of large wooden beads upon shoe- 
 strings, it passes on to sewing on buttons, and sewing 
 doll clothes to the making of real clothing. This last 
 in its simplest form can be begun sooner than most 
 parents suppose, especially if the child is taught the 
 use of the sewing machine. There is really no reason 
 why a child, say six years old, should not learn to sew 
 upon the machine. His interest in machinery is keen 
 at this period, and two or three lessons are usually 
 sufficient to teach him enough about the mechanism to 
 keep him from injuring it. Once he has learned to 
 sew upon the machine, he may be given sheets and 
 towels to hem, and even sew up the seams of larger 
 and more complex articles. He will soon be able to 
 make aprons for himself and his sisters and mother. 
 Toy sewing machines are now sold which are really 
 useful playthings, and on which the child can manu- 
 facture a number of small articles. Those run by a 
 treadle are preferable to those run by a hand crank, 
 
OCCUPATIONS. 
 
 99 
 
 because they leave the child's hands free to guide the 
 work. 
 
 Drawing, painting, cutting and pasting are excellent 
 occupations for children. A large black-board is a 
 useful addition to the nursery furnishings, but the 
 children should be required to wash it off with a damp 
 cloth, instead of using the eraser furnished for the 
 purpose, as the chalk dust gets into the room and fills 
 the children's lungs. Plenty of soft pencils and cray- 
 ons, also large sheets of inexpensive drawing paper, 
 should be at hand upon a low table so that they can 
 draw the large free outlines which best develop their 
 skill, whenever the impulse moves them. If they have 
 also blunt scissors for cutting all sorts of colored papers 
 and a bottle of inocuous library paste, they will be able 
 to amuse themselves at almost any time. 
 
 Some water colors are now made which are harmless 
 for children so young that they are likely to put the 
 paints in their mouths. Paints are on the whole less 
 objectionable than colored chalks, because the crayons 
 drop upon the floor and get trodden in\o the carpet. 
 If children are properly clothed as they should be in 
 simple washable garments, there is practically no diffi- 
 culty connected with the free use of paints, and their 
 educational value is, of course, very high. 
 
 Drawing 
 
 Cutting 
 Pasting 
 
 Painting 
 
TEST QUESTIONS 
 
 The following questions constitute the "written reci- 
 tation" which the regular members of the A. S. H. E. 
 answer in writing and send in for the correction and 
 comment of the instructor. They are intended to 
 emphasize and fix in the memory the most important 
 points in the lesson. 
 
STUDY OF CHILD LIFE 
 
 PART II 
 
 Read Carefully. In answering these questions you are 
 earnestly requested not io answer according' to the text-book 
 where opinions are asked for, but to answ^r according to 
 conviction. In all cases credit will be given for thought and 
 original observation. Place your name and full address at 
 the head of the paper; use your own words so that your 
 instructor may be sure that you understand the subject. 
 
 1. State Fichte's doctrine of rights and show how it 
 
 applies to child training. If possible, give an ex- 
 ample from your own experience. 
 
 2. What is the aim of moral training ? 
 
 3. What two sayings of Froebel most characteristic- 
 
 ally sum up his philosophy? 
 
 4. What is the value of play in education ? 
 
 5. What are the natural playthings? Tell what, in 
 
 your childhood, you got out of these things, or if 
 you were kept away from them, what the pro- 
 hibition meant to you. 
 
 6. What do you think about children's dancing? 
 
 And acting? 
 
 7. Do you agree with those who think that the Kin- 
 
 dergarten makes right doing too easy ? State the 
 reasons for your opinion. 
 
STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 8. What can you say of commands, reproofs, and 
 
 rules ? 
 
 9. Should you let the children help you about the 
 
 house, even when they are so little as to be 
 troublesome? Why? If they are unwilling to 
 help, how do you induce them to help ? 
 
 10. What would you suggest as regular duties for 
 
 children of 4 to 5 years ? Of 7 to 8 years ? 
 
 11. Which do you consider the more important, the 
 
 housework or the child ? 
 
 12. Wherein may the mother learn from the child? 
 
 13. What is the difference between amusing children 
 
 and i)laying with them ? Which is the proper 
 method ? 
 
 14. Mention some good rules in character building. 
 
 15. From your own experience as a child what can 
 you say of teaching the mysteries of sex? 
 
 16. Are there any questions you would like to ask, 
 
 or subjects which you wish to discuss in connec- 
 tion with this lesson ? 
 
 Note. — After completing the test sign your full name. 
 
STUDY OF CHILD LIFE 
 
 PART III 
 
MADONNA AND CHILD 
 By Murillo, Spanish painter of the seventeenth century 
 
STUDY OF CHILD LIFE 
 
 PART III 
 
 ART AND LITERATURE IN CHILD LIFE 
 
 The influence of art upon the Hfe of a young child 
 is difficult of measurement. It may freely be said, 
 however, that there is little or no danger in exaggerat- 
 ing its influence, and considerable danger in underrat- 
 ing it. It is difficult of measurement because the in- 
 fluence is largely an unconscious one. Indeed, it may 
 be questioned whether that form of art which gives 
 him the most conscious and outspoken pleasure is the 
 form that in reality is the most beneficial ; for, unques- 
 tionably, he will get great satisfaction from circus 
 posters, and the poorly printed, abominably illustrated 
 cheap picture-books afford him undeniable joy. He is 
 far less likely to be expressive of his pleasure in a sun- 
 shiny nursery, whose walls, rugs, white beds, and sun- 
 shiny windows are all well designed and well adapted 
 to his needs. Nevertheless, in the end the influence of 
 this room is likely to be the greater influence and to 
 permanently shape his ideas of the beautiful; while 
 he is entirely certain, if allowed to develop artistically 
 at all, to grow past the circus poster period. 
 
 This fact — the fact that the highest influence of art 
 is a secret influence, exercised not only by those decora- 
 tions and pictures which flaunt themselves for the pur- 
 pose, but also by those quiet, necessary, every-day 
 
 Influence 
 of Art 
 
102 STUDY 01' CHILD l.U'E. 
 
 things, which nevertheless may most truly express the 
 art spirit — this fact makes it difficult to tell what art 
 and what kind of art is really influencing the child, and 
 whether it is influencing him in the right directions. 
 Color Until he is three years old, for example, and often 
 
 until he is past that age, he is unable to distinguish 
 clearly between green, gray, and blue ; and hence these 
 cool colors in the decorations around him. or in his 
 pictures, have practically no meaning for him. He has 
 a right, one might suppose, to the gratification of his 
 love for clear reds and yellows, for the sharp, well- 
 defined lines and flat surfaces, whose meaning is plain 
 to his groping little mind. Some of the best illus- 
 trators of children's books have seemed to recognize 
 this. For example, Boutet de Monvil in his admirable 
 illustrations of Joan of Arc meets these requirements 
 perfectly, and yet in a manner which must satisfy any 
 adult lover of good art. The Caldecott picture books, 
 and Walter Crane's are also good in this respect, and 
 the Perkins pictures issued by the Prang Educational 
 Co, have gained a just recognition as excellent pictures 
 for hanging on the nursery wall. Many of the illustra- 
 tions in color in the standard magazines are well worth 
 cutting out, mounting and framing. This is esi)ecially 
 true of Howard Pylc's work and that of Elizabeth 
 Shippen Green. 
 Classic Since photogravures and photographs of the master- 
 
 pieces can be had in this country very inexpensively, 
 there is no reason whv children should not be made 
 
 Art 
 
■ IJk.vv, Wiii.i Ulow " 
 
 PEUKINS' PICTURES 
 
I04 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 acquainted at an early age with the art classics, but 
 there is danger in giving too much space to black and 
 white, especially in the nursery where the children live. 
 Their natural love of color should be appealed to do 
 deepen their interest in really good pictures. 
 
 Nevertheless, it is a matter of considerable difficulty 
 still to find colored pictures which are inexpensive and 
 yet really good. The Detaille prints, while not yet 
 cheap, are not expensive either, and are excellent for 
 this purpose ; but the insipid little pictures of fairies, 
 flowers, and birds may be really harmful, as helping 
 to form in the young child's mind too low an ideal of 
 beauty — of cultivating in him what someone has called 
 "the lust of the eye." 
 Plastic What holds true of the pictorial art holds equally 
 true of the plastic art. As Prof. Veblin of the Uni- 
 versity of Chicago has scathingly declared, our ideals 
 of the beautiful are so mingled with worship of ex- 
 pense that few of us can see the genuine beauty in any 
 object apart from its expensiveness. For this reason 
 as well as, perhaps, because of a remnant of barbarism 
 in us, we love gold and glitter, and a great deal of 
 elaboration in our vases, and are far from being over- 
 critical of any piece of statuary which costs a respect- 
 able sum. 
 
 A certain appreciation, however, of the real value of 
 a good plaster-cast has been gaining among us of late 
 years, and many public schools, especially in the large 
 cities, have been establishing standards of good taste 
 
 Art 
 
RELIEF MEDALLION 
 By Andrea della Robbia, in Foundling Hospital, Florence. 
 
io6 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 in this respect. Good casts and bas-reliefs decorate 
 their halls and class-rooms. Th-ere are few homes that 
 cannot afford to follow their example. But in buying 
 these things be not misled by sales and advertised bar- 
 gains. It is more than seldom that the placques, casts, 
 and vases thus obtained are such as could have any 
 valuable influence whatever upon the young lives with 
 which they are brought in contact. Meretricious and 
 showy ornaments, designed to look as if they cost 
 more than they really do, have no business in the 
 sincere home where the children are being sincerely 
 educated. 
 
 The same general laws apply to music. No art has a 
 greater and more insinuating influence. The very 
 songs with which the mother sings the baby to sleep 
 have an occult influence which is later revealed and 
 made plain. Such songs, then, should be simple. They 
 may be nothing but improvisations, the mother's mind 
 and heart making music, but they should not be melo- 
 dramatic songs of the nuisic-hall order. No such 
 mawkish sentimentalism as that shown in "The Gypsy's 
 Warning," for example, or other songs which belong 
 to the cheap theater should have a place in the holy 
 of holies — that inmost self of the child — which re- 
 sponds to music. 
 
 Ttie simple folk-songs of all nations, Eleanor Smith's 
 and most of Mrs. Gaynor's .songs, already mentioned, 
 and the songs collected bv Reinecke, called "Fifty 
 Children's Songs," are excellent for this purpose. The 
 
THE DRAMA. 107 
 
 old-fashioned nonsense songs, such as "Billy Boy," 
 "Mary had a Little Lamb" and "Hey Diddle Diddle, 
 the Cat and the Fiddle," may also have a pleasant and 
 harmless place of their own. 
 
 Listrumental music should be on the same general 
 order, not loud and showy, but clear, simple, sweet, and 
 free from startling effects. Dashing pieces, rag-time 
 pieces, marches, two-steps, and familiar tunes with va- 
 riations, instead of bringing about a spirit of gentle- 
 ness and harmony, actually tend to produce self-assert- 
 iveness and quarrelsomeness. Let any mother who 
 does not believe this try the effect of an hour of the 
 one kind of music on one evening, and an hour of the 
 other kind on another evening. The difference will 
 be immediately apparent. 
 
 The influence of the drama must not be forgotten. The Drama 
 This form of art, fallen so low among us since the time 
 of the Puritans that it can scarcely be called an art at 
 all, is, nevertheless, the art which perhaps above all 
 others has an immediate and yet lasting influence. 
 Children are themselves instinctively dramatic. They 
 like to compose and act out all sorts of dramas of their 
 own, from playing house (which is nothing but a 
 drama prolonged from day to day), to such dramatic 
 games as Statue-posing and Dumb Crambo. All chil- 
 dren like to dress up, to wear masks, and to imitate the 
 peculiarities of persons about them ; to try on, as it 
 were, the world as they see it, and discover thereby 
 how the actors in it feel. Goethe's Wilhelm Meister 
 
io8 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 has already been referred to. In this — his great book 
 on education — he practically bases all education upon 
 the drama, and even throws the treatise itself into 
 dramatic form. 
 
 This does not mean, however, that all children should 
 be permitted to go to the theater as freely as they 
 like. No ; the plays which they compose and act for 
 themselves have a far higher value educationally than 
 most of the spectacular presentations of the old fairy 
 tales with which they are usually regaled, and certainly 
 more than the sensational melodramas which give 
 them false ideas of art and morality. They should go 
 sometimes to the theater to see really good and simple 
 plays, but they should be oftenei encouraged to get 
 up for themselves plays at home. If, as they grow 
 older, they are helped to think out their costumes with 
 something of historical accuracy, to be true to the 
 spirit and scenery of the times in which the representa- 
 tions are laid, the activity can be made to increase in 
 value to them as the years go by. There is ao other 
 art, perhaps, by which the child so intimately links the 
 world spirit with his own spirit. It is for this reason 
 that the School of Education in the University of Qii- 
 cago is equipped with small theaters in which the 
 children act. 
 
 As for the art of literature, not all children love read- 
 ing, perhaps, but certainly all children love to hear 
 stories told,' and the skilful mother will direct this 
 spontaneous affection into a love for reading. No 
 
LITERATURE. 109 
 
 Other single love, except perhaps the love of nature, 
 so emancipates the child from the thrall of circum- 
 stances. If he can escape from the small ills of life 
 into fairy-land merely by opening the covers of a book, 
 be sure that these ills will not have power to crush 
 him, unless they be very great ills indeed. 
 
 There are those who still believe that fairy tales and Fairy 
 fiction of all sorts are nothing but lies. Poor souls, 
 with their faces against the stone wall of hard facts, 
 they can never look up into the sky and see the winged , - 
 and beautiful thoughts freely disporting there. They 
 make no distinction between truth and fact, yet truth 
 is of the spirit and fact of the flesh ; and truth, because 
 it is of the spirit, may appear under many forms, even 
 under the form of play. All rightly told and rightly 
 conceived fairy-tales are true just as a good picture 
 is true. The painter uses oil, turpentine, and pigment 
 to represent the wool of a sheep, the water of a pond, 
 the green spears of grass. Some literal-minded per- 
 son might say that he was lying because he pretented 
 that his little square of canvas truthfully represented 
 grazing sheep at the brook-side, but most of us recog-. 
 nize that he is really telling the truth only in another 
 than an every day form. In the same way the writer 
 of fairy-tales tells the truth, using the pigments of the 
 imagination. 
 
 If children ask whether a given story is true or not, 
 answer without hesitation, "yes." It is true, but it is a 
 fairy kind of truth ; it is inside truth. There is magic 
 
no STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 in it and a mystery. The child who is never allowed 
 to read fairy tales, the man or the woman who pre- 
 fers the newspaper to a good book of fiction, misses 
 much in life. It is not only that the imagination — the 
 divinest quality of man, because the quality that makes 
 man in his degree a creator- -does not receive culture, 
 and that he misses the indescribable intellectual ecstasy 
 that comes only with the setting free of the wings of 
 the mind, but that also he is inevitably shorn of his 
 sympathy and shut up to a narrow circle of interests, 
 imaginauon ^ov S3'mpathy, abovc all moral qualities, is dependent 
 
 Sympathy upou imagination. If you cannot imagine how you 
 would feel under your neighbor's conditions, you can- 
 not deeply sympathize with him. The person of un- 
 imaginative mind sympathizes only with those whose 
 experience and habits are similar to his own. He 
 never escapes from the narrow circle of his own per- 
 sonality. But the man whose imagination has been 
 kept flexible and ready from earliest childhood has 
 within him the power of sympathizing with what- 
 ever is human — yes ! even with creatures and things 
 below the human level. Without imagination^ there- 
 fore, it is not possible for a man to be a great scientist, 
 for science demands sympathy with processes and ob- 
 jects which are not yet human. It is not possible, ob- 
 viously, for him to be a great artist of any kind, for all 
 art is interpretation of the world by means of the 
 imagination. It is not possible for him, even, to be a 
 good man in any broad sense, for the man whose 
 
Booka 
 
 LITERATURE. in 
 
 sympathies are narrow is often found to be guilty of 
 injustice towards those who hc,outsidc the pale of those 
 sympathies. 
 
 By all means, then, encourage the love of reading in 
 your children, and get them the best of story-books to 
 read, and subscribe to the best magazines. Read with 
 them. Let some reading enter into every day's life ; 
 talk over what has been read at the dinner-table, and 
 so avoid harmful personalities and disagreeable criti- 
 cisms. 
 
 As to the books to choose, choose the best. Gen- 
 erally speaking, the best are those that have some 
 dignity of age upon them. As in music you chose 
 the folksongs, so in children's literature also choose the 
 old fashioned fairy stories, such as those collected by 
 the Brothers Grimm and by Andrew Lang. Hans 
 Christian Andersen's Fairy Stories of course are clas- 
 sics. Hawthorne's Tanglewood Tales give excellent 
 suggestions as to the right use to be made of the old 
 mythologies. Many of the supplementary readers now 
 being so widely used in the public schools are good, 
 simple versions of these old stories which helped to 
 make the world what it should be. For the rest there are 
 two standard children's magazines which help to form 
 a good taste in literature and which are continually sug- 
 gestive of the right sort of reading material. These 
 are The Youth's Companion and St. Nicholas. 
 
 Finally, all appreciation of literature and art depends Nature 
 upon a love of and some knowledge of nature. Fairy ^^^^^ 
 
112 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 stories and mythology especially are so dependent 
 upon nature for their inner meaning and significance 
 as scarcely to be intelligible without some knowledge 
 of natural processes and laws. Of course, it is true 
 that art in its turn idealizes nature and fills her beauti- 
 ful form with a beautiful soul ; so that the child who 
 is being developed on all sides needs to take his books 
 and his pictures out of doors in order to get the full 
 good of them. 
 
 "Nature ^^ amouut of music, art, and literature can make up 
 for the free life in the fields and under the sky which 
 all these arts describe and interpret. If he should be 
 so unhappy as to have to choose between nature and 
 art, it would be better for him to choose nature, be- 
 cause then, perhaps, art might be born in his own 
 soul. But there is happily no need for such a painful 
 choice. He can sing his little song out of doors with 
 the birds and notice how they join in the chorus. He 
 can paint evening sunsets with the pine-trees against 
 it far better out of doors than indoors with copy 
 perched before him. He can look down the aisles 
 of the real woods to watch for the enchanted princess, 
 or for the chivalrous knight whose story he is reading. 
 Art and nature belong together in the unified soul of 
 ihe child. Well for him and for the world in which he 
 lives if they are never divorced, but he goes on to the 
 end loving them both and seeing them both as one. 
 
CHILDREN'S ASSOCIATES 
 
 If the child was intended to grow into a man of fam- 
 ily, merely, family training might be sufficient for him, 
 but since he must grow into a member of society, so- 
 cial training is as necessary for him as family training. 
 Failure to recognize this truth is at the bottom of the 
 current misconceptions of the Kindergarten. There 
 are still thousands of persons who suppose it is only 
 a superior sort of day-nursery where children may be 
 safely kept and innocently employed while the mother 
 gets the housework done. 
 
 While this might be a laudable enough function to The 
 perform, it is by no means the function of the Kinder- 
 garten. This method of instruction aims at much 
 more. It aims to lay foundations for a complete later 
 education, and especially to make firm in the child 
 those virtues and aptitudes which, when they are held 
 by the majority of men, constitute the safety and wel- 
 fare of society. For this reason, no home, however 
 well ordered, can supply to the child what the Kinder- 
 garten supplies. For the home is necessarily limited 
 to the members of one family, while the Kindergarten, 
 on the contrary, makes plain to the child the claims 
 upon him of society not made up of his kinsfolk. It 
 is the wide world in miniature, and if it is a properly 
 organized Kindergarten, it will contain within itself a 
 wide variety of children — children of wealth and of 
 
 Kindergarten 
 
114 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 poverty, of ignorance and of gentle breeding — and 
 will bring them all under one just rule. For only by 
 this commingling of many characters upon a common 
 level and under the strict reign of justice can the child 
 be fitted practically, and by means of a series of pro- 
 gressive experiments, for citizenship in a genuine 
 democracy. 
 
 Exclusive Parents sometimes so far miss the aim of the Kin- 
 
 Associates 
 
 dergarten as to desire that instead of such a com- 
 mingling there shall be a narrow limit set ; that in the 
 Kindergarten shall be only such children as the child 
 is accustomed to associate with. But if the Kinder- 
 garten acceded to this demand, as it seldom does, it 
 would lose much of its usefulness, for every one knows 
 that children cannot be permanently sheltered from 
 contact with the outside world, nor can they be al- 
 ways reared in an atmosphere of exclusiveness, A 
 wisdom greater than the mother's has ordered that no 
 child shall be so narrowly nourished. If he has any 
 freedom whatever, any naturalness of life, he must 
 and will enlarge his circle of acquaintances beyond the 
 limit of his mother's calling list. 
 
 Indeed, even those Kindergartens which are pro- 
 fessedly exclusive, and which confine their ministra- 
 tions to the children of one particular neighborhood, 
 are obliged by the nature of things to contain nascent 
 individualities of almost every type. For no neigh- 
 borhood, however equal in wealth and fashion, ever 
 produced children of an unvarying quality. In any 
 
CHlLn KENS' ASSOCIATES. 115 
 
 circle, no matter how exclusive, there are mischievous 
 children, children who use bad language, children who 
 have sly, mean tricks, children who do not speak the 
 truth, and who are in other ways quite as undesirable 
 as the children of the poor and ignorant. It is often 
 asserted, indeed, that the children of exclusive neigh- 
 borhoods very often show more varieties of badness 
 than the children of the open street. The records of 
 the private Kindergarten as compared with the public 
 Kindergarten amply prove this statement. 
 
 Since, then, whether you confine 3 our child to the e^^i 
 limits of your own circle or not, )ou cannot success- Example 
 fully keep him from playing with children who are 
 niore or less objectionable, what are you going to do 
 to keep him from the harm of such association? You 
 have to make him strong enough to withstand temp- 
 tation and resist the force of evil example. Of course, 
 he must have as little of the wrong example, especially 
 in his younger and tenderer years, as can be managed 
 without too greatly checking his activity and curtail- 
 ing his freedom. Yet after all he is to be taught a 
 positive and not a negative righteousness, and if his 
 home training is not sufficient to enable him to stand 
 against a certain downward pull from the outside, 
 there is something the matter with it. 
 
 While he must not be strained too hard, nor too 
 constantly associate with children whose manners put 
 his manners to the test, still he ought by degrees, al- 
 most imperceptibly, to be accustomed to holding to the 
 
Ii6 
 
 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 Social 
 Training 
 
 Responsibility 
 to Society 
 
 truth, to that which is found good, no matter whether 
 his associates find it desirable or not. 
 
 A good Kindergarten is a mother's best help in this 
 endeavor, for there her child meets with all sorts of 
 other children. The very influence of the place, anJ 
 the ever-ready help of the teacher are on his side. 
 Every effort he makes to do right is met and welcomed. 
 In every stand that he takes against temptation, he is 
 unobtrusively reinforced. Moreover, the wrong-doing 
 of his comrades is never allowed to retain the attractive 
 glitter that it sometimes acquires on the play-ground. 
 It is promptly held up to general obloquy, and the good 
 child finds to his surprise that he is not the only one 
 who thinks that teasing, for example, is mean and 
 selfish and that a violent temper is ugly. 
 
 Moreover, in the Kindergarten the sense of social 
 responsibility is borne in upon him. Perhaps it comes 
 to him first when he is chosen to lead the march and 
 finds that he must be careful not to squeeze through 
 too narrow places, lest someone get into trouble. In 
 dealing out pencils, worsted, and other materials he 
 must be careful to show strict impartiality, and give no 
 preference to his own personal friends. In a hundred 
 small ways he is helped to regulate his own conduct, 
 so that it may conduce to the welfare of the whole 
 school. 
 
 Where there are no Kindergartens, the task becomes 
 a more difficult one for the mother, for it becomes 
 necessary, then, that she herself should undertake the 
 
Sharing 
 
 CHILDREN S- ASSOCIATES. 117 
 
 social training of her child, and this means that she 
 must know his playmates, not only through his report 
 of them, but through her own observation of them, 
 and that they must be sufficiently at home with her 
 to betray their true characters in her presence. And this 
 means, of course, that she must become her child's 
 playmate. There are few women who think that they 
 have time for this, but there are also few who would 
 not be benefited by it. If anywhere there is a fountain 
 of youth, it gushes up invisibly wherever playing chil- 
 dren are, and she who plays with them gets sprinkled 
 by it. 
 
 If there be no time during the busy day when she 
 can justly enter into the children's free play, at least p'}^/'^'^'^'^ 
 there is a little while in the late afternoon or in the 
 early evening when she can do so, if she will. An hour 
 or two a week spent in active association with children 
 at their games will make her intimately acquainted 
 with all their playmates, and, moreover, constitute her 
 a power of first magnitude among them. Her mother- 
 hood thus extends itself, and she blesses not only her 
 own children, but all those who come near her chil- 
 dren. In this respect no Kindergarten can take the 
 place of the mother's own companionship with the 
 child in his social life. 
 
 In an ideal condition the child has his Kindergar- 
 ten in the morning; his quiet hours, one of them en- 
 tirely solitary, in the afternoon ; his social time, when 
 he, his brothers and sisters and mother, are joined 
 
ii8 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 The Children's ^^^^ ^^^ Other children and mothers in the neighbor- 
 ^""^ hood, in the late afternoon, and his family time, with 
 both father and mother, in the evening before going 
 to bed. 
 
 In thus sharing her child's social life the mother 
 admits the claim upon her of social responsibility ; she 
 sees that her duty is not to her own home alone, but 
 to the other homes with which hers is linked — not to 
 her own child alone, but to all children whose lives 
 touch her child's life. Her own nature widens with 
 the perception, and she enhances her direct teaching 
 with the force of a beautiful example. 
 
STUDIES AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS 
 
 There may easily be too many studies and too many 
 accomplishments in the life of any child. As our 
 schools are constituted there are certainly too many 
 studies of the wrong kind being carried on every day. 
 But there are also too few studies of the right kind. 
 In one of our large cities a test was once made as to 
 how much the children who left school at the fifth 
 grade, as 70 per cent of them do, had actually learned 
 in a way that would be of practical value to them, and 
 the results were most discourasfing^. These city chil- Abstract 
 
 * * -^ studies 
 
 dren who could recite their tables of measurements 
 with glibness, and who performed with a fair degree of 
 success several hundred examples dealing with units 
 of measure, could not tell whether their school-room 
 floor contained one acre or two hundred and forty ! 
 None of them suspected that it contained less than an 
 acre, /flthough they could bound the States of the 
 Union, and give the principal exports and imports, 
 they knew next to nothing of their own city and of 
 its actual relation to the countries which they studied 
 in their geography lessons. The teachers, in ex- 
 planation, laid much of the blame for this state of af- 
 fairs upon the parents, saying that they took but little 
 interest in their children's studies, and never attempt- 
 ed to link them to the things of every-day life. But 
 while this claim might be justified to some extent, it 
 
STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 Dead 
 Knowledge 
 
 The New 
 Education 
 
 was by no means sufficient to cover the facts of the 
 case. The truth is, it was quite as much the teachers' 
 ^duty to Hnk these abstract studies with concrete facts, 
 as it was the parents'. 
 
 Such an experience, however, suggests the manner 
 in which parents can best help on the work of children 
 in school. So long as these studies are still taught in 
 the dead, monotonous way common to text-books, chil- 
 dren will be racked nervously, and not benefited men- 
 tally in the efifort to master them. Fathers and mothers 
 who by the exercise of some ingenuity manage to 
 show the child that his arithmetical knowledge is of 
 actual help in solving the questions of every-day life ; 
 that his history has bearings upon the progress of 
 events around him, and that his geography relates to 
 actual places which, perhaps, father and mother may 
 have seen, or which their books tell about — such fath- 
 ers and mothers will make their children's school work 
 easier, at the same time that they increase the sum 
 of their children's knowledge. It is dead knowledge 
 only — knowledge wrenched from its living content — 
 that is difficult of digestion. 
 
 It is as natural for a young mind to like to learn, 
 as it is for a healthy stomach to be supplied with food ; 
 but knowledge, like the food, must be fit for the use 
 that is to be made of it and for the organ that is to 
 receive it; and the brain, like' the stomach, has a signal 
 which it flies to show whether the food is what it wants 
 or not. The brain exhibits interest exactly as the 
 
STUDIES. 121 
 
 stomach exhibits' appetite. The object of scientific 
 education is to discover what the spontaneous, univer- 
 sal interest of. children of certain ages is, and to meet 
 that interest with the fullest possible supply of 
 knowledge in every conceivable form. 
 
 Scientific education does not depend upon text- 
 books or upon merely verbal explanations, but gets 
 the idea home to the child by the means of a varied ap- 
 peal to all the senses and sensibilities. For this reason 
 the most advanced schools have many more studies and 
 what are commonly called accomplishments than the 
 public or parochial schools. That is, they add to the 
 three r's — reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic — drawing, 
 modeling, painting, manual training, physical culture, 
 dramatic representation, music, field trips, and labo- 
 ratory work. 
 
 Yet this apparently great increase of subjects in the correlation 
 number of studies actually lessens the amount of work 
 required of the child, because all these different activi- 
 ties, by means of what is called correlation, are brought 
 to bear upon the same subject. For example, the class 
 which goes out for a field trip to visit a near-by brook 
 sees the water actually at work, cutting its way to the 
 river, and thence to the sea. They measure its force 
 and note its effects ; they make a water-color sketch 
 of some curve of it ; they notice what birds and insects 
 are about ; what flowers grow there ; what indications 
 there may be of burrowing animals. When they get 
 back to school they model, perhaps, some bird that they 
 
122 STUDY OP CHILD LI I'll. 
 
 have noticed ; or in the geographical laboratory, with 
 streams of water try to reproduce in miniature the 
 action of the brook upon the soil through which it 
 flows. 
 
 For their arithmetic lesson they estimate the num- 
 ber of years the brook must have been flowing to have 
 cut its valley to its present depth. They make a full 
 report and description of their day's work for their 
 reading and writing lesson. They have thus gained 
 an immense amount of information, and have done a 
 great deal of hard work ; but instead of being nervously 
 exhausted, they are bright and exhilarated. Such 
 fatigue as they know is wholesome and hts them for 
 a sound night's sleep. 
 Home When it is impossible to send the child to such a 
 
 school as this, something may be done by supplement- 
 ing the ordinary school by some of these procedures. 
 The clay jar, the crayons, and the paints have already 
 been suggested, and with the parents' interest in the 
 child's studies, helping him to model and paint things 
 which he studies at school, he will instantly show the 
 good effect of the home training and encouragement. 
 As for field trips, the regular Sunday walk, or evening 
 stroll, may be made to take its place. If you think that 
 you do not know enough to teach your child on these 
 walks, give him then the privilege of teaching you. 
 He will work the harder in cJrder to rise to the occa- 
 sion. 
 
 Expedients 
 
STUDIES AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS. 
 
 1^3 
 
 As for physical culture, if your school is without it, 
 your barn, your parlor, and your lawn may supply it in 
 some sort. In the barn may be a trapeze ; there is 
 already the ladder and the hay-loft ; on the lawn may 
 be a swing, trees to climb, and the tennis court. In 
 your parlor may be a little home dancing school, where 
 for a half an hour or so, the children march, skip, or 
 two-step to music of your nioking. In the wood shed 
 may be a carpenter's bench with real tools, where he 
 may work and get some of the good of manual train- 
 ing. 
 
 Accomplishments, meaning thereby showy things 
 that children do for the edification of guests, are of 
 doubtful value. It is pleasant, of course, to have your 
 little girl play a piece or two on the piano to entertain 
 your visitors, but it is not nearly so important as 
 health and strength, and a cheerful temper. Some- 
 times all three of these are sacrificed to the two or 
 three hours' practice a day. Often, too, this extra 
 work after school hours — work full as monotonous 
 and nervous and uninteresting as the school work itself 
 — is just what is needed to transform a healthy young 
 girl into a nervous invalid. This is especially true, if 
 she undertakes, as she usually does, to study music 
 when she is about thirteen years old — the very time 
 when, if wise physicians could regulate affairs to their 
 liking, she would be taken out of school altogether 
 and required to do nothing more than a little light 
 housework every day. 
 
 Physical 
 Culture 
 
 Showy 
 Accomplish- 
 ments 
 
STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 Natural 
 Talent 
 
 'Enthusiasms" 
 
 Of course, if she is naturally musical some kind of 
 help and sympathy must be given her in her attempt 
 to master the piano or violin or to manage her own 
 voice. But while she should be allowed to learn as 
 much as her unurged energies permit her to learn, she 
 should not be required to practice more than a very 
 small amount, say half an hour a day. The bulk of her 
 musical education should be acquired in the vacation 
 time, when she can give two hours a day without 
 overstraining. 
 
 The same general rules hold good of dancing, paint- 
 ing, the acquirements of foreign languages, a special 
 course of reading, or any other work undertaken in 
 addition to the regular school w"ork. This latter, as it 
 is now constituted, is quite as severe a nervous and 
 intellectual strain as most young people can undergo 
 with safety. 
 
 Tliere is one characteristic in young people which 
 needs to be noted in this connection : — the desire to 
 take up some form of work, to strive with it furiously 
 for a brief while, to drop it unfinished ; take up an- 
 other with equal eagerness, drop that in turn and go 
 on to a third. This performance is peculiarly irritat- 
 ing to all systematic and ambitious parents. Some- 
 times they rigidly insist that each task shall be finished 
 before a new one is assumed. But in reality, is this 
 necessary? It seems to be as natural for a young 
 mind to set eagerly to work for a short time at each 
 new bit of knowledge, as it is for a nursing child to 
 
STUDIES AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS. 125 
 
 require refreshments every two or three hours. It is 
 an adult trait to stick to a task, even though a very 
 long one, until it is accomplished. The youthful trait 
 is to take kindly to a clutter of unfinished tasks. 
 
 The youthful consciousness is of a world full of 
 jostling interests. Why not let the children alone, and 
 allow them to spring lightly from one enthusiasm to 
 another? Of course you will help them to finish, either 
 at the first sitting or at the second or at the third, the 
 task that was undertaken when that particular enthu- 
 siasm was at its height. The drawing which has re- 
 mained on the easel during the foot-ball season may be 
 suggestivelv brought to notice again in the quiet times 
 between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The boat be- 
 gun last summer may well be finished in the days of the 
 succeeding Spring when all the earth is full of the 
 sound of running water. Tims each task, though not 
 completed at once, gets done in the end; and the 
 mouthful capacity for many sympathies and many de- 
 sires has not been narrowed. 
 
 Such a line of conduct presupposes, of course, that ^^^^^""^ 
 the parent considers only the child's best welfare, and 
 not his own parental vanity. He is not desirous that 
 his son shall do anything so well as to attract the at- 
 tention and admiration of the neighbors. He is de- 
 sirous merely that the boy shall grow up wholesomely 
 and happily, showing such superiority as there may 
 be in him when the fitting time and opportunity present 
 themselves. He will not attempt to make a musician 
 
of Intellect 
 
 126 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 of an unmusical child, nor a mechanic of an artistic 
 child. He will not object to the brilliant and im- 
 practical dreams of the young inventor, but will help 
 to make them practicable ; and though he may squirm 
 at some of the investigations of the budding scientist, 
 he will not forbid them. 
 Development For such a parent recognizes that the important 
 thing, educationally, is to secure the reaction of ex- 
 pression upon thought and feeling. That is, he is not 
 trying to secure at this time — at any time during 
 youth — perfect expression of any thought or feeling, 
 but only to deepen feeling and clarify thought by 
 encouraging all attempts at expression. He does not 
 wish his child to make a finished picture or a perfect 
 statue, but to acquire a greater sensitiveness to color 
 and form by each attempt to express that color and 
 form which he already knows. Thus whatever studies 
 and accomplishments his child may be in the act of 
 acquiring are seen to be nothing as acquisitions, but 
 the child himself is seen to be growing stage by stage 
 within the clumsy scaffolding. 
 
 FINANCIAL TRAINING 
 
 The financial training of children ought really to be 
 considered under the head of moral training, but in 
 some respects it can come equally well under the head 
 of intellectual training ; for to spend money well re- 
 quires both self-control and intelligence. Some persons 
 seem to think that all that a child can be taught in this 
 
FINANCIAL TRAINING. 127 
 
 regard is to save money, and they meet the situation by 
 purchasing various shapes and styles of savings banks. 
 But it is entirely possible to teach the child too thor- 
 oughly in this respect and to make him so fond of his 
 jingling pennies safe within a yellow crockery pig or 
 iron cupolaed mansion that he will not spend them for 
 any object, however laudable. Others evade the issue 
 as long as possible by giving the child no money at 
 all ; while most of us pursue an uncertain and wabbly 
 course, sometimes giving money, sometimes withhold 
 ing it, sometimes exhorting the child to spend, aiul 
 sometimes to save. 
 
 In truth spendins: wisely is a difficult problem. As Regular 
 
 ' "^ - Allowance 
 
 a rule the child may safely be induced to lay by for a 
 season and then encouraged to spend for some gen- 
 erous purpose. Christmas and other festivals offer ex- 
 cellent opportunities for proper disbursement of the 
 hoarded funds. These may be supposed to have accu- 
 mulated from irregular gifts ; but as the child grows 
 older he should come into receipt of a regular definite 
 allowance, perhaps conditioned upon his performance of 
 some stated duty. A certain part of his allowance he 
 may be permitted to spend upon such frivolities as are 
 naturally dear to his young heart ; another part of it 
 he should be encouraged — not commanded — to put 
 aside for larger purposes. 
 
 The giving of this allowance must not be confused 
 with the pernicious habit of bribing the child to the per- 
 formance of those little dailv courtesies and duties 
 
128 STUDY OF CHILD. LIFE. 
 
 which he ought to be vvilhng- to perform out of love 
 and a sense of right. A certain part of his daily work, 
 such as seeing that the match-boxes all over the house 
 are filled, or some similar share of the general labor of 
 the household, may be regarded as that for which he is 
 paid wages; and any extra task which does not justly 
 belong to him, he may sometimes be paid for perform- 
 ing ; but not always. For instance, he ought to be will- 
 ing to run to the grocery for mother without demand- 
 ing that he be paid a penny for the job ; yet sometimes 
 the penny may be forthcoming. The point is that he 
 should be ready to Vv'ork, even to work hard, without 
 pay, and yet that he should never feel that his mother 
 withholds pay from him when she can give it and he 
 receive it without injury. 
 Spending Whcu the moHcy is once his, ]ie should be allowed 
 
 to feel the full happiness and responsibility of posses- 
 sion, and if he insists upon spending it foolishly, should 
 be allowed to do it and to suffer to the full the un- 
 comfortable consequer'ces. If, on the contrary, he will 
 not spend it at all, his mother must use every means in 
 her power to lessen the desire for ownership and to 
 increase his love for others and his r^agerness to please 
 them. 
 
 As judgment develops the allo'.vance may v.'e'I be 
 increased to provide for necessities in trie way of inci- 
 dentals and clothing until at the "ag^e of discretion" he 
 is in full charge of the funds for his personal exj:>enscs. 
 He should be encoui'jged to apply his knowledge of 
 
 Foolishly 
 
FINANCIAL TRAINING. 129 
 
 commercial arithmetic in the keeping of personal ac- 
 counts. 
 
 Experience in spending a fixed amount of money is 
 especially needful for the daughters. Most young men 
 have the value of money and financial responsibility 
 forced upon them in the natural course of events, but 
 too often the young wife has not had the training qual- 
 ifying her for the equal financial partnership which 
 should exist in the ideal marriage. 
 
THE INFANT GALAHAD — FIRST SIGHT OF THE GRAII, 
 
 From the mural paintings by Edwin A. Abbey in the 
 Boston Public Library 
 
RELIGIOUS TRAINING 
 
 If the common school is not sufficient for the secular 
 education of the child, certainly the Sunday School 
 is not sufficient for his religious education. In the 
 common schools the teachers are more or less trained 
 for their work. It is a life occupation with them ; by 
 means of it they earn their living, and their daily 
 success with tlTeir pupils marks their rate of progress 
 toward higher fields of endeavor. Nothing of this Sunday 
 sort is true in the Sunday School. While occasionally Teacher* 
 it happens that a day school teacher becomes a Sunday 
 School teacher, this is seldom true, for most teachers 
 who teach during the week feel that they need the 
 Sunday for rest ; and while some Sunday School 
 teachers betray a commendable earnestness and zeal 
 for their work, and associations and conventions have 
 latterly added somewhat to the joint effort to better 
 the conditions, still it remains true that the teaching in 
 the Sunday Schools is far below the pedagogic level 
 of the common schools. Yet the subject which is dealt 
 with in the Sunday Schools, instead of being of less 
 importance than that dealt with in the common schools, 
 is of pre-eminently greater importance. Because of its 
 subtlety, its intimacy with the hidden springs of con- 
 duct, it calls for the exercise ot the very highest teach- 
 ing skill. 
 
132 SlUUY Ot CHILD LIFE. 
 
 Some sort of recognition of these two facts — that 
 Sunday School teachers are in most cases very inade- 
 quately trained for their work, and that the work 
 itself is of greai importance, and of equally great dif- 
 ficulty — has led to the issuing of many quarterlies, 
 International Lesson Leaflets, and other Sunday School 
 aids. Necessary as such help may be under present 
 conditions, they cannot possibly meet the manv diffi- 
 culties of the case. If the central committees, who 
 issue these leaflets, were composed wholly of the wisest 
 men and women on earth, it would still be impossible 
 for them to give lessons to the millions of children in 
 their various denominations which should meet the 
 personal needs, and daily interests of these young 
 people. 
 Sunday ^^ ^ conscqucncc, Sunday School teaching is and 
 Teachhi°g must be largely theoretical and still more largely ex- 
 egetical, and with neither theory nor exegesis is the 
 young mind of the developing child very much con- 
 cerned. What he needs is not the historical side of 
 religion or of that great body of religious literature 
 which we call the Bible, but a living faith which links 
 all that was taught by the prophets and apostles, cen- 
 turies ago, with what is happening in the child's own 
 town and family at that very moment. It is a wide 
 gap to bridge, and it cannot be bridged by a semi- 
 historical review backed by picture cards, golden texts, 
 and stars for good behavior. These things are merely 
 the marks of an endeavor to fitly accomplish a great 
 
RELIGIOUS TRAINING. 133 
 
 task, an endeavor almost absurdly out of proportion 
 to this aim, rendered significant, however, because it 
 is the earnest of a great faith and a great hope. 
 
 So far as Sunday Schools help children, it is because 
 of this spirit of faithfulness, and not because of the 
 form which it has assumed. 
 
 In choosing, then, whether you shall send your 
 child to a Sunday School, choose by the presence 
 or absence of this spirit. If you know the teachers 
 of the Sunday School to be earnest, loving, and de- 
 voted, you may with safety assume that their per- 
 sonal influence will make up for what is archaic in 
 their method of teaching. Where the spirit is present 
 only in a few, or where it manifests itself only occa- 
 sionally, as at seasons of revival, you may well hesi- 
 tate to let your child attend. A great improvement 
 would come about if parents would show a greater 
 mterest and encourage proper teachers to take charge 
 of classes. It is a thankless task at present. 
 
 There is one great danger in the teaching of any theory 
 Sunday School— one which the best of them cannot ^°*°''' 
 
 ■U 11 1 1 Practice 
 
 Wholly escape— and that is, that, in the very nature 
 of things, they teach theory and not practice. Harm- 
 ful as this may be, indeed as it surely is in adult life, 
 it does not begin to be so harmful as it does in youth, 
 for the young child, as we have seen, is and should 
 remain a unit in consciousness. His life, his intellect, 
 and his will are one— an undivided trinity. The 
 divorce of these three is at any time a regrettable oc- 
 
tu 
 
 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 Useless 
 Truths 
 
 The Mother 
 as Teacher 
 
 currence ; the divorce of them in early life is an almost 
 irreparable disaster. 
 
 The current theory is that children will learn many 
 truths in the Sunday School which they will not put 
 into practice then, perhaps, but which they will find 
 useful in later life. This fallacy underlies, of course, 
 almost all conventional education and has only been 
 overthrown by the dictum of modern psychology, that 
 there is but small storage accommodation in the brain 
 for facts which have no immediate relation to life. 
 What may be termed the saturating power of the brain 
 is limited, and after it has soaked up a rather small 
 number of truths, it can contain no more until it has 
 in some way disposed of those that it still has — either 
 by making them part of its own living structure, which 
 is done only by making immediate application of them ; 
 or by dropping them below the threshold of conscious- 
 ness, that is, in common language, forgetting them. 
 Moreover, the brain may form the habit of easily 
 dropping all that relates to a given subject into the 
 limbo where unused things lie disregarded, and when 
 this becomes the habitual method of disposing of re- 
 ligious instruction, the results are particularly deplor- 
 able. 
 
 Feeble as her own knowledge may be, a mother has 
 certain advantages as a teacher of her children over any 
 but the exceptional Sunday school teacher. For, first, 
 she knows the children, and, knowing them, knows their 
 needs. Secondly, she knows their dailv lives and con- 
 
RELIGIOUS TRAINING. 135 
 
 tinually during the week can point out wherein they fail 
 to live up to their Sunday's lesson. And again and 
 most important, she loves them tenderly, and from love 
 flows wisdom. Usually the mother gives her own chil- 
 dren a love far beyond that given by anyone else, and 
 this deeper love sharpens her intellectual faculties and 
 makes her both a keen observer and a good tactician. 
 Giving her children some simple lesson on Sunday aft- 
 ernoon, she finds a hundred opportunities to make the 
 lesson living and vital to them during the succeeding 
 week. 
 
 In the early years of the child's life, the mother is 
 usually the one to decide whether he shall attend 
 Sunday School or not, but as he approaches adolescence 
 he is likely to take the matter in his own hands, and 
 if it happens that some revivalist or a new stirring 
 preacher comes in contact with his life at this time, 
 he is very likely to be swept off his feet with a sudden 
 zeal of religious enthusiasm, which his mother fears Religious 
 to check. The reports of memberships, baptisms, etc., 
 show that a large number become converted and join 
 the church during adolescence. While this does not 
 in the least argue that the conclusions that they reach 
 at that time are therefore unsound — for adolescence is 
 not a disease, nor a form of insanity, but a normal, 
 if excitable, condition — still it does prove, when 
 coupled with the further fact that in adult life these 
 young converts often relapse into their previous con- 
 dition, that a more lastinig basis for religion must be 
 
136 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 found than the emotional intensity of this period of life. 
 A religion to be lasting must be coldly reaffirmed by 
 the intellect : the dictum of the heart alone is not suf- 
 ficient. Religious enthusiasm, like all other forms 
 of enthusiasm, tends of itself to bring about the oppo- 
 site condition, and to be succeeded by fits of despond- 
 ency and bitterness as intense and severe as the en- 
 thusiasm itself was brilliant and ecstatic. The history 
 of all great religious leaders amply proves this. They 
 had their bitter hours of wrestling with the powers of 
 darkness, hours which almost counter-balanced the 
 hours of uplift. Only clearly thought-out intellectual 
 convictioiis reinforced by the habit of daily righteous 
 living can secure the soul against such emotional 
 aberrations. 
 Danger of Therefore, although the religious excitability of 
 
 adolescence must not be thwarted lest it be turned into 
 less helpful channels, and lest religion lose all the 
 beauty and compelling power lent to it by the glow of 
 youthful feelings, yet it must be so balanced and 
 oi^lered by a clear reason, and especially by the habit 
 of putting each enthusiasm to the test of conduct, that 
 the young mind may remain true to its lav\^ of growth, 
 developing harmoniously on all three sides at once. 
 
 The danger of permitting a young boy or girl while 
 under the influence of this emotional instability to 
 enter into any special form of religious service is the 
 danger of reaction. He will discover that all is not 
 as his early vision led him to suppose — because that 
 
Period 
 
 RELIGIOUS TRAINING. 137 
 
 early vision was of things too high and holy for any 
 earthly realization — and he may turn against what 
 seems to him to be hypocrisy and pretense with a bit- 
 terness proportioned to his former love. Many honest, 
 faithful men and women remain in this state of re- 
 action for the rest of their lives. 
 
 Nevertheless, it will not do to thwart these young ADifflouit 
 beginnings. They must neither be nipped in the bud 
 nor forced to a premature ripening. Above all they 
 must not be suffered to endure the killing frost of 
 ridicule. The period is a difficult one, but, as Dr. Stanley 
 Hall points out, it is supremely the mother's oppor- 
 tunity, if she can hold her boy's or her girl's con- 
 fidence now, can ease their eager young hearts with 
 an intelligent sympathy, she can probably keep them 
 from any public commitment. Perhaps they may 
 desire to confide in the minister ; if so, let the mother 
 confide in him first. Perhaps they have bosom friends, 
 passing through the same stirring experience ; then let 
 the mother win over these friends. , 
 
 Her object should be to shelter this beautiful senti- 
 ment ; to keep it safe from exposure ; above all, to 
 utilize it as a motive-power — as an incentive to noble 
 action. The Kindergarten rule is a good one : as 
 quick as a love springs in a child's breast, give it 
 something to do. When the love of God awakes 
 there, give it much to do. Usually, the only way open 
 is to join the church, to make a public profession. The 
 wise mother will see to it that there are other ways, 
 
Bible 
 
 138 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 urging the young knight to serve his King by going 
 forth into the world immediately about him and fight- 
 ing against all forms of evil, giving him a practical, 
 definite quest. Tlie result of such restriction of public 
 speech, and stimulation of private deed, will be a sin- 
 cere, lowly-minded religion, so inwoven with the truest 
 activities as to be inseparable from them. Such a 
 religion knows no reaction. 
 
 Now is supremely the time for a study of the Bible, 
 study Interesting as a Divine Story Book to the young chil- 
 dren, it becomes the Book of Life to these older ones. 
 In teaching it at home, a few simple rules need to be 
 borne in mind. The first is that the Bible must be 
 thought of not as a series of disconnected texts and 
 thoughts, but as a connected wliOle. The division of 
 King James' Bible into verses and chapters is but 
 poorly adapted to this purpose. The illogical, strange 
 character of the paragraphing, as measured by the 
 standards of modern English, is apparent at a glance, 
 for often a verse will end in the middle of a sentence, 
 and the sentence be concluded in the next verse. The 
 chapters in the same way often fail to finish the sub- 
 ject with which they deal, and sometimes include sev- 
 eral subjects. Therefore, the mother who undertakes 
 to read the Bible to her children needs first to go 
 through the lesson herself, and to decide what sub- 
 ject, not what chapter, she will take up that day. There 
 is a reader's edition of the Bible, and one called the 
 "Children's Bible," both of which aim to leave out all 
 
RELIGIOUS TRAINING. 
 
 139 
 
 repetition and references and to arrange the Bible 
 narrative in a simple, consecutive order, nevertheless 
 employing the beautiful Bible language. These edi- 
 tions might prove of considerable help to mothers 
 who feel unequal to doing the work by themselves. 
 
 Second, comparable to this in importance is the 
 reading of the Bible and talking about it in a perfectly 
 ordinary tone of voice ; for what you want is to make 
 the Bible teachings live in to-day. You must not, 
 therefore, suggest by your tone or manner that they 
 belong to another day, and that they are, in some sense, 
 to be shut out from common life and speech. This does 
 not mean such common use of Biblical phrases in 
 every day conversation as to cause it to grow into 
 that form of irreverence known as cant, but it does 
 mean simple usage of Bible thought, and the effort to 
 fit it to the conditions of daily life. Such a habit in 
 itself will force any family to discriminate as to what 
 things in the Bible are living and eternal, and what 
 things belong riglitly to that far away time and place 
 of which the Bible narrative treats, thus practicing 
 both teacher and pupils — that is, both parents and 
 children — in the art of finding the universal spirit of 
 truth under all temporal disguises. Without this art 
 the Bible is a closed book, even to the closest student. 
 
 Again, every effort should be made to help the home 
 Bible class to understand the period studied in that 
 week's lesson, and to this end secular literature and 
 art should be freely called upon, not only such stories, 
 
 Children's 
 Bible 
 
 Making 
 Lessons 
 Real 
 
140 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 for example, as "Ben Hur," but other stories not 
 necessarily religious, which deal with the same time 
 and place ; they are of great help in putting vividly 
 before the children and parents the temporal setting 
 of the eternal stories. Cannon Farrar's "Life of 
 Christ" is a very great help to the realization of the 
 New Testament scenes, as is also Tissot's "Pictorial 
 Life of Christ." In short every art should be made to 
 deepen and clarify the conceptions roused by the 
 study of the Bible. 
 
 In The mother who undertakes the tremendous task of 
 
 rightly training her children, will need to exercise 
 herself daily in all the Christian virtues — and if there 
 are any Pagan ones not included under faith, hope, 
 charity, patience, and humility, to exercise those also. 
 With these virtues to support her, she will be able to 
 use whatever knowledge she may acquire. Without 
 them she can do nothing. 
 
TEST QUESTIONS 
 
 The following questions constitute the "written reci- 
 tation" wliich the regular members of the A. S. H. E. 
 answer in writing and send in for the correction and 
 comment of the instructor. They are intended to 
 emphasize and fix in the memory the most important 
 points in the lesson. 
 
STUDY OF CHILD LIFE 
 
 PART III 
 
 Read Carefully, In answering these questions you are 
 earnestly requested not to answer according to the text-book 
 where opinions are asked for, but to answer according to 
 conviction. In all cases credit will be given for thought and 
 original observation. Place your name and full address at 
 the head of the paper; use your own words so that your 
 instructor may be sure that you understand the subject. 
 
 1. How can you bring the influence of art to bear 
 
 upon your child? 
 
 2. What is the influence of music? How can you 
 
 employ it? 
 
 3. Do you believe in fairy tales for children ? State 
 
 your reasons. 
 
 4. How would you encourage the love of nature in 
 
 your child? 
 
 5. What is it that the Kindergarten can do better 
 
 than the home? 
 
 6. Suppose that your child had some undesirable 
 
 acquaintances, how would you meet the situa- 
 tion? 
 
 7. What can you say of accomplishments for chil- 
 
 dren? 
 
STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 
 
 8. If manual training, physical culture, domestic 
 
 science, etc., are not taught in your schools and 
 you wish your children to .get some of the ad- 
 vantages of these studies, how will you set 
 about it? 
 
 9. What do you understand to be the correlation of 
 
 studies ? 
 
 10. Should parents become acquainted with the teach- 
 
 ers of their children and their methods? Why? 
 
 11. How may children be taught the use of money? 
 
 12. State the advantages and disadvantages of Sunday 
 
 schools. What have they meant in your own 
 experience ? 
 
 13. How will you train your child religiously? Can 
 
 anyone take this task from you? 
 
 14. What rules must be borne in mind in teaching the 
 
 Bible at home ? 
 
 15. Give some experience of your own (or of a 
 
 friend) in the training of a child wherein a 
 success has been achieved. 
 
 16. Are there any questions you would like to ask 
 
 or subjects which you wish to discuss in con- 
 nection with the lessons on the Study of Child 
 Life? 
 
 Note. — 'After completing the test sign it with your full 
 name. 
 
EDUCATION AND LIFE 
 
 I. 
 
 Typical Schools 
 
 Home School for Girls 
 
 WiSllSJt^ 
 
 
 ■-^i.."' 
 
 If. 
 
 "To This Favor Shall She Come at Last" 
 
Supplementary Notes 
 on 
 
 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE 
 
 By Marion Foster Washburn 
 
 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES. 
 
 In this "Study of Child L^fe" we have considered 
 some of the fundamental principles of education. When 
 we think of the complex inheritance of the American 
 people it is, perhaps, no wonder that many families 
 contain individuals varying so widely from each other 
 as to seem to require each a complete system of edu- 
 cation all to himself. We are a people born late in the 
 history of the race, and our blood is mingled of the 
 Norseman's, the Celt's, and the Latin's. Advancing 
 civilization alone would tend to make us more complex, 
 our problems more subtle; but in addition to this we 
 are mixed of all races, and born in times so strenuous 
 that, sooner or later, every fibre of our weaving is 
 strained and brought into prominence. 
 
 In the letters from my students this fact, with which 
 I was already familiar in a general sort of way, has 
 been brought more particularly to my attention. In 
 all cases, the situation has been responsible for much 
 confusion and difficulty. In a good many, it has led 
 to family tragedies, varying in magnitude from the 
 unhappiness of the misunderstood child to that of the 
 lonely woman, suffering in adult life from the faults 
 of her upbringing, and the failure of the family ties 
 whose need she felt the more as the duties of moth- 
 
 141 
 
142 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE 
 
 erhoocl pressed upon her. If it were possible for 
 me to violate the confidence of my pupils I could prove 
 very conclusively that the old-fashioned system of 
 bringing up children on the three R's and a spanking 
 did not work so well as some persons seem to think. 
 I could prove' that the problem has grown past the 
 point where instinct and tradition may be held as suffi- 
 cient to solve it. Everyone, seeing these letters, would 
 be obliged to confess, "Yes, indeed, here is plain need 
 of training for parents." Yet, at the same time, these 
 same persons would be tempted to inquire, "But can 
 any training meet such a difficult situation?" 
 
 Here is despair ; and some cause for it. When one's 
 own mother has not understood one ; when one has 
 lived lonely in the midst of brothers and sisters who 
 are more strange than strangers ; when one's childhood 
 is full of the memory of obscure but intense sufiferings, 
 one flies for relief, perhaps, to any one who offers it 
 hopefully enough ; but one does not really expect to 
 get it. Can training, especially by correspondence, 
 meet the need? 
 
 Not wholly, of course, let us be frank to admit. No 
 amount of theory, however excellent, can take the place, 
 of the drill given only m the hard school of experience. 
 But when the theory is not merely theory, but sound 
 principle, based on scientific observation, confirmed by 
 the wide experience of many persons, it is as valuable 
 in practical life as any rule of mathematics to the prac- 
 tical engineer. We all know that the technical cor- 
 respondence schools really do fit young mechanics to 
 
APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES 143 
 
 move on and up in the trade. By correspondence 
 he is given what Froebel calls the interpreting word. 
 The experience in application the student has to sup- 
 ply himself. 
 
 So in the matter of education. There are genuine 
 principles which underlie the development of every 
 child that lives— even the feeble-minded, deaf, and 
 blind. Read Helen Keller's wonderful Hfe, if you 
 want to see the proof of it. Just as surely as a child 
 has two legs and has to learn to walk on them by a 
 series of prolonged experiments, just so surely he has 
 (a) a sense of justice, (b) an instinct for freedom, (c) 
 a love of play. Every kind of child has all these in- 
 stincts, as much as he has love for food and drink ; and 
 to educate him consists in developing these instincts 
 into (a) the habit of dealing justly by others, (b) the 
 right use of freedom, (c) love of work. The particu- 
 lar methods may differ. The principles do not and 
 CANNOT DIFFER. 
 
 She who would succeed in child training must hold 
 to these truths with all her might and main— making 
 them, in fact, her religion, for they are the doctrines 
 of the Christian religion as applied to motherhood. 
 To hold them lightly, or even experimentally, will not 
 do. One must walk in faith. And that the faith may 
 not be blind, but may be based on experience and un- 
 derstanding, let me suggest this means of proof : In- 
 stead of asking yourself how the laws laid down in 
 these little books would fit this or that particular child, 
 your own or another's, ask how they would have fitted 
 
144 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE 
 
 you, if they had been applied to you by your own 
 mother. Take the chapter on faults, pick out the one 
 which was yours, in childhood — oh, of course, you've 
 got over it now ! — think of some bitter trouble into 
 which that fault hurried you, and conceive that, instead 
 of the punishment you did receive, you had been 
 treated as the lesson suggests — what, do you think, 
 would have been the result? And so with the other 
 chapters — even with that much-mooted question of 
 companionship. Test the truth of them all by their 
 imaginary application to the child you know best. 
 When you can, find the principles that your own 
 mother did employ in your education, and examine the 
 result of what she did. Some of the principles will 
 suddenly become luminous to you, I am sure ; and some 
 things that happened in the past receive an expla- 
 nation. 
 
 Such a self-examination, to be of any value, must 
 be rigidly honest. There is too much at stake here 
 for you to permit any remnants of bitter feeling to 
 influence your judgment — and you will surely be sur- 
 prised to find how many bitter resentments will show 
 that they yet have life. The past is dead, as far as 
 your power to change it is concerned ; but it lives, as 
 a thing that you can use. Here is your own child, to be 
 helped or hindered by what you may have endured. It 
 will all have been worth while, if by means of it you 
 can save him from some bruises and falls. Every bit- 
 terness will be sweetened if you can look through it 
 
OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN 145 
 
 and find the truth which shall serve this dearer little 
 self who looks to you for guidance. 
 
 Then, when you have found the principles true — and 
 not one minute before ! — put them rigidly into prac- 
 tice. I say, not one minute before you are convinced, 
 because it is better to hold the truth lightly in the mem- 
 ory as a mere interesting theory you have never had 
 time to test, than to swallow it, half assimilated. Truth 
 is a real and living power, once it is applied to life ; and 
 to half-use it in doubt, and fear, is to invite indiges- 
 tion and consequent disgust. Take of these teachings 
 that which you are sure is sound and right, and use 
 it faithfully, and unremittingly. Be careful that no 
 plea of expediency, no hurry of the moment, makes you 
 false. If you are thus faithful in small things, one 
 after the other, in a series fitted to your own peculiar 
 constitution, the others will prove themselves to you ; 
 for they are coherent truths, and not one lives to 
 itself alone, but joins hands with all the rest. Being 
 truths, they fit all human minds — yours and mine, and 
 those of our children, no matter how diverse we may be. 
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN 
 Isn't it ridiculously true that, as soon as we get 
 enlightened ourselves, we burn to enlighten the rest of 
 the world? We do not seem to remember our own 
 feelings during the years of darkness, and the con- 
 tentment of those who remain as we were surpasses 
 our power of comprehension. It is really comforting 
 to my own sense of impatience and balked zeal to find 
 
146 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE 
 
 how many of my pupils are dreadfully concerned about 
 other people's children. This one's heart burns over 
 the little boy next door who is shamefully mismanaged 
 and who already begins to show the ill effects of his 
 treatment. That one has a sister-in-law who refuses 
 to listen to a word spoken in season. 
 
 Between my smiles — those comfortable smiles with 
 which we recognize our own shortcomings — I, too, am 
 really concerned about the sister-in-law's children. It 
 is true that their mother ought to be taught better, 
 and that, if she isn't, those innocent lambs are going 
 to suffer for it. Off at this distance, without the ties 
 of kindred to draw me too close for clear judgment, 
 I see, though, that we have to walk very cautious- 
 ly here, for fear of doing more harm than good. Bet- 
 ter that those benighted women never heard the 
 name of child-study, than to hear it only to greet it 
 with rebellion and hatred. Yet to force any of our 
 principles upon her attention when she is in a hostile 
 mood — or to force them, indeed, in any mood — is to 
 invite just this attitude. 
 
 M'ost of us, by the time that we are sufficiently 
 grown up to undertake the study of child life, have 
 outgrown the habit of plainly telling our friends to 
 their faces just what we think of their faults; yet this 
 is a safe and pleasant pastime beside that other of try- 
 ing to tell them how to bring up their children. You 
 stand it from me, because you have invited it, and per- 
 haps still more because you never see me, and the per- 
 
OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN W 
 
 sonal element enters only slightly and pleasantly into 
 our relationship. I sometimes think that students pour 
 out their hearts to me, much as we used to talk to our 
 girl friends in the dark. I'm very sure I should never 
 dare to say to their faces what I write so freely on the 
 backs of their papers ! 
 
 You see, the adult, too, has his love of freedom ; and 
 while he can stand an mdirect, impersonal preach- 
 ment, which he may reject if he likes without apology, 
 he will not stand the insistence of a personal appeal. 
 I've let "Little Women" shame me into better conduct, 
 when I was a girl, at times when no direct speech from 
 a living soul would have brought me to anything but 
 defiance — haven't you? We have to apply our prin- 
 ciples to the adult world about us, as well as to the 
 child-world,, and teach, when we permit ourselves to 
 teach at all, chiefly by example, by cheerful confession 
 of fallibility, by open-mindedness. Above all things, 
 we have to respect the freedom of these others, about 
 whom we are so inconveniently anxious. 
 
 It is fair, though, that the spoken word should in- 
 terpret what we do. It is fair enough to tell your 
 sister-in-law what you think and ask her judgment 
 upon it, if you can trust yourself not to rub your own 
 judgment in too hard. If you are unmarried, and a 
 teacher, you will have to concede to her preposterous 
 marital conceit a humble and inquiring attitude, and 
 console your flustered soul by setting it to the ingeni- 
 ous task of teaching by means of a graduated series of 
 
148 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE 
 
 artful inquiries. Don't, oh don't ! seek for an out- 
 spoken victory. Be content if some day you hear her 
 proclaim your truth as her own discovery. It never 
 was yours, anyway, any more than it is hers or than it 
 is mine. Be glad that, while she claims it, she at least 
 holds it close. 
 
 If you are a mother, you are in an easier case. You 
 can do to yout own children just what she ought to do 
 to hers, and tell about it softly, as if sure of her sym- 
 pathy. If you are very sincere in your desire for the 
 welfare of her child, you may even ask her advice about 
 yours, and so gain the right to offer a little in exchange 
 — say one-tenth of what she gives. 
 
 All these warnings apply to unsought advice — a 
 dangerous thing to offer under any circumstances. 
 Except there is a real emergency, you had better avoid 
 it. If your nephew or little neighbor is winning along 
 through his troubles fairly well, best keep hands off. 
 But if you absolutely must interfere, guard yourself 
 as I suggest, and remember that, even then, you will 
 assuredly get burned, if you play long with that dan- 
 gerous fire of maternal pride ! 
 
 When your advice is sought, you are in a different 
 position. Then you have a right to speak out, though 
 if you are wise and loving you will temper that right 
 with charity. No one can be too gentle in dealing 
 with a soul that honestly asks for help ; but one can 
 easily be too timid. Think, under these circumstances, 
 of yourself not at all ; but put yourself as much as 
 
THE SEX QUESTION ,^ 
 
 possible in her place ; be led by her questions ; and aw- 
 swer fearlessly from the depths of the best truth you 
 hold. Then leave it. You can do no more. What 
 becomes of that truth, once you have lovingly spoken 
 it, is no more of your concern. 
 
 THE SEX QUESTION 
 
 Always convinced of the importance of this subject, 
 my convictions have deepened to the point of dismay 
 since learning, through this school, of the many women 
 who have suffered and who continue to suffer, both 
 mentally and physically, because, in early girlhood, 
 they were not taught those finer physiological facts 
 upon which the very life of the race depends. Yet, 
 strangely enough, these very victims' find it almost 
 impossible to give their children the knowledge neces- 
 sary to save them from a similar fate. It is as if the 
 lack of early training in themselves leaves them help- 
 less before a situation from which they suffer but 
 which they have never mastered. 
 
 Of course such feelings, in themselves morbid, are 
 not to be trusted. Faced with a task like this we have 
 only to ask ourselves not "Is it hard?" but "Is it in 
 truth my task ?" If it is, we may be sure that we shall 
 be given strength to do it, provided only that we are 
 sincere in our willingness to do it and do not count our 
 feelings at all. 
 
 It is preposterous to have such feelings, in the first 
 place. They are wholly the product of false teaching. 
 For we have no right — as we recognize when we stop 
 
150 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE 
 
 to think about it in calmness of spirit, and apart from 
 our special difficulty — to sit in scornful judgment upon 
 any of the laws of nature. When we find ourselves 
 in rebellion against them, what we have to do is to 
 change the state of our minds, for change the laws 
 we cannot. If we women could inaugurate a gigantic 
 strike against the present method of bearing children 
 — and I imagine that millions would join such a strike 
 if it held out any promise of success ! — we still could 
 accomplish nothing. To fret ourselves into a frazzle 
 over it, is to accomplish less than nothing ; — it is to 
 enter upon the pathway to destruction. 
 
 In teaching our children, then, we have first 'to con- 
 quer ourselves — that painful, reiterated, primal neces- 
 sity, which must underlie all teaching. Having done 
 so, we shall find our task easier than we supposed. 
 The children's own questions will lead us ; and if we 
 simply make it a rule never to answer a question 
 falsely no matter how far it may probe, we shall find 
 ourselves not only enlightening but receiving enlight- 
 enment. For nothing is so sure an antidote to morbid- 
 ness as the unspoiled mind of a child. He looks at the 
 facts with such a calm, level gaze that proportions are 
 restored to us as we follow his look. 
 
 Many of my letters show that adult women, wives 
 and mothers, still grope for the truth that lies plain to 
 the eyes of any simple child — the truth that there Is 
 no such thing as clean and unclean, only use and 
 misuse. Others, through love, and the splendid reve- 
 
THE SEX QUESTION 151 
 
 lations that it makes, have risen so far above their 
 former misconceptions that they fear to tell a child 
 the facts before he has experienced the love. I can 
 imagine that in an ideal world some such reticence 
 might be good and right — but this is far from an ideal 
 world. We have to train our children relatively, not 
 absolutely, in the knowledge that we do not control 
 all their environment. I think the solution of the diffi- 
 culty is to teach the facts of sex in a perfectly calm, 
 unemotional, matter-of-fact manner, just as one teaches 
 the laws of digestion. When knowledge of evil is 
 thrust upon our child let us be sorry with him that 
 those other children have never been taught, and that 
 they are doing their bodies such sad mischief. But 
 don't exaggerate it ; don't be too shocked ; don't con- 
 demn the poor little sinners, who are also victims, too 
 severely. Charity toward wrong-doing is the best 
 prophylactic against imitation. We never feel the 
 lure of a sin which grieves us in another ; but often 
 the call (Jf a sin which we too strongly condemn. Be- 
 cause the very strength of the condemnation rouses 
 our imaginations, is in itself an emotion, and, since 
 it is certainly not a loving one, must necessarily be 
 linked with all other unloving and therefore evil emo- 
 tions. As far as possible, let us keep feeling out of 
 this subject, until such time as the true and beautiful 
 feeling of love between husband and wife arises and- 
 upliits it. 
 
152 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE 
 
 FATHERS 
 
 And now comes the editor of these lessons and ac- 
 cuses me of neglecting the fathers ! Nothing in this 
 world could be farther from my thoughts. Not only 
 do I agree with him that "all ordinary children have 
 fathers, and it might be well to put in a paragraph ;" 
 but I am cheerfully willing to write a whole book on 
 the subject, provided that a mere modicum of readers 
 can be assured me. I fairly ache to talk to fathers, 
 having a really great ideal of them, and whenever 
 a class of them can be induced to take up a correspond- 
 ence course I shall be glad to conduct it. 
 
 Joking aside, however, I truly feel that the saddest 
 lack many of our children have to suffer is the lack 
 of fathers ; and the saddest lack our men have to suffer 
 is the lack of children. So little are most men awake 
 to this subject that I am perfectly convinced that much 
 of the prevalent "race suicide" is due to their objec- 
 tions to a large family, rather than to their wives'. 
 Upon them comes the burden of support. They get 
 few of the joys which belong to children, and nearly 
 all of the woes. Seldom do they share the games of 
 their offspring, or their happy times ; and almost al- 
 ways the worst difficulties are thrust upon them for 
 solution. Not that they often solve them ! How can 
 we expect it? 
 
 There is Edgar growing very untruthful and defiant. 
 We have concealed all the first stages of the disease 
 for fear of bothering poor tired papa. At last it 
 
FATHERS 153 
 
 reaches such a height that we can conceal it no longer. 
 We fling the desperate boy at the very head of the 
 bewildered father, and then have turns of bitter dis- 
 appointment because the remedies that are applied may 
 be so much cruder, even, than our own. Here is a 
 boy who gets close to his father only to find the prox- 
 imity very uncomfortable ; and a father who becomes 
 acquainted with his son only through the ugly revela- 
 tions of his worst faults. 
 
 Not but that the fathers are somewhat to blame, too. 
 Without urging by us, they ought, of course, to take 
 a spontaneous interest in the lives for which they are 
 responsible. They ought to, and they often do; but 
 their interest is sometimes ill-advised, and conse- 
 quently unwelcome. There are fathers whose interest 
 is a most inconvenient thing. When they are at 
 home, they run everything, growl at everything, upset, 
 as like as not, all that the mother has been trying to 
 do during the day. I know wives who are distinctly 
 glad to encourage their husbands in the habit of lunch- 
 ing down-town, so that they can have a little room for 
 their own peculiar form of activity. And maybe we 
 all have times of sympathizing with the woman in this 
 familiar story : There was a man once who never left 
 the house without a list of directions to his wife as to 
 how she should manage things during his absence. 
 
 "Better have the children carry umbrellas this morn- 
 ing ; it's going to rain," said he, as he went out of the 
 door. "Be sure to put on their rubbers. And since 
 
154 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE 
 
 the baby is so croupy I'd get out his winter flannels, if 
 I were you." 
 
 "Yes, dear," said the patient wife. "Make your 
 mind easy. I'll take just as good care of them as if 
 they were my own children." Of course this is an 
 extreme case. 
 
 There are other fathers whose whole idea of the 
 parental relation seems to be indulgence. No system 
 of discipline, however mild, can be carried out when 
 such a man wins the children's hearts and ruins their 
 dispositions. It is he, isn't it? (I don't quite recol- 
 lect the tale) who was sent, after death, to the warm 
 regions, there to expiate his many sins of omission. 
 And his adoring children, who had been hauled to 
 heaven by the main strength, let us say, of their mother, 
 found that the only thing they could do for him was 
 to call out celestial hose company number one and 
 ask them to play awhile upon the overheated apart- 
 ments of poor tired papa. 
 
 The truth is — sit close and let no man hear what 
 we say ! — that these fathers are much what wc, the 
 mothers, make them. If, under the mistaken idea of 
 saving father from all the worries of the children, we 
 hurry the youngsters ofif to bed before he comes home 
 in the evening, conceal our heart-burnings over them, 
 do our correspondence-school work in secret and soli- 
 tude, meditate in the same fashion over plans for their 
 upbringing, talk to our neighbors but never to him 
 about the daily troubles, how can we expect any man 
 
FATHERS 155 
 
 on earth, no matter how susceptible of later angelic 
 growth, to become a wise and devoted father? Tired 
 or not, he is a father, not a mere bread-winner. 
 Whether he likes it at the moment or not, it is for his 
 soul's health for him to enter into the full life of his 
 family, including those problems which are at the very 
 heart of it, after his day of grinding, and very likely 
 unloving, work at the office. Here love enters to in- 
 terpret, to soften, to make all principles live. Here 
 alone he can give himself to those gentler forms of 
 judgment which are necessary as much to the com- 
 pletion of his own character as to the happiness and 
 welfare of his wife and children. Someone has said 
 that we wrong our friends when we ask nothing of 
 them ; and certainly it is true that we wrong our hus- 
 bands when we do not demand big and splendid things 
 of them. 
 
 That word demand troubles me a little. So many 
 women demand — and demand terribly ! But what they 
 demand is indulgence, sympathy, interest — I think 
 sometimes that they crave a man's utter absorption in 
 themselves much as a man craves strong drink. It is 
 their form of intoxication. Such demanding is not, of 
 course, what I mean. Demand nothing for yourself, 
 beyond simple justice. Not love, for that flies at the 
 very sound of demand, and dies before nagging. But 
 demand for the man himself, call upon his nobler qual- 
 ities, and don't let him palm ofif on you his second-best. 
 Many a man is loved and honored by his business asso- 
 
156 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE 
 
 ciates whose wife and children never catch a gUmpse 
 of the finer side of him. Demand the exercise of these 
 fine traits in the home. Demand that he be a fine man 
 in the eyes of his children as in the eyes of his friends. 
 Be sure that he will rise to the occasion with a splendid 
 sense of having, now, a home that is a home, of having 
 a wife who is wived to the man he likes best to be. 
 
 This bids fair to be — as I knew it would, if once I 
 permitted myself to write at all on the subject — not a 
 paragraph, but a whole essay — or perhaps, if I did not 
 check myself, a whole volume ! But after all, what I 
 want to say is merely that as no child can be born with- 
 out a father, so he cannot be properly trained without 
 a father's daily assistance. And that, since most 
 fathers come to the task even more untrained than the 
 mothers, some training must be undertaken. By 
 whom? By the mother. It is, I solemnly believe, 
 your duty to go ahead a little on this part of the jour- 
 ney, find out what ought to be done, and teach, coax, 
 induce your husband to co-operate with you in these 
 things. No one knows better than you do that he is 
 only a boy at heart after all — perhaps the very dearest 
 boy of them all. This boy you have to help while yet 
 the other children are little — but be sure that, as you 
 teach him, so, all the time, will he teach you. Every 
 principle laid down in this book, above all others the 
 principle of freedom, will, apply to him. He will take 
 the lessons a trifie more reluctantly but more lastingly 
 than the younger boys ; and in a little while you will 
 
THE UNCONSCIOUS INFLUENCE 157 
 
 be envied of all your women friends because of the 
 competency, the reliability, the contentment of your 
 children's father. 
 
 THE UNCONSCIOUS INFLUENCE 
 When all is said and done, it remains true that the 
 finest, the most subtle and penetrating influence in 
 education is precisely that education for which no rules 
 can be laid down. It is the silent influence of the mo- 
 tives which impel the persons who constantly surround 
 us. If we examine for a little our own childhood we 
 see at once that this is so. What are those canons of 
 conduct by which we judge others and even occasion- 
 illy ourselves? Whence came that list of iinpossiblc 
 chings, those things that are so closed to us that we 
 :annot, even under great stress, of temptation, con- 
 ceive ourselves as yielding to them ? 
 
 There is an enlightening story of a young man, born 
 and bred a gentleman, who, by the way of fast living 
 falls upon poverty. In the hard pressure of his finan- 
 cial afifairs he is about to commit suicide, when sud- 
 denly he ^nds, in an empty cab, a roll of bills amount- 
 ing to some thousands of dollars. The circumstances 
 are such that he knows that he can, if he will, discover 
 the owner ; or, he can, without fear of detection, keep 
 the money himself. He makes up his mind, deliberate- 
 ly, to keep it, and then, almost against his will, sub- 
 consciously as it were, walks to the office of the man 
 who lost the money and restores it to him. 
 
158 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE 
 
 Now, doubtless, in his downward career he had 
 done many things which judged by any absolute stand- 
 ard of morality were quite as wrong as the keeping 
 of that money would have been but the fact remained 
 that he could not do that deed. Others, yes, but not 
 that. He was a gentleman, and gentlemen do not steal 
 private property, whatever they may do about public 
 property. Yet probably, in all his life he had not once 
 been told not to steal — not one word had he been 
 taught, openly, on the subject. No one whom he knew 
 stole. He was never expected to steal. Stealing was 
 a sin beyond the pale. So strong was this unconscious, 
 but unvarying influence, that by it he was saved, in 
 the hour of extreme need, from even feeling the force 
 of a temptation that to a boy born and reared, say, in 
 the slums, would have been overwhelming. 
 
 Now, considering such things, 1 take it that it De- 
 hooves us, as parents, to look closely at the sort of per- 
 sons that we are, clear inside of us. To examine, as 
 if with the clear eyes of our own children, waiting to 
 be clouded by our sophistries, the motives from which 
 we habitually act in the small affairs of everyday life. 
 Are we influenced by fear of what the neighbors will 
 say? Have we one standard of courtesy for company 
 times, and another for private moments? If so, why? 
 Are we self-indulgent about trifles? Are we truthful 
 in spirit as well as in letter? Do we permit ourselves 
 to cheat the street-car and the railroad company, teach- 
 ing the child at our side to sit low that he may ride 
 
THE UNCONSCIOUS INFLUENCE 159 
 
 for half-fare? Do we seek justice in our bargaining, 
 or are we sharp and self-considerate? Do we practice 
 democracy, or only talk it and wave the flag at it? 
 
 And so on with a hundred other questions as to those 
 small repeated acts, which, springing from base mo- 
 tives, may put our unconscious influence with our chil- 
 dren in the already over-weighted down-side of the 
 scale ; or met bravely and nobly, at some expense of 
 convenience, may help to enlighten the weight of in- 
 herited evil. Sometimes I wonder how much of what 
 we call inherited evil is the result not of heredity at 
 all, but of this sort of unconscious education. 
 
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS 
 
 THE SELF-DISTRUSTFUL CHILD. 
 
 "Your question is an excellent one. The answer to 
 it is really contained in your answer to the question 
 about obedience. If a child obeys lazvs not persons, 
 and is steadily shown the reasonableness of what is 
 required of him, he comes to trust those laws and to 
 trust himself when he is conscious of obeying. But in 
 addition to this general training, it might be well to 
 give a self-distrustful child easy work to do — work 
 well within his ability — then to praise him for per- 
 forming it ; give him something a little harder, but 
 still within his reach, and so on, steadily calling on 
 him for greater and greater effort, but seeing to it 
 that the effort is not too great and that it bears visible 
 fruit. He should never be allowed to be discouraged; 
 and when he droops over his work, some strong, 
 friendly help may well be given him. Sensitive, con- 
 scientious children, such as I imagine you were, are 
 sometimes overwhelmed in this way by parents, quite 
 unconscious of the pain they are giving by assigning 
 tasks that are beyond the strength and courage of the 
 young toilers. 
 
 "At the same time, much might be done by training 
 the child's attention from product to process. You 
 know the St. Louis Fair does not aim to show what 
 has been done, but how. things are done. So a child 
 — so you — can find happiness and intellectual uplift in 
 
 160 
 
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS i6i 
 
 studying the laws at work under the simplest em- 
 ployment instead of counting the number of things 
 finished." 
 
 COMPANY WAYS 
 
 "A boy who is visiting us is so beset with rules and 
 'nagged' even by glances and nudges, that I wonder 
 that he is not bewildered and rebellious. He seems 
 good and pleasant and obedient (12 years old), but 
 I keep wondering why?" 
 
 "Perhaps these were company ways inspired by an 
 over-anxiety on his mother's part that'he should appear 
 well. Oh, I have been so tempted in this direction !— 
 for of course people look at my children to see if they 
 prove the truth of my teachings, and as they are vigor- 
 ous, free and active youngsters, with decided char- 
 acteristics they often do the most unexpected and un- 
 comfortable things ! There must be good points both 
 in the boy himself — the boy you mention — and in his 
 training which offset the bad effects of the 'nagging' 
 you notice — and possibly the nagging itself may not 
 be customary when he is at Home. And perhaps the 
 mother knows that you are a close observer of chil- 
 dren." 
 
 THEORY BEFORE PRACTICE 
 
 "There is only one danger in learning about the 
 training of children in advance of their advent, ana 
 that is the danger of being too sure of ourselves — 
 too systematic. The best training is that which is 
 
STUDY OF CHILD LIFE 
 
 most invisible — which leaves the child most in free- 
 dom. Almost the whole duty of mothers is to provide 
 the right environment and then just love and enjoy 
 the child as he moves and grows in it. But to do 
 this apparently easy thing requires so much simplicity 
 and directness of vision and most of us are so complex 
 and confused that considerable training and consider- 
 able effort are required to put us into the right atti- 
 tude. 
 
 "For myself, soon after I took my kindergarten 
 training, which F did with three babies creeping and 
 playing about the school-room, I read George Mere- 
 dith's "Ordeal of Richard Feveril" (referred to on p. 
 33, Part I) and felt that that book was an excellent 
 counter-balance, saving me, in the nick of time, from 
 imposing any system, however ..perfect, upon my chil- 
 dren. Perhaps you will enjoy reading it, too." 
 
 THE EMOTIONAL APPEAL 
 
 "Doing right from love of parent may easily be- 
 come too strong a factor and too much reliance may 
 be placed upon it. There are few dangers in child 
 training more real than the danger of over working 
 the emotional appeal. You do not wish your child to 
 form the habit of working for approval, do you? 
 
 THE FOOD QUESTION 
 
 "The food question can be met in less direct ways 
 with your young baby. No food but that which is 
 good for him need be seen. It is seldom good to have 
 so young a child come to the family table. It is better 
 
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS 163 
 
 he would have his own meals, so that he is satisfied 
 with proper foods before the other appears. Or, if 
 he must cat when you do, let him have a little low- 
 table to himself, spread with his own pretty little 
 dishes and his own chair, with perhaps a doll for com- 
 panion or playmate. From this level he can not see 
 or be tempted by the viands on the large table ; yet, 
 if his table is near your chair you can easily reach 
 and serve him. It is a real torment to a young child 
 to see things he must not touch or eat, and it is a 
 perfectly unnecessary source of trouble. 
 
 "My four children ate at such a low table till the 
 oldest was eight years old, when he was promoted 
 to our table, and the others followed in due order." 
 
 AIR CASTLES 
 
 "What a wonderful reader you were as a child! 
 and certainly the books you mention were far beyond 
 you. Yet I can not quite agree that the habit of air- 
 castle building is pernicious. Indeed I believe in it. 
 It needs only to be balanced by practical effort, di- 
 rected towards furnishing an earthly foundation for 
 the castle. Build, then, as high and splendid as you 
 like, and love them so hard that you are moved to lay 
 a few stones on the solid earth as a beginning of a 
 more substantial structure ; and some day you may 
 wake to find some of your castles coming true. Those 
 practical foundation stones underlying a tremendous 
 tower of idealism have a geriuine magic power. Duild 
 
l64 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE 
 
 all you like about your baby, for instance. Think what 
 things Mary pondered in her heart. 
 
 "No, I'm never worried about idealism except when 
 it is contented with itself and makes but little effort 
 at outward realization. But the fact that you are 
 taking this course proves that you will work to realize 
 your ideals. 
 
 "I don't think it very bad either to read to "kill 
 time." Though if you go on having a family, you 
 won't have any time to kill in a very little while. But 
 do read on when you can, otherwise you may be shut 
 in, first you know, to too small a world, and a mother 
 needs to draw her own nourishment from all the 
 world, past and present." 
 
 DUTY TO ONESELF 
 
 "Yes, I should say you were distinctly precocious, 
 and that you are almost certainly suffering from the 
 effects of that early brilliancy. But the degree was 
 not so great as to permanently injure you, especially 
 if you see what is the matter, and guard against re- 
 peating the mistakes of your parents. I mean that 
 you can now treat your own body and mind and nerves 
 as you wish they had treated them. Pretend that you 
 are your own little child, and deal with yourself ten- 
 derly and gently, making allowances for the early 
 strain to which you were subjected. So few of us 
 American women, with our alert minds, and our Puri- 
 tanic consciences, have the good sense and self-con- 
 
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS 165 
 
 trol to refrain from driving ourselves ; and if, as often 
 happens, we have formed the bad habit early in life, 
 reform is truly difficult, but not impossible. We can 
 get the good of our disability by conscientiously driv- 
 ing home the principle that in order to 'love others 
 as ourselves' we must learn to love ourselves as zve 
 love others. We have literally no right to be unrea- 
 sonably exacting toward ourselves, — but perhaps I 
 am taking too much upon myself by preaching outside 
 the realm of child study." 
 
 • THE MOTHER AND THE TEACHER 
 
 "Your paper has been intensely interesting to me. 
 I have always held that a true teacher was really a 
 mother, though of a very large flock, just as a true 
 mother is really a teacher, though of a very small 
 school. The two points of view complete each other 
 and I doubt if either mother or teacher can see truly 
 without the other. They tell us, you know, that our 
 two eyes, with their slight divergence of position, 
 are necessary to make us see things as having more 
 than one side; and the mother and the teacher, one 
 seeing the individual child, the other the child as the 
 member of the race, need each other to see the child 
 as the complex, many-sided individual he really is. 
 
 "In your school, do you manage to get the mothers 
 to co-operate ? Here, I am trying to get near my chil- 
 dren's teachers. They try, too ; but it is not altogether 
 easy for any of us. We need some common meeting 
 
i66 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE 
 
 ground — some neutral activity which we could share. 
 If you have any suggestions, I shall be glad to have 
 them. Of course, I visit school and the teachers visit 
 me, and we are friendly in an arm's length sort of 
 fashion. That is largely because they believe in cor- 
 poral punishment and practice it freely and it is hard 
 for us to look straight at each other over this dis- 
 agreement." 
 
 COKPORAL PUNISHMENT. 
 To the Matron of a Girls' OrphaH Asylum 
 
 "Now to the specific questions you ask. My •an- 
 swers must, of course, be based upon general princi- 
 ples — the special application, often so very difficult a 
 matter, must be left to you. To begin with corporal 
 punishment. You say you are 'personally opposed, 
 but that your early training and the literal interpre- 
 tation of Solomon's rod keep you undecided.' Surely 
 your own comment later shows that part, at least, of 
 the influence of your early training was against cor- 
 poral punishment, because you saw and felt its evils in 
 yourself. Such early training may have made you un- 
 apt in thinking of other means of discipline ; but it 
 can hardly have made you think of corporal punish- 
 ment as right. 
 
 "And how can anyone- take Solomon's rod any more 
 literally than she does the Savior's cross? We are 
 bid, on a higher authority than Solomon's proverbs, 
 to take up our cross and follow Him. This we all 
 
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS 167 
 
 interpret figuratively. Would you dream, for instance, 
 of binding heavy crosses of wood upon the backs of 
 your children because you felt yourselves so enjoined 
 in the literal sense of the Scriptures? Why, then, 
 take the rod literally? It is as clearly used to desig- 
 nate any form of orderly discipline as the cross is used 
 to designate endurance of necessary sorrows. 'The 
 letter killeth, but the spirit maketh alive.' 
 
 "As to your next question about quick results, I 
 must recognize that you are in a most difficult posi- 
 tion. For not the best conceivable intentions, nor the 
 highest wisdom, can make the unnatural conditions 
 you have to meet, as good as natural ones. In any 
 asylum many purely artificial requirements must be 
 made to meet the artificial situation. Time and space, 
 those temporal appearances, grow to be menacing 
 monsters, take to themselves the chief realities. Never- 
 theless, so far as you are able, you surely want to do 
 the natural, right, unforced thing. And with each 
 successful effort will come fresh wisdom and fresh 
 strength for the next. 
 
 "Let me suggest, in the case you mention, of inso- 
 lence, that three practical courses are open to you: 
 one to send or lead the child quietly from the room, 
 with the least aggressiveness possible, so as not fur- 
 ther to excite her opposition, and to keep her apart 
 from the rest until she is sufficiently anxious for soci- 
 ety to be willing to make an efifort to deserve it; or 
 
i68 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE 
 
 two, to do nothing, permitting a large and eloquent 
 silence to accentuate the rebellious words ; or three, 
 to call for the condemnation of the child's mates. 
 Speaking to one or two whose response you are sure 
 of first, ask each one present for an expression of 
 opinion. This is so severe a punishment that it ought 
 not often to be invoked ; but it is deadly sure. 
 
 STEALING 
 
 "The question of honesty is, indeed, most difficult. 
 I do not think it would lower the standard of morality 
 to assume honesty, as the thing you expected to find, 
 to accept almost any other explanation, to agree with 
 the whole body of children that dishonesty was so 
 much the fault of dreadfully poor people who had 
 nothing unless they stole it, that it could not be their 
 fault, who had so much — couldn't be the fault of any- 
 one who was well brought up, as they were. Empha- 
 size, in story and side allusion, at all sorts of odd mo- 
 ments when no concrete desire called away the chil- 
 dren's minds, the fact that honesty is to be expected 
 everywhere, except among terribly unfortunate people 
 — of course assuming that they with their good shelter 
 and good schooling are among the fortunate ones. 
 Then you will give to each child not only plenty of 
 everything, but things individualized, easily distin- 
 guished, and a place to put them in. I've often thought 
 that the habit of buying things wholesale — so many 
 dolls, all exactly alike, so many yards of calico for 
 
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS 169 
 
 dresses, all exactly alike^ leads, in institutions like 
 yours, to a vague conception of private property, and 
 even of individuality itself. If some room could be 
 allowed for free choice — the children be allowed to 
 buy' their own calicoes, within a given price, or to 
 choose the trimmings or style, etc. I feel sure the re- 
 sult would be a sturdier self-respect and a greater 
 sense of that difference between individuals which 
 needs emphasizing just as mucn as does the solidarity 
 of individuals." * * * 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 BOOKS FOR MOTHERS 
 Fundamental Books (Philosophy erf Education— Pedagogy) 
 
 The Science of Rights ($5.00, postage 30c), J. G. Fichte. 
 Education of Man ($1.50, postage 12c), Friedrich Froebeh 
 Mottoes and Commentaries of Froebel's Mother Play ($1.50, 
 
 postage 14c), translated by Susan E. Blow. 
 The Part Played by Infancy in the Evolution of Man ($2.00, 
 
 postage 15c), from "A Century of Science," article by John 
 
 Fiske. 
 How Gertrude Teaches Her Children ($1.50. postage 14c), 
 
 Pestalozzi. 
 Levana, Bohn Library ($1.00, postage 12c), Jean Paul Rich- 
 
 ter. 
 Education ($1.25, postage 12c), Herbert Spencer. 
 
 I 
 General Books on Education 
 
 Household Education ($1.25, postage loc), Harriet Mar- 
 tineau. 
 
 Bits of Talk About Home Matters ($1.25, postage loc), H. H. 
 Jackson. 
 
 Biography of a Baby ($1.50, postage 12c), Millicent Shinn. 
 
 Study of Child Nature ($1.00, postage loc), Elizabeth Har- 
 rison. 
 
 Two Children of the Foot Hills ($1.25, postage loc), Eliza- 
 beth Harrison. 
 
 The Moral Instruction of Children ($1.50, postage 14c), Felix 
 Adler. 
 
 The Children of the Future ($1.00, postage loc), Nora A. 
 Smith. 
 
 Children's Rights ($1.00, postage loc), Kate Douglas Wiggin 
 and Nora A. Smith. 
 
 Republic of Childhood (3 vols., each $1.00; postage loc), 
 
 Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora A. Smith. 
 
 Educational Reformers ($1.50, postage 14c), Quick. 
 
 170 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 171 
 
 Lectures to Kindergartners ($1.00, postage loc), Elizabeth 
 Peabody. 
 
 The Place of the Story in Early Education ($0.50, postage 6c), 
 Sara E. Wiltse. 
 
 Children's Ways ($1.25, postage loc), Sully. 
 
 Kindergarten and Child Culture Papers ($3.50, postage 20c), 
 Barnard. 
 
 Adolescence (2 vols., $7.50; postage 56c), G. Stanley Hall. 
 Psychology and Advanced 
 
 The Mind of the Child (2 vols., each $1.50, postage loc), W. 
 Preyer. 
 
 The Intellectual and Moral Development of the Child ($1.50, 
 postage i2c), G. Compayre. 
 
 Child Study ($1.25, postage 14c), Amy Tanner. 
 
 The Story of the Mind ($0.35, postage 6c), J. Mark Bald- 
 win. 
 
 Psychology (Briefer Course, $1.60; postage i6c. Advanced 
 Course, 2 vols., $4.80; postage 44c), James. 
 
 School and Society ($1.00, postage loc), John Dewey. 
 
 Emile ($0.90, postage 8c), Rousseau. 
 
 Pedagogics of the Kindergarten ($1.50, postage 12c), Froebel 
 
 Education by Development ($1.50, postage 12c), Froebel, 
 
 Kindergarten and Child Culture Papers, Henry Barnard. 
 
 Letters to a Mother on the Philosophy of Froebel ($1.50. 
 postage I2c), Blow. 
 
 Studies of Childhood ($2.50, postage 20c), Sully. 
 
 Mental Development ($1.75, postage i6c), Baldwin. 
 
 Education of Central Nervous System ($1.00, postage i6c), 
 Halleck. 
 
 Child Observations, Imitative Symbolic Education $1.50, post- 
 age I2c), Blow. 
 
 Interest as Related to Will ($0.25, postage 6c), Dewey. 
 Religious Training 
 
 Christian Nurture ($1.25, postage 12c), Horace Bushnell. 
 
172 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE 
 
 On Holy Ground ($3.00, postage 30c), W. L. Worcester. 
 The Psychology of Rehgion ($1.50, postage 14c), E. D. Star- ^ 
 buck. / 
 
 The Sex Question 
 
 The Song of Life ($1.25, postage 12c), Margaret Morley. 
 
 What a Young Boy Ought to Know ($1.00, postage loc), Rev. 
 Sylvanus Stall. 
 
 What a Young Girl Ought to Know ($1.00, postage loc), Rev. 
 Sylvanus Stall. 
 
 Duties of Parents to Children in Regard to Sex ($0.40, 
 postage 4c), Rev. Wm. L. Worcester. 
 
 How to Tell the Story of Reproduction to Children, Pamphlet 
 5c; order from Mothers' Union, 3408 Harrison Street, Kan- 
 sas city, Mo. 
 
 Of General Interest to Mothers 
 
 Wilhelm Meister ($1.00, postage 14c), Goethe. 
 
 Story of My Life ($1.50, postage 14c), Helen Keller. 
 
 The Ordeal of Richard Fevcril ($1.50, postage 14c), George 
 Meredith. 
 
 Up from Slavery ($1.50, postage 14c), Booker T. Wash- 
 ington. 
 
 Emmy Lou ($1.50, postage 14c), Mrs. George Madden Mar- 
 ten. 
 
 The Golden Age ($1.00, postage loc), Kenneth Grahame, 
 
 Dream Days ($1.00, postage loc), Kenneth Grahame. 
 
 In the Morning- Glow ($1.25, postage 12c), Roy Rolf Gil- 
 son. 
 
 Man and His Handiwork, Wood. 
 
 Primitive Industry ($5.00, postage 40c), Abbott. 
 
 Every Day Essays ($1.25, postage loc), Marion Foster Wash- 
 burne. 
 
 Family Secrets $1.25, postage loc), Marion FDster Wash- 
 burne. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 173 
 
 BOOKS FOR CHILDREN 
 Fairy Tales 
 
 Grimm's Fairy Tales ($0.50, postage 14c). 
 
 Andrew Lang's Green, Yellow, Blue and Red Fairy Books 
 (each $0.50, postage 14c). 
 
 Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales ($0.50, postage 14c). 
 
 Tanglewood Tales ($0.75, postage 14c), Hawthorne. 
 
 The Wonder Book ($0.75, postage 12c), Hawthorne. 
 
 Old Fashioned Fairy Tales by Tom Hood, retold by Marion 
 Foster Washburne. (In press.) 
 
 Adventures of a Brownie, by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik 
 Edited by Marion Foster Washburne. (In press.) 
 A Few Books for Various Ages 
 
 Water Babies ($0.75, postage 12c), Charles Kingsley. 
 
 At the Back of the North Wind ($0.75, postage 12c), George 
 McDonald. 
 
 Little Lame Prince ($0.50, postage 8c), Dinah Maria Mulock 
 Craik. 
 
 In the Child World ($2.00, postage i6c), Emilie Poulson. 
 
 Nature Myths ($0.35, postage 6c), Flora J. Cooke. 
 
 Sharp Eyes ($2.50, postage i8c), Gibson. 
 
 Stories Mother Nature Told ($0.50, postage 6c), Jane An- 
 drew. 
 
 Jungle Books (2 vols, each $1.50; postage i6c), Kipling. 
 
 Just-So Stories ($1.20, postage 12c), Kipling. 
 
 Music for Children 
 Finger Plays ($1.25, postage 12c), Emilie Poulson. 
 Fifty Children's Songs, Reinecke. 
 Songs of the Child World (2 vols., each $1.00; postage 12c), 
 
 Gaynor. 
 Songs for the Children (2 vols., each $1.25; postage 14c), 
 
 Eleanor Smith. 
 30 Selected Studies (Instrumental), ($1.50, postage 14c), 
 
 Heller. 
 
174 
 
 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE 
 
 Pictures for Children 
 
 Detaille Prints, Boutet de Monvil, Joan of Are. 
 
 Caldecott ; Picture Books (4 vols., each $1.25; postage 12c). 
 
 Walter Crane: Picture Books ($1.25, postage loc). 
 
 Colored illustrations cut from magazines, notably those drawn 
 by Howard Pyle, Elizabeth Shippen Greene, and Jessie Wil- 
 cox Smith. 
 
 See articles in "Craftsman" for December, 1904, February 
 and April, 1905, "Decorations for School Room and 
 Nursery." 
 Note.— ^ooks in the above list may be purchased through 
 
 the American School of Home Economics at the prices given. 
 
 Members of the School w^ill receive students' discount. 
 
Program for Supplemental Work 
 
 on the 
 
 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE 
 
 l!v Marion Foster Washburn. 
 
 MEETING I 
 Infancy. (Study pages 3-25) 
 
 (a) Its Meaning. 
 
 See Fiske on "The Part Played by Infancy in the EvoUition 
 of Man" in "A Century of Science" (i6c). 
 
 (b) General Laws of Progression. 
 
 See Millicent Shinn's "Biography of a Baby" (12c), and W. 
 Preyer's "The Mind of the Child" (20c). Give resumes of 
 these two books. 
 
 (c) Practical Conclusions. 
 
 Hold Experience Meeting to conclude afternoon. 
 
 MEETING II 
 Faults and Their Remedies. (Study pages 26-57) 
 
 (a) General Principles of Moral Training. 
 
 Read Herbert Spencer on "Education" (12c), chapter on 
 "Punishment"; also call for quotations from H. H. Jack- 
 son's "Bits of Talk About Home Matters" (loc). 
 
 (b) Corporal Punishment. Why It Is Wrong. 
 
 (c) Positive Versus Negative Moral Training. 
 
 Read extracts from Froebel's "Education of Man" (12c), 
 and Richter's "Levana" (12c), Kate Douglas Wiggin's "Chil- 
 dren's Rights" (loc), and Elizabeth Harrison's "Study of 
 Child Nature" (foe)', are easier and pleasanter reading, sound, 
 but less fundamental. Choice may be made between these 
 two sets of books, according to conditions. 
 
 (Select answer to test questions on Part I and send them 
 to the School.) 
 
 175 
 
176 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE 
 
 MEETING III 
 
 Character Building. (Study pages 59-75) 
 
 Read extracts from Froebel, Pestalozzi, and Harriet Mar- 
 tineau. 
 
 (a) From Froebel to show general principles (i2c). 
 
 (b) From Pestalozzi (14c) or if that is not available, 
 from "Mottoes and Commentaries on Froebel's Mother- 
 Play" (14c), to show ideal application of these general prin- 
 ciples. 
 
 (c) From Harriet M'artineau's "Household Education" 
 (loc), or "Children's Rights" (loc), to show actual applica- 
 tion of these general principles. Experience meeting. 
 
 MEETING IV 
 Educational Value of Play and Occupations. (Study pages 78-99) 
 
 (a) General Principles — Quote authorities from past to 
 present. Read from "Education of Man" (12c) and "Mother 
 Play" (14c). 
 
 (b) Representative and Symbolic Plays. See "Education 
 of Man" (i2c) and "Letters to a Mother on the Philosophy 
 of Froebel" (12c). Dancing and Drama from Richter's 
 "Levana" (12c). 
 
 (c) Nature's Playthings (Earth, Air, Fire, and Water). 
 Ask members of class to describe plays of their own child- 
 hood and tell what they meant to them. 
 
 (Select answer to test questions on Part H.) 
 
 MEETING V 
 Art and Literature in Child Life. (Study pages 100-112) 
 
 Ask members to bring good .pictures and story-books, thus 
 making exhibit. 
 
 (a) Place of Pictures in Children's Lives. Of Color. Of 
 Modeling. Influence of artistic surroundings. If anyone 
 knows of a model nursery or schoolroom, let her describe it. 
 
CLASS STUDY PROGRAM 177 
 
 Are drawing and modeling at school "fads" or living bases 
 for educational processes? See Dewey on "The School and 
 Society" (loc). 
 
 (b) Place of fiction in education. 
 
 See "The Place of the Story in Early Education" (6c). 
 
 (c) Accomplishments. Practical discussion of the ad- 
 vantages and disadvantages of music lessons, the languages, 
 and other work out of school. See "Adolescence," by G. 
 Stanley Hall. 
 
 MEETING VI 
 
 Social and Religious Training. (Study pages 114-140 and 
 
 Supplement) 
 
 (a) The Question of Associations. 
 
 See Dewey's "The School and Society" (loc), "The Republic 
 of Childhood" (30c). Quote "Up from Slavery" (14c) and 
 "Story of My Life" (14c), to show that the humblest com- 
 panions may sometimes be the most desirable. 
 
 (b) The New Education. 
 
 See catalogues of the Francis W. Parker School, Chicago, 
 111., (4c) ; The Elementary School, University of Chicago. 
 (6c) ; State Normal School, Hyannis, Mass., (4c) ; "School 
 Gardens," Bulletin No. 160, Office of Experiment Stations, 
 Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C, (2c). 
 
 (c) The Sex Question. 
 
 Where are the foundations of morality laid — in church, school, 
 home, or street? Read entire, "Duties of Parents to Children 
 in Regard to Sex" (pamphlet, sc). 
 
 (d) Religious Training. 
 
 Read from "Christian Nurture" (12c) and "Psychology of 
 Religion" (14c). 
 
 (Select answer to test questions on Part IIL) 
 
 For more extended program, book lists for mothers, 
 children's book list, loan papers, send to the National Con- 
 
178 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE 
 
 gress of Mothers, Mrs. E. C. Grice, Corresponding Secretary, 
 3308 Arch Street, Philadelphia, Pa. Price, 10 cents each. 
 See also "The Child in Home, School, and State," with address 
 by President Roosevelt. — Report of the N. C. M. for 1905. 
 Price, 50C. 
 
 Note. — When reference books mentioned in the foregoing 
 program are not available from public libraries, they may 
 be borrowed of the A. S. H. E. for the cost of postage indi- 
 cated in parentheses. Three books may be borrowed at one 
 time by a class, one by an individual. For class work, a 
 book may be kept for two weeks, or longer, if there is no 
 other call for it. Send stamps with requests, which should be 
 made several weeks in advance to avoid disappointment. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abnormal laziness, 47 
 
 Abstract studies, 119 
 
 Accomplishments and stud- 
 ies, 119 
 showy, 123 
 
 Accounts, personal, 129 
 
 Adolescence, religious exci- 
 tability of, 136 
 
 Adult's world, 24 
 
 Advantage of positive com- 
 inands, 61 
 
 Affections, cultivation of, 45 
 
 Aims of kindergarten, 45 
 
 Air as a plaything, 82 
 castles, 163 
 
 Allowance, regular, 127 
 
 Alternate growth of children, 
 
 14 
 Anaemia, 47 
 
 Answer honest questions, 7 i 
 Answers to questions, 160 
 Application of principles, 141 
 Aristotle's teachings, 76 
 Art and literature in child 
 life, 10 1 
 
 and nature, 112 
 
 classic, 102 
 
 influence of, loi 
 
 plastic, 104 
 Associates, children's, 113 
 
 exclusive, 114 
 
 Baby- jumpers, 14 - 
 Bandaging the abdomen, 21 
 Beginnings of will, 7 
 Bible, children's, 139 
 
 Bible lessons made real, 139 
 
 study, 138 
 Bonfires, 85 
 
 Books for children, iii, 170 
 Bottle-fed babies, 25 
 Breaking the will, 29 
 Busy work, 97 
 
 Care of pets, 45 
 
 Cause of impudence, 51 
 
 of iritability and nervous- 
 ness, 35 
 
 of rupture, 21 
 
 of temper, 35 
 Character building, rules in, 74 
 Children, other people's, 145 
 Children's associates, 113 
 
 Bible, 139 
 
 clubs, value of, 45 
 
 hour, the, 118 
 Child's share in family re- 
 public, 65 
 
 world, 24 
 Classic art, 102 
 Clay modeling, 80 
 Climbing, 13 
 Clothing, proper, 20 
 Color, 102 
 
 Colored pictures, 104 
 Commands, disagreeable, 37 
 
 positive, 35 
 
 useless, 11 
 Company ways, 161 
 Conclusion, 140 
 Condition at birth, 3 
 Consciousness of self, 6 
 
 179 
 
i8o 
 
 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE 
 
 Corporal punishment, 54, 166 
 Correlation of studies, 121 
 Correspondence training, 142 
 Costume, model, 21 
 Creeping, 12 
 Cultivate affections, 45 
 Cutting and pasting, 99 
 
 Daily outing, 18 
 Dancing for children, 87 
 Danger of forcing, 1 2 
 Dangerous pastimes, 83 
 Darwin's observations, 9 
 Depravity, original, 61 
 Development of intellect, 126 
 
 premature, 3 
 Diagram of Gertrude suit, 23 
 Diet, simple, 25 
 Disadvantages of Sunday 
 
 Schools, 134 
 Disagreeable commands, 37 
 Discipline, educative, 57 
 Disobedience, 30 
 
 real, t^t, 
 Double standard of morality, 
 
 53 
 Double standards, 158 
 Drama, 107 
 Dramatic games, 107 
 
 plays, 87 
 Drawing and painting, 99 
 Dress for play, 79 
 Dress, proper, 20 
 Duties, systematized, 37 
 Duty to one's self, 164 
 
 Education, the new, 120 
 
 scientific, 121 
 Educational beginnings, 5 
 
 exercises, 5 
 
 value of play, 77 
 Educative discipline, 57 
 Effect of Sunday school teach- 
 ing, 132 
 
 Emergencies, 30 
 Enthusiasm, religious, 135 
 "Enthusiasms," 124 
 Essentials of play, 78 
 Evasive lying, 39 
 Evils, permanent, 28 
 
 resulting from corporal pun- 
 ishment, 55 
 Example, bad, 52 
 
 courteous, 54 
 
 evil, 115 
 
 versus precept, 34, 68 
 Exclusive associates, 114 
 
 Fairy tales, 109 
 Family republic, 64 
 Fathers, 152 
 
 responsibilities of, 154 
 Fatigue harmful to children, 
 
 94 
 Faults and their remedies, 26 
 
 real, 28 
 
 temporary, 24 
 Fear versus love, 55 
 Feeding, indiscriminate, 25 
 Financial training, 126 
 Fire as a plaything, 84 
 First grasping, 9 
 Fiske's doctrine of right, 64 
 
 teachings, 15 
 Food, natural, 24 
 
 question, 162 
 
 undesired, 11 
 Forcing, danger of, 12 
 Fresh air, 18 
 Froebel's great motto, 70 
 
 philosophy, 59 
 Fundamental principles of the 
 the new education, 59 
 
 Games, drmatic, 107 
 Gardens for children, 81 
 Gertrude suit, 21 
 Goodness, original, 61 
 
INDEX 
 
 Goodness, negative, 32 
 Grasping, 9,11 
 Growth of children, 14 
 of will, 8 
 
 Helping, 93 
 
 mother, 91 
 Home kindergarten, 90 
 How the child develops, 3 
 
 Imagination and sympathy, 
 
 1 10 
 Imitativeness, instinct of, 32 
 Imaginative lying, 39 
 Iinmature judgment, 30 
 Impudence, cause of, 51 
 Incomplete development at 
 
 birth, 4 
 Indiscriminate feeding, 25 
 
 punishment, 55 
 Industry, willing, 94 
 Influence of art, loi 
 Inherited crookedness, 41 
 
 disposition, 38 
 Instinct, 9 
 
 of imitativeness, 32 
 Insrumental music, 107 
 Intellect, development of, 126 
 Irritability, cause of, 35 
 
 Jealousy, 42 
 
 Justice and love in the family, 
 42 
 
 Kindergarten, aims of, 45 
 as a remedy for selfishness, 
 
 44 
 jnethods, 62 
 
 methods in the home, 90 
 social advantages of, 113 
 Knit garments, 22 
 
 Law-making habit, 70 
 Laziness, 46 
 
 Liberty, ZZ> 64 
 Limitations of words, 67 
 Literature, 108 
 
 and art, loi 
 Looking, 9 
 Love of work, 93 
 
 versus fear, 55 
 Low voice commands, 66 
 Lungs, weak, 21 
 Luther's teachings, 76 
 Lying, evasive, 39 
 
 imaginative, 39 
 
 kinds of, 38 
 
 politic, 40 
 
 Magazines for children, iii 
 Magic lantern, 85 
 Massage, 5 
 
 Meaning of righteousness, 72 
 Model costume, 21 
 Modeling apron, 81 
 
 clay, 80 
 Monotony undesirable, 95 
 Moral precocity, 73 
 
 training, object of, 60 
 Mother and teacher, 165 
 Mother, teaching, 92 
 Mothers as teachers, 134 
 Mud pies, 80 
 Muscular development, 5 
 Music for children, 106 
 
 instrumental, 107 
 
 study of, I 24 
 Mystery of sex, 72 
 
 Nagging, 96 
 Naps, 20 
 Natural food, 24 
 
 punishment, 29 
 
 talent, 124 
 Nature study, 112 
 Negative goodness, 32 
 Neighbors' opinions, 63 
 Nervousness, cause of, 35 
 
STUDY OF CHILD LIFE 
 
 New education, the, 120 
 
 principles of, 59 
 Normal child, 1 2 
 Nursery requisites, 16 
 
 Object of moral training, 60 
 
 of punishment, 40 
 Objection to pinning blank- 
 et, 21 
 Obligation of trvithfulness, 38 
 Occupations, 90 
 Only child, the, 44 
 Opportunity for growth, 16 
 Order of development, 9 
 Other people's children, 145 
 Outing, daily, 18 
 
 Painting and drawing, 99 
 Parental indulgence, 154 
 
 vanity, 125 
 Pasting and cutting, 99 
 Permanent evils, 28 
 Personal accounts, 129 
 Pets, care of, 45 
 Physical cause of laziness, 46 
 
 culture, 123 
 
 culture records, 25 
 Philosophy, Fro^bel's 59 
 Pictures, colored, 104 
 Pinning blanket, objection to, 
 
 21 
 Plastic art, 104 
 Play, 76 
 
 educational value of, 77 
 
 essentials of, 78 
 
 with the limbs, 5 
 Politeness to children, 69- 
 Politic lie, the, 40 
 Positive commands, 35, 61 
 Precautions to prevent at- 
 tacks of temper, 37 
 
 with fire, 84 
 Precocity, 15 
 
 moral, 73 
 
 Premature development, 3 
 Preyer's record, 11, 19 
 Principles, application of, 141 
 Prohibitions, useless, 34 
 Punishment, corporal, 54 
 
 indiscriminate, 55 
 
 natural, 29 
 
 object of, 40 
 
 self, 34 
 
 Questions, answers to, 160 
 Quick temper, 35 
 
 Real disobedience, t^t, 
 
 faults, 28 
 Reflex grasping, 7 
 Regular allowance, 127 
 Religious enthusiasm, 135 
 
 excitability of adolescence, 
 136 
 
 training, 131 
 Remedy for fits of temper, 36 
 Responsibilities of fathers, 154 
 Restrictions of dress, 79 
 Rhythmic movements, 86 
 Richter's views, 28, 87 
 Right doing, 28 
 
 inade easy, 63 
 Righteousness, meaning of, 72 
 Right material for play, 79 
 Rights of others, 64 
 Rules in character building, 74 
 Rupture, cause of, 21 
 
 Sand piles, 80 
 Scientific education, 121 
 Self-distrustful child, 160 
 Selfishness, 43 
 Self-mastery, 29 
 
 punishment, 34 
 Sewing, 98 
 Sex, 71 
 
 mystery of, 72 
 
 question, the, 149 
 
INDEX 
 
 183 
 
 Showy acconiplishinents, 123 
 Simple diet, 25 
 Sleep, sufficient, 19 
 Social advantages of kinder- 
 garten, 113 
 vSoft spot in head, 4 
 Solitude remedy for temper, 36 
 Songs for children, 86 
 Spencer's views, 29 
 Spending foolishly, 128 
 
 wisely, 127 
 Standard of morality, double, 
 
 53- 
 Standing, 14 
 Stanley Hall's views, 137 
 Stealing, 168 
 Stockinet for txndergamients, 
 
 22 
 Story telling, 93 
 Studies, abstract, 119 
 
 and accomplishments, 119 
 
 correlation of, 121 
 Success in child training, 143 
 Sullenness, 38 
 
 Sunday school, disadvantage 
 of, 134 
 
 effect of, 132 
 
 teachers, 131 
 Sunlight necessary for growth, 
 
 16 
 Sympathy and imagination, 
 1 10 
 
 in play, 79 
 Symptoms of anaemia, 47 
 Systematized duties, 37 
 
 Talent, natural, 124 
 Teaching mother, 92 
 Telling stories, 93 
 Temperament, emotional, 42 
 Temperature of nursery, 18 
 Temper, cause of, 35 
 
 precautions to prevent at- 
 tacks of, 37 
 
 Temporary faults, 24 
 Theater, 108 
 
 Theory before practice, 161 
 Thermometer in nursery, 18 
 Throwing, 10 
 Tiedmann's teachings, 35 
 Touching forbidden things, 1 1 
 Toys, 83, 88, 89 
 Training, financial, 126 
 
 for parents, 142 
 
 religious, 131 
 Truthfulness, obligations of, 38 
 
 Unconscious influence, 157 
 Underclothing, 22 
 Undesired food, 11 
 Undisciplined will, 30 
 Unresponsiveness, 38 
 Unsought advice, 148 
 Untidiness, its remedy, 49 
 Useless commands, 1 1 
 prohibitions, 34 
 
 Value of children's clubs, 45 
 Vanity, parental, 125 
 Variable periods of growth, 
 
 15 
 Ventilation, means of, 18 
 
 Walking, 14 
 
 Water as a plaything, 82 
 
 colors, 99 
 Weak lungs, 21 
 Weight at birth, 4 
 Wholesome surroundings, 16 
 Will, beginnings of, 7 
 
 breaking, the, 29 
 
 growth of, 8 
 Willful child, 34 
 Willing industry, 94 
 Will, undisciplined, 30 
 Work, beautiful, 96 
 
 love of, 93 
 Wrappings, extra, 21 
 
THE LIBRARY OF 
 
 PARTIAL SYNOPSIS 
 
 Vol. L THE HOUSE: ITS PLAN, DECORATION AND CARE, by 
 
 Prof. Isabel Bevier, University of Illinois. 
 
 Treats of the development of the modern 
 home and the American house, the planning of 
 convenient houses, construction, floors ; the 
 problems of decoration and furnishing ; gives 
 suggestions for changes, repairs, household con- 
 veniences, "The Cost of Building," etc. 
 
 Vol. II. HOUSEHOLD BACTERIOLOGY, by 
 
 S. Maria Elliott, Simmons College, 
 
 Boston. 
 An interesting account of the microscopic forms of life and their 
 relation for good and evil to the household; what dust is and how to 
 make "dust gardens"; disease germs and how^ to avoid them; the protect- 
 in gagencies of the body and how to keep them active; sanitation, etc 
 
 Vol. III. HOUSEHOLD HYGIENE, by S. Maria Elliott, Simmons 
 College. 
 
 The healthful home; the best situation for the 
 house; importance of the cellar; all about drainage, 
 heating, lighting, disposal of wastes, plumbing 
 tests, the water supply; practical suggestions for 
 sanitary furnishings and care; hygenic house- 
 keeping, etc. 
 
 Vol. IV. CHEMISTRY OF THE HOUSEHOLD, by Margaret E. 
 Dodd, S. B., Mass. Institute of Technology. 
 "A Day's Chemistry" — a fascinating account of the unseen forces 
 in the common things met in a day's work — 
 water, air, fire, fuel; chemistry of food, of 
 digestion, of cookery, of baking powder, of 
 cleaning, of laundry, of stains, of lighting; 
 home tests; home-made baking powder, soap, 
 etc., etc. 
 
 Vol. V. PRINCIPLES OF COOKERY, by Anna Barrows, Columbia 
 University and Chautauqua School of Cookery. 
 "'A key to the cook books" — analyzing and explaining the principles 
 on which success rests; all approved methods of cookery explained 
 particular attention being paid to economy of time and materials; full con- 
 sideration of menus, making a fii'eiess cook-stove, "Directions for 
 Waitresses," etc. 
 
 Vol. VL FOOD AND DIETETICS, by Prof. Alice P. Norton, Univer- 
 sity of Chicago. 
 
 Tells of the composition, nutritive value and 
 digestibility of foods; how the body makes use of 
 food; food economy; the balanced ration; healthful 
 diet for the sedentary, the aged, the children, and 
 so on; food adulterations, etc. 
 
 ^"^iT^i^ 
 
HOME ECONOMICS 
 
 Vol. VII. HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT, by Prof. Bertha M. Terrill 
 
 of Hartford School of Pedagogy. 
 Full treatise on economy in spending; the proper division of in- 
 come; systems of household accounting; system in housework; the 
 servant problem; help by the hour; buying supplies and furnishings; 
 aow to market economically; cuts of meat; season of vegetables; ex- 
 periences of students; "Co-operative Housekeeping," etc. 
 
 Vol. VIII. PERSONAL HYGIENE, by M. LeBos- 
 quet, S. B., Director of A. S. H. E. 
 
 The wonderful human machine; running the 
 machine; care of the machine — sufficient physiol- 
 ogy given to show the reasons for the directions 
 for maintaining health; emphasis placed on do 
 rather than don't; articles on "Ethics of Health," 
 "Use and Abuse of Drugs," etc. 
 
 Vol. IX. HOME CARE OF THE SICK, by Amy 
 E. Pope, Presbyterian Hospital, New York 
 City. 
 
 Includes the essentials of trained nursing; specific 
 directions for handling and caring for the patient; 
 nursing in contagious diseases; obstetrics; food for 
 the sick; emergencies; poisons and their antidotes; 
 bandaging; articles on communicable diseases, etc. 
 
 Vol. X TEXTILES AND CLOTHING, by Kate H. Watson, formerly 
 Lewis Institute and University of Chicago. 
 
 Fully illustrated descriptions of primitive and 
 modern methods of manufacture; textile fibres 
 and fabrics; plain and ornamental stitches and 
 their applications; machine sewing; cutting and 
 fitting of waists and skirts, color and ornament; 
 children's clothes; repairs, etc. 
 
 Vol. XL STUDY OF CHILD LIFE, by Marion Foster Washburne, 
 
 editor "Mothers Magazine." 
 Thoroughly sensible and practical directions for the treatment of 
 children; faults and their remedies; character building;, home occupa- 
 tions; play; associates; studies and accomplishments; religious traming; 
 the sex question, answers to questions, etc. 
 
 Vol. XIL CARE OF CHILDREN, by Dr. A. C. Cotton, Prof Chil- 
 dren's Diseases, Rush Medical College, University of Chicago. 
 The care of the baby before birth and of the . | [ f j T - 
 new baby; healthful clothing; development and '~'/^-\ 
 growth of the child; authoritative and specific 
 directions for feeding; food disorders; food for 
 older children; treatment of children's ailments, 
 hygiene of the child through the pubescence 
 period, etc. 
 
 Each volume has a program for supplemental study, arranged 
 especially for clubs, giving references, exhibits, experiments., etc. 
 
f urp00^ of tlj? (HmtB^ 
 
 T^O make housekeeping an inspiring profession, instead 
 of deadening drudgery. 
 
 "T^O make the daily work in the home of fascinating in- 
 terest instead of monotonous labor. 
 
 npO make housekeeping easier and simpler by utilizing 
 modern science in the home. 
 
 'X'O make the household money go further, that the 
 higher things of life may be included. 
 
 'T'O preserve and increase health, and thereby promote 
 happiness and prosperity. 
 
 T^O develop the children — mentally, morally and physi- 
 cally — to their finest possibilities. 
 
 nrO effect the conservation and improvement of the 
 American home. 
 
 T^O raise ideals of American home-making. 
 
 — American School of Home Economics. 
 
 NOTE— The 100-page booklet, "The Profession of Home-Making," gives 
 details of the home-study domestic science courses. It's free. Bulletins 
 "The Up-to-Uate Home," "Free Hand Oooking" and "Food Values," 10c 
 each. Address— A. S. H. E., 506 W. 69th St., Ghicago, 111. 
 
ANNOUNCEMENT 
 
 "LESSONS IN COOKING, THROUGH THE PREP- 
 ARATION OF MEALS." 
 
 THIS new correspondence course in cookery has been 
 prepared to meet the needs of home-makers who have 
 had Httle or no systematic training in modern methods 
 of cooking but who desire to provide for their famiUes sim- 
 ple, yet appetizing and wholesome meals, with the last 'ex- 
 penditure of time, effort and money. 
 
 The ordinary cook book, with its numerous and compli- 
 cated recipes, is of little help to the beginner. It does not 
 answer the oft occurring question, "What shall I provide for 
 today, tomorrow, for next week"? It gives fio hint of 
 wholesome food combinations or balanced diet. 
 
 The problem of home cooking is not only how to cook 
 various separate dishes but how to prepare zvliole meals. 
 The plan of "Lessons in Cooking" is unique and original in 
 that a systematic course in cooking is taught through a series 
 of menus, with detailed directions, not only for cooking the 
 separate dishes, but also for preparing and serving each meal 
 as a zvhole. The course is divided into twelve parts, in each 
 of which is given the recipes for a week's menu, typical of 
 one month of the year — over 250 meals in all. In the first 
 lessons, simple operations of cooking are described apd 
 gradually the more difficult and complicated recipes are in- 
 troduced, leading to advanced work in the later lessons. 
 Throughout the course the question of wholesome food com- 
 binations and balanced meals is carefully considered and 
 special emphasis is given to economy of time and money. 
 
 All available authorities have been consulted and the 
 assistance of a number of prominent teachers of cookery 
 has been obtained in the preparation of this course, which 
 presents the best modern methods and the latest scientific 
 discoveries relating to the "Fine Art of Cooking." 
 
iUN 24 19ri 
 
One copy del. to Cat. Div. 
 
 jwN 24 »«^'