16221	----	THE SPIRIT OF YOUTH AND THE CITY STREETS THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LIMITED TORONTO THE SPIRIT OF YOUTH AND THE CITY STREETS _By_ JANE ADDAMS HULL HOUSE, CHICAGO _Author of Democracy and Social Ethics Newer Ideals of Peace, etc._ New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1930 COPYRIGHT, 1909, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1909 Norwood Press: Berwick & Smith Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. TO MY DEAR FRIEND Louise de Koben Bowen WITH SINCERE ADMIRATION FOR HER UNDERSTANDING OF THE NEEDS OF CITY CHILDREN AND WITH WARM APPRECIATION OF HER SERVICE AS PRESIDENT OF THE JUVENILE PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION OF CHICAGO CONTENTS CHAPTER I Youth in the City 3 CHAPTER II The Wrecked Foundations of Domesticity 25 CHAPTER III The Quest for Adventure 51 CHAPTER IV The House of Dreams 75 CHAPTER V The Spirit of Youth and Industry 107 CHAPTER VI The Thirst for Righteousness 139 FOREWORD Much of the material in the following pages has appeared in current publications. It is here presented in book form in the hope that it may prove of value to those groups of people who in many cities are making a gallant effort to minimize the dangers which surround young people and to provide them with opportunities for recreation. CHAPTER I YOUTH IN THE CITY Nothing is more certain than that each generation longs for a reassurance as to the value and charm of life, and is secretly afraid lest it lose its sense of the youth of the earth. This is doubtless one reason why it so passionately cherishes its poets and artists who have been able to explore for themselves and to reveal to others the perpetual springs of life's self-renewal. And yet the average man cannot obtain this desired reassurance through literature, nor yet through glimpses of earth and sky. It can come to him only through the chance embodiment of joy and youth which life itself may throw in his way. It is doubtless true that for the mass of men the message is never so unchallenged and so invincible as when embodied in youth itself. One generation after another has depended upon its young to equip it with gaiety and enthusiasm, to persuade it that living is a pleasure, until men everywhere have anxiously provided channels through which this wine of life might flow, and be preserved for their delight. The classical city promoted play with careful solicitude, building the theater and stadium as it built the market place and the temple. The Greeks held their games so integral a part of religion and patriotism that they came to expect from their poets the highest utterances at the very moments when the sense of pleasure released the national life. In the medieval city the knights held their tourneys, the guilds their pageants, the people their dances, and the church made festival for its most cherished saints with gay street processions, and presented a drama in which no less a theme than the history of creation became a matter of thrilling interest. Only in the modern city have men concluded that it is no longer necessary for the municipality to provide for the insatiable desire for play. In so far as they have acted upon this conclusion, they have entered upon a most difficult and dangerous experiment; and this at the very moment when the city has become distinctly industrial, and daily labor is continually more monotonous and subdivided. We forget how new the modern city is, and how short the span of time in which we have assumed that we can eliminate public provision for recreation. A further difficulty lies in the fact that this industrialism has gathered together multitudes of eager young creatures from all quarters of the earth as a labor supply for the countless factories and workshops, upon which the present industrial city is based. Never before in civilization have such numbers of young girls been suddenly released from the protection of the home and permitted to walk unattended upon city streets and to work under alien roofs; for the first time they are being prized more for their labor power than for their innocence, their tender beauty, their ephemeral gaiety. Society cares more for the products they manufacture than for their immemorial ability to reaffirm the charm of existence. Never before have such numbers of young boys earned money independently of the family life, and felt themselves free to spend it as they choose in the midst of vice deliberately disguised as pleasure. This stupid experiment of organizing work and failing to organize play has, of course, brought about a fine revenge. The love of pleasure will not be denied, and when it has turned into all sorts of malignant and vicious appetites, then we, the middle aged, grow quite distracted and resort to all sorts of restrictive measures. We even try to dam up the sweet fountain itself because we are affrighted by these neglected streams; but almost worse than the restrictive measures is our apparent belief that the city itself has no obligation in the matter, an assumption upon which the modern city turns over to commercialism practically all the provisions for public recreation. Quite as one set of men has organized the young people into industrial enterprises in order to profit from their toil, so another set of men and also of women, I am sorry to say, have entered the neglected field of recreation and have organized enterprises which make profit out of this invincible love of pleasure. In every city arise so-called "places"--"gin-palaces," they are called in fiction; in Chicago we euphemistically say merely "places,"--in which alcohol is dispensed, not to allay thirst, but, ostensibly to stimulate gaiety, it is sold really in order to empty pockets. Huge dance halls are opened to which hundreds of young people are attracted, many of whom stand wistfully outside a roped circle, for it requires five cents to procure within it for five minutes the sense of allurement and intoxication which is sold in lieu of innocent pleasure. These coarse and illicit merrymakings remind one of the unrestrained jollities of Restoration London, and they are indeed their direct descendants, properly commercialized, still confusing joy with lust, and gaiety with debauchery. Since the soldiers of Cromwell shut up the people's playhouses and destroyed their pleasure fields, the Anglo-Saxon city has turned over the provision for public recreation to the most evil-minded and the most unscrupulous members of the community. We see thousands of girls walking up and down the streets on a pleasant evening with no chance to catch a sight of pleasure even through a lighted window, save as these lurid places provide it. Apparently the modern city sees in these girls only two possibilities, both of them commercial: first, a chance to utilize by day their new and tender labor power in its factories and shops, and then another chance in the evening to extract from them their petty wages by pandering to their love of pleasure. As these overworked girls stream along the street, the rest of us see only the self-conscious walk, the giggling speech, the preposterous clothing. And yet through the huge hat, with its wilderness of bedraggled feathers, the girl announces to the world that she is here. She demands attention to the fact of her existence, she states that she is ready to live, to take her place in the world. The most precious moment in human development is the young creature's assertion that he is unlike any other human being, and has an individual contribution to make to the world. The variation from the established type is at the root of all change, the only possible basis for progress, all that keeps life from growing unprofitably stale and repetitious. Is it only the artists who really see these young creatures as they are--the artists who are themselves endowed with immortal youth? Is it our disregard of the artist's message which makes us so blind and so stupid, or are we so under the influence of our _Zeitgeist_ that we can detect only commercial values in the young as well as in the old? It is as if our eyes were holden to the mystic beauty, the redemptive joy, the civic pride which these multitudes of young people might supply to our dingy towns. The young creatures themselves piteously look all about them in order to find an adequate means of expression for their most precious message: One day a serious young man came to Hull-House with his pretty young sister who, he explained, wanted to go somewhere every single evening, "although she could only give the flimsy excuse that the flat was too little and too stuffy to stay in." In the difficult rôle of elder brother, he had done his best, stating that he had taken her "to all the missions in the neighborhood, that she had had a chance to listen to some awful good sermons and to some elegant hymns, but that some way she did not seem to care for the society of the best Christian people." The little sister reddened painfully under this cruel indictment and could offer no word of excuse, but a curious thing happened to me. Perhaps it was the phrase "the best Christian people," perhaps it was the delicate color of her flushing cheeks and her swimming eyes, but certain it is, that instantly and vividly there appeared to my mind the delicately tinted piece of wall in a Roman catacomb where the early Christians, through a dozen devices of spring flowers, skipping lambs and a shepherd tenderly guiding the young, had indelibly written down that the Christian message is one of inexpressible joy. Who is responsible for forgetting this message delivered by the "best Christian people" two thousand years ago? Who is to blame that the lambs, the little ewe lambs, have been so caught upon the brambles? But quite as the modern city wastes this most valuable moment in the life of the girl, and drives into all sorts of absurd and obscure expressions her love and yearning towards the world in which she forecasts her destiny, so it often drives the boy into gambling and drinking in order to find his adventure. Of Lincoln's enlistment of two and a half million soldiers, a very large number were under twenty-one, some of them under eighteen, and still others were mere children under fifteen. Even in those stirring times when patriotism and high resolve were at the flood, no one responded as did "the boys," and the great soul who yearned over them, who refused to shoot the sentinels who slept the sleep of childhood, knew, as no one else knew, the precious glowing stuff of which his army was made. But what of the millions of boys who are now searching for adventurous action, longing to fulfil the same high purpose? One of the most pathetic sights in the public dance halls of Chicago is the number of young men, obviously honest young fellows from the country, who stand about vainly hoping to make the acquaintance of some "nice girl." They look eagerly up and down the rows of girls, many of whom are drawn to the hall by the same keen desire for pleasure and social intercourse which the lonely young men themselves feel. One Sunday night at twelve o'clock I had occasion to go into a large public dance hall. As I was standing by the rail looking for the girl I had come to find, a young man approached me and quite simply asked me to introduce him to some "nice girl," saying that he did not know any one there. On my replying that a public dance hall was not the best place in which to look for a nice girl, he said: "But I don't know any other place where there is a chance to meet any kind of a girl. I'm awfully lonesome since I came to Chicago." And then he added rather defiantly: "Some nice girls do come here! It's one of the best halls in town." He was voicing the "bitter loneliness" that many city men remember to have experienced during the first years after they had "come up to town." Occasionally the right sort of man and girl meet each other in these dance halls and the romance with such a tawdry beginning ends happily and respectably. But, unfortunately, mingled with the respectable young men seeking to form the acquaintance of young women through the only channel which is available to them, are many young fellows of evil purpose, and among the girls who have left their lonely boarding houses or rigid homes for a "little fling" are likewise women who openly desire to make money from the young men whom they meet, and back of it all is the desire to profit by the sale of intoxicating and "doctored" drinks. Perhaps never before have the pleasures of the young and mature become so definitely separated as in the modern city. The public dance halls filled with frivolous and irresponsible young people in a feverish search for pleasure, are but a sorry substitute for the old dances on the village green in which all of the older people of the village participated. Chaperonage was not then a social duty but natural and inevitable, and the whole courtship period was guarded by the conventions and restraint which were taken as a matter of course and had developed through years of publicity and simple propriety. The only marvel is that the stupid attempt to put the fine old wine of traditional country life into the new bottles of the modern town does not lead to disaster oftener than it does, and that the wine so long remains pure and sparkling. We cannot afford to be ungenerous to the city in which we live without suffering the penalty which lack of fair interpretation always entails. Let us know the modern city in its weakness and wickedness, and then seek to rectify and purify it until it shall be free at least from the grosser temptations which now beset the young people who are living in its tenement houses and working in its factories. The mass of these young people are possessed of good intentions and they are equipped with a certain understanding of city life. This itself could be made a most valuable social instrument toward securing innocent recreation and better social organization. They are already serving the city in so far as it is honeycombed with mutual benefit societies, with "pleasure clubs," with organizations connected with churches and factories which are filling a genuine social need. And yet the whole apparatus for supplying pleasure is wretchedly inadequate and full of danger to whomsoever may approach it. Who is responsible for its inadequacy and dangers? We certainly cannot expect the fathers and mothers who have come to the city from farms or who have emigrated from other lands to appreciate or rectify these dangers. We cannot expect the young people themselves to cling to conventions which are totally unsuited to modern city conditions, nor yet to be equal to the task of forming new conventions through which this more agglomerate social life may express itself. Above all we cannot hope that they will understand the emotional force which seizes them and which, when it does not find the traditional line of domesticity, serves as a cancer in the very tissues of society and as a disrupter of the securest social bonds. No attempt is made to treat the manifestations of this fundamental instinct with dignity or to give it possible social utility. The spontaneous joy, the clamor for pleasure, the desire of the young people to appear finer and better and altogether more lovely than they really are, the idealization not only of each other but of the whole earth which they regard but as a theater for their noble exploits, the unworldly ambitions, the romantic hopes, the make-believe world in which they live, if properly utilized, what might they not do to make our sordid cities more beautiful, more companionable? And yet at the present moment every city is full of young people who are utterly bewildered and uninstructed in regard to the basic experience which must inevitably come to them, and which has varied, remote, and indirect expressions. Even those who may not agree with the authorities who claim that it is this fundamental sex susceptibility which suffuses the world with its deepest meaning and beauty, and furnishes the momentum towards all art, will perhaps permit me to quote the classical expression of this view as set forth in that ancient and wonderful conversation between Socrates and the wise woman Diotima. Socrates asks: "What are they doing who show all this eagerness and heat which is called love? And what is the object they have in view? Answer me." Diotima replies: "I will teach you. The object which they have in view is birth in beauty, whether of body or soul.... For love, Socrates, is not as you imagine the love of the beautiful only ... but the love of birth in beauty, because to the mortal creature generation is a sort of eternity and immortality." To emphasize the eternal aspects of love is not of course an easy undertaking, even if we follow the clue afforded by the heart of every generous lover. His experience at least in certain moments tends to pull him on and out from the passion for one to an enthusiasm for that highest beauty and excellence of which the most perfect form is but an inadequate expression. Even the most loutish tenement-house youth vaguely feels this, and at least at rare intervals reveals it in his talk to his "girl." His memory unexpectedly brings hidden treasures to the surface of consciousness and he recalls the more delicate and tender experiences of his childhood and earlier youth. "I remember the time when my little sister died, that I rode out to the cemetery feeling that everybody in Chicago had moved away from the town to make room for that kid's funeral, everything was so darned lonesome and yet it was kind of peaceful too." Or, "I never had a chance to go into the country when I was a kid, but I remember one day when I had to deliver a package way out on the West Side, that I saw a flock of sheep in Douglas Park. I had never thought that a sheep could be anywhere but in a picture, and when I saw those big white spots on the green grass beginning to move and to turn into sheep, I felt exactly as if Saint Cecilia had come out of her frame over the organ and was walking in the park." Such moments come into the life of the most prosaic youth living in the most crowded quarters of the cities. What do we do to encourage and to solidify those moments, to make them come true in our dingy towns, to give them expression in forms of art? We not only fail in this undertaking but even debase existing forms of art. We are informed by high authority that there is nothing in the environment to which youth so keenly responds as to music, and yet the streets, the vaudeville shows, the five-cent theaters are full of the most blatant and vulgar songs. The trivial and obscene words, the meaningless and flippant airs run through the heads of hundreds of young people for hours at a time while they are engaged in monotonous factory work. We totally ignore that ancient connection between music and morals which was so long insisted upon by philosophers as well as poets. The street music has quite broken away from all control, both of the educator and the patriot, and we have grown singularly careless in regard to its influence upon young people. Although we legislate against it in saloons because of its dangerous influence there, we constantly permit music on the street to incite that which should be controlled, to degrade that which should be exalted, to make sensuous that which might be lifted into the realm of the higher imagination. Our attitude towards music is typical of our carelessness towards all those things which make for common joy and for the restraints of higher civilization on the streets. It is as if our cities had not yet developed a sense of responsibility in regard to the life of the streets, and continually forget that recreation is stronger than vice, and that recreation alone can stifle the lust for vice. Perhaps we need to take a page from the philosophy of the Greeks to whom the world of fact was also the world of the ideal, and to whom the realization of what ought to be, involved not the destruction of what was, but merely its perfecting upon its own lines. To the Greeks virtue was not a hard conformity to a law felt as alien to the natural character, but a free expression of the inner life. To treat thus the fundamental susceptibility of sex which now so bewilders the street life and drives young people themselves into all sorts of difficulties, would mean to loosen it from the things of sense and to link it to the affairs of the imagination. It would mean to fit to this gross and heavy stuff the wings of the mind, to scatter from it "the clinging mud of banality and vulgarity," and to speed it on through our city streets amid spontaneous laughter, snatches of lyric song, the recovered forms of old dances, and the traditional rondels of merry games. It would thus bring charm and beauty to the prosaic city and connect it subtly with the arts of the past as well as with the vigor and renewed life of the future. CHAPTER II THE WRECKED FOUNDATIONS OF DOMESTICITY "Sense with keenest edge unused Yet unsteel'd by scathing fire: Lovely feet as yet unbruised On the ways of dark desire!" These words written by a poet to his young son express the longing which has at times seized all of us, to guard youth from the mass of difficulties which may be traced to the obscure manifestation of that fundamental susceptibility of which we are all slow to speak and concerning which we evade public responsibility, although it brings its scores of victims into the police courts every morning. At the very outset we must bear in mind that the senses of youth are singularly acute, and ready to respond to every vivid appeal. We know that nature herself has sharpened the senses for her own purposes, and is deliberately establishing a connection between them and the newly awakened susceptibility of sex; for it is only through the outward senses that the selection of an individual mate is made and the instinct utilized for nature's purposes. It would seem, however, that nature was determined that the force and constancy of the instinct must make up for its lack of precision, and that she was totally unconcerned that this instinct ruthlessly seized the youth at the moment when he was least prepared to cope with it; not only because his powers of self-control and discrimination are unequal to the task, but because his senses are helplessly wide open to the world. These early manifestations of the sex susceptibility are for the most part vague and formless, and are absolutely without definition to the youth himself. Sometimes months and years elapse before the individual mate is selected and determined upon, and during the time when the differentiation is not complete--and it often is not--there is of necessity a great deal of groping and waste. This period of groping is complicated by the fact that the youth's power for appreciating is far ahead of his ability for expression. "The inner traffic fairly obstructs the outer current," and it is nothing short of cruelty to over-stimulate his senses as does the modern city. This period is difficult everywhere, but it seems at times as if a great city almost deliberately increased its perils. The newly awakened senses are appealed to by all that is gaudy and sensual, by the flippant street music, the highly colored theater posters, the trashy love stories, the feathered hats, the cheap heroics of the revolvers displayed in the pawn-shop windows. This fundamental susceptibility is thus evoked without a corresponding stir of the higher imagination, and the result is as dangerous as possible. We are told upon good authority that "If the imagination is retarded, while the senses remain awake, we have a state of esthetic insensibility,"--in other words, the senses become sodden and cannot be lifted from the ground. It is this state of "esthetic insensibility" into which we allow the youth to fall which is so distressing and so unjustifiable. Sex impulse then becomes merely a dumb and powerful instinct without in the least awakening the imagination or the heart, nor does it overflow into neighboring fields of consciousness. Every city contains hundreds of degenerates who have been over-mastered and borne down by it; they fill the casual lodging houses and the infirmaries. In many instances it has pushed men of ability and promise to the bottom of the social scale. Warner, in his _American Charities_, designates it as one of the steady forces making for failure and poverty, and contends that "the inherent uncleanness of their minds prevents many men from rising above the rank of day laborers and finally incapacitates them even for that position." He also suggests that the modern man has a stronger imagination than the man of a few hundred years ago and that sensuality destroys him the more rapidly. It is difficult to state how much evil and distress might be averted if the imagination were utilized in its higher capacities through the historic paths. An English moralist has lately asserted that "much of the evil of the time may be traced to outraged imagination. It is the strongest quality of the brain and it is starved. Children, from their earliest years, are hedged in with facts; they are not trained to use their minds on the unseen." In failing to diffuse and utilize this fundamental instinct of sex through the imagination, we not only inadvertently foster vice and enervation, but we throw away one of the most precious implements for ministering to life's highest needs. There is no doubt that this ill adjusted function consumes quite unnecessarily vast stores of vital energy, even when we contemplate it in its immature manifestations which are infinitely more wholesome than the dumb swamping process. Every high school boy and girl knows the difference between the concentration and the diffusion of this impulse, although they would be hopelessly bewildered by the use of the terms. They will declare one of their companions to be "in love" if his fancy is occupied by the image of a single person about whom all the newly found values gather, and without whom his solitude is an eternal melancholy. But if the stimulus does not appear as a definite image, and the values evoked are dispensed over the world, the young person suddenly seems to have discovered a beauty and significance in many things--he responds to poetry, he becomes a lover of nature, he is filled with religious devotion or with philanthropic zeal. Experience, with young people, easily illustrates the possibility and value of diffusion. It is neither a short nor an easy undertaking to substitute the love of beauty for mere desire, to place the mind above the senses; but is not this the sum of the immemorial obligation which rests upon the adults of each generation if they would nurture and restrain the youth, and has not the whole history of civilization been but one long effort to substitute psychic impulsion for the driving force of blind appetite? Society has recognized the "imitative play" impulse of children and provides them with tiny bricks with which to "build a house," and dolls upon which they may lavish their tenderness. We exalt the love of the mother and the stability of the home, but in regard to those difficult years between childhood and maturity we beg the question and unless we repress, we do nothing. We are so timid and inconsistent that although we declare the home to be the foundation of society, we do nothing to direct the force upon which the continuity of the home depends. And yet to one who has lived for years in a crowded quarter where men, women and children constantly jostle each other and press upon every inch of space in shop, tenement and street, nothing is more impressive than the strength, the continuity, the varied and powerful manifestations, of family affection. It goes without saying that every tenement house contains women who for years spend their hurried days in preparing food and clothing and pass their sleepless nights in tending and nursing their exigent children, with never one thought for their own comfort or pleasure or development save as these may be connected with the future of their families. We all know as a matter of course that every shop is crowded with workingmen who year after year spend all of their wages upon the nurture and education of their children, reserving for themselves but the shabbiest clothing and a crowded place at the family table. "Bad weather for you to be out in," you remark on a February evening, as you meet rheumatic Mr. S. hobbling home through the freezing sleet without an overcoat. "Yes, it is bad," he assents: "but I've walked to work all this last year. We've sent the oldest boy back to high school, you know," and he moves on with no thought that he is doing other than fulfilling the ordinary lot of the ordinary man. These are the familiar and the constant manifestations of family affection which are so intimate a part of life that we scarcely observe them. In addition to these we find peculiar manifestations of family devotion exemplifying that touching affection which rises to unusual sacrifice because it is close to pity and feebleness. "My cousin and his family had to go back to Italy. He got to Ellis Island with his wife and five children, but they wouldn't let in the feeble-minded boy, so of course they all went back with him. My cousin was fearful disappointed." Or, "These are the five children of my brother. He and his wife, my father and mother, were all done for in the bad time at Kishinef. It's up to me all right to take care of the kids, and I'd no more go back on them than I would on my own." Or, again: "Yes, I have seven children of my own. My husband died when Tim was born. The other three children belong to my sister, who died the year after my husband. I get on pretty well. I scrub in a factory every night from six to twelve, and I go out washing four days a week. So far the children have all gone through the eighth grade before they quit school," she concludes, beaming with pride and joy. That wonderful devotion to the child seems at times, in the midst of our stupid social and industrial arrangements, all that keeps society human, the touch of nature which unites it, as it was that same devotion which first lifted it out of the swamp of bestiality. The devotion to the child is "the inevitable conclusion of the two premises of the practical syllogism, the devotion of man to woman." It is, of course, this tremendous force which makes possible the family, that bond which holds society together and blends the experience of generations into a continuous story. The family has been called "the fountain of morality," "the source of law," "the necessary prelude to the state" itself; but while it is continuous historically, this dual bond must be made anew a myriad times in each generation, and the forces upon which its formation depend must be powerful and unerring. It would be too great a risk to leave it to a force whose manifestations are intermittent and uncertain. The desired result is too grave and fundamental. One Sunday evening an excited young man came to see me, saying that he must have advice; some one must tell him at once what to do, as his wife was in the state's prison serving a sentence for a crime which he himself had committed. He had seen her the day before, and though she had been there only a month he was convinced that she was developing consumption. She was "only seventeen, and couldn't stand the hard work and the 'low down' women" whom she had for companions. My remark that a girl of seventeen was too young to be in the state penitentiary brought out the whole wretched story. He had been unsteady for many years and the despair of his thoroughly respectable family who had sent him West the year before. In Arkansas he had fallen in love with a girl of sixteen and married her. His mother was far from pleased, but had finally sent him money to bring his bride to Chicago, in the hope that he might settle there. _En route_ they stopped at a small town for the naïve reason that he wanted to have an aching tooth pulled. But the tooth gave him an excellent opportunity to have a drink, and before he reached the office of the country practitioner he was intoxicated. As they passed through the vestibule he stole an overcoat hanging there, although the little wife piteously begged him to let it alone. Out of sheer bravado he carried it across his arm as they walked down the street, and was, of course, immediately arrested "with the goods upon him." In sheer terror of being separated from her husband, the wife insisted that she had been an accomplice, and together they were put into the county jail awaiting the action of the Grand Jury. At the end of the sixth week, on one of the rare occasions when they were permitted to talk to each other through the grating which separated the men's visiting quarters from the women's, the young wife told her husband that she made up her mind to swear that she had stolen the overcoat. What could she do if he were sent to prison and she were left free? She was afraid to go to his people and could not possibly go back to hers. In spite of his protest, that very night she sent for the state's attorney and made a full confession, giving her age as eighteen in the hope of making her testimony more valuable. From that time on they stuck to the lie through the indictment, the trial and her conviction. Apparently it had seemed to him only a well-arranged plot until he had visited the penitentiary the day before, and had really seen her piteous plight. Remorse had seized him at last, and he was ready to make every restitution. She, however, had no notion of giving up--on the contrary, as she realized more clearly what prison life meant, she was daily more determined to spare him the experience. Her letters, written in the unformed hand of a child--for her husband had himself taught her to read and write--were filled with a riot of self-abnegation, the martyr's joy as he feels the iron enter the flesh. Thus had an illiterate, neglected girl through sheer devotion to a worthless sort of young fellow inclined to drink, entered into that noble company of martyrs. When girls "go wrong" what happens? How has this tremendous force, valuable and necessary for the foundation of the family, become misdirected? When its manifestations follow the legitimate channels of wedded life we call them praiseworthy; but there are other manifestations quite outside the legal and moral channels which yet compel our admiration. A young woman of my acquaintance was married to a professional criminal named Joe. Three months after the wedding he was arrested and "sent up" for two years. Molly had always been accustomed to many lovers, but she remained faithful to her absent husband for a year. At the end of that time she obtained a divorce which the state law makes easy for the wife of a convict, and married a man who was "rich and respectable"--in fact, he owned the small manufacturing establishment in which her mother did the scrubbing. He moved his bride to another part of town six miles away, provided her with a "steam-heated flat," furniture upholstered in "cut velvet," and many other luxuries of which Molly heretofore had only dreamed. One day as she was wheeling a handsome baby carriage up and down the prosperous street, her brother, who was "Joe's pal," came to tell her that Joe was "out," had come to the old tenement and was "mighty sore" because "she had gone back on him." Without a moment's hesitation Molly turned the baby carriage in the direction of her old home and never stopped wheeling it until she had compassed the entire six miles. She and Joe rented the old room and went to housekeeping. The rich and respectable husband made every effort to persuade her to come back, and then another series of efforts to recover his child, before he set her free through a court proceeding. Joe, however, steadfastly refused to marry her, still "sore" because she had not "stood by." As he worked only intermittently, and was too closely supervised by the police to do much at his old occupation, Molly was obliged to support the humble ménage by scrubbing in a neighboring lodging house and by washing "the odd shirts" of the lodgers. For five years, during which time two children were born, when she was constantly subjected to the taunts of her neighbors, and when all the charitable agencies refused to give help to such an irregular household, Molly happily went on her course with no shade of regret or sorrow. "I'm all right as long as Joe keeps out of the jug," was her slogan of happiness, low in tone, perhaps, but genuine and "game." Her surroundings were as sordid as possible, consisting of a constantly changing series of cheap "furnished rooms" in which the battered baby carriage was the sole witness of better days. But Molly's heart was full of courage and happiness, and she was never desolate until her criminal lover was "sent up" again, this time on a really serious charge. These irregular manifestations form a link between that world in which each one struggles to "live respectable," and that nether world in which are also found cases of devotion and of enduring affection arising out of the midst of the folly and the shame. The girl there who through all tribulation supports her recreant "lover," or the girl who overcomes, her drink and opium habits, who renounces luxuries and goes back to uninteresting daily toil for the sake of the good opinion of a man who wishes her to "appear decent," although he never means to marry her, these are also impressive. One of our earliest experiences at Hull-House had to do with a lover of this type and the charming young girl who had become fatally attached to him. I can see her now running for protection up the broad steps of the columned piazza then surrounding Hull-House. Her slender figure was trembling with fright, her tear-covered face swollen and bloodstained from the blows he had dealt her. "He is apt to abuse me when he is drunk," was the only explanation, and that given by way of apology, which could be extracted from her. When we discovered that there had been no marriage ceremony, that there were no living children, that she had twice narrowly escaped losing her life, it seemed a simple matter to insist that the relation should be broken off. She apathetically remained at Hull-House for a few weeks, but when her strength had somewhat returned, when her lover began to recover from his prolonged debauch of whiskey and opium, she insisted upon going home every day to prepare his meals and to see that the little tenement was clean and comfortable because "Pierre is always so sick and weak after one of those long ones." This of course meant that she was drifting back to him, and when she was at last restrained by that moral compulsion, by that overwhelming of another's will which is always so ruthlessly exerted by those who are conscious that virtue is struggling with vice, her mind gave way and she became utterly distraught. A poor little Ophelia, I met her one night wandering in the hall half dressed in the tawdry pink gown "that Pierre liked best of all" and groping on the blank wall to find the door which might permit her to escape to her lover. In a few days it was obvious that hospital restraint was necessary, but when she finally recovered we were obliged to admit that there is no civic authority which can control the acts of a girl of eighteen. From the hospital she followed her heart directly back to Pierre, who had in the meantime moved out of the Hull-House neighborhood. We knew later that he had degraded the poor child still further by obliging her to earn money for his drugs by that last method resorted to by a degenerate man to whom a woman's devotion still clings. It is inevitable that a force which is enduring enough to withstand the discouragements, the suffering and privation of daily living, strenuous enough to overcome and rectify the impulses which make for greed and self-indulgence, should be able, even under untoward conditions, to lift up and transfigure those who are really within its grasp and set them in marked contrast to those who are merely playing a game with it or using it for gain. But what has happened to these wretched girls? Why has this beneficent current cast them upon the shores of death and destruction when it should have carried them into the safe port of domesticity? Through whose fault has this basic emotion served merely to trick and deride them? Older nations have taken a well defined line of action in regard to it. Among the Hull-House neighbors are many of the Latin races who employ a careful chaperonage over their marriageable daughters and provide husbands for them at an early age. "My father will get a husband for me this winter," announces Angelina, whose father has brought her to a party at Hull-House, and she adds with a toss of her head, "I saw two already, but my father says they haven't saved enough money to marry me." She feels quite as content in her father's wisdom and ability to provide her with a husband as she does in his capacity to escort her home safely from the party. He does not permit her to cross the threshold after nightfall unaccompanied by himself, and unless the dowry and the husband are provided before she is eighteen he will consider himself derelict in his duty towards her. "Francesca can't even come to the Sodality meeting this winter. She lives only across from the church but her mother won't let her come because her father is out West working on a railroad," is a comment one often hears. The system works well only when it is carried logically through to the end of an early marriage with a properly-provided husband. Even with the Latin races, when the system is tried in America it often breaks down, and when the Anglo-Saxons anywhere imitate this régime it is usually utterly futile. They follow the first part of the program as far as repression is concerned, but they find it impossible to follow the second because all sorts of inherited notions deter them. The repressed girl, if she is not one of the languishing type, takes matters into her own hands, and finds her pleasures in illicit ways, without her parents' knowledge. "I had no idea my daughter was going to public dances. She always told me she was spending the night with her cousin on the South Side. I hadn't a suspicion of the truth," many a broken-hearted mother explains. An officer who has had a long experience in the Juvenile Court of Chicago, and has listened to hundreds of cases involving wayward girls, gives it as his deliberate impression that a large majority of cases are from families where the discipline had been rigid, where they had taken but half of the convention of the Old World and left the other half. Unless we mean to go back to these Old World customs which are already hopelessly broken, there would seem to be but one path open to us in America. That path implies freedom for the young people made safe only through their own self-control. This, in turn, must be based upon knowledge and habits of clean companionship. In point of fact no course between the two is safe in a modern city, and in the most crowded quarters the young people themselves are working out a protective code which reminds one of the instinctive protection that the free-ranging child in the country learns in regard to poisonous plants and "marshy places," or of the cautions and abilities that the mountain child develops in regard to ice and precipices. This statement, of course, does not hold good concerning a large number of children in every crowded city quarter who may be classed as degenerates, the children of careless or dissolute mothers who fall into all sorts of degenerate habits and associations before childhood is passed, who cannot be said to have "gone wrong" at any one moment because they have never been in the right path even of innocent childhood; but the statement is sound concerning thousands of girls who go to and from work every day with crowds of young men who meet them again and again in the occasional evening pleasures of the more decent dance halls or on a Sunday afternoon in the parks. The mothers who are of most use to these normal city working girls are the mothers who develop a sense of companionship with the changing experiences of their daughters, who are willing to modify ill-fitting social conventions into rules of conduct which are of actual service to their children in their daily lives of factory work and of city amusements. Those mothers, through their sympathy and adaptability, substitute keen present interests and activity for solemn warnings and restraint, self-expression for repression. Their vigorous family life allies itself by a dozen bonds to the educational, the industrial and the recreational organizations of the modern city, and makes for intelligent understanding, industrial efficiency and sane social pleasures. By all means let us preserve the safety of the home, but let us also make safe the street in which the majority of our young people find their recreation and form their permanent relationships. Let us not forget that the great processes of social life develop themselves through influences of which each participant is unconscious as he struggles alone and unaided in the strength of a current which seizes him and bears him along with myriads of others, a current which may so easily wreck the very foundations of domesticity. CHAPTER III THE QUEST FOR ADVENTURE A certain number of the outrages upon the spirit of youth may be traced to degenerate or careless parents who totally neglect their responsibilities; a certain other large number of wrongs are due to sordid men and women who deliberately use the legitimate pleasure-seeking of young people as lures into vice. There remains, however, a third very large class of offenses for which the community as a whole must be held responsible if it would escape the condemnation, "Woe unto him by whom offenses come." This class of offenses is traceable to a dense ignorance on the part of the average citizen as to the requirements of youth, and to a persistent blindness on the part of educators as to youth's most obvious needs. The young people are overborne by their own undirected and misguided energies. A mere temperamental outbreak in a brief period of obstreperousness exposes a promising boy to arrest and imprisonment, an accidental combination of circumstances too complicated and overwhelming to be coped with by an immature mind, condemns a growing lad to a criminal career. These impulsive misdeeds may be thought of as dividing into two great trends somewhat obscurely analogous to the two historic divisions of man's motive power, for we are told that all the activities of primitive man and even those of his more civilized successors may be broadly traced to the impulsion of two elemental appetites. The first drove him to the search for food, the hunt developing into war with neighboring tribes and finally broadening into barter and modern commerce; the second urged him to secure and protect a mate, developing into domestic life, widening into the building of homes and cities, into the cultivation of the arts and a care for beauty. In the life of each boy there comes a time when these primitive instincts urge him to action, when he is himself frightened by their undefined power. He is faced by the necessity of taming them, of reducing them to manageable impulses just at the moment when "a boy's will is the wind's will," or, in the words of a veteran educator, at the time when "it is almost impossible for an adult to realize the boy's irresponsibility and even moral neurasthenia." That the boy often fails may be traced in those pitiful figures which show that between two and three times as much incorrigibility occurs between the ages of thirteen and sixteen as at any other period of life. The second division of motive power has been treated in the preceding chapter. The present chapter is an effort to point out the necessity for an understanding of the first trend of motives if we would minimize the temptations of the struggle and free the boy from the constant sense of the stupidity and savagery of life. To set his feet in the worn path of civilization is not an easy task, but it may give us a clue for the undertaking to trace his misdeeds to the unrecognized and primitive spirit of adventure corresponding to the old activity of the hunt, of warfare, and of discovery. To do this intelligently, we shall have to remember that many boys in the years immediately following school find no restraint either in tradition or character. They drop learning as a childish thing and look upon school as a tiresome task that is finished. They demand pleasure as the right of one who earns his own living. They have developed no capacity for recreation demanding mental effort or even muscular skill, and are obliged to seek only that depending upon sight, sound and taste. Many of them begin to pay board to their mothers, and make the best bargain they can, that more money may be left to spend in the evening. They even bait the excitement of "losing a job," and often provoke a foreman if only to see "how much he will stand." They are constitutionally unable to enjoy anything continuously and follow their vagrant wills unhindered. Unfortunately the city lends itself to this distraction. At the best, it is difficult to know what to select and what to eliminate as objects of attention among its thronged streets, its glittering shops, its gaudy advertisements of shows and amusements. It is perhaps to the credit of many city boys that the very first puerile spirit of adventure looking abroad in the world for material upon which to exercise itself, seems to center about the railroad. The impulse is not unlike that which excites the coast-dwelling lad to dream of "The beauty and mystery of the ships And the magic of the sea." I cite here a dozen charges upon which boys were brought into the Juvenile Court of Chicago, all of which might be designated as deeds of adventure. A surprising number, as the reader will observe, are connected with railroads. They are taken from the court records and repeat the actual words used by police officers, irate neighbors, or discouraged parents, when the boys were brought before the judge. (1) Building fires along the railroad tracks; (2) flagging trains; (3) throwing stones at moving train windows; (4) shooting at the actors in the Olympic Theatre with sling shots; (5) breaking signal lights on the railroad; (6) stealing linseed oil barrels from the railroad to make a fire; (7) taking waste from an axle box and burning it upon the railroad tracks; (8) turning a switch and running a street car off the track; (9) staying away from home to sleep in barns; (10) setting fire to a barn in order to see the fire engines come up the street; (11) knocking down signs; (12) cutting Western Union cable. Another dozen charges also taken from actual court records might be added as illustrating the spirit of adventure, for although stealing is involved in all of them, the deeds were doubtless inspired much more by the adventurous impulse than by a desire for the loot itself: (1) Stealing thirteen pigeons from a barn; (2) stealing a bathing suit; (3) stealing a tent; (4) stealing ten dollars from mother with which to buy a revolver; (5) stealing a horse blanket to use at night when it was cold sleeping on the wharf; (6) breaking a seal on a freight car to steal "grain for chickens"; (7) stealing apples from a freight car; (8) stealing a candy peddler's wagon "to be full up just for once"; (9) stealing a hand car; (10) stealing a bicycle to take a ride; (11) stealing a horse and buggy and driving twenty-five miles into the country; (12) stealing a stray horse on the prairie and trying to sell it for twenty dollars. Of another dozen it might be claimed that they were also due to this same adventurous spirit, although the first six were classed as disorderly conduct: (1) Calling a neighbor a "scab"; (2) breaking down a fence; (3) flipping cars; (4) picking up coal from railroad tracks; (5) carrying a concealed "dagger," and stabbing a playmate with it; (6) throwing stones at a railroad employee. The next three were called vagrancy: (1) Loafing on the docks; (2) "sleeping out" nights; (3) getting "wandering spells." One, designated petty larceny, was cutting telephone wires under the sidewalk and selling them; another, called burglary, was taking locks off from basement doors; and the last one bore the dignified title of "resisting an officer" because the boy, who was riding on the fender of a street car, refused to move when an officer ordered him off. Of course one easily recalls other cases in which the manifestations were negative. I remember an exasperated and frightened mother who took a boy of fourteen into court upon the charge of incorrigibility. She accused him of "shooting craps," "smoking cigarettes," "keeping bad company," "being idle." The mother regrets it now, however, for she thinks that taking a boy into court only gives him a bad name, and that "the police are down on a boy who has once been in court, and that that makes it harder for him." She hardly recognizes her once troublesome charge in the steady young man of nineteen who brings home all his wages and is the pride and stay of her old age. I recall another boy who worked his way to New York and back again to Chicago before he was quite fourteen years old, skilfully escaping the truant officers as well as the police and special railroad detectives. He told his story with great pride, but always modestly admitted that he could never have done it if his father had not been a locomotive engineer so that he had played around railroad tracks and "was onto them ever since he was a small kid." There are many of these adventurous boys who exhibit a curious incapacity for any effort which requires sustained energy. They show an absolute lack of interest in the accomplishment of what they undertake, so marked that if challenged in the midst of their activity, they will be quite unable to tell you the end they have in view. Then there are those tramp boys who are the despair of every one who tries to deal with them. I remember the case of a boy who traveled almost around the world in the years lying between the ages of eleven and fifteen. He had lived for six months in Honolulu where he had made up his mind to settle when the irresistible "Wanderlust" again seized him. He was scrupulously neat in his habits and something of a dandy in appearance. He boasted that he had never stolen, although he had been arrested several times on the charge of vagrancy, a fate which befell him in Chicago and landed him in the Detention Home connected with the Juvenile Court. The judge gained a personal hold upon him, and the lad tried with all the powers of his untrained moral nature to "make good and please the judge." Monotonous factory work was not to be thought of in connection with him, but his good friend the judge found a place for him as a bell-boy in a men's club, where it was hoped that the uniform and the variety of experience might enable him to take the first steps toward regular pay and a settled life. Through another bell-boy, however, he heard of the find of a diamond carelessly left in one of the wash rooms of the club. The chance to throw out mysterious hints of its whereabouts, to bargain for its restoration, to tell of great diamond deals he had heard of in his travels, inevitably laid him open to suspicion which resulted in his dismissal, although he had had nothing to do with the matter beyond gloating over its adventurous aspects. In spite of skilful efforts made to detain him, he once more started on his travels, throwing out such diverse hints as that of "a trip into Old Mexico," or "following up Roosevelt into Africa." There is an entire series of difficulties directly traceable to the foolish and adventurous persistence of carrying loaded firearms. The morning paper of the day in which I am writing records the following: "A party of boys, led by Daniel O'Brien, thirteen years old, had gathered in front of the house and O'Brien was throwing stones at Nieczgodzki in revenge for a whipping that he received at his hands about a month ago. The Polish boy ordered them away and threatened to go into the house and get a revolver if they did not stop. Pfister, one of the boys in O'Brien's party, called him a coward, and when he pulled a revolver from his pocket, dared him to put it away and meet him in a fist fight in the street. Instead of accepting the challenge, Nieczgodzki aimed his revolver at Pfister and fired. The bullet crashed through the top of his head and entered the brain. He was rushed to the Alexian Brothers' Hospital, but died a short time after being received there. Nieczgodzki was arrested and held without bail." This tale could be duplicated almost every morning; what might be merely a boyish scrap is turned into a tragedy because some boy has a revolver. Many citizens in Chicago have been made heartsick during the past month by the knowledge that a boy of nineteen was lodged in the county jail awaiting the death penalty. He had shot and killed a policeman during the scrimmage of an arrest, although the offense for which he was being "taken in" was a trifling one. His parents came to Chicago twenty years ago from a little farm in Ohio, the best type of Americans, whom we boast to be the backbone of our cities. The mother, who has aged and sickened since the trial, can only say that "Davie was never a bad boy until about five years ago when he began to go with this gang who are always looking out for fun." Then there are those piteous cases due to a perfervid imagination which fails to find material suited to its demands. I can recall misadventures of children living within a few blocks of Hull-House which may well fill with chagrin those of us who are trying to administer to their deeper needs. I remember a Greek boy of fifteen who was arrested for attempting to hang a young Turk, stirred by some vague notion of carrying on a traditional warfare, and of adding another page to the heroic annals of Greek history. When sifted, the incident amounted to little more than a graphic threat and the lad was dismissed by the court, covered with confusion and remorse that he had brought disgrace upon the name of Greece when he had hoped to add to its glory. I remember with a lump in my throat the Bohemian boy of thirteen who committed suicide because he could not "make good" in school, and wished to show that he too had "the stuff" in him, as stated in the piteous little letter left behind. This same love of excitement, the desire to jump out of the humdrum experience of life, also induces boys to experiment with drinks and drugs to a surprising extent. For several years the residents of Hull-House struggled with the difficulty of prohibiting the sale of cocaine to minors under a totally inadequate code of legislation, which has at last happily been changed to one more effective and enforcible. The long effort brought us into contact with dozens of boys who had become victims of the cocaine habit. The first group of these boys was discovered in the house of "Army George." This one-armed man sold cocaine on the streets and also in the levee district by a system of signals so that the word cocaine need never be mentioned, and the style and size of the package was changed so often that even a vigilant police found it hard to locate it. What could be more exciting to a lad than a traffic in a contraband article, carried on in this mysterious fashion? I recall our experience with a gang of boys living on a neighboring street. There were eight of them altogether, the eldest seventeen years of age, the youngest thirteen, and they practically lived the life of vagrants. What answered to their club house was a corner lot on Harrison and Desplaines Streets, strewn with old boilers, in which they slept by night and many times by day. The gang was brought to the attention of Hull-House during the summer of 1904 by a distracted mother, who suspected that they were all addicted to some drug. She was terribly frightened over the state of her youngest boy of thirteen, who was hideously emaciated and his mind reduced almost to vacancy. I remember the poor woman as she sat in the reception room at Hull-House, holding the unconscious boy in her arms, rocking herself back and forth in her fright and despair, saying: "I have seen them go with the drink, and eat the hideous opium, but I never knew anything like this." An investigation showed that cocaine had first been offered to these boys on the street by a colored man, an agent of a drug store, who had given them samples and urged them to try it. In three or four months they had become hopelessly addicted to its use, and at the end of six months, when they were brought to Hull-House, they were all in a critical condition. At that time not one of them was either going to school or working. They stole from their parents, "swiped junk," pawned their clothes and shoes,--did any desperate thing to "get the dope," as they called it. Of course they continually required more, and had spent as much as eight dollars a night for cocaine, which they used to "share and share alike." It sounds like a large amount, but it really meant only four doses each during the night, as at that time they were taking twenty-five cents' worth at once if they could possibly secure it. The boys would tell nothing for three or four days after they were discovered, in spite of the united efforts of their families, the police, and the residents of Hull-House. But finally the superior boy of the gang, the manliest and the least debauched, told his tale, and the others followed in quick succession. They were willing to go somewhere to be helped, and were even eager if they could go together, and finally seven of them were sent to the Presbyterian Hospital for four weeks' treatment and afterwards all went to the country together for six weeks more. The emaciated child gained twenty pounds during his sojourn in the hospital, the head of which testified that at least three of the boys could have stood but little more of the irregular living and doping. At the present moment they are all, save one, doing well, although they were rescued so late that they seemed to have but little chance. One is still struggling with the appetite on an Iowa farm and dares not trust himself in the city because he knows too well how cocaine may be procured in spite of better legislation. It is doubtful whether these boys could ever have been pulled through unless they had been allowed to keep together through the hospital and convalescing period,--unless we had been able to utilize the gang spirit and to turn its collective force towards overcoming the desire for the drug. The desire to dream and see visions also plays an important part with the boys who habitually use cocaine. I recall a small hut used by boys for this purpose. They washed dishes in a neighboring restaurant and as soon as they had earned a few cents they invested in cocaine which they kept pinned underneath their suspenders. When they had accumulated enough for a real debauch they went to this hut and for several days were dead to the outside world. One boy told me that in his dreams he saw large rooms paved with gold and silver money, the walls papered with greenbacks, and that he took away in buckets all that he could carry. This desire for adventure also seizes girls. A group of girls ranging in age from twelve to seventeen was discovered in Chicago last June, two of whom were being trained by older women to open tills in small shops, to pick pockets, to remove handkerchiefs, furs and purses and to lift merchandise from the counters of department stores. All the articles stolen were at once taken to their teachers and the girls themselves received no remuneration, except occasional sprees to the theaters or other places of amusement. The girls gave no coherent reason for their actions beyond the statement that they liked the excitement and the fun of it. Doubtless to the thrill of danger was added the pleasure and interest of being daily in the shops and the glitter of "down town." The boys are more indifferent to this downtown life, and are apt to carry on their adventures on the docks, the railroad tracks or best of all upon the unoccupied prairie. This inveterate demand of youth that life shall afford a large element of excitement is in a measure well founded. We know of course that it is necessary to accept excitement as an inevitable part of recreation, that the first step in recreation is "that excitement which stirs the worn or sleeping centers of a man's body and mind." It is only when it is followed by nothing else that it defeats its own end, that it uses up strength and does not create it. In the actual experience of these boys the excitement has demoralized them and led them into law-breaking. When, however, they seek legitimate pleasure, and say with great pride that they are "ready to pay for it," what they find is legal but scarcely more wholesome,--it is still merely excitement. "Looping the loop" amid shrieks of simulated terror or dancing in disorderly saloon halls, are perhaps the natural reactions to a day spent in noisy factories and in trolley cars whirling through the distracting streets, but the city which permits them to be the acme of pleasure and recreation to its young people, commits a grievous mistake. May we not assume that this love for excitement, this desire for adventure, is basic, and will be evinced by each generation of city boys as a challenge to their elders? And yet those of us who live in Chicago are obliged to confess that last year there were arrested and brought into court fifteen thousand young people under the age of twenty, who had failed to keep even the common law of the land. Most of these young people had broken the law in their blundering efforts to find adventure and in response to the old impulse for self-expression. It is said indeed that practically the whole machinery of the grand jury and of the criminal courts is maintained and operated for the benefit of youths between the ages of thirteen and twenty-five. Men up to ninety years of age, it is true, commit crimes, but they are not characterized by the recklessness, the bravado and the horror which have stained our records in Chicago. An adult with the most sordid experience of life and the most rudimentary notion of prudence, could not possibly have committed them. Only a utilization of that sudden burst of energy belonging partly to the future could have achieved them, only a capture of the imagination and of the deepest emotions of youth could have prevented them! Possibly these fifteen thousand youths were brought to grief because the adult population assumed that the young would be able to grasp only that which is presented in the form of sensation; as if they believed that youth could thus early become absorbed in a hand to mouth existence, and so entangled in materialism that there would be no reaction against it. It is as though we were deaf to the appeal of these young creatures, claiming their share of the joy of life, flinging out into the dingy city their desires and aspirations after unknown realities, their unutterable longings for companionship and pleasure. Their very demand for excitement is a protest against the dullness of life, to which we ourselves instinctively respond. CHAPTER IV THE HOUSE OF DREAMS To the preoccupied adult who is prone to use the city street as a mere passageway from one hurried duty to another, nothing is more touching than his encounter with a group of children and young people who are emerging from a theater with the magic of the play still thick upon them. They look up and down the familiar street scarcely recognizing it and quite unable to determine the direction of home. From a tangle of "make believe" they gravely scrutinize the real world which they are so reluctant to reënter, reminding one of the absorbed gaze of a child who is groping his way back from fairy-land whither the story has completely transported him. "Going to the show" for thousands of young people in every industrial city is the only possible road to the realms of mystery and romance; the theater is the only place where they can satisfy that craving for a conception of life higher than that which the actual world offers them. In a very real sense the drama and the drama alone performs for them the office of art as is clearly revealed in their blundering demand stated in many forms for "a play unlike life." The theater becomes to them a "veritable house of dreams" infinitely more real than the noisy streets and the crowded factories. This first simple demand upon the theater for romance is closely allied to one more complex which might be described as a search for solace and distraction in those moments of first awakening from the glamour of a youth's interpretation of life to the sterner realities which are thrust upon his consciousness. These perceptions which inevitably "close around" and imprison the spirit of youth are perhaps never so grim as in the case of the wage-earning child. We can all recall our own moments of revolt against life's actualities, our reluctance to admit that all life was to be as unheroic and uneventful as that which we saw about us, it was too unbearable that "this was all there was" and we tried every possible avenue of escape. As we made an effort to believe, in spite of what we saw, that life was noble and harmonious, as we stubbornly clung to poesy in contradiction to the testimony of our senses, so we see thousands of young people thronging the theaters bent in their turn upon the same quest. The drama provides a transition between the romantic conceptions which they vainly struggle to keep intact and life's cruelties and trivialities which they refuse to admit. A child whose imagination has been cultivated is able to do this for himself through reading and reverie, but for the overworked city youth of meager education, perhaps nothing but the theater is able to perform this important office. The theater also has a strange power to forecast life for the youth. Each boy comes from our ancestral past not "in entire forgetfulness," and quite as he unconsciously uses ancient war-cries in his street play, so he longs to reproduce and to see set before him the valors and vengeances of a society embodying a much more primitive state of morality than that in which he finds himself. Mr. Patten has pointed out that the elemental action which the stage presents, the old emotions of love and jealousy, of revenge and daring take the thoughts of the spectator back into deep and well worn channels in which his mind runs with a sense of rest afforded by nothing else. The cheap drama brings cause and effect, will power and action, once more into relation and gives a man the thrilling conviction that he may yet be master of his fate. The youth of course, quite unconscious of this psychology, views the deeds of the hero simply as a forecast of his own future and it is this fascinating view of his own career which draws the boy to "shows" of all sorts. They can scarcely be too improbable for him, portraying, as they do, his belief in his own prowess. A series of slides which has lately been very popular in the five-cent theaters of Chicago, portrayed five masked men breaking into a humble dwelling, killing the father of the family and carrying away the family treasure. The golden-haired son of the house, aged seven, vows eternal vengeance on the spot, and follows one villain after another to his doom. The execution of each is shown in lurid detail, and the last slide of the series depicts the hero, aged ten, kneeling upon his father's grave counting on the fingers of one hand the number of men that he has killed, and thanking God that he has been permitted to be an instrument of vengeance. In another series of slides, a poor woman is wearily bending over some sewing, a baby is crying in the cradle, and two little boys of nine and ten are asking for food. In despair the mother sends them out into the street to beg, but instead they steal a revolver from a pawn shop and with it kill a Chinese laundry-man, robbing him of $200. They rush home with the treasure which is found by the mother in the baby's cradle, whereupon she and her sons fall upon their knees and send up a prayer of thankfulness for this timely and heaven-sent assistance. Is it not astounding that a city allows thousands of its youth to fill their impressionable minds with these absurdities which certainly will become the foundation for their working moral codes and the data from which they will judge the proprieties of life? It is as if a child, starved at home, should be forced to go out and search for food, selecting, quite naturally, not that which is nourishing but that which is exciting and appealing to his outward sense, often in his ignorance and foolishness blundering into substances which are filthy and poisonous. Out of my twenty years' experience at Hull-House I can recall all sorts of pilferings, petty larcenies, and even burglaries, due to that never ceasing effort on the part of boys to procure theater tickets. I can also recall indirect efforts towards the same end which are most pitiful. I remember the remorse of a young girl of fifteen who was brought into the Juvenile Court after a night spent weeping in the cellar of her home because she had stolen a mass of artificial flowers with which to trim a hat. She stated that she had taken the flowers because she was afraid of losing the attention of a young man whom she had heard say that "a girl has to be dressy if she expects to be seen." This young man was the only one who had ever taken her to the theater and if he failed her, she was sure that she would never go again, and she sobbed out incoherently that she "couldn't live at all without it." Apparently the blankness and grayness of life itself had been broken for her only by the portrayal of a different world. One boy whom I had known from babyhood began to take money from his mother from the time he was seven years old, and after he was ten she regularly gave him money for the play Saturday evening. However, the Saturday performance, "starting him off like," he always went twice again on Sunday, procuring the money in all sorts of illicit ways. Practically all of his earnings after he was fourteen were spent in this way to satisfy the insatiable desire to know of the great adventures of the wide world which the more fortunate boy takes out in reading Homer and Stevenson. In talking with his mother, I was reminded of my experience one Sunday afternoon in Russia when the employees of a large factory were seated in an open-air theater, watching with breathless interest the presentation of folk stories. I was told that troupes of actors went from one manufacturing establishment to another presenting the simple elements of history and literature to the illiterate employees. This tendency to slake the thirst for adventure by viewing the drama is, of course, but a blind and primitive effort in the direction of culture, for "he who makes himself its vessel and bearer thereby acquires a freedom from the blindness and soul poverty of daily existence." It is partly in response to this need that more sophisticated young people often go to the theater, hoping to find a clue to life's perplexities. Many times the bewildered hero reminds one of Emerson's description of Margaret Fuller, "I don't know where I am going, follow me"; nevertheless, the stage is dealing with the moral themes in which the public is most interested. And while many young people go to the theater if only to see represented, and to hear discussed, the themes which seem to them so tragically important, there is no doubt that what they hear there, flimsy and poor as it often is, easily becomes their actual moral guide. In moments of moral crisis they turn to the sayings of the hero who found himself in a similar plight. The sayings may not be profound, but at least they are applicable to conduct. In the last few years scores of plays have been put upon the stage whose titles might be easily translated into proper headings for sociological lectures or sermons, without including the plays of Ibsen, Shaw and Hauptmann, which deal so directly with moral issues that the moralists themselves wince under their teachings and declare them brutal. But it is this very brutality which the over-refined and complicated city dwellers often crave. Moral teaching has become so intricate, creeds so metaphysical, that in a state of absolute reaction they demand definite instruction for daily living. Their whole-hearted acceptance of the teaching corroborates the statement recently made by an English playwright that "The theater is literally making the minds of our urban populations to-day. It is a huge factory of sentiment, of character, of points of honor, of conceptions of conduct, of everything that finally determines the destiny of a nation. The theater is not only a place of amusement, it is a place of culture, a place where people learn how to think, act, and feel." Seldom, however, do we associate the theater with our plans for civic righteousness, although it has become so important a factor in city life. One Sunday evening last winter an investigation was made of four hundred and sixty six theaters in the city of Chicago, and it was discovered that in the majority of them the leading theme was revenge; the lover following his rival; the outraged husband seeking his wife's paramour; or the wiping out by death of a blot on a hitherto unstained honor. It was estimated that one sixth of the entire population of the city had attended the theaters on that day. At that same moment the churches throughout the city were preaching the gospel of good will. Is not this a striking commentary upon the contradictory influences to which the city youth is constantly subjected? This discrepancy between the church and the stage is at times apparently recognized by the five-cent theater itself, and a blundering attempt is made to suffuse the songs and moving pictures with piety. Nothing could more absurdly demonstrate this attempt than a song, illustrated by pictures, describing the adventures of a young man who follows a pretty girl through street after street in the hope of "snatching a kiss from her ruby lips." The young man is overjoyed when a sudden wind storm drives the girl to shelter under an archway, and he is about to succeed in his attempt when the good Lord, "ever watchful over innocence," makes the same wind "blow a cloud of dust into the eyes of the rubberneck," and "his foul purpose is foiled." This attempt at piety is also shown in a series of films depicting Bible stories and the Passion Play at Oberammergau, forecasting the time when the moving film will be viewed as a mere mechanical device for the use of the church, the school and the library, as well as for the theater. At present, however, most improbable tales hold the attention of the youth of the city night after night, and feed his starved imagination as nothing else succeeds in doing. In addition to these fascinations, the five-cent theater is also fast becoming the general social center and club house in many crowded neighborhoods. It is easy of access from the street the entire family of parents and children can attend for a comparatively small sum of money and the performance lasts for at least an hour; and, in some of the humbler theaters, the spectators are not disturbed for a second hour. The room which contains the mimic stage is small and cozy, and less formal than the regular theater, and there is much more gossip and social life as if the foyer and pit were mingled. The very darkness of the room, necessary for an exhibition of the films, is an added attraction to many young people, for whom the space is filled with the glamour of love making. Hundreds of young people attend these five-cent theaters every evening in the week, including Sunday, and what is seen and heard there becomes the sole topic of conversation, forming the ground pattern of their social life. That mutual understanding which in another social circle is provided by books, travel and all the arts, is here compressed into the topics suggested by the play. The young people attend the five-cent theaters in groups, with something of the "gang" instinct, boasting of the films and stunts in "our theater." They find a certain advantage in attending one theater regularly, for the _habitués_ are often invited to come upon the stage on "amateur nights," which occur at least once a week in all the theaters. This is, of course, a most exciting experience. If the "stunt" does not meet with the approval of the audience, the performer is greeted with jeers and a long hook pulls him off the stage; if, on the other hand, he succeeds in pleasing the audience, he may be paid for his performance and later register with a booking agency, the address of which is supplied by the obliging manager, and thus he fancies that a lucrative and exciting career is opening before him. Almost every night at six o'clock a long line of children may be seen waiting at the entrance of these booking agencies, of which there are fifteen that are well known in Chicago. Thus, the only art which is constantly placed before the eyes of "the temperamental youth" is a debased form of dramatic art, and a vulgar type of music, for the success of a song in these theaters depends not so much upon its musical rendition as upon the vulgarity of its appeal. In a song which held the stage of a cheap theater in Chicago for weeks, the young singer was helped out by a bit of mirror from which she threw a flash of light into the faces of successive boys whom she selected from the audience as she sang the refrain, "You are my Affinity." Many popular songs relate the vulgar experiences of a city man wandering from amusement park to bathing beach in search of flirtations. It may be that these "stunts" and recitals of city adventure contain the nucleus of coming poesy and romance, as the songs and recitals of the early minstrels sprang directly from the life of the people, but all the more does the effort need help and direction, both in the development of its technique and the material of its themes. The few attempts which have been made in this direction are astonishingly rewarding to those who regard the power of self-expression as one of the most precious boons of education. The Children's Theater in New York is the most successful example, but every settlement in which dramatics have been systematically fostered can also testify to a surprisingly quick response to this form of art on the part of young people. The Hull-House Theater is constantly besieged by children clamoring to "take part" in the plays of Schiller, Shakespeare, and Molière, although they know it means weeks of rehearsal and the complete memorizing of "stiff" lines. The audiences sit enthralled by the final rendition and other children whose tastes have supposedly been debased by constant vaudeville, are pathetically eager to come again and again. Even when still more is required from the young actors, research into the special historic period, copying costumes from old plates, hours of labor that the "th" may be restored to its proper place in English speech, their enthusiasm is unquenched. But quite aside from its educational possibilities one never ceases to marvel at the power of even a mimic stage to afford to the young a magic space in which life may be lived in efflorescence, where manners may be courtly and elaborate without exciting ridicule, where the sequence of events is impressive and comprehensible. Order and beauty of life is what the adolescent youth craves above all else as the younger child indefatigably demands his story. "Is this where the most beautiful princess in the world lives?" asks a little girl peering into the door of the Hull-House Theater, or "Does Alice in Wonderland always stay here?" It is much easier for her to put her feeling into words than it is for the youth who has enchantingly rendered the gentle poetry of Ben Jonson's "Sad Shepherd," or for him who has walked the boards as Southey's Wat Tyler. His association, however, is quite as clinging and magical as is the child's although he can only say, "Gee, I wish I could always feel the way I did that night. Something would be doing then." Nothing of the artist's pleasure, nor of the revelation of that larger world which surrounds and completes our own, is lost to him because a careful technique has been exacted,--on the contrary this has only dignified and enhanced it. It would also be easy to illustrate youth's eagerness for artistic expression from the recitals given by the pupils of the New York Music School Settlement, or by those of the Hull-House Music School. These attempts also combine social life with the training of the artistic sense and in this approximate the fascinations of the five-cent theater. This spring a group of young girls accustomed to the life of a five-cent theater, reluctantly refused an invitation to go to the country for a day's outing because the return on a late train would compel them to miss one evening's performance. They found it impossible to tear themselves away not only from the excitements of the theater itself but from the gaiety of the crowd of young men and girls invariably gathered outside discussing the sensational posters. A steady English shopkeeper lately complained that unless he provided his four, daughters with the money for the five-cent theaters every evening they would steal it from his till, and he feared that they might be driven to procure it in even more illicit ways. Because his entire family life had been thus disrupted he gloomily asserted that "this cheap show had ruined his 'ome and was the curse of America." This father was able to formulate the anxiety of many immigrant parents who are absolutely bewildered by the keen absorption of their children in the cheap theater. This anxiety is not, indeed, without foundation. An eminent alienist of Chicago states that he has had a number of patients among neurotic children whose emotional natures have been so over-wrought by the crude appeal to which they had been so constantly subjected in the theaters, that they have become victims of hallucination and mental disorder. The statement of this physician may be the first note of alarm which will awaken the city to its duty in regard to the theater, so that it shall at least be made safe and sane for the city child whose senses are already so abnormally developed. This testimony of a physician that the conditions are actually pathological, may at last induce us to bestir ourselves in regard to procuring a more wholesome form of public recreation. Many efforts in social amelioration have been undertaken only after such exposures; in the meantime, while the occasional child is driven distraught, a hundred children permanently injure their eyes watching the moving films, and hundreds more seriously model their conduct upon the standards set before them on this mimic stage. Three boys, aged nine, eleven and thirteen years, who had recently seen depicted the adventures of frontier life including the holding up of a stage coach and the lassoing of the driver, spent weeks planning to lasso, murder, and rob a neighborhood milkman, who started on his route at four o'clock in the morning. They made their headquarters in a barn and saved enough money to buy a revolver, adopting as their watchword the phrase "Dead Men Tell no Tales." One spring morning the conspirators, with their faces covered with black cloth, lay "in ambush" for the milkman. Fortunately for him, as the lariat was thrown the horse shied, and, although the shot was appropriately fired, the milkman's life was saved. Such a direct influence of the theater is by no means rare, even among older boys. Thirteen young lads were brought into the Municipal Court in Chicago during the first week that "Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman" was upon the stage, each one with an outfit of burglar's tools in his possession, and each one shamefacedly admitting that the gentlemanly burglar in the play had suggested to him a career of similar adventure. In so far as the illusions of the theater succeed in giving youth the rest and recreation which comes from following a more primitive code of morality, it has a close relation to the function performed by public games. It is, of course, less valuable because the sense of participation is largely confined to the emotions and the imagination, and does not involve the entire nature. We might illustrate by the "Wild West Show" in which the onlooking boy imagines himself an active participant. The scouts, the Indians, the bucking ponies, are his real intimate companions and occupy his entire mind. In contrast with this we have the omnipresent game of tag which is, doubtless, also founded upon the chase. It gives the boy exercise and momentary echoes of the old excitement, but it is barren of suggestion and quickly degenerates into horse-play. Well considered public games easily carried out in a park or athletic field, might both fill the mind with the imaginative material constantly supplied by the theater, and also afford the activity which the cramped muscles of the town dweller so sorely need. Even the unquestioned ability which the theater possesses to bring men together into a common mood and to afford them a mutual topic of conversation, is better accomplished with the one national game which we already possess, and might be infinitely extended through the organization of other public games. The theater even now by no means competes with the baseball league games which are attended by thousands of men and boys who, during the entire summer, discuss the respective standing of each nine and the relative merits of every player. During the noon hour all the employees of a city factory gather in the nearest vacant lot to cheer their own home team in its practice for the next game with the nine of a neighboring manufacturing establishment and on a Saturday afternoon the entire male population of the city betakes itself to the baseball field; the ordinary means of transportation are supplemented by gay stage-coaches and huge automobiles, noisy with blowing horns and decked with gay pennants. The enormous crowd of cheering men and boys are talkative, good-natured, full of the holiday spirit, and absolutely released from the grind of life. They are lifted out of their individual affairs and so fused together that a man cannot tell whether it is his own shout or another's that fills his ears; whether it is his own coat or another's that he is wildly waving to celebrate a victory. He does not call the stranger who sits next to him his "brother" but he unconsciously embraces him in an overwhelming outburst of kindly feeling when the favorite player makes a home run. Does not this contain a suggestion of the undoubted power of public recreation to bring together all classes of a community in the modern city unhappily so full of devices for keeping men apart? Already some American cities are making a beginning toward more adequate public recreation. Boston has its municipal gymnasiums, cricket fields, and golf grounds. Chicago has seventeen parks with playing fields, gymnasiums and baths, which at present enroll thousands of young people. These same parks are provided with beautiful halls which are used for many purposes, rent free, and are given over to any group of young people who wish to conduct dancing parties subject to city supervision and chaperonage. Many social clubs have deserted neighboring saloon halls for these municipal drawing rooms beautifully decorated with growing plants supplied by the park greenhouses, and flooded with electric lights supplied by the park power house. In the saloon halls the young people were obliged to "pass money freely over the bar," and in order to make the most of the occasion they usually stayed until morning. At such times the economic necessity itself would override the counsels of the more temperate, and the thrifty door keeper would not insist upon invitations but would take in any one who had the "price of a ticket." The free rent in the park hall, the good food in the park restaurant, supplied at cost, have made three parties closing at eleven o'clock no more expensive than one party breaking up at daylight, too often in disorder. Is not this an argument that the drinking, the late hours, the lack of decorum, are directly traceable to the commercial enterprise which ministers to pleasure in order to drag it into excess because excess is more profitable? To thus commercialize pleasure is as monstrous as it is to commercialize art. It is intolerable that the city does not take over this function of making provision for pleasure, as wise communities in Sweden and South Carolina have taken the sale of alcohol out of the hands of enterprising publicans. We are only beginning to understand what might be done through the festival, the street procession, the band of marching musicians, orchestral music in public squares or parks, with the magic power they all possess to formulate the sense of companionship and solidarity. The experiments which are being made in public schools to celebrate the national holidays, the changing seasons, the birthdays of heroes, the planting of trees, are slowly developing little ceremonials which may in time work out into pageants of genuine beauty and significance. No other nation has so unparalleled an opportunity to do this through its schools as we have, for no other nation has so wide-spreading a school system, while the enthusiasm of children and their natural ability to express their emotions through symbols, gives the securest possible foundation to this growing effort. The city schools of New York have effected the organization of high school girls into groups for folk dancing. These old forms of dancing which have been worked out in many lands and through long experiences, safeguard unwary and dangerous expression and yet afford a vehicle through which the gaiety of youth may flow. Their forms are indeed those which lie at the basis of all good breeding, forms which at once express and restrain, urge forward and set limits. One may also see another center of growth for public recreation and the beginning of a pageantry for the people in the many small parks and athletic fields which almost every American city is hastening to provide for its young. These small parks have innumerable athletic teams, each with its distinctive uniform, with track meets and match games arranged with the teams from other parks and from the public schools; choruses of trade unionists or of patriotic societies fill the park halls with eager listeners. Labor Day processions are yearly becoming more carefully planned and more picturesque in character, as the desire to make an overwhelming impression with mere size gives way to a growing ambition to set forth the significance of the craft and the skill of the workman. At moments they almost rival the dignified showing of the processions of the German Turn Vereins which are also often seen in our city streets. The many foreign colonies which are found in all American cities afford an enormous reserve of material for public recreation and street festival. They not only celebrate the feasts and holidays of the fatherland, but have each their own public expression for their mutual benefit societies and for the observance of American anniversaries. From the gay celebration of the Scandinavians when war was averted and two neighboring nations were united, to the equally gay celebration of the centenary of Garibaldi's birth; from the Chinese dragon cleverly trailing its way through the streets, to the Greek banners flung out in honor of immortal heroes, there is an infinite variety of suggestions and possibilities for public recreation and for the corporate expression of stirring emotions. After all, what is the function of art but to preserve in permanent and beautiful form those emotions and solaces which cheer life and make it kindlier, more heroic and easier to comprehend; which lift the mind of the worker from the harshness and loneliness of his task, and, by connecting him with what has gone before, free him from a sense of isolation and hardship? Were American cities really eager for municipal art, they would cherish as genuine beginnings the tarentella danced so interminably at Italian weddings; the primitive Greek pipe played throughout the long summer nights; the Bohemian theaters crowded with eager Slavophiles; the Hungarian musicians strolling from street to street; the fervid oratory of the young Russian preaching social righteousness in the open square. Many Chicago citizens who attended the first annual meeting of the National Playground Association of America, will never forget the long summer day in the large playing field filled during the morning with hundreds of little children romping through the kindergarten games, in the afternoon with the young men and girls contending in athletic sports; and the evening light made gay by the bright colored garments of Italians, Lithuanians, Norwegians, and a dozen other nationalities, reproducing their old dances and festivals for the pleasure of the more stolid Americans. Was this a forecast of what we may yet see accomplished through a dozen agencies promoting public recreation which are springing up in every city of America, as they already are found in the large towns of Scotland and England? Let us cherish these experiments as the most precious beginnings of an attempt to supply the recreational needs of our industrial cities. To fail to provide for the recreation of youth, is not only to deprive all of them of their natural form of expression, but is certain to subject some of them to the overwhelming temptation of illicit and soul-destroying pleasures. To insist that young people shall forecast their rose-colored future only in a house of dreams, is to deprive the real world of that warmth and reassurance which it so sorely needs and to which it is justly entitled; furthermore, we are left outside with a sense of dreariness, in company with that shadow which already lurks only around the corner for most of us--a skepticism of life's value. CHAPTER V THE SPIRIT OF YOUTH AND INDUSTRY As it is possible to establish a connection between the lack of public recreation and the vicious excitements and trivial amusements which become their substitutes, so it may be illuminating to trace the connection between the monotony and dullness of factory work and the petty immoralities which are often the youth's protest against them. There are many city neighborhoods in which practically every young person who has attained the age of fourteen years enters a factory. When the work itself offers nothing of interest, and when no public provision is made for recreation, the situation becomes almost insupportable to the youth whose ancestors have been rough-working and hard-playing peasants. In such neighborhoods the joy of youth is well nigh extinguished; and in that long procession of factory workers, each morning and evening, the young walk almost as wearily and listlessly as the old. Young people working in modern factories situated in cities still dominated by the ideals of Puritanism face a combination which tends almost irresistably to overwhelm the spirit of youth. When the Puritan repression of pleasure was in the ascendant in America the people it dealt with lived on farms and villages where, although youthful pleasures might be frowned upon and crushed out, the young people still had a chance to find self-expression in their work. Plowing the field and spinning the flax could be carried on with a certain joyousness and vigor which the organization of modern industry too often precludes. Present industry based upon the inventions of the nineteenth century has little connection with the old patterns in which men have worked for generations. The modern factory calls for an expenditure of nervous energy almost more than it demands muscular effort, or at least machinery so far performs the work of the massive muscles, that greater stress is laid upon fine and exact movements necessarily involving nervous strain. But these movements are exactly of the type to which the muscles of a growing boy least readily respond, quite as the admonition to be accurate and faithful is that which appeals the least to his big primitive emotions. The demands made upon his eyes are complicated and trivial, the use of his muscles is fussy and monotonous, the relation between cause and effect is remote and obscure. Apparently no one is concerned as to what may be done to aid him in this process and to relieve it of its dullness and difficulty, to mitigate its strain and harshness. Perhaps never before have young people been expected to work from motives so detached from direct emotional incentive. Never has the age of marriage been so long delayed; never has the work of youth been so separated from the family life and the public opinion of the community. Education alone can repair these losses. It alone has the power of organizing a child's activities with some reference to the life he will later lead and of giving him a clue as to what to select and what to eliminate when he comes into contact with contemporary social and industrial conditions. And until educators take hold of the situation, the rest of the community is powerless. In vast regions of the city which are completely dominated by the factory, it is as if the development of industry had outrun all the educational and social arrangements. The revolt of youth against uniformity and the necessity of following careful directions laid down by some one else, many times results in such nervous irritability that the youth, in spite of all sorts of prudential reasons, "throws up his job," if only to get outside the factory walls into the freer street, just as the narrowness of the school inclosure induces many a boy to jump the fence. When the boy is on the street, however, and is "standing around on the corner" with the gang to which he mysteriously attaches himself, he finds the difficulties of direct untrammeled action almost as great there as they were in the factory, but for an entirely different set of reasons. The necessity so strongly felt in the factory for an outlet to his sudden and furious bursts of energy, his overmastering desire to prove that he could do things "without being bossed all the time," finds little chance for expression, for he discovers that in whatever really active pursuit he tries to engage, he is promptly suppressed by the police. After several futile attempts at self-expression, he returns to his street corner subdued and so far discouraged that when he has the next impulse to vigorous action he concludes that it is of no use, and sullenly settles back into inactivity. He thus learns to persuade himself that it is better to do nothing, or, as the psychologist would say, "to inhibit his motor impulses." When the same boy, as an adult workman, finds himself confronted with an unusual or an untoward condition in his work, he will fall back into this habit of inhibition, of making no effort toward independent action. When "slack times" come, he will be the workman of least value, and the first to be dismissed, calmly accepting his position in the ranks of the unemployed because it will not be so unlike the many hours of idleness and vacuity to which he was accustomed as a boy. No help having been extended to him in the moment of his first irritable revolt against industry, his whole life has been given a twist toward idleness and futility. He has not had the chance of recovery which the school system gives a like rebellious boy in a truant school. The unjustifiable lack of educational supervision during the first years of factory work makes it quite impossible for the modern educator to offer any real assistance to young people during that trying transitional period between school and industry. The young people themselves who fail to conform can do little but rebel against the entire situation, and the expressions of revolt roughly divide themselves into three classes. The first, resulting in idleness, may be illustrated from many a sad story of a boy or a girl who has spent in the first spurt of premature and uninteresting work, all the energy which should have carried them through years of steady endeavor. I recall a boy who had worked steadily for two years as a helper in a smelting establishment, and had conscientiously brought home all his wages, one night suddenly announcing to his family that he "was too tired and too hot to go on." As no amount of persuasion could make him alter his decision, the family finally threatened to bring him into the Juvenile Court on a charge of incorrigibility, whereupon the boy disappeared and such efforts as the family have been able to make in the two years since, have failed to find him. They are convinced that "he is trying a spell of tramping" and wish that they "had let him have a vacation the first summer when he wanted it so bad." The boy may find in the rough outdoor life the healing which a wise physician would recommend for nervous exhaustion, although the tramp experiment is a perilous one. This revolt against factory monotony is sometimes closely allied to that "moral fatigue" which results from assuming responsibility prematurely. I recall the experience of a Scotch girl of eighteen who, with her older sister, worked in a candy factory, their combined earnings supporting a paralytic father. The older girl met with an accident involving the loss of both eyes, and the financial support of the whole family devolved upon the younger girl, who worked hard and conscientiously for three years, supplementing her insufficient factory wages by evening work at glove making. In the midst of this devotion and monotonous existence she made the acquaintance of a girl who was a chorus singer in a cheap theater and the contrast between her monotonous drudgery and the glitter of the stage broke down her allegiance to her helpless family. She left the city, absolutely abandoning the kindred to whom she had been so long devoted, and announced that if they all starved she would "never go into a factory again." Every effort failed to find her after the concert troupe left Milwaukee and although the pious Scotch father felt that "she had been ensnared by the Devil," and had brought his "gray hairs in sorrow to the grave," I could not quite dismiss the case with this simple explanation, but was haunted by all sorts of social implications. The second line of revolt manifests itself in an attempt to make up for the monotony of the work by a constant change from one occupation to another. This is an almost universal experience among thousands of young people in their first impact with the industrial world. The startling results of the investigation undertaken in Massachusetts by the Douglas Commission showed how casual and demoralizing the first few years of factory life become to thousands of unprepared boys and girls; in their first restlessness and maladjustment they change from one factory to another, working only for a few weeks or months in each, and they exhibit no interest in any of them save for the amount of wages paid. At the end of their second year of employment many of them are less capable than when they left school and are actually receiving less wages. The report of the commission made clear that while the two years between fourteen and sixteen were most valuable for educational purposes, they were almost useless for industrial purposes, that no trade would receive as an apprentice a boy under sixteen, that no industry requiring skill and workmanship could utilize these untrained children and that they not only demoralized themselves, but in a sense industry itself. An investigation of one thousand tenement children in New York who had taken out their "working papers" at the age of fourteen, reported that during the first working year a third of them had averaged six places each. These reports but confirm the experience of those of us who live in an industrial neighborhood and who continually see these restless young workers, in fact there are moments when this constant changing seems to be all that saves them from the fate of those other children who hold on to a monotonous task so long that they finally incapacitate themselves for all work. It often seems to me an expression of the instinct of self-preservation, as in the case of a young Swedish boy who during a period of two years abandoned one piece of factory work after another, saying "he could not stand it," until in the chagrin following the loss of his ninth place he announced his intention of leaving the city and allowing his mother and little sisters to shift for themselves. At this critical juncture a place was found for him as lineman in a telephone company; climbing telephone poles and handling wires apparently supplied him with the elements of outdoor activity and danger which were necessary to hold his interest, and he became the steady support of his family. But while we know the discouraging effect of idleness upon the boy who has thrown up his job and refuses to work again, and we also know the restlessness and lack of discipline resulting from the constant change from one factory to another, there is still a third manifestation of maladjustment of which one's memory and the Juvenile Court records unfortunately furnish many examples. The spirit of revolt in these cases has led to distinct disaster. Two stories will perhaps be sufficient in illustration although they might be multiplied indefinitely from my own experience. A Russian girl who went to work at an early age in a factory, pasting labels on mucilage bottles, was obliged to surrender all her wages to her father who, in return, gave her only the barest necessities of life. In a fit of revolt against the monotony of her work, and "that nasty sticky stuff," she stole from her father $300 which he had hidden away under the floor of his kitchen, and with this money she ran away to a neighboring city for a spree, having first bought herself the most gorgeous clothing a local department store could supply. Of course, this preposterous beginning could have but one ending and the child was sent to the reform school to expiate not only her own sins but the sins of those who had failed to rescue her from a life of grinding monotony which her spirit could not brook. "I know the judge thinks I am a bad girl," sobbed a poor little prisoner, put under bonds for threatening to kill her lover, "but I have only been bad for one week and before that I was good for six years. I worked every day in Blank's factory and took home all my wages to keep the kids in school. I met this fellow in a dance hall. I just had to go to dances sometimes after pushing down the lever of my machine with my right foot and using both my arms feeding it for ten hours a day--nobody knows how I felt some nights. I agreed to go away with this man for a week but when I was ready to go home he tried to drive me out on the street to earn money for him and, of course, I threatened to kill him--any decent girl would," she concluded, as unconscious of the irony of the reflection as she was of the connection between her lurid week and her monotonous years. Knowing as educators do that thousands of the city youth will enter factory life at an age as early as the state law will permit; instructed as the modern teacher is as to youth's requirements for a normal mental and muscular development, it is hard to understand the apathy in regard to youth's inevitable experience in modern industry. Are the educators, like the rest of us, so caught in admiration of the astonishing achievements of modern industry that they forget the children themselves? A Scotch educator who recently visited America considered it very strange that with a remarkable industrial development all about us, affording such amazing educational opportunities, our schools should continually cling to a past which did not fit the American temperament, was not adapted to our needs, and made no vigorous pull upon our faculties. He concluded that our educators, overwhelmed by the size and vigor of American industry, were too timid to seize upon the industrial situation, and to extract its enormous educational value. He lamented that this lack of courage and initiative failed not only to fit the child for an intelligent and conscious participation in industrial life, but that it was reflected in the industrial development itself; that industry had fallen back into old habits, and repeated traditional mistakes until American cities exhibited stupendous extensions of the medievalisms in the traditional Ghetto, and of the hideousness in the Black Country of Lancashire. He contended that this condition is the inevitable result of separating education from contemporary life. Education becomes unreal and far fetched, while industry becomes ruthless and materialistic. In spite of the severity of the indictment, one much more severe and well deserved might have been brought against us. He might have accused us not only of wasting, but of misusing and of trampling under foot the first tender instincts and impulses which are the source of all charm and beauty and art, because we fail to realize that by premature factory work, for which the youth is unprepared, society perpetually extinguishes that variety and promise, that bloom of life, which is the unique possession of the young. He might have told us that our cities would continue to be traditionally cramped and dreary until we comprehend that youth alone has the power to bring to reality the vision of the "Coming City of Mankind, full of life, full of the spirit of creation." A few educational experiments are carried on in Cincinnati, in Boston and in Chicago, in which the leaders of education and industry unite in a common aim and purpose. A few more are carried on by trade unionists, who in at least two of the trades are anxious to give to their apprentices and journeymen the wider culture afforded by the "capitalistic trade schools" which they suspect of preparing strike-breakers; still a few other schools have been founded by public spirited citizens to whom the situation has become unendurable, and one or two more such experiments are attached to the public school system itself. All of these schools are still blundering in method and unsatisfactory in their results, but a certain trade school for girls, in New York, which is preparing young girls of fourteen for the sewing trade, already so overcrowded and subdivided that there remains very little education for the worker, is conquering this difficult industrial situation by equipping each apprentice with "the informing mind." If a child goes into a sewing factory with a knowledge of the work she is doing in relation to the finished product; if she is informed concerning the material she is manipulating and the processes to which it is subjected; if she understands the design she is elaborating in its historic relation to art and decoration, her daily life is lifted from drudgery to one of self-conscious activity, and her pleasure and intelligence is registered in her product. I remember a little colored girl in this New York school who was drawing for the pattern she was about to embroider, a carefully elaborated acanthus leaf. Upon my inquiry as to the design, she replied: "It is what the Egyptians used to put on everything, because they saw it so much growing in the Nile; and then the Greeks copied it, and sometimes you can find it now on the buildings downtown." She added, shyly: "Of course, I like it awfully well because it was first used by people living in Africa where the colored folks come from." Such a reasonable interest in work not only reacts upon the worker, but is, of course, registered in the product itself. Such genuine pleasure is in pitiful contrast to the usual manifestation of the play spirit as it is found in the factories, where, at the best, its expression is illicit and often is attended with great danger. There are many touching stories by which this might be illustrated. One of them comes from a large steel mill of a boy of fifteen whose business it was to throw a lever when a small tank became filled with molton metal. During the few moments when the tank was filling it was his foolish custom to catch the reflection of the metal upon a piece of looking-glass, and to throw the bit of light into the eyes of his fellow workmen. Although an exasperated foreman had twice dispossessed him of his mirror, with a third fragment he was one day flicking the gloom of the shop when the neglected tank overflowed, almost instantly burning off both his legs. Boys working in the stock yards, during their moments of wrestling and rough play, often slash each other painfully with the short knives which they use in their work, but in spite of this the play impulse is too irrepressible to be denied. If educators could go upon a voyage of discovery into that army of boys and girls who enter industry each year, what values might they not discover; what treasures might they not conserve and develop if they would direct the play instinct into the art impulse and utilize that power of variation which industry so sadly needs. No force will be sufficiently powerful and widespread to redeem industry from its mechanism and materialism save the freed power in every single individual. In order to do this, however, we must go back a little over the educational road to a training of the child's imagination, as well as to his careful equipment with a technique. A little child makes a very tottering house of cardboard and calls it a castle. The important feature there lies in the fact that he has expressed a castle, and it is not for his teacher to draw undue attention to the fact that the corners are not well put together, but rather to listen to and to direct the story which centers about this effort at creative expression. A little later, however, it is clearly the business of the teacher to call attention to the quality of the dovetailing in which the boy at the manual training bench is engaged, for there is no value in dovetailing a box unless it is accurately done. At one point the child's imagination is to be emphasized, and at another point his technique is important--and he will need both in the industrial life ahead of him. There is no doubt that there is a third period, when the boy is not interested in the making of a castle, or a box, or anything else, unless it appears to him to bear a direct relation to the future; unless it has something to do with earning a living. At this later moment he is chiefly anxious to play the part of a man and to take his place in the world. The fact that a boy at fourteen wants to go out and earn his living makes that the moment when he should be educated with reference to that interest, and the records of many high schools show that if he is not thus educated, he bluntly refuses to be educated at all. The forces pulling him to "work" are not only the overmastering desire to earn money and be a man, but, if the family purse is small and empty, include also his family loyalty and affection, and over against them, we at present place nothing but a vague belief on the part of his family and himself that education is a desirable thing and may eventually help him "on in the world." It is of course difficult to adapt education to this need; it means that education must be planned so seriously and definitely for those two years between fourteen and sixteen that it will be actual trade training so far as it goes, with attention given to the condition under which money will be actually paid for industrial skill; but at the same time, that the implications, the connections, the relations to the industrial world, will be made clear. A man who makes, year after year, but one small wheel in a modern watch factory, may, if his education has properly prepared him, have a fuller life than did the old watchmaker who made a watch from beginning to end. It takes thirty-nine people to make a coat in a modern tailoring establishment, yet those same thirty-nine people might produce a coat in a spirit of "team work" which would make the entire process as much more exhilarating than the work of the old solitary tailor, as playing in a baseball nine gives more pleasure to a boy than that afforded by a solitary game of hand ball on the side of the barn. But it is quite impossible to imagine a successful game of baseball in which each player should be drilled only in his own part, and should know nothing of the relation of that part to the whole game. In order to make the watch wheel, or the coat collar interesting, they must be connected with the entire product--must include fellowship as well as the pleasures arising from skilled workmanship and a cultivated imagination. When all the young people working in factories shall come to use their faculties intelligently, and as a matter of course to be interested in what they do, then our manufactured products may at last meet the demands of a cultivated nation, because they will be produced by cultivated workmen. The machine will not be abandoned by any means, but will be subordinated to the intelligence of the man who manipulates it, and will be used as a tool. It may come about in time that an educated public will become inexpressibly bored by manufactured objects which reflect absolutely nothing of the minds of the men who made them, that they may come to dislike an object made by twelve unrelated men, even as we do not care for a picture which has been painted by a dozen different men, not because we have enunciated a theory in regard to it, but because such a picture loses all its significance and has no meaning or message. We need to apply the same principle but very little further until we shall refuse to be surrounded by manufactured objects which do not represent some gleam of intelligence on the part of the producer. Hundreds of people have already taken that step so far as all decoration and ornament are concerned, and it would require but one short step more. In the meantime we are surrounded by stupid articles which give us no pleasure, and the young people producing them are driven into all sorts of expedients in order to escape work which has been made impossible because all human interest has been extracted from it. That this is not mere theory may be demonstrated by the fact that many times the young people may be spared the disastrous effects of this third revolt against the monotony of industry if work can be found for them in a place where the daily round is less grinding and presents more variety. Fortunately, in every city there are places outside of factories where occupation of a more normal type of labor may be secured, and often a restless boy can be tided over this period if he is put into one of these occupations. The experience in every boys' club can furnish illustrations of this. A factory boy who had been brought into the Juvenile Court many times because of his persistent habit of borrowing the vehicles of physicians as they stood in front of houses of patients, always meaning to "get back before the doctor came out," led a contented and orderly life after a place had been found for him as a stable boy in a large livery establishment where his love for horses could be legitimately gratified. Still another boy made the readjustment for himself in spite of the great physical suffering involved. He had lost both legs at the age of seven, "flipping cars." When he went to work at fourteen with two good cork legs, which he vainly imagined disguised his disability, his employer kindly placed him where he might sit throughout the entire day, and his task was to keep tally on the boxes constantly hoisted from the warehouse into cars. The boy found this work so dull that he insisted upon working in the yards, where the cars were being loaded and switched. He would come home at night utterly exhausted, more from the extreme nervous tension involved in avoiding accidents than from the tremendous exertion, and although he would weep bitterly from sheer fatigue, nothing could induce him to go back to the duller and safer job. Fortunately he belonged to a less passionate race than the poor little Italian girl in the Hull-House neighborhood who recently battered her head against the wall so long and so vigorously that she had to be taken to a hospital because of her serious injuries. So nearly as dull "grown-ups" could understand, it had been an hysterical revolt against factory work by day and "no fun in the evening." America perhaps more than any other country in the world can demonstrate what applied science has accomplished for industry; it has not only made possible the utilization of all sorts of unpromising raw material, but it has tremendously increased the invention and elaboration of machinery. The time must come, however, if indeed the moment has not already arrived, when applied science will have done all that it can do for the development of machinery. It may be that machines cannot be speeded up any further without putting unwarranted strain upon the nervous system of the worker; it may be that further elaboration will so sacrifice the workman who feeds the machine that industrial advance will lie not in the direction of improvement in machinery, but in the recovery and education of the workman. This refusal to apply "the art of life" to industry continually drives out of it many promising young people. Some of them, impelled by a creative impulse which will not be denied, avoid industry altogether and demand that their ambitious parents give them lessons in "china painting" and "art work," which clutters the overcrowded parlor of the more prosperous workingman's home with useless decorated plates, and handpainted "drapes," whereas the plates upon the table and the rugs upon the floor used daily by thousands of weary housewives are totally untouched by the beauty and variety which this ill-directed art instinct might have given them had it been incorporated into industry. I could cite many instances of high-spirited young people who suffer a veritable martyrdom in order to satisfy their artistic impulse. A young girl of fourteen whose family had for years displayed a certain artistic aptitude, the mother having been a singer and the grandmother, with whom the young girl lived, a clever worker in artificial flowers, had her first experience of wage earning in a box factory. She endured it only for three months, and then gave up her increasing wage in exchange for $1.50 a week which she earns by making sketches of dresses, cloaks and hats for the advertisements of a large department store. A young Russian girl of my acquaintance starves on the irregular pay which she receives for her occasional contributions to the Sunday newspapers--meanwhile writing her novel--rather than return to the comparatively prosperous wages of a necktie factory which she regards with horror. Another girl washes dishes every evening in a cheap boarding house in order to secure the leisure in which to practise her singing lessons, rather than to give them up and return to her former twelve-dollar-a-week job in an electrical factory. The artistic expression in all these cases is crude, but the young people are still conscious of that old sacrifice of material interest which art has ever demanded of those who serve her and which doubtless brings its own reward. That the sacrifice is in vain makes it all the more touching and is an indictment of the educator who has failed to utilize the art instinct in industry. Something of the same sort takes place among many lads who find little opportunity in the ordinary factories to utilize the "instinct for workmanship"; or, among those more prosperous young people who establish "studios" and "art shops," in which, with a vast expenditure of energy, they manufacture luxurious articles. The educational system in Germany is deliberately planned to sift out and to retain in the service of industry, all such promising young people. The method is as yet experimental, and open to many objections, but it is so far successful that "Made in Germany" means made by a trained artisan and in many cases by a man working with the freed impulse of the artist. The London County Council is constantly urging plans which may secure for the gifted children in the Board Schools support in Technological institutes. Educators are thus gradually developing the courage and initiative to conserve for industry the young worker himself so that his mind, his power of variation, his art instinct, his intelligent skill, may ultimately be reflected in the industrial product. That would imply that industry must be seized upon and conquered by those educators, who now either avoid it altogether by taking refuge in the caves of classic learning or beg the question by teaching the tool industry advocated by Ruskin and Morris in their first reaction against the present industrial system. It would mean that educators must bring industry into "the kingdom of the mind"; and pervade it with the human spirit. The discovery of the labor power of youth was to our age like the discovery of a new natural resource, although it was merely incidental to the invention of modern machinery and the consequent subdivision of labor. In utilizing it thus ruthlessly we are not only in danger of quenching the divine fire of youth, but we are imperiling industry itself when we venture to ignore these very sources of beauty, of variety and of suggestion. CHAPTER VI THE THIRST FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS Even as we pass by the joy and beauty of youth on the streets without dreaming it is there, so we may hurry past the very presence of august things without recognition. We may easily fail to sense those spiritual realities, which, in every age, have haunted youth and called to him without ceasing. Historians tell us that the extraordinary advances in human progress have been made in those times when "the ideals of freedom and law, of youth and beauty, of knowledge and virtue, of humanity and religion, high things, the conflicts between which have caused most of the disruptions and despondences of human society, seem for a generation or two to lie in the same direction." Are we perhaps at least twice in life's journey dimly conscious of the needlessness of this disruption and of the futility of the despondency? Do we feel it first when young ourselves we long to interrogate the "transfigured few" among our elders whom we believe to be carrying forward affairs of gravest import? Failing to accomplish this are we, for the second time, dogged by a sense of lost opportunity, of needless waste and perplexity, when we too, as adults, see again the dreams of youth in conflict with the efforts of our own contemporaries? We see idealistic endeavor on the one hand lost in ugly friction; the heat and burden of the day borne by mature men and women on the other hand, increased by their consciousness of youth's misunderstanding and high scorn. It may relieve the mind to break forth in moments of irritation against "the folly of the coming generation," but whoso pauses on his plodding way to call even his youngest and rashest brother a fool, ruins thereby the joy of his journey,--for youth is so vivid an element in life that unless it is cherished, all the rest is spoiled. The most praiseworthy journey grows dull and leaden unless companioned by youth's iridescent dreams. Not only that, but the mature of each generation run a grave risk of putting their efforts in a futile direction, in a blind alley as it were, unless they can keep in touch with the youth of their own day and know at least the trend in which eager dreams are driving them--those dreams that fairly buffet our faces as we walk the city streets. At times every one possessed with a concern for social progress is discouraged by the formless and unsubdued modern city, as he looks upon that complicated life which drives men almost without their own volition, that life of ingenuous enterprises, great ambitions, political jealousies, where men tend to become mere "slaves of possessions." Doubtless these striving men are full of weakness and sensitiveness even when they rend each other, and are but caught in the coils of circumstance; nevertheless, a serious attempt to ennoble and enrich the content of city life that it may really fill the ample space their ruthless wills have provided, means that we must call upon energies other than theirs. When we count over the resources which are at work "to make order out of casualty, beauty out of confusion, justice, kindliness and mercy out of cruelty and inconsiderate pressure," we find ourselves appealing to the confident spirit of youth. We know that it is crude and filled with conflicting hopes, some of them unworthy and most of them doomed to disappointment, yet these young people have the advantage of "morning in their hearts"; they have such power of direct action, such ability to stand free from fear, to break through life's trammelings, that in spite of ourselves we become convinced that "They to the disappointed earth shall give The lives we meant to live." That this solace comes to us only in fugitive moments, and is easily misleading, may be urged as an excuse for our blindness and insensitiveness to the august moral resources which the youth of each city offers to those who are in the midst of the city's turmoil. A further excuse is afforded in the fact that the form of the dreams for beauty and righteousness change with each generation and that while it is always difficult for the fathers to understand the sons, at those periods when the demand of the young is one of social reconstruction, the misunderstanding easily grows into bitterness. The old desire to achieve, to improve the world, seizes the ardent youth to-day with a stern command to bring about juster social conditions. Youth's divine impatience with the world's inheritance of wrong and injustice makes him scornful of "rose water for the plague" prescriptions, and he insists upon something strenuous and vital. One can find innumerable illustrations of this idealistic impatience with existing conditions among the many Russian subjects found in the foreign quarters of every American city. The idealism of these young people might be utilized to a modification of our general culture and point of view, somewhat as the influence of the young Germans who came to America in the early fifties, bringing with them the hopes and aspirations embodied in the revolutions of 1848, made a profound impression upon the social and political institutions of America. Long before they emigrated, thousands of Russian young people had been caught up into the excitements and hopes of the Russian revolution in Finland, in Poland, in the Russian cities, in the university towns. Life had become intensified by the consciousness of the suffering and starvation of millions of their fellow subjects. They had been living with a sense of discipline and of preparation for a coming struggle which, although grave in import, was vivid and adventurous. Their minds had been seized by the first crude forms of social theory and they had cherished a vague belief that they were the direct instruments of a final and ideal social reconstruction. When they come to America they sadly miss this sense of importance and participation in a great and glorious conflict against a recognized enemy. Life suddenly grows stale and unprofitable; the very spirit of tolerance which characterizes American cities is that which strikes most unbearably upon their ardent spirits. They look upon the indifference all about them with an amazement which rapidly changes to irritation. Some of them in a short time lose their ardor, others with incredible rapidity make the adaptation between American conditions and their store of enthusiasm, but hundreds of them remain restless and ill at ease. Their only consolation, almost their only real companionship, is when they meet in small groups for discussion or in larger groups to welcome a well known revolutionist who brings them direct news from the conflict, or when they arrange for a demonstration in memory of "The Red Sunday" or the death of Gershuni. Such demonstrations, however, are held in honor of men whose sense of justice was obliged to seek an expression quite outside the regular channels of established government. Knowing that Russia has forced thousands of her subjects into this position, one would imagine that patriotic teachers in America would be most desirous to turn into governmental channels all that insatiable desire for juster relations in industrial and political affairs. A distinct and well directed campaign is necessary if this gallant enthusiasm is ever to be made part of that old and still incomplete effort to embody in law--"the law that abides and falters not, ages long"--the highest aspirations for justice. Unfortunately, we do little or nothing with this splendid store of youthful ardor and creative enthusiasm. Through its very isolation it tends to intensify and turn in upon itself, and no direct effort is made to moralize it, to discipline it, to make it operative upon the life of the city. And yet it is, perhaps, what American cities need above all else, for it is but too true that Democracy--"a people ruling"--the very name of which the Greeks considered so beautiful, no longer stirs the blood of the American youth, and that the real enthusiasm for self-government must be found among the groups of young immigrants who bring over with every ship a new cargo of democratic aspirations. That many of these young men look for a consummation of these aspirations to a social order of the future in which the industrial system as well as government shall embody democratic relations, simply shows that the doctrine of Democracy like any other of the living faiths of men, is so essentially mystical that it continually demands new formulation. To fail to recognize it in a new form, to call it hard names, to refuse to receive it, may mean to reject that which our fathers cherished and handed on as an inheritance not only to be preserved but also to be developed. We allow a great deal of this precious stuff--this _Welt-Schmerz_ of which each generation has need--not only to go unutilized, but to work havoc among the young people themselves. One of the saddest illustrations of this, in my personal knowledge, was that of a young Russian girl who lived with a group of her compatriots on the west side of Chicago. She recently committed suicide at the same time that several others in the group tried it and failed. One of these latter, who afterwards talked freely of the motives which led her to this act, said that there were no great issues at stake in this country; that America was wholly commercial in its interests and absorbed in money making; that Americans were not held together by any historic bonds nor great mutual hopes, and were totally ignorant of the stirring social and philosophic movements of Europe; that her life here had been a long, dreary, economic struggle, unrelieved by any of the higher interests; that she was tired of getting seventy-five cents for trimming a hat that sold for twelve dollars and was to be put upon the empty head of some one who had no concern for the welfare of the woman who made it. The statement doubtless reflected something of "The Sorrows of Werther," but the entire tone was nobler and more highly socialized. It is difficult to illustrate what might be accomplished by reducing to action the ardor of those youths who so bitterly arraign our present industrial order. While no part of the social system can be changed rapidly, we would all admit that the present industrial arrangements in America might be vastly improved and that we are failing to meet the requirements of our industrial life with courage and success simply because we do not realize that unless we establish that humane legislation which has its roots in a consideration for human life, our industrialism itself will suffer from inbreeding, growing ever more unrestrained and ruthless. It would seem obvious that in order to secure relief in a community dominated by industrial ideals, an appeal must be made to the old spiritual sanctions for human conduct, that we must reach motives more substantial and enduring than the mere fleeting experiences of one phase of modern industry which vainly imagines that its growth would be curtailed if the welfare of its employees were guarded by the state. It would be an interesting attempt to turn that youthful enthusiasm to the aid of one of the most conservative of the present social efforts, the almost world-wide movement to secure protective legislation for women and children in industry, in which America is so behind the other nations. Fourteen of the great European powers protect women from all night work, from excessive labor by day, because paternalistic governments prize the strength of women for the bearing and rearing of healthy children to the state. And yet in a republic it is the citizens themselves who must be convinced of the need of this protection unless they would permit industry to maim the very mothers of the future. In one year in the German Empire one hundred thousand children were cared for through money paid from the State Insurance fund to their widowed mothers or to their invalided fathers. And yet in the American states it seems impossible to pass a most rudimentary employers' liability act, which would be but the first step towards that code of beneficent legislation which protects "the widow and fatherless" in Germany and England. Certainly we shall have to bestir ourselves if we would care for the victims of the industrial order as well as do other nations. We shall be obliged speedily to realize that in order to secure protective legislation from a governmental body in which the most powerful interests represented are those of the producers and transporters of manufactured goods, it will be necessary to exhort to a care for the defenseless from the religious point of view. To take even the non-commercial point of view would be to assert that evolutionary progress assumes that a sound physique is the only secure basis of life, and to guard the mothers of the race is simple sanity. And yet from lack of preaching we do not unite for action because we are not stirred to act at all, and protective legislation in America is shamefully inadequate. Because it is always difficult to put the championship of the oppressed above the counsels of prudence, we say in despair sometimes that we are a people who hold such varied creeds that there are not enough of one religious faith to secure anything, but the truth is that it is easy to unite for action people whose hearts have once been filled by the fervor of that willing devotion which may easily be generated in the youthful breast. It is comparatively easy to enlarge a moral concept, but extremely difficult to give it to an adult for the first time. And yet when we attempt to appeal to the old sanctions for disinterested conduct, the conclusion is often forced upon us that they have not been engrained into character, that they cannot be relied upon when they are brought into contact with the arguments of industrialism, that the colors of the flag flying over the fort of our spiritual resources wash out and disappear when the storm actually breaks. It is because the ardor of youth has not been attracted to the long effort to modify the ruthlessness of industry by humane enactments, that we sadly miss their resourceful enthusiasm and that at the same time groups of young people who hunger and thirst after social righteousness are breaking their hearts because the social reform is so long delayed and an unsympathetic and hardhearted society frustrates all their hopes. And yet these ardent young people who obscure the issue by their crying and striving and looking in the wrong place, might be of inestimable value if so-called political leaders were in any sense social philosophers. To permit these young people to separate themselves from the contemporaneous efforts of ameliorating society and to turn their vague hopes solely toward an ideal commonwealth of the future, is to withdraw from an experimental self-government founded in enthusiasm, the very stores of enthusiasm which are needed to sustain it. The championship of the oppressed came to be a spiritual passion with the Hebrew prophets. They saw the promises of religion, not for individuals but in the broad reaches of national affairs and in the establishment of social justice. It is quite possible that such a spiritual passion is again to be found among the ardent young souls of our cities. They see a vision, not of a purified nation but of a regenerated and a reorganized society. Shall we throw all this into the future, into the futile prophecy of those who talk because they cannot achieve, or shall we commingle their ardor, their overmastering desire for social justice, with that more sober effort to modify existing conditions? Are we once more forced to appeal to the educators? Is it so difficult to utilize this ardor because educators have failed to apprehend the spiritual quality of their task? It would seem a golden opportunity for those to whom is committed the task of spiritual instruction, for to preach and seek justice in human affairs is one of the oldest obligations of religion and morality. All that would be necessary would be to attach this teaching to the contemporary world in such wise that the eager youth might feel a tug upon his faculties, and a sense of participation in the moral life about him. To leave it unattached to actual social movements means that the moralist is speaking in incomprehensible terms. Without this connection, the religious teachers may have conscientiously carried out their traditional duties and yet have failed utterly to stir the fires of spiritual enthusiasm. Each generation of moralists and educators find themselves facing an inevitable dilemma; first, to keep the young committed to their charge "unspotted from the world," and, second, to connect the young with the ruthless and materialistic world all about them in such wise that they may make it the arena for their spiritual endeavor. It is fortunate for these teachers that sometime during "The Golden Age" the most prosaic youth is seized by a new interest in remote and universal ends, and that if but given a clue by which he may connect his lofty aims with his daily living, he himself will drag the very heavens into the most sordid tenement. The perpetual difficulty consists in finding the clue for him and placing it in his hands, for, if the teaching is too detached from life, it does not result in any psychic impulsion at all. I remember as an illustration of the saving power of this definite connection, a tale told me by a distinguished labor leader in England. His affections had been starved, even as a child, for he knew nothing of his parents, his earliest memories being associated with a wretched old woman who took the most casual care of him. When he was nine years old he ran away to sea and for the next seven years led the rough life of a dock laborer, until he became much interested in a little crippled boy, who by the death of his father had been left solitary on a freight boat. My English friend promptly adopted the child as his own and all the questionings of life centered about his young protégé. He was constantly driven to attend evening meetings where he heard discussed those social conditions which bear so hard upon the weak and sick. The crippled boy lived until he was fifteen and by that time the regeneration of his foster father was complete, the young docker was committed for life to the bettering of social conditions. It is doubtful whether any abstract moral appeal could have reached such a roving nature. Certainly no attempt to incite his ambition would have succeeded. Only a pull upon his deepest sympathies and affections, his desire to protect and cherish a weaker thing, could possibly have stimulated him and connected him with the forces making for moral and social progress. This, of course, has ever been the task of religion, to make the sense of obligation personal, to touch morality with enthusiasm, to bathe the world in affection--and on all sides we are challenging the teachers of religion to perform this task for the youth of the city. For thousands of years definite religious instruction has been given by authorized agents to the youth of all nations, emphasized through tribal ceremonials, the assumption of the Roman toga, the Barmitzvah of the Jews, the First Communion of thousands of children in Catholic Europe, the Sunday Schools of even the least formal of the evangelical sects. It is as if men had always felt that this expanding period of human life must be seized upon for spiritual ends, that the tender tissue and newly awakened emotions must be made the repository for the historic ideals and dogmas which are, after all, the most precious possessions of the race. How has it come about that so many of the city youth are not given their share in our common inheritance of life's best goods? Why are their tender feet so often ensnared even when they are going about youth's legitimate business? One would suppose that in such an age as ours moral teachers would be put upon their mettle, that moral authority would be forced to speak with no uncertain sound if only to be heard above the din of machinery and the roar of industrialism; that it would have exerted itself as never before to convince the youth of the reality of the spiritual life. Affrighted as the moralists must be by the sudden new emphasis placed upon wealth, despairing of the older men and women who are already caught by its rewards, one would say that they would have seized upon the multitude of young people whose minds are busied with issues which lie beyond the portals of life, as the only resource which might save the city from the fate of those who perish through lack of vision. Yet because this inheritance has not been attached to conduct, the youth of Jewish birth may have been taught that prophets and statesmen for three thousand years declared Jehovah to be a God of Justice who hated oppression and desired righteousness, but there is no real appeal to his spirit of moral adventure unless he is told that the most stirring attempts to translate justice into the modern social order have been inaugurated and carried forward by men of his own race, and that until he joins in the contemporary manifestations of that attempt he is recreant to his highest traditions and obligations. The Christian youth may have been taught that man's heartbreaking adventure to find justice in the order of the universe moved the God of Heaven himself to send a Mediator in order that the justice man craves and the mercy by which alone he can endure his weakness might be reconciled, but he will not make the doctrine his own until he reduces it to action and tries to translate the spirit of his Master into social terms. The youth who calls himself an "Evolutionist"--it is rather hard to find a name for this youth, but there are thousands of him and a fine fellow he often is--has read of that struggle beginning with the earliest tribal effort to establish just relations between man and man, but he still needs to be told that after all justice can only be worked out upon this earth by those who will not tolerate a wrong to the feeblest member of the community, and that it will become a social force only in proportion as men steadfastly strive to establish it. If these young people who are subjected to varied religious instruction are also stirred to action, or rather, if the instruction is given validity because it is attached to conduct, then it may be comparatively easy to bring about certain social reforms so sorely needed in our industrial cities. We are at times obliged to admit, however, that both the school and the church have failed to perform this office, and are indicted by the young people themselves. Thousands of young people in every great city are either frankly hedonistic, or are vainly attempting to work out for themselves a satisfactory code of morals. They cast about in all directions for the clue which shall connect their loftiest hopes with their actual living. Several years ago a committee of lads came to see me in order to complain of a certain high school principal because "He never talks to us about life." When urged to make a clearer statement, they added, "He never asks us what we are going to be; we can't get a word out of him, excepting lessons and keeping quiet in the halls." Of the dozens of young women who have begged me to make a connection for them between their dreams of social usefulness and their actual living, I recall one of the many whom I had sent back to her clergyman, returning with this remark: "His only suggestion was that I should be responsible every Sunday for fresh flowers upon the altar. I did that when I was fifteen and liked it then, but when you have come back from college and are twenty-two years old, it doesn't quite fit in with the vigorous efforts you have been told are necessary in order to make our social relations more Christian." All of us forget how very early we are in the experiment of founding self-government in this trying climate of America, and that we are making the experiment in the most materialistic period of all history, having as our court of last appeal against that materialism only the wonderful and inexplicable instinct for justice which resides in the hearts of men,--which is never so irresistible as when the heart is young. We may cultivate this most precious possession, or we may disregard it. We may listen to the young voices rising--clear above the roar of industrialism and the prudent councils of commerce, or we may become hypnotized by the sudden new emphasis placed upon wealth and power, and forget the supremacy of spiritual forces in men's affairs. It is as if we ignored a wistful, over-confident creature who walked through our city streets calling out, "I am the spirit of Youth! With me, all things are possible!" We fail to understand what he wants or even to see his doings, although his acts are pregnant with meaning, and we may either translate them into a sordid chronicle of petty vice or turn them into a solemn school for civic righteousness. We may either smother the divine fire of youth or we may feed it. We may either stand stupidly staring as it sinks into a murky fire of crime and flares into the intermittent blaze of folly or we may tend it into a lambent flame with power to make clean and bright our dingy city streets. * * * * * Printed in the United States of America. 
37640	----	He is not far from every one of us. For in Him we live and move not less than in Him we have our being. "Out of darkness comes the hand Reaching through nature,--moulding man." _HEALTH:_ FIVE LAY SERMONS TO WORKING-PEOPLE. BY JOHN BROWN, M.D. BOSTON: JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, _Late Ticknor and Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co._ 1877. _Affectionately inscribed to the memory of the_ REV. JAMES TRENCH, _the heart and soul of the Canongate Mission, who, while he preached a pure and a fervent gospel to its heathens, taught them also and therefore to respect and save their health, and was the Originator and Keeper of their Library and Penny Bank, as well as their Minister._ PREFACE. Three of these sermons were written for, and (shall I say?) preached some years ago, in one of the earliest missionary stations in Edinburgh, established by Broughton Place Congregation, and presided over at that time by the Reverend James Trench; one of the best human beings it was ever my privilege to know. He is dead; dying in and of his work,--from typhus fever caught at the bedside of one of his poor members--but he lives in the hearts of many a widow and fatherless child; and lives also, I doubt not, in the immediate vision of Him to do whose will was his meat and his drink. Given ten thousand such men, how would the crooked places be made straight, and the rough places plain, the wildernesses of city wickedness, the solitary places of sin and despair, of pain and shame, be made glad! This is what is to regenerate mankind; this is the leaven that some day is to leaven the lump. The other two sermons were never preached, except in print; but they were composed in the same key. I say this not in defence, but in explanation. I have tried to speak to working men and women from my lay pulpit, in the same words, with the same voice, with the same thoughts I was in the habit of using when doctoring them. This is the reason of their plain speaking. There is no other way of reaching these sturdy and weather and work-beaten understandings; there is nothing fine about them outside, though they are often as white in the skin under their clothes as a duchess, and their hearts as soft and tender as Jonathan's, or as Rachel's, or our own Grizel Baillie's; but you must speak out to them, and must not be mealy-mouthed if you wish to reach their minds and affections and wills. I wish the gentlefolks could hear and could use a little more of this outspokenness; and, as old Porson said, condescend to call a spade a spade, and not a horticultural implement; five letters instead of twenty-two, and more to the purpose. You see, my dear working friends, I am great upon sparing your strength and taking things cannily. "All very well," say you; "it is easy speaking, and saying, Take it easy; but if the pat's on the fire it maun bile." It must, but you needn't poke up the fire forever, and you may now and then set the kettle on the hob, and let it sing, instead of leaving it to burn its bottom out. I had a friend who injured himself by overwork. One day I asked the servant if any person had called, and was told that some one had. "Who was it?" "O, it's the little gentleman that _aye rins when he walks_!" So I wish this age would walk more and "rin" less. A man can walk farther and longer than he can run, and it is poor saving to get out of breath. A man who lives to be seventy, and has ten children and (say) five-and-twenty grandchildren, is of more worth to the state than three men who die at thirty, it is to be hoped unmarried. However slow a coach seventy may have been, and however energetic and go-ahead the three thirties, I back the tortoise against the hares in the long run. I am constantly seeing men who suffer, and indeed die, from living too fast; from true though not consciously immoral dissipation or scattering of their lives. Many a man is bankrupt in constitution at forty-five, and either takes out a _cessio_ of himself to the grave, or goes on paying ten per cent for his stock-in-trade; he spends his capital instead of merely spending what he makes, or better still, laying up a purse for the days of darkness and old age. A queer man, forty years ago,--Mr. Slate, or, as he was called, _Sclate_, who was too clever and not clever enough, and had not wisdom to use his wit, always scheming, full of "go," but never getting on,--was stopped by his friend, Sir Walter Scott,--that wonderful friend of us all, to whom we owe Jeanie Deans and Rob Roy, Meg Merrilies and Dandie Dinmont, Jinglin' Geordie, Cuddie Headrigg, and the immortal Baillie,--one day in Princess Street. "How are ye getting on, Sclate?" "Oo, just the auld thing, Sir Walter; _ma pennies a' gang on tippenny eerands_." And so it is with our nervous power, with our vital capital, with the pence of life; many of them go on "tippenny eerands." We are forever getting our bills renewed, till down comes the poor and damaged concern with dropsy or consumption, blazing fever, madness, or palsy. There is a Western Banking system in living, in using our bodily organs, as well as in paper-money. But I am running off into another sermon. Health of mind and body, next to a good conscience, is the best blessing our Maker can give us, and to no one is it more immediately valuable than to the laboring man and his wife and children; and indeed a good conscience is just moral health, the wholeness of the sense and the organ of duty; for let us never forget that there is a religion of the body, as well as, and greatly helpful of, the religion of the soul. We are to glorify God in our souls and in our bodies, for the best of all reasons, _because they are his_, and to remember that at last we must give account, not only of our thoughts and spiritual desires and acts, but _all the deeds done in our body_. A husband who, in the morning before going to his work, would cut his right hand off sooner than injure the wife of his bosom, strangles her that same night when mad with drink; that is a deed done in his body, and truly by his body, for his judgment is gone; and for that he must give an account when his name is called; his judgment was gone; but then, as the child of a drunken murderer said to me, "A' but, sir, wha goned it?" I am not a teetotaler. I am against teetotalism as a doctrine of universal application; I think we are meant to use these things as not abusing them,--this is one of the disciplines of life; but I not the less am sure that drunkenness ruins men's bodies,--it is not for me to speak of souls,--is a greater cause of disease and misery, poverty, crime, and death among the laboring men and women of our towns, than consumption, fever, cholera, and all their tribe, with thieving and profligacy and improvidence thrown into the bargain: these slay their thousands; this its tens of thousands. Do you ever think of the full meaning of "he's the waur o' drink?" How much the waur?--and then "dead drunk,"--"mortal." Can there be anything more awfully significant than these expressions you hear from children in the streets? * * * * * You will see in the woodcut a good illustration of the circulation of the blood: both that through our lungs, by which we breathe and burn, and that through the whole body, by which we live and build. That hand grasps the heart, the central depot, with its valves opening out and in, and, by its contraction and relaxation, makes the living fluid circulate everywhere, carrying in strength, life, and supply to all, and carrying off waste and harm. None of you will be the worse of thinking of that hand as His who makes, supports, moves, and governs all things,--that hand which, while it wheels the rolling worlds, gathers the lambs with his arm, carries them in his bosom, and gently leads those that are with young, and which was once nailed for "our advantage on the bitter cross." J. B. 23 RUTLAND STREET, December 16, 1861. CONTENTS. Preface SERMON I. THE DOCTOR: OUR DUTIES TO HIM " II. THE DOCTOR: HIS DUTIES TO YOU " III. CHILDREN, AND HOW TO GUIDE THEM " IV. HEALTH " V. MEDICAL ODDS AND ENDS HEALTH. SERMON I. THE DOCTOR: OUR DUTIES TO HIM. Everybody knows the Doctor; a very important person he is to us all. What could we do without him? He brings us into this world, and tries to keep us as long in it as he can, and as long as our bodies can hold together; and he is with us at that strange and last hour which will come to us all, when we must leave this world and go into the next. When we are well, we perhaps think little about the Doctor, or we have our small joke at him and his drugs; but let anything go wrong with our body, that wonderful tabernacle in which our soul dwells, let any of its wheels go wrong, then off we fly to him. If the mother thinks her husband or her child dying, how she runs to him, and urges him with her tears! how she watches his face, and follows his searching eye, as he examines the dear sufferer; how she wonders what he thinks,--what would she give to know what he knows! how she wearies for his visit! how a cheerful word from him makes her heart leap with joy, and gives her spirit and strength to watch over the bed of distress! Her whole soul goes out to him in unspeakable gratitude when he brings back to her from the power of the grave her husband or darling child. The Doctor knows many of our secrets, of our sorrows, which no one else knows,--some of our sins, perhaps, which the great God alone else knows; how many cares and secrets, how many lives, he carries in his heart and in his hands! So you see he is a very important person the Doctor, and we should do our best to make the most of him, and to do our duty to him and to ourselves. A thinking man feels often painfully what a serious thing it is to be a doctor, to have the charge of the lives of his fellow-mortals, to stand, as it were, between them and death and eternity and the judgment-seat, and to fight hand to hand with Death. One of the best men and greatest physicians that ever lived, Dr. Sydenham, says, in reference to this, and it would be well if all doctors, young and old, would consider his words:-- "It becomes every man who purposes to give himself to the care of others, seriously to consider the four following things: _First_, That he must one day give an account to the Supreme Judge of all the lives intrusted to his care. _Secondly_, That all his skill and knowledge and energy, as they have been given him by God, so they should be exercised for his glory and the good of mankind, and not for mere gain or ambition. _Thirdly_, and not more beautifully than truly, Let him reflect that he has undertaken the care of no mean creature, for, in order that we may estimate the value, the greatness of the human race, the only begotten Son of God became himself a man, and thus ennobled it with his divine dignity, and, far more than this, died to redeem it; and _Fourthly_, That the Doctor, being himself a mortal man, should be diligent and tender in relieving his suffering patients, inasmuch as he himself must one day be a like sufferer." I shall never forget a proof I myself got twenty years ago, how serious a thing it is to be a doctor, and how terribly in earnest people are when they want him. It was when cholera first came here in 1832. I was in England at Chatham, which you all know is a great place for ships and sailors. This fell disease comes on generally in the night; as the Bible says, "it walks in darkness," and many a morning was I roused at two o'clock to go and see its sudden victims, for then is its hour and power. One morning a sailor came to say I must go three miles down the river to a village where it had broken out with great fury. Off I set. We rowed in silence down the dark river, passing the huge hulks, and hearing the restless convicts turning in their beds in their chains. The men rowed with all their might: they had too many dying or dead at home to have the heart to speak to me. We got near the place; it was very dark, but I saw a crowd of men and women on the shore, at the landing-place. They were all shouting for the Doctor; the shrill cries of the women, and the deep voices of the men coming across the water to me. We were near the shore, when I saw a big old man, his hat off, his hair gray, his head bald; he said nothing, but turning them all off with his arm, he plunged into the sea, and before I knew where I was, he had me in his arms. I was helpless as an infant. He waded out with me, carrying me high up in his left arm, and with his right levelling every man or woman who stood in his way. It was Big Joe carrying me to see his grandson, little Joe; and he bore me off to the poor convulsed boy, and dared me to leave him till he was better. He did get better, but Big Joe was dead that night. He had the disease on him when he carried me away from the boat, but his heart was set upon his boy. I never can forget that night, and how important a thing it was to be able to relieve suffering, and how much Old Joe was in earnest about having the Doctor. Now, I want you to consider how important the Doctor is to you. Nobody needs him so much as the poor and laboring man. He is often ill. He is exposed to hunger and wet and cold, and to fever, and to all the diseases of hard labor and poverty. His work is heavy, and his heart is often heavy, too, with misery of all kinds,--his heart weary with its burden,--his hands and limbs often meeting with accidents,--and you know if the poor man, if one of you falls ill and takes fever, or breaks his leg, it is a far more serious thing than with a richer man. Your health and strength are all you have to depend on; they are your stock-in-trade, your capital. Therefore I shall ask you to remember _four things_ about your duty to the Doctor, so as to get the most good out of him, and do the most good to him too. _1st_, It is your duty to trust the Doctor; _2dly_, It is your duty to obey the Doctor; _3dly_, It is your duty to speak the truth to the Doctor, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; and, _4thly_, It is your duty to reward the Doctor. And so now for the _first_. It is your duty to _trust_ the Doctor, that is, to believe in him. If you were in a ship, in a wild storm, and among dangerous rocks, and if you took a pilot on board, who knew all the coast and all the breakers, and had a clear eye, and a firm heart, and a practised hand, would you not let him have his own way? would you think of giving him your poor advice, or keep his hand from its work at the helm? You would not be such a fool, or so uncivil, or so mad. And yet many people do this very same sort of thing, just because they don't really trust their Doctor; and a doctor is a pilot for your bodies when they are in a storm and in distress. He takes the helm, and does his best to guide you through a fever; but he must have fair play; he must be trusted even in the dark. It is wonderful what cures the very sight of a doctor will work, if the patient believes in him; it is half the battle. His very face is as good as a medicine, and sometimes better,--and much pleasanter too. One day a laboring man came to me with indigestion. He had a sour and sore stomach, and heartburn, and the water-brash, and wind, and colic, and wonderful misery of body and mind. I found he was eating bad food, and too much of it; and then, when its digestion gave him pain, he took a glass of raw whiskey. I made him promise to give up his bad food and his worse whiskey, and live on pease-brose and sweet milk, and I wrote him a prescription, as we call it, for some medicine, and said, "Take _that_, and come back in a fortnight and you will be well." He did come back, hearty and hale;--no colic, no sinking at the heart, a clean tongue, and a cool hand, and a firm step, and a clear eye, and a happy face. I was very proud of the wonders my prescription had done; and having forgotten what it was, I said, "Let me see what I gave you." "O," says he, "I took it." "Yes," said I, "but the prescription." "_I took it_, as you bade me. I swallowed it." He had actually eaten the bit of paper, and been all that the better of it; but it would have done him little, at least less good had he not trusted me when I said he would be better, and attended to my rules. So, take my word for it, and trust your Doctor; it is his due, and it is for your own advantage. Now, our next duty is to _obey_ the Doctor. This you will think is simple enough. What use is there in calling him in, if we don't do what he bids us? and yet nothing is more common--partly from laziness and sheer stupidity, partly from conceit and suspiciousness, and partly, in the case of children, from false kindness and indulgence--than to disobey the Doctor's orders. Many a child have I seen die from nothing but the mother's not liking to make her swallow a powder, or put on a blister; and let me say, by the by, teach your children at once to obey you, and take the medicine. Many a life is lost from this, and remember you may make even Willie Winkie take his castor-oil in spite of his cries and teeth, _by holding his nose_, so that he must swallow. _Thirdly, You should tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth_, to your Doctor. He may be never so clever, and never so anxious, but he can no more know how to treat a case of illness without knowing all about it, than a miller can make meal without corn; and many a life have I seen lost from the patient or his friends concealing something that was true, or telling something that was false. The silliness of this is only equal to its sinfulness and its peril. I remember, in connection with that place where Big Joe lived and died, a singular proof of the perversity of people in not telling the Doctor the truth,--as you know people are apt to send for him in cholera when it is too late, when it is a death rather than a disease. But there is an early stage, called premonitory,--or warning,--when medicines can avail. I summoned all the people of that fishing-village who were well, and told them this, and asked them if they had any of the symptoms. They all denied having any (this is a peculiar feature in that terrible disease, they are afraid to _let on_ to themselves, or even the Doctor, that they are "in for it"), though from their looks and from their going away while I was speaking, I knew they were not telling the truth. Well, I said, "You must, at any rate, every one of you take some of this," producing a bottle of medicine. I will not tell you what it was, as you should never take drugs at your own hands, but it is simple and cheap. I made every one take it; only one woman going away without taking any; she was the only one of all those _who died_. _Lastly, It is your duty to reward_ your Doctor. There are four ways of rewarding your Doctor. The first is by giving him your money; the second is by giving him your gratitude; the third is by your doing his bidding; and the fourth is by speaking well of him, giving him a good name, recommending him to others. Now, I know few if any of you can pay your Doctor, and it is a great public blessing that in this country you will always get a good Doctor willing to attend you for nothing, and this _is_ a great blessing; but let me tell you,--I don't think I need tell you,--try and pay him, be it ever so little. It does you good as well as him; it keeps up your self-respect; it raises you in your own eye, in your neighbor's, and, what is best, in your God's eye, because it is doing what is right. The "man of independent mind," be he never so poor, is "king of men for a' that"; ay, and "for twice and mair than a' that"; and to pay his way is one of the proudest things a poor man can say, and he may say it oftener than he thinks he can. And then let me tell you, as a bit of cool, worldly wisdom, that your Doctor will do you all the more good, and make a better job of your cure, if he gets something, some money for his pains; it is human nature and common sense, this. It is wonderful how much real kindness and watching and attendance and cleanliness you may get _for so many shillings a week_. Nursing is a much better article at that,--much,--than at _nothing_ a week. But I pass on to the other ways of paying or rewarding your Doctor, and, above all, _to gratitude_. Honey is not sweeter in your mouths, and light is not more pleasant to your eyes, and music to your ears, and a warm, cosey bed is not more welcome to your wearied legs and head, than is the honest, deep gratitude of the poor to the young Doctor. It is his glory, his reward; he fills himself with it, and wraps himself all round with it as with a cloak, and goes on in his work, happy and hearty; and the gratitude of the poor is worth the having, and worth the keeping, and worth the remembering. Twenty years ago I attended old Sandie Campbell's wife in a fever, in Big Hamilton's Close in the Grassmarket,--two worthy, kindly souls they were and are. (Sandie is dead now.) By God's blessing, the means I used saved "oor Kirsty's" life, and I made friends of these two forever; Sandie would have fought for me if need be, and Kirsty would do as good. I can count on them as my friends, and when I pass the close-mouth in the West Port, where they now live, and are thriving, keeping their pigs, and their hoary old cuddie and cart, I get a courtesy from Kirsty, and see her look after me, and turn to the women beside her, and I know exactly what she is saying to them about "Dr. Broon." And when I meet old Sandie, with his ancient and long-lugged friend, driving the draff from the distillery for his swine, I see his gray eye brighten and glisten, and he looks up and gives his manly and cordial nod, and goes on his way, and I know that he is saying to himself, "God bless him! he saved my Kirsty's life," and he runs back in his mind all those twenty past years, and lays out his heart on all he remembers, and that does him good and me too, and nobody any ill. Therefore, give your gratitude to your Doctor, and remember him, like honest Sandie; it will not lose its reward and it costs you nothing; it is one of those things you can give and never be a bit the poorer, but all the richer. One person I would earnestly warn you against, and that is the _Quack Doctor_. If the real Doctor is a sort of God of healing, or rather our God's cobbler for the body, the Quack is the Devil for the body, or rather the Devil's servant against the body. And like his father, he is a great liar and cheat. He offers you what he cannot give. Whenever you see a medicine that cures everything, be sure it cures nothing; and remember, it may kill. The Devil promised our Saviour all the kingdoms of the world if he would fall down and worship him; now this was a lie, he could not give him any such thing. Neither can the Quack give you his kingdoms of health, even though you worship him as he best likes, by paying him for his trash; he is dangerous and dear, and often deadly,--have nothing to do with him. We have our duties to one another, yours to me, and mine to you: but we have all our duty to one else,--to Almighty God, who is beside us at this very moment--who followed us all this day, and knew all we did and didn't do, what we thought and didn't think,--who will watch over us all this night,--who is continually doing us good,--who is waiting to be gracious to us,--who is the great Physician, whose saving health will heal all our diseases, and redeem our life from destruction, and crown us with loving-kindness and tender mercies,--who can make death the opening into a better life, the very gate of heaven; that same death which is to all of us the most awful and most certain of all things, and at whose door sits its dreadful king, with that javelin, that sting of his, which is sin, our own sin. Death would be nothing without sin, no more than falling asleep in the dark to awake to the happy light of the morning. Now, I would have you think of your duty to this great God, our Father in heaven; and I would have you to remember that it is your duty to trust him, to believe in him. If you do not, your soul will be shipwrecked, you will go down in terror and in darkness. It is your duty to _obey_ him. Whom else in all this world should you obey, if not him? and who else so easily pleased, if we only do obey? It is your duty to speak the truth to him, not that he needs any man to tell him anything. He knows everything about everybody; nobody can keep a secret from him. But he hates lies; he abhors a falsehood. He is the God of truth, and must be dealt honestly with, in sincerity and godly fear; and, lastly, you must in a certain sense _reward_ him. You cannot give him money, for the silver and gold, the cattle upon a thousand hills, are all his already, but you can give him your grateful lives; you can give him your hearts; and as old Mr. Henry says, "Thanksgiving is good, but thanks-living is better." One word more; you should call your Doctor early. It saves time; it saves suffering; it saves trouble; it saves life. If you saw a fire beginning in your house, you would put it out as fast as you could. You might perhaps be able to blow out with your breath what in an hour the fire-engine could make nothing of. So it is with disease and the Doctor. A disease in the morning when beginning is like the fire beginning; a dose of medicine, some simple thing, may put it out, when if left alone, before night it may be raging hopelessly, like the fire if left alone, and leaving your body dead and in the ruins in a few hours. So, call in the Doctor soon; it saves him much trouble, and may save you your life. And let me end by asking you to call in the Great Physician; to call him instantly, to call him in time; there is not a moment to lose. He is waiting to be called; he is standing at the door. But he must be _called_,--he may be called too late. SERMON II. THE DOCTOR: HIS DUTIES TO YOU. You remember our last sermon was mostly about your duties to the Doctor. I am now going to speak about his duties to you; for you know it is a law of our life, that there are no one-sided duties,--they are all double. It is like shaking hands, there must be two at it; and both of you ought to give a hearty grip and a hearty shake. You owe much to many, and many owe much to you. The Apostle says, "Owe no man anything but to love one another"; but if you owe that, you must be forever paying it; it is always due, always running on; and the meanest and most helpless, the most forlorn, can always pay and be paid in that coin, and in paying can buy more than he thought of. Just as a farthing candle, twinkling out of a cotter's window, and, it may be, guiding the gudeman home to his wife and children, sends its rays out into the infinite expanse of heaven, and thus returns, as it were, the light of the stars, which are many of them suns. You cannot pass any one on the street to whom you are not bound by this law. If he falls down, you help to raise him. You do your best to relieve him, and get him home; and let me tell you, to your great gain and honor, the poor are far more ready and better at this sort of work than the gentlemen and ladies. You do far more for each other than they do. You will share your last loaf; you will sit up night after night with a neighbor you know nothing about, just because he is your neighbor, and you know what it is to be neighbor-like. You are more natural and less selfish than the fine folks. I don't say you are better, neither do I say you are worse; that would be a foolish and often mischievous way of speaking. We have all virtues and vices and advantages peculiar to our condition. You know the queer old couplet,-- "Them what is rich, them rides in chaises; Them what is poor, them walks like blazes." If you were well, and not in a hurry, and it were cold, would you not much rather "walk like blazes" than ride listless in your chaise? But this I know, for I have seen it, that according to their means, the poor bear one another's burdens far more than the rich. There are many reasons for this, outside of yourselves, and there is no need of your being proud of it or indeed of anything else; but it is something to be thankful for, in the midst of all your hardships, that you in this have more of the power and of the luxury of doing immediate, visible good. You pay this debt in ready-money, as you do your meal and your milk; at least you have very short credit, and the shorter the better. Now, the Doctor has his duties to you, and it is well that he should know them, and that you should know them too; for it will be long before you and he can do without each other. You keep each other alive. Disease, accidents, pain, and death reign everywhere, and we call one another _mortals_, as if our chief peculiarity was that we must die, and you all know how death came into this world. "By one man sin entered the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned"; and disease, disorder, and distress are the fruits of sin, as truly as that apple grew on that forbidden tree. You have nowadays all sorts of schemes for making bad men good, and good men better. The world is full of such schemes, some of them wise and some foolish; but to be wise they must all go on the principle of lessening misery by lessening _sin_; so that the old weaver at Kilmarnock, who at a meeting for abolishing slavery, the corn laws, and a few more things, said, "Mr. Preses, I move that we abolish Original Sin," was at least beginning at the right end. Only fancy what a world it would be, what a family any of ours would be, when everybody did everything that was right, and nothing that was wrong, say for a week! The world would not know itself. It would be inclined to say with the "wee bit wifiekie," though reversing the cause, "This is no me." I am not going to say more on this point. It is not my parish. But you need none of you be long ignorant of who it is who has abolished death, and therefore vanquished sin. Well, then, it is the duty of the Doctor in the first place, to _cure us_; in the second, _to be kind to us_; in the third, to be _true to us_; in the fourth, to keep _our secrets_; in the fifth, to _warn us_, and, best of all, to _forewarn us_; in the sixth, to _be grateful to us_; and, in the last, to _keep his time and his temper_. And, _first_, it is the duty of the Doctor to _cure_ you,--if he can. That is what we call him in for; and a doctor, be he never so clever and delightful, who doesn't cure, is like a mole-catcher who can't catch moles, or a watchmaker who can do everything but make your watch go. Old Dr. Pringle of Perth, when preaching in the country, found his shoes needed mending, and he asked the brother whom he was assisting to tell him of good cobbler, or as he called him, a _snab_. His friend mentioned a "Tammas Rattray, a godly man, and an elder." "But," said Dr. Pringle, in his snell way, "can he mend my shoon? that's what I want; I want a shoemaker; I'm not wanting an elder." It turned out that Tammas was a better elder than a shoemaker. A doctor was once attending a poor woman in labor; it was a desperate case, requiring a cool head and a firm will; the good man--for he _was_ good--had neither of these, and, losing his presence of mind, gave up the poor woman as lost, and retired into the next room to pray for her. Another doctor, who, perhaps, wanted what the first one had, and certainly had what he wanted, brains and courage, meanwhile arrived, and called out, "Where is Doctor ----?" "O, he has gone into the next room to pray!" "Pray! tell him to come here this moment, and help me; he can work and pray too"; and with his assistance the snell doctor saved that woman's life. This, then, is the Doctor's first duty to you,--to cure you,--and for this he must, in the first place, be up to his business; he must know what to do, and, secondly, he must be able to do it; he must not merely do as a pointer dog does, stand and say, "There it is," and no more, he must point and shoot too. And let me tell you, moreover, that unless a man likes what he is at, and is in earnest, and sticks to it, he will no more make a good doctor than a good anything else. Doctoring is not only a way for a man to do good by curing disease, and to get money to himself for doing this, but it is also a study which interests for itself alone, like geology, or any other science; and moreover it is a way to fame and the glory of the world; all these four things act upon the mind of the Doctor, but unless the first one is uppermost, his patient will come off second-best with him; he is not the man for your lives or for your money. They tell a story, which may not be word for word true, but it has truth and a great principle in it, as all good stories have. It is told of one of our clever friends, the French, who are so knowing in everything. A great French doctor was taking an English one round the wards of his hospital; all sort of miseries going on before them, some dying, others longing for death, all ill; the Frenchman was wonderfully eloquent about all their diseases, you would have thought he saw through them, and knew all their secret wheels like looking into a watch or into a glass beehive. He told his English friend what would be seen in such a case, _when the body was opened_! He spent some time in this sort of work, and was coming out, full of glee, when the other doctor said: "But, Doctor ----, you haven't _prescribed_ for these cases." "O, neither I have!" said he, with a grumph and a shrug; "I quite forgot _that_"; that being the one thing why these poor people were there, and why he was there too. Another story of a Frenchman, though I dare say we could tell it of ourselves. He was a great professor, and gave a powerful poison as a medicine for an ugly disease of the skin. He carried it very far, so as to weaken the poor fellow, who died, just as the last vestige of the skin disease died too. On looking at the dead body, quite smooth and white, and also quite dead, he said, "Ah, never mind; he was _dead cured_." So let me advise you, as, indeed, your good sense will advise yourselves, to test a Doctor by this: Is he in earnest? Does he speak little and do much? Does he make your case his first care? He may, after that, speak of the weather, or the money-market; he may gossip, and even _haver_; or he may drop, quietly and shortly, some "good words,"--the fewer the better; something that causes you to think and feel; and may teach you to be more of the Publican than of the Pharisee, in that story you know of, when they two went up to the temple to pray; but, generally speaking, the Doctor should, like the rest of us, stick to his trade and mind his business. _Secondly_, It is the Doctor's duty to be _kind_ to you. I mean by this, not only to speak kindly, but to _be_ kind, which includes this and a great deal more, though a kind word, as well as a merry heart, does good like a medicine. Cheerfulness, or rather cheeriness, is a great thing in a Doctor; his very foot should have "music in't, when he comes up the stair." The Doctor should never lose his power of pitying pain, and letting his patient see this and feel it. Some men, and they are often the best at their proper work, can let their hearts come out only through their eyes; but it is not the less sincere, and to the point; you can make your mouth say what is not true; you can't do quite so much with your eyes. A Doctor's eye should command, as well as comfort and cheer his patient; he should never let him think disobedience or despair possible. Perhaps you think Doctors get hardened by seeing so much suffering; this is not true. Pity as a motive, as well as a feeling ending in itself, is stronger in an old Doctor than in a young, so he be made of the right stuff. He comes to know himself what pain and sorrow mean, what their weight is, and how grateful he was or is for relief and sympathy. _Thirdly_, It is his duty to be _true_ to you. True in word and in deed. He ought to speak nothing but the truth, as to the nature, and extent, and issues of the disease he is treating; but he is not bound, as I said you were, to tell _the whole truth_,--that is for his own wisdom and discretion to judge of; only, never let him tell an untruth, and let him be honest enough, when he can't say anything definite, to say nothing. It requires some courage to confess our ignorance, but it is worth it. As to the question, often spoken of,--telling a man he is dying,--the Doctor must, in the first place, be sure the patient is dying; and, secondly, that it is for his good, bodily and mental, to tell him so: he should almost always warn the friends, but, even here, cautiously. _Fourthly_, It is his duty to _keep your secrets_. There are things a Doctor comes to know and is told which no one but he and the Judge of all should know; and he is a base man, and unworthy to be in such a noble profession as that of healing, who can betray what he knows must injure, and in some cases may ruin. _Fifthly_, It is his duty to _warn_ you against what is injuring your health. If he finds his patient has brought disease upon himself by sin, by drink, by overwork, by over-eating, by over-anything, it is his duty to say so plainly and firmly, and the same with regard to the treatment of children by their parents; the family doctor should forewarn them; he should explain, as far as he is able and they can comprehend them, the Laws of Health, and so tell them how to _prevent disease_, as well as do his best to _cure_ it. What a great and rich field there is here for our profession, if they and the public could only work well together! In this, those queer, half-daft, half-wise beings, the Chinese, take a wiser way; they pay their Doctor for keeping them well, and they stop his pay as long as they are ill! _Sixthly_, It is his duty to be _grateful_ to you; 1st, for employing him, whether you pay him in money or not, for a Doctor, worth being one, makes capital, makes knowledge, and therefore power, out of every case he has; 2dly, for obeying him and getting better. I am always very much obliged to my patients for being so kind as to be better, and for saying so; for many are ready enough to say they are worse, not so many to say they are better, even when they are; and you know our Scotch way of saying, "I'm no that ill," when "I" is in high health, or, "I'm no ony waur," when "I" is much better. Don't be niggards in this; it cheers the Doctor's heart, and it will lighten yours. _Seventhly_, and lastly, It is the Doctor's duty _to keep his time and his temper_ with you. Any man or woman who knows how longed for a doctor's visit is, and counts on it to a minute, knows how wrong, how painful, how angering it is for the Doctor not to keep his time. Many things may occur, for his urgent cases are often sudden, to put him out of his reckoning; but it is wonderful what method, and real consideration, and a strong will can do in this way. I never found Dr. Abercrombie a minute after or _before_ his time (both are bad, though one is the worser), and yet if I wanted him in a hurry, and stopped his carriage in the street, he could always go with me at once; he had the knack and the principle of being true in his times, for it is often a matter of _truth_. And the Doctor must keep his _temper_: this is often worse to manage than even his time, there is so much unreason, and ingratitude, and peevishness, and impertinence, and impatience, that it is very hard to keep one's tongue and eye from being angry: and sometimes the Doctor does not only well, but the best, when he is downrightly angry, and astonishes some fool, or some insolent, or some untruth doing or saying patient; but the Doctor should be patient with his patients, he should bear with them, knowing how much they are at the moment suffering. Let us remember Him who is full of compassion, whose compassion never fails; whose tender mercies are new to us every morning, as his faithfulness is every night; who healed all manner of diseases, and was kind to the unthankful and the evil; what would become of us, if he were as impatient with us as we often are with each other? If you want to be impressed with the Almighty's infinite loving-kindness and tender mercy, his forbearance, his long-suffering patience, his slowness to anger, his Divine ingeniousness in trying to find it possible to spare and save, think of the Israelites in the desert, and read the chapter where Abraham intercedes with God for Sodom, and these wonderful "peradventures." But I am getting tedious, and keeping you and myself too long, so good night. Let the Doctor and you be honest and grateful, and kind and cordial, in one word, dutiful to each other, and you will each be the better of the other. I may by and by say a word or two to you on your _Health_, which is your wealth, that by which you are and do well, and on your _Children_, and how to guide it and them. SERMON III. CHILDREN, AND HOW TO GUIDE THEM. Our text at this time is Children and their treatment, or as it sounds better to our ears, Bairns, and how to guide them. You all know the wonder and astonishment there is in a house among its small people when a baby is born; how they stare at the new arrival with its red face. Where does it come from? Some tell them it comes from the garden, from a certain kind of cabbage; some from "Rob Rorison's bonnet," of which wha hasna heard? some from that famous wig of Charlie's, in which the cat kittled, when there was three o' them leevin', and three o' them dead; and you know the Doctor is often said to bring the new baby in his pocket; and many a time have my pockets been slyly examined by the curious youngsters,--especially the girls!--in hopes of finding another baby. But I'll tell you where all the babies come from; _they all come from_ _God_; his hand made and fashioned them; he breathed into their nostrils the breath of life,--of his life. He said, "Let this little child be," and it was. A child is a true creation; its soul, certainly, and in a true sense, its body too. And as our children came from him, so they are going back to him, and he lends them to us as keepsakes; we are to keep and care for them for his sake. What a strange and sacred thought this is! Children are God's gifts to us, and it depends on our guiding of them, not only whether they are happy here, but whether they are happy hereafter in that great unchangeable eternity, into which you and I and all of us are fast going. I once asked a little girl, "Who made you?" and she said, holding up her apron as a measure, "God make me that length, and I growed the rest myself." Now this, as you know, was not quite true, for she could not grow one half-inch by herself. God makes us grow as well as makes us at first. But what I want you to fix in your minds is, that children come from God, and are returning to him, and that you and I, who are parents, have to answer to him for the way we behave to our dear children,--the kind of care we take of them. Now, a child consists, like ourselves, of a body and a soul. I am not going to say much about the guiding of the souls of children,--that is a little out of my line,--but I may tell you that the soul, especially in children, depends much, for its good and for its evil, for its happiness or its misery, upon the kind of body it lives in: for the body is just the house that the soul dwells in; and you know that, if a house be uncomfortable, the tenant of it will be uncomfortable and out of sorts; if its windows let the rain and wind in, if the chimney smoke, if the house be damp, and if there be a want of good air, then the people who live in it will be miserable enough; and if they have no coals, and no water, and no meat, and no beds, then you may be sure it will soon be left by its inhabitants. And so, if you don't do all you can to make your children's bodies healthy and happy, their souls will get miserable and cankered and useless, their tempers peevish; and if you don't feed and clothe them right, then their poor little souls will leave their ill-used bodies,--will be starved out of them; and many a man and woman have had their tempers, and their minds and hearts, made miseries to themselves, and all about them, just from a want of care of their bodies when children. There is something very sad, and, in a true sense, very unnatural, in an unhappy child. You and I, grown-up people, who have cares, and have had sorrows and difficulties and sins, may well be dull and sad sometimes; it would be still sadder, if we were not often so; but children should be always either laughing and playing, or eating and sleeping. Play is their business. You cannot think how much useful knowledge, and how much valuable bodily exercise, a child teaches itself in its play; and look how merry the young of other animals are: the kitten making fun of everything, even of its sedate mother's tail and whiskers; the lambs, running races in their mirth; even the young asses,--the baby-cuddie,--how pawky and droll and happy he looks with his fuzzy head, and his laughing eyes, and his long legs, stot, stotting after that venerable and _sair nauden-doun lady_, with the long ears, his mother. One thing I like to see, is a child clean in the morning. I like to see its plump little body well washed, and sweet and _caller_ from top to bottom. But there is another thing I like to see, and that is a child dirty at night. I like a _steerin' bairn_,--goo-gooin', crowing and kicking, keeping everybody alive. Do you remember William Miller's song of "Wee Willie Winkie?" Here it is. I think you will allow, especially you who are mothers, that it is capital. "Wee Willie Winkie Rins through the toun, Up stairs an' doon stairs In his nicht-goun, Tirlin' at the window, Crying at the lock, 'Are the weans in their bed, For it's noo ten o'clock?' "'Hey Willie Winkie, Are ye comin' ben! The cat's singin' gray thrums To the sleepin' hen, The dog's speldert on the floor, And disna gi'e a cheep, But here's a waakrife laddie! That winna fa' asleep.' "'Onything but sleep, you rogue! Glow'rin' like the moon! Rattlin' in an airn jug Wi' an airn spoon, Rumblin', tumblin' roun' about, Crawin' like a cock, Skirlin' like a kenna-what, Wauk'nin' sleepin' folk. "'Hey, Willie Winkie, The wean's in a creel! Wamblin' aff a bodie's knee Like a verra eel, Ruggin' at the cat's lug, And ravelin' a' her thrums,-- Hey, Willie Winkie,-- See, there he comes!' "Wearied is the mither That has a stoorie wean, A wee stumpie stousie, Wha canna rin his lane, That has a battle aye wi' sleep Afore he'll close an e'e,-- But ae kiss frae aff his rosy lips Gi'es strength anew to me." Is not this good? first-rate! The cat singin' gray thrums, and the wee stumpie stousie, ruggin' at her lug, and ravlin' a' her thrums; and then what a din he is making!--rattlit' in an airn jug wi' an airn spoon, skirlin' like a kenna-what, and ha'in' a battle aye wi' sleep. What a picture of a healthy and happy child! Now, I know how hard it is for many of you to get meat for your children, and clothes for them, and bed and bedding for them at night, and I know how you have to struggle for yourselves and them, and how difficult it often is for you to take all the care you would like to do of them, and you will believe me when I say, that it is a far greater thing, because a far harder thing, for a poor, struggling, and it may be weakly woman in your station, to bring up her children comfortably, than for those who are richer; but still you may do a great deal of good at little cost either of money or time or trouble. And it is well-wared pains; it will bring you in two hundred percent in real comfort, and profit, and credit; and so you will, I am sure, listen good-naturedly to me, when I go over some plain and simple things about the health of your children. To begin with their _heads_. You know the head contains the brain, which is the king of the body, and commands all under him; and it depends on his being good or bad whether his subjects,--the legs, and arms, and body, and stomach, and our old friends the bowels, are in good order and happy, or not. Now, first of all, keep the head cool. Nature has given it a nightcap of her own in the hair, and it is the best. And keep the head clean. Give it a good scouring every Saturday night at the least; and if it get sore and scabbit, the best thing I know for it is to wash it with soft soap (black soap), and put a big cabbage-blade on it every night. Then for the _lungs_, or _lichts_,--the bellows that keep the fire of life burning,--they are very busy in children, because a child is not like grown-up folk, merely keeping itself up. It is doing this, and growing too; and so it eats more, and sleeps more, and breathes more in proportion than big folk. And to carry on all this business it must have fresh air, and lots of it. So, whenever it can be managed, a child should have a good while every day in the open air, and should have well-aired places to sleep in. Then for their _nicht-gowns_, the best are long flannel gowns; and children should be always more warmly clad than grown-up people,--cold kills them more easily. Then there is the _stomach_, and as this is the kitchen and great manufactory, it is almost always the first thing that goes wrong in children, and generally as much from too much being put in, as from its food being of an injurious kind. A baby, for nine months after it is born, should have almost nothing but its mother's milk. This is God's food, and it is the best and the cheapest, too. If the baby be healthy it should be weaned or spained at nine or ten months; and this should be done gradually, giving the baby a little gruel, or new milk, and water and sugar, or thin bread-berry once a day for some time, so as gradually to wean it. This makes it easier for mother as well as baby. No child should get meat or hard things till it gets teeth to chew them, and no baby should ever get a drop of whiskey, or any strong drink, unless by the Doctor's orders. Whiskey, to the soft, tender stomach of an infant, is like vitriol to ours; it is a burning poison to its dear little body, as it may be a burning poison and a curse to its never-dying soul. As you value your children's health of body, and the salvation of their souls, never give them a drop of whiskey; and let mothers, above all others, beware of drinking when nursing. The whiskey passes from their stomachs into their milk, and poisons their own child. This is a positive fact. And think of a drunk woman carrying and managing a child! I was once, many years ago, walking in Lothian Street, when I saw a woman staggering along very drunk. She was carrying a child; it was lying over her shoulder. I saw it slip, slippin' farther and farther back. I ran, and cried out; but before I could get up, the poor little thing, smiling over its miserable mother's shoulder, fell down, like a stone, on its head on the pavement; it gave a gasp, and turned up its blue eyes, and had a convulsion, and its soul was away to God, and its little soft, waefu' body lying dead, and its idiotic mother grinning and staggering over it, half seeing the dreadful truth, then forgetting it, and cursing and swearing. That was a sight! so much misery, and wickedness, and ruin. It was the young woman's only child. When she came to herself, she became mad, and is to this day a drivelling idiot, and goes about forever seeking for her child, and cursing the woman who killed it. This is a true tale, too true. There is another practice which I must notice, and that is giving children laudanum to make them sleep, and keep them quiet, and for coughs and windy pains. Now, this is a most dangerous thing. I have often been called in to see children who were dying, and who did die, from laudanum given in this way. I have known four drops to kill a child a month old; and ten drops one a year old. The best rule, and one you should stick to, as under God's eye as well as the law's, is, never to give laudanum without a Doctor's line or order. And when on this subject, I would also say a word about the use of opium and laudanum among yourselves. I know this is far commoner among the poor in Edinburgh than is thought. But I assure you, from much experience, that the drunkenness and stupefaction from the use of laudanum is even worse than that from whiskey. The one poisons and makes mad the body; the other, the laudanum, poisons the mind, and makes it like an idiot's. So, in both matters beware; death is in the cup, murder is in the cup, and poverty and the workhouse, and the gallows, and an awful future of pain and misery,--all are in the cup. These are the wages the Devil pays his servants with for doing his work. But to go back to the bairns. At first a word on our old friends, the bowels. Let them alone as much as you can. They will put themselves and keep themselves right, if you take care to prevent wrong things going into the stomach. No sour apples, or raw turnips or carrots; no sweeties or tarts, and all that kind of abomination; no tea, to draw the sides of their tender little stomachs together; no whiskey, to kill their digestion; no _Gundy_, or _Taffy_, or _Lick_, or _Black Man_, or _Jib_; the less sugar and sweet things the better; the more milk and butter and fat the better; but plenty of plain, halesome food, parritch and milk, bread and butter, potatoes and milk, good broth,--kail as we call it. You often hear of the wonders of cod-liver oil, and they are wonders; poor little wretches who have faces like old puggies, and are all belly and no legs, and are screaming all day and all night too,--these poor little wretches under the cod-liver oil, get sonsy, and rosy, and fat, and happy, and strong. Now, this is greatly because the cod-liver oil is capital _food_. If you can't afford to get cod-liver oil for delicate children, or if they reject it, give them plain olive oil, a tablespoonful twice a day, and take one to yourself, and you will be astonished how you will both of you thrive. Some folk will tell you that children's feet should be always kept warm. I say no. No healthy child's feet are warm; but the great thing is to keep the body warm. That is like keeping the fire good, and the room will be warm. The chest, the breast, is the place where the fire of the body,--the heating apparatus,--is, and if you keep it warm, and give _it_ plenty of fuel, which is fresh air and good food, you need not mind about the feetikins, they will mind themselves; indeed, for my own part, I am so ungenteel as to think bare feet and bare legs in summer the most comfortable wear, costing much less than leather and worsted, the only kind of soles that are always fresh. As to the moral training of children, I need scarcely speak to you. What people want about these things is, not knowledge, but the will to do what is right,--what they know to be right, and the moral power to do it. Whatever you wish your child to be, be it yourself. If you wish it to be happy, healthy, sober, truthful, affectionate, honest, and godly, be yourself all these. If you wish it to be lazy and sulky, and a liar, and a thief, and a drunkard, and a swearer, be yourself all these. As the old cock crows, the young cock learns. You will remember who said, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." And you may, as a general rule, as soon expect to gather grapes from thorns, and figs from thistles, as get good, healthy, happy children from diseased and lazy and wicked parents. Let me put you in mind, seriously, of one thing that you ought to get done to all your children, and that is, to have them vaccinated, or inoculated with the cow-pock. The best time for this is two months after birth, but better late than never, and in these times you need never have any excuse for its not being done. You have only to take your children to the Old or the New Town Dispensaries. It is a real crime, I think, in parents to neglect this. It is cruel to their child, and it is a crime to the public. If every child in the world were vaccinated, which might be managed in few years, that loathsome and deadly disease, the small-pox, would disappear from the face of the earth; but many people are so stupid, and so lazy, and so prejudiced, as to neglect this plain duty, till they find to their cost that it is too late. So promise me, all seriously in your hearts, to see to this if it is not done already, and see to it immediately. Be always frank and open with your children. Make them trust you and tell you all their secrets. Make them feel at ease with you, and make _free_ with them. There is no such good plaything for grown-up children like you and me as _weans_, wee ones. It is wonderful what you can get them to do with a little coaxing and fun. You all know this as well as I do, and you all practise it every day in your own families. Here is a pleasant little story out of an old book. "A gentleman having led a company of children beyond their usual journey, they began to get weary, and all cried to him to carry them on his back, but because of their multitude he could not do this. 'But,' says he, 'I'll get horses for us all'; then cutting little wands out of the hedge as ponies for them, and a great stake as a charger for himself, this put mettle in their little legs, and they rode cheerily home." So much for a bit of ingenious fun. One thing, however poor you are, you can give your children, and that is your prayers, and they are, if real and humble, worth more than silver or gold,--more than food and clothing, and have often brought from our Father who is in heaven, and hears our prayers, both money and meat and clothes, and all worldly good things. And there is one thing you can always teach your child; you may not yourself know how to read or write, and therefore you may not be able to teach your children how to do these things; you may not know the names of the stars or their geography, and may therefore not be able to tell them how far you are from the sun, or how big the moon is; nor be able to tell them the way to Jerusalem or Australia, but you may always be able to tell them who made the stars and numbered them, and you may tell them the road to heaven. You may always teach them to pray. Some weeks ago, I was taken out to see the mother of a little child. She was very dangerously ill, and the nurse had left the child to come and help me. I went up to the nursery to get some hot water, and in the child's bed I saw something raised up. This was the little fellow under the bedclothes kneeling. I said, "What are you doing?" "I am praying God to make mamma better," said he. God likes these little prayers and these little people,--for of such is the kingdom of heaven. These are his little ones, his lambs, and he hears their cry; and it is enough if they only lisp their prayers. "Abba, Father," is all he needs; and our prayers are never so truly prayers as when they are most like children's in simplicity, in directness, in perfect fulness of reliance. "They pray right up," as black Uncle Tom says in that wonderful book, which I hope you have all read and wept over. I forgot to speak about punishing children. I am old-fashioned enough to uphold the ancient practice of warming the young bottoms with some sharpness, if need be; it is a wholesome and capital application, and does good to the bodies, and the souls too, of the little rebels, and it is far less cruel than being sulky, as some parents are, and keeping up a grudge at their children. Warm the bott, say I, and you will warm the heart too; and all goes right. And now I must end. I have many things I could say to you, but you have had enough of me and my bairns, I am sure. Go home, and when you see the little curly pows on their pillows, sound asleep, pour out a blessing on them, and ask our Saviour to make them his; and never forget what we began with, that they came from God, and are going back to him, and let the light of eternity fall upon them as they lie asleep, and may you resolve to dedicate them and yourselves to him who died for them and for us all, and who was once himself a little child, and sucked the breasts of a woman, and who said that awful saying, "Whosoever shall offend one of these little ones, it had been better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the midst of the sea." SERMON IV. HEALTH. My dear friends,--I am going to give you a sort of sermon about your health,--and you know a sermon has always a text; so, though I am only a doctor, I mean to take a text for ours, and I will choose it, as our good friends the ministers do, from that best of all books, the Bible. Job ii. 4: "All that a man hath will he give for his life." This, you know, was said many thousands of years ago by the Devil, when, like a base and impudent fellow, as he always was and is, he came into the presence of the great God, along with the good angels. Here, for once in his life, the Devil spoke the truth and shamed himself. What he meant, and what I wish you now seriously to consider, is, that a man--you or I--will lose anything sooner than life; we would give everything for it, and part with all the money, everything we had, to keep away death and to lengthen our days. If you had £500 in a box at home, and knew that you would certainly be dead by to-morrow unless you gave the £500, would you ever make a doubt about what you would do? Not you! And if you were told that if you got drunk, or worked too hard, or took no sort of care of your bodily health, you would turn ill to-morrow and die next week, would you not keep sober, and work more moderately, and be more careful of yourself? Now, I want to make you believe that you are too apt to do this very same sort of thing in your daily life, only that instead of to-morrow or next week, your illness and your death comes next year, or at any rate, some years sooner than otherwise. _But your death is actually preparing already, and that by your own hands_, by your own ignorance, and often by your own foolish and sinful neglect and indulgence. A decay or rottenness spreads through the beams of a house, unseen and unfeared, and then, by and by down it comes, and is utterly destroyed. So it is with our bodies. You plant, by sin and neglect and folly, the seeds of disease by your own hands; and as surely as the harvest comes after the seed-time, so will you reap the harvest of pain, and misery, and death. And remember there is nobody to whom health is so valuable, is worth so much, as the poor laboring man; it is his stock-in-trade, his wealth, his capital; his bodily strength and skill are the main things he can make his living by, and therefore he should take better care of his body and its health than a rich man; for a rich man may be laid up in his bed for weeks and months, and yet his business may go on, for he has means to pay his men for working under him, or he may be what is called "living on his money." But if a poor man takes fever, or breaks his leg, or falls into a consumption, his wife and children soon want food and clothes: and many a time do I see on the streets poor, careworn men, dying by inches of consumption, going to and from their work, when, poor fellows, they should be in their beds; and all this just because they cannot afford to be ill and to lie out of work,--they cannot spare the time and the wages. Now, don't you think, my dear friends, that it is worth your while to attend to your health? If you were a carter or a coach-driver, and had a horse, would you not take care to give him plenty of corn, and to keep his stable clean and well aired, and to curry his skin well, and you would not kill him with overwork, for, besides the cruelty, this would be a dead loss to you,--it would be so much out of your pocket? And don't you see that God has given you your bodies to work with, and to please him with their diligence; and it is ungrateful to him, as well as unkind and wicked to your family and yourself, to waste your bodily strength, and bring disease and death upon yourselves? But you will say, "How can we make a better of it? We live from hand to mouth; we can't have fine houses and warm clothes, and rich food and plenty of it." No, I know that; but if you have not a fine house, you may always have a clean one, and fresh air costs nothing,--God gives it to all his children without stint,--and good plain clothes and meal may now be had cheaper than ever. Health is a word that you all have some notion of, but you will perhaps have a clearer idea of it when I tell you what the word comes from. Health was long ago _wholth_, and comes from the word _whole_ or _hale_. The Bible says, "They that are whole need not a physician"; that is, healthy people have no need of a doctor. Now, a man is whole when, like a bowl or any vessel, he is entire, and has nothing broken about him; he is like a watch that goes well, neither too fast nor too slow. But you will perhaps say, "You doctors should be able to put us all to rights, just as a watchmaker can clean and sort a watch; if you can't, what are you worth?" But the difference between a man and a watch is, that you must try to mend the man when he is going. You can't stop him and then set him agoing; and, you know, it would be no joke to a watchmaker, or to the watch, to try and clean it while it was going. But God, who does everything like himself, with his own perfectness, has put inside each of our bodies a Doctor of his own making,--one wiser than we with all our wisdom. Every one of us has in himself a power of keeping and setting his health right. If a man is overworked, God has ordained that he desires rest, and that rest cures him. If he lives in a damp, close place, free and dry air cures him. If he eats too much, fasting cures him. If his skin is dirty, a good scrubbing and a bit of yellow soap will put him all to rights. What we call disease or sickness is the opposite of health, and it comes on us,--1st. By descent from our parents. It is one of the surest of all legacies; if a man's father and mother are diseased, naturally or artificially, he will have much chance to be as bad, or worse. 2dly. Hard work brings on disease, and some kinds of work more than others. Masons who hew often fall into consumption; laborers get rheumatism, or what you call "the pains"; painters get what is called their colic, from the lead in the paint, and so on. In a world like ours, this set of causes of disease and ill health cannot be altogether got the better of; and it was God's command, after Adam's sin, that men should toil and sweat for their daily bread; but more than the half of the bad effects of hard work and dangerous employments might be prevented by a little plain knowledge, attention, and common sense. 3dly. Sin, wickedness, foolish and excessive pleasures, are a great cause of disease. Thousands die from drinking, and from following other evil courses. There is no life so hard, none in which the poor body comes so badly off, and is made so miserable, as the life of a drunkard or a dissolute man. I need hardly tell you, that this cause of death and disease you can all avoid. I don't say it is easy for any man in your circumstances to keep from sin; he is a foolish or ignorant man who says so, and that there are no temptations to drinking. You are much less to blame for doing this than people who are better off; but you CAN keep from drinking, and you know as well as I do, how much better and happier, and healthier and richer and more respectable you will be if you do so. 4thly and lastly. Disease and death are often brought on from ignorance, from not knowing what are called the _laws of health_,--those easy, plain, common things which, if you do, you will live long, and which, if you do not do, you will die soon. Now, I would like to make a few simple statements about this to you; and I will take the body bit by bit, and tell you some things that you should know and do in order to keep this wonderful house that your soul lives in, and by the deeds done in which you will one day be judged,--and which is God's gift and God's handiwork,--clean and comfortable, hale, strong, and hearty; for you know that, besides doing good to ourselves and our family and our neighbors with our bodily labor, we are told that we should glorify God in our bodies as well as in our souls, for they are his, more his than ours,--he has bought them by the blood of his Son Jesus Christ. We are not our own, we are bought with a price; therefore ought we to glorify God with our souls and with our bodies, which are his. Now, first, for _the skin_. You should take great care of it, for on its health a great deal depends; keep it clean, keep it warm, keep it dry, give it air; have a regular scrubbing of all your body every Saturday night; and, if you can manage it, you should every morning wash not only your face, but your throat and breast, with cold water, and rub yourself quite dry with a hard towel till you glow all over. You should keep your hair short if you are men; it saves you a great deal of trouble and dirt. Then, the inside of your _head_,--you know what is inside your head,--your brain; you know how useful it is to you. The cleverest pair of hands among you would be of little use without brains: they would be like a body without a soul, a watch with the mainspring broken. Now, you should consider what is best for keeping the brain in good trim. One thing of great consequence is _regular sleep, and plenty of it_. Every man should have at the least eight hours in his bed every four-and-twenty hours, and let him sleep all the time if he can; but even if he lies awake it is a rest to his wearied brain, as well as to his wearied legs and arms. _Sleep is the food of the brain._ Men may go mad and get silly, if they go long without sleep. Too much sleep is bad; but I need hardly warn you against that, or against too much meat. You are in no great danger from these. Then, again, whiskey and all kinds of intoxicating liquors in excess are just so much poison to the brain. I need not say much about this, you all know it; and we all know what dreadful things happen when a man poisons his brain and makes it mad, and like a wild beast with drink; he may murder his wife, or his child, and when he comes to himself he knows nothing of how he did it, only the terrible thing is certain, that he _did_ do it, and that he may be hanged for doing something when he was mad, and which he never dreamt of doing when in his senses: but then he knows that he made himself mad, and he must take all the wretched and tremendous consequences. From the brains we go to the _lungs_,--you know where they are,--they are what the butchers call the _lichts_; here they are, they are the bellows that keep the fire of life going; for you must know that a clever German philosopher has made out that we are all really burning,--that our bodies are warmed by a sort of burning or combustion, as it is called,--and fed by breath and food, as a fire is fed with coals and air. Now the great thing for the lungs is plenty of fresh air, and plenty of room to play in. About seventy thousand people die every year in Britain from that disease of the lungs called consumption,--that is, nearly half the number of people in the city of Edinburgh; and it is certain that more than the half of these deaths could be prevented if the lungs had fair play. So you should always try to get your houses well ventilated, that means to let the air be often changed, and free from impure mixtures; and you should avoid crowding many into one room, and be careful to keep everything clean, and put away all filth; for filth is not only disgusting to the eye and the nose, but is dangerous to the health. I have seen a great deal of cholera, and been surrounded by dying people, who were beyond any help from doctors, and I have always found that where the air was bad, the rooms ill ventilated, cleanliness neglected, and drunkenness prevailed, there this terrible scourge, which God sends upon us, was most terrible, most rapidly and widely destructive. Believe this, and go home and consider well what I now say, for you may be sure it is true. Now we come to the _heart_. You all know where it is. It is the most wonderful little pump in the world. There is no steam-engine half so clever at its work, or so strong. There it is in every one of us, beat, beating,--all day and all night, year after year, never stopping, like a watch ticking; only it never needs to be wound up,--God winds it up once for all. It depends for its health on the state of the rest of the body, especially the brains and lungs. But all violent passions, all irregularities of living, damage it. Exposure to cold when drunk, falling asleep, as many poor wretches do, in stairs all night,--this often brings on disease of the heart; and you know it is not only dangerous to have anything the matter with the heart, it is the commonest of all causes of sudden death. It gives no warning; you drop down dead in a moment. So we may say of the bodily as well as of the moral organ, "Keep your heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life." We now come to the _stomach_. You all know, I dare say, where it lies! It speaks for itself. Our friends in England are very respectful to their stomachs. They make a great deal of them, and we make too little. If an Englishman is ill, all the trouble is in his stomach; if an Irishman is ill, it is in his heart, and he's "kilt entirely"; and if a Scotsman, it is in his "heed." Now, I wish I saw Scots men and women as nice and particular about their stomachs, or rather about what they put into them, as their friends in England. Indeed, so much does your genuine John Bull depend on his stomach, and its satisfaction, that we may put in his mouth the stout old lines of Prior:-- "The plainest man alive may tell ye The seat of empire is the Belly: From hence are sent out those supplies, Which make us either stout or wise; The strength of every other member Is founded on your Belly-timber; The qualms or raptures of your blood Rise in proportion to your food, Your stomach makes your fabric roll, Just as the bias rules the bowl: That great Achilles might employ The strength designed to ruin Troy, He dined on lions' marrow, spread On toasts of ammunition bread; But by his mother sent away, Amongst the Thracian girls to play, Effeminate he sat and quiet; Strange product of a cheese-cake diet. Observe the various operations, Of food and drink in several nations. Was ever Tartar fierce or cruel, Upon the strength of water-gruel? But who shall stand his rage and force, If first he rides, then eats his horse! Salads and eggs, and lighter fare, Turn the Italian spark's guitar; And if I take Dan Congreve right, Pudding and beef make Britons fight." Good cooking is the beauty of a dinner. It really does a man as much good again if he eats his food with a relish, and with a little attention, it is as easy to cook well as ill. And let me tell the wives, that your husbands would like you all the better, and be less likely to go off to the public-house, if their bit of meat or their drop of broth were well cooked. Laboring men should eat well. They should, if possible, have meat--_butcher-meat_--ever day. Good broth is a capital dish. But, above all, keep whiskey out of your stomachs; it really plays the very devil when it gets in. It makes the brain mad, it burns the coats of the stomach; it turns the liver into a lump of rottenness; it softens and kills the heart; it makes a man an idiot and a brute. If you really need anything stronger than good meat, take a pot of wholesome porter or ale; but I believe you are better without even that. You will be all the better able to afford good meat, and plenty of it. With regard to your _bowels_,--a very important part of your interior,--I am not going to say much, except that neglect of them brings on many diseases; and laboring men are very apt to neglect them. Many years ago, an odd old man, at Green-cock, left at his death a number of sealed packets to his friends, and on opening them they found a Bible, £50, and a box of pills, and the words, "Fear God, and keep your bowels open." It was good advice, though it might have been rather more decorously worded. If you were a doctor, you would be astonished how many violent diseases of the mind, as well as of the body, are produced by irregularity of the bowels. Many years ago, an old minister, near Linlithgow, was wakened out of his sleep to go to see a great lady in the neighborhood who was thought dying, and whose mind was in dreadful despair, and who wished to see him immediately. The old man, rubbing his eyes, and pushing up his Kilmarnock nightcap, said, "And when were her leddyship's booels opened?" And finding, after some inquiry, that they were greatly in arrears, "I thocht sae. Rax me ower that pill-box on the chimney-piece, and gie my compliments to Leddy Margret, and tell her to tak thae twa pills, and I'll be ower by and by mysel'." They did as he bade them. They did their duty, and the pills did theirs, and her leddyship was relieved, and she was able at breakfast-time to profit by the Christian advice of the good old man, which she could not have done when her nerves were all wrong. The old Greeks, who were always seeking after wisdom, and didn't always find it, showed their knowledge and sense in calling depression of mind Melancholy, which means black bile. Leddy Margret's liver, I have no doubt, had been distilling this perilous stuff. My dear friends, there is one thing I have forgot to mention, and that is about keeping common-stairs clean; you know they are often abominably filthy, and they aggravate fever, and many of your worst and most deadly diseases; for you may keep your own houses never so clean and tidy, but if the common-stair is not kept clean too, all its foul air comes into your rooms, and into your lungs, and poisons you. So let all in the stair resolve to keep it clean, and well aired. But I must stop now. I fear I have wearied you. You see I had nothing new to tell you. The great thing in regulating and benefiting human life, is not to find out new things, but to make the best of the old things,--to live according to Nature, and the will of Nature's God,--that great Being who bids us call him our Father, and who is at this very moment regarding each one of us with far more than any earthly father's compassion and kindness, and who would make us all happy if we would but do his bidding, and take his road. He has given us minds by which we may observe the laws he has ordained in our bodies, and which are as regular and as certain in their effects, and as discoverable by us as the motions of the sun, moon, and stars in the heavens; and we shall not only benefit ourselves and live longer and work better and be happier, by knowing and obeying these laws, from love to ourselves, but we shall please him, we shall glorify him, and make him our _Friend_,--only think of that! and get his blessing, by taking care of our health, from love to him, and a regard to his will, in giving us these bodies of ours to serve him with, and which he has, with his own almighty hands, so fearfully and wonderfully made. I hope you will pardon my plainness in speaking to you. I am quite in earnest, and I have a deep regard, I may say a real affection, for you; for I know you well. I spent many of my early years as a doctor in going about among you. I have attended you long ago when ill; I have delivered your wives, and been in your houses when death was busy with you and yours, and I have seen your fortitude, energy, and honest, hearty, generous kindness to each other; your readiness to help your neighbors with anything you have, and to share your last sixpence and your last loaf with them. I wish I saw half as much real neighborliness and sympathy among what are called your betters. If a poor man falls down in a fit on the street, who is it that takes him up and carries him home, and gives him what he needs? it is not the man with a fine coat and gloves on,--it is the poor, dirty-coated, hard-handed, warm-hearted laboring man. Keep a good hold of all these homely and sturdy virtues, and add to them temperance and diligence, cleanliness and thrift, good knowledge, and, above all, the love and the fear of God, and you will not only be happy yourselves, but you will make this great and wonderful country of ours which rests upon you still more wonderful and great. SERMON V. MEDICAL ODDS AND ENDS. My dear friends,--We are going to ring in now, and end our course. I will be sorry and glad, and you will be the same. We are this about everything. It is the proportion that settles it. I am, upon the whole, as we say, sorry, and I dare say on the whole you are not glad. I dislike parting with anything or anybody I like, for it is ten to one if we meet again. My text is, "_That His way may he known upon earth; His saving health to all nations._" You will find it in that perfect little Psalm, the 67th. But before taking it up, I will, as my dear father used to say,--you all remember him, his keen eye and voice; his white hair, and his grave, earnest, penetrating look; and you should remember and possess his Canongate Sermon to you,--"The Bible, what it is, what it does, and what it deserves,"--well, he used to say, let us _recapitulate_ a little. It is a long and rather kittle word, but it is the only one that we have. He made it longer, but not less alive, by turning it into "a few recapitulatory remarks." What ground then have we travelled over? _First_, our duties to and about the Doctor; to call him in time, to trust him, to obey him, to be grateful to, and to pay him with our money and our hearts and our good word, if we have all these; if we have not the first, with twice as much of the others. _Second_, the Doctor's duties to us. He should be able and willing to cure us. That is what he is there for. He should be sincere, attentive, and tender to us, keeping his time and our secrets. We must tell him all we know about our ailments and their causes, and he must tell us all that is good for us to know, and no more. _Third_, your duties to your children; to the wee Willie Winkies and the little wifies that come toddlin' hame. It is your duty to _mind_ them. It is a capital Scotch use of this word: they are to be in your mind; you are to exercise your understanding about them; to give them simple food; to keep goodies and trash, and raw pears and whiskey, away from their tender mouths and stomachs; to give them that never-ending meal of good air, night and day, which is truly food and fire to them and you; to _be_ good before as well as to them, to speak and require the truth in love,--that is a wonderful expression, isn't it?--the truth in love; that, if acted on by us all, would bring the millennium next week; to be plain and homely with them, never _spaining_ their minds from you. You are all sorry, you mothers, when you have to spain their mouths; it is a dreadful business that to both parties; but there is a spaining of the affections still more dreadful, and that need never be, no, never, neither in this world nor in that which is to come. Dr. Waugh, of London, used to say to bereaved mothers, Rachels weeping for their children, and refusing to be comforted, for that simplest of all reasons, because they were not, after giving them God's words of comfort, clapping them on the shoulders, and fixing his mild deep eyes on them (those who remember those eyes well know what they could mean), "My woman, your bairn is where it will have two fathers, but never but one mother." You should also, when the time comes, explain to your children what about their own health and the ways of the world they ought to know, and for the want of the timely knowledge of which many a life and character has been lost. Show them, moreover, the value you put upon health, by caring for your own. Do your best to get your sons well married, and soon. By "well married," I mean that they should pair off old-fashionedly, for love, and marry what deserves to be loved, as well as what is lovely. I confess I think falling in love is the best way to begin; but then the moment you fall, you should get up and look about you, and see how the land lies, and whether it is as goodly as it looks. I don't like walking into love, or being carried into love; or, above all, being sold or selling yourself into it, which, after all, is not it. And by "soon," I mean as soon as they are keeping themselves; for a wife, such a wife as alone I mean, is cheaper to a young man than no wife, and is his best companion. Then for your duties to yourselves. See that you make yourself do what is _immediately_ just to your body, feed it when it is really hungry; let it sleep when it, not its master, desires sleep; make it happy, poor hard-working fellow! and give it a gambol when it wants it and deserves it, and as long as it can execute it. Dancing is just the music of the feet, and the gladness of the young legs, and is well called the poetry of motion. It is like all other natural pleasures, given to be used, and to be not abused, either by yourself or by those who don't like it, and don't enjoy your doing it,--shabby dogs these, beware of them! And if this be done, it is a good and a grace, as well as pleasure, and satisfies some good end of our being, and in its own way glorifies our Maker. Did you ever see anything in this world more beautiful than the lambs running races and dancing round the big stone of the field; and does not your heart get young when you hear,-- "Here we go by Jingo ring, Jingo ring, Jingo ring; Here we go by Jingo ring, About the merry ma tanzie." This is just a dance in honor of poor old pagan Jingo; measured movements arising from and giving happiness. We have no right to keep ourselves or others from natural pleasures; and we are all too apt to interfere with and judge harshly the pleasures of others; hence we who are stiff and given to other pleasures, and who, now that we are old, know the many wickednesses of the world, are too apt to put the vices of the jaded, empty old heart, like a dark and ghastly fire burnt out, into the feet and the eyes, and the heart and the head of the young. I remember a story of a good old Antiburgher minister. It was in the days when dancing was held to be a great sin, and to be dealt with by the session. Jessie, a comely, and good, and blithe young woman, a great favorite of the minister's, had been guilty of dancing at a friend's wedding. She was summoned before the session to be "dealt with,"--the grim old fellows sternly concentrating their eyes upon her, as she stood trembling in her striped short-gown, and her pretty bare feet. The Doctor, who was one of divinity, and a deep thinker, greatly pitying her and himself, said, "Jessie, my woman, were ye dancin'?" "Yes," sobbed Jessie. "Ye maun e'en promise never to dance again, Jessie." "I wull, sir; I wull promise," with a courtesy. "Now, what were ye thinking o', Jessie, when ye were dancin'? tell us truly," said an old elder, who had been a poacher in youth. "Nae ill, sir," sobbed out the dear little woman. "Then, Jessie, my woman, aye dance," cried the delighted Doctor. And so say I, to the extent, that so long as our young girls think "nae ill," they may dance their own and their feet's fills; and so on with all the round of the sunshine and flowers God has thrown on and along the path of his children. _Lastly_, your duty to your own bodies: to preserve them; to make, or rather let--for they are made so to go--their wheels go sweetly; to keep the _girs_ firm round the old barrel; neither to over nor under work our bodies, and to listen to their teaching and their requests, their cries of pain and sorrow; and to keep them as well as your souls unspotted from the world. If you want to know a good book on Physiology, or the Laws of Health and of Life, get Dr. Combe's _Physiology_; and let all you mothers get his delightful _Management of Infancy_. You will love him for his motherly words. You will almost think he might have worn petticoats,--for tenderness he might; but in mind and will and eye he was every inch a man. It is now long since he wrote, but I have seen nothing so good since; he is so intelligent, so reverent, so full of the solemnity, the sacredness, the beauty, and joy of life, and its work; so full of sympathy for suffering, himself not ignorant of such evil,--for the latter half of his life was a daily, hourly struggle with death, fighting the destroyer from within with the weapons of life, his brain and his conscience. It is very little physiology that you require, so that it is physiology, and is suitable for your need. I can't say I like our common people, or indeed, what we call our ladies and gentlemen, poking curiously into all the ins and outs of our bodies as a general accomplishment, and something to talk of. No, I don't like it. I would rather they chose some other _ology_. But let them get enough to give them awe and love, light and help, guidance and foresight. These, with good sense and good senses, humility, and a thought of a hereafter in this world as well as in the next, will make us as able to doctor ourselves--especially to act in the _preventive service_, which is your main region of power for good--as in this mortal world we have any reason to expect. And let us keep our hearts young, and they will keep our legs and our arms the same. For we know now that hearts are kept going by having strong, pure, lively blood; if bad blood goes into the heart, it gets angry, and shows this by beating at our breasts, and frightening us; and sometimes it dies of sheer anger and disgust, if its blood is poor or poisoned, thin and white. "He may dee, but he'll never grow auld," said a canty old wife of her old minister, whose cheek was ruddy like an apple. _Run for the Doctor_; don't saunter to him, or go in, by the by, as an old elder of my father's did, when his house was on fire. He was a perfect Nathanael, and lived more in the next world than in this, as you will soon see. One winter night he slipped gently into his neighbor's cottage, and found James Somerville reading aloud by the blaze of the licht coal; he leant over the chair, and waited till James closed the book, when he said, "By the by, I am thinkin' ma hoose is on fire!" and out he and they all ran, in time to see the auld biggin' fall in with a glorious blaze. So it is too often when that earthly house of ours--our cottage, our tabernacle--is getting on fire. One moment your finger would put out what in an hour all the waters of Clyde would be too late for. If the Doctor is needed, the sooner the better. If he is not, he can tell you so, and you can rejoice that he had a needless journey, and pay him all the more thankfully. So run early and at once. How many deaths--how many lives of suffering and incapacity--may be spared by being in time! by being a day or two sooner. With children this is especially the case, and with workingmen in the full prime of life. A mustard plaster, a leech, a pill, fifteen drops of Ipecacuanha wine, a bran poultice, a hint, or a stitch in time, may do all and at once, when a red-hot iron, a basinful of blood, all the wisdom of our art, and all the energy of the Doctor, all your tenderness and care, are in vain. Many a child's life is saved by an emetic at night, who would be lost in twelve hours. So send in time; it is just to your child or the patient, and to yourself; it is just to your Doctor; for I assure you we Doctors are often sorry, and angry enough, when we find we are too late. It affronts us, and our powers, besides affronting life and all its meanings, and Him who gives it. And we really _enjoy_ curing; it is like running and winning a race,--like hunting and finding and killing our game. And then remember to go to the Doctor early in the day, as well as in the disease. I always like my patients to send and say that they would like the Doctor "to call before he goes out!" This is like an Irish message, you will say; but there is "sinse" in it. Fancy a Doctor being sent for, just as he is in bed, to see some one, and on going he finds they had been thinking of sending in the morning, and that he has to run neck and neck with death, with the odds all against him. I now wind up with some other odds and ends. I give you them as an old wife would empty her pockets,--such wallets they used to be!--in no regular order; here a bit of string, now a bit of gingerbread, now an "aiple," now a bunch of keys, now an old almanac, now three _bawbees_ and a bad shilling, a "wheen" buttons all marrowless, a thimble, a bit of black sugar, and maybe at the very bottom a "goold guinea." _Shoes._--It is amazing the misery the people of civilization endure in and from their shoes. Nobody is ever, as they should be, comfortable at once in them; they hope in the long-run and after much agony, and when they are nearly done, to make them fit, especially if they can get them once well wet, so that the mighty knob of the big toe may adjust himself and be at ease. For my part, if I were rich, I would advertise for a clean, wholesome man, whose foot was exactly my size, and I would make him wear my shoes till I could put them on, and not know I was in them.[1] Why is all this? Why do you see every man's and woman's feet so out of shape? Why are there corns, with their miseries and maledictions? Why the virulence and unreachableness of those that are "soft"? Why do our nails grow in, and sometimes have to be torn violently off? [1] Frederick the Great kept an aid-de-camp for this purpose, and, poor fellow! he sometimes wore them too long, and got a kicking for his pains. All because the makers and users of shoes have not common sense, and common reverence for God and his works enough to study the shape and motions of that wonderful pivot on which we turn and progress. Because FASHION,--that demon that I wish I saw dressed in her own crinoline, in bad shoes, a man's old hat, and trailing petticoats, and with her (for she must be a _her_) waist well nipped by a circlet of nails with the points inmost, and any other of the small torments, mischiefs, and absurdities she destroys and makes fools of us with,--whom, I say, I wish I saw drummed and hissed, blazing and shrieking, out of the world,--because this contemptible slave, which domineers over her makers, says the shoe must be elegant, must be so and so, and the beautiful living foot must be crushed into it, and human nature must limp along Princess Street and through life natty and wretched. It makes me angry when I think of all this. Now, do you want to know how to put your feet into new shoes, and yourself into a new world? Go and buy from Edmonston and Douglas sixpence worth of sense, in _Why the Shoe Pinches_; you will, if you get your shoemaker to do as it bids him, go on your ways rejoicing; no more knobby, half-dislocated big toes; no more secret parings, and slashings desperate, in order to get on that pair of exquisite boots or shoes. Then there is the _Infirmary_.--Nothing I like better than to see subscriptions to this admirable house of help and comfort to the poor, advertised as from the quarry men of Craigleith; from Mr. Milne the brassfounder's men; from Peeblesshire; from the utmost Orkneys; and from those big, human mastiffs, the navvies. And yet we doctors are often met by the most absurd and obstinate objections by domestic servants in town, and by country people, to going there. This prejudice is lessening, but it is still great. "O, I canna gang into the Infirmary; I would rather dee!" Would you, indeed? Not you, or, if so, the sooner the better. They have a notion that they are experimented on, and slain by the surgeons; neglected and poisoned by the nurses, etc., etc. Such utter nonsense! I know well about the inner life and work of at least our Infirmary, and of that noble old Minto House, now gone; and I would rather infinitely, were I a servant, 'prentice boy, or shopman, a porter, or student, and anywhere but in a house of my own, and even then, go straight to the Infirmary, than lie in a box-bed off the kitchen, or on the top of the coal-bunker, or in a dark hole in the lobby, or in a double-bedded room. The food, the bedding, the physicians, the surgeons, the clerks, the dressers, the medicines, the wine and porter,--and they don't scrimp these when necessary,--the books, the Bibles, the baths, are all good,--are all better far than one man in ten thousand can command in his own house. So off with a grateful heart and a fearless to the Infirmary, and your mistress can come in and sit beside you; and her doctor and yours will look in and single you out with his smile and word, and cheer you and the ward by a kindly joke, and you will come out well cured, and having seen much to do you good for life. I never knew any one who was once in, afraid of going back; they know better. There are few things in human nature finer than the devotion and courage of medical men to their hospital and charitable duties; it is to them a great moral discipline. Not that they don't get good--selfish good--to themselves. Why shouldn't they? Nobody does good without getting it; it is a law of the government of God. But, as a rule, our medical men are not kind and skilful and attentive to their hospital patients, because this is to make them famous, or even because through this they are to get knowledge and fame; they get all this, and it is their only and their great reward. But they are in the main disinterested men. Honesty is the best policy; but, as Dr. Whately, in his keen way, says, "that man is not honest who is so for this reason," and so with the doctors and their patients. And I am glad to say for my profession, few of them take this second-hand line of duty. _Beards._--I am for beards out and out, because I think the Maker of the beard was and is. This is reason enough; but there are many others. The misery of shaving, its expense, its consumption of time,--a very corporation existing for no other purpose but to shave mankind. Campbell the poet, who had always a bad razor, I suppose, and was late of rising, said he believed the man of civilization who lived to be sixty had suffered more pain in littles every day in shaving than a woman with a large family had from her lyings-in. This would be hard to prove; but it is a process that never gets pleasanter by practice; and then the waste of time and temper,--the ugliness of being ill or unshaven. Now, we can easily see advantages in it; the masculine gender is intended to be more out of doors, and more in all weathers than the smooth-chinned ones, and this protects him and his Adam's apple from harm. It acts as the best of all respirators to the mason and the east-wind. Besides, it is a glory; and it must be delightful to have and to stroke a natural beard, not one like bean-stalks or a bottle-brush, but such a beard as Abraham's or Abd-el-Kader's. It is the beginning ever to cut, that makes all the difference. I hazard a theory, that no hair of the head or beard should ever be cut, or needs it, any more than the eyebrows or eyelashes. The finest head of hair I know is one which was never cut. It is not too long; it is soft and thick. The secret where to stop growing is in the end of the native untouched hair. If you cut it off, the poor hair does not know when to stop; and if our eyebrows were so cut, they might be made to hang over our eyes, and be wrought into a veil. Besides, think of the waste of substance of the body in hewing away so much hair every morning, and encouraging an endless rotation of crops! Well, then, I go in for the beards of the next generation, the unshorn beings whose beards will be wagging when we are away; but of course they must be clean. But how are we to sup our porridge and kail? Try it when young, when there is just a shadowy down on the upper lip, and no fears but they will do all this "elegantly" even. Nature is slow and gentle in her teaching even the accomplishment of the spoon. And as for women's hair, don't plaster it with scented and sour grease, or with any grease; it has an oil of its own. And don't tie up your hair tight, and make it like a cap of iron over your skull. And why are your ears covered? You hear all the worse, and they are not the cleaner. Besides, the ear is beautiful in itself, and plays its own part in the concert of the features. Go back to the curls, some of you, and try in everything to dress as it becomes you, and as you become; not as that fine lady, or even your own Tibbie or Grizzy chooses to dress, it may be becomingly to her. Why shouldn't we even in dress be more ourselves than somebody or everybody else? I had a word about _Teeth_. Don't get young children's teeth drawn. At least, let this be the rule. Bad teeth come of bad health and bad and hot food, and much sugar. I can't say I am a great advocate for the common people going in for tooth-brushes. No, they are not necessary in full health. The healthy man's teeth clean themselves, and so does his skin. A good dose of Gregory often puts away the toothache. It is a great thing, however, to get them early stuffed, if they need it; that really keeps them and your temper whole. For appearance' sake merely, I hate false teeth, as I hate a wig. But this is not a matter to dogmatize about. I never was, I think, deceived by either false hair, or false teeth, or false eyes, or false cheeks, for there are in the high--I don't call it the great--world, plumpers for making the cheeks round, as well as a certain dust for making them bloom. But you and I don't enjoy such advantages. _Rheumatism_ is peculiarly a disease of the workingman. One old physician said its only cure was patience and flannel. Another said six weeks. But I think good flannel and no drunkenness (observe, I don't say no drinking, though very nearly so) are its best preventives. It is a curious thing, the way in which cold gives rheumatism. Suppose a man is heated and gets cooled, and being very well at any rate, and is sitting or sleeping in a draught; the exposed part is chilled; the pores of its skin, which are always exuding and exhaling waste from the body, contract and shut in this bad stuff; it--this is my theory--not getting out is taken up by a blunder of the deluded absorbents, who are always prowling about for something, and it is returned back to the centre, and finds its way into the blood, and poisons it, affecting the heart, and carrying bad money, bad change, bad fat, bad capital all over the body, making nerves, lungs, everything unhappy and angry. This vitiated blood arrives by and by at the origin of its mischief, the chilled shoulder, and here it wreaks its vengeance, and in doing so, does some general good at local expense. It gives pain; it produces a certain inflammation of its own, and if it is not got rid of by the skin and other ways, it may possibly kill by the rage the body gets in, and the heat; or it may inflame the ill-used heart itself, and then either kill, or give the patient a life of suffering and peril. The medicines we give act not only by detecting this poison of blood, which, like yeast, leavens all in its neighborhood, but by sending it out of the body like a culprit. _Vaccination._--One word for this. Never neglect it; get it done within two months after birth, and see that it is well done; and get all your neighbors to do it. _Infectious Diseases._--Keep out of their way; kill them by fresh air and cleanliness; defy them by cheerfulness, good food (_better_ food than usual, in such epidemics as cholera), good sleep, and a good conscience. When in the midst of and waiting on those who are under the scourge of an epidemic, be as little very close to the patient as you can, and don't inhale his or her breath or exhalations when you can help it; be rather in the current to, than from him. Be very cleanly in putting away all excretions at once, and quite away; go frequently into the fresh air; and don't sleep in your day clothes. Do what the Doctor bids you; don't crowd round your dying friend; you are stealing his life in taking his air, and you are quietly killing yourself. This is one of the worst and most unmanageable of our Scottish habits, and many a time have I cleared the room of all but one, and dared them to enter it. Then you should, in such things as small-pox, as indeed in everything, carry out the Divine injunction, "_Whatsoever_ ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them." Don't send for the minister to pray with and over the body of a patient in fever or delirium, or a child dying of small-pox or malignant scarlet fever; tell him, by all means, and let him pray with you, and for your child. Prayers, you know, are like gravitation, or the light of heaven; they will go from whatever place they are uttered; and if they are real prayers, they go straight and home to the centre, the focus of all things; and you know that poor fellow with the crust of typhus on his lips, and its nonsense on his tongue,--that child tossing in misery, not knowing even its own mother,--what can they know, what heed can they give to the prayer of the minister? He may do all the good he can,--the most good maybe when, like Moses on the hillside, in the battle with Amalek, he uplifts his hands apart. No! a word spoken by your minister to himself and his God, a single sigh for mercy to him who is mercy, a cry of hope, of despair of self, opening into trust in him, may save that child's life, when an angel might pour forth in vain his burning, imploring words into the dull or wild ears of the sufferer, in the vain hope of getting _him_ to pray. I never would allow my father to go to typhus cases; and I don't think they lost anything by it. I have seen him rising in the dark of his room from his knees, and I knew whose case he had been laying at the footstool. And now, my dear friends, I find I have exhausted our time, and never yet got to the sermon, and its text--"_That the way of God_"--what is it? It is his design in setting you here; it is the road he wishes you to walk in; it is his providence in your minutest as in the world's mightiest things; it is his will expressed in his works and word, and in your own soul it is his salvation. That it "_may be known_," that the understandings of his intelligent, responsible, mortal and immortal creatures should be directed to it, to study and (as far as we ever can or need) to understand that which, in its fulness, passes all understanding; that it may be known "_on the earth_," here, in this very room, this very minute; not, as too many preachers and performers do, to be known only in the next world,--men who, looking at the stars, stumble at their own door, and it may be _smoor_ their own child, besides despising, upsetting, and extinguishing their own lantern. No! the next world is only to be reached through this; and our road through this our wilderness is not safe unless on the far beyond there is shining the lighthouse on the other side of the dark river that has no bridge. Then "_His saving health_"; His health--whose?--God's--his soundness, the wholeness, the perfectness, that is alone in and from him,--health of body, of heart, and brain, health to the finger-ends, health for eternity as well as time. "_Saving_"; we need to be saved, and we are salvable, this is much; and God's health can save us, that is more. When a man or woman is fainting from loss of blood, we sometimes try to save them, when all but gone, by transfusing the warm rich blood of another into their veins. Now this is what God, through his Son, desires to do; to transfuse his blood, himself, through his Son, who is himself, into us, diseased and weak. "_And_" refers to his health being "_known_," recognized, accepted, used, "_among all nations_"; not among the U.P.s, or the Frees, or the Residuaries, or the Baptists, or the New Jerusalem people,--nor among us in the Canongate, or in Biggar, or even in old Scotland, but "among all nations"; then, and only then, will the people praise thee, O God; will all the people praise thee. Then, and then only, will the earth yield her increase, and God, even our own God, will bless us. God will bless us, and all the ends of the earth shall fear him. And now, my dear and patient friends, we must say good night. You have been very attentive, and it has been a great pleasure to me as we went on to preach to you. We came to understand one another. You saw through my jokes, and that they were not always nothing but jokes. You bore with my solemnities, because I am not altogether solemn; and so good night, and God bless you, and may you, as Don Quixote, on his death-bed, says to Sancho, May you have your eyes closed by the soft fingers of your great-grandchildren. But no, I must shake hands with you, and kiss the bairns,--why shouldn't I? if their mouths are clean and their breath sweet? As for you, _Ailie_, you are wearying for the child; and he is tumbling and fretting in his cradle, and wearying for you; good by, and away you go on your milky way. I wish I could (unseen) see you two enjoying each other. And good night, my bonnie _wee wifie_; you are sleepy, and you must be up to make your father's porridge; and _Master William Winkie_, will you be still for one moment while I address you? Well, Master William, _wamble_ not off your mother's lap, neither rattle in your excruciating way in an airn jug wi' an airn spoon; no more crowing like a cock, or skirlin' like a kenna-what. I had much more to say to you, sir, but you will not bide still; off with you, and a blessing with you. Good night, _Hugh Cleland_, the best smith of any smiddy; with your bowly back, your huge arms, your big heavy brows and eyebrows, your clear eye, and warm unforgetting heart. And you, _John Noble_, let me grip your horny hand, and count the queer knobs made by the perpetual mell. I used, when I was a Willie Winkie, and wee, to think that you were born with them. Never mind, you were born for them, and of old you handled the trowel well, and built to the plumb. _Thomas Bertram_, your loom is at a discount, but many's the happy day I have watched you and your shuttle, and the interweaving treadles, and all the mysteries of setting the "wab." You are looking well, and though not the least of an ass, you might play Bottom must substantially yet. _Andrew Wilson_, across the waste of forty years and more I snuff the fragrance of your shop; have you forgiven me yet for stealing your paint-pot (awful joy!) for ten minutes to adorn my rabbit-house, and for blunting your pet _furmer_? Wise you were always, and in the saw-pit you spoke little, and wore your crape. Yourself wears well, but take heed of swallowing your shavings unawares, as is the trick of you "wrights"; they confound the interior and perplex the Doctor. _Rob Rough_, you smell of rosin, and your look is stern, nevertheless, or all the rather, give me your hand. What a grip! You have been the most sceptical of all my hearers; you like to try everything, and you hold fast only what you consider good; and then on your _crepida_ or stool, you have your own think about everything human and divine, as you smite down errors on the lapstane, and "yerk" your arguments with a well-rosined lingle; throw your window open for yourself as well as for your blackbird; and make your shoes not to pinch. I present you, sir, with a copy of the book of the wise Switzer. And nimble _Pillans_, the clothier of the race, and quick as your needle, strong as your corduroys, I bid you good night. May you and the cooper be like him of Fogo, each a better man than his father; and you, _Mungo_ the mole-catcher, and _Tod Laurie_, and _Sir Robert_ the cadger, and all the other odd people, I shake your fists twice, for I like your line. I often wish I had been a mole-catcher, with a brown velveteen, or (fine touch of tailoric fancy!) a moleskin coat; not that I dislike moles,--I once ate the fore-quarter of one, having stewed it in a Florence flask, some forty years ago, and liked it,--but I like the killing of them, and the country by-ways, and the regularly irregular life, and the importance of my trade. And good night to you all, you women-folks. _Marion Graham_ the milkwoman; _Tibbie Meek_ the single servant; _Jenny Muir_ the sempstress; _Mother Johnston_ the howdie, thou consequential Mrs. Gamp, presiding at the gates of life; and you in the corner there, _Nancy Cairns_, gray-haired, meek and old, with your crimped mutch as white as snow; the shepherd's widow, the now childless mother, you are stepping home to your _bein_ and lonely room, where your cat is now ravelling a' her thrums, wondering where "she" is. Good night to you all, big and little, young and old; and go home to your bedside, there is Some One waiting there for you, and his Son is here ready to take you to him. Yes, he is waiting for every one of you, and you have only to say, "Father, I have sinned,--take me"--and he sees you a great way off. But to reverse the parable; it is the first-born, your elder brother, who is at your side, and leads you to your Father, and says, "I have paid his debt"; that Son who is ever with him, whose is all that he hath. I need not say more. You know what I mean. You know who is waiting, and you know who it is who stands beside you, having the likeness of the Son of Man. Good night! The night cometh in which neither you nor I can work,--may we work while it is day; whatsoever thy _hand_ findeth to do, do it with thy might, for there is no work or device in the grave, whither we are all of us hastening; and when the night is spent, may we all enter on a healthful, a happy, an everlasting to-morrow! Cambridge: Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co. VEST-POCKET SERIES OF Standard and Popular Authors. The great popularity of the "Little Classics" has proved anew the truth of Dr. Johnson's remark: "Books that you may carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are the most useful after all." The attractive character of their contents has been very strongly commended to public favor by the convenient size of the volumes. These were not too large to be carried to the fire or held readily in the hand, and consequently they have been in great request wherever they have become known. _The Vest-Pocket Series_ consists of volumes yet smaller than the "Little Classics." Their Lilliputian size, legible type, and flexible cloth binding make them peculiarly convenient for carrying on short journeys; and the excellence of their contents makes them desirable always and everywhere. The series includes STORIES, ESSAYS, SKETCHES, AND POEMS SELECTED FROM THE WRITINGS OF _Emerson_, _Longfellow_, _Whittier_, _Hawthorne_, _Carlyle_, _Aldrich_, _Hood_, _Gray_, _Aytoun_, _Tennyson_, _Lowell_, _Holmes_, _Browning_, _Macaulay_, _Milton_, _Campbell_, _Owen Meredith_, _Pope_, _Thomson_, AND OTHERS OF EQUAL FAME. The volumes are beautifully printed, many of them illustrated, and bound in flexible cloth covers, at a uniform price of =FIFTY CENTS EACH.= JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO., PUBLISHERS, BOSTON. WORKS OF DR. JOHN BROWN. "_Of all the John Browns, commend us to Dr. John Brown, the physician, the man of genius, the humorist, the student of men, women, and dogs. By means of two beautiful volumes he has given the public a share of his by-hours; and more pleasant hours it would be difficult to find in any life._"--London Times. SPARE HOURS. First Series, I vol. 16mo. Cloth, $2.00; Half calf, $3.75. _CONTENTS._--Rab and his Friends.--"With Brains, Sir."--The Mystery of Black and Tan.--Her Last Half-Crown.--Our Dogs.--Queen Mary's Child-Garden.--Presence of Mind and Happy Guessing.--My Father's Memoir.--Mystifications.--"Oh, I'm wat, wat!"--Arthur H. Hallam.--Education through the Senses.--Vaughan's Poems.--Dr. Chalmers.--Dr. George Wilson.--St. Paul's Thorn in the Flesh.--The Black Dwarf's Bones.--Notes on Art. "Dr. John Brown is a medical practitioner in Edinburgh, whose leisure mements have been devoted to the cultivation of letters, and who, without the slightest degree of formality or reserve, pours out his feelings on paper, showing himself equally at home in the sphere of genial criticism, pathetic sentiment, and gay and sportive humor. His confessions have the frankness of Montaigne, and almost the playful _naïveté_ of Charles Lamb, combined with a vein of tender earnestness that stamps the individuality of the writer. The tone of his remarks is uniformly healthful, showing a genuine love of nature, and a cordial sympathy with all conditions of humanity."--_New York Tribune._ =SPARE HOURS.= Second Series, I vol. 16mo. With Steel Portrait and Illustrations. Cloth, $2.00; Half calf, $3.75. _CONTENTS._--John Leech.--Marjorie Fleming.--Jeems the Door-keeper.--Minchmoor.--The Enterkin.--Health: Five Lay Sermons to Working-People.--The Duke of Athole.--Struan.--Thackeray's Death.--Thackeray's Literary Career.--More of "Our Dogs."--Plea for a Dog Home.--"Bibliomania."--"In Clear Dream and Solemn Vision."--A Jacobite Family. "An excellent portrait of the author, showing a broad brow, and a face replete with sense, shrewdness, humor, and resolute force, adds to the attractiveness of one of the most attractive volumes of essays published for a long period."--_Boston Transcript._ =RAB AND HIS FRIENDS.= Paper, 25 cents. "Dr. Brown's masterpiece is the story of a dog called 'Rab.' The tale moves from the most tragic pathos to the most reckless humor, and could not have been written but by a man of genius. Whether it moves to laughter or to tears, it is perfect in its way, and immortalizes its author."--_London Times._ "A veritable gem. It is true, simple, pathetic, and touched with an antique grace."--_Fraser's Magazine._ =MARJORIE FLEMING ("Pet Marjorie").= Paper, 25 cents. "A story of one of the most exquisite children, miraculously brilliant, thoughtful, and fascinating."--_Detroit Post._ "A quaint, winning, sympathetic, beautiful sketch of child-life."--_Springfield Republican._ JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO., PUBLISHERS, BOSTON. 
59495	----	REJECT BY JOHN JOHNSON _The officials had been napping the day Donnie passed inspection.... How else could you explain such an error in his emotional conditioning?_ [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, August 1956. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Donnie clenched his small fists and tried not to cry, but two elliptical tears ran slowly down his cheeks. The sight of them made Mr. Ames even madder. "Look at him," he stormed, turning to Martha. "Just look at him. Every damn time I try to reason with him, he starts to snivel like an animal, instead of acting like a normal human being." Mr. Ames flicked his cigar ashes toward a vacuum cup on the wall and looked down at the boy. "Now stop that stupid crying and tell me what this is all about." Donnie sniffled a couple of times and wiped his nose on the back of one of his blue uniform sleeves. "Well," Mr. Ames said, coldly. The boy took a deep breath and raised his head. "I want you to spend some time with me," he said. "I want you to--" he searched the elusive shadows of memory until he found the word he wanted--"I want you to _play_ with me. That's it. I want you to play with me once in a while." Mr. Ames blinked his eyes and stepped back. "Play," he repeated. "What do you mean _play_?" Donnie hesitated. "You know," he said, finally, "take me on long walks and sit down and play games and tell me stories once in a while." "But you've got all the stories you need," Mr. Ames said, waving his hand at the banks of audiotapes stacked neatly on the wall shelves. "And your audio-prompter can tell them better than I can." "Yes," Donnie said, "but that's a machine and I want--" "What's wrong with a machine," Mr. Ames said, his face getting red. "Some of our best things come from machines. Didn't they teach you that at the Incubator?" "Yes," the boy said, "but isn't there anything besides machines? I can't play with machines, I want to play with you!" He began to sob again. Mr. Ames dashed his cigar to the floor. "I give up," he said. "By the Red Balls of Jupiter, I give up!" "Now, Henry," his wife said. "Remember, the boy's only seven." "Don't 'Henry' me," Mr. Ames said, "And besides, what does being seven have to do with it. When I was his age, I was an honor student in physics. _He_ can't even pass algebra." Donnie stared at the toes of his boots. "I've given this kid everything," Mr. Ames went on. "He's going to the best pre-nuclear school in the whole hemisphere. He's got his own rocket kit. Why, he's even been on a study cruise to the moon! How many kids his age have been to the moon already? I bet no other kid in our project has been there. And what do I get as a reward." Mr. Ames didn't wait for an answer. "Trouble. That's what I get, trouble. Why in Galaxy he can't leave me alone like a normal child is more than I can understand." He stopped for breath and lit a fresh cigar. "Maybe the boy's sick," Martha said timidly. Mr. Ames ignored her. "I've tried to be a good father to him," he said, his voice self-righteous. "I'm giving him a chance to make something out of himself. All I ask is that he be of service to the world, and make me proud of him some day. But what does he do? Does he concentrate on his career, like the rest of the kids? Hell, no, he wants to hang around me, always underfoot, always asking stupid questions. Play!" Mr. Ames snorted. "It's not just play." "Heh, what's that?" Mr. Ames jumped. "I said it's not just play," Donnie repeated, bravely brushing away his tears. "You don't give me any--" he searched again for the right word--"any _companionship_. A boy needs companionship. Don't you understand?" "No, I don't," Mr. Ames said. "And I'm sure they didn't teach you that in the Incubator either. Don't you realize you should be fully coordinated by now. Instead, you want me to take time from my work--Why it's preposterous. It's, it's--unscientific!" "But, all I want--" Mr. Ames held up his hand. "Enough of this," he said. "I refuse to discuss it anymore. Now go to your room and get ready for your study period." The boy burst out crying again and ran out of the room. Mr. Ames shook his head. "Definite neurotic tendencies," he muttered to himself. "What dear?" his wife said. "Nothing, Martha," he answered. "Just talking to myself." He sat down heavily on the couch and sighed. What was wrong with Donnie, anyway? Where did he get those archaic ideas from? Surely he had been taught that the whole purpose of the incubator system was to speed up learning and growth processes so children wouldn't have to waste precious years growing up, like they did in the old days. Why their new technological age simply had no time to fool around with infantile desires. There were too many things to do, too many knotty scientific problems to solve. Emotions, Mr. Ames mumbled to himself, you never could trust your damn emotions. That night, after Donnie was in bed, Mr. Ames went to his study and pulled out the boy's file. It explained what he was fitted for, what abilities he had inherited, and what his primary training included. Mr. Ames noted sadly that the boy's Scientific Quotient was 142, well above normal, and that he would stand six feet tall and weigh close to 195 pounds when fully developed. Mr. Ames, who was incubator-born himself, was completely sold on the ingenious system the Federation of World Councils had devised. No more hit-and-miss mass reproduction, where morons were gradually out-breeding intelligent beings, but instead, selective artificial insemination through which only the best strains were permitted to reproduce. Each generation, the human race got healthier and smarter. Insanity and inherited diseases were a thing of the past and nature's primitive law--only the fittest shall survive--was now a glittering reality. Why the Federated Incubators even took over the burden of educating the children for the first five years. Parents no longer had to be bothered caring for helpless, bawling brats. By the time Incubates were placed on the available list, they were completely self-sufficient and emotionally conditioned to fit into any family group. Parents simply picked what they wanted. Mr. Ames, of course, had selected a future nuclear-chemist. It was a beautiful system, Mr. Ames told himself, and even more important, it worked. But somehow, some way, there was something radically wrong with their child. "Definite neurotic symptoms," Mr. Ames murmured, half aloud. By Jupiter, there was only one thing to do. He shut the folder firmly and spun around to the trans-audio. A green light appeared on the panel almost immediately. "Your connection, please?" the automon said. "Give me the local Incubator." There was a pause, then a click. "Federated Health and Service, coordinator speaking. May I help you?" "Yes. This is Mr. Henry Ames, over at the Amarillo Group Project. I have a complaint to make." "Yes?" The coordinator, a woman, was carefully polite. "It's about the child you sent us." "Specimen please?" "What? Oh, it's a boy, Class Triple A, breed, nuclear chemistry. We got him about 18 months ago and--" "What is your number please?" "It's ... just a minute." Mr. Ames consulted the folder. "My number is 34-72-oh-41. And we've got a three-year guarantee," he added pointedly. "Yes, sir. Just a minute sir." There was a whirring sound at the other end of the circuit. After a short wait, the coordinator's voice came through again. "Well, sir," she said. "You have the select model in our scientific line of seven-year-olds. According to our records, he checked out perfectly on all phases of learning and aptitude. Have you tried memory teaching?" "Yes, I've tried memory teaching. He learns fine." Mr. Ames stopped. "Look, you don't seem to understand. He's okay as far as performance goes. He does everything we tell him and all that, but he's still a real pain in the--I mean, he's developing very annoying characteristics." "Please go on, Mr. Ames." The coordinator's voice was warm and sympathetic. "How does he annoy you?" "Well, for one thing, he's getting pronounced possessive tendencies. He almost seems to resent being left alone. Why, just this evening he told me he wants us to _play_ with him!" "Did you say _play_ with him?" "That's right," Mr. Ames said, triumphantly. "And he says he needs companionship, or something like that." "Companionship," the coordinator repeated. "Oh, dear. This is more serious than I thought. I'm afraid you definitely have a reject, Mr. Ames. If he shows these tendencies at this early age, then the situation will be intolerable later on." "It's intolerable right now," Henry insisted. "Anyway, I thought you people were supposed to clear up all this emotional unbalance in the primary psych indoctrination." "We usually do," the coordinator agreed, "but every once in a while, one slips through inspection with faulty communal-perception. The one you've got is obviously a throw-back." The coordinator coughed apologetically. "It's really not the boy's fault, of course, but I'm afraid we'll have to reclaim him." "The sooner the better," Mr. Ames said. "This mess is upsetting my work at the lab. When can I get a replacement?" "We'll send a new model over when we pick up the reject. Will tomorrow morning be convenient?" "Sure. Fine. Just make sure this one is normal. You better check our physio records too. I hear the people down the circle got one that didn't look like them at all." "Don't worry," the coordinator assured him. "You'll get a boy you can be proud of this time. Will there be anything more now?" "No, no, I guess not." An uneasy feeling slipped into Mr. Ames's consciousness. "I just wondered," he said, suddenly. "What will happen to Don--I mean, the reject you sent us. Will he be--uh--destroyed?" The coordinator laughed. "Heavens, no, Mr. Ames," she said, lightly. "He'll be sent to the Biological Reservation and allowed to live out his life span with other rejects. He'll be much happier there. We're not savages, you know." "That's right," Mr. Ames said, his tone matching her brightness. "We're not savages. Well, we'll be expecting the new one tomorrow, and thanks for all your trouble." "No trouble at all," the coordinator said, smoothly. "Feel free to call on us any time." 
10335	----	Team. CHILDREN'S RIGHTS _A BOOK OF NURSERY LOGIC_ BY KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN "A court as of angels, A public not to be bribed. Not to be entreated, Not to be overawed." 1892 PREFATORY NOTE I am indebted to the Editors of Scribner's Magazine, the Cosmopolitan, and Babyhood, for permission to reprint the three essays which have appeared in their pages. The others are published for the first time. It may be well to ward off the full seriousness of my title "Nursery Logic" by saying that a certain informality in all of these papers arises from the fact that they were originally talks given before members of societies interested in the training of children. Three of them--"Children's Stories," "How Shall we Govern our Children," and "The Magic of 'Together'"--have been written for this book by my sister, Miss Nora Smith. K.D.W. NEW YORK, _August_, 1892. CONTENTS THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD CHILDREN'S PLAYS CHILDREN'S PLAYTHINGS WHAT SHALL CHILDREN READ? CHILDREN'S STORIES. _Nora A. Smith_ THE RELATION OF THE KINDERGARTEN TO SOCIAL REFORM HOW SHALL WE GOVERN OUR CHILDREN? _Nora A. Smith_ THE MAGIC OF "TOGETHER." _Nora A. Smith_. THE RELATION OF THE KINDERGARTEN TO THE PUBLIC SCHOOL OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD "Give me liberty, or give me death!" The subject of Children's Rights does not provoke much sentimentalism in this country, where, as somebody says, the present problem of the children is the painless extinction of their elders. I interviewed the man who washes my windows, the other morning, with the purpose of getting at the level of his mind in the matter. "Dennis," I said, as he was polishing the glass, "I am writing an article on the 'Rights of Children.' What do you think about it?" Dennis carried his forefinger to his head in search of an idea, for he is not accustomed to having his intelligence so violently assaulted, and after a moment's puzzled thought he said, "What do I think about it, mum? Why, I think we'd ought to give 'em to 'em. But Lor', mum, if we don't, they _take_ 'em, so what's the odds?" And as he left the room I thought he looked pained that I should spin words and squander ink on such a topic. The French dressmaker was my next victim. As she fitted the collar of an effete civilization on my nineteenth century neck, I put the same question I had given to Dennis. "The rights of the child, madame?" she asked, her scissors poised in air. "Yes, the rights of the child." "Is it of the American child, madame?" "Yes," said I nervously, "of the American child." "Mon Dieu! he has them!" This may well lead us to consider rights as opposed to privileges. A multitude of privileges, or rather indulgences, can exist with a total disregard of the child's rights. You remember the man who said he could do without necessities if you would give him luxuries enough. The child might say, "I will forego all my privileges, if you will only give me my rights: a little less sentiment, please,--more justice!" There are women who live in perfect puddles of maternal love, who yet seem incapable of justice; generous to a fault, perhaps, but seldom just. _Who owns the child_? If the parent owns him,--mind, body, and soul, we must adopt one line of argument; if, as a human being, he owns himself, we must adopt another. In my thought the parent is simply a divinely appointed guardian, who acts for his child until he attains what we call the age of discretion,--that highly uncertain period which arrives very late in life with some persons, and not at all with others. The rights of the parent being almost unlimited, it is a very delicate matter to decide just when and where they infringe upon the rights of the child. There is no standard; the child is the creature of circumstances. The mother can clothe him in Jaeger wool from head to foot, or keep him in low neck, short sleeves and low stockings, because she thinks it pretty; she can feed him exclusively on raw beef, or on vegetables, or on cereals; she can give him milk to drink, or let him sip his father's beer and wine; put him to bed at sundown, or keep him up till midnight; teach him the catechism and the thirty-nine articles, or tell him there is no God; she can cram him with facts before he has any appetite or power of assimilation, or she can make a fool of him. She can dose him with old-school remedies, with new-school remedies, or she can let him die without remedies because she doesn't believe in the reality of disease. She is quite willing to legislate for his stomach, his mind, his soul, her teachableness, it goes without saying, being generally in inverse proportion to her knowledge; for the arrogance of science is humility compared with the pride of ignorance. In these matters the child has no rights. The only safeguard is the fact that if parents are absolutely brutal, society steps in, removes the untrustworthy guardian, and appoints another. But society does nothing, can do nothing, with the parent who injures the child's soul, breaks his will, makes him grow up a liar or a coward, or murders his faith. It is not very long since we decided that when a parent brutally abused his child, it could be taken from him and made the ward of the state; the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children is of later date than the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. At a distance of a century and a half we can hardly estimate how powerful a blow Rousseau struck for the rights of the child in his educational romance, "Emile." It was a sort of gospel in its day. Rousseau once arrested and exiled, his book burned by the executioner (a few years before he would have been burned with it), his ideas naturally became a craze. Many of the reforms for which he passionately pleaded are so much a part of our modern thought that we do not realize the fact that in those days of routine, pedantry and slavish worship of authority, they were the daring dreams of an enthusiast, the seeming impossible prophecy of a new era. Aristocratic mothers were converts to his theories, and began nursing their children as he commanded them. Great lords began to learn handicrafts; physical exercise came into vogue; everything that Emile did, other people wanted to do. With all Rousseau's vagaries, oddities, misconceptions, posings, he rescued the individuality of the child and made a tremendous plea for a more natural, a more human education. He succeeded in making people listen where Rabelais and Montaigne had failed; and he inspired other teachers, notably Pestalozzi and Froebel, who knit up his ragged seams of theory, and translated his dreams into possibilities. Rousseau vindicated to man the right of "Being." Pestalozzi said "Grow!" Froebel, the greatest of the three, cried "Live! you give bread to men, but I give men to themselves!" The parent whose sole answer to criticism or remonstrance is "I have a right to do what I like with my own child!" is the only impossible parent. His moral integument is too thick to be pierced with any shaft however keen. To him we can only say as Jacques did to Orlando, "God be with you; let's meet as little as we can." But most of us dare not take this ground. We may not philosophize or formulate, we may not live up to our theories, but we feel in greater or less degree the responsibility of calling a human being hither, and the necessity of guarding and guiding, in one way or another, that which owes its being to us. We should all agree, if put to the vote, that a child has a right to be well born. That was a trenchant speech of Henry Ward Beecher's on the subject of being "born again;" that if he could be born right the first time he'd take his chances on the second. "Hereditary rank," says Washington Irving, "may be a snare and a delusion, but hereditary virtue is a patent of innate nobility which far outshines the blazonry of heraldry." Over the unborn our power is almost that of God, and our responsibility, like His toward us; as we acquit ourselves toward them, so let Him deal with us. Why should we be astonished at the warped, cold, unhappy, suspicious natures we see about us, when we reflect upon the number of unwished-for, unwelcomed children in the world;--children who at best were never loved until they were seen and known, and were often grudged their being from the moment they began to be. I wonder if sometimes a starved, crippled, agonized human body and soul does not cry out, "Why, O man, O woman--why, being what I am, have you suffered me to be?" Physiologists and psychologists agree that the influences affecting the child begin before birth. At what hour they begin, how far they can be controlled, how far directed and modified, modern science is not assured; but I imagine those months of preparation were given for other reasons than that the cradle and the basket and the wardrobe might be ready;--those long months of supreme patience, when the life-germ is growing from unconscious to conscious being, and when a host of mysterious influences and impulses are being carried silently from mother to child. And if "beauty born of murmuring sound shall pass into" its "face," how much more subtly shall the grave strength of peace, the sunshine of hope and sweet content, thrill the delicate chords of being, and warm the tender seedling into richer life. Mrs. Stoddard speaks of that sacred passion, maternal love, that "like an orange-tree, buds and blossoms and bears at once." When a true woman puts her finger for the first time into the tiny hand of her baby, and feels that helpless clutch which tightens her very heart-strings, she is born again with the new-born child. A mother has a sacred claim on the world; even if that claim rest solely on the fact of her motherhood, and not, alas, on any other. Her life may be a cipher, but when the child comes, God writes a figure before it, and gives it value. Once the child is born, one of his inalienable rights, which we too often deny him, is the right to his childhood. If we could only keep from untwisting the morning-glory, only be willing to let the sunshine do it! Dickens said real children went out with powder and top-boots; and yet the children of Dickens's time were simple buds compared with the full-blown miracles of conventionality and erudition we raise nowadays. There is no substitute for a genuine, free, serene, healthy, bread-and-butter childhood. A fine manhood or womanhood can be built on no other foundation; and yet our American homes are so often filled with hurry and worry, our manner of living is so keyed to concert pitch, our plan of existence so complicated, that we drag the babies along in our wake, and force them to our artificial standards, forgetting that "sweet flowers are slow, and weeds make haste." If we must, or fancy that we must, lead this false, too feverish life, let us at least spare them! By keeping them forever on tiptoe we are in danger of producing an army of conventional little prigs, who know much more than they should about matters which are profitless even to their elders. In the matter of clothing, we sacrifice children continually to the "Moloch of maternal vanity," as if the demon of dress did not demand our attention, sap our energy, and thwart our activities soon enough at best. And the right kind of children, before they are spoiled by fine feathers, do detest being "dressed up" beyond a certain point. A tiny maid of my acquaintance has an elaborate Parisian gown, which is fastened on the side from top to bottom in some mysterious fashion, by a multitude of tiny buttons and cords. It fits the dear little mouse like a glove, and terminates in a collar which is an instrument of torture to a person whose patience has not been developed from year to year by similar trials. The getting of it on is anguish, and as to the getting of it off, I heard her moan to her nurse the other night, as she wriggled her curly head through the too-small exit, "Oh I only God knows how I hate gettin' peeled out o' this dress!" The spectacle of a small boy whom I meet sometimes in the horse-cars, under the wing of his predestinate idiot of a mother, wrings my very soul. Silk hat, ruffled shirt, silver-buckled shoes, kid gloves, cane, velvet suit, with one two-inch pocket which is an insult to his sex,--how I pity the pathetic little caricature! Not a spot has he to locate a top, or a marble, or a nail, or a string, or a knife, or a cooky, or a nut; but as a bloodless substitute for these necessities of existence, he has a toy watch (that will not go) and an embroidered handkerchief with cologne on it. As to keeping children too clean for any mortal use, I suppose nothing is more disastrous. The divine right to be gloriously dirty a large portion of the time, when dirt is a necessary consequence of direct, useful, friendly contact with all sorts of interesting, helpful things, is too clear to be denied. The children who have to think of their clothes before playing with the dogs, digging in the sand, helping the stableman, working in the shed, building a bridge, or weeding the garden, never get half their legitimate enjoyment out of life. And unhappy fate, do not many of us have to bring up children without a vestige of a dog, or a sand heap, or a stable, or a shed, or a brook, or a garden! Conceive, if you can, a more difficult problem than giving a child his rights in a city flat. You may say that neither do we get ours: but bad as we are, we are always good enough to wish for our children the joys we miss ourselves. Thrice happy is the country child, or the one who can spend a part of his young life among living things, near to Nature's heart How blessed is the little toddling thing who can lie flat in the sunshine and drink in the beauty of the "green things growing," who can live among the other little animals, his brothers and sisters in feathers and fur; who can put his hand in that of dear mother Nature, and learn his first baby lessons without any meddlesome middleman; who is cradled in sweet sounds "from early morn to dewy eve," lulled to his morning nap by hum of crickets and bees, and to his night's slumber by the sighing of the wind, the plash of waves, or the ripple of a river. He is a part of the "shining web of creation," learning to spell out the universe letter by letter as he grows sweetly, serenely, into a knowledge of its laws. I have a good deal of sympathy for the little people during their first eight or ten years, when they are just beginning to learn life's lessons, and when the laws which govern them must often seem so strange and unjust. It is not an occasion for a big burning sympathy, perhaps, but for a tender little one, with a half smile in it, as we think of what we were, and "what in young clothes we hoped to be, and of how many things have come across;" for childhood is an eternal promise which no man ever keeps. The child has a right to a place of his own, to things of his own, to surroundings which have some relation to his size, his desires, and his capabilities. How should we like to live, half the time, in a place where the piano was twelve feet tall, the door knobs at an impossible height, and the mantel shelf in the sky; where every mortal thing was out of reach except a collection of highly interesting objects on dressing-tables and bureaus, guarded, however, by giants and giantesses, three times as large and powerful as ourselves, forever saying, "mustn't touch;" and if we did touch we should be spanked, and have no other method of revenge save to spank back symbolically on the inoffensive persons of our dolls? Things in general are so disproportionate to the child's stature, so far from his organs of prehension, so much above his horizontal line of vision, so much ampler than his immediate surroundings, that there is, between him and all these big things, a gap to be filled only by a microcosm of playthings which give him his first object-lessons. In proof of which let him see a lady richly dressed, he hardly notices her; let him see a doll in similar attire, he will be ravished with ecstasy. As if to show that it was the disproportion of the sizes which unfitted him to notice the lady, the larger he grows the bigger he wants his toys, till, when his wish reaches to life-sizes, good-by to the trumpery, and onward with realities.[1] [Footnote 1: E. Seguin.] My little nephew was prowling about my sitting-room during the absence of his nurse. I was busy writing, and when he took up a delicate pearl opera-glass, I stopped his investigations with the time-honored, "No, no, dear, that's for grown-up people." "Hasn't it got any little-boy end?" he asked wistfully. That "little-boy end" to things is sometimes just what we fail to give, even when we think we are straining every nerve to surround the child with pleasures. For children really want to do the very same things that we want to do, and yet have constantly to be thwarted for their own good. They would like to share all our pleasures; keep the same hours, eat the same food; but they are met on every side with the seemingly impertinent piece of dogmatism, "It isn't good for little boys," or "It isn't nice for little girls." Robert Louis Stevenson shows, in his "Child's Garden of Verses," that he is one of the very few people who remember and appreciate this phase of childhood. Could anything be more deliciously real than these verses? "In winter I get up at night, And dress by yellow candle light: In summer, quite the other way, I have to go to bed by day; I have to go to bed and see The birds still hopping on the tree, And hear the grown-up people's feet Still going past me on the street. And does it not seem hard to you, That when the sky is clear and blue, And I should like so much to play, I have to go to bed by day?" Mr. Hopkinson Smith has written a witty little monograph on this relation of parents and children. I am glad to say, too, that it is addressed to fathers,--that "left wing" of the family guard, which generally manages to retreat during any active engagement, leaving the command to the inferior officer. This "left wing" is imposing on all full-dress parades, but when there is any fighting to be done it retires rapidly to the rear, and only wheels into line when the smoke of the conflict has passed out of the atmosphere. "Open your heart and your arms wide for your daughters," he says, "and keep them wide open; don't leave all that to their mothers. An intimacy will grow with the years which will fit them for another man's arms and heart when they exchange yours for his. Make a chum of your boy,--hail-fellow-well-met, a comrade. Get down to the level of his boyhood, and bring him gradually up to the level of your manhood. Don't look at him from the second story window of your fatherly superiority and example. Go into the front yard and play ball with him. When he gets into scrapes, don't thrash him as your father did you. Put your arm around his neck, and say you know it is pretty bad, but that he can count on you to help him out, and that you will, every single time, and that if he had let you know earlier, it would have been all the easier." Again, the child has a right to more justice in his discipline than we are generally wise and patient enough to give him. He is by and by to come in contact with a world where cause and effect follow each other inexorably. He has a right to be taught, and to be governed by the laws under which he must afterwards live; but in too many cases parents interfere so mischievously and unnecessarily between causes and effects that the child's mind does not, cannot, perceive the logic of things as it should. We might write a pathetic remonstrance against the Decline and Fall of Domestic Authority. There is food for thought, and perhaps for fear, in the subject; but the facts are obvious, and their inevitableness must strike any thoughtful observer of the times. "The old educational regime was akin to the social systems with which it was contemporaneous; and similarly, in the reverse of these characteristics, our modern modes of culture correspond to our more liberal religious and political institutions." It is the age of independent criticism. The child problem is merely one phase of the universal problem that confronts society. It seems likely that the rod of reason will have to replace the rod of birch. Parental authority never used to be called into question; neither was the catechism, nor the Bible, nor the minister. How should parents hope to escape the universal interrogation point leveled at everything else? In these days of free speech it is hopeless to suppose that even infants can be muzzled. We revel in our republican virtues; let us accept the vices of those virtues as philosophically as possible. A lady has been advertising in a New York paper for a German governess "to mind a little girl three years old." The lady's English is doubtless defective, but the fate of the governess is thereby indicated with much greater candor than is usual. The mother who is most apt to infringe on the rights of her child (of course with the best intentions) is the "firm" person, afflicted with the "lust of dominion." There is no elasticity in her firmness to prevent it from degenerating into obstinacy. It is not the firmness of the tree that bends without breaking, but the firmness of a certain long-eared animal whose force of character has impressed itself on the common mind and become proverbial. Jean Paul says if "_Pas trop gouverner_" is the best rule in politics, it is equally true of discipline. But if the child is unhappy who has none of his rights respected, equally wretched is the little despot who has more than his own rights, who has never been taught to respect the rights of others, and whose only conception of the universe is that of an absolute monarchy in which he is sole ruler. "Children rarely love those who spoil them, and never trust them. Their keen young sense detects the false note in the character and draws its own conclusions, which are generally very just." The very best theoretical statement of a wise disciplinary method that I know is Herbert Spencer's. "Let the history of your domestic rule typify, in little, the history of our political rule; at the outset, autocratic control, where control is really needful; by and by an incipient constitutionalism, in which the liberty of the subject gains some express recognition; successive extensions of this liberty of the subject; gradually ending in parental abdication." We must not expect children to be too good; not any better than we ourselves, for example; no, nor even as good. Beware of hothouse virtue. "Already most people recognize the detrimental results of intellectual precocity; but there remains to be recognized the truth that there is a moral precocity which is also detrimental. Our higher moral faculties, like our higher intellectual ones, are comparatively complex. By consequence, they are both comparatively late in their evolution. And with the one as with the other, a very early activity produced by stimulation will be at the expense of the future character." In these matters the child has a right to expect examples. He lives in the senses; he can only learn through object lessons, can only pass from the concrete example of goodness to a vision of abstract perfection. "O'er wayward childhood wouldst thou hold firm rule. And sun thee in the light of happy faces? Love, Hope and Patience, these must be thy graces, And in thine own heart let them first keep school." Yes, "in thine own heart let them first keep school!" I cannot see why Max O'Rell should have exclaimed with such unction that if he were to be born over again he would choose to be an American woman. He has never tried being one. He does not realize that she not only has in hand the emancipation of the American woman, but the reformation of the American man and the education of the American child. If that triangular mission in life does not keep her out of mischief and make her the angel of the twentieth century, she is a hopeless case. Spencer says, "It is a truth yet remaining to be recognized that the last stage in the mental development of each man and woman is to be reached only through the proper discharge of the parental duties. And when this truth is recognized, it will be seen how admirable is the ordination in virtue of which human beings are led by their strongest affections to subject themselves to a discipline which they would else elude." Women have been fighting many battles for the higher education these last few years; and they have nearly gained the day. When at last complete victory shall perch upon their banners, let them make one more struggle, and that for the highest education, which shall include a specific training for parenthood, a subject thus far quite omitted from the curriculum. The mistaken idea that instinct is a sufficient guide in so delicate and sacred and vital a matter, the comfortable superstition that babies bring their own directions with them,--these fictions have existed long enough. If a girl asks me why, since the function of parenthood is so uncertain, she should make the sacrifices necessary to such training, sacrifices entailed by this highest education of body, mind, and spirit, I can only say that it is better to be ready, even if one is not called for, than to be called for and found wanting. CHILDREN'S PLAYS "The plays of the age are the heart-leaves of the whole future life, for the whole man is visible in them in his finest capacities and his innermost being." Mr. W.W. Newell, in his admirable book on "Children's Games," traces to their proper source all the familiar plays which in one form or another have been handed down from generation to generation, and are still played wherever and whenever children come together in any numbers. The result of his sympathetic and scholarly investigations is most interesting to the student of childhood, and as valuable philologically as historically. In speaking of the old rounds and rhymed formulas which have preserved their vitality under the effacing hand of Time, he says,-- "It will be obvious that many of these well-known game-rhymes were not composed by children. They were formerly played, as in many countries they are still played, by young persons of marriageable age, or even by mature men and women.... The truth is, that in past centuries all the world, judged by our present standard, seems to have been a little childish. The maids of honor of Queen Elizabeth's day, if we may credit the poets, were devoted to the game of tag, with which even Diana and her nymphs were supposed to amuse themselves.... "We need not, however, go to remote times or lands for illustration which is supplied by New England country towns of a generation ago. Dancing, under that name, was little practiced; the amusement of young people at their gatherings was "playing games." These games generally resulted in forfeits, to be redeemed by kissing, in every possible variety of position and method. Many of these games were rounds; but as they were not called dances, and as man-kind pays more attention to words than things, the religious conscience of the community, which objected to dancing, took no alarm.... Such were the pleasures of young men and women from sixteen to twenty-five years of age. Nor were the participants mere rustics; many of them could boast as good blood, as careful breeding, and as much intelligence, as any in the land. Neither was the morality or sensitiveness of the young women of that day in any respect inferior to what it is at present. "Now that our country towns are become mere outlying suburbs of cities, these remarks may be read with a smile at the rude simplicity of old-fashioned American life. But the laugh should be directed, not at our own country, but at the bygone age. It must be remembered that in mediaeval Europe, and in England till the end of the seventeenth century, a kiss was the usual salutation of a lady to a gentleman whom she wished to honor.... The Portuguese ladies who came to England with the Infanta in 1662 were not used to the custom; but, as Pepys says, in ten days they had 'learnt to kiss and look freely up and down.' Kissing in games was, therefore, a matter of course, in all ranks.... "In respectable and cultivated French society, at the time of which we speak, the amusements, not merely of young people but of their elders as well, were every whit as crude. "Madame Celnart, a recognized authority on etiquette, compiled in 1830 a very curious complete manual of society games recommending them as recreation for _business men_.... 'Their varying movement,' she says, 'their diversity, the gracious and gay ideas which these games inspire, the decorous caresses which they permit, all this combines to give real amusement. These caresses can alarm neither modesty nor prudence, since a kiss in honor given and taken before numerous witnesses is often an act of propriety.'" The old ballads and nursery rhymes doubtless had much of innocence and freshness in them, but they only come to us nowadays tainted by the odors of city streets. The pleasure and poetry of the original essence are gone, and vulgarity reigns triumphant. If you listen to the words of the games which children play in school yards, on sidewalks, and in the streets on pleasant evenings, you will find that most of them, to say the least, border closely on vulgarity; that they are utterly unsuitable to childhood, notwithstanding that they are played with great glee; that they are, in fine, common, rude, silly, and boorish. One can never watch a circle of children going through the vulgar inanities of "Jenny O'Jones," "Say, daughter, will you get up?" "Green Gravel," or "Here come two ducks a-roving," without unspeakable shrinking and moral disgust. These plays are dying out; let them die, for there is a hint of happier things abroad in the air. The wisest mind of wise antiquity told the riddle of the Sphinx, if having ears to hear we would hear. "Our youth should be educated in a stricter rule from the first, for if education becomes lawless and the youths themselves become lawless, they can never grow up into well-conducted or meritorious citizens; and _the education must begin with their plays_." We talk a great deal about the strength of early impressions. I wonder if we mean all we say; we do not live up to it, at all events. "In childish play deep meaning lies." "The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world." "Give me the first six years of a child's life, and I care not who has the rest." "The child of six years has learned already far more than a student learns in his entire university course." "The first six years are as full of advancement as the six days of creation," and so on. If we did believe these things fully, we should begin education with conscious intelligence at the cradle, if not earlier. The great German dramatic critic, Schlegel, once sneered at the brothers Jacob and William Grimm, for what he styled their "meditation on the insignificant." These two brothers, says a wiser student, an historian of German literature, were animated by a "pathetic optimism, and possessed that sober imagination which delights in small things and narrow interests, lingering over them with strong affection." They explored villages and hamlets for obscure legends and folk tales, for nursery songs, even; and bringing to bear on such things at once a human affection and a wise scholarship, their meditation on the insignificant became the basis of their scientific greatness and the source of their popularity. Every child has read some of Grimm's household tales, "The Frog Prince," "Hans in Luck," or the "Two Brothers;" but comparatively few people realize, perhaps, that this collection of stories is the foundation of the modern science of folk-lore, and a by-play in researches of philology and history which place the name of Grimm among the benefactors of our race. I refer to these brothers because they expressed one of the leading theories of the new education. "My principle," said Jacob Grimm, "has been to undervalue nothing, but to utilize the small for the illustration of the great." When Friedrich Froebel, the founder of the kindergarten, in the course of his researches began to watch the plays of children and to study their unconscious actions, his "meditation on the insignificant" became the basis of scientific greatness, and of an influence still in its infancy, but destined, perhaps, to revolutionize the whole educational method of society. It was while he was looking on with delight at the plays of little children, their happy, busy plans and make-believes, their intense interest in outward nature, and in putting things together or taking them apart, that Froebel said to himself: "What if we could give the child that which is called education through his voluntary activities, and have him always as eager as he is at play?" How well I remember, years ago, the first time I ever joined in a kindergarten game. I was beckoned to the charming circle, and not only one, but a dozen openings were made for me, and immediately, though I was a stranger, a little hand on either side was put into mine, with such friendly, trusting pressure that I felt quite at home. Then we began to sing of the spring-time, and I found myself a green tree waving its branches in the wind. I was frightened and self-conscious, but I did it, and nobody seemed to notice me; then I was a flower opening its petals in the sunshine, and presently, a swallow gathering straws for nest-building; then, carried away by the spirit of the kindergartner and her children, I fluttered my clumsy apologies for wings, and forgetting self, flew about with all the others, as happy as a bird. Soon I found that I, the stranger, had been chosen for the "mother swallow." It was to me, the girl of eighteen, like mounting a throne and being crowned. Four cunning curly heads cuddled under my wings for protection and slumber, and I saw that I was expected to stoop and brood them, which I did, with a feeling of tenderness and responsibility that I had never experienced in my life before. Then, when I followed my baby swallows back to their seats, I saw that the play had broken down every barrier between us, and that they clustered about me as confidingly as if we were old friends. I think I never before felt my own limitations so keenly, or desired so strongly to be fully worthy of a child's trust and love. Kindergarten play takes the children where they love to be, into the world of "make-believe." In this lovely world the children are blacksmiths, carpenters, wheelwrights; birds, bees, butterflies; trees, flowers, sunbeams, rainbows; frogs, lambs, ponies,--anything they like. The play is so characteristic, so poetic, so profoundly touching in its simplicity and purity, so full of meaning, that it would inspire us with admiration and respect were it the only salient point of Froebel's educational idea. It endeavors to express the same idea in poetic words, harmonious melody and fitting motion, appealing thus to the thought, feeling, and activity of the child. Physical impressions are at the beginning of life the only possible medium for awakening the child's sensibility. These impressions should therefore be regulated as systematically as possible, and not left to chance. Froebel supplies the means for bringing about the result in a simple system of symbolic songs and games, appealing to the child's activities and sensibilities. These he argues, ought to contain the germ of all later instruction and thought; for physical and sensuous perceptions are the points of departure of all knowledge. When the child imitates, he begins to understand. Let him imitate the airy flight of the bird, and he enters partially into bird life. Let the little girl personate the hen with her feathery brood of chickens, and her own maternal instinct is quickened, as she guards and guides the wayward motion of the little flock. Let the child play the carpenter, the wheelwright, the wood-sawyer, the farmer, and his intelligence is immediately awakened; he will see the force, the meaning, the power, and the need of labor. In short, let him mirror in his play all the different aspects of universal life, and his thought will begin to grasp their significance. Thus kindergarten play may be defined as a "systematized sequence of experiences through which the child grows into self-knowledge, clear observation, and conscious perception of the whole circle of relationships," and the symbols of his play become at length the truth itself, bound fast and deep in heart knowledge, which is deeper and rarer than head knowledge, after all. To the class occupied exclusively with material things, this phase of Froebel's idea may perhaps seem mystical. There is nothing mystical to children, however; all is real, for their visions have not been dispelled. "Turn wheresoe'er I may, By night or day, The things which I have seen, I now can see no more." As soon as the child begins to be conscious of his own activities and his power of regulating them, he desires to imitate the actions of his future life. Nothing so delights the little girl as to play at housekeeping in her tiny mansion, sacred to the use of dolls. See her whimsical attention to dust and dirt, her tremendous wisdom in dispensing the work and ordering the duties of the household, her careful attention to the morals and manners of her rag-babies. The boy, too, tries to share in the life of a man, to play at his father's work, to be a miniature carpenter, salesman, or what not. He rides his father's cane and calls it a horse, in the same way that the little girl wraps a shawl about a towel, and showers upon it the tenderest tokens of maternal affection. All these examples go to show that every conscious intellectual phase of the mind has a previous phase in which it was unconscious or merely symbolic. To get at the spirit and inspiration of symbolic representation in song and game, it is necessary first of all to study Froebel's "Mutter und Kose-Lieder," perhaps the most strikingly original, instructive, serviceable book in the whole history of the practice of education. The significant remark quoted in Froebel's "Reminiscences" is this: "He who understands what I mean by these songs knows my inmost secret." You will find people who say the music in the book is poor, which is largely true, and that the versification is weak, which is often, not always, true, and is sometimes to be attributed to faulty translation; but the idea, the spirit, the continuity of the plan, are matchless, and critics who call it trifling or silly are those who have not the seeing eye nor the understanding heart. Froebel's wife said of it,-- "A superficial mind does not grasp it, A gentle mind does not hate it, A coarse mind makes fun of it, A thoughtful mind alone tries to get at it." "Froebel[1] considers it his duty to picture the home as it ought to be, not by writing a book of theories and of rules which are easily forgotten, but by accompanying a mother in her daily rounds through house, garden, and field, and by following her to workshop, market, and church. He does not represent a woman of fashion, but prefers one of humbler station, whom he clothes in the old German housewife style. It may be a small sphere she occupies, but there she is the centre, and she completely fills her place. She rejoices in the dignity of her position as educator of a human being whom she has to bring into harmony with God, nature, and man. She thinks nothing too trifling that concerns her child. She watches, clothes, feeds, and trains it in good habits, and when her darling is asleep, her prayers finish the day. She may not have read much about education, but her sympathy with the child suggests means of doing her duty. Love has made her inventive; she discovers means of amusement, for play; she talks and sings, sometimes in poetry and sometimes in prose. From mothers in his circle of relations and friends, Froebel has learned what a mother can do, and although he had no children of his own, his heart vibrated instinctively with the feelings of a mother's joy, hope, and fear. He did not care about the scorn of others, when he felt he must speak with an almost womanly heart to a mother. His own loss of a mother's tender care made him the more appreciate the importance of a mother's love in early infancy. The mother in his book makes use of all the impressions, influences, and agencies with which the child comes in contact: she protects from evil; she stimulates for good; she places the child in direct communication with nature, because she herself admires its beauties. She has a right feeling towards her neighbors, and to all those on whom she depends. A movement of arms and feet teaches her that the child feels its strength and wants to use it. She helps, she lifts, she teaches; and while playing with her baby's hands and feet she is never at a loss for a song or story. [Footnote 1: Eleonore Heerwart.] "The mother also knows that it is necessary to train the senses, because they are the active organs which convey food to the intellect. The ear must hear language, music, the gentle accents and warning voices of father and mother. It must distinguish the sounds of the wind, of the water, and of pet animals. "The eyesight is directed to objects far and near, as the pigeons flying, the hare running, the light flickering on the wall, the calm beauty of the moon, and the twinkling stars in the dark blue sky." Of the effect of Froebel's symbolic songs and games, with melodious music and appropriate gesture, kindergartners all speak enthusiastically. They know that-- First: The words suggest thought to the child. Second: The thought suggests gesture. Third: The gesture aids in producing the proper feeling. We all believe thoroughly in the influence of mind on body, the inward working outward, but we are not as ready to see the influence of body on mind. Yet if mind or soul acts upon the body, the external gesture and attitude just as truly react upon the inward feeling. "The soul speaks through the body, and the body in return gives command to the soul." All attitudes mean something, and they all influence the state of mind. Fourth: The melody begets spiritual impressions. Fifth: The gestures, feeling, and melody unite in giving a sweet and gentle intercourse, in developing love for labor, home, country, associates, and dumb animals, and in unconsciously directing the intellectual powers. Learning to sing well is the best possible means of learning to speak well, and the exquisite precision which music gives to kindergarten play destroys all rudeness, and does not in the least rob it of its fun or merriment. "We cannot tell how early the pleasing sense of musical cadence affects a child. In some children it is blended with the earliest, haziest recollection of life at all, as though they had been literally 'cradled in sweet song;' and we may be sure that the hearing of musical sounds and singing in association with others are for the child, as for the adult, powerful influences in awakening sympathetic emotion, and pleasure in associated action." Who can see the kindergarten games, led by a teacher who has grown into their spirit, and ever forget the joy of the spectacle? It brings tears to the eyes of any woman who has ever been called mother, or ever hopes to be; and I have seen more than one man retire surreptitiously to wipe away his tears. Is it "that touch of nature which makes the whole world kin"? Is it the perfect self-forgetfulness of the children? Is it a touch of self-pity that the radiant visions of our childhood days have been dispelled, and the years have brought the "inevitable yoke"? Or is it the touching sight of so much happiness contrasted with what we know the home life to be? Sydney Smith says: "If you make children happy now, you will make them happy twenty years hence by the memory of it;" and we know that virtue kindles at the touch of this joy. "Selfishness, rudeness, and similar weedy growths of school-life or of street-independence cannot grow in such an atmosphere. For joy is as foreign to tumult and destruction, to harshness and selfish disregard of others, as the serene, vernal sky with its refreshing breezes is foreign to the uproar and terrors of the hurricane." For this kind of ideal play we are indebted to Friedrich Froebel, and if he had left no other legacy to childhood, we should exalt him for it. If you are skeptical, let me beseech you to join the children in a Free Kindergarten, and play with them. You will be convinced, not through your head, perhaps, but through your heart. I remember converting such a grim female once! You know Henry James says, "Some women are unmarried by choice, and others by chance, but Olive Chancellor was unmarried by every implication of her being." Now, this predestinate spinster acquaintance of mine, well nigh spoiled by years of school-teaching in the wrong spirit, was determined to think kindergarten play simply a piece of nauseating frivolity. She tried her best, but, kept in the circle with the children five successive days, she relaxed so completely that it was with the utmost difficulty that she kept herself from being a butterfly or a bird. It is always so; no one can resist the unconscious happiness of children. As for the good that comes to grown people from playing with children in this joyous freedom and with this deep earnestness of purpose, it is beyond all imagination. If I had a daughter who was frivolous, or worldly, or selfish, or cold, or unthoughtful,--who regarded life as a pleasantry, or fell into the still more stupid mistake of thinking it not worth living,--I should not (at first) make her read the Bible, or teach in the Sunday-school, or call on the minister, or request the prayers of the congregation, but I should put her in a good Kindergarten Training School. No normal young woman can resist the influence of the study of childhood and the daily life among little children, especially the children of the poor: it is irresistible. Oh, these tiny teachers! If we only learned from them all we might, instead of feeling ourselves over-wise! I never look down into the still, clear pool of a child's innocent, questioning eyes without thinking: "Dear little one, it must be 'give and take' between thee and me. I have gained something here in all these years, but thou hast come from thence more lately than have I; thou hast a treasure that the years have stolen from me--share it with me!" Let us endeavor, then, to make the child's life objective to him. Let us unlock to him the significance of family, social, and national relationships, so that he may grow into sympathy with them. He loves the symbol which interprets his nature to himself, and in his eager play, he pictures the life he longs to understand. If we could make such education continuous, if we could surround the child in his earlier years with such an atmosphere of goodness, beauty, and wisdom, none can doubt that he would unconsciously grow into harmony and union with the All-Good, the All-Beautiful, and the All-Wise. CHILDREN'S PLAYTHINGS "Books cannot teach what toys inculcate." In the preceding chapter we discussed Froebel's plays, and found that the playful spirit which pervades all the kindergarten exercises must not be regarded as trivial, since it has a philosophic motive and a definite, earnest purpose. We discussed the meaning of childish play, and deplored the lack of good and worthy national nursery plays. Passing then to Froebel's "Mother-Play," we found that the very heart of his educational idea lies in the book, and that it serves as a guide for mothers whose babies are yet in their arms, as well as for those who have little children of four or five years under their care. We found that in Froebel's plays the mirror is held up to universal life; that the child in playing them grows into unconscious sympathy with the natural, the human, the divine; that by "playing at" the life he longs to understand, he grows at last into a conscious realization of its mysteries--its truth, its meaning, its dignity, its purpose. We found that symbolic play leads the child from the symbol to the truth symbolized. We discovered that the carefully chosen words of the kindergarten songs and games suggest thought to the child, the thought suggests gesture, the melody begets spiritual feeling. We discussed the relation of body and mind; the effect of bodily attitudes on feeling and thought, as well as the moulding of the body by the indwelling mind. Froebel's playthings are as significant as his plays. If you examine the materials he offers children in his "gifts and occupations," you cannot help seeing that they meet the child's natural wants in a truly wonderful manner, and that used in connection with conversations and stories and games they address and develop his love of movement and his love of rhythm; his desire to touch and handle, to play and work (to be busy), and his curiosity to know; his instincts of construction and comparison, his fondness for gardening and digging in the earth; his social impulse, and finally his religious feeling. Froebel himself says if his educational materials are found useful, it cannot be because of their exterior, which is as simple as possible, and contains nothing new; but their worth is to be found exclusively in their application. If you can work out his principles (or better ones still when we find better ones) by other means, pray do it if you prefer; since the object of the kindergartner is not to make Froebel an _idol_, but an _ideal_. He seems to have found type-forms admirable for awaking the higher senses of the child, and unlike the usual scheme of object lessons, they tell a continued story. When the object-method first burst upon the enraptured sight of the teacher, this list of subjects appeared in a printed catalogue, showing the ground of study in a certain school for six months:-- "_Tea, spiders, apple, hippopotamus, cow, cotton, duck, sugar, rabbits, rice, lighthouse, candle, lead-pencil, pins, tiger, clothing, silver, butter-making, giraffe, onion, soda_!" Such reckless heterogeneity as this is impossible with Froebel's educational materials, for even if they are given to the child without a single word, they carry something of their own logic with them. They emphasize the gospel of doing, for Froebel believes in positives in teaching, not negatives; in stimulants, not deterrents. How inexpressibly tiresome is the everlasting "Don't!" in some households. Don't get in the fire, don't play in the water, don't tease the kitty, don't trouble the doggy, don't bother the lady, don't interrupt, don't contradict, don't fidget with your brother, and _don't_ worry me now; while perhaps in this whole tirade, not a word has been said of something to do. Let sleeping faults lie as long as possible while we quietly oust them, little by little, by developing the good qualities. Surely the less we use deterrents the better, since they are often the child's first introduction to what is undesirable or wrong. I am quite sure they have something of that effect on grown people. The telling us not to do, and that we cannot, must not, do a certain thing surrounds it with a momentary fascination. If your enemy suggests that there is a pot of Paris green on the piazza, but you must not take a spoonful and dissolve it in a cup of honey and give it to your maiden aunt who has made her will in your favor, your innocent mind hovers for an instant over the murderous idea. Froebel's play-materials come to the child when he has entered upon the war-path of getting "something to do." If legitimate means fail, then "let the portcullis fall;" the child must be busy. The fly on the window-pane will be crushed, the kettle tied to the dog's tail, the curtains cut into snips, the baby's hair shingled,-- anything that his untiring hands may not pause an instant,--anything that his chubby legs may take his restless body over a circuit of a hundred miles or so before he is immured in his crib for the night. The child of four or five years is still interested in objects, in the concrete. He wants to see and to hear, to examine and to work with his hands. How absurd then for us to make him fold his arms and keep his active fingers still; or strive to stupefy him with such an opiate as the alphabet. If we can possess our souls and primers in patience for a while, and feed his senses; if we will let him take in living facts and await the result; that result will be that when he has learned to perceive, compare, and construct, he will desire to learn words, for they tell him what others have seen, thought, and done. This reading and writing, what is it, after all, but the signs for things and thoughts? Logically we must first know things, then thoughts, then their records. The law of human progress is from physical activity to mental power, from a Hercules to a Shakespeare, and it is as true for each unit of humanity as it is for the race. Everything in Froebel's playthings trains the child to quick, accurate observation. They help children to a fuller vision, they lead them to see. Did you ever think how many people there are who "having eyes, see not"? Ruskin says, "Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy, religion, all in one." A gentleman who is trying to write the biography of a great man complained to me lately, that in consulting a dozen of his friends--men and women who had known him as preacher, orator, reformer, and poet--so few of them had anything characteristic and fine to relate. "What," he said "is the use of trying to write biography with such mummies for witnesses! They would have seen just as much if they had had nothing but glass eyes in their heads." What is education good for that does not teach the mind to observe accurately and define picturesquely? To get at the essence of an object and clear away the accompanying rubbish, this is the only training that fits men and women to live with any profit to themselves or pleasure to others. What a biographer, for example, or at least what a witness for some other biographer, was latent in the little boy who, when told by his teacher to define a bat, said: "He's a nasty little mouse, with injy-rubber wings and shoe-string tail, and bites like the devil." There was an eye worth having! Agassiz himself could not have hit off better the salient characteristics of the little creature in question. Had that remarkable boy been brought into contact, for five minutes only, with Julius Caesar, who can doubt that the telling description he would have given of him would have come down through all the ages? I do not mean to urge the adoption of any ultra-utilitarian standpoint in regard to playthings, or advise you rudely to enter the realm of early infancy and interfere with the baby's legitimate desires by any meddlesome pedagogic reasoning. Choose his toys wisely and then leave him alone with them. Leave him to the throng of emotional impressions they will call into being. Remember that they speak to his feelings when his mind is not yet open to reason. The toy at this period is surrounded with a halo of poetry and mystery, and lays hold of the imagination and the heart without awaking vulgar curiosity. Thrice happy age when one can hug one's white woolly lamb to one's bibbed breast, kiss its pink bead eyes in irrational ecstasy, and manipulate the squeak in its foreground without desire to explore the cause thereof! At this period the well-beloved toy, the dumb sharer of the child's joys and sorrows, becomes the nucleus of a thousand enterprises, each rendered more fascinating by its presence and sympathy. If the toy be a horse, they take imaginary journeys together, and the road is doubly delightful because never traveled alone. If it be a house, the child lives therein a different life for every day in the week; for no monarch alive is so all-powerful as he whose throne is the imagination. Little tin soldier, Shem, Ham, and Japhet from the Noah's Ark, the hornless cow, the tailless dog, and the elephant that won't stand up, these play their allotted parts in his innocent comedies, and meanwhile he grows steadily in sympathy and in comprehension of the ever-widening circle of human relationships. "When we have restored playthings to their place in education--a place which assigns them the principal part in the development of human sympathies, we can later on put in the hands of children objects whose impressions will reach their minds more particularly." Dr. E. Seguin, our Commissioner of Education to the Universal Exhibition at Vienna, philosophizes most charmingly on children's toys in his Report (chapter on the Training of Special Senses). He says the vast array of playthings (separated by nationalities) left at first sight an impression of silly sameness; but that a second look "discovered in them particular characters, as of national idiosyncrasies; and a closer examination showed that these puerilities had sense enough in them, not only to disclose the movements of the mind, but to predict what is to follow." He classifies the toys exhibited, and in so doing gives us delightful and valuable generalizations, some of which I will quote:-- "Chinese and Japanese toys innumerable, as was to have been expected. Japanese toys much brighter, the dolls relieved in gold and gaudy colors, absolutely saucy. The application of the natural and mechanical forces in their toys cannot fail to determine the taste of the next generation towards physical sciences. "Chinese dolls are sober in color, meek in demeanor, and comprehensive in mien.... The favorite Chinese toy remains the theatrical scene where the family is treated _à la Molière_. "Persia sends beautiful toys, from which can be inferred a national taste for music, since most of their dolls are blowing instruments. "Turkey, Egypt, Arabia, have sent no dolls. Do they make none, under the impression, correct in a low state of culture, that dolls for children become idols for men? "The Finlanders and Laplanders, who are not troubled with such religious prejudices, give rosy cheeks and bodies as fat as seals to their dolls. "The French toy represents the versatility of the nation, touching every topic, grave or grotesque. "From Berlin come long trains of artillery, regiments of lead, horse and foot on moving tramways. "From the Hartz and the Alps still issue those wooden herds, more characteristic of the dull feelings of their makers than of the instincts of the animals they represent. "The American toys justify the rule we have found good elsewhere, that their character both reveals and prefaces the national tendencies. With us, toys refer the mind and habits of children to home economy, husbandry, and mechanical labor; and their very material is durable, mainly wood and iron. "So from childhood every people has its sympathies expressed or suppressed, and set deeper in its flesh and blood than scholastic ideas.... The children who have no toys seize realities very late, and never form ideals.... The nations rendered famous by their artists, artisans, and idealists have supplied their infants with many toys, for there is more philosophy and poetry in a single doll than in a thousand books.... If you will tell us what your children play with, we will tell you what sort of women and men they will be; so let this Republic make the toys which will raise the moral and artistic character of her children." Froebel's educational toys do us one service, in that they preach a silent but impressive sermon on simplicity. It is easy to see that the hurlyburly of our modern life is not wholly favorable to the simple creed of childhood, "delight and liberty, when busy or at rest," but we might make it a little less artificial than we do, perhaps. Every thoughtful person knows that the simple, natural playthings of the old-fashioned child, which are nothing more than pegs on which he hangs his glowing fancies, are healthier than our complicated modern mechanisms, in which the child has only to "press the button" and the toy "does the rest." The electric-talking doll, for example--imagine a generation of children brought up on that! And the toy-makers are not even content with this grand personage, four feet high, who says "Papa! Mamma!" She is _passée_ already; they have begun to improve on her! An electrician described to me the other day a superb new altruistic doll, fitted to the needs of the present decade. You are to press a judiciously located button and ask her the test question, which is, if she will have some candy; whereupon with an angelic detached-movement-smile (located in the left cheek), she is to answer, "Give brother _big_ piece; give me little piece!" If the thing gets out of order (and I devoutly hope it will), it will doubtless return to a state of nature, and horrify the bystanders by remarking, "Give me _big_ piece! Give brother _little_ piece!" Think of having a gilded dummy like that given you to amuse yourself with! Think of having to play,--to _play_, forsooth, with a model of propriety, a high-minded monstrosity like that! Doesn't it make you long for your dear old darkey doll with the raveled mouth, and the stuffing leaking out of her legs; or your beloved Arabella Clarinda with the broken nose, beautiful even in dissolution,--creatures "not too bright or good for human nature's daily food"? Banged, battered, hairless, sharers of our mad joys and reckless sorrows, how we loved them in their simple ugliness! With what halos of romance we surrounded them! with what devotion we nursed the one with the broken head, in those early days when new heads were not to be bought at the nearest shop. And even if they could have been purchased for us, would we, the primitive children of those dear, dark ages, have ever thought of wrenching off the cracked blonde head of Ethelinda and buying a new, strange, nameless brunette head, gluing it calmly on Ethelinda's body, as a small acquaintance of mine did last week, apparently without a single pang? Never! A doll had a personality in those times, and has yet, to a few simple backwoods souls, even in this day and generation. Think of Charles Kingsley's song,--"I once had a sweet little doll, dears." Can we imagine that as written about one of these modern monstrosities with eyeglasses and corsets and vinaigrettes? "I once had a sweet little doll, dears, The prettiest doll in the world, Her face was so red and so white, dears, And her hair was so charmingly curled; But I lost my poor little doll, dears, As I played on the heath one day, And I sought for her more than a week, dears, But I never could find where she lay. "I found my poor little doll, dears, As I played on the heath one day; Folks say she is terribly changed, dears, For her paint is all washed away; And her arms trodden off by the cows, dears, And her hair not the least bit curled; Yet for old sake's sake she is still, dears, The prettiest doll in the world." Long live the doll! "Dolly-o'diamonds, precious lamb, Humming-bird, honey-pot, jewel, jam, Darling delicate-dear-delight-- Angel-o'red, angel-o'white!" "Take away the doll, you erase from the heart and head feelings, images, poetry, aspiration, experience, ready for application to real life." Every mother knows the development of tenderness and motherliness that goes on in her little girl through the nursing and petting and teaching and caring for her doll. There is a good deal of journalistic anxiety concerning the decline of mothers. Is it possible that fathers, too, are in any danger of decline? It is impossible to overestimate the sacredness and importance of the mother-spirit in the universe, but the father-spirit is not positively valueless (so far as it goes). The newspaper-pessimists talk comparatively little about developing that in the young male of the species. In three years' practical experience among the children of the poorer classes, and during all the succeeding years, when I have filled the honorary and honorable offices of general-utility woman, story-teller, song-singer, and playmaker-in-ordinary to their royal highnesses, some thousands of babies, I have been struck with the greater hardness of the small boys; a certain coarseness of fibre and lack of sensitiveness which makes them less susceptible, at first, to gentle influences. Once upon a time I set about developing this father spirit in a group of little gamins whose general attitude toward the weaker sex, toward birds and flowers and insects, toward beauty in distress and wounded sensibility, was in the last degree offensive. In the bird games we had always had a mother bird in the nest with the birdlings; we now introduced a father bird into the game. Though the children had been only a little time in the kindergarten, and were not fully baptized into the spirit of play, still the boys were generally willing to personate the father bird, since their delight in the active and manly occupation of flying about the room seeking worms overshadowed their natural repugnance to feeding the young. This accomplished, we played "Master Rider," in which a small urchin capered about on a hobby horse, going through a variety of adventures, and finally returning with presents to wife and children. This in turn became a matter of natural experience, and we moved towards our grand _coup d'état._ Once a week we had dolls' day, when all the children who owned them brought their dolls, and the exercises were ordered with the single view of amusing and edifying them. The picture of that circle of ragged children comes before me now and dims my eyes with its pathetic suggestions. Such dolls! Five-cent, ten-cent dolls; dolls with soiled clothes and dolls in a highly indecorous state of nudity; dolls whose ruddy hues of health had been absorbed into their mothers' systems; dolls made of rags, dolls made of carrots, and dolls made of towels; but all dispensing odors of garlic in the common air. Maternal affection, however, pardoned all limitations, and they were clasped as fondly to maternal bosoms as if they had been imported from Paris. "Bless my soul!" might have been the unspoken comment of these tiny mothers. "If we are only to love our offspring when handsome and well clothed, then the mother-heart of society is in a bad way!" Dolls' day was the day for lullabies. I always wished I might gather a group of stony-hearted men and women in that room and see them melt under the magic of the scene. Perhaps you cannot imagine the union of garlic and magic, nevertheless, O ye of little faith, it may exist. The kindergarten cradle stood in the centre of the circle, and the kindergarten doll, clean, beautiful, and well dressed, lay inside the curtains, waiting to be sung to sleep with the other dolls. One little girl after another would go proudly to the "mother's chair" and rock the cradle, while the other children hummed their gentle lullabies. At this juncture even the older boys (when the influence of the music had stolen in upon their senses) would glance from side to side longingly, as much as to say,-- "O Lord, why didst Thou not make thy servant a female, that he might dandle one of these interesting objects without degradation!" In such an hour I suddenly said, "Josephus, will you be the father this time?" and without giving him a second to think, we began our familiar lullaby. The radical nature, the full enormity, of the proposition did not (in that moment of sweet expansion) strike Josephus. He moved towards the cradle, seated himself in the chair, put his foot upon the rocker, and rocked the baby soberly, while my heart sang in triumph. After this the fathers as well as the mothers took part in all family games, and this mighty and much-needed reform had been worked through the magic of a fascinating plaything. WHAT SHALL CHILDREN READ? "What we make children love and desire is more important than what we make them learn." When I was a little girl (oh, six most charming words!)--it is not necessary to name the year, but it was so long ago that children were still reminded that they should be seen and not heard, and also that they could eat what was set before them or go without (two maxims that suggest a hoary antiquity of time not easily measured by the senses),--when I was a little girl, I had the great good fortune to live in a country village. I believe I always had a taste for books; but I will pass over that early period when I manifested it by carrying them to my mouth, and endeavored to assimilate their contents by the cramming process; and also that later stage, which heralded the dawn of the critical faculty, perhaps, when I tore them in bits and held up the tattered fragments with shouts of derisive laughter. Unlike the critic, no more were given me to mar; but, like the critic, I had marred a good many ere my vandal hand was stayed. As soon as I could read, I had free access to an excellent medical library, the gloom of which was brightened by a few shelves of theological works, bequeathed to the family by some orthodox ancestor, and tempered by a volume or two of Blackstone; but outside of these, which were emphatically not the stuff my dreams were made of, I can only remember a certain little walnut bookcase hanging on the wall of the family sitting-room. It had but three shelves, yet all the mysteries of love and life and death were in the score of well-worn volumes that stood there side by side; and we turned to them, year after year, with undiminished interest. The number never seemed small, the stories never grew tame: when we came to the end of the third shelf, we simply went back and began again,--a process all too little known to latter-day children. I can see them yet, those rows of shabby and incongruous volumes, the contents of which were transferred to our hungry little brains. Some of them are close at hand now, and I love their ragged corners, their dog's-eared pages that show the pressure of childish thumbs, and their dear old backs, broken in my service. There was a red-covered "Book of Snobs;" "Vanity Fair" with no cover at all; "Scottish Chiefs" in crimson; a brown copy of George Sand's "Teverino;" and next it a green Bailey's "Festus," which I only attacked when mentally rabid, and a little of which went a surprisingly long way; and then a maroon "David Copperfield," whose pages were limp with my kisses. (To write a book that a child would kiss! Oh, dear reward! oh, sweet, sweet fame!) In one corner--spare me your smiles--was a fat autobiography of P.T. Barnum, given me by a grateful farmer for saving the life of a valuable Jersey calf just as she was on the point of strangling herself. This book so inflamed a naturally ardent imagination, that I was with difficulty dissuaded from entering the arena as a circus manager. Considerations of age or sex had no weight with me, and lack of capital eventually proved the deterrent force. On the shelf above were "Kenilworth," "The Lady of the Lake," and half of "Rob Roy." I have always hesitated to read the other half, for fear that it should not end precisely as I made it end when I was forced, by necessity, to supplement Sir Walter Scott. Then there was "Gulliver's Travels," and if any of the stories seemed difficult to believe, I had only to turn to the maps of Lilliput and Brobdingnag, with the degrees of latitude and longitude duly marked, which always convinced me that everything was fair and aboveboard. Of course, there was a great green and gold Shakespeare, not a properly expurgated edition for female seminaries, either, nor even prose tales from Shakespeare adapted to young readers, but the real thing. We expurgated as we read, child fashion, taking into our sleek little heads all that we could comprehend or apprehend, and unconsciously passing over what might have been hurtful, perhaps, at a later period. I suppose we failed to get a very close conception of Shakespeare's colossal genius, but we did get a tremendous and lasting impression of force and power, life and truth. When we declaimed certain scenes in an upper chamber with sloping walls and dormer windows, a bed for a throne, a cotton umbrella for a sceptre, our creations were harmless enough. If I remember rightly, our nine-year-old Lady Macbeths and Iagos, Falstaffs and Cleopatras, after they had been dipped in the divine alembic of childish innocence, came out so respectable that they would not have brought the historic "blush to the cheek of youth." On the shelf above the Shakespeare were a few things presumably better suited to childish tastes,--Hawthorne's "Wonder Book," Kingsley's "Water Babies," Miss Edgeworth's "Rosamond," and the "Arabian Nights." There were also two little tales given us by a wandering revivalist, who was on a starring tour through the New England villages, "How Gussie Grew in Grace," and "Little Harriet's Work for the Heathen,"--melodramatic histories of spiritually perfect and physically feeble children who blessed the world for a season, but died young, enlivened by a few pages devoted to completely vicious and adorable ones who lived to curse the world to a good old age. Last of all, brought out only on state occasions, was a most seductive edition of that nursery Gaboriau, "Who Killed Cock Robin?" with colored illustrations in which the heads of the birds were made to move oracularly, by means of cunningly arranged strips pulled from the bottom of the page. This was a relic of infancy, our first introduction to the literature of plot, counterplot, intrigue, and crime, and the mystery of the murder was very real to us. This book, still in existence, with all the birds headless from over-exertion, is always inextricably associated in my mind with childish woes, as a desire on my part to make the birds wag their heads was always contemporaneous, to a second, with a like desire on my sister's part; and on those rare days when the precious volume was taken down, one of us always donned the penitential nightgown early in the afternoon and supped frugally in bed, while the other feasted gloriously at the family board, never quite happy in her virtue, however, since it separated her from beloved vice in disgrace. That paltry tattered volume, when it confronts me from its safe nook in a bureau drawer, makes my heart beat faster and sets me dreaming! Pray tell me if any book read in your later and wiser years ever brings to your mind such vivid memories, to your lips so lingering a smile, to your eye so ready a tear? True enough, "we could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it.... What novelty is worth that sweet monotony where everything is known and loved because it is known?" This autobiographical babble is excusable for one reason only. It is in remembering what books greatly moved us in earlier days; what books wakened strong and healthy desires, enlarged the horizon of our understanding, and inspired us to generous action, that we get some clue to the books with which to surround our children; and a reminiscence of this kind becomes a sort of psychological observation. The moment we realize clearly that the books we read in childhood and youth make a profound impression that can never be repeated later (save in some rare crisis of heart and soul, where a printed page marks an epoch in one's mental or spiritual life), then we become reinforced in our opinion that it makes a deal of difference what children read and how they read it. Agnes Repplier says: "It is part of the irony of life that our discriminating taste for books should be built up on the ashes of an extinct enjoyment." A book is such a fact to children, its people are so alive and so heartily loved and hated, its scenes so absolutely real! Prone on the hearth-rug before the fire, or curled in the window seat, they forget everything but the story. The shadows deepen, until they can read no longer; but they do not much care, for the window looks into an enchanted region peopled with brilliant fancies. The old garden is sometimes the Forest of Arden, sometimes the Land of Lilliput, sometimes the Border. The gray rock on the river bank is now the cave of Monte Cristo, and now a castle defended by scores of armed knights who peep one by one from the alder-bushes, while Fair Ellen and the lovely Undine float together on the quiet stream. For forming a truly admirable literary taste, I cannot indeed say much in favor of my own motley collection of books just mentioned, for I was simply tumbled in among them and left to browse, in accordance with Charles Lamb's whimsical plan for Bridget Elia. More might have been added, and some taken away; but they had in them a world of instruction and illumination which children miss who read too exclusively those books written with rigid determination down to their level, neglecting certain old classics for which we fondly believe there are no substitutes. You cannot always persuade the children of this generation to attack "Robinson Crusoe," and if they do they are too sophisticated to thrill properly when they come to Friday's footsteps in the sand. Think of it, my contemporaries: think of substituting for that intense moment some of the modern "tuppenny" climaxes! I do not wish to drift into a cheap cynicism, and apotheosize the old days at the expense of the new. We are often inclined to paint the Past with a halo round its head which it never wore when it was the Present. We can reproduce neither the children nor the conditions of fifty or even twenty-five years ago. To-day's children must be fitted for to-day's tasks, educated to answer to-day's questions, equipped to solve to-day's problems; but are we helping them to do this in absolutely the best way? At all events, it is difficult to join in the paean of gratitude for the tons of children's books that are turned out yearly by parental publishers. If the children of the past did not have quite enough deference paid to their individuality, their likes and dislikes, and if their needs were too often left until the needs of everybody else had been considered,--on the other hand, they were not surfeited with well-meant but ill-directed attentions. If the hay was thrown so high in the rack that they could not pluck a single straw without stretching up for it, why, the hay was generally worth stretching for, and was, perhaps, quite as healthful as the sweet and easily digested nursery porridge which some people adopt as exclusive diet for their darlings nowadays. Let us look a little at some of the famous children's books of a past generation, and see what was their general style and purpose. Take, for instance, those of Mrs. Barbauld, who may be included in that group of men and women who completely altered the style of teaching and writing for children--Rousseau, de Genlis, the Edgeworths, Jacotot, Froebel, and Diesterweg, all great teachers,--didactic, deadly-dull Mrs. Barbauld, who composed, as one of her biographers tells us, "a considerable number of miscellaneous pieces for the instruction and amusement of young persons, especially females." (Girls were always "young females" in those days; children were "infants," and stories were "tales.") Who can ever forget those "Early Lessons," written for her adopted son Charles, who appeared in the page sometimes in a state of hopeless ignorance and imbecility, and sometimes clad in the wisdom of the ancients? The use of the offensive phrase "excessively pretty," as applied to a lace tidy by a very tiny female named Lucy, brings down upon her sinful head eleven pages of such moralizing as would only be delivered by a modern mamma on hearing a confession of robbery or murder. All this does strike us as insufferably didactic, yet we cannot approve the virulence with which Southey and Charles Lamb attacked good Mrs. Barbauld in her old age; for her purpose was eminently earnest, her views of education healthy and sensible for the time in which she lived, her style polished and admirably quiet, her love for young people indubitably sincere and profound, and her character worthy of all respect and admiration in its dignity, womanliness, and strength. Nevertheless, Charles Lamb exclaims in a whimsical burst of spleen: "'Goody Two Shoes' is out of print, while Mrs. Barbauld's and Mrs. Trimmer's nonsense lies in piles around. Hang them--the cursed reasoning crew, those blights and blasts of all that is human in man and child." Miss Edgeworth has what seems to us, in these days, the same overplus of sublime purpose, and, though a much greater writer, is quite as desirous of being instructive, first, last, and all the time, and quite as unable or unwilling to veil her purpose. No books, however, have ever had a more remarkable influence upon young people, and there are many of them--old-fashioned as they are--which the sophisticated children of to-day could read with pleasure and profit. Poor, naughty Rosamond! choosing the immortal "purple jar" out of that apothecary's window, instead of the shoes she needed; and in a following chapter, after pages of excellent maternal advice, taking the hideous but useful "red morocco housewife" instead of the coveted "plum." People may say what they like of Miss Edgeworth's lack of proportion as a moralist and economist, but we have few writers for children at present who possess the practical knowledge, mental vigor, and moral force which made her an imposing figure in juvenile literature for nearly a century. There has never been a time when the difficulty of making a good use of books was as great as it is to-day, or a time when it required so much decision to make a wise choice, simply because there is so much printed matter precipitated upon us that we cannot "see the wood for the trees." It is not my province to discriminate between the various writers for children at the present time. To give a complete catalogue of useful books for children would be quite impossible; to give a partial list, or endeavor to point out what is worthy and what unworthy, would be little better. No course of reading laid down by one person ever suits another, and the published "lists of best books," with their solemn platitudes in the way of advice, are generally interesting only in their reflection of the writer's personality. I would not choose too absolutely for a child save in his earliest years, but would rather surround him with the best and worthiest books, and let him choose for himself; for there are elective affinities and antipathies here that need not be disregarded,--that are, indeed, certain indications of latent powers, and trustworthy guides to the child's unfolding possibilities. "Books can only be profoundly influential as they unite themselves with decisive tendencies." Provide the right conditions for mental growth, and then let the child do the growing. If we dictate too absolutely, we _en_velop instead of _de_veloping his mind, and weaken his power of choice. On the other hand, we do not wish his reading to be partial or one-sided, as it may be without intelligent oversight. I was telling bedtime stories, the other night, to a proper, wise, dull little girl of ten years. When I had successfully introduced a mother-cat and kittens to her attention, I plunged into what I thought a graphic and perfectly natural conversation between them, when she cut me short with the observation that she disliked stories in which animals talked, because they were not true! I was rebuked, and tried again with better success, until there came an unlucky figure of speech concerning a blossoming locust-tree, that bent its green boughs and laughed in the summer sunshine, because its flowers were fragrant and lovely, and the world so green and beautiful. This she thought, on sober second thought, a trifle silly, as trees never did laugh! Now, that exasperating scrap of humanity (she is abnormal, to be sure) ought to be locked up and fed upon fairy tales until she is able to catch a faint glimpse of "the light that never was on sea or land." Poor, blind, deaf little person, predestined, perhaps, to be the mother of a lot of other blind, deaf little persons some day,--how I should like to develop her imagination! Whatever children read, let us see that it is good of its kind, and that it gives variety, so that no integral want of human nature shall be neglected,--so that neither imagination, memory, nor reflection shall be starved. I own it is difficult to help them in their choice, when most of us have not learned to choose wisely for ourselves. A discriminating taste in literature is not to be gained without effort, and our constant reading of the little books spoils our appetite for the great ones. Style is a matter of some moment, even at this early stage. Mothers sometimes forget that children cannot read slipshod, awkward, redundant prose, and sing-song vapid verse, for ten or twelve years, and then take kindly to the best things afterward. Long before a child is conscious of such a thing as purity, delicacy, directness, or strength of style, he has been acted upon unconsciously, so that when the period of conscious choice comes, he is either attracted or repelled by what is good, according to his training. Children are fond of vivacity and color, and love a bit of word painting or graceful nonsense; but there are people who strive for this, and miss, after all, the true warmth and geniality that is most desirable for little people. Apropos of nonsense, we remember Leigh Hunt, who says that there are two kinds of nonsense, one resulting from a superabundance of ideas, the other from a want of them. Style in the hands of some writers is like war-paint to the savage--of no perceptible value unless it is laid on thick. Our little ones begin too often on cheap and tawdry stories in one or two syllables, where pictures in primary colors try their best to atone for lack of matter. Then they enter on a prolonged series of children's books, some of them written by people who have neither the intelligence nor the literary skill to write for a more critical audience; on the same basis of reasoning which puts the young and inexperienced teachers into the lowest grades, where the mind ought to be formed, and assigns to the more practiced the simpler task of _in_forming the already partially formed (or _de_formed) mind. There has never been such conscientious, intelligent, and purposeful work done for children as in the last ten years; and if an overwhelming flood of trash has been poured into our laps along with the better things, we must accept the inevitable. The legends, myths, and fables of the world, as well as its history and romance, are being brought within reach of young readers by writers of wide knowledge and trained skill. Knowing, then, as we do, the dangers and obstacles in the way, and realizing the innumerable inspirations which the best thought gives to us, can we not so direct the reading of our children that our older boys and girls shall not be so exclusively modern in their tastes; so that they may be inclined to take a little less Mr. Saltus, a little more Shakespeare, temper their devotion to Mr. Kipling by small doses of Dante, forsake "The Duchess" for a dip into Thackeray, and use Hawthorne as a safe and agreeable antidote to Mr. Haggard? We need not despair of the child who does not care to read, for books are not the only means of culture; but they are a very great means when the mind is really stimulated, and not simply padded with them. Mr. Frederic Harrison says: "Books are no more education than laws are virtue. Of all men, perhaps the book-lover needs most to be reminded that man's business here is to know for the sake of living, not to live for the sake of knowing." But a child who has no taste for reading, who is utterly incapable of losing himself in a printed page, quite unable to forget his childish griefs, "And plunge, Soul forward, headlong into a book's profound, Impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth," --such a child is to be pitied as missing one of the chief joys of life. Such a child has no dear old book-friendships to look back upon. He has no sweet associations with certain musty covers and time-worn pages; no sacred memories of quiet moments when a new love of goodness, a new throb of generosity, a new sense of humanity, were born in the ardent young soul; born when we had turned the last page of some well-thumbed volume and pressed our tear-stained childish cheek against the window pane, when it was growing dusk without, and a mother's voice called us from our shelter to "Lay the book down, dear, and come to tea." For, to speak in better words than my own, "It is the books we read before middle life that do most to mould our characters and influence our lives; and this not only because our natures are then plastic and our opinions flexible, but also because, to produce lasting impression, it is necessary to give a great author time and meditation. The books that are with us in the leisure of youth, that we love for a time not only with the enthusiasm, but with something of the exclusiveness, of a first love, are those that enter as factors forever in our mental life." CHILDREN'S STORIES "To be a good story-teller is to be a king among children." The business of story-telling is carried on from the soundest of economic motives, in order to supply a constant and growing demand. We are forced to satisfy the clamorous nursery-folk that beset us on every hand. Beside us stands an eager little creature quivering with expectation, gazing with wide-open eyes, and saying appealingly, "Tell me a story!" or perhaps a circle of toddlers is gathered round, each one offering the same fervent prayer, with so much trust and confidence expressed in look and gesture that none but a barbarian could bear to disappoint it. The story-teller is the children's special property. When once his gifts have been found out, he may bid good-by to his quiet snooze by the fire, or his peaceful rest with a favorite book. Though he hide in the uttermost parts of the house, yet will he be discovered and made to deliver up his treasure. On this one subject, at least, the little ones of the earth are a solid, unanimous body; for never yet was seen the child who did not love the story and prize the story-teller. Perhaps we never dreamed of practicing the art of story-telling till we were drawn into it by the imperious commands of the little ones about us. It is an untrodden path to us, and we scarcely understand as yet its difficulties and hindrances, its breadth and its possibilities. Yet this eager, unceasing demand of the child-nature we must learn to supply, and supply wisely; for we must not think that all the food we give the little one will be sure to agree with him. because he is so hungry. This would be no more true of a mental than of a physical diet. What objects, then, shall our stories serve beyond the important one of pleasing the little listeners? How can we make them distinctly serviceable, filling the difficult and well-nigh impossible _rôle_ of "useful as well as ornamental"? There are, of course, certain general benefits which the child gains in the hearing of all well-told stories. These are, familiarity with good English, cultivation of the imagination, development of sympathy, and clear impression of moral truth. We shall find, however, that all stories appropriate for young children naturally divide themselves into the following classes:-- I. The purely imaginative or fanciful, and here belongs the so-called fairy story. II. The realistic, devoted to things which have happened, and might, could, would, or should happen without violence to probability. These are generally the vehicle for moral lessons which are all the more impressive because not insisted on. III. The scientific, conveying bits of information about animals, flowers, rocks, and stars. IV. The historical, or simple, interesting accounts of the lives of heroes and events in our country's struggle for life and liberty. There is a great difference in opinion regarding the advisability of telling fairy stories to very young children, and there can be no question that some of them are entirely undesirable and inappropriate. Those containing a fierce or horrible element must, of course, be promptly ruled out of court, including the "bluggy" tales of cruel stepmothers, ferocious giants and ogres, which fill the so-called fairy literature. Yet those which are pure in tone and gay with fanciful coloring may surely be told occasionally, if only for the quickening of the imagination. Perhaps, however, it is best to keep them as a sort of sweetmeat, to be taken on, high days and holidays only. Let us be realistic, by all means; but beware, O story-teller! of being too realistic. Avoid the "shuddering tale" of the wicked boy who stoned the birds, lest some hearer be inspired to try the dreadful experiment and see if it really does kill. Tell not the story of the bears who were set on a hot stove to learn to dance, for children quickly learn to gloat over the horrible. Deal with the positive rather than the negative in story-telling; learn to affirm, not to deny. Some one perhaps will say here, the knowledge of cruelty and sin must come some time to the child; then why shield him from it now? True, it must come; but take heed that you be not the one to introduce it arbitrarily. "Stand far off from childhood," says Jean Paul, "and brush not away the flower-dust with your rough fist." The truths of botany, of mineralogy, of zoology, may be woven into attractive stories which will prove as interesting to the child as the most extravagant fairy tale. But endeavor to shape your narrative so dexterously around the bit of knowledge you wish to convey, that it may be the pivotal point of interest, that the child may not suspect for a moment your intention of instructing him under the guise of amusement. Should this dark suspicion cross his mind, your power is Weakened from that moment, and he will look upon you henceforth as a deeply dyed hypocrite. The historic story is easily told, and universally interesting, if you make it sufficiently clear and simple. The account of the first Thanksgiving Day, of the discovery of America, of the origin of Independence Day, of the boyhood of our nation's heroes,--all these can be made intelligible and charming to children. I suggest topics dealing with our own country only, because the child must learn to know the near-at-hand before he can appreciate the remote. It is best that he should gain some idea of the growth of his own traditions before he wanders into the history of other lands. In any story which has to do with soldiers and battles, do not be too martial. Do not permeate your tale with the roar of guns, the smell of powder, and the cries of the wounded. Inculcate as much as possible the idea of a struggle for a principle, and omit the horrors of war. We must remember that upon the kind of stories we tell the child depends much of his later taste in literature. We can easily create a hunger for highly spiced and sensational writing by telling grotesque and horrible tales in childhood. When the little one has learned to read, when he holds the key to the mystery of books, then he will seek in them the same food which so gratified his palate in earlier years. We are just beginning to realize the importance of beginnings in education. True, a king of Israel whose wisdom is greatly extolled, and whose writings are widely read, urged the importance of the early training of children about three thousand years ago; but the progress of truth in the world is proverbially slow. When parents and teachers, legislators and lawgivers, are at last heartily convinced of the inestimable importance of the first six years of childhood, then the plays and occupations of that formative period of life will no longer be neglected or left to chance, and the exercise of story-telling will assume its proper place as an educative influence. Long ago, when I was just beginning the study of childhood, and when all its possibilities were rising before me, "up, up, from glory to glory,"--long ago, I was asked to give what I considered the qualifications of an ideal kindergartner. My answer was as follows,--brief perhaps, but certainly comprehensive:-- The music of St. Cecilia. The art of Raphael. The dramatic genius of Rachel. The administrative ability of Cromwell. The wisdom of Solomon. The meekness of Moses, and-- The patience of Job. Twelve years' experience with children has not lowered my ideals one whit, nor led me to deem superfluous any of these qualifications; in fact, I should make the list a little longer were I to write it now, and should add, perhaps, the prudence of Franklin, the inventive power of Edison, and the talent for improvisation of the early Troubadours. The Troubadours, indeed, could they return to the earth, would wander about lonely and unwelcomed till they found home and refuge in the hospitable atmosphere of the kindergarten,--the only spot in the busy modern world where delighted audiences still gather around the professional story-teller. If I were asked to furnish a recipe for one of these professional story-tellers, these spinners of childish narratives, I should suggest one measure of pure literary taste, two of gesture and illustration, three of dramatic fire, and four of ready speech and clear expression. If to these you add a pinch of tact and sympathy, the compound should be a toothsome one, and certain to agree with all who taste it. And now as to the kind of story our professional is to tell. In selecting this, the first point to consider is its suitability to the audience. A story for very little ones, three or four years old perhaps, must be simple, bright, and full of action. They do not yet know how to listen; their comprehension of language is very limited, and their sympathies quite undeveloped. Nor are they prepared to take wing with you into the lofty realms of the imagination: the adventures of the playful kitten, of the birdling learning to fly, of the lost ball, of the faithful dog,--things which lie within their experience and belong to the sweet, familiar atmosphere of the household,--these they enjoy and understand. It will be found also that the number of children to whom one is talking is a prominent factor in the problem of selecting a story. Two or three little ones, gathered close about you, may pay strict attention to a quiet, calm, eventless history; but a circle of twenty or thirty eager, restless little people needs more sparkle and incident. If one is addressing a large number of children, the homes from which they come must be considered. Children of refined, cultivated parents, who have listened to family conversation, who have been talked to and encouraged to express themselves,--these are able to understand much more lofty themes than the poor little mites who are only familiar with plain, practical ideas, and rough speech confined to the most ordinary wants of life. And now, after the story is well selected, how long shall it be? It is impossible to fix an exact limit to the time it should occupy, for much depends on the age and the number of the children. I am reminded again of recipes, and of the dismay of the inexperienced cook when she reads, "Stir in flour enough to make a stiff batter." Alas! how is she who has never made a stiff batter to settle the exact amount of flour necessary? I might give certain suggestions as to time, such as, "Close while the interest is still fresh;" or, "Do not make the tale so long as to weary the children;" but after all, these are only cook-book directions. In this, as in many other departments of work with children, one must learn in that "dear school" which "experience keeps." Five minutes, however, is quite long enough with the babies, and you will find that twice this time spent with the older children will give room for a tale of absorbing interest, with appropriate introduction and artistic _dénouement_. As one of the chief values of the exercise is the familiarity with good English which it gives, I need not say that especial attention must be paid to the phraseology in which the story is clothed. Many persons who never write ungrammatically are inaccurate in speech, and the very familiarity and ease of manner which the story-teller must assume may lead her into colloquialisms and careless expressions. Of course, however, the language must be simple; the words, for the most part, Saxon. No ponderous, Johnsonian expressions should drag their slow length through the recital, entangling in their folds the comprehension of the child; nor, on the other hand, need we confine ourselves to monosyllables, adopting the bald style of Primers and First Readers. It is quite possible to talk simply and yet with grace and feeling, and we may be sure that children invariably appreciate poetry of expression. The story should always be accompanied with gestures,--simple, free, unstudied motions, descriptive, perhaps, of the sweep of the mother bird's wings as she soars away from the nest, or the waving of the fir-tree's branches as he sings to himself in the sunshine. This universal language is understood at once by the children, and not only serves as an interpreter of words and ideas, but gives life and attraction to the exercise. Illustrations, either impromptu or carefully prepared beforehand, are always hailed with delight by the children. Nor need you hesitate to try your "'prentice hand" at this work. Never mind if you "cannot draw." It must be a rude picture, indeed, which is not enjoyed by an audience of little people. Their vivid imaginations will triumph over all difficulties, and enable them to see the ideal shining through the real. It is well now and then, also, to have the children illustrate the story. Their drawings, if executed quite without help, are, most interesting from a psychological standpoint, and will afford great delight to you, as well as to the little artists themselves. The stories can also be illustrated with clay modeling, an idealized mud-pie-making very dear to children. They soon become quite expert in moulding simple objects, and enjoy the work with all the capacity of their childish hearts. Now and then encourage the little ones to repeat what they remember of the tale you have told, or to tell something new on the same theme. If the story you have given has been within their range and on a familiar subject, a torrent of infantile reminiscence will immediately gush forth, and you will have a miniature "experience meeting." If you have been telling a dog story, for instance,--"I hed a dog once't," cries Jimmy breathlessly, and is just about to tell some startling incident concerning him, when Nickey pipes up, "And so hed I, and the pound man tuk him;" and so on, all around the circle in the Free Kindergarten, each child palpitating with eagerness to give you his bit of personal experience. Gather the little ones as near to you as possible when you are telling stories, the tiniest in your lap, the others cuddled at your knee. This is easily managed in the nursery, but is more difficult with a large circle of children. With the latter you can but seat yourself among the wee ones, confident that the interest of the story will hold the attention of the older children. What a happy hour it is, this one of story-telling, dear and sacred to every child-lover! What an eager, delightful audience are these little ones, grieving at the sorrows of the heroes, laughing at their happy successes, breathless with anxiety lest the cat catch the disobedient mouse, clapping hands when the Ugly Duckling is changed into the Swan,--all appreciation, all interest, all joy! We might count the rest of the world well lost, could we ever be surrounded by such blooming faces, such loving hearts, and such ready sympathy. THE RELATION OF THE KINDERGARTEN TO SOCIAL REFORM "New social and individual wants demand new solutions of the problem of education." "Social reform!" It is always rather an awe-striking phrase. It seems as if one ought to be a philosopher, even to approach so august a subject. The kindergarten--a simple unpretentious place, where a lot of tiny children work and play together; a place into which if the hard-headed man of business chanced to glance, and if he did not stay long enough, or come often enough, would conclude that the children were frittering away their time, particularly if that same good man of business had weighed and measured and calculated so long that he had lost the seeing eye and understanding heart. Some years ago, a San Francisco kindergartner was threading her way through a dirty alley, making friendly visits to the children of her flock. As she lingered on a certain door-step, receiving the last confidences of some weary woman's heart, she heard a loud but not unfriendly voice ringing from an upper window of a tenement-house just round the corner. "Clear things from under foot!" pealed the voice, in stentorian accents. "The teacher o' the _Kids' Guards_ is comin' down the street!" "Eureka!" thought the teacher, with a smile. "There's a bit of sympathetic translation for you! At last, the German word has been put into the vernacular. The odd, foreign syllables have been taken to the ignorant mother by the lisping child, and the _kindergartners_ have become the _Kids' Guards!_ Heaven bless the rough translation, colloquial as it is! No royal accolade could be dearer to its recipients than this quaint, new christening!" What has the kindergarten to do with social reform? What bearing have its theory and practice upon the conduct of life? A brass-buttoned guardian of the peace remarked to a gentleman on a street-corner, "If we could open more kindergartens, sir, we could almost shut up the penitentiaries, sir!" We heard the sentiment, applauded it, and promptly printed it on the cover of three thousand reports; but on calm reflection it appears like an exaggerated statement. I am not sure that a kindergarten in every ward of every city in America "would almost shut up the penitentiaries, sir!" The most determined optimist is weighed down by the feeling that it will take more than the ardent prosecution of any one reform, however vital, to produce such a result. We appoint investigating committees, who ask more and more questions, compile more and more statistics, and get more and more confused every year. "Are our criminals native or foreign born?" that we may know whether we are worse or better than other people? "Have they ever learned a trade?" that we may prove what we already know, that idle fingers are the devil's tools; "Have they been educated?"--by any one of the sorry methods that take shelter under that much-abused word,--that we may know whether ignorance is a bliss or a _blister_; "Are they married or single?" that we may determine the influence of home ties; "Have they been given to the use of liquor?" that we may heap proof on proof, mountain high, against the monster evil of intemperance; "What has been their family history?" that we may know how heavily the law of heredity has laid its burdens upon them. Burning questions all, if we would find out the causes of crime. To discover the why and wherefore of things is a law of human thought. The reform schools, penitentiaries, prisons, insane asylums, hospitals, and poorhouses are all filled to overflowing; and it is entirely sensible to inquire how the people came there, and to relieve, pardon, bless, cure, or reform them as far as we can. Meanwhile, as we are dismissing or blessing or burying the unfortunates from the imposing front gates of our institutions, new throngs are crowding in at the little back doors. Life is a bridge, full of gaping holes, over which we must all travel! A thousand evils of human misery and wickedness flow in a dark current beneath; and the blind, the weak, the stupid, and the reckless are continually falling through into the rushing flood. We must, it is true, organize our life-boats. It is our duty to pluck out the drowning wretches, receive their vows of penitence and gratitude, and pray for courage and resignation when they celebrate their rescue by falling in again. But we agree nowadays that we should do them much better service if we could contrive to mend more of the holes in the bridge. The kindergarten is trying to mend one of these "holes." It is a tiny one, only large enough for a child's foot; but that is our bit of the world's work,--to _keep it small!_ If we can prevent the little people from stumbling, we may hope that the grown folks will have a surer foot and a steadier gait. A wealthy lady announced her intention of giving $25,000 to some Home for Incurables. "Why," cried a bright kindergartner, "_don't_ you give twelve and a half thousand to some Home for _Curables_, and then your other twelve and a half will go so much further?" In a word, solicitude for childhood is one of the signs of a growing civilization. "To cure, is the voice of the past; to prevent, the divine whisper of to-day." What is the true relation of the kindergarten to social reform? Evidently, it can have no other relation than that which grows out of its existence as a plan of education. Education, we have all glibly agreed, lessens the prevalence of crime. That sounds very well; but, as a matter of fact, has our past system produced all the results in this direction that we have hoped and prayed for? The truth is, people will not be made much better by education until the plan of educating them is made better to begin with. Froebel's idea--the kindergarten idea--of the child and its powers, of humanity and its destiny, of the universe, of the whole problem of living, is somewhat different from that held by the vast majority of parents and teachers. It is imperfectly carried out, even in the kindergarten itself, where a conscious effort is made, and is infrequently attempted in the school or family. His plan of education covers the entire period between the nursery and the university, and contains certain essential features which bear close relation to the gravest problems of the day. If they could be made an integral part of all our teaching in families, schools, and institutions, the burdens under which society is groaning to-day would fall more and more lightly on each succeeding generation. These essential features have often been enumerated. I am no fortunate herald of new truth. I may not even put the old wine in new bottles; but iteration is next to inspiration, and I shall give you the result of eleven years' experience among the children and homes of the poorer classes. This experience has not been confined, to teaching. One does not live among these people day after day, pleading for a welcome for unwished-for babies, standing beside tiny graves, receiving pathetic confidences from wretched fathers and helpless mothers, without facing every problem of this workaday world; they cannot all be solved, even by the wisest of us; we can only seize the end of the skein nearest to our hand, and patiently endeavor to straighten the tangled threads. The kindergarten starts out plainly with the assumption that the moral aim in education is the absolute one, and that all others are purely relative. It endeavors to be a life-school, where all the practices of complete living are made a matter of daily habit. It asserts boldly that doing right would not be such an enormously difficult matter if we practiced it a little,--say a tenth as much as we practice the piano,--and it intends to give children plenty of opportunity for practice in this direction. It says insistently and eternally, "Do noble things, not dream them all day long." For development, action is the indispensable requisite. To develop moral feeling and the power and habit of moral doing we must exercise them, excite, encourage, and guide their action. To check, reprove, and punish wrong feeling and doing, however necessary it be for the safety and harmony, nay, for the very existence of any social state, does not develop right feeling and good doing. It does not develop anything, for it stops action, and without action there is no development. At best it stops wrong development, that is all. In the kindergarten, the physical, mental, and spiritual being is consciously addressed at one and the same time. There is no "piece-work" tolerated. The child is viewed in his threefold relations, as the child of Nature, the child of Man, and the child of God; there is to be no disregarding any one of these divinely appointed relations. It endeavors with equal solicitude to instill correct and logical habits of thought, true and generous habits of feeling, and pure and lofty habits of action; and it asserts serenely that, if information cannot be gained in the right way, it would better not be gained at all. It has no special hobby, unless you would call its eternal plea for the all-sided development of the child a hobby. Somebody said lately that the kindergarten people had a certain stock of metaphysical statements to be aired on every occasion, and that they were over-fond of prating about the "being" of the child. It would hardly seem as if too much could be said in favor of the symmetrical growth of the child's nature. These are not mere "silken phrases;" but, if any one dislikes them, let him take the good, honest, ringing charge of Colonel Parker, "Remember that the whole boy goes to school!" Yes, the whole boy does go to school; but the whole boy is seldom educated after he gets there. A fraction of him is attended to in the evening, however, and a fraction on Sunday. He takes himself in hand on Saturdays and in vacation time, and accomplishes a good deal, notwithstanding the fact that his sight is a trifle impaired already, and his hearing grown a little dull, so that Dame Nature works at a disadvantage, and begins, doubtless, to dread boys who have enjoyed too much "schooling," since it seems to leave them in a state of coma. Our general scheme of education furthers mental development with considerable success. The training of the hand is now being laboriously woven into it; but, even when that is accomplished, we shall still be working with imperfect aims, for the stress laid upon heart-culture is as yet in no way commensurate with its gravity. We know, with that indolent, fruitless half-knowledge that passes for knowing, that "out of the heart are the issues of life." We feel, not with the white heat of absolute conviction, but placidly and indifferently, as becomes the dwellers in a world of change, that "conduct is three fourths of life;" but we do not crystallize this belief into action. We "dream," not "do" the "noble things." The kindergarten does not fence off a half hour each day for moral culture, but keeps it in view every moment of every day. Yet it is never obtrusive; for the mental faculties are being addressed at the same time, and the body strengthened for its special work. With the methods generally practiced in the family and school, I fail to see how we can expect any more delicate sense of right and wrong, any clearer realization of duty, any greater enlightenment of conscience, any higher conception of truth, than we now find in the world. I care not what view you take of humanity, whether you have Calvinistic tendencies and believe in the total depravity of infants, or whether you are a disciple of Wordsworth and apostrophize the child as a "Mighty prophet! Seer blest, On whom those truths do rest Which we are toiling all our lives to find;" if you are a fair-minded man or woman, and have had much experience with young children, you will be compelled to confess that they generally have a tolerably clear sense of right and wrong, needing only gentle guidance to choose the right when it is put before them. I say most, not all, children; for some are poor, blurred human scrawls, blotted all over with the mistakes of other people. And how do we treat this natural sense of what is true and good, this willingness to choose good rather than evil, if it is made even the least bit comprehensible and attractive? In various ways, all equally dull, blind, and vicious. If we look at the downright ethical significance of the methods of training and discipline in many families and schools, we see that they are positively degrading. We appoint more and more "monitors" instead of training the "inward monitor" in each child, make truth-telling difficult instead of easy, punish trivial and grave offenses about in the same way, practice open bribery by promising children a few cents a day to behave themselves, and weaken their sense of right by giving them picture cards for telling the truth and credits for doing the most obvious duty. This has been carried on until we are on the point of needing another Deluge and a new start. Is it strange that we find the moral sense blunted, the conscience unenlightened? The moral climate with which we surround the child is so hazy that the spiritual vision grows dimmer and dimmer,--and small wonder! Upon this solid mass of ignorance and stupidity it is difficult to make any impression; yet I suppose there is greater joy in heaven over a cordial "thwack" at it than over most blows at existing evils. The kindergarten attempts a rational, respectful treatment of children, leading them to do right as much as possible for right's sake, abjuring all rewards save the pleasure of working for others and the delight that follows a good action, and all punishments save those that follow as natural penalties of broken laws,--the obvious consequences of the special bit of wrong-doing, whatever it may be. The child's will is addressed in such a way as to draw it on, if right; to turn it willingly, if wrong. Coercion in the sense of fear, personal magnetism, nay, even the child's love for the teacher, may be used in such a way as to weaken his moral force. With every free, conscious choice of right, a human being's moral power and strength of character increase; and the converse of this is equally true. If the child is unruly in play, he leaves the circle and sits or stands by himself, a miserable, lonely unit until he feels again in sympathy with the community. If he destroys his work, he unites the tattered fragments as best he may, and takes the moral object lesson home with him. If he has neglected his own work, he is not given the joy of working for others. If he does not work in harmony with his companions, a time is chosen when he will feel the sense of isolation that comes from not living in unity with the prevailing spirit of good will. He can have as much liberty as is consistent with the liberty of other people, but no more. If we could infuse the _spirit_ of this kind of discipline into family and school life, making it systematic and continuous from the earliest years, there would be fewer morally "slack-twisted" little creatures growing up into inefficient, bloodless manhood and womanhood. It would be a good deal of trouble; but then, life is a good deal of trouble anyway, if you come to that. We cannot expect to swallow the universe like a pill, and travel on through the world "like smiling images pushed from behind." Blind obedience to authority is not in itself moral. It is necessary as a part of government. It is necessary in order that we may save children dangers of which they know nothing. It is valuable also as a habit. But I should never try to teach it by the story of that inspired idiot, the boy who "stood on the burning deck, whence all but him had fled," and from whence he would have fled if his mental endowment had been that of ordinary boys. For obedience must not be allowed to destroy common sense and the feeling of personal responsibility for one's own actions. Our task is to train responsible, self-directing agents, not to make soldiers. Virtue thrives in a bracing moral atmosphere, where good actions are taken rather as a matter of course. The attempt to instill an idea of self-government into the tiny slips of humanity that find their way into the kindergarten is useful, and infinitely to be preferred to the most implicit obedience to arbitrary command. In the one case, we may hope to have, some time or other, an enlightened will and conscience struggling after the right, failing often, but rising superior to failure, because of an ever stronger joy in right and shame for wrong. In the other, we have a "_good goose_" who does the right for the picture card that is set before him,--a "trained dog" sort of child, who will not leap through the hoop unless he sees the whip or the lump of sugar. So much for the training of the sense of right and wrong! Now for the provision which the kindergarten makes for the growth of certain practical virtues, much needed in the world, but touched upon all too lightly in family and school. The student of political economy sees clearly enough the need of greater thrift and frugality in the nation; but where and when do we propose to develop these virtues? Precious little time is given to them in most schools, for their cultivation does not yet seem to be insisted upon as an integral part of the scheme. Here and there an inspired human being seizes on the thought that the child should really be taught how to live at some time between the ages of six and sixteen, or he may not learn so easily afterward. Accordingly, the pupils under the guidance of that particular person catch a glimpse of eternal verities between the printed lines of their geographies and grammars. The kindergarten makes the growth of every-day virtues so simple, so gradual, even so easy, that you are almost beguiled into thinking them commonplace. They seem to come in, just by the way, as it were, so that at the end of the day you have seen thought and word and deed so sweetly mingled that you marvel at the "universal dovetailedness of things," as Dickens puts it. They will flourish better in the school, too, when the cheerful hum of labor is heard there for a little while each day. The kindergarten child has "just enough" strips for his weaving mat,--none to lose, none to destroy; just enough blocks in each of his boxes, and every one of them, he finds, is required to build each simple form. He cuts his square of paper into a dozen crystal-shaped bits, and behold! each one of these tiny flakes is needed to make a symmetrical figure. He has been careless in following directions, and his form of folded paper does not "come out" right. It is not even, and it is not beautiful. The false step in the beginning has perpetuated itself in each succeeding one, until at the end either partial success or complete failure meets his eye. How easy here to see the relation of cause to effect! "Courage!" says the kindergartner; "better fortune next time, for we will take greater pains." "Can you rub out the ugly, wrong creases?" "We will try. Alas, no! Wrong things are not so easily rubbed out, are they?" "Use your worsted quite to the end, dear: it costs money." "Let us save all the crumbs from our lunch for the birds, children; do not drop any on the floor: it will only make work for somebody else." And so on, to the end of the busy, happy day. How easy it is in the kindergarten, how seemingly difficult later on! It seems to be only books afterward; and "books are good enough in their own way, but they are a mighty bloodless substitute for life." The most superficial observer values the industrial side of the kindergarten, because it falls directly in line with the present effort to make some manual training a part of school work; but twenty or twenty-five years ago, when the subject was not so popular, kindergarten children were working away at their pretty, useful tasks,--tiny missionaries helping to show the way to a truth now fully recognized. As to the value of leading children to habits of industry as early in life as may be, that they may see the dignity and nobleness of labor, and conceive of their individual responsibilities in this world of action, that is too obvious to dwell upon at this time. To Froebel, life, action, and knowledge were the three notes of one harmonious chord; but he did not advocate manual training merely that children might be kept busy, nor even that technical skill might be acquired. The piece of finished kindergarten work is only a symbol of something more valuable which the child has acquired in doing it. The first steps in all the kindergarten occupations are directed or suggested by the teacher; but these dictations or suggestions are merely intended to serve as a sort of staff, by which the child can steady himself until he can walk alone. It is always the creative instinct that is to be reached and vivified: everything else is secondary. By reproduction from memory of a dictated form, by taking from or adding to it, by changing its centre, corners, or sides,--by a dozen ingenious preliminary steps,--the child's inventive faculty is developed; and he soon reaches a point in drawing, building, modeling, or what not, where his greatest delight is to put his individual ideas into visible shape. The simple request, "Make something pretty of your own," brings a score of original combinations and designs,--either the old thoughts in different shape or something fresh and audacious which hints of genius. Instead of twenty hackneyed and slavish copies of one pattern, we have twenty free, individual productions, each the expression of the child's inmost personal thought. This invests labor with a beauty and power, and confers upon it a dignity, to be gained in no other way. It makes every task, however lowly, a joy, because all the higher faculties are brought into action. Much so-called "busy work," where pupils of the "A class" are allowed to stick a thousand pegs in a thousand holes while the "B class" is reciting arithmetic, is quite fruitless, because it has so little thought behind it. Unless we have a care, manual training, when we have succeeded in getting it into the school, may become as mechanical and unprofitable as much of our mind training has been, and its moral value thus largely missed. The only way to prevent it is to borrow a suggestion from Froebel. Then, and only then, shall we have insight with power of action, knowledge with practice, practice with the stamp of individuality. Then doing will blossom into being, and "Being is the mother of all the little doings as well as of the grown-up deeds and heroic sacrifices." The kindergarten succeeds in getting these interesting and valuable free productions from children of four or five years only by developing, in every possible way, the sense of beauty and harmony and order. We know that people assume, somewhat at least, the color of their surroundings; and, if the sense of beauty is to grow, we must give it something to feed upon. The kindergarten tries to provide a room, more or less attractive, quantities of pictures and objects of interest, growing plants and vines, vases of flowers, and plenty of light, air, and sunshine. A canary chirps in one corner, perhaps; and very likely there will be a cat curled up somewhere, or a forlorn dog which has followed the children into this safe shelter. It is a pretty, pleasant, domestic interior, charming and grateful to the senses. The kindergartner looks as if she were glad to be there, and the children are generally smiling. Everybody seems alive. The work, lying cosily about, is neat, artistic, and suggestive. The children pass out of their seats to the cheerful sound of music, and are presently joining in an ideal sort of game, where, in place of the mawkish sentimentality of "Sally Walker," of obnoxious memory, we see all sorts of healthful, poetic, childlike fancies woven into song. Rudeness is, for the most part, banished. The little human butterflies and bees and birds flit hither and thither in the circle; the make-believe trees hold up their branches, and the flowers their cups; and everybody seems merry and content. As they pass out the door, good-bys and bows and kisses are wafted backward into the room; for the manners of polite society are observed in everything. You draw a deep breath. This is a _real_ kindergarten, and it is like a little piece of the millennium. "Everything is so very pretty and charming," says the visitor. Yes, so it is. But all this color, beauty, grace, symmetry, daintiness, delicacy, and refinement, though it seems to address and develop the aesthetic side of the child's nature, has in reality a very profound ethical significance. We have all seen the preternatural virtue of the child who wears her best dress, hat, and shoes on the same august occasion. Children are tidier and more careful in a dainty, well-kept room. They treat pretty materials more respectfully than ugly ones. They are inclined to be ashamed, at least in a slight degree, of uncleanliness, vulgarity, and brutality, when they see them in broad contrast with beauty and harmony and order. For the most part, they try "to live up to" the place in which they find themselves. There is some connection between manners and morals. It is very elusive and, perhaps, not very deep; but it exists. Vice does not flourish alike in all conditions and localities, by any means. An ignorant negro was overheard praying, "Let me so lib dat when I die I may _hab manners_, dat I may know what to say when I see my heabenly Lord!" Well, I dare say we shall need good manners as well as good morals in heaven; and the constant cultivation of the one from right motives might give us an unexpected impetus toward the other. If the systematic development of the sense of beauty and order has an ethical significance, so has the happy atmosphere of the kindergarten an influence in the same direction. I have known one or two "solid men" and one or two predestinate spinsters who said that they didn't believe children could accomplish anything in the kindergarten, because they had too good a time. There is something uniquely vicious about people who care nothing for children's happiness. That sense of the solemnity of mortal conditions which has been indelibly impressed upon us by our Puritan ancestors comes soon enough, Heaven knows! Meanwhile, a happy childhood is an unspeakably precious memory. We look back upon it and refresh our tired hearts with the vision when experience has cast a shadow over the full joy of living. The sunshiny atmosphere of a good kindergarten gives the young human plants an impulse toward eager, vigorous growth. Love's warmth surrounds them on every side, wooing their sweetest possibilities into life. Roots take a firmer grasp, buds form, and flowers bloom where, under more unfriendly conditions, bare stalks or pale leaves would greet the eye,--pathetic, unfulfilled promises,--souls no happier for having lived in the world, the world no happier because of their living. "Virtue kindles at the touch of joy." The kindergarten takes this for one of its texts, and does not breed that dismal fungus of the mind "which disposes one to believe that the pursuit of knowledge must necessarily be disagreeable." The social phase of the kindergarten is most interesting to the student of social economics. Coöperative work is strongly emphasized; and the child is inspired both to live his _own full_ life, and yet to feel that his life touches other lives at every point,--"for we are members one of another." It is not the unity of the "little birds," in the couplet, who "agree" in their "little nests," because "they'd fall out if they didn't," but a realization, in embryo, of the divine principle that no man liveth to himself. As to specifically religious culture, everything fosters the spirit out of which true religion grows. In the morning talks, when the children are most susceptible and ready to "be good," as they say, their thoughts are led to the beauty of the world about them, the pleasure of right doing, the sweetness of kind thoughts and actions, the loveliness of truth, patience, and helpfulness, and the goodness of the Creator to all created things. No parent, of whatever creed or lack of creed, whether a bigot or unbeliever, could object to the kind of religious instruction given in the kindergarten; and yet in every possible way the child-soul and the child-heart are directed towards everything that is pure and holy, true and steadfast. If the child love not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? "Love worketh no ill to his neighbor, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." There is a vast deal of practical religion to be breathed into these little children of the street before the abstractions of beliefs can be comprehended. They cannot live on words and prayers and texts, the thought and feeling must come before the expression. As Mrs. Whitney says, "The world is determined to vaccinate children with religion for fear they should take it in the natural way." Some wise sayings of the good Dr. Holland, in "Nicholas Minturn," come to me as I write. Nicholas says, in discussing this matter of charities, and the various means of effecting a radical cure of pauperism, rather than its continual alleviation: "If you read the parable of the Sower, I think that you will find that soil is quite as necessary as seed--indeed, that the seed is thrown away unless a soil is prepared in advance.... I believe in religion, but before I undertake to plant it, I would like something to plant it in. The sowers are too few, and the seed is too precious to be thrown away and lost among the thorns and stones." Last, but by no means least, the admirable physical culture that goes on in the kindergarten is all in the right direction. Physiologists know as much about morality as ministers of the gospel. The vices which drag men and women into crime spring as often from unhealthy bodies as from weak wills and callous consciences. Vile fancies and sensual appetites grow stronger and more terrible when a feeble physique and low vitality offer no opposing force. Deadly vices are nourished in the weak, diseased bodies that are penned, day after day, in filthy, crowded tenements of great cities. If we could withdraw every three-year-old child from these physically enfeebling and morally brutalizing influences, and give them three or four hours a day of sunshine, fresh air, and healthy physical exercise, we should be doing humanity an inestimable service, even if we attempted nothing more. I have tried, as briefly as I might in justice to the subject, to emphasize the following points:-- I. That we must act up to our convictions with regard to the value of preventive work. If we are ever obliged to choose, let us save the children. II. That the relation of the kindergarten to social reform is simply that, as a plan of education, it offers us valuable suggestions in regard to the mental, moral, and physical culture of children, which, in view of certain crying evils of the day, we should do well to follow. The essential features of the kindergarten which bear a special relation to the subject are as follows:-- 1. The symmetrical development of the child's powers, considering him neither as all mind, all soul, nor all body; but as a creature capable of devout feeling, clear thinking, noble doing. 2. The attempt to make so-called "moral culture" a little less immoral; the rational method of discipline, looking to the growth of moral, self-directing power in the child,--the only proper discipline for future citizens of a free republic. 3. The development of certain practical virtues, the lack of which is endangering the prosperity of the nation; namely, economy thrift, temperance, self-reliance, frugality industry, courtesy, and all the sober host,--none of them drawing-room accomplishments and consequently in small demand. 4. The emphasis placed upon manual training, especially in its development of the child's creative activity. 5. The training of the sense of beauty, harmony, and order; its ethical as well as aesthetical significance. 6. The insistence upon the moral effect of happiness; joy the favorable climate of childhood. 7. The training of the child's social nature; an attempt to teach the brotherhood of man as well as the Fatherhood of God. 8. The realization that a healthy body has almost as great an influence on morals as a pure mind. I do not say that the consistent practice of these principles will bring the millennium in the twinkling of an eye, but I do affirm that they are the thought-germs of that better education which shall prepare humanity for the new earth over which shall arch the new heaven. Ruskin says, "Crime can only be truly hindered by letting no man grow up a criminal, by taking away the will to commit sin!" But, you object, that is sheer impossibility. It does seem so, I confess, and yet, unless you are willing to think that the whole plan of an Omnipotent Being is to be utterly overthrown, set aside, thwarted, then you must believe this ideal possible, somehow, sometime. I know of no better way to grow towards it than by living up to the kindergarten idea, that just as we gain intellectual power by doing intellectual work, and the finest aesthetic feeling by creating beauty, so shall we win for ourselves the power of feeling nobly and willing nobly by doing "noble things." HOW SHALL WE GOVERN OUR CHILDREN? "Not the cry," says a Chinese author, "but the rising of a wild duck, impels the flock to follow him in upward flight." Long ago, in a far-off country, a child was born; and when his parents looked on him they loved him, and they resolved in their simple hearts to make of him a strong, brave, warlike man. But the God of that country was a hungry and an insatiable God, and he cried out for human sacrifice; so, when his arms had been thrice heated till they glowed red with the flame of the fire, the mother cradled her child in them, and his life exhaled as a vapor. A child was born in another country, and the tender eyes of his mother saw that his limbs were misshapen and his life-blood a sickly current. Yet her heart yearned over him, and she would have tended and trained him and loved him better than all the rest of her strong, well-favored brood; but when the elders of her people knew that the child was a weakling, they decreed that he should die, and she bent her head to the law, which was stronger than her love. In a third land a child was to be born, and the proud father made ready gifts, and purchased silken robes, and prepared a feast for his friends; but, alas! when the longed-for soul entered the world it was housed in a woman-child's body, and straightway the joy was changed into mourning. Bitter reproaches were heaped upon the mother, for were there not enough women already on the earth? and the fiat went forth that the babe should straightway be delivered from the trials of existence. So, while its hold on life was yet uncertain, the husband's mother placed wet cloths upon its lips, and soon the faint breath stopped, and the white soul went fluttering heavenward again. In still another of God's fair lands a child entered the world, and he grew toward manhood vigorous and lusty; but he heeded not his parents' commands, and when his disobedience had been long continued, the fathers of the tribe decreed that he should be stoned to death, for so it was written in the sacred books. And as the youth was the absolute property of his parents, and as by common consent they had full liberty to deal with him as seemed good to them, they consented unto his death, that his soul might be saved alive, and the evening sun shone crimson on his dead body as it lay upon the sands of the desert. * * * * * At a later day and in a Christian country two children were born, one hundred years apart, and the world had now so far progressed that absolute power over the life of the offspring was denied the parents. The one was ruled with iron rods; he was made to obey with a rigidity of compliance and a severity of treatment in case of failure which made obedience a slavish duty, and he was taught besides that he was a child of Satan and an heir of hell. He found no joy in his youth, and his miserable soul groveled in fear of the despot who dominated him, and of the blazing eternity which he was told would be the punishment for his sins. His will was broken; he was made weak where he might have been strong; and he did evil because he had learned no power of self-restraint: yet his people loved him, and they had done all these things because they wished to purge him wholly from all uncleanness. The parents of the other child were warned of the lamentable results of this gloomy training, and they said one to another: "Our darling shall be free as air; his duties shall be made to seem like pleasures, or, better still, he shall have no duty but his pleasure. He shall do only what he wills, that his will may grow strong, and he can but choose the right, for he knows no evil. We will hold up before him no bugbear of future punishment, for doubtless there is no such thing; and if there be, it will not be meted out to such a child. He will love and obey his parents because they have devoted themselves to his happiness, and because they have never imposed distasteful obligations upon him, and when he grows to manhood he will be a model of wisdom and of goodness." But, lo! the child of this training was as great a failure as the child of austerity and gloom. He was capricious, lawless, willful, disobedient, passionate; he thought of no one's pleasure save his own; he cared for his parents only in so far as they could be of use to him; and like a wild beast of the jungle he preyed upon the life around him, and cared not whom he destroyed if his appetites were satisfied. "In every field of opinion and action, men are found swinging from one extreme to the other of life's manifold arcs of vibration." This perpetual movement may be the essential condition of existence, for death is cessation of motion; or it may be a never-ending effort of the mind to reach an ideal which discloses itself so seldom as to make its permanent abiding-place a matter of uncertainty. Doubtless there is somewhere a middle to the arc, and in the lapse of ages the needle may at last find the "pole-point of central truth" and be at rest; but as yet, in every department of labor and thought, it is vibrating, and after tarrying a while at one extreme it swings unsatisfied back to the other. Nowhere are these extremes more noticeable than in the government of children. Centuries ago, in the patriarchal period, the father of the family seems also to have exercised the functions of a criminal judge; but the uniting of the two sets of duties in one person does not appear to have inspired the children with insurmountable awe, for laws are found both in Numbers and Deuteronomy fixing the penalty of disobedience, and of the striking of a parent by a child. Still later, the Roman father possessed arbitrary powers of life and death over his children; but it is probable that natural affection and a more advanced civilization commonly made the law a dead letter. Though the world in time grew to feel that life belonged to the being who held it, not to those who gave it birth, still discipline has for ages been directed more to the body than to the mind, with an idea apparently that the pains of the flesh will save the soul. Pious parents until within recent dates have regarded the flogging of children as absolutely a religious obligation, and many a tender mother has steeled her heart and strengthened her arm to give the blows which she regarded as essential to the spiritual well-being of her child. The birch rod and the Bible were the Parents' Complete Guide to domestic management in Puritan days, and no one can deny that this treatment, though rather a heroic one, seems to have produced fine, strong, self-denying men and women. Governor Bradford, in 1648, speaks feelingly of the godliness of a Puritan woman whose office it was to "sit in a convenient place in the congregation, with a little birchen rod in her hand, and keep the children in great awe;" and, from the frequency with which chastisement is mentioned in early Puritan records, it seems pretty clear that the sober little lads and lasses of the day did not suffer from over-indulgence. When this wholesale whipping began to fall into disuse, many philosophers prophesied the ruin of the race, but these gloomy predictions have scarcely found their fulfillment as yet. There has been, however, a colossal change in discipline, from the days when disobedience was punishable with death to the agreeable moral suasion of the nineteenth century, as exemplified in the "fin de siècle" nonsense rhyme:-- "There once was a hopeful young horse Who was brought up on love, without force: He had his own way, and they sugared his hay; So he never was naughty, of course." The results of this delightful method of treatment seem rather problematic, and the modern child is universally acknowledged to be no improvement upon his predecessors in point of respect and filial piety at least. A superintendent's report, written thirty years ago for one of the New England States, regrets that, even then, home government had grown lax. He wittily says that Young America is _rampant_, parental influence _couchant_; and no reversal of these positions is as yet visible in 1892. To those who note the methods by which many children are managed, it is a matter of wonderment that the results in character and conduct are not very much worse than they are. Dr. Channing wisely says, "The hope of the world lies in the fact that parents cannot make of their children what they will." Happy accidents of association and circumstance sometimes nullify the harm the parent has done, and the tremendous momentum of the race-tendency carries the child over many an obstacle which his training has set in his path. It seems crystal-clear at the outset that you cannot govern a child if you have never learned to govern yourself. Plato said, many centuries ago: "The best way of training the young is to train yourself at the same time; not to admonish them, but to be always carrying out your own principles in practice," and all the wisdom of the ancients is in the thought. If, then, you are a fit person to be trusted with the government of a child, what goal do you propose to reach in your discipline; what is your aim, your ideal? 1. The discipline should be thoroughly in harmony with child-nature in general, and suited to the age and development of the particular child in question. 2. It should appeal to the higher motives, and to the higher motives alone. 3. It should develop kindness, helpfulness, and sympathy. 4. It should never use weapons which would tend to lower the child's self-respect. 5. It should be thoroughly just, and the punishment, or rather the retribution, should be commensurate with the offense. 6. It should teach respect for law, and for the rights of others. Finally, it should teach "voluntary obedience, the last lesson in life, the choral song which rises from all elements and all angels," and, as the object of true discipline is the formation of character, it should produce a human being master of his impulses, his passions, and his will. The journey's end being fixed, one must next decide what route will reach it, and will be short, safe, economical, and desirable; and the roads to the presumably ideal discipline are many and well-traveled. Some of them, it is true, lead you into a swamp, some to the edge of a precipice; some will hurl you down a mountain-side with terrific rapidity; others stop half-way, bringing you face to face with a blank wall; and others again will lose you entirely on a bleak and trackless plain. But no matter which route you select, you will have the wise company of a great many teachers, parents, and guardians, and an innumerable throng of fair and lovely children will journey by your side. The road of threat and fear, of arbitrary and over-severe punishment, has been much traveled in all times, though perhaps it is a little grass-grown now. The child who obeys you merely because he fears punishment is a slave who cowers under the lash of the despot. Undue severity makes him a liar and a coward. He hates his master, he hates the thing he is made to do; there is a bitter sense of injustice, a seething passion of revenge, forever within him; and were he strong enough he would rise and destroy the power that has crushed him. He has done right because he was forced to do so, not because he desired it; and since the right-doing, the obedience, was neither the fruit of his reason nor his love, it cannot be permanent. The feeling of justice is strong in the child's mind, and you have constantly wounded that feeling. You have destroyed the sense of cause and effect by your arbitrary punishments. You have corrected him for disobedience, for carelessness, for unkindness, for untruthfulness, for noisiness, and for slowness in learning his lessons. How is he to know which of these offenses is the greatest, if all have received the same punishment? Why should giving him a good thrashing teach him to be kind to his little sister? Why should he learn the multiplication table with greater rapidity because you ferule him soundly? Have you ever found pain an assistance to the memory? If he has little intellectual perception of the difference between truth and falsehood, why should you suppose that smart strokes on any portion of the body would quicken that perception? Is it not clear as the sun at noonday that, since he observes the punishment to have no necessary relation to the offense, and since he observes it to be light or severe according to your pleasure,--is it not clear that he will suppose you to be using your superior strength in order to treat him unfairly, and will not the supposition sow seeds of hatred and rebellion in his heart? Another road to discipline is that of bribery. To endeavor to secure goodness in a child by means of bribery, to promise him a reward in case he obeys you, is manifestly an absurdity. You are destroying the very traits in his character you are presumably endeavoring to build up. You are educating a human being who knows good from evil, and who should be taught deliberately to choose the right for the right's sake, who should do his duty because he knows it to be his duty, not for any extraneous reward connected with it. A spiritual reward will follow, nevertheless, in the feeling of happiness engendered, and the child may early be led to find his satisfaction in this, and in the approval of those he loves. There are, of course, certain simple rewards which can be used with safety, and which the child easily sees to be the natural results of good conduct. If his treatment of the household pussy has been kind and gentle, he may well be trusted with a pet of his own; if he puts his toys away carefully when asked to do so, father will notice the neat room when he comes home; if he learns his lessons well and quickly, he will have the more time to work in the garden; and the suggestion of these natural consequences is legitimate and of good effect. It is always safer, no doubt, to appeal to a love of pleasure in children than to a fear of pain, yet bribes and extraneous rewards inevitably breed selfishness and corruption, and lead the child to expect conditions in life which will never be realized. Though retribution of one kind or another follows quickly on the heels of wrong-doing, yet virtue is commonly its own reward, and it is as well that the child should learn this at the beginning of life. Froebel says: "Does a simple, natural child, when acting rightly, think of any other reward which he might receive for his action than this consciousness, though that reward be only praise?... "How we degrade and lower the human nature which we should raise, how we weaken those whom we should strengthen, when we hold up to them an inducement to act virtuously!" Emulation is often harnessed into service to further intellectual progress and the formation of right habits of conduct, and this inevitably breeds serious evils. It is well to set before the child an ideal on which he may form himself as far as possible; but when this ideal sits across the aisle, plays in a neighboring back yard, or, worse still, is another child in the same family, he is hated and despised. His virtues become obnoxious, and the unfortunate evildoer prefers to be vicious, that he may not resemble a creature whose praises have so continually been sung that his very name is odious. If the child grows accustomed to the comparison of himself with others and the endeavor to excel them, he becomes selfish, envious, and either vain of his virtue and attainments, or else thoroughly disheartened at his small success, while he grudges that of his neighbor. George Macdonald says: "No work noble or lastingly good can come of emulation, any more than of greed. I think the motives are spiritually the same." To what can we appeal, then, in children, as motives to goodness, as aids in the formation of right habits of thought and action? Ah! the child's heart is a harp of many strings, and touched by the hand of a master a fine, clear tone will sound from every one of them, while the resultant strain will be a triumphant burst of glorious harmony. Touch delicately the string of love of approval, and listen to the answer. The child delights to work for you, to please you if he can, to do his tasks well enough to win your favorable notice, and the breath of praise is sweet to his nostrils. It is right and justifiable that he should have this praise, and it will be an aid to his spiritual development, if bestowed with discrimination. Only Titanic strength of character can endure constant discouragement and failure, and yet work steadily onward, and the weak, undeveloped human being needs a word of approval now and then to show him that he is on the right track, and that his efforts are appreciated. Of course the kind and the frequency of the praise bestowed depend entirely upon the nature of the child. One timid, self-distrustful temperament needs frequently to bask in the sunshine of your approval, while another, somewhat predisposed to vanity and self-consciousness, feeds a more bracing moral climate. There is no question that cleanliness and fresh air may be considered as minor aids to goodness, and a dangerous outbreak of insubordination may sometimes be averted by hastily suggesting to the little rebel a run in the garden, prefaced by a thorough application of cool water to the flushed face and little clenched hands; while self-respect may often be restored by the donning of a clean apron. Beauty of surroundings is another incentive to harmony of action. It is easier for the child to be naughty in a poor, gloomy room, scanty of furniture, than in a garden gay with flowers, shaded by full-leafed trees, and made musical by the voice of running water. Dr. William T. Harris says: "Beauty cannot create a new heart, but it can greatly change the disposition," and this seems unquestionable, especially with regard to the glory of God's handiwork, which makes goodness seem "the natural way of living." Yet we would not wish our children to be sybarites, and we must endeavor to cultivate in their breasts a hardy plant of virtue which will live, if need be, on Alpine heights and feed on scanty fare. It is a truism that interesting occupation prevents dissension, and that idle fingers are the Devil's tools. A child who is good and happy during school time, with its regular hours and alternated work and play, often becomes, in vacation, fretful, sulky, discontented, and in arms against the entire world. The discipline of work, if of a proper kind, of a kind in which success is not too long delayed, is sure and efficacious. Success, if the fruit of one's own efforts, is so sweet that one longs for more of the work which produced it. The reverse of the medal may be seen here also. The knotted thread which breaks if pulled too impatiently; the dropped stitches that make rough, uneven places in the pattern; the sail which was wrongly placed and will not propel the boat; the pile of withered leaves which was not removed, and which the wind scattered over the garden,--are not all these concrete moral lessons in patience, accuracy, and carefulness? We may safely appeal to public opinion, sometimes, in dealing with children. The chief object in doing this "is to create a constantly advancing ideal toward which the child is attracted, and thereby to gain a constantly increasing effort on his part to realize this ideal." There comes a time in the child's development when he begins to realize his own individuality, and longs to see it recognized by others. The views of life, the sentiments of the people about him, are clearly noted, and he desires to so shape his conduct as to be in harmony with them. If he sees that tale-bearing and cowardice are looked upon with disgust by his comrades, he will be a very Spartan in his laconicism and courage; if his father and older brothers can bear pain without wincing, then he will not cry when he hurts himself. Oftentimes he is obdurate when reproved in private for a fault, but when brought to the tribunal of the disapproval of other children, he is chagrined, repents, and makes atonement. He is uneasy under the adverse verdict of a large company, but the condemnation of one person did not weigh with him. It is usually not wise, however, to appeal to public opinion in this way, save on an abstract question, as the child loses his self-respect, and becomes degraded in his own eyes, if his fault is trumpeted abroad. Stories of brave deeds, poems of heroism, self-sacrifice, and loyalty, have their places in creating a sentiment of ideality in the child's breast,--a sentiment which remains fixed sometimes, even though it be not in harmony with the feeling of the majority. Now and then some noble soul is born, some hero so thrilled with the ideal that he rises far above the public sentiment of his day; but usually we count him great who overtops his fellows by an inch or two, and he who falls much below the level of ordinary feeling is esteemed as almost beyond hope. To seek for the approval of others, even though they embody our highest ideals, is truly not the loftiest form of aspiration; but it is one round in the ladder which leads to that higher feeling, the desire for the benediction of the spirit-principle within us. Although discipline by means of fear, as the word is commonly used, cannot be too strongly condemned, yet there is a "godly fear" of which the Bible speaks, which certainly has its place among incentives in will-training. The child has not attained as yet, and it is doubtful whether we ourselves have done so, to that supreme excellence of love which absolutely casteth out fear. A writer of great moral insight says: "Has not the law of seed and flower, cause and effect, the law of continuity which binds the universe together, a tone of severity? It has surely, like all righteous law, and carries with it a legitimate and wholesome fear. If we are to reap what we have sown, some, perhaps most of us, may dread the harvest." The child shrinks from the disapproval of the loved parent or teacher. By so much the more as he reverences and respects those "in authority over him" does he dread to do that which he knows they would condemn. If he has been led to expect natural retributions, he will have a wholesome fear of putting his hand in the fire, since he knows the inevitable consequences. He understands that it is folly to expect that wrong can be done with impunity, and shrinks in terror from committing a sin whose consequences it is impossible that he should escape. He knows well that there are other punishments save those of the body, and he has felt the anguish which follows self-condemnation. "There is nothing degrading in such fear, but a heart-searching reverence and awe in the sincere and humble conviction that God's law is everywhere." Such are some of the false and some of the true motives which can be appealed to in will-training, but there are various points in their practical application which may well be considered. May we not question whether we are not frequently too exacting with children,--too much given to fault-finding? Were it not that the business of play is so engrossing to them, and life so fascinating a matter on the whole,--were it not for these qualifying circumstances, we should harass many of them into dark cynicism and misanthropy at a very early age. I marvel at the scrupulous exactness in regard to truth, the fine sense of distinction between right and wrong, which we require of an unfledged human being who would be puzzled to explain to us the difference between a "hawk and a handsaw," who lives in the realm of the imagination, and whose view of the world is that of a great play-house furnished for his benefit. If we were one half as punctilious and as hypercritical in our judgment of ourselves, we should be found guilty in short order, and sentenced to hard labor on a vast number of counts. There are many comparatively small faults in children which it is wise not to see at all. They are mere temporary failings, tiny drops which will evaporate if quietly left in the sunshine, but which, if opposed, will gather strength for a formidable current. If we would sometimes apply Tolstoi's doctrine of non-resistance to children, if we would overlook the small transgression and quietly supply another vent for the troublesome activity, there would be less clashing of wills, and less raising of an evil spirit, which gains wonderful strength while in action. Do we not often use an arbitrary and a threatening manner in our commands to children, when a calm, gentle request, in a tone of expectant confidence, would gain obedience far more quickly and pleasantly? Some natures are antagonized by the shadow of a threat, even if it accompanies a reasonable order; and if we acknowledge that the oil of courtesy is a valuable lubricator in our dealings with grown people, it seems proper to suppose that it would not be entirely useless with children. We cannot expect to get from them what we do not give ourselves, and it is idle to imagine that we can address them as we would a disobedient dog, and be answered in tones of dulcet harmony. Again, what possible harm can there be in sometimes giving reasons for commands, when they are such as the child would appreciate? We do not desire to bring him up under martial rule; and if he feels the wisdom of the order issued, he will be much more likely to obey it pleasantly. Cases may frequently occur in which reasons either could not properly be given, or would be beyond the child's power of comprehension; but if our treatment of him has been uniformly frank and affectionate, he will cheerfully obey, believing that, as our commands have been reasonable heretofore, there is good cause to suppose they may still be so. Educational opinion tends, more and more every day, to the absolute conviction that the natural punishment, the effect which follows the cause, is the only one which can safely be used with children. This is the method of Nature, severe and unrelenting it may be, but calm, firm, and purely just. He who sows the wind must reap the whirlwind, and he who sows thistles may be well assured that he will never gather figs as his harvest. The feeling of continuity, of sequence, is naturally strong in the child; and if we would lead him to appreciate that the law is as absolute in the moral as in the physical world, we shall find the ground already prepared for our purpose. Much transgression of moral law in later years is due to the fatal hope in the evil-doer's mind that he will be able to escape the consequences of his sin. Could we make it clear from the beginning of life that there is no such escape, that the mills of the gods will grind at last, though the hopper stand empty for many a year,--could we make this an absolute conviction of the mind, I am assured that it would greatly tend to lessen crime. And this is one of the defects of arbitrary punishment, that it is sometimes withheld when the heart of the judge melts over the sinner, leading him to expect other possible exemptions in the future. Is it not sometimes given in anger, also, when the culprit clearly sees it to be disproportionate to the crime? Here appears the advantage of the natural punishment,--it is never withheld in weak affection, it is never given in anger, it is entirely disassociated from personal feeling. No poisoned arrow of injustice remains rankling in the child's breast; no rebellious feeling that the parent has taken advantage of his superior strength to inflict the punishment: it is perceived to be absolutely _fair_, and, being fair, it must be, although painful, yet satisfactory to that sense of justice which is a passion of childhood. Our American children are as precocious in will-power as they are keen-witted, and they need a special discipline. The courage, activity, and pioneer spirit of the fathers, exercised in hewing their way through virgin forests, hunting wild beasts in mountain solitudes, opening up undeveloped lands, prospecting for metals through trackless plains, choosing their own vocations, helping to govern their country,--all these things have reacted upon the children, and they are thoroughly independent, feeling the need of caring for themselves when hardly able to toddle. Entrust this precocious bundle of nerves and individuality to a person of weak will or feeble intelligence, and the child promptly becomes his ruler. The power of strong volition becomes caprice, he does not learn the habit of obedience, and thus valuable directive power is lost to the world. "The lowest classes of society," says Dr. Harris, "are the lowest, not because there is any organized conspiracy to keep them down, but because they are lacking in directive power." The jails, the prisons, the reformatories, are filled with men who are there because they were weak, more than because they were evil. If the right discipline in home and school had been given them, they would never have become the charge of the nation. Thus we waste force constantly, force of mind and of spirit sufficient to move mountains, because we do not insist that every child shall exercise his "inherited right," which is, "that he be taught to obey." It is a grave subject, this of will-training, the gravest perhaps that we can consider, and its deepest waters lie far below the sounding of my plummet. Some of the principles, however, on which it rests are as firmly fixed as the bed of the ocean, which remains changeless though the waves continually shift above:-- 1. If we can but cultivate the _habit_ of doing right, we enlist in our service one of the strongest of human agencies. Its momentum is so great that it may propel the child into the course of duty before he has time to discuss the question, or to parley with his conscience concerning it. 2. We must remember that "force of character is cumulative, and all the foregone days of virtue work their health into this." The task need not be begun afresh each morning; yesterday's strokes are still there, and to-day's efforts will make the carving deeper and bolder. 3. We may compel the body to carry out an order, the fingers to perform a task; but this is mere slavish compliance. True obedience can never be enforced; it is the fruit of the reason and the will, the free, glad offering of the spirit. 4. Though many motives have their place in early will-training,--love of approval, deference to public opinion, the influence of beauty, hopeful occupation, respect and rev for those in authority,--yet these are all preparatory, the preliminary exercises, which must be well practiced before the soul can spread her wings into the blue. 5. There is but one true and final motive to good conduct, and that is a hunger in the soul of man for the blessing of the spirit, a ceaseless longing to be in perfect harmony with the principles of everlasting and eternal right. THE MAGIC OF "TOGETHER" "'Together' is the key-word of the nineteenth century." It is an old, adobe-walled Mexican garden. All around it, close against the brown bricks, the fleur-de-lis stand white and stately, guarded by their tall green lances. The sun's rays are already powerful, though it is early spring, and I am glad to take my book under the shade of the orange-trees. In the dark leaf-canopy above me shine the delicate star-like flowers, the partly opened buds, and the great golden oranges, while tiny green and half-ripe spheres make a happy contrast in color. The ground about me is strewn with flowers and buds, the air is heavy with fragrance, and the bees are buzzing softly overhead. I am growing drowsy, but as I lift my eyes from my book they meet something which interests me. A large black ant is tugging and pulling at an orange-bud, and really making an effort to carry it away with him. It is once and a half as long as he, fully twice as wide, and I cannot compute how much heavier, but its size and weight are very little regarded. He drags it vigorously over Alpine heights and through valley deeps, but evidently finds the task arduous, for he stops to rest now and then. I want to help him, but cannot be sure of his destination, and fear besides that my clumsy assistance would be misinterpreted. Ah, how unfortunate! ant and orange-bud have fallen together into the depths of a Colorado cañon which yawns in the path. The ant soon reappears, but clearly feels it impossible to drag the bud up such a precipice, and runs away on some other quest. What did he want with that bud, I wonder? was it for food, or bric-a-brac, or a plaything for the babies? Never mind,--I shall never know, and I prepare to read again. But what's this? Here is my ant returning, and accompanied by some friends. They disappear in the canon, helpfulness and interest in every wave of their feelers. Their heads come into sight again, and--yes! they have the bud. Now, indeed, events move, and the burden travels rapidly across the smooth courtyard toward the house. Can they intend to take it up on the flat roof, where we have lately suspected a nest? Yes, there they go, straight up the wall, all putting their shoulders to the wheel, and resting now and then in the chinks of the crumbling adobes. Up the bud moves to the gutters,--I can see it gleam as it is pulled over the edge,--they are out of sight,--the task is done! How easy any undertaking, I think, when people are willing to help. * * * * * In a high dormer window of a great city, in a nest of quilts and pillows, sits little Ingrid. Her blue Danish eyes look out from a pinched, snow-white face, and her thin hands are languidly folded in her lap. She gazes far down below to the other side of the square, where she can just see the waving of some green branches and an open door. Her eyes brighten now, for a stream of little children comes pouring from that door. "Look, mother!" she cries, "there are the children!" and the mother leaves her washing, and comes with dripping hands to see every tiny boy look up at the window and flourish his hat, and every girl wave her handkerchief, or kiss her hand. They form a ring; there is silence for a moment and then, 'mid great flapping of dingy handkerchiefs and battered hats, a hearty cheer is heard. "They're cheering my birthday," cries Ingrid. "Miss Mary knows it's my birthday. Oh, isn't it lovely!" And the thin hands eagerly waft some grateful kisses to the group below. The scene has only lasted a few moments, the children have had their run in the fresh air, and now they go marching back, pausing at the door to wave good-by to the window far above. The mother carries Ingrid back to her bed (it is a weary time now since those little feet touched the floor); but the bed is not as tiresome as usual, nor the washing as hard, for both hearts are full of sunshine. Afternoon comes,--little feet are heard climbing up the stair, and Ingrid's name is called. The door opens, and two flushed and breathless messengers stand on the threshold. "We've brung you a birfday present," they cry; "it's a book, and we made it all our own se'ves, and all the chilluns helped and made somefin' to put in it. Miss Mary's down stairs mindin' the babies, and she sends you her love. Good-by! Happy birfday!" "Happy birthday" indeed! Golden, precious, love-crowned birthday! Was ever such a book, so full of sweet messages and tender thoughts! Ingrid knows how baby Tim must have labored to sew that red circle, how John Jacob toiled over that weaving-mat, and Elsa carefully folded the drove of little pigs. Everybody thought of her, and all the "chilluns" helped, and how dear is the tangible outcome of the thoughts and the helping! * * * * * Far back in the childhood of the world, the long-haired savage," woaded, winter-clad in skins," went roaming for his food wherever he might find it. He dug roots from the ground, he searched for berries and fruits, he hid behind rocks to leap upon his living prey, yet often went hungry to his lair at night, if the root-crop were short, or the wild beast wary. But if the day had been a fortunate one, if his own stomach were filled and his body sheltered, little cared he whether long-haired savage number two were hungry and cold. "Every one for himself," would he say, as he rolled himself in his skins, "and the cave-bear, or any other handy beast, take the hindmost." The simplicity of his mental state, his complete freedom from responsibility, assure us that his digestion of the raw flesh and the tough roots must have been perfection, and the sleep in those furred skins a dreamless one. What impending visitation of a common enemy, what sudden descent of a fierce horde of strange, wild, long-forgotten creatures, first moved him to ally himself with barbarians number two and three for their mutual protection? And when long years of alliance in warfare, and mutual distrust at all other times, had slipped away, and when savages were turning into herdsmen and farmers and toolmakers, to what leader among men did a system of exchange of commodities for mutual convenience suggest itself? One would like to have met that painted savage who first suggested combination in warfare, or that later politico-economist upon whom it faintly dawned that mutual help was possible in other directions save that of blood-shedding. A union born of the exigencies of warfare would be strengthened later by the promptings of self-interest, and, lo! the experiment is no longer an experiment, and the fact is proven that men may fight and work together to their mutual profit and advancement. 'Tis a simple proposition, after all, that ten times one is ten; and the bees, the ants, the grosbeaks, and the beavers prove it so clearly that any one of us may read, though we pass by never so quickly. Yet all great truths appear in man's mind in very rudimentary form at first, and each successive generation furnishes more favorable soil for their growth and development. First, men joined hands in offensive and defensive alliance; second, they found that, even when wars were over, still communication, intercourse, and exchange of goods were desirable; third, they discovered that no great enterprise which would better their condition would be possible without coöperation; and, fourth, they began to band themselves together here and there, not only for their own protection, for their own gain, but to watch over the weak, to succor the defenseless, and even to uphold some dear belief. The magic of "Together" has thus far reached, and who can tell what Happy Valley, what fair Land of Beulah, it may summon into existence in the future? The incalculable value of coöperation, the solemn truth that we are members one of another, that we cannot labor for ourselves without laboring for others, nor injure ourselves without injuring others,--all this is intellectually appreciated by most men to-day, all this is doubtless acknowledged; yet I cannot find that it has obtained much recognition in education, nor is especially insisted upon in the training of children. But surely, if children have any social tendencies,--and the fact needs no proof,--these tendencies should be given direction from the beginning toward benevolence, toward harmonious working together for some common aim. This would be comparatively easy even in a nursery containing three or four little people; and how much simpler when school life begins, and when the powers of children are greatly increased, while they are in hourly contact with a large number of equals! "Society," as Dr. Hale says, "is the great charm and only value of school life;" but this charm and this value are reduced to a minimum in many schools. "Emulation, that devil-shadow of aspiration," so often used as a stimulus in education, must forever separate the child from his fellows. How can I have any Christian fellowship with a man when I am envying him his successes and grudging him his honors? Am I not tempted to withhold my help from my weak brother across the way, lest my assistance place him on an equality with me? Again, the "monitor" system, as sometimes carried out, tends to separation and engenders dislike and distrust. I am not likely to desire close communion, except in the way of fisticuffs, with a boy who has been spying upon me all day, or who has very likely "reported" me as having committed divers venial offenses. It is the idea of some teachers that discipline is furthered if children are trained to have as little as possible to do with each other, and there is no question that this method does facilitate a toe-the-line kind of government. It would probably be more satisfactory to such a teacher if each child could be brought to school in a sedan-chair, with only one window and that in front, and could be kept in it during the whole session. As such a plan, however, is scarcely feasible; as children, with or against our wills, have a natural and God-given instinct for each other's company; as they keenly enjoy banding themselves together for whatever purpose, should not education follow the suggestions which an earnest study of child-nature can but give? Froebel, with those divinely curious eyes of his, saw deeper into the child's mind and heart than any of his predecessors, and for every faint stirring of life which he perceived provided adequate conditions of development. True prophet of the coming day, his philosophy is rich with suggestions for the cultivation of the social powers of the child. No one ever felt more keenly than he the inseparable, the organic connection of all life; and with deep spiritual insight he provides nursery plays and songs by which the babe, even in his mother's arms, may be led faintly to recognize in his being one of the links of the great chain which girdles the universe. Later, when as a child of three or four years he makes his first step into the world, and loosing his mother's hand, enters a larger family of children of his own age, he is still led to feel himself a part of a vast union, each member of which has ministered to him, and numberless ways are opened by which he can join with others to give back to the world some of the benefits he has enjoyed. Stories are told and games are played which lead him to thank the kindly hands which have furnished his daily bread, his warm clothing, and his sweet, white bed at night. The feeling of gratitude, grown and strengthened, must overflow in action. The world has done so much for him, what can he do for the world? Is there not some little invalid who would greatly prize a book of dainty pictures, embroidered, drawn, and painted by her child-friends? Then he will join with his companions, and patiently and lovingly fashion such a book. Is the class room somewhat bare and colorless? Then he can give up some of his cherished work to make a bright frieze about the walls. A national holiday is perhaps approaching. He will unite with all the other babies in making flags, tri-colored chains, and rosettes to deck the room appropriately, and to please the mothers, fathers, and friends who are coming to celebrate the occasion. One of the greatest pleasures which is offered is that of being allowed to "help" somebody. If a child is quick, neat, and careful, if he has finished his bit of work, he may go and help the babies, and very gently and very patiently he guides the chubby fingers, threads the needles, or ties on little caps, and conquers refractory buttons. To be a "little helper," whether he is assisting his companions or the grown-up people about him, grows to seem the highest honor within his reach. He knows the joy of ministering unto others, and he feels that "to help is to do the work of the world." Thus we endeavor to give external expression to the feelings stirring in the heart of the child, knowing that "even love can grow cold" if not nourished. The whole spirit of the work, if carried out as Froebel intended, must tend directly toward social evolution, and the intense personalism which is a distinguishing mark of our civilization, and is clearly seen in our children, needs anointing with the oil of altruism. The circle in which the children stand for the singing is itself a perfect representation of unity. Hands are joined to make a "round and lovely ring." If any child is unkind, or regardless of the rights of others, it is easily seen that he not only makes himself unhappy, but seriously mars the pleasure of all the other children. If he willfully leaves the circle, a link in the chain is broken which can only be mended when he repents his folly and pleasantly returns to his place. Thus early he may be made to feel that all lives touch his own, and that his indulgence in selfish passion not only harms himself, but is the more blameworthy in that it injures others. The songs and games cannot be happily carried on unless each child is not only willing to help, but willing also to give up his chief desires now and then. All the children would like to be the flowers in the garden, perhaps, but it is obvious that some must remain in the circle, in order that the fence be perfect, and prevent stray animals from destroying what we love and cherish. So there is constant surrendering of personal desires in recognition of the fact that others have equal rights, and that, after all, one part is as good as another, since all are essential to the whole. In coöperative building, the children quickly see that the symmetrical figure which four little ones have made together, uniting their material, is infinitely larger and finer than any one of them could have made alone. If they are making a village at their little tables, one builds the church, another workshops and stores, others schools and houses, while the remainder make roads, lay out gardens, plant trees, and plough the fields. No one of the children had strength enough, time enough, or material enough to build the village alone, yet see how well and how quickly it is done when we all help! The sand-box, in which of course all children delight, lends itself especially to coöperative exercises. They gather around it and plant gardens with the bright-colored balls; they use it for geography, moulding the hills, mountains, valleys, and tracing the rivers near their homes; they arrange historical dramas, as "Paul Revere's Ride," or the "Landing of the Pilgrims:" but no child does any one of these things alone; there is constant and happy coöperation. It is the aim of one day's exercise, perhaps, to retrace with the child the various steps by which his comfortable chair and his strong work-table have come to him. Across one end of the sand-box, a group of children plant a forest with little pine branches which they have brought. The wood-cutters come, fell the trees, and cut away the boughs. Another party of children bring the heavy teams, previously built from the play-material, harness in the horses (taken from a Noah's Ark), and prepare to carry off the logs. Now here come the road-makers, and they lay out a smooth, hard road for the teams, reaching to the very bank of the river, which another party of little ones has made. The logs are tumbled into the stream; they float downward, are rafted, carried to the mill; little sticks are furnished to represent the boards into which they are sawn; and the lumber is taken to the cabinet-maker, that he may fashion our furniture. Though there be twenty children around the sand-box, yet all have been employed. Each has enjoyed his own work, yet appreciated the value of his neighbor's. They have worked together harmoniously and the doing has reacted upon the heart, and strengthened the feeling of unity which is growing within. Such exercises cannot fail to teach the value and power of social effort, and the necessity of subordinating personal desires to the common good. Yet the development of individuality is not forgotten, for "our power as individuals depends upon our recognition of the rights of others." It is true that the social problem is an intricate one and cannot be worked out, even partially, at any stage of education, unless the leader of the children be a true leader, and be enthusiastically convinced of the essential value of the principles on which the problem is based. Yet this might be said with equal truth of any educational aim, for the gospel must always have its interpreters, and some will ever give a more spiritual reading and seize the truth which was only half expressed, while others, dull-eyed, mechanical, "kill with the letter." "After all," says Dr. Stanley Hall, "there is nothing so practical in education as the ideal, nor so ideal as the practical;" and we may be assured that the direction of the social tendencies of the child toward high and noble aims, toward the sinking of self and the generous thought of others,--that this is not only ideal, not only a following after the purest light yet vouchsafed to us, but is at the same time practical in its detailed workings, and in its adaptation to the needs and desires of the day. THE RELATION OF THE KINDERGARTEN TO THE PUBLIC SCHOOL "The nature of an educational system is determined by the manner in which it is begun." The question for us to decide to-day is not how we can interest people in and how illustrate the true kindergarten, for that is already done to a considerable extent; but, how we can convince school boards, superintendents, and voters that the final introduction of the kindergarten into the public school system is a thing greatly to be desired. The kindergarten and the school, now two distinct, dissimilar, and sometimes, though of late very seldom, antagonistic institutions,--how will the one affect, or be affected by the other? As to the final adoption of the kindergarten there is a preliminary question which goes straight to the root of the whole matter. At present the state accepts the responsibility of educating children after an arbitrarily fixed age has been reached. Ought it not, rather, if it assumes the responsibility at all, to begin to educate the child when he _needs education?_ Thoughtful people are now awaking to the fact that this regulation is an artificial, not a natural one, and that we have been wasting two precious years which might not only be put to valuable uses, but would so shape and influence after-teaching that every succeeding step would be taken with greater ease and profit. We have been discreet in omitting the beginning, so long as we did not feel sure how to begin. But we know now that Froebel's method of dealing with four or five year old babies, when used by a discreet and intelligent person, justifies us in taking this delicate, debatable ground. So far, then, it is a question of law--a law which can be modified just as soon and as sensibly as the people wish. Before, however, that modification can become the active wish of the people, its importance must be understood and its effects estimated. Could it be shown that after-education will be hindered or in any way rendered more difficult by the kindergarten, clearly all efforts to introduce it must cease. Were it merely a matter of indifference, something that would neither make nor mar the after-work of schools, then it would remain a matter of choice or fancy, for individual parents to decide as they like; but, if it can be shown that the work of the kindergarten will lay a more solid foundation, or trace more direct paths for the workers of a later period, then it behooves us to give it a hearty welcome, and to work out its principles with zealous good will: and "working out" its principles means, _not_ accepting it as a finality--a piece of flawless perfection--but as a stepping-stone which will lead us nearer to the truth. If it is a good thing, it is good for all; if it is truth, we want it everywhere; but if this new department of education and training is to gain ground, or accomplish the successful fruition of its wishes, there must be perfect unity among teachers concerning it. If they all understood the thing itself, and understood each other, there could be no lack of sympathy; yet there has been misunderstanding, conflict occasionally, and some otherwise worthy teachers have used the kindergarten as a sort of intellectual cuttle-fish to sharpen their conversational bills upon. Of course I am not blind to the fact that after we have determined that we ought to have the kindergarten, there are many questions of expediency: suitable rooms, expense of material, salaries, assistants, age of children at entrance, system of government, number of children in one kindergarten; and greatest of all, but least thought of, strangely, the linking together of kindergarten and school, so that the development shall be continuous, and the chain of impressions perfect and unbroken. Suffice it to say that it has been done, and can be done again; but it needs discretion, forethought, tact, earnestness, and unimpeachable honesty of administration, for unless we can depend upon our school boards and kindergartners _implicitly_, counting upon them for wise coöperation, brooding care, and great wisdom in selection of teachers, the experiment will be a failure. We have risks enough to run as it is; let us not permit our little ones, more susceptible by reason of age than any we have to deal with now,--let us not permit them to become victims of politics, rings, or machine teaching. The kindergarten is more liable to abuse than any other department of teaching. There is no ground in the universe so sacred as this. But the difference between primary schools is just as great, only, unfortunately, we have become used to it; and the kindergarten being under fire, so to speak, must be absolutely ideal in its perfection, or it is ruthlessly held up to scorn. There is a tremendous awakening all over the country with regard to kindergarten and primary work, and this is well, since the greatest and most fatal mistakes of the public school system have been made _just here_; and the time is surely coming when more knowledge, wisdom, tact, ingenuity, forethought, yes, and money, will be expended in order to meet the demands of the case. The time is coming when the imp of parsimony will no longer be mistaken for the spirit of economy; when a woman possessed of ordinary human frailty will no longer be required to guide, direct, develop, train, help, love, and be patient with sixty little ones, just beginning to tread the difficult paths of learning, and each receiving just one sixtieth of what he craves. The millennium will be close at hand when we cease to expect from girls just out of the high school what Socrates never attempted, and would have deemed impossible. Look at Senator Stanford's famous Palo Alto stock farm. Each colt born into that favored community is placed in a class of twelve. These twelve colts are cared for and taught by four or five trained teachers. No man interested in the training of fine horses ever objects, so far as I know, to such expenditure of labor and money. The end is supposed to justify the means. But when the creatures to be trained are human beings, and when the end to be reached is not race-horses, but merely citizens, we employ a very different process of reasoning. That this subject of early training is a vitally interesting one to thinking people cannot be denied. The kindergarten has become the fashion, you say, cynically. This is scarcely true; but it is a fact that the upper, the middle, and the lower classes among us begin to recognize the existence of children under six years of age, and realize that far from being nonentities in life, or unknown quantities, they are very lively units in the sum of progressive education. When we speak of kindergarten work among the children of the poor, and argue its claims as one of the best means of taking unfortunate little Arabs from the demoralizing life of the streets, and of giving their aimless hands something useful to do, their restless minds something good and fruitful to think of, and their curious eyes something beautiful to look on, there is not a word of disapproval. People seem willing to concede its moral value when applied to the lower classes, but, when they are obliged to pay anything to procure this training for their own children, or see any prospect of what they call an already extravagant school system made more so by its addition, they become prolific in doubts. In other words, they believe in it when you call it _philanthropy_, but not when you call it _education_; and it must be called the germ of the better education, toward which we are all struggling, the nearest approach to the perfect beginning which we have yet found. We see in the excellence of Froebel's idea, educationally considered, its only claim to peculiar power in dealing with incipient hoodlumism. It is only because it has such unusual fitness to child-nature, such a store of philosophy and ingenuity in its appliances, and such a wealth of spiritual truth in its aims and methods, that it is so great a power with neglected children and ignorant and vicious parents. The principles on which Froebel built his educational idea may be summed up briefly under four heads. First, All the faculties of the child are to be drawn out and exercised as far as age allows. Second, The powers of habit and association, which are the great instruments of all education, of the whole training of life, must be developed with a systematic purpose from the earliest dawn of intelligence. Third, The active instincts of childhood are to be cultivated through manual exercise (chiefly creative in character), which is made an essential part of the training, and this manual exercise is to be valued chiefly as a means of self-expression. Fourth, The senses are to be trained to accuracy as well as the hand. The child must learn how to observe what is placed before him, and to observe it truly, an acquirement which any teacher of science or art will appreciate. To work out these principles, Froebel devised his practical method of infant education, and the very name he gave to the place where his play lessons were to be used marks his purpose. No books are to be seen in a kindergarten, because no ideas or facts are presented to the child that he cannot clearly understand and verify. The object is not to teach him arithmetic or geometry, though he learns enough of both to be very useful to him hereafter; but to lead him to discover _truths_ concerning forms and numbers, lines and angles, for himself. Thus in the play-lessons the teacher simply rules the order in which the child shall approach a new thing, and gives him the correct names which, henceforth, he must always use; but the observation of resemblances and differences (that groundwork of all knowledge), the reasoning from one point to another, and the conclusions he arrives at, are all his own; he is only led to see his mistake if he makes one. The child handles every object from which he is taught, and learns to reproduce it. It is not enough to say that any ordinary system of object teaching in the hands of an ingenious teacher will serve the purpose or take the place of the kindergarten. People who say this evidently have no conception of Froebel's plan, in which the simultaneous training of head, heart, and hand is the most striking characteristic. The kindergarten is mainly distinguished from the later instruction of the school by making the knowledge of facts and the cultivation of the memory subordinate to the development of observation and to the appropriate activity of the child, physical, mental, and moral. Its aim is to utilize the now almost wasted time from four to six years, a time when all negligent and ignorant mothers leave the child to chance development, and when the most careful mother cannot train her child into the practice of social virtues so well as the truly wise kindergartner who works with her. "We learn through doing" is the watchword of the kindergarten, but it must be a _doing_ which blossoms into _being_, or it does not fulfill its ideal, for it is character building which is to go on in the kindergarten, or it has missed Froebel's aim. What does the kindergarten do for children under six years of age? What has it accomplished when it sends the child to the primary school? I do not mean what Froebel hoped could be done, or what is occasionally accomplished with bright children and a gifted teacher, or even what is done in good private kindergartens, for that is yet more; but I mean what is actually done for children by charitable organizations, which are really doing the work of the state. I think they can claim tangible results which are wholly remarkable; and yet they do not work for results, or expect much visible fruit in these tender years, from a culture which is so natural, child-like, and unobtrusive that its very outward simplicity has caused it to be regarded as a plaything. In glancing over the acquirements of the child who has left the kindergarten, and has been actually _taught_ nothing in the ordinary acceptation of the word, we find that he has worked, experimented, invented, compared, reproduced. All things have been revealed in the doing, and productive activity has enlightened and developed the mind. First, as to arithmetic. It does not come first, but though you speak with the tongues of men and angels, and make not mention of arithmetic, it profiteth you nothing. The First Gift shows one object, and the children get an idea of one whole; in the Second they receive three whole objects again, but of different form; in the Third and Fourth, the regularly divided cube is seen, and all possible combinations of numbers as far as eight are made. In the Fifth Gift the child sees three and its multiples; in fractions, halves, quarters, eighths, thirds, ninths, and twenty-sevenths. With the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Gifts the field is practically unlimited. Second, as to the child's knowledge of form, size, and proportion. His development has been quite extensive: he knows, not always by name, but by their characteristics, vertical, horizontal, slanting, and curved lines; squares, oblongs; equal sided, blunt and sharp angled triangles; five, six, seven and eight sided figures; spheres, cylinders, cubes, and prisms. All this elementary geometry has, of course, been learned "baby fashion," in a purely experimental way, but nothing will have to be unlearned when the pupil approaches geometry later in a more thoroughly scientific spirit. Third, as to the cultivation of language, of the power of expression, we cannot speak with too much emphasis. The vocabulary of the kindergarten child of the lower classes is probably greater than that of his mother or father. You can see how this comes about. The teachers themselves are obliged to make a study of simple, appropriate, expressive, and explicit language; the child is led to express all his thoughts freely in proper words from the moment he can lisp; he is trained through singing to distinct and careful enunciation, and the result is a remarkably good power of language. I make haste to say that this need not necessarily be used for the purposes of chattering in the school. The child has not, of course, learned to read and write, but reading is greatly simplified by his accurate power of observation, and his practice of comparing forms. The work of reading is play to a child whose eye has been thus trained. As to writing, we precede it by drawing, which is the sensible and natural plan. The child will have had a good deal of practice with slate and lead pencil; will have drawn all sorts of lines and figures from dictation, and have created numberless designs of his own. If, in short, our children could spend two years in a good kindergarten, they would not only bring to the school those elements of knowledge which are required, but would have learned in some degree how to _learn_, and, in the measure of their progress, _have nothing to unlearn_. Let those who labor, day by day, with inert minds never yet awakened to a wish for knowledge, a sense of beauty, or a feeling of pleasure in mental activity, tell us how much valuable school time they would save, if the raw material were thus prepared to their hand. "After spending five or six years at home or in the street, without training or discipline, the child is sent to school and is expected to learn at once. He looks upon the strange, new life with amazement, yet without understanding. Finally, his mind becomes familiar in a mechanical manner, ill-suited to the tastes of a child, with the work and exercises of primary instruction, the consequence being, very often, a feeble body and a stuffed mind, the stuffing having very little more effect upon the intellect than it has upon the organism of a roast turkey." The kindergarten can remedy these intellectual difficulties, beside giving the child an impulse toward moral self-direction, and a capacity for working out his original ideas in visible and permanent form, which will make him almost a new creature. It can, by taking the child in season, set the wheels in motion, rouse all his best, finest, and highest instincts, the purest, noblest, and most vivifying powers of which he is possessed. There is a good deal of time spent in the kindergarten on the cultivation of politeness and courtesy; and in the entirely social atmosphere which is one of its principal features, the amenities of polite society can be better practiced than elsewhere. The kindergarten aims in no way at making infant prodigies, but it aims successfully at putting the little child in possession of every faculty he is capable of using; at bringing him forward on lines he will never need to forsake; at teaching within his narrow range what he will never have to unlearn; and at giving him the wish to learn, and the power of teaching himself. Its deep simplicity should always be maintained, and no lover of childhood or thoughtful teacher would wish it otherwise. It is more important that it should be kept pure than that it should become popular. I have tried, thus, somewhat at length, to demonstrate that our educational system cannot be perfect until we begin still earlier with the child, and begin in a more childlike manner, though, at the same time, earnestly and with definite purpose. In trying to make manhood and womanhood, we sometimes treat children as little men and women, not realizing that the most perfect childhood is the best basis for strong manhood. Further, I have tried to show that Froebel's system gives us the only rational beginning; but I confess frankly that to make it productive of its vaunted results, it must be placed in the hands of thoroughly trained kindergartners, fitted by nature and by education for their most delicate, exacting, and sacred profession. Now as to compromises. The question is frequently asked, Cannot the best things of the kindergarten be introduced in the primary departments of the public school? The best thing of kindergartening is the kindergarten itself, and nothing else will do; it would be necessary to make very material changes in the primary class which is to include a kindergarten--changes that are demanded by radically different methods. The kindergarten should offer the child experience instead of instruction; life instead of learning; practical child-life, a miniature world, where he lives and grows, and learns and expands. No primary teacher, were she Minerva herself, can work out Froebel's idea successfully with sixty or seventy children under her sole care. You will see for yourselves that this simple, natural, motherly instruction of babyhood cannot be transplanted bodily into the primary school, where the teacher has fifty or sixty children who are beyond the two most fruitful years which the kindergarten demands. Besides, the teachers of the lower grades cannot introduce more than an infinitesimal number of kindergarten exercises, and at the same time keep up their full routine of primary studies and exercises. Any one who understands the double needs of the kindergarten and primary school cannot fail to see this matter correctly, and as I said before, we do not want a few kindergarten exercises, we want the _kindergarten_. If teachers were all indoctrinated with the spirit of Froebel's method, they would carry on its principles in dealing with pupils of any age; but Froebel's kindergarten, pure and simple, creates a place for children of four or five years, to begin their bit of life-work; it is in no sense a school, nor must become so, or it would lose its very essence and truest meaning. Let me show you a kindergarten! It is no more interesting than a good school, but I want you to see the essential points of difference:-- It is a golden morning, a rare one in a long, rainy winter. As we turn into the narrow, quiet street from the broader, noisy one, the sound of a bell warns us that we are near the kindergarten building.... A few belated youngsters are hurrying along,--some ragged, some patched, some plainly and neatly clothed, some finishing a "portable breakfast" thrust into their hands five minutes before, but all eager to be there.... While the Lilliputian armies are wending their way from the yard to their various rooms, we will enter the front door and look about a little. The windows are wide open at one end of the great room. The walls are tinted with terra cotta, and the woodwork is painted in Indian red. Above the high wood dado runs a row of illuminated pictures of animals,--ducks, pigeons, peacocks, calves, lambs, colts, and almost everything else that goes upon two or four feet; so that the children can, by simply turning in their seats, stroke the heads of their dumb friends of the meadow and barnyard.... There are a great quantity of bright and appropriate pictures on the walls, three windows full of plants, a canary chirping in a gilded cage, a globe of gold-fish, an open piano, and an old-fashioned sofa, which is at present adorned with a small scrap of a boy who clutches a large slate in one hand, and a mammoth lunch-pail in the other.... It is his first day, and he looks as if his big brother had told him that he would be "walloped" if he so much as winked. A half-dozen charming girls are fluttering about; charming, because, whether plain or beautiful, they all look happy, earnest, womanly, full to the brim of life. "A sweet, heart-lifting cheerfulness, Like spring-time of the year, Seems ever on their steps to wait." ... They are tying on white aprons and preparing the day's occupations, for they are a detachment of students from a kindergarten training school, and are on duty for the day. One of them seats herself at the piano and plays a stirring march. The army enters, each tiny soldier with a "shining morning face." Unhappy homes are forgotten ... smiles everywhere ... everybody glad to see everybody else ... happy children, happy teachers ... sunshiny morning, sunshiny hearts ... delightful work in prospect, merry play to follow it.... "Oh, it's a beautiful world, and I'm glad I'm in it;" so the bright faces seem to say. It is a cosmopolitan regiment that marches into the free kindergartens of our large cities. Curly yellow hair and rosy cheeks ... sleek blonde braids and calm blue eyes ... swarthy faces and blue-black curls ... woolly little pows and thick lips ... long arched noses and broad flat ones. Here you see the fire and passion of the Southern races, and the self-poise, serenity and sturdiness of Northern nations. Pat is here with a gleam of humor in his eye ... Topsy, all smiles and teeth,... Abraham, trading tops with Isaac, next in line,... Gretchen and Hans, phlegmatic and dependable,... François, never still for an instant,... Christina, rosy, calm, and conscientious, and Duncan, as canny and prudent as any of his people. Pietro is there, and Olaf, and little John Bull. What an opportunity for amalgamation of races, and for laying the foundation of American citizenship! for the purely social atmosphere of the kindergarten makes it a life-school, where each tiny citizen has full liberty under the law of love, so long as he does not interfere with the liberty of his neighbor. The phrase "Every man for himself" is never heard, but "We are members one of another" is the common principle of action. The circles are formed. Every pair of hands is folded, and bright eyes are tightly closed to keep out "the world, the flesh," and the rest of it, while children and teachers sing one of the morning hymns:-- "Birds and bees and flowers, Every happy day, Wake to greet the sunshine, Thankful for its ray. All the night they're silent, Sleeping safe and warm; God, who knows and loves them, Will keep them from all harm. "So the little children, Sleeping all the night, Wake with each new morning, Fresh and sweet and bright. Thanking God their Father For his loving care, With their songs and praises They make the day more fair." Then comes a trio of good-morning songs, with cordial handshakes and scores of kisses wafted from finger-tips.... "Good-Morning, Merry Sunshine," follows, and the sun, encouraged by having some notice taken of him in this blind and stolid world, shines brighter than ever.... The song, "Thumbs and Fingers say 'Good-Morning,'" brings two thousand fingers fluttering in the air (10 x 200, if the sum seems too difficult), and gives the eagle-eyed kindergartners an opportunity to look for dirty paws and preach the needed sermon. It is Benny's birthday; five years old to-day. He chooses the songs he likes best, and the children sing them with friendly energy.... "Three cheers for Benny,--only three, now!" says the kindergartner.... They are given with an enthusiasm that brings the neighbors to the windows, and Benny, bursting with pride, blushes to the roots of his hair. The children stop at three, however, and have let off a tremendous amount of steam in the operation. Any wholesome device which accomplishes this result is worthy of being perpetuated.... A draggled, forsaken little street-cat sneaks in the door, with a pitiful mew. (I'm sure I don't wonder! if one were tired of life, this would be just the place to take a fresh start.) The children break into the song, "I Love Little Pussy, Her Coat is so Warm," and the kindergartner asks the small boy with the great lunch pail if he wouldn't like to give the kitty a bit of something to eat. He complies with the utmost solemnity, thinking this the queerest community he ever saw.... A broken-winged pigeon appears on the window-sill and receives his morning crumb; and now a chord from the piano announces a change of programme. The children troop to their respective rooms fairly warmed through with happiness and good will. Such a pleasant morning start to some who have been "hustled" out of a bed that held several too many in the night, washed a trifle (perhaps!), and sent off without a kiss, with the echo of a sick mother's wails, or a father's oaths, ringing in their ears! After a few minutes of cheerful preparation, all are busily at work. Two divisions have gone into tiny, "quiet rooms" to grapple with the intricacies of mathematical relations. A small boy, clad mostly in red woolen suspenders, and large, high-topped boots, is passing boxes of blocks. He is awkward and slow. The teacher could do it more quietly and more quickly, but the kindergarten is a school of experience where ease comes, by and by, as the lovely result of repeated practice.... We hear an informal talk on fractions, while the cube is divided into its component parts, and then see a building exercise "by direction." In the other "quiet room" they are building a village, each child constructing, according to his own ideas, the part assigned him. One of them starts a song, and they all join in-- "Oh! builders we would like to be, So willing, skilled, and strong; And while we work so cheerily, The time will not seem long." "If we all do our parts well, the whole is sure to be beautiful," says the teacher. "One rickety, badly made building will spoil our village. I'm going to draw a blackboard picture of the children who live in the village. Johnny, you haven't blocks enough for a good factory, and Jennie hasn't enough for hers. Why don't you club together and make a very large, fine one?" This working for a common purpose, yet with due respect for individuality, is a very important part of kindergarten ethics. Thus each child learns to subordinate himself to the claims and needs of society without losing himself. "No man liveth to himself" is the underlying principle of action. Coming back to the main room we find one division weaving bright paper strips into a mat of contrasting color, and note that the occupation trains the sense of color and of number, and develops dexterity in both hands. But what is this merry group doing in the farther corner? These are the babies, bless them! and they are modeling in clay. What an inspired version of pat-a-cake and mud pies is this! The sleeves are pushed up, showing a high-water mark of white arm joining little brown paws. What fun! They are modeling the seals at the Cliff House (for this chances to be a California kindergarten), and a couple of two-year-olds, who have strayed into this retreat, not because there was any room for them here, but because there wasn't any room for them anywhere else, are slapping their lumps of clay with all their might, and then rolling it into caterpillars and snakes. This last is not very educational, you say, but "virtue kindles at the touch of joy," and some lasting good must be born out of the rational happiness that surrounds even the youngest babies in the kindergarten. The sand-table in this room represents an Italian or Chinese vegetable garden. The children have rolled and leveled the surface and laid it off in square beds with walks between. The planting has been "make believe,"--a different kind of seed in each bed; but the children have named them all, and labeled the various plats with pieces of paper, fastened in cleft sticks. A gardener's house, made of blocks, ornaments one corner, and near it are his tools,--watering-pot, hoe, rake, spade, etc., all made in cardboard modeling. We now pass up-stairs. In one corner a family of twenty children are laying designs in shining rings of steel; and as the graceful curves multiply beneath their clever fingers, the kindergartner is telling them a brief story of a little boy who made with these very rings a design for a beautiful "rose window," which was copied in stained glass and hung in a great stone church, of which his father was the architect. Another group of children is folding, by dictation, a four-inch square of colored paper. The most perfect eye-measure, as well as the most delicate touch, is needed here. Constant reference to the "sharp" angle, "blunt" angle, square corner and right angle, horizontal and vertical lines, show that the foundation is being laid for a future clear and practical knowledge of geometry, though the word itself is never mentioned. There is one unhappy little boy in this class. He has broken the law in some way, and he has no work. "That is a strange idea," said the woman visitor. "In my time work was given to us as a punishment, and it seemed a most excellent plan." "We look at it in another way," said the kindergartner, smiling. "You see, work is really the great panacea, the best thing in the world. We are always trying to train the children to a love of industry and helpful occupation; so we give work as a reward, and take it away as a punishment." We pass into the sunny upper hall, and find some children surrounding a large sand-table. The exercise is just finished, and we gaze upon a miniature representation of the Cliff House embankment and curving road, a section of beach with people standing (wooden ladies and gentlemen from a Noah's Ark), a section of ocean, and a perfect Seal Rock made of clay. "Run down-stairs, Timmy, please, and ask Miss Ellen if the seals are ready." ... Timmy flies.... Presently the babies troop up, each carrying a precious seal extended on two tiny hands or reposing in apron. They are all bursting with importance.... Of course, the small Jonah of the flock tumbles up the stairs, bumps his nose, and breaks his treasure.... There is an agonized wail.... "_I bust my seal!_"... Some one springs to the rescue.... The seal is patched, tears are dried, and harmony is restored.... The animals are piled on the rocks in realistic confusion, and another class comes out with twenty-five paper fishes to be arranged in the waves of sand. Later on, the sound of a piano invites us to witness the kindergarten play-time. Through kindergarten play the child comes to know the external world, the physical qualities of the objects which surround him, their motions, actions, and reactions upon each other, and the relations of these phenomena to himself; a knowledge which forms the basis of that which will be his permanent stock in life. The child's fancy is healthily fed by images from outer life, and his curiosity by new glimpses of knowledge from the world around him. There are plays and plays! The ordinary unguided games of childhood are not to be confounded for an instant with the genuine kindergarten plays, which have a far deeper significance than is apparent to the superficial observer. "Take the simplest circle game; it illustrates the whole duty of a good citizen in a republic. Anybody can spoil it, yet nobody can play it alone; anybody can hinder its success, yet no one can get credit for making it succeed." The play is over; the children march back to their seats, and settle themselves to another period of work, which will last until noon. We watch the bright faces, cheerful, friendly chatter, the busy figures hovering over pleasant tasks, and feel that it has been good to pass a morning in this republic of childhood. I have given you but a tithe of the whole argument, the veriest bird's-eye view; neither is it romance; it is simple truth; and, that being the case, how can we afford to keep Froebel and his wonderful influence on childhood out of a system of free education which has for its aim the development of a free, useful, liberty-loving, self-governing people? It is too great a factor to be disregarded, and the coming years will prove it so; for the value of such schools is no longer a matter of theory; they have been tested by experience, and have won favor wherever they have been given a fair trial But how important a work they have to do in our scheme of public education is clear only when we consider the conditions which our public schools must meet nowadays. On the theory upon which the state undertakes the education of its youth at all--the necessity of preparing them for intelligent citizenship--a community might better economize, if economize it must, anywhere else than on the beginning. An enormous immigrant population is pressing upon us. The kindergarten reaches this class with great power, and increases the insufficient education within the reach of the children who must leave school for work at the age of thirteen or fourteen. It increases it, too, by a kind of training which the child gets from no other schooling, and brings him under influences which are no small addition to the sum total of good in his life. The entire pedagogical world watches with interest the educational awakening of which the kindergarten has been the dawn. If people really want to make the experiment, if parents and tax-payers are anxious to have for their younger children what seems so beneficent a training, then let them accept no compromises, but, after taking the children at a proper age, see to it that they get pure kindergarten, true kindergarten, and _nothing_ but kindergarten till they enter the primary school. Then they will be prepared for study, and begin it with infinite zest, because they comprehend its meaning. Having had that beautiful beginning, every later step will seem glad to the child; he will not see knowledge "through a glass darkly, but face to face," in her most charming aspect. OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN "Where is thy brother Abel?" We will suppose, for the sake of argument, that the rights of our own children are secured; but though such security betokens an admirable state of affairs, it does not cover the whole ground; there are always the "other people's children." The still small voice is forever saying, "Where is thy brother Abel?" There are many matters to be settled with regard to this brother Abel, and we differ considerably as to the exact degree of our responsibility towards him. Some people believe in giving him the full privileges of brotherhood, in sharing alike with him in every particular, and others insist that he is no brother of theirs at all. Let the nationalists and socialists, and all the other reformers, decide this vexed question as best they can, particularly with regard to the "grown-up" Abels. Meanwhile, there are a few sweet and wholesome services we can render to the brother Abels who are not big enough to be nationalists and socialists, nor strong enough to fight for their own rights. Among these kindly offices to be rendered, these practical agencies for making Abel a happy, self-helpful, and consequently a better little brother, we may surely count the free kindergarten. My mind convinces me that the kindergarten idea is true; not a perfect thing as yet, but something on the road to perfection, something full of vitality and power to grow; and my heart tells me that there is no more beautiful or encouraging work in the universe than this of taking hold of the unclaimed babies and giving them a bit of motherliness to remember. The Free Kindergarten is the mother of the motherless, the father of the fatherless; it is the great clean broom that sweeps the streets of its parentless or worse than parentless children, to the increased comfort of the children, and to the prodigious advantage of the street. We are very much interested in the cleaning of city streets, and well we may be; but up to this day a larger number of men and women have concerned themselves actively about sweeping them of dust and dirt than of sweeping them free of these children. If dirt is misplaced matter, then what do you call a child who sits eternally on the curbstones and in the gutters of our tenement-house districts? I believe that since the great Teacher of humanity spoke those simple words of eternal tenderness that voiced the mother side of the divine nature,--"Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not,"--I believe that nothing more heartfelt, more effectual, has come ringing down to us through the centuries than Froebel's inspired and inspiring call, "Come! let us live with the children!" This work _pays_, in the best and the highest sense as well as the most practical. It is true, the kindergartner has the child in her care but three or four hours a day; it is true, in most instances, that the home influences are all against her; it is true that the very people for whom she is working do not always appreciate her efforts; it is true that in many cases the child has been "born wrong," and to accomplish any radical reform she ought to have begun with his grandfather; it is true she makes failures now and then, and has to leave the sorry task seemingly unperformed, giving into the mighty hand of One who bringeth order out of chaos that which her finite strength has failed to compass. She hears discouraging words sometimes, but they do not make a profound impression, when she sees the weary yet beautiful days go by, bringing with them hourly rewards greater than speech can testify! She sees homes changing slowly but surely under her quiet influence, and that of those home missionaries, the children themselves; she gets love in full measure where she least expected so radiant a flower to bloom; she receives gratitude from some parents far beyond what she is conscious of deserving; she sees the ancient and respectable dirt-devil being driven from many of the homes where he has reigned supreme for years; she sees brutal punishments giving place to sweeter methods and kinder treatment; and she is too happy and too grateful, for these and more encouragements, to be disheartened by any cynical dissertations on the determination of the world to go wrong and the impossibility of preventing it. It is easier, in my opinion, to raise money for, and interest the general man or woman in, the free kindergarten than in any other single charity. It is always comparatively easy to convince people of a truth, but it is much easier to convince them of some truths than of others. If you wish to found a library, build a hospital, establish a diet-kitchen, open a bureau for woman's work, you are obliged to argue more or less; but if you want money for neglected children, you have generally only to state the case. Everybody agrees in the obvious propositions, "An ounce of prevention"--"As the twig is bent"--"The child is father to the man"--"Train up a child"--"A stitch in time"--"Prevention is better than cure"--"Where the lambs go the flocks will follow"--"It is easier to form than to reform," and so on _ad infinitum_--proverbs multiply. The advantages of preventive work are so palpable that as soon as you broach the matter you ought to find your case proved and judgment awarded to the plaintiff, before you open your lips to plead. The whole matter is crystal clear; for happily, where the protection of children is concerned, there is not any free-trade side to the argument. We need the public kindergarten educationally as the vestibule to our school work. We need it as a philanthropic agent, leading the child gently into right habits of thought, speech, and action from the beginning. We need it to help in the absorption and amalgamation of our foreign element; for the social training, the opportunity for coöperation, and the purely republican form of government in the kindergarten make it of great value in the development of the citizen-virtues, as well as those of the individual. I cannot help thinking that if this side of Froebel's educational idea were more insisted on throughout our common school system, we should be making better citizens and no worse scholars. If we believe in the kindergarten, if we wish it to become a part of our educational system, we have only to let that belief--that desire--crystallize into action; but we must not leave it for somebody else to do. It is clearly every mother's business and father's business,--spinsters and bachelors are not exempt, for they know not in what hour they may be snatched from sweet liberty, and delivered into sweeter slavery. It is a lawyer's business, for though it will make the world better, it will not do it soon enough to lessen litigation in his time. It is surely the doctor's business, and the minister's, and that of the business man. It is in fact everybody's business. The beauty of this kindergarten subject is its kaleidoscopic character; it presents, like all truth, so many sides that you can give every one that which he likes or is fitted to receive. Take the aggressively self-made man who thinks our general scheme of education unprofitable,--show him the kindergarten plan of manual training. He rubs his hands. "Ah! that's common sense," he says. "I don't believe in your colleges--I never went to college; you may count on me." Give the man of esthetic taste an idea of what the kindergarten does in developing the sense of beauty; show him in what way it is a primary art school. Explain to the musician your feeling about the influence of music; show the physical-culture people that in the kindergarten the body has an equal chance with mind and heart. Tell the great-hearted man some sad incident related to you by one of your kindergartners, and as soon as he can see through his tears, show him your subscription book. Give the woman who cannot reason (and there are such) an opportunity to feel. There is more than one way of imbibing truth, fortunately, and the brain is not the only avenue to knowledge. Finally, take the utter skeptic into the kindergarten and let the children convert him. It commonly is a "him" by the way. The mother-heart of the universe is generally sound on this subject. But getting money and opening kindergartens are not the only cares of a Kindergarten Association. At least there are other grave responsibilities which no other organization is so well fitted to assume. These are the persistent working upon school boards until they adopt the kindergarten, and, much more delicate and difficult, the protection of its interests after it is adopted; the opening of kindergartens in orphanages and refuges where they prove the most blessed instrumentality for good; the spreading of such clear knowledge and intelligent insight into the kindergarten as shall prevent it from deterioration; the insistence upon kindergartners properly trained by properly qualified training teachers; the gentle mothering and inspiring and helping those kindergartners to realize their fair ideals (for Froebel's method is a growing thing, and she who does not grow with it is a hopeless failure); the proper equipment and furnishing of class-rooms so that the public may have good object-lessons before its eyes; the insistence upon the ultimate ideals of the method as well as upon details and technicalities,--that is, showing people its soul instead of forever rattling its dry bones. And when all is said and done, the heaviest of the work falls upon the kindergartner. That is why I am convinced that we should do everything that sympathy and honor and money can do to exalt the office, so that women of birth, breeding, culture, and genius shall gravitate to it. The kindergartner it is who, living with the children, can make her work an integral part of the neighborhood, the centre of its best life. She it is, often, who must hold husband to wife, and parent to child; she it is after all who must interpret the aims of the Association, and translate its noble theories into practice. (Ay! and there's the rub.) She it is, who must harmonize great ideal principles with real and sometimes sorry conditions. A Kindergarten Association stands for certain things before the community. It is the kindergartner alone who can prove the truth, who can substantiate the argument, who can show the facts. There is no more difficult vocation in the universe, and no more honorable or sacred one. If a kindergartner is looked upon, or paid, or treated as a nursery maid, her ranks will gradually be recruited from that source. The ideal teacher of little children is not born. We have to struggle on as best we can, without her. She would be born if we knew how to conceive her, how to cherish her. She needs the strength of Vulcan and the delicacy of Ariel; she needs a child's heart, a woman's heart, a mother's heart, in one; she needs clear judgment and ready sympathy, strength of will, equal elasticity, keen insight, oversight; the buoyancy of hope, the serenity of faith, the tenderness of patience. "The hope of the world lies in the children." When we are better mothers, when men are better fathers, there will be better children and a better world. The sooner we feel the value of beginnings, the sooner we realize that we can put bunglers and botchers anywhere else better than in nursery, kindergarten, or primary school (there are no three places in the universe so "big with Fate"), the sooner we shall arrive at better results. I am afraid it is chiefly women's work. Of course men can be useful in many little ways; such as giving money and getting other people to give it, in influencing legislation, interviewing school boards, securing buildings, presiding over meetings, and giving a general air of strength and solidity to the undertaking. But the chief plotting and planning and working out of details must be done by women. The male genius of humanity begets the ideas of which each century has need (at least it is so said, and I have never had the courage to deny it or the time to look it up); but the female genius, I am sure, has to work them out, and "to help is to do the work of the world." If one can give money, if only a single subscription, let her give it; if she can give time, let her give that; if she has no time for absolute work, perhaps she has time for the right word spoken in due season; failing all else, there is no woman alive, worthy the name, who cannot give a generous heartthrob, a warm hand-clasp, a sunny, helpful smile, a ready tear, to a cause that concerns itself with childhood, as a thank-offering for her own children, a pledge for those the hidden future may bring her, or a consolation for empty arms. There is always time to do the thing that _ought_ to be, that _must_ be done, and for that matter who shall fix the limit to our powers of helpfulness? It is the unused pump that wheezes. If our bounty be dry, cross, and reluctant, it is because we do not continually summon and draw it out. But if, like the patriarch Jacob's, our well is deep, it cannot be exhausted. While we draw upon it, it draws upon the unspent springs, the hill-sides, the clouds, the air, and the sea; and the great source of power must itself suspend and be bankrupt before ours can fail. The kindergarten is not for the poor child alone, a charity; neither is it for the rich child alone, a luxury, corrective, or antidote; but the ideas of which it tries to be the expression are the proper atmosphere for every child. It is a promise of health, happiness, and usefulness to many an unfortunate little waif, whose earthly inheritance is utter blackness, and whose moral blight can be outgrown and succeeded by a development of intelligence and love of virtue. The child of poverty and vice has still within him, however overlaid by the sins of ancestry, a germ of good that is capable of growth, if reached in time. Let us stretch out a tender strong hand, and touching that poor germ of good lifting its feeble head in a wilderness of evil, help it to live and thrive and grow! 
10916	----	PARENT AND CHILD BY MOSIAH HALL Volume Three Child Study and Training 1916 FOR THE DESERET SUNDAY SCHOOL UNION, SALT LAKE CITY A WORD OF INTRODUCTION Home-making and the rearing of children is the fundamental business of this world. To make a success of this business we must understand it. The loving hearts of many parents are suffering for a multitude of mistakes that loving intelligence might have prevented. We cannot save our children in ignorance. To perform the duties of parenthood well, we must understand them more clearly. We need light and uplift. These days demand greater knowledge than ever before on the part of parents to meet and master the problems that now confront fathers and mothers. Particularly do we need to study child nature. A clearer understanding of the laws governing the development of children would give parents great help in guiding their children into paths of righteousness, and in ministering to varying child needs as they develop. To give definite help and new spirit to our work, this volume has been prepared. The keynote of the book is _a more enlightened parenthood_. It offers a series of lessons along a line most vital to parents--_Child Study and Training_. These lessons have been written for us by Mosiah Hall, Associate Professor in Education of the University of Utah, and High School Inspector for the State of Utah. We feel that he has done for our cause most excellent service, and we gladly acknowledge our indebtedness to him. This should be remembered: A book gives wisdom only in proportion to the thought that is put into it by the reader. The suggestions of this volume will become rich only as they are enriched by study. They will become valuable only to the extent that they find application in our daily lives. The lessons will be vitalized only as the teacher pours life into them. To supplement and enrich the course, references are given with most of the lessons, and a list of books is offered at the close of the book. Many of these volumes have already been purchased and distributed through the parents' class library. Each class should endeavor to procure at least one copy of each of these books as it is called for in the various lessons. In this way a good library can be gradually built up. Our desire is to make these studies bring lasting returns for good. May God add his blessings to make our work divinely successful, Your brethren in the gospel, Parents' Class Committee of Deseret Sunday School Union Board, HENRY H. ROLAPP, HOWARD R. DRIGGS. NATHAN T. PORTER, EPHRAIM G. GOWANS. A WORD FROM THE AUTHOR This treatise on child study and training has been prepared primarily for the Parents' classes in Sunday School under the direction of the General Board. It is well adapted also for study by Parent-Teachers' Associations and for reading in the home. Its purpose is to acquaint parents with the most vital problems of child life and character and to suggest some methods of solving these problems. The work is not offered as a complete course in this great subject; it is intended rather to open up the field of child study for parents. The welfare of the race depends upon the proper birth and the correct rearing of children. That this little volume may add its mite towards the solution of the problem--at once the hope and the despair of civilization,--is the wish of its author. To the Parents' Class Committee and the General Superintendency of the General Board, I desire to express my appreciation for the suggestions and help they have extended to me in the preparation of this work. To my wife, who achieves in practice what I imperfectly state in theory, these studies are affectionately dedicated. MOSIAH HALL. THE BIRTHRIGHT OF CHILDHOOD _It Is the Sacred Right of the Child To Be Well-Born_ If the child has any divine right in this world, it is the right to be well-born, to be brought into the world sound of body and whole in mind. To be given anything short of such a good beginning is to be handicapped throughout life. Education and training cannot make up for the defects imposed on the child by the sins of the fathers, which, the Good Book tells us, are visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. It is a fact to challenge attention that the child is the product of the entire past. His essential nature is comparatively fixed at birth and is beyond the power or caprice of parent or environment to change in any fundamental particular during the short period of a lifetime. This assertion must not be wrongly interpreted; the possibilities of training and education are great, but they can do little to overcome all of the defects placed upon the child by heredity. Science tells us that normal children are born with the same number and kind of instincts. By instinct is meant the tendency to do certain things in a definite way without previous experience. In all children, for example, we find the instinct of fear, the instinct for play, for self-preservation. These instincts begin to manifest themselves more or less strongly as the child develops. Children also have certain capacities. Capacity may be defined as the possibility to develop skill in certain directions. One, for instance, may have a greater capacity to develop musical ability than another; so with art or business, or ability for any other work. Capacities, more than instincts, seem to depend on the characteristics of parents or immediate ancestors. Thus a child may take after father or mother, or grandparent in this or that particular ability. Instincts, on the other hand, seem to be his inheritance from the race. But whatever his gifts from parent or past the child is born a distinct individual. This is true not only with regard to his physical organism but in respect to his spiritual nature. The relative strength of his instincts, added to the number and quality of his capacities determine what is called individuality. This is what makes each child differ from all others, and this distinctive nature cannot be essentially changed, within our brief lives, though it does possess marvelous powers of development and adaptation. For illustration: Cultivation may develop a perfect specimen of a crabapple, but no amount of careful training could change the crabapple into a Johnathan. Likewise, no system of education can hope to change a numskull into a Newton, or to produce a Solomon from a Simple Simon. The first vital concern of parents, therefore, should be to see that the child is not robbed of his sacred birthright to be well-born. It is a matter of regret that the white race generally is such a sorry mixture of humanity. The good and the bad, the intelligent and the ignorant, the feeble-minded and the strong, the criminal and the righteous, have been combined so frequently and in so many ways that the marvel is that more of the human race are not degenerate as the result of contamination. Since the great characteristic of heredity is to breed true and thus perpetuate its kind, and since training and education must take the individual as he is, with only limited power to change his intrinsic nature or to develop any capacity not present at birth, it becomes a matter of serious importance that parents do all in their power to guide properly the mating of their children. The teaching of the Gospel on this point is most significant. Heredity determines to a great extent the kind and the nature of the individual, and thereby sets limits, which the environment may not overcome. Among these limitations are the following: 1. The relative strength of instincts. 2. The number and kind of capacities. 3. The form, size and quality of bodily organs. 4. Susceptibility to, or power to resist disease. 5. The possibilities of mental attainment. 6. The possibilities of emotional and spiritual response. 7. The possibility to execute undertakings, to control situations, and to govern self as well as others. Heredity also endows a person with his peculiar temperament, with his good or bad looks, and with the chief components of what is called personality. On the other hand, training and education have almost everything to say respecting the relative standing of the individual among the members of his kind--whether or not he shall be a blighted or a perfect specimen. A fine, sweet, juicy crabapple is more desirable than a scrubby, diseased Jonathan. It is the province of training and education to take the individual as he is born, and endeavor to make of him a perfect specimen of his kind. "A child left to himself bringeth his parents to shame." If left alone or improperly trained, a child is almost certain to revert to a lower type of individual. The same high possibilities that, properly directed, produce the superior being, if neglected, or subjected to a vicious environment, produce the moral degenerate. The child is born morally neither good nor bad, and while inherited tendencies may make development in one direction easier than in another, it is possible for a favorable environment, assisted by education, to develop any normal child into a sweet, wholesome product of his kind. Shearer in his "Management and Training of Children," says: "The child may inherit instincts, but a kind Providence has ordained that he shall not inherit habits. He may inherit certain tastes, but he does not inherit temptation. He may bring into the world tendencies, but he does not bring with him prejudices." LESSON I _Questions for Discussion_ 1. What does the expression "being well-born" mean to you? 2. What responsibility is laid upon parents by the fact that the child is the product of the past? Read the second commandment here and discuss its significance in application to this point. 3. What are some of the instincts and capacities given to the child by heredity? 4. Explain the difference between an instinct and a capacity. What seems to be the source of our instincts?--our capacities? 5. What are the chief limitations placed by heredity upon the child? 6. What may education and environment hope to accomplish? _References_: "The Right of the Child to be Well Born," will be found a helpful book to study here. It may be well, if the book is available, to have someone appointed to report on it or to read a few choice paragraphs from it. Also read "Being Well Born," by Guyer. IMPORTANT LAWS OF HEREDITY _A Wise Application of the Laws of Inheritance Is the Most Certain Means of Developing a Superior Race_ In the preface of Dr. Guyer's remarkable book, "Being Well Born," we read the following: "It is no exaggeration to say that during the last fifteen years, we have made more progress in measuring the extent of inheritance and in determining its elemental factors than in all previous time." If this is true, it would seem to be almost criminal for teachers and parents to neglect to acquaint themselves with the fundamental laws of heredity. This author says further: "Since what a child becomes is determined so largely by its inborn capacities, it is of the utmost importance that teachers and parents realize something of the nature of such aptitudes before they begin to awaken them. For education consists in large measure in supplying the stimuli necessary to set going these potentialities and of affording opportunity for their expression." _Mendel's_ law is probably the most important known principle of inheritance. Through its application practically all of the improvements in plants and animals have been brought about. This law may be explained as follows: A certain kind of pure bred fowl is found which is either pure white or black. If either color is mated with its own color the resulting progeny will be true to the color of the parents, but if a white and a black are crossed the result will be blue fowls possessing one-half the characteristics of each parent, but strange to say, if two blue fowls are mated the progeny will not be all blue, one-fourth will be white like one grandparent, another one-fourth black like the other grandparent, and one-half will be blue like the parents. If this experiment is repeated with plants and animals having opposite characteristics, the same ratios as above always result. This indicates that truly heritable traits or characters are separate units and are inherited independently. The breeder is thus enabled through selecting the traits or characters that are wanted and crossing them with a well-known stock, to produce almost any trait or quality that he desires. This law makes it possible to estimate the results of cross breeding with almost mathematical exactness. Improved varieties of fruits, grains and vegetables have been produced in this manner, and with animals marvelous results have been achieved. Luther Burbank, in his little book, "The Training of the Human Plant," says: "There is not a single desirable attribute which, lacking in a plant, may not be bred into it. Choose what improvement you wish in a flower, a fruit, or a tree, and by crossing, selection, cultivation and persistence, you can fix this desirable trait irrevocably." And further: "If then we could have twelve families under ideal conditions where these principles could be carried out unswervingly, we could accomplish more for the race in ten generations than can now be accomplished in a hundred thousand years. Ten generations of human life should be ample to fix any desired attribute. This is absolutely clear, there is neither theory nor speculation." _Acquirements of parents_ during their lifetime, according to the best authorities, are not transmitted to any noticeable extent to their children. This appears to be due to the fact that the cells concerned in reproduction are set aside during embryonic life and from then on are practically unmodified by the succeeding development and experiences of the parent. In fact, during the lifetime of the individual, the germ cells are so completely isolated from the growing organism that nothing but nourishment in the shape of blood can possibly reach them, hence they can be affected only by a vitiated or poisonous blood supply. It seems to be true, therefore, that only the old, deeply-impressed traits, capacities, or racial characters can be inherited. This is, no doubt, the chief secret of the power of heredity to breed true. It has been a popular belief that if parents acquired skill in music, mathematics, or special ability in any other particular that such ability could be imparted to their children, but in the light of the above facts, this appears to be impossible. Of course, if such ability is a slumbering, inborn trait of either parent, or of some immediate ancestor, the ability might be transmitted. It is reasonable to suppose, however, that any acquired trait or ability of the parent, if practised and continued steadily by his children and their descendants for many generations, will come to be an inborn trait or character capable of being transmitted. Otherwise, it is extremely difficult to understand how the human family can progress and become permanently improved. _Galton's_ law is believed to be approximately correct. It may be stated as follows: Children inherit on the average one-half their characteristics from parents, one-fourth from grandparents, one-eighth from great-grandparents, and so on in ever diminishing ratio to remote ancestors. But owing to the fact that some inheritable traits or characters are likely to be dominant and others recessive, Galton's law must be modified, so that only under the most favorable conditions can it be regarded as reliable. Owing to the fact that the primary elements or traits of character contributed by each parent may combine in many ways in the embryo, considerable variation in the children of the same parents is inevitable--one child may resemble the father, another the mother, and yet another some near ancestor. Variability is, therefore, the rule among offspring in the same family, and in some instances it is decidedly pronounced, but in all cases, the variation must be confined to the possible combinations of characters transmitted from parents and ancestors. _The law of regression_ represents the tendency of the extreme elements of the race constantly to seek the middle or mediocre level. For example, the children of superior parents are not likely to be so brilliant as their parents, and the offspring of inferior people are somewhat better than their parents. This "drag of the race" or "pull of ancestors" is no doubt due to the fact that selection has never been practiced, hence the two-thousand nearby ancestors were most likely an average lot of people, and the "pull" is from the higher towards the lower level. The "pull" is a help to the children of inferior parents but is a handicap to the superior. If long-continued selection of parents were practiced, the regression would disappear and the "pull" would be upward. Selection of parents possessing superior elements of character and the prevention of the unfit and the criminal from propagating their kind, seem the surest hope we have of producing a permanently higher type. It is well known that the extremes of the race are less fertile than the means; and since fertility is the chief factor in fixing the type, in the absence of selection and repression, the race appears doomed to remain at the dead level of mediocrity. The tremendous significance of this fact is that the welfare of the race--the gradual substitution of a superior for the present mediocre type--rests absolutely upon the willingness and ability of the superior class to do their full share in propagating the race. LESSON II QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. What is the principle of heredity as discovered by Mendel? Explain by illustrating how it works out in plants and animals. 2. What practical application is made of this law in producing better seed and better breeds? 3. Illustrate Galton's law. 4. What significance has these laws in the improvement of the human race? 5. Account for the variability of children in the same family. 6. Why are some children inferior, some superior to their parents? 7. Illustrate the "pull of ancestors." 8. How might this "pull" be made upward instead of downwards, as it now seems to be? 9. What sacred responsibility rests upon superior people to propagate the race? 10. What are the gospel teachings regarding mixed marriages and the rearing of families? 11. What practical steps can and should be taken to prevent feeble-minded and vicious people from propagating their kind? _Reference_: The Jukes-Edwards family by Dr. A.E. Winship. If this book be available, have some member of the class make a report on it. "Training the Human Plant," and "Being Well Born," will also be found helpful here. THE MOTHER AND THE EMBRYO _The Care of the Mother During the Embryonic Period Determines Largely the Future Welfare of the Child_ In common with every organism the infant develops from a single germ cell of almost microscopic size. Wrapped in this tiny cell are all the possibilities of structure and character that combine to form the complicated bodily organism and the particular mental endowment of the coming child. It was once believed that almost any kind of physical or mental change could be brought about in the cell through appropriate control of the environment, but the results of careful observation and experiment are opposed to this view; all evidence points to the fact that no new character or element can enter the embryo from without. The cell itself holds the secret of what the future individual shall be. The sole connection between the embryo and the mother is the narrow, umbilical cord which contains no nerves and whose only function is to carry blood to the growing organism; it may be seen, therefore, how impossible it is for mental impressions and disturbances on the part of the mother to in any way reach and affect the embryo. Once started on the road to development, the embryo is so thoroughly subject to inner laws that nothing from without can modify or change the direction of its growth except some physical cause which interferes with the blood supply. An adequate supply of pure blood is the principal requirement of the growing organism. Whatever interferes with the blood supply or in any way affects its purity, has an injurious affect upon the embryo. There is not the least doubt that lack of nutrition and serious ill-health on the part of the mother have an extremely bad effect upon the unborn offspring. Severe shock or grief, worry, nervous exhaustion, disease, and poisons in the blood of the mother are the most serious sources of injury; they render nutrition defective and if poison enters directly the blood of the mother or is generated by toxins through disease, the embryo will be poisoned and may be destroyed. Among these poisons are alcohol, lead, and the toxins from tuberculosis and the venereal diseases, gonorrhea and syphilis. To gonorrhea is attributed 80 per cent. of the blindness of children born blind; it is declared to be the cause of 75 per cent. of all the surgical operations for female disorders and of 45 per cent. of involuntary sterility in childless women. Syphilis is the chief cause of feeble-mindedness, paresis, or softening of the brain, and of most other mental defects in children. From the foregoing, it is evident that the proper care of the mother so as to insure a pure blood supply for the offspring ought to be one of the chief concerns of society. This should not be left to the haphazard efforts of individuals but ought to be provided for by the state. According to the statements of life insurance companies, "expectant mothers are the most neglected members of our population." Dr. Van Ingen, of New York City, estimates that 90 per cent, of women in this country are wholly without prenatal care. Luther Burbank shows that in order even for a plant to grow properly it must have abundance of sunshine, good air, and nourishing food; but not many mothers at this time may have even these poor luxuries. Instead, too many mothers are slaves to an insanitary kitchen where sunshine is scarcely known and where overwork and worry destroy all appetite for food. The welfare of the race demands that the mother shall be properly nurtured and protected during this critical period. Abundance of sunshine, pure air, light exercise and a variety of wholesome food are absolutely essential, and the utmost pains should be taken to prevent worry, excitement, sickness and above all contact with or exposure to poisons or disease. It was once thought that whatever causes a mental disturbance in the mother leaves its impress on the child. It is fortunate that this old notion is false, as we have shown nothing but a physical change affecting the blood supply can possibly influence the developing organism. Now and then a red "flame" spot or so-called birthmark is found on the new-born child, but this is due always to some physical cause which may be easily explained, never is it a result of fear of some red object on the part of the mother. LESSON III DISCUSSION 1. How does embryonic life begin? 2. What is characteristic of the cell? 3. What secret does it hold? 4. What is the principal need of the embryo? 5. State fully how the blood supply may be vitiated and what terrible consequences may follow. 6. How should the mother be cared for during this critical period? 7. How may mother drudgery in the home be reduced to a minimum? 8. What directions does Mrs. West give for the care of the mother? (See bulletin, "Parental Care," by Mrs. West, which may be had free for the asking. Address Children's Bureau, Department of Labor, Washington, D.C.) 9. _References_: The following books will be found helpful: "The Training of the Human Plant," by Burbank; "The Right of the Child to be well born," by Dawson; "Being Well Born," by Guyer. If these are available, they may be circulated through the parents' library. THE PLASTIC AGE OF CHILDHOOD _Prolonged Infancy and the Long Period of Plasticity in the Infant Make Training and Education Possible_ The child is born the weakest and most helpless of creatures. Unlike the young of most animals, which within a few hours after birth move about and perform most of the movements necessary to their existence, the infant is so helpless that all its needs must be supplied by parents, otherwise it would perish. Immediately after birth a colt or calf can walk or run almost as fast as its mother; the chick just out of its shell can run about and peck at its food. The child at one year of age can barely totter around and all of its needs must be looked after by others. Moreover, the infant at birth is practically blind and deaf and the senses of taste and smell and touch just sufficiently developed to enable it to take nourishment. This slowness of development, or prolonged infancy as it is called, is of vast significance to the child. It marks at once the chief distinction between the human infant and the young of all other animals. It makes possible a long period of adjustment and training which otherwise would be impossible. Most animals are born with a nervous system highly developed and with most of the adjustment to the environment ready made, so that after a short time all the activities of life are perfected and thereafter automatic action and instinct rule their lives. Because of this lack of infancy and absence of plasticity of the nervous system, animals are little more than machines that perform their task with unvarying regularity in response to outside stimulations. Animals, therefore, are unable to adjust themselves to a change in environment, and as a result their lives are in constant danger. In fact, countless millions of the lower forms of life are perishing every hour because of the lack of possibility of adjustment. The child, on the other hand, has an extremely long period of infancy, and as a result, the nervous system is so plastic that it may be moulded, fashioned and developed in almost any manner or direction, according to the will of parents and the nature of the environment. The child, consequently, may be educated. By education we mean the training and developing of desirable instincts and capacities and the inhibiting of undesirable ones so that the child may be able constantly to adjust himself to an ever-changing environment. Fiske, in "The Meaning of Infancy," Chapter 1, says: "The bird known as the fly-catcher no sooner breaks the egg than it will snap at and catch a fly. This action is not very simple, but because it is something the bird is always doing, being indeed one of the very few things that this bird ever does, the nervous connections needful for doing it are all established before birth, and nothing but the presence of the fly is required to set the operation going. With such creatures as the codfish, the turtle, or the fly-catcher, there is nothing that can properly be called infancy. With them, the sphere of education is extremely limited. They get their education before they are born. In other words, heredity does everything for them, education nothing. "All mammals and most birds have a period of babyhood that is not very long, but it is on the whole longer with the most intelligent creatures. The period of helpfulness is a period of plasticity. The creature's career is no longer exclusively determined by heredity. There is a period after birth when its character can be slightly modified by what happens to it after birth, that is, by its experience as an individual. It is no longer necessary for each generation to be exactly like that which has preceded. The door is opened through which the capacity for progress can enter. Horses and dogs, bears and elephants, parrots and monkeys, are all teachable to some extent, and we have even heard of a learned pig, and of learned asses there has been no lack in the world. "But this educability of the higher mammals and birds is, after all, quite limited. Conservatism still continues in fashion. One generation is much like another. It would be easy for foxes to learn to climb trees, and many a fox might have saved his life by so doing; yet quick-witted as he is, this obvious device has never occurred to him." The vital problem with parents is how to fill this period of plasticity, how to provide an educative environment of the right kind. Luther Burbank, in "The Training of the Human Plant," expresses complete confidence in the power of the environment through appropriate training to fashion the normal child, just as he could a plant, into a most delightful and beautiful specimen of its kind. He says: "Pick out any trait you want in your child, granted that he is a normal child, be it honesty, fairness, purity, lovableness, industry, thrift, what not. By surrounding this child with sunshine from the sky and your own heart, by giving the closest communion with nature, by feeding this child well-balanced, nutritious food, by giving it all that is implied in healthful environmental influences, and by doing all in love, you can thus cultivate in the child and fix there for all its life all of these traits, and on the other side, give him foul air to breathe, keep him in a dusty factory or an unwholesome school-room or a crowded tenement up under the hot roof; keep him away from the sunshine, take away from him music and laughter and happy faces; cram his little brains with so-called knowledge; let him have vicious associates in his hours out of school, and at the age of ten you have fixed in him the opposite traits. You have, perhaps, seen a prairie fire sweep through the tall grass across a plain. Nothing can stand before it, it must burn itself out. That is what happens when you let weeds grow up in your child's life, and then set fire to them by wrong environment." Mr. Burbank is probably over-enthusiastic in his belief that natural education can do everything for the child; but it is certain that environment does exercise a powerful influence, during the plastic age, in determining his character. LESSON IV QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Compare the helplessness of the infant at birth with the ability of the young of other animals. 2. At one year of age, what is the comparison? 3. What is the significance of prolonged infancy respecting (a) possibility of adjustment to environment, (b) possibility of training and education, (c) possibility of profiting from experience, (d) the relation to heredity? 4. What advantage is it that man is born with the germs of many capacities instead of with a few activities that are perfectly developed? 5. What is the chief function of education? 6. What does Burbank say respecting the possibilities of training? 7. What common-sense training should every child be given during this period? Good books, for further study on these points, are: "The Care and Training of the Child," by Kerr, and "Fundamentals of Child Study," by Kirkpatrick. If these volumes are in the library or otherwise available, it may be well to have some member read and give a brief report on one or the other of them. THE NEEDS OF THE INFANT _The Infant's First Needs Are Physical, and May Be Summed up in the Word Nutrition_ The new-born child differs in nearly all particulars from the adult. It is very unfortunate that the child in the past has been regarded as a miniature adult and treated like "a little man." The structure of muscle and bone and the proportion of various parts of the body differ materially; the bones of the child for some time are soft and largely composed of cartilages which may be easily bent out of shape and permanently injured. The ratio of some of the parts is about as follows: * * * * * Height of head of adult to that of infant--2 to 1 Length of body of adult to that of infant--3 to 1 Length of arm of adult to that of infant--4 to 1 Length of leg of adult to that of infant--5 to 1 Besides these easily observed differences, there are others of far more consequence not easily seen, such as differences in the size, structure and activity of vital organs, and in the almost total lack of nervous development in the child as compared with the adult. All of these things make of the child an individual so different from the adult that he must be treated in accordance with his own nature and needs and with little regard to the way in which an adult is considered. Practically everything that the infant needs may be summed up in the one word _nutrition_. A sufficient supply of pure milk from the mother is the one supreme requirement. If this is assured, everything else is almost certain to follow. Of course, the little one must be kept at the right temperature, which is comparatively high during the first few months. An abundance of pure, fresh air also must be supplied to both mother and child. It is wise for both to spend much time in the open air and to sleep on a screened porch. The child should be kept quiet and permitted to sleep as long as nature dictates. It is a positive sin to snatch the child from its bed, toss it up and down and screech at it for the edification of curious visitors. Kissing the child in the mouth should also be positively prohibited. The use of patent medicines likewise, or even many of the "old mother remedies" should never be indulged except on the advice of a competent physician. The needs of the child for some time are strictly physical. Inner forces are at work which cannot be assisted except indirectly through care of the physical organism. So far as nervous or mental development is concerned the rule should be, "Hands off, let Nature take her course." Immediately after birth certain reflexive and instinctive movements, such as sucking, crying, sneezing and clinging are manifested; and the sense of taste and usually smell are also sufficiently active to enable the infant to take nourishment. No other senses are active and no other movements possible except the automatic action of vital organs and a few vague spasmodic twitchings and movements of parts of the body known as impulsive. Nothing, however, can be done from without to hasten the mental awakening; Nature in her own due time will do this, and do it much better if not hurried or interfered with. LESSON V QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Show that the infant is not an adult in miniature. 2. What are some important differences between the child and the adult? 3. What is the supreme need of the infant? Why? 4. What should be observed in caring for the child? 5. What should be avoided in caring for the child? 6. What should be the rule in early mental development? 7. What is active in the child immediately after birth? "The Care of the Child in Health," by Oppenheim, will be helpful here. If the book is in the parents' library, let someone prepare and make a brief report on it for next lesson. The following other helps may be had for the asking by writing to the U.S. Bureau of Education: "Parental Care," by Mrs. West, Series No. 1, publication No. 4, U.S. Department of Labor, Children's Bureau. The following chapter is taken from one of these bulletins prepared for parents by our Government. CARE OF THE BABY IN SUMMER _Summer Is a Critical Time for the Infant, During This Time It Should Receive the Most Careful Attention_ A baby must be kept as cool as possible in summer, because over-heating is a direct cause of summer diarrhea. Even breast-fed babies find it hard to resist the weakening effects of excessive heat. Records show that thousands of babies, most of whom are bottle-fed, die every year in July and August, because of the direct or indirect effects of the heat. Next in importance to right food in summer are measures for keeping the baby cool and comfortable; frequent baths, light clothing and the selection of the coolest available places for him to play and sleep. A baby should have a full tub bath every morning. If he is restless and the weather is very hot, he may have in addition one or two sponge baths a day. A cool bath at bedtime sometimes makes the baby sleep more comfortably. For a young baby, the water should be tepid; that is, it should feel neither hot nor cold to the mother's elbow. For an older baby it may be slightly cooler, but should not be cold enough to chill or frighten him. If the water is very hard a tablespoonful of borax dissolved in a little water may be added to three quarts of water to soften it. Very little soap should be used and that a very bland, simple soap, like castile. Never rub the soap directly on the baby's skin, and be sure that it is thoroughly rinsed off, as a very troublesome skin disease may result if a harsh soap is allowed to dry on the skin. Use a soft wash cloth made from a piece of old table linen, towel, knitted underwear, or any other very soft material, and have two pieces, one for the face and head and one for the body. The towel should be soft and clean also. Even in summer the baby should be protected from a direct draft when being bathed lest he be too suddenly chilled. A young baby should be carefully held while in the tub. The mother puts her left hand under the baby's arm and supports the neck and head with her forearm. But an older baby can sit alone and in summer may be allowed to splash about in the cool water for a few minutes. When the bath is finished the baby should be patted dry, and the mother should take great care to see that the folds and creases of the skin are dry. Use a little pure talcum powder or dry sifted corn starch under the arms and in the groin to prevent chafing. If any redness, chafing, or eruption like prickly heat, develops on the skin, no soap at all should be used in the bath. Sometimes a starch, or bran, or soda bath will relieve such conditions. _Bran Bath_. Make a little bag of cheesecloth and put a cupful of ordinary bran in it and sew or tie the top. Let this bag soak in the bath, squeezing it until the water is milky. _Starch Bath_. Use a cupful of ordinary cooked starch to a gallon of water. (If the laundry starch has had anything added to it, such as salt, lard, oil, bluing, it must not be used for this purpose.) _Soda Bath_. Dissolve a tablespoonful of ordinary baking soda in a little water and add it to four quarts of water. _Clothing_. Do not be afraid to take off the baby's clothes in summer. All he needs in hot weather are the diaper and one other garment. For a young baby this may be a sleeveless band which leaves the arms and chest bare, and for an older baby only a loose, thin cotton slip or apron, or wrapper, made in one piece with short kimono sleeves. Toward nightfall when the day cools, or if the temperature drops when a storm arises, the baby should, of course, be dressed in such a way as to protect him from chill. Cotton garments are best for the baby in summer. All-wool bands, shirts and stockings should not be worn at any time of the year, and in hot summer weather only the thinnest, all-cotton clothing should touch the baby's skin, unless he is sick, when a very light part-wool band may be needed. In general, neither wool nor starch should be allowed in the baby's clothing in summer. Wool is too hot and irritating and starched garments scratch the baby's flesh. The baby should be kept day and night in the coolest place that can be found. The kitchen is usually the hottest room in the house, especially if coal or wood is burned for fuel. While the mother is busy with her work the baby should be kept in another room, or better, out of doors, if he can be protected from flies and mosquitoes. A play pen, such as is described in "Infant Care," a booklet published by the Children's Bureau and sent free on request, makes it possible to leave the baby safely by himself on the porch or in the yard, after he is old enough to creep. A screened porch on the shady side of the house is a boon to every mother, affording a cool, secure place for the baby to play and also to sleep. Let him have his daytime naps on the porch and sleep there at night during the heat. Do not be afraid of fresh air for the baby. He cannot have too much of it. Night air is sometimes even better than day air, because it has been cooled and cleansed of dust by the dew. The essentials in the summer care of babies are: 1. Proper food, given only at regular intervals. 2. A clean body. 3. Fresh air, day and night. 4. Very little clothing. 5. Cool places to play and sleep in. Do not give the baby medicine of any sort unless it is ordered by the doctor. Never give him patent remedies which are said to relieve the pain of teething, or to make him sleep, or to cure diarrhea, for such medicines are likely to do the baby much more harm than good, especially in summer when the digestion is so easily disturbed. It is so much easier to keep the baby well than it is to cure him when he is sick, that wise mothers try to take such care of the baby that he will not be sick. Do not fail to give the baby a drink of cool water several times a day in hot weather. Boil the water first, then cool it, and offer it to the baby in a cup, glass, or nursing bottle. Babies and young children sometimes suffer cruelly for lack of drinking water. LESSON VI QUESTIONS ON TEXT 1. What are the chief causes of sickness and death among children during the summer time? 2. What are the best preventatives for baby ills during the hot months? 3. Discuss the importance of bathing and tell how to bathe the child. 4. What is the best way to dress the child during the heated time of the year? 5. What provisions should be made for his sleeping? 6. Discuss the use of patent medicines. 7. What should be done regarding the drink of the child? Why? 8. What can best be done by the well-to-do and by the community as a whole to protect and preserve the babies? _Reference_: Selections from "Child Nature and Child Nurture," by St. John. CHILD ACTIVITY _This Activity Is Expressed in Simple Reflexes, Complex Instincts, or Internally Caused Impulses_ As already mentioned, the physical needs of the infant are supreme. Proper nourishment, the right temperature, bathing, and an abundance of fresh, pure air constitute all of his requirements. The child is endowed, however, with an enormous capacity for movement which is the outward expression of his awakening mental life. The first great mental fact to note is that the infant is born with the capacity to respond to stimuli both from without and within. Touch the lips of the new-born child with the nipple or even the finger, and immediately the sucking instinct takes place; let a bright light shine into the open eye, and the iris at once contracts; plunge the little one into cold water or let it be subject to any bodily discomfort and at once the crying reflex takes place. The simple, direct responses to stimuli such as sneezing, coughing, wrinkling, crying, response to tickling, etc., are termed reflexes. The more complex responses which are purposeful and are designed to aid or protect the organism, such as sucking, clinging, fear, anger, etc., are called instincts. Besides the movements which are the direct result of stimulation, other movements more or less spasmodic and uncoordinated take place which seem to be the result of internal causes not easily understood. The whole body is usually involved in these movements, and they are at first extremely random in expression. These are termed impulses and are undoubtedly due to the fact that the infant is a living, breathing embodiment of energy, seeking the means of self-expression. In other words, the infant is active from the beginning, and the slightest kind of internal disturbance is sufficient at times to turn loose an immense number of impulsive movements. This activity at birth is entirely uncontrolled. It seems that in contrast to reflexes and instincts which have prearranged bodily means of expression, the impulses must be subjected to a long period of training and education before they are capable of being controlled and transformed into that voluntary movement which is sometimes called will power. The immense number and strength of these random, impulsive movements in the infant is in great contrast to the few, instinctive, unchangeable modes of action in lower animals. As already stated, most animals come to the world with the few movements necessary to their existence already provided for and so fixed that future adjustment to new conditions is practically impossible. The child, on the other hand, has marvelous capacity for adjustment to new conditions and presents, therefore, possibilities for training and education that have probably never yet been fully realized in any child. The reflexes and instincts, however, are much more fixed and certain in their action than are the impulses. No matter what the training and education of an individual may be, he will sneeze, even in church, if the right stimulus is present; or he will cry and shed tears in public if the melodrama excites the proper nerve centers. When the sex instinct is fully aroused or the sentiment of love completely awakened, no one can foretell what the action of the otherwise sane person will be. All that training and education can do is to inhibit under ordinary conditions certain undesirable tendencies and instincts and to strengthen through exercise those that are desirable; and even then when a crisis comes, the old, hereditary instinct is apt to break through its thin veneer and actually frighten the individual at the unexpected strength it reveals. Slap any man in the face and see what chance his life-long education has against the old barbarous instinct for fighting. But notwithstanding the strength and tenacity of instincts, training and education may inhibit some of them and so transform others into useful habits that for most purposes in life their subjugation seems complete. A tremendous, almost divine power rests, therefore, in the hands of parents--the power to mold and fashion and transform the impulses and instincts of their children into whatsoever ideals of life and conduct they themselves possess. Where is the parent who fully realizes his privilege and completely performs his sacred duty? LESSON VII QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT 1. What are the supreme needs of the infant? 2. What is the first mental fact to note? 3. Illustrate reflex movement, instinctive movement, impulsive movement. 4. Contrast the impulses of children with the instincts of lower animals. 5. What opportunity is given parents through the impulsive movements of the infant? 6. What only may training and education hope to accomplish with the instincts of children? 7. What almost divine power is possessed by parents in the training of children? 8. Quote from the Doctrine & Covenants also a passage that deals with the responsibility of parents in teaching the gospel to their children. _Reference_: For a further study of _instincts_, selections from "Fundamentals of Child Study," by Kirkpatrick, will be found helpful. Also chapters from "Elementary Psychology," by Phillips. HABIT _Habit Is the Tendency to Make Certain Actions Automatic. It Is a Great Time Saver, and Forms the Basis for Training and the Acquirement of Skill_ Once activity starts in any direction, the tendency is to persist until satisfaction is reached. If the movement results in pain or even discomfort, or if the end reached is not satisfactory, the movement will be inhibited or discontinued and probably will not be attempted the second time. Whenever the end reached does give satisfaction, the activity is sure to be repeated, and in these later attempts, efforts will be made to reach the end more quickly and with less effort. This is done through eliminating the unnecessary movements and combining the right ones until the complete process is performed with ease and skill. The repetition alone is not so important as the intelligent improvement of the act through practice until a satisfactory degree of skill is obtained. After the desired end is reached, attention to the process will cease, but thereafter whenever the right stimulus is presented the act will be repeated, and this will be done with much less effort than was first employed; further repetitions of the act require less and less conscious effort until at length it will be performed almost with the same sureness and ease with which reflex or automatic movements take place. Any activity whatsoever when reduced to this automatic stage is termed habit. The importance of habit in the development of the child can scarcely be over-estimated; in truth, it is the one great process which dominates nine-tenths of all the activity of the individual throughout his entire life. Habits ought to be our most helpful and reliable servants, but they are too often enemies that bind us hand and foot and prevent the realization of our highest possibilities. Much of the training and education of the child consists, therefore, in acquiring a series of useful habits and in inhibiting acts that might result in habits that are undesirable. A child left to himself or improperly reared will acquire all sorts of undesirable habits which may have the effect of hampering his every movement and which may cause eventually his disgrace and failure in life. Even the adult who fails to practice the details of the various activities connected with his vocation until they result in effective habits of work will usually fail, while the man who has mastered the details of his occupation through reducing them to a series of effective habits will surely succeed. Note the ease and perfection with which the skilled workman performs his labor and compare it with the slow, slovenly work of the unskilled laborer. One important development of the future will be the employment of an expert in each occupation whose business it will be to teach the workmen the most efficient and economical way of doing his particular work. Even now in many factories high-priced experts are secured whose duty it is to teach the workmen how to eliminate all unnecessary movements in their work and how to combine the right movements necessary to accomplish each task in the best way and in the quickest time. In many instances, the output of the factory has been increased from twenty-five to forty per cent, through this sensible procedure. Theoretically, good habits should be as easy to acquire as bad ones, but practically this is not the case. Only a few bad habits are the result of conscious choice and effort; for example, the acquiring of a liking for tobacco and liquor, the taste of which for most children is disagreeable if not nauseating at first, but this taste, through practice, often becomes an uncontrollable craving. Most bad habits, however, come about unconsciously and are the result of "just letting things happen." This, undoubtedly, is what the proverb means which states, "Man is born to trouble as the sparks are to fly upward." Most good habits, on the other hand, are the result of conscious effort, especially on the part of parents and teachers. A reason for this is that the strongest instincts in children are those relating to self-preservation and the gratification of personal desires, hence selfishness, greediness, anger, and the fighting instinct are natural to the child, while generosity, good manners, respect for the rights of others, and sympathy require, in order to be properly developed, persistent effort and education. Parents, therefore, must persevere in training up the child in the way he should go if they would cultivate in him habits that bless his whole life. Imitation also plays a remarkable part in the formation of habits. The child learns to walk, talk, use his hands in certain ways, and to eat, sleep, and dress after the manner of his elders. He uses good language or bad according to the examples heard; in fact, nearly everything a child does is the result of copying after others. Whether his habits be good or bad, efficient or slovenly, therefore, depends largely on the nature of the examples he has to follow. LESSON VIII QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. How are habits formed? 2. Give examples to show that habit dominates most of the activities of life. 3. Why are good habits more difficult to form than bad ones? 4. Illustrate the power of imitation in the formation of habits. 5. What is the relation of habit to training and education? 6. What is the relation of habit to the skilled workman? 7. In what way can the expert increase efficiency in every vocation and profession? 8. How might much time be saved in the home and on the farm by the acquirement of effective habits in work? _Reference_: For further study of habit see "Phillip's Elementary Psychology." HABIT CONTINUED _Right Habits Must Be Acquired Early; Wrong Habits Are Broken Only Through Tremendous Effort_ Whatsoever the parent desires in his child in the nature of attainment or skill, of character or ideal, if not foreign to the nature of the child, may be realized through attention to habit. But the training in right habits should be accomplished during the golden age of childhood when body and soul are plastic and impressions are easily made. Too early the character hardens like cement and thereafter becomes well nigh impossible to change. Think how difficult it is for the adult, but how easy for the child, to acquire skill in music, or facility in speaking a foreign language. With respect to moral virtue and spiritual sentiment, whatsoever good fruit you look for in the man usually appears as seed and flower in the child. Among the habits that should be impressed early, habits that are absolutely essential to success in life, are the following: 1. Promptness and regularity. 2. Obedience to right and justice. 3. Truthfulness and honesty. 4. Thoroughness. 5. Industry or the habit of work. 6. Persistence. 7. Temperance. 8. Courtesy and respect for the rights of others. Crowning these and transcending them in importance are the supreme sentiments and ideals of life, which cannot properly be regarded as habits; they are sympathy, love, faith, reverence for religious convictions, and the ideal of freedom or liberty. Society itself could not endure but for the stability which habits afford. It is easy to denounce custom and tradition as obstacles to progress and reform, but it should be remembered that they are the social habits which society has acquired through registering the experience of the past, and that while some of them, such as intemperance and sexual vice, are destructive of society, others, like co-operation, and the ideal of freedom, are absolutely essential to human progress. An example by Oppenheim, in his "Mental Growth and Control," well illustrates the power of habit. A wealthy woman in New York City became interested in the crowded tenements of the east side; she believed that constant sickness, unclean habits, and the vicious characters of the people were due largely to overcrowding. She secured, therefore, some well furnished cottages in the suburbs and offered them rent free until such time as the occupants should become well established. Her surprise was great when they refused to move into these comparatively luxurious quarters; they seemed to prefer the dirt and disease, the sickness and vice to which they were accustomed. "She did not know the force of habit; she was totally ignorant of the hard and fast condition into which people grow. She had never stopped to consider how necessary it is for the world at large to have such repression. Without this control there could be no peace, no safety, no steady growth in civilized society. The poor would attack the rich, the lawless and violent would assail the peaceful, the indolent would refuse to labor, the regularity and studied discipline of well-ordered life would absolutely cease. In their place anarchy would reign and each day would make confusion worse confounded. Imagine, if you can, what animals would be if they lacked restraint of habit. Man's power over them would cease instantly and their strength would be a terrible engine of destruction. Men would be as much worse as human intelligence exceeds brute intelligence. One is quite safe in declaring that habit is the great flywheel that regulates society." Desirable habits, therefore, together with all necessary reforms, must come about slowly; they should be the result of conscious training and education in all the factors that make for a higher civilization. LESSON IX QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. What are some habits essential to success? 2. When should training to fix these habits begin? Why? 3. Why do many parents fail to fix right habits in their children? 4. How may wrong habits be overcome and right habits established? 5. What does Solomon say in regard to training the child? 6. Give reasons why community habits are so hard to change? What is the good side of this strength of habit? 7. What is the quickest and surest way to bring about desirable social reforms? MAXIMS ON HABIT _Professor James Gives Four Maxims to Follow in Breaking from an Old Habit or in Acquiring a New One_ "1. _Take care 'o launch yourself with as strong and decided initiative as possible_. Reinforce the right motive with every favorable circumstance; put yourself in a condition that will make the right act easy and the wrong one difficult. Take a public pledge if the case allows; in short, envelop your resolution with every aid possible. "2. _Never suffer an exception to occur until the new habit is securely rooted_. Each lapse is like the letting fall of a ball of yarn that is being wound; a single slip undoes more than a great many turns will wind again. It is necessary above all things never to lose a battle; every gain on the wrong side undoes the effects of many conquests on the right. "3. _Seize every opportunity to act in the direction of the desired habit, and permit no emotional prompting in its behalf to escape you_. 'Hell is paved with good intentions,' hence to have good desires, thoughts, intentions without actually working them out weakens and destroys the moral fibre. 'Character is a completely fashioned will,' says J.S. Mill, and a will in this sense is an aggregate of tendencies which act in a firm, prompt, and definite way in every emergency of life. When a resolve or a fine glow of feeling is allowed to evaporate without bearing fruit in action, it is worse than a chance lost, it is a positive hindrance to the carrying out of future resolutions. Nothing is more contemptible than a sentimental dreamer who is carried away with lofty thoughts and feeling but who never does a manly, concrete deed. Positive harm is done through cultivating the emotions and sentiments if no outlet is found for some appropriate action. "4. _Keep the faculty of effort alive by a little gratuitous exercise every day_. That is, be heroic, do every day something for no other reason than that you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need comes, it may find you nerved and trimmed to stand the test. The man who practices self-denial in unnecessary things will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him and when his softer fellow mortals are winnowed like chaff in a blast. "The hell which theology once taught is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves by habitually fashioning our characters in the wrong way. Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state. We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every small stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never so little scar. The drunken Rip Van Winkle excuses each drink he takes by saying, 'I won't count this time.' He may not count it, and a kind heaven may not count it, but down among his nerve cells and in the muscle fibres, the molecules are counting it, registering and storing it up to be used against him when the next temptation comes. Nothing we do in a strict, scientific sense is ever wiped out; each thought and every deed is registered in the soul and helps to compose that book out of which we will be judged on that great final day when we are called upon to render an account of our stewardship." Notwithstanding the difficulty, however, habits may be strengthened, or abolished. The older they are the more difficult they will be to modify; the chief factor involved is the amount of labor required to make the change, the possibility of making it need never be questioned. Breaking the habit of excessive use of drugs, tobacco, tea and coffee, or alcohol, will occasion much discomfort, hardship, and even functional disturbance, but these ills are only temporary, and the organism soon returns to its original normal condition. To break a well-established habit requires common sense, decision and strength of purpose. "If you want to abolish a habit, you must grapple with the matter as earnestly as you would with a physical enemy. You must go into the encounter with all tenacity of determination, with all fierceness of resolve, with a passion for success that may be called vindictive. No human enemy can be as insidious, as persevering, as unrelenting as an unfavorable habit. It never sleeps, it needs no rest, it has no tendency toward vacillation and lack of purpose. It is like the parasite that grows with the growth of the supporting body and like a parasite, it can best be killed by violent separation and crushing. "Every time we make an unsuccessful attempt, the final crushing is indefinitely postponed, every time we put off the attempt, the desired result fades farther and farther away. The habit persists and from time to time the path becomes deeper and broader. In addition, during such a period of weakness and indecision, you may be fostering another habit, that of expecting defeat. From this lack of confidence and little faith in yourself and destiny, you must by all means escape at any cost. There is nothing more pathetic than the man who does not believe in himself. No one else will believe in him. But he who has the enthusiasm of belief in himself and never loses sight of his high purpose is the one who can perform wonders." LESSON X QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Discuss fully each of the maxims given by Professor James, illustrating by experiences you have known. 2. What expression from Professor James is most impressive to you? 3. What hope is there for those enslaved by a bad habit? How can we best help them? 4. What was Christ's way of dealing with such people? 5. What are the common habits that most trouble us? How can they be best prevented or overcome? HABITS OF INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD _The First Physical Habits Acquired by the Child Are of Vast Importance and Require Heroic Treatment on the Part of the Mother_ From the beginning both physical and mental habits will be acquired by the child. At first, attention must be given chiefly to the regularity of caring for the physical needs of the infant such as giving food at stated intervals, and having a regular time for sleeping, bathing, and for being dressed. It is astonishing how little trouble is caused by the infant when it is trained in correct physical habits from the beginning, compared with the babe that is treated in a spasmodic fashion--everything overdone sometimes and nothing at all done at other times. In the former case the little one is quiet and peaceful and sleeps, as it should, most of the time, especially at night; in the latter case the child is fretful and cross and requires the father to trudge it about at night much to his discomfort and loss of temper. Nature has given the infant a voice which is not only lusty but which is apt to be used from the first with unnecessary liberality. It is the little one's only means of responding to stimuli that cause discomfort; at first the infant's cry is reflex and unconscious; but if every time it cries something happens, a sort of dim consciousness is soon awakened and the habit of crying for nothing or on the slightest provocation is soon established, and thereafter the child will rule the household like a Czar. If, on the other hand, the mother understands that the crying reflex is largely unnecessary at the present time, since she has learned to administer to the infant's every requirement with clock-like regularity, she will, when assured that nothing ails the child, let it cry if it wants to without giving it the least attention. One can scarcely believe how soon the crying reflex will disappear under such treatment. If, on the other hand, the child is taken up whenever it cries and walked and rocked and fondled, it quickly learns that individuals were made solely to wait on it, and the great instinct of selfishness is aroused which is likely to carry in its wake a world of trouble and disappointment. Who has not heard a crying child in an adjoining room stop suddenly to listen for the sake of discovering whether or not the noises he heard are the regular movements of a person coming to him or merely the irregular noises of the wind or of moving furniture which do not concern him? Not only is the child plastic, but too often a portion of the environment is also plastic and yielding and usually to the lasting detriment of the child. The young mother who would train her child to right habits must be heroic. When the little one is old enough to sit up in his high chair at the table, his conduct is not apt to be meek and good-mannered. He will snatch at things and tip them over, plunge his fists into the gravy, and fill his mouth with food, stuffing it in with both hands until he chokes. His mother is usually ashamed and grieved at his barbarous conduct; but she need not be, she should remember that good table manners are artificial, not natural, and that they are by no means a racial acquirement. She must resort, therefore, to necessary means to correct the child, even at times to physical punishment, though she herself must leave the room to shed a quiet tear over such seeming cruelty. Place the spoon in his hand and help the child to make the necessary movements and punish him slightly if need be whenever he departs too far from propriety, and it will be astonishing how quickly the conventional habit of table manners will be acquired. The kindest mother is the one who is brave enough to inflict some punishment when this is the surest way to develop needed habits that are unnatural to the child. Soon the child learns to crawl; he does this because of the primal pleasure he has in bodily movements and because he has reached satisfaction in handling objects within his grasp; and since distant objects will not come to him, he must go to them, and this he does as soon as he is able. If objects would come to him whenever he desired, it is probable that he would not learn to crawl for a long time. Sometimes exceedingly awkward modes of crawling are acquired, which if noted and corrected when first attempted, would save much labor and pains afterward. So long as crawling answers all demands and gives full satisfaction, it will be continued; but, usually because the child sees others walk, and possibly also because he himself has the instinctive desire to walk, crawling is no longer satisfactory. So he attempts to imitate the walking of his elders and through the aid and encouragement received from them, he accomplishes this marvelous feat--the greatest physical habit he will ever require. LESSON XI QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. What are the first physical habits that the child should acquire? 2. What results from spasmodic training in these habits? 3. How should the crying reflex be treated? 4. How is selfishness early aroused? How can it be avoided? 5. Why should the young mother be heroic? 6. How may table manners, and other conventional habits be taught? 7. Why do the parents fail to implant right habits in their children? The following will be found helpful for further studies on this subject: "The Care of the Baby," by Holt; "The Care of the Child in Health," by Oppenheim. THE MEANING OF CONSCIOUSNESS _Consciousness Is Expressed in Knowing, Feeling, and Willing, Each Phase of Which Should Be Developed Fully and in Perfect Harmony_ As already remarked, the chief characteristic of the young child is ceaseless activity. From the time he is able to walk, or even crawl, the great instinct of curiosity is alive, and this at first is likely to lead him into all sorts of places where he should not go and cause him to investigate and even destroy some of the valued possessions of the household. This is a critical period in the development of the child and must be handled with rare judgment. Some knowledge of child psychology is essential here to guide the parent. About this time three types of mental activity will be noted in the child. (1) _Feeling_ is one phase or type which expresses itself sometimes in pleasure or pain and at other times in action or anger. The feeling phase of consciousness gives color and tone to every act of life; it is the basis of interest; without it, neither happiness nor sorrow could exist, nor could there be faith or worship. When fully developed, it culminates in the emotions and sentiments, the highest of which are friendship and sympathy, love and duty, patriotism and reverence. The opposite of some of these is anger, hate and jealousy. Feeling makes heaven or hell a possibility and sometimes an actuality. (2) The _knowing_ phase of mental activity is aware of the outside world as well as of itself; it forms images of things and remembers; in its higher aspects it judges and reasons. This phase of consciousness makes possible invention and scientific achievement. By and through it, man overcomes his environment and makes himself the master of the earth. (3) The _volitional_ or _will_ phase of mental activity is first manifested in the impulsive, spasmodic movements heretofore described. Later these random movements are brought under control, then comes the ability to select a desired stimulus from among several that are possible, and at length the power to choose between two or more possible modes of action. This highest form is termed voluntary action or will power. It is extremely important to note that the will is not a separate power or faculty which can be cultivated apart from other phases of consciousness. Many foolish things have been written about the power of the will and its capacity for infinite development; as a matter of fact, all three phases of consciousness must be developed together. Every act of the mind of necessity embraces all three phases, since it is impossible to know without feeling or to experience feeling or knowing without activity. The will, therefore, can never be quite so strong as the total consciousness; and at every stage, it needs the feeling phase to give it motive and the knowing phase to make it rational. Knowing, feeling, and willing, therefore, are merely convenient terms that express the varying, changing modes of consciousness, which at one time may be predominately feeling, at another knowing, and again willing. The great fact to remember is that consciousness develops as a unit, and the most highly trained mind is the one in which each phase is developed not only to its maximum but at the same time in perfect harmony with the other two as well as with the total consciousness. It is impossible to say which of the three phases develops first in the infant, nor is it important to know; the significant fact is that all three evolve together, and whenever activity is strong and well sustained, it is evident that feeling and knowing also are well developed. When the child is two years of age or over, as above remarked, usually an appalling desire to destroy things is manifested. Dolls will be torn to pieces, the toy bank smashed, and if a hammer can be had, nothing is too sacred to be knocked to pieces. This is not depravity in the child, much as it seems to be, it is a legitimate desire to investigate, to satisfy his curiosity, and to find a means of satisfying his increasing power to do something. Up to this time an object is to the child merely the activity for which it stands; a ball is something to roll or toss, a hammer is to strike with, and it is a matter of supreme indifference to him what is struck. At this stage the child has no sense of values and he cannot possibly know that one object may be hit with a hammer, while another object, such as a mirror, may not. He must be taught this fact; at first it is entirely beyond his experience. But the child now has considerable capacity for knowing, hence the wise parent can easily and quickly teach him to discriminate and even to be careful to avoid injury to certain objects. No attempt should be made to suppress this new-born power of this searcher after truth; this instinct is the basis of invention and of scientific research; it must be properly guided, but not subdued. Give him playthings which can be taken to pieces and put together, dolls which can be dressed and undressed, horses which can be harnessed and fastened to carts, blocks which can be built into various forms, and above all, for a boy, a large, soft block of wood with plenty of nails, tacks, and a hammer. The amount of energy he will expend in filling the block with tacks or nails is astonishing. Other appropriate ways of expressing his energy should also be provided. Give the child something to do. This rule ought to be rigidly observed: _Never cut straight across the activity of a child, but always substitute some other act in place of the one not desired_. LESSON XII QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. How is the great instinct of curiosity at first manifested? 2. What three phases of consciousness are there? How do these develop? 3. What is meant by a well-trained mind? 4. What explains the child's tendency to destroy things? How may this tendency be best overcome? 5. What rule should the parent carefully follow with relation to the child's activity? 6. What are some sensible activities that may be easily provided for children? 7. Why is it worth while for parents to devote some time, or even money, to providing for the natural activities of children to express themselves in the right ways? For further study, selections from "Elementary Psychology," by Phillips, will be found helpful. POSITIVE VS. NEGATIVE TRAINING _Train the Positive Side of the Child's Nature and the Negative Side Will Need Little Attention_. A negative method trains the child to be hard and critical, and to be constantly looking for opposition to his wishes; it is the chief cause also of slyness, ill-temper and disrespect. The following illustrations are taken from Mrs. Harrison's inspiring little book, entitled, "A Study of Child Nature." "A mother came to me in utter discouragement, saying: 'What shall I do with my five-year-old boy? He is simply the personification of the word _won't_.' After the conversation I walked home with her. A beautiful child, with golden curls and great, dancing, black eyes, came running out to meet us, and with all the impulsive joy of childhood threw his arms about her. 'Don't do that, James, you will muss mama's dress.' I knew at once where the trouble lay. In a moment she said: 'Don't twist so, my son;' and 'Don't make such a noise.' Within a few minutes the mother had used 'don't' five times. No wonder when she said, 'Run in the house now, mama will come in a minute,' he replied: 'No, I don't want to.'" "Two older children were playing in a room and soon became boisterous. The busy mother did not notice them, but the little two-year-old child turned round and called out impatiently: 'Boys, 'top.' Babies, like parrots, learn the words they hear most frequently. 'Boys, stop,' a negative command, had no doubt been used frequently in that household. How easy it would have been to substitute the positive statement: 'Boys, run out in the back yard and play ball,' or 'Run out into the garden and bring me some flowers for the table.' "A four-year-old boy when he first entered the kindergarten was the most complete embodiment of negative training I have ever met. It was 'No, I don't want to,' 'No, I won't sit by that boy,' 'No, I don't like blocks.' Nothing pleased him; nothing satisfied him. He was already an isolated character, unhappy himself and a source of discomfort to others. Soon after beginning our work, I heard a whizzing sound, and Paul's voice crying out: 'Joseph has knocked my soldier off the table and he did it on purpose too.' My first impulse was to say: 'Why did you do that? It was naughty. Go and pick up Paul's soldier.' But that would have been negative treatment, too much of which had been heaped upon him already; so, instead, I said: 'Oh, well, Paul, never mind, Joseph doesn't know that we try to make each other happy in kindergarten.' "Some time afterwards I said: 'Come here, Joseph, I wish you to be my messenger boy.' This was a privilege highly desired by the children. Joseph came reluctantly as if expecting some hidden censure, but soon he was busy running back and forth, giving each child the proper materials for the next half-hour's work. As soon as the joy of service had melted him into a mood of comradeship, I whispered: 'Run over now and get Paul's soldier.' Instantly he obeyed, picked it up, and placed it on the table before its owner, quietly slipped into his own place and began his work. His whole nature for the time being was changed. Continued treatment of this kind completely transformed the nature of the child." Scolding and finding fault are the most common forms of negative training employed by parents. Such treatment brings out and emphasizes the opposite qualities from those desired, since they appeal to the very worst side of the child's nature. Usually, too, the sympathy of the mother and the affection of the child are separated and coldness takes their place. Suggest to the child at the right time the act you wish him to do and usually it will be quickly accomplished; then if a child is praised a little for his promptness, he will soon grow into the habit of doing promptly other more important tasks. The boy who dallied over everything he did was soon cured by the simple device of counting while he ran an errand and then praising him for his quick return. A little praise goes farther than much censure. Sometimes a boy's tone and manner are lacking in respect to his mother, or a girl becomes troublesome and defies authority. This condition did not come about suddenly; it is the result of continued negative treatment. Usually, if a boy is disrespectful or a girl impudent, it is because the parents through neglect or improper training, have unconsciously fostered such behavior. Some children are timid and superstitious, too often they are laughed at and ridiculed; on the other hand, fun should never be made of such children and they should be given every opportunity to develop courage and self-reliance. If a child is irreverent, he should have his eyes opened to the wonders of creation and to the majesty and power displayed by the Maker of the universe. So, in all cases, the parents should beware of the almost universal, negative mode of training which represses, scolds, finds fault, and results in producing hardness, slyness, obstinacy, and other undesirable qualities; instead, positive methods should be employed. They suggest correct action, substitute the right for the wrong, praise for blame, encouragement rather than discouragement, and stimulate to higher endeavor. However, if occasion demands, parents may be stern, unrelenting and even resort to punishment. LESSON XIII QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. What is the main point of this lesson? 2. Discuss the "won't" child. 3. Discuss the "don't" boy. 4. Discuss scolding and finding fault versus judicious praise. 5. What is the value of suggestion in guiding children? Illustrate. 6. What often explains disrespect and impudence in children? 8. Illustrate some helpful ways that give positive training to children. Selections from "The Dawn of Character," by Mumford, will be found helpful, for further studies on this subject. FOOD, DRESS AND TOYS "_The Body Is More Than Raiment; and Life, More Than Meat_." The normal child is born in a state of naturalness with respect to his tastes and appetites and the endeavor should be to keep him in this natural state. But too often his senses are stimulated to excess and an artificial appetite is begun which usually leads to some form of intemperance. Much of the excess in drinking is due, not to inheritance, but to vicious feeding. A false appetite leads to physical unrest and uneasiness and this naturally lends itself to the pleasure and excitement of drink. "Why do you not eat the pickles, my son?" said one father; "they are very nice." "No," said the boy, "I don't see any use in eating spiced pickles, it doesn't help to make me strong; my teacher says so." Would that every child were thus trained to prefer wholesome to unwholesome food. Our schools are doing good work along these lines of personal hygiene; parents should reinforce the efforts of the teacher by bringing the home hygiene up to the right standards. The clothing of children also deserves some attention. Probably in nothing else is vanity and selfishness more easily displayed than in dress. How rare a thing it is to find a beautiful child, simply or even plainly dressed, who is neither vain of her good looks nor of her rich apparel. The sweetest object in the world is a beautiful child, tastily dressed, free from vanity, and perfectly natural and unspoiled. The mother who praises her child's curls or rosy cheeks rather than the child's actions or inner motives, is developing vanity of the worst kind--placing beauty of appearance above beauty of conduct. "Fashionable parties for children are abominations upon the face of the earth." Soon enough the child will come in contact with that which is unnatural and deceitful without having artificial conduct forced upon him. LESSON XIV QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. What may result from developing an artificial appetite in children? 2. What should the young mother avoid in feeding her child? 3. What evils result from over-indulgence in candy, nick-nacks, soda water, etc.? 4. In the dress of children how is vanity often developed? 5. What may result from constant praise of the good looks of the child? 6. Discuss proper dress in children. For further help on these points read Mrs. Harrison's "Study of Child Nature," pages 47 to 54. CULTIVATING THE EMOTIONS _It Is a Serious Mistake to Begin Educating the Intellect Before Training the Emotions_ In the history of the race, art develops before science, just as in nature the blossom comes before the fruit; so in the child emotions come before reason, and he is attracted and his sympathies aroused by nearly any appeal to his senses long before his understanding tells him why. Notwithstanding this fact, nearly every educative effort is confined to the intellect and the feelings are allowed to shift for themselves. The result is that many a child grows up cold, hard, and matter-of-fact, with little of color, poetry or sympathy to enrich his life. The common mistake is to starve the emotions in order to overfeed the understanding. The education of the heart must keep pace with that of the head if a well-balanced character is to be developed. Even in school the teacher too often proceeds to stuff the child with information before first awakening interest in the subject. Once arouse the interest of a child in any subject and he will pursue it to success. Toys are of much value to children not only as promoters of play but because they appeal to their sympathies and give exercise to the emotions. The two great obstacles to the exercise of the right emotions are fear and pity. Toys are great aids in overcoming these tendencies. Through dramatic play with toys, children exercise their own imaginations and put action into their own lives; and gradually fear and pity are overcome through the confidence the child develops in himself. "We find the instincts of the race renewed in each new-born infant. Each individual child desires to master his surroundings. He cannot yet drive a real horse and wagon, but his very soul delights in the three-inch horse and the gaily-painted wagon; he cannot tame real tigers and lions, but his eyes dance with pleasure as he places and replaces the animals of his toy menagerie. He cannot at present run engines or direct railways, but he can control for a whole half-hour the movements of his miniature train. He is not yet ready for real fatherhood, but he can pet and play with, and rock to sleep and tenderly guard the doll baby." Through toys the child practises in miniature most of the activities of the adult and thus gradually bridges the chasm between his small capacity and the great realities and possibilities of life. The heart should be trained as carefully as the head. Our emotions even more than our reason govern us. Train the child to feel rightly, to admire the good, the true and the beautiful, and you need not fear. He will develop a love of home, of country and of God that will carry him safely throughout all his life. This does not mean that we shall neglect the training of his intellect; both heart and head should be trained together, but the heart must not be neglected; for out of it, says the Good Book, come the issues of life. LESSON XV QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. What may result from cultivating the intellect in children before stimulating the emotions? 2. Which governs us most, our feelings or our reason? 3. How can we develop best the right emotions in childhood, such as kindness and unselfishness? 4. In what ways may toys help to develop the child? Discuss here proper and improper toys; which are preferable, dolls or Teddy Bears, in developing motherly instincts? What about soldiers, firearms, etc., in their effect on boys? For further reading on this point, Mrs. Harrison's "Study on Child Nature" will be found helpful. Let some member report from the book, if it be available, dealing particularly with pages 66 to 70. THE INFLUENCE OF LOVE _Love Is the Vital Element Which Transforms Human Nature and Makes Life Worth Living_ The sweetest word in all the language is _love_. Without it life is a frozen tundra where the sun never shines. Home is beautiful because there is love. If a planet exists where love is absent, then it contains no fire-sides, the laughter of children is never heard, flowers do not grow there, and the singing of birds is unknown. If selfishness is ever overcome, if it is ever transformed into service, it will be when love is triumphant; for love alone is great enough to sacrifice itself for another. Love only can reach the sublime heights of faith and exaltation, of reverence and worship. Love alone has the power to say, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." There is, however, a strange contradiction or opposition in love. Sometimes it is as weak and timid as a bashful girl, at other times, as strong and heroic as an Amazon; now it is like the harmony in music or the delicate coloring of a sunset; again, like the thunderous roar of Niagara or the consuming fire of Vesuvius. Love is an instrument with many strings, some so delicate that they catch the sweetest symphonies of the soul, others so powerful that they resound to the mighty storms and tempests of life, and some so vibrant that they throb to the sorrows and heartaches of a bleeding world. Affection is awakened in the child with his first smile in recognition of his mother's face. How shall this budding affection be rightly nurtured and developed so that it shall flower and bring forth good fruit? It is desired that he shall be generous and possess good will towards others, that he shall have sympathy and the spirit of sacrifice for those dear to him; but too often the fruit of promise is eaten into by the worm of selfishness. "Selfishness is the most universal of sins and the most hateful. Dante placed Lucifer, the embodiment of selfishness, down below all other sinners in the dark pit of the Inferno, frozen in a sea of ice. Well did the poet know that this sin lay at the root of all others. Think, if you can, of one crime or vice which has not its origin in selfishness." As already stated, the primary instincts of the child favor the development of selfishness and the gratification of the appetites and passions. The utmost care, therefore, must be exercised by the parents, from the very beginning, if the affections and desires of the child are to be trained away from itself and not permitted to become self-centered. Happy is the child whose mother knows how to direct those earliest manifestations of love. The undisciplined senses and appetites easily degenerate into indulgence of passion, or grow into that moral control which delights in temperance. The inborn desire for praise and recognition may express itself in bragging vanity, or expand into heroic endeavor. So, too, there is a physical love which expresses itself in a mere caress and a higher, purer, more glorious love which manifests itself in service and self-sacrifice. The tremendous hug of the little arms and the kiss of the rosy lips are manifestations of physical love; while the child is in this loving mood the wise mother should ask of him some little service, slight at first, but sufficient to make him put forth some effort to serve her. In this way she can transform this mere selfish love into the beginning of that spiritual love which Christ commended when He said, "If ye love me, keep my commandments." The parent stands to his child for the time being, as the one supreme source of every power and blessing; the wise parent may establish between himself and the little one almost the same beautiful and solemn relationship as that which exists between the Supreme Giver of all good and His children. "Not every one that sayeth unto me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in Heaven." "Love is to be tested always by its effect upon the will. From the beginning the will must be made strong and unselfish by repeated acts of loving self-sacrifice. Contrast the selfish, all-absorbing love of Romeo for Juliet, who could not live without the physical presence of the one he loved, with that grandly beautiful love of Hector for Andromache, who, out of the very love he bore her, could place her to one side and answer the stern call of duty that she might never in the future have cause for painful blush. "I knew an ideal home where husband and wife were filled with the most exalted love I have ever known, but the husband died. The wife said: 'All that was beautiful or attractive in my life went out with my husband, and yet I know that I must, for the love I bear him, remain and rear our child as he would have him reared.' As I listened to these words, quietly uttered by the courageous wife, I realized what love, real love, could help the poor, stricken heart to endure." The child must be trained through love to give up his own will to others, and, from the beginning, learn to submit to things which are unpleasant. If this thought is insisted on from the first, obedience will come easily to the child; but woe be to both mother and child if egotism, self-will and selfishness secure a fast hold upon the young heart. A mother should never refuse the help offered by the child. If the work is of such nature that the little one cannot share it, let the mother suggest as a substitute something else which the child can do. Help turned away begets idleness and nourishes selfishness. "No, dear, you cannot help dress baby, but you may hand mama the clothes." "A six-year-old boy, who had been taught true love through service, found his mother one morning too ill to answer his many questions. 'Mama cannot talk to you to-day, Philip, she has a severe headache.' He quietly closed the door and soon there was a mysterious bumping and moving about of the heavy furniture in the next room. Soon it all was still, then the door was gently opened and little Philip tiptoed to his mother's bed and whispered, 'Mama, I have straightened the furniture and tidied up the room; is your headache better?' "A little three-year-old boy running rapidly stumbled and bumped his head severely against the trunk of a tree. Loud cries of pain at once arose, but his little brother took him by the arm and pushed him with all his might towards his mother, saying in the most reassuring tone imaginable, 'Run to mama, Ned, run to mama, she'll kiss it and make it well. Please run to her quick.' 'Perfect love casteth out all fear.' Surely the wise mother can devise a thousand ways by which to kindle the flame of love in her child until her fond dreams for the little ones are transformed into living realities. But the doubter may remark, 'What if I ask my child to do something for me and he refuses or begins to make excuses or asks why his brother can't do it?' You have simply mistaken the time for stretching the young soul's wings. Begin the training when the child is in the loving mood and you will rarely fail to get the desired response; yet, if need be, command the performance of the deed, so that by repeated doing the selfish heart may at length learn the pleasure of unselfishness and thus enter into the joy of true living." Let parents take this motto to heart: _Trust not the physical love of your child, but seek to transform it into that higher love which manifests itself in service. The real love of your child is measured by the extent to which he will sacrifice his own comfort and pleasure to serve you_. LESSON XVI QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Why has the delicate sentiment of love such a power in shaping the lives of men? 2. What may be said of selfishness? 3. How may the desire for praise be expressed? 4. Contrast physical and spiritual love. 5. How may love help to develop a strong will? 6. How must the child be taught obedience? 7. Illustrate how loving service may be secured. 8. How may the real love of the child for the parent be measured? MORAL TRAINING _There Is No Escape from Wrong-Doing. Mercy Cannot Rob Justice_ "Somehow I'll escape," is the fatal thought which blinds the poor fool who, for the first time, treads the path of self-indulgence or wrong-doing. But he ought to know that escape is impossible. No cave is dark enough, no ocean deep enough to hide the transgressor from the consequences of his misdeeds. A kind heaven may forgive him, and the one he injures may overlook the offence; but his own body and mind cannot forget; they have registered the deed once for all and it can never be atoned for or forgotten. The doing of a bad deed changes the individual in some particular, slight or great as the case may be, and, pathetic though it seems, he cannot go back and try it over again; the scar remains, as if seared by a hot iron, and, if the hurt is serious enough, heredity may pass it down the ages. How easily a bad habit is formed. "It won't hurt me" is whispered by the siren voice of temptation, because the consequences of the transgression are not felt or seen immediately, a second offence seems less serious than the first. Soon habit steps in and stamps the process on mind and body and before the author is conscious of it, a serious appetite or a degrading vice is fastened upon him from which neither time nor effort, prayers nor tears, may ever shake him free. "_Vice is a monster of such frightful mien, That to be hated needs but to be seen, But seen too oft, familiar with its face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace_." --Pope. The child must be trained early to know: "The way of the transgressor is hard," and "He that sows the wind must reap the whirlwind." It is a great mistake for the parent to step in and free the child from the consequences of his first wrong acts. Let the consequences fall on his own head, and perchance they will teach him wisdom. The true purpose of punishment is to teach the necessity of obedience to law. Everything that is good and desirable will come to him who obeys the law upon which the blessing is predicated; every evil falls on the head of him who constantly violates law. In the final analysis, the punishments which nature inflicts are kind, because they are warnings which, if heeded, will prevent serious injury. The purpose of all discipline is to produce a self-governing individual, not one who needs to be governed by someone else. Until a person learns to govern himself he counts for little in this world. Two serious mistakes are made in child government. One is the indulgence of a soft, vacillating policy by the parent which permits a child to shirk his duties and to escape from the natural results of his misdeeds. Through the parent's taking upon his own shoulders the consequences of the child's wrong-doing, the child is lured into the false belief that duty may be shirked, responsibility set aside, and life be made to yield one sweet round of pleasure. How will a child so trained be prepared to endure the disappointments and heartaches of a world which compels each of us to drink his portion of the bitter hemlock? The other mistake is to employ unnatural or arbitrary punishments. Even the smallest child has an instinctive idea of justice and resents anything which he regards as unjust. On the other hand, he learns quickly the inevitableness with which pain follows the violation of law, and how certain is the working out of cause and effect. Mrs. Harrison gives this admirable illustration: "The little one puts his hand upon the hot stove; no whirlwind from without rushes in and pushes the hand away from the stove, then with loud and vengeful blasts scolds him for his heedlessness or wrong-doing. He simply is burned--the natural consequences of his own deed; and the fire quietly glows on, regardless of the pain which he is suffering. If again he transgresses the law, again he is burned as quietly as before, with no expostulation, threat, or warning. He quickly learns the lesson and avoids the fire thereafter, bearing no grudge against it." When the child scatters her toys and playthings all over the room, the natural penalty is to require that they be gathered up and the room made tidy; when the boy scampers across the newly-cleaned floor with his muddy boots, he should be made to mop up the floor carefully; thus in a thousand similar ways, the parent may train the child to observe care and order in everything done. Nothing is more beautiful than a large family where each child is taught to care for and to rely upon himself, and to give a little willing service to others. But the tired mother will remark, "Oh, yes, that all sounds very nice, but mothers have no time to spare to eternally watch and train their children." Hold a moment, there is a fallacy here; she ought to say, "I have no time to spare because I failed to train the children in the manner mentioned." In no other way can the mother save so much time as by taking a little time at first to train the child to be neat, tidy and orderly, or later to feel the inevitable consequences of violating law. Instead of saving time in this sensible way, too often the mother loses both time and the love of her child through becoming irritable and scolding the little one for every offence committed. Nothing is worse than scolding, a sound thrashing administered now and then is far less cruel. Nearly every evil instinct in the child is aroused through fault-finding and scolding. How long will it take to teach the parent, once for all, that scolding, nagging, shutting up in the dark closets, and every other form of arbitrary punishment arouse in the child a sense of injustice and resentment, which, if not corrected later, will result in estrangement and loss of love between parent and child? The child has a right to expect justice from his parent. Only where this is found will the child develop that sense of freedom and independence of thought and action which produce the highest type of individual--one who is able to govern himself. "But what shall be done when more serious offences are committed?" The parent may well ask. In all likelihood there will be no serious offences if the slight ones are treated properly. A mother came to me with her face full of suppressed suffering. "What shall I do?" she remarked, "I have discovered that my boy steals money from his father's purse." "Give him a purse of his own," I answered, "and give him ways of earning money of his own." It is asserted that more than half the boys sent to reform schools go there because of theft. How many of them might have been saved if they had been taught how to earn and to know the value of an honest dollar? But so long as human nature is imperfect, and frailty so common, we must expect in every family some occasion to arise that will tax the patience and the love of the parent to the uttermost. No rule can be given that will meet every crisis; common sense, justice, forbearance, faith and love may be used in vain; and reproof, censure, and corporal punishment may also fail in some supreme emergency, the only recourse that remains after all these are exhausted is to permit the natural consequences of the deed to fall upon the head of the transgressor. Rule: _Parents should rarely punish the child, but should permit the consequences of carelessness and wrong-doing to fall upon his own head. Wisdom results from suffering pains and taking pains_. LESSON XVII QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Why do evil consequences follow bad deeds? 2. In what sense are nature's punishments kind? 3. What two mistakes are common in child government? 4. Illustrate how natural punishment may be employed by parents. 5. What may be resorted to in serious cases? For further discussion and study of this subject the following references will be found helpful: 1. Chapter on Moral Education, from Spencer's "Education." 2. "Dealing with Moral Crises," by Cope, from "Religious Education in the Family." 3. "Misunderstood Children," by Harrison. ADOLESCENCE _The Adolescent Period Is a Time of "Storm and Stress," When the Chief Crises of Life Arise_ Most writers on psychology recognize in the life history of the child several more or less distinct periods of development. The child is almost a different being at different levels of his growth. Each period is marked by peculiar physical, mental and moral characteristics which demand specific treatment. So great and sudden are some of these changes that they are sometimes likened to a metamorphosis, indicating an analogy with certain insects as a change from the larvae and pupae stages to that of butterflies. Space will not permit more than a brief account of the most critical of these periods, namely, the adolescent. This period begins at about the age of thirteen in girls and fourteen in boys, and continues until about eighteen. Physically, this stage starts with a very rapid growth which is frequently doubled in rate within a single year. The girl may, in a few months, change from a tall, angular, romping tomboy into a blooming, dimpled young woman, bashful and afraid. So much energy is required for physical growth that in the early stages of this period difficult mental tasks cannot be well done. In a young man especially, this period is marked by awkward, uncouth movements that indicate uncertain adjustment. Frequently at this time the boy's voice varies unsteadily from a high falsetto to a low pitch, which is most mortifying to the youth, who is now bashful probably for the first time in his life. The girl is suddenly very particular about her appearance, and her clothes, and the youth for the first time delights in a starched shirt, patent leather shoes and bright neck-ties. The health of the individual at this time is usually good; susceptibility to the diseases peculiar to childhood is slight, but there is increased danger of acquiring adult diseases, and some writers claim that it is during this time, when there are great physical disturbances, that the germ of many adult diseases, such as tuberculosis, are apt to be implanted. During the early part of this period it is unwise and dangerous for girls to take part in such strenuous athletic games as basketball, or for boys to indulge in football. Later when strength and equilibrium have been restored, these games may be practiced without danger. But the greatest of all changes, the one fundamental to adolescent life, is the development of the sex instincts. Fortunate is the youth or maiden whose parents are sensible and wise enough to instruct them concerning the nature and purpose of these functions. Good books, such as "What a Boy Should Know," and "What a Girl Should Know," are invaluable during this critical time. This sudden ripening of the sex instinct is the cause of the metamorphosis from childhood to early manhood and womanhood, and is the key which explains the changes that characterize adolescence. Emotionally, there is a tremendous awakening. The individual begins to feel for the first time that he is actually alive and living; heretofore, life has been a self-centered, matter-of-fact existence; now it enlarges and becomes charged with intense feeling and significance. "Fear, anger, love, pity, jealousy, emulation and ambition are either new-born or spring into intense life."--James. All of these may be termed social instincts and they imply a widening of the youth's horizon and include a "consciousness of kind" that has heretofore been lacking. Now, the youth or maiden truly falls in love; up to this time, regard for the opposite sex has been merely a light fancy, barely skin deep; but now it takes hold of the heart strings and plays upon them with an agony that is truly heart rending. Who is there with red blood in his veins that does not look back upon his first heart conflict with almost pathetic reverence? Parents should be more concerned than they usually are over the conquest of the heart of youth. Such affairs may carry with them consequences which are more serious than could be anticipated. At this time the youth or maiden is exceedingly resentful of arbitrary restraint or punishment. There is a super-sensitiveness and a keen self-consciousness which cannot brook harshness and coercion. Sympathy and reasonableness must take the place of censure and punishment. Years ago I remember seeing a father start to whip his boy who was just emerging into the adolescent stage, a heavy stick was raised to strike, but the boy looked his father in the eye without flinching and quietly remarked: "You may whip one devil out, Father, but I promise you that you'll whip seven devils in." The stick dropped from the astonished parent's hand; the boy was never again punished by whipping. The runaway curve for boys reaches its highest point at this time, and the girl is likely to be insolent and unmanageable probably for the first and only time in her life. The greatest crises of life arise at this time because of the almost criminal ignorance of parents respecting these revolutionary changes and also because children who may never before have caused the parents the least trouble or heartache are now as unruly and unmanageable as a volcano in eruption. This is the time when the youth is driven from home by the irate father, the time when the rebellious daughter is condemned without mercy, the critical period when most vices are begun and most juvenile crimes committed. The parent is apt to exclaim here: "In Heaven's name, what can be done?" Not even the wisdom of a Solomon could answer completely; a few suggestions, however, may be offered which will help to bridge over this critical period. If the child has had positive training up to this time, the period of "storm and stress" will be briefer and less severe than it would be otherwise; but if the negative training has prevailed, there is less hope that the storm will be weathered. The youth may be caught in the stream of dissipation and whirled to destruction. At the very least, the parent must expect fitful and obstinate behavior, and unreasonable action. In boys, the beginning of the use of tobacco and liquor usually comes at this time. This is the time, too, of sexual temptation, if not actual indulgence. The temptation to do something startling is almost irresistible; robberies will be planned, hold-ups thought of, abductions contemplated; the life of a desperado entertained. The moral character seems to be in a state of eruption. On the other hand, his sympathies and affections may be appealed to as never before. The parent who has made a confident of his boy or girl, who has infinite patience and affection, and who fully senses what to except, may, if other factors are favorable, help tide over this danger zone without serious results. A steady chum, a little older than the boy, and a companion more stable than the girl are a most fortunate aid to the parent. There seems to be a brief time in the career of every youth or maiden when the influence of his chum or companion is more potent for good or evil than is the combined influence of parents and relatives. The common practice of permitting the, adolescent to sleep away from home is exceedingly dangerous. Many a youth may trace the beginning of his degeneracy to the downward, push received when he slept away from home. Care must be exercised also as to the kind of group he associates with; it is too much to expect a youth to be better than the gang with whom he consorts. During the most critical part of this critical, epoch neither youth nor maiden should, attend parties, picnics, or social entertainments, without a chaperon. This advice may seem radical, but if it is carried out, perhaps for just one year, until equilibrium is restored, it may prevent that _one act_ to which so many unfortunates attribute their downfall. Fortunate, too, is the adolescent who is permitted to attend a first-class high school taught by sympathetic teachers who understand the needs of adolescent nature. The imagination is now more vivid than it ever will be again, the logical reason is beginning to evolve and this period is preeminently "the breeding ground of ideas." The school more than any other agency can keep the imagination, reason, and emotions so fully employed that little time is left in which to indulge morbid feelings and immoral thoughts. The school affords a moral atmosphere and gives a choice of good associates which make it invaluable during this critical epoch. It also disciplines the feelings and emotions and offers opportunity for emulation, industry, and the display of both physical and mental power. In truth, the school so occupies the attention and directs the interest that many a young man and woman passes through this period unscathed, without ever sensing the dangers which are escaped. Finally, a "profound religious awakening" characterizes the early adolescent stage. It may be doubted that a genuine religious conviction can exist before this time; at least most writers hold that religious conversion takes place, if at all, during this period. Previous to this time, however, religious observance and ceremony should have become habitual in order that conversion may be most profound. Nothing else is more powerful than religious conviction and sentiment to reinforce good conduct and to inhibit wrong action. Religious conviction, together with the growth of ideals and the employment by the school of the physical and intellectual capacities, all supplemented by parental counsel and guidance, should insure the safe passage of the adolescent over this critical crisis of his life. LESSON XVIII QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. What are the physical changes that occur during the adolescent period? 2. What dangers to health are common at this time? What safeguards should be thrown about the youth to keep him strong in body? 3. Discuss the mental, moral, and emotional characteristics of the adolescent. 4. What is the fundamental cause of the changes that take place? 5. What may be said about religious emotions and conversions during this time? 6. What practical suggestions would you give to help the parents guide the adolescent safely over this dangerous period of life? _Supplemental Studies_: At this point it will be well to take the supplemental lessons in this book, page 133 to end of volume. These studies are based on the lectures given by Dr. John M. Tyler. They will blend beautifully with Professor Hall's discussion and will reinforce strongly the study of this adolescent age. TRAINING IN THE HOME _Certain Phases of Training and Education Can Be Best Accomplished by the Home_ There are four great agencies or factors concerned in the training and education of the child: these are, the home, the school, the church, and the state, or society. Of these, the home ought to be the most helpful since it is the most important. The child is a part of the flesh and blood of the parents; he belongs to them in a vital way that transcends his relationship to everything else in the world. The parent, then, is the natural trainer and educator of the child, particularly during the dependent period before the age of accountability is reached. The parent ought not to shirk this duty or attempt to transfer it to some other agency. But at the present time there is a strong tendency to shift more and more responsibility to other agencies, especially to the school. Many habits which the home once developed are now left largely to the school; religious training is turned over more and more to the Sunday School and the church, and much more of the time of children is now spent in social amusements away from home than ever before. Then, too, it is certain that the old-time home is passing. It seemed to have higher ideals and more definite purposes in life than homes now possess; moreover, it occupied most of the time of the child and taught him to be industrious and proficient, and to regard life with much more seriousness than does the home of to-day. The home or the family, therefore, is not the great superlative factor that it ought to be in the training and education of the child. From the first chapter of Cope in "Religious Education in the Family," the following is quoted: "The ills of the modern home are symptomatic. Divorce, childless families, irreverent children, and a decadence of the old type of separate home life are signs of forgotten ideals, lost motives, and insufficient purposes. When the home is only an opportunity for self-indulgence, it easily becomes a cheap boarding house, a sleeping shelf, an implement for social advantage. While it is true that general economic development has effected marked changes in domestic economy, the happiness and efficiency of the family do not depend wholly on the parlor, the kitchen, or the clothes closet. Rather, everything depends on whether the home and family are considered in worthy and adequate terms. "Homes are wrecked because families refuse to take home life in religious terms, in social terms of sacrifice and service. In such homes, organized and conducted to satisfy personal desires rather than to meet social responsibility, these desires become aims rather than agencies and opportunities. What hope is there for useful and happy family life if the newly-wedded youths have both been educated in selfishness, habituated to frivolous pleasures and guided by ideals of success in terms of garish display? "It is a costly thing to keep a home where honor, the joy of love, and high ideals dwell ever. It costs time, pleasure, and so-called social advantages, as well as money and labor. It must cost thought, study and investigation. It demands and deserves sacrifice; it is too sacred to be cheap. The building of a home is a work that endures to eternity, and that kind of work never was done with ease or without pain and loss and investment of much time. Patient study of the problems of the family is a part of the price which all may pay. "No nobler social work, no deeper religious work, no higher educational work is done anywhere than that of the men and women, high or humble, who set themselves to the fitting of their children for life's business, equipping them with principles and habits upon which they may fall back in trying hours and making of home the sweetest, strongest, holiest, happiest place on earth." The home or family is, or ought to be, the supreme institution, not only for propagating the race, but also for the preservation and rearing of children. There are certain things which only the home can do, which if not accomplished by it, will likely remain undone. The acquisition of correct physical habits by the child is one of them. It is preeminently the duty and privilege of the parent in the early years of the child's life to impress habits that will make for health and strength. The first six years are more important physically to the child than all the remainder of his life. During this time the natural tendency to over-indulgence of the appetite should be inhibited, and temperance should be reduced to a habit. The other desirable physical habits already referred to should also be acquired. Furthermore, it is the sacred duty of the parent to see to it that the child is not handicapped through physical defects of eye or ear, enlarged tonsils, adenoids, decayed teeth, or by any other common imperfection which may be easily and permanently remedied if taken in time, but which, if neglected, may cause untold suffering and contribute to failure in life. The home is responsible directly for training the child to be neat, tidy and clean in person; it should also train him in good manners, courtesy, and regard for the rights of others. It also decides whether or not the boy shall be a brave, manly little fellow or a timid cry-baby; whether or not the girl shall be sweet, helpful and trustworthy, or shallow, idle and vain. The giving of knowledge and instruction in sex hygiene at the proper time is also a peculiar duty of parents which they must not shirk. The chief moral virtues are also the result of home training. An obedient, honest, truthful disposition is characteristic of a good home; a sly, deceitful, quarrelsome nature is the outcome of improper home influence, Moreover, the first lessons in respect for law, order and justice are implanted by the home; improper training in these virtues leads to disorder and license. The home, too, must teach the first lessons in industry and impress the child with the fact that life is made up of work as well as play. Too often the mother, especially, makes a slave of herself for the children, waits on them night and day, allows them to sleep late in the morning, stay up late at night and keep up an incessant round of pleasure while she herself stays at home and shoulders the entire responsibility of the household. How much happier the home where each child is trained to do some particular share of work and to take some responsibility upon himself. The boy should be permitted to help the father whenever possible. He should be required to do things promptly and regularly and to learn through actual experience the amount of toil and sweat required to earn an honest dollar. A taste for music and reading must be fostered in the home. Every family should have some kind of musical instrument and at least a few choice books for children. The influence of music and good literature on the tastes and ideals of the future man and woman is so great that it can scarcely be over-estimated. The use of correct and fluent language is largely a product of the home. Children imitate the speech heard at home; if this is incorrect, meagre, or coarse, the child is apt to have the same imperfection follow him through life. The family constitutes a most sacred and important social unit, and because of its intrinsic nature, it can best develop in the child the highest personal sentiment and social virtue. Among these are affection, sympathy, love, generosity and good will. If these are not awakened and nurtured by the home, then there is little hope that they will be acquired elsewhere, and the child will likely grow into a stony-hearted, selfish pessimist. Certain religious habits and sentiments also can be impressed naturally and well only by the family. Among these are trust in God, the beginning of faith, regard for ceremony, love of Bible stories, respect for authority, and above all, prayer. The individual who has not been taught at his mother's knee to pray is likely never to develop into a prayerful man or woman. The home is the child's earliest school, his first temple of worship, his first social center. It is the place where everything in this life begins. Most fortunate is the child that is guided to take his first steps aright through the loving influence of a good home. LESSON XIV QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. What four great agencies are concerned in training and education? 2. Which is most important and why? 3. What is the indictment of the home? 4. What change has taken place respecting the relative importance of these developing agencies? 5. The home is responsible for what physical habits? 6. What moral habits and virtues? 7. What mental habits and virtues? 8. What religious habits and sentiments? 9. What is the future outlook for the home and family? It will be well at this point to review briefly the three beginning chapters from "Religious Education in the Family," by Cope. The "Peril and Preservation of the Home," by Jacob Riis, will also be found helpful reading here. TRAINING BY THE CHURCH _The Influence of the Church Is Essential to Aid the Home in Developing the Religious Instincts and Emotions of the Child_ Religious emotions and belief are among the most deeply imbedded instincts of the race. They are also some of the earliest manifestations of childhood. They accompany the individual throughout his entire life, exercising a profound influence over his thoughts and conduct, and they become the chief anchor of the soul when sorrow or old age comes. It would be a great calamity, therefore, if religious instincts and sentiment should suffer eclipse or disappear. Rightly cultivated and trained, these natural feelings of religion grow to spiritual power within us. Without such power, man is of little consequence. Upon the home naturally falls the duty of fostering the first feelings of reverence towards God. The child who learns to lisp his prayers at his mother's knee is started aright. The home must give the first lessons in the love of God and goodness. If it fails, they are likely never to be learned. But the home needs the influence of the church here. It must have it to round out the child's religious development. The church can do many things for the child that the home cannot accomplish. It introduces him to religious ceremonies and observances that satisfy his soul, and it helps greatly to train him in religious habits. One cannot estimate the value of all this upon the character of the child. As a restraint from wrong conduct and an encouragement to right action, the work of the church is most salutary. The solemn ceremonies, the sacred music, the exhortations pointing heavenward, the general spirit of the group at humble worship--all exercise upon the child an influence for good, mysterious yet profound. Clean, beautiful surroundings and orderly behavior are also very impressive. The work of our Sabbath Schools is most beneficial. They offer to parents a strong reinforcement in cultivating right religious habits and emotions in the child. To go into one of our well-conducted Sunday Schools, where order prevails, where the spirit of peace and prayer is uppermost, to join in the singing, to listen to the uplifting instruction, or, better still, to be given opportunity to take active part in this religious service--all these make a deep and lasting impression upon the youthful soul. Parents can do nothing better for their children and themselves than to support loyally their Sunday Schools and other religious organizations. The habit of attending church should also be impressed during the habit-forming period. But the supreme opportunity of the church lies in its ability actually to convert the youth or maiden during the adolescent period. This is a privilege which neither the church nor the home has adequately comprehended. When the emotional nature of the individual is at white heat, as it then is, impressions made are lasting, and conversion, if made then, will be so deeply impressed that it is likely to last forever. Churches in general fail to make the most of their opportunity here. They too often stuff the heads of children with religious facts and formulae, feeding them with the husks of theology, instead of giving them the upbuilding food they need. Children, too, often are starving for real spiritual food, hungering for the bread and thirsting for the water of life. Parents and teachers generally need to correct their methods of presenting the gospel to children, especially to the adolescent, if they would get the results desired. It is their failure to meet the child on his own religious ground, not his indifference to religion that makes the boy and girl leave Sabbath School during the time he most needs such an influence. Let them study and master these problems: Are boys and girls being given ample opportunity for spiritual self-expression? Are the beautiful lessons of the gospel being translated into terms that appeal to their lives? Our own church, we feel sure, is answering these questions in positive, practical ways better and better every day; but there is still much left to do even among us. We have in our own church a working system that ministers to the daily moral and spiritual needs of humanity--a constructive Christianity that comes close to our lives. Our church is our opportunity to develop our own spiritual powers and to cultivate those of our children. The church needs our help to carry forward its ministry to mankind; but we need even more the help of the church to enspirit and to comfort our lives and to give to us and to our children the guidance and the training that will keep us all in the paths of safety and peace: LESSON XX QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. What have you observed in children to prove that religious emotions are instinctive? 2. In what ways can the home best foster the natural religious instincts of childhood? 3. What religious habits should the home cultivate? 4. What can the church best develop in children? 5. Why should the parents support loyally the Sunday Schools and other organizations of the church? 6. What is the supreme opportunity of the church during the adolescent age? 7. What means have you used successfully to develop the religious instincts of your own children? 8. What opportunities for spiritual self-expression and service does our own church offer? 9. In what ways are we richly rewarded by our free-will service in behalf of our church? "The Child and His Religion," by Dawson, will be a helpful book to study in connection with this lesson. TRAINING IN THE SCHOOL _Certain Phases of Training and Education Can Be Accomplished Better by the School Than by Any Other Agency. A National System of Industrial and Vocational Education Should Be Established_ The school is a social institution whose functions are becoming daily more widely understood and more clearly defined. In the history of civilization, the school, as we know it, is a very recent institution. Nation after nation has arisen, reached its zenith, declined, and passed away without dreaming of such a thing as universal education. With the growth of democracy, particularly during the Reformation, the ideal of education as the birthright of every child became well defined and during the years that have intervened, this ideal has become a living reality. At first the universal education was advocated for the sake of the church. Martin Luther believed that every child should have schooling so that he might be able to read the Bible and study the catechism. For some time the church had charge of and controlled education, but gradually, as democracy developed, the influence of the state began to overshadow that of the church, and education came to be recognized more and more as a function of the state, and its control was gradually taken over by the latter institution. The chief function of education, therefore, may be seen clearly from the foregoing. In a democracy it is necessary for every child to be educated because the existence of free institutions is based upon the intelligence of the masses. Jefferson once remarked: "If anyone believes that free government and an ignorant people can exist at one and the same time, he believes that which never was or never can be." Universal education is, therefore, a social necessity; its chief purpose is to train and instruct the child in the duties and ideals of citizenship. He must be instructed in the history of his country and learn what the ideals are for which his country stands; he must learn the real meaning of the words: equality, justice and freedom; he must be taught that obedience to law is the highest form of freedom, and that license is destructive both of self and country. Furthermore, he must learn that in a free country every individual must be taught to be self-dependent, that no one owes him a living, that he ought to produce a little more than he consumes for the sake of the unfortunate. The school, therefore, may teach better than any other agency the habits and ideals of duty, social service, justice and patriotism. It also teaches frequently better than does the home, the habits of obedience, punctuality, regularity and industry. A secondary purpose of the school is to assist the home to develop in the child the physical, mental, moral and social habits and ideals to which we have referred in previous lessons. To the shame of the home, it must be said that the school is accomplishing its particular function far better than is the home. The school rarely fails to exact obedience, regularity, punctuality, and industry from the pupil; the home, on the other hand, frequently fails to train children in these habits because of the softness and vacillation of the parents. The school trains to proper habits of hygiene and sanitation, and is often under the necessity of acquainting parents with physical defects in their children which too often they have overlooked. Moreover, the school, as a larger social unit than the home, has some distinct advantages over the latter: It can teach the obstinate, quarrelsome child better than can the home the necessity of adjusting his conduct to the requirements of the social group with which he associates. In school, frequently for the first time, a child learns what is meant by the ideals of duty and justice; furthermore, he is usually trained to habits of industry, perseverance and self-control which the home too often is not well prepared to teach. The home, however, is far more important than is the school; the latter might be abolished and some other form of education adopted by society without calamitous results; but if the home were suddenly abolished, it is probable that civilization itself would be shaken to its center, if not destroyed. The home, therefore, ought to be better prepared and equipped to fulfill its function than is the school; but not one parent in a thousand is specially prepared for the duties of parenthood. The teacher, on the other hand, is required to spend years in preparation for his work. He is expected, moreover, to set a worthy example for children to follow. "As the teacher so the school," is a maxim that has stood the test. The school was never before so practical in its instruction as it is to-day. In most of the junior and senior high schools, industrial work and agriculture are taught. In the best schools girls are learning to sew, mend, darn and cook. Many of them make their own dresses and trim their own hats. In a few schools, uniform dress and shoes are adopted by the girl students for the sake of economy and to prevent the silly mode of dressing and the style of some girls. Much more could be done in this direction if all mothers were sensible, but now and again word comes to the teacher: "I can dress my girl well and I don't care to have her wear your cheap uniform and your low-priced, low-heeled shoes." And again: "It's none of your business how my girl dresses." Now, it must be conceded that the parent has this right to object, but we surely question the wisdom of her so doing. Many young girls on graduating from the eighth grade make their own graduation dresses and confine the cost of the entire costume, including shoes, to $5.00. Women graduating from the senior school often make their dresses and confine the cost to within $10.00. Most young men are taught manual art of some kind and agriculture. It is seldom that any father objects to his son taking carpenter work, but once in a while a farmer smiles at the thought of a "professor" teaching farming. The results, however, of the good work in teaching better farming is already seen throughout our country, and the time is not far distant when "scientific agriculture" will return many fold the price of its investment. The agricultural department at Washington reports that the Burbank potato is adding $17,000,000 yearly to the wealth of the U.S. The people, too, are well satisfied with this new type of school. They are beginning to see that education is a very practical and vital matter and is not merely for ornament. It is a rare thing now to hear the once common remark that education is too expensive. Statistics show that the average wages paid to unskilled laborers in the U. S. is about $500 per annum; careful reports indicate that the average yearly earnings of high school graduates is $1000. In a lifetime of 40 years the high school man will earn $20,000 more than the unlearned laborer. From a financial standpoint it is very evident that education pays, yet five and one-half years is the average length of time the children of the U.S. attend school. The nation ought to enrich itself through putting more money into education. The natural resources of the country are largely taken up and the free land is practically all occupied. What then is to be the future of the great mass of laborers unless a thorough-going system of industrial and vocational training is made possible? The Industrial Commission appointed recently by Congress found that three-fourths of the male laborers in the U.S. earn less than $600 per annum, yet the U.S. Government has found "that the point of adequate subsistence is not reached until the family income is about $800 a year. Less than half the wage-earners' families in the U.S. have an annual income of that size." Now the rich can take care of themselves and the very poor and unfortunate cannot be permanently helped, but this great middle class, upon whom the nation must depend in every crisis, can and must be assisted to the extent, at least, that conditions be made possible through which they may raise their efficiency and so increase their earning capacity to a point commensurate with their needs. A thorough-going, national system of industrial and vocational "preparedness" would solve this problem. The marvelous efficiency of Germany is due in large part to the fact that her great middle classes have been made efficient through a national system of trade schools. The prosperity and perpetuity of a nation rests largely upon its ability to provide an adequate number of highly trained experts to be leaders, inventors and executives. In a democracy, these skilled leaders are especially important. Among the problems to be solved are questions of government, education, finance, economics, business, industry, health, manufacturing, engineering and mining. Any nation that lacks guidance in these particulars is indeed weak and pitiful. The universities, colleges, and higher technical schools supply nine-tenths of these experts, yet in the U.S. to-day there are only 250,000 students enrolled in all the colleges and universities of the country; this is about one to 500 of the population, a number entirely inadequate to perform the tremendous service that will be expected of this nation in the near future. LESSON XXI QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. State the nature of the school. 2. How did the ideal of universal education arise? 3. State the chief function of the school. 4. Name the habits and ideals peculiar to the school. 5. What is the secondary purpose of the school? 6. Contrast the efficiency of the home and the school. 7. What high compliment may be paid to teachers? 8. Is the comparison made between the home and the school overdrawn? 9. Compare the practical school of to-day with the school of the past. 10. Do you favor uniform dress for high school girls? 11. What is your opinion of modern style which so many mothers foster? 12. Have you any boys taking industrial work in school? 13. Prove that high school education pays. 14. What is the duty of a nation towards its great middle class? 15. Do you believe in a national system of industrial and vocational schools? 16. Why are experts needed particularly in a democracy? THE DUTY OF THE STATE _The Social and Civic Institutions of the State (Society) Exert a Powerful Influence over the Lives of Children. The Citizen Must See to It that this Great Educative Influence of His Community Is Uplifting in Nature_ The vital relationship existing between parent and child is easy to understand, but the close interdependence of the individual and the state is much more difficult to comprehend. Yet in a very real sense the individual and the state are reciprocally related. But just as the body is more than an aggregate of all of its cells, so is society (the state) something more than the sum total of its individual units. That a group of people, or even one individual, may exert an influence over the thoughts and actions of others is a reality of profound significance; that there is a social conscience as well as an individual conscience is a fact that cannot be refuted, and the part played by custom and tradition in shaping the history of the world can hardly be estimated. In view of the close relationship between the individual and society, it is passing strange that while the individual is expected to possess a high standard of character, society itself may indulge in all sorts of questionable practices without so much as a challenge. Many a person winks at the frivolity and immorality of society, while at the same time he expects the most circumspect behavior on the part of his neighbor. The existence of these two standards which ought to coincide but which in reality are far apart is responsible for many failures in the training of children. As soon as the infant begins to observe and imitate the actions of members of the household, its social training begins; play with the neighbor's child extends the process, and the social group or "gang" with which the child associated, impresses permanently its thought and action. Frequently, too, the chum or companion chosen by the child has more real influence over its life than has the combined instruction of parents and teacher. As already shown, the school is a social institution and the same is largely true of the Sunday School. The example of adults also makes a profound impression upon the conduct of children. The home and the school may teach convincingly the injurious effects of tobacco and alcohol, but so long as society sanctions the sale of these poisons and respected adults indulge in them, just so long will the efforts of home and school, be, to a large extent, counteracted. The same is true with respect to any other virtue or excellence, the home, school, and church may unite in emphasizing the most wholesome discipline, but so long as society is a living, seething contradiction of this teaching, the instruction will fall upon deaf ears and be but as "sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal." The fact is that our nation is yet too young to be fully conscious of its opportunities and responsibilities. A democratic form of government from its very nature must develop slowly towards its ideals. It must expect at first to be much less certain and efficient in its action than is a highly centralized government. This inability on the part of popular government to attain its ideals is reflected also in its subordinate civic units; neither state nor city governments have yet solved the problem of efficient and economical administration, although it is a pleasure to note that some cities are making real progress in this direction. In many communities, however, the weakness of decentralized government is most apparent. This is particularly true in many towns; here is seen too frequently a lack of civic pride, inefficient officers and failure to enforce the law. The humiliating fact obtains that frequently a few lawless individuals often not more than from 3 to 5 per cent of the population, are permitted to set the moral pace, while the 95 per cent, of law-abiding citizens are either asleep to their duties or else fail to see that the remedy is in their own hands. In many instances a few persons are allowed to undermine the morals of the community. In one town of our state a single individual was permitted for 25 years to corrupt the morals of many young men of the community through illegal traffic in liquor. Parents should realize that next to heredity the social factors in a community are likely to be the chief influence at work moulding and shaping the lives of their children, and in the long run they must not expect the average child to be better than the community in which he lives. But the remedy for inefficient, free government is not far to seek; universal education will solve the problem provided it includes, as it should, instruction and training in civic and social duties. There is no need to argue the superiority of democratic government over that of all other forms; the freedom which we possess is worth all the suffering and bloodshed of all the patriots that have ever lived. But nothing will run itself; perpetual motion is a myth, and even a small town to be well governed, must receive conscious, expert attention. Unquestionably, a free government is the most complex and difficult of all forms of government to administer, but the problem can be solved, and the secret of success will be found in the individual himself. He must become educated to realize his full duties and responsibilities as a free citizen, in other words, he must become socialized. He must get over the notion that the school is the only educational agency and must understand that every influence that modifies conduct is educative in nature. Especially must he learn that the community itself is the chief civic and social educator of children, and as such it should be consciously organized to perform well this responsibility. Already communities are awakening to the need of perfect sanitary and hygienic conditions, and clean town contests are the order of the day; this is one of the most hopeful signs of better times, but there ought to be a moral and mental awakening and contests for civic righteousness should be inaugurated. Any community that can say: "In this town no influence is permitted that could in any way corrupt the morals or ideals of children," should receive the highest award in the gift of the people and its praises should be commemorated in song and story. In ancient Greece every citizen regarded himself as a parent or guardian of every child, and if any youth was seen in public to violate any of the customs or ideals of the nation, it was the duty of the citizen to chastise the boy and to otherwise instruct him in the duties of citizenship. At the same time the citizen was careful himself to set an example worthy of emulation. The result was the most perfect and harmonious education that the world has ever seen--at once the inspiration and the despair of all succeeding civilizations. Why should we not adopt some of the Grecian methods suited to our needs? In Greece no citizen would think of doing in public, or permitting to be done, anything which was not desirable for the child to do either in public or private. Why should any man who walks upright, with his head pointing to the stars, be permitted to profane the name of Deity, to stagger under the influence of liquor, to puff at a cigar, to gamble, to run a disorderly resort or show, to enrich himself through the manufacture and sale of poisons, or to do anything else that corrupts the community and destroys her children? Surely in our feeble attempts at free government, the right hand knows not what the left is doing. But the remedy, as I have said, is in the hands of the citizens. While it is true that certain reforms to be most effective must be national rather than local, such, for example, as prohibiting the manufacture and sale of poisonous drugs, tobacco and alcohol, it is, nevertheless, evident that the initiative must be taken by the individual. His first duty is to convert himself and then his neighbors before any nation-wide reform can be undertaken. It is one of the chief glories of a democracy that any desired good may be obtained through conversion and co-operation. But since in most communities 90 per cent, or more of the citizens are law-abiding and would not consciously do anything to destroy the children of the commonwealth, it ought to be a simple matter to restrain the few that are lawless and unsocial. There can be no possible doubt that any community that is fully alive to its needs and responsibilities can bring about just such civic and social conditions as it may desire. To help accomplish these purposes, it is necessary that efficient officers are elected who will enforce the laws and that public sentiment be aroused in support of these officials; in some communities sympathy for law-breakers is so easily awakened that justice cannot be enforced and law and order are placed in contempt. The citizen in a democracy should realize that his training and education are never completed, that life itself is the great school-master and that one of the chief pleasures of existence is continued study and investigation. His occupation, no matter what it is, will offer him some opportunity for study and improvement, and a portion of his leisure time ought to be devoted to books and magazines. He may, also, if he desires, take an extension course or correspondence work offered by a higher institution of learning, some of which are making earnest efforts to take the college to the people. Every citizen should at least be identified with some civic, social, or industrial organization in his town, such as a debating and literary club, an agricultural society, or a commercial club. If each community would seek out and utilize the talent within its precinct, it might develop an intellectual and civic consciousness that would rival the spirit of ancient Greece. An old-time prophet uttered the inspiring thought: "The Glory of God is intelligence," and the great latter-day Prophet added the supplement: "No man can be saved in ignorance." It is the duty of the individual, therefore, to be an eternal seeker after knowledge and perfection. In this blessed age when the sun of education shines so brilliantly, none need to slumber under the clouds of ignorance. May the sun shine until under its regenerating influence the home, school, church and state may each awaken to the full measure of its power and so prepare the way for the coming of that mightier Son of Righteousness, who promises to reign for a thousand years over a redeemed world. LESSON XXII QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Show the close relationship between the individual and the state. 2. Account for the two different standards of conduct. 3. Indicate how social influences modify the character of children. 4. How do examples of the use of tobacco and liquor affect children? 5. Compare example and precept. 6. Why must a democratic form of government develop its ideals slowly? 7. Why is community government frequently inefficient? 8. What per cent, of the population usually "sets the moral pace?" 9. What is the remedy for inefficient free government? 10. Why is the community the chief civic and social educator of children? 11. What should receive the highest award in the gift of a people? 12. How did Greece train her children? 13. What evil practices should be prohibited in a community? 14. What reforms should be national rather than local? 15. How may the few lawless individuals be restrained? 16. What is the duty of the citizen towards self-improvement and education? PART II SUPPLEMENTAL STUDIES MAN'S PARTNERSHIP WITH NATURE[1] _Dr. John M. Tyler_ _Nature will bear our burdens for us, if we will obey her laws and heed her suggestions_. [Footnote 1: These supplemental studies are based on lectures by Dr. John M. Tyler, given before the Utah Educational Association, by whose permission they are used. Parents will find Dr. Tyler's book on Growth in Education of great interest. It is listed with other books at the close of this volume.] How has all the material progress of the nineteenth century come about? I think we shall find that it was due to man's intelligently and carefully and scrupulously going into partnership with Nature by obeying her laws. Not so very many years ago messages were sent across this continent by pony-riders; it was a slow process and a very expensive one. Now I step into an office here and I say, "I wish to send a message to my wife way out yonder in Massachusetts." The man touches a button and says, "Your message is in Massachusetts, sir." It is a miracle. The lightning has run with my message. Electricity not only carries our messages, it lights our houses; it turns many a wheel of machinery; it serves us beneficiently just as long as we obey the laws of electricity; but when we offend against these laws, it thwarts us or very likely destroys us. "Obey, and I will do anything for you in the world," says Nature, "disobey and you cannot move me one single inch." Coal hurries our great locomotives and long trains of merchandise and carries men and women across this continent without any great amount of human labor. The engineer and the brakeman do not get behind and push those great palace cars of ours; it is Nature which drives the train as if it were sport. Man guides and directs the water pouring down our hillsides, turning wheels of countless factories. A few ounces of gasoline send the automobile down the street, polluting the air and endangering our lives. The power of Nature is absolutely irresistible and unlimited; and furthermore, she is always working towards some great and good end. When I was a child I used to hear that Nature was bad, and we used to have sermons to the natural man. They were excellent sermons, too, but they ought to have been preached to the unnatural man. The natural child was considered a child of wrath, and, having that reputation, he quite frequently lived up to it; but Nature is beneficient, as long as we let her be so, and she is always working toward great and grand ends. She has been working towards a higher and nobler and a better race of men than you and I are to-day. She is working for a race of men and women who shall tower above us as the sages and prophets in Athens and Jerusalem towered above their slaves. Can we not trust her just a little? Did you ever think that it is the most marvelous thing in the world that such a thing as a chicken ever comes out of such a thing as an egg? If only one chicken were hatched in a century, we would go from here to the Himalaya mountains to see the miracle of that chicken coming out of that egg. You put an egg under a very stupid old hen, and all the hen does is to keep that egg warm, and leave it alone; after twenty days there comes out a chicken. How in the world did that chicken ever frame that body? How did it build the skeleton and string the muscles, and spin the nerves? If every nerve in that body did not make just the right connection, that chicken would be paralyzed. If you could watch the development of that chicken in the egg, your hair would stand on end. Isn't it Nature that makes those chickens? You and I can't make them. Nature puts a shell around the egg with the express purpose that we are to keep our fingers out and let her alone. She says: "I am on very important business now and I am going to do some strange things; if you could watch me you would interfere with me, and if you interfere with me, you will ruin me or ruin the chicken, so I want you to stand to one side and leave me entirely alone; and while I might do a good many things that you don't like, I shall bring a chicken out of that egg;" and she does; she has been making them for thousands of years in that same old stupid way, but she brings the chicken out all right. Sometimes she seems to blunder still worse. She takes an egg which we suppose is going to turn into a frog, and she brings out of it a tadpole--neither fish, flesh nor fowl nor anything else. After a while the tadpole gets legs and has a long tail; it must lose that tail in order to become a frog. A benevolent zoologist one day started in to help the tadpole by snipping off the tadpole's tail; he made a frog of him in a hurry, but the strange thing was that that frog never was able to leap properly. Nature had been relying on the material that was in the tail. She was going to shift it forward and put it in the hind legs, but when the zoologist cut it off, she couldn't build the hind legs right after that. A good deal of our education seems to me like trying to make frogs in a hurry by cutting off their tails. Nature can make chickens; she can make frogs. She can make bugs that will eat up everything which human ingenuity ever tried to raise. She will make weeds which you and I can't possibly kill even though we fight against them all summer long. We can trust Nature to form these things; isn't it fair to trust her with the children for a little while at least? Wouldn't it be well--I never heard of this experiment being tried, but I should like to see it tried very much indeed--I do wish that sometime somebody would leave a baby alone for twenty minutes and see what it would do if it were left to itself. What is the great characteristic of all living things? It is that they grow; we cannot make them grow, but they grow of themselves. The farmer plants his crop of corn. He doesn't get a jackscrew and put under every hill of corn, and go around every morning and give the screw a turn and a twist and hoist the hill up in the air. He prepares the soil as best he can. He puts in the seed; he keeps down the weeds; he keeps out things and living beings which will injure the crop as far as he can; then he leaves it alone to God and Nature to make that corn grow, and in time he gets a bountiful harvest. I believe that education some day will be somewhat like raising a crop of corn. We shall learn to keep the child under the best condition possible. We shall learn to keep down harmful and injurious surroundings or forces so far as they can interfere with him. We shall stimulate growth in every possible way; that I grant you; and when we have done that, we shall leave the rest calmly to Nature and to the good Lord who made that child for some good purpose. It is a grand thing to have the child learn to see for himself the glories of this magnificent world. I verily believe that when you and I go home, while the good Lord will be very merciful with us because of our sins, I don't see how he can forgive many of us for not having had a great deal better time in this glorious world in which He has put us. When you open the child's eyes to the beauties and the glories of Nature you have done a great thing for it. But, after all, that is not the grandest thing to my mind. The grandest part is that every wave of vibration that goes in through the eyes as the child looks at Nature, and pours into the brain, stimulates that brain to a larger growth than it would otherwise possibly have attained, and the child is a larger and a grander child for that Nature study. We believe in manual training because it gives us skilled fingers and enables us to do deftly and well a great many things which we otherwise could not do at all, and which most of us men have to go to our wives and ask them to do for us. But that is not the grandest part of manual training; the grandest part is the reaction from the finger upon the brain, stimulating the brain to realize all its ideals, and stimulating it so that whenever it sees good work of any kind in this world it shall appreciate it heartily and enjoy it with the joy of the artist. We speak of physical training and physical training is brain training in the end, it is training in growth. It is very evident, however, that the growth and development of a baby is something different from the growth and development of a child; and the growth in the child is very different from that in the youth and that of the youth from that of the adult. In the baby the vital organs are growing faster. In the young child the muscular system is coming to the front, and he runs and plays and through the stimulus of that muscular exercise he brings out every organ in the body and gains that magnificent health which he so much needs. Then, after a time, the brain comes to the front and grows and develops more rapidly than any other part of the body. Our business as teachers is always so to stimulate, by proper exercise, the growing organs that they shall grow faster and further than they ever could without our aid. We are not to always hasten it. This is one thing we must bear in mind: precocity is the worst foe of a sound education. It is the boy and the girl who mature slowly but mature surely that in the end possess the earth. We must not hasten the process, but when we find the organ is ready to grow and develop, then we must give it adequate stimulus. In other words, the stimulus must be of the right kind, and there must be just enough of it, just enough blood to stimulate the muscles, just as much study as will best stimulate the growing and very immature intellectual centers in the brain. Then we will increase the stimulus as the power increases and demands the stronger exercise, and so stimulating the growing parts by adequate exercise, we bring one part after another up to such development that we have one harmonious whole of perfect health. You remember that when the old deacon in Oliver Wendell Holmes' poem started in to build the one-horse shay, he said, "Every shay that has ever been made has broken down, because there was always a weakest spot in it; now I am going to make a shay that never will break down, because I am going to make the weakest part just as strong as the rest." We cannot always do that, but if we can make that part somewhere near as strong as the rest, we are past masters in education. If we obey Nature's laws, all of her powers will be on our side; and with all her powers on our side and the very stars in their courses fighting for us, we cannot possibly fail, there is absolutely nothing which is impossible to us. We must be strong and of good courage, if we are to guide these little people into the land sworn unto their fathers before them. LESSON I QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. What is meant by the expression, "Man's partnership with Nature?" Illustrate how man makes Nature serve him. 2. In what way can man enter into a partnership with Nature regarding his own body? 3. What can man do best when it comes to making things grow? 4. What do you think of the "hurry" methods in education? 5. What is the most we can do in providing for the education of the child? 6. How does Nature help us in the training process? 7. What does Nature try to make sure of first in the child? 8. When does the brain of the child begin to develop rapidly? 9. What advice would you give about precocity in children? Why? 10. What should we study in our children to give them a strong and even development? CONSERVATION OF THE CHILD _By Dr. J.M. Tyler_ When the good Lord sets out to develop a child, the first organ with which He starts is the stomach. The stomach is the foundation of all greatness. It is a matter of daily observation if not of experience that a man can get along very well with very few brains, but a man can't get along at all without a good digestive system. The digestive system furnishes all the material for growth and the fuel which is continually burned or consumed in our nerves and muscles. Now, any furnace requires besides fuel, a good draught. When we burn the fuel, by uniting it with the oxygen thus brought in, we get the energy which draws our locomotives and our great ships. Similarly in our bodies, our lungs bring in the oxygen and the heart and blood-vessels carry the fuel and the oxygen to every part of the body. But every furnace requires a smoke-stack to carry off the waste, and, similarly, we must have in our bodies an excretory system to remove the waste of the burned-up material and of the used-up tissue of the heart, muscles and nerves. This constitutes the digestive system; the lungs, the excretory system and the circulatory system are absolutely necessary to support the combustion which is going on in nerve and muscle and without which energy is impossible. All productive labor manifests itself through the muscles. Our muscles directly write the book, speak the word, build the railroads, do the deeds. Our muscles are of very different ages. In the child the trunk muscles are developed first; the shoulder muscles next; the arm muscles next; the finger muscles last of all. The heavy muscles of trunk, shoulder and thigh require but a small amount of nervous impulse or control, and they react strongly on all the vital organs, as is shown every time that we take a walk. The finest and youngest muscles of the fingers require a very large amount of nervous control for a very small output of muscular energy and their exercise stimulates the very highest centers in the brain, and this is the great argument for physical training, that through one muscle or another you can stimulate and develop as you choose either any vital organ or the highest center in the brain. Never forget the maxim of the old German physiologist that "Health comes in through the muscles and flows out through the nerves." The nervous system was created for good and wise ends, but in many people it has become a nuisance. Its use is to insure that every stimulus from the external world shall call forth a response suited to the emergency. A fly lights upon my face; I wave my hand and drive him away. The fly has tickled my face; there is the external stimulus. A sensory impulse travels to the brain or to some other center and a motor impulse goes from there to a certain muscle in my arm which moves my hand and drives away the fly. The impulse has called out a response suited to that emergency. You watch a cat walk across the lawn; you will think that fool cat is going to fall down, it is going so slowly and it can hardly raise one foot above the other, but watch it when it sees its prey; every muscle seems to turn to steel; it is ready for the spring. When that spring is made there is no energy wasted. After that the cat does not move for two hours; no wasting energy there. Wasting of energy is a sin. I awaken in the morning, and the first horrible emergency of the day confronts me at once, I have to get up. How I get up I have no idea. Professor James once said that when a man thinks about it he never does get up, and that's right; but I find myself in the middle of the floor and that is all I know, and then the cold air or the sight of my clothes or something reminds me to start dressing, and the putting on of one garment leads to the putting on of another. The pangs of hunger call me to the breakfast table; the bell calls me to work; and so all day long response follows stimulus; the day's work is a success or a failure according to the response which I make to the stimuli which I receive. There is a marvelous picture given in the scripture in the parable of the poor man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and getting wounded and left by the road-side. Three men pass that way. They all see the same thing. The light is reflected from the poor sufferer into the eyes of these passers-by; a flood of vibration passes on to the brain and then the motor impulses go out to the muscles. In the case of the good Samaritan, the impulse went from the brain or the spinal nerve to the arms and he stooped down and picked the poor fellow up and carried him off; while in the priest and the Levite the impulses all went down into the legs and the cowards hustled off for Jericho. A healthy nervous system is the rarest thing in this wide world. I have one illustration in mind, which I always like to think of, which I am going to give you of a perfectly healthy and normal nervous system. It was possessed by a good old negro minister. He had been preaching to his congregation for a long time on the subject of meekness and it had not produced the desired effect; so he said to them one morning: "Brethren, I'se gwine to give you the illustration of meekness for a week now and show you what it is," and the old man did. His congregation naturally rose to the occasion: They insulted his wife; they abused his children; they stoned his dog; they stole his chickens; they did everything under the heaven to break down the meekness of that man; but he went on through the week and came into church the next Sunday and began to preach. The congregation recognized that their time was short and they redoubled their efforts, but all in vain. Finally, about five minutes before the closing of the service, he turned to the congregation and said: "Brethren, I think I ought to denounce to this congregation that my week of meekness is just about up, and when the clock in yonder steeple strikes twelve, I'se gwine to quit preachin', close this blessed Bible, go down from this pulpit, and then, Brethren, Judgment day and hell is gwine to break loose on some of you." Now, that old colored minister had an ideal nervous system. There had not been one single response all that week long, and not one single stimulus which had come in from the outside had been lost either, but it was all waiting to leap into that good right arm when the emergency was to be met, in the fullness of time, and I commend you to go and do likewise. It is only a step, thank fortune, from the ridiculous to the sublime, just as it is only a step from the sublime to the ridiculous. Another illustration of a perfect nervous system: You remember how our Lord spent a whole day in preaching, in healing, working deeds of kindness, in pouring out sympathy and comfort, the strain of which on a man's nervous energy is worse than anything else in the world, and how at the close of the day He went into the little boat, took the hard cushion on which the steersman sat, threw it down in the bottom of the boat, and laid Himself down with His head on that hard cushion and slept like a child through the rocking of the boat and the roaring of the storm, until His disciples came to Him saying, "Lord, save us: we perish." There is not one man in a thousand who could do that work or could put out one-tenth part of that nervous energy and then sleep like that. Anybody who thinks that the Prophet of Nazareth was a weak or a feeble man has made the mistake of his life. He was perfect physically or He never could have done His work. All this work of developing a steady nerve, of developing the vital organs for the use of the muscles, has been going on until the child is nine or ten years old. It has been going on very rapidly, and in as much as the exercise has been suitable, as his digestion has been good, his growth has been very rapid. During the first three years of its life the child increases its weight more than three-fold. During the next three years it adds over forty per cent. to this amount and between six and nine adds over thirty per cent. more; and when the boy is about eleven years old, or the girl is about ten, then the growth almost stops that year. It drops to a minimum. I call your attention to this thought: the minimum growth is more in a girl than in a boy. A girl is always more precocious than a boy. She is a year older than he at nine or ten, and when she is fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, she is two years older than the boy. When the girl is ten and the boy eleven, growth drops to the minimum. Why is that? Nature is economizing her material and husbanding her resources against the trying years which are to come. You remember the story of the time when Pharoah in his dream saw the seven fat kine followed and devoured by the seven lean kine; he was told that his dream signified seven years of plenty, to be followed by seven years of famine, and was advised to store up the harvests of the good years against the hard times to follow. This is a picture of the child's life. The first seven years of the child's life are years of plenty, when it is storing up material for the years of hard trial, the years of famine, which are close at hand. I am going to talk most of the girl because she needs more attention than the boy. Growth is a very expensive process. It begins in the bone. When the bones lengthen out, then every muscle, every nerve has to be lengthened out to suit that extra length, and that means a great deal of waste for that rebuilding, but it is something worse than that. You know perfectly well that out of the butterfly egg there comes the caterpillar, and that caterpillar goes into a cocoon, and during the life of the cocoon every organ is changed there and it comes out a butterfly. That is what we call a metamorphosis. The girl between ten and sixteen is undergoing a metamorphosis just as sure as that caterpillar is undergoing a metamorphosis. If you leave town for a few years and come back, you know all the old men and women haven't changed any, except to die off. The babies have grown some; but the boy and the girl seem to be grown all over again. That is, the girl whom you left at nine years old and on coming back find her sixteen, has dropped down her skirts, has drawn up her hair, and that is the butterfly cocoon, and it is a mighty pretty butterfly cocoon. That is waste again. It is waste, waste, on all sides and all of that waste is going into the blood, no other place to put it; it ought to be got out at once. But there is another thing about it; all the food must be digested, and so oxygen must be gained and waste must be eliminated. All the organs in the trunk between those ages of ten and fourteen are relatively both larger and smaller in girls than at any other period of life. It looks as though Nature was making a bad blunder, but she is really making the best of a very bad bargain, doing the best she can under hard circumstances. With these small vital organs and this tremendous draught on the body for new material and the large amount of waste to be eliminated, you are sure to have trouble. That trouble is going to manifest itself first of all in the blood. The blood is going to be poor blood during those years, unless you remedy it. Poor blood, first of all, depresses the nervous system, and the girl feels gloomy and good for nothing; she hates to go out into the cold air because she chills; yet that cold air is what she needs more than anything else in the world. She hates to make an effort and won't take the exercise she needs if she can possibly help it. The exercise she must have. Her appetite has gone all wrong. She likes to live on caramels, pickles, and all such things as that. Now, my friends, I want to tell you, when anything goes wrong with the appetite, then the whole system goes wrong, remember that. Observations were made some years ago in Sweden of a number of the bodily disorders that occur between the ages of thirteen and nineteen. These examiners found that there was one disorder which attacked, put in general numbers, sixty per cent. of the girls in the Swedish schools between the ages of thirteen and nineteen, and, indeed, it never fell below sixty per cent. and was usually a great deal more. In Denmark, the examination was made in the field where the children are healthier, and then the figures gave forty per cent. The troubles usually show themselves in the form of pallor; the girl is pale. They frequently break out in the form of headache, loss of appetite, resistance to marked effort and sometimes with a cold. Now, if the seat of the cold is in the blood, because it is loaded with waste and ought to be removed, there is one thing sure, that waste never will be removed until it is thoroughly oxidized. That is the first thing to do, oxidize it. The only way to oxidize the blood is to get the lungs full of good, pure air. The girl wants just as much lung capacity as she can possibly get. We find that the girl during those years is a little taller and a little heavier than the boy, and she needs more oxygen to every pound of waste in the body than the boy does, because the waste is going on faster. The average girl has about three-fourths as much lung capacity for every pound of the waste in the body, as has the average boy. What the girl needs is more lung capacity to get in more oxygen. How is she going to get the lung capacity sitting in the house? How is she going to get it when she is tied down in the grammar school room with a book before her eyes? The worst of it all is that the girl leaves off playing games in the open air just about the time when she needs them the most, and not having the open air play and the open air games, she can't get the lung capacity and the oxygen. Another thing that hinders the girl is this: there is no place for her to play where she can do all she wants to and not have people looking over the fence and finding fault with her for having a good time. Every girl ought to have a place where she can play in the open air and not be bothered and we ought to get more and more games for girls of that age. Another thing, the exercise should not be too severe. Don't kill a girl with physical training; because you can kill her that way just as you can kill her with books. Some of our physical training is too severe for a girl of that age. She must have plenty of the right kinds of games and they should be in the open air, and they should be such as she will enjoy and love; if they are not of that kind it won't help a great deal. If you can build up lung capacity in that way then you are drawing in the oxygen; then you are getting out the waste, and you will find the girl will come out all right in nine cases out of ten. It is a fact, proved by physical examination, that all during this period the better scholars have the larger lung capacity. Those of you who have taught in the grammar schools year after year will know that a bright girl, one that has been very bright, will have a year when she will come to you and will be absolutely stupid and can't learn. "What ails the girl?" you wonder. She will tell you, "I don't know what ails me; I can't learn anything. I have become a fool and I was not always one." The trouble is with the lung capacity; it isn't with the brain; the brain is all right. If you tell that girl to wake up in order to make up that lack of mental ability by studying harder, you are doing the unpardonable sin. I am telling it to you straight. That is not the remedy. The remedy is more play in the open air, then you will find that that girl's brain will clear up. Many a poor girl has been put in poor condition by being urged to study hard, when the fault was that nobody knew enough to turn her out into the fresh air which the Lord intended she should have. We ought to have in every school five minutes, it would be better to have ten minutes, between school exercises, when the girls can walk up and down, chat with one another and get the blood out of the overloaded head and down into the cold feet. Better still, turn them out in the open air and let them run; that would be another blessing. Don't keep the girls sitting too long at that period. Don't let them sit with wet feet or skirts. That is just about as bad as getting smallpox. Teach them some of the sense which you ought to have if you haven't. I haven't said a word for the boy, for this good reason: you can't kill him if you try, thank the Lord. You can't kill him if you try, not because he is so very tough; boys are not as tough as girls, physically; but you can't kill them; because they won't let you; but I am sorry to say, some few women teachers are killing off the future women. Again and again I have heard it said by the girls: "We can get along all right with Mr. So and So; we can get on the blind side of him all the time; we can fool him, but when we try to get around Miss So and So she puts it to us awfully, and in the neatest way, to get the work done." Now, why the women can't have a little mercy on the younger people is something I cannot understand at all. And yet, while I haven't said a word for the boy, ought we not to regard him a little? Now and then there is the ambitious boy, and then again there is your studious boy; there is your bookish boy; there is your shy boy who does not get into the games. He is the boy you should watch all the time. There is the boy who has become delicate and finicky, because he has been doddled at home. I hope you haven't got so many of them here as we have in the East, but he is here and you must watch him, because his parents are doing everything in the world to spoil him. You must stand on the Lord's side of him if you can, for these boys need your help. If you give a little excess of mercy, a little bit more physical vigor gained by this regime of open-air exercise and exercise between the school periods, you simply will be erring on the safe side and doing good to that girl and such boys, because on these years of metamorphosis depend the life and the happiness of the girl and the boy. Perhaps you are getting ready for examinations. I want to tell you Nature has her examinations just as well as you do. Does not she examine the baby and see that baby can't go on, and many babies do not go on. Then the death rate sinks; at eleven and twelve it is very low, very low, indeed, only perhaps two or three in a thousand, in many countries. Nature is giving them a chance to see whether they will get ready for the second examination. Right after or during puberty the death rate rises. At eighteen, nineteen and twenty, it has gone up. That is Nature's second examination, to see whether that boy or girl is fit to send out into the world to take part in the great drama of life, and if she is conditioned at this time, then it means invalidism for two, three, four, five years, and if she is badly conditioned, it may mean death. When you are preparing those girls for the examination, do not forget your own examination, because it is coming on very fast. I have talked very plainly this morning and I hope you will forgive me. You may say, "We don't need that talk now." I hope you don't. You will need it in a generation or two; I don't care how strong that pioneer blood was which has come down to your first generation here, we had just as good in Massachusetts a hundred or a hundred and fifty years ago, but we are getting rid of it just as fast as we can, the Lord forgive us; and you will do that here if you don't look out. If you have strong, red blood, hold on to it; because that is the grandest gift of God to man; it is a treasure which must be handed down unimpaired from generation to generation, that our boys and girls may be strong and efficient for the work of life which lies before them. LESSON II (General Subject: "Conservation of the Child," read carefully the foregoing lecture by Dr. Tyler.) _The Body as an Instrument of the Soul_ QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. What are the teachings of the Latter-day Saints regarding the relation of the body to the soul? 2. In the light of these teachings, what is demanded of every Latter-day Saint as to the treatment of his body? How are we living up to these teachings? 3. What are the four essential things we must do to keep the body engine described by Dr. Tyler, in perfect condition? 4. What would you think of an engineer who fed his engine dirt with his coal, or let his draughts and flues clog with soot, or failed to remove the clinkers, or let his engine get dusty and rusty? In what similar ways are people neglecting their bodies? 5. Discuss this as a health maxim: Clean food, clean air, clean water, clean thoughts, and clean consciences. 6. What was the Savior's constant command to the sick? 7. Give one practical suggestion as to training children to take proper care of their God-given bodies--of keeping them clean, both inside and out. LESSON III _The Foundation of Health_ QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION _Reference_: The foregoing lecture by Dr. Tyler. 1. Discuss Dr. Tyler's remark: "The stomach is the foundation of all greatness." 2. Name three home habits which, in your opinion, are doing most to ruin the stomachs, especially of children? 3. Discuss the "piecing habit," the "sweetmeat craze," irregularity of meals, and the "hurrying habit," as applied to disorders of the stomach. 4. Someone said recently that people are paying more to-day to cure their stomachs from ills brought on by bad habits in eating than they are to build churches, schools and all other public improvements put together. Discuss the assertion. 5. How can parents save money now being wasted on stomach troubles, and at the same time lay the foundation for good health in their children and themselves? Give at least one way. LESSON IV "_Nerve Leaks_" QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION _Reference_: The foregoing lecture by Dr. Tyler. 1. What are two good evidences of a perfectly healthy nervous system? 2. Physicians tell us that nerve diseases are increasing at an alarming rate in our country. What is the greatest cause for this increase? 3. What home habits have you noticed that lead to nervousness? Discuss here the effects of scolding, hurrying, talking, noise, lack of system, as "nerve leaks." 4. What practical suggestion would you offer to parents to help them to bring control, calm and harmony into their daily lives--to make their homes more places of rest and peace? 5. What ways can we take to conserve and strengthen the nerves of our children? Through what habits of life are we helping to wreck their nerves? LESSON V _Child Growth_ QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Discuss the varying stages of child growth, their rapidity, the critical periods, etc. 2. Growth means waste. By what means does the body get rid of the waste that comes with growth and change? 3. What are some of the ill effects of keeping this waste in the system? Give your experiences and observations with children. 4. When is the child's blood likely to be most loaded with the waste caused by growth? How can we best help the boy or girl to clear the system of this waste? What mistakes are we making in this vital matter? 5. What practical suggestions would you give to our parents, teachers, and communities to help them safeguard their children during dangerous periods, and keep their pioneer blood clean and pure? THE ADOLESCENT BOY AND GIRL GROWTH DURING THE HIGH SCHOOL AGE _Dr. John M. Tyler_ The boy and the girl during adolescence have now attained their full height and practically their full weight, although the boy has a little to gain still; they are pretty well grown by this time. If I had to choose between two questions, the first might be, "Have you a good appetite?" but the second question I would ask is, "What is your lung capacity?" The lungs have increased very rapidly at fourteen to sixteen in the boy; in the girl the increase has been smaller and quite irregular. It ought to be more regular than it is, I am convinced. The heart has gained greatly in capacity. The arteries have expanded much less than the heart, and the result is that there is a much higher blood pressure than there has been at any time before. The brain has attained practically full size and weight. The addition now will be mainly in the very highest area, where the addition of fibres might make all the difference between the possibility of genius and the possibility of mediocrity. The sensory and the nervous areas are fully matured. The higher mental area and the higher mental power are now coming on to stay. The boy, you will notice, at this stage begins to argue a great deal more than he ever did before. He wants to argue nearly every question. He likes the debating society. His idea of heaven, it seems to me, is a place where debating is indulged in. A goodly amount of exercise for those psychological and mental powers will do him no harm. The mortality, or the death rate, is low, but the morbidity is increasing at this time, in the boy at least. Vigorous physical exercise is now needed. Ordinary play is not enough. Gymnastics also for the development and training of the hand and the wrist, training in quickness and precision of movement are all excellent exercise, all the finer muscles should be trained now, and probably less training should be given to the heavy fundamental muscles which are all important in childhood. Athletics are exceedingly useful. They should be, however, for all, and not merely for a few who join the teams, who need them the very least of all. I think our modern college athletics will some day be looked upon as one of the most ridiculous habits of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. That twenty-two men should engage in mortal combat, with anywhere from one to twenty thousand on the side lines,--if you can get anything more ridiculous than that, I should like to know where you can find it. Athletics should not be too severe, however, yet, the boy ought not to have century runs and long halves of football, especially if the heart is still weak. The tissues of the body have not yet gained the toughness that they will gain at a later time. Every commander in the field dreads to have boys of eighteen, nineteen, or twenty sent to him, because, as Napoleon said of his young recruits, "they die off like flies." The hard bed, with light covering, the cold room, the cold bath will now aid in toughening the boy, provided he is healthy; but under no circumstances begin that until the pubertal period is fully by. The danger of over-pressure in the high school, especially after the first year, is to my mind not very great. The boy and the girl now both stand a good deal of work; but the greatest danger for the boy and the girl in the high school is that they will take too much social enjoyment. An evening theatre party, followed by a supper, a late dance, will take more strength out of a boy and girl than three days of study. There is nothing that is so wearing. If you can keep down the social over-pressure, I do not believe the over-pressure from study will do any great harm in high schools. The larger bodies, the large heart and lungs, well oxygenated blood, and fresh vitality of every artery and tissue, gives a buoyance, a strength and a courage, a source of power and sense of it too, a longing for complete freedom, a revolt against all control, which the boy will never feel later; if he does not feel it now. I am describing, perhaps, rather the college boy than the high school boy; but bear this in mind, that I am describing what your boys in the high school will be a year or two later if they are not that now, and it is for this stage you must prepare them, even, if they have not already entered upon it. A new, wide world, just as fresh as on the morning of creation, a new fire, a life of boundless opportunity, which is endless in scope and time, are opening out before the boy and the girl. They see the parents and the teachers drag around, understanding, as they think, neither them nor life itself; and they are right to a certain extent. There is no doubt about that; we do not hold on to the vision of glory of this world and of this life which we had in youth as we ought to and as it is our duty to do. The boy and the girl criticize us fairly, when they think that we don't appreciate this magnificent world in which we live. When a man gets to be my age, while I suppose he probably has more humility, he comes to know and he comes to have a very cheerful, optimistic view of the world. He has made up his mind that the Lord does not intend to change the world a great deal anyhow, and, on the whole, he is very much content to leave it the way it is. That is not so with young people at all. The boy and the girl must learn and know all about it. That is one thing they are determined to do at the outset. The boy girds up his loins and he goes whither he will. He must taste of every experience for himself. He will meet joy and sorrow with the same frolicking, welcoming spirit. He has never been saddened by experience nor disillusioned by disappointment and failure. He will try all the knowledge of good and evil if it costs him Paradise. Nature is loosening every leading string now and is getting him free to complete his own individual development and to forge his own character. We cannot stop him if we would. It is very lucky that we cannot. It is better that we should not stop him even if we could; nevertheless, he has very little self-knowledge and still less self-control. Impulses well up from changes going on within him or from stimuli which come to him from without. He does not understand them. He does not know where they come from. He does not know what they mean. He is ill-prepared to face them, and now he goes one way and now the other. He has just about as clear a conception of the value of time as a child has. He has not outgrown childhood in that respect. He cannot possibly play a waiting game. That is the last thing that he can do. If the sun shines to-day it is always going to be bright weather. If the maiden of his adoration frowns to-day, the sun will never shine again. He is either on the Delectable Mountain or in the Valley of Humiliation, and he is far more frequently in the latter than we think. He is rarely between the two, and he is not going to tell us when he is in the Valley of Humiliation, nor when he is on the top of the Delectable Mountain. There is a reticence about him at this time which we should learn to respect and to reverence. I told you at the first meeting that Nature put the shell around the egg so we would keep our fingers out of it, and Nature puts that shell of reticence around the boy and the girl at that time so we will keep our blundering fingers out and leave them to solve their problems with their help and that of the good Lord who is watching over them. Authority has little hold over him at this time, traditions none at all. The influence of early training which have rooted themselves in his very life are very powerful and they will hold him, and the Lord have mercy on the boy whose early traditions do not hold him at that time. Remember it is not his fault; that is a sad thought for us parents. We must take the responsibility for these defects in the early training of our children. The boy is led by class and group feeling at this time. You take him at eight or ten and he is an admirable little fellow in many respects. He wants to play fair, and if the other fellow does not play fair he will smite him, just as Samson smote the Philistines, if he can, and that is the occasion of much friction. After a time there is danger that he will not play as fair as he did when he was younger, for a time at least, because he is swallowed up in the team, or the society, or the group, or the gang, whatever it may be, to which he belongs, and he will give himself body and soul to help that team to win. This has its bad side, a very bad side, I grant you. If you would understand the boy, every now and then you must study the psychology of the mob. But there is a very good side also, because he is generous to a fault. Now is the time in his life when he will go down with the team, and in order for the team to win he will make a play when you and I would hesitate to make it. We had better respect the boy. He is loyal to his leader and to his friends. It is the epoch of the heart, and out of the heart, remember, are the issues of life. He has a great deal more heart than he has head knowledge at this time, and I confess I rather like him for it. You remember what Paul says to those knowledge-worshiping Corinthians as to knowledge: "It will vanish away; for we know in part." Those of us who have lived more than half a century have seen nine-tenths of our knowledge vanish away in just that fashion because we knew in part. But, says Paul, there are some things that abide, and one of them is faith. That is never done away with; another is hope, and the third and sure abiding thing is love, which is three-thirds in the heart, and out of the heart are the issues of life; the heart is often wiser than the head. Do not under-value and never despise the value of the greatness of heart in the boy; for Great Heart is the only champion who ever killed Giant Despair. The boy at this age is seeking for a king. He is very likely to be like old St. Christopher, he will serve the strongest if he can find him. Tides of religious feeling are sweeping in on him now; but if you want to convert him you must hold up before him no mediaeval example, but the great, magnificent, athletic life of that Divine Master who has been so often misrepresented to us. He is a very lovable being, that boy is, at times. Oh, you are reverencing him to-day; well, then bear in mind that probably about the same time tomorrow morning you will be gripping for the scruff of his neck, and when you grip him, grip him hard, it is no time for half-way measures. Never hit a boy at that age with a switch. If you do you are lost. Either don't hit at all or hit hard. A great deal of the child still remains in him, his instability, for instance. He might well say of himself, "my name is legion." In the remainder of his young life everything that is trifling and worthless all comes to the surface, just as it does in the fermenting liquor, the strong and sweet are all hidden below the froth. You cannot see it. You can very easily do him injustice. You must sympathize with him. Remember your own foolish youth when you were his age; remember your own blunders and then you will have a great patience with him and great admiration for him, because these blunders are not a great deal worse than they are. If you can't do this, then leave him to Nature, for you cannot help him. We found, during the years of puberty, a physical metamorphosis, when the body was all made over, and now, during those years of adolescence we have a mental metamorphosis that is just as complete as the physical metamorphosis. All things are becoming new. They have not become new yet, but they are becoming new; hence it must be a time of instability, of self-education, of the strange mixture of the very new and the very old, the bad and the good, of that which is passing away and which has passed away long ago, and that which has not yet come. Look a little deeper into him; you will find he has a pretty good primitive system of morality; it is a very primitive one, consisting mainly of loyalty to his friends. Treat him "square," as he says, and fairly, and then you may purr and curb him just as you will. Remember that tides of religious power and influence have been sweeping through him. The first one came probably at twelve, if we may trust our statistics; the second stronger, at fourteen, and then the third--perhaps a good many don't feel the first one or second--the third perhaps at sixteen. The one which comes over him at sixteen will affect heart and intellect and will, and everything, and he will stay converted probably. If you convert him at twelve, he probably will fall from grace before he is fifteen. It is rather interesting to notice that those periods when his experiences are likely to be very deep and very strong, are the years when his chest girth is expanding the most rapidly. A very good bit of physiology or psychology or of anything else you choose to call it, to learn is this: If you want to convert a man to religion, get plenty of good, fresh air into his body; you never can do it in an ill-ventilated room. It is a period of seeing visions and of dreaming dreams; you know that, if you remember your boyhood and girlhood. Those dreams and visions are the most substantial things there are in his life or in yours or mine; for "where there is no vision the people perish." Wendell Phillips used to say that "the power which overthrew slavery and hurled it to the ground was young men and young women dreaming dreams by patriots' graves." There is a good deal more than rhetoric in that statement. Endless possibilities are in these dreams and visions. It is a period of promise, of magnificent promise, which you and I as teachers are privileged to see afar off before they are even glimpsed by his parents and many of his friends. The great question now is, Will the promise and the vision ever be realized, or will they fade out and disappear and leave him a Philistine? And lucky if he is not a brute, for the only brute in this world, my friends, is a degenerate man. When you hear a man say that he has cut his eye-teeth, and he has got rid of his dreams and his visions, then may the Lord have mercy on the soul of that man, because he is dead. The all-important question now is, Can you get that dream and that vision so burned into his memory, so blazing before his eyes, that he will never forget it and never lose sight of it, and win it if it costs him his life? Then you have educated him. These visions are far more important than all of the science, even the biology, that a man can learn in college. It is the business of the parent and teacher at this time to bring to birth and to sturdy growth high aims, purposes, ideals, the whole spiritual life. Your business in early childhood is with the physical, because that is the important thing at that time, if you can build a very healthy little animal, you have done well; but during the high school age you must build the spiritual. If you don't feel this, I cannot explain it to you; and if you don't feel this within you, if it is all meaningless and mere noise, don't you dare teach a high school, for you are not big enough nor deep enough to do that. The great question, after all, is not how much learning have you been able to put into him, but how much of the finer ambitions, how much power, how deeply and strongly they hunger for the very best. An ounce of inspiration at this time is worth more than a pound or a ton of learning; I am no foe of learning, either. The high school is and will remain the people's college. It is the only college that a great part of the people ever will know. Do not neglect that great fraction who are never going to get anything higher and beyond in order to put your time on those who are going on to colleges and universities. You must be the people's support, and you may well thank fortune that it doesn't seem to be nine-tenths of your business out here in the West to fit boys and girls for a college examination. If that ever threatens to become your business, then you withstand it and face it to the death, for there is nothing will ruin education faster than that; I know sorrowfully whereof I speak. You remember in "Pilgrim's Progress" that when Christian had left the Interpreter's House, he strayed away and went down into the Valley of Humiliation, where he walked between the snares and was in danger of falling into many a pitfall; there he wandered through darkness; there he could not see the Delectable Mountains any more, and there he fought with Giant Apollyon for his life; but when Christian passed that way he did not find it half so bad by any means. He had a companion by the name of Great Heart, remember, and Great Heart said to him, "Do you know that the soil of this valley is probably the most fertile that the crow flies over?" The Valley of Humiliation, my friends, stretches sharp and clear athwart the life of every man and woman between the Interpreter's House of his early education and of his dreams and visions, and the Delectable Mountains, and we all have to depart to it whether we will or no, and it is the most fertile soil that the crow flies over, for in that Valley of Humiliation men's muscles and nerves become steel, and man becomes the shadow of the great rock in the Weary Land, and through heartaches the man and the woman are made the soldiers and the choice heroes of Jehovah Himself. It is into that Valley of Humiliation that the boy and the girl are going to go from school after they leave you, and you must fit them for it; many of you know well enough what it is and know what help they need. You have read, all of you, a good many times probably, this marvelous passage from Isaiah: "They that trust in the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." I never thought what that meant until one morning in college chapel our president turned to us and said: "Most of you think that is an anti-climax," and we would say: "Why, of course, for a man cannot fly like the eagle. He can walk down hill, what is the use talking about that walking down hill." The old man shook his head and said: "No, no. Anybody can fly like an eagle in his imagination; when we are beginning any new work or any new study or anything new, we fly; but after a time we cannot fly any more, we come down to a run; and the man who wins out is not the man who can run, but the man who can 'walk and not faint,' for that man has the endurance that we want." There was a time some years ago--that has gone by too, thank fortune--when we used to paraphrase things; that is, turn very good English into very bad English. You wish to have a boy or girl catch the spirit of the poem, do you not, to find in it inspiration and power, to find a beauty in life that never was on sea nor land? A sweet voice is a very excellent thing in a woman, and a very unusual thing in a man. The eye is not the grandest sense organ we have; the ear is the path-way to the heart, and that is what you want to understand. Did you ever try reading a beautiful poem or story aloud to your children at your fireside or to the class and put your very life's blood into it? I remember some things that a little girl teacher in Massachusetts read to me a great many years ago, and there is a dent in my old heart still. Try it some day. They cannot understand the poem, but they feel it. It has gone deeper than the intellect. It has gone into the heart and through the heart, it has got hold of the will and it has transfigured the spirit and the whole being. In this way you are certainly teaching literature; nobody can deny that. You have awakened a new interest. You lead and inspire the adolescent to share your very best and highest enthusiasm. After you have done that a few times your pupils will demand the best; they won't be content with anything poor. The highest human thing in the end is character, and character is formed very early, very shortly before the boy leaves the high school. Just how it is formed I do not know, but I know one thing, that while I cannot tell anything about how successful a man will be intellectually in life from what he does in college, or, sometimes, I cannot tell very much about how large he will grow mentally, I know that boy will not rise very much higher morally than he stands in college when you send him there. If, then, he has secured a moral training and influence, I firmly believe he will stay so. If he does not come to us in that shape the probability is that he never will change for the good, but if he is filthy he will remain filthy still. His character is made very largely in the high school. How can you reach it? I think you can reach it a good deal through literature. I do not see how anybody can read Mr. Hawthorne or Mr. Emerson, and not long to be a gentleman, and feel as if he would like to be worthy to kiss the hem of the garment of those literary gentlemen. You can read history. You can make history a dreary chronicle. You can learn of kings who never ought to have been born, and when they died, when they ought to have been dead fifty years before, and all the long list of battles fought which never ought to have been fought. You can make it just such a weary chronicle. You do not, nowadays, thank fortune; I have seen teachers that did. Or you can make that history the Eleventh Chapter of Hebrews, and you can write your own Eleventh Chapter of Hebrews, if you will, for that chapter never was intended to be finished; and if you cannot add to it with your pioneer history of those who fought their way across the plains here fifty or more years ago, then you are teaching history to mighty little effect to this generation here in Utah. The whole story is just this, if you can saturate your pupils with the character of just such men and women as that, then you have trained a generation of heroes and nobody can spoil them. That is what, it seems to me, Mr. Martineau means in that dark passage, "We shall never have a proper system of education until we have a proper religion." We are a good deal lacking in the study of the Bible nowadays. We go to it to prove the text, to "break the scales" of our adversaries, and for other purposes. I do not use it for that purpose myself. If you will read that old book until you can walk the street arm in arm with Gideon and David and Jepthah and old Samson, too, yes, heaven bless him, and Moses and Samuel, the prophets, then we are reading it to some purpose. Until you know them all as your best friends, you have not begun to read that book; for that is what it was intended for. The Bible is an advanced text book of biology, the science of life. If you will train your boys and girls to walk the streets and live with the heroes of the world, make them form an intimate friendship with them, then you have trained those boys and girls to be heroes themselves. Did you ever try reading to them the defense which old Socrates makes, which Plato wrote down for us? I do not know whether Socrates ever said it, but it was worthy of him. Read it to your boys and girls some day. See what they say about the Apology. And read the Crito. Let them sit with Socrates in his prison there on the hillside and listen to his discussion, until, as he says, he hears the voice of the law ringing in his ears and he cannot hear anything else, and stays on to die. When the prison door is opened for him to walk out, provided he would walk out with dishonor, he will not go. Let them see the old hero die in Athens as the sun goes down. You have not only awakened a new interest, you have evoked a higher life, and that is what we are after, that is what you and I are here for, that is the only way in the end to beat the record. That is the essential power of great leaders, of great prophets, and of great teachers, and the seat of it is in their personality. I don't know what I am talking about there either, for personality defies analysis and it defies resistance. It leaps from soul to soul just like an infection. We hear a great deal about the infectiousness of bad things and people are always talking about infectious disease and of corrupting influences in the world and all that sort of thing. Do you suppose the Lord has made this world so that everything that is bad is contagious and everything that is good is not contagious? Are you going to slander the Lord like that? It is about time that we wake up to the fact that the real genuine article of goodness is a good deal more contagious than smallpox. Heroism and hero-worship is the central thought of history from the time of Gideon to the time of Sheridan, and down to our present time. Virtue, we must remember, should strike just like electricity from a dynamo. You remember that was the continual word of that Great Master of ours. Someone in the crowd has touched me, Virtue has gone over into somebody else. Virtue has gone out of me; strength has gone out of me and gone over into somebody else. I am talking about something that I do not understand; but something that you will know. Have you never, at the close of the day, when you were tired, discouraged, wondered whether it is worth while to keep up the fight? When you had been knocked flat and were pretty sure you were out, and then you sat down for a little time by some strong man or strong woman, and probably they did not say a great deal to you. They were men and women of few words, and you did not say a great deal to them, but after a little it began to come upon you that come what would you would fight again? Courage had come into you. You do not know where it came from, or how it came in, but you borrowed it and you go on your way the stronger because of the infection from that strong man. We must be healthy and strong and sympathetic. We must be a child with the child and a boy with the boy, and yet we must lead and not follow. We must be firm and patient and hopeful and courageous, and we must infect these boys and girls with the very best that we have in us and something that is a little better yet, and how are we going to get it? Why, we must be continually infected from others; that is the only way. I don't care how big your reservoir is, your irrigation reservoir, if there isn't a stream going into it, it is going to be empty sometime. Look out for the streams which come in from the hills and the heights of glory into your lives. This is the glory of our life and our work. You are making the youth of the twentieth century, as I said to you, and you are doing something grander; for every bit of good that you give here in Utah will spread back to us in Massachusetts and you are moulding the race into conformity with that which is deepest and most permanent and most eternal in environment, and hence all the powers of Nature are on your side. "We are two," said Abbe Bacha to Mahomet, as they were plodding from Mecca to Medina. "No," answered Mahomet, "We are three. God is with us." We cast in our efforts with this grand tide of events which is sweeping on toward a better age and better race, and we cannot fail. Therefore, let us gird up our loins, be strong and of a very good courage; for, as I have said to you once before, you shall lead these little people into the land of hope and promise which the Lord swore unto their ancestors, their fathers, that He would surely give them. GENERAL SUBJECT _The Adolescent, or High School Age_ Read carefully the foregoing lecture on "Growth During the High School Age," by Dr. Tyler, for all these succeeding lessons. LESSON VI ATHLETIC NEEDS OF BOYS AND GIRLS 1. What steps have ever been taken in your community to provide for proper athletic sports for the young? What success came of these efforts? 2. Give two reasons why wholesome physical recreation is necessary for growing children. 3. What games and sports do you consider best for boys? For girls? Why? 4. What dangers come from uncontrolled athletics? 5. What do you think about the value of school athletics that develop only a team? 6. What can be done, (1) by the parents, (2) by communities, (a) To provide for wholesome games and sports for all the children? (b) To provide proper leadership and supervision of these things? (c) To regulate the excesses and check evils of the athletic spirit? (d) To provide proper places in which to play? LESSON VII SOCIAL NEEDS 1. During what years does the desire to be with "the crowd" manifest itself most strongly in boys and girls? 2. What difficulties come to the parents in the management of boys and girls during this time? 3. In what ways can parents best exercise control over the companionships of their children during this vital period? 4. In what ways can the social needs of boys and girls be provided for in the home? 5. How far can and should parents go in participating in the pastimes of their children? What can be done to keep up the spirit of companionship between parents and children? 6. What can communities do to put down the "street corner" habits and the "hoodlumism" that comes of the boy gangs? 7. What pastimes and practices can be fostered to bring about a higher-minded companionship among young people? LESSON VIII KEEPING OUR BOYS AND GIRLS AT HOME 1. What are the first indications that our home is losing its hold upon our boy? Our girl? 2. What influences are at work in each instance? 3. Is it because conditions outside the home offer more, or is the home offering less of that which the boy or girl desires? 4. When you find your boy going to the pool room do you throw his deck of cards into the fire and advise him as to what will happen if he attempts to use such things in or about the house? 5. When your girl shows a preference for taking her leisure at Smith's or Brown's rather than at home, do you at once adopt a code of rules and proceed to make emphatic statements as to your intention to enforce those rules and also to impose certain penalties? 6. Did it ever occur to you that "desire" may be diverted, but that it cannot be destroyed? 7. Is it not best to divert by substitution rather than by prohibition? Also to substitute in kind as near as may be? 8. What are you doing in your home to satisfy the desire which takes your boy or girl to the neighbors or the public places? 9. What share are you taking in the interests of the growing boy or girl? 10. Parents, are you companionable? Do you get into the boy or girl's field of discussion? Do you talk _with them_ rather than _to them_? Do you get into their games, their troubles, their pleasures, their life? LESSON IX 1. What certain acts or omissions entitle a boy to be classified as "wayward?" 2. The first sign of waywardness is the breaking of what commandment, if any? 3. Under any condition would you let your boy know that you considered him wayward? 4. Should your regard for, as shown by your treatment of the wayward boy, differ in the slightest degree from your regard for your treatment of the circumspect, dutiful, and obliging boy? 5. Does the worst tendency of the boy call for any more from us than mere direction? 6. Is not the boy's worst offence a bad form of satisfying a good desire? 7. What is your method of dealing with your boy? Is it "Never do that" or "Better to do this?" 8. Do you ever undertake to show the boy how much more of the thing he is after he can get out of a method that is all around helpful than one that is all around harmful. 9. How would it do to substitute jointly planned "Do's" for unqualified "Don'ts"? 10. In almost every instance can you not justly ascribe the boy's waywardness to an unnatural companionship on your part or to no companionship at all? LESSON X SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT IN BOYS AND GIRLS "_Training the Child in the Way He Should Go_" 1. Quote from the Doctrine and Covenants a passage wherein parents are admonished as to their duty in teaching the Gospel to their children. 2. Give three first steps in religious training in children. 3. What difficulties and successes have you, as parents, met with in cultivating your little ones? proper habits in prayer, in attendance to Sunday School and in other religious duties? To what do you ascribe your success or failure? 4. At what age do boys and girls grow most careless as regards religion? (Study the statistics of your Sabbath School on this point.) 5. Is it true that our religious training fails most just at the point where the boy and girl are in greatest need of it? What are the causes of this failure? 6. What can and must parents do to reinforce the Sunday School and our other organizations in their efforts to guide the boy and girl safely during their teens? during the critical periods of life? LESSON XI LIFE LESSONS DURING THE WAYWARD AGE 1. Show, by citing examples from history, that youth is a period of strong religious tendencies. What can be done to keep the "dreams of youth" on high ideals? 2. What stories? what lessons? to boys and girls at this time? What books appeal most impressively to boys and girls at this time? 3. Recalling the things that left deepest impress on you for good or ill during the period of "the teens," what advice would you give as to cultivating in a child right feelings for religion? 4. Wherein do we as religious teachers most fail to get the boy or girl? 5. In what way should the Bible be taught during this age? 6. What individual work with boys and girls can and should be done by parents and teachers to guide the children past the dangerous places? LESSON XII TEMPTATIONS OF BOYS AND GIRLS 1. What are the commandments children are likely to break first? 2. In what ways are homes often responsible for habits of lying, stealing, profaning the name of God, and other sins? 3. How are the seeds of impurity often sown by thoughtless parents in the home? Discuss here the vulgar story, and other evil suggestions. 4. What loose habits in companionship and courtship are being permitted by parents to lead their children into evil? 5. By what effective means can parents co-operate to check the looseness and rudeness and sinful practice that blight our homes and communities? REFERENCE BOOKS FOR PARENTS' CLASSES The following list of books will be found very helpful in this Study of Children. The Public Library should provide these books for the parents, or the class may be able gradually to build up such a library for class use. These can be bought at the Deseret Sunday School Union, Salt Lake City, Utah. 1. A Study of Child Nature, Elizabeth Harrison, National Kindergarten College, Chicago, Ill. $1.25 2. Religious Education in the Family, H.F. Cope, University of Chicago Press. $1.25 3. The Right of the Child to be Well Born, Dawson, Funk & Wagnalls, New York. $.75. 4. The Jukes Edwards Family, Winship. $1.20. 5. The Meaning of Infancy, Fiske, Houghton, Mifffin Co., Boston. $.35. 6. Education, Herbert Spencer. $.75 7. Fundamentals of Child Study, Kirkpatrick, Macmillan Co. $1.25. 8. Elementary Psychology, Phillips, Ginn & Co., Chicago. $1.25. 9. The Care of the Child in Health, Oppenheim, Macmillan Co. $1.00 10. The Healthy Baby, Dennett, The Macmillan Co. $1.00. 11. The Care of the Baby, Holt. $.75. 12. The Child and His Religion, Dawson, University of Chicago Press. $.75. 13. Child Nature and Child Nurture, St. John, Pilgrim Press. $.50. 14. The Problem of Boyhood, Johnson, University of Chicago Press. $1.00. 15. The Function of the Family and the Recovery of the Home, American Baptist Pub. Soc. Each, $.15. 16. The Dawn of Character, Mumford, Longsman, Green & Co. $1.20. 17. Peril and Preservation of the Home, Jacob Riis, Jacobs Co., Philadelphia. $1.00. 18. Training of the Girl and Training of the Boy, McKeever, Macmillan. Each, $1.50. 19. The Moral Conditions and Development of the Child, Wright, Jennings & Graham. $.75. 20. Marriage and Genetics, Reed, Galton Press, Cincinnati, Ohio. $1.00. 21. The Coming Generation, Forbush, D. Appleton & Co., New York. $1.50. 22. Stories and Story Telling, St. John Eaton and Main. $.35. 23. Our Child Today and Tomorrow, Grunenburg, Lippincott. $1.25. 24. Misunderstood Children, Harrison. $1.23. 25. Town and City, Jewett, Ginn & Co. $.50. 26. After Twenty Years, Middleton. $1.25. 27. Training of the Human Plant, Burbank. $.60. 28. Education, Resources of Rural and Village Communities, J.K. Mart $1.00. 29. Being Well Born, Guyer. $1.00. 30. Growth in Education, Dr. John M. Tyler, Houghton, Mifflin Co. $1.50. 
57689	----	generously made available by the Google Books Library Project (https://books.google.com) Note: Images of the original pages are available through the Google Books Library Project. See https://books.google.com/books?id=pV9HAQAAMAAJ&hl=en American Home Series Norman E. Richardson, Editor THE PUNISHMENT OF CHILDREN by FELIX ADLER [Illustration: Logo] The Abingdon Press New York Cincinnati EDITORIAL NOTE The material contained in this pamphlet was originally delivered in three addresses before the Ethical Culture Society of New York City. Special permission has been given to have it reprinted in this form. The ethical nurture of the child is a distinct responsibility which no parent can neglect with impunity. When ignorant of the more elementary principles of punishment, parents easily fall into one of two serious errors. The use of harsh and severely arbitrary methods causes the child's fine ethical sensibilities to become dull. Through indifference or careless neglect, the child becomes willful, erratic, or self-indulgent. In this study Dr. Adler, with remarkable skill, guides the parent between these two extremes. He shows that it is possible to be consistent without being harsh, gentle without being vacillating. The mastery of the art of punishment is also one of the most direct means of ethical self-culture. It is to be hoped that a careful study of this subject may result in a refinement of the attitude of parents toward each other, as well as toward their children. NORMAN E. RICHARDSON. Printed in the United States of America First Edition Printed April, 1920 Reprinted July, 1920; March, 1922 THE PUNISHMENT OF CHILDREN I It is man's moral duty to act as the physician of his enemies and seek to cure them of their wrongdoing. How much more, then, should this attitude be taken toward those whom we love--toward our children, if we find their characters marred by serious faults? In discussing the subject of punishment I do not for a moment think of covering the innumerable problems which it suggests. Many books have been written on this subject; prolonged study and the experience of a lifetime are barely sufficient for a mastery of its details. I shall content myself with suggesting a few simple rules and principles, and shall consider my object gained if I induce my hearers to enter upon a closer investigation of the delicate and manifold questions involved. 1. NEVER ADMINISTER PUNISHMENT IN ANGER The first general rule to which I would refer is, _never administer punishment in anger_. A saying of Socrates deserves to be carefully borne in mind. Turning one day upon his insolent servant, Speucippus, who had subjected him to great annoyance, he exclaimed, "I should beat you now, sirrah, were I not so angry with you." The practice of most men is the very opposite; they beat and punish because they _are_ angry. But it is clear that we cannot trust ourselves to correct another while we are enraged. The intensity of our anger is proportional to the degree of annoyance which we have experienced, but it happens quite frequently that a great annoyance may be caused by a slight fault, just as, conversely, the greatest fault may cause us only slight annoyance, or may even contribute to our pleasure. We should administer serious punishment where the fault is serious, and slight punishment where the fault is slight. But, as I have just said, a slight fault may sometimes cause serious annoyance, just as a slight spark thrown into a powder magazine may cause a destructive explosion. And we do often resemble a powder magazine, being filled with suppressed inflammable irritations, so that a trivial naughtiness on the part of a child may cause a most absurd display of temper. But is it the child's fault that we are in this irascible condition? To show how a slight fault may sometimes cause a most serious annoyance, let me remind you of the story of Vedius Pollio, the Roman. He was one day entertaining the Emperor Augustus at dinner. During the banquet a slave who was carrying one of the crystal goblets by which his master set great store, in his nervousness suffered the goblet to fall from his hand so that it broke into a thousand pieces on the floor. Pollio was so infuriated that he ordered the slave to be bound and thrown into a neighboring fishpond, to be devoured by the lampreys. The Emperor interfered to save the slave's life, but Pollio was too much enraged to defer even to the Emperor's wish. Thereupon Augustus ordered that every crystal goblet in the house should be broken in his presence, that the slave should be set free, and that the obnoxious fishpond should be closed. The breaking of a goblet or vase is a good instance of how a slight fault, a mere inadvertency, may cause serious damage and great chagrin. In the same way an unseasonable word, loud conversation, a bit of pardonable mischief, which we should overlook under ordinary circumstances, may throw us into a fury when we are out of sorts. When we have urgent business and are kept waiting, we are apt, unless we keep a curb on our tempers, to break forth into violent complaints, which indeed are quite proportional to the amount of annoyance we experience, but not necessarily to the fault of the person who occasions it. Our business is to cure faults, and in order to accomplish this end the punishment should be meted out in due proportion to the fault. Instead of following this principle, the great majority of men when they punish are not like reasonable beings, selecting right means toward a true end, but like hot springs which boil over because they cannot contain themselves. We ought never to punish in anger. No one can trust himself when in that state; an angry man is always liable to overshoot the mark; we must wait until our angry feeling has had time to cool. Do I then advise that we administer punishment in cold blood? No, we ought to correct the faults of others with a certain moral warmth expressed in our words and manner, a warmth which is produced by our reprehension of the fault, not by the annoyance which it causes us. This, then, is the first rule: _Never punish in anger_. 2. DISTINGUISH BETWEEN THE CHILD AND THE FAULT The second rule is that in correcting a child we should be careful to distinguish between the child and its fault; we should not allow the shadow of the fault to darken the whole nature of the child. We should treat the fault as something accidental which can be removed. Vulgar persons, when a child has told a falsehood, say, "You liar." They identify the child with the fault of lying, and thereby imply that this vice is ingrained in its nature. They do not say or imply, "You have told a falsehood, but you will surely not do so again; hereafter you will tell the truth"; they say, "You are a liar"; which is equivalent to saying, "Lying has become part and parcel of your nature." In the same way when a child has proved itself incapable of mastering a certain task, the thoughtless parent or teacher may exclaim, impatiently, "You are a dunce"; that is to say, "You are a hopeless case; nothing but stupidity is to be expected of you." All opprobrious epithets of this sort are to be most scrupulously avoided. Even to the worst offender one should say: "You have acted thus in one case, perhaps in many cases, but you can act otherwise; the evil has not eaten into the core of your nature. There is still a sound part in you; there is good at the bottom of your soul, and if you will only assert your better nature, you can do well." We are bound to show confidence in the transgressor. Our confidence may be disappointed a hundred times, but it must never be wholly destroyed, for it is the crutch on which the weak lean in their feeble efforts to walk. Now, such language as "You are a dunce," "You are a liar," is, to be sure, used only by the vulgar; but many parents who would not use such words imply as much by their attitude toward their child; they indicate by their manner, "Well, nothing good is to be expected of you." This attitude of the parents is born of selfishness; the child has disappointed their expectations, and the disappointment, instead of making them more tender toward the child, makes them impatient. But this is not the attitude of the physician whose business it is to cure evil. We must give the child to understand that we still have hope of his amendment; _the slightest improvement should be welcomed with an expression of satisfaction_. We should never attach absolute blame to a child, never overwhelm it with a general condemnation. And in like manner we should never give absolute praise, never injure a child by unlimited approbation. The words, "_excellent_," "_perfect_," _which are sometimes used in school reports, are inexcusable_. I have seen the object of education thwarted in the case of particularly promising pupils by such unqualified admiration. No human being is ethically perfect, and to tell a child that he is perfect is to encourage a superficial way of looking upon life and to pamper his conceit. The right attitude is to say or to imply by our manner, "You have done well thus far; go on as you have begun and try hereafter to do still better." Such words as these fall like sunshine into the soul, warming and fructifying every good seed. On the other hand, to tell a child that he is perfect may induce him to relax his effort, for having reached the summit he does not feel the need of further exertion. We should correct faults in such a way as to imply that not everything is lost. And we should praise merit in such a way as to imply that not everything is yet achieved; that, on the contrary, the goal is still far, far in the distance. Everything, as I have said, depends upon the attitude of the parent or instructor. Those who possess educational tact--a very rare and precious quality--adopt the right attitude by a sort of instinct. But those who do not possess it naturally can acquire it, at least to a certain degree, by reflecting upon the underlying principles of punishment. 3. DO NOT LECTURE CHILDREN The third rule is, _Do not lecture children_. One feels tempted to say to some parents: "You do not succeed as well as you might in the training of your children because you talk too much. The less you say the more effective will your discipline be. Let your measures speak for you." When punishment is necessary let it come upon the child like the action of a natural law--calm, unswerving, inevitable. Do not attempt to give reasons or to argue with the child concerning the punishment you are about to inflict. If the child is in danger of thinking your punishment unjust, it may be expedient to explain the reasons of your action, but do so after the punishment has been inflicted. There are parents who are perpetually scolding their children. The fact that they scold so much is proof of their educational helplessness. They do not know what measures of discipline to apply, hence they scold. Often their scolding is due to momentary passion, and the child intuitively detects that this is so. If the parent is in ill humor, a mischievous prank, a naughty word, an act of disobedience sometimes puts him into a towering passion; at other times the same offense may be lightly considered, or even worse offenses passed over with meaningless "Don't do that again." The child perceives this vacillation, and learns to look upon a scolding as a mere passing shower, hiding its head under shelter until the storm has blown over. Other parents are given to delivering lengthy homilies to their children, and then often express surprise that all their sound doctrine, all their beautiful sermons, have no effect whatever. If they would pause to consider for a moment, they could easily see why their lectures have no effect, why they pass "in at one ear and out at the other." Their lectures on right and wrong are generally too abstract for the child's comprehension, and often do not touch its case at all. Moreover, the iteration of the same dingdong has the effect of blunting the child's apprehension. A stern rebuke is occasionally necessary and does good, but it should be short, clear, incisive. A moralizing talk with an older child sometimes does good. The parent should not, however, indulge in generalities, but, looking over the record of the child for the past weeks or months, should pick out the definite points in which it has transgressed, thus holding up a picture of the child's life to its own eyes to reenforce the memory of its faults and stimulate its conscience. In general, it may be said that the less the parent talks about moral delinquencies the better. On this rule of parsimony in respect to words particular stress is to be laid. 4. UNDEVIATING CONSISTENCY The next rule is quite as important as the preceding ones. It is that of _undeviating consistency_. Were not the subject altogether too painful, it would be amusing to observe how weak mothers--and weak fathers too--constantly eat their own words. "How often have I told you not to do this thing, but now you have done it again." "Well, what is to follow?" secretly asks the child. "The next time you do it I shall surely punish you." The next time the story repeats itself; and so it is always "the next time." Very often foolish threats are made, which the parents know they cannot and will not carry out; and do you suppose that the children do not know as well as you that the threat you have been uttering is an idle one? We should be extremely careful in deciding what to demand of a child. Our demands should be determined by a scrupulous regard for the child's own good, but when the word has gone forth, especially in the case of young children, we should insist on unquestioning obedience. Our will must be recognized by the child as its law; it must not suspect that we are governed by passion or caprice. There are those that protest that this is too stern a method, that gentle treatment, persuasion, and love ought to suffice to induce the child to obey. Love and persuasion do suffice in many cases, but they do not answer in all; and, besides, I hold it to be important that the child should sometimes be brought face to face with a law which is superior to the law of its own will, and should be compelled to bend to the higher law, as expressed in its parent's wishes, merely because it is a higher law. And so far from believing this is to be a cruel method, I believe that the opposite method of always wheedling and coaxing children into obedience is really cruel. Many a time later on in life its self-love will beat in vain against the immutable barriers of law, and if the child has not learned to yield to rightful authority in youth, the necessity of doing so later on will only be the more bitterly felt. The child should sometimes be compelled to yield to the parent's authority simply because the parental authority expresses a higher law than that of its own will. And this leads me to speak incidentally of a subject which is nearly allied to the one we are now discussing. It is a well-known trick of the nursery to divert the child from some object which it is not to have by quickly directing its attention to another object. If a child cries for the moon, amuse it with the light of a candle; if it insists upon handling a fragile vase, attract its attention to the doll; if it demands a knife with which it might injure itself, call in the rattle to the rescue. This method is quite proper for baby children, but it is often continued to a much later age with harmful results. As soon as the self-consciousness of the child is fairly developed, that is, about the third year, this method should no longer be employed. It is important that the will power of the young be strengthened. Now, the more the will is accustomed to fasten upon the objects of desire the stronger does it become, while, by rapidly introducing new objects the will is distracted and a certain shiftlessness is induced, the will being made to glide from one object to another without fixing itself definitely upon any one. It is far better to allow a child to develop a will of its own, but to make it understand that it must at times yield this will to the will of the parent, than thus to distract its attention. If it wants a knife which it ought not to have, make it understand firmly, though never harshly, that it cannot have what it wants, that it must yield its wish to the parent's wish. Nor is it at all necessary every time to give the reasons why. The fact that the parent commands is a sufficient reason. The rules thus far mentioned are, that we shall not punish in anger, that we shall not identify the child with its fault, that we shall be sparing with admonitions and let positive discipline speak for itself, and that, while demanding nothing which is unreasonable, we should insist on implicit obedience. 5. PHYSICAL PLEASURE AS A REWARD OF VIRTUE There is one question that touches the general subject of punishment and reward which is in some sense the most important and vital of all the questions we are considering. It throws a bright light or a deep shadow on the whole theory of life, according to the point of view we take. I allude to the question whether the pleasures of the senses should be treated as a reward for the performance of duty. A parent says to his child: "You have been good to-day; you have studied your lessons; your deportment has been satisfactory: I will reward you by giving you sweetmeats, or by taking you on a holiday into the country." But what connection can there possibly be between the performance of duty and the physical pleasure enjoyed in eating sweetmeats? Is not the connection a purely arbitrary one? Does it not depend upon the notion that there is no intrinsic satisfaction in a moral act? We ought to see that it is radically wrong to make such enjoyments the reward of virtue; we ought to have the courage to make application of our better theories to the education of our children if we would develop in them the germs of a nobler, freer manhood and womanhood. I admit, indeed, that a child is not yet sufficiently developed to stand on its own feet morally, and that its virtuous inclinations need to be supported and assisted; but we can give it this assistance by means of our approbation or disapprobation. To be in disgrace with its parents ought to be for a child the heaviest penalty. To have their favor should be its highest reward. But simply because a child is most easily taken on the side of its animal instincts, are we to appeal to it on that side? Should it not be our aim to raise the young child above the mere desire for physical gratification, to prevent it from attaching too much importance to such pleasures? The conduct of many parents, however, I fear, tends to foster artificially that lower nature in their offspring which it should rather be their aim to repress. By their method of bestowing extraneous rewards, parents contribute to pervert the character of their children in earliest infancy, giving it a wrong direction from the start. But, it may be objected, is there not a wholesome truth contained in Saint Paul's saying that "he who will not work, neither shall he eat"? Is not our conscience offended when we see a person enjoying the pleasures of life who will perform none of its more serious duties? And should we not all agree that, in a certain sense, virtue entitles one to pleasure, and the absence of virtue ought to preclude one from pleasure? To meet this point let us dwell for a moment on the following considerations. Man is endowed with a variety of faculties, and a different type of pleasure or satisfaction arises from the exercise of each. Pleasure, in general, may be defined as the feeling which results from successful exercise of any of our faculties--physical, mental or moral. A successful rider takes pleasure in horsemanship, an athlete in the lifting of weights. The greater an artist's mastery over his art, the greater the pleasure he derives from it. The more complex and difficult the problems which a scholar is able to resolve, the more delight does he find in study. The same is true of the moral nature. The more a man succeeds in harmonizing his inner life, and in helping to make the principles of social harmony prevail in the world about him, the more satisfaction will he derive from the exercise of virtue. But the main fact which we are bound to remember is that it is impossible to pay for the exercise of any one faculty by the pleasure derived from the exercise of another; that each faculty is legitimately paid only in its own coin. If you ask a horseman who has just returned from an exhilarating ride what compensation he expects to receive for the exercise he has taken, he will probably look at you in blank amazement, with grave misgivings as to your sanity. If you ask a scientist what reward he expects to receive for the pursuit of knowledge, he will answer you, if he is an expert in the use of his intellect, that he expects no ulterior reward of any kind; that not positive knowledge so much as the sense of growth in the attainment of knowledge is the highest reward which he can imagine. And the same answer you will get from a person who is expert in the use of his moral faculty, namely, that not virtue so much as growth in virtue, not the results achieved by the exercise of the faculty, but the successful exercise itself is the supreme compensation. I have used the word "expert" in all these cases, and precisely "there's the rub." The reason why many persons cannot get themselves to believe that the exercise of the mental and moral faculties is a sufficient reward is because they are not expert, because they have not penetrated far enough along the lines of knowledge and virtue to obtain the satisfactions of them. But the same applies to the tyro in any pursuit. A rider who has not yet acquired a firm seat in the saddle will hardly derive much pleasure from horseback exercise. An awkward, clumsy dancer, who cannot keep step, will get no pleasure from dancing. There is no help for the tyro, no matter in what direction he aims at excellence, except to go on trying until he becomes expert. I have said that each faculty is sovereign in its own sphere, that each provides its proper satisfactions within itself and does not borrow them from the domain of any of the others. Nevertheless we are constrained to admit the important truth that is contained in the saying of Saint Paul. And this truth, it seems to me, may be formulated in the words that, while physical pleasure is not the reward of virtue, virtue ought to be regarded as the condition _sine qua non_ of the enjoyment of physical pleasures--at least, so far as the distribution of such pleasures is within the power of the educator or of society. This proposition depends on the difference in rank that subsists between our faculties, of which some are superior and others inferior, the moral and intellectual faculties rightfully occupying the top of the scale. We inwardly rebel when we see the indolent and self-indulgent living in luxury and affluence. And this not because the enjoyments which such persons command are the proper compensations of virtue, or because physical pain would be the proper punishment of their moral faults, but because we demand that the lower faculties shall not be exercised at the expense and to the neglect of the higher, that the legitimate rank and order of our faculties shall not be subverted. Applying this idea to the case of children, I think it would be perfectly proper to deny a child that has failed to study its lessons or has given other occasion for serious displeasure, the privilege of going on a holiday to the country or enjoying its favorite sports. Everything, however, will depend--as so much in education does depend--on the manner; in this instance on what we imply in our denial rather than on what we expressly state. The denial, it seems to me, should be made on the ground that there is a proper order in which the faculties are to be exercised; that the higher, the mental, faculties should be exercised first, and that he who will not aim at the higher satisfactions, neither shall he, so far as we can prevent, enjoy the lower. On the other hand, by making physical pleasures--sports, games and the like--the reward of study, we exalt these satisfactions so as to make _them_ seem the higher, so as to make the satisfactions of knowledge appear of lesser value compared with the satisfactions of the senses. In an ideal community every one of our faculties would be brought into play in turn, without our ever being tempted to regard the pleasures of the one as compensation for the exercise of the other. The human soul has often been compared to an instrument with many strings. Perhaps it may not be amiss to compare it to an orchestra. In this orchestra the violins represent the intellectual faculties. They lead the rest. Then there are the flute-notes of love, the trumpet tones of ambition, the rattling drums and cymbals of the passions and appetites. Each of these instruments is to come in its proper place, while the moral plan of life is the musical composition which they all assist in rendering. What we should try to banish is the vicious idea of extraneous reward, the notion that man is an animal whose object in life is to eat and drink, to possess gold and fine garments, and to gratify every lower desire, and that he can be brought to labor only on condition that he may obtain such pleasures. What we should impress instead is the notion that labor itself is satisfying--manual labor, mental labor, moral labor--and that the more difficult the labor, the higher the compensating satisfactions. II I have thus far endeavored to combat the notion that physical pleasure should be offered as a reward for virtue, and physical pain inflicted as a punishment for moral faults. Now we are in a position to apply this conclusion to some special questions which it is proposed to take up for consideration. The first of these relates to corporal punishment. 1. CORPORAL PUNISHMENT It was in that period of history which is so justly called the Dark Ages that the lurid doctrine of hell as a place for the eternal bodily torture of the wicked haunted men's minds, and the same mediæval period witnessed the most horrible examples of corporal punishment in the schools and in the homes. This was no mere coincidence. As the manners of the people are so will their religion be. Savage parents who treat their children in a cruel, passionate way naturally entertain the idea of a god who treats his human children in the same way. If we wish to purify the religious beliefs of men, we must first ameliorate their daily life. There was once a schoolmaster who boasted that during his long and interesting career he had inflicted corporal punishment more than a million times. In modern days the tide of public opinion has set strongly against corporal punishment. It is being abolished in many of our public institutions, and the majority of cultivated parents have a decided feeling against availing themselves of this method of discipline. But the mere sentiment against it is not sufficient. Is the opposition to it the result possibly of that increased sensitiveness to pain which we observe in the modern man, of the indisposition to inflict or to witness suffering? Then some stern teacher might tell us that to inflict suffering is sometimes necessary, that it is a sign of weakness to shrink from it, that as the surgeon must sometimes apply the knife in order to effect a radical cure, so the conscientious parent should sometimes inflict physical pain in order to eradicate grievous faults. The stern teacher might warn us against "sparing the rod and spoiling the child." We must not, therefore, base our opposition to corporal punishment merely on sentimental grounds. And there is no need for doing so, for there are sound principles on which the argument may be made to rest. Corporal punishment does not merely conflict with our tenderer sympathies, it thwarts and defeats the purpose of moral reformation. In the first place it brutalizes the child; secondly, in many cases it breaks the child's spirit, making it a moral coward; and, thirdly, it tends to weaken the sense of shame, on which the hope of moral improvement depends. _Corporal punishment brutalizes the child._ We may be justified in beating a brute, though, of course, never in a cruel, merciless way. A lazy beast of burden may be stirred up to work; an obstinate mule must feel the touch of the whip. Corporal punishment implies that a rational human being is on the level of an animal.[1] Its underlying thought is: you can be controlled only through your animal instincts; you can be moved only by an appeal to your bodily feelings. It is a practical denial of that higher nature which exists in every human being, and this is a degrading view of human character. A child which is accustomed to be treated like an animal is apt to behave like an animal. Thus corporal punishment instead of moralizing serves to demoralize the character. In the next place _corporal punishment often breaks the spirit of a child_. Have you ever observed how some children that have been often whipped will whine and beg off when the angry parent is about to take out the rattan: "O, I will never do it again; O, let me off this time." What an abject sight it is--a child fawning and entreating and groveling like a dog! And must not the parent too feel humiliated in such a situation! Courage is one of the noblest of the manly virtues. We should train our children to bear unavoidable pain without flinching, but sensitive natures can only be slowly accustomed to endure suffering; and chastisement, when it is frequent and severe, results in making a sensitive child more and more cowardly, more and more afraid of the blows. In such cases it is the parents themselves, by their barbarous discipline, who stamp the ugly vice of cowardice upon their children. Even more disastrous is the third effect of corporal punishment, that of _blunting the sense of shame_. Some children quail before a blow, but others, of a more obstinate disposition, assume an attitude of dogged indifference. They hold out the hand, they take the stinging blows, they utter no cry, they never wince; they will not let the teacher or father triumph over them to that extent; they walk off in stolid indifference. Now, a blow is an invasion of personal liberty. Every one who receives a blow feels a natural impulse to resent it. But boys who are compelled by those in authority over them to submit often to such humiliation are liable to lose the finer feeling for what is humiliating. They become, as the popular phrase puts it, "hardened." Their sense of shame is deadened. But sensitiveness to shame is that quality of our nature on which, above all others, moral progress depends. The stigma of public disgrace is one of the most potent safeguards of virtue. The world cries "Shame" upon the thief, and the dread of the disgrace which is implied in being called a thief acts as one of the strongest preventives upon those whom hunger and poverty might tempt to steal. The world cries "Shame" upon the lawbreaker in general, but those who in their youth are accustomed to be put to shame by corporal punishment are likely to become obtuse to other forms of disgrace as well. The same criticism applies to those means of publicly disgracing children which have been in vogue so long--the fool's cap, the awkward squad, the bad boy's bench, and the like. When a child finds itself frequently exposed to ignominy it becomes indifferent to ignominy, and thus the door is opened for the entrance of the worst vices. There is one excellence, indeed, which I perceive in corporal punishment; it is an excellent means of breeding criminals. Parents who inflict frequent corporal punishment, I make bold to say, are helping to prepare their children for a life of crime; they put them on a level with the brute, break their spirit and weaken their sense of shame. 2. THE EVIL OF THE MARK SYSTEM The second special question which we have to consider relates to the mark system. As this system is applied to hundreds of thousands of school children, the question whether that influence is good or evil concerns us closely. I am of the opinion that it is evil. The true aim of every school should be to lead the pupils to pursue knowledge for the sake of knowledge, and to preserve a correct deportment in order to gain the approbation of conscience and of the teacher whose judgment represents the verdict of conscience. I object to the mark system because it introduces a kind of outward payment for progress in study and good conduct. The marks which the pupil receives stand for the dollars and cents which the man will receive later on for his work. So much school work performed, so many marks in return. But a child should be taught to study for the pleasure which study gives, and for the improvement of the mind which is its happy result. I know of a school where the forfeiture of twelve marks was made the penalty for a certain misdemeanor. One day a pupil, being detected in a forbidden act, turned to the teacher and said, "I agree to the forfeit, you can strike off my twelve marks," and then went on openly transgressing the rule, as if he had paid out so many shillings for an enjoyment which he was determined to have; as if the outward forfeit could atone for the antimoral spirit by which the act was inspired. But how is it possible by any external system of marks to change the antimoral spirit of an offender? I object, furthermore, to the marking system because the discrimination to which it leads can never be really just. One boy receives an average of ninety-seven and one half per cent, and another of ninety-five. The one who receives ninety-seven and one half thinks himself superior to, and is ranked as the superior of the one who has received only ninety-five. But is it possible to rate mental and moral differences between children in this arithmetical fashion? Above all, I object to this system because it appeals to a low spirit of competition among the young in order to incite them to study. "Ambition is avarice on stilts," as Landor puts it. Of course it is better to try to outshine others in what is excellent than in what is vicious; but if the object be that of outshining others at all, of gaining superiority over others, no matter how high the faculties may be which are called into exercise, the motive is impure and ought to be condemned. There is a general impression abroad that men are not yet good enough to make it practicable to appeal to their better nature. But it is forgotten that by constantly appealing to the baser impulses we give these undue prominence, and starve out and weaken the nobler instincts. Whatever the truth may be in regard to later life, it seems to me culpable to foster this sort of competition in young children. Now, the mark spirit does foster such a spirit in our schools. It teaches the pupils to work for distinction rather than for the solid satisfaction of growth in intelligence and mental power. Doubtless, where the method of instruction is mechanical, where the atmosphere of the classroom is dull and lifeless, and the tasks are uninteresting, it is necessary to use artificial means in order to keep the pupils to their work; it is necessary to give them the sweet waters of flattered self-esteem in order to induce them to swallow the dry-as-dust contents of a barren school learning. But is it not possible to have schools in which every subject taught shall be made interesting to the scholars, in which the ways of knowledge shall become the ways of pleasantness, in which there shall be sufficient variety in the program of lessons to keep the minds of the pupils constantly fresh and vigorous, in which the pupils shall not be rewarded by being dismissed at an earlier hour than usual from the school, but in which possibly they shall consider it reward to be allowed to remain longer than usual? And, indeed, requests of this sort are often made in schools of the better kind, and in such schools there is no need of an artificial mark system, no need to stimulate the unwholesome ambition of the pupils, no need to bribe them to perform their tasks. Rather do such pupils look with affection upon their school; and the daily task itself is a delight and a sufficient reward. I do not, of course, oppose the giving of reports to children. Such expressions as "good," "fair" and "poor," which formulate the teacher's opinion of the pupil from time to time, are indispensable, inasmuch as they acquaint the parents and the pupil himself with the instructor's general approval or disapprobation. I only oppose the numerical calculation of merit and demerit, and the vulgar method of determining the pupil's rank in the class according to percentages. Under that method the pupils, having pursued knowledge only as a means to the end of satisfying their pride and vanity, relax their efforts when they have gained this ambitious aim. They cease to take any deeper interest in the pursuit of knowledge the moment they have achieved their purpose. The notorious failure of the system, despite all its artificial stimulants, to create lasting attachment and devotion to intellectual pursuits condemns the whole idea of marks, to my mind, beyond appeal. 3. "NATURAL PENALTIES" We pass next to the method for correcting the faults of children which has been proposed by Herbert Spencer in his collected essays on education. These essays have attracted great attention, as anything would be sure to do which comes from so distinguished a source. I have heard people who are ardent admirers of Spencer say, "We base the education of our children entirely on Mr. Spencer's book." All the more necessary is it to examine whether the recommendations of his book will wholly bear criticism. I cannot help feeling that if Mr. Spencer had been more thoroughly at home in the best educational literature he would not have presented to us an old method as if it were new, and would not have described that which is at best but a second- or third-rate help in moral education as the central principle of it all, the keynote of the whole theory of the moral training of the young. The method which he advises us to adopt is that of _visiting upon the child the natural penalties of its transgression_, of causing it to experience the inevitable consequences of evil acts in order that it may avoid evil, of building up the moral nature of the child, by leading it to observe the outward results of its acts. Mr. Spencer points out that when a child puts its finger into the flame, or when it incautiously touches a hot stove, it is burned; "a burnt child shuns the fire." When a child carelessly handles a sharp knife it is apt to cut its fingers. This is a salutary lesson; it will be more careful thereafter; this is the method of nature, namely, of teaching by experience. And this is a kind of cure-all which he offers for general application. He does, indeed, admit at the close of his essay, that, in certain cases, where the evil consequences are out of all proportion to the fault, some other method than that of experience must be adopted. But, in general, he recommends this method of nature, as he calls it. For instance, a child in the nursery has littered the floor with its toys, and after finishing its play refuses to put them away. When next the child asks for its toy box the reply of its mother should be: "The last time you had your toys you left them lying on the floor and Jane had to pick them up. Jane is too busy to pick up every time the things you leave about, and I cannot do it myself, so that, as you will not put away your toys when you have done with them, I cannot let you have them." This is obviously a natural consequence and must be so recognized by the child. Or a little girl, Constance by name, is scarcely ever ready in time for the daily walk. The governess and the other children are almost invariably compelled to wait. In the world the penalty of being behind time is the loss of some advantage that one would otherwise have gained. The train is gone, or the steamboat is just leaving its moorings, or the good seats in the concert room are filled; and every one may see that it is the prospective deprivation entailed by being late which prevents people from being unpunctual. Should not this prospective deprivation control the child's conduct also? If Constance is not ready at the appointed time the natural result should be that she is left behind and loses her walk. Or, again, a boy is in the habit of recklessly soiling and tearing his clothes. He should be compelled to clean them and to mend the tear as well as he can. And if having no decent clothes to wear, the boy is ever prevented from joining the rest of the family on a holiday excursion and the like, it is manifest that he will keenly feel the punishment and perceive that his own carelessness is the cause of it. But I think it can easily be made clear that this method of moral discipline should be an exceptional and not a general one, and that there are not a few but many occasions when it becomes simply impossible to visit upon children the natural penalties of their transgressions. In these cases the evil consequences are too great or too remote for us to allow the child to learn from experience. A boy is leaning too far out of the window; shall we let him take the natural penalty of his folly? The natural penalty would be to fall and break his neck. Or a child is about to rush from a heated room into the cold street with insufficient covering; shall we let the child take the natural penalty of its heedlessness? The natural penalty might be an attack of pneumonia. Or, again, in certain parts of the country it is imprudent to be out on the water after nightfall owing to the danger of malaria. A boy who is fond of rowing insists upon going out in his boat after dark; shall we allow him to learn by experience the evil consequences of his act and gain wisdom by suffering the natural penalty? The natural penalty might be that he would come home in a violent fever. To show how much mischief the application of the Spencerian method might work, let me mention a case which came under my observation. A certain teacher had been studying Herbert Spencer and was much impressed with his ideas. One wet, rainy day a number of children came to school without overshoes. The teacher had often told them that they must wear their overshoes when it rained; having neglected to do so, their feet were wet. Now came the application of the natural penalty theory. Instead of keeping the children near the fire while their shoes were being dried in the kitchen, they were allowed to run about in their stocking feet in the large school hall in order to fix in their minds the idea that, as they had made their shoes unfit to wear, they must now go without them. This was in truth moral discipline with a vengeance. It is, in many instances, impossible to let the natural penalties of their transgressions fall upon children; it would be dangerous to health, to life and limb, and also to character, to do so. Let me be perfectly understood just here: I do not deny that the method of natural penalties is capable of being applied to advantage in the moral training of children. It is a philosophic conclusion that it can be used as a means of building up the confidence of children in the authority of their parents and educators. The father says to his child: "You must not touch the stove or you will be burned." The child disobeys his command and is burned. "Did I not warn you?" says the father. "Do you not see that I was right? Hereafter believe my words and do not wait to test them in your experience." The comparatively few cases in which the child may without injury be made to experience the consequences of his acts should be utilized to strengthen its belief in the wisdom and goodness of its parents, so that in an infinitely greater number of cases their authority will act upon the mind of the child almost as powerfully as the actual experience of the evil consequences would act. Mr. Spencer himself admits, as I have said, that there are what he calls extreme cases to which the system he recommends does not apply. In these he falls back upon parental displeasure as the proper penalty. But parental displeasure, according to his view, is an indirect and not a direct penalty, and to use his own words, "the error which we have been combating is that of substituting parental displeasure for the penalties which nature has established." Yet he himself in regard to the graver offenses does substitute parental displeasure, and thus abandons his own position. There is, moreover, a second ground on which I would rest my criticism. The art of the educator sometimes consists in _deliberately warding off_ the natural penalties, though the child knows what they are and perhaps expects to pay them. So far is the method of Spencer from bearing the test of application that the very opposite of what he recommends is right in some of the most important instances. Take the case of lying, for instance. The natural penalty for telling a falsehood is not to be believed the next time, but the real secret of moral redemption consists in not inflicting this penalty. We emphasize our belief in the offender despite the fact that he has told a falsehood, we show that we expect him never to tell a falsehood again, we seek to drive the spirit of untruthfulness out of him--by believing in him we strengthen him to overcome temptation. And so in many other instances we rescue, we redeem, by not inflicting the natural penalty. The task of moral education is laid upon us. It is not a task that can be learned by reading a few scattered essays; it is often a heavy burden and involves a constant responsibility. I know it is not right _always_ to make parents responsible for the faults which appear in their children. I am well aware that the worst fruit sometimes comes from the best stock, and that black sheep are sometimes to be found in the best families. But I cannot help thinking that if these black sheep were taken charge of in the right way in early childhood, the results might turn out differently from what they often do. The picture of Jesus on which the early church loved to dwell is the picture of the good shepherd who follows after the lamb that has strayed from the fold, and, carrying it tenderly in his arms, brings it back. I think if parents were more faithful shepherds, and cared for their wayward children with deeper solicitude and tenderness, they might often succeed in winning them back. But even apart from these exceptional cases the task of training children morally is one of immense gravity and difficulty. And how are most parents prepared for the discharge of this task? Why, they are not at all prepared. They rely merely upon impulse, and upon traditions which often are altogether wrong and harmful. They do as they have seen other fathers and mothers do, and thus the same mistakes are perpetuated from generation to generation. Such parents, if they were asked to repair a clock, would say, "No, we must first learn about the mechanism of a clock before we undertake to repair it." But the delicate and complex mechanism of a child's soul they undertake to repair without any adequate knowledge of the springs by which it is moved, or of the system of adjustments by which it is enabled to perform its highest work. They thrust their crude hands into the mechanism and often damage or break it altogether. I do not pretend for a moment that education is as yet a perfect science; I know it is not. I do not pretend that it can give us a great deal of light; but such light as it can give we ought to be all the more anxious to obtain on account of the prevailing darkness. The time will doubtless come when the science of education will be acknowledged to be, in some sense, the greatest of all the sciences; when, among the benefactors of the race, the great statesmen, the great inventors, and even the great reformers will not be ranked as high as the great educators. FOOTNOTE: [1] It is an open question whether light corporal punishment should not occasionally be permitted in the case of very young children who have not yet arrived at the age of reason. In this case, at all events, there is no danger that the permission will be abused. No one would think of seriously hurting a very young child. III In order that a parent shall properly influence a child's character, it is necessary for him to know what that character is, and what the nature is of each fault with which he is dealing. I feel almost like asking pardon for saying anything so self-evident. It seems like saying that a physician who is called to a sick-bed, before beginning to prescribe, should know the nature of the disease for which he is prescribing, should not prescribe for one disease when he is dealing with another. I do not know enough about physicians to say whether such mistakes ever happen among them; but that such egregious mistakes do occur among parents all the time, I am sure. There are many parents who never stop to ask before they punish--that is, before they prescribe their moral remedies--what the nature of the disease is with which their child is afflicted. They never take the trouble to make a diagnosis of the case in order to treat it correctly. There is perhaps not one parent in a thousand who has a clear idea of the character of his child, or to whom it even so much as occurs that he ought to have a clear conception of that character, a map of it, a chart of it, laid out, as it were, in his mind. The trouble is that attention is not usually called to this important matter, and I purpose to make it the special subject of this address. 1. OBSTINACY I am prepared at the outset for the objection that the case against parents has been overstated. There are parents who freely acknowledge, "My child is obstinate; I know it has an obstinate character." Others say, "My child, alas! is untruthful." Others again declare, "My child is indolent." But these symptoms are far too indeterminate to base upon them a correct reformatory treatment. Such symptoms may be due to a variety of causes, and not until we have discovered the underlying cause in any given case can we be sure that we are following the right method. Take the case, for instance, of obstinacy; a child is told to do a certain thing and it refuses. Now, here is a dilemma. How shall we act? There are those who say: In such cases a child must be chastised until it does what it is told. A gentleman who was present here last Sunday had the kindness to send me during the week an edition of John Wesley's sermons, and in this volume, in the sermon on "Obedience to Parents," I read the following words: "Break the will if you would not damn the child. I conjure you not to neglect, not to delay this! Therefore (1) Let a child from a year old be taught to fear the rod and to cry softly. In order to do this (2) Let him have nothing he cries for, absolutely nothing, great or small, else you undo your own work. At all events, from that age make him do as he is bid, if you whip him ten times running to effect it. Let none persuade you it is cruelty to do this: it is cruelty not to do it. Break his will now, and his soul will live, and he will probably bless you to all eternity." But by following this line of treatment we may obtain a result the very opposite of that which we intended. Obstinacy in many cases is due to sensitiveness. There are some children as sensitive to impressions as is that well-known flower which closes its quivering leaves at the slightest touch. These sensitive children retreat into themselves at the first sign of unfriendliness or aggression from without. The reason why such a child does not obey its father's command is not, perhaps, because it is unwilling to do as it is told, but because of the stern face, the impatient gesture, the raised voice with which the parent accompanies the command, and which jars upon the child's feelings. If such a parent, incensed at the child's disobedience, becomes still more severe, raises his voice still more, he will only make matters worse. The child will shrink from him still more and continue its passive resistance. In this manner obstinacy, which was at first only a passing spell, may become a fixed trait in the child's character. To be sure, we should not, on the other hand, treat these sensitive children only with caresses. In this way we encourage their sensitiveness, whereas we should regard it as a weakness that requires to be gradually but steadily overcome. The middle way seems the best. Let the parent exact obedience from the child by gentle firmness, by a firmness in which there shall be no trace of passion, no heightened feeling, and with a gentleness which, gentle as it may be, shall be at the same time unyielding. But while obstinacy is sometimes due to softness of nature, it is at other times due to the opposite--to hardness of nature, and according to the case we should vary our treatment. There are persons who, having once made up their minds to do a thing, cannot be moved from their resolution by any amount of persuasion. These hard natures, these concentrated wills, are bound to have their way, no matter whom they injure, no matter what stands in the way. Such persons--and we notice the beginnings of this trait in children--need to be taught to respect the rights of others. Their wills should occasionally be allowed to collide with the wills of others, in order that they may discover that there are other wills limiting theirs, and may learn the necessary lesson of submission. In yet other cases obstinacy is due to stupidity. Persons of weak intelligence are apt to be suspicious. Not understanding the motives of others, they distrust them; unwilling to follow the guidance of others, they cling with a sort of desperation to their own purpose. These cases may be treated by removing the cause of suspicion, by patiently explaining one's motives where it is possible to do so, by awakening confidence. 2. UNTRUTHFULNESS Again, let us take the fault of untruthfulness. One cannot sufficiently commend the watchfulness of those parents who take alarm at the slightest sign of falsehood in a child. A lie should always put us on our guard. The arch fiend is justly called "the father of lies." The habit of falsehood, when it has become settled, is the sure inlet to worse vices. At the same time not all falsehoods are equally culpable or equally indicative of evil tendency, and we should have a care to discriminate between the different causes of falsehood in the young child, in order that we may pursue the proper treatment. Sometimes falsehood is due to redundant imagination, especially in young children who have not yet learned to distinguish between fact and fancy. In such cases we may restrain the child's imagination by directing its attention to the world of fact, by trying to interest it in natural history and the like. We should especially set the example of strict accuracy ourselves in all our statements, no matter how unimportant they may be. For instance, if we narrate certain occurrences in the presence of the child, we should be careful to observe the exact order in which the events occurred, and if we have made a mistake we should take pains to correct ourselves, though the order of occurrence is really immaterial. Precisely because it is immaterial we show by this means how much we value accuracy even in little things. Then, again, falsehood is often due to the desire for gain. Or it may be due to fear. The child is afraid of the severity of the parent's discipline. In that case we are to blame; we must relax our discipline. We have no business to tempt the child into falsehood. Again, untruthfulness is often due to mistaken sympathy, as we see in the case of pupils in school, who will tell a falsehood to shield a fellow pupil. In the worst cases falsehood is inspired by malice. It may be said that the proper positive treatment for this fault is to set the example of the strictest truthfulness ourselves, to avoid the little falsehoods which we sometimes allow ourselves without compunction, to show our disgust at a lie, to fill the child with a sense of the baseness of lying, and above all to find out the direct cause which has tempted the child in any given case. As a rule, falsehood is only a means to an end; children do not tell untruths because they like to tell them, but because they have some ulterior end in view. Find out what that ulterior end is, and instead of directing your attention only to the lie, penetrate to the motive that has led the child into falsehood, and try to divert it from the bad end. Thus you may extract the cause of its wrongdoing. 3. LAZINESS Thirdly, let us consider the fault of laziness. Laziness is sometimes due to physical causes. Nothing may be necessary but a change of diet, exercise in the fresh air, etc., to cure the evil. Sometimes it is the sign of a certain slow growth of the mind. There are fruits in the garden of the gods that ripen slowly, and these fruits are often not the least precious or the least beautiful when they finally have matured. Sir Isaac Newton's mind was one of these slowly ripening fruits. In school he was regarded as a dullard and his teachers had small hopes of him. Laziness, like other faults of character, sometimes disappears in the process of growth. Just as at a certain period in the life of a youth or maiden new faculties seem to develop, new passions arise, a new life begins to stir in the heart, so at a certain period qualities with which we had long been familiar, disappear of themselves. We have very little light upon this subject, but the fact that a great transformation of character sometimes does take place in children without any perceptible cause is quite certain, and it may be offered as a comforting reflection to those parents who are over-anxious on account of the faults they detect in their children. But again, on the other hand, laziness or untruthfulness or obstinacy may be a black streak, coming to the surface out of the nethermost strata of moral depravity, and, taken in connection with other traits, may justify the most serious apprehension, and should then be a signal for immediate measures of the most stringent sort. 4. DISCOVERING CAUSES I am thus led to the second branch of my subject. I have tried to meet the objection of the parent who says, "I know the character of my child; I know my child is obstinate," by replying, "If you only know that your child is obstinate you know very little; you need to know what are the causes of his obstinacy, and vary your treatment accordingly." Or if any one says, "My child is untruthful," I reply, "You need to find out what the cause is of this untruthfulness and vary your treatment accordingly." Or again, in the case which we have just considered, I have pointed out that laziness in a child may have no serious meaning whatever or may give just cause for the most serious alarm, according to the group of characteristic traits of which it is one. On this point I wish to lay stress. If you desire to obtain a correct impression of a human face, you do not look at the eye by itself, then at the nose, then fix your attention on the cheeks and the chin and the brow, but you regard all these features together and view them in their relations to one another. Or let us recur to the simile of the physician. What would you think of the doctor who should judge the nature of a disease by some one symptom which happened to obtrude itself, or should treat each symptom as it appears separately, without endeavoring to reach the occult cause which has given rise to the symptoms, of which they are all but the outward manifestation? And yet that is precisely the incredible mistake which every one of us, I venture to say, is apt to make in the treatment of children's characters. We judge of them by some one trait, as obstinacy, which happens to obtrude itself on our attention, and we prescribe for each symptom as it arises; we treat obstinacy by itself, and untruthfulness and indolence separately, without endeavoring to get at the underlying cause of all these symptoms. The point I desire to make is that in the education of our children it is necessary not only to study individual traits, but _each trait in connection with the group to which it belongs_. Take for an illustration the case last mentioned--that of laziness. There is a well-known type group or group of characteristic traits, of which laziness is one. The chief components of this group are the following: The sense of shame is wanting, that is one trait. The will is under the control of random impulses, good impulses mingle helter-skelter with bad. There is an indisposition on the part of such a child to prolonged exertion in any direction, even in the direction of pleasure. That is perhaps the most dangerous trait of all. If you try to deal, as people actually do, with each of these traits separately, you will fail. If you try to influence the sense of shame, you will meet with no response; if you disgrace such a child, you will make it worse; if you whip it, you will harden it. If you attempt to overcome indolence by the promise of rewards, that will be useless. The child forgets promised rewards just as quickly as it forgets threatened punishment. This forgetfulness, this lack of coherency in its ideas, is particularly characteristic. The ideas of such a child are imperfectly connected. The ties between causes and their effects are feeble. The contents of the child's mind are in a state of unstable equilibrium. There is no point of fixity in its mental realm. And the cure for such a condition is to establish fixity in the thoughts, to induce habits of industry and application by steady, unrelaxing discipline, and especially by means of manual training. The immense value of mechanical labor as a means of moral improvement has been appreciated until now only to a very imperfect extent. Mechanical labor wisely directed secures mental fixity because it concentrates the child's attention for days and often for weeks upon a single task. Mechanical labor stimulates moral pride by enabling the pupil to produce articles of value and giving him in this way the sense of achievement. Mechanical labor also overcomes indolence by compelling settled habits of industry, whereby the random impulses of the will are brought under control. The type group which we have just considered is one of the most clearly marked and easily recognized. It is a type which we often meet with among the so-called criminal classes, where its characteristic features can be seen in exaggerated proportions. Without attempting to analyze any additional types (a task of great delicacy and difficulty), the truth that the underlying fault of character is often unlike the symptoms which appear most conspicuously on the surface may be further illustrated by the following example. I have known of a person who made himself obnoxious to his friends by his overbearing manners and apparent arrogance. Casual observers condemned him on account of what they believed to be his overweening self-confidence, and expressed the opinion that his self-conceit ought to be broken down. But the real trouble with him was not that he was too self-confident, but that he had not self-confidence enough. His self-confidence needed to be built up. He was overbearing in society because he did not trust himself, because he was always afraid of not being able to hold his own, and hence he exaggerated on the other side. Those who take such a person to be in reality what he seems to be will never be able to influence him. If we find such a trait in a child, and simply treat it as if it were arrogant, we shall miss the mark entirely. We must find the underlying principle of the character the occult cause of which the surface symptoms are the effects. Our knowledge of the great type groups is as yet extremely meager. Psychology has yet to do its work in this direction, and books on education give us but little help. But there are certain means by which the task of investigation may possibly be assisted. One means is the study of the plays of Shakespeare. That master mind has created certain types of character which repay the closest analysis. The study of the best biographies is a second means. The study of the moral characteristics of the primitive races--a study which has been begun by Herbert Spencer in his work on Descriptive Sociology, and by Waitz in his Anthropologie der Naturvölker--is perhaps another means; and honest introspection, when it shall have become the rule among intelligent persons, instead of being the exception, will probably be the best means. I am afraid that some of my hearers, from having been over-confident as educators in the beginning, may now have become over-timid; from having said to themselves, "Why, of course we know the characteristics of our children," may now, since the difficulties of studying character have been explained, be disposed to exclaim in a kind of despair, "Who can ever understand the character of a single human being?" A perfect understanding of any human being is indeed impossible. We do not perfectly know even those who are nearest and dearest to us. But there are means of reaching at least approximate results, so far as children are concerned, and a few of these permit me to briefly summarize. Try to win the confidence of the child so that it may disclose its inner life to you. Children accept the benefactions of their parents as unthinkingly as they breathe the air around them. Show them that your care and untiring devotion must be deserved, not taken as a matter of course. In this way you will deepen their attachment and lead them to willingly open their hearts to you. At the same time enter into the lesser concerns of their life. Be their comrades, their counselors; stoop to them, let them cling to you. Observe your children when they are at play, for it is then that they throw off their reserve and show themselves as they are. Some children, for instance, will not join a game unless they can be leaders; is not that a sign of character? Some children will take an unfair advantage at play, and justify themselves by saying, "It is only in play." Some are persistent in a game while others tire of any game after a little while. Others are sticklers for a strict observance of the rules. Observe how your sons or daughters are regarded by their companions; children are often wonderfully quick to detect one another's faults. Try to find out what the favorite pursuits and studies of your child are, by what it is repelled, by what attracted, and to what it is indifferent. Above all, keep a record of your child's development. Do not shun the labor involved in this. You know very well that nothing worth having can be obtained without labor, yet most parents are unwilling to give sufficient time and attention to the education of their children. Keep a record of the most significant words and acts of the child. Thus after a while you may have a picture of the child's inward condition before you, an assemblage of characteristic traits, and by comparing one trait with another, you may find the clue to a deeper understanding of its nature. What I have said about children applies equally to ourselves. I started out by saying that not one parent in a thousand knows his child's character. I conclude by saying that not one man or woman in a thousand knows his or her own character. We go through life cherishing an unreal conception of ourselves which is often inspired by vanity. I am well aware that it is difficult to know oneself, but there are helps in this direction also. We can look over our own past record, we can honestly examine how we have acted in the leading crises of our lives, we can summon our own characteristic traits before our minds--the things that we like to dwell upon, and the things which we would gladly blot out of our memories if we could--and by comparing this trait with that, we may discover the springs by which we have been moved. It is difficult to attain self-knowledge, but it is imperative that we should try to attain it. The aim of our existence is to improve our characters, and clearly we cannot improve them unless we know them. I have undertaken to grapple with a most difficult subject, but I shall have accomplished the purpose which I had in mind if I have awakened in you a deeper desire to ask yourselves, first, "What is the character of my child?" and, second, "What is my own character?" The most serious business of our lives is to try to find the answers to these two questions. THE AMERICAN HOME SERIES NORMAN B. RICHARDSON, Editor 1. THE NATION'S CHALLENGE TO THE HOME 2. HOW ONE REAL MOTHER LIVES WITH HER CHILDREN 3. PARENTHOOD AND HEREDITY 4. THE ROOTS OF DISPOSITION AND CHARACTER 5. THE FIRST YEAR IN A BABY'S LIFE 6. THUMB-SUCKING 7. THE EDUCATION OF THE BABY UNTIL IT IS ONE YEAR OLD 8. FIRST STEPS TOWARDS CHARACTER 9. THE SECOND AND THIRD YEARS 10. THE EDUCATION OF THE CHILD DURING THE SECOND AND THIRD YEARS 11. THE MOTHER AS PLAYFELLOW (YEARS ONE, TWO, AND THREE) 12. THE PROBLEMS OF TEMPER 13. THE PROBLEMS OF FIGHTING 14. THE GOVERNMENT OF YOUNG CHILDREN 15. THE PUNISHMENT OF CHILDREN 16. THE HOME KINDERGARTEN 17. THE RELIGIOUS NURTURE OF A LITTLE CHILD (YEARS FOUR AND FIVE) 18. THE NERVOUS CHILD 19. ON TRUTH TELLING AND THE PROBLEM OF CHILDREN'S LIES 20. THE GOVERNMENT OF CHILDREN BETWEEN SIX AND TWELVE 21. THE DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN CHILDREN 22. DRAMATICS IN THE HOME 23. TABLE TALK IN THE HOME 24. SUNDAY IN THE HOME 25. A YEAR OF GOOD SUNDAYS 26. THE PICTURE-HOUR IN THE HOME 27. STORY-TELLING IN THE HOME 28. MUSIC IN THE HOME 29. TRAINING IN THRIFT 30. "WHAT TO SAY" IN TELLING THE STORY OF LIFE'S RENEWAL 31. SEX DISCIPLINE FOR BOYS IN THE HOME 32. YOUTH'S OUTLOOK UPON LIFE 33. BUILDING FOR WOMANHOOD 34. RHYTHM AND RECREATION 35. THE HOME AND MOVING PICTURES. 36. WORSHIP IN THE HOME. 37. THE USE OF DOLLS IN CHILD-TRAINING. PRICES WILL BE FURNISHED ON APPLICATION 
60912	----	available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) Note: Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/ontrainingofpare00abborich ON THE TRAINING OF PARENTS by ERNEST HAMLIN ABBOTT "And they shall live with their children." [Illustration: Logo] Boston and New York Houghton Mifflin Company The Riverside Press Cambridge Copyright 1908 by Ernest Hamlin Abbott All Rights Reserved Published April 1908 Tenth Impression _No man has the right to dedicate to another what is not his own. All that is mine in this little book is its infelicities. These I dedicate to oblivion. The rest belongs to those two women from whom I, as son and as husband, have learned all that I know of the training of parents._ CONTENTS I. SPASM AND HABIT 1 II. THE WILL AND THE WAY 19 III. BY RULE OF WIT 40 IV. PEACE AT A PRICE 72 V. FOR 'TIS THEIR NATURE TO 93 VI. THE BEGINNING OF WISDOM 114 ON THE TRAINING OF PARENTS I SPASM AND HABIT A voice like a knife cut the still, warm air. "Now you just go right down and get that canned salmon." I turned my head and saw a little girl, in a fluffy dress with a skirt like a parachute, standing in the midst of the long grass. She was evidently frightened and hesitating. There was a whimper and a whining protest. A young woman in a wrapper, with a menacing switch in her hand, was advancing. Her voice grew sharper: "You do what I say, quick, or I'll whip you good!" The child beat a retreat toward me; then timidly stood her ground. "It's so far!" she wailed. The enemy again approached; but the little feet of the child were nimble enough to keep her at a safe distance. "If you don't hurry, I'll whip you anyway." Fear of the switch was evidently mastering the dislike of the task. The little girl burst out crying, turned down the dusty road, and disappeared in the direction of the village. That incident was the result of government by collision. If that mother had any principle at all, it might be expressed thus: Wait till the child does wrong, then collide with her. Of course none of us would deliberately collide in just this fashion. We should not be so vulgar. When we have an altercation with a child, we choose less publicity and have some regard for refinement of phrase. Perhaps, too, we ordinarily avoid altercation entirely except concerning some grave matter. We should prefer to do without canned salmon rather than exhibit our impotence and our temper before the neighbors. When, however, we have the child in seclusion at our mercy, are we deterred from trying the collision method by any considerations of principle? If not, we belong to the same school of parents as the young woman in a wrapper. The only difference is that we have not her courage of conviction--or of indolence. Now, those who believe in government by collision need read no further; for I shall assume that such government is only just better than no government at all, and that, if we fall into its methods, we do so by accident or because of the frailty of our temper; that every altercation with a child is a confession of weakness; and that our principal task is to train ourselves so that we may be able to govern a child without colliding with him. Of course, in the training of children, as in managing a railway, it may sometimes be necessary to occasion a disaster in order to avoid a great catastrophe. If a freight car is running wild down a grade, it is better to throw it off the track than to allow it to smash a loaded passenger train. So it may sometimes be better to let a child collide with you, rather than have him collide with the community. But in both cases it is better to have the collision well planned, to recognize it as a disaster, though the lesser of two possible ones, and, best of all, to prevent any occasion of resorting to destructive measures. The only alternative I know to government by collision is government by habit. To show what I mean, may I cite an instance in contrast to the episode of the switch and the canned salmon? That same summer a small boy, six years old, was playing with his blocks. His mother in the next room suddenly realized that she had not ordered the fruit that was needed for the household. "Max!" she called. Now Max is no prig, but he had learned that he was expected to come when called; so, with an injunction to his playmates not to disturb the bridge he was building, he appeared at the doorway. "What is it?" (He ought to have said, "Yes, mamma;" but, as I have remarked, Max is thoroughly human.) "I want you to do an errand for me--something you've never done before. I want you to go to the grocery and get six oranges." Max started off. "Wait a moment. You've never gone alone on such a long errand before. Do you believe you can do it quickly, and not dawdle?" Max thought he could, and in fact did the errand as promptly as could be expected. He had been accustomed to obedience; in addition, he had become accustomed to accepting some measure of responsibility. The mother controlled him, not by violence, but by habit. The occurrence was the result of a long process, and became in turn a cause of future occurrences of similar character. Reduced to its simplest terms, then, the process of training children is the process of forming habits. The earliest habits are physical. The whole duty of man during the first few weeks of his existence consists in feeding and sleeping regularly; and most of the rights of man during that period consist in being let alone. Listen to the eminent French psychologist, Th. Ribot: "The new-born infant is a spinal being, with an unformed, diffluent brain, composed largely of water. Reflex life itself is not complete in him, and the cortico-motor system only hinted at; the sensory centres are undifferentiated, the associational systems remain isolated, for a long time after birth." Doesn't it make you shudder to think of dandling such a creature as that on a hard-gaited knee? Does not that "unformed, diffluent brain, composed largely of water," plead to be let alone? Yet the impulse of most parents when they encounter their new possession is to do something to it,--to take it up, to carry it about, and, as soon as its eyes are really open, to try and show it things, to evoke from it some kind of human expression. It seems as if we were all beset by a doubt that our offspring is really a creature of our own kind, and that we were bound to make it establish, by some proof, its right to a place at the top of creation. Now, the instincts of the infant are all in other directions. Yielding to these, the mite seems to be utterly indifferent to the honors of its station in animal life, and even to the attention it receives. It wants to cry occasionally, to feed periodically, and to sleep a great deal. And, in spite of our experience, we are wrong, and the diminutive thing, with a cortico-motor system only hinted at, with sensory centres undifferentiated, and with the extraordinary disadvantage of having completely isolated associational centres, is right. The first habits, therefore, which the parents have to form in the training of their child are their own; and the most important of these is the habit of non-interference, which is another name for the habit of self-restraint. Fortunately, we parents can at the outset devote our attention chiefly to this for several months. If we wish to avoid, in later years, the necessity for resorting to government by spasm, and to establish instead government by habit, we do not have to begin by experimenting on a helpless child; we can begin, fortunately, by experimenting on ourselves. It is during this period that we have the best chance of learning the difference between governing children and interfering with them; for though that midget will not thrive under interference, he will thrive under government. He does not need to be told what to do, but he does depend on us to teach him when to do it. While, therefore, we are forming in ourselves the habit of non-interference, we are also forming in him the habit of regularity. If we begin that way, we save both him and ourselves a great deal of trouble. One mother, for instance, when she hears her baby cry, runs to him, picks him up, dances him up and down, offers him food, dangles a bell in front of him, talks to him, takes him to the window, tries every imaginable device to quiet him. "It's wicked, I think," says she, "to try to stifle my maternal instincts. The poor little dear! how could I be so cruel as not to respond to his cry for me?" She is assuming several things. She assumes, first, that the baby is crying for her, whereas he is probably crying because he needs the exercise. That is the only way he can expand his lungs. When he cries because of pain, or anger, or nervous irritability, the cry will be unmistakable; and the response ought to be, not a wild series of spasms, but an intelligent treatment of the cause. She assumes, in the second place, that the impulse to rid herself of the annoyance of hearing the cry is a maternal instinct. If that were so, a lot of gruff old bachelors on railway trains are frequently moved by maternal instinct. The maternal instinct, in fact, is something quite different--it is the instinct of care, watchfulness, nurture, and it does not call for spasms. In the third place, she assumes that it would be cruel not to experiment with her child--at least so it appears; for what she does is to try in quick succession a series of experiments, no one of which is continued long enough to be of any value, and all of which, as she might easily learn, have been proved to be of no permanent value in producing placid, contented babies. The other mother, when she hears the cry, listens. If it is a cry of pain, she knows it in an instant. It is amazing how quickly a mother learns that language. It is a mystery to most men, though even to them not unsearchable. Physicians, after experience in children's wards, understand it; and even a father, if he is patient, can acquire a moderate knowledge of it. But a mother, or even a nurse, if she is moved by a genuine maternal instinct and not by a selfish desire for her own comfort, is almost an adept at the start. At the cry of pain, that mother in a moment is looking for the misplaced pin, or rearranging the irritating bit of clothing, or remedying the uncomfortable position, or searching for a more hidden cause. If it is a cry of irritability, she blames herself for having rocked the child a few moments before, and steels herself against repeating the indulgence. If it is a cry of hunger, she looks at the clock to see if it is the hour for another feeding. If it is just "plain cry," she smiles, for she knows that he is doing that in lieu of playing baseball or riding horseback. When it is meal-time, she, exercising the discretion which he is not always able to exercise for himself, gently withdraws the food supply when he has had all that is good for him. And when it is time for him to go to sleep, she arranges him comfortably in his crib, darkens the room, and leaves him. If then he emits another "plain cry," she is not disturbed. He has as much a right to cry as he has to sleep. If she lets him go to sleep in her arms, for the love of feeling him there, she will not complain later, when it is more inconvenient, if he remonstrates against going to sleep in any other way. She will know that in that respect, as in respect to his regular feeding, she has governed him by habit. Either she will have to pay the penalty of having established in her kingdom an inconvenient law, or else she will have to inflict upon him, as well as herself, the penalty of establishing later, and at greater cost, another and more convenient custom which might just as well have been established in the first place. This penalty may involve a collision--though possibly a mild one. Even in that case, however, in the very difficulty of supplanting an old custom by a new one, she will have evidence of the strength of her government by habit. There is no reason why regularity once established should not become for all future years a routine. We all know how hard it is to break up a bad habit. Happily, it is just as hard to break up a good one. The difference between the child who teases for every new variety of food on the table, pushes away the dishes that are set before him, whines when he is told it is bedtime, eats and goes to sleep only after much coaxing, and the child who accepts his food and his hours for sleep as a matter of course, as he accepts the house he lives in, is simply the difference between a bad habit and a good one. It is no easier to change the one habit than it is the other. After a child has learned to get his food and go to bed with whining and teasing, it is very difficult for him to learn to eat and sleep in any other fashion; it is equally difficult for a child who has learned to eat and enjoy food adapted to him, and to go to bed at a suitable hour, to understand why all sorts of strange decoctions should be offered to him, and why he should not get undressed when his bedtime comes. Of course the spirit of adventure, which is strong in most normal children, will lead them sometimes to sample some things that they see their elders--or, for that matter, the animals--eating; and to race about the halls, exploring the domain of the dark, after they are supposed to be asleep; but even this spirit of adventure, which sometimes brings discouragement to the mother, is a tribute to regular life; and it is denied to those children whose whole life consists in a series of parental experiments. The little lad who at a children's party declines the sweetmeats is no angel. Nor is his companion, who grabs the dainties an imp. They are both, like the rest of us, creatures of habit. The theory of total depravity, by which our forefathers explained the unpleasant doings of youngsters, is, I have concluded, a doctrine which parents devised in order to shift the burden of their own failures to the shoulders of their offspring. This practice of regularity in the physical care of children[1] will lay the foundation, not only of health and contentment, but also of moral discipline. When we have eliminated the opportunities for collision with our children at meal-times and bedtime, we are well on our way toward eliminating government by collision altogether. The quiet exercise of authority involved in carrying out a simple regimen of diet and of rest will almost automatically extend to other matters. The most difficult part of this exercise of authority will be overcome when the parent learns self-restraint. Not to run to a child every time he cries is the beginning of learning not to yield to a child every time he wants something. In many cases authority is thus exercised by doing nothing. The mother, for example, has left the baby creeping about alone in his nursery. She has left him a ball and two or three blocks with which he can experiment, and another ball hanging from a cord within his reach which he can swing to and fro. He is learning that the ball is soft and can roll, that the blocks are hard and cannot roll, and that the pendulum swings regularly. He is as well occupied in his work as the mother is in hers. Suddenly she hears a cry of vexation. If it continues, she steps to the door to see what has happened. He has raised himself up by the window and is trying to reach the tassel at the end of the cord on the window-shade, and finds it above his outstretched hands. She might go to the window, draw down the shade, and, holding it firm, let him play with the cord till he tires; but she knows that it would be inconvenient to have him continually playing with the window-shade in the house, and she does not want him to begin. She might then take him up and distract his attention till he forgets. But she knows that if she does this once, she will be called upon to do it again. So she shakes her head and says "No," which she has taught him to understand, and, after making sure that he is in no danger of a fall, leaves him and returns to her work. By doing nothing she has done what for the time being is the hardest thing. As she closes the door she hears another wail of vexation, but she does not interfere. She has exercised her authority simply by exercising self-restraint. It all depends on what we want our children to be whether we employ the method of spasm or the method of self-restraint. Of course those of us who think pertness in a child is a virtue, who regard a fit of teasing as "smart" or "cunning," who enjoy the exhilaration of encountering a child as an adversary and breaking down his opposition, can develop in children habitual pertness, teasing, and disobedience with the utmost ease. It requires, however, no especial genius to avoid these qualities. Other traits, it may be, require something like genius--something at least beyond persistence and self-restraint--to create; but to provide children with a contented acquiescence in a regular life and an habitual disposition to obedience requires of the parents no qualities of mind which are not common to all of us mortals. FOOTNOTE: [1] For directions in this matter I know of no book to compare with Dr. L. Emmett Holt's _The Care and Feeding of Children_, published by D. Appleton & Co. Intelligently followed by a mother, with due regard to the individual peculiarities of the children under her care, the system outlined in that volume will save the mother an enormous amount of energy and worry and the child a great deal of injustice. It ought to arrive in every household with the first-born baby, or, better, a few weeks in advance. The physician who sees that it does, in every family he attends, will win a wealth of gratitude and confidence. In my own household it came that way. As a supplement, not a substitute, I also recommend Dr. Emelyn L. Coolidge's _The Mother's Manual_ (A. S. Barnes & Co.) II THE WILL AND THE WAY Parents regard their children with all sorts of feelings, with love of course, with indulgence, with amusement, and even, so it is said, with self-complacency and admiration; but it sometimes seems as if very few regard them with respect. No one who respects another will lie to him, or visit him with empty threats, or make to him vain promises; yet fathers and mothers in all parts of the country are at this moment lying to their children, threatening them with punishments they do not mean to inflict, and making promises they do not intend to fulfill. The faith of a child ought to be proverbial. It is the only substance of things hoped for which many children ever get. I sometimes wonder if it is really just to lay the Fifth Commandment upon all American children. Somehow, there seems to be something reciprocal implied in it. If that commandment is of universal application, it can be considered so, I imagine, only on the ground that it states a duty owed ultimately not to the parents but to the Almighty. Certainly that parent who does not respect his children has no personal claim upon their honor. What I mean by respect for a child I can perhaps explain best by an instance. Marshall, aged seven, had yielded to temptation in the form of a preserved pear. Instead of putting the temptation behind him, he had put it within him; and he had been caught. The maternal court decided that a fair equivalent for this pear was a week of desserts. For two days the culprit sat inactive at the close of dinner while his comrades ate with relish their portions of pudding. Then unexpectedly came an invitation to dinner from a friend. On the return homeward an aunt remarked, "I noticed that Marshall ate dessert with the others." "Yes," replied his mother, "I think he must have forgotten. I noticed it too, but I did not speak to him because there was no expectation of this treat when the punishment was determined upon. Besides, I do not think it would have been just to add to his punishment by humiliating him before the others." In this case respect for the youthful Marshall meant, first, attributing the failure to observe the rule to something besides deliberate intent; second, recognizing that he was to be treated not merely with severity, but also with justice; and, third, appreciating the individuality of the child, which included special sensitiveness to the attention and opinion of others. The very fact that Marshall was accustomed to regularity of discipline, to invariableness in punishment, and even to ridicule of vanity or silliness, made it possible for his mother to do something that smacked of irregularity and of variableness, and to save him from unnecessary abasement. Just because she had a rule which she habitually followed, she could break it. She could not have broken it if she had not had it. The effectiveness of this act of omission lay in the very fact that it was an exception. It was a case in which fairness to the boy depended upon inconsistency. This only illustrates the truth that in dealing with a child you may violate any principle so long as you keep your respect for the child inviolate. And the secret of respect for a child lies in regarding him as a human being. The limitation of the devotee of "child study," the scientific investigator of "child nature," the observer of "the child mind," is that he cannot regard a child as a human being. In other words, his limitation consists in being too broad. He observes individuals only for the sake of disregarding their individuality. He is busy establishing some general laws of childhood. He must choose to know nothing of children that he may know the Child. As soon as he begins to respect an individual child he becomes personal and biased; and as soon as he becomes personal and biased he ceases to be scientific. A good mother, on the other hand, is good just because of her prejudices. She knows so much about her child that her testimony is scientifically worthless. In everything the child does she sees something he, and not another child has done before; and she makes her judgments accordingly. And it is just because her observations would be vicious in a table of statistics that they are the best possible basis for conduct. In other words, she is dealing, not with a subject, a cadaver, so to speak, that can be classified, but with a live being that for her purposes belongs in a class by himself. That is what I mean by respecting a child. It is here that the teacher and the parent are at odds. The teacher is dealing with childhood, the parent is dealing with Dick-hood or Mary-hood. The teacher is engaged chiefly in providing each child with the equipment that belongs by right to all civilized children; the parent, on the other hand, is bound to bring each child to his, and not another's, highest development. The teacher is responsible for the school or the class; the parent, for the boy or girl. The difference in point of view makes the difference in duty. It was from the parental point of view that the ancient sage wrote his proverb--"Train up a child in the way he should go." He was not thinking of the way of universal obligation, for what he really said was, "Train up a child in the way he [that particular individual] is to go;" in other words, prepare him for the kind of life for which he is fitted. In order to do this, one must have regard for that child's temperament, his distinctive traits. The severest test of our respect for a child comes when we find his will conflicting with ours. It is easy enough to overbear a child's will; it is difficult to educate it. The hardest task of a parent is to retain respect for a child while administering a spanking. It is easy to roll out the cant saying, "I spank you because I love you," but it is very difficult to bring one's self into that frame of mind in which it would be the mere truth to say, "I spank you because I respect you." Anybody, by simply being persistent, can thwart a child; and any one with the ordinary strength of an adult can beat him; but no one who is unwilling to do him the courtesy of regarding him as an individual can master and direct a child, or really punish him. Not long ago I was traveling in a day coach. In front of me were a man, a woman, and a small boy of about five years. The woman was the dominant member of the group. Her face, with its thin, compressed lips and its hard gray eyes, had a look of indolent selfishness with a suggestion of latent high temper. The man seemed rather dull, weak, and unhappy. The boy had the rotund, insensitive countenance of his father; but he had not yet lost interest in life. He was no more restless than a boy of his age ought to be. When his mother found his movements disturbing, she darted a rebuke at him. For the moment he sat still or moved out of the way. Finally he edged out into the aisle. The woman made a pretense of ordering him back into the seat. The boy, evidently realizing that his mother, since she was now put to no inconvenience by him, had no intention of enforcing her command, remained passively where he was. When his mother's attention was distracted, he made use of his freedom to get a little mild gymnastic exercise. The train as it drew up to a station jerkily stopped. The lurch of the car threw the boy backward on the floor. Stunned for but an instant, the little lad sent forth a wail. Some of the passengers turned around; others started forward to the child. The woman was obviously annoyed by the disturbance. Before the father had fairly picked him up, she seized the child, roughly brushed off his clothes, and set him violently down on the seat. "You're a bad boy." She spat the words out at him and shook him. She turned to her husband: "I told him not to stand there." The man was silenced before his dull wits allowed him the chance to speak. "Now," to the boy, "stop your crying." The youngster could not repress his sobs; he was still somewhat dazed. The man gently rubbed the back of the lad's head. The woman glanced at the spectators. She must have noticed that her method of avoiding a scene was not altogether successful. She leaned toward the boy. "Did you hurt yourself?" she asked, and took him into her lap. He let his head fall indifferently on the woman's shoulder. Her tardy and rather formal caresses aroused no response. She put him back on the seat, less ungently than before. "Now will you be good?" If any but the fool is ever tempted to doubt the existence of God, it is when he reflects that children are intrusted to the mercy of such women as this. None of us is of her breed. We do not like her coarseness. We should never allow ourselves to make the mistake she made--of being found out. She was too frank with her emotions. She had not the skill to conceal the springs of her conduct. What difference, at bottom, however, is there between her and us when we are governed, in disciplining a child, by the degree of our own displeasure? Every one of us has been, on occasions, at heart as incompetent as this vulgar female. We have all of us judged children, at one time and another, by their conformity to our will. A very good woman it was, of the straitest New England doctrines, who sent a boy supperless to bed because, while putting on his overcoat, he accidentally toppled over and smashed a prized vase. That boy is now a man gray with years and laden with honors; but to this day he has not forgotten the fact that he was made to suffer, not for his own fault, but for his aunt's disappointment. The only thing that will free us from the futile way of the ogreish woman on the railway car and the austere Puritan lady is an abiding respect for our children. This will save us from attributing to our children our own willfulness! To be authoritative with children is something else besides being opinionated. The opinionated may compel obedience; but only the authoritative secure it. And even the opinionated find obedience not easy of compulsion. When caprice assumes command, I have a sly conviction that disobedience becomes a virtue. Preliminary to teaching children how to obey is the process of learning how to command. When a child is intransigent, it is worth while to consider whether it is not he that is administering a rebuke. Sometimes resistance to even rightful authority is not as depraved as we, who do not fancy being resisted, delude ourselves into thinking. There comes the time when any child will exult at the discovery that he is a being apart. He naturally wants to measure his will, and his mother's or his father's will is the handiest standard of comparison. A test of that sort is sometimes disconcerting. A five-year-old, too much given to sliding down from his chair at meal-time, was warned by his father that whenever in the future he should leave his chair, he should not be allowed to return to the table. Soon afterwards the boy disappeared from his place. He had evidently renewed his slippery ways, and had made up his mind to lurk beneath the table and await results. Intent upon the enforcement of the decree, his father said sternly, "You may be excused." Forthwith a head of tousled hair was thrust above the level of the table. "But I didn't leave my chair." Sure enough, there he lay prone across the seat, like a bag of meal on an ass's back. His father had to find what scant refuge he could in the permissive form of his sentence of dismissal. The lad's wits had won a victory for his will. Those who enter such an engagement without reconnoitring must accept the risk, and, if they wish to preserve the advantage of a commanding position, must abide by the results of any such skirmish. To turn it into a battle of wills is to commit the blunder of underestimating their opponent's strength. A child's will is not a fragile thing. It is not "broken" when it is overcome by another will reinforced by physical strength. An old lady of Maine, now gone to her own place,--which I venture to say is not far from that of Luther and Knox and Jonathan Edwards,--once told me how, when a small girl, she had had her will broken; she recounted the passionate resistance, the screaming protestation, the convulsive and futile rage exhausted only by hours of kicking and pounding the floor, and her final capitulation, announced by her picking up the toy which, in defiance of her father's order, she had at first refused to touch. She gloried in this Spartan training, and deplored the lack of it in the present degenerate generation. It was this same old lady, with the "broken" will, who, rejecting all advances, stanchly maintained her side in a family feud to, I believe, her dying day. Her will, it is plain, had not even been cracked; it showed not so much as a suture; neither had it been trained. The only treatment it had received had been one of contumely. The old lady was not exactly to blame for the outcome. If we respect a child's will, we shall give it a chance to operate. We do not thereby surrender a pea's weight of authority. A certain young mother, let us say, believes that there is a sort of unselfishness that has no part in love: she will not relieve her children of effort and responsibility. One of her brood, a lad of seven, with a touch of dreaminess in his mobile face, with impatience of the material restraints of time and space, with a will of his own that is the harder to direct because it is seldom aggressive, is engaged in propelling a vast tow of block barges along the river that winds across the nursery floor. Of his companions, one is umpiring a game of football between teams of leaden soldiers, and the other is constructing a fearsome dungeon ten blocks deep. At the door appears Authority. "It is now four o'clock," she announces. "At a quarter past four I want to have all the blocks and toys put away." The football umpire and the dungeon-builder, sniffing a prospective treat, bring their operations to an abrupt close. The lad of dreams listens abstractedly, and then turns with great puffing and snorting to his labors of navigation. Inattention? Partly; but partly, too, a deliberate choice of present pleasure and a willful rejection of the words of authority. Ten, eleven, twelve minutes pass. Again sounds the authoritative voice. "In three minutes it will be a quarter past four. I shall want you then to begin to wash and dress for a drive. Eric, I am afraid you won't be able to go with us; your blocks are not put away." She might, of course, justly tell him then and there that he will not be allowed to go; she chooses, however, the better way, and lets him wrestle with the situation. "You had better not stop to cry," she warns him; "there is no time to waste." In fractious misery he hurriedly begins his belated task. His will, so far from being broken or weakened, is actually stiffened; but it is now enlisted on the side of authority. The others--not a whit more virtuous, by the way, but only more sagacious--are half dressed before he has put his blocks in order. If he fails to overtake them, he will stand disconsolate, abject, perhaps tempestuous, and watch them depart. He has had his way, but he has won no victory; he has simply learned the cost of willfulness. If he succeeds in overtaking them, he will not have lost his lesson. His mother, it is true, will not exactly have had her way; but she reckons that no loss, as her way was not her end; she will have enlisted his will. The victory which the boy will have won is not over her. The only antagonist he has had is himself. Because of her respect for him, he will now have a new respect for himself and for her. He is on the road to acquiring the will to obey. If it had been one of the other two who had disobeyed, her course might have been different. A sullen, recalcitrant will, open-eyed, calculating, defiant, might easily suggest a different treatment. "You have chosen your leaden soldiers; now leaden soldiers it shall be. Since you did not make your duty your choice, then I shall arrange matters so that your choice shall be your duty. Nothing but leaden soldiers till we return." Such a variation in the treatment of children smacks not in the least of partiality. It simply means that respect for the child has involved respect for his individuality. The maxim, Let the punishment fit the crime, may express a principle of action useful for the government of a State or of a school; but for the purposes of the home it should be altered so as to read, Let the punishment fit the child. This ought to be the answer whenever that question arises that still serves the purpose of discussion in the correspondence columns of the newspapers, Is corporal punishment defensible? The conventional answer nowadays is, No. This is supposed to betoken the benignant mind. Any other answer nowadays classifies one as an autocratic brute. It seems to be assumed that corporal punishment must necessarily be administered in the jaunty spirit of the Chinese proverb which runs: "A cloudy day--leisure to beat the children." Real tenderness of heart, so runs the accepted modern doctrine, forbids the infliction of physical pain. In all these discussions, however, one consideration seems to be ignored--a decent respect for children. To one who is governed by this consideration, there is only one answer to the question, Do you believe in spanking a child? That answer is comprised in another question, What child? It is not necessary to go as far as Menander, who declared, "He who is not flogged is not educated," to be convinced that a good many children have been deprived of their rights because they have never been spanked. There was once a little girl who could never forget the indignity she suffered in a spanking she had received. She grew up with her mind resolutely set against all corporal punishment. In the course of time she was married and had two children. With one of them she had no problems of discipline; but with the other, a daughter, she had problems that taxed her wits to the utmost. At times the little girl seemed verily possessed. At last, in desperation, this harassed mother, driven into recreancy to her own principle, resorted to the form of chastisement she had forsworn. The effect was instantaneous. The child was relieved, as it were, from herself. With some temperaments in some moods the rod is like the wand of a magician. The childish petulance, the outburst of temper, the streak of almost malicious perversity, is but the child's way of expressing his quarrel with himself; and when the sharp physical pain comes, it seems to announce the subjugation of an enemy. In a household there are three children. One, sensitive to physical pain, shrivels and warps at the very prospect of it; a second is deterred from no act by the fear of it, and is altered not a whit by the memory of it; the third seems to find in it the comforting sense of being mastered at those times when he is out of sorts with himself, and responds to it with renewed affection and restored sweetness of temper. For the mother of that trio academic discussions on corporal punishment are not only uninteresting--they are positively irritating. She has paid her children the decent respect of considering their temperaments. III BY RULE OF WIT At a dinner-table one evening, a man who was interested in his own children stated a rule by which he made sure that no child of his would disobey him. The rule is infallible. He remarked to his companion:-- "I never give a command to my children." "What do you do?" he was asked. "I tell them stories." That expresses a perfectly intelligible policy: Abdicate, and you will never have a disobedient child. You will also never have an obedient one. The fact that the man who made this statement was an Anarchist explains his theory. He regarded obedience not as a virtue, but as a defect. He was altogether consistent. A disbeliever in government for society, he declined to establish any government for his family. In place of government, however, he at least took pains to establish something else. This was a systematic appeal to the child's imagination. If one had to choose between government and influence over children through the imagination, there might be some reason for discarding government. As a matter of fact, however, the use of the imagination, so far from being antagonistic to effective government, is indispensable to it. The reason why we parents so often fail in securing obedience, and, what is more important still, in developing in our children the spirit of obedience, is that we are deficient in imagination--or at least that what imagination we have is untrained. In this faculty in which we are weak, children are strong. A little four-year-old I know, in making letters for his own amusement, frequently attaches arms and legs to them; it is his way of pictorially representing the animation he ascribes to them. Indeed, he sometimes goes so far as to transfer in mind these limbs to the object which the letters spell. Thus, he laboriously prints the letters P-I-G, adds to each letter a lively pair of legs, and exclaims: "See, the pig is running!" Mental processes like that, complicated though it is, are common with children. A child left alone in the nursery with his blocks will find them transformed into trains, steamboats, people, trees, animals, whatever he wills. In this picturesque form imagination may be called fancy; but it has many other phases. Imagination is an element in memory. Ability to recall a sound requires imagination. When, for instance, a child repeats a word he has heard some one use, his imagination has enabled him to summon up the sound of that word. Imagination is an element in emulation. When a child is trying to outdo another, or outdo his own past performances, he has to picture to his mind what he or his competitor has done and what the desirable outcome of the struggle would be. Imagination is an element even in fear and hope. When a child dreads a punishment or eagerly awaits a reward, it is his imagination that gives him the power to anticipate. Like every other instinct, imagination needs training. We all carry about with us a menagerie of instincts. Some of them have been ill-treated. In what a pitiable shape is the dyspeptic's food instinct! It has died of over-indulgence, and its corpse mocks him at every meal. The instinct of fighting has been given a bad name, and in many a well-conducted menagerie is kept chained; but it has been known to survive the most rigorous repression, and to spring out with most abounding vitality in the midst of a meeting on behalf of peace. We have learned to avoid those people whose instinct of curiosity is not bridle-wise; and we all have recourse at times to those who have nourished, groomed, and trained their play instinct. The fact is, that the process of education consists largely in transforming these instincts of ours, which in their original state are wild and unmanageable, into domesticated and useful habits. Now, imagination is a vigorous beast. Its youthful antics are very picturesque and amusing; it is sometimes whimsical and troublesome; but it can be made of the greatest service. Indeed, for all kinds of work, I know of no species of instinct which I would more highly recommend. As a draught animal it is indefatigable; and nothing else can take its place for pleasure-driving. Yet I have heard of a private school for young women from which all fairy books are excluded, on the ground that a girl's imagination needs repression. Like some other instincts, imagination cannot be altogether repressed, though it can be tamed and guided. If it is left boxed up and wild, it is apt to break out and take a canter through dangerous regions. Since, then, we cannot take a child's imagination from him, and we run into peril if we neglect it, the profitable course is to show him how to break it to harness and make it serve him. We cannot do this, however, unless we have paid some attention to the training of our own imagination. As a wild young colt will trot about beside its dam, so a child's imagination will readily follow that of an older person. But the two must be at least in the same lot. If we are going to appeal to a child's imagination in teaching him how to obey, we must exercise some imagination in giving commands. We thus come upon that recurrent principle that the chief task in the training of children is the training of ourselves. That imagination may be used in maintaining strictness of discipline seems to some to be almost a contradiction in terms. It seems like invoking an imp of dreams to assist in adding up a column of figures. In many minds imagination suggests dreaminess, wool-gathering, waywardness, irresponsibility. That is one reason why we parents who like to be obeyed, who are inclined to believe that it is a virtue to be dictatorial, and who sometimes confuse our own will with the immutable principles of righteousness, so often fall into error. To a child there is nothing more serious, nothing more real and regular, than the products of his imagination, and nothing more vague, whimsical, irregular, than the unexplained orders which he receives from grown people. If we wish to impress a child with the seriousness and reality of our authority, we had better put our imagination into condition. There were two small boys in a town of the Middle West. Active, spirited, mischievous, and in other respects healthy, these two tads--the younger about four years old, I believe--gave their father and mother much concern. One day an old drill-sergeant established in the neighborhood a class for boys, and in a short time received these two as pupils. The transformation was sudden. The boys were soldiers. Happily, their mother was imaginative. They were therefore soldiers not merely in the class, but also at home. The standards of conduct put before them, the punishments dealt out to them, and the rewards bestowed upon them were such as befitted defenders of the home. Obedience, promptness, chivalry, order, courage, regularity, honor, truthfulness, were not unreasonable qualities to expect from such as they. When one of these warriors was absent without leave for the greater part of a day--in other words, ran away--it was not inappropriate that he should be kept in solitary confinement on short rations. The discipline meted out to those youngsters was, from any point of view, severe. Even corporal punishment, which, as ordinarily applied, is crudely devoid of the imaginative element, became measurably glorified; it was a part of the hardship which they were called upon to endure as good soldiers. Of course this régime was accompanied with plenty of instruction in military traditions and practices. A constant visitor to that household has found in the manliness and good breeding of these children a source of amazed gratification. In another family, who had no access to a drill-sergeant with a streak of poetry, a somewhat different method has been in vogue. The boys in that family do not belong, as it were, to the regular army, but rather to the militia. They are not always under a military régime, but are liable to a summons at any time. When they hear the command, "Fall in," they know they are expected to stand in line and await orders. In the absence of their parents, they know that the older person left in charge is their commanding officer; and upon their parents' return they know that they will be called upon to fall into line, salute, and report to their father. Each is supposed to report any infraction of discipline which he himself--not his comrades--has committed. No punishment is administered as a result of such report, except for deliberate concealment. Each also reports some especial pleasure he has had. A good report is followed by formal and official congratulation. A reminder in the form of a sign, marked "Remember the Report," and placed in a conspicuous position in the nursery, has helped to train and direct their imagination. Since the report includes a record of enjoyments as well as of offenses, this reminder is not so threatening as to many people it would seem. Indeed, the proposal that such a sign be used met with instant approval from the young militiamen. Those who object to tin soldiers as toys will have little patience with this metamorphosis of real children into creatures of militarism. Very well, let them be monks instead, or members of a labor union, or railway employees, or idealized legislators, or even honest policemen, anything that will not put too great a strain on the imagination--of the adults. The point is simply that the exercise of the strictest authority over children is compatible with the most lavish use of the imagination. There is nothing necessarily soft or flabby about the imaginative life. There is no special reason why little children should be afflicted with continual talk about the dear little birdies or the sweet little flowers. Indeed, the natural taste of children seems to be attracted in the opposite direction. One small boy, when he inquired about a bloody Bible picture, and was put off with the explanation that it was not a pleasant story, expressed the views of many of his age when, looking up angelically, he exclaimed with ecstasy, "I like to hear about horrid things." Even the rod can, as I have suggested, be used imaginatively. A small boy who is well acquainted with the story of the Israelites in Egypt has invoked its aid. He is not overburdened with a sense of moral responsibility. One day, when he was dawdling over his task of changing his shoes and stockings, it was suggested that his father be an Egyptian and he be an Israelitish slave. He joyfully acquiesced. His father took the tip of a bamboo fishing-rod as badge of authority and stood by. In a few moments the boy was dawdling. A slight rap over the shins recalled him to his duty. There was no complaint; for he knew it was the business of the overseer to keep the slave at his task. His shoes and stockings were changed in a very much shorter time than was customary; and he contemplated his finished work with satisfaction. A few days later, when he had a similar task to perform, he proposed of his own accord a repetition of the performance; and carried out his part with spirit. When we adults remember how much we rely upon some outside stimulus to keep us at our work--the need of money, the esteem of our neighbors, the fear of disease, the mandate of the law--we ought to be able to understand the reason why such an appeal to the imagination as this acted as a reinforcement of the boy's will, and therefore, by very reason of its disciplinary character, was actually welcomed. Two other boys similarly acquainted with the experiences of Israel in Egypt contrived an application of one of those experiences to their own case. They had several times been thrilled by the account of the exciting race between the Israelites and the Egyptians to the Red Sea, and had repeatedly found relief in the safe arrival of the Israelites on the other side and the literally overwhelming defeat of the cruel army of Pharaoh. One evening their mother was engaged in washing the supper dishes, and they were engaged, as usual, in helping her by wiping the silver. On several occasions they had been so little intent on their work that their mother had finished all the washing and had wiped the china and glassware before they had wiped and put away the silver. This evening one of them suddenly became seized with a fancy. His mother was the Egyptian army and he and his comrade were the host of Israel. When the last fork had rattled into its place and the silver-drawer was shut, what a shout of joy arose! The Egyptians had been outdistanced; the Israelites were safe. After that, when there were signs of inattention, the warning cry, "The Egyptians are coming!" would rouse them into instant and happy action. Now those children usually do this work rapidly. They have formed in themselves a valuable habit. That was not a device. It was the exemplification of a principle. A habit, I suppose, can be beaten into a child; but it is more lasting as well as more wholesome if it has been created, in part at least, by the child's own will; and it is the imagination, charged as it is with feeling, which can most surely summon the will into activity. The difference between ignoring this principle and recognizing it may be illustrated by contrasting two concrete instances. In the one case the mother appears at the nursery door. "Look at this room!" she exclaims; "it is very untidy." She thus puts the brand of disapproval upon disorder. "All the blocks and toys must be put away and you must be all washed for supper by six o'clock; and you have so much to do, you must begin at once." "But I want to build this house." "No; you must begin now." This is for the purpose, the mother explains to herself, of preparing the child to meet the harsh demands of an unfeeling world. She notes that the child begins listlessly to pick up some of the scattered blocks, one by one, and drop them into the box where they are kept. After an absence of several minutes she returns. She sees but little change, although the child is hastily putting some toys away. She is aware, however, that this activity started only when her footfall sounded in the hall. "If those things are not all in their places on time, I shall have to punish you." The mother is vexed, the child is unhappy and rebellious. A daily experience of this sort may result finally in some kind of habit in the child; but only at great cost of effort to the mother, and at the sacrifice of much of the normal relationship between the two. Another mother appears at the door of the nursery. "In five minutes it will be time to begin to put away the blocks and toys," she announces, thus giving some time for the builder to complete operations. Then she asks, "What are you going to be this evening?" "I think I'll be Michael bringing the wood to the wood-box for the fire." In five minutes she calls: "Michael, I want all the wood put into the wood-box." The builder is now transformed for the time being into Michael. He has seen the lusty Irishman carry great armfuls of wood, and his own frail arms assume new dignity. He gathers the blocks by the dozen, and as he lets them fall, kerplunk, into the box, he sees great logs falling into place. In a few moments his mother reappears. "You have been working hard, Michael, haven't you? I think you will have the wood in its place in plenty of time. How much better the room looks without those logs of wood lying all about! You can carry a good many logs at once, can't you?" Repeated every day, this process will inevitably develop into a habit of orderliness. The regularity of the process is not in the least impaired by the fact that one evening it assumes the form of stacking up firewood, another evening of bringing in bags of coal to the cellar, another evening of loading merchandise on to a vessel. It is the same will that directs Michael, and the coal man, and the stevedore, and it is the same brain that receives the repeated impression of promptness and good order. In each case, whether it is Michael, or the coal man, or the stevedore, the workman is doing his task under orders; he is subject to authority. And if Michael, or the coal man, or the stevedore fails to do his duty, it is not inappropriate that he should suffer a penalty. Of course it will be more effective if the penalty can be made suitable to the character. Whether it is made suitable or not will depend largely upon the imagination of the person in authority. As a rule, however, the spirit of such a process as that which I have illustrated is less that of discipline than of instruction, or perhaps more accurately, the spirit of discipline through instruction. It is, in fact, just because instruction plays so large a part in the government of children that those in authority need to have constant recourse to their imagination. Deficiency in imagination is exhibited by parents not merely in their relation to their children, but quite as frequently in the relation between husband and wife. Criticism of the one by the other in the presence of the children can be accounted for, as a rule, only by a defective imagination. If the critic could be put for a moment in the place of the child who has heard the reproof, he would be amazed at discovering how he had weakened not only the mother's authority, but also his own. In a certain household, let us say, the mother is strongly of the opinion that it is injurious for the children to eat anything between meals; the father, however, scouts the idea, and actually keeps, in his pocket, sweetmeats for which he invites the children to search. If he had imagination enough to look into his own children's minds, he would be mortified at what he would see. Parents at cross-purposes are simply exhibiting their own stupidity. Without imagination, therefore, there can be only the most ineffective government in the family. It is surprising, on the other hand, how the exercise of the imagination will clear away many perplexing difficulties in discipline; for in the light of the imagination many of these difficulties are seen to be problems in moral instruction. Let me illustrate. The boys whom I have already described as militiamen were left by their parents, for a day, in charge of a competent nurse. When they were called upon to report in the customary military fashion concerning their behavior, they all confessed to certain offenses involving the marring of property. "Would you have done that if mamma or I had been there?" their father asked. "No," was the reply. "Then you sneaked on us." That word "sneaked" was apparently new to them; it upset their gravity. The entire company, including the commander, was soon convulsed. What could be done? The case could not be allowed to end thus. Finally, after some degree of order was restored, the commander proposed that they all take turns in sneaking on one another. The plan which was accepted with enthusiasm was this: Two of the boys were to leave the room; then the third, in their absence, was to find some precious possession of each of the two and destroy it. No sooner, however, were the victims in another room than they raised a vigorous protest. As this was to be not a punishment but an experiment, the protest was heeded. The tables were turned; one of the victims was appointed executioner, and the executioner took the place of victim. After several trials it was proved that nobody wished to have his property destroyed. They thus learned that, however much fun it was to sneak on some one else, they did not wish any one else to sneak on them. Although they agreed, too, that if each had a turn there would be nothing unfair, they were all unwilling to lose precious possessions even for the fun of playing an underhand trick. By this time one of the boys had decided that all sneaking "was bad." It was then proposed to the other two that their father go out, and that they should sneak on him. This seemed to be a solution. They would have the fun and suffer none of the loss. When they had committed themselves to this opinion, their father called their attention to the fact that he had already had his turn at being victim, and that now it was only fair that he should have his turn at being executioner. There was no escape. At the very moment when they were looking for all the gain and none of the loss, they were confronted with the prospect of suffering, perfectly justly, all of the loss and having none of the gain. By that time the word "sneak" conveyed an idea that was quite the opposite of humorous, and they were in position to appreciate their father's repudiation of any intention to act as a sneak. It was necessary for them to travel a long and roundabout way before they reached the point at which they could genuinely disapprove what they themselves had done. In the frame of mind in which at first they had been, punishment would have been meaningless; it would have signified nothing more than that an older person was vexed at something, and that they had to bear the ill effects of the vexation. What they needed primarily was not discipline but instruction. Incidentally, it may be added, they had a good deal of discipline in the process. We are likely to forget that moral distinctions are not instinctive, but are the product of experience. The capacity to distinguish between the good and the evil is, we may all agree, inherent; but ability in deciding what acts belong in the category of the good and what in the category of the evil is acquired. There is no magic voice within a little child informing him what a lie is and warning him that it is evil. It is not enough, moreover, to tell a child over and over again that lying is wrong; it is equally necessary to instruct him so that he will recognize a lie when he encounters it. The knack of recognizing the difference between truth and falsehood is like the knack of recognizing the difference between edible and poisonous mushrooms. It comes only after careful instruction and long practice, and it is not as easy as it seems. Is "Alice in Wonderland" falsehood? Are the statements in Stevenson's "Child's Garden of Verses" true? I believe I could set an examination in the subject, asking for reasons for the answers, which a good many parents could not satisfactorily pass. A child who habitually lies may be consciously doing wrong; but it is also possible that he has been simply ill-taught, or is not old enough to be taught at all in this subject. In order to reach a child's mind for the purpose of enabling him to see the difference between a lie and the truth, we must have imagination enough to put ourselves in the child's place sufficiently to find out what his conception of the truth is. It is easy to assume that a child is lying when he is merely experimenting with language, or is desiring to please, or is playing with his fancies. If we want children to understand us, we must exercise enough imagination to understand them. After we have established some basis of mutual understanding, we can feel free to proceed with rigorous discipline. I hope I shall not be misunderstood. It is not necessary that a child should understand the reason for a command before he obeys. Obedience first and reasons afterwards is a good rule, and one that may even prevent disasters. It is necessary, however, that a child should understand what it is he is commanded to do or not to do. It requires some imagination to ascertain whether the child understands this or not. Instruction in manners, like instruction in morals, requires the use of the imagination. The adult who is receiving his first lesson in golf ought to be able to understand why a child has difficulty in properly holding his spoon; the difference between a niblick and a stymie is not nearly so hard to learn as the difference between "Please" and "Thank you." Manners are more arbitrary than the technical terms of a game or a calling. Why it should be wrong but not naughty to eat with your knife or to sing at the table, children do not readily see. As with regard to morals and manners, so with regard to all that a child has to learn, instruction is best coupled with imagination. A generation ago my grandfather wrote a book. Its tide seems to attach it to a long bygone age. It is called "Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young."[2] I know of no book which in spirit or in principles is more modern. I do not think its substance will ever be antiquated. It was through no fault or merit of mine that the author of this book was my grandfather; so I can see no reason why I should not be as free as any one else might be in expressing the wish that every parent who has some interest in the training of children might not only possess a copy, but also read it studiously. His words, with their touch of quaintness, concerning the use of imagination in the teaching of children were but the transcript of the principles which he had established by use and found practicable. Are the children restive or boisterous? Do they talk incessantly and nonsensically? A little imagination will suggest what should be done with them. They are steam engines under full head of steam. If you do not wish to starve them into lassitude, set their activity to work in some direction that will not be troublesome. Has one of the children pinched his hand in the door or bumped his head? Summon up your imagination. He is a man who has met with an accident; call the ambulance, which comes in the form of a two-legged creature, to carry him to the hospital, which to grown-up eyes looks amazingly like the couch in the sewing-room; give him some medicine out of a bottle, which has the appearance of a shoe-horn. Is there an altercation in the nursery? Let there be a court established, and the issue heard and decided in due form. No retinue of servants can work such wonders as a moderately alert imagination. If we parents have allowed our own imaginations to become atrophied through disuse, so that we are incapacitated from sharing in the most vivid part of our children's world, there is at least one thing we can do; we can restrain our natural impulse to interfere with our children's imagination. For a generous portion of every day we can leave our children alone. We are, of course, useful to them in emergencies, but ordinarily we prosy folk are in their way. What a nuisance we are when we impose upon an imaginative child that horror known as a mechanical toy! The nodding mandarin is so insistently a mandarin that no child with a healthy imagination can respect it. Off with its head! it then can conceivably be the pillar of a house, or a chimney for a steamboat. Large flat wooden dolls that come in a game-set have been known to serve admirably as roofs for block houses. Shall we allow the children to abuse their toys in this wise? exclaims the prosaic adult. The children might well reply, Must we be forced to lose our real world and to live in a commonplace, unreal world like yours? Elaborate dolls, complicated mechanisms, elegant playthings, may gratify the vanity of an adult, and even whet the curiosity of the growing boy and girl, but will not take the place of real toys like blocks of wood and spools and marbles. If we must nag him at other times, at least in his play let us leave the child alone with his imagination and the materials which his imagination can best use. If we are nonplussed by the enjoyment which a child finds in such simple things, it is because we have not the imagination to perceive that these very same simple things are the most capable of varied transformation. Like those complicated toys which are made merely because the adults, who have the money, buy them, some kindergartens are engines of destruction. The play instinct, which psychologists kindly explain is simply the instinct for self-directed activity, is in mortal peril from people who are always for supervising children's games. Controlling the play of children is really attempting the impossible. As soon as it is controlled from the outside, play ceases to be play. If some one else directs the child, he ceases to be self-directed. Play is not mere recreation; it is sometimes very serious business. What makes it play is that it is not done under orders. And real play requires imagination. We parents can spoil our children by confining them to the artificial things we enjoy in lieu of our own minds. If we wish to amuse ourselves, we can do so for a time by spoiling our children. But if we wish them to enjoy life, as well as to grow strong in body and mind and character, we will not tempt them by the spices, the mechanisms, the artifices of our world, but will leave them as much as possible to wander and play and work unmolested in the world of simple things. Simple food, simple occupations, simple toys, simple surroundings--at least such we call them; in fact, there are no riches like them to the child--or the adult for that matter--who has not been robbed of his imagination. If we have lost ours, and must go about our task of instruction and discipline in the unreal way of the dry-as-dust, we can at least leave the child his. That is possible for the dullest of us. FOOTNOTE: [2] By Jacob Abbott. (Harper and Brothers.) IV PEACE AT A PRICE Advice to wives usually begins with this sort of exhortation: When your husband returns from the office, greet him smilingly; exile from your face the traitorous lines of care, imprison in the silences of your mind the petty vexing trials of the day, dismiss to their own quarters the evidences of housework. Your husband's home is his castle; when he takes refuge there in flight from his enemies, the cares of his vocation, do not confront him with your own. We are all familiar with this strain. It sounds well. But, after all, the lord's castle is his lady's battlefield. If she is a very fine lady indeed, she may not have engaged in any personal encounters. If her resources and disposition permit, she may hire mercenaries to do her fighting for her. In that case her battles have been sham battles, and she has no relic of carnage to hide. If, however, she is not one of those who regard one child as a nuisance and two as an intolerable burden, and therefore prefers to conduct the campaign of their training herself, she can hardly be sure of turning nightly the battlefield of that home into the semblance of an impregnable castle. The fact is, any woman who regards motherhood as a vocation quite as worthy of respect as yelling on the Stock Exchange (and that I believe is a very, very respectable vocation indeed) will find it a serious drain on her physical and nervous resources. However much a woman may court martyrdom, I never heard of one who deliberately invited vexation of spirit. She may find a genuine happiness in the weariness she has incurred for the sake of some great object; but she finds no happiness in the annoyances she encounters purposelessly. Now, it is just these vexations, these annoyances, which it is a part of her vocation to avoid. So far from being an incident of motherhood, they are an impediment. Most of these annoyances, these vexations, with which a mother has to contend, come from a maladjustment between her children and their environment. Quarrels among themselves, irritability and disobedience toward her, impositions upon the servants, pertness with their elders, insubordination toward their teachers, altercations with their playmates, and friction with the neighbors--it is affairs of these sorts that fray a woman's nerves and wrack her mind. No woman can long endure these things. There are not many courses open to her. She can die, or she can rid herself of her children by consigning them to servants who are paid for accepting her responsibility. In either case she no longer concerns us. Let us suppose, however, that she remains a mother. Then the only course that she can pursue is to attempt some mode of adjustment. There are two ways in which she can act. She can undertake either to adjust her children to their environment, or to adjust their environment to them. Almost every mother adopts either one way or the other within the first two months of her first baby's life. The young lord of creation puts the problem squarely before her: Am I to begin my reign now--and I warn you it will be a case of whimsical autocracy--or must I take my place in the order of this household? If his mother is a washerwoman, he gets no answer; she goes about her washing and he finds his place without much remonstrance. The children of the poor are blessed with mothers who have this problem settled for them by the gaunt hand of necessity. If, however, this lordling has been born in the purple, even of very light shade, he has a good chance of seizing the sceptre at the very first grasp. He certainly will seize it and wield it relentlessly, if his mother decides to do the easiest thing. At the beginning and for some time it is easier to conform the household to the baby than the baby to the household. It is easier because strictly at the beginning it is necessary. Even the household of the washerwoman is swerved for a few days out of its regular course; but when the wash comes in again, the household is swerved back. The trouble comes in those families where the mother's will has to take the place of somebody else's wash. Of course there are cases which cannot be considered normal. The newcomer is puny and needs the constant attention that every invalid requires; or the mother's strength has been sapped, and she must, for everybody's sake, do the easiest thing. In such cases there is no choice. Ordinarily, however, the issue is not long postponed. The trained nurse, if there is one, can have a good deal to do in deciding it. Probably it will be most distinctly raised over a question of feeding. The foundation of absolute monarchy within many a plain American home has been laid by allowing the diminutive heir apparent to engage in midnight feasting when every consideration of orderliness commanded sleep. It is on such an occasion that a man, if he has any chivalry in him, will sustain his wife's good resolution. If he chooses to be anything more to his household than a purveyor, he will not have to wait long to make good his determination. The difference between a household adjusted to a child and a child adjusted to a household is the difference between unstable and stable equilibrium. Quietness, peace, and an aspect of repose may be found in both cases; but in the one case every new movement threatens an upset. There are two kinds of households, the adjustable and the unadjustable. A child, let us say, wakes in the morning. If he is accustomed to an adjustable household, there is an end of sleep for those who have the care of him. For the sake of peace to the others some one has to keep him quietly amused until the time of rising. That some one, we all can guess, is the mother. At breakfast it is the child that is first served, and when he is finished with eating it is his new demands that interrupt the meal. The mother does her household tasks under the child's supervision. In order to avoid the necessity of leaving them to rush upon every demand to the nursery, she manages to have him in the room with her. Tethering him to the leg of a table, barricading him behind chairs, occupying his mind now with one bauble, now with another, she succeeds, with the exercise of an acquired versatility, in securing for him safety from harm, for the furniture measurable immunity from damage, and for herself a comparatively noiseless morning. When the time for his nap arrives, she, as the available member of the household, leaves everything else and puts him to sleep. After he wakes and is dressed, a caller arrives. For an instant forgetful, she starts to leave the young ruler. A wail recalls her. A gurgle of satisfaction rewards her for taking him in her arms. The visitor is now a part of the household and must be properly adjusted. At the sight of the caller the baby makes violent protest. Then comes the period of coaxing, unsatisfactory to the child, troublesome to the mother, and disconcerting to the guest. Irreconcilable, the youngster is handed over to some one for the nonce, and the visitor concludes the call and departs to the accompaniment of mourning. The despot is easily restored to good humor as soon as he sees again his favorite subject. The one annoying episode of the day is easily set down against the account, not of the child, not of his mother, but of the caller. "That black gown she wore" many a time does duty as an explanation for what is really the product of an adjustable household. Aside from the more immediate and obvious disadvantages of the adjustable household, there is this: that it hardly fits the child for living in an unadjustable world. The child who greets the morning in an unadjustable household finds at hand enough to amuse him until it is time for his bath. His mother has not led him to expect anything else. I remember a little fellow whom I used to see a few years ago. Of delicate organism, decidedly high-strung, very sensitive to sound and motion, he needed as much attention as any well baby ever did. Regularly every morning, after giving him his breakfast and getting him ready for the day, his mother took him to the nursery, left him on the padded floor, gave him his few blocks, and left him to his devices. She was free to go downstairs then about her work. She was not beyond earshot. When the sun was high, she wrapped him up well, put him in his carriage, and, wheeling him out on the porch, left him again alone. In the afternoon the process was reversed: first the sunny porch, then the quiet nursery. Times for play with him came to an end according to her judgment, not his. Because she loved him and understood her vocation as mother, she established in this nervous child the habit of encountering the world with placidity. This is the way of the mother who determines that her household shall be unadjustable. There are those who regard childhood as a period when the individual becomes, to use Stevenson's phrase, "well armored for this world." It is this conception of childhood as a preparation for after-life that underlies Huxley's essay on liberal education. There are others who would say, with a recent writer, that childhood is not to be regarded as a preparation for youth that in turn becomes a preparation for manhood, but rather is to be made "beautiful and glorious in and for itself, not a vestibule to a vestibule to a vestibule." Whichever of these two views we take, we shall find, I think, that the only way of escape from disorder and confusion is not by adjusting the child's environment to him, but by adjusting him to his environment. The one unescapable part of our children's environment is--ourselves. Over them we are always impending. At inconvenient times we rise in their way and impede their most absorbing occupations. On their excursions into the wilds of fancy it is we who obtrude and with philistine complacency drive them back into the gross world of wash-basins and table manners. Three small boys are busy blasting. One is a workman; a second is the fuse; the third is the hole, and is about to explode for the sixth time. Who interrupts with some trivial but insistent remark about less noise or clean clothes? One of us. And the worst of it is that we who are so troublesomely recurrent, and who are their source of supplies, seem to be incapable of appreciating the delights of becoming at will a trolley-car, an alligator, a goblin, or a hole in the ground. That is the sort of environment we are; and if we are going to adjust our children to it, we ought to understand how knurly it is. When we understand that, we shall perhaps see the importance of giving our children a chance to explode without being flung repeatedly against our prosy protuberances. Sometimes we can manage that by simply giving them room for their own Arcady. (And it is not our business to insist that their Arcady be our sort.) Sometimes it will be necessary to manage this otherwise. We may, for instance, live in a flat. In that case we may actually have to exercise some imagination and suggest to them an occupation which will keep them from a too rasping contact with us. The first requisite, then, for peace is a reasonable degree of non-interference. Interference, however, we cannot always avoid. Then the question becomes one of interfering without friction. Any one can give commands to a child, or instruct him after a fashion, or punish him; but to exercise authority over a child and at the same time keep on good terms with him, that is an art in which we are not all equally adept. But it is an art we must master if we are to be free of unnecessary annoyance and a great deal of fruitless pother. We cannot be on good terms with a healthy child except on the basis of justice. That is one reason why an altercation with a child is a sign of failure in discipline: it is not sportsmanlike. It lacks the prime element of justice, an equal chance for each opponent. When we take a child for an antagonist, we do not enter a square fight; we have him at an unfair advantage. He knows it as well as we, and that is why, even if we win--as win we ought with size and strength and wit on our side--our victory is an inglorious failure. When he succumbs in the struggle, he has learned only one thing--that he must enlarge his resources. A small boy leaves his sled in the front hall. He is ordered to remove it and he refuses. Then comes the tussle. Rather than go to bed, he finally complies. The next time he awaits the approach of a visitor. This time he leaves his sled in the front hall and flees. He has learned his lesson--to pick the place and moment for battle when the enemy is at a disadvantage. The visitor, serenely unconscious of the fact, has diverted the enemy. The sled is whisked out of sight. No penalty now inflicted on the boy can be to him other than the manifestation of resentment and chagrin on the part of an outwitted adversary. In such a case what does justice suggest? There is the voice of one in authority. "Your sled is in the front hall; put it away." "But I don't want to. I'm playing." The affair seems to be at an end. There is no insistence; there are no threats. A day later. "Mamma! Mamma! Where's my sled?" "Did you look in its place?" "Yes, and it isn't there." "Where did you leave it?" "I don't know." "Think." (With shamed face) "I guess in the front hall." "You had better look in the front hall, then." "It isn't there." "Did you expect to find it there?" "No-o." There is no ground for altercation here. Perhaps there may be need for explanation. The loss of a day's coasting in this case may be actually a severer punishment than the threatened hours in bed in the other case, but it comes in the course of justice, and the boy knows it. Nobody has won a victory, because there has been no struggle; but somebody has learned a lesson. And through it all the boy remains on good terms with his environment. Of course it would never do for a child to live in too just a world; his awakening upon entrance into the world that we grown folks have made for ourselves would be cruelly rude. He must have ample chance to learn how to meet injustice. Happily, such chance will frequently come his way without any solicitude on our part. One can discern something almost purposeful in the fact that the sense of justice is no part of the parental instinct. Indeed, it seems as if it had been made especially difficult for grown people to deal justly with children. For one thing, in order to be just with a child one must be prepared to believe anything, no matter how preposterous. Once on a time a little girl was going downstairs. In her arms she held a precious doll. She knew that it was a prized family possession. To her consternation she suddenly felt it leave her hold, and in an instant she saw it lying broken upon the stairs. When she was questioned by her mother, she announced simply that the doll had jumped from her arms. In spite of all that her mother said to her on the evil of willful untruth, she persisted in her story. Whether she was punished I do not know; but if she was, it was not because of an accident, but because of a falsehood. In any case, she suffered the indignity of being disbelieved. For a long time the feeling of injustice rankled in her. It was not until she had grown old enough to learn that a doll cannot leap that she relinquished her faith in the statement which had been treated by her mother as a lie. A dash of credulity would have established a good understanding with that child; but that was too much to expect. It is not easy to be credulous at the right times. That is one reason why we need never take pains lest we be too just with our children. With the best of intentions, the most competent of us will now and then lapse into deeds of injustice. If we discovered them all, we should lead uneasy lives. A kind Providence, however, keeps us oblivious of most of them; and our children are slow in learning to preserve a grudge. When one of us, however, discovers that he has been unjust toward his child, what does he do? That depends on his standards. If his ambition is to be omniscient and infallible, he keeps the discovery to himself, and, if he corrects the injustice, manages by some subterfuge to make the correction, not an act of justice, but an act of grace. His policy might be epitomized in Jowett's motto for public men: with children his practice is, "Never retract, never explain; get it done, and let them howl." For one who does not care to pay the price of courage and self-respect, this rule can be made to work very well. One whose ambition, however, is to be authoritative with children will value sincerity with them as a principle and not as an expedient. Karl has apparently been guilty of willful disobedience; he has done something he was told not to do. The punishment which regularly follows rebellion is announced. It then transpires that what seemed disobedience was really misunderstanding. What can be done? Since the maternal court does not crave infallibility, the error in sentence is acknowledged. So far from impairing confidence in the court, this proceeding actually tends to buttress it. The next time an adverse judgment is declared and sentence is inflicted, the culprit, even if he believes himself guiltless, will, if he thinks about it at all, suspect that the judge is attempting, not to preserve her dignity, but honestly to administer justice. A child can pay his parents no greater honor than by protesting, in the belief that he will be heard, that a threatened punishment would be unfair. Even that mother who finds other occupations more dignified and gratifying than that of motherhood cannot wholly escape the necessity of deciding whether the ground of her dealings with her children shall be justice or something else. In delegating responsibility to servants, she must decide whether she will delegate authority also. The woman who puts her children in the charge of a hired maid and then declares, "I will never require a child of mine to obey a servant," deliberately chooses to be unjust to her children. That she is also unjust to the servant is not so grave a matter. The servant can, if she wishes, find another mistress; but the child is compelled to be content as he can with that mother. Such a woman is usually quite powerless to secure obedience toward herself. When her daughters are grown, she wonders why they do not become her friends; when her sons are grown, she wonders why they exhibit no desire for her companionship. The only footing for comradeship is fair dealing. Even a sense of humor, essential as that is, will not take its place. Who would be a comrade with his children must first be just with them. V FOR 'TIS THEIR NATURE TO Why we expect children to be more tranquil than a parliamentary body or a ministers' meeting I do not know and cannot imagine. To be troubled because children quarrel is to deplore one of their chief prerogatives--the prerogative of being themselves. The time to be troubled is not when they quarrel merely, but when they quarrel in the wrong way or about wrong things. To teach children how to quarrel and what to quarrel about is one of the duties of parents. Together with some compensating advantages, an only child has one indisputable misfortune: there is no one in the family he can really quarrel with. No altercation he might have with a grown-up could be dignified with the name of quarrel. All his quarreling he must do outside his home. Consequently, he cannot receive from his parents all the attention that he might receive if he were, say, one of six. When he finally encounters other children, he does not know the bounds either of expediency in tolerating their idiosyncrasies, or of right in maintaining his own. With skill his parents may acquire artificially for themselves, as well as for him, the experiences which naturally befall a larger household. It is plain, therefore, that those parents are fortunate who have quarreling children. To them avenues of education are open which are closed to the parents of an only child. I do not refer to those roads which, originating in the nursery, have led to the depths of theology or to the heights of moral discourse. The road which has landed more than one theologian in meditation upon the depraved nature of the child may well have had its beginning in childish quarrels. There was Jonathan Edwards, for instance; he had ten sisters and about as many children. This suggests a fit subject for a thesis. Then that pleasanter if less picturesque way, bordered with the flowers and the weeds of rhetoric, which has brought the preacher and the versifier to sermons and rhymes for the edification of the young, must have received many a traveler from tributary paths of domestic strife. Isaac Watts, for instance, who being dead yet speaketh of dogs and bears and lions and children, was the eldest of nine. The avenues of education to which I refer, however, are open only to parents or vice-parents, and lead only to parental skill. Some parents act as if they did not even know that these avenues exist. Consequently, when they encounter contention among their offspring, they fly in all directions at once. This undoubtedly makes for agility. For example:-- Waves of turmoil burst through the closed doors of the playroom, flood the stairway, and whelm to the ears the placid group of grown-ups in the living-room. As the visiting cousin nervously halts her small talk, and the tired mother lays down her knitting, the master of the house, with an air of finality, gesturing the others into subsidence, breasts the billows of sound. Upward, two steps in a stride, he makes an assault upon the playroom. "What's all this about?" as he flings open the door. "Bless me! everybody can hear you all over the house. Your mother and I aren't undertaking to keep a zoo. Do you suppose that somebody can be running up here every five minutes? Besides, don't you know that your mother's cousin Bettina is visiting us, and that she is distracted by this sort of uproar? Now don't try to interrupt. What did you say? That Ruth threw a coal-car at you? Why, Ruth, my little girl! that's a very dangerous thing to do. If you had struck one of the boys in the eye, you might have made him blind. I shall have to take the cars away, if you are going to do dangerous things with them. What's that? They're not Ruth's cars? What of it? Does that make them any the less dangerous? Now, don't interrupt again. Besides, Ruth, that was a very unladylike thing for a little girl to do. And, boys, you are at fault, too. Ruth would never have done that if you hadn't done something to her. Is that the way young gentlemen should treat a young lady? And Ruth is younger than you. She can't defend herself unless she does something like that. I shall have to punish you all; perhaps that will help you to learn how to behave. Now, you boys, go over to Ruth and ask her pardon; and, Ruth, you kiss them and tell them you're sorry. And now play together properly. See if you can't get along till tea-time without making a disturbance." Satisfied that he has settled an acute difficulty, this composite father, in whose voice has sounded some tones that I dare not disown, descends the peaceful stairs. What he has actually done has been to throw into hopeless unsettlement a situation that was after a fashion already half settled. If the children are quiet, it is because they are dazed by the feats of an acrobatic adult mind. They have watched their father make a circuit of the situation, cross at least a half-dozen paths that led safely out, and, ignoring all, return to the point of departure. The benefit they have received from the performance is not at all the benefit he believes he has imparted. It has not been, as he fancies, the benefit of discipline; it has been the benefit of diversion. As for himself, he has received that most welcome of benefits--a mental frame of complacency. Not being as nimble as he, we may find it worth our while to stop for a moment at each path that he passed and explore it. What we are prone to forget is that from almost every difficulty of this kind there are several exits, and that there is no progress made in attempting to travel more than one at a time. In this case, all need for the display of gymnastics might have been avoided by the consideration of a few simple questions. One question has precedence of all others: Shall I interfere or not? To decide that question in the negative is to eliminate all the others. That it is necessary to do this, the conjunction of a quarrel and a luncheon party may demonstrate. The critical time comes when there is no luncheon party. To allow children some chance to settle their own differences is as certainly an act of discipline as it is to settle every difference for them. It is none the less discipline for the children because it seems to be chiefly self-discipline. A younger sister once had a grievance; she made her protest with a strident whine. Annoyed by the outburst, her mother descended upon the whole crew, wormed out the merits of the case, and with an even hand apportioned among the offenders penalty or reproof. Having profited, as it happened, by this occurrence, the small girl, the next time she wished to gain an advantage over the others, resorted to the same whining outcry. Immediately the three older children fell to playing church. With a loud and discordant hymn, they designed to drown the sound of protest. Though at this time in the right, they preferred not to take the risk. Already well trained by her children, that mother was quick to remain where she was. It sometimes requires alertness to do nothing. Just though her interference had been, she saw that it not only had encouraged in one child an annoying mode of complaint, but also had suggested to the others a noisy mode of averting judgment. Thereafter it seemed easier for her to hesitate before participating in her children's controversies. How can children experiment with the principles with which their elders have tried to endow them, except upon those occasions when those didactic elders do not interfere? How, on the other hand, can those same elders see what effect their precepts have had, unless the children can begin a quarrel on the chance that they may end it themselves? Deliberately to determine not to interfere in a children's quarrel comes not of grace but of labor. Any one can lapse into indifference as to the merits of a dispute between two youngsters, but only one who has come through affliction to self-control can at the same time maintain an acute interest in the triumph of the just cause and keep his hands off. The virtue of non-interference is not a gift, it is an achievement. Occasions which demand interference, however, occur frequently enough to supply with plenty of exercise any normally active parental mind. Whenever it is clearly best that the children should not be allowed to end their quarrel themselves, the parent who is not in search merely of self-complacency can ask himself a number of questions. Usually, the time for asking and answering those questions is very brief. The exercise is vigorous while it lasts. On the way from the living-room to the nursery, the hastening parent can, for example, perform this rapid mental scale passage: To what purpose am I interfering? Is it to suppress a noise? or to avert a danger? or to teach courtesy? or to instruct in morals? or to do justice? or to establish an amicable basis? Later, and perhaps more deliberately, he will run over this scale of questions: What means shall I use? Shall it be force? or argument? or ridicule? or explanation? or advice? or instruction? or command? or punishment? It requires practice to pounce upon the note principally out of tune in a wealth of discord, and then to choose the one tool that will set it right; but then, there is no vocation more exciting than parenthood. The noise of a quarrel may be its most serious offense. We can admit that fact without accepting as an invariable rule the maxim of our nervous, overwrought ancestors, Children should be seen and not heard. At times it seems, indeed, as if the present age were too phlegmatic. There are people for whose nerves children should be made to have some regard; there are invalids who do not thrive on din; there is necessary work which cannot be done in the midst of a racket; there are neighbors who declare, with some show of right, that they regard monopoly in noise as against public policy. So, whether for the sake of cousin Bettina's nerves, or a tired mother's rest, or a busy father's conference with a creditor, or merely for the sake of reputation with the neighbors, it may be best to disregard all other factors and insist on quiet. That seems clear enough. The trouble with us pretentious grown-ups is that usually when we undertake to stop a quarrel because it is disturbing, we delude ourselves into thinking that we have some high moral purpose. We can expose our own fatuity by simply inquiring of ourselves, when we begin our preachment, Would we have interfered if this quarrel had not been so strepitous? It is one of the annoyances in the training of children that if we are to be honest with them, we must be honest with ourselves. I do not see how that can be helped. And with children honesty is prerequisite to authority. To pretend that we chiefly want them to be good at a time when really we chiefly want them to be quiet is to renounce all influence over them when really we arrive at the point of chiefly wanting them to be good. That is reason enough for being honest with them. So when we set out towards a quarrel with the determination of suppressing a noise, we shall, if we are honest, deal with the quarrel, not as turpitude, but as noise. We may not be able to persuade the contestants of the existence of nerves, or headaches, or creditors, or neighbors, or even of our own reasonableness; but we shall at least probably succeed in conveying to them the genuineness of this single idea that is uppermost in our own mind: if you can't quarrel quietly, you shall not quarrel at all. If later we wish to impress upon them the necessity of being considerate of others, we can use that specific quarrel as an illustration without risking with them our reputation for singleness. A quarrel may involve something which, even more than noise, demands instant interference. Two small boys were in an altercation. The older had a ball. The younger wanted that ball with a consuming hunger. The nearest weapon at hand was the discarded shaft of a golf club. Seizing it, he began his attack with reckless fury. The sound of a blow upon a piece of furniture followed by an outcry of fear brought their father to the room. His thought was not for anybody's manners or morals, nor for the disturbance, nor for a just settlement of the contest; it was for the defenseless boy's head. There was but one possible measure: immediate and forcible confiscation of the club. This was frankly not punishment--which would have involved a moral judgment--but simply humane intervention. The announcement that the club was to remain confiscated for a week merely emphasized the extent of the intervention, not the severity of a punishment. The incident might have served as an occasion for a lecture upon the danger of the wanton use of weapons; as a matter of fact, I believe, it was, of a sort; but-- "Oh, daddy, it was my ball!" "No, daddy, really it wasn't!" All such discussion as to the merits of the dispute was quashed. Likewise was stifled all inclination on the part of the intervening parent to deliver a lesson on the evils of an ungovernable temper. That might not have been confusing, if it could have been made distinct from the act of intervention; but it was not necessary. The fault was not an excess of temper so much as a thoughtless or ignorant use of power. At least, that was the judgment on which this father acted. Whether he was right or wrong is not to the point; what is to the point is that he formed his judgment, acted upon it, and did not obscure the issue by confusing the consequences--or possible consequences--of a deed with its moral character. Just as the physical consequence of a quarrel may be more important than its moral aspects, so may be its significance as an exhibition of manners. When their elders hopelessly intermingle precepts as to the amenities with deliverances upon ethics, children can hardly be blamed if they come to regard murder as in the same category with the wearing of tan boots to the accompaniment of a frock coat. An altercation marked by vulgarity, or even by nothing more than delinquencies in courtesy, may be more distasteful to grown-ups than one involving meanness or deceit. In such a case we may give interference the form of an expression of disgust, and keep the issue clear. If, however, we allow it to take the form of punishment, we might as well admit to ourselves that we are engaged not in disciplining children but in relieving our own feelings, and be grateful that we have at hand such an outlet for our emotions. Occasionally there arises a quarrel which supplies a text for a moral lesson. A quarrel of this sort arose one day between a small boy of five or six and his sister a year or two older. The mother of these two had issued a command to the younger that he take off his wet shoes. In a few minutes she heard the sound of struggle. It called for investigation. There on the nursery floor was the lad, tearful and angry; near at hand his sister, reproachful and indignant. It appeared that his neglect of the order had aroused her to action. He resented her assumption of authority; she resented his resentment. The case was not as simple as it appeared to be. Punishment of the small boy without explanation would have seemed to him like punishment for disobedience toward a sister who was without authority. On the other hand, a rebuke of the sister for unwarranted assumption of authority would have seemed to her like a rebuke for loyalty to her mother. It was a case, not primarily for punishment or even for rebuke, but for moral instruction, or, if you prefer, explanation. As an occasion for the doing of justice, a quarrel among children often presents great perplexities. It is hard for a mother to be a just judge between her children. This is partly because she is so practiced in partiality for her children that she revolts at the apparent hardness of impersonal fairness; partly because she frequently cannot ascertain the facts. A mother who loves justice while she loves her children will not be quick to ascend the bench. Sometimes, however, she must. There was once called, for instance, the case of Ronald _vs._ Dan. After a statement of the case made in turn by the two litigants, and confirmed or corrected by the visiting playmate Davy, the facts seemed to be as follows: The boys were cutting advertising pictures out of newspapers. Each of the boys had his own pile of newspapers which was his property. Dan had on one of his papers a picture which he did not care for, but which Ronald cared for very much. No sooner had Ronald expressed his desire for this picture than Dan crumpled the paper up in his hand and threw it into the waste-basket. Hence the complaint. The act was undeniably one of meanness; it was done with the intent to exasperate; but it transgressed no rights. The paper was Dan's property, to be disposed of as he pleased. Ronald had not the slightest claim upon it. This was clearly understood. While the trial was in progress, Davy, the witness, fished the paper out of the waste-basket, where it had become the personal property of nobody, cut out the picture, smoothed its wrinkles, and presented it to the grateful Ronald. Justice to Dan had compelled the recognition of his right to do with his own as he pleased. Judgment rendered for the defendant. Could any mother be satisfied with that outcome? So far as determining whether punishment was to be measured out, that ended the case. Strictly observing as between herself and her children their property rights, that judge could not refuse to enforce those rights as among themselves. This case, however, raised another question than that of justice. This was the question of future amity. The generous action of Davy, the witness, made it possible to use the incident for furthering not only just but also happy relations among the children. It made the defendant somewhat ashamed of himself, although of course it did not in the least obscure to his mind the consciousness that the judge had dealt with him justly. It moreover restored the sun to the complainant's cloudy face. Thus at the same time it impressed on the mind of the guilty a sense of his own meanness and effaced the memory of that meanness from the mind of the aggrieved. It is not always that a judge has a Davy at hand. It will not, however, necessarily confuse matters if she act the part of Davy herself. It is sometimes possible thus to give a practical demonstration of the fact that the spoils of justice are not always satisfying. As in walking, so in living with our fellows, some friction is necessary. To deprive a child of friction with other children is to keep him in slippery places. Unless we wish to teach him how to elude his kind, we shall not begrudge him his wholesome contests of skill, of wit, of strength, of temper. We shall only take care that he does his fighting fairly and not on too slight a provocation, that he knows how to yield to the weakness of another, that he does not learn to whine or snivel, that he does not become a tale-bearer, that he can take defeat or rebuke without callousness and without a whimper, that he becomes capable of forgetting his resentments and his personal triumphs over others, and that of all his victories, he learns to value most those which he wins over himself. VI THE BEGINNING OF WISDOM The master of the house had returned from a visit to the country home. "Whom do you suppose I saw to-day?" The children could not imagine. "Old Robert. And what do you think he said?" The guesses flew wide. "No; you're all wrong. What he said was, 'How are the little men?'" Then up rose Deacon, as the old colored man had dubbed him, the youngest, blandest, tricksiest of the trio; and he laughed in derisive resentment. "I think old Robert is funny. He calls us little men. I don't think people will like old Robert if he calls 'em names." Names! Will children never cease to shock us by their points of view? Old Robert, like a well-baked pie, had put all the richness of his highly flavored feeling for the lads into that one phrase. He made it serve him as a message of loyalty, respect, affection, comradeship. Old Robert had probably never heard of James Mill; and if he had, he would not have cited him as an authority; for old Robert did not act according to the logic of his phrase. James Mill, however, did just that; he proceeded on the theory that it is wholesome to treat children as if they were miniature men and women. He began with his first-born by fitting to him an intellectual frock coat and tall hat. Why he waited till the youngster was three years old no one, so far as I know, has ever explained. Without much further delay he also gave him a religious outfit. This, though decidedly less conventional than his intellectual wardrobe, had the same adult cut. It was not the Benthamite fashion of his religious garb, but its mature lines, that gave John Stuart Mill his air of fascinating priggishness and suave conceit. Our taste, unlike James Mill's, may be for orthodoxy. We need not on that account despair of imbuing our children with religious precocity and self-assurance. Before he was ten years old, John Stuart Mill had learned that Christianity was immoral, and that there was no personal God. There is no reason why any child at the same age may not know all the mysteries of predestinarianism, and be old in the experiences of sanctification. All we need is the diligence, the courage, the determination of James Mill. In these qualities some of our forbears had the advantage of us. They knew very definitely what they wished their children to do and to believe. Among them was an American contemporary of James Mill, the Rev. Carlton Hurd. There are people still living who gratefully recall the ministration of this kindly, stalwart New England divine. He so ran as not uncertainly; so fought he, not as one that beateth the air. And his certitude did not forsake him in the training of his little daughter. It may seem almost grotesque to couple the English author and employee of the East India Company with the Orthodox American parson. The one held beliefs antipodal to those of the other. James Mill, moreover, not being able to believe in a God so stern as to create this evil world, made up what was lacking in the cosmos by cultivating in himself an iron sternness toward his son; on the other hand, Parson Hurd, as he is still affectionately called, being fully persuaded of the existence of a God capable of infinite wrath, seemed to cherish in himself, as sort of compensation, a most touching solicitude for his daughter. In only one respect did Parson Hurd resemble James Mill,--in having and holding to a body of convictions which were, to his mind, not only indisputable, but also, in substance at least, essential to the proper adornment of the mind of a child. The letter in which he tells the story of Marion Lyle Hurd is the narrative of a complete and orderly religious experience. Marion died at the age of four years. When she was eight months old, her parents read to her from leaflets for Sabbath Schools. They explained to her, when she was a year and a half old, in answer to questions from her, the origin and use of the Bible. They noted that when she had reached the age of two "her mind was seriously exercised with religious things." At that time she would sometimes kneel down and would say:-- "Mother, I am going to pray. What shall I say to God?" "Ask God to make you good and give you a new heart." "What is a new heart, Mother?" "This was familiarly explained," writes her father, "and at the same time she was particularly informed of the way of salvation by Jesus Christ, and the steps God had taken to save sinners. We endeavored to impress upon her mind that she was a sinner and needed forgiveness; and God would forgive her sins, and give her a new heart through Jesus Christ." That from this time "she chiefly devoted her few remaining days to the acquisition of religious knowledge" her father finds to be "a consoling reflection." He adds, with conscientious caution, "If she was truly converted, we cannot tell when the change took place." Her parents hoped, however, after she had died two years later, that she had "entered 'the city of our God.'" Though they had no means of perceiving the approach of the disease of the brain which occasioned her death, they realized that the sensitiveness and activity of her mind warned them "to lead Marion with the gentlest hand; to make her way as quiet and even as possible." In this third year the books which were read to her included Parley's "Geography" and "Astronomy," Gallaudet's "Child's Book on the Soul," and "Daily Food for Christians." In her fourth year her books, which she read to herself, were, besides the Bible, "Child's Book on Repentance," "Life of Moses," "Family Hymns," "Union Hymns," "Daily Food," "Lessons for Sabbath Schools," "Henry Milnor," Watts's "Divine Songs," "Memoir of John Mooney Mead," "Nathan W. Dickerman," Todd's "Lectures to Children," and "Pilgrim's Progress." As these titles indicate, she was "particularly fond of reading the biography of good little children." Of all her books, however, Bunyan's masterpiece seems to have been the most instructive. Her knowledge of the allegory was tested by questions. She knew why Christian went through the river while Ignorance was ferried over. She knew what was meant by the Slough of Despond and the losing of the Burden. "When we come to Christ," said she, "we" (not Christians, or people, or you, but we) "lose our sins." And she sought from her father a certificate to enter the City. "We cannot doubt," comments her father, "Marion understood much of what was intended to be taught in that book, which Phillip says, in his life of John Bunyan, contains the essence of all theology. Certainly, she was familiar with every step of the pathway of holiness trod by Christian, from the city of Destruction through the river of death to the 'Celestial City.'" And later he adds that she evinced "a familiar acquaintance with all parts of that allegory and its doctrine." Though he makes clear in his letter that "it is not the piety of the full grown and mature christian, that we are to look for in a child," he makes equally clear that in all essential particulars her piety was complete. It included even a regard for the significance of eternal reward and penalty. From Doddridge's "Expositor," both by examining the pictures and reading "the sacred text" under the direction of her father, she derived many ideas of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, and the general resurrection at the end of the world. "Marion," continues the narrative, "after closely inspecting the countenances given in those pictures, both to the just and unjust, in the resurrection, would say, "'Oh! how the wicked look, when they rise from the dead!' adding in a serious and solemn manner, "'"There is a dreadful hell, And everlasting pains, Where sinners must with devils dwell, In darkness, fire, and chains."'" Indeed, from the earlier months, life after death, "the happiness of the good, and the misery of the wicked," were topics of "frequent and delightful conversation with her parents." In her last hours she expressed her assurance that she would be saved, and her last audible words were, "I am not afraid to die." Thus ended this brief life of four years and twenty-six days. An example of such training would be hard to find among parents of the present day. This is not because there are no parents who have Parson Hurd's convictions; neither is it because there are none who have his confidence in the capacity of children. It is because there are lacking parents who have both the convictions and the confidence. The reason why many parents fail where James Mill and Parson Hurd succeeded is that they try to make compromise between two contradictory theories. Although they wish to give their children a full complement of doctrines, they either do not possess the full complement themselves, or do not believe that their children are mature enough to receive it. The spectacle of adults attempting to instruct a primary class in the Logos Doctrine by the kindergarten method is thoroughly modern. If the way of Parson Hurd and James Mill seems to us either too hard or unreal, there is another way that may be found. That is the studious exclusion of religion from the life--even from the knowledge--of our children. It was this way that J. S. Mill supposed his father set him traveling. Of course he was mistaken when he said in his autobiography that he never had religious belief. He was embowered in religious, though not in Christian, or even in theistic, belief. The way that he walked was erroneously marked on his map; that was all. This is worth noting because it indicates how easily even a logician may miss this obscure way of no religion. Those who would lead their children by this route must avoid the very shadow of religion as they would that of the upas. Indeed, against even the air that has passed the shadow of religion they must quarantine their children. Religion is infectious. It can be conveyed by the subtlest means. To it children are perilously liable. Against it there seems to be no trustworthy antitoxin. Children are surrounded by infected people. A chance word may deposit the germ. One child out of the brood may thus fall a victim to a particularly virulent species of religion simply because he never had it in a mild form. Nevertheless, it is possible to establish a quarantine that may chance to remain effective for years. By this means children may be kept from a knowledge of religion just as many are safely, or dangerously, kept from a knowledge of what most people regard as advanced physiology. One family, I am told, has taken this way. How successful it has proved, I cannot say. All I have heard is that one member of the family is now enlisted in the ministry. This does not necessarily betoken failure. The theory was simply that each child was to be kept immune until he was old enough to decide for himself whether or not he would take the infection. This way is not the way of indifference. It cannot be followed by any one who is not profoundly affected by religion, whether hostile or friendly to it. It may require less routine diligence than the other way, but it requires more anxious circumspection. Different from either of these is that third way blazed by the developing traits of our children. Those who take it cannot regard religion as a form of doctrines or practices to be handed over to their child ready-made; neither can they regard it as a superfluity, which they are to withdraw from their child until he can choose to avoid it as a danger or accept it as a luxury. They can regard it only as a mode of life and therefore a mode of growth. They conceive it to be quite as perfect when it is genuinely manifested in the immaturities of the boy or girl as when it is shown in the riper forms of old age. Not that they undervalue doctrines. They know that there never was a religion that did not formulate itself. They look, however, for the doctrines to follow the religion, not the religion the doctrines. They are not surprised when they find their children constructing a philosophy of religion for themselves. Once upon a time a little girl was heard to address her dolls: "There's us, and Bridget, and Jews. We're all made of the same material; and we all have the same Father; I guess the difference is that some are more refined than others." No grown-up could have given her in the same number of words a more thoroughly typical example of theology: a union of anthropology, biology, and metaphysics, with a quasi-ethical conclusion. No ecumenical creed could have been more valid for the generation that produced it than could this brief philosophy be for her. Those who would take this third way well know, too, that there are some phases of religion from which it may be well, if possible, to save children for a time. It is no more necessary to feed them on Dante's "Inferno" than on Welsh rabbit. This, however, is very different from enforcing abstinence from all religious food. Conceding as much as this, then, to dogma and to caution, those who do not object to seeing a child grow will--let him grow. They will not be surprised if he looks out on the world with wonder. Neither will they be surprised if his wonder is slow in reaching satiety. It is sometimes very leisurely. Davy, aged six, asked one day at table: "Mamma, what's above the clouds?" "Air." After a moment of thought: "What's above the air?" "Ether." Another moment of thought; then, "What's above the ether?" "More ether. Ether is everywhere." Throughout this colloquy, Davy's brother Donald, two years younger, seemed no more attentive than usual; which means he was quite inattentive. A few weeks later, Davy had occasion to tell some one the story of the Tower of Babel, and added his usual formula, "I think they were foolish to try to get up to God, for God is everywhere." Donald's mind seemed busily engaged about some other matter. A few months passed, and Donald, now turned five, Donald the inattentive, suddenly thrust at his mother this question:-- "Is God ether?" "No," said his mother, with a little hesitating inflection; she was trying to prepare herself for the unknown but inevitable sequence. It came promptly:-- "Is God the universe?" Not willing to commit herself to pantheism, she answered again, "No;" and this time her inflection was more hesitant and inquiring than before. "How can God be everywhere?" For all those months that wonder had been nestling in that small mind until it grew brave enough to become vocal. Ether everywhere; God everywhere; God is ether. Why not? And if not, how can both be true? "Grandfather is in the library; perhaps he can tell you." A sound on the stairway like the roll of a drum and Donald was down in the library. "Grandfather, how can God be everywhere?" Grandfather touched Donald's hand: "Is Donald here, or," touching his shoulders, "is he here, or," touching his chest, "is he here, or," touching his knee, "is he here?" Donald did not hesitate; touching each spot in turn, he answered: "Donald is here, _and_ here, _and_ here, _and_ here." "So it is with God," said his grandfather; "he is in New York and England and China and the sun and the moon and the stars." With a smile that broke like the dawn, and that meant both understanding and gratitude, Donald stood thoughtfully still a moment, and then skipped off to his blocks. Wonder. That seems to be the first phase of religious experience, and it grows silently unless it is thrust out by some grown-up body's system, or is atrophied by studious neglect. Miracles? Santa Claus? Need we trouble ourselves about these when our children are sun-worshipers, polytheists, pagans? Wonder is only one part of religion. The natural response to wonder is ritual. And children, whether we like it or not, are natively ritualistic. The little son of a well-known writer went with his mother for the first time in his life to service in the Church of England. As they entered, the people were singing; as the music ended, the people knelt. "What are they going to do now, Mamma?" "They are going to kneel and say their prayers." "What! with all their clothes on?" Untrained in ecclesiasticism, that small boy had developed a ritual of his own. Night-clothes, to his mind, were essential to the proprieties of religion. What does it matter to the ritualist whether or not he understands all the words he says? The ritual itself is his reaction to the spirit of reverence. Indeed, ritual is almost a prerequisite to the spirit of reverence. It is Professor James who has said that a man does not double up his fists because he is angry, or tremble because he is afraid; he is afraid because he trembles, and is angry because he doubles up his fist. So one may say that a man does not kneel because he is reverent; he is reverent because he kneels. What power ritual has needs no further demonstration than that afforded by the Society of Friends. What ritual surpasses in power that of the Quaker meeting-house? What vestments have given color and form to character more effectually than the old-fashioned Quaker garb? If we wish our children to have the spirit of courtesy, we insist that they acquire the habit of speaking politely. If we wish them to have the spirit of reverence--there is no knowing what we shall do, for most of us are very human and irrational. That is the reason why we shall probably be careless in considering the question of church attendance. There are some of us, perhaps, who have the sense to give an intelligent answer to the question, Why don't you have your children go to church? There is only one rational answer to that question. It might be put into some such form as this: "I have no special objection to churches. They are useful. So are free libraries. People who have no books at home find free libraries a great benefit; but my family have at home all the books they need. So people who are not well supplied with religion derive undoubted benefit from churches; but my family have at home all the religion they need. The community would be about as well off without any churches as it is with the churches it has. If no other charity seems more important, I am willing to contribute to a church as I might to a free library; but really I see no reason why I should go to church myself, or expect my children to go." That is a rational answer. I know of no other answer essentially different that could be called rational. An equally rational answer can be given to the other question, Why do you require your children to go to church? It might be put in these words: "A church of some kind is essential to the welfare of this community. Without any church, even the value of real estate in this place would enormously depreciate. That shows how everybody recognizes the church as a conservator of social morality. In this respect the church stands alone. The sermons may be nearly as dull as those which I have to preach to my children; the music may be even less entertaining; but the congregation represents as no other body of people the moral sense of the community. Besides that, the church is the only expression of religion as something not merely individual but also organic. Inasmuch as the church cannot be a church without a congregation, I am obliged, if I believe all this, to take my share in maintaining the existence of that congregation. And since the responsibility for seeing that my children take their share cannot be put upon them, it rests upon me. As a consequence, they no more question why they go to church than they question why they go to meals. They are not being entertained; they are not primarily even being instructed. For that reason it is not necessary, though it may be advantageous, for them to understand the sermon. They are forming a habit. On much the same grounds I am acquainting them with the Bible. What they store in their memory now they need not understand till later. There is a time for learning by heart; there is a time for understanding. I no more propose to postpone my children's practice in religious observances until they reach the age of discretion, than I propose to postpone their practice in being honest or in learning their five-finger exercises." That answer, like the other, is rational. A part of ritual is the observance of days and seasons. To this phase of religion we may expect children to be sensitive. Paul's mother came into the nursery one Sunday afternoon. "What are you doing?" "Studying." Paul's mother was surprised. "We try to keep Sunday different from other days. After this we shall understand that you are not to study on Sundays." A little more than two weeks later, Paul came home from school. "Sammy is a funny boy," he remarked. Sammy is a schoolmate. "What has he done?" inquired Paul's mother. "Why, Sammy gets his lessons on Sunday." Two Sundays had sufficed for the establishment of a tradition in religion so complete that a violation of it seemed grotesque. In regard to the observance of Sunday, one household has reversed the traditional rule. The ritual characteristic of that family originated in a bachelor uncle's remark. He recalled how alluring were those books which had been forbidden him, as a boy, on Sunday, and how gray a day Sunday was because those books were proscribed. He advocated the plan of selecting certain interesting books, which would be forbidden on week-days. In other words, he would remove the ban from Sundays, and put it on the other six days. His plan was adopted. Certain delights, including several volumes of stories from the Bible, were confined to Sunday. In consequence, Bible stories are in great favor, and Sunday is a day of privilege. In that household the ritual of Sunday observance is a ritual of liberty. Besides wonder and ritual, there is a factor in religion on which children seize. We may call it hero-worship. Others, following the lead of psychologists, might prefer to name it imitation. As the children of a certain family gather to look at Bible pictures, they are prone to ask of any group of people depicted, "Are those people good?" Reverence for what to them is an ideal may come later than wonder or ritual, but it is sure to come in time to all children. Those parents who are ready to take their children as they are and to help the growth of the spirit as they help the growth of the body incur the peril of always seeing in this reverence a searching inquisition of their own lives. The nearest objects of hero-worship that a child has are his parents. This fact may raise a disturbing inquiry: Shall they puzzle him by setting forth two ideals of fatherhood, one incorporated in themselves, the other involved in their representation of the character of God? Shall they confuse the mind of the child by setting up two inconsistent standards of human service, their own lives and what they tell him of the life of Jesus of Nazareth? This dilemma of course is avoided by such parents as hold either of those comfortable theories, that religion is a theology and that religion is a luxury. In the one case such questions are not pertinent; in the other they are unimportant. If, however, we understand religion to be a mode of life, we may find such questions as these driving us into an uncomfortable corner. They seem to compel us to pose as exhorter and pattern, and to force on us a paralyzing self-consciousness. Perhaps it will not harm us to be occasionally reminded of the fact that we cannot expect our children to become altogether different from what we are determined to be; but to be always composing precepts and assuming the attitude of examples seems to be but a feeble part to play. Happily, we need not confine our children to the contemplation of ourselves. There are many who, if we but let them, may share with us the burden of our children's imitativeness. And here comes our reward, if we have cultivated their imagination. We may be a bit stingy ourselves; but if we covet generosity for our children, we can let Abram make the suggestion. We may cherish our own resentments; but if we want our children to despise theirs, we can let them join that group that heard Peter bidden to put up his sword. Whatever may happen to us in the process will probably do us no hurt. We may find another illustration of that which we encountered at the beginning, that the principal part in the training of our children is the training of ourselves. This may have meant to us, when we started on our course, that the training of ourselves was simply the preparation for the training of our children. By this time we shall have discovered that it is not so much a preparation as an outcome. This art of being a parent is an art of give and take. If it is more blessed to give, as the Lord said, it is, as far as parents are concerned, quite as obligatory to receive. As much, at least, as this is the implication in one thing that our Lord did. Whether he ever instructed a child in the faith we do not know; we have not been told. What has been told is that when he wished to show his disciples--among them some parents, we may surmise--what religion was, he took a child and set him in the midst of them. 
52302	----	generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 52302-h.htm or 52302-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/52302/52302-h/52302-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/52302/52302-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/thosebrewsterchi00kingiala THOSE BREWSTER CHILDREN [Illustration: The occasion was not wholly barren of material for a trained psychologist (page 56)] THOSE BREWSTER CHILDREN by FLORENCE MORSE KINGSLEY Author of "The Singular Miss Smith," "And So They Were Married," etc. With Illustrations by Emily Hall Chamberlain New York Dodd, Mead & Company 1910 Copyright, 1908 By Phelps Publishing Company Copyright, 1910 By Dodd, Mead and Company Published, March, 1910 ILLUSTRATIONS The occasion was not wholly barren of material for a trained psychologist (page 56) _Frontispiece_ "Cwyin'?" he observed in a bird-like voice _Facing page_ 146 "She'll remember it, you'll find, better than one of Mrs. Stanford's whippings" " " 182 I Elizabeth Brewster sat by the window of her sewing-room in the fading light of the winter afternoon. She had been straining her eyes a little over her work and the intent look did not leave them as she glanced out into the gathering dusk. She could see all three of the children at their play on the lawn. Carroll, tall and sturdy for his eight years; Doris slim and active, her reddish blond hair streaming out from under her hood and blowing about her eager little face, and three-year-old Baby Richard, toiling manfully to keep up with the others as they piled damp snow-balls into the rude semblance of a human figure. "Darlings!" murmured the mother to herself, a happy light seemingly reflected from the red winter sunset shining on her face. She raised the sash a hand's breadth and called to them, "Come in now, children; it is growing too cold for Richard to stay out any longer." She glanced regretfully at her unfinished sewing as she rose, gathering up thread, scissors and thimble with the absent-minded carefulness born of long habit. Something was scorching on the kitchen range, she feared, a well-founded distrust of the heavy-handed Norwegian maid hastening her steps down the precipitous back stairway. The range was heated to redness, and several saucepans huddled together over the hottest place were bubbling furiously. Celia, the maid, was setting the table in the dining-room, with slow, meditative motions like those of an ox. She did not appear at all disturbed at sight of her mistress hurriedly dashing water into one of the utensils, from which arose an evil-smelling steam. "Oh, Celia! how many times must I tell you to cook the vegetables in plenty of water?" demanded Mrs. Brewster, in despairing tones. "And look! your fire is almost up to the griddles. Have you shaken it down this afternoon?" The girl shook her big head with its untidy braids of straw-coloured hair. "Naw!" she observed explosively, after a pause filled with the noise of descending ashes. "You should say 'no, Mrs. Brewster,' or 'no, ma'am,'" her mistress said, with an obvious effort after self-control. "Try not to forget again, Celia. Now you may go up to your room and make yourself tidy before you finish dinner." The girl obeyed with the heavy, lurching steps of one crossing a ploughed field. Elizabeth, hurriedly opening doors and windows to the frosty sunset caught sight of her three children still busy about their snow image. "Carroll, dear!" she called, "didn't you hear mother when she told you to come in?" The boy turned his handsome head. "Yes, mother; I did hear you," he said, earnestly, "an' I told Doris to go straight into the house an' bring Richard; but she wouldn't go. I had to finish this first, you see, 'cause I've planned----" "Come in now," interrupted his mother, forestalling the detailed explanation sure to follow. "Come in at once!" The boy dropped the snow-shovel with which he was carefully shaping the base of his image. "Don't you hear mother, Doris?" he demanded in a clear, authoritative voice. "You must go right in this minute an' take Buddy." The little girl thrust out the tip of a saucy pink tongue at her brother. "Mother said you too, Carroll Brewster; you don't have to tell me an' Buddy. Does he, mother?" "Carroll! Doris!" There was no mistaking the tone of the mother's voice. The baby, suddenly conscious of cold fingers and tingling toes, ran toward her with a whining cry, his short arms outstretched. The others followed slowly, exchanging mutinous glances. "Carroll is always trying to make me an' Buddy mind him; but we won't," observed Doris, emphatically kicking her overshoes across the floor. "All three of you should obey mother every time," chanted Elizabeth in the weary tone of an oft-repeated admonition. She sighed as she added, "It is very naughty to argue and dispute." "But you see, mother, I'm the oldest," began Carroll argumentatively, "an' I generally know what the children ought to do just as well as anybody." He hung up his hat and coat and set his overshoes primly side by side with a rebuking glance at his small sister, who tossed her mane of hair at him disdainfully. "I see you've forgotten what mother said about overshoes, Doris," he whispered with an air of superior merit which appeared to exasperate the little girl beyond endurance. She leaned forward suddenly and a piercing squeal from the boy announced the fact that virtue frequently reaps an unexpected reward. "Doris pinched my ear hard, mother," he explained, winking fast to keep back the unmanly tears. "I didn't even touch her." Elizabeth looked up from kissing and cuddling her baby. "Oh, Doris dear; how could you! Don't you love your little brother?" The little girl flattened herself against the newel-post, her brown eyes full of warm, dancing lights. "Sometimes I do, mother," she said, with an air of engaging candour; "an' sometimes I feel jus'--like biting him!" Elizabeth surveyed her daughter with large eyes of pained astonishment. "You make mother very sorry when you say such naughty things, Doris," she said, severely. "Hang up your coat and hood; then you must go up-stairs to your room and stay till I call you." In the half hour that followed Elizabeth gave her youngest his supper of bread and milk and hurried him off to bed, endeavouring in the meanwhile to keep a watchful eye upon the operations of the heavy-handed Celia, now irreproachable in a freshly starched cap and apron, and an attentive ear for Carroll practicing scales and exercises in the parlour. Later there was a salad to make, which involved the skilful compounding of a French dressing, and last of all a hurried freshening of her own toilet before the quick opening of the front door announced the advent of the head of the house. Elizabeth was fastening her collar with fingers which trembled a little with the strain of her multiplied activities, when she heard her husband's voice upraised in joyous greetings to the children. "Hello there, Carroll, old man! And daddy's little girl, too!" She had entirely forgotten Doris, and that young person had quite evidently escaped from durance vile into the safe shelter of her father's arms. After all, it was a small matter, Elizabeth assured herself; and Sam disliked tears and unpleasantness during the hours, few and short, he could spend with the children. Promising herself that she would talk seriously with the small offender at bed-time she ran down stairs to receive her own greeting, none the less prized and longed for after ten years of married life. Her husband's eyes met her own with a smile. "Betty--dear!" he whispered, passing his arm about her shoulders. Doris from the other side peered around at her mother, her bright eyes full of laughing triumph. "If I'm not very much mistaken," her father said mysteriously, "there's something in my coat pocket for good children." Doris instantly joined her brother in a race for the highly desirable pocket, and the two were presently engaged in an amicable division of the spoils. "You mustn't eat any candy till after dinner, children," warned Elizabeth. Doris had already set her sharp white teeth in a bonbon, when her father's hand interposed. "Hold hard, there, youngsters," he said; "you heard the order of the court; no candy till after dinner." "Just this one, daddy," pouted Doris. "I think I might." She swallowed it quickly and reached for another. "Not till after dinner, young lady," and the pasteboard box was lifted high out of reach of small exploring fingers. "Oh, Sam, why will you persist in bringing home candy?" Elizabeth asked, with a sort of tired indulgence in her voice. "You know they oughtn't to have it." "I forgot, Betty. Please, ma'am, will you 'xcuse me, just this once--if I'll never do it again?" His upraised hands and appealing eyes were irresistibly funny. Elizabeth laughed helplessly, and the children rolled on the floor in an ecstasy of mirth. When presently all trooped out to dinner neither parent observed Doris as she nibbled a second bonbon. "Oh-o-o! You naughty girl!" whispered Carroll enviously. "Where did you get that?" "Out of the box," replied the small maiden, with a toss of her yellow head. "Um-m, it's good; don't you wish you had some?" "Mother said----" "Don't talk so loud; I'll give you half!" "It's most all gone now. I'll tell mother, if you don't give me all the rest." And the boy reached masterfully for the coveted morsel. "You're such a rude child you oughtn't to have any," observed Doris, nonchalantly bestowing the debatable dainty in her own mouth. "If you tell, I'll call you 'tattle-tale'!" she said thickly; "then the' won't either of us get any." Carroll scowled fiercely at this undeniable statement. His father did not encourage unmanly reprisals. "You're an awful selfish child, Doris," he said reproachfully, "an' that's worse 'an being rude; mother said so. It's worser 'an anything to be selfish. _I_ wouldn't do it; guess I wouldn't!" "I am not selfish!" "You are, too!" "_Chil--dren!_" Their mother's vaguely admonitory voice caused the belligerents to slip meekly enough into their respective seats. They were hungry, and the soup smelled good. But their eyes and explorative toes continued the skirmish in a spirited manner. "I had a letter from Evelyn Tripp to-day," Elizabeth was saying, as she fastened the children's long linen bibs. "----Sit up straight in your chair, Doris, and stop wriggling." Sam Brewster cast an admonitory eye upon his son. "Evelyn Tripp!" he echoed, "I haven't heard you mention the lady in a long time." "You know they left Boston last year and I hardly ever see her now-a-days. Poor Evelyn!" "It is too bad," he said with mock solicitude. "Now, if you hardly ever saw me it would be 'poor Sam,' I suppose." "The Tripps lost most of their money," she went on, ignoring his frivolous comment; "then they moved to Dorchester." He helped himself to more soup with a reminiscent smile. "Worse luck for Dorchester," he murmured. "Why, Sam," she said reprovingly. "Of course Evelyn was--Evelyn; but she was as kind as could be just after we were married, and before, too. Don't you remember?" "Oh, yes; I remember perfectly. We were pawns on the chess-board in Miss Tripp's skilful hands for awhile," he agreed drily. "She's a Napoleon, a--er--Captain of Industry, a----" "Please don't, Sam," interrupted Elizabeth. "Poor Evelyn has been very unfortunate, and I'm sorry for her. She--wants to come and make us a visit, and I----" An appalling thump and a smothered squeal marked the spot where, at this crucial point in the conversation, Doris suddenly disappeared from view. Her father stooped to peer under the cloth. "Will you kindly tell me what you were trying to do, Doris?" he demanded, as he fished his daughter out from under the table in a more or less dishevelled condition. "It was Carroll's fault, daddy," replied the child. "He kicked me under the table, an' course I was 'bliged to kick him back; an' I did it!" Her air of sparkling triumph provoked a smile from her father; but Elizabeth looked grave. "I really think," she said, "that Doris ought to go upstairs without dessert. You know, Doris, you disobeyed mother when you came down without leave." The little girl's eyes flashed angry fire. "Carroll kicked me first," she pouted, "an' I couldn't reach him; he wasn't fair 'cause he got 'way back in his chair on purpose; you know you did, Carroll Brewster!" Elizabeth turned judicially to her son. "No, mother," explained the boy, "I didn't really kick Doris; I just put out my toe and poked her,--just a small, soft poke; you know it didn't hurt, Doris; but I did squeeze back in my chair so you couldn't reach me." His candid blue eyes, so like his father's, looked full into hers. "Well, in view of the evidence, I propose that you suspend sentence, Betty, and let them both off," put in the head of the house. "You'll be a good girl and keep your toes under your chair, won't you, Dorry?" "Yes, daddy, I will," promised the little girl, gazing up at her father from under her curved lashes with the dimpled sweetness of a youthful seraph. "I do love you so, daddy," she cooed gently. "I feel just like kissing you!" Her father caught the child in his arms and pressed half a dozen kisses on her rosy cheeks before depositing her in her chair. "Remember, girlie, you must be as quiet as a mouse or your mother will whisk you off to bed before you can say Jack Robinson." He cast a laughing glance across the table at his wife. "You see we all stand in proper awe of you, my dear!" "Oh, Sam!" murmured Elizabeth reprovingly; but she laughed with the children. II When the militant young Brewsters were at last safely bestowed in bed, Elizabeth sank into her low chair with an involuntary sigh of relief--or fatigue, she hardly knew which. "Tired, dear?" asked her husband, glancing up from his paper. "I suppose you've put in a pretty hard day breaking in the foreigner. But you're doing wonders. The dinner wasn't half bad, and the mechanic didn't break a single dish in the process; at least I didn't hear the usual crash from the rear." She smiled back at him remotely. She did not think it worth while to report the scorched potatoes, or the broken platter belonging to her best set of dishes. "I was thinking about Doris," she said. Her husband's eyes lighted with a reminiscent smile. "Little monkey!" he exclaimed. "She slid down the banisters like a streak of lightning and flew into my arms before I had time to take off my overcoat. She said she was sitting on the stairs, waiting for me to come. Not many children think enough about seeing their old daddy to sit on the stairs in the dark!" "I'm really sorry to undeceive you, Sam; but I had sent that child up to her room, and told her to stay there till I called her!" Elizabeth informed him crisply. "Wherefore the incarceration, O lady mother?" "She was very naughty, Sam; she pinched Carroll, and when I reproved her for doing it, she said she felt like biting him. Think of that! Of course I had to do something." "What had Carroll done to provoke the cannibalistic desire on the part of the young woman?" he wanted to know, with judicial calm. "Nothing at all, except to remind Doris to hang up her coat and put her overshoes away, as I've told them both to do repeatedly." His mouth twitched with an amused smile. "And Dorry punished him promptly for his display of superior virtue--eh? Well, it may be very much out of order for a mere father to say so, but I'll venture to express the opinion that it won't hurt Master Carroll to get an occasional snubbing from somebody. He's a good deal of a prig, Betty, and it's got to come out of him some way or other between now and his Sophomore year in college. Better not interfere too often, my dear. Let 'em work it out; it won't hurt either of 'em." His wife surveyed him with wide, sad eyes. "Oh, Sam!" she murmured, "how can you talk like that? Carroll tries to be a good boy and help me all he can. But Doris----" "Don't you worry about the little girl," advised her husband, laying a soothing hand on hers. "She's all right." "She ought not to quarrel with the other children; or disobey me. You know that, Sam." "Of course not. You'll have to make her toe the mark, Betty." "But how, Sam? I've tried. I'm positively worn out trying." The man pursed up his lips in an inaudible whistle. "Upon my word, Betty," he broke out at length, "I don't know as I can tell you. We don't stand for whipping, you know. Beating small children always struck me as being a relic of the dark ages; and I know I could never stand it to see a child of mine cower before me out of physical fear. But we mustn't spoil 'em!" "Marian Stanford whips Robbie every time he disobeys," Elizabeth said after a lengthening pause. "She uses a butter-paddle--the kind I make those little round balls with; you know it has a corrugated surface. She says it is just the thing; it hurts so nicely. But I'm sure Robbie Stanford is far naughtier than Carroll ever thinks of being." Her husband broke into a helpless laugh which he promptly repressed at sight of her indignant face. "You oughtn't to laugh, Sam," she told him, in a tone of dignified reproof. "You may not think it very important--all this about the children; but it is. It is the most important thing in the world. Even Marian Stanford says----" "Why do you discuss the subject with her?" interrupted Sam. "You'll never agree; and whatever we do with our own children, we mustn't force our views on other people." She surveyed him with a mutinous expression about her pretty lips. "Marian doesn't hesitate to criticise my methods," she said. "The last time I saw her she informed me that she had whipped her baby--only think, Sam, her _baby_!" "Did she use the butter-paddle on the unfortunate infant?" he wanted to know, with a quizzical lift of his eyebrows; "or was it a spanking _au naturel_?" Elizabeth repressed his levity with a frown. "I wonder at you, Sam, for thinking there's anything funny about it," she said rebukingly. "I didn't feel at all like laughing when she said--with such a superior air--'Livingstone's been getting altogether too much for me lately, and this morning I took the paddle to him and whipped him soundly. He was the most surprised child you ever saw!' Of course I didn't _say_ anything. What could I have said? But I must have looked what I felt, for she burst out laughing. 'Dear, dear!' she said, 'how indignant you do look; but I intend to have _my_ children mind me.' Then she glanced at Richard peacefully pulling the spools out of my basket as if she pitied him for having such a fond, weak mother as to allow it." Sam Brewster rumpled his hair with a smothered yawn. "Marian is certainly a strenuous lady," he murmured. "But let me advise you, Betty, not to discuss family discipline with her, if you wish to preserve peaceful relations between the families. The illegitimate use of the Stanford butter-paddle is nothing to us, you know.--Er--you were telling me about the letter you had from the fair Evelyn," he went on pacifically, "and did my ears deceive me? or did you intimate that our dear friend Miss Tripp was coming to spend the day with us soon?" "To spend the day!" echoed Elizabeth. "She's coming to stay two weeks. I had to ask her, Sam," she added, quickly forestalling his dismayed protest; "she is obliged to be in town interviewing lawyers and people, and I did want to do something to help her. Sam, she thinks she may be obliged to teach, or do something; but she isn't up on anything, and I don't believe she could possibly get any sort of a position." "Betty, you're a good little woman," he said, beaming humorously upon her; "and I never felt more convinced of the fact than I do this minute. I'm game, though; I'll do everything I can to help in my small, weak way." Elizabeth gazed at her husband with wide, meditative eyes. "I do wish," she said devoutly, "that Evelyn could meet some nice, suitable man. She's really very attractive--you know she is, Sam--and it would solve all her problems so beautifully." "How would Hickey do?" he inquired lazily. "George is forty, if not fat and fair; and he's a thoroughly good fellow." III Elizabeth Brewster had been awake in the night, as was her custom, making her noiseless rounds of the children's beds by the dim light of a candle. A cold wind had sprung up, with driving snow and sleet, and she feared its incursion into her nursery. Daylight found her in the kitchen superintending the slow movements of Celia, who upset the coffee-pot, dropped a soft-boiled egg on the hearth and stumbled over her untied shoe-strings in her untutored efforts to assist. Close upon the hurried departure of her husband to his office in a distant part of the city, came the sound of small feet and voices from above. With Sam's kiss still warm on her lips she ran lightly upstairs. Carroll, partly dressed, stood before the mirror brushing his hair, in funny imitation of his father's careful manner of accomplishing that necessary process; while Doris scampered wildly about in her night-gown, her small bare feet pink with cold. "I wanted to see my daddy," she pouted, as her mother remonstrated. "I wanted to tell him somesing." "You can tell him to-night, girlie.--Yes, baby; in just a minute!" Elizabeth's fingers were flying as she pulled on the little girl's warm stockings and buttoned her shoes. "Now then, kittykins, slip into your warm dressing-gown and see how nicely you can brush your teeth, while mother--What is it, Carroll? Oh, a button off? Well, I'll sew it on. Give Buddy his picture-book.--Yes, pet; mother knows you're hungry; you shall have breakfast in just a minute. See the pretty pictures.--That's right, Carroll, my work-basket. Now stand still while I--Oh, Doris dear! Did you drop the glass?" "It was all slippy, mother, an' I couldn't hold it. It's on the floor, mother, all in teeny, weeny pieces!" "Don't step on them! Wait, I'll sweep up the pieces.--Yes, baby, mother hears you! See the pretty picture of the little pigs! Those nice little pigs aren't crying!--Wait, Carroll, till mother fastens the thread. There, that's done! Now put the basket--What is it, Doris? Oh, poor little girl; you've cut your finger. Don't cry! But you see you should have minded mother and not touched the broken glass. Now we'll tie it up in this nice soft cloth, and---- "Yes, Celia; what is it? Oh, the butcher? Well, let me think--We had beefsteak last night. Tell him to bring chops--nice ones; not like the last.--Oh, I must run down and speak to that boy; he's so careless with the orders! Tell him to wait a minute, Celia.--Carroll, won't you show baby his pictures and keep him quiet till I--No, Doris; you mustn't touch that bottle; that is father's bay-rum. Put it down, quick!" The meddlesome little fingers let go the bottle with a jerk. It fell to the floor, its fragrant contents pouring over the carpet. "Oh, you naughty child! What will mother do with you? All of daddy's nice--Yes, Celia; I hear you. I am coming directly. I must wipe up this--He says he can't wait? Well, tell him to bring two pounds of nice lamb chops--rib chops. If they are like the last ones he brought tell him I shall send them right back. "Now, Doris, I want you to look at mother. Why did you climb up in that chair and pull the cork out of the bottle, when I've told you never to meddle with the things on the chiffonière?" "I should think that child would know better after a while," put in Carroll, with the solemn air of an octogenarian grandfather. "You ought to have remembered the salad oil last week, Doris, and the ink the week before!" "Don't interrupt, Carroll; I'm talking to Doris just now. Look at mother; don't hang your head." "I wanted to--smell of it," muttered the child, digging her round chin into her neck, while she eyed her mother from under puckered brows. "Daddy said I might; lots of times he lets me smell it." "Yes, when he holds the bottle; but now, you see, poor daddy won't have any nice bay-rum the next time he wants to shave. He'll say 'who spilled my bay-rum?'" "It smells good!" observed Doris, filling the judicial pause with a rapturous giggle. "But it will all evaporate before night," said Elizabeth, taking up her youngest, who had thrown The Adventures of Seven Little Pigs on the floor and was protesting loudly at the delay. "How do you spell evaporate, mother?" asked Carroll. "That's a funny word--e-vap-o-rate. What does it mean, mother?" "It means to go away into the air--to disappear," Elizabeth told him. "See the big spot on the floor, and smell how fragrant the air is. Now we'll go down to breakfast and I will open the windows; when I come back after a while the bay-rum will be gone; it will be evaporated. Do you understand? Doris can't pick it up and put it back into the bottle, no matter how sorry she may feel to think she has been so careless." Two widely opened pairs of serious eyes travelled from the lessening spot on the floor to her face. "I think it would be nice to spill a bottle of 'fumery every day an' smell it 'vaporate," gurgled Doris, showing her dimples. Elizabeth lifted the mischievous face toward hers with an admonitory finger-tip. "I'll tell you, Doris, what you must do to make it right with father," she said slowly and impressively. "You must take all the money out of your bank and buy a new bottle of bay-rum." She felt that for once, at least, she had made the punishment fit the crime to a nicety. "Not all my money, mother?" "It will take every cent of it, I am afraid." The small culprit clapped her hands and executed an impromptu pirouette. "Oh, goody, goody, Carroll! mother says I may spend all my money; won't that be fun? When, mother, when can I buy the bottle for daddy? To-day? Say yes, mother; please say yes!" Elizabeth buried her face in her baby's fat neck to conceal the rebellious smile that would curve her young lips, just when she knew she ought to be grave and severe. "If you are a good girl in kindergarten I will take you to the store this afternoon," she said finally, with an undercurrent of wonder at the punishment which had so suddenly been metamorphosed into a reward. These singular transformations were apt to occur when her small daughter was concerned. She reflected upon the recurrence of the phenomenon as she brushed the silken mass of Doris' blond hair and fastened up her frock in the back, both operations being impeded by the wrigglings of the stalwart infant in her lap. "I like to smell 'fumery," announced the young person, at the conclusion of her toilet, "an' I love--I jus' love to hear pennies jingle in my pocket. Can I empty the money out of my bank now, mother? Can I?" She swung backward and forward on her toes like a bird poised for flight. "You must eat your breakfast and go to school," Elizabeth said, trying hard to keep her rising impatience out of her voice. "And after school----" "After school can I take my bank? The very minute it's out? Can I, mother; can I?" "You should say _may_ I; not _can_ I, Doris. Yes; if you're a good girl in kindergarten, and keep hold of Carroll's hand all the way going and coming, why then----" "I don't like to take hold of hands with Carroll," objected Doris, drawing her lips into a scarlet bud. "I like to walk by my lone; but I promise I won't get run over or anything. I'll be just as good!" It wasn't far to the little school where both children spent the morning. Elizabeth watched her darlings quite to the corner, pleased to observe that they were clinging obediently to each other's hands and apparently engaged in amicable conversation. Then her thoughts turned with some anxiety upon the approaching visit of Miss Tripp. She was very fond of Evelyn Tripp, she assured herself, and if it were not for Celia, and the spare-room (which needed new curtains, new paper and a larger rug to cover the worn place in the carpet), and if--she wrinkled her pretty forehead unbecomingly--the children could only be depended upon. One could not safely predict the conduct of Doris from hour to hour; and while, of course, Carroll was the best child in the world; still, even Carroll--upon occasions--could be very trying to the nerves. As for Richard, he was the baby; and no one, not even Evelyn Tripp, could fail to understand the subordinate position of the average household in its relations to the baby of the house. She kissed and hugged the small tyrant rapturously, while she set forth a plenitude of building-blocks, picture-books, trains, engines and wagons of miniature sizes and brilliant colours calculated to enchain the infant attention. "Now, darling," she cooed, "here are all your pretty playthings; sit right down and play, and be a good little man, while mother runs out in the kitchen a minute to see what Celia is doing." Richard surveyed his spread-out possessions with a distinctly bored expression on his round cherubic countenance. He had seen and handled those trains, wagons, engines and blocks many, many times before, and they did not appeal to his infant imagination with the same alluring force as did some other objects in the room. Had his mother seen fit to install the scarlet locomotive, for example, on the lofty mantle-piece with a stern interdiction upon it, it would doubtless have appeared supremely attractive. But the infant mind does not differ in essentials from that of the adult. The difficult, the forbidden, the almost unattainable fires the ambition and stiffens the will. There was a glass tank in the bay-window, situated on what appeared to Richard as a lofty and well-nigh inaccessible table. It contained a large quantity of water of a greenish hue, as well as a number of swift-moving, glittering, golden things which flashed in and out between the green, waving plants rooted in the sand at the bottom. Now Richard had been sternly forbidden to touch this enticing combination of objects. Nevertheless he had done it; not only once, but twice--thrice. He recalled with rapture the cool, slippery feel of the stones; the entrancing drip and gurgle of the water; the elusive, flitting shapes of the yellow things, "sishes," he called them fondly, which an adroit hand could occasionally manage to seize and hold for a brief instant. A stray sunbeam darted into the aquarium and lit up its mysterious depths with irresistible gorgeousness. Richard gazed and gazed; then he turned and kicked the red locomotive; under the impact of his pudgy foot it dashed with futile energy into the ruck of wagons, cars and building-blocks and lay there on its side, its feeble little wheels turning slowly. "Nas'y ol' twain!" muttered the infant disgustedly. IV Meanwhile Elizabeth in her kitchen was busy unearthing divers culinary crimes in the various cupboards and closets where the stolid Celia displayed a positive ingenuity in concealing the evidences of her misdoings. It was not perhaps to be wondered at that the untutored Norwegian should elect to boil her dish-cloth with the embroidered doilies from the dining-room; or that the soap should be discovered in a state of gelatinous collapse in the bottom of the scrubbing pail and the new cereal cooker burning gaily on the range. But Elizabeth's strained patience finally snapped in twain at sight of a pile of parti-coloured bits of china in the bottom of the coal-hod. "My best salad bowl!" she exclaimed, stooping to examine the grimy fragments. "When did you break it, Celia?" The girl was standing at the sink, presenting her broad back like a solidly built wall against the rising tide of her mistress' indignation. Her big blond head sank forward over her dish-pan; a guttural murmur issued from her lips. "And I have always been so careful of it! It was one of my wedding presents!" continued Elizabeth, in a fine crescendo. "How did you do it?" The girl had turned on both faucets, and the descending torrent of rushing water drowned the anguished inquiry. "You know I told you never to touch that bowl. I preferred to wash it myself. You must have taken it out of the dining-room. Why did you do it?" "I no take heem out--naw! I smash heem when I move the side-brood." The girl's broad magenta-tinted face was turned suddenly upon her mistress. She appeared excessively pleased with her mastery of the difficult English tongue. "I scrub ze floor; I s-m-a-s-h heem," she repeated positively. Elizabeth drew a deep breath. Scrubbing was Celia's one distinguished accomplishment. The spotless floors and table and the shining faucets and utensils bore evidence to the earnestness of her purpose and the undeniable strength of her arms. "You didn't mean to do it, I am sure," she said at last, with a renunciatory sigh; "but remember in future you must not move the dishes on the side-board unless I am there to help you." "I no move heem; I s-m-a-s-h heem." "Yes, I understand; but don't do it again." "I no s-m-a-s-h heem 'gain--Naw!" The girl's china blue eyes gazed guilelessly into the depths of the coal-hod; she lifted them with a triumphant smile upon her mistress. "I _have_--s-m-ash!" The trill of the door-bell put an end to this improving conversation; Elizabeth answered it herself by way of the sitting-room, where she paused to remove Richard, damp and dripping, from an ecstatic exploration of the gold-fish tank. The sound of his passionate protest followed her to the front door and lent a crisp decision to her tones as she informed a gentleman of an Hebraic cast of countenance that she did not wish to exchange old shoes of any description for "an elegant sauce-pan, lady; cost you one dollar in the store. Only one pair shoes, lady, this grand piece; cost you one dol----" Elizabeth shut the door firmly upon the glittering temptation and returned to her youngest born, who was weeping large tears of wrath in the middle of the sitting-room floor. "Come up stairs with mother, Richard; your sleeves are all wet," exhorted his mother, struggling with a sudden temptation. It would have been a relief to her feelings to spank him soundly, and she acknowledged as much to herself. "Come, dear," she repeated, in a carefully controlled voice. But Richard's fat legs doubled limply under him; he appeared unable to take a single step; whereupon his slender mother masterfully picked him up, despite the mysterious increase in his weight which she had had frequent occasion to notice in the person of an angry child. It was useless at the present moment to remind her son of oft-repeated prohibitions concerning the gold-fish tank. Elizabeth pondered the question of an appropriate penalty with knit brows, while she washed and dressed him in dry garments to the accompaniment of his doleful sobs. "Now, Richard, you must stay in your crib till you can be a good boy and mind mother," was the somewhat vague sentence of the maternal court at the conclusion of the necessary rehabilitation, whereupon the infant howled anew as if under acute bodily torture. As she turned to pick up the wet clothing a cheerful voice called her to the top of the stairs. "Shall I come up, dear? Your kitchen divinity admitted me and told me to walk right in." "Oh,--Marian; I'll be right down. I've had to dress Dick over again, and everything's in confusion. Go in the sitting-room, please." Elizabeth wanted time to collect herself before meeting the cool, amused eyes of Marian Stanford, whose ideas on the government of children were so wholly at variance with her own. "When you are ready to be a good boy, Richard, you may call mother and I will come up and take you out of your crib," was her parting observation to the culprit. "Oh, Elizabeth, dear; I'm afraid I interrupted a little maternal seance," was Mrs. Stanford's greeting. "No? Well, I'm glad if I haven't. It does vex me so when someone chances to call just as I am having it out with one of the infants." "Richard got his sleeves wet," explained Richard's mother, with what the other mentally termed "a really funny air of dignity." Mrs. Stanford's uplifted eyebrows and a flitting glance in the direction of the gold-fish tank expressed her complete understanding of the matter. "I remember you told me your child was fond of fishing," she murmured. "So like his dear father." Elizabeth's tense mouth relaxed into a smile. The howls upstairs had ceased; but she was conscious of waiting for something, she hardly knew what, to follow. "Do tell me what you do in a case like this?" pursued Mrs. Stanford guilefully. "You know I'm perfectly willing to abandon my crude attempts at training the infant mind the instant you, or anybody, can show me something more efficient than my beloved butter-paddle. I tell Jim the B. P. is my best friend these days. It is absolutely the only thing that intimidates Robert in the slightest degree." Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders. "_Intimidates?_" she repeated. Mrs. Stanford laughed. "Yes; intimidates. My dear, that child is a terror! I'm at my wit's end with him half the time; and as for Livingstone, he's going to be worse; I can see that already." Elizabeth hesitated while the warm colour dyed her cheeks. "You know what I think about terrifying children into obedience, Marian; and I know what you think. We really oughtn't to discuss it." The fine scorn in her eyes suddenly gave place to a look of alarm at sound of an appalling thump on the floor above. She darted from the room and up the stairs to the accompaniment of roars of anguish. Marian Stanford moved her handsome shoulders gently. "She must have put Richard in his crib and told him to stay there," was her entirely correct supposition. "Of course he didn't stay put." Marian Stanford was a graduate of Wellesley, and her mind filled with fragments of imperfectly acquired science not infrequently chanced upon a suggestive sequence. She could not resist the temptation to share her present gleam of enlightenment with dear Elizabeth (who had never been to college) when she presently returned, bearing Richard in her arms. The child was still drawing convulsive, half-sobbing breaths, and a handkerchief wet with witch hazel was laid across his forehead. "He fell out of his crib, poor darling!" explained Elizabeth. "I suppose you had told him not to get out?" Elizabeth eyed her friend speculatively over the top of her baby's curly head. It was useless to be offended with Marian; she never seemed to be aware of it. "You were about to say something enlightening," she observed with delicate sarcasm. "You may as well out with it." Mrs. Stanford smiled appreciatively. "You always were a clever creature, Elizabeth," she drawled; "but had it occurred to you that I would never have thought of thumping my child as the law of gravitation thumped yours just now? You wouldn't punish a certain young person for disobeying because you are so anxious to spare him pain; but I should say he'd been punished pretty severely--corporal punishment at that!" "The poor darling fell out of his crib, Marian, and hurt himself. Any child might do that." Marian Stanford got to her feet lazily. She was one of those women who manage to accomplish a great deal of work with the least possible apparent effort. All her movements were deliberate, even indolent. Elizabeth envied her sometimes in the midst of her own somewhat breathless exertions. "I came over to get your pattern for Carroll's blouse," she said; "not to discuss the government of children. But we seem to be at it, as usual. What I meant to convey was commonplace enough; if you had seen fit to settle the matter of the fish tank with a sound spanking, administered on the spot, Richard might not--mind I do not say would not--but he might not have acquired this particular thump at the hands of Mrs. Be-done-by-as-you-did. It just occurred to me, dear, and you know I never could keep my thoughts to myself as I should." Elizabeth arose, deposited her child on the couch and produced a roll of patterns from a drawer in her desk. "Here is the blouse, Marian," she said; "you'll need to cut it larger for Robbie; he is so broad in the shoulders. Be careful about the collar, though, or you'll get it too big around the neck." Marian Stanford was weak when it came to sewing. Elizabeth felt herself again as she saw the puzzled look in her friend's face. "This is the neck-band," she explained, "and this is the collar. You must be careful not to stretch the cloth after you have cut it. But you know perfectly well, Marian, that we _never_ shall think alike about the way to bring up children. I simply will not whip my children--no matter what they do! They are not animals to be tortured into submission." Mrs. Stanford laughed good-humouredly. "I'm afraid mine are," she said. "But never mind, Betty; we won't quarrel over it; you're too sweetly useful, and frankly I can't afford to. If I get into a mess over this blouse I shall come over to be extricated." Ten minutes later Elizabeth was surprised to hear her husband's rapid foot in the hall. She ran to meet him with an anxious face. "Nothing's the matter, dear," he said at once; "that is to say, nothing alarming. I was over this way to see Biddle & Crofut and ran in to tell you that Miss Tripp telephoned to the office this morning to inform me that she'd been called into town a day earlier than she expected to come, and would I--could I get word to her dearest Elizabeth that she would be with her this afternoon." Elizabeth drew a deep breath. "Well," she said resignedly; "Celia is sweeping the spare room, and I'm making some new curtains out of my old muslin dress; you'll be surprised to see how well they'll look, Sam. But I've only a rice pudding for dessert, and----" "I might order some ice-cream," he suggested, "and some--er----" A sudden suspicion assailed his Elizabeth; she gazed searchingly at her husband. "You haven't told me all," she said. "Don't overwhelm me by saying that Mrs. Tripp is coming too." He met her inquiring eyes rather shamefacedly. "To tell you the truth, Betty, Hickey chanced to be in the office at the time the Tripp lady telephoned, and I--er--recalled what you said last night; so I----" "You _didn't_ ask Mr. Hickey to dinner to-night, Sam?" "Why not? Aside from any sentimental considerations George is good company; and he's very appreciative of a certain little home-maker I know, and of the dinners he's eaten here in the past." "But it seems so--sudden!" He roared with laughter. "'In your mind's eye, Horatio,'" he quoted, when he had recovered himself somewhat. "You must remember, my dear, that neither the Tripp lady nor Hickey are aware of your Machiavellian designs upon their future." "Mr. Hickey wasn't a part of my _designs_, as you call them," she reminded him with spirit. "I merely said that I wished poor Evelyn could find some nice suitable man, and you said----" "We certainly owe the lady a 'suitable' article of some sort or other," he observed, with a reminiscent twinkle in his blue eyes, "if it's nothing more than a husband, and I'd like you to understand, Betty, that Hickey is my candidate." She glanced at her watch with a little shriek of dismay. "We mustn't waste another minute talking," she said. "Evelyn will be here before I'm half ready for her." V An unlooked for guest, involving new curtains for the guest-room, did not prevent Elizabeth from the conscientious discharge of her maternal duties. She resolved for once to play the stern part of Mrs. Be-done-by-as-you-did. Richard was playing with his blocks with perfect equanimity, a large black and blue lump on his forehead marking his recent experience with the undeviating law of gravitation. He gave utterance to a little yelp of protest as his mother took him up in her lap with a firm hand. "You know, Richard," she said solemnly, "that mother has told you ever so many times that you must not put your hand into the aquarium where the pretty gold-fish live. Why didn't you mind mother?" There being a new link established in the chain of associations connected with the gold-fish, the infant put his fat hand to the lump on his forehead and gazed unwinkingly at his parent. "I like to sp'ash water," he announced conclusively. "I like bafs." Elizabeth reflected that in a rudimentary way her child was endeavouring to make clear his motives, and even to place them on a praiseworthy basis. A feeling of pride in the distinguished intelligence of her children swelled within her; she suppressed it as she went on with an impressive show of maternal authority. "Yes, Richard; mother knows you like to take your bath; but we don't take baths with the gold-fish. Besides, you got your nice clean dress all wet, and made poor mother a great deal of trouble. Then, when mother told you to stay in your crib, you disobeyed again and got a dreadful bump." The infant appeared to ponder these indubitable statements for a space. Then he broke into an ingratiating smile. "I was tomin' to tell mudzer I was a dood boy," he said earnestly. "Zen I bumped my head." The violet depths of his eyes under their upturned lashes were altogether adorable; so was his pink mouth, half parted and curved exquisitely like the petals of a flower. Elizabeth's arms closed round her treasure; her lips brushed the warm rose of his cheeks. "Darling!" she murmured, for the moment quite losing sight of the fact that she was engaged in the difficult task of moral suasion. Elizabeth was almost guiltily open to the appeal of infantile beauty as opposed to the stern demands of discipline. The sight of a dimple, appearing and disappearing in a soft cheek, the quiver of baby lips; the irresistible twinkle of dawning humour in baby eyes were enough to distract her mind from any number of infantile peccadillos, and it is to be feared that the exceedingly intelligent Brewster children had become aware of it. "I am a dood boy," repeated Richard, with a bewitching glance at his parent. Then his chin quivered pathetically and he raised his hand to his head and peered out from under his pink palm. "I bumped my head on ze floor." Elizabeth hardened her heart against these multiplied fascinations. "You disobeyed mother twice," she said sternly. "I shall have to do something to make you remember not to touch the gold-fish again." She looked about her somewhat uncertainly as if in search of a suitable yet entirely safe idea. "I think," she said solemnly, "that I shall tie you to the arm of this big chair for--_ten minutes_!" The corners of Richard's pink mouth suddenly drooped as this terrible sentence of the maternal court was pronounced. "I am a dood boy, mudzer," he quavered. "I bumped my head on ze floor an' I cwied!" Two dimpled arms were thrown about Elizabeth's neck and a curly head burrowed passionately into her bosom. "I love 'oo, mudzer; I am a dood boy!" "I know you mean to be good, darling!" exclaimed Elizabeth, her heart melting within her; "but you do forget so often. Mother wants to help you to remember." But the intelligent infant had given himself up to an unpremeditated luxury of grief, and Elizabeth found herself in the unexpected position of a suppliant consoler. She begged her child to stop crying; she kissed the black and blue spot on his forehead and soothed him with soft murmurs and gentle caresses, and when finally he had sobbed himself to sleep in her arms, she bestowed the moist rosy little bundle on the couch, covering him warmly; then, with a parting pat and cuddle, sat down to her belated work on the spare-room curtains, feeling that she had been very severe indeed with her youngest child. Richard was still rosily asleep and Elizabeth was hurriedly attaching the ruffles to one of the improvised curtains when Celia, with two buttons off her frock in the back and a broad streak of stove-blacking across her honest red face, announced "one nize lady." Elizabeth sprang to her feet in sudden consternation at sight of the small square of white pasteboard with which Celia prefaced her announcement. Mrs. J. Mortimer Van Duser was a distant relative of Samuel Brewster's, and it pleased her to be kind, in an imposing and majestic manner--entirely suited to her own imposing and majestic person--to his "little family," as she invariably termed it. Elizabeth had assured her husband on more than one occasion that she did not feel the least embarrassment in that august presence; but her heart still flew to her mouth at sight of the entirely correct equipage from Beacon Street, and she always found herself drawing a long breath of unconfessed relief when it rolled away after one of Mrs. Van Duser's infrequent visits. When presently Mrs. Van Duser, large, bland and encased in broadcloth and sables, entered, she bestowed a gracious kiss upon Elizabeth's cheek, and seated herself in a straight-backed chair with the effect of a magistrate about to administer justice. "I trust you received the little brochure I mailed you last week," was her initial remark, accompanied by a searching glance at Elizabeth's agitated face. "I refer to 'Anthropological investigations on one thousand children, white and coloured.' I looked it over most carefully and marked the passages I deemed particularly helpful and suggestive." "Thank you, Mrs. Van Duser," faltered Elizabeth, "I did get the book, and I--was intending to write to you to-day to thank you for it." "Have you read it?" inquired Mrs. Van Duser pointedly. "I--looked it over, and--it appeared very----" Mrs. Van Duser's steadfast gaze appeared to demand the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Elizabeth's eyes fell before it. "It was very good of you to--to think of me," she said. "I think of you not infrequently," was the lady's gracious rejoinder, "and more particularly of your children, who are, of course, distantly related to myself. I cannot urge too strongly, or too often, the need of a scientific study of infancy and childhood as causally related to the proper functional development of your offspring." "I am sure it is most kind of you," murmured Elizabeth, striving to kindle an appreciative glow. "But--I have so little time." "You have all the time there is, my dear Elizabeth," chanted Mrs. Van Duser, in her justly celebrated platform tone; "and you should strive above all things to distinguish what is significant and essential from what is trivial and accidental." Her voice sank to a heart-searching contralto, as she added, "I have observed that you have time to sew trimming on your child's frock. What is trimming as compared with the demands of the springing intellect?" Elizabeth blushed guiltily and murmured something unintelligible. "Did you study the passages marked in 'Nascent Stages and their Significance,' which I sent you the week before?--particularly those on 'The feelings and their expression'?" asked Mrs. Van Duser, after a weighty pause. Elizabeth drew a deep breath. "I--found it not altogether easy to understand," she said guilefully. "For an untrained mind--no," agreed Mrs. Van Duser blandly. "I feared as much, and I have come this morning because I wished to go over with you somewhat exhaustively the points mentioned by the author, in order to compare them with your own more practical experience. I am about to present a paper before the Ontological Club on 'The Emotive States as factors in the education of The Child,' which I feel sure should prove invaluable to all thoughtful parents. I had intended," she added, with a mordant emphasis on the past tense of the verb, "to dedicate the brochure to you upon publication." At this point in the conversation, and before Elizabeth had time to express her blended contrition, gratitude and appreciation, two hurriedly slammed doors and the clatter of small feet in the passage announced the return of the children from school. Mrs. Van Duser's severe expression relaxed perceptibly. "How very fortunate," she observed. "I was hoping for an opportunity of studying certain phenomena at first hand. You know, my dear, I so seldom see children." Elizabeth's tender heart was touched by the unconscious wistfulness in the older woman's eyes. But she sighed at sight of the gilt-edged memorandum book in the hands of her guest. She was familiar with the exhaustive methods employed by Mrs. Van Duser in the pursuit of knowledge. "You will not, I hope, interrupt any normal procedure," that lady was saying in a sprightly tone, calculated to restore the depressed spirits of the younger matron to their usual level. "I should like--if I may--to observe the children at their luncheon, since the sense stimuli connected with the taking of food is exceedingly instructive as related to the cosmic consciousness." "I shall be very happy to have you lunch with us," faltered Elizabeth, her thoughts busying themselves with a futile review of the contents of her larder. Then the door flew open and Carroll and Doris dashed in, breathless and eager, to precipitate their small persons upon their mother's lap. "I was a _nawful_ good girl in kindergarten, mother!" announced Doris, dancing with impatience, "an' I didn't get run over, or anythin'. When can I go to the store an' spend all my money, mother? _When?_ Can I go _now_?" "Doris, dear; don't you see Mrs. Van Duser? and Carroll----" But the boy had already advanced politely, and was standing before the magisterial presence with a funny little air of resignation to the inevitable which forced a smile to his mother's serious lips. "Can you tell me, my boy, why you experience pleasure at the sight of your mother?" demanded Mrs. Van Duser, gazing searchingly at the child through her gold-mounted lorgnettes. "I--like my mother, better'n any body else," replied the boy, with a worried pucker of his smooth forehead. "_Like?_" echoed his inquisitor, looking up from a hurriedly pencilled note. "And what, pray, do you mean by 'like'?" "I mean I--love her, because she's the bestest person I know." "Is it because she gives you food when you are hungry that you love your parent? Or can you give me another reason?" continued Mrs. Van Duser, ignoring the comprehensive statement advanced by the boy. Carroll glanced doubtfully after his mother, as she hastily withdrew to look after the luncheon table. "I--don't know," he stammered. "I guess I like her when I'm hungry just the same." "C., aged eight years, unable to enumerate reasons for fondness of parent," wrote Mrs. Van Duser, with every appearance of satisfaction. "The reasoning faculties apparently dormant at this age." "What are you most afraid of?" was her next question, accompanied by an ingratiating smile, calculated to disarm youthful timidity. At this moment Richard, who had been peacefully asleep on the sofa, awoke, and becoming slowly aware of the majestic presence at his side, set up a doleful cry. Whereupon Mrs. Van Duser noted neatly that "an unexpected visual impression evidently caused anxiety, without any assignable reason, in the normal infant R." And when the normal infant scrambled down from the couch and retreated kitchenward under the careful supervision of his older brother, she observed further that "the dawning of the paternal instinct of protection was observable in the child C." VI The conduct of the children at the luncheon table was marked by such unexampled propriety of manner that Mrs. Van Duser was visibly disappointed. She could hardly have been expected to know that Elizabeth had resorted to shameless bribery in advance of the meal with a shining coin in each small pocket, "to be spent exactly as you choose," and that Richard was taking his food in the kitchen under the lax supervision of the Norwegian maid. Still the occasion was not wholly barren of material for a trained psychologist, as Mrs. Van Duser was pleased to term herself. "The psychophysical processes," she observed learnedly, "should be closely observed by the wise guardian, in order to properly graft desired complications on native reactions." "I am afraid I do not altogether understand," murmured Elizabeth, secretly grateful that her guest's preoccupation of mind rendered her oblivious to the blunders of Celia, as she plodded heavily about the table. "But I should like to ask you, Mrs. Van Duser, if you approve of--whipping children?" Mrs. Van Duser dropped her pencil and focussed her piercing regard upon the wife of her distant relative. "Decidedly not, my dear Elizabeth," she enunciated in her deepest contralto. "Corporal punishment brutalises the child by implying that a rational being is, or may be, on the level of the animal. It can be only too evident that if one treats a child like an animal, it will behave like an animal. I will send you an excellent pamphlet on the subject, which you will do well to study. In the meantime you should remember----" Mrs. Van Duser stopped short, raised her lorgnette and stared hard at Doris. That young person had suddenly left her chair and was whispering in her mother's ear, in the peculiar, sibilant whisper of an eager child. "I'm through of my dinner, mother," was wafted distinctly to the attentive ears of the guest. "An' I want to go an' buy daddy's 'fumery this minute. You said I might, mother; you said I might.--Yes; but _when_ is she going home, mother? _when?_" Far from evincing displeasure the great lady displayed the sincerest gratification. "A most interesting example of ideation," she observed. "My dear Elizabeth, please explain the child's emotions, if you are aware of them. I fail to observe anger or dislike, or even--as might well be expected--awe. Why do you wish me to go home?" she inquired directly of Doris, who had retreated behind her mother's chair in pouting dismay. Elizabeth experienced a hysterical desire to laugh; but she instantly repressed it. "You should explain to Mrs. Van Duser, Doris, that you spilled father's bay-rum this morning, and that mother said you must buy him a fresh bottle with your own money," she said soberly. "I want to go _now_," whispered the child. "You said I might, mother; you _promised_!" "Excellent!" exclaimed Mrs. Van Duser, writing rapidly in her book. "You really ought, my dear Elizabeth, to preserve a careful memoranda of these interesting mental movements of your offspring," she observed convincingly. "Every properly constructed parent should endeavour to so assist science. However crudely and unscientifically expressed, such records would prove of incalculable value to the student." She turned to Doris with a complete change of manner. It was no longer the ontological Mrs. Van Duser, but the great lady from Beacon Street who spoke. "You have been very rude indeed, my child," she said sternly; "and little girls should never be rude; but I will take you with me in the carriage to purchase the toilet article referred to, and send you home afterwards, if your mother will permit." As Elizabeth watched the flushed and triumphant Doris, departing in state in the Van Duser carriage, the jingling contents of her bank in her small pocket, she was conscious of a bewildering sense of failure. She had sincerely tried to impress a lesson of obedience and a respect for the rights of others upon the mind of her child, and, lo! the culprit was enjoying a long-wished-for treat! The arrival of Miss Evelyn Tripp, in a hansom cab with a small much-belabelled trunk on top, successfully diverted her mind from this and other ethical problems. Miss Tripp's recent misfortunes had as yet left no traces on her slight, elegant personality. She entered quite in her old fashion, amid a subdued rustle of soft silken garments, a flutter of plumes and a gracious odour of violets. "My dear!" she exclaimed, clasping and kissing Elizabeth, quite in the latest mode. "How well you are looking! Indeed, you are younger and far, far prettier than the day you were married! How vividly I remember that day, and I am sure you do! How I did work to have everything pass off as it should, and so many persons have told me since that it was really the sweetest wedding they ever saw! It hardly seems possible that it was so long ago. What! You don't tell me that great boy is Carroll! Come here and let Aunty Evelyn kiss you, dear. And Doris? She was such a dear, tiny thing when I saw her last. Oh, that is the baby; you say! No; Elizabeth--not that great child! Fancy! I declare I feel like a Methuselah when I look at my friend's children. I hate to grow old--really old; don't you know." Miss Tripp paused to remove her plumed hat, while Elizabeth hastened to assure her friend that she really hadn't changed in the least. This was quite true, since Miss Tripp was of that somewhat thin and colourless type of American womanhood upon which the passing years appear to leave little trace. "Oh, my dear!" sighed Miss Tripp, "I am changed; everything has changed with me, I assure you. Mother and I are obliged to live off air, exactly like wee little church mice. And I am simply worn to a fringe trying to economise and manage. I never was extravagant; you know that, dear, but now----. Well; I don't know what will become of us unless something happens." "Something will happen, dear," said Elizabeth, more than ever warm-heartedly determined to make her friend as happy as herself. "Now I'm going to leave you to lie down and rest a little before dinner," she added guilefully, as she bethought herself of the various culinary operations already in progress under the unthinking control of Celia. "A friend of Sam's--a Mr. Hickey, chances to be dining here to-night; I hope you won't mind, dear. It--just happened so." Miss Tripp turned to gaze searchingly at her friend. "You can't mean George Hickey--a civil engineer?" she asked. "Why, yes; do you know him?" "My dear; it's the oddest thing; but lately I seem to meet that man wherever I go. He is a friend of the Gerald Doolittles in Dorchester--you know who I mean--and spends a Sunday there occasionally; and when I was visiting Leticia Marston last fall, lo and behold! Mr. Hickey turned up there for the week end! I used to know him years ago when we were both children." "Sam is associated with Mr. Hickey in a professional way," observed Elizabeth, with a careful indifference of manner. "He dines with us once in a while." She paused to listen, with her head on one side, while a look of alarm stole over her attentive face. "What's the matter, dear?" inquired the unaccustomed Miss Tripp. "Do you hear anything?" "No, Evelyn; I don't, and the silence is suspicious. I think I'll run down stairs and see what the boys are doing. Try and rest, dear, till I call you." And Elizabeth accomplished a hasty exit by way of the back stairs and the kitchen, where she was in time to frustrate the intelligent Celia as she was about putting the French peas over to boil an hour before dinner time. From thence she sought the sitting-room, where she had left her two sons amicably engaged in constructing a tall and wobbly tower out of building blocks. Carroll had vanished, and her amazed and indignant eyes lighted upon the person of her youngest son kneeling in a chair before the forbidden aquarium, over which he leaned in a state of rapturous oblivion of past experiences, his plump hands buried in the sand at the bottom of the tank, while the alarmed gold fish flashed in and out between the dripping sleeves of his freshly-ironed blouse. "Richard Brewster!" she cried. Then wrath and a disheartening sense of the futility of unassisted moral suasion quite swept her off her feet. She seized the child and laying him across her lap in time-honoured fashion, handed down from a remote ancestry, spanked him with a speed and thoroughness not to be surpassed by Grandmother Carroll in her most energetic mood. VII Elizabeth was fluttering anxiously about the table in her small dining-room when her husband entered in his usual breezy fashion and laid a bunch of fragrant carnations before her. "A finishing touch for your table, Betty," he said; and added with lover-like enthusiasm, "My! how pretty you're looking to-night!" "I shouldn't think I'd look pretty after the day I've put in," she told him as she arranged the flowers in water. "Sam, Mrs. Van Duser was here to luncheon." "No?" "She came to ask me if I had read 'Anthropological Investigations on one thousand children, white and colored,' and I hadn't even looked at it." "So you flatly flunked the exam; poor Betty!" "Not exactly, Sam; I--told her I didn't quite--understand the subject." "Ah, Machiavellian Betty! Did she tumble?" "Oh, Sam! what a way to speak of Mrs. Van Duser. I was the one to tumble, as you call it. She graciously picked me up. Of course Doris was naughty, and Celia spilled cocoa on the table-cloth and passed everything on the wrong side. Then after Mrs. Van Duser went, Evelyn came.--She's up-stairs now, dressing for dinner. And--after that--I don't know what you'll think of me, Sam; but I--was nervous or something I think, and I--whipped Richard." "You--what?" "After all I've said about Marian Stanford, too! I just hate myself for doing it. But I had dressed that child twice all clean, and when I came down to see about dinner and found him playing in the aquarium _again_, Sam, dripping water all over the floor, and with his clothes soaked to the skin, I just seemed to lose all control of myself. I snatched the poor darling up and--and--spanked him as hard as I could. The strange part of it is that I--seemed to enjoy doing it." Her doleful air of abject contrition was too much for Sam. He roared with irrepressible laughter. "Forgive me, Betty," he entreated; "but really, you know----" "I understand now exactly why people whip their children," went on Elizabeth, descending into abysmal depths of humility and grovelling there with visible satisfaction. "I gave way to uncontrollable rage just because I knew I must take the trouble to dress the poor little darling again, and I couldn't think for the minute what flannels to put on him. So I revenged myself, in just a common, spiteful, vulgar way. No, Sam; you needn't try to make light of what I did. Nothing can excuse it!" At that instant the misused infant, dragging a train of iron cars behind him, hove into view. "Chu-chu-chu!" he droned. "Det out the way! Here tomes the 'spress train!" His cherubic countenance was serene and rosy; he beamed impartially upon his parents as he scuffed across the floor. "Well," said his father, endeavouring (unsuccessfully) to view the matter in a serious light, "I fail to observe any signs of violent abuse or tokens of abject fear about the young person; I guess you didn't----" "Hush, Sam! I hope he's forgotten it--the darling! Do you love mother, baby?" "I'm a dreat big engine-man!" vociferated the infant, submitting cheerfully to his mother's kisses, "an' I love 'oo more'n a sousand million! Chu-chu! Toot-toot! Ding-dong!" "How about the other young Brewsters?" inquired their father, with a twinkle of mock solicitude in his blue eyes. "Have they been pursuing the undeviating paths of rectitude, or have you--er--been moved to----" "Sam, if you make fun of me about--what I did to Richard, I----" her voice broke, and she hid her eyes on his shoulder. "I thought," she said, "that it was my duty to tell you." "I'm not making fun of you, little woman. Perish the thought!" and he kissed her convincingly. "I don't know what I should--or shouldn't do--if I had to cope with the young miscreants single-handed all day. Where is Doris, by the way?" She told him about the broken bay-rum bottle, and described the scene at the luncheon table. "I was so ashamed," she concluded; "but what could I do?" "Let me laugh again, Betty!" he begged. "That's too much, you know. Fancy our small Doris having the--er--audacity to stand up and audibly hint that Mrs. J. Mortimer Van Duser's room would be more acceptable than her company. I wish I'd been there to see and hear." "Mrs. Van Duser said that it was a most interesting example of ideation--whatever that is," said his Elizabeth rather proudly. "She's writing a paper for the Ontological Club, and she's going to put all three of the children in." "As what--Concrete examples of the genus _enfant terrible_?" he inquired cautiously. Elizabeth was surveying her table with satisfied eyes. She did not appear to have heard his question. "It may be hard work to take care of all that silver and glass we had for wedding presents, Sam," she said thoughtfully; "but on occasions it is useful." "Yes; if the foreigner in the kitchen didn't too often turn our dancing into mourning by smashing it." "I'm not going to let Celia wash one of these dishes," she told him firmly. "Who is going to wash them?" he asked resignedly. "I am--after Mr. Hickey's gone and Evelyn's in bed." "'That means me,'" he quoted irreverently. "I'm a thoroughly house-broken husband, and you can depend upon me, Betty, every shot." She flashed him a grateful smile. "Of course I know that, Sam," was all she said; but her eyes were eloquent of love and happy trust. "What do you think, Sam," she added irrelevantly; "Evelyn has known Mr. Hickey a long time already." "So much the better for Hickey!" "Yes; that's what I thought. You see, Sam, if--if anything should happen, it wouldn't be all our doing; and so in a way, Sam, I actually felt relieved when Evelyn said that she had met Mr. Hickey before. It is really an awful responsibility." "What? to ask Hickey to dinner? He didn't seem to mind it." "Don't be flippant, Sam," she said with dignity. "You know perfectly well what I mean. If Mr. Hickey _should_ fall in love with Evelyn--and I will say that she never looked more attractive than she does now--and if she should----" He interrupted her with a hasty kiss. "I've got to go up and dress," he reminded her. "Don't you worry, Betty; if he should, and she should, then they both would; and all you and I would be required to do would be to buy them a clock that wouldn't go, or a dozen _pâté de foies gras_ implements--only let it be something useful. By the way, I see you've set the table for the children. Do you think that is--er--exactly the part of wisdom?" "No, Sam; I do not. But I had to make it up to Richard someway, so I promised to let him have dinner with us, and Evelyn quite insisted upon the others. She thinks Carroll simply perfect, and she says Doris is the most fascinating child she ever saw." "Well," he acquiesced, "they're the biggest and best half of the Brewster family, when you come to think of it, and Hickey always wants to see them when he comes." Half an hour later Elizabeth was putting the finishing touches to her toilet, while the children, immaculate and shining, hovered admiringly about the dressing-table. "Now remember, Carroll, you mustn't get to quarrelling with Doris about anything." "I won't, mother; I promise." "We're going to have ice-cream for dessert, and----" "Oh-e-e!" in a rapturous chorus from all the children. "I don't want you to make that noise when Celia brings it in to the table; that's why I'm telling you beforehand." Richard was pirouetting heavily on his little stubbed shoes. "Oh-e-e!" he repeated, "ice-cweam!" "Now, do you think you can remember?" asked Elizabeth, clasping a string of gold beads about her pretty throat, and turning to meet the three pairs of upturned eyes. "I want Aunty Evelyn to think you've improved a great deal since the last time she was here. You weren't very good that time." Carroll's clear gaze met his mother's reprovingly. "Do you want Aunty Evelyn to think we've improved, if we haven't?" he asked. "Because we're really getting badder most every day." "You're badder, you mean," said Doris, with a superior and pitying smile; "I'm as good 's I can be. Mrs. Van Duser said I was a very inter-est-in' 'zample of a child. So there!" Carroll shook his head. "I'm not going to quarrel with you, Doris, 'cause I promised mother I wouldn't," he said with dignity; "but we are badder--'specially you; you didn't mind mother three times to-day." "I am not badder." "I said I wouldn't quarrel, Doris; but you are--very much badder." "Hush, children!" exclaimed Elizabeth, hurriedly intervening between the militant pair. "Come right down stairs, and don't talk to each other at all unless you can be pleasant and polite." Miss Evelyn Tripp presently appeared in a wonderful toilet, all lace and twinkling jets. She exclaimed over Carroll's marvellous gain in inches, and Doris' brilliant colour, and kissed and cooed over Richard. "They're certainly the dearest children in the world," she said. "I've been simply wild to see them all these months, and you, too, Betty dear! I've so much to tell you!" She twined her arm caressingly about Doris, and smiled brilliantly down at the little girl, who gazed with round appreciative eyes at the visitor's gown and at the jewels which sparkled on her small white hands. "Both of my front teeth are all wiggly," whispered the child, feeling that something out of the ordinary was demanded of her in a social way. "I can wiggle them with my tongue." "Can you, darling? How remarkable! Never mind; you'll soon have some nice new ones that won't wiggle." Doris giggled rapturously. "We're going to have ice-cream for dinner," was her next confidence. "But I'm not going to act s'prised when Celia brings it in. We've all promised mother we won't, even if it's pink. I hope it'll be pink; don't you?" "Doris," warned her mother, "you're talking too much." "Oh, do let the dear little soul say anything she likes to me, Betty!" protested Miss Tripp. "If you knew how I enjoyed it!" Doris nestled closer to the visitor, eyeing her mother with the naughtily demure expression of a kitten stealing cream. "I was going to tell you something funny," she said, "but I can't think what it was. I guess I'll remember when we're eating dinner." "The artless prattle of a child is so refreshing, you know," continued Miss Tripp, "after all the empty conventionalities of society. I simply love to hear the little darlings--especially yours, dear Betty. You are bringing them up so beautifully!" VIII When Mr. George Hickey rang the bell at the door of the modest Brewster residence that night, it was with the pleasant anticipation of a simple, but well-cooked dinner, of the sort a bachelor, condemned by his solitary estate to prolonged residence in that semi-public caravansary known as the American boarding-house, seldom enjoys. He was very far indeed from a knowledge of the fact that he was in the oft-quoted position of the man in a boat on the hither side of the great rapids of Niagara. Mr. Hickey had allowed himself to be drawn into feeling a somewhat uncommon interest in Miss Evelyn Tripp, it is true; but he attributed this feeling wholly to the fact that he had known Miss Tripp when he was a tall, awkward boy of twenty and she was a rosy, fascinating miss of sixteen. She had laughed at him slily in those days, and he had resented her mirth with all the secret and hence futile agony which marks the intercourse of the awkward youth with the self-possessed maid. But the scar which Evelyn's youthful laughter had left in his bosom had remained unwontedly tender--as an old wound sometimes will; and when after the lapse of years they had met once more Mr. Hickey found the lady so surprisingly sweet, so gentle, so altogether tactful and sympathetic, that he could hardly escape a pleasant and soothing sense of gratitude. They spoke of old times--very old times they were; the mere mention of which brought a delicate blush to Miss Tripp's cheek. And the auroral light of youth, which never appears so roseate as when it shines upon the cold peaks of middle life, irradiated their common past and appeared to linger fascinatingly over Miss Tripp's somewhat faded person. It had not, however, occurred to Mr. Hickey that the foregoing had any bearing whatever upon his own immediate future, nor upon the immediate future of Miss Evelyn Tripp. In a word, Mr. Hickey was very far from contemplating matrimony when he entered the Brewster's cheerful little parlour, bearing a box of bonbons for its mistress, and a jumping-jack capable of singular and varied contortions, for the young Brewsters. Miss Tripp appeared very much surprised to meet Mr. Hickey again; she gave him a beautiful little hand of welcome from the deep chair where she was enthroned with Richard upon her knee ruthlessly crumpling the skirt of one of her carefully cherished gowns. "I'm telling the children a fairy story," she said archly; "you mustn't interrupt." "May I listen, if I'm a good boy?" asked Mr. Hickey, endeavouring to assume a light and festive society air, which hardly comported with his tall spare figure and the air of sober professionalism which he had acquired during a somewhat stern and strenuous past. Carroll, who guarded Miss Tripp's chair on the right, exchanged puzzled glances with Doris who occupied the left. The little girl giggled. "You aren't a boy," she said, addressing Mr. Hickey with a confidence inspired by past acquaintanceship; "you're all grown up." "I like fairy stories, anyway," he asserted untruthfully; "and I want to hear the one Miss Tripp is telling. You'll let me; won't you, Doris?" "I'll let you, if Aunty Evelyn'll let you; but I guess she won't." Miss Tripp laughed musically. "What a quaint little dear it is," she murmured, kissing the child's pink cheek. "Why shouldn't Aunty Evelyn let Mr. Hickey hear the story if he wants to, dear?" "He's too old," said Doris convincingly. "He wouldn't care about Cinderella losing off her glass slipper." "Oh-e-e, Doris Brewster!" exclaimed Carroll, swelling with the superior enlightenment of his three years of seniority. "That's very rude indeed! Mr. Hickey doesn't look so very old. He's got quite a lot of hair left on the sides of his head, and----" "Thanks, my boy," interrupted Mr. Hickey hastily. "But don't entirely floor me by enumerating all my youthful charms. How about that slipper of Cinderella's, Miss Tripp; there's a prince in that story, isn't there? with--er--plenty of hair on top of his head?" Miss Tripp, who was actually blushing pink, quite in her old girlish fashion, exchanged mirthful glances with the engineer. "I was just coming to the prince," she said. "He was--oh, such a beautiful prince, all dressed in pale blue, embroidered with pearls and silver, and on his breast a great flashing diamond star. And when he saw Cinderella, standing all by herself, in her beautiful gauzy ball-dress----" "An' her glass slippers!" gurgled Doris rapturously. "An' her gwass sippers!" echoed Richard, hugging the story-teller in a sudden spasm of affection. "Yes, her glass slippers, of course, darlings," cooed Miss Tripp; "but the prince did not notice the slippers, he was so agitated by the sight of her lovely face and her shining golden hair." Mr. Hickey caught himself gazing dreamily at Miss Tripp's elaborately arranged coiffure. The yellow gas light fell becomingly upon the abundant light brown waves and coils, touching them into a shimmering gold which he did not remember to have noticed before. How well she was telling the story, too; and how fond of her the Brewster children appeared to be. He recalled mistily that someone had said, or written--perhaps it was one of those old author chaps--that it was impossible to deceive a child. Mr. Hickey was convinced that this must be true. And insensibly he fell to thinking how pleasant it would be if this were his own fire-side, and if the lady in the deep wicker chair were----. A sound of small hand-clapping brought him out of this blissful revery with a start. "I like that part best of all," Carroll was saying; "an' if I'd been that prince I'd 'av taken my big, shining sword and cut off the heads of those bad, wicked sisters! Yes; I would; I'd like to do it!" And the sanguinary small boy swaggered up and down, his shoulders squared and his eyes shining. "Oh, my dear!" protested Miss Tripp mildly. "You wouldn't be so unkind; I'm sure you wouldn't." "I'd take all their pretty dresses away an' wear 'em myself," shrilled Doris excitedly. "An' I'd--pinch 'em; I'd----" "Let me tell you what dear, sweet Cinderella did," interrupted Miss Tripp, tactfully seizing the opportunity to impress a moral lesson. "She forgave her unkind step-mother and her two rude, spiteful sisters, and gave them each a castle and many, many lovely gowns and jewels; and after that they loved Cinderella dearly--they couldn't help it. And all of them were good and happy for ever afterward." The children stared in round-eyed displeasures at this ethical but entirely tame denouement. "That isn't in my story-book," said Carroll positively. "Cinderella married the Prince, an' the fairy god-mother turned the bad sisters into rats, an' made 'em draw her carriage for ever an' ever." "Why, Carroll Brewster! I guess you made that up!" cried Doris. "The fairy god-mother didn't turn the bad sisters into anything; she jus' waved her wand an' turned Cinderella's ol' ragged clo'es into a lovely spangled weddin' dress, an' then----" "She turned 'em into rats," repeated Carroll doggedly. "An' I'm glad she did it." "She did not turn 'em into rats!" "She did!" "She didn't!" At this crucial moment entered Elizabeth, flushed and bright-eyed from a final encounter with the elemental forces in the kitchen. "Won't you all come out to dinner," she said prettily; "I'm sure you must have concluded that dining was among the lost arts by this time." "Not in this house," said Mr. Hickey gallantly. "This is one of the few--the very few places where one has the inestimable privilege of really dining. The balance of the time I merely take food from a strict sense of duty." "We're going to have ice-cream," whispered Carroll kindly. His father, who had caught the whisper, laughed outright. "He wants to give you something to look forward to, George," he said, as he tried the edge of his carving-knife. "If variety is the spice of life anticipation might be said to be its sweetening--eh? Will you have your beef rare or well-done, Miss Tripp?" "Well-done, if you please," murmured Miss Tripp, smiling happily as she squeezed Doris' chubby hand under the table-cloth. The little girl's eyes were very bright as she said, "I like to have you a-visitin', Aunty Evelyn." "Do you, dear? Well Aunty Evelyn is very, very happy to be here." "We were going to have rice-pudding for dessert if you hadn't come. I don't like rice-pudding; do you, Aunty Evelyn?" "Doris--dear!" Her mother's voice held reproof and warning; but the child with the specious sense of security inspired by the presence of strangers displayed her dimples demurely. "I didn't know it was naughty not to like rice-pudding," she said, in a small distinct voice. Mr. Hickey glanced thoughtfully across the table at Miss Tripp, who was smiling down at the little girl encouragingly. "Most of us are naughty when it comes to hankering after the unusual and the unattainable," he observed didactically. "I eat my rice-pudding contentedly enough most days of the year; but on the three hundred and sixty-fifth I----" "You pine for pink ice-cream; don't you?" smiled Miss Tripp; "but one might tire of even the pinkest ice-cream, if it appeared too often. What one really wants is--plain bread." She cast a barely perceptible glance at Elizabeth, the laces at her throat quivering with the ghost of a sigh. The next instant she was laughing at Richard whose curly head was beginning to droop heavily over his food. "Poor little fellow," she murmured. "Do look, Elizabeth, he's almost gone!" "Won't you carry him up-stairs for me, Sam?" Elizabeth begged her husband. "I ought not to have kept him up for dinner.--You'll excuse us just an instant; won't you?" It was a pretty picture; the tall, stalwart father lifting the child rosy with sleep, and the little mother hovering anxiously near, like a small brown bird. Mr. Hickey observed it solemnly; Miss Tripp smilingly; then, for some reason unknown to both, their eyes met. "--Er--let me pass you the--bread, Miss Tripp," said Mr. Hickey, short-sightedly choosing among the viands immediately within his reach. "Thank you, Mr. Hickey," said Evelyn, and again that faint, elusive sigh shook the delicate laces at her throat. IX As Miss Tripp was putting the finishing touches to a careful toilet the next morning she caught the sound of a whispered dispute in the hall; then small knuckles were cautiously applied to the panel of her chamber door. "Aunty Evelyn! Aunty Evelyn! are you waked up?" Miss Tripp had been brooding since daylight over the accumulated problems which appeared to crowd her narrow horizon like so many menacing thunder-caps; but she summoned a faint smile to her lips as she opened the door. "Why, good-morning, dears!" she cried cheerfully at sight of the two small figures in their gay dressing-gowns and scarlet slippers. "We want to hear a story, Aunty Evelyn," announced Doris, prancing boldly in, each individual curl on her small head bobbing like coiled wire. "We like stories." "Come here, pet, and let Aunty brush your curls." "No; I don't want my curls brushed; I want to hear a story about a be-utiful princess going to seek her fortune." Miss Tripp suppressed a vague sigh. "I know a poor, forlorn princess who is obliged to go out all alone into the cold world to seek her fortune," she said. "And I'm very much afraid she won't find it." "Is she young and be-utiful?" asked Doris, with wide-eyed attention. "An' has she got a spangled dress?" "Dot a spangled dwess?" cooed Richard, like a cheerful little echo. "No; she's forced to wear a plain black dress in her wanderings, and she isn't beautiful at all. She's not very young either, and ugly lines are beginning to creep about her eyes and across her forehead; and one day, not long ago she found--what do you suppose?" "A bag of gold?" "A bag o' dold?" echoed Richard. "No, dear; this poor, forlorn little princess found three silver hairs growing among the brown ones just over her ear." Miss Tripp's sweet, drawling voice trembled slightly as she went on with her little fable. "The princess felt so badly that she shed bitter tears when she saw the glitter of those three silver hairs, because she knew that she could never, never catch up with youth any more." "What youth--the fairy prince?" Doris wanted to know. And Richard smiled seraphically as he trilled, "Oh, dood! It was 'e pwince!" "No, darlings; there isn't any prince at all in this story. There was one--once--away back in the beginning of it; but he--went away--to a far country, and he--never came back." "Did the princess cry?" "Did her cwy?" "Yes; she cried till all the brightness went out of her pretty eyes. Then she stopped crying and laughed instead, because--Oh; because crying didn't help a bit." "You've been crying, Aunty Evelyn!" said Doris suddenly. "Why-e! your eyes are all teary now!" "I've got a cold; I'm afraid," prevaricated Miss Tripp. "I don't like that story," objected Doris. "Unless----" and her eyes brightened, "the prince came back. Let him come back, Aunty Evelyn; please let him; it'll spoil the story if he doesn't." Miss Tripp drew a deep breath. "I--wish he might come back," she said; "but I--I'm afraid he never will, dear; and the poor little princess will have to go on alone till----" "Till what?" demanded Doris indignantly. "I c'n tell a better story 'an that," she added. "Tell it, dear." "Well; the princess went out in her horrid ol' black clo'es an' travelled an' travelled, _an' travelled_ till she was mos' tired out, an' everywhere she went she asked 'where is my prince?' An' at first all the people said, 'We don't know where any prince is.' But the princess jus' made up her mind she _would_ find him; an'--an' bimeby she did--jus' as easy! He was right there all the time; only he was enchanted by an awful bad fairy so she couldn't see him, an' so----" Doris paused to draw breath, and Richard gravely took up the tale, nodding the while like a gay little china mandarin. "He was 'chanted an' she was 'chanted, an' they bof was 'chanted, an'----" "Be quiet, Buddy, an' let me tell," interrupted Doris. "She did find him! Course she found him, an'--an' her horrid ol' clo'es was changed to a lovely wedding dress, an'--an'--that's the end of it!" Miss Tripp laughed. She felt unreasonably cheered by this optimistic finale to her sad little story--which had no ending. "That would be the beginning of a very cheerful story," she said. "Now Aunty Evelyn must get some breakfast and start out into the cold world." "Oh! we want you to stay!" "I'm coming back, dears; yes, indeed; I'll be back this very evening, and then I'll tell you the loveliest story in the world, all about a little goose-girl." It was a very cold world indeed into which Miss Tripp fared forth that winter morning. But Elizabeth's friendly protests were vain. "I really must go, dear," Evelyn told her with a firmness quite foreign to her fashionable self. "You don't know--you can't guess how necessary it is for me to find some way of earning money. Mother----" her voice shook a little--"isn't at all well; she never was very strong, and our losses have quite--Why, Elizabeth, you would hardly know mother; she's so changed. She just sits by the window, and--looks out; I can't seem to rouse her to--to do anything." Remembering the frail, artificial old lady, with her elaborate toilets and her perpetual aura of rice-powder and sachet, Elizabeth thought this exceedingly probable. "Was it so very bad, Evelyn?" she asked hesitatingly. "You know you only told me----" "We lost nearly everything when the Back-Bay Security Company failed last fall," said Evelyn quietly. "I--couldn't seem to believe it at first. Of course we were never rich; but we had always lived very comfortably--you know how pleasant it was in our little apartment, Elizabeth, with our good Marie to do everything for us, and all our friends." Miss Tripp touched her eyelids delicately with her little lace-edged handkerchief. "I--mustn't cry," she said. "It makes one look so like a fright, and I----. Elizabeth, do you suppose I could get a place to--teach? I do love children so, and they always seem to like me." "What would you teach?" Elizabeth asked, anxiously sympathetic, yet knowing a little more of the ways of the educational world than did Miss Tripp. "You know, Evelyn,--at least I am told--that nearly every teacher has to be a specialist now. You might study kindergartening," she added more hopefully. Miss Tripp shook her head. "No; I couldn't do that. It would take too long, and we should have plenty of time to--starve, I fancy, before----. But what nonsense I'm talking! I must start out this minute; I have an appointment at Whitcher's Teacher's Agency this morning. They told me yesterday that a man--a school principal--was coming there to hire a primary teacher. I'm sure I could do that; don't you think I could, Elizabeth?--Just to teach the children how to read and write and do little sums on their slates. I shall say I can anyway." She waved her hand to her friend as she went bravely away down the snowy street, and Elizabeth turned back to her children, feeling a new and unfamiliar sense of gratitude for the warm home nest, with its three turbulent birdlings. It was Saturday, and the children could not be dispatched to kindergarten as on other mornings of the week. It was also baking-day, and bread and rolls were in slow process of rising to their appointed size in the chilly kitchen. Elizabeth was frugally looking over the contents of her larder with a view to a "picked-up" luncheon, when she heard a small yet distinct knock on the back door. She opened it upon Robbie Stanford, dancing with impatience on the snowy step. "Good-morning, Mrs. Brewster," he began with an ingratiating smile, "I've come over to play with Carroll an' Doris. I c'n stay two hours 'n' maybe three, 'nless my mother comes from down-town before that." "Oh; isn't your mother at home?" asked Elizabeth, with a dubious glance at the red-cheeked, black-eyed young person, who was already edging smilingly toward the closed door of the dining-room. She had entertained Master Stanford before in the absence of his parents and had learned to dread the occasions of his visits. "No, ma'am," said Robbie politely. "My mother's gone to have her teeth fixed. The' was a teeny hole in one of 'em, an' the hole ached. Did you ever have holes in your teeth, Mrs. Brewster?" "Why, yes; I suppose I have," assented Elizabeth doubtfully. "Now, Robbie; I want you to promise me that you will be a good boy this morning, and not get into any mischief; I'm going to be very, very busy, and----" "I'll be good," responded the young person cheerfully. "I'll be gooder 'an anything. Where's Carroll?" "He's in the other room; but--wait a minute, dear. You remember the last time you played with Carroll you----" "Yes, 'm; I 'member. We made an ocean in the bath-room, an' you said----" "Doris took a bad cold from getting so wet, and Richard almost had the croup." "I won't do it again," promised the visitor, digging his toes rather shamefacedly under a loosened edge of the linoleum. "I'll jus' look at pictures, 'n'--'n' things like that." "Very well; I'll take you in where the children are playing. Carroll will be glad to see you; I'm sure," she added, feeling that she had been rather ungracious to her friend's child. The three young Brewsters greeted their neighbour with a whoop of joy. Master Stanford was blessed with a pleasantly inventive turn of mind, and one could generally depend upon a break in the monotony of the home circle when he appeared. "What'll we do?" inquired Doris, prancing gaily around the visitor, who gazed about him at the assembled Brewster toys with a somewhat ennuied expression on his small, serious countenance. "Aw--I don't know; play with dolls, I guess. I promised I'd be good." "We might play Indian," suggested Carroll hopefully. "Mother lets us take the couch-cover for a tent." The visitor considered this proposition in Napoleonic silence. "Have your dolls got real hair?" he inquired darkly of Doris. "Uh-huh; every one of 'em 's got real hair. My new doll 'at I got Christmas 's got lovely long curls. I don't play with her ev'ry day, 'cause mother's 'fraid I'll break her." "Go an' get her; get all yer dolls." "Oh--we don't want t' play with dolls," objected Carroll. "Let's build a depot an' have trains a-smashin' int' each other." "Nope; we'll play Indian," the visitor said firmly. "I'll show you how." Under his able generalship the sitting-room was presently transformed into the semblance of a rolling prairie, with a settler's wagon in the midst of the landscape in which travelled Richard as husband and father, driving a span of wicker chairs, while Doris, smothering a fine family of long-haired dolls, sat behind. Elizabeth who paused to glance in at this stage of the proceedings was gratified by a sight of the four happy, earnest little faces, and the apparent innocuousness of the proceedings. "We're havin' lots of fun, mother; we're playin' wagon!" Doris explained. "These are all my children; an' we're goin' west to live." "Det-ap!" vociferated Richard, pulling manfully at the red lines decorated with bells, with which he restrained his restive steeds. "Whoa!" and he applied the gad with spirit. "Dey's doin' fast, mudzer," he shouted. "That's a nice play!" chanted Elizabeth; "only be careful of the whip, dear." Then she hurried up-stairs intent upon restoring immaculate order to the upper part of her house before luncheon. X The better part of an hour had passed before she remembered the children again; then a sound of terrific tumult from below gave wings to her feet. The scene which met her astonished eyes was one of blood and carnage. The two boys, their faces horribly streaked with scarlet and yellow, their hair stuck full of feathers, had evidently fallen upon the peaceful settlers in their progress across the western plains, and were engaged in plunder and rapine; Richard, bound hand and foot with his scarlet lines, howled with abject terror, while Doris, wild-eyed and furious, fought for the protection of her family of dolls. "You shan't touch my best doll; you horrid boy!" she shrieked. "I'll tell my--mother! I'll tell--my----" "Give 'er here! I'm a big Injun an' I'm goin' to scalp every one of your children!" yelled Robbie Stanford. "Here you, Carroll! what you doin'? There's another kid a-hidin' under the chair--I mean the wagon! She'll scalp easy!" "Why, children! What are you doing? Carroll, Robert! Stop this instant!" "We're playing Indian!" panted Carroll, pausing to eye his mother disgustedly through his war-paint. "Doris oughtn't to have yelled so, an' Buddy's nothin' but a bawl-baby. We didn't hurt him a single bit." "Jus' see what they did to my dolls!" wailed Doris. "Tore the hair off of ev'ry one of 'em!" "Why, boys! I don't see what you were thinking of to spoil Doris' pretty dolls!" "We was only scalpin' her children," volunteered the instigator of the crime, with a cheerful grin. "I c'n stick on the hair again, jus' as easy as anythin', if you'll give me the glue. I scalped our baby's doll an' my mother she stuck the hair on again with glue. 'Tain't hard to stick it on; an' we only broke one. We wouldn't 'ave done that, if Doris----" "What is that stuff on your faces?" demanded Elizabeth sternly, as she collected the parti-coloured scalps from among the débris on the floor. "It's only war-paint, mother," explained Carroll. "Indians always put it on their faces; don't you remember the Indians in my Indian book? We made it out of jam an' egg. Celia gave it to us; we got the feathers out the duster." Elizabeth heaved a great sigh. "Come, and I'll wash your faces," she said; "then I think perhaps Robbie had better----" "No, ma'am;" said Master Stanford firmly; "it isn't two hours yet. I c'n stay till the whistles blow, an' if you invite me I guess I c'n stay to lunch." "I'm not going to invite you," slipped off Elizabeth's exasperated tongue. "I want you to go straight home, as soon as I've washed you and made you look respectable." The youngster's under lip trembled. Two big tears welled up in his black eyes. "I--didn't--mean to--be--naughty!" he quavered. "I don't care if you--whip--me; but I don't want--t' go home. Annie's--cross. She slapped--me--twice this morning! She says I'm the plague o' her life." Annie was the Stanford's cook and possessed of unlimited authority which she frequently abused, Elizabeth knew. "Where is Livingstone?" she asked in a milder voice, as she removed the traces of her best raspberry jam from the visitor's round face. "Mother took baby with her; she's going to leave him at gran'ma's house till she comes home. She said I couldn't go, 'cause gran'ma--she's--kind of nervous when I'm there." "Well, dear; you can stay and have lunch with the children; only----" "Are you goin' to whip me? I shan't cry if you do." "My mother doesn't whip anybody," said Carroll superbly; "she's too kind an' good!" "So's my mother kind an' good! I double dare you to say she isn't!" "Come, children; you mustn't get to quarrelling. Of course your dear mother is kind and good, Robbie. And you ought to try to be so kind and good and obedient that she won't ever feel that you ought to be whipped." Master Stanford's black eyes opened very wide at this difficult proposition. "Aw--I don't know 'bout that," he said diffidently. "I guess my mother'd jus' 's soon I'd be bad some o' the time. She says she's glad I ain't a milk an' water child like Carroll. An' my papa, he says----" "You may both sit right down on this sofa," interrupted Elizabeth hastily, "and look at these two books till I call you to luncheon. If you get up once, Robbie, I shall be obliged to send you home to Annie." "The idea of Marian saying such a thing about my Carroll," she thought unforgivingly, as she set forth bananas and small sweet crackers for the children's dessert. "A milk and water child, indeed; but of course, with a boy like Robbie to deal with, she has to say something. I'm sorry for those two children of hers." Robbie Stanford stayed till his mother came after him at four o'clock, and Elizabeth laying aside all other occupations supervised her small kindergarten with all the tried patience and kindness of which she was mistress. Mrs. Stanford was voluble with apologies as she invested her son with his coat and mittens. "I told Annie to have Robbie ask Carroll over for luncheon," she said, "and I left the play-room all ready for them. I assure you, Elizabeth, I had no notion of inflicting my child upon you--when you have company, too; I'm really ashamed of Robbie." "Yes, mother," interrupted that young person, "but Annie got mad jus' 'cause I made little round holes in one o' her ol' pies with my finger. I only wanted to see the juice come out. 'N'--'n she slapped me, 'n' tol' me to get out o' her way, or she'd pack her clo'es an' leave. So I----" Mrs. Stanford's pretty young face flushed with mortification. "I can see that you are thinking me very careless to leave Robbie with a bad-tempered servant," she said, "but Annie is usually so good with the children, and I had to go. I had really neglected my teeth till one of them ached." "It was no trouble," dissembled Elizabeth mildly, "and really I should much prefer to have Robbie here than to have Carroll at your house when you are away. I should tremble for the results to your property. Of course my Carroll alone is almost as innocuous as milk and water, but with Robert to bring out his stronger qualities one can never safely predict what will happen." Mrs. Stanford looked up in sudden consternation, and meeting Elizabeth's smiling glance she laughed and shrugged her shoulders. "Well," she said, "I'm glad, Betty, if you aren't actually worn out mothering my black-eyed lamb. Another time I'll cope with all three of yours, if you'll let me." Then she stooped and kissed Elizabeth in her usual half-mocking way. "Thank you, little neighbour," she murmured; "you make me ashamed of myself, whenever I see you. You are so much better than I." When Evelyn Tripp returned that afternoon in the gloom of the gathering twilight she stood for a few minutes in the glow of Elizabeth's cheerful fireside, slowly drawing off her gloves. She appeared pallid and worn in the half light, and Elizabeth caught herself wondering if she had lunched. "Yes, dear," Miss Tripp informed her absent-mindedly; "I had a cup of tea--I think it was tea--and a roll. I wasn't hungry after my interview with the South Popham school principal." "Oh, then you saw him? Did you--Was he----" Evelyn laughed a little drearily. "No, dear," she sighed, shaking her head; "nothing came of it. I suppose I ought not to have expected it. Professor Meeker wanted someone with experience, and--and--a younger person, he said. I didn't realise that I looked really old, Betty. I thought----" "You don't look old, Evelyn," denied Elizabeth warm-heartedly. "What was the man thinking of?" "Apparently of a red-cheeked, nursery-maid sort of a person who had taught in the public schools. I saw him afterwards holding forth on the needs of the Popham Institute to a young woman with a high pompadour and wearing a red shirt-waist, a string of blue beads and a large glittering watch-chain--the kind with a slide. I think she must have been what he was looking for. Anyway the Whitcher people told me he had engaged her." Elizabeth gazed at her friend, a sort of aching sympathy withholding her from speech. "After that," pursued Miss Tripp, "I went to another agency, and they asked me if I would like to travel abroad with a lady and her two daughters. I thought I should like it very much indeed--I could engage Cousin Sophia to stay with mother, you know--so I took the car out to Chelsea to see a Mrs. Potwin-Pilcher, and found what she was looking for was really an experienced lady's-maid and courier rolled into one, and that she expected 'willing services in exchange for expenses.' I told her I couldn't think of such a thing. Then Mrs. Potwin-Pilcher rose up--she was a big, raw-boned person glittering with diamonds--and informed me that she had fifty-nine applications for the position--I was the sixtieth, it seems--and that she was sure I would be unable to perform the duties of the position. After that I came directly home. Monday I shall----" Miss Tripp paused apparently to remove her veil; when she finished her sentence it was in a steady, matter-of-fact voice. "I shall go to see an old friend of mother's--a Mrs. Baxter Crownenshield--I think you've heard me speak of her, Elizabeth. She and mother were very intimate once upon a time, and Mr. Crownenshield owed his success in business to my father. I'm going to--ask her advice. Now I think I'll go up-stairs and take off these damp skirts, and after that I'll come down and help you mend stockings, or anything----. Only let me do something, Elizabeth!" There was almost a wail in the tired voice, and Elizabeth, wiser than she knew, pulled out her mending-basket with a smile. "I'm almost ashamed to confess that I need some help badly," she said. "I hope you won't be horrified at the condition of Carroll's stockings." Miss Tripp was quite her charming self again when she reappeared clad in a trailing gown of rosy lavender. She told the children the lively tale of the goose-girl, which she had promised them in the morning, choosing the while the stockings with the most discouraging holes out of Elizabeth's basket and protesting that she loved--yes, positively adored--darning stockings. But she finished her self-imposed task at an early hour, and after playing two or three tuneful little chansonettes on Elizabeth's hard-worked and rather shabby piano, excused herself. "I must write to mother," she said smilingly. "She quite depends on me for a bright chatty letter every day, and I've so much to tell her of to-day's amusing adventures. Really, do you know that Potwin-Pilcher person ought to go into a novel. She was positively unique!" Elizabeth was silent for some moments after the sound of Evelyn's light foot had passed from the stair. Then she turned a brooding face upon her husband. "I am so sorry for poor Evelyn," she said. Sam Brewster stirred uneasily in his chair. "So you said before she arrived," he observed. "I don't see anything about the fair Evelyn to call forth expressions of pity. She looks remarkably prosperous to me." "Yes; but you don't see everything, Sam. That gown is one she has had for years, and it has been cleaned and made over and over again." "Well; so have most of yours, my dear, and you don't ask for sympathy on that account." "Sam, dear, they haven't any money. Can't you understand? They lost everything when the Back-Bay Security Company failed. Evelyn doesn't know what to do. There is her mother to take care of and you know how helpless she is. I don't suppose she ever really did anything in her whole life." "It's a problem; I'll admit," agreed her husband, scowling over his unread paper; "but I don't see what we are going to do about it." "That's the worst of it, Sam; we really can't do anything, and I'm afraid other people won't. I had thought--if nothing else turned up--that perhaps Mrs. Tripp could be induced to go into a home. One of those nice, refined places where one has to pay to be admitted, and then Evelyn--might----" She paused and looked anxiously at her husband. "We might let her stay here, Sam; and----" He shook his head. "You're the most self-sacrificing of darlings when it comes to helping your friends," he said; "but I couldn't stand for that, Betty. Two weeks is about my limit, I'm afraid, when it comes to entertaining angels unawares. I'm willing to admit the unique character of Miss Tripp, and to vote her a most agreeable guest, and all that. But----" Elizabeth gazed at her husband understandingly. "I know, Sam," she said, "and I think so too. But----" XI "Mother, de-ar, can we go out to play in the back yard? I c'n put on my overshoes an' leggins, an' I c'n help Doris too, if you're busy." Elizabeth looked up from her task of cutting out rompers for her baby with a preoccupied sigh. "You have a little cold now, Carroll," she said doubtfully, "and if you should get wet in the snow----" "We won't get wet, mother. I pr-romise!" "Very well, dear; now remember!" It was cold and clear and there seemed very little danger of dampness as the two children ran out with a whoop of joy into the side yard where the snow-laden evergreens partially screened the Stanford's house from view. Robbie Stanford's round, solemn face was staring at them wistfully from a second-story window as they dashed ecstatically into a snow bank, to emerge white with the sparkling drift. "Hello, Rob; come on out!" called Carroll. "I can't," replied Master Stanford, raising the window cautiously. "Why?" "Oh, nothin' much; but I guess I'd better stay up here till mother comes home." "Who said so?" "That horrid ol' Annie. I was down in the kitchen an' I fired only one clothespin at her, jus' for fun, an' it hit her in the eye; she got mad an' chased me up here an' locked the door." "Where's your mother?" "She's gone down town. She said she'd bring me some candy if I was good. Bu' 'f I ain't good she'll take the paddle to me. Say, Carroll!" "What?" "Why don't you an' Doris make a skatin' rink?" "A--what?" "A skatin' rink. It's great. I know how; I saw a boy makin' one in his back yard. It's awful easy. You just run the hose----" Master Stanford paused in the course of his exposition to cast a cautious glance behind him. "I guess I'm takin' cold all right," he went on feelingly. "I hope I am. Then maybe I'll have the croup an' be awful sick. I guess they'd all be sorry, then. Say, Carroll, do you see Annie anywheres?" Carroll reconnoitred cautiously. "She's hangin' up clo'es in the back yard," he informed the young person aloft. "If I c'd get out of here, I'd show you how to make that skatin' rink. We c'd make it easy, an' have it ready to skate on b' to-morrow." "We haven't any skates," objected Doris. "B'sides," with a toss of her scarlet hood, "I don't believe you know how to make a skatin' rink." "I don't know how? Well, I just bet I do!" exclaimed the prisoner dangling his small person far over the window-sill, while Doris screamed an excited protest. "Pooh! I ain't afraid of fallin' out--ain't afraid of nothin'; I'll bet I c'd jump out this window. I guess I'd have to if the house took on fire. Say, if this house should ketch on fire, Carroll, your house would burn up too. I've got some matches in my pocket," he added darkly; "if I should take a notion I c'd burn up everythin' on this block, an' maybe the whole town. I'll bet I c'd do it." "How do you make a skatin' rink?" inquired Carroll, with an anxious glance at his own cosy home, which suddenly appeared very dear to him in view of a general conflagration. Master Stanford reflected frowningly. "Is our cellar window open?" "Nope; it's shut." "Well, first you'll have to dig out a big square place, an' pile snow all round the edge. I'll get out o' here somehow b' the time you get that done; then we'll run it full of water. 'N after that it'll freeze." "Where c'd we get the water?" inquired Doris, with an unbelieving sniff. "Mother wouldn't let us get it in the kitchen." "Out of our hose pipe," said Master Stanford grandly. The Brewsters owned no hose, and this fact was a perpetual source of grievance in summer time. "I'll run her right under the hedge into your yard," continued the proprietor of the hose generously, "an' let her swizzle!" "Oh--my!" gasped the small Brewsters in excited chorus. "Well; are you goin' to do it?" Carroll shook his head. "We promised mother we wouldn't get wet," he observed with an air of superior virtue. "'N we always mind our mother, don't we, Doris?--at least I do. Doris doesn't always. But she's a girl." Master Stanford cackled with derision. "Aw--you're a terrible good boy, aren't you?" he crowed. "My father says you're a reg'lar prig. He says he'd larrup me, if I was always braggin' 'bout bein' so good the way you do. He says I haven't anythin' to brag of. Course if you're 'fraid of your mother----" Doris pirouetted off across the yard with a flirt of her short skirts. "We aren't afraid, smarty!" she cried, her pink chin high in air. "An' we aren't any gooder an' you are, Robbie Stanford--at least I'm not; so there! Come on, Carroll; let's make a skatin' rink." Hard labour with two small snow-shovels produced the semblance of a square enclosure bounded by uneven ridges of soft snow. Mrs. Brewster glancing out of the window at her darlings was pleased to observe their red cheeks and the joyous enthusiasm with which they were pursuing their self-imposed task. "Dear little souls!" she thought, "how little it takes to keep them happy." Then she became absorbingly busy at her machine in the task of double-stitching the seams of the baby's rompers. In the meanwhile young Robert Stanford had been released from durance vile by the kind-hearted Annie, whose warm Irish heart had reproached her for her fit of bad temper. "Sure an' yez didn't mean to hit me eye; did yez, now?" she inquired, as she poked her broad red face into the room. "Naw; course I didn't," the incarcerated one ingratiatingly assured her. "Say, Annie, c'n I have four cookies?" "Oh, go 'way wid yez; four's too many entirely; I'll give ye wan wid a clip over yer ear." "No; honest, I ain't goin' to eat 'em all. I want one for Carroll an' Doris an' two for me." "An' it's the generous young one he is entirely," laughed Annie. "Come on down an' I'll put yer coat on, and mind yez don't get into no more mischief or I'll be afther tellin' yer mother; thin you'll get a taste of the paddle." "I'll give you a whole lot of my candy, Annie," said the boy earnestly, "if you'll tell mother I was awful good. Will you?" "'Awful' it was, all right," giggled Annie; "but if I was to say you was good I'd have to burn in purgatory for me sins. I'll say nothin'." "Where's purgatory, Annie?" inquired the young person after a thoughtful silence. "It's a warrum place entirely where you'll find yourself some day, I'm thinkin', if yez meddle too much in my kitchen," said Annie darkly. "Here's your cookies; now g'wan wid yez an' don't ye be afther botherin' me no more." It was a matter which required concerted effort to uncoil the heavy hose, attach it to the water pipe and lift the nozzle to the level of the window; but it was accomplished at last through the united efforts of the two boys ably assisted by Doris, who was all excitement at the prospect of sliding on a real ice pond in her own yard. "I guess our daddy'll be s'prised when he sees us goin' around like lightnin' on reg'lar ice," she said. "He's got skates, our daddy has, an' he c'n skate like everythin', our daddy can." "Pooh! that's nothin'," retorted Master Stanford; "my father c'n beat your father all holler. He's a whole lot taller 'n your father, an' our house is higher 'n yours, too." "It's p'liter not to brag," said Doris, ignoring her own deflections from civility. "Oh, my, look at the water spurting out of that teeny, weeny hole! It's just like a fountain." The two boys were laboriously dragging the heavy hose across the yard, and in the process other holes appeared through which the water hissed and gurgled with increasing force. "I don't care," the proprietor of the hose assured them loftily. "It's an' ol' thing anyway. We're goin' to have a great long new one nex' summer; then maybe we'll give you this one. My father's so rich he don't care. Now I'll poke the nozzle through the hedge an' let her swizzle. Get out o' the way, Doris; I don't care if I do get wet." Ten minutes later Mrs. Stanford, rosy and cheerful, after her brisk walk in the winter sunshine, appeared on the scene. "What are you doing, kiddies?" she inquired pleasantly; then in a more doubtful tone. "What _are_ you doing? Why, Robbie!" "We're jus' makin' a skatin' rink, and the ol' hose leaks like thunder," explained her son, employing a simile he had heard his father use the day before, and which he had considered particularly manly and admirable. "Robert! you are soaked to the skin--and so is Carroll. Go right into the house. What do you mean by being so naughty?" "You didn't say I couldn't take the hose," sulked the boy, surveying his parent from under lowering brows. "Go in the house, sir; I'll attend to you presently," said his mother sternly. "Oh, please; I'll be good! I didn't--mean--to," whined the child. "Carroll an' Doris, they wanted a skatin' rink, an' I----" Mrs. Stanford stooped to turn off the water. "Go home at once," she said to her neighbour's children. "And you, Robert, go up to the bathroom and take off your wet clothing." Her pretty young face was flushed with anger. "I never saw such dreadful children!" she murmured wrathfully. "My, but she's mad!" whispered Carroll, looking after the slim, erect figure, "it wasn't our fault their ol' hose leaked." "I guess our mother'll be some mad, too," said Doris doubtfully; "that water spurted all over my leggins; an' now I guess it's freezing." The two walked slowly across the yard, ploughing through the rapidly congealing slush, which was the disappointing outcome of two hours of hard work. "I don't like Robbie Stanford one bit," said Doris disgustedly. "He's always getting us into mischief." "I said we ought not to get wet," Carroll reminded her eagerly. "Don't you remember I did? An' you said----" "I don't like you either," pursued the little girl stonily. "I don't b'lieve I like boys _a'tall_; so there!" "I'm all wet," she announced to her mother, "an' Carroll's wetter 'an I am; an'--we--we're--both--c-cold!" It was characteristic of Elizabeth that she thoroughly dried and warmed the children before asking any questions. Then despite their dismayed protests she put them both to bed. "You disobeyed me," she told them, "and now you'll have to stay in your beds till to-morrow morning. I'll explain to your father. Of course he'll be disappointed not to see you at dinner; but I can't help that." A period of depressing silence followed during which both children caught the distant sounds of passionate and prolonged crying from the neighbouring house. "It's Robbie," said Carroll in an awed whisper; "his mother's whipping him with that butter-paddle o' hers. She does that when he's awful bad." "I'd bite her!" murmured Doris between her clenched teeth. "I'd--I'd--scratch her!" She burst into excited tears. "I'd just--hate my mother if she--if she hurt me like that!" "Pooh! Rob don't care so very much," Carroll assured her; "he says he hollers jus' as loud as he can so his mother'll stop quicker. I s'pose," he continued after a thoughtful pause, "Robbie'll be up to dinner jus' the same, an' we'll be here eatin' bread and milk." XII Elizabeth's promised explanation to the father of the culprits above stairs led to a spirited discussion between the husband and wife, after Miss Tripp had retired to her apartment. "Poor little kids," Sam Brewster said whimsically. "I believe I'm glad I'm not your child, Betty,--I mean, of course, that I'm glad I'm your husband," he amended quickly, as her unsmiling eyes reproached him. "Don't you think you were a little hard on them, though?" "Hard on them?" she echoed indignantly. "You're much more severe with the children than I am, Sam,--when you're at home. You know you are." He smoked thoughtfully for a minute or two before replying. "Look here, Betty," he said at last, "you're right in a way. I'm not half so patient as you are, I'll admit. But I wonder if we don't all miss the mark when it comes to disciplining children?--Wait--just a minute before you answer. I've been thinking a whole lot about this business of home rule since we--er--discussed it the other day, and I've come to the conclusion that the only thing to do is to let universal law take its course with them. They are human beings, my dear, and they've got to come up against the law in its broader sense sooner or later. Let 'em begin right now." She was eyeing him pityingly. "And by that you mean----?" "I mean," he went on, warming to his subject, "that you've got to teach a child what it means to reap what he sows. If Richard wants to put his finger on the stove and investigate the phenomenon of calorics, let him. He won't do it twice." "And if he wants to paddle in the aquarium of a cold winter day, you'd----" "Let him--of course," said Sam stoutly. "He'd feel uncomfortably damp and chilly after a while." "Yes; and have the croup or pneumonia that same night." "You're hopelessly old-fashioned, Betty," he laughed; "you shouldn't introduce the croup or pneumonia idea into the infant consciousness. But seriously, my dear, I believe I'm right. If you don't teach the children to recognise the relation between cause and effect now--so that it becomes second nature to them, how are they going to understand the subject when they're put up against it later? You'll find the mother bird and the mother bear, and, in fact, all the animal creation carefully instilling the idea of cause and effect into their offspring from the very beginning; while human parents are as constantly protecting their children from the effects of the causes which the children ignorantly set in motion. In other words we persist in undoing the work of old 'Mother Be-done-by-as-you-did.' It's a blunder, in my opinion. But of course, I'm a mere man and my ideas are not entitled to much consideration." Elizabeth gazed at her husband with open admiration. "Of course they are entitled to consideration," she said decidedly. "And I believe what you have said--with reservations. Suppose Baby Dick, for example, should lean out of the window too far--a second-story window, I mean--and I should see him doing it and feel pretty certain he was going to pitch out head first and cripple himself for life. Do you think I ought to stand still and let the law of gravitation teach him not to do it a second time?" Sam Brewster laid down his pipe and gazed steadfastly at his wife. She was looking extremely young and bewitchingly pretty as she leaned toward him, her cheeks pink, her brown eyes glowing with earnestness in which he thought he detected a spark of her old girlish mischief. "'And still the wonder grew,'" he quoted solemnly, "'that one small head could carry all she knew!'" "Please answer me, Sam," she insisted. "Well, of course you've got me. You'd have to haul in the young person by the heels, and----" "And what, exactly, if you please?" "You might illustrate--with some fragile, concrete object, like an egg--as to what would happen if he fell out," said Sam, with exceeding mildness, "and----" "In other words," she interrupted him triumphantly, "I ought to interfere _some_ of the time between cause and effect. The question being when to interfere and when not to." "Exactly!" he said, planting an irrelevant kiss on the pink cheek nearest him. "And that, my dear Betty, is your job--and, of course, mine, when I'm here. But I still hold that the natural penalty is best--when it's convincingly painful yet entirely innocuous." "What is the natural penalty for eating cookies out of the box when you've been forbidden to do it?" she wanted to know. He chuckled as certain memories of his boyhood came back to him. "My word!" he said, "I wish I could ever taste anything half as good as the cookies out of Aunt Julia Brewster's crock--it was a cooky-crock in those days. Of course I was forbidden to go to it without permission, and also of course I did it." "What happened?" she demanded, the mischief growing bolder in her eyes. He reflected. "Aunt Julia wouldn't let me have any at table on several occasions; but I--er--regret to say that I was not duly impressed by the punishment. A cooky--one cooky--decorously taken from a china plate at the conclusion of a meal did not, in my youthful opinion, court comparison with six--eight--ten cookies, moist and spicy from their seclusion and eaten with an uncloyed appetite. Let's--er--change the subject for the moment, my dear. Of course I'm right, but I appear to be hopelessly treed. Tell me how our friend Miss Tripp is getting on. She appeared somewhat depressed at dinner-time, and I didn't like to ask for information for fear there was nothing doing." Elizabeth sighed sympathetically. "Evelyn had a dreadfully disappointing day," she told him. "But"--her eyes dancing again--"she met Mr. Hickey down town, and he actually invited her to lunch with him." Sam whistled softly. "Hickey is progressing," he said approvingly. "Did he take her to the business men's lunchroom? Hickey has conscientious scruples against going anywhere else. I asked him into Colby's one day and he declined on the ground of his duty as a constant patron of the B. M. L. He said his table was reserved for him there by the season, and----" "How absurd!" laughed Elizabeth. "But, I was going to tell you; Evelyn remembered another engagement, and so----" she stopped short, her eyes growing luminous. "Sam," she said suddenly, "I don't know what to think of Evelyn; she really didn't have any lunch at all; she said so when she came. I made her a cup of tea; she looked so worn and tired. I wonder if Mr. Hickey could have said anything, or---- What do you think, Sam?" Sam yawned behind his paper. "I'm really too sleepy to give to the question the profound attention which it merits; but to-morrow when my intellect is fresh and keen, I'll endeavour to----" "You mean you don't care." "Suppose I did care, my very dear Betty; suppose my whole career depended upon what Hickey said--or didn't say; what could I do about it?" "I'm sure I don't know, Sam," said his Elizabeth meekly. But her eyes were still full of speculative curiosity as she went up-stairs. XIII The facts in the case, if known to Elizabeth, might have served to throw a clearer light upon Miss Tripp's somewhat unsatisfactory account of her day in the city. In the first place, the weather which had dawned bright and sunny had suddenly turned nasty, with a keen wind driving large, moist snowflakes into the faces of pedestrians. Evelyn had found herself without an umbrella and wearing her best hat and gown walking the long block which intervened between her destination and the car from which she had alighted. Mrs. Baxter Crownenshield was known to the wide circle of her acquaintances as a large, funereal person, invariably clothed in black, and as perpetually exuding a copious and turgid sympathy upon all who came in contact with her, somewhat after the manner of a cuttle-fish. She lived in a mansion, large and dull like herself, on Beacon Street, where she occupied herself exclusively with those dubious activities euphemistically called "charitable work." When Miss Evelyn Tripp was shown into Mrs. Crownenshield's chilly reception-room that morning in February, she shivered a little in her damp clothes as she sat down on a slippery chair and endeavoured vaguely to forecast the coming interview. Her mother had suggested Mrs. Crownenshield as a sort of _dernier resort_, with a fretful reminiscence of the days when the Baxter Crownenshields were poor and lived in a third-story back room of a fifth-rate boarding-house. "I used to give Jane Crownenshield my gowns after I had worn them a season," Mrs. Tripp said querulously; "and glad enough she was to get them. As for her husband, he was not much of a man. Your father used to say Crownenshield couldn't be trusted to earn his salt at honest work in a counting-room; but when the war broke out he borrowed five hundred dollars of your father, and bought and sold army stores. After that he grew rich somehow, and we grew poor. But Jane Crownenshield ought to remember that she owes everything she has to-day to your father." Miss Tripp perched uncomfortably on the unyielding surface of the inhospitable hair-cloth chair she had chosen, gazed attentively at the portrait of the late lamented Crownenshield which hung over the mantle-piece, and at the bronze representation of the same large and self-satisfied countenance smirking at her from a shadowy corner, while she repeated nervously the opening words with which she hoped to engage his widow's friendly interest. It seemed an interminable period before she heard the slow and ponderous footfall which presaged the majestic approach of Mrs. Crownenshield; as a matter of fact, it was almost exactly half an hour by the dismal-voiced black marble clock surmounted by an urn. Miss Tripp arose upon the entrance of the large lady in black and held out her hand with a feeble effort after the sprightly ease of her old society manner. "Good morning, Mrs. Crownenshield," she began, in a voice which in spite of herself sounded weak and timid in the gloomy, high-ceiled room. "I do hope I haven't interrupted any important labour--I know you are always so much occupied with--charities, and----" Mrs. Crownenshield stared meditatively at Miss Tripp's small, slight figure, her gaze appearing to concern itself particularly with her head-gear from which drooped two large dispirited plumes. "Tripp--Tripp? I don't place you," she said at last,--"unless you are Mary Tripp's daughter. She had a daughter, I believe." The Crownenshield voice was loud and authoritative; it appeared to demand information as something due, upon which interest had accumulated. "I am Mary Tripp's daughter," Evelyn informed her, in a sudden panic lest she be mistaken for an object of charity; then she hesitated, at a loss for something to say next. Mrs. Crownenshield sighed heavily. "Poor woman," she observed lugubriously. "Mary Tripp has had many trials to support." Evelyn's small, sensitive face grew a shade paler. "Yes," she agreed, "my dear mother has had more than her share of sorrow and loss. I wonder if you knew that we--that mother lost all of her remaining property in the failure of the Back-Bay Security Company?" Mrs. Crownenshield's cold grey eyes opened a little wider upon her visitor. "How regrettable!" she observed. "No; I had not heard of it. But I fear many others have suffered with Mary Tripp. Fortunately for me, my dear late husband's investments were conservative and safe. Mr. Crownenshield did not approve of Trust Companies--except those which he controlled himself. If John Tripp had seen fit to leave his money in trust with Mr. Crownenshield--and I have always felt surprised and hurt to think that he did not do so, after all the business relations of the past--Mary Tripp would be quite comfortable to-day. Pray convey to your poor afflicted mother my condolences, and tell her that I was greatly grieved to learn of her misfortunes." Evelyn murmured incoherent thanks. "I--came this morning to ask--your advice," she added after a heavy pause. "I thought--that is, mother thought--that perhaps you--might know of something I could do to--to earn money. I must do something, you know." She had grown hot and cold with the shame of this confession under the unwinking gaze of Mrs. Crownenshield's colourless eyes. That lady folded her large white hands upon which glittered several massive rings. "I shall be very glad to advise you," she said, "if you will acquaint me with your qualifications for service. I have frequent opportunities to place indigent but worthy females, such as you appear to be. Are you a good seamstress?" "I fear not, Mrs. Crownenshield," faltered Evelyn. "I never liked sewing." "You could earn a dollar a day as a skilled seamstress," intoned the female philanthropist inexorably. "Whether you like sewing or not is of very little consequence in view of your necessities." "I thought I should prefer teaching, or----" Mrs. Crownenshield glanced abstractedly at the massive watch which depended from some sort of funereal device in black enamel upon her ample bosom, and compared its silent information with that of the black marble time-piece on the mantle. Then she arose with a smile, which appeared to have been carven upon her large pallid face with the effect of a mask. "I am very sorry indeed that I can not give you more of my time this morning," she said mournfully. "But I have a board-meeting of The Protestant Evangelical Refuge for aged, indigent and immoral females at half-past eleven o'clock; and at one I am due at a luncheon of the Federated Woman's Charitable Associations of Boston, at which I shall preside." She arose and enfolded both of Miss Tripp's small cold hands in her large, moist clasp, with an air of fervid emotion. "I feel for you," she sighed, "I do indeed! and my heart bleeds for your unfortunate mother. Mary Tripp was always accustomed to every luxury and extravagance. She must feel the change to abject poverty; but I trust she will endeavour to lift her thoughts from the sordid cares of earth toward that better land where--I feel sure--my dear late husband is enjoying the rest that remaineth. After all, my poor girl, the consolations of religion are the only sure refuge in this sad world. I always strive to point the way to those situated like yourself." "Thank you, Mrs. Crownenshield," said Evelyn stonily. "If there is anything I can do to assist you further, don't fail to call upon me freely!" warbled the lady, as Evelyn passed out into the hall. "I will send you copies of the literature illustrating the work of our various refuges and asylums. You may be glad to refer to them later." Evelyn found herself in the street, she hardly knew how, her little feet carrying her swiftly away from the Crownenshield residence. She felt hurt and outraged in every fibre of her being, and her tear-blurred eyes took little note of the weather which had changed from a wet clinging snow to mingled rain and sleet, which beat upon her unprotected face like invisible whips. She did not know where to go, or what to do next; but she hurried blindly forward, her limp skirts gathered in one hand, her head bent against the piercing wind. Then, strangely enough, the stinging blast seemed suddenly shut away and she looked up to find a stout umbrella interposed between her and the storm. The handle of the umbrella was grasped by a large, masterful-looking hand in a shabby brown glove, and a broad shoulder hove into view from behind the hand. "Where is your umbrella, Miss Tripp?" inquired a voice, as masterful in its way as the hand. "Oh!--I--that is, I forgot it," she faltered, looking up into Mr. George Hickey's eyes, with a belated consciousness of the tears in her own. "The rain--is--wet," she added, with startling originality. "Hum; yes," assented Mr. Hickey thoughtfully. He was striving in his dull masculine way to account for the wan, woe-begone expression of Miss Tripp's face and for the telltale drops on her thick brown lashes. "I was on my way to luncheon when I saw you," he went on. "--Er--have you--lunched, Miss Tripp?" Evelyn shook her head. "Is it as late as that?" she said. "I ought to go----" "Not back to Mrs. Brewster's," he said; "it's too late for that.--Er--won't you give me the--er--the pleasure of lunching with you? I--er--in fact, I'm exceedingly hungry myself, and----" Mr. Hickey stopped short and looked about him somewhat wildly. It had just occurred to him that he could not invite Miss Tripp to accompany him to the business men's lunchroom where he usually took his unimportant meal, and he wondered what sort of a place women went to anyway, and what they ate? The experienced Miss Tripp smiled; she appeared to read his thoughts with an ease which astonished while it frightened him a little. "It is very good of you to ask me, Mr. Hickey," she said prettily, "and I shall be very happy to take lunch with you. Do you go to Daniels'? It is such a nice place, I think, and not far up the street." "Oh--er--yes; certainly. I like Daniels' exceedingly. A good place, very. We'll--ah--just step across and---- Oh, I beg your pardon!" Mr. Hickey was so agitated by the sudden and unprecedented position in which he found himself that he almost knocked Miss Tripp's hat off with a sudden swoop of his umbrella, as they crossed the street. "How stupid of me!" he cried, as she put it straight with one little hand, smiling up at him forgivingly as she did it. "I'm an awkward sort of a chap, anyway," he went on with another illustrative jab of the umbrella. "I guess I'm hopeless as--er--a ladies' man." "Oh, no, you aren't," contradicted Miss Tripp sweetly. "I never felt more relieved and--and happy than when I looked up to find your big umbrella between my head and the storm. I went off to town in such a hurry this morning that I left my umbrella in the rack in Elizabeth's hall." He tried not to look his curiosity; then blurted out his uppermost thought. "You looked awfully done up when I overtook you; what--er----" "I was," she confessed. "I was ready to weep with rage and disappointment. Have you ever felt that way?" "Well, no," said Mr. Hickey candidly; "I can't say that I've ever got to the point you mention. I don't believe I've shed a tear since--since my mother died. She was the only person in the world who cared a rap whether I sank or swam, survived or perished, and after she went. I---- But I've been angry enough to--er--cuss a little now and then. Of course ladies can't do that, so----" Evelyn smiled appreciatively. "It might have relieved my feelings if you had been there to use a little--strong language for me," she said. Then she told him something of her visit to Mrs. Crownenshield and its outcome. "Hum, yes!" he observed. "I fancy I know her sort, and I--er--despise it. What did you want her to do for you? There, now I've put my foot in! It's none of my business of course, Miss Tripp, and you needn't tell me." Evelyn hesitated. "I shouldn't like you to think I'm whining or complaining," she said soberly; "but there's no reason why you--or anyone--shouldn't know that I am looking for work. I never have worked"--the brave voice faltered a little--"but that's no reason why I shouldn't work now. In fact, it's a reason why I must. Everything was different when I was a girl to what it is now," she went on, calmly ignoring her "feelings-on-the-subject-of-her-age" which had of late years been abnormally sensitive. "I wasn't brought up to do anything more useful than to sew lace on a pocket-handkerchief and play a few easy pieces on the piano. Of course I learned a little French--enough to chatter ungrammatically when we went abroad--and a little bad German, and a little--a very little execrable Italian--nothing of a usable quantity or quality, you see; so now I find myself----" "But why? What has happened?" he urged in a low voice. "The usual and what should have been the expected, I suppose," she told him. "We--that is mother and I--lost our money. We never thought of such a thing happening. We had always drawn checks for what we wanted, and that was all there was of it--till the bank closed, and then of course we had to think." "I'm--Confound it; it's too bad!" he said strongly. "Banks have no business to close; it's--er--it's a national disgrace. There ought to be some law to--er--put a stop to such outrages on civilisation!" Miss Tripp said nothing. She was experiencing a quite natural revulsion of feeling, and was now exceedingly sorry that she had confided anything of her affairs to Mr. Hickey. "He'll think of course that I am making a cheap bid for sympathy--perhaps trying to borrow money of him," she thought, while a painful scarlet crept up into her pale cheeks. Mr. Hickey was not a tactful man. He did not observe the unwonted colour in Miss Tripp's face, nor the proud light in her eyes. "I've got more money than I know what to do with," he said bluntly, "and--er--I wish you'd allow me to----" Miss Tripp stopped short. "Oh, Mr. Hickey," she exclaimed regretfully, "I don't know what you will think of me for accepting your kind invitation to luncheon, and then leaving you--as I must. I'd entirely forgotten an important engagement to meet--a friend of mine. I shall have to ask you to excuse me. It's too bad, isn't it? But I am so forgetful. And--please don't worry about my absurd confidences. Really, I exaggerated; I always do. We are perfectly comfortable--mother and I--only of course it was hard to lose our _surplus_--the jam on our bread, as I tell mother. But one can live quite comfortably on plain bread, and it is far better for one; I know that. Good-bye! So kind of you to shelter me!--No; I couldn't think of taking your umbrella! Really; don't you see the rain is over; besides, I'm going to take this car. Good-bye, and thank you so much!" Mr. Hickey stood quite still on the corner where she had left him and stared meditatively after the car, which bore her away, for the space of two unfruitful minutes. Then he turned squarely around and plodded down town to the business men's lunchroom. He did not care, he told himself, to change his habits by lunching at Daniels', which was a foolishly expensive place and haunted by crowds of women shoppers. Women were singular things, anyway. Mr. Hickey was satisfied, on the whole, that he was not obliged to meet them often. And later in the day he was selfishly pleased that he had not been obliged to loan his umbrella; for the rain, which had ceased a little, came down in icy torrents which froze as it fell on the sidewalks and branches of the trees. XIV Evelyn Tripp never informed anyone where she went on the car that bore her triumphantly away from Mr. Hickey and the conversation which had suddenly grown intolerable. The intolerable part of it was her own fault, she told herself. And--well, she realised that she was paying for it, as she jounced along over mile after mile of uneven track, through unfamiliar, yet drearily monotonous streets. Damp, uncomfortable-looking people came and went, and from time to time the conductor glanced curiously at the small lady in the fashionably-cut jacket and furs, who shrank back in her corner gazing with unseeing eyes out of the dripping windows. "Las' stop!" he shouted impatiently, as the car came to a groaning standstill away out in a shabby suburb, where several huge factories were in process of erection. Miss Tripp started up and looked out at the sodden fields and muddy, half-frozen road. Two or three dirty, dispirited-looking men boarded the car and sat down heavily, depositing their tools at their feet. Then the driver and conductor, who had swung the trolley around, and accomplished other official duties incident to the terminal, entered, closing the doors behind them with a professional crash. Both stared at Miss Tripp who had subsided into her corner again. "Say, Bill; nice weather for a trolley-ride--heh?" observed the motor-man, shifting an obvious quid of something in his capacious mouth. "Aw--you shut up, Cho'ley!" growled his superior. Bill thoughtfully obeyed, drumming with his feet on the floor and pursing up his tobacco-stained lips in an inaudible whistle. Presently he glanced at his big nickel watch and shook his head at the conductor. "A minute an' a half yet, b' mine," he said; "made a quick trip out." Then he cast another side-long glance at the one lady passenger. "Got carried past, I guess," he suggested with a wink. "Better look sharp for the right street on the way back, Bill." "You bet," observed the other, with his hand on the bell-rope. "I'm on the job all right." Elizabeth Brewster was giving her youngest son his supper when her friend Miss Tripp entered her hospitable door. "Oh, Evelyn!" she began, with an eager air of welcome; "I was hoping you would come home early to-night, Marian Stanford was here this afternoon; she wants to go---- But Evelyn, dear, what ever is the matter? You're as white as a ghost. Don't you feel well?" Miss Tripp valiantly plucked up a wan smile. "I am perfectly well," she declared; "but, Betty dear, could you give me a cup of tea? I was so--busy and--hurried to-day that I forgot all about my luncheon, and I just this minute realised it." Elizabeth hurried into the kitchen on hospitable cares intent and Evelyn sank wearily into a chair. Her head was swimming with weariness and the lack of food; cold, discouraged drops crowded her blue eyes. Richard quietly absorbing bread and milk from a gay china bowl gazed at her with a round speculative stare. "Cwyin'?" he observed in a bird-like voice. [Illustration: "Cwyin'?" he observed in a bird-like voice] "No, dear," denied Miss Tripp, winking resolutely. "What made you think of such a thing, precious?" "'Cause it's--it's naughty to cwy." "I know it, dear; and I'm going to smile; that's better; isn't it?" Her somewhat hysterical effort after her usual cheerful expression did not appear to deceive Richard. He waved his spoon charged with milk in her general direction. "I'm a dood boy," he announced with pride. "I eat my shupper an' I don't cwy." "Here is the tea you're evidently perishing for, Evelyn dear," said Elizabeth, setting a steaming cup before her guest; "and I've some good news for you--at least I'm hoping you'll like it. I'm sure I should love to have you so near us, and it would give you plenty of time to choose something permanent." Miss Tripp's wan face had taken on a tinge of colour as she sipped the hot tea. "What is it, Betty?" she asked quietly enough, though her heart was beating hard with hope deferred. "Did that Popham man call to see me after all?" "No," Elizabeth said; "it isn't the Popham man. And perhaps you won't like the idea at all. I started to tell you that Marian--Mrs. Stanford--was here this afternoon. She came over to tell me that her husband is going to California on a business trip; he wants her to go with him and she is wild to go; but she doesn't know what to do with the two children. She can't take them along, as Mr. Stanford will be obliged to travel rapidly from place to place. Her mother is almost an invalid and can't bear the excitement of having them with her. It just occurred to me that perhaps you might be willing to stay with the children. I spoke of it to Marian and she was delighted with the idea. You could have your mother come and stay with you, you know, and the house is so comfortable and pretty." Elizabeth broke off in sudden consternation at sight of the usually self-possessed Miss Tripp shaken with uncontrollable sobs. "Why, Evelyn," she cried, "I never thought you would feel that way about it. Of course I had no business to speak of you to Marian without consulting you first; but I thought--I hoped----" "It--isn't that, Elizabeth," Miss Tripp managed to say, "I'm--not offended--only tired. Don't mind me; I'll be all right as soon as I've swallowed my tea and----" "It's naughty to cwy," chirped Richard, waving his milky spoon rebukingly. "I'm a dood boy. I eat my shupper an' I don't cwy." In a fresh gown, with her nerves once more under control, Evelyn was able to look more composedly at the door which had so unexpectedly opened in the blind wall of her dilemma. There were serious disadvantages--as Elizabeth was careful to point out--in attempting the charge of the Stanford children, in conjunction with various undeniable privileges and a generous emolument. "Robbie is certainly a handful for anybody to cope with, and the baby is a spoiled child already." Elizabeth's voice sank to a soulful murmur, as she added, "Marian has always believed in punishing her children--whipping them, I mean; and you know, Evelyn, how that brutalises a child." As a matter of fact, Miss Tripp knew very little about children; but like the majority of persons who have never dealt familiarly with infant humanity, she had formulated various sage theories concerning their upbringing. "Dear Elizabeth," she replied, "how true that is; and yet how few mothers realise it. Children should be controlled solely by love; I am sure I shall have no trouble at all with those two dear little boys." And so it was settled. In less than a week's time Mrs. Stanford had departed upon her long journey. At the last she clung somewhat wistfully to Elizabeth. "I'm almost afraid to go and leave the children," she said. "Of course I feel every confidence in Miss Tripp; but you know, Betty, how resourceful Robert is, and how---- But you'll have an eye to them all; won't you? And telegraph us if--if anything should happen?" Elizabeth promised everything. But she was conscious of a great weight of responsibility as the carriage containing the light-hearted Stanfords rolled away down the street. "Oh, Evelyn!" she said; "do watch Robbie carefully, and be sure and call me if the least thing is the matter with the baby." Miss Tripp smiled confidently. "I'm not the least bit worried," she said. "Little Robert loves me devotedly already, and I am sure will be most tractable and obedient; and Livingstone is a very healthy child. Besides, you know, I have mother, who knows everything about children." She went back into her newly acquired domain, feeling that a sympathising Providence had been very good to her, and resolving to do her full duty, as she conceived it, by the temporarily motherless Stanford children. In pursuance of this resolve she repaired at once to the nursery when the Stanfords had taken leave of their offspring, after presenting them with a parcel of new toys upon which the children had fallen with shouts of joy. "I really could not go away and leave them looking wistfully out of the windows after us," Mrs. Stanford had declared, with tears in her bright brown eyes. "I should think of them that way every minute while we were gone, and imagine them crying after me." "They won't cry, dear Mrs. Stanford," Evelyn had assured her. "I shall devote every moment of my time to them and keep them just as happy as wee little birdlings in a nest." The youngest Stanford child was peacefully engaged in demolishing a book of bright pictures, while his elder brother was trying the blade of a glittering jack-knife on the wood of the mantel-piece, when Miss Tripp re-entered the room. "Oh, my dears!" exclaimed their new guardian with a tactful smile, "I wouldn't do that!" The Stanford infant paid no manner of attention to the mildly worded request; but the older boy turned and stared resentfully at her. "This is my jack-knife," he announced conclusively; "my daddy gave it to me to whittle with, an' I'm whittlin'." "But your father wouldn't like you to cut the mantel-shelf; don't you know he wouldn't, dear?" "I'm goin' to whittle it jus' the same, 'cause you ain't my mother; you ain't even my gran'ma." Miss Tripp, unable to deny the refutation, looked about her distractedly. "I'll tell Norah to get you a nice piece of wood," she said. "Where is Norah, dear?" "She's gone down to the corner to talk to her beau," replied Master Robert, calmly continuing to dig his new knife into the mantel. "She's got a p'liceman beau, an' so's Annie; on'y hers is a street-car driver. Have you got one, Miss Tripp?" "Call me Aunty Evelyn, dear; that'll be nicer; don't you think it will? And--Robert dear; if you'll stop cutting the mantel Aunty Evelyn will tell you the loveliest story, all about----" "Aw--I don't like stories much. They're good 'nough for girls I guess, but I----" Then the knife slipped and the amateur carpenter burst into a deafening roar of anguish. XV Very much to his surprise, Mr. Hickey found himself disposed to hark back to the day on which he had so unexpectedly parted company with Miss Tripp on the corner of Tremont and Washington Streets. He had intended, he told himself, to order for their luncheon broiled chicken, macaroons and pink ice-cream, as being articles presumably suited to the feminine taste. He remembered vaguely to have heard Miss Tripp mention pink ice-cream, and all women liked the wing of a chicken. Was the unknown "friend" with whom she had made that previous engagement, a man or a woman? he wondered, deciding with the well-known egoism of his sex in favour of the first mentioned. The man was a cad, anyway, Mr. Hickey was positive--though he could not have particularised his reasons for this summary conclusion. And being a cad, he was not worthy of Miss Tripp's slightest consideration. If he had the thing to do over again, he told himself, he would sneak up boldly to Miss Tripp concerning his own rights in the matter; he would remind her--humorously of course--that possession was said to be nine points in the law; and that he, Hickey, was disposed to do battle for the tenth point with any man living. He grew quite hot and indignant as he pictured his rival sitting opposite Miss Tripp in some second-class restaurant, ordering chicken and ice-cream. As like as not the other fellow wouldn't know that she preferred her ice-cream pink, and----. Mr. Hickey pulled himself up with a jerk at this point in his meditations and told himself flatly that he was a fool, and that further, when he came right down to it, he did not care a copper cent about Miss Tripp's luncheons, past, present or to come. What he really wanted to know--and this desire gained poignant force and persistence as the days passed--was whether he had said or done anything to offend the lady. He remembered that he had accidentally jabbed Miss Tripp's hat with his umbrella, and very likely put a feather or two out of business. That would be likely to annoy any woman. Perhaps she had felt that his awkwardness was unpardonable, and his further acquaintance undesirable. Under the goad of this latter uncomfortable suspicion--in two weeks' time it had grown into a conviction--he actually made his way into a milliner's shop and inquired boldly for "feathers." "What sort of feathers, sir?" inquired the cool, bright-eyed young person who came forward to ask the needs of the tall, professional-looking man wearing glasses and exceedingly shabby brown gloves. "Why--er--just feathers; the sort ladies wear on hats." The young person smiled condescendingly. "Something in plumes, sir?" she asked, "or was it coque or marabout you wished to see?" "Something handsome. Long--er--and not too curly." The young woman produced a box and opened it. "How do you like this, sir? Only twenty dollars. Was it for an old lady or a young lady?" "Er--a young lady," said Mr. Hickey hastily. "That is to say, she----" "Your wife, perhaps?" and the young person smiled intelligently. "How would your lady like something like this?" And she held up a sweeping plume of a dazzling shade of green. "This is quite the latest swell thing from Paris, sir; can be worn on either a black or a white hat." Mr. Hickey reflected. "I--er--think the feathers were black," he observed meditatively; "but I like colours myself. Red--er--is a handsome colour in feathers." He eyed the young person defiantly. "I always liked a good red," he asserted firmly. "These new cerise shades are all the rage now in Paris, N'Yo'k an' Boston," agreed the young person, promptly pulling out another box. "Look at this grand plume in shaded tints, sir! Isn't it just perfectly stunning?" It was. Mr. Hickey surveyed it in rapt admiration, as the young person dangled it alluringly within range of his short-sighted vision. "I'd want two of those," he murmured. "Forty-eight, seventy, sir; reduced from fifty dollars; shall I send them?" "I--er--I'll take them with me," said the engineer, pulling out a roll of bills. "Women's hats must be singularly expensive," he mused for the first time in his professional career, as he strode away down the street, gingerly bearing his late purchase in a pasteboard box. It had not before occurred to Mr. Hickey that mere "feathers" were so costly. He trembled as he reflected upon the ravages committed by his unthinking umbrella. Anyway, these particular plumes were handsome enough to replace the ones he had undoubtedly ruined. He grew eager to behold Miss Tripp's face under the cerise plumes. But how was this to be brought about? Obviously this new perplexity demanded time for consideration. He carried the plumes home to his boarding-place, therefore, and stored them away on the top shelf of his closet, where they were discovered on the following day by his landlady, who was in the habit of keeping what she was pleased to term "a motherly eye" upon the belongings of her unattached boarders. "Well, I mus' say!" exclaimed the worthy Mrs. McAlarney to herself, when her amazed eyes fell upon the contents of the strange box, purporting to have come from a fashionable milliner's shop; "if that ain't the greatest! Whatever's got into Mr. Hickey?" But the cerise plumes tarried in undeserved obscurity on the shelf of Mr. Hickey's clothes-press for exactly fifteen days thereafter; then they suddenly disappeared. In the meantime their purchaser continued to indulge in unaccustomed reflections from day to day. He made no effort during all this time to see Miss Tripp; but on the fifteenth day he chanced to meet Sam Brewster as he was about entering the business men's lunchroom, which Mr. Hickey still frequented as in former days. "Hello, old man!" was Sam's greeting. "Where have you been keeping yourself all these weeks? I thought you'd be around some evening to see us." "Er--I've been thinking of it," admitted Mr. Hickey cautiously. "Is--er--Mrs. Brewster's friend, Miss Tripp, still with you?" "No, George; she isn't," Sam told him, enjoying the look of uncontrolled dismay which instantly overspread Mr. Hickey's countenance. "She's gone next door to stay," he added. "Next door--to--er stay?" "At the Stanfords' you know. Miss Tripp is keeping house and looking after the young Stanfords while their exhausted parents are endeavouring to recuperate their energies in the far west." "Hum--ah," quoth Mr. Hickey thoughtfully, his mind reverting casually to the cerise plumes. "She's doing wonders with those kids, my wife tells me," pursued Sam Brewster artfully. "Miss Tripp's a fine girl and no mistake; it'll be a lucky man who can secure her services for life." Mr. Hickey offered no comment on this statement, and his friend waved his hand in token of farewell. "Come around and see us, George, when you haven't anything better to do," he said, as he stepped out to the street. "Oh--er--I say, Brewster; would it be the proper thing for me to call on Miss Tripp? I--I have a little explanation to make, and----" "Miss Tripp's mother is chaperoning her," said Sam, with unsmiling gravity. "It would be, I should say, quite the proper thing for you to call upon her." "Well; then I think I'd better take those----. Er--Brewster, I wonder if you could enlighten me?--You see it's this way, a--friend of mine called at my office the other day to consult me about a little matter. He said he'd been unfortunate enough to injure a lady's hat--feathers, you know--and he wanted to know what I'd do under like circumstances. 'Well, my dear fellow,' I told him, 'I don't know much about women's head-gear and that sort of thing; but,' I said, 'I should think the square thing to do would be to buy some handsome plumes and send them to the lady--something good and--er--expensive; say forty or fifty dollars.'" Sam whistled. "Pretty tough advice, unless the fellow happened to have plenty of cash," he hazarded, with a quizzical look at the now flushed and agitated Mr. Hickey. "Wouldn't they be good enough at that price?" inquired the engineer excitedly. "Ought I--ought my friend to have paid more?" "I should say that was a fair price," said Sam mildly. "I don't believe my wife has any feathers of that description on her hats." Mr. Hickey looked troubled. "Do you think I--er--told my friend the correct thing to do?" he inquired humbly. "Of course I don't know much about--feathers, or anything about women, for that matter." "That's where you're making a big mistake, Hickey, if you'll allow me to say as much. You ought to marry some nice girl, man, and make her happy. You'd find yourself happier than you have any idea of in the process." Mr. Hickey shook his head dubiously. "That may be so," he admitted. "I don't doubt it, to tell you the truth; but I----. The fact is, Brewster, I'm too far along in life to think of changing my way of living. I--I'd be afraid to try it, for fear----" "Oh, nonsense, man! you're just in your prime. Be sure you get the right woman, though; a real home-maker, Hickey; the kind who'll meet you at night with a smile, and have a first-class dinner ready for you three hundred and sixty-five days in the year." Mr. Hickey stared inscrutably at a passing truck. "Hum--ah!" he ejaculated. "I--er--dare say you are right, Brewster. Quite so, in fact. I--I'll think it over and let you know--that is, I----" Sam Brewster turned aside to conceal a passing smile. "The more you think it over the better," he said convincingly; "only don't take so much time for thinking that the other man'll cut you out." "Then there is another man!" exclaimed Mr. Hickey, with some agitation. "I knew it; I felt sure of it. But how could it be otherwise?" Sam Brewster stared in amazement at the effect produced by his careless speech. "There's always another man, George," he said seriously--though he felt morally certain there wasn't, if Hickey was referring to Miss Tripp. "But you want to get busy, and not waste time philandering." XVI The most unthinking observer could scarcely have accused Mr. Hickey of "philandering" up to this point; inasmuch as he had not laid eyes on the object of his thoughts--he would have demurred at a stronger word--for upwards of a month. That same afternoon, however, he left his office at the unwarranted hour of two o'clock, bearing a milliner's box in his hand with unblushing gravity. It was after he had rung the bell at the Stanford residence that he felt a fresh accession of doubt regarding the cerise plumes. After all, Brewster had neglected to put his mind at ease upon that important point. Miss Tripp was at home, the maid informed him, and showed him at once into the drawing-room when Miss Tripp herself, charmingly gowned in old rose, presently came in to greet him. Mr. Hickey caught himself gazing at the subdued tints of her toilet with vague disapproval. It was not, he told himself, a stunning colour such as was all the rage in Paris, New York and Boston. He felt exceedingly complacent as he thought of the plumes awaiting her acceptance. "I wonder," Miss Tripp was saying brightly, "if you wouldn't like to see my little kindergarten? To tell you the truth, Mr. Hickey, I shouldn't venture to leave them to themselves, even to talk with you." She led the way to the library where they were greeted by a chorus of joyous shouts. "You see," exclaimed Miss Tripp, "I am entertaining all five of the children this afternoon. Elizabeth--Mrs. Brewster--wished to do some shopping, so I offered to keep an interested eye on her three wee lambkins." "We're playin' birdies, Mr. Hickey," said Doris, taking up the thread of explanation, "Buddy and Baby Stanford are my little birdies; an' I'm the mother bird, an' Carroll an' Robbie are angleworms jus' crawlin' round on the ground. See me hop! Now I'm lookin' for a breakfast for my little birds!" The two infants in a nest of sofa-pillows set up a loud chirping, while the angleworms writhed realistically on the hearth-rug. "Now I'm goin' to catch one!" and Doris pounced upon Robbie Stanford. "Course I can't really put him down my birdies' throats," she explained kindly, "I just p'tend; like this." "Aw--this isn't any fun," protested her victim, as she haled him sturdily across the floor. "You're pullin' my hair, anyway; leg-go, Doris; I ain't no really worm." "You shouldn't say 'ain't,' dear," admonished Miss Tripp. "You meant to say 'I'm not really a worm.' But I'm sure you've played birdie long enough. We'll do something else now; what shall it be?" "Let's play reg'lar tea-party with lots an' lots o' things to eat," suggested Master Stanford. "I'm hungry!" "Oh, no, dear; not yet; you can't be," laughed Miss Tripp. "We'll have a tea-party, though, by and by, and you shall see what a nice surprise Cook Annie has for you." "I like t' eat better 'n anything; don't you?" asked Doris, sidling up to the observant Mr. Hickey, who was watching the scene with an inscrutable smile. "I like to eat candy out of a big box." "Doris, dear," interrupted Miss Tripp tactfully, "wouldn't you like to look at pictures a little while with the boys? Aunty Evelyn has some pretty books that you haven't seen. Come here, dear, and help Aunty." "I'm tired o' pictures," objected Doris with a pout. "I want to play train, or somethin' like that; don't you, Robbie?" "Don't want to play anythin' much; I'm tired o' bein' s' good, 'n' I'd rather go up in the attic, or somewhere," and Master Stanford cast a rebellious glance at his guardian. "Why don't you let them go out doors for a while," suggested Mr. Hickey, coming unexpectedly to the rescue. "It's snowing a little; and I'm afraid Elizabeth would think it was pretty cold for Richard," objected Miss Tripp. "It'll do 'em good," insisted Mr. Hickey, who was selfishly determined to clear the decks for his own personal ends. He had somehow formulated a very surprising set of resolutions as he sat watching Miss Tripp in the discharge of her quasi maternal duties. Primus: It was a shame for a sweet, attractive little woman to wear herself out caring for other people's houses and children. Secundus: If there was another man in the case (as Brewster had insinuated) he was determined to find it out without further delay. Tertius: If not----. Mr. Hickey drew a long breath. "Do you want to go out in the yard a little while?" Miss Tripp was asking the children doubtfully. "It is Norah's afternoon out," she explained to Mr. Hickey, "and I don't like to have them play out of doors unless someone is with them to see that nothing happens. It is such a responsibility," she added with a little sigh. "I had no idea of it when I undertook it; I'm afraid I shouldn't have had the courage to----. Oh, children; wait a minute! Let Aunty Evelyn put on your overshoes--Robbie, dear!" "Come back here, young man!" commanded Mr. Hickey in a voice which effectually arrested the wandering attention of Master Stanford. "Here, I'll fix 'em up. If I can't, I'm not fit to put through another tunnel! Here you, Miss Flutterbudget; is this your coat?" Miss Tripp flew to the rescue. "Oh, thank you, Mr. Hickey," she murmured, flashing a mirthful glance of protest at the engineer. "But to array four small children for out of doors on a winter day is vastly more complicated than digging a tunnel. Wait, Doris; you haven't your mittens." They were all ready at last, and Evelyn herded them carefully out into the back yard and shut the latticed door leading to the street upon them. "Now I must watch them every minute from the library window," she said to Mr. Hickey. "You've no idea what astonishing things they'll think of and--do. One ought to have the eyes of an Argus and the arms of a Briareus to cope successfully with Robert." "Bright boy--very," observed Mr. Hickey absent-mindedly. "I--er--am very fond of boys." "Oh, are you?" asked Evelyn with mild surprise, as she craned her neck to look out of the window. "I hope they won't make their snow-balls too hard. It is really dangerous when the snow is soft." "--Er--I wish you'd stop looking out of that window, Miss Tripp and--er--give me your attention for about five minutes," said Mr. Hickey, with very much the same tone and manner he would have employed in addressing his stenographer. He told himself that he was perfectly cool and collected, but unluckily in his efforts to visualise his inward calm he succeeded in looking particularly stern and professional. "I--er--called on a little matter of business this afternoon, Miss Tripp, and I--to put it clearly before you--would like to recall to your mind the day--something like a month ago, when you--when I--er--met you and asked you to lunch with me. You may recall the fact?" Miss Tripp gazed at Mr. Hickey with some astonishment. Then she blushed, wondering if he had found out that she had prevaricated in the matter of a previous engagement. "I--remember; yes," she murmured. "It was a great disappointment to me at the time," he went on. "I wanted to talk to you further. I wanted to--er--tell you----" He paused and stole a glance at the pretty worn profile she turned toward him, as she looked apprehensively out of the window. "The children are--playing very prettily together," she said. "And, see, the sun has come out." "You--er--have known me a long time," he said huskily. "Once you laughed at me because I was homely and--er--awkward, and since then----" She interrupted him with a little murmur of protest. "I was hoping you had forgotten that," she said softly. "I have never forgotten anything that you said or did," he declared, with the delightful though sudden conviction that this was strictly true. "It really is singular, when you come to think of it; but it's a fact. I don't know as I should have realised it though if I--if you----" She started to her feet with a little cry of alarm. "Something has happened to Carroll!" she said. "I must go out and see." He followed her distracted flight with the grim resolve not to be balked of his purpose. "Oh! what is it?" she was asking wildly of the other children, who huddled crying about the small figure of Carroll which was flattened against the iron fence, emitting strange and dolorous sounds of woe. "Aw--I tol' Carroll he didn't das' to put his tongue out on th' iron fence; an' he did it; an' now he's stuck to it, 'n' can't get away," explained Master Stanford with scientific accuracy. "I don't see why; do you?" "Oh, you poor darling! What shall I do; can't you----" "Ah-a-a-a!" howled the victim, writhing in misery. "Hold on there, youngster!" shouted Mr. Hickey, whose experienced eye had taken in the situation at a glance. "Wait till I get some hot water; don't move, boys! Don't touch him, Evelyn!" It was the work of several moments to successfully detach the rash experimenter from his uncomfortable proximity to the iron fence. But Mr. Hickey accomplished the feat, with a patience and firmness which won for him the loud encomiums of Mrs. Stanford's Irish Annie, who came out bare-armed to assist in the operation. "Oh, you're the bad boy entirely!" she said to Robbie, who stared open-mouthed at the scene from the safe vantage ground of the back stoop. "Many's the time I've towld what would happen to yez if you put yer tongue t' th' fence in cowld weather." "I wanted to see if it was true," said Master Stanford coolly. "You said th' was a p'liceman comin' after me, an' th' wasn't, when I ate the frostin' off your ol' cake." "If your mother was here she'd be afther takin' th' paddle to yez," said Annie wrathfully. "I've a mind to do it meself." Master Stanford fled to the safe shelter of the library where Carroll, ensconced on Mr. Hickey's knee, was being soothed with various emollients and lotions at the hands of Miss Tripp. "I should never have known what to do," she said, looking up from her ministrations to find Mr. Hickey's eyes fixed full upon her. "How could you think so quickly?" "Because I tried it myself once upon a time," said Mr. Hickey. "It's about the only way to learn things," he added somewhat grimly. "But I wish our young friend had taken another day for improving his knowledge on the subject of the prehensile powers of iron when applied to a moist surface on a cold day." For some reason or other he felt very much neglected and correspondingly out of temper as Miss Tripp ministered to the numerous wants of her small charges during the half hour that followed. To be sure she poured him a cup of tea (which he detested) and pressed small frosted cakes upon him with the sweetest of abstracted smiles. "I must go at once," he bethought himself, as he refused a second cup. "I--er--shall be late to my dinner." But he lingered gloomily while she cheered the afflicted Carroll with warm milk well sweetened with sugar. "You'll find some--some feathers in a box in the hall," he informed her, when he finally took his leave. "I wanted to tell you that I--er--regretted exceedingly that I had injured yours with my umbrella on the day we were to have lunched together and--didn't." Miss Tripp took the cerise plumes out of their wrappings and examined them in the blissful security of her own room--this after the Brewster children had gone home and the Stanford children were at last in bed and safely asleep. "How-extraordinary!" she murmured, her cheeks reflecting palely the vivid tints of the latest importation from Paris. XVII Having definitely abandoned the unthinking, hit-or-miss method of child discipline practised by the generality of parents, Elizabeth Brewster and her husband found themselves facing a variety of problems. To be exact, there were three of them; Carroll, with his somewhat timid and yielding, yet too self-conscious nature; Doris, hot-tempered, generous and loving, and baby Richard, who already exhibited an adamantine firmness of purpose, which a careless observer might have termed stubbornness. There was another questionable issue which these wide-awake young parents were obliged to face, and that was the entirely unconfessed partiality which Elizabeth cherished for her first-born son and the equally patent yet unacknowledged "particular affection" Sam felt for his one small daughter. More than once in the past the two had found themselves at the point of serious disagreement when the boy and girl had come into collision; Sam hotly--too hotly--upholding the cause of Doris, while Elizabeth was almost tearfully sure that her son had not been in fault. Neither had taken the pains to trace these quite human and natural predilections to their source; but they were agreed in thinking the outcome unsafe. They determined, therefore, to defer to the other's judgment in those instances when special discipline appeared to be demanded by either child. All this by way of prelude to a certain stormy evening in March when Sam Brewster, returning more tired than usual from a long day of hard work in his office, found his Elizabeth with reddened eyelids and a general appearance of carefully subdued emotion. "Well! I say," he began, as he divested himself of his wet coat and kicked off his overshoes with an air bordering on impatience; "it's beastly weather outside; hope none of it's got inside. Where are the kiddies? And what is the matter with the lady of the house?" Elizabeth plucked up a small, faint smile which she bestowed upon the questioner with a wifely kiss. "I've had a very trying time with Doris to-day," she said; "but I didn't mean to mention it till after dinner." Sam shrugged his shoulders. "I shall at least have to change part of my clothes, my dear," he said crisply. "I'll hear the catalogue of the young lady's crimes when I'm dry, if you don't mind." The dinner was excellent, and there was a salad and a pudding which elicited the warmest commendation from the head of the house. He was aware, however, of an unbending attitude of mind upon the part of Elizabeth and an unnatural decorum in the conduct of the children which somewhat marred the general enjoyment. Sam eyed his small daughter quizzically from time to time, as she sat with eyes bent upon her plate. "Well," he said at last, in his usual half-joking manner, "I hear there have been ructions in this ranch since I left home this morning. What have you been doing, Dorry, to make your mother look like the old lady who makes vinegar for a living?" The little girl giggled as she stole a glance at her mother's face; then she ran quickly to her father's side and nestled her hand in his. "I'm always good when you're here, daddy," she said in a loud, buzzing whisper. "I wish you stayed at home all th' time 'stead of mother." Elizabeth bit her lip with vexation, and Sam laughed aloud, his eyes filled with a teasing light. "That appears to be a counter indictment for you, Betty," he said. "Or--we might call it a demurrer--eh? Come, tell me what's happened to disturb the family peace. I see it's broken all to bits." Elizabeth arose with unsmiling dignity. "Celia would like to clear the table," she said; "I think we had better go into the sitting-room." She did not offer either accusation or explanation after they were all seated about the blazing wood fire, which the Brewsters were agreed in terming their one extravagance; for a few moments no one spoke. "I really hate to go into this matter of naughty deeds just now," began Sam, stretching his slippered feet to the warmth with an air of extreme comfort. "Couldn't we--er--quash the proceedings; or---- See here, I'll tell you; suppose we issue an injunction and bind over all young persons in this house to keep the peace. Well, now, won't that do, Betty?" "I'm really afraid it won't, Sam," said Elizabeth firmly. "I didn't punish Doris for what she did this afternoon. It seemed to me that it would be better for her to tell you about it herself. Something ought to be done to prevent it from happening again; perhaps you will know what that something is." Her face was grave, and she did not choose to meet the twinkle in her husband's eyes. He lifted his daughter to his knee. "It's up to you, Dorry," he said; "I'm all attention. Come, out with it. Tell daddy all about it." He passed his hand caressingly over her mane of silken hair and bent his tall head to look into her abashed eyes. Thus encouraged the little girl nestled back into the circle of the strong arms which held her, dimpling with anticipated triumph. "I was playin' mother," she began, "an' Carroll was my husban', an' Baby Dick was my child. An'--an' Dick was naughty. He wouldn't mind me when I told him to stop playin' with his cars an' come to mother. I spoke real kind an' gentle, too: 'Put down your train an' come to mother, darlin',' I said. But he jus' wouldn't, daddy. He said, 'No; I won't!' jus' like that he said." "Hum!" commented her father. "And what did you do then?" "Well, you see, daddy, I was p'tendin' I was Mrs. Stanford; so 'course I was 'bliged to punish Dick for not mindin'. I got mother's butter-paddle an' I whipped him real hard, an' I said 'it hurts mother more 'n it hurts you, darlin'!' Robbie says that's what his mother says when she whips him. He says he don't b'lieve it. But Dick wasn't good after I whipped him. He jus' turned 'round an' pulled my hair an' screamed--with both han's he pulled it an' jerked it; then I--I bit him." "You--_what_, Doris?" "I bit him, jus' to make him let go. An'--an' he was softer'n I thought he was. I never knew such a soft baby." The little girl hung her head before her father's stern look; her voice threatened to break in a sob. "I didn't think--Dick--was--so--so full of--juice," she quavered. "Did you really bite your dear little brother till the blood came, Doris? I can't believe it!" Sam glanced inquiringly at his wife; but she held her peace, her eyes drooped upon the sewing in her hands. "I--I didn't b'lieve it either--at first," Doris said quickly. "I thought it was jus'--red paint." "Why, Doris Brewster!" piped up Carroll, unable to contain himself longer; "that's a reg'lar fib!" "Had Dick been playing with red paint?" interrogated Sam gravely, his eyes fixed upon the culprit who was beginning to fidget uneasily in his arms. "N-o, daddy," confessed the child in a whisper. Her father considered her answer in silence for a moment or two; then he looked over at his wife. "Elizabeth," he said. "Isn't it time for these young persons to go to bed?" She glanced up at the clock. "I think it is, dear," she replied. "But----" He checked her with a quick look. "I shall have to think this over," he said, setting Doris upon her feet. Then he put his arm about his son and kissed him. "Good-night, Carroll." Doris, dimpling and rosy, lifted her eager little face to her father's; but he deliberately put her aside. "Aren't you going to kiss me, too, daddy?" wailed the child, in a sudden passion of affection and something akin to fear. "I love you, daddy!" "I'm a little afraid of you, Dorry," her father said gravely. "I'm not sure that you are entirely safe to--kiss." "But I wouldn't bite you, daddy! I _wouldn't_!" "Why wouldn't you?" "Because I--because I love you." "I always supposed you loved Baby Dick," said her father, turning away from the piteous, grieved look in her eyes; "but it seems I was mistaken." "But, daddy, I do! I do love Dick! I love him more'n a million, an'----" "Good-night, Doris." There was stern finality in Sam's voice, though his eyes were wet. Elizabeth led the two children away, Doris shaken with sobs and Carroll casting backward glances of troubled awe at his father who continued to look steadily into the fire. He still sat in his big chair, his face more sober and thoughtful than its wont, when his wife returned. "I'm afraid Doris will cry herself to sleep to-night," she said doubtfully. He made no reply. "You wouldn't like to go up and kiss her good-night, Sam?" "Better one night than a hundred," he said, ignoring her suggestion. Then he bent forward and poked the fire with unnecessary violence. "Poor little girl," he murmured. A light broke over her face. "Do you think this is the natural penalty?" she asked. A wailing sob floated down to them from above in the silence that followed her question. "It was, perhaps, one of the penalties sure to follow a similar line of conduct," he said slowly. "She'll remember it, you'll find, better than one of Mrs. Stanford's whippings." [Illustration: "She'll remember it, you'll find, better than one of Mrs. Stanford's whippings"] He turned to look at his wife with a smile. "'It hurts mother more than it does you, darling!'" he quoted with a grimace. "I thought that particular sort of cant was out of date. An irascible person who flies into a rage and frankly administers punishment on the spot I can understand. I used to get a thrashing of that sort about once in so often from Aunt Julia; and I don't remember hating her for it. Where did Marian dig up such rank nonsense?" "At her 'Mothers' Club,' I suppose," Elizabeth told him with a disdainful curl of her pretty lips. "I went once and heard a woman say that she always prayed with her child first and whipped him severely afterward." "Beastly cant!" groaned Sam disgustedly. "I'm glad you don't go in for that sort of thing, Betty." "It would drive me to almost anything, if I were a child and had to endure it," Elizabeth said positively. Both parents were silent for a long minute, and both appeared to be listening for the sound of muffled sobbing from above stairs. "You--you'll forgive her--to-morrow; won't you, Sam?" whispered Elizabeth. "Forgive her?" he echoed. "You know I'm not really angry with her, Betty; but if we can teach our small daughter through her affections to control her passions, can't you see what it will do for the child? Perhaps," he added under his breath, "that is what--God--does with us. Sometimes--we are allowed to suffer. I have been, and--I know I have profited by it." Sam Brewster was not one of those who talk over-familiarly of their Maker. A word like this meant that he was profoundly moved. Elizabeth's eyes dwelt on her husband with a trust and affection which spoke louder than words. After a while she laid her hand in his. "If you would always advise me with the children," she murmured, "I'm sure we could--help them to be good." "That is it, Betty," he said, meeting her misty look with a smile. "We cannot force our children into goodness, or torture them into wisdom--even if we can compel them to a show of submission which they would make haste to throw off when they are grown. But we can help them to choose the good, now and as long as we live. And we'll do it, little mother; for I'm not going to shirk my part of it in the future. As you said long ago, it's the most important thing in the world for us to do just now." XVIII Perhaps because she had cried herself to sleep the night before, Doris awakened late the next morning to find Carroll at her bedside completely dressed and with the shining morning face which follows prolonged scrubbing with soap and water. "Has daddy gone?" she inquired anxiously, as she rubbed the dreams out of her brown eyes. "Not yet, sleepy-head," Carroll informed her; "but he's puttin' on his overcoat this minute an' kissin' mother good-bye. I got up early," he added complacently, "an' dressed myself all by my lone an' had my breakfas' with daddy. I'm goin' to do it every mornin' after this. He likes to have me." Sam Brewster, in the act of bestowing a final hasty kiss upon his Elizabeth's flushed cheek, was startled by the sight of a small figure in white with a cloud of bright hair which flew down the stairs and into his arms with a loud wail of protest. "Kiss me good-bye, too, daddy! Kiss me!" Sam caught the little warm, throbbing body and held it close. "Father's baby daughter," he whispered, bending his head to her pink ear. "She shall kiss her daddy good-bye." "I'm goin' to be jus' as good to-day, daddy; I'm goin' to be gooder 'an Carroll. 'N'--'n' I'll never, never bite anybody again; never in my world. I promise!" Sam gazed fondly down at the sparkling little face against his breast. "That's daddy's good girl!" he exclaimed heartily. "Do you hear that, mother?" "Yes; I hear," Elizabeth said doubtfully. "I'm sure I hope Doris will remember. Sometimes you forget so quickly, dear." "We all do that, Betty," Sam said gravely, as he surrendered the child to her mother. His face was thoughtful as he hurried away down the street to catch his car. To his surprise his friend Stanford swung himself aboard at the next corner. "Why, hello, Stanford," he looked up from a hurried perusal of his paper to say. "I didn't know you were home. When did you come?" "Last night," said the other, dropping into a seat beside his neighbour. "The fact is, Marian couldn't stand it to be away from the children another day. She was sure Rob would burn the house down with everything in it, including the baby; or that some equally heartrending thing would happen--it was a fresh one every day. It got on her nerves, as she puts it; and finally on mine; so we gave up our trip to Santa Barbara and came home literally post-haste. I was sorry, for I don't know when we shall get another such chance. But you know how it is, Brewster; a woman won't listen to rhyme or reason where her children are concerned." "I understand," Sam agreed briefly; "my wife is the same way. But of course you found everything in good order--eh? Miss Tripp appeared to be all devotion to the children, and my wife kept a motherly eye on them." "Oh, everything was all right, of course; just as I told Marian it would be: the children were in bed and asleep and everything about the place in perfect trim. I'm sure we're a thousand times obliged to you and Mrs. Brewster; Marian will tell you so. Er--by the way, our mutual friend Hickey appeared to be calling upon Miss Tripp when we arrived, and Marian insists that we interrupted some sort of important interview by our untimely appearance. She said she felt it in the air. I laughed at her. Of course I know as well as you do that Old Ironsides isn't matrimonially inclined, and while Miss Tripp may be an excellent nurse and housekeeper, she isn't exactly----" "H'm!" commented Sam non-committally, "there's no accounting for tastes, you know. Hickey's a queer chap; queer as Dick's hat-band; but a good sort--an all-round, square good fellow." "Sure! I believe you. But I had to laugh at my boy Robert. He's all ears, and smarter than a steel trap. He overheard something of what my wife was saying to me. 'Mr. Hickey doesn't come to see Miss Tripp,' he puts in, as large as life; 'he comes to see me an' baby, 'specially me; he comes most every day, an' he brings us candy an' oranges.' Isn't that rather singular--eh?" "Not at all," Sam assured him warmly; "Hickey is very fond of children, always has been. He's always dropping in to see Carroll and Doris. Um--did you see this account of Judge Lindsay's doings in his children's court? I've come across a number of articles about his work lately. Seems to me it's mighty suggestive, the way he's gone to work to make good citizens out of material which would otherwise fill the state prisons; and it's all done through some sort of moral suasion apparently. He gets into sympathy with those poor little chaps; climbs down to their level, somehow or other; sees things through their eyes; gets their point of view, and then deals with them as man to man--or boy to boy. I believe he's got the matter of discipline--all sorts of discipline--cinched. We're going to try some of his methods with our children." Young Stanford stared for a moment at his neighbour, then he threw back his head and chuckled. "I beg your pardon, Brewster," he exclaimed; "but it struck me as being--er--a decidedly original idea, that of establishing a children's court in your own home. Perhaps it was Mrs. Brewster's notion; Marian tells me she's very--er--advanced, when it comes to disciplining the children." Sam Brewster's blue eyes rested steadily upon his neighbour. "Singular as the statement may sound, I'm prepared to say that I'm somewhat interested in my children's upbringing on my own account," he said coolly. "My wife has notions, as you call them, and one of them is that a father has quite as much responsibility in the training of the children as the mother. I believe she's right." "Well, I can't see it that way," drawled Stanford. "I'm perfectly willing to leave the kids to Marian while they're small; when they're too big for her to handle I'll take 'em in hand. They'll obey _me_, you'd better believe, from the word go. I think as my father did, that a child ought to mind as though he were fired out of a gun." "It seems to me a child is a reasonable being, and has a reasoning being's right to understand something of the whys and wherefores of his obedience," protested Sam, vaguely aware that he was quoting the opinions of someone else. "Besides that, don't they tell us a child's character is pretty well formed by the time he is seven?" "Bosh!" exploded Stanford. "I wouldn't give a brass nickel for all the theories you can bundle together. There were no sort of explanations or mollycoddling coming to me, when I was a kid. It was 'do this, sir'; or 'don't do the other.' I can tell you, I walked a chalk-line till I was sixteen. Why, gracious! if I'd attempted to argue and talk back to my governor the way your boy talks to you--you needn't deny it, for I've heard him myself--I'd have stood up to eat for a week. I've done it more than once for simply looking cross-eyed, and I can tell you it did me good." Sam Brewster eyed his companion with grave interest; there was no animosity in his tone and merely a friendly interest in his face as he inquired: "You walked a chalk-line till you were sixteen, you say; what did you do then?" Young Stanford's handsome dark face reddened slightly. "I--er--well, you see I got red-hot at the pater one day because he--you see I'd grown pretty fast and was as tall as he was, and--er--I balked; thought I was too big to be thrashed, as I deserved. Why, you know what I did as well as I do, Sam. I've always been ashamed of it, of course, and of the trouble I made my mother. She was and is the best mother ever, mild and sweet-tempered; but she couldn't handle _me_. Why, man, I was a holy terror, and my boy Rob is exactly like me." He spoke complacently, almost triumphantly. "I'll take it out of him, though. Watch me!" "Then you don't think we could both learn a thing or two from Judge Lindsay and other specialists about the way to manage and bring up our boys?" persisted Sam, a slow twinkle dawning in his blue eyes. "We know it all--eh? and don't require any enlightenment?" "I know enough to bring up my own boy, I should hope," responded Stanford, with heat. "If he cuts up the way I did, I'll take it out of his young hide some day; that's a sure proposition." "And then possibly, since he's so much like his father, he might balk--when he gets tall enough--and he might not--come back in three days, the way you did. Pardon me, old man, for speaking so plainly; but as long as our children play together and go to school together, your business and mine are one when it comes to their training. And if half the rich men in the country can afford to spend most of their time and millions of their dollars in improving the horses, cattle, pigs and poultry of the country, you and I won't be exactly wasting our time if we discuss child improvement occasionally." "That's where you're off, Brewster; the discipline of a man's own children is a strictly private and personal matter. You'll excuse me if I say just what I think, and that is that the methods I adopt with my boy are none of your or any man's business." "And I'm obliged to differ with you there; the way you bring up your boy is not only my business but everybody's business. It concerns the neighbourhood, the state, the nation and the world." "Now you're ranting, my boy, and I can't listen to you. But I'll tell you what I'll do; I'll tell Mrs. Stanford to get us both invitations to attend the next of her 'mother's meetings.' I'll go, if you will, and we'll hold forth on our respective ideas at length. How does that strike you?" "As an eminently sensible and sane proposition," Sam said coolly, as he rose to leave the car. "A parent's club--eh? A capital idea; well worth working up. I'll see you later with regard to it." Stanford grinned derisively as he buried himself in the pages of his newspaper. "Brewster's getting to be a bally crank," he told himself. Then his eye fastened upon a paragraph heading with a reminiscent thrill. "Boy of fifteen runs away from home in company with a neighbour's son, after a disagreement with his father!" His rapid eye took in the details, meagre and commonplace, of the missing lads and their home-life. "Young rascals!" he muttered, and passed on to the political situation in which he was deeply interested. Curiously enough, though, that paragraph concerning the runaway boys recurred to his mind more than once during the day, bringing with it an unwontedly poignant recollection of his own headlong flight and ignominious home-coming, foot-sore and hungry after three days of wretched wandering. He had never forgotten the experience and never would. It had done him a world of good, he had since declared stoutly. But he shivered at the thought of his own son alone and hungry in the streets of a great city. XIX Elizabeth was quite as busy as usual looking after the interests of her small kingdom when Evelyn Tripp called that same morning. "I have come," she said, "to say good-bye." Then in answer to Elizabeth's look of surprised enquiry, "The Stanfords came home quite unexpectedly last evening, so I shall return to Dorchester this afternoon. Mother has already gone; I've just been to the train with her." Elizabeth surveyed her friend dubiously. "Perhaps you are not altogether sorry on the whole," she said, "though the children have behaved surprisingly well--for them." "The baby is a dear," agreed Miss Tripp warmly; "but I'm afraid I didn't succeed very well with Robert. It seems to me the child's finer feelings have been blunted someway. When I spoke seriously to him about his unkindness to Carroll the other day, he made up a face at me. 'You can't whip me,' he said, ''cause you aren't my mother.' "'Indeed I could whip, or hurt you in some other way, if I chose,' I told him, 'and if you were a stupid little donkey who wouldn't go, or a dog who couldn't be made to obey, I should certainly feel like switching you; but you are a boy, and you are fast growing to be a man. I am afraid, though, that you are not growing to be a gentleman.' "'I guess I'm a gentleman, too,' he said rudely. 'My grandfather's a rich man, an' we're goin' to have all his money when he dies. We ain't poor like you.'" "Shocking!" exclaimed Elizabeth; "what did you say to the child?" "I explained to him what a gentle-man really was; then I told him about the knights of the Round Table. He is not really a bad child, Elizabeth; but he will be, if---- I wonder if I might venture to talk plainly to his mother?" "You may talk and she will listen, quite without impatience," Elizabeth said, with a shrug of her shoulders. "But Marian is somewhat--opinionated, to put it mildly, and she is very, very sure that her own way is best. So I'm afraid it wouldn't do any good." She smiled speculatively as she looked at her friend. It seemed to her that Evelyn was looking particularly young and pretty. There was a faint flush of colour in her pale cheeks and her eyes shone girlishly bright under their curtain of thick brown lashes. A sudden thought crossed Elizabeth's mind. And without pausing to think, she put it into words. "Evelyn," she began, her own cheeks glowing, "I want you to stay with us over night; I really can't let you go off so suddenly, without saying good-bye to--to Sam, or--anybody," she finished lamely. "You must stay to dinner, anyway; I insist upon that much, and I will send you to the station in a cab." Evelyn shook her head. "It is very good of you, Betty," she said; "but I really must go this afternoon. Mother will expect me." "Does--Mr. Hickey know you are going?" demanded Elizabeth, abandoning her feeble efforts at finesse. The faint colour in Evelyn's cheeks deepened to a painful scarlet. She met Elizabeth's questioning gaze bravely. "No--o," she hesitated; "but----" She paused, apparently to straighten out with care the fingers of her shabby little gloves; then she looked up, a spark of defiance in her blue eyes. "Elizabeth," she said, "I think I ought to tell you that Mr. Hickey has asked me to marry him; but I----" "Oh, Evelyn! How glad I am!" "I refused him," said Miss Tripp concisely. "Refused him! but why? Sam thinks him one of the finest men he knows, kind, good as gold, and very successful in his profession. You would be so comfortable, Evelyn, and all your problems solved." Miss Tripp arose. She was looking both defiant and unhappy now, but prettier withal than Elizabeth had ever seen her. "I don't want to be _comfortable_, as you call it, Betty," she said passionately. "I--I want--to be _loved_. If he had even pretended to--like me, even a little. But I--I had told him all about my perplexities, I'm sure I can't imagine why--except that I pined for something--sympathy, I thought it was, and he--offered me--money. Think of it, Elizabeth! And when I refused, he--offered to marry me. He said he could make me--comfortable!" Her voice choked a little over the last word. "Of course," she went on, "I know I'm not young and pretty any more; but--but I--couldn't marry a man who was just sorry for me, as one would be sorry for a forlorn, lost ki-kitten!" "He does love you, Evelyn; I'm sure he does," Elizabeth said convincingly. "Only he--doesn't know how to say so. If I could only----" Miss Tripp looked up out of the damp folds of her handkerchief. "If you should repeat to Mr. Hickey anything I have told you in confidence, Elizabeth, I think I should die of shame," she quavered. "Promise me--promise me you won't speak of it to anyone!" Elizabeth promised at once, with an inward reservation in favour of Sam, who could, she was sure, bring order out of this sudden and unexpected chaos in her friend's affairs. "I am positive that you are mistaken, Evelyn," she repeated, as she embraced and kissed her friend at parting. "I wish you would change your mind." But Evelyn shook her head with the gentle obstinacy which Elizabeth remembered of old. "I seldom change my mind about anything," she said; "and in this case I simply couldn't. Good-bye dear, dear Betty; and thank you a thousand times for all your kindness to me." She turned to wave a slim hand to Elizabeth, who stood watching her departure with a curious mingling of exasperation and regret. A whiff of familiar perfume greeted her upon re-entering the sitting-room and her eyes fell at once upon Evelyn's muff, which she had deposited upon the floor beside her chair and quite evidently forgotten. It was a handsome muff of dark mink, a relic of Evelyn's more fortunate days. Elizabeth stood caressing it absent-mindedly, wondering how she could best restore it to its owner without vexatious delay, when her eyes fell upon Carroll and Doris coming in at the front gate with joyous hops, skips and jumps indicative of the rapture of release from school. "Here, dears!" she exclaimed, "Aunty Evelyn has just gone, and she has left her muff; take it and run after her; then come directly home. Your lunch will be ready in fifteen minutes." XX All that Evelyn Tripp had said to Elizabeth was entirely true; her feelings had been hurt--outraged, she again assured herself, as she hurried away, her eyes blurred with tears of anger and self-pity. Yet deep down in her heart she felt sure that George Hickey loved her for herself alone, and that all was not over between them. She had refused him, to be sure, and in no uncertain terms; but that he was not a man to be daunted by difficulties, she remembered with a little thrill of satisfaction. All had not been said when their interview was terminated by the unlooked-for arrival of the Stanfords; and he had said at parting, "I must see you again--soon. I wish to--explain. I will come to-morrow." He would come; she was sure of it, and as she pictured his vexed astonishment at finding her already gone, her eyes filled with fresh tears. "He doesn't even know my Dorchester address," she murmured with inconsistent regret. She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she did not hear a masterful step on the sidewalk behind her; but at the sound of his voice she glanced up without the least surprise. It appeared to Evelyn that Mr. Hickey's presence at that particular instant was in full accord with the verities. "I was afraid you might be leaving early," he said directly, his eyes searching her face with an open anxiety that filled her with a warm delight. "I--er--found that I could not apply myself to business as I should this morning, so I thought best to--er--see you without delay." Evelyn's head dropped; a faint smile flitted about her lips. "Indeed, I am just leaving this afternoon," she said, in a voice that trembled a little in spite of her efforts to preserve an easy society manner. "And you were going without--letting me know," said Mr. Hickey, in the tone of one who derives an unpleasant deduction from an undeniable fact. He looked down at her suddenly. "Did you, or did you not intend giving me the chance to--er--continue our conversation of last evening?" he asked with delightful sternness. She was sure now that he loved her; but her day had been long in coming and she could not resist the temptation to enjoy it slowly, lingeringly, as one tastes an anticipated feast. "I thought," she murmured indistinctly, "that there was nothing more to--say." She was deliciously frightened by the look that came into his deep-set eyes. "I asked you to marry me," he said deliberately, "and you--refused. I want to know your reasons. I must know them. I am not in the habit of giving up what I want, easily," he went on, his brows meeting in a short-sighted frown, which raised Evelyn to the seventh heaven of anticipated bliss. "I've always gotten what I wanted--sooner or later. I want--you, Evelyn, and--and it's getting late. I'm forty-two, and you----" She blushed resentfully, for at that moment she felt twenty, no older. Nevertheless, something in her downcast face must have encouraged him. "Won't you take pity on me, dear?" he entreated. "I'm old and ugly to look at, I know; but I _want you_, Evelyn." She would have answered him then; the words trembled upon her lips. "Aunty Evelyn! Aunty Evelyn!" The two shrill little voices upraised in urgent unison pierced the confused maze of her thoughts. She looked around, not without a wilful sense of relief to see the two older Brewster children running toward her brandishing a muff, which she presently recognised as one of her own cherished possessions, un-missed as yet since her brief visit with Elizabeth. "Mother found it on the floor after you'd gone, an' she said for us to run after you an' give it to you," Carroll began, with a large sense of his own importance. "Doris wanted to carry it; but I was 'fraid she'd drop it in the wet. I didn't drop it, Aunty Evelyn; but Doris threw some snow at me, an' it got on the muff, an' I stopped to brush it off. I thought we'd never catch up." Doris had snuggled her small person between Mr. Hickey and Miss Tripp, where she appropriated a hand of each in a friendly and impartial way. "I guess girls know how to carry muffs better'n boys," she observed calmly. "Carroll was too fresh; that is why I threw snow at him." "Why, Doris dear, where did you ever learn such an expression?" murmured Miss Tripp, vaguely reproving. Doris gazed up at her mentor with an expression of preternatural intelligence. "Why, don't you know," she explained; "folks is too fresh when they make you mad, an' make you cry. Who made you cry, Aunty Evelyn? Did Mr. Hickey?" "I wish you'd find out for me, Doris," said that gentleman gloomily. "I'd give anything to know." Miss Tripp gazed about her with gentle distraction, as if in search of an entirely suitable remark with which to continue the difficult conversation. Finding no inspiration in the expanse of slushy street, or in the dull houses which bordered it on either side, she turned bravely to Mr. Hickey. "I think," she said in a low voice, "that the children really ought to go home to--to--their luncheon." Her eyes (quite unknown to herself) held an appeal which filled him with unreasoning satisfaction. "You are entirely right," he agreed joyfully; "the children should go home immediately. They must be in need of food. Go home, children, at once. You are hungry--very hungry." "Oh, no, we're not," warbled Doris. "An' we like to walk with you an' Aunty Evelyn. Mother said our lunch wouldn't be ready for fifteen minutes. We won't have to go home for quite a while yet." At this Mr. Hickey laughed, more loudly than the humour of the situation appeared to demand. "Very good," he said firmly; "that being the case, I'll say at once what I had in mind without further delay; for I'm anxious to let the whole world know that I love you, Evelyn, and I hope you'll allow me to go on loving you as long as I live." The events which followed immediately upon this bold statement Elizabeth learned as a result of her somewhat bewildered questionings, when her two children, breathless and excited from a competitive return, flung their small persons upon her at their own door. "Now you just let me tell, Carroll Brewster, 'cause I got here first; Aunty Evelyn said----" "We gave Aunty Evelyn her muff," said Carroll, taking unfair advantage of Doris' breathless condition. "And what do you think, mother, Doris said I was too fresh to Aunty Evelyn, and she said----" "Aunty Evelyn cried when we gave her the muff, an' she said----" "Aunty Evelyn didn't cry 'cause we gave her the muff," interpolated Carroll, with superior sagacity. "She was cryin' to Mr. Hickey, an' he said----" "He said he'd give me most anythin'--a great big doll with real hair or a gold ring, or anythin' at all if I'd find out why Aunty Evelyn was cryin'." "But, Doris dear, Mr. Hickey wasn't with Aunty Evelyn; was he?" asked Elizabeth, a fine mingling of reproof and eager curiosity flushing her young face. "Mr. Hickey didn't say a big doll with real hair, or a gold ring," Carroll interrupted indignantly. "You just made up that part, Doris." "I didn't make it up either; I thought it," retorted Doris. "He said he'd give me anythin' at all, an' I guess a great big doll with real hair is anythin'. So there!" "I don't understand, children," murmured the smiling Elizabeth, who was beginning to understand very well, indeed. "You should have come home at once, instead of stopping to talk to Aunty Evelyn. Your luncheon is waiting." "That's what Aunty Evelyn said," put in Carroll reproachfully, "an' Mr. Hickey said 'Go home at once, children; you're very hungry.' An' I was going; but Doris, she wouldn't go. She----" "I wasn't a bit hungry then; but I am now, an' I smell somethin' good," observed that young lady, sniffing delicately. "She said she wasn't in any hurry, an' I guess Mr. Hickey didn't like it. Anyway he laughed, an' he took right hold of Aunty Evelyn's hand, an' she cried some more." "She didn't cry 'cause he squeezed her hand. She said 'I thought you didn't really like me.' An' Mr. Hickey----. Now don't int'rupt, Carroll; it's rude to int'rupt; isn't it, mother? Mr. Hickey said 'Yes, I do too!' Jus' like that he conterdicted." "An' then Doris said, 'it's rude to conterdict,' right out to Mr. Hickey she said. That was an awful imp'lite thing for Doris to say; wasn't it, mother? I said it was." "But Aunty Evelyn said _sometimes_ it wasn't rude to conterdict. An'--'n' she said she was glad Mr. Hickey conterdicted; 'cause she was 'fraid he wasn't goin' to; an' then----" "She told us to run along home an' tell our mother she was very much mistaken this mornin'." "No; she said to say our mother was perfec'ly right, an' she was----" "Well, that's jus' exac'ly what I said. What did Aunty Evelyn mean, mother? An' why did Mr. Hickey make her cry?" Elizabeth wiped a laughing tear or two from her own eyes. "I'm glad Aunty Evelyn found out that I was right," was all she said. "Now come, children, and let mother wash your hands. Celia has baked a beautiful gingerbread man for Carroll's lunch and a beautiful gingerbread lady for Doris and a cunning little gingerbread baby for Baby Dick." "Oh, goody! goody!" shouted the children in ecstatic chorus. In a trice their singular encounter with Aunty Evelyn and Mr. Hickey was forgotten in eager contemplation of the more obvious and immediate future of the gingerbread man, the gingerbread lady and the gingerbread child; each of whom, plump and shining, reposed in the middle of a pink china plate, their black currant eyes widely opened upon destiny. AFTERWORD It will be easily perceived by the intelligent reader that there really isn't any end to this story. The chronicler is forced to leave the problems of the Brewster parents unsolved in many details, while the Brewster children, in company with the present generation of young Americans, are still growing up;--growing up, it is devoutly to be hoped, into better men and women than their parents. Stronger physically, more alert mentally, of clearer vision; better fitted to carry the world's burdens and direct the world's activities. Unless the Brewsters accomplish this much for their children they have failed in the greatest thing given them to do; for it is not more wealth, better houses, finer raiment that the world is crying out for, but better, healthier and more inspired men and women. And, clearly, it rests with the fathers and mothers as to whether their children shall reach this higher level toward which humanity weakly struggles with tears and groans. Is love and brotherhood to rule in a world wherein all the finer qualities of mind and heart find room to grow and flourish? Or is humanity to go on its old, old weary way, hating and being hated; the strong trampling the weak under foot; the child often suffering from ignorance and injustice--even in its own home; and growing up to carry on the same false ideas. There is much to be said on both sides of this question of child government, and the writer of this little tale does not even pretend to have said the last word. But let this much be remembered: "Spare the rod and spoil the child," was spoken in the days when polygamy and concubinage were the rule in the home. "Folly is bound up in the heart of the child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him," was the dictum of an age whose customs would not be tolerated in these days of higher civilisation and more illumined vision. The rack and the thumb-screw, the gag, the branding-iron and the scourge have passed; we shiver at the mere mention of the tortures inflicted upon human flesh in those past ages of darkness; yet "the rod of correction" is still tolerated--nay, even complacently advocated in our homes, though it has been routed from our schools. Isn't it out of date? Doesn't it belong in the museums with those ancient and rust-eaten instruments of torture? Listen to this other saying, from a newer inspiration, a closer fellowship with The Light of the World: "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath punishment; and he that feareth is not made perfect in love." And this, from the fountainhead of all wisdom: "And He took a little child and set him by his side and said unto them, 'Whosoever shall receive this little child in my name receiveth me; and whosoever shall receive me receiveth him that sent me; _for he that is least among you all, the same is great_.'" I submit this to you: Is it possible to conceive of Jesus Christ as striking a little child? 
40481	----	CONCERNING CHILDREN * * * * * _By Charlotte Perkins Stetson_ IN THIS OUR WORLD. Cloth, 16mo. 5/-- WOMEN AND ECONOMICS. Cloth, 12mo. 6/-- THE YELLOW WALL PAPER. Paper boards, 12mo. 2/-- G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 24 Bedford Street Strand LONDON, W.C. * * * * * CONCERNING CHILDREN BY CHARLOTTE PERKINS [STETSON] GILMAN AUTHOR OF "WOMEN AND ECONOMICS," "IN THIS OUR WORLD," "THE YELLOW WALL PAPER." [Illustration] LONDON: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS BOSTON: SMALL, MAYNARD & CO. 1903 TO MY DAUGHTER, KATHARINE WHO HAS TAUGHT ME MUCH OF WHAT IS WRITTEN HERE Contents. PAGE I. THE PRECIOUS TEN 3 II. THE EFFECT OF MINDING ON THE MIND 25 III. TWO AND TWO TOGETHER 46 IV. THE BURNT CHILD DREADS THE SLIPPER 70 V. TEACHABLE ETHICS 96 VI. A PLACE FOR CHILDREN 118 VII. UNCONSCIOUS SCHOOLING 139 VIII. PRESUMPTUOUS AGE 156 IX. THE RESPECT DUE TO YOUTH 169 X. TOO MUCH CONSIDERATION 183 XI. SIX MOTHERS 200 XII. MEDITATIONS ON THE NURSE-MAID 212 XIII. CHILDREN AND SERVANTS 233 XIV. MOTHERS, NATURAL AND UNNATURAL 255 XV. SOCIAL PARENTAGE 278 Concerning Children I. THE PRECIOUS TEN. According to our religious belief, the last best work of God is the human race. According to the observation of biologists, the highest product of evolution is the human race. According to our own natural inner conviction, this twofold testimony is quite acceptable: we are the first class. Whatever our merits when compared with lower species, however, we vary conspicuously when compared with one another. Humanity is superior to equinity, felinity, caninity; but there are degrees of humanness. Between existing nations there is marked difference in the qualities we call human; and history shows us a long line of advance in these qualities in the same nation. The human race is still in the making, is by no means done; and, however noble it is to be human, it will be nobler to be humaner. As conscious beings, able to modify our own acts, we have power to improve the species, to promote the development of the human race. This brings us to the children. Individuals may improve more or less at any time, though most largely and easily in youth; but race improvement must be made in youth, to be transmitted. The real progress of man is born in him. If you were buying babies, investing in young human stock as you would in colts or calves, for the value of the beast, a sturdy English baby would be worth more than an equally vigorous young Fuegian. With the same training and care, you could develope higher faculties in the English specimen than in the Fuegian specimen, because it was better bred. The savage baby would excel in some points, but the qualities of the modern baby are those dominant to-day. Education can do much; but the body and brain the child is born with are all that you have to educate. The progress of humanity must be recorded in living flesh. Unless the child is a more advanced specimen than his father and mother, there is no racial improvement. Virtues we still strive for are not yet ours: it is the unconscious virtues we are born with that measure the rise of nations. Our mechanical products in all their rich variety serve two purposes,--to show the measure of the brains that made them, and to help make better ones. The printing-press, for instance, marked a century of ability; but its main value is to develope centuries of greater ability. Society secretes, as it were, this mass of material wherewith to nourish its countless young; and, as this material is so permanent and so mobile, it is proportionately more advantageous to our posterity than the careful preparation of some anxious insect for her swarm of progeny. Unless the creature is born better than his creators, they do not save him. He sinks back or is overcome by others, perhaps lingering decadent among the traces of lost arts, like degenerate nomad savages who wander among the ruins of ancestral temples. We see plenty of such cases, individually, showing this arrested social development,--from the eighteenth-century man, who is only a little behind his age and does not hinder us much, to the dragging masses of dull peasantry and crude savagery, which keep us back so seriously. This does not include the reversions and degenerates, the absolutely abortive members of society; but merely its raw stock, that heavy proportion of the people who are not bred up to the standard of the age. To such we may apply every advantage of education, every facile convenience of the latest day; and, though these things do help a little, we have still the slow-minded mass, whose limited range of faculties acts as a steady check on the success of our best intellects. The surest, quickest way to improve humanity is to improve the stock, the people themselves; and all experience shows that the time to improve people is while they are young. As in a growing cornstalk the height is to be measured from joint to joint, not counting the length of its long, down-flowing leaves, so in our line of ascent the height is to be measured from birth to birth, not counting the further development of the parent after the child is born. The continued life of the parent counts in other ways, as it contributes to social service; and, in especial, as it reacts to promote the further growth of the young. But the best service to society and the child is in the progress made by the individual before parentage, for that progress is born into the race. Between birth and birth is the race bred upward. Suppose we wish to improve a race of low savages, and we carefully select the parents, subjecting them to the most elaborate educational influences, till they are all dead. Then we return, and take a fresh set of parents to place under these advantageous conditions, leaving the children always to grow up in untouched savagery. This might be done for many generations, and we should always have the same kind of savages to labour with, what improvement was made being buried with each set of parents. Now, on the other hand, let us take the children of the tribe, subject them to the most advantageous conditions, and, when they become parents, discontinue our efforts on that generation and begin on the next. What gain was made in this case would be incorporated in the stock; we should have gradually improving relays of children. So far as environment is to really develope the race, that development must be made before the birth of the next generation. If a young man and woman are clean, healthy, vigorous, and virtuous before parenthood, they may become dirty, sickly, weak, and wicked afterward with far less ill effect to the race than if they were sick and vicious before their children were born, and thereafter became stalwart saints. The sowing of wild oats would be far less harmful if sowed in the autumn instead of in the spring. Human beings are said to have a longer period of immaturity than other animals; but it is not prolonged childhood which distinguishes us so much as prolonged parenthood. In early forms of life the parent promptly dies after having reproduced the species. He is of no further use to the race, and therefore his life is discontinued. In the evolution of species, as the parent becomes more and more able to benefit the young, he is retained longer in office; and in humanity, as it developes, we see an increasing prolongation of parental usefulness. The reactive value of the adult upon the young is very great, covering our whole range of conscious education; but the real worth of that education is in its effects on the young before they become parents, that the training and improvement may become ours by birth, an inbred racial progress. It may be well here to consider the objections raised by the Weissman theory that "acquired traits are not transmissible." To those who believe this it seems useless to try to improve a race by development of the young with a view to transmission. They hold that the child inherits a certain group of faculties, differing from the parents perhaps through the "tendency to vary," and that, although you may improve the individual indefinitely through education, that improvement is not transmissible to his offspring. The original faculties may be transmitted, but not the individual modification. Thus they would hold that, if two brothers inherited the same kind and amount of brain power, and one brother was submitted to the finest educational environment, while the other was entirely neglected, yet the children of the two brothers would inherit the same amount of brain development: the training and exercise which so visibly improved the brain of the educated brother would be lost to his children. Or, if two brothers inherited the same physical constitution, and one developed and improved it by judicious care and exercise, while the other wasted strength and contracted disease, the children of either would inherit the original constitutional tendencies of the parent, unaffected by that parent's previous career. This would mean that the whole tremendous march of race-modification has been made under no other influence than the tendency to vary, and that individual modification in no way affects the race. Successive generations of individuals may be affected by the cumulative pressure of progress, but not the race itself. Under this view the Fuegian baby would be as valuable an investment as the English baby, unless, indeed, successive and singularly connected tendencies to vary had worked long upon the English stock and peculiarly neglected the Fuegian. In proof of this claim that "acquired traits are not transmissible," an overwhelming series of experiments are presented, as wherein many consecutive generations of peaceful guinea pigs are mutilated in precisely the same way, and, lo! the last guinea pig is born as four-legged and symmetrically-featured as the first. If it had been so arranged that the crippled guinea pigs obtained some advantage because of their injuries, they might have thus become "fittest"; and the "tendency to vary" would perhaps have launched out a cripple somewhere, and so evolved a triumphant line of three-legged guinea pigs. But, as proven by these carefully conducted scientific experiments, it does not "modify the species" at all to cut off its legs,--not in a score of generations. It modifies the immediate pig, of course, and is doubtless unpleasant to him; but the effect is lost with his death. It has always seemed to me that there was a large difference between a mutilation and an acquired trait. An acquired trait is something that one uses and developes, not something one has lost. The children of a soldier are supposed to inherit something of his courage and his habit of obedience, not his wooden leg. The dwindled feet of the Chinese ladies are not transmitted; but the Chinese habits are. The individual is most modified by what he does, not by what is done to him; and so is the race. Let a new experiment be performed on the long-suffering guinea pig. Take two flourishing pair of the same family (fortunately, the tendency to vary appears to be but slight in guinea pigs, so there is not serious trouble from that source), and let one pair of guinea pigs be lodged in a small but comfortable cage, and fed and fed and fed,--not to excess, but so as to supply all guinea-piggian desires as soon as felt,--them and their descendants in their unnumbered generations. Let the other pair be started on a long, slow, cautious, delicate but inexorable system of exercise, not exercise involving any advantage, with careful mating of the most lively,--for this would be claimed as showing only the "tendency to vary" and "survival of the fittest,"--but exercise forced upon the unwilling piggies to no profit whatever. A wheel, such as mitigates the captivity of the nimble squirrel, should be applied to these reluctant victims; a well-selected, stimulating diet given at slowly increasing intervals; and the physical inequalities of their abode become greater, so that the unhappy subjects of scientific research would find themselves skipping ever faster and farther from day to day. If, after many generations of such training, the descendants of these cultivated guinea pigs could not outrun the descendants of the plump and puffy cage-fed pair, the Weissman theory would be more strongly re-enforced than by all the evidence of his suffering cripples. Meanwhile the parent and teacher in general is not greatly concerned about theories of pan-genesis or germ-plasm. He knows that, "as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined," and that, if the fathers have eaten sour grapes, the children's teeth are pretty certain to be set on edge. Inherit we must to some degree; and whatever comes to us by that method must belong to the parent before he is a parent. Traits acquired after parentage are certainly not transmissible, whatever may be the case before. Our inherited constitution, temper, character, tendency, is like an entailed estate. It is in the family, belongs to the family in succession, not to the individual. It is "owned" by the individual in usufruct, but cannot be sold, given away, or otherwise alienated. It must be handed on to the next heir, somewhat better or worse, perhaps, for the current ownership. When the new heir takes possession of his estate, he confers with the steward, and becomes thoroughly acquainted with his holdings. Here are the assets,--this much in permanent capital, this much in income, which he may use as he will. It would be possible for him to overspend that income, to cut down the timber and sell it, to incur debts, impoverishing the next heir. Perhaps this has been done; and he finds himself with neglected lands, buildings in disrepair, restricted resources, and heavy debts. In such case the duty of the heir is to live carefully, avoiding every extravagance, and devote all he can save to clearing off the encumbrances on the estate, thus handing it on to the next heir in better shape than he received it. If this is not done, if one generation after another of inheritors draws relentlessly on the burdened estate and adds to its encumbrances, there comes a time when the heavy mortgages are foreclosed, and that estate is lost. So with the human constitution. We inherit such and such powers and faculties; such and such weaknesses, faults, tendencies to disease. Our income is the available strength we have to spare without drawing on our capital. Perhaps our ancestors have overdrawn already, wasting their nerve force, injuring their organisms, handing down to us an impoverished physique, with scarce income enough for running expenses, yet needing a large sinking fund for repairs. In this case it is our plain duty to live "within our means" in nerve force, however limited, and to devote all we can spare to building up the constitution, that we may transmit it in an improved condition to the next heir. If we do not do this, if successive generations overdraw their strength, neglect necessary rest and recreation, increase their weaknesses and diseases, then there comes a time when the inexorable creditor called Nature forecloses the mortgage, and that family is extinct. The heir of the entailed estate in lands and houses has an advantage over the heir of blood and brain. He does not transmit his property until he dies. He has a lifetime to make the needed improvements. But the inheritor of poor eyesight, weak lungs, and a bad temper has a shorter period for repairs. If a woman, she is likely to become a mother by the time she is twenty-five,--perhaps sooner; the man, a father by thirty. Taking the very early marriages of the poor into consideration (and they are a heavy majority of the population), we may take twenty-five as the average beginning of parenthood. Of course there is still room for improvement before the later children appear; but the running expenses increase so heavily that there is but a small margin to be given to repairs. The amount of nerve force hitherto set aside to control the irritable temper will now be drawn upon by many new demands: the time given to special exercises for the good of the lungs will now be otherwise used. However good the intentions afterward, the best period for self-improvement is before the children come. This reduces the time in which to develope humanity's inheritance to twenty-five years. Twenty-five years is not much at best; and that time is further limited, as far as individual responsibility goes, by subtracting the period of childhood. The first, say, fifteen years of our lives are comparatively irresponsible. We have not the judgment or the self-control to meddle with our own lives to any advantage; nor is it desirable that we should. Unconscious growth is best; and the desired improvement during this period should be made by the skilful educator without the child's knowledge. But at about fifteen the individual comes to a keen new consciousness of personal responsibility. That fresh, unwarped sense of human honour, the race-enthusiasm of the young; and the fund of strength they bear with them; together with the very light expenses of this period, all the heavy drains of life being met by the parent,--these conditions make that short ten years the most important decade of a lifetime. It is no wonder that we worship youth. On it depends more than on the most care-burdened age. It is one of the many follies of our blundering progression that we have for so long supposed that the value of this period lay merely in its enjoyableness. With fresh sensations and new strength, with care, labour, and pain largely kept away, youth naturally enjoys more heartily than age, and has less to suffer; but these are only incidental conditions. Every period has its advantage and accompanying responsibilities. This blessed time of youth is not ours to riot through in cheerful disregard of human duty. The biological advantage of a longer period of immaturity is in its cumulative value to the race, the older parent having more development to transmit. The human animal becomes adult comparatively early,--that is, becomes capable of reproducing the species; and in states of low social grade he promptly sets about it. But the human being is not only an individual animal: he is a social constituent. He may be early ready to replace himself by another man as good, but he is not yet able to improve upon the past and give the world a man much better. He is not yet developed as a member of society,--trained in those special lines which make him not only a healthier, stronger, rounder individual, but a more highly efficient member of society. Our people to-day are not only larger and longer-lived than earlier races, but they are capable of social relations immeasurably higher than those open to a never-so-healthy savage. The savage as an individual animal may be equal--in some ways superior--to the modern man; but, as a social constituent, he is like a grain of sand in a heap compared to some exquisitely fitted part of an intricate machine,--a living machine, an organism. In this social relation man may grow and develope all his life; and that is why civilisation, socialisation, brings us useful and honourable age, while savagery knocks its old folk on the head. But while the social structure grows in beauty, refinement, and power, and eighty years may be spent in its glorious service, that service must be given by individuals. Unless these individuals improve from age to age, showing a finer, subtler, stronger brain and unimpaired physique, there can be no genuine or enduring social improvement. We have seen repeatedly in history a social status lodged in comparatively few individuals, a narrow fragile upper-class civilisation; and we have seen it always fall,--fall to the level of its main constituents, the mass of the people. One per cent. of sane men in a society of lunatics would make but a foolish state; one per cent. of good men in a society of criminals would make a low grade of virtue; one per cent. of rich men in a society of poor peasants does not make a rich community. A society is composed of the people who compose it, strange to say,--all of them; and, as they are, it is. The people must be steadily made better if the world is to move. The way to make people better is to have them born better. The way to have them born better is to make all possible improvement in the individual before parentage. That is why youth is holy and august: it is the fountain of human progress. Not only that "the child is father to the man," but the child is father to the state--and mother. The first fifteen years of a child's life should be treated with a view to developing the power of "judgment" and "will," that he may be able to spend his precious ten in making the best possible growth. A boy of fifteen is quite old enough to understand the main principles of right living, and to follow them. A girl of fifteen is quite old enough to see the splendid possibilities that lie before her, both in her individual service to society and the almost limitless power of motherhood. It is not youth which makes our boys and girls so foolish in their behaviour. It is the kind of training we give the little child, keeping back the most valuable faculties of the brain instead of helping them to grow. A boy cast out upon the street to work soon manifests both the abilities and vices of an older person. A girl reared in a frivolous and artificial society becomes a practising coquette while yet a child. These conditions are bad, and we do not wish to parallel them by producing a morbidly self-conscious and prematurely aged set of youngsters. But, if the child has been trained in reason and self-control,--not forced, but allowed to grow in the natural use of these qualities,--he will be used to exercising them when he reaches the freer period of youth, and not find it so difficult to be wise. It is natural for a child to reason, and the power grows with encouragement and use. It is natural for a child to delight in the exercise of his own will upon himself in learning to "do things." The facility and pleasure and strong self-control shown by a child in playing some arbitrary game prove that it is quite natural for him to govern his acts to a desired end, and enjoy it. To a desired end, however. We have not yet succeeded in enlisting the child's desires to help his efforts. We rather convince him that being good is tedious and unprofitable, often poignantly disagreeable; and, when he passes childhood, he is hampered with this unfortunate misbelief of our instilling. But, with a healthy brain and will, a youth of fifteen, with the knowledge easily available at that age, should be not only able and willing, but gloriously eager for personal development. It is an age of soaring ambition; and that ambition, directed in lines of real improvement, is one of Nature's loveliest and strongest forces to lift mankind. There is a splendid wealth of aspiration in youth, a pure and haughty desire for the very highest, which ought to be playing into the current of our racial life and lifting it higher and higher with each new generation. The love of emulation, too, so hurtful in the cheap, false forms it so often takes, is a beautiful force when turned to self-improvement. We underrate the power of good intention of our young people. We check and irritate them all through childhood, confusing and depressing the upward tendencies; and then wag our aged heads pityingly over "the follies of youth." There is wisdom in youth, and power, if we would but let it grow. A simple unconscious childhood, shooting upward fast and strong along lines of rational improving growth, would give to the opening consciousness of youth a healthy background of orderly achievement, and a glorious foreground,--the limitless front of human progress. Such young people, easily appreciating what could be done for themselves and the world by right living, would pour their rich enthusiasm and unstrained powers into real human growing,--the growing that can be done so well in that short, wonderful ten years,--that must be done then, if the race is to be born better. Three or four generations of such growth would do more for man's improvement than our present methods of humaniculture accomplish in as many centuries. II. THE EFFECT OF MINDING ON THE MIND. Obedience, we are told, is a virtue. This seems simple and conclusive, but on examination further questions rise. What is "a virtue"? What is "obedience"? And, if a virtue, is it always and equally so? "There is a time when patience ceases to be a virtue." Perhaps obedience has its limits, too. A virtue is a specific quality of anything, as the virtue of mustard is in its biting quality; of glass, transparency; of a sword, its edge and temper. In moral application a virtue is a quality in mankind whereby we are most advantaged. We make a distinction in our specific qualities, claiming some to be good and some bad; and the virtues are those whereby we gain the highest good. These virtues of humanity change in relative value with time, place, and circumstance. What is considered a virtue in primitive life becomes foolishness or even vice in later civilisation; yet each age and place can show clear reason for its virtues, trace their introduction, rise into high honour, and gradual neglect. For instance, the virtue of endurance ranks high among savages. To be able to bear hunger and heat and cold and pain and dire fatigue,--this power is supreme virtue to the savage, for the simple reason that it is supremely necessary to him. He has a large chance of meeting these afflictions all through life, and wisely prepares himself beforehand by wilfully undergoing even worse hardships. Chastity is a comparatively modern virtue, still but partially accepted. Even as an ideal, it is not universally admired, being considered mainly as a feminine distinction. This is good proof of its gradual introduction,--first, as solely female, a demand from the man, and then proving its value as a racial virtue, and rising slowly in general esteem, until to-day there is a very marked movement toward a higher standard of masculine chastity. Courage, on the other hand, has been held almost wholly as a masculine virtue, from the same simple causes of sociological development; to this day one hears otherwise intelligent and respectable women own themselves, without the slightest sense of shame, to be cowards. A comparative study of the virtues would reveal a mixed and changeful throng, and always through them all the underlying force of necessity, which makes this or that quality a virtue in its time. We speak of "making a virtue of necessity." As a matter of fact, all virtues are made of necessity. A virtue, then, in the human race is that quality which is held supremely beneficial, valuable, necessary, at that time. And what, in close analysis, is obedience? It is a noun made from the verb "to obey." What is it to obey? It is to act under the impulse of another will,--to submit one's behaviour to outside direction. It involves the surrender of both judgment and will. Is this capacity of submission of sufficient value to the human race to be called a virtue? Assuredly it is--sometimes. The most familiar instance of the uses of obedience is among soldiers and sailors, always promptly adduced by the stanch upholders of this quality. They do not speak of it as particularly desirable among farmers or merchants or artists, but cling to the battlefield or the deck, as sufficient illustrations. We may note, also, that, when our elaborate efforts are made to inculcate its value to young children, we always introduce a railroad accident, runaway, fire, burglar, or other element of danger; and, equally, in the stories of young animals designed for the same purpose, the disobedient little beast is always exposed to dire peril, and the obedient saved. All this clearly indicates the real basis of our respect for obedience. Its first and greatest use is this: where concerted action is necessary, in such instant performance that it would be impossible to transmit the impulse through a number of varying intelligences. That is why the soldier and sailor have to obey. Military and nautical action is essentially collective, essentially instant, and too intricate for that easy understanding which would allow of swift common action on individual initiative. Under such circumstances, obedience is, indeed, a virtue, and disobedience the unpardonable sin. Again, with the animals, we have a case where it is essential that the young should act instantly under stimuli perceptible to the mother and not to the young. No explanation is possible. There is not speech for it, even if there were time. A sudden silent danger needs a sudden silent escape. Under this pressure of condition has been evolved a degree of obedience absolutely instinctive and automatic, as so beautifully shown in Mr. Thompson's story of the little partridges flattening themselves into effacement on their mother's warning signal. With deadly peril at hand, with no brain to give or to receive explanation, with no time to do more than squeak an inarticulate command, there is indeed need for obedience; and obedience is forthcoming. But is this so essential quality in rearing young animals as essential in human education? So far in human history, our absolute desideratum in child-training is that the child shall obey. The child who "minds" promptly and unquestioningly is the ideal: the child who refuses to mind, who, perhaps, even says, "I won't," is the example of all evil. Parental success is judged by ability to "make the children mind": to be without that is failure. All this has no reference whatever to the kind of behaviour required. The virtue in the child is simply to do what it is told, in any extreme of folly or even danger. Witness the immortal fame of Casabianca. Being told to "stay," this sublime infant stayed, though every instinct and reason was against it, and he was blown up unflinching in pursuance of duty. The effect of minding on the mind is here shown in extreme instance. Under the pressure of the imposed will and judgment of his father, the child restrained his own will and judgment, and suffered the consequences. The moral to be drawn is a very circuitous one. Although obedience was palpably injurious in this case, it is held that such perfect surrender would in most cases be highly beneficial. That other popular instance, beginning "Old 'Ironsides' at anchor lay In the harbor of Mahon." is more practical. The judicious father orders the perilously poised son to "Jump! Jump, boy, far into the deep!" and he jumps, and is hauled out by the sailors. As usual, we see that the reason why obedience is so necessary is because of imminent danger, which only obedience can escape. With this for a practical background, and with the added proviso that, unless obedience is demanded and secured when there is no danger, it will not be forthcoming when there is, the child is "trained to obey" from the first. No matter how capricious and unnecessary the command, he must "mind," or be punished for not "minding." We may fall short of success in our efforts; but this is our ideal,--that a child shall do what he is told on the instant, and thus fulfil his whole scale of virtue as well as meet all the advantages of safety. Our intense reverence for the virtue of obedience is easily traceable. In the first place there is the deep-seated animal instinct, far outdating human history. For uncounted ages our brute mother ancestors had reared their brute young in automatic obedience,--an obedience bred in the bone by those who obeyed and lived, any deficiency in which was steadily expurgated by the cutting off of the hapless youngster who disobeyed. This had, of course, a reflex action on the mother. When one's nerve-impulse finds expression through another body, that expression gives the same sense of relief and pleasure as a personal expression. When one wills another to do something which the other promptly does, it gives one an even larger satisfaction than doing what one wills one's self. That is the pleasure we have in a good dog,--our will flows through his organism uninterrupted. It is a temporary extension of self in activity that does not weary. This is one initial reason for the parental pleasure in obedience and displeasure in disobedience. When the parent emits an impulse calling for expression through the child, and the child refuses to express it, there is a distinct sense of distress in the parent, quite apart from any ulterior advantage to either party in the desired act. Almost any mother can recall this balked feeling, like the annoyance of an arrested sneeze. To this instinct our gradually enlarging humanness has added the breadth of wider perceptions and the weight of growing ideas of authority, with the tremendous depth of tradition and habit. Early races lived in constant danger, military service was universal, despotism the common government, and slavery the general condition. The ruling despot exacted obedience from all; and it was by each grade exacted remorselessly from its inferiors. No overseer so cruel as the slave. Where men were slaves to despotic sovereigns, their women were slaves to them; and the women tyrannised in turn over their slaves, if they had any. But under every one else were always the children, defenceless absolutely, inferior physically and mentally. Naturally, they were expected to obey. As we built out of our clouded brains dim and sinister gods, we predicated of them the habits so prominent in our earthly rulers: the one thing the gods would have was obedience, which, therefore, grew to have first place in our primitive religion. The early Hebrew traditions of God, with which we are all so familiar, picture him as in a continuous state of annoyance because his "children" would not "mind." In the centuries of dominance of the Roman Catholic Church, obedience became additionally exalted. The power and success of that magnificent organisation depended so absolutely on this characteristic that it was given high place in the vows of religious societies,--highest of all by the Jesuits, who carried it to its logical extreme, the subordinate being required to become as will-less as a corpse, actuated solely by the commands of his superior. Even militarism offers no better instance of the value and power of obedience than does "the Church." It now becomes clear why we so naturally venerate this quality: first, the deep brute instinct; second, the years of historic necessity and habit; third, the tremendous sanction of religion. It is only a few centuries since the Protestant Reformation broke the power of church dominance and successfully established the rebellion of free thought. It is less than that since the American Revolution and the French Revolution again triumphantly disobeyed, and established the liberty of the individual in matters temporal. Since then the delighted brain has spread and strengthened, thinking for itself and doing what it thought; and we have seen some foretaste of what a full democracy will ultimately bring to us. But this growth of individual freedom has but just begun to penetrate that stronghold of all habit and tradition, the Home. Men might be free, but women must still obey. Women are beginning to be free, but still the child remains,--the under-dog always; and he, at least, must obey. On this we are still practically at one,--Catholic and Protestant, soldier and farmer, subject and citizen. Let us untangle the real necessity from this vast mass of hoary tradition, and see if obedience is really the best thing to teach a child,--if "by obedience" is the best way to teach a child. And let careful provision here be made for a senseless inference constantly made when this question is raised. Dare to criticise a system of training based on obedience, and you are instantly assumed to be advocating no system at all, no training, merely letting the child run wild and "have his own way." This is a most unfair assumption. Those who know no other way of modifying a child's behaviour than through "making him mind" suppose that, if he were not made to mind, he must be utterly neglected. Child-training to their minds is to be accomplished only through child-ordering; and many think the training quite accomplished if only the subject is a model of obedience. Others, a little more open-minded, and who have perhaps read something on the subject, assume that, if you do not demand obedience of the child, it means that you must "explain" everything to him, "reason" with him from deed to deed; and this they wearily and rightly declare to be impossible. But neither of these assumptions is correct. One may question the efficacy of the Salisbury method without being thereby pledged to vegetarianism. One may criticise our school system, yet not mean that children should have no education. The rearing of children is the most important work, and it is here contended that, in this great educational process, obedience, as a main factor, has a bad effect on the growing mind. A child is a human creature. He should be reared with a view to his development and behaviour as an adult, not solely with a view to his behaviour as a child. He is temporarily a child, far more permanently a man; and it is the man we are training. The work of "parenthood" is not only to guard and nourish the young, but to develope the qualities needed in the mature. Obedience is defended, first, as being necessary to the protection of the child, and, second, as developing desirable qualities in the adult. But the child can be far better protected by removing all danger, which our present civilisation is quite competent to do; and "the habit of obedience" developes very undesirable qualities. On what characteristics does our human pre-eminence rest? On our breadth and accuracy of judgment and force of will. Because we can see widely and judge wisely, because we have power to do what we see to be right, therefore we are the dominant species in the animal kingdom; therefore we are consciously the children of God. These qualities are lodged in individuals, and must be exercised by individuals for the best human progress. If our method of advance were that one person alone should be wise and strong, and all other persons prosperous through a strict subservience to his commands, then, indeed, we could do no better for our children than to train them to obey. Judgment would be of no use to them if they had to take another's: will-power would be valueless if they were never to exercise it. But this is by no means the condition of human life. More and more is it being recognised that progress lies in a well-developed average intelligence rather than in a wise despot and his stupid serfs. For every individual to have a good judgment and a strong will is far better for the community than for a few to have these qualities and the rest to follow them. The "habit of obedience," forced in upon the impressible nature of a child, does not develope judgment and will, but does develope that fatal facility in following other people's judgment and other people's wills which tends to make us a helpless mob, mere sheep, instead of wise, free, strong individuals. The habit of submission to authority, the long, deeply impressed conviction that to "be good" is to "give up," that there is virtue in the act of surrender,--this is one of the sources from which we continually replenish human weakness, and fill the world with an inert mass of mind-less, will-less folk, pushed and pulled about by those whom they obey. Moreover, there is the opposite effect,--the injurious reaction from obedience,--almost as common and hurtful as its full achievement; namely, that fierce rebellious desire to do exactly the opposite of what one is told, which is no nearer to calm judgment than the other. In obeying another will or in resisting another will, nothing is gained in wisdom. A human creature is a self-governing intelligence, and the rich years of childhood should be passed in the guarded and gradual exercise of those powers. Now this will, no doubt, call up to the minds of many a picture of a selfish, domineering youngster, stormily ploughing through a number of experimental adventures, with a group of sacrificial parents and teachers prostrate before him. Again an unwarranted assumption. Consideration of others is one of the first laws of life, one of the first things a child should be taught; but consideration of others is not identical with obedience. Again, it will be imagined that the child is to be left to laboriously work out for himself the accumulated experiments of humanity, and deprived of the profits of all previous experience. By no means. On the contrary, it is the business of those who have the care of the very young to see to it that they do benefit by that previous experience far more fully than is now possible. Our system of obedience cuts the child off from precisely this advantage, and leaves him longing to do the forbidden things, generally doing them, too, when he gets away from his tutelage. The behaviour of the released child, in its riotous reaction against authority as such, as shown glaringly in the action of the average college student, tells how much judgment and self-control have been developing behind the obedience. The brain grows by exercise. The best time to develope it is in youth. To obey does not develope the brain, but checks its growth. It gives to the will a peculiar suicidal power of aborting its own impulse, not controlling it, but giving it up. This leaves a habit of giving up which weakens our power of continued effort. All this is not saying that obedience is never useful in childhood. There are occasions when it is; and on such occasions, with a child otherwise intelligently trained, it will be forthcoming. We make a wide mistake in assuming that, unless a child is made to obey at every step, it will never obey. A grown person will obey under sharp instant pressure. If there is a sudden danger, and you shriek at your friend, "Get up--quick!" or hiss a terrified, "Sh! Sh! Be still!" your friend promptly obeys. Of course, if you had been endeavouring to "boss" that friend with a thousand pointless caprices, he might distrust you in the hour of peril; but if he knew you to be a reasonable person, he would respond promptly to a sudden command. Much more will a child so respond where he has full reason to respect the judgment of the commander. Children have the automatic habit of obedience by the same animal inheritance that gives the mother the habit of command; but we so abuse that faculty that it becomes lost in righteous rebellion or crushed submission. The animal mother never misuses her precious authority. She does not cry, "Wolf! Wolf!" We talk glibly about "the best good of the child," but there are few children who are not clearly aware that they are "minding" for the convenience of "the grown-ups" the greater part of the time. Therefore, they suspect self-interest in even the necessary commands, and might very readily refuse to obey in the hour of danger. It is a commonplace observation that the best children--_i.e._, the most submissive and obedient--do not make the best men. If they are utterly subdued, "too good to live," they swell the Sunday-school list of infant saints, die young, and go to heaven: whereas the rebellious and unruly boy often makes the best citizen. The too obedient child has learned only to do what he is told. If not told, he has no initiative; and, if told wrong, he does wrong. Life to him is not a series of problems to be solved, but a mere book of orders; and, instead of understanding the true imperious "force" of natural law, which a wise man follows because he sees the wisdom of the course, he takes every "must" in life to be like a personal command,--a thing probably unreasonable, and to be evaded, if possible. The escaped child, long suppressed under obedience, is in no mood for a cheerful acceptance of real laws, but imagines that there is more "fun" in "having his own way." The foolish parent claims to be obeyed as a god; and the grown-up child seeks to evade God, to treat the laws of Nature as if she, too, were a foolish parent. Suppose you are teaching a child arithmetic. You tell him to put down such and such figures in such a position. He inquires, "Why?" You explain the reason. If you do not explain the reason, he does not understand the problem. You might continue to give orders as to what figures to set down and in what places; and the child, obeying, could be trotted through the arithmetic in a month's time. But the arithmetic would not have gone through him. He would be no better versed in the science of numbers than a type-setter is in the learned books he "sets up." We recognise this in the teaching of arithmetic, and go to great lengths in inventing test problems and arranging easy stages by which the child may gradually master his task. But we do not recognise it in teaching the child life. The small acts of infancy are the child's first problems in living. He naturally wishes to understand them. He says, "Why?" To which we reply inanely, "Because I tell you to!" That is no reason. It is a force, no doubt, a pressure, to which the child may be compelled to yield. But he is no wiser than he was before. He has learned nothing except the lesson we imagine so valuable,--to obey. At the very best, he may remember always, in like case, that "mamma would wish me to do so," and do it. But, when cases differ, he has no guide. With the best intentions in life, he can but cast about in his mind to try to imagine what some one else might tell him to do if present: the circumstances themselves mean nothing to him. Docility, subservience, a quick surrender of purpose, a wavering, untrained, easily shaken judgment,--these are the qualities developed by much obedience. Are they the qualities we wish to develope in American citizens? III. TWO AND TWO TOGETHER. "If not trained to obedience, what shall the child be trained to?" naturally demands the outraged parent. To inculcate that first of virtues has taken so much time and effort that we have overlooked the subsequent qualities which require our help, and feel rather at sea when this sheet anchor is taken from us. But it is not so hard a problem, when honestly faced. A child has a body and a mind to be nourished, sheltered, protected, allowed to grow, and judiciously trained. We are here considering the brain training; but that is safely comparable to--is, indeed, part of--the body training, for the brain as much as the lungs or liver is an organ of the body. In training the little body, our main line of duty is to furnish proper food, to insure proper rest, and to allow and encourage proper exercise. Exactly this is wanted to promote right brain growth. We do not wish to overstimulate the brain, to develope it at the expense of other organs; but we do wish to insure its full natural growth and to promote its natural activities by a wise selection of the highest qualities for preferred use. And we need more knowledge of the various brain functions than is commonly possessed by those in charge of young children. The office of the brain we are here considering is to receive, retain, and collate impressions, and, in retaining them, to hold their original force as far as possible, so that the ultimate act, coming from a previous impression, may have the force of the original impulse. The human creature does not originate nervous energy; but he does secrete it, so to speak, from the impact of natural forces. He has a storage battery of power we call the will. By this high faculty we see a well-developed human being working steadily for a desired object, without any present stimulus directed to that end, even in opposition to prevent stimulus tending to oppose that end. This width of perception, length of retention, storage of force, and power of steady, self-determined action distinguish the advanced human brain. Early forms of life had no brains to speak of. They received impressions and transmitted them in expressions without check or discrimination. With the development of more complex organisms and their more complex activities came the accompanying complexity of brain, which could co-ordinate those activities to the best advantage. Action is the main line of growth. Conditions press upon all life, but life is modified through its own action under given conditions. And the relative wisdom and success of different acts depend on the brain power of the organism. The superiority of races lies in better adaptation to condition. In human life, in the long competition among nations, classes, and individuals, superiority still lies in the same development. Power to receive and retain more wide, deep, and subtle impression; power to more accurately and judiciously collate these impressions; power to act steadily on these stored and selected impulses rather than on immediate impulses,--this it is which marks our line of advance. The education of the child should be such as to develope these distinguishing human faculties. The universe, speaking loudly, lies around every creature. Little by little we learn to hear, to understand, to act accordingly. And this we should teach the child, to recognise more accurately the laws about him and to act upon them. A very little child does this in his narrow range exactly as does the adult in wider fields. He receives impressions, such as are allowed to reach him. He stores and collates those impressions with increasing vigour and accuracy from day to day; and he acts on the sum of those impressions with growing power. Naturally, his range of impression is limited, his power of retention is limited, his ability to relate the impression retained is limited; and his action is at first far more open to immediate outside stimulus, and less responsive to the inner will-force, than that of an adult. That is the condition of childhood. It is for us to gently, delicately, steadily surround the child with such conditions as shall promote this orderly sequence of brain function rather than to forcibly develope and retain his more primitive methods. Before going further, let us look at the average mental workings of the human creature, and see if it seems to us in smooth running order. We have made enormous progress in brain development, and we manifest wide differences in brain power. But clearly discernible through all the progress and all the difference is this large fault in our mental machinery,--a peculiar discrepancy between the sum of our knowledge and the sum of our behaviour. Man being conscious and intelligent, it would seem that to teach him the desirability of a given course of action would be sufficient. That it is not sufficient, every mother, every teacher, every preacher, every discoverer, inventor, reformer, knows full well. Instruction may be poured in by the ton: it comes out in action by the ounce. You may teach and preach and pray for two thousand years, and very imperfectly Christianise a small portion of the human race. You may exhort and command and reiterate; and yet the sinner, whether infant or adult, remains obdurate. No wonder we imagined an active Enemy striving to oppose us, so difficult was good behaviour in spite of all our efforts. It has never occurred to us that we were pursuing an entirely erroneous method. We uttered like parrots the pregnant proverb, "Example is better than precept," learning nothing by it. What does that simple saying mean? That one learns better by observation than by instruction, especially when instruction is coupled with command. This being a clearly established fact, why have we not profited by it? Because our brains, all of our brains from the beginning of time, have been blurred and blinded and weakened by the same mistake in infant education. What is this mistake? What is it we have done so patiently and faithfully all these years to every one of the human race which has injured the natural working of the brain? This: we have systematically checked in our children acts which were the natural sequence of their observation and inference; and enforced acts which, to the child's mind, had no reason. Thus we have carefully trained a world of people to the habit of acting without understanding, and also of understanding without acting. Because we were unable even to entirely subvert natural brain processes, because our children must needs do some things of their own motion and not in obedience to us, therefore some power of judgment and self-government has grown in humanity. But because we have been so largely successful in our dealings with the helpless little brain is there so little power of judgment and self-government among us. Observe, too, that our most intelligent progress is made in those arts, trades, professions, sciences, wherein little children are not trained; and that our most palpable deficiencies are in the morals, manners, and general personal relations of life, wherein little children are trained. The things we are compelled to do in obedience we make no progress in. They are either obeyed or disobeyed, but are not understood and improved upon: they stand like the customs of China. The things we learn by understanding and practising are open to further knowledge and growth. A normal human act, as distinguished from the instinctive behaviour of lower animals or from mere excito-motary reaction, involves always these three stages,--impression, judgment, expression. These are not separate, but are orderly steps in the great main fact of life,--action. It is all a part of that transmission of energy which appears to be the business of the universe. The sun's heat pours upon the earth, and passes through whatever substance it strikes, coming out transformed variously, according to the nature of the substance. Man receives his complement of energy, like every other creature,--physical stimulus from food and fire, psychical stimulus from its less known sources; and these impressions tend to flow through him into expression as naturally as, though with more complexity than, in other creatures. The song of the skylark and Shelley's "Skylark" show this wide difference in the amount and quality of transmission, yet are both expressions of the same impressions, plus those wider impressions to which the poet's organism was open. The distinctive power of man is that of connected action. Our immense capacity for receiving and retaining impressions gives us that world-stock of stored information and its arrested stimulus which we call knowledge. But wisdom, the higher word, refers to our capacity for considering what we know,--handling and balancing the information in stock, and so acting judiciously from the best impression or group of impressions, instead of indiscriminately from the latest or from any that happens to be uppermost. This power, in cases of immediate danger, we call "presence of mind." Similarly, when otherwise intelligent persons do visibly foolish things, we call it "absence of mind." The brain, as an organ, is present in both cases; but in the former it is connected with action, in the latter the connection is broken. The word "thoughtless," as applied to so large a share of our walk and conversation, describes this same absence of the mind from the place where it is wanted. In training the brain of the child, first importance lies in cultivating this connection between the mind and the behaviour. As with eye or hand, we should induce frequent repetition of the desired motions, that the habit of right action be formed. If the child is steadily encouraged to act in this natural connection, in orderly sequence of feeling, thought, and action, he would grow into constant "presence of mind" in his behaviour. Habits work in all directions; and a habit of thoughtful behaviour is as easy to form, really easier, than a habit of obedience,--easier, because it would be the natural function of the brain to govern behaviour if we did not so laboriously contradict it. We have preferred submission to intelligence, and have got neither,--not intelligence because we have so violently discouraged it, and not submission because the healthy upward forces of human brain growth will not submit. Those races where the children are most absolutely subservient, as with the Chinese and Hindu, where parents are fairly worshipped and blindly obeyed, are not races of free and progressive thought and healthy activity. The potential attitude of mind involved in our method is shown in that perfect expression of "childish faith,"--"It's so because mamma says so; and, if mamma says so, 'tis so if 'tain't so." That position makes it very easy for mamma as long as "childish faith" endures; but how does it help the man she has reared in this idyllic falsehood? The painful truth is that we have used childish weaknesses to make our government easy for us, instead of cultivating the powers that shall make life easy to them. A child's limitless credulity is the open door of imposition, and is ruthlessly taken advantage of by mother and father, nurse and older companion generally. As a feature in brain-training, this, of course, works absolute harm. It prolongs the infant weakness of the racial brain, keeps us credulous and open to all imposture, hinders our true growth. What we should do is to help the child to question and find out,--teach him to learn, not to believe. He does learn, of course. We cannot shut out the workings of natural laws from him altogether. Gradually he discovers that fire is hot and water wet, that stone is hard to fall on, and that there are "pins in pussy's toes." His brain is always being healthily acted upon by facts, his power of discrimination he practises as best he may, and his behaviour follows inevitably. Given such a child, with such and such an inheritance of constitution and tendency, submit him to certain impressions, and he behaves accordingly. He has felt. He has thought. He is about to do. Here comes in our universal error. We concern ourselves almost wholly with what the child does, and ignore what he feels and thinks. We check the behaviour which is the logical result of his feeling and thinking, and substitute another and different behaviour for his adoption. Now it is a direct insult to the brain to try to make the body do something which the brain does not authorise. It is a physical shock: it causes a sort of mental nausea. There are many subconscious activities which go on without our recognition; but to call on the body to consciously go through certain motions, undirected by previous mental processes, is an affront to any healthy brain. It is sharply distasteful to us, because it is against the natural working of the machinery. The vigorous functional activity of the young brain cries out against it; and the child says, "Why?" "Why" is an articulate sound to express the groping of the brain for relation, for consistency. We have so brow-beaten and controverted this natural tendency, so forced young growing brains to accept the inconsistent, that consistency has become so rare in human conduct as to be called "a jewel." Yet the desire for consistency is one of the most inherent and essential of our mental appetites. It is the logical tendency, the power to "put two and two together," the one great force that holds our acts in sequence and makes human society possible. We demand consistency in others, and scoff at the lack of it, even in early youth. "What yer talkin' about, anyway?" we cry. "There's no sense in that!" We expect consistency of ourselves, too. It is funny, though painful, to see the ordinary warped brain trying to square its own conduct with its own ideals. Square they must, somehow, however strained and thin is our patchwork connection. We check the child's act, the natural sequence of his feeling and thought, so incessantly as to give plenty of basis for that pathetic tale of the little girl who said her name was Mary. "And what is your last name?" "Don't," said she. "Mary Don't." By doing this, we constantly send back upon the brain its own impulses, and accustom it to such continual discouragement of natural initiative that it gradually ceases to govern the individual behaviour. In highest success, this produces the heavy child, whining, "What shall I do now?" always hanging about, fit subject for any other will to work on; and the heavy adult, victim of ennui, and needing constant outside stimulus to "pass away the time." The slowness, the inertia, the opaque conservatism, and the openness to any sort of external pressure, easiest, of course, on the down side,--which so blocks the path of humanity,--largely come back to that poor child's surname, Mary Don't. It is thoroughly beaten into us when young, and for the rest of life we mostly "Don't." But beyond the paralysing "Don't!" checking the natural movement of the organism, comes a galvanising "Do!" shocking it into unnatural activity. We tell the child to perform a certain action toward which his own feeling and thought have made no stir whatever. "Why?" he demands. And we state as reason our authority, and add an immediate heaven or hell arrangement of our own making to facilitate his performance. He does it. Hell is very near. He does it many, many times. He becomes habituated to a course of behaviour which comes to its expression not through his own previous impression and judgment, but through ours; that is, he is acting from another person's feeling and thinking. We have asserted our authority just before his act, between it and his thought. We have made a cleft which widens to a chasm between what he feels and thinks and what he does. Into that chasm pours to waste an immeasurable amount of human energy. The struggles of the dethroned mind to get possession of its own body again, as the young man or woman grows to personal freedom, ought to strike remorse and shame to the parental heart. They do not, because the devoted parent knows no more of these simple psychic processes than the Goths knew of the priceless manuscripts they destroyed so cheerfully. With the slow, late kindling of the freed mind, under the stimulus perhaps of noble thoughts from others, or just the inner force of human upgrowth, the youth tries to take the rudder, and steer straight. But the rudder chains are stretched to useless slackness or rusted and broken. He feels nobly. He thinks nobly. He starts to do nobly, but his inner pressure meets no quick response in outer act. The connection is broken. The habit of "don't" is strong upon him. Following each upward impulse which says, "Do!" is that automatic check, artificial, but heavily driven in, which has so thoroughly and effectually taught the brain to stop at thinking, not to do what it thought. What he felt and thought was not allowed to govern his action these fifteen years past. Why should it now? It takes years of conscientious work to re-establish this original line of smooth connection, and the mended place is never so strong as it would have been if it had not been broken. Also, the work of those who seek to educate our later youth, and of those who are forever pouring out their lives to lead the world a little higher, is rendered million-fold more difficult by this same gulf, this terrible line of cleavage which strikes so deep to the roots of life, and leaves our beautiful feelings and wise thoughts to mount sky-high in magnificent culture, while our action, which is life's real test, grovels slowly along, scarce moved by all our fine ideas. A more general discourager of our racial advancement than this method of brain-training we could hardly have invented. It is universal in its application, and grinds down steadily on all our people during the most impressionable years of life. That we grow as we do in spite of it is splendid proof of the beneficent forces of our unconscious life, always stronger than our conscious efforts; and that our American children grow more freely, and so have more power of initiative and self-government, is the best work of our democracy. "But what else can we do?" will ask the appalled parents. Without authority they feel no grip upon the child, and see themselves exposed to infant tyranny, and the infant growing up neglected and untrained. This shows how little progress we have made in child-culture, how little grasp we have of the real processes of education. Any parent, no matter how ignorant, is wiser than a baby and larger. Therefore, any parent can direct a child's action and enforce it, to some extent. But to understand how to modify the child's action by such processes as shall keep it still his own, to alter his act by first altering his feeling and thought and so keeping the healthy sequence unbroken, that is a far more subtle and difficult task. A typical instance of this difference in method may be illustrated in that common and always difficult task, teaching a child table manners. Here is a case in which there is no instinct in the child to be appealed to. The noise, clumsiness, and carelessness to which we object are not at all unpleasant to him. In what way can we reach the child's range of reasoning, and convince him of the desirability of this artificial code of ours? We can, of course, state that it displeases us, and appeal to his good will not to give us pain. This is rational enough; but consideration for others, based on a mere statement of distaste,--a distaste he cannot sympathise with,--is a rather weak force with most children. It is a pity to over-strain this delicate feeling. It should be softly tested from time to time, and used enough to encourage a healthy growth; but to continually appeal to a sympathy none too strong is often to strain and weaken it. In table manners it seldom works well. The alleged distress of the parent requires too much imagination, the desired self-control has too slight a basis. But there is a far safer and better way. Carefully work out in your own mind the real reason why you wish the child to conform to this particular code of table ethics. It is not wholly on the ground of displeasing you by the immediate acts. The main reason why they displease you, and why you are so concerned about the matter, is that this is the accepted standard among the people with whom you associate and with whom you expect the child to associate; and, if he does not conform to this code, he will be excluded from desirable society. Reasons why table manners exist at all, or are what they are, require further study; but the point at issue is not why it is customary to eat with the fork instead of the knife, but why your child should do so. When he gets to the point of analysing these details, and asks why he should fold his napkin in one case and leave it crumpled in another, you will of course be prepared with the real reasons. Meanwhile the real reason why the child should learn not to do these undesirable things is that such manners, if pursued, will deprive him of desirable society. We usually content ourselves with an oral statement to this effect: "Nobody will want to eat with you if you do so!" Right here let a word be said to those who are afraid of over-stimulating a child's brain by a more rational method of training. Training by observation and deduction is far easier to a young brain than training by oral statements. To take into the mind by ear a statement of fact, and to hold that statement in memory and preserve its force to check a natural action, is a difficult feat for an adult. But to see that such a thing has such a consequence, and "take warning" by that, is the "early method," the natural method, the quickest, easiest, surest way. So, instead of saying to the child, "If you behave so, people will not want to eat with you," we should let him see that this is the case, and feel the lack. His most desirable society is usually that of his parents; and his first entrance upon that plane should be fairly conditioned upon his learning to play the game as they do. No compulsion, no penalties, no thought of "naughtiness," merely that, if he wants to eat with them, why, that is the way they eat, and he must do so, too. If he will not, exit the desirable society. By very gradual steps,--not by long, tiresome grown-up meals, but by a graduated series of exercises that should recognise the physical difficulty of co-ordinating the young faculties on this elaborate "manual of arms,"--a child could learn the whole performance in a reasonable time, and lose neither nervous force nor clearness of perception in the process. As we do these things now, pulling this string and that, appealing to feelings half developed, urging reasons which find no recognition, using compulsion which to the child's mind is arbitrary and unjust, we may superinduce a tolerable system of table manners, but we have more or less injured the instrument in so doing. A typewriter could, perhaps, be worked with a hammer; but it would not improve the machine. We have had far more consideration for "the machinery of the household" than for the machinery of a child's mind, and yet the real foundation claim of the home is that it is necessary to rear children in. If the ordinary conditions of household life are unsuitable to convey the instruction we desire, it is for us to so arrange those conditions as to make them suitable. There are cases, many cases, in a child-time, where we cannot command the conditions necessary for this method of instruction, where the child must act from our suggestion with no previous or accompanying reasoning. This makes it all the more necessary that such reasoning should be open to him when we can command it. Moreover, the ordinary events in a young life are not surprises to the parent. We know in advance the things that are so unexpected to the child. Why should we not be at some pains to prepare him for these experiences? The given acts of each day are not the crucial points we make of them. What is important is that the child shall gradually establish a rational and connected scheme of life and method of action, his young faculties improving as he uses them, life growing easier and plainer to him from year to year. It is for the parent, the educator, the brain-trainer, to study out details of method and delicate applications. The main purpose is that the child's conduct shall be his own,--his own chosen course of action, adopted by him through the use of his own faculties, not forced upon him by immediate external pressure. It is our business to make plain to him the desirability of the behaviour we wish produced, carefully establishing from day to day his perceptions of the use and beauty of life, and his proven confidence in us as interpreters. The young brain should be regularly practised in the first easy steps of sequential reasoning, arguing from the interesting causes we so carefully provide to the pleasant or not too painful effects we so honestly let it feel, always putting two and two together as it advances in the art and practice of human conduct. Then it will grow into a strong, clear, active, mature brain, capable of relating the facts of life with a wider and juster vision than has been ours, and acting unflinchingly from its own best judgment, as we have striven to do in vain these many years. IV. THE BURNT CHILD DREADS THE SLIPPER. The question of discipline is a serious one to every young mother; and most mothers are young to begin with. She feels the weight of maternal responsibility and the necessity for bringing up her child properly, but has studied nothing whatever on the subject. What methods of discipline are in general use in the rearing of children? The oldest and commonest of all is that of meeting an error in the child's behaviour with physical pain. We simply hurt the child when he does wrong, in order that he may so learn not to do wrong. A method so common and so old as this ought to be clearly justified or as clearly condemned by its results. Have we succeeded yet in simplifying and making easy the training of children,--easy for the trainer and for the trained; and have we developed a race of beings with plain, strong, clear perceptions of right and wrong behaviour and an easy and accurate fulfilment of those perceptions? It must be admitted that we have not; but two claims will be made in excuse: first, that, however unsuccessful, this method of discipline is better than any other; and, second, that the bad behaviour of humanity is due to our inherent depravity, and cannot be ameliorated much even by physical punishment. Some may go further, and say that whatever advance we have made is due to this particular system. Unfortunately, we have almost no exact data from which to compute the value of different methods of child-training. In horse-training something definite is known. On one of the great stock ranches of the West, for instance, where some phenomenal racers have been bred, the trainers of colts not only forbid any rough handling of the sensitive young animals, but even rough speaking to them. It has been proven that the intelligent and affectionate horse is trained more easily and effectually by gentleness than by severity. But with horses the methods used are open to inspection, and also the results. With children each family practises alone on its own young ones, and no record is kept beyond the casual observation and hearsay reports of the neighbours. Yet, even so, there is a glimmer of light. The proverbial uncertainty as to "ministers' sons" indicates a tendency to reaction when a child has been too severely restrained; and the almost sure downfall of the "mamma's darling," the too-much-mothered and over-indulged boy, shows the tendency to foolish excesses when a child has not been restrained enough. Again, our general uncertainty as to methods proves that even the currently accepted "rod" system is not infallible. If it were, we should have peace of mind and uncounted generations of good citizens. As it is, we have the mixed and spotty world we all know so well,--a heavy percentage of acknowledged criminals, a much larger grade of those who just do not break the law, but whose defections from honesty, courage, truth, and honour weigh heavily upon us all. Following that comes the vast mass of "good people," and their behaviour is sometimes more trying than that of the bad ones. Humanity does gain, but not as fast as so intelligent a race should. In penology something has been learned. Here, dealing with the extreme criminal, we are slowly establishing the facts that arbitrary and severe punishment does not proportionately decrease crime; that crime has causes, which may be removed; and that the individual needs to be treated beforehand, preventively, rather than afterward, retributively. This would seem to throw some light on infant penology. If retributive punishment does not proportionately decrease crime in adult criminals, perhaps it does not decrease "naughtiness" among little children. If there is an arrangement of conditions and a treatment which may prevent the crime, perhaps there may be an arrangement of conditions and a treatment which will prevent the naughtiness. One point may be clearly established, to begin with; and that is the need of an open court for our helpless little offenders. Whatever else we think of human nature, we know it to be fallible, and that a private individual cannot be expected to administer justice in secret and alone. Suppose Mr. Jones steals a cow from Mr. Smith, is Mr. Smith capable of being himself both judge and executioner? Does not the very conception of justice involve a third party, some one to hold the scales, to balance, to decide? And, if circumstances compel much power to be invested in an individual for a season, should not that individual be previously instructed from some code of law which many have sanctioned, and afterward be held responsible to public judgment? A ship captain, for instance, has absolute authority for a while; but his authority rests on law, and, if he breaks that law, he is liable to punishment. Moreover, if he goes too far while in command, he is liable to dangerous mutiny as well. But in domestic discipline the child is absolutely in the power of the parent. There is no appeal. There is no defence. There are no witnesses. The child offends against the parent, and the offended one is both judge and executioner. A number of children may commit exactly the same offence, as, for instance, if six boys all go swimming when forbidden; yet they are liable to six several punishments at the hands of their six several mothers or fathers,--punishments bearing relation to the views, health, and temper of the parent at the time rather than to the nature of the misdeed. The only glimmer of protection which the child gets from an enlightened community is in the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children,--a small, feeble body, acting in few localities, and intervening only to save the child from the parent when gross physical cruelty is practised. That in many cases parents are even violently cruel to little children gives reason to believe that many others are a little cruel; and that still more, while not cruel, are unwise. There is no society for the prevention of over-indulgence to children, for instance; yet this is a frequent injury to our young people. Whatever the views of the separate parents, and whatever their standard of justice, a great improvement would be made if there were some publicity and community of action in their methods. A hundred men together can decide upon and carry out a higher course of action than they could be trusted to follow severally. Our beautiful growth in justice and equity (for grown people) has always required this openness and union. Many a mother, tired and cross with her housework, does things to her child which she would be ashamed to retail to a cool and unprejudiced circle of friends. And many another mother consistently and conscientiously inflicts punishments which she would learn to be ashamed of if she heard them discussed by her respected associates with a consensus of disapproval. In the ordinary contact of neighbourly life, some little development of this sort goes on: a few sporadic Mothers' Clubs lead to more concerted discussions; and to-day the Mothers' Congress, lately become the Parents' Congress, and other bodies, together with a growing field of literature on the subject, is leading to far wider and deeper thought, and some experiment. But the field is as wide as the world, and very little is yet accomplished. We have swung wide from the stern severity of earlier times, so that American children are notoriously "indulged"; but merely to leave off a wrong method, without introducing a better one, is not all that can be hoped. The discipline of life lies before us all. The more carefully and wisely we teach and train our children, the less they and others need suffer afterward. But there does seem to be some grave deficiency in our method of domestic discipline. Here is little Albert being educated. He is not going to school yet. He is "not old enough." That is, he is not old enough to be taught anything systematically by persons whose business it is to teach; but he is old enough to be learning the a, b, c of life at the hands of those with whom he chances to be. A child learns every day. That cannot be helped. What he learns, and how, we can largely dictate; but we cannot keep his brain shut until he gets to school, and then open it for three or four hours a day only. What does little Albert learn? Put yourself in his place for a little while. Here are new sensations coming to him momently, through the eager nerves of sense. Here is a new brain, fresh to receive impressions, store them, and act upon them. The pleasure of perceiving is keen, the pleasure of his limited but growing reflection is keen, and the pleasure of action is best of all. Life is full of interest. All the innumerable facts which form our smooth background of behaviour, in the knowledge of which we avoid the water and the fire and go down hill circumspectly, are to him fresh discoveries and revelations. He has to prove them and put them together, and see how they work. The feelings with which we have learned to associate certain facts and actions do not exist to him. He knows nothing of "should" or "should not," except as he learns it by personal trial or through the reaction of other persons upon him. This open state of mind we early destroy by labelling certain acts as good and others as bad; and, since we do not see our way to exhibiting the goodness or badness to the baby brain in natural colours, we paint them in sharp black and white, with no shading. He has to gather his sense of relatively good and bad from the degree of our praise and punishment; and strange, indeed, are his impressions. The loving and cuddling which delight his baby soul are associated with so many different acts, and in such varying proportion, that he does not clearly gather whether it is more virtuous to kiss mamma or to pull grandpa's whiskers; and it takes him some time to learn which dress he must not hug. But, if the good things confuse him, the bad ones are far more complex and uncertain. Little Albert is, we will say, investigating his mother's work-basket. A tall object stands before him. He just bumped his head against it, and it wiggled. He felt it wiggle. He reaches forth an inquiring hand, and finds graspable wicker legs within reach. To grasp and to pull are natural to the human hand and arm. To shake was early taught him. Things were put in his hands, the shaking of which produced an agreeable noise and admiration from the beloved ones. So he shakes this new object; and, to his delight, something rattles. He puts forth his strength, and, lo! the tall, shakable object falls prostrate before him, and scatters into a sprawling shower of little things that clink and roll. Excellent! Lovely! Have not persons built up tall creations of vari-colored blocks, and taught baby to knock them down and rejoice in their scattering! But mamma, to whom this group of surfaces, textures, colours, movements, and sounds, means much besides infantile instruction, asserts that he is "naughty," and treats him with severity. "If you do that again," says irate mamma, "I'll whip you!" If Albert has not already been whipped, the new word means nothing. How is an unwhipped child to know what whipping means? She might save her breath. The lesson is not taught by words. But if she promptly whips him, and does so inevitably when he repeats the offence, he does learn a definite lesson; namely, that the act of pulling over a work-basket results in a species of physical pain, _via_ mamma. Then the unprejudiced young brain makes its deduction,--"The pulling over of things causes physical pain, named whipping." This much being established, he acts on the information. Presently he learns, with some little confusion, that going out of the gate without leave is also productive of whipping,--dissimilar acts, but the same result,--and lays this up with the other,--"Pulling over things and going out of gates are two causes with the same result,--whipping." Then comes another case. He begins to investigate that endless wonder and attraction, the fire. If ever cause and effect were neatly and forcibly related, it is in this useful and dangerous element. So simple and sure is its instructive and deterrent action that we have built a proverb on it,--"The burnt child dreads the fire." But the mother of Albert has a better plan than mother Nature. She interposes with her usual arbitrary consequence,--"If you play with fire, I will whip you," and Albert learns anew that this third cause still produces the same unpleasant result; and he makes his record,--"Pulling things over, going out of gates, playing with fire, result in whipping." And he acts accordingly. Then one day he makes a new and startling discovery. Led by some special temptation, he slips out of the gate and safely back again, unseen of any. No whipping follows. Then his astonished but accurate brain hastily revises the previous information, and adds a glaring new clause,--"It is not just going out of gates that makes a whipping come: it is being seen!" This is covertly tried on the other deeds with the same result. "Aha! Aha!" clicks the little recording machine inside. "Now I know! Whipping does not come from those things: it comes from mamma; and, if she doesn't see me, it doesn't come! Whipping is the result of being seen!" Of course, a little child does not actually say this to himself in so many words; but he does get this impression very clearly, as may be seen from his ensuing behaviour. The principle in question, in considering this usual method of discipline, is whether it is better to associate a child's idea of consequences with the act itself or with an individual, and conditioned upon the chance of discovery. Our general habit is to make the result of the child's deed contingent upon the parental knowledge and displeasure rather than upon the deed itself. As in this hackneyed instance of the fire, instead of teaching the child by mild and cautious experiment that fire burns, we teach him that fire whips. The baby who is taught not to play with fire by the application of a rearward slipper does not understand the nature of the glittering attraction any better than before; and, as soon as he learns that whippings are contingent upon personal observation, he fondly imagines that, if he can play with fire without being seen, no pain will follow. Thus the danger we seek to avert is not averted. He is still liable to be burned through ignorance. We have denied the true lesson as to the nature of fire, and taught a false one of arbitrary but uncertain punishment. Even if the child is preternaturally obedient and never does the things we tell him not to do, he does not learn the lesson. He is no wiser than before. We have saved him from danger and also from knowledge. If he is disobedient, he runs the same risk as if we had told him nothing, with the added danger of acting alone and nervously. Whereas, if he were taught the simple lesson that fire burns, under our careful supervision to see that the burn was not serious, then he would know the actual nature of fire, and dread it with sure reason, far more than he dreads the uncertain slipper. This has been dwelt upon so fully by previous writers that there would seem small need of further mention; but still our mothers do not read or do not understand, and still our babies are confronted with arbitrary punishment instead of natural consequence. The worst result of this system is in its effect on the moral sense. We have a world full of people who are partially restrained from evil by the fear of arbitrary punishment, and who do evil when they imagine they can do so without discovery. Never having been taught to attach the evil consequence to the evil act, but instead to find it a remote contingency hinging on another person's observation, we grow up in the same attitude of mind, afraid not of stealing, but of the policeman. If there is no slipper, why not tip over the work-basket: if there is no policeman, why not steal? Back of slipper and police we hold up to the infant mind a still more remote contingency of eternal punishment; but this has to be wholly imagined, and is so distant, to a child's mind, as to have little weight. It has little weight with grown persons even, and, necessarily, less with a child. The mental processes involved in receiving by ear an image of a thing never seen, of visualising it by imagination and then remembering the vision, and finally of bringing forward that remembered vision to act as check to a present and actual temptation, are most difficult. But where a consequence is instant and clear,--when baby tries to grab the parrot, and the parrot bites,--that baby, without being promised a whipping or being whipped, will thereafter religiously avoid all parrots. A baby soon learns to shun certain things for reasons of his own. What he dislikes and fears he will not touch. It is no effort for the young mind to observe and remember a prompt natural consequence. We do make some clumsy attempts in this direction, as when we tie up, in an ill-tasting rag, the thumb too often sucked. If thumb-sucking is a really bad habit and a general one, we should long since have invented a neat and harmless wash, purchasable in small bottles at the drug store, of which a few applications would sicken the unhappy suckling of that thumb most effectually. But thumb-sucking we do not consider as wrong, merely as undesirable. When the child does what we call wrong, we think he should be "punished." Our ideas of domestic discipline are still of the crudely savage era; while in social discipline, in penology, we have become tolerably civilised. Some will say that the child is like a savage, and is most open to the treatment current at that time in our history. It is true that the child passes through the same phases in personal development that the race passed long ago, and that he is open to the kind of instruction which would affect a primitive-minded adult. But this means (if we are seeking to benefit the child), not the behaviour of one savage to another, but such behaviour as would elevate the savage. One of the most simple and useful elements in primitive discipline is retaliation. It is Nature's law of reaction in conscious form. To retaliate in kind is primitive justice. If we observe the code of ethics in use among children, it resolves itself into two simple principles: that of instant and equal retaliation; or, when that fails, the dread ultimatum which no child can resist,--"I won't play!" A child who is considered "mean" and disagreeable by his fellows meets the simple and effectual treatment of snubbing, neglect, ostracism. These two principles may be applied in domestic discipline gently, accurately, fairly, and without ill-feeling; and their effect is admirable. "What is the difference between this and the other method?" will be asked. "Is not this also descending to the plane of childishness, of savagery, to which you were just now objecting?" Here is the difference. To apply a brutal and arbitrary punishment to the person of the offender is what savages do, and what we do, to the child. To receive a just and accurate retaliation is what child and savage understand, are restrained and instructed by. We should treat the child in methods applicable by the savage, not with the behaviour of savages. For instance, you are playing with a little child. The little child is rude to you. You put him down, and go away. This is a gentle reaction, which, being repeated, he soon learns to associate with the behaviour you dislike. "When I do this," observes the infant mind, "the play stops. I like to play. Therefore, I will not do the thing that stops it." This is simple observation, and involves no ill-feeling. He learns to modify his conduct to a desired end, which is the lesson of life. In this case you treat him by a method of retaliation quite perceptible to a savage, and appealing to the sense of justice without arousing antagonism. But, if you are playing with the little one, he is rude to you, and you spank him, he is conscious of a personal assault which does arouse antagonism. It is not only what a savage could understand, but what a savage would have done. It arouses savage feelings, and helps keep the child a savage. Also, it helps keep the race a savage; for the child who grows up under the treatment common in that era finds it difficult to behave in a manner suitable to civilisation. Discipline is part of life; and, if met early and accepted, all life becomes easier. But the discipline which the real world gives us is based on inexorable law, not on personal whim. We make the child's idea of right and wrong rest on some person's feeling, not on the nature of the act. He is trained to behave on a level of primitive despotism, and cannot successfully adjust himself to a free democracy. This is why our American children, who get less of the old-fashioned discipline, make better citizens than the more submissive races who were kept severely down in youth, and are unable to keep themselves down in later life. There is a painful paucity of ideas on child-training in most families, as clearly shown in the too common confession, "I'm sure I don't know what to do with that child!" or, "What would you do with such a child as that?" If we may not use the ever-ready slipper, the shrill, abusive voice, the dark closet, or threat of withheld meal, what remains to us in the line of discipline? What is to be done to the naughty child? We need here some knowledge of what naughtiness really is. The child is a growing group of faculties, the comparative development of which makes him a good or bad member of society. His behaviour has, first, the limitations of his age, and, second, of his personality. A child is naturally more timid than a grown person, and a given child may be afflicted with more timidity than is natural to his age. Acts which indicate such a condition show need of training and discipline. A certain amount of selfishness is natural to childhood: acts indicating unusual selfishness call for correction. So with the whole field of childish behaviour: whatever acts show evil tendencies need checking; but the acts natural to every child only show that he is a child,--which is not "naughty"! If we considered the field beforehand, asked ourselves what we expected during this day or this year in the behaviour of such a child, and were not displeased when he behaved within those lines, much unnecessary pain and trouble would be saved to both parties. Then, when things really indicative of evil were done, we should carefully examine and test the character so manifested, and begin to apply the suitable discipline. For example, it is natural to childhood to be inconsiderate of others. The intense little ego, full of strong new sensations, has small sympathy for the sensations of his associates. The baby may love the kitten, and yet hurt it cruelly because he does not know how kittens feel. This is not naughty, and needs only the positive training which shall hasten his natural growth in extension of sympathy. To show him the right methods of handling the pet, and especially of not handling it; to teach him to enjoy watching the kitten's natural activities and to respect its preferences,--all that is education, and needs no "discipline." But, if the child shows a pleasure in hurting the kitten after he knows it hurts, then you have real evil to deal with. A character is indicated which may grow to callous indifference to the feelings of others, and even to their actual injury. These acts are "wrong"; and wise, strong measures are necessary. There are two main lines on which to work. One is to take extra measures to cultivate sympathy, using nature study, and to examine and care for such pronounced cases of suffering as must arouse even the most dominant interest. The too-callous child might be taken to a children's hospital, and helped to minister to the needs of the small sufferers. His pets, meanwhile, should be large and strong creatures, which he would depend on more or less, and his enjoying their company made absolutely contingent on right treatment. Special attention should also be paid to all such acts as showed consideration of others,--to encourage and reward them. Again, if a child shows a too violent or sullen temper, or is distinctly sly and untrustworthy, these are serious indications, and need careful and thorough treatment. But the great majority of acts for which children are punished are not at all evil. "Carelessness," for instance, is incident to the young brain,--essential to it. The power always to properly co-relate and remember is an adult power, and not always strong in the adult. We need, of course, to encourage a growing carefulness, but not to expect it nor punish its natural lack. Clumsiness is also incidental to the young nerve connections. The baby drops things continually, the child frequently: the adult will hold an object even while the mind is otherwise engaged, the habit of the flexo-motor nerves being well established. Enterprising experiment is not only natural to childhood, but a positive virtue. That is the quality which leads the world onward, and the lack of it is a Chinese wall against progress. One enormous field of what we call naughtiness in our little ones lies in offences against things. First and foremost, clothes. Wetting, soiling, and tearing clothes,--what a sea of tears have been shed, what wails and sobs, what heavy and useless punishments inflicted, because of injured clothing! Yet almost every accident to clothing comes from the interaction of two facts: first, the perfectly natural clumsiness and carelessness of childhood; and, second, our interminable folly in dressing a child in unchildish garments, and placing him in unchildish conditions. There is no naughtiness involved except in the parent, who shows a stupidity abnormal to her age. Children are frequently reproached for wearing out their shoes. What does the intelligent parent expect? Is the child to sit in a chair, lie down, or ride the bicycle continually? If the child is seen to cut his shoes with knives or grind them on a grindstone, that may be discouraged as malicious mischief; but the inevitable stubbing and scuffing of the eager, restless, ungoverned little feet should have been foreseen and allowed for. We do strive to buy the heaviest possible mass of iron-shod leather for our boys, and then we scold them for being noisy. To surround a growing creature with artificial difficulties, to fail to understand or allow for the natural difficulties of his age, and then to punish with arbitrary retribution the behaviour which is sure to appear, this is not the kind of discipline which makes wise, strong, self-governing citizens. V. TEACHABLE ETHICS. Our general knowledge of ethics is small and unreliable, and our practice in ethics even smaller and more unreliable. The good intentions of mankind are prominent; but our ideas of right behaviour are so contradictory and uncertain, our execution of such ideas as we hold so partial and irregular, that human behaviour continues to be most unsatisfactory. This condition we used to cheerfully attribute to the infirmity of human nature, taking ignominious consolation from the thought of our vicious tendencies and hopeless weakness. The broad light of evolutionary study has removed this contemptible excuse. We now know human nature to be quite as good as the rest of nature, wherein everything is good after its kind; and that, furthermore, our human kind has made great improvement in conduct so far, and is capable of making a great deal more. We are not weak: we are strong. We are not wicked: we earnestly desire to be good. But we are still very ignorant of the science of ethics, and most inept in its practice. We learn mathematics, and apply our knowledge with marvellous results. We learn physics, and use what we know therein to work miracles in the material world. Ethics is as plain a science as physics, and as easy of application. Ethics is the physics of social relation. The cause of our slow growth in ethics is this:-- The prominent importance of right action and constant need of some general standard to appeal to, strongly impress the human mind in its very earliest stage of development. Incapable as yet of scientific methods of study, ignorant, supremely credulous and timid, conservative and superstitious to a degree, primitive man promptly made "a religion" of his scant observations and deductions in ethics, and forbade all further study and experiment. Where other sciences have their recognised room for progress, a slowly accumulating and often changing knowledge behind, and a free field of uncertainty in front, ethics was promptly walled in with the absolute and the super-natural. The few lines of action then recognised as "moral" or "immoral" were defined in the most conclusive manner, and no room left for later study. It is most interesting to note the efforts of conscientious men in later ages to make an intelligible, consistent scheme of ethics out of these essentially incorrect early attempts. By these efforts a religion grew from a simple group of dogmas and rites to the complex ramifications of many commentators; and the occasional vigorous and progressive brain that saw more light has always had to suffer and struggle long to introduce new truth. We have forbidden, under awful penalties, all open-minded study in these lines; and this especially hindering mental attitude has kept the most general and simple of the sciences in a very backward condition, so that we go through school and college with no real enlightenment on the subject. Thus a young man, quite proficient in languages, physics, and the higher mathematics, will be shamefully deficient in even the lowest ethics (right behaviour in regard to himself), and show no acquaintance whatever with the higher branches of the subject. We err very commonly in right treatment of ourselves, more commonly in treatment of one another; and our confusion of idea and behaviour increases with the square of the distance, our behaviour to other nations or other kinds of animals being lowest of all. We have a common scheme of behaviour, coming from various influences and conditions, which we cannot ourselves account for by any ethical rules; and this every-day working ethics of ours shows how social evolution unconsciously developes needed conduct, even where our conscious intelligence fails to recognise or recommend such conduct as ethical. Thus we have developed many stalwart and timely virtues in spite of rather than because of religious approval, and many serious vices flourish without religious opposition. A conspicuous instance of this is in the pious contentment of a wealthy church corporation, the income of which is derived from tenement houses which are hotbeds of evil; and in the often observed conduct of an irreligious man, who practises the commonplace necessary virtues of daily business life. But this power of social evolution developes the immediate virtues essential to close personal intercourse more quickly than the higher range of virtue, needed in national and international affairs. Thus we often see "a good family man," friend, and perhaps even an honest business dealer, shamefully negligent or corrupt in political duty. It would seem that the same brains which have brought us forward to such enormous knowledge in other lines might have made more progress in this. Some special cause must have operated, and be still operating, to prevent a normal growth in this deeply important field. Much might be said here of the influence of religious custom; but the still closer and more invariable cause lies not in the church, but in the home. Where in social relation our necessary enlargement and progress have forced upon us nobler characteristics, in the domestic relation small change has been made. The privacy and conservatism of the family group have made it a nursing ground of rudimentary survivals, long since outgrown in more open fields; and the ethical code of the family is patently behind that of the society in which it is located. The primitive instincts, affections, and passions are there; but justice, liberty, courtesy, and such later social sentiments are very weak. New truth is seen by new brains. As the organ we think with grows from age to age, we are able to think farther and deeper; but, if the growing brain is especially injured in any one department in early youth, it will not grow as fast in that one line. As a general rule,--a rule with rare exceptions,--we do thus injure the baby brain in the line of ethical thought and action. In other sciences we teach what we know, when we teach at all, and practise fairly; but, in teaching a child ethics, we do not give even what we have of knowledge, and our practice with him and the practice we demand from him are not at all in accordance with our true views. In glaring instance is the habit of lying to children. A woman who would not lie to a grown friend will lie freely to her own child. A man who would not be unjust to his brother or a stranger will be unjust to his little son. The common courtesy given any adult is not given to the child. That delicate consideration for another's feelings, which is part of our common practice among friends, is lacking in our dealings with children. From the treatment they receive, children cannot learn any rational and consistent scheme of ethics. Their healthy little brains make early inference from the conduct of their elders, and incite behaviour on the same plan; but they speedily find that these are poor rules, for they do not work both ways. The conduct we seek to enforce from them does not accord with our conduct, nor form any consistent whole by itself. It is not based on any simple group of principles which a child can understand, but rests very largely on the personal equation and the minor variations of circumstance. Take lying again as an instance. 1. We lie to the child. He discovers it. No evil is apparently resultant. 2. He accuses us of it, and we punish him for impertinence. 3. He lies to us, and meets severe penalties. 4. We accuse him of it, rightly or wrongly, and are not punished for impertinence. 5. He observes us lie to the visitor in the way of politeness with no evil result. 6. He lies to the visitor less skilfully, and is again made to suffer. 7. He lies to his more ignorant juniors, and nothing happens. 8. Meanwhile, if he receives any definite ethical instruction on the subject, he is probably told that God hates a liar, that to lie is a sin! The elastic human brain can and does accommodate itself to this confusion, and grows up to complacently repeat the whole performance without any consciousness of inconsistency; but progress in ethics is hardly to be looked for under such conditions. It is pathetic to see this waste of power in each generation. We are born with the gentler and kinder impulses bred by long social interrelation. We have ever broader and subtler brains; but our good impulses are checked, twisted, tangled, weighed down with many artificial restrictions, and our restless questionings and suggestions are snubbed or neglected. A child is temptingly open to instruction in ethics. His primitive mental attitude recognises the importance of the main principles as strongly as the early savage did. His simple and guarded life makes it easy for us to supply profuse and continuous illustrations of the working of these principles; and his strong, keen feelings enable us to impress with lasting power the relative rightness and wrongness of different lines of action. Yet this beautiful opportunity is not only neglected, but the fresh mind and its eager powers are blurred, confused, discouraged, by our senseless treatment. Our lack of knowledge does not excuse it. Our lingering religious restriction does not excuse it. We know something of ethics, and practise something, but treat the child as if he was a lower instead of a higher being. Surely, we can reduce our ethical knowledge into some simple and teachable shape, and take the same pains to teach this noblest, this most indispensable of sciences that we take to teach music or dancing. Physics is the science of molecular relation,--how things work in relation to other things. Ethics is the science of social relation,--how people work in relation to other people. To the individual there is no ethics but of self-development and reproduction. The lonely animal's behaviour goes no farther. But gregarious animals have to relate their behaviour to one another,--a more complex problem; and in our intricate co-relation there is so wide a field of inter-relative behaviour that its working principles and laws form a science. However complex our ultimate acts, they are open to classification, and resolve themselves into certain general principles which long since were recognised and named. Liberty, justice, love,--we all know these and others, and can promptly square a given act by some familiar principle. The sense of justice developes very early, and may be used as a basis for a large range of conduct. "To play fair" can be early taught. "That isn't fair!" is one of a child's earliest perceptions. "When I want to go somewhere, you say I'm too little; and, when I cry, you say I'm too big! It isn't fair!" protests the child. In training a child in the perception and practice of justice, we should always remember that the standard must suit the child's mind, not ours. What to our longer, wider sweep of vision seems quite just, to him may seem bitterly unjust; and, if we punish a child in a way that seems to him unjust, he is unjustly punished. So the instructor in ethics must have an extended knowledge of the child's point of view,--that of children in general and of the child being instructed in particular, and the illustrations measured accordingly. It ought to be unnecessary to remark that no more passion should be used in teaching ethics than in teaching arithmetic. The child will make mistakes, of course. We know that beforehand, and can largely provide for them. It is for us to arrange his successive problems so that they are not too rapid or too difficult, and to be no more impatient or displeased at a natural slip in this line of development than in any other. Unhappily, it is just here that we almost always err. The child's slowly accumulating perceptions and increasing accuracy of expression are not only confused by our erroneous teaching, but greatly shocked and jarred by our manner, our evident excitement in cases of conduct which we call "matters of right and wrong." All conduct is right or wrong. A difference in praise or blame belongs to relative excellence of intention or of performance; but the formation of a delicate and accurate conscience is sadly interfered with by our violent feelings. It is this which renders ethical action so sensitive and morbid. Where in other lines we act calmly, according to our knowledge, or, if we err, calmly rectify the error, in ethics we are nervous, vacillating, unduly elated or depressed, because our early teachings in this field were so overweighted with intense feeling. Self-control is one of the first essentials in the practice of ethics,--which is to say, in living. Self-control can be taught a child by gently graduated exercises, so that he shall come calmly into his first kingdom, and exercise this normal human power without self-consciousness. We do nothing actively to develope this power. We simply punish the lack of it when that lack happens to be disagreeable to us. A child who has "tantrums," for instance,--those helpless, prostrate passions of screaming and kicking,--is treated variously during the attack; but nothing is done during the placid interval to cultivate the desired power of control. Self-control is involved in all conscious acts. Therefore, it should not be hard to so arrange and relate those acts as to steadily develope the habit. Games in varying degree require further exertion of self-control, and games are the child's daily lessons. The natural ethical sense of humanity is strongly and early shown in our games. It is a joy to us to learn "the rules" and play according to them, or to a maturer student to grasp the principles and work them out; and our quick condemnation of the poor player or the careless player, and our rage at him who "does not play fair," show how naturally we incline to right conduct. Life is a large game, with so many rules that it is very hard to learn by them; but its principles can be taught to the youngest. When we rightly understand those principles, we can leave off many arbitrary rules, and greatly simplify the game. The recognition of the rights of others is justice, and comes easily to the child. The generosity which goes beyond justice is also natural to the child in some degree, and open to easy culture. It should, however, always rest on its natural precursor, justice; and the child be led on to generosity gradually, and by the visible example of the higher pleasure involved. To divide the fruit evenly is the first step. To show that you enjoy giving up your share, that you take pleasure in his pleasure, and then, when this act is imitated, to show such delight and gratitude as shall make the baby mind feel your satisfaction,--that is a slow but simple process. We usually neglect the foundation of justice, and then find it hard to teach loving-kindness to the young mind. Demands on the child's personal surrender and generosity should be made very gradually, and always with a clearly visible cause. Where any dawning faculty is overstrained in youth, it is hard and slow to re-establish the growth. One simple ethical principle most needful in child-training, and usually most painfully lacking, is honesty. Aside from direct lying, we almost universally use concealment and evasion; and even earlier than that we assume an artificial manner with babies and young children which causes the dawning ethical sense strange perturbations. It is a very common thing to demand from little children a show of affection without its natural prompting. Even between mother and child this playing at loving is often seen. "Come and kiss mamma! What! Don't you love mamma? Poor mamma! Mamma cry!" And mamma pretends to cry, in order to make baby pretend to love her. The adult visitor almost invariably simulates an interest and cordiality which is not felt, and does it in a palpably artificial manner. These may seem small matters. We pass them without notice daily, but they are important in the foundation impressions of the young brain. Children are usually very keen to detect the pretence. "Oh, you don't mean that: you only say so!" they remark. We thus help to develope a loose, straggling sense of honesty and honour, a chronic ethical inaccuracy, like a bad "ear" for music. The baby-educator should see to it that she show only real feelings to the child; and show them in large letters, as it were. Do not say, "Mamma is angry," or "Mamma is grieved," or "Mamma is ashamed," but be angry, grieved, or ashamed visibly. Let the child observe the effect of his act on you, not hear you say you feel thus and so, and see no signs of it. We depend far too much on oral statements, and neglect the simpler, stronger, surer means of conveying impressions. The delicacy of perception of a child should be preserved and tenderly used. We often blur and weaken it by giving false, irregular, and disproportionate impressions, and then are forced to use more and more violence to make any impression at all. All this sensitiveness is to ethics what the "musical ear" is to music. In injuring it, we make it harder for the growing soul to discriminate delicately in ethical questions,--a difficulty but too common among us. The basis of human ethics, being social, requires for its growth a growing perception of collective and inter-relative rights and duties. Our continual object with the child is to establish in his mind this common consciousness and an accurate measure in perception. It is at first a simple matter of arithmetic. Here is the group of little ones, and the equal number of cookies: palpably, each should have one. Here is one extra cookie. Who shall have it? Robby, because his is the smallest. Jamie cries that his is as small as Robby's. Is it? The fact is ascertained. Divide the extra cookie, then: that's fair. Or here is one who was not well yesterday and had no cookies. Give it to him. These things are not to be ostentatiously done nor too continually, but always with care and accuracy, as lessons more important than any others. The deeper and larger sense of social duty,--not the personal balancing of rights, which is easy to even the youngest mind, but the devotion to the service of all, the recognition that the greater includes the less,--this must be shown by personal example long before it can be imitated. Parents neglect this where it would help them most, and substitute, to meet the child's inquiries, only personal authority and compulsion. If the parent would constantly manifest a recognition of duty and performance of it even against desire, it would be a great help to the child. Most children imagine that grown persons do just as they want to; and that the stringent code of behaviour enforced upon them is requisite only in childhood, and enforceable only because of their weakness. Much of the parent's conduct can be used as an object-lesson to the child; but its skilful employment needs clear ethical perception and much educational ability. For instance, if the mother elaborately explains that she is obliged to do something which seems to the child absurd, or if she claims to have to do a certain thing which the child can see that she really enjoys, the impressions made are not correct ones. A recognition of the importance of right teaching of ethics to the child would help adult conduct in most cases. And, if the child were receiving proper grounding in ethics from a special educator, he could come home and perplex his parents with problems, as a bright child often does now in other sciences. This, of course, points to the need of accepted text-books on ethics, and will allow of disputes between authorities and disagreement on many points; but these conditions exist in all sciences. There are different authorities and "schools," much disagreement and dispute and varying conduct based on our various scientific beliefs. But out of the study, discussion, and ensuing behaviour comes the gradual proof of what is really true; and we establish certain generally accepted facts and principles, while still allowing a margin for divergence of opinion and further knowledge. Our dread of studying ethics as a science on account of this divergence of opinion is a hereditary brain tendency, due to the long association of ethical values with one infallible religious text-book,--Koran or Bible or Talmud or Zend-Avesta. "It is written" was the most conclusive of statements to the ancient mind. The modern mind ought by this time to have developed a wide and healthy distrust of that which is written. While our "written" ethics has remained at a standstill always until the upward sweep of social conduct demanded and produced a better religion, our unnoticed practice of ethics has worked out many common rules. In the fearless study of this field of practical ethics lies our way to such simple text-books as may be used to teach children. There is no question as to whether we should or should not teach ethics to very little children. We do, we must, whether we will or not. The real question is what to teach and how. They learn from our daily walk and conversation; and they learn strange things. Most palpable of all among the wrong impressions given to our children is that of the pre-eminent importance of the primitive relations of life, and the utter unimportance of the great social relations of our time. Whatever ideas of right and wrong the child succeeds in gathering, they are all of a closely personal nature, based on interpersonal conduct in the family relation, or in such restricted and shallow social relations as is covered by our code of "company manners." The greatest need of better ethics to-day is in our true social relation,--the economic and political field of action in which lie our major activities, and in which we are still so grossly uncivilised. Not until he goes to school does the child begin to appreciate any general basis of conduct; and even there the ethics of the position are open to much clearer treatment. As the mother is so prominent a factor in influencing the child's life, it is pre-eminently necessary that she should be grounded in this larger ethics, and able to teach it by example as well as by description. She needs a perception of the proportionate duties of mankind,--an understanding of their true basis, and a trained skill in imparting this knowledge to the child. If she cannot properly teach ethics, she should provide a teacher more competent. At present the only special ethical teaching for the child outside the family is in the Sunday-school; and Sunday-school teachers are usually amiable young ladies who are besought on any terms--with no preparation whatever--to give this instruction. Once we boldly enter the field of ethical study, and reduce its simple principles to a teachable basis,--when we make clear to ourselves and our children the legitimate reasons of right conduct,--the same intelligence and ambition which carry us on so far in other sciences will lift the standard of behaviour of our race, both in theory and practice. Meanwhile, with such knowledge and practice as we have to-day, let us see to it that we give to little children our best ethics by precept and example, with hopes that they may go on to higher levels. VI. A PLACE FOR CHILDREN. The one main cause of our unfairness to children is that we consider them wholly in a personal light. Justice and equity, the rights of humanity, require a broader basis than blood relationship. Children are part of humanity, and the largest part. Few of us realise their numbers, or think that they constitute the majority of human beings. The average family, as given in the census returns, consist of five persons,--two adults and three minors. Any population which increases has a majority of children, our own being three-fifths. This large proportion of human beings constitutes a permanent class,--another fact we fail to consider because of our personal point of view. One's own child and one's neighbour's child grow up and pass out of childhood, and with them goes one's interest in children. Of course, we intellectually know that there are others; but to the conscious mind of most persons children are evanescent personal incidents. The permanence of childhood as a human status is proven by the survival among them of games and phrases of utmost antiquity, which are handed down, not from father to son, but from child to child. If an isolated family moves into a new country, and its children grow up alone, they do not know these games. We should bear in mind in studying children that we have before us a permanent class, larger than the adult population. So that in question of numerical justice they certainly have a right to at least equal attention. But, when we remember also that this large and permanent class of human beings is by far the most important, that on its right treatment rests the progress of the world, then, indeed, it behooves us to consider the attitude of the adult population toward the junior members of society. As members of society, we find that they have received almost no attention. They are treated as members of the family by the family, but not even recognised as belonging to society. Only in modern history do we find even enough perception of the child's place in the State to provide some public education; and to-day, in some more advanced cities, some provision for public protection and recreation. Children's playgrounds are beginning to appear at last among people who have long maintained public parks and gardens for adults. Also, in the general parks a children's quarter is often now provided, with facilities for their special care and entertainment. But except for these rare cases of special playgrounds, except for the quite generous array of school-houses and a few orphan asylums and kindred institutions, there are no indications in city or country that there are such people as children. A visitor from another planet, examining our houses, streets, furniture, and machinery, would not gather much evidence of childhood as a large or an important factor in human life. The answer to this is prompt and loud: "Children belong at home! Look there, and you will see if they are considered or not." Let us look there carefully. The average home is a house of, say, six rooms. This is a liberal allowance, applicable only to America. Even with us, in our cities, the average home is in a crowded tenement,--only two or three rooms; and in wide stretches of country it is a small and crowded farm-house. Six rooms is liberal allowance,--kitchen, dining-room, and parlour, and three bedrooms. Gazing upon the home from the outside, we see a building of dimensions suited to adults. There is nothing to indicate children there. Examining it from the inside, we find the same proportionate dimensions, and nothing in the materials or arrangement of the internal furnishings to indicate children there. The stairs are measured to the adult tread, the windows to the adult eye, the chairs and table to the adult seat. Hold! In a bedroom we discover a cradle,--descended from who knows what inherited desire for swinging boughs!--and, in some cases, a crib. In the dining-room is often a high chair (made to accommodate the adult table), and sometimes in the parlour a low chair for the child. If people are wealthy and careful, there is, perhaps, a low table, too; but the utmost that can be claimed for the average child is a cradle or crib, a high chair, and a "little rocker." There can be no reasonable objection to this, so long as the child is considered merely as a member of a family. The adult family precedes and outlasts the child, and it would be absurd to expect them to stoop and suffer in a house built and furnished for children. So we build for the adult only, and small legs toil painfully up our stairs and fall more painfully down them. But the moment we begin to address ourselves to the needs of children as a class, the result is different. In the school-house all the seats are for children, except "teacher's chair"; in the kindergarten the tiny chairs and tables are perfectly appropriate; in the playground all the appointments are child-size. "What do you expect!" protests the perplexed parent. "You say yourself, I cannot build my house child-size. Do you expect me to add a child-size house in the back yard? I cannot afford it." No, the individual parent cannot afford to build a child-house for his own family, nor, for that matter, a school-house. We, collectively, whether through general taxation, as in the public school, or combination of personal funds, as in the private school, do manage to provide our children with school-houses, because we recognise their need of them. Similarly, we can provide for them suitable houses for a far more early and continuous education,--when we see the need of them. Here the untouched brain-spaces make no response. "What do you mean!" cries the parent. "Do you wish us to club together, and build a--a--public nursery for our children!" This seems sufficiently horrific to stop all further discussion. But is it? May we not gently pursue the theme? We can and do cheerfully admit the advantages of a public school and a public school-teacher for our children. Some of us admit the advantages of a public kindergarten and a public kindergartner for our children. The step between child-garden and baby-garden is slight. Why not a public nursery and a public nurse? That, of course, for those classes who gladly provide and patronise the public school and kindergarten. The swarming neglected babies of the poor, now "underfoot" in dirty kitchen or dirtier street, part neglected and part abused, a tax on the toiling mother and a grievous injury to the older children who must care for them,--these would be far better off if every crowded block had its big, bright baby-garden on the roof, and their young lives were kept peaceful, clean, and well cared for by special nurses who knew their business. A public nursery is safer than the public street. One hot reply to this proposition is that "statistics prove that babies in institutions die faster than babies even in the poorest families." Perhaps this is so. But consider the difference in the cases. Children in institutions are motherless, generally orphans. No one is proposing to remove the mothers of the babies in the baby-garden. "But they would be separated from their mothers!" Children who go to school are separated from their mothers. Children who go to the kindergarten are separated from their mothers. Children who play in the street are separated from their mothers. If the mothers of these children had nothing else to do, they could give all their time to them. But they have other things to do; and, while they are busy, the baby would be better off in the baby-garden than in the street. To those who prefer to maintain the private school and the private kindergarten, a private baby-garden would be equally available. "But we do not want it. We prefer to care for our children at home," they reply. This means that they prefer to have their little ones in their own nursery, under the care of the mother, _via_ the nurse. The question remains open as to which the children would prefer, and which would be better for them. Perhaps certain clear and positive assertions should be made here, to allay the anxiety and anger about "separating the child from the mother." The mother of a young baby should be near enough to nurse it, as a matter of course. She should "take care of it"; that is, see that it has everything necessary to its health, comfort, and development. But that is no reason why she should administer to its every need with her own hands. The ignorant, low-class poor mother does this, and does not preserve the lives of her children thereby. The educated, high-class rich mother does not do this, but promptly hires a servant to do it for her. The nursery and the nurse are essential to the baby; but what kind of nursery and nurse are most desirable? The kind of servant hired by the ordinary well-to-do family is often not a suitable person to have the care of little children. A young child needs even more intelligent care than an older one. A group of families, each paying for its children's schooling, can afford to give them a far higher class of teacher than each could afford to provide separately. So a group of families, each paying for its children's "nursing," could afford to provide a far superior class of "nurse" than each can provide separately. Here again rises the protest that it is not good for small children--babies--to be "herded together,"--see infant mortality in institutions. Again, an unfair comparison is involved. The poorest kind of children, motherless and fatherless, are crowded in undue numbers in "charitable" or "public" institutions, and submitted to the perfunctory care of low-grade, ill-paid attendants, among accommodations by no means of the best. We are asked to compare this to small groups of healthy, well-bred children, placed for certain hours of the day only in carefully planned apartments, in all ways suitable, under the care of high-grade, well-paid expert attendants and instructors. The care of little children is not servant's work. It is not "nurses'" work. A healthy child should have his physical needs all properly supplied, and, for the rest, be under the most gentle and exquisite "training." It is education, and education more valuable than that received in college, which our little ones need; and they do not get it from nurse-maids. Then rises the mother. "I can teach my baby better than any teacher, however highly trained." If the mother can, by all means let her. But can she? We do not hear mothers protesting that they can teach their grown-up sons and daughters better than the college professors, nor their middle-aged children better than the school-teachers. Why, then, are they so certain that they can teach the babies better than trained baby-teachers? They are willing to consult a doctor if the baby is ill, and gladly submit to his dictation. "The doctor says baby must eat this and go there and do so." There is no wound to maternal pride in this case. If they have "defective" children, they are only too glad to place them under "expert care," not minding even "separation" for the good of the child. Any one who knows of the marvellous results obtained by using specially trained intelligence in the care of defective children must wonder gravely if we might not grow up better with some specially trained intelligence used on our normal children. But this we cannot have till we make a place for children. No woman or man, with the intelligence and education suitable for this great task, would be willing to be a private servant in one family. We do not expect it of college-teacher or school-teacher. We could not expect it of baby-teacher. The very wealthy might of course command all three; but that has no application to mankind in general, and is also open to grave question as to its relative value. A private staff of college professors would not be able to give the boy the advantages of going to college. We cannot have separately what we can have collectively. Moreover, even if the teacher be secured, we have not at home the material advantages open to us in the specially prepared place for children. A house or range of apartments for little children could be made perfectly safe,--which is more than the home is. From the pins on the carpet, which baby puts in his mouth, the stairs he falls down, the windows he falls out of and the fire he falls into, to the doors to jam the little fingers and the corners and furniture he bumps himself upon, "the home" is full of danger to the child. Why should a baby be surrounded with these superfluous evils? A room really designed for babies to play in need have no "furniture" save a padded seat along the wall for the "grown-ups" to sit on, a seat with little ropes along the edge for the toddlers to pull up and walk by. The floor should be smooth and even, antiseptically clean, and not hard enough to bump severely. A baby must fall, but we need not provide cobblestones for his first attempts. Large soft ropes, running across here and there, within reach of the eager, strong little hands, would strengthen arms and chest, and help in walking. A shallow pool of water, heated to suitable temperature, with the careful trainer always at hand, would delight, occupy, and educate for daily hours. A place of clean, warm sand, another of clay, with a few simple tools,--these four things--water, sand, clay, and ropes to climb on--would fill the days of happy little children without further "toys." These are simple, safe, primitive pleasures, all helpful to growth and a means of gradual education. The home cannot furnish these things, nor could the mother give her time and attention to their safe management, even if she knew how to teach swimming, modelling, and other rudimentary arts. The home, beside its difficulties and dangers, is full of unnecessary limitations. It is arranged on a scale of elegance such as the adult income can compass; and the natural activities of childhood continually injure the household decorations and conveniences. Perfectly natural and innocent conduct on the part of the child is deleterious to the grown-up home, so patently so that owners of fine houses are not willing to let them to families with children. A nice comment this on the home as a place for children! Must a home be shabby and bare? Or must the child be confined to his bed? Why not develope the home to its own perfection,--a place of beauty and comfort and peace,--and let the children have a home of their own for part of the day, wherein the order and beauty and comfort are child-size? The child could sleep under his mother's eye or ear, and gradually aspire to the adult table when he had learned how to be comfortable there, and not injure the comfort of others. He could soon have his own room if the family could afford it, and express his personality in its arrangement; but the general waking time of little children could be much better passed in a special house for children than in the parental kitchen, parlour, bedroom, or back yard. "But why not the private nursery,--the sunny room for the child and his toys? Is not that enough?" The private nursery means the private nurse, who is, as a class, unfit to have the care of little children. She is a servant; and the forming ideas of justice, courtesy, and human rights in general, are much injured by the spectacle of an adult attendant who is a social inferior. A servant is not a proper person to have charge of these impressionable years. Moreover, however perfect the private nursery and private nurse might be, there remains its isolation to injure the child. We grow up unnecessarily selfish, aborted in the social faculties proper to our stage of advance, because each child is so in the focus of family attention all the time. A number of little ones together for part of every day, having their advantages in common, learning from infancy to say "we" instead of "I," would grow up far better able to fill their places as helpful and happy members of society. Even in those rare cases where the mother does actually devote her entire time to her children, it would still be better for them to pass part of that time in an equally wise and more dispassionate atmosphere. Our babies and small children ought to have the society of the very best people instead of the society of such low-grade women as we can hire to be nurses in our homes. And, while they need pre-eminently the mother's tender love and watchful care, they also need the wider justice and larger experience of the genuine child-trainer. So long as we so underrate the importance of childhood,--and that in proportion to the youth of the child,--those persons who should benefit our babies by their presence will not do so. Very great and learned men are proud to teach youths of eighteen and twenty in colleges; but they would feel themselves painfully ill-placed if set to teach the same boys at ten, five, or two years old. Why? Why should we not be eager for an introduction to "Professor Coltonstall! He's the first man in America in infant ethics! Marvellous success! You can always tell the children who have been under him!" You cannot have this professor in your nursery. But your children and those of fifty other eager parents could be benefited by his wisdom, experience, and exquisitely developed skill in a place in common. The argument does not appeal to us. We see no need for "wisdom," "experience," "trained skill" with a baby. We have not realised that we despised our babies; but we do. Any one is good enough to take care of them. We even confide them to the care of distinctly lower races, as in the South with its negro nurses. "Social equality" with the negro is beyond imagination to the Southerner. That gross inferior race can never be admitted to their companionship, but to the companionship of the baby--certainly. Could anything prove more clearly our lack of just appreciation of the importance of childhood? The colored nurse is, of course, thought of merely as the servant of the child; and we do not yet consider whether it is good for a child to have a servant or whether a servant is a good educator. The truth is we never think of education in connection with babyhood, the term being in our minds inextricably confused with school-houses and books. When we do honestly admit the plain fact that a child is being educated in every waking hour by the conditions in which he is placed and the persons who are with him, we shall be readier to see the need of a higher class of educators than servant-girls, and a more carefully planned environment than the accommodations of the average home. The home is not materially built for the convenience of a child, nor are its necessary workings planned that way; and, what is more directly evil, the mother is not trained for the position of educator. We persist in confounding mother and teacher. The mother's place is her own, and always will be. Nothing can take it from her. She loves the child the best; and, if not too seriously alienated, the child will love her the best. The terror of the mother lest her child should love some other person better than herself shows that she is afraid of comparison,--that she visibly fears the greater gentleness and wisdom of some teacher will appeal to the young heart more than her arbitrary methods. If the mother expected to meet daily comparison with a born lover of children, trained in the wisest methods of child-culture, it would have an improving influence on the home methods. One of the great advantages of this arrangement will be in its reactive effect on the mother. In her free access to the home of the children, she will see practically illustrated the better methods of treating them, and be in frequent communication with their educators. The mother's knowledge of and previous association with the child will make her a necessary coadjutor with the teacher, and by intercourse with the larger knowledge and wider experience of the teacher the mother will acquire new points of view and wiser habits. As the school and kindergarten react beneficially upon the home, so this baby-school will react as beneficially, and perhaps more so, as touching the all-important first years. The isolated mother has no advantage of association or comparison, and falls into careless or evil ways with the child, which contact with more thoughtful outside influences would easily prevent. She could easily retain her pre-eminent place in the child's affections, while not grudging to the special teacher her helpful influence. Also, the child, with the free atmosphere of equality around him for part of each day, with association with his equals in their place, would return to his own place in the home with a special affection, and submit with good will to its necessary restrictions. In all but isolated farm life, or on the even more primitive cattle range, it would be possible to build a home for little children, and engage suitable persons to take charge of them daily. It would take no more time from the housework--if that is the mother's trade--to take the child to its day play-school than it takes to watch and tend it at home and to prevent or mend its "mischief." "Children are so mischievous," we complain, regarding their ingenious destruction of the domestic decorations. A calf in a flower-garden would do considerable mischief, or kittens in a dairy. Why seek to rear young creatures in a place where they must do mischief if they behave differently from grown people? Why not provide for them a place where their natural activities would not be injurious, but educational? In cities it is a still simpler question. Every block could have its one or more child homes, according to their number of children thereabouts. The children of the rich would be saved from the evil effects of too much care and servants' society, and the children of the poor from the neglect and low associations of their street-bred lives. The "practical" question will now arise, "Who is to pay for all this?" There are two answers. One is, The same people who pay for the education of our older children. The baby has as good a right to his share of our educational funds, private and public, as the older child; and his education is more important. The other answer is that an able-bodied mother, relieved of her position as nursery governess, would be able to contribute something toward better provision for her children. VII. UNCONSCIOUS SCHOOLING. A small boy came from an old-fashioned city,--a city where he went to school from day to day, and sat with his fellows in rigid rectangular rows, gazing on bare whitewashed walls adorned with a broad stripe of blackboard; where he did interminable "sums" on a smeary little slate, and spelled in sing-song chorus "Baker! Baker! b, a, bay; k, e, r, ker,--Baker!" He came to a new-fashioned city, where the most important business on earth--the training of children--was appreciated. The small boy did not know this. He saw that the city was clean and bright and full of wide spaces of grass and trees; and he liked it. It pleased him, as a child: it was the kind of place that looked as if it had been planned with some thought of pleasing children. Soon he came to a great open gate, with shady walks and sunny lawns inside, buildings here and there in the distance, and, just at hand, some strange figures among the bushes. A pleasant-looking lady sat reading in the shade, with a few children lying in the grass near by, reading, too. Our small boy stood irresolute; but the lady looked up, and said: "Come in, if you like. Look around all you want to." Still he felt shy; but one of the reading little boys rose up, and went to him. "Come on," he said cheerfully. "I'll show you. There's lots o' things you'll like. Oh, come on!" So he entered with uncertain steps, and made for one of the queer figures he had seen in the shrubbery. "It's an Indian!" he said. "Like a cigar store!" But the resident little boy resented his comparison. "'Tisn't, either!" cried he. "It's ever so much nicer! Look at his moccasins and his arrows, and see the scalps in his belt! See the way he's painted? That shows he's a Sioux. They are great. One of the best kinds. They live up in the North-west,--Minnesota and round there; and they fight splendid! That one over there is a Yuma Indian. Look at the difference!" And he took the visitor about, and showed him an interesting collection of samples of American tribes, giving off rivers of information with evident delight. From Indians their attention was taken by a peculiarly handsome butterfly that fluttered near them, pursued hotly by an eager little girl with a net. "That must be a--well, I forget the name," said the resident little boy. "Do you like bugs?" "What kind o' bugs?" inquired the visitor, rather suspiciously. "Oh, tumble bugs and burying beetles and walking-sticks, and all kinds." "Walking-sticks! What's that got to do with bugs?" "Didn't you ever see the walking-stick one? Oh, come on in! I'll show you! It's this way." And off they run to a big rambling building among the shady elms. The visitor hangs back, somewhat awed by the size and splendour of the place, and seeing grown people about; but his young guide goes in unchecked, merely whispering, "Got to keep still in here," and leads him down several passages into a large, quiet hall, lined with glass cases. Such a wealth of "bugs" as were here exhibited had never before been seen by the astonished visitor; but, when the walking-stick insect was pointed out to him, he stoutly denied that it was a "bug" at all. A whispered altercation resulted in appeal to the curator, a studious youth, who was taking notes at a large table bestrewn with specimens. Instantly dropping his work, he took the object under discussion from its case, focussed a magnifying glass upon it, and proceeded to exhibit various features of insect anatomy, and talk about them most interestingly. But, as soon as he detected the first signs of inattention and weariness, he changed the subject,--suggested that there was some good target practice going on in the West Field; and the two boys, after a pleasant walk, joined a number of others who were shooting with bows and arrows, under careful coaching and management. "I can't shoot except Saturdays," said the guide, "because I haven't joined a team and practised. But, if you want to, you just put your name down; and by and by you can hit anything. There's all kinds of old-fashioned weapons--and the new ones, too." "What do you call this, anyhow?" demands the visitor. "Call what? This is the West Field: they do all kinds of shooting here. You see that long bank and wall stops everything." "Yes,--but the whole place,--is it a park?" "Oh, yes, kind of. It's Weybourne Garden. And that was the museum we went to,--one of 'em." "Is it open always?" "Yes." "And you don't have to pay for anything?" "No. This part is for children. We learn how to do all sorts of things. Do you know how to build with bricks? I learned that last. I built a piece of a real wall. It's not here. It was one that was broken on the other side, and I built a good piece in!" A big clock struck somewhere. "Now I must go to dinner with mother," said the guide. "The gate you came in at is on my way. Come on!" And he showed the wondering visitor out, and left him at his own door. The young stranger did not know where he had been. He did not faintly imagine it. Neither, for that matter, did the other children, who went there every day, and with whom he presently found himself enrolled. They went to certain places at certain hours, because they were only "open" then with the persons present who showed them how to do desirable things. There were many parks in the city, with different buildings and departments; and in them, day by day, without ever knowing it, the children of that city "went to school." The progressive education of a child should be, as far as possible, unconscious. From his first eager interest in almost everything, up along the gradually narrowing lines of personal specialisation, each child should be led with the least possible waste of time and nervous energy. There would be difficulties enough, as there are difficulties in learning even desirable games; but the child would meet the difficulties because he wanted to know the thing, and gain strength without losing interest. So soon as a child-house is built and education seen to begin in earliest babyhood, so soon as we begin to plan a beautiful and delicately adjusted environment for our children, in which line and colour and sound and touch are all made avenues of easy unconscious learning, we shall find that there is no sharp break between "home" and "school." In the baby-garden the baby will learn many things, and never know it. In the kindergarten the little child will learn many things, and never know it. He will be glad and proud of his new powers, coming back to share the astonishing new information or exhibit the new skill to papa and mamma; but he will not be conscious of any task in all the time, or of special credit for his performance. Then, as he grows, the garden grows, too; and he finds himself a little wiser, a little stronger, a little more skilful every day--or would if he stopped to measure. But he does not measure. His private home is happy and easy, with a father and mother interested in all his progress; and his larger home--the child-world he grows up in--is so dominated by wise, subtle educational influences that he goes on learning always, studying a good deal, yet never "going to school." In the wise treatment of his babyhood, all his natural faculties are allowed to develope in order and to their full extent, so that he comes to a larger range of experiment and more difficult examples with a smooth-working, well-developed young mind, unwearied and unafraid. The legitimate theories of the kindergarten carefully worked out helped him on through the next years in the same orderly progression; and, as a child of five or six, he was able to walk, open-eyed and observant, into wider fields of knowledge. Always courteous and intelligent specialists around him, his mental processes watched and trained as wisely as his sturdy little body, and a careful record kept, by these experienced observers, of his relative capacity and rate of development. So he gradually learns that common stock of human knowledge which it is well for us all to share,--the story of the building of the earth, the budding of the plant, the birth of the animal, the beautiful unfolding of the human race, from savagery toward civilisation. He learns the rudiments of the five great handicrafts, and can work a little in wood, in metal, in clay, in cloth, and in stone. He learns the beginnings of the sciences, with experiment and story, and finds new wonders to lead him on, no matter how far he goes,--an unending fascination. For his sciences he goes to the museum, the laboratory, and the field, groups of children having about the same degree of information falling together under the same teacher. For the necessary work with pen and pencil there are quiet rooms provided. He has looked forward to some of these from babyhood, seeing the older ones go there. Each child has been under careful observation and record from the very first. His special interests, his preferred methods, his powers and weaknesses, are watched and worked with carefully as he grows. If power of attention was weak at first, he is given special work to develope it. If observation was loose and inaccurate, that was laboured with. If the reasoning faculty worked with difficulty, it was exercised more carefully. He has been under such training from babyhood to twelve or fifteen years old as to give a full and co-ordinate development of his faculties,--all of them; and such a general grasp of the main lines of knowledge as to make possible clear choice of the lines of study for which he is best adapted. With such a childhood the youth will have much more power of learning, and a deep and growing interest--an unbroken interest--in his work. The natural desire of mankind to know, and also to teach, and the steadily enlarging field of knowledge open to us, should make education the most delightful of processes. With our present methods the place of teacher is usually sought merely for its meagre salary, by women who "have to work," instead of being eagerly aspired to as the noblest of professions, and only open to those best fitted. The children are so overtaxed and mishandled that only the best intellects come out with any further desire to learn anything. Humanity's progress is made through brain-improvement, by brain-power. We need such schooling as shall give us better brains and uninjured bodies. Fortunately for us, the value of education is widely felt to-day, and new and improved methods are rapidly coming in. Our school-houses are more beautiful, our teachers better trained and more ambitious, and the beneficent influences of the kindergarten and of the manual training system are felt everywhere. But, while much is being done, much more remains for us. With such honour and such pay as show our respect for the office of teacher, and such required training and natural capacity as shall allow of no incapables, we could surround our children from birth with the steady influence of the wisest and best people. More and more to-day is the school opening out. It connects with the public library, with art and industry, with the open fields; and this will go on till the time is reached when the child does not know that he is at school,--he is always there, and yet never knows it. Where residence was permanent, the teachers of different grades could constantly compare their growing records, and the child's unfolding be watched steadily, and noted with a view to still further improvement in method. Travelling parties of children are not unknown to us. These will become more common, until every child shall know his earth face to face,--mountain, river, lake, and sea,--and gain some idea of political division as well. Two main objections to all this will arise at once: one, that of expense; the other, that a child so trained would not have learned to "apply himself,"--to force himself to do what he did not like,--that it was all too easy. The ground of too much expense cannot be held. Nothing is too expensive that really improves education; for such improvement cuts off all the waste product of society,--the defective and degenerate, the cripple, thief, and fool, and saves millions upon millions now spent in maintaining or restraining these injurious classes. Not only that, but it as steadily developes the working value of humanity, turning out more and more vigorous and original thinkers and doers to multiply our wealth and pleasure. Grant the usefulness of improved methods in education, and they can never be expensive. Even to-day the school-children become far better class of citizens than the street Arabs who do not go to school; and such school advantages as we have lower our expense in handling crime and disease. When we provide for every child the very best education,--real education of body, brain, and soul,--with the trained hand and eye to do what the trained will and judgment command, it is difficult to see where the "criminal class" is to come from. As to its being too easy, and not developing sufficiently stern stuff in our youngsters, that has two answers. In the first place, this proposed line of advance is not without its difficulties. Whether a child is learning to sew or to shoot or to lay bricks, to solve examples in fractions or to play chess, there are always difficulties. To learn what you don't know is always a step up. But why need we add to this the difficulty of making the child dislike the work? "Because it is necessary in this world to do what you don't like!" is the triumphant rejoinder. This is an enormous mistake. It is necessary in this world to like what you do, if you are to do anything worth while. One of the biggest of all our troubles is that so many of us are patiently and wearily doing what we do not like. It is a constant injury to the individual, draining his nervous strength and leaving him more easily affected by disease or temptation; and it is a constant injury to society, because the work we do not like to do is not as good as it would be if we liked it. The kind of forcing we use in our educational processes, the "attention" paid to what does not interest, the following of required lines of study irrespective of inclination,--these act to blunt and lower our natural inclinations, and leave us with this mischievous capacity for doing what we do not like. A healthy child, rightly surrounded with attractive opportunities, the stimulus of association, and natural (not forced) competition, will want to learn the things most generally necessary, just as he wants to learn the principal games his comrades play. He has his favourite games, and does best in them, and will have his favourite studies and do best in them, which is no injury to any one. In this unconscious method the child learns with personal interest and pleasure, and not under pressure of class competition, reward, or punishment. He knows, of course, that he is learning, as he knows when he has learned to swim or to play golf; but he is not laboriously "going to school" and "studying" against his will. The benefit of such a process is that it will supply the world with young citizens of unimpaired mental vigour, original powers and tastes, and strong special interests, thus multiplying the value and distinction of our products, and maintaining the health and happiness of the producer. As a matter of practical introduction, we are already moving in this direction, with the "laboratory method," the natural sciences now taught so widely, and all the new impetus through the study of pedagogy. But those most capable and most interested, those who see the value of this trend and are doing all they can to promote it, are most keenly conscious of the difficulties which still confront them. These difficulties are not far to seek. They lie in the indifference, the criminal indifference, of our citizens, notably the women. Sunk in the constant contemplation of their own families, our female citizens let the days and years pass by, utterly ignoring their civic duties. While women are supported by men, they have more time to spare for such broad interests than men have; and one would naturally think that even the lowest sense of honour would lead them to some form of public usefulness in return for this immunity. As the English nobleman--the conscientious one--sees in his wealth and leisure, his opportunities for study and cultivation, only a heavy obligation to serve the State which so well serves him, so should our women of leisure--the thousands of them--feel in their free and sheltered lives a glorious compulsion to serve the best interests of that society which maintains them. The care of children is certainly the duty of women. The best care of children means the best education. The woman who has not done her best to improve the educational advantages of her city, State and country,--of the world,--has not done her duty as a citizen or as a woman. And, as education comes through every impression received by the child, we must improve home and street and city and all the people, to make a clean, safe, beautiful world, in which our children may receive the unconscious schooling to which they have a right. VIII. PRESUMPTUOUS AGE. The ineffable presumption of aged persons is an affliction too long endured. Much is told us of the becoming modesty of youth. Is no modesty becoming a period of life when experience has given some measure to merit? Why should youth be modest? Youth believes it can do all things, and has had no proof to the contrary. But age,--age which has tried many times and been met by failure; age, which has learned its limitation by repeated blows, and become content with hard-worn compromise,--why should age be so proud? In itself it is no distinction, being but the common lot of man. Those who do not attain to it are by general consent of superior merit. "Whom the gods love die young." Age is not desired and striven for,--not won by honourable effort. It comes gradually upon us all, falling like rain upon the just and the unjust. Taken simply in itself, it proves no more than that the aged individual, if a man, has had sufficient strength and ingenuity to keep himself alive; and, if a woman, that she has been sufficiently pleasing and well-behaved to be kept alive by others. In very early times, when the world was young and life more exciting and precarious than now, perhaps the above qualities were a sufficient distinction. The constitution which survived the rigours of a crude and uncertain diet and of an undiluted climate was a thing to be proud of; and the visible proof that one had survived one's enemies did indicate some superiority. But in a civilisation which takes special care of the infirm,--where green young cripples grow to a ripe old age, and a bed-ridden pauper may outlive many muscular labourers,--mere prolongation of existence is no self-evident proof of either power or wisdom. Of two men born in the same year, the more valuable man, doing more valuable work, is quite as likely to die as an innocuous, futile, low-grade person, paddling feebly with the tide. Of two women, one may smilingly repeat herself by the dozen, and drift sweetly on from amiable juvenility to as amiable senility; while another, working strenuously and effectively, dies in her earnest youth or middle age. Survival is no longer a fair test of value. The wisdom of the ancients is not the standard of our time. We do not think that a previous century knows more than ours, but rather less; and, if Methuselah were with us yet,--and retained his faculties,--he would be too much confused between the things he used to believe and what he was learning now to be a valuable authority. When learning was but accumulated tradition, the old had an advantage over the young, and improved it. Now that learning is discovery, the young have an advantage over the old. If wisdom consisted merely in the accumulation of facts, the long-time observer would assuredly have more of them than the new-comer. But the wisdom that consists in a free and unbiassed judgment--a new perception of the relation of things--comes better from a fresher brain. This is not to say that age may not coexist with superiority, but that age, _per se_, is not superiority. There are many aged persons in the work-house who are quite visibly inferior to many young persons in the House of Commons. This suggests a painful antithesis which is better omitted. Granting the origin of this arrogance of the aged to have had some basis in primitive time, it is easy to see how it has descended to us by the same principle that maintains the fag system. Humanity has always its overlapping generations; and the child who is crushed by the incontrovertible statement, "I am older than you are!" waits to recoup himself on children yet to be. In his subordinate position in youth he has no chance to escape from this injustice or to retaliate; and he strikes a balance with fate by assuming the same superiority over the new-comer. It is probable that we should never outgrow the assumption until we have a generation of children taught to respect conduct for its merits, not for simple duration, holding a wise, strong, good person, however young, to be superior to an ignorant or vicious one, however old. When the sense of justice and the sense of logic of the child are not outraged in youth, we shall find more modesty as well as more wisdom in old age. It is always interesting to see our psychic development following the laws of nature, like any other growth. Under the law of inertia the human mind, starting under a given concept, continues to enlarge in that direction, unless arrested or diverted in some other force. So this conception of age as essential superiority, naturally enough begun, has been followed to strange and injurious extremes. And under the law of conservation of energy--following the line of least resistance--the aged naturally encroached upon the young, who were able to make no resistance whatever. The respect and care for aged persons, which is so distinguishing a mark of advanced civilisation, is due to two things: first, the prolonged serviceability of parents; and, second, the social relation which allows of usefulness to even the very old. In an early savage tribe the elderly parent is of no special value to the newly matured young, and the tribal service has more use for juvenile warriors than for the ancient ones: wherefore the old folk are of small account, and do not meet much encouragement to prolonged living. But with us, though the child is grown quite sufficiently to hunt and fight and reproduce his kind, he is not yet properly equipped for the social service. He needs more years yet of parental assistance while he accumulates knowledge in his profession or skill in his trade. Therefore, parentage is a longer and more elaborate operation with us than with lower races, animal or human, and the parent consequently more appreciated. This position is fondly taken advantage of by the designing aged, oft-times with a pious belief in their righteous ground which is most convincing. Because the human parent is of far more service to the young than earlier parents, therefore our elders calmly assume that it is the duty of the young to provide for and serve them,--not only to render them natural assistance when real incapacity comes, but to alter the course of their young and useful lives to suit the wishes of the old. Among poor and degraded classes we see children early set to work for the parents instead of parents working for the children,--a position as unnatural as for a hen to eat eggs. Life is not a short circle, a patent self-feeder. The business of the hen is to hatch the egg, and of the egg to grow to another and different hen,--not to turn round and sacrificially nourish the previous fowl. The duty of the parent is a deep-seated, natural law. Without the parent's care of the child, no race, no life. The duty of the child to the parent was largely invented by parents, from motives of natural self-interest, and has been so long sanctioned and practised that we look on without a shudder and see a healthy middle-aged mother calmly swallowing the life of her growing daughter. A girl is twenty-one. She has been properly reared by her mother, whom we will suppose to be a widow. Being twenty-one, the girl is old enough to begin to live her own life, and naturally wishes to. I do not speak of marrying,--that is generally allowed,--but of so studying and working as to develope a wide, useful life of her own in case she does not marry. "Not so," says her mother. "Your duty is to stay with me. I need you." Now the mother is not bed-ridden. She is, we will say, an able-bodied woman of forty-five or fifty. She could easily occupy herself in one of several trades; but, being in possession of a house and a tiny income, she "does not have to work." She prefers to live in that house, on that income, and have her daughter live with her. The daughter prefers to go to New York, and study music or art or dressmaking, whatever she is fit for. But here is her dear mother claiming her presence at home as a duty; and she gives it. She does her duty, living there with her mother in the capacity of--of what? In no capacity at all. Fancy a young man living at home in the capacity of a "son," with no better occupation than dusting the parlour and arranging flowers! In course of time the mother dies. The daughter has lost her position as "a daughter," and has no other place in life. She has never been allowed to form part of the living organism of society, and remains a withered offshoot, weak and fruitless. These cases are common enough. But consider from another point of view the serene presumption of the elder woman. Because she had done--so far--her duty by the child that was, she now claims a continuous hold on the grown woman and a return for her services. In still earlier days this claim was made even more strenuously. The child awe-fully addressed the father as "author of my being," and was supposed to "owe" him everything. The child does not owe the parent. Parental duty is not a loan. It is the never-ending gift of nature,--an unbroken, outpouring river of love and labour from the earliest beginnings of life. The child, while a child, has also some duty to the parent; but even there it is reflex, and based in last analysis on the child's advantage. Meanwhile it is a poor parent who cannot win the affection and command the respect of the young creature growing up so near, so that a beautiful relation shall be established between them for the rest of life. This love and honest admiration, this affectionate friendliness, and all the ties of long association would naturally prompt the child to desire the society of the parent, and, of course, to provide for illness and old age; but that is a very different position from the one taken by an able-bodied, middle-aged parent demanding the surrender of a young life. Parentage is not a profession with a sort of mutual insurance return to it. The claim that humanity is born saddled with this retroactive obligation requires more convincing proof than has yet been offered. An obligation we all have, young and old,--and to this the child should be trained,--the vast and endless service of humanity, to which our lives are pledged without exception. Seeing the parent devout in this honourable discharge of duty,--realising that his own training is with a view to that greater service when he is grown,--the child would go onward in life with the parent, not backward to him. But we have not yet forgotten the habits and traditions of the patriarchate. We demand from the young respect because we are older, not because we deserve it. Respect is a thing which is extorted willy-nilly by those who deserve it, and which cannot be given at will. If a parent loses his temper and talks foolishly, how can a child respect this weakness? To demand respectful treatment shows one cannot command it; and, if it is not commanded, it cannot be had. Any false assumption is a block to progress. So long as the aged expect to be looked up to on account of the length of time in which they have not died, so long will they ignore those habits of life which should insure reverence and love at any age. People ought to be living with wise forethought and circumspection, in order that they may be respected when old,--not carelessly lulled with the comforting belief that, no matter how foolish they are, age will bring dignity. So, too, if parents did not so fatuously demand respect merely because they are parents, but would see to it that they deserve and win respect by such visible power and wisdom as the child must bow to, we might look for a much quicker advance in these desirable qualities. The power of learning things does not cease at maturity. Many a great mind has gone on to extreme old age, open, eager, steadily adding to its store of light and power. Such keep the freshness and the modesty of youth. Far more numerous are the little minds which imagine that years are equivalent to wisdom, and, because they are grown up, decline to learn further. Yet these, far more than the wise men, sit back complacent on their age, and talk with finality of "my experience"! Experience is not merely keeping alive. Experience involves things happening and things done. Many a young man of to-day has done more and felt more than a peaceful, stationary nonagenarian of yesterday's rural life. That very brashness and self-assumption of hot youth, which brings so complacent and superior a smile to the cheek of age, would not be so prominent but for previous suppression and contemptuous treatment. A lofty and supercilious age makes a rash and incautious youth; but youth, trained to early freedom and its rich and instructive punishments, would grow to an agreeable age, modest with much wisdom, tender and considerate with long power. IX. THE RESPECT DUE TO YOUTH. Since we have so carefully and thoroughly beaten back the new brain-growth which should distinguish each successive generation, and fostered in every way the primitive mental habits of our forefathers, the natural consequence is a prolonged survival of very early tendencies. Outside, in the necessary contact and freedom of the world's life, crude ideas must change, and either become suited to the times or lost entirely. But in the privacy of the home, under the conditions of family life and the dominant influence of feminine conservatism, we find a group of carefully cherished rudiments which never could have survived without such isolation. Among primitive races the stranger is an object of legitimate derision. The differences in his speech and manner are held as visible inferiorities, and his attempts to assimilate are greeted with unchecked merriment. This attitude of mind is still common in children, who are passing through the same stage of culture individually. Among intelligent and well-bred grown people such an attitude of mind is rightly despised. To them the stranger is entitled to respectful consideration because he is a stranger; and nothing could be ruder, in the estimation of such persons, than to laugh at the stranger's efforts to learn our language and manners. How great is the difference between this common good breeding in the world at large and the barbaric crudity of our behaviour at home to that most sacred stranger, the child! He comes to us absolutely ignorant of our methods of living, be they wise or unwise; and he must needs learn every step of his way in the paths we have prepared for him. Unfortunately, we have prepared very little. A few physical conveniences, perhaps, in the way of high chairs and cradles, or nursing-bottles to supplement maternal deficiency; but in psychic conveniences--in any better recognition of the childish attitude of mind and its natural difficulties--we make small progress. Calm, wondering, unafraid, the stranger enters the family circle. He has no perspective, no gradations of feeling in regard to the performances he finds going on about him. He has neither shame for the truths of real life nor respect for the falsehoods of artificial life. In soberness and eager interest he begins the mysterious game of living. Now what is the attitude of the family toward this new-comer? How does the intelligent adult treat the stranger within his gates? He treats him with frequent ridicule and general gross disrespect. Not "unkindly," perhaps,--that is, not with anger and blows or undue deprivations,--but as if being a child was a sort of joke. A healthy child is merry with the free good spirits of a spring-tide lamb; but that pure mirth has nothing in common with ridicule. Who of us has not seen a clear-eyed child struck dumb and crimson by the rude laughter of his elders over some act which had no element of humour except that it was new to him? We put grandpa's hat on the downy head of the baby, and roar with laughter at his appearance. Do we put baby's cap on grandma, and then make fun of the old lady's looks? Why should we jeer at a baby more than at an old person? Why are we so lacking in the respect due to youth? Every child has to learn the language he is born to. It is certain that he will make mistakes in the process, especially as he is not taught it by any wise system, but blunders into what usage he can grasp from day to day. Now, if an adult foreigner were learning our language, and we greeted his efforts with yells of laughter, we should think ourselves grossly rude. And what should we think of ourselves if we further misled him by setting absurd words and phrases before him, encouraging him to further blunders, that we might laugh the more; and then, if we had visitors, inciting him to make these blunders over again to entertain the company? Yet this is common household sport, so long as there is a little child to act as zany for the amusement of his elders. The errors of a child are not legitimate grounds of humour, even to those coarse enough to laugh at them, any more than a toddling baby's falls have the same elements of the incongruous as the overthrow of a stout old gentleman who sits down astonished in the snow. A baby has to fall. It is natural, and not funny. So does the young child have to make mistakes as he learns any or all of the crowding tasks before him; but these are not fair grounds for ridicule. I was walking in a friend's garden, and met for the first time the daughter of the house, a tall, beautiful girl of nineteen or twenty. Her aunt, who was with me, cried out to her in an affected tone, "Come and meet the lady, Janey!" The young girl, who was evidently unpleasantly impressed, looked annoyed, and turned aside in some confusion, speaking softly to her teacher who was with her. Then the aunt, who was a very muscular woman, seized the young lady by her shoulders, lifted her off the ground, and thrust her blushing, struggling, and protesting into my arms--by way of introduction! Naturally enough, the girl was overcome with mortification, and conceived a violent dislike for me. (This story is exactly true, except that the daughter of the house was aged two and a half.) Now why,--in the name of reason, courtesy, education, justice, any lofty and noble consideration,--why should Two-and-a-half be thus insulted? What is the point of view of the insulter? How does she justify her brutal behaviour? Is it on the obvious ground of physical superiority in age and strength? It cannot be that, for we do not gratuitously outrage the feelings of all persons younger and smaller than ourselves. A stalwart six-foot septuagenarian does not thus comport himself toward a small gentleman of thirty or forty. It cannot be relationship; for such conduct does not obtain among adults, be they never so closely allied. It has no basis except that the victim is a child, and the child has no personal rights which we feel bound to respect. A baby, when "good," is considered as a first-rate plaything,--a toy to play with or to play on or to set going like a machine-top, that we may laugh at it. There is a legitimate frolicking with small children, as the cat plays with her kittens; but that is not in the least inconsistent with respect. Grown people can play together and laugh together without jeering at each other. So we might laugh with our children, even more than we do, and yet never laugh at them. The pathetic side of it is that children are even more sensitive to ridicule than grown people. They have no philosophy to fall back upon; and,--here is the hideously unjust side,--if they lose their tempers, being yet unlearned in self-restraint,--if they try to turn the tables on their tormentors, then the wise "grown-up" promptly punishes them for "disrespect." They must respect their elders even in this pitiful attitude; but who is to demand the respect due to youth? There is a deal of complaint among parents over the "impertinence" of children. "How dare you speak to me like that!" cries outraged authority. Yet "that" was only the expression used just before by the parent to the child. "Hold your tongue!" says the mother. "Hold yours!" answers the child, and is promptly whipped for impertinence. "I'll teach you to answer me like that!" says angry mamma. And she does. In the baby's first attempt to speak we amused ourselves mightily over his innocent handling of rude phrases,--overheard by chance or even taught him, that we might make merry over the guileless little mouth, uttering at our behest the words it did not understand. Then, a year or so older, when he says the same things, he is laboriously and painfully taught that what is proper for a parent to say to a child is not proper for a child to say to a parent. "Why?" puzzles the child. We can give no answer, except our large assumption that there is no respect due to youth. Ask any conscientious mother or father why the new human being, fresh from God as they profess to believe, not yet tainted by sin or weakened by folly and mistake, serene in its mighty innocence and serious beyond measure, as its deep eyes look solemnly into life,--why this wonderful kind of humanity is to be treated like a court fool. What can the parent say? From the deeper biological standpoint, seeing the foremost wave of advancing humanity in each new generation, there is still less excuse for such contemptuous treatment. In the child is lodged the piled up progress of the centuries, and, as he shall live, is that progress hastened or retarded. Quite outside of the natural affection of the parent for the offspring stands this deep, human reverence for the latest and best specimen of its kind. Every child should represent a higher step in racial growth than its parents, and every parent should reverently recognise this. For a time the parent has the advantage. He has knowledge, skill, and power; and we feel that in the order of nature he is set to minister to the younger generation till it shall supplant him. To develope such a noble feeling has taken a long time, and many steps upward through those cruder sentiments which led toward it. Yet it is the rational, conscious feeling into which the human being translates the whole marvellous law of parental love. To the animal this great force expresses itself merely in instinct; but, as such, it is accepted and fulfilled, and the good of the young subserved unquestioningly. In low grades of human life we have still this animal parental instinct largely predominating, coloured more or less with some prevision of the real glory of the work in hand. Yet so selfish is human parentage that in earlier times children have been sold as slaves in the interests of parents, have been and still are set to work prematurely; and in certain races the father looks forward to having a son for various religious benefits accruing to him, the father. Sentiments like these are not conducive to respect for youth. The mother is not generally selfish, in this sense. Her error is in viewing the child too personally, depending too much on "instinct," and giving very little thought to the matter. She loves much and serves endlessly, but reasons little. The child is pre-eminently "her" child, and is treated as such. Intense affection she gives, and such forms of discipline and cultivation as are within her range, unflagging care and labour also; but "respect" for the bewitching bundle of cambric she has so elaborately decorated does not occur to her. Note the behaviour of a group of admiring women around a baby on exhibition. Its clothes are prominent, of course, in their admiration; and its toes, fingers, and dimples generally. They kiss it and cuddle it and play with it, and the proud mamma is pleased. When the exhibitee is older and more conscious, it dislikes these scenes intensely. Being "dressed up" and passed around for the observation and remark of the grown-up visitors is an ordeal we can all remember. Why cannot a grown person advance to make the acquaintance of a child with the same good manners used in meeting an adult? Frankness, naturalness, and respect, these are all the child wants. And precisely these he is denied. We put on an assumed interest--a sort of stage manner--in accosting the young, and for all our pretence pay no regard to their opinions or confidence, when given. Really well-intentioned persons, parents or otherwise, will repeat before strangers some personal opinion, just softly whispered in their ears, with a pair of little arms holding fast to keep the secret close; dragging it out remorselessly before the persons implicated, while the betrayed child squirms in wretchedness and anger. To do this to a grown-up friend would warrant an angry dropping of acquaintance. Such traitorous rudeness would not be tolerated by man or woman. But the child,--the child must pocket every insult, as belonging to a class beneath respect. Is it not time that we summoned our wits from their wool-gathering,--however financially profitable the wool may be,--and gave a little honest thought to the status of childhood? Childhood is not a pathological condition, nor a term of penal servitude, nor a practical joke. A child is a human creature, and entitled to be treated as such. A human body three feet long is deserving of as much respect as a human body six feet long. Yet the bodies of children are handled with the grossest familiarity. We pluck and pull and push them, tweak their hair and ears, pat them on the head, chuck them under the chin, kiss them, and hold them on our laps, entirely regardless of their personal preferences. Why should we take liberties with the person of a child other than those suitable to an intimate friendship at any age? "Because children don't care," some one will answer. But children do care. They care enormously. They dislike certain persons always because of disagreeable physical contact in childhood. They wriggle down clumsily, all their clothes rubbed the wrong way, with tumbled hair and flushed, sulky faces from the warm "lap" of some large woman or bony, woolly-clothed man, who was holding them with one hand and variously assaulting them with the other, and rush off in helpless rage. No doubt they "get used to it," as do eels to skinning; but in this process of accustoming childhood to brutal discourtesy we lose much of the finest, most delicate development of human nature. There is no charge of cruelty, unkindness, or neglect involved in this. Discourtesy to children is practised by the most loving and devoted parents, the most amiable of relatives and visitors. Neither is it a question of knowledge on the part of the elder. These rudenesses are practised by persons of exquisite manners, among their equals. It is simply a case of survival of an undeveloped field of human nature,--a dark, uncultivated, neglected spot where we have failed to grow. The same forces which have so far civilised us will work farther when we give them room. We have but to open our minds and widen our sphere of action to become civilised in these domestic relations. It is the citizenship--the humanness--of the child we need to recognise, not merely its relative accomplishments compared to ourselves. Also the tendencies and restraint born of power and freedom should teach us to respect the child precisely because of its helplessness. The principle that urges even the bullying school-boy to "take a fellow of his own size," and which forbids torturing a captive, killing an unarmed man, or insulting an inferior, ought to put more nobility into our conduct in relation to the child. As so much weaker, strength should respect him; and, as one bound to supersede us, wisdom should recognise his power. X. TOO MUCH CONSIDERATION. The child comes to the table. He looks a little weary, knowing the task before him. "Now what will you have?" asks his fond mamma. "What would you like, dear?" The child gazes at the dishes there present, and is somewhat attracted toward one or more of them; but his brain thrusts upon him images of other viands, and memories of triumph in securing some vaguely remembered delicacy. He wavers in his mind, and wiggles his knife uncertainly. "I guess--I'll have"--Mamma is all attention. "Have some of this nice potato!" she urges. He had inclined toward the potato previously, but rebels at its being urged upon him. Also the cooing adjective affronts him. He has heard things called nice before, usually when he did not want them. "No, I don't want any potato," he says. "I want--I'll have some sweet potato!" Unhappily there is no sweet potato, and the good mamma smilingly excuses the lack. "We will have some to-morrow," she promises; and, to distract him from thought of the impossible, "Won't you have a chop?" "No--yes--I'll have one chop. On this plate, not on that plate. I won't have it on that plate!" "But this plate is warm, dear." "I want it on my own plate!" "Very well. Will you have some gravy?" "Yes, I guess so. Not on the potato! Don't put it on the potato! I won't eat it if you put it on the potato!" In time he eats, though not with eagerness. In his young mind is a vague sense of annoyance and discomfort, as if he were in some way defrauded of his dinner. The present dinner, rather gloomily going down, is contrasted with other possible dinners, not now to be attained. What he has suffers by comparison with all the things he has not, and a dim memory of previous disappointments oppresses him. "He never did eat well," says his mother. "We have hard work to find what he will eat." There may be some digestive disturbance, but there is a quite needless psychological disturbance added. Choice is a wearing thing, even to the trained scanner of _menus_. To select a meal exactly to one's taste, and not be haunted by the unchosen dishes, means the prompt and skilful exercise of a widely cultivated taste. Most of us gladly prefer to have some experienced cook and caterer set a good meal before us. A pleased anticipation at a well-known dinner table is a more agreeable frame of mind than that of one who must needs select, spurred by a tall darkey with a pencil. A child has not a cultivated taste nor the calmness of experience. A choice, even from objects before him, is uncertain enough. He is apt to speedily regret and wish to change. To be called upon to order a meal is a real tax upon him. While he exerts himself in this direction, any proposition is likely to be resented; and, to one who is on tiptoe in effort to decide, an insinuating suggestion from without is extremely irritating. This method of consulting a child's preferences before he has them, introducing alternatives not present and then harassing the wavering young mind with persuasive propositions, rapidly developes a halting, fretful, back-stitch sort of temper, always wishing it had done the other thing. The old-fashioned method was to compel a child to eat "what was set before him," all of it, quite regardless of his personal taste or constitutional limitations. Nothing but palpable nausea convinced these obdurate parents of earlier generations that there were some things the little victim could not eat. This was a foolish and cruel method. Children differ widely in digestive power and preference, and their tastes are marked and sensitive. Eating what he does not like is far more painful to a child than to an adult. But his tastes and limitations can be discovered without concentrating his own attention on them. It is bad to treat a child's tastes with less consideration than those of older human beings; but there is no reason why they should be treated with more. The simple lesson can be taught of eating what he likes and leaving what he dislikes without vociferous proclamation of these preferences; and, if he really thinks of something else he would like to have for dinner, teach him to ask for it for another time. He can readily understand that cooking takes time, and extra dishes cannot be served at a moment's notice. A family is usually composed of several persons, all of whom should be treated with justice. If it is reduced to two only,--if there is only mother and child to decide between,--the decision should be fairly balanced. The practical issues of daily life are almost always open to a child's understanding. Mamma, we will say, is reading. Mabel is busy with doll's dressmaking. "O mamma! will you please get me the scissors?" "Can you not get them as easily, dear?" "I don't know just where they are, and I've been fussing ever so long with this yoke; and now I've got it just right, and I'm afraid, if I put it down, I'll forget again!" Mamma looks at the flushed, earnest little face, lays her book down, and gets the scissors. Again. Mamma is stuffing the turkey. "Mabel, will you please bring me down the largest needle on my cushion?" "Oh, but, mamma, I'm so busy with my paints!" "Yes; but you are upstairs already, and my hands are in the stuffing. Please hurry, dear." Mabel brings the needle promptly. She knows that mamma is considerate of her, and she is considerate of mamma. It is by no means necessary to argue over every little service, but a few test cases keep in mind the idea of justice. If what a child wants will give more pleasure to the child than trouble to the adult, do it. If it is more trouble to the adult than pleasure to the child, do not do it; and let the child understand, first, last, and always, the balance of human rights. I knew a girl of thirteen who had not yet learned to keep herself covered at night. She slept with her mother; and, if she wakened chilly, she would murmur, without opening her eyes, "Mother, cover me up!" And her mother would do it. This was unfair to the child. It allowed her to commit a gross injustice; and her mother was "compounding a felony," as it were, in indulging her. The child was already awake, and quite capable of pulling up the blankets. There was no reason why her tired mother should lose sleep for the purpose. The practical way to exhibit this would be for the mother to waken the child with the same demand. A few applications would be sufficient. If verbal remonstrance was preferred (usually an inferior method), the mother might quietly reply: "By no means. You are perfectly able to do it. It is not fair to waken me for that. I do not get to sleep again as quickly as you do, and am tired next day." A child already reasonably trained would easily see the force of that argument. A big boy is persistently late to breakfast. This annoys his mother at the time, and delays her work afterward. She saves and keeps hot various viands for him, taking many extra steps; and her day's work is rendered a little more difficult. If the breakfast hour is that most convenient to the family needs, simply explain to the boy that breakfast is at such a time only; that he will be called in due season; and that, if he is not down within the given time, he will find no breakfast whatsoever. This course, firmly followed, works like a charm. Most people dislike going without breakfast. A child should have sufficient sleep, of course; but, if his hours are reasonable, there is no justice in incommoding the working mother for the sake of a little natural laziness. With very little children we ingeniously manage to ignore some of their really important questions and actions, and at the same time to let them trample on our ears and brains with senseless iteration of unnecessary words. A small boy is eating his supper, while his mother puts little sister to bed. "Mother!" he bawls. "Mother! Mo-o-ther!" At last she leaves her task to come to him, he still shouting; and this is his communication: "Mother! This is baker's bread!" "Yes, dear," says the too tender mamma, and goes back again. That child should have been met, not with anger or punishment, but with very simple sarcasm and protest. "Yes, that is baker's bread,--and that is a plate,--and that is a spoon. I knew all these things when I arranged your supper. Do you think it is fair to call me downstairs just to say that?" The bubbling fluency of a child's mind, the tendency to repetition and sometimes foolishness, is natural enough, and not to be blamed; but we should help the child to outgrow it instead of submitting to his wearisome reiterance. "But, my dear, you said that before. I understand. Now do not say it again." To say, "Yes, dear," a dozen times to the same question or statement is not strengthening to the child's mental habits. Similarly, when a child asks palpably foolish questions,--foolish by his own standard,--he needs not consideration, but mild ridicule. And, if he can answer his own question, let him: it is no kindness to do all his work. Children are not benefited by a too soft and yielding environment, nor do they always love best those who treat them with too much consideration. Fairness, not severity nor constant concession, is what a child appreciates. If we behave fairly to the child (as we would to a grown person), giving to him the healthy reaction of common justice, we help him to live easily and rightly in the world before him. Even love is open to measurement by results. The love we have for our children is not developed in us as a pleasurable exercise, but is distinctly for the child's benefit. "The maternal sacrifice" is what our scientific friends call it. In studying early forms of life, we find the mother sacrificing everything for the good of the young, from which we draw the general inference that it is for the good of the young to have the mother sacrifice everything. More discriminating study will show us a great difference in maternal methods. Where the mother's loss is the gain of the young, she cheerfully submits to it; but, where the young is not benefited by her loss, we do not find it. The eggs of the hen are carefully brooded by the mother; the eggs of the frog are left floating on the water in suitable places. There is no special virtue in the hen's brooding or vice in the frog's neglect; the mother does what is necessary for the young. The mother-cat licks her little ones elaborately, and teaches them to make their toilettes similarly. The cow licks the calf for a while, but gives it no instructions in washing its ears with its paws. The mother-love is essential to the best care of the young, and therefore it is given us. It is the main current of race preservation, and the basis of all other love-development on the higher grades. But it is not, therefore, an object of superstitious veneration, and in itself invariably right. The surrender of the mother to the child is often flatly injurious, if carried to excess. To put it in the last extreme, suppose the mother so utterly sacrifices herself to the child as to break down and die. She then robs the child of its mother, which is an injury. Suppose she so sacrifices herself to the child as to cut off her own proper rest, recreation, and development. She thus gives the child an exhausted and inferior mother, which is an injury to him. There are cases, perhaps, where it might be a mother's duty to die for her child; but, in general, it is more advantageous to live for him. The "unselfish devotion" of the mother we laud to the skies, without stopping to consider its effect on the child. This error is connected with our primitive religious belief in the doctrine of sacrifice,--one of those early misconceptions of a great truth. It is necessary for the good of humanity that the interests of the one be subordinate to the interests of the many, but it does not follow that an indiscriminate surrender of one's own interests always benefits society. On the contrary, a steady insistence on the rights of the individual is essential to the integrity of the social structure and its right workings. So it is necessary for the good of the child that the interests of the mother be subordinated to his interests, but it does not follow that her indiscriminate surrender of personal interests always benefits him. On the contrary, a too self-sacrificing mother tends to develope a selfish, short-sighted, low-grade personality in the growing life she seeks to benefit, where her honest maintenance of her own individual rights would have had a very healthy effect. Not what the child wishes, nor what the mother wishes, is the standard of measurement, but what is really beneficial to the child. If the mother is frankly and clearly unselfish in their daily intercourse, and then as frankly and clearly demands her own share of freedom and consideration, the child gets a fairer view of human rights than if he simply absorbs his mother as a natural victim. Little Mary has a visitor. Her mother is most polite and entertaining, is with them when they desire it, and lets them alone when they prefer. Then her mother has a visitor. "Mary," she says, "I am to have company this week. I shall of course have to give a good deal of time and attention to my friend, as you did to Hattie when she was here. So you must not feel badly if you do not see as much of mamma as usual." There must be the previous polite conduct of mamma to point to. The childish mind needs frequent and conspicuous proof that mamma is forgetting herself for his pleasure; and then he should be rationally called upon to forget himself for her pleasure, when it is plainly fair and necessary. The beautiful principles of kindergarten teaching are frequently misapplied in the too conciliatory and self-denying methods of the well-meaning mamma. Kindness, politeness, constant love, and all due consideration the child should have; but justice is as important to him as affection. It must always be remembered that the mother's love is not an end in itself, nor the expression of it a virtue in itself. It is to be measured, like every other natural function, by its use. When a child is reared in an atmosphere of unreasoning devotion and constant surrender, he grows up to expect it, and to carry a sense of grievance if he does not get it. The natural tendency of the mother to love her own young is strong in us,--the maternal passion; but, like all passions, it needs conscientious and rational restraint. The human soul has grown to such a stage of development that we are capable of loving and serving great numbers of people. The woman, who is still confined to the same range of interests which occupied her in the earliest grades of human life, inherits her share of this socially developed power of loving, and concentrates it all upon her own immediate family. Like an ever-enlarging burning glass, still focussed upon one spot, the healthy, natural affection of the animal mother for its young has grown to what is really an immense social affection, too large for one family to profitably sustain. The child will get a far more just and healthful idea of human relation when he finds himself lifted and led on by a mother whose life has a purpose of its own, than when he finds himself encompassed and overwhelmed by a mother who has no other object or interest than himself. The whole question has to be constantly measured by comparing it with the rest of life. Are our methods with children those which best fit men and women for doing their share to maintain and develope human life? Does not the most casual survey of life to-day show people practising much amiability and devotion at home, strenuously loving their own immediate families and friends, and most markedly deficient in that general love for one another which is not only the main commandment of our religion, but the plainest necessity for social progress? And is not this deficiency to be accounted for, not by any inability on our part for social devotion,--for every day's list of accidents shows the common fund of heroism and self-sacrifice to be large,--but by the training which makes it the habit of our lives to love and serve only those nearest to us? The mother is the strongest formative influence in the child's life. If he sees that she thinks only of him, lives only for him, what is he to learn by it? To think only of himself? Or only of her? Or only of his children? Does the best care of a child require the concentrated and unremittent devotion of an entire mother? A larger intelligence applied to the subject may show us that there are better ways of serving our children than those we now follow. The woman who grows up in the practice of considering the needs of people in general, and of so ordering her life as to benefit them, will find a new power and quality in her love for her own dear ones. With that widening of the soul-range of the mother will come a capacity to judge the child as one of the people of the world, besides being her own especially beloved. A study of what all children need will help her to understand what her own child needs far more accurately than when she thinks of him as the only one. The continuous application of the mother to the child is not so advantageous as the quality of her companionship and influence, and her sacrificial devotion too often weakens his sense of justice and makes him selfish. XI. SIX MOTHERS. Broad-minded mothers of this time are keenly interested in child-study, in that all too familiar and yet unknown field of "infant psychology." They are beginning to recognise not only the salient fact that "all children are different," but the equally important one that all children have points in common. The need of union and discussion among mothers is resulting in the mothers' clubs and parents' congresses, which form so noble an example of the progressive thought. But so far, with all the kindly interest and keen desire for improved methods of child-culture, the mother has to return and grapple with her individual problem alone. Here are one or two simple and practical suggestions, the careful pursuance of which, with some clear record of proceedings, would not only be of immediate assistance to the mothers concerned, but to all the other mothers yet to be aroused to the importance of such action. Let us suppose six mothers, to take a very low number,--six mothers in one town, one village, or one city, even in the open country, so that they could reach each other easily; six mothers, who were friends and "social equals," and who were willing to admit the deficiencies of our general present methods of child-culture, and also willing to improve those methods. It is permissible for each mother to imagine that her own methods are superior to those of the other mothers, as this will give her a beautiful sense of helpfulness in allowing these superior methods to be observed and studied by the less able. A conscious sense of inferiority is also no obstacle, for a mother having that feeling would be eager to improve by study of the better ways. These six mothers divide the working days of the week among them, agreeing that each shall on her chosen day take charge of the children of the other five. This might be for a part of the day or the whole day, as is thought best,--let us suppose it merely for the afternoon; and it could be limited, as desired, to children of a certain age, and still further reduced, as a mild beginning, to one child apiece from each family. This would give, as a minimum, five extra children on one afternoon a week to each mother. The maximum would be of course uncertain; but, if all the children of each mother were thus to go visiting for any part of the day, it would give to each one day in which that larger responsibility was undertaken, and five days free. There would remain Sunday, in which each family, complete, would be at home. Now let us take a hypothetical case, and suppose that our six mothers, with considerable trepidation, have chosen one child apiece that they were willing to intrust for the afternoon to the watchful care of these familiar friends. The children, be it rigidly insisted, are to know nothing whatever of the purposes or methods involved. All that little Johnny Black knows is that Mrs. White has asked him to come over on Monday afternoon and play with Alice and Billy White, and some other children that he knows, too; that presently Mrs. Green has them come to her house on Tuesday, and Mrs. Brown on Wednesday; that his mamma lets them all come and play with him on Thursday,--in short, that his afternoons have become full and rich and pleasantly exciting, like some wonderful procession of parties. "Not like regular parties, either," Johnny would explain. "You don't have to dress up--much,--just be clean, to begin with. And they don't have ice-cream and macaroons,--only just milk and crackers when you get hungry; and--well, 'tisn't so much regular games and p'r'aps dancin'--like a party,--we just play. And Mrs. White, or whichever one 'tis, she generally has some nice young lady in with her; and they sort of keep things going,--as if 'twas a real party. It's nicer some ways, I think." "And which place do you like best, Johnny?" "Oh, I do' know! Billy White has the biggest yard. But Jim Grey has the best swing; and there's a pond at Susy Green's,--a real pond,--and nothing but girls live there! Then it's lots of fun when they come to our house, 'cause I can show 'em my rabbits and make Jack do all his tricks." Yes, the children all enjoy it. It means variety, it means company, it means a wider and closer acquaintance and all the benefits of well-chosen association and larger environment. It fills a part of the day. There is no more aimless asking, "What shall I do now?" with the vague response, "Oh, run away and play!" or the suggestion of some well-worn amusement. It means, too, a little more sense of "company manners" and behaviour, and, on the other hand, a better appreciation of home life. And to the mother,--what good will this do her? Each mother would have one day in the week in which to carefully observe children,--_not_ her own specially beloved children, but just children, as such. Her observation and care should be absolutely unobtrusive: the moment the little ones knew they were being watched, the value of the plan would be greatly impaired; and, to stop at a minor detail, from the palpable necessity for doing this work without the child's consciousness, mothers would learn to cover the machinery of government at home. It is one of our grossest and most frequent errors in the management of children that we openly discuss our efforts and failures. They know that we are struggling to produce certain results in their behaviour, usually in a futile manner. With, however, a large and definite purpose resting so absolutely on the child's unconsciousness, more wisdom in this line would soon develope. The mother who now says, "What would you do with a child like that?" or "I'm sure I don't know what to do with that child!" before the child in question, would soon perceive that such an attitude in an educator does not produce confidence in the object of the education. Quietly and unostentatiously, and often with the assistance of some keen girl-friend, these mothers would soon learn to observe accurately, to generalise carefully, to reduce cautiously, and then to put the deduction into practice and observe the results. As beginners, pioneers, they should make their first steps very modestly. For the first season some one trait should be chosen for study,--say self-control or courage or consideration of others. Having decided on their line of observation, let each mother make a little note of how high each child in the group stands in this line. How much self-control has my Johnny, as measured by his age?--as compared with others of his age? When did I first notice self-control in Johnny? When have I seen it greatest? Does he gain in it? What should be done to help Johnny gain in self-control? And then go over the same questions with regard to the other children. Then, with self-control as the characteristic, the natural development and best education of which they wish to study, the afternoon parties begin. At first the children might be left absolutely free to play in ordinary lines. Then, after the first observations were recorded, delicate experiments could be introduced, and their results added to the record. It is very difficult for the individual mother to rightly estimate her own children. "Every crow thinks her babe the blackest." Yet the character of the child is forming without regard to any fond prejudice or too severe criticism; and his life's happiness depends on his interaction with people in general, not simply with beloved ones at home. The measure of Johnny's self-control may not seem important to the parental love which covers or the parental force which compels; but to Johnny's after-life its importance is pre-eminent. When one sits for a portrait to a fond and familiar friend, and sees all fondness and familiarity die out from the eyes of the artist, feels one's personality sink into a mass of "values," it brings a strange sense of chill remoteness. So, no doubt, to the mother heart the idea of calmly estimating Johnny's self-control and comparing it with Jim Grey's seems cold enough. To have Mrs. Grey estimate it,--and perhaps (terrible thought!) to estimate it as less than Jim's,--this is hard, indeed. Yet this is precisely what is to be obtained in such a combination as this, and in no other way,--the value of an outside observer, through Mrs. Grey's estimate. Nobody's opinion alters facts. The relative virtues of Johnny and Jim remain unchanged, no matter what their respective mothers think or what their irrespective mothers think. But each mother will derive invaluable side-lights from the other mother's point of view. Each opinion must be backed with illustration. Instances of observed behaviour must be massed before any judgment has value. "I think your Jim is so brave, Mrs. Grey. When the children were with me the other day, the cow got loose; and the girls all ran. Some boys ran, too; and Jimmy drove her back into the cow-yard." "But Jimmy was the oldest," says Mrs. White. "Perhaps, if he'd been as young as my Billy, he wouldn't have been so brave." "And he is afraid of the dark," says Mrs. Brown. "At my house he wouldn't go into the back cellar after apples, even with the other children. Isn't he afraid of the dark, Mrs. Grey?" Mrs. Grey admits this, but cites instances to show courage in other directions. And always five dispassionate observers to the one deeply loving and prejudiced. If it should happen that Jimmy is generally admitted brave beyond his years, with the one exception of fearing darkness, and that exception traceable to a nurse-maid's influence, the mother of Jimmy is rejoiced; and a strong light is thrown on the nurse question. If it prove that by general opinion there is a lack of courage such as should belong to his years, there is cause for special study and special action in this line. Most valuable of all, the habit of observing a child's behaviour as an expression of character is formed. The six mothers would of course meet to compare notes, preferably in evenings, when children were all in bed and fathers could be present; and the usual difficulty of leaving home in the evening could be met in such an important case as this by engaging some suitable person to come in for an hour or two and stay with the sleeping little ones. All such details would have to be arranged according to personal and local conditions; but the end to be attained is of such enormous value that considerable effort is justified in reaching it. Even in the beginning, a usefulness would be found in the united interest, the mutual helpfulness of the combined women, drawn together by the infinite and beautiful possibilities of their great work. In the light of other eyes, they would see their own children in new lights, and, by careful following of agreed lines of treatment, soon learn with some finality what would and what would not be useful in a given case. The observations and experiments of one earnest group of mothers like this would be a stimulus and help to uncounted thousands of ungrouped mothers who are struggling on alone. It is by such effort as this, such interchange of view and combined study, and the slowly accumulating record of established facts, that humanity progresses in any line of similar work,--in floriculture or horticulture or agriculture, or what you will; and this greatest of all our labours, humaniculture, sadly lacks the application of the true social law,--in union is strength. The child needs not only love, but wisdom and justice; and these grow best in the human soul through combination. XII. MEDITATIONS ON THE NURSE-MAID. "The trouble with these household problems which vex women so much is that we do not give our minds to them sufficiently," said earnest little Mrs. Blythe. "Now I mean to give my mind to this nurse-maid problem, and work it out." It is high time that somebody did. And it is not only on my own account: this is something which affects us all,--all who have nurse-maids, that is. I suppose the mothers without nurse-maids have their problems, too; but I must consider mine now. Now what is the matter with the nurse-maid? She does not suit me. She has palpable faults and deficiencies. I want a better nurse-maid. So far I have trusted to the law of supply and demand to produce her, but it does not seem to work. I demand her, just as I have demanded a better housemaid for some time; but the supply is not forthcoming. So now I mean to think it out, and see if I cannot find a way to the invention, discovery, or manufacture of a better nurse-maid. And I mean to be very clear and logical in my thinking about it, so as to come out in the end with proof. I want to prove what is the matter with the nurse-maid and how to make her better. In the first place, what are my objections to the nurse-maid now? She is careless and irresponsible. She is ignorant. She is ill-mannered. She is often deceitful. I can't trust her. Now it doesn't seem right that my child should be placed in the care of an ignorant, ill-mannered, careless, and irresponsible person,--even if not also untrustworthy,--does it? And it does not relieve me of the care as it ought. I have to take care of the child and the nurse-maid, too. What I want is a careful, responsible, wise, well-mannered, honourable young girl. She ought to have special training, too. It is really dreadful the way these ignorant girls undertake to care for children. We need schools--training schools--and diplomas. They could have practice classes on the children of the poor--or in institutions; and yet that idea does not quite suit me, either. My child is very individual and peculiar, and I don't believe that practising on poor children would fit a nurse-maid to take care of my child. But nice people would not want their children to be practised on. They would have to take the poor ones: it would do them good, anyway. They get no care now: their mothers are shockingly ignorant and neglectful. But, after all, I don't have to arrange the training schools. I only know that she ought to have special training, and it ought to be practical as well as theoretical; and that means practising on some children somewhere, somehow. And they certainly would have to be poor, because rich people would not let their children go to be practised on. Maybe the poor people would not, either. Then it would have to be orphans, I guess, combining nurse-training schools with orphan asylums, and foundlings, too. Well, now these nurse-maids would go to these training schools to improve themselves, would they! Come to think of it, they only go to nursing because they need the pay; and, even if the training schools were free, they'd have to wait longer for their money. And, if they got no more with training than without, they would not go, I'm afraid. We should certainly have to pay them more trained than untrained. That is perfectly logical, I'm sure. And, of course, that would be an obstacle. If the training schools were not free, we should have to pay them more yet,--enough to make it worth while to study the business of caring for children. A short course might do,--six months or a year. I've heard my mother say that she knew something about taking care of children by the time Charley was born. But that was,--well, I was eight, and I'm the third,--that was about twelve years. Oh, but she wasn't in a training school! That would teach them faster. There would be more children to practise on. Let me see: if it took my mother twelve years to learn by practising on five children (Charley was the fifth,--four children), how many children would it take to learn on in one year? I'll get John to do that for me: I'm not good at figures. Besides, it's different,--altogether different; for my mother was a mother, so she knew how, to begin with, and nurse-maids are not. So--to be strictly logical--it ought to take nurse-maids longer, I'm afraid. The training schools will have to be free: I'm pretty sure of that. And that means public or private endowment. We might as well think it all out clearly. Should it be added to the public-school system,--open to all girls,--perhaps compulsory? Why not! Why wouldn't it be a good thing for all girls to know something of the care of children? But could we do that? Public schools are in politics; and that is awful. It would take forever to get it that way; and my child wants a nurse-maid now! Private endowment, I guess. So many rich people want to help the masses. This would furnish employment, raise wages, and give us nurse-maids. I'm sure it would appeal to any philanthropist. Yes, some rich person must endow a training school for nurses,--that sounds like hospitals; for child-nurses,--that sounds like wet-nurses; for nurse-maids,--why need they be maids, though? Well, if they were married, they would have children of their own of course, and couldn't take care of ours. One would think, though, that motherhood would give them more experience,--that they would know how to care for children better. But, then, they wouldn't want to leave their own children to take care of ours. And they couldn't take care of them together. A mother would naturally do more for her own: she wouldn't be fair. A training school for nurse-maids. After all, "maid" does not mean "unmarried" in this connection: it means simply "servant." And "nurse" comes from the time when mere nursing was all that was required,--a kind of a survival of old customs. How these things do open up, when one thinks about them! Why "nurse-maid" at all! Why not have a new and attractive name: that would help make them go to the training school, too. Nurse, nursing,--it isn't nursing our children want. They are not sick, and they don't stay babies all the time they need this person. What is it that our children need? Of course, they do need direct, personal care; and, when they are babies, they need real "nursing,"--just somebody to--to--well, they have to be fed,--and that only needs a knowledge of infant physiology and nutrition; to keep the bottles clean, of course, and be very accurate, and follow directions. They don't need to know so much after all: the doctor tells what to give it to eat and what not to. And the mother understands the child's needs! Still, even for babies, they need some kind of training,--the nurses, I mean,--not the mothers: it is divinely implanted in the mother. And, then, mothers are studying these things now. I know ever so many young mothers who are taking child-study now; and about nutrition, too. But the trouble is they can't depend on the nurses to carry out instructions. If they were only trustworthy! Will the training schools make them honourable? I suppose so. They would get some sense of the importance and dignity of their work. They would be graded and marked, of course, in their diplomas, so that one could pick out the dependable ones; and that would gradually elevate the standard. The trouble is, of course, when they go out. Children must be out of doors; and, in cities where we have no yards, they cannot be under the mother's eye, so they must be out with the nurse-maid. That's perfectly logical. Then there are the other nurse-maids. One cannot keep them isolated: that's out of the question. And if they have admirers, as they do, of course,--young girls always will have admirers, and training schools will not alter that,--why, if they meet their admirers, it has a tendency to make them careless. That is natural. We must allow for such things. And it is a perfectly natural temptation to take the baby to see their own families. We forbid it, of course; but I admit that it is a temptation. And there are all those awful risks of diseases and things. Now, if their families were nicer people and lived in nicer places,--but then they wouldn't want to be nurse-maids! But if the training school raises wages and standards, that will have an effect on the class of people who take up the work. It certainly is the noblest, most beautiful, most important work in the world,--the training of children. I wonder why our own girls do not take it up,--our college girls. But then, of course, they wouldn't be "nurse-maids." Perhaps, if it had another name-- Now let me think, and be fair. Would I want my sister Jessie to be a nurse-maid? She is taking a kindergarten course, and we all approve of that: it does help one so in all those problems that perplex a mother! But, if she went to Mrs. MacAdoo's as a nurse-maid-- The MacAdoos are nice people, too; and the children are as nice as any I know. They have a Swedish nurse-maid now,--a big, hearty, wholesome-looking girl, but stupid. Why, she cannot answer the simplest questions Harold asks, hardly; and he's always asking them. Jessie has him in the kindergarten where she is. I don't mean that she's the principal, but she is training there; and she tells me what a bright child he is, and what stupid things Christine has told him. And you see he has Jessie only three hours a day, and Christine all the time he's awake. Jessie is taking a special course in infant psychology, and she says Christine is doing him a world of harm. But she is so good-natured and faithful that they keep her. They don't realise that her being stupid is any harm to the children, I suppose. But, if Jessie had him all the time, Harold certainly would develope more rationally and more easily. And yet I am sure Jessie would not take Christine's place. You see we visit the MacAdoos, and it would be so awkward. Now, I think,--logically,--I am approaching a--I forget the name of it, but it's a thing there's no way out of. We would like our nurse-maids to be ladies, but ladies are not willing to be nurse-maids. Now will the training school make ladies--or, at least, partial ladies--of our nurse-maids? And, if it does, will that make them disinclined to be nurse-maids? Or can we arrange the position of the nurse-maid, so that ladies will be willing to take it? What is the real difference between Jessie's position and Christine's? Why, Jessie has a lot of children come to her part of the time; and Christine has a few children, and goes to them all the time. And Jessie has,--or will have when she's graduated and has a kindergarten of her own, as I daresay she will,--she has control of the children while they are with her, and can carry out her principles. The mothers even consult her sometimes. But Christine has to carry out the mother's orders. She does what she is told--or ought to. No, Jessie never would be willing to take Mrs. MacAdoo's orders about the children. Mrs. MacAdoo is exceptionally stupid about children, I do think. She doesn't think Christine's telling them stories about things to frighten them is any harm,--says they'll outgrow it. And anybody who knows anything of infant psychology knows how dangerous it is to frighten children. And yet, of course, to be perfectly fair, I wouldn't want a nurse-maid to dictate to me about my child. It is out of the question--absolutely. Why, it would destroy the mother's influence and authority altogether! And--come to think of it--I suppose a trained nurse-maid would have views of her own, and they might conflict with the mother's-- Now, where I have got to so far,--it is beautiful, thinking things out clearly,--we want our children taken care of by ladies, honourable, intelligent, educated, refined, and specially trained for the business. I'm quite certain about that. Like Jessie, for instance. She is just born for it,--always did love children, and knew how to manage them from the time she was a little girl. And she's studying all the science of it and practising in the kindergarten,--on the same kind of children, too. Jessie is the ideal. It is really wonderful to see her with them. They love her, and they do what she says, too; but she never seems to be making them do anything: they just do it. Those MacAdoos behave very much better with her than they do with their mother. I believe most of the children do, for that matter. Except little Cassie Wells. She has the most devoted mother I ever saw. It is a lesson to us all. She never lets her out of her sight, I do believe. Often comes to the kindergarten, just to be with her. And, you see, Cassie just depends on her for everything; and nobody else can do anything with her. It is beautiful,--such absolute dependence and absorption. Yes, as I said, Jessie is the ideal. But, then, Jessie is not a nurse-maid, and never would be. Of course, if there was any way that Jessie could have the children with her and have her way with them, as she does in the kindergarten--But you can't do that with little children,--you cannot separate the child from its mother! When they are older, they go to school, of course; and, when they are older yet, they go to college, and so on. But the little child needs its mother every hour. And, as its mother cannot possibly give it every hour, we have to have the nurse-maid. If mothers had no other claims, then, of course, you would have the highest ideal relation. Cassie Wells's mother has given up everything else. She doesn't go out with her husband at all. Says that society has no claim beside that of the child. Of course, he stays at home with her--mostly. I'm sure a man ought to value his wife's society more than any other, especially when she is such a devoted mother. She takes all the periodicals about children, and reads all the books; and then she modifies it all to suit her particular child. I never knew any mother so conscientiously given up to the care of a child. She really talks of nothing else. And, when that child is sick,--and she is extremely delicate and always having dangerous illnesses,--her mother is simply glued to her bedside: they can't drag her away. It is a pity that the child is not better material; for she isn't particularly bright, nor very well behaved, I think. But, then, her mother is doing everything that can be done. Jessie says that child is being mothered too much,--that she needs more freedom and an impartial outside management. But, then, Jessie is a good deal of a theorist; and, after all, she isn't a mother. Nothing can really equal the mother's care for her own child! Still, we simply can't do it,--all of us,--as families increase. We owe something to our husbands, I am sure; and we have our social duties; and our health is not always equal to such a strain. No, the mother must have help; and that means the nurse-maid. It's no use talking about Jessie. Even if she would do it, there's not enough of her to go around! We never can expect that "faculty with children" in everybody: they simply don't have it. Most girls don't care much for children, nor know anything about them. Of course, after they become mothers, it is different. Then it all comes to them. Now, if nurse-maids could be mothers first-- But I argued that out before. If they were, they wouldn't be mothers of our children; and motherhood only teaches how to do what is best for one's own children. Besides, we couldn't hire them then, because we would not separate mothers from their own children; and, if they had their children and ours, too, they would not treat them fairly. And we would not want them brought up with ours, either. No, they've got to be "maids," that's sure. Now the average young girl does not know or care much about children. Therefore, she has to be trained. (What a comfort it is to be really logical!) And, as there is no place to train them now, we have got to make a place. It all comes round to the training school for nurse-maids. That's the logical outcome. Again, since we must have private nurse-maids under our orders,--really a servant,--we cannot expect ladies to take such positions. And--this ought to be bracketted with that last--since we cannot, of course, pay more than so much, that is against ladies doing it, too. Some people can, I know. Jessie told me of a very nice girl she knew,--a classmate in college and a trained kindergartner,--who was unable to get such a position as she wanted, and took a place with some very rich people as a sort of lady nurse-teacher to the children. But she said it was perfectly horrid, especially in travelling, having to eat with servants and be treated as such. I can see that it would take a kind of heroism, and we cannot really count on heroic nurse-maids. No, it has to be from the lower classes that we take our nurse-maids. I think that is proved. The average employer simply couldn't pay them enough to attract a higher class of labour. These are really questions of political economy in part, you see. The ordinary young girl of the lower classes,--that is the raw material of our nurse-maid. Naturally, she is ill-mannered or unmannered, and careless and ignorant and all those things. Therefore, we must train her. In order to do that, we must first provide the training school, and, second, make her go to it. Now I wonder how we could do that. The higher wages would be an object of course: that would have to be insisted on. And we might "create a sentiment." That's it! That's what we must do,--create a sentiment. But it's no use doing anything till we've got the school. And I worked that out as having to be done by private endowment. That involves agitation, of course; and we must set about it. We can get teachers plenty, there is so much interest in child-study now; and it will be a splendid thing for the lower classes to take their young girls and train them thoroughly in the theory of child-culture. It will make them so much better mothers afterward, when they do marry, after spending some years in taking care of our children,--putting their theories in practice! But wait. That looks queer. Looks as if the rich people were furnishing elaborate instruction free,--to young women of the lower classes,--and then paying them good wages for practising on the children of the upper classes, so that the poor women might be better mothers afterward. I must have made a mistake somewhere. I'm going to reverse that position, and see how it would work. Suppose young girls of the upper classes took elaborate instruction in child-culture, and then practised on the children of the lower classes, in order to be better mothers afterward. That seems more satisfactory, somehow; yet it means a lot of work. It would do our girls good--I can see that--and do the children of the lower classes good, and, no doubt, make the girls better mothers. Besides, I'm wasting time,--"arguing in a circle," John would say; for that upper-class-girl hypothesis wouldn't give us nurse-maids. Now where was I? Mothers have to have help; _i.e._, nurse-maids. These have to be private servants at low wages: therefore, ladies would not do it. Therefore, we must have our children taken care of by girls from the lower classes. They are not suitable persons to take care of children as they stand: therefore, we must train them. Now I mean to really work for this thing,--to create a sentiment. I'll begin early in the autumn, as soon as we get back. And I'm so glad I'm going to have such a lovely summer to make me fit for it. You see I'm very much pulled down. Little John has been such a care, and the nurse-maids I've had have been so unreliable. Why, the child has been sick again and again just through their carelessness. I'm sure of it. And mother said I simply must go away and build up, for the child's own sake; and John agreed with her--for once. And there's such a lovely arrangement for the summer: nothing ever happened more conveniently. You see Jessie is such an enthusiast about children. And she has planned to be at home this summer. Our home is perfectly lovely, anyway, and very healthy,--quite in the country, and yet within easy reach of town. They're going to have the Summer School of Child-study there at Seabay this year, and Jessie has several of her class visiting her. And she said, in her solemn, funny way, that they must have specimens to work on,--first-class specimens! She insisted on little John, of course, and she's persuaded Clara and George to let her have their three for a while; and the little MacAdoos are to be there, too. It will be a regular picnic for the children. It took a long time to bring me round to it. But, then, it's my own lovely home. I know how healthy it is. And mother will be there. And one of Jessie's friends is a doctor, and in a children's hospital, too. She ought to see that everything is right for their health. So, if they are happy in that lovely old place, and healthy and well taught and safe, why, I suppose I can leave. Of course, I wouldn't for anything on earth but health. Mrs. Wells was perfectly horrified when I told her. They asked Cassie, too; but she wouldn't hear of it. She said nothing but death should ever separate her from her child. And, dear me, Cassie looked so white that it really seemed as if it would. She made me feel guilty again; but John can't come to any harm with my mother's experience and Jessie's knowledge and natural talent. That's the main thing. Jessie always cared more for children than I did,--except little John, of course. They've fixed the place up on purpose for children. Such arrangements for bathing and digging and mud-pieing and gardening and so on you never saw. There is something for those chicks to do all the blessed time, and these nice girls--my own friends--to be with them every minute. You see they take turns and relieve each other, so they are always fresh for the children. And, then being so enthusiastic and scientific, it isn't drudgery to them. They are studying all the time. And how glad I shall be to get back in the fall! Then I can work up that training school for nurse-maids. XIII. CHILDREN AND SERVANTS. In the growing discontent with our present methods of household service, while we waver between long-held prejudice, old and dear, and the irresistible pressure of new conditions, it is worth while to weigh well the relation between this present method of house-service and our present method of child-culture. The home is the place in which we rear young children. It is also the place in which we perform certain kinds of labour, mainly cooking, cleaning, and sewing. In the vast majority of our homes, fully nine-tenths of them, as shown by the United States Census Report, giving the number of domestic servants in proportion to the number of families, these industries are carried on by the mother. She is the domestic servant. In the remaining one-tenth of our homes the labour is performed by hired servants, the maid-of-all-work still greatly predominating. The questions here suggested for consideration are: first, is a mother, who is also a house-servant, able to supply proper conditions and care to young children? And, second, is the company of domestic servants, other than their mothers, and constant association with their industries, a desirable condition for the education of young children? It is, of course, difficult to consider with any clearness of perception facts which have been always familiar. The association of child and servant is so old that it makes no impression on our consciousness. It will, perhaps, bring out the relation more vividly to change the sex of the servant. Suppose a man is left with boys to educate. Suppose he engages a tutor for his boys. He is willing to pay well for a man with the proper ability, character, and training to come and benefit his children by instruction and association. Would such a man be willing to engage a tutor who was also a janitor? Would he be willing to spare the time required to fill the janitor's position from the time required to fill the tutor's position? Or would he be willing to engage a man who had so little fitness for the profession of tutor as to be content to act as janitor also? Again, in sending his boys to school to be educated, would a man be willing to have that school also run as a restaurant, a laundry, and a tailor shop? Would he think these industries and the society of the persons engaged in them good educational influences? It is clear that a man would not be willing to do these things. Yet all men cheerfully intrust their children, during their most impressionable years, to the society and care of domestic servants and the constant association with domestic industries. In most cases the servant is also the mother. In other cases the servant is not the mother. In either case the child grows up in association with domestic servants and service. Let us not too readily conclude that this is an evil, but examine it carefully, in its physical and psychical effects. Physically, the child is born into a certain kind of shop or factory. The conditions of any labour in the home are particularly open to criticism; our sweat-shop investigations show that in glaring instance. Intimate associations with a trade, and especially a dirty or dangerous one, does not seem advantageous to a child's health and progress. In nine homes out of ten the child is directly associated with the trades of his mother, who is a cook, a laundress, a cleaner in general; and the baby is early accustomed to the fumes and heat of the kitchen, to grease and ashes and dust, to all the kitchen-work, laundry-work, chamber-work, and endless miscellaneous industries of his mother. In the other tenth of our homes the child grows up a little removed, but not far, from these same industries. They go on under his eyes none the less, but with a certain ban upon them, as servant's work. Any mother and housewife knows the complications continually arising between children and servants. Early associations are deep and lasting. Domestic servants are not, as a rule, either at all trained in the right treatment of children or in such personal development of character and manners as would make them desirable companions for the young. Yet companions they are,--incessant, intimate, unavoidable. The formative influence of a nurse-maid or of a maid-of-all-work is of varying weight in different cases, but always a factor in the child's development. The education of a child consists in every impression received by the growing brain, not merely those received when we are instructing it. We might give an hour a day to careful instruction in good manners: we might ourselves be models of propriety; but, if the child is also in the society of conspicuously ill-mannered persons every day, an effect will surely be produced by them. It may be suggested that an end is to be attained through exhibiting the deficiencies of servants, and exhorting the child to despise them, as the Spartans used the Helots for an awful example; but, even if this were gained, there would follow with it a spirit of scorn and contempt for fellow-creatures most injurious to true social development. A little child should be surrounded with the best influences of all sorts, and with behaviour not to avoid, but to imitate. The long period of immaturity, which is one of our human distinctions, has its value in the accumulated improvements which may be built into the race in that time. It is a period of enrichment, of clear growth. To expose the young to disadvantageous conditions, especially the very young, is a method of education finding no precedent in nature and no justification in reason. The adult, with developed powers, may find in some degree of difficulty a stimulus to further effort; and, if confronted with injurious conditions, may strive the harder to escape or change them. But the new person, the child, has no background. He can make no comparisons. He accepts his first environment unquestioningly as "the world"; it is all the world he knows. For the very reason that we were all born and reared in the domestic factory, we find it hard to imagine any other conceivable surroundings for a young human being to meet life in. We have accepted it without dream of criticism. Yet in physical conditions alone the household industries furnish a large and constant element of danger to the child. A most casual retrospect of the accidents common to childhood, which so shock us in the daily press, show this with startling clearness. Children suffer from accidents by fire, by boiling water, by sharp instruments, by injurious substances taken into the stomach. The industry of cooking alone involves the free use of fire, a constant succession of hot products, many sharp instruments for cutting and stabbing, and various food elements healthful in combination,--but often injurious when taken separately by one ignorant of their nature. The kitchen and the laundry are responsible for many horrible and sudden deaths among young children, and many more painful accidents. Given the essential ignorance and as essential experiments of childhood, and we may well wonder how it has so long seemed good to us to bring up our babies among such large chances of danger. If we reared them in stables, we should expect them to be kicked occasionally; if we placed them in saw-mills, we should look for some deficit in fingers; and a child in a cook-shop has his steady average risk of injury by fire, steel, or poison; in the laundry, the added chance of drowning. Apart from these main sources of danger, he finds in sweeping, dusting, and all the uncounted activities of household toil much that is detrimental to health and safety. To avoid these dangers, our first effort has been to train the child to a prompt and instant obedience, such as conditions of imminent danger and military rule alone can justify, and also to check his natural and most valuable tendency to investigate and experiment. The labours of the household must go on: economic laws are peremptory; and the servant, who is educating the baby so unconsciously, cannot stop work to explain or illustrate. On the contrary, the very presence of the child is inimical to the proper performance of these imperative industries; and the flushed and hurried servant cries: "Run away now. Mamma's busy!" Where is the child to run to? This is home. When is mamma not busy? To properly perform the household labour of an average family, which is of five persons in an average house,--say of six rooms,--takes ten hours a day of swift, intelligent, skilled labour. During what part of this time can the household labourer give due attention to the child? Or is it sufficient education to watch a servant at work, and to help a little when one is old enough? If the industries involved were properly divided, specialized, and developed, much that is valuable might be gathered from their observation, and from guarded experiment, by children who are old enough. A child can receive valuable instruction in a woollen-mill or a blacksmith shop, but it does not follow that these places are suitable as nurseries. The lack of any true educational value in the position is sufficiently shown by the ceaseless centuries of ignorance in these very trades. All women, for all time, reared in this intimate association with domestic service and domestic servants, have failed to work out any better grade of performance than that which still furnishes the staple of conversation among them. It is quite evident, from the results so painfully visible around us, that the education of our children by house-servants developes neither general intelligence nor special proficiency. The intellectual progress of humanity has shown close connection with the extension of industry in larger lines, with a growing specialisation, a wider distribution, and, of course, with the beautiful growth in special methods of education. But this kitchen education, though we have enjoyed its advantages for so long, does not seem to show good results. The educational value of the mother seems not to be in proportion to her occupation as a house-servant, but the reverse. It would seem that our children grow in intelligence and good behaviour rather in spite of the domestic industries than because of them. Any mother who is awake to the limitless possibilities of child-culture, and who begins to work out some well-considered plan for its pursuance, knows the ceaseless interruptions of her efforts, and the peremptory monopolisation of her time, by the demands of household labour. So far, with true womanly patience,--a patience which ceased to be a virtue some years ago,--she has accepted the condition as inevitable, and plodded on, consoling herself with a "day unto day" philosophy, and with "doing the best she could"; and many moralists consoled her, saying, "Blessed be drudgery!" Drudgery has a certain value, no doubt. It developes certain characteristics; namely, those of a competent and contented drudge. The question raised here is merely whether this kind of work and the characteristics developed by it are suitable educational associations for young children. What are the qualities developed by house-service? Let us suppose that we are all, fathers as well as mothers, occupied solely in household labour. The effect may be studied from one point of view in those countries where there are more men-servants than with us, and where the profession is sometimes followed for generations. The typical character of a butler or footman, a parlour-maid, cook, or general servant, may be traced through all personal variation. Given any sort of person, and put him or her through a lifetime of domestic service, and certain characteristics appear, modified to a large degree by personality, but typical none the less. This palpable result of house-service is familiar to us all, and not desired in ourselves or our children. Admitting all personal good qualities in the individual servant, that in his bearing which distinguishes it from the bearing we call "soldierly" or "gentlemanly" or even "business-like" is the natural result of his form of labour,--of personal domestic service. Where the purpose of action is to serve one individual or a very few individuals,--and this not so much in ministering to general needs as in catering to personal tastes,--those who thus labour are checked in development by the measure of the tastes they serve. That is the restrictive tendency, resisted according to personal power and ability, but always producing some result. A race of men who were one and all contented to be butlers and footmen would not give as noble a fatherhood as the world needs; and a race of women who are contented to be cooks and housemaids do not give as noble a motherhood as the world needs. Sharp exception will, no doubt, be taken to the use of the word "servant" to designate the nine out of ten women who "do their own work." There is a difference, we freely admit. They do the same work in the same way, but they have different motives. They do it from a sense of duty, oft-times, instead of a desire for wages; for they get no wages. They do it simply because they have to, sometimes, feeling it to be merely a disagreeable necessity. They do it from a more direct self-interest than the servant, as well as from a greater self-sacrifice. Few, very few women love it, and continue to do it a day beyond the time when their husbands can afford to hire another woman. Whatever the "moral quality" of intention and the value of one's "frame of mind," the reactive effect of one's daily labour is inexorable. No matter how high and holy the purpose of the toiling housewife, no matter whether she glories in her task or hates it, her brain is daily modified by its kind of exercise as surely as her fingers are greased by the dish-water, cracked by the soap-suds, and calloused by the broom. The amount of labour and care required to run a household comfortably is not small. It takes no mean intelligence to administer a home. So does it require intelligence, labour, and care to run a retail dry-goods shop or a railroad train. The point to study is whether this particular species of labour and care is conducive to the best child-culture. Can the average woman successfully manage the mingled industries of her household and the education of her children? It may be replied at once, with some triumph, "Yes, she does!" To which we merely rejoin, "Does she?" We know that the household industries are carried on in some fashion; and that children grow up amid them (such of them as do not die), and are--when grown--the kind of people we see about us. People did live and rear children in caves, in tents, in huts, in feudal castles. It is a question not of the bare possibility of maintaining the race, but of the relative advantages of methods of culture. Our rate of infant mortality is shamefully large, and due mainly to what physicians term "preventable diseases." It is quite open to discussion whether those diseases are not often traceable to the insanitary conditions of household labour, and their continued prevalence to the limitations of the kitchen-bred intellects of nine-tenths of our mothers. No human being, be she never so much a mother, can be in two places at once or do full justice to several varied functions with one distracted brain. That the mother comes so near it in many cases is a splendid tribute to the power of love; that she fails in such degree is no reproach to her, so long as she is unable to alter the industrial conditions under which her motherhood is restricted. Now that economic progress makes it possible to introduce new and wide improvements, the mother does become responsible, if she fails to see and take advantage of the change. Our complex and ill-developed household labours tend to produce certain special mental capacities in those who perform them. The housewife must hold in mind the entire contents of the home,--all its furnishing, decorations, utensils, and supplies. She must keep a running account of stock, and make good the incessant and irregular deficiencies of linen-closet, wardrobe, cupboard, and pantry, as well as the wear and tear on the machinery and furnishings. This developes one order of brain,--the administrative. The house-servant must exhibit skill in several distinct trades, and a swift facility for disconnecting the mind and readjusting it as promptly. This developes another order of brain,--the executive,--the development seriously hindered in special perfection by the attendant facility for disconnection. Neither of these mental powers is that of the educator, especially the educator of babies. The capacity for subtle, long-continued, nicely balanced observation in lines of psychic development; the ever-present, delicate sympathy which knows the moment to suggest and the hour to refrain,--these mental attributes belong neither to the administrative nor to the executive ability. We find in the maternal dealings with children, when conspicuously efficient, precisely what should be expected of the expert manager and skilful servant. The children are well managed and well served, but they are not well educated. When the mother--the housewife-mother, the servant-mother--begins to look into educational processes, she is appalled. It is easy to show her, if she has a clear and at all educated mind, what conditions would be best for babies, what kind of observation and treatment; but she knows full well that she cannot furnish these conditions. She has neither place, time, strength, skill, nor training for this delicate and careful method. Her work--her daily, hourly inexorable work--fills the place, consumes the time, exhausts the strength, does not develope the skill, and prevents the training of the educator. Many mothers do not even recognise the possibility of better methods, and strenuously resent the suggestion that they are not doing all that could be done. They resent even the kindergarten, many of them. The relatively slow progress of the kindergarten method is as good a proof as could be offered of the lack of educational perception among mothers. They are willing to "serve" their children endlessly,--wait on them, wash, sweep, and cook for them. They are willing to "manage" their children carefully and conscientiously, and do not recognise the need of better educational treatment for babies. This attitude is a perfectly natural result of the reaction of the absorbing household industries on the mind of the mother. Her interest is eager and alert in all that concerns the material management of the family, from wall-paper and carpets to some new variety of hose-supporter,--down to the least detail of decoration on an embroidered muslin cap for the baby. In any matter of greater beauty or economy, or in some cases of sanitary improvement, the housewife-mother's mind is open. In indefatigable zeal in direct service--no task too difficult, too long, too tedious--the servant-mother's hand is ever-ready. But the same devoted, loving, conscientious mother will fail appallingly to keep in touch with the mind-growth of the baby; will often neglect and even seriously injure its development in what is, after all, the main field of human life. The young human being needs far more than to be fed and clothed and waited on, however lovingly; or even than to be taught in schools in a few set lines of study. We have made splendid progress in external things, in material forms and methods of production and distribution. We have travelled far and deep in scientific study, climbed high in art, and grown through grand religions. Our one great need--a need that grows daily greater in the vivid light of these swift-moving years--is for a better kind of people. The progress in human character does not keep pace with our external improvement. We are not trained in the right management of our own faculties; and come out of "the home" into "the world" well fed enough, well dressed enough, but with such unkempt, unbuttoned, dangling strings of neglected character as bespeaks the orphan soul. Ask any mother to describe her children's complexion, costume, and tastes in eating. She will do it glibly, profusely, and with feeling. Johnny would never touch meat till he was ten; Maud would eat nothing else; Jessie could never bear potatoes. Maud was very near-sighted. She had early taken her to an oculist. She would probably have to wear glasses always. Jessie was so hard on shoes. She used two pairs to Maud's one,--even worse than Johnny. Now ask her to describe the distinctive mental characteristics of each, at what age they developed, and what measures she has taken from year to year to check Jessie's personal vanity, to increase Maud's courage, to develope patience in Johnny. Ask her what she has tried for croup, and she will discourse freely. Ask her what she has tried for the gradual reduction of self-consciousness, and she looks puzzled. The human race is capable of beautiful development in character, as we see in occasional instances. That such beautiful development is largely assisted by right education, especially in the very first years, is proven by a thousand experiments. That most of us grow up without any intelligent psychic training, without wise attention and skilful care in soul-growth, is but too evident. Better education for the young of the human race, that education which the child never knows of, but which surrounds him with helpful influences from his first consciousness, is an imperative need. Some attempt at this work is made by all conscientious mothers, and wonderful success is sometimes attained by a mother of special genius for child-culture (and who, by the way, is seldom distinguished as a housekeeper); but our general average in humaniculture is low. Nothing in the range of human effort is more important than the right education of children, which means the improvement of the race. The first years are of special value, the first influences and associations of pre-eminent importance. If the household industries are incompatible with the best child-culture, they should be withdrawn from the household, specialised and professionalised like all the other industries once considered essentially domestic. When a broader intelligence is brought to bear on our infancy, when we do not grow up under the unavoidable assumption that the principal business of life is to "keep house," there will be a better chance for the growth of those civic virtues so pitifully lacking in us now. So many marks of progress in these lines are now evident that any intelligent woman can see the way open before her. The public laundry is sapping the foundations of our domestic industry; the "Domestic Service Bureau" is beginning to furnish skilled labour by the hour; the "Prepared Food Association" is solving another problem. The way out of these household difficulties is opening fast. It needs only a fuller recognition among women of the value of this change to bring it in with greater rapidity and success. For the sake of our children let us free the home from its archaic industries. XIV. MOTHERS, NATURAL AND UNNATURAL. We use the word "natural" in many senses,--sometimes with warm approval, as indicating that which is best; sometimes with disapproval, as low and discreditable. "Natural affection" is one familiar phrase, and "unnatural monster" another, which show a firm belief in the rightness of the working laws of the universe. On the other hand, the whole story of human development lies in changing those conditions and habits which were once natural to the slow, laborious, hard-won advantages of civilisation. "The natural man" or man "in a state of nature" is a remote ancestor; and we do not allow unchecked freedom to animal passions and appetites among us on the ground that they are "natural." It is natural to take revenge for injuries; it is natural to eat too much; it is natural to be too careless in youth and too cautious in old age. "Natural" means according to the laws of nature; and the laws of nature have a wide and long range. In applying the word to any one creature, we have to limit it by time and circumstance. It is natural for an absolutely wild creature, which has never seen man, not to be afraid of him. It is natural for the same creature, when hunted, to fear man, and shun him. If long tamed, like the cat and dog, it is natural to come trustfully to the well-known friend. Nature is essentially changeful. Its laws remain the same, but the interaction of those laws produces ever-varying results. "The nature" of any given creature varies with its circumstances,--give it time,--as in the above case of the dog and cat; but the whole scale of behaviour is "natural" in its place and time. "A state of nature" is not a period with an exact date, nor any one grade of conduct. That conduct which is most advantageous to a creature under given circumstances is natural. The only conduct which is "unnatural" would be that which was exhibited in contradiction to the laws of nature, if such were possible. In this sense an ascetic life is unnatural, as meaning destruction to the individual and race; but, in the sense that the ascetic fondly believes he is acting for his ultimate benefit, his conduct is "natural," after all. A wild rose is "natural," a garden rose or hot-house rose is "cultivated," a velvet rose on a bonnet is "artificial." Yet it is as natural for man to cultivate and imitate for his own good pleasure as for a bee to store honey. When we were in what we usually call "a state of nature," we did not keep clean, wear clothes, go to school or to church. Yet cleanliness and clothing, education and religion, are natural products of "human nature." When we apply the word to human conduct, we ought to be clear in our own minds as to whether we mean "natural"--_i.e._, primitive, uncivilised, savage--or natural,--suited to man's present character and conditions. Primitive man did not send his children to school, but we do not consider it unnatural that we do send ours. Primitive woman carried her naked baby in her arms; modern woman pushes her much-dressed infant in a perambulator. But there is nothing unnatural in preferring the perambulator. It is natural to do what is easiest for the mother and best for the baby; and our modern skill and intelligence, our knowledge and experience, are as natural to us as ignorance, superstition, and ferocity were to our primal ancestors. With this in mind, let us look at the use of the term "natural" as applied to mothers. What sort of mother do we praise as natural, and what sort do we blame as "unnatural"? Is our term used with reference to a period of development, "natural" motherhood, meaning primitive, savage motherhood? or is it used with reference to the exercise of that intelligence, acquired knowledge and skill, and array of conveniences, which are natural to civilised man to-day? I think it will be found that in most cases we unconsciously use it in the first sense, natural meaning merely primitive or even animal, and with but too good reason, if we study the behaviour we are describing. Motherhood is pre-eminently a "natural" function in both senses. It might almost be called _the_ natural function, as reproduction seems to be more important in the evolution of species than even self-preservation. It would seem as if the instinct of self-preservation were given merely to keep the creatures alive for purposes of reproduction; for, when the two forces come into conflict, the reproductive instinct is the stronger. The reproductive functions are performed by both male and female; but, as species developes and more conscious effort is applied to the great task, the female has the larger share. In furnishing nutrition to the young, order mammalia gives the entire task to the mother; and their care, protection, and defence are mainly hers. With the human species, in proportion to its development, the scales have turned the other way. With us the father furnishes food, shelter, and protection, save for the first period of suckling. In many cases the mother fails even to provide this assuredly "natural" contribution to the child's nourishment. This would be a good opportunity to call her "unnatural"; but, if she is sufficiently assiduous with the bottle or wet-nurse, we do not. Beyond that period the human mother merely waits upon and watches her children in the shelter provided by the father, and administers to them such food, clothing, and other supplies as he furnishes. Her educational office, too, has largely passed from her, owing to the encroachments of the school and kindergarten. She still moulds their morals and manners as far as she is able, and has command of their education during the earliest and most important years. Now is it "natural" for a mother to take no part in getting food for children? If ever there was a natural function pertaining to motherhood, that seems to be one. If we use the word in its primitive sense, she certainly is "an unnatural mother" for relinquishing this primal duty. But, if we use it in the other sense, she is quite natural in accepting the conditions of civilised life as far as they are advantageous to the child. Is it "natural" for a mother to submit her children to the instruction of other extra-maternal persons? or to call the doctor when they are sick, engage the dentist to fill their teeth, and hire persons to help take care of them? These things are not primitive surely, but neither are they "unnatural." The "nature" of motherhood is to provide what is best for the child; and the multiplied services and facilities of our socially developed lives are as natural to us as our smooth white skins, once "naturally" brown and shaggy. In all fair thinking, speaking, and writing, we should decide clearly upon our meaning, and see that it would be very unnatural for modern women to behave as was natural to primitive women. The main duty remains the same,--to benefit the child. Methods and materials are open to choice and change. Motherhood is as open to criticism as any other human labour or animal function. Free study, honest criticism and suggestion, conscientious experiment in new lines,--by these we make progress. Why not apply study, criticism, suggestion, and experiment to motherhood, and make some progress there? "Progress in motherhood" is a strange phrase to most of us. We would as soon speak of progress in digestion. That shows how we persist in confounding the physical functions of reproduction with the elaborate processes that follow; and yet we do not apply our scornful term of "unnatural mother" to the weak, unhealthy woman who cannot compete with a cow in this stage of motherhood. We should think fairly one way or the other. Success in the physical functions of maternity we shall do well to keep up to a level with the performance of the "lower animals." The ensuing processes are the ones open to progress. No bottle is as good as the breast. "You cannot improve on nature!" But you can improve in methods of clothing, feeding in later years, house and school building, teaching, and every other distinctly human process. If the human mother does not compare favourably with other animals in the physical processes of reproduction, she is therein "unnatural." If she does not keep up with the opportunities of her race and time in all the ensuing care of the child, she is therein unnatural. Such care and culture as was natural to give a cave-baby would be unnatural to-day. Is not the average mother of to-day too prone to content herself with a very low-grade performance of a modern mother's duties, on the plea that her methods are "natural,"--namely, primitive? The grade of "care" given by the mother of to-day is too often exactly that of the mother of many thousand years ago. We depend almost altogether on what is known as "the maternal instinct," which is a "natural instinct," to be sure, just as it is a natural instinct for the male to fight. The right education of a child to-day requires more than instinct to produce the best results. Because we have not used the helpful influences of association, study, and experience in this most important labour of life, we keep our progress as a living species far below the level of our progress in material improvements. When anything is said of improving the human stock, we instantly think of the methods of breeders of cattle, and are at once convinced of the undesirability and impossibility of applying any such means to humanity. But there remain open to us two immense avenues of improvement, both free to mothers. One is the mother's modifying influence upon the race through selection,--that duty of wise choice of a superior father for her children, which is "natural" enough to the lower animals, but which we agree to ignore in the bringing up of our young women. Careful and conscientious training to this end would have a great effect upon the race. This does not mean the self-conscious forcing of a young heart to marry a "superior" man without the blessed leading of true love; but such open knowledge of what constituted an inferior or positively injurious man as would lower the likelihood of nice girls loving the undesirables. The other and far more practical road of racial advance is in improving the environment of our young children, both materially and psychically, by the intelligent co-ordinate action of mothers. If we improve the individual as far as possible, it is better not to meddle too much with the subtle forces which lead to mating. These processes are not cerebral, and ought not to be made self-conscious. But educational processes are conscious, and should be studied. The "natural" mother gives no thought to her approaching duties during youth. The animals do not, the savages do not, and our charming young girls do not. Is it not time for us to show a generation of mothers sufficiently "unnatural" to give honest thought and study to the great duty which lies before them? Clear-headed, intelligent girls, as yet unhampered by the blind brute instinct of maternal passion, might be able to plan together for the good of the child, as they never would be able to plan separately for the good of their own individual children. A year or two of thorough study and practice in the arts and sciences of child-culture would soon convince the girl as to whether she was adapted to be an educator of little children or merely a mother. I say "merely a mother" in this rather derogatory way, alluding to the process of bearing young and perhaps suckling them. This is an essential physical function, common to all the higher animals, and usually fulfilled by them much better than by us. The continuous and subtle processes of education which come after, and the wise care required for the physical health and comfort of the child, do not come "naturally" to every mother. It is here that the skill and training are needed. Maternity is one thing, and education another. It cannot be too strongly reiterated that maternal love does not necessarily include wisdom. It is "natural" for every mother to love her children, but it does not follow that she knows what is best for them. The animal mother does know by instinct; and we, content to take our pattern of motherhood from the beasts, have imagined that we needed nothing more. The individual animal has the necessary knowledge of its kind lodged in each specimen. One bear, lion, or sheep, can teach its young all that any of them know, and care for them one as well as another. There is an immense difference between this "natural" condition and ours, where individuals differ so widely in wisdom, and where the material conditions essential to the good of the child are not open to every mother to select from as instinct dictates and procure according to her individual skill, but are produced by us collectively, and only to be secured by combined intelligence. For our mothers to insure good conditions for their children requires more than maternal instinct. The "natural" mother of to-day is reared without an inkling of what lies before her; and no preacting instinct warns her of the effect of her girlhood's wasted opportunities. She marries still by "instinct," which often leads her astray; or, when she uses her conscious reason, it is generally in lines of financial advantage, irrespective of the to-be-father's health or character. She fulfils the physical functions of maternity rather reluctantly and with poor success, being frequently much the worse for the performance, and then rather boasting of her enfeebled condition, as if it was in some mysterious way a credit to her. Then she brings to the care and education of her children merely her rudiments of maternal instinct,--an instinct so far painfully lacking in wise prevision of the event and preparation for it. Where failing health or "social duties" or any other causes prevent her constant attendance on the child, the rich mother hires a low-class woman to take care of him; and, if the poor woman has too much work to be able to constantly attend upon the child, she gets along as she individually can without taking much care of him. Or, if she is of that small class who do really "take care of" their children personally, the care she gives is the mere chance outcome of her personal character and conditions, and may or may not be beneficial. All this conduct we call "natural," and see no blame in it. We assume that every mother knows how to care for her children; and, if we only see her keeping at it incessantly, we never criticise the methods or results. That is not, in general, a charge against motherhood. We do criticise individual cases very freely, yet make no deduction from our own wide observations. Now let us picture an "unnatural" mother. As a young girl, she thoughtfully considers her approaching duties. She says to herself: "I am to be a mother; to contribute my personal share to the improvement of humanity by bringing into the world some one better than I am. I must do all I can to be better personally, in character and physique, for the child's sake. Whatever I may be able to do for it afterward, I will give it good endowment at birth." And then this unnatural young girl proceeds to train herself in all right living, avoiding anything in dress or food or late hours that might injure her health, because she hopes to be a mother some day. She studies child-culture eagerly, hoping that she may be fit for the splendid work, but is disappointed here perhaps, having a strong musical temperament, or a good head for business, or capacity for prompt and skilful manual labour, but not the faculties that go to make the good educator. This is a blow, for she considers the training of little children as the highest work on earth, but she recognises that only about one in twenty has the requisite capacity; and the knowledge gained in her careful study in these lines shows her the importance of giving children the _best_ conditions, which involves association with those specially endowed with the teacher's power. So she studies her own profession cheerfully, resolved to make good progress there, to be a mother her children can be proud of, and to be able to guarantee them all they need. She loves and marries, led by the deepest force in organic life, but governed by a clear and conscious wisdom even here. If she has the misfortune to be attracted to a man diseased or immoral or defective, she will not accept him, for the sake of her children. But marry she will, for this is the law of life; and the exceptions go to extinction. This fair woman, vigorous and beautiful, with her well-trained body, clear mind, and tender spirit of mother-love waiting within her, would not go unloved. She marries. She bears healthy, beautiful children, and nourishes them at her proud and loving breast. She has provided beforehand for their care and training, knowing from the study and experience she has given the subject, and the reading she has kept up, what are now the best obtainable conditions. Her home has been chosen with a view to its proximity to the best baby-garden and child-home she knew, where some of the teachers were old friends of hers, and all were known by reputation. Having chosen a profession with a view to the physical limitations of motherhood, and prepared during her plentiful time of waiting such arrangement of hours and substitutes as shall enable her to meet the mother's duties properly, she takes a complete vacation for the months that need it; and then gradually resumes her work for part of the day, as her hours between nursing the child lengthen. She goes gladly to her work because she loves it, is well trained for it, and by doing it she serves her child. She comes more gladly to the child, the deep primal instinct coming out strongly; and at night the healthy little one sleeps near her in the quiet home. Between the hours of nursing, the baby sleeps peacefully or wakes happily, in the beautiful home that his mother--working with the other mothers--have made for their children; and is watched and cared for by the wise and tender women who have proved their fitness for this precious work. His mother is not worried about him. She knows that in that home there is no possible danger, in that trained care no least neglect; and that, if any sudden illness smote him, the visiting physician is there daily, and others in instant call. This place was made for babies, and is not in charge of servants. She is at ease about the child. Eagerly she goes to him when work is done. No weariness, no anxious uncertainty, only the glad triumphant mother-love which is content in knowing that the best possible conditions are secured to the child, and a constantly renewed delight in its health and beauty and good progress. Owing to her previous study, she knows enough not to undo the good effects by foolishness at home. She is in daily communication with the teachers,--and nurses and doctors, if necessary. She does not lose touch with the little life. Her untired affection surrounds him always, and to the child she is probably the most agreeable of the several agreeable persons in whose society he finds himself. Unless she falls terribly below the common standard, he will love her the best; for the beautiful background of nursing won and held his dawning affection, and the sweet home-coming every night is a constantly strengthening tie. Any clean, comfortable, human home should be suitable for a healthy child to sleep in; but it is in his impressionable day-time hours that he needs more appropriate surroundings. It will be seen that this unnatural mother has her child in her own care for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four, and during the eight hours of a working day she herself places him in what she knows to be better conditions than her own home could offer. If she does chance to possess that degree of educational genius essential to the best care of young children, her eight hours of work will be spent in taking care of them, and the remaining sixteen in still taking care of her own. Thus the exceptional mother, who is also an educator, will have her own all the time; and her unusual ability will benefit many other little ones for part of the time. The "natural" mother, of course, believes that her own care of her own child is better than any one's else. She can give no proof of this, and would be very unwilling to submit to any examination or competition. She simply thinks she is the best educator because she is a "mother." The sickness and death of her children, or the accidents which happen to them, or their inferior development and disagreeable behaviour, she never takes as proof of her incompetence. Where an experienced teacher could remove half a dozen bad habits in as many months without the child's knowing it, the mother scolds and spanks along the years, or resignedly lets the small people trample upon the rights of their elders, in serene conviction that her methods must be right; for is she not their mother? The unnatural mother, who is possessed of enough intelligence and knowledge to recognise her own deficiencies, gladly intrusts her children to superior care for part of the time, and constantly learns by it herself. The mother-love, which is so far strained by the difficulties of rearing children in the home as to frequently give way to irritability, weariness, and even bad temper, would be kept fresh and unworn by the eight-hour rest; and the child would never learn to despise his mother's irascibility and lack of self-control, as, unfortunately, so many children do. To the child, happy and busy in his day hours of education, the home-coming would be an ever new delight, and the home--"papa and mamma's house"--a lovely place to respect and enjoy. Many will wonder why the mother is described as "working" during eight hours. The able-bodied and able-minded human being who does not work is a contemptible object. To take from the labour of others so large a share of human products as is necessary to our comfort to-day, and contribute nothing in return, is the position of a devouring parasite. Most women do work, hard and long, at house-service. The "natural" mother is content to mingle her "sacred duties" of child-care with the miscellaneous duties of a house-servant; but the "unnatural mother," for the sake of her children, refuses to be the kitchen-maid, parlour-maid, and chamber-maid of the world any longer. She recognises that her real duties are too important to be hindered in their performance any longer by these primitive inconveniences; and, with combined intelligence, she and the others arrange their households on a basis of organised professional service, with skilled labour by the hour, and so each has time to perform some professional service herself, and pay well for the better performance of the "domestic" tasks. This subject is treated in a special volume on "Women and Economics," but here it is sufficient to present the position of the mother, the "unnatural" mother, who would refuse to maintain any longer our grossly defective system of household service (either by herself or by a hired woman), on the ground that it was not conducive to the best development of her children. To those who for any reason prefer, or are compelled by circumstances, to pursue the profession of private house-servant, it will, however, be of inestimable advantage to have their children taken out of the dirt and danger, and placed in proper conditions, while the mother follows her profession at home. The natural mother cares only for her own children. She loves and labours without knowledge, and what experience she gains by practising on her own children is buried with her. The unnatural mother cares for Children,--all of them,--and knows that she can best serve her own by lifting the standard of child-culture for all. We have urgent need of the unnatural mother,--the mother who has added a trained intellect to a warm heart; and, when we have enough of them, the rarest sound on earth will be that now so pitifully common,--the crying of a little child. XV. SOCIAL PARENTAGE. The mother does her duty by her children as best she can. The father does his duty by his children. But we do not do our duty by our children. The relation of the State to the child is little thought of, much less understood. We have discussed it only as an alternative to the parental relation, involving the removal of the child from the home and family, and the substitution of civic for domestic care. Such a proposal naturally excites the hot opposition of parental love and instinct, and cannot stand. It has been tried more or less thoroughly, as in Sparta, but does not appeal to the human heart or head, and is not in the least what is here under discussion. The true relation of the State to the child includes the parental relation, and in no way controverts the love and instinct of those invaluable public functionaries. It is not necessary, or in any way desirable, for the State to remove the child from the parent. Parents are evolved for the purpose of rearing children, and possess highly specialised and urgent impulses in that direction,--far too useful forces to be ignored. But the civilised human parent lives as part of an elaborate society,--a State; and, as a member of the State, he holds a new relation to his child--she holds a new relation to her child: they--and they are the State--hold a new relation to their children. This is what we so generally ignore. The individual parents do their individual duty fairly well; but the collective parents, who constitute society, fail shamefully in their collective duties. What is a society? It is an organisation of human beings, alive, complex, exquisitely developed in co-ordinate inter-service. What is it for? It is for development, growth, progress, like any other living thing. How does a society improve? By combinations of individuals evolving social processes which react favourably upon the individual constituents, and develope in them better social faculties. For instance, early combinations of individuals evolve low forms of legal protection for the citizens of the early State. Under those protective enactments, citizens grow up in comparative peace, and become capable of enacting further and superior laws. In recent and particular instance, our American forefathers established a system of public education under which many citizens were developed to a degree of intelligence sufficient to see the need and the means of extending and improving that education. Education is a social process, impossible--in any human degree--among detached individuals. The education of children is a distinctly social process. Much of it may be carried on by the parents, but it is for social improvement and as a member of society that they do this. Here is where our parents, who constitute society, fail to see the nature and extent of their work. They have an exaggerated idea of "parental responsibility" to the child, and no idea at all of social responsibility to the child. That social development which has enlarged the mind and soul of the beast-savage to our present capacity for love and service we still imagine to be purely parental, and endeavour to concentrate it all on our own children, failing utterly in our duty to each other's children. No such gross error can work good results. This disproportionate concentration of feeling on the individual child, and neglect of the child in general, produces a world full of people with a congested family life, full of morbid sensitiveness and potential difficulty and suffering, and a weak, anæmic social life, full of mutual neglect and dereliction of duty. The well-known illustration of education can be used again still farther to show this. Suppose a small community, wherein the parents are all very anxious for the education of their own children and profoundly indifferent to the education of anybody's else children. Suppose these parents all labour religiously to buy books, pictures, statues, music, and to have the best of tutors for their own children. It can be seen without much mathematical effort how inferior would be the supplies purchasable by the individual parent's funds compared to those purchasable by their collective funds. Separately, they could not compass a good teacher to each family, nor good pictures, nor many books and instruments, nor any statuary and music to speak of. Collectively and for less money, they could have all these things in far higher degree of excellence. It is social parentage, such as we have, which gives us the school as we have it. It is the weakness and irresponsibility of our social parentage which leaves the school as it is, and fails to push on to something far fuller and better. What thought, what care, what service, does the average mother give to other people's children? None. She does not imagine it to be her duty. She imagines that her duty lies only toward her own children, and that it is no faintest fault of hers if other children suffer. If she sees little ones visibly neglected and injured, she merely blames their individual parents, and gives no further thought to the matter. Now, once for all, what is the advantage of living in a society instead of living alone? It is that we do not have to spend all our time and strength in very imperfectly taking care of ourselves, as the separate individual would be obliged to do, but are more and more perfectly taken care of by one another. We all share in the advantages of living together,--the protection not only of numbers, but of our specialised defenders, civil and military; the vast accumulations of knowledge and skill acquired by many and transmitted to all; the increasing measure of mutual love, in which we thrive and grow. The more perfectly a society can distribute these advantages to all its citizens, the more swiftly and healthfully does it advance and improve. Public peace and safety, public justice, public education, the public hall, the public road, the public library and gallery and museum and bath,--these are what react so favourably upon the individual, and make better homes and citizens. The father is, to some extent, awake to the duties of social parentage; the mother, hardly at all. The difference is this: the father serves his children by means of serving other people; the mother serves her children personally, with her own hands. Suppose a number of families (we cannot call it a community, because it would not be one), wherein the fathers endeavoured to serve their children personally with their own hands only, each man building, weaving, farming, fishing, blacksmithing, making dishes and tools and instruments, and trying in all ways to meet the family needs _himself_ personally. It will readily be seen how little the families of these men would have. The time, strength, and skill of one man do not go far, if he tries to do all things himself. Why do women imagine that their time, strength, and skill severally will serve better than in combination? Why are they content to give their children only what they can do themselves alone, thus depriving them of the rich possibilities of civilised motherhood, combined, collective, mutually helpful? The term "city fathers," and its painful lack of companionship in city mothers, shows the wide gulf between the development of social parentage in men and women. The accidents to little children from electric and cable cars are pitifully numerous. What mother has taken any steps to prevent these accidents? Individually, each tries to protect her own, as does the animal or savage. Collectively, they do nothing; yet it is the lack of this collective motherhood which makes our cities so unsafe for children. The idea that, if each takes care of her own, all will be cared for, is as false for women as it is for men. If each man took care of his own, and not of the others, we should have no soldiers, no policemen, no government, no society, only that social chaos called anarchy. Social health and progress demand collective action, the largest mutuality, the care and service of _all_, which is the only guarantee of safety and prosperity to each. Our fatherhood is to a considerable degree socialised. Our motherhood is flatly anarchistic, refusing all co-ordination. An earnest--hotly earnest--woman once disputed this suggestion of mutual service in motherhood, thus: "When I make the bed for my child, I put some of my _personality_ between the sheets. My child sleeps better if I make his bed for him." I gazed at her calmly. "Does your child walk better if you make his shoes for him?" I asked. It is a pretty sentiment that the mother's love in some mysterious way makes all she does for the child superior to what another could do. But apply the test of fact. Can she, with all her love, make as good a shoe as the shoemaker? as good a hair-brush, tooth-brush, tumbler, teacup, pie-plate, spoon, fork, or knife, as the professional manufacturers of these things? Does mother-love teach her to be a good barber? Can she cut her darling's hair so as to make him happy? Can she make a good chair or table or book or window? How silly it is to imagine that this "personality" inserted between the sheets makes the bed more conducive to healthy sleep than any other clean, well-aired, well-made bed! Let the mother put the child to bed by all means, if she wishes. In the last sweet words and the good-night kiss is truly the place for personality. That is a mother's place, and not a tradesman's. But there is no more need for maternal personality between the sheets of a bed than between the leaves of a book or the bricks of a wall. In our narrow-mindedness we have assumed that to care for any other children would mean to neglect our own. As if the human heart, the mother-heart, could love but one or six, and not more! As a matter of fact, we neglect our own by not caring for others. That is, we fail to take those general measures for the protection and development of all children which would so greatly benefit our particular children. Only to-day, at last, we see in some few advanced communities the mothers' club and congress, the women's civic associations, and other forms of union for the improvement of social conditions, all helping to enlarge the application of mother-love, and set that great force free to bring on the better day for children. These clubs and societies are jeered at by the majority of mothers, who proudly say that they are too busy taking care of their children to go to a mothers' congress and learn how. Imagine, again, a majority of men, each saying he was too busy teaching his children to go to a school meeting and plan for the education of them all! It is not a shifting of duty that is required,--to cease to take care of one's own in order to take care of others instead. So ingrained are our primitive habits, so unable are we to conceive of anything but the one-woman method, that our only idea of change is a simple exchange of responsibility. It is not exchanging that is needed, but an enlarging, an embracing of the less in the greater. The mothers of the world are responsible for the children of the world; the mothers of a nation, for the children of a nation; the mothers of a city, for the children of a city. We may ignore and deny this claim; but it is there none the less, and, because we do not do our duty as social parents, a corrupt society injures our children continually. The diseases of other children infect ours. What have the mothers ever done to prevent these diseases? They nurse their own sick little ones religiously, and bury them with tears; but what do they do before or after to learn the cause and prevention of these "family afflictions," to spread their information, and enforce measures to put a stop to them? The bad habits of other children affect ours,--their ignorance, their ill manners, their sins. Our children suffer individually from bad social conditions, but cannot be saved individually. When the Philadelphia water supply is so foul as to poison young and old, mothers are responsible for not doing their share to make the city water fit for their families to drink. It is not a private filter on a private faucet that will do it, but public purity in the public works. In Boston in 1899 the Society of Collegiate Alumnæ exposed a disgracefully insanitary condition in the public schools,--undisturbed filth in cellar and vault, unwashed floors, a slovenly neglect of the commonest sanitary decency worthy of an Oriental slum. Any mother in Boston would have been filled with shame to have such an exposure of her own private housekeeping. There is room for shame at this exposure of their public housekeeping, school-house-keeping, city-keeping. Like an ostrich with his head in the sand, the mother shuts herself up in the home and imagines that she is safe and hidden, acting as if "the home" was isolated in space. That the home is not isolated we are made painfully conscious through its material connections,--gas-pipes, water-pipes, sewer-pipes, and electric wires,--all serving us well or ill according to their general management. Milk, food, clothing, and all supplies brought in bring health or disease according to their general management. The mere physical comfort of the home needs collective action, to say nothing of the psychic connection in which we all live, and where none is safe and clean till all are safe and clean. How far does the duty of the State extend, and how much should be left to individual responsibility? This is the working point to which this discussion tends. A more serious sociological question could hardly be propounded. Seeing that progress is the law of nature, that the human race is under pressure of every force--conscious and unconscious--to go on, to improve, to grow better, and that we, as social beings, move forward through social improvement, the main weight of care seems to rest on society rather than the individual. It is astonishing to see how far this has gone already. Whereas once the beast father and mother were the only ones to protect or serve the young, now society does far more for the child than the parents. The father does more than the mother, and that by means of his social relation. He provides for his child by being a carpenter, lawyer, mason, or other social functionary. In this social relation he is able to provide for it the comfort and safety of a modern society. Out of that relation he would be able to provide for it only with his bare hands alone, and less competent than the hardy savage. We need not be alarmed at some new overtures on the part of society, if we but look at what society is doing now. That we do not think of this is due to our tradition that we "take care of ourselves." We do not. No civilised man "takes care of himself." We take care of each other. But, granting this to some degree, we have heretofore supposed that the benefits of civilisation belonged only to adults,--for that matter only to adult males!--and were to be distributed to children through the individual parent. Thus, if the parent was inferior, the child was expected not only to inherit his inferiority, but to suffer from it always through inferior maintenance, breeding, and education. The gradual reaching out of society to protect and care for the child is one of the most interesting lines of historic development. The parent had power to kill a child. The State denied the right, and protected the child against the parent. The parent had power to sell the child. The State denied that. The parent might cast off and neglect the child. The State compels him to maintain it, if he can; and, if not, the State supports the child. The parent might teach the child, have it taught, or leave it untaught. Now the State orders that the child must be taught, either at home or at school, and furnishes the school free. So far the line of advance has been from absolute parental control to a steadily enlarging State control, from absolute parental support to more and more of State support. The question of more or less in present details may be debated indefinitely to no conclusion. The principle is what we should study. The condition of childhood in our human sense, the long period of immaturity, is a social condition. As we advance in social relation, becoming more and more highly specialised, the gulf between infancy and maturity increases. The young animal and the adult animal are far more alike than a Gladstone and his baby. It does not take very long to mature the group of faculties required for maintaining individual life. It does take long to mature the group of faculties required to maintain social life. To rear a man--_i.e._, an adult male of _genus homo_--is no very difficult task. It is accomplished by Bushmen, Hottentots, Eskimo, every living kind of human creature. To rear a physician, an engineer, a chemist,--this takes longer. Incidentally, this is one reason why a girl's "majority" is placed at eighteen, a boy's at twenty-one. She is supposed to need only individual maturity,--physical maturity. He is supposed to take more time to become a man because he is a member of society, and so has to learn more things. It is not a question of adolescence, of physiological change. The boy of eighteen could be a father as well as the girl a mother; but he is not as well able to take his social position, to serve mankind in his craft, art, trade, or profession. Note here the early maturity and marriage of the less developed grades of society, filling those simpler social functions which require less specialisation, and the proportionate postponement of this period in the more highly specialised. Our long period of immaturity is a social condition, and not an individual one. That we may reach the full growth needed in the advanced member of society, we must be minors longer than would be necessary if we were not members of society. The exceeding childishness of the civilised child is also a social condition. The nearer we are to the animals, the more capable and bright the very little ones. In the South it was common to set a little black child to take care of an older white one: the pickaninny matures much more rapidly. So, again, in our own lower social grades the little children of the poor are sharper, better able to care for themselves, than children of the same age in more developed classes. It is no proof of greater intelligence in the adult. It is retrogression,--a mark of bad social conditions. Civilised society is responsible for civilised childhood, and should meet its responsibilities. The sweet confidence of a modern child, as compared to the alert suspicion of a baby savage, shows what ages of social safe-guarding have done. In the beautiful union of our civilised growth, even so far, we have made possible the Child; and it is for us still further to protect and develope this most exquisite social product,--this greatest social hope and power. Society's relation to the child is impersonal. It is not limited by parenthood. The parental relation is lower, more limited. Parentally, we care only for our own: socially, we care for all. Parentally, we are animals: socially, we learn to love one another. We become, approximately, Christians. Christianity is a social condition. In our present degree of social progress, we produce by our specialised co-ordinate activities that safe and comfortable material environment, those comparatively developed virtues which we call "civilisation." But, in applying this common product to the advancement of the child,--which is our best and quickest way to incorporate progress in the race itself,--we allow the incapacity of the individual parent to limit the child's advantages. We deny to the child the conditions necessary to his best development, unless his particular father is able to provide them. Our theory here is that the father would not work so hard if the State provided for his child; some thinkers combating even the public school and public library on this ground. This is an outworn economic fallacy. The inferior father cannot work beyond a certain grade because he has not the capacity; and, if the child has only the advantages the inferior father can provide for him, he grows up to be another inferior father and low-grade worker. The most deadly result of this foolish neglect of the young citizen is seen in the ensuing action of the biological law, "Reproduction is in inverse proportion to specialisation." Because we leave the child to grow up unspecialised, untrained, save for the puny efforts of his single low-grade parent, therefore he, in turn, helps fill the world with very numerous and very inferior progeny. We are hampered by the rapid reproduction of the very lowest classes of society, weighted down by their defects and limitations, forced to wait--the most advanced of us--for the great rear-guard of the population. We must wait because a society is alive, and includes all its members. It cannot outstrip its own inferior parts, however neglected and behindhand they may be. And their numbers--_numbers resultant from their low condition_--complicate the problem hopelessly. That is, hopelessly on this old fallacious notion that the child can have no help from all the strong, rich world, save what his father and mother can filter through their personal limitations. We are beginning to change this by our efforts at free public education. We shall change it more and more as we grow consciously awake to our true social responsibility to the child. We cannot afford to have one citizen grow up below the standards of common comfort, health, and general education. To the scared cry, "But, if you take the responsibility off these people, they will simply flood the world with wretched babies!" comes the answer of natural law, "Improve the individual, and you check this crude fecundity." It is because they are neglected and inferior that they have so many children. Make higher-class people of the children, and you check this constant influx of low-grade life, and gradually introduce a better-born population. When the wise, beneficent parental love of Human Society for its young really does its duty, tenderly removing obstructions from the path of all our little ones, we shall give to them those common human advantages without which they cannot grow to the happiness which is their right, the usefulness which is their duty. All parents who are able to do more for their children would be free to do so, as those who can afford private schools, or educate their little ones at home, are not compelled to send them to the public schools. As now society provides the school for the young citizen, on the ground of public advantage, without regard to the inability of the parent, so we must learn to provide a far richer and more complete education, and all else that the parent falls short in, because it is necessary for the good of society, and because we love our children. Index. Absence of mind, 54. "Acquired traits not transmissible," 9. experiments with guinea-pigs, 11. Action, bodily, directed by mental processes, 57. Adult, our houses built only for the, 121. Age, the presumption of, 156. not necessarily superiority, 159. Aged persons, cause of the respect and care for, 160. Ambition of youth a force to lift mankind, the, 23. American Revolution, the, mentioned, 35. Animal mother, the authority of the, 42. Animals, obedience in, 29. Arbitrary punishment, effect on the moral sense of, 84. Authority of the animal mother, the, 42. effect of, coming between the mind and action of the child, 60. Babies confided to the care of lower races, 134. Baby, impressions of a, 49. considered as a plaything, 175. our disrespectful treatment of the, 171. often neglected mind-growth of the, 250. Baby-garden, a public, 124. example of the advantages of a, 139. a private, 125. Babyhood, education not thought of in connection with, 135. Bible, the, 114. Biological advantage of a longer period of immaturity, the, 18. law of reproduction, 296. Bodily action directed by mental processes, 57. Boston, 289. Brain, effect of obedience on the, 41. training of children, the, 46. the office of the, 47. in early forms of life, 48. function of the child, 49. improvement, progress of humanity made through, 149. Breakfast, unpunctuality at, 149. Bushmen, the, 293. Callous child, treatment of the, 92. Casabianca, 30. Census Report, United States, 233. Character, comparatively small progress in the human, 251. development of, assisted by right education, 252. Chastity, the virtue of, 26. Child, importance of the first fifteen years of the life of the, 21. exercise of the will of the, in games, 22. trained to obey, 31. reasons why obedience is demanded from the, 37. brain function of the, 49. the, should be trained to presence of mind, 55. advantage taken of the credulity of the, 56. what the, feels and thinks ignored, 57. the mind of the, 57. effect of authority coming between the mind and action of the, 60. culture of the, 63. table manners, teaching the, 63. early impressions of a, 77. result of the deed of a, dependent upon parental knowledge, 82. the naughty, 90. a group of growing faculties, 90. treatment of the callous, 92. games, the daily lessons of the, 108. teaching generosity to the, 109. delicacy of perception of the, weakened by false impressions, 111. perception in the place of the State of the, 119. mother and, no separation of, 125. treatment of the, at home, 170. attitude of the family towards the, 171. personal rights of the, 174. no excuse for contemptuous treatment of the, 177. necessity for recognising the citizenship of the, 182. treatment at table of the, 183. teaching a, consideration, 187. the need for consideration between mother and, 187. tendency to repetition of a, 191. excessive sacrifice of the mother injurious to the, 193. harmful effect of the mother's sacrificial devotion to the, 197. effect of association with domestic servants on the, 235. influence of surroundings on the, 237. physical conditions of the household a danger to the, 238. duty of the mother to benefit the, 261. relation of the State to the, 278. social responsibility of parents to the, 280. gradual protection by society of the, 292. Child-culture and house service, the relation between, 233. the study of, 265. Child-training, obedience in, 36. honesty lacking in, 109. Childhood, the condition of the brain in, 49. naturally inconsiderate, 91. careless, 93. clumsy, 93. permanence of, as a human status, 119. the status of, 180. Childish faith, an expression of, 56. Children, importance of the work of rearing, 37. the most submissive, not the best men, 43. trained to act without understanding, 51. present brain-training of, discouraging to racial advancement, 62. should be practised in reasoning, 68. the punishment of, 74. parents and the punishment of, 75. over-indulgence of, 75. learn before school-age, what, 77. code of ethics among, 87. the injured clothing of, 94. lying to, 102. ethics of, formed from the treatment they receive, 102. open to instruction in ethics, 104. sense of justice in, 105. instruction of, in ethics, 106. the teaching of ethics to, 115. a permanent class, 118. houses not built for, 120. playgrounds for, beginning to appear, 120. in institutions, 124. mortality of, in institutions, 126. expert care for, 127. the care of, not servant's work, 127. trained care for defective, 128. a place for, to play in, 129. a special house for little, 129. the home as a place for, 180. the private nurse not the proper person to have the care of, 132. the mischievousness of, 137. orderly development of the faculties of, 146. travelling parties of, 150. the demands of parents on their, 162. errors of little, not grounds for humour, 172. "impertinence" of, 175. mother's lack of respect for her, 178. the confidence of, not regarded, 179. behaviour of women to, 179. grown people and, 179. discourtesy to, 181. the balance of human rights should be understood by, 188. the questions of, 191. our love for our, 192. benefit of mothers observing other peoples', 204. method of observation of, 206. the effect of the education of, by house-servants, 240. improved environment of, a road to racial improvement, 264. maternal instinct not sufficient to ensure good conditions for, 267. the duty of the State to, 290. Chinese, the, 12. Christianity a social condition, 295. Citizenship of the child, necessity for recognising the, 182. Civic duties, ignoring of, by women, 154. Class, children a permanent, 118. Clothing, children's injured, 94. Collegiate Alumnæ, the Society of, 289. Combined motherhood, the possibilities of, 284. Conduct, all, right or wrong, 107. Confidence of children not regarded, the, 179. Conservatism, feminine, 169. Consideration between mother and child, the need for, 187. Consideration of others not identical with obedience, 40. teaching a child, 187. Consistency, the desire for, 58. Constitution, our inheritance of, 15. Courage, the virtue of, 27. Credulity of the child taken advantage of, 56. Crime, retributive punishment of, 73. Cruelty to Children, Society for the Prevention of, 75. Defective children, trained care for, 128. Development, arrested social, 5. race, and environment, 7. of character assisted by right education, 252. Discipline, the question of, 70. domestic, 77. Discourtesy to children, 181. Discussion between mothers, benefits of, 207. Doctrine of sacrifice, the, 194. Domestic discipline, 77. relation, the small change in, 100. Service Bureau, 254. "Don't Mary," 59. Education, obedience in human, 29. not thought of in connection with babyhood, 135. advantages of unconscious, 144. nothing too expensive that improves, 150. of children by house-servants, the, 240. development of character assisted by right, 252. better, for the young an imperative need, 253. a social process, 280. Educational perception, lack of, among mothers, 249. Emulation, the love of, 23. Endurance, the virtue of, 26. Environment and race development, 7. Eskimo, the, 293. Ethics, code of, among children, 87. our knowledge of, 97. the cause of our small growth in, 97. and social evolution, 99. influence of religious custom on, 100. children cannot learn, from the treatment they receive, 102. a child open to instruction in, 104. the science of social relation, 105. the instruction of children in, 106. sense of, shown in games, the, 108. self-control one of the first essentials in the practice of, 107. values, long association of, with religious text-books, 114. the teaching of, to children, 115. necessity for the study of practical, 114. necessity for mothers to be grounded in, 116. Example better than precept, 51. Experience, 167. Faith, a childish expression of, 56. Father, the, awake to the duties of social parentage, 283. the choice of a, 264. Family, attitude towards the little child of the, 171. -life, primitive mental habits fostered in, 169. Feminine conservatism, 169. Foolishness of youth due to our training, 21. French Revolution, the, 53. Games, the child's daily lessons, 108. ethical sense shown in, 108. Generosity, teaching the child, 109. Girl, reason for the majority of a, at eighteen, 293. God, Hebrew traditions of, 34. Goths, the, 61. Grown people and children, 179. Habit and tradition, the home the stronghold of, 35. Hebrew traditions of God, 34. Home, the, the stronghold of habit and tradition, 35. as a place for children, 130. Homes, the mother the domestic servant in the majority of, 233. Honesty lacking in child-training, 110. Horse-training, 71. Hottentots, the, 293. Household, physical conditions of the, a danger to the child, 238. labour, mental capacities developed by, 247. employment of skilled labour for, 276. Houses not built for children, 120. built for the adult only, 121. House-service and child-culture, the relation between, 233. qualities developed by, 243. Housework, few women like, 245. Human behaviour, the whole scale of, is natural, 256. character, comparatively small progress in the, 251. conduct, the word natural applied to, 257. creature, mental workings of the, 50. a self-governing intelligence, 40. parentage, selfishness of, 178. -parenthood, prolonged, 8. progress, youth the fountain of, 21. rights, children to understand the balance of, 188. status, permanence of childhood as a, 119. stock, improving the, 263. being, the, a social constituent, 19. who does not work contemptible, the, 275. Humanity, degrees of, 3. to improve, 6. the time to develop the inheritance of, 17. progress of, made through brain improvement, 149. Humour, errors of the child not grounds for, 172. Impertinence of children, the, 175. Immaturity, biological advantage of a longer period of, 18. Impressions of a baby, the, 49. of a child, early, 77. Improve, humanity to, 6. Improvement, race, transmitted, 4. all possible, in the individual to be made before parentage, 21. of the human stock, the, 263. Individual rights, maintenance of, by the mother, 195. Individuals, social service must be given by, 20. Infant mortality shamefully large, 246. Inheritance of constitution, our, 15. Intelligence, the human being a self-governing, 40. Instinct, parental, 177. our dependence on the maternal, 263. maternal, not sufficient to ensure good conditions to children, 267. Institutions, children in, 124. mortality of children in, 126. Jesuits, obedience of the, 34. Justice, sense of, in children, 105. Knowledge and wisdom, the difference between, 54. Koran, the, 114. Labour, the employment of skilled, for household, 276. household, mental capacities developed by, 247. Law of parental love, the, 177. Life, the brain in early forms of, 48. Lifetime, the most important decade of a, 18. Love for our children, our, 192. the law of parental, 177. open to measurement by results, 192. mother, 193, 197. Lying to children, 102. Majority of a girl at eighteen, reason for the, 293. Man, the distinctive power of, 53. "Mary Don't," 59. Maternal instinct, our dependence on the, 263. not sufficient to ensure good conditions for children, 267. Maternal passion, need for restraint of the, 197. Maturity, early, a sign of bad social conditions, 294. Mental capacities developed by household labours, 247. habits, primitive, fostered in family life, 169. workings of the human creature, 50. Methuselah, 158. Modification, race, and individual modification, 10. Moral sense, effect on the, of arbitrary punishment, 84. Mortality, infant, shamefully large, 246. Mind, effect of obedience on the growing, 37. absence of, 54. presence of, 54. connection between the, and behaviour, 54. of a child, the, 57. effect of authority coming between the child's, and his action, 60. Mind-growth of the baby, the often neglected, 280. failure of the mother to keep in touch with the, 250. Mother, the authority of the animal, 42. necessity for the, to be grounded in ethics, 116. and child, no separation of, 125. the, not trained as an educator, 135. and child, the need for consideration between, 187. excessive sacrifice of the, injurious to the child, 193. maintenance of individual rights by the, 195. the domestic servant in the majority of homes, the, 233. the natural, 258. duty of the, to benefit the child, 261. the "unnatural," 265. Mother's lack of respect for her little children, 179. sacrificial devotion to the child, harmful effect of, the, 197. personality, the place for a, 286. Mothers, the need for union among, 201. benefits of discussion between, 207. benefit of, observing other people's children, 204. lack of educational perception among, 249. the term natural as applied to, 258. necessity for enlarging the responsibility of, 287. public duty of, 288. Mother's Congress, the, 76. Mother-love, 193, 197. Motherhood, progress in, 261. preparation for, 268. work during, 271. possibilities of combined, 284. Natural law, the wisdom of following, 43. Natural, the use of the word, 255. the word, applied to human conduct, 257. the whole scale of human behaviour is, 256. the term, as applied to mothers, 258. Nature, a state of, 256. Nurse, the private, not a proper person to have the care of children, 132. Nursery, a public, suggested, 123. isolation of the private, injurious to the child, 132. Nursemaids, difficulty of getting suitable, 212. Obedience, 27. the use of, 28. in animals, 29. in human education, 29. the reason for, 31. our reverence for, easily traced, 32. in child training, 36. of the Jesuits, 34. is demanded from the child, reasons why, 37. effect of, on the growing mind, 37. the injurious reaction from, 39. consideration of others not identical with, 40. effect of, on the brain, 41. qualities developed by, 45. Observation of children, method of, 206. Old, the advantage of the young over the, 158. Over-indulgence of children, the, 75. Parent, continued life of the, 6. Parentage, traits acquired before, transmissible, 14. all possible improvement in the individual should be made before, 21. not a profession, 165. selfishness of human, 178. Parental knowledge, result of the child's deed made dependent upon, 82. duty the gift of nature, 164. instinct, 177. love, the law of, 177. Parenthood, prolonged human, 8. the work of, 37. Parents, want of publicity and community in the action of, 75. the punishment of children by, 75. duty of, to children, 161. demands of, on their children, 162. Parents' Congress, the, 70. social responsibility to the child, 280. Penology, the advance in, 73. People, need for a better kind of, 251. Perception, delicacy of a child's, weakened by false impressions, 111. Personal example, social duty shown by, 112. Personal rights of the child, the, 174. Personality, the place for a mother's, 286. Philadelphia water supply, the, 289. Playgrounds, childrens', beginning to appear, 120. Plaything, a baby considered a, 175. Precept, example better than, 51. Prepared Food Association, the, 254. Presence of mind, 54. the child trained to constant, 55. Printing press, main value of the, 5. Profession, parentage not a, 165. Progress born into the race, 7. Protestant Reformation, the, 35. Public nursery, a, suggested, 123. baby garden, a, 124. duty of mothers, 288. Punishment, retributive, 73. of children, the, 74. by parents, 75. arbitrary, effect of, on the moral sense, 84. Qualities developed by obedience, 45. house-service, 243. Question of discipline, the, 71. Questions of children, the, 191. Race improvement transmitted, 4. development and environment, 7. progress born into the, 7. modification and individual modification, 10. Racial advance, improvement in the environment of children a road to, 264. Reaction from obedience, the injurious, 39. Rearing children, importance of the work of, 37. Reasoning, children should be practised in, 68. Repetition, a child's tendency to, 191. Reproduction, biological law of, 296. rapid, of the lowest classes resultant from their condition, 297. Respect to be commanded, not demanded, 166. Results, love open to measurement by, 192. Roman Catholic Church, obedience in the, 34. Sacrifice, the doctrine of, 194. Salisbury method, the, 37. Savage, the, as a social constituent, 19. Schools, the improvement of, 149. School age, what children learn before, 77. Self-control one of the first essentials in the practice of ethics, 107. Servants, domestic, effect of association with, on the child, 235. Shelley's "Skylark" mentioned, 53. "Skylark," Shelley's, mentioned, 53. Skilled labour, employment of, for household work, 271. Social conditions, early maturity the sign of bad, 284. constituent, the human being a, 19. the savage as a, 19. development, arrested, 5. duty shown by personal example, 112. evolution and ethics, 99. parentage, the father awake to the duties of, 283. relation, ethics the science of, 105. service given by individuals, 20. status, a, at the level of its main constituents, 20. Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, 75. Society of Collegiate Alumnæ, the, 289. Society, gradual protection of the child by, 292. Species, our power to improve the, 3. State of nature, a, 256. State, perception of the child's place in the, 119. relation of the, to the child, 278. the duty of the, to children, 290. Sunday-school, the, 117. Surroundings, influence of, on the child, 237. Table manners, teaching a child, 63. Table, treatment of the child at, 183. Talmud, the, 114. Teaching taken up only by women obliged to work, 148. Thompson's, Mr., story, 29. Thought and action, connection between, 56. Traits acquired before parentage transmissible, 14. "Traits, acquired, not transmissible," 9. Travelling parties of children, 150. Treatment of the baby, our disrespectful, 171. the child, no excuse for contemptuous, 177. Unconscious education, advantages of, 144. United States Census Report, the, 233. Union among mothers, the need of, 201. "Unnatural" mother, the, 265. Unpunctuality at breakfast, 189. Virtue, all, made of necessity, 27. of chastity, 27. of courage, the, 27. of endurance, the, 26. of obedience, the, 27. what is a, 25. Weissman, theory, the, 9. Will, power of the, 47. Wisdom and knowledge, 54. of following natural law, 43. Woman's brain modified by its kind of exercise, 245. Women, ignoring of civic duties by, 154. the care of children the duty of, 155. behaviour of, to children, 179. few, like housework, 245. Work, the, of parenthood, 37. during motherhood, 271. the human being who does not, contemptible, 275. Young, advantage of the, over the old, 158. better education of the, an imperative need, 253. ambition of the, a force to lift mankind, 23. respect due to the, 172. Youth, the foolishness of, due to our training, 21. the fountain of human progress, 21. Zend-Avesta, the, 114. PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB LIMITED, EDINBURGH * * * * * THE BOOKS OF CHARLOTTE PERKINS STETSON (Mrs. G. H. GILMAN) WOMEN AND ECONOMICS A STUDY OF THE ECONOMIC RELATION BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN AS A FACTOR IN SOCIAL EVOLUTION _358 pages, crown 8vo, cloth, 6s._ In writing this book it has been Mrs. Stetson's purpose to point out, explain, and justify the changes now going on in the relations of women to society. The subject is one which must inevitably come home to every household in the country. No woman, whatever her position or the conditions surrounding her, can read the book and not feel that the whole argument applies to herself and her concerns almost like a personal appeal. In brief, the position taken is that women have for centuries been economically dependent on men; that as a result women have been tending to become more and more feminine and less and less normal human beings. Even this bald statement of Mrs. Stetson's thesis will serve to show the scope and importance of her book. The argument is extended to every branch of social activity with remarkable originality. It may safely be said that hardly any volume of recent years has treated a confused subject with so much real intelligence and in an attitude so singularly fair and high-minded. It has been no part of Mrs. Stetson's purpose to write a dull book. On the contrary, one of the surprising qualities of _Women and Economics_ is its readableness throughout--the really absorbing interest of its argument even to the least scientific reader. It is a book hard to lay down. One hardly knows which to admire the more,--its clearness, earnestness, and courage, or the keen wit and shrewd satire which keep its pages fresh and sparkling to the end. Whether one finally agrees with Mrs. Stetson's position or not, _Women and Economics_ is distinctly a book one cannot afford to miss. It is worth reading if only for its high ideals of a finer marriage, a family better nourished and better bred, a fuller life and opportunity for childhood, and a more complete and better rounded womanhood in the house as well as in society. _WHAT THE CRITICS SAY_ "Mrs. Stetson's polemical poetry has a force and vigour of its own, which may perhaps serve to drive home the arguments lucidly stated in 'Women and Economics.' She differs from other advocates of women's rights, chiefly in her estimate of women as they are."--_Athenæum._ "There have been heard now and again whispers of feminine discontent, hints that the relations of the sexes are on a not entirely satisfactory footing, and suggestions that marriage from a woman's point of view, comes near being a failure.... In her book Mrs. Stetson goes to the very root of the matter, and turns hints, as it were, into italics."--_World._ "The charm of the book lies in its evident sincerity, its eloquent appeals to the higher side of human nature, and its wholesale optimism. These qualities will make the book a power for good among those who have hitherto given little thought to the position of women in society, and the fearless exposure of many social evils will stimulate such readers to serious thought."--_Fabian News._ "When we pass to the book of the lady whose inspiration is derived from the expansive temperament of the great Republic of the West ... we recognise at once how much more hopeful one can be when one is not a citizen of a played-out European nation.... Mrs. Stetson's intention is to show that what she calls the 'excessive sex development' of women is responsible for some of the worst evils under which we suffer.... With a great deal of what she says on this matter it is impossible not to agree."--_Saturday Review._ "'Women and Economics' is a book to be read and a book to be thought about, whether you may agree with it or not. If all the literature of the feminist movement had been half so cogent, so accurately based on fact, so sincere, and withal so pure and modest as this, the feminist movement of to-day would have been a great deal farther advanced than it is."--_Hearth and Home._ "Here is a book that, whether we look on its teaching as wholesome or dangerous, we are bound to acknowledge to be of exceptional ability. It is the book of a woman of a clear and of a trained intellect, and of great courage. As such it demands attention and very likely will get it--of the hostile kind--from many quarters."--_Bookman._ "To-day it will meet with opposition and dispute--more or less great as we appreciate more or less truly the conditions of human progress. Ten years hence--perhaps five years hence--it will be accepted eagerly. Twenty years hence it will be a mere milestone of history. These are the stages through which books must pass which contain true analyses of transient societies. But the literary historian who somewhere towards the latter half of the twentieth century looks up Mrs. Stetson's volume, will find amid phrases grown old-fashioned, and arguments long since admitted, a sparkle of wit, a lucidity of statement and an admirable spirit of justice and allowance, likely even in those improved days to be still rare among controversialists."--_Academy._ "There is one thing at all events that may be predicated of this book. It is admirably devised for the purpose of making a dust.... There are some who will read Mrs. Stetson's book with anger or will turn from it with repulsion. I cannot put myself in their place. To me it seems that the courageous and clear-headed American woman speaks as a rule the language of reason and sense. I read her with pleasure and gratitude.... It is an honest and stimulating book. Perfect in temper, noble in intention, and therefore it is to be cordially welcomed."--_Sunday Sun._ "Mrs. Stetson is such a specimen of the modern woman as it does one good to encounter. She is strong and clear; as free from noise as from flippancy.... 'Women and Economics' is a book to read."--_Echo._ "Mrs. Stetson's contribution to the woman question is a notable one, but it is notable chiefly because of its logical conclusions, its constructive ability, its art of putting things in an arranging way."--_Humanitarian._ IN THIS OUR WORLD REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION _16mo, cloth, ornamental, gilt top, with a photogravure frontispiece from a recent photograph, 5s._ This new Edition, following the little pamphlet volumes issued on the Pacific Coast, should give her book a popularity as wide as the country. Certainly the vigour, the _verve_, the deep moral earnestness, and the delightful humour and extraordinary talent for satire which she displays in these poems, have hardly been surpassed. The volume is divided into three parts. The first, entitled _The World_, ranges in subject from _Similar Cases_ and _An Obstacle_ (to name only two of those satirical pieces by which Mrs. Stetson has hitherto been best known), to lyrics of nature remarkable for their tender sympathy and loving observation. While the third part, called _The March_, deals with the "forward movement" of human brotherhood which has always been so dear to Mrs. Stetson's heart. _PRESS NOTICES_ "Mrs. Stetson's civic satire is of a form which she has herself invented; it recalls the work of no one else; you can say of it that since the Biglow Papers there has been no satire approaching it in the wit flashing from profound conviction."--W. D. HOWELLS in the _North American Review_. "Mrs. Stetson has plenty to say, especially when her theme is revolt."--_Spectator._ "She puts things in a new way and succeeds by sheer intensity of insight and directness of personal consciousness. The book is too exclusively occupied with morals, no doubt; but this is an Anglo-Saxon weakness--or strength, and, like everything else, it is justified when it succeeds.... We do not say that this is a volume of great poetry, but we do say that it is an original and interesting book, one of the best kind, the kind that makes us stop and think."--_Literature._ "On the whole Mrs. Stetson's little book is a refreshing proof of the spread of culture in California."--_Manchester Guardian._ "The gospel which C. P. Stetson preaches in her delightful verses, 'In this our World,' is as original as it is well expressed. It is not only in the novelty of the theme, but also in the freshness and vigour of her diction, that her charm lies.... She is really a very remarkable writer, and possesses a power of thought and expression seldom met with."--_Gentlewoman._ THE YELLOW WALL PAPER _12mo, paper boards, 2s._ "Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Stetson's 'The Yellow Wall Paper' is a conceit fantastical and gruesome enough to have emanated from the brain of Edgar Poe. It is written with remarkable vividness, as if the writer had experienced something very like the misery which she describes. There is nothing extravagant or unreal in the narration. Wall-papers, yellow and other coloured, have had often a pernicious influence on people of defective nervous poise, and quite unbalanced them. Mrs. Stetson's story has a purely literary justification, but is none the worse for teaching a lesson which some loving husbands and parents would do well to heed."--_Christian Register._ TALKS WITH BARBARA Being an Informal and Experimental Discussion, from the Point of View of a Young Woman of To-morrow, of certain of the Complexities of Life, particularly in regard to the Relations of Men and Women By ELIZABETH KNIGHT TOMPKINS AUTHOR OF "HER MAJESTY," "THE THINGS THAT COUNT," ETC. _Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 6s._ Miss Tompkins sets forth in this volume certain striking opinions in regard to the problems which confront young men and young women of to-day. She has drawn a bright and energetic girl, whose breezy talks with her masculine friend include many bits of protest against the restrictions at present imposed by Mrs. Grundy. THE THINGS THAT COUNT By ELIZABETH KNIGHT TOMPKINS AUTHOR OF "HER MAJESTY," "THE BROKEN RING," ETC. _12mo, cloth, 3s. 6d._ In her well-known graphic style, Miss Tompkins has made a strong and vivid study of a character hitherto not delineated in American fiction. Her heroine is an indolent young woman of small means, who lives by visiting the houses of wealthy friends. The story of her regeneration, through her affection for a man of strong character, is cleverly told. HOUSEHOLD ECONOMICS A COURSE OF LECTURES IN THE SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN By HELEN CAMPBELL AUTHOR OF "PRISONERS OF POVERTY," "WOMEN WAGE-EARNERS," ETC. _8vo, cloth extra, gilt tops, 6s._ G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS LONDON AND NEW YORK * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: A few obvious printer errors were repaired, but otherwise spelling and punctuation were retained as in the original, including variant spellings on the same words (for example: "color" and "colour"). The index is not listed in the original Contents page. In the original, index entries for "Humanity, degrees of," and "Species, power to improve the," erroneously referred to page 1. These entries have been corrected to page 3. 
47850	----	images of public domain material from the Google Print project.) [Transcribers note: italics are indicated by _xxx_ (underscores). For other notes see end of document.] CHAPTER I. CHAPTER II. CHAPTER III. CHAPTER IV. CHAPTER V. CHAPTER VI. CHAPTER VII. CHAPTER VIII. CHAPTER IX. CHAPTER X. CHAPTER XI. CHAPTER XII. CHAPTER XIII. CHAPTER XIV. CHAPTER XV. CHAPTER XVI. CHAPTER XVII. CHAPTER XVIII. CHAPTER XIX. CHAPTER XX. CHAPTER XXI. CHAPTER XXII. CHAPTER XXIII. CHAPTER XXIV. CHAPTER XXV. CHAPTER XXVI. CHAPTER XXVII. By Mrs. E. PRENTISS. BY THE SAME AUTHOR. BOOKS FOR CHILDREN and YOUTH. AUNT JANE'S HERO * * * * * THE HOME AT GREYLOCK. BY MRS. E. PRENTISS, AUTHOR OF "STEPPING HEAVENWARD;" "AUNT JANE'S HERO;" "FLOWER OF THE FAMILY," ETC. NEW YORK: ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY, 900 BROADWAY, COR. 20th STREET. 1876. COPYRIGHT, 1876, BY ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY. THE HOME AT GREYLOCK. CHAPTER I. Mrs. Grey had been the happy mother of seven children; they all lived to grow up and marry, and to rise up and call her blessed, with the exception of her youngest daughter, Maud. People said it was a wise and kind thing on the part of Providence, that Maud was not one of the marrying sort. Her mother needed one child to help her down the declivity of life, and it was delightful to see them together. Some who were not acquainted with them, and who only knew them by sight, at church, contrived to see, out of the backs of their heads, that these twain could not live without each other. Maud shared in this opinion to the extent of firmly believing that she could not survive her mother. She was a good, dutiful, devoted child, whose sunny temper made her life like a song in the maternal ear. "How good God is to me," was Mrs. Grey's frequent thought, "in giving and in sparing to me this darling child! How strange and how sad it would be to live alone in this large house! And Maud fits in to every crack and crevice there is in me as very few girls could. And she is so thoroughly and genially happy that it is not selfish in me to rejoice that she does not care to fly out of the nest!" They were always together; and in their walks, and talks, and readings, in their visits to the sick and the poor, in their good-fellowship and innocent sallies of humor, they were more like two sisters than mother and daughter. So they went on their way, rejoicing, till Maud had reached her nineteenth year, and then a stealthy step crossed the threshold, and an inexorable hand seized upon this young life and crushed it out. But is this the way to put it? Is this the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, uttered in the fear of God and the love of Christ? No! a thousand times, no! The event had its sad, its tearful, its sorrowful side; every stricken mother-heart knows that to its core; but it had another side. The life of a young, blooming, mortal frame was brought, humanly speaking, to an untimely end; but the life of an immortal soul went to expand in a congenial atmosphere, where it was far more at home than it had ever been on earth, where all the problems that had ever baffled it, and all the trials that had ever wearied it, had their full explanation; with none to molest, to misunderstand, or to grieve it; beyond temptation, suffering, and sin; in a word, to be "forever with the Lord." Is it, then, a lot to be desired to die young? Certainly not. We are to desire to die young, or live to a useless old age that cumbers the ground on which it totters, according to the Divine will, not according to our own short-sightedness; and this is what Mrs. Grey thought and felt when the strong, bright light of Maud's presence faded away from her vision, and she could see her no longer, save by the eye of faith. Perhaps some few misunderstood the patient, unselfish way in which this bereavement was met, and thought the brave heart that endured such a sorrow with no clamor, was made of steel. But those who really knew this bereaved mother, knew the whole story. The life-long habit of Gospel love to the neighbor, and of faith in God as One who could not by any possibility make a mistake, came to her rescue. It was right because He did it. And what if she was sorely wounded, was she the only one lying mangled on the battle-field? With characteristic energy she summoned her absent children home; with her own hands she threw open the rooms they were to occupy; and when, during the next days, they came from all directions, in twos, and threes, and fours, to gather around and comfort her, they found cheerful fires blazing, the sweet sunlight streaming in at the windows, and a smile upon her loving face. Not one of her children was surprised; they all knew what mother was. But some of the grandchildren were puzzled; why didn't grandmamma cry more? Why was she so taken up with all their little interests? Why, she even remembered that Julius was fond of oranges, and that Fergus liked cream-cakes! But they had been educated into such faith in her that they did not trouble their young heads with this problem; she was their dear, bright, loving grandmamma, and that was enough. In a few weeks the little crowd she had called about her disappeared, and she was left alone, quite against their judgment. They all had pleasant homes to offer her, and it seemed to them that the large house they had once peopled would be fearfully lonely now. But she maintained that, with her health and strength, it was better that she should have a home and cares of her own, and a rallying point where they could meet on festal days, as heretofore. So she gradually fell back into the old routine, entering into every one's cares, and interests, and joys, and sorrows, exactly as if she had been created for their special use and comfort, going hither and thither on all sorts of busy commissions, and appearing very much as usual, only a trifle sweeter and gentler. One of her first deeds of kindness was gathering all Maud's clothing together, and sending it to her young friends or needy maidens; and so far from weeping over this task, she took delight in it, realizing how much pleasure she was about to give, or how much service to render. She even smiled at her own mistake, when she saw a very tall young girl try to adapt herself to one of Maud's petite dresses, and rectified it at once. But when it came to her child's favorite books and pictures--the things her heart and soul had reveled in--it was very different; she could not part with them. They had been separated very little, so that she had not a single letter from her to treasure up; but she found in the pocket of the last dress she wore a copy of an evidently favorite hymn, together with a few texts of Scripture. She gave away pearls, and diamonds, and lace that had been Maud's; but no king was rich enough to buy that half-worn scrap of paper. Maud had many schemes of benevolence which it was now a sacred pleasure to carry out; and although when she now went forth on her errands of mercy, she appeared to go alone rather than with her loving child's companionship, she was not alone, and not unhappy; nay more, she was happy. For when, without a frown, she gave her darling into the Master's hand, He came and more than filled her place, giving the peace that passes all understanding. Now this consciousness of the presence of Christ in the soul is the one thing whose loss the Christian believer, who has once enjoyed it, cannot do without. Husband and wife, home, children, friends, reputation, may all go, and the heart still have a song to sing; but let Him go, or even seem to go, and all the beatitudes on earth are broken fountains that can hold no water. One may find distraction in congenial employment, and comfort and joy in home and friends; but real, abiding _happiness_, in its full sense, can only be found in Him for whom the soul was created. Maud's room, with its lovely adjoining boudoir, was left for a long time unchanged. Her mother fed the canary and tended the plants she had loved, exactly as if the child had gone on a short journey and was soon to return. One or two books lay open, just as she had left them; and the whole air of the apartments was kept just what it had been, neat and orderly to precision, refined and tasteful to perfection. Mrs. Grey thought she should always keep these two rooms sacred to the memory of the bright, happy maiden who had made them what they were with her own hands; no other head should touch the pillow on which that fair one had once rested; no other eye should linger on the objects of beauty gathered there--the dainty furniture, the pictures and vines on the walls, the quaint hanging-baskets and brackets, and woodland and sea-shore trophies. She could almost hear the tap of the little hammer with which Maud used to go about nailing up this, that, and the other pretty thing she had picked up, or bought, or invented, and her gay song the while. But as time passed, there began to steal over her a vague sentiment, which later became thought; she must keep the rest of the house for the children and grandchildren; but was it right to shut up those beautiful rooms for one who would never return to them? Could not some other young girl come and nestle there, and enjoy what Maud no longer needed? When she first consulted friends on the subject, they all protested against it. Such experiments always proved failures, they said. It would have to be an extraordinary girl to fill Maud's place, etc., etc. "But I never thought of filling Maud's place," she argued. "I was only thinking of the happiness it may be in my power to give." "I should think that among all your grandchildren, one, at least, might be spared," some one suggested. "But even if I were willing to break into a family circle in that way, and I am not, this would not meet my plan. My grandchildren all have happy homes, and need nothing better. But if I should light upon some friendless girl, think how she would enjoy my dear Maud's forsaken nest!" "But you might find her uncongenial, even disagreeable." A sweet, happy smile lighted up Mrs. Grey's face, as she replied: "I should be doing her good, and trying to make her happy. And after all I have gone through, sustained by the Divine hand, ought I to doubt that if He sends me an uncongenial girl, He will give me grace with which to bear with her?" Some said this was faith, and all right. Others said that if people went and thrust their heads into a bear's mouth they must expect them to be bitten off, faith or no faith. Now some years before, Mrs. Grey was feeling her way through the dark hall of a tenement-house in the city of New York, when her steps were arrested by the sound of a girl's voice, crying so bitterly that sympathetic tears rushed from her own eyes. "Oh! mother, mother, mother, _don't_!" groaned the voice in an agony. "Oh! mother, mother!" "Some brutal mother beating the poor child unmercifully," she thought, and knocked imperatively at the nearest door. The sound instantly ceased, but as no other response was made, she opened the door and advanced, with a firm step, into the room. But she started back, shocked at her intrusion, when she found herself face to face with the weeping girl, who was at the bedside of an unconscious woman, reclining on a bed which had been drawn near an open window. If the agony of the girl had been impressive, the control she was now exercising was not less so. She stood quietly, even coldly, confronting her unexpected visitant, who shrank back embarrassed, hardly venturing to utter a word. But the tender sympathy in her face did more than words could have done. "Madam, do you know anything about sickness?" demanded the girl. "Yes, my poor child, a great deal. Do not, I beg of you, treat me as a stranger; but tell me what it was you were entreating your mother not to do. She does not look to me in a condition to do anything. She appears to have fainted." "I thought she was going to die; that was what I was begging her not to do. Oh! if I knew she had only fainted!" "Has she been long ill?" asked Mrs. Grey, while she laid aside her cloak and proceeded to examine the prostrate form. "Not to my knowledge, Madam. She was working, as usual, until twelve o'clock last night; but this morning she did not get up. I spoke to her, but she seemed confused, and kept growing paler and paler till I was frightened, and dragged the bed up to the window to see if the air would revive her. We had a doctor for her a month ago, and he said bad air was like to kill us both." While the girl was talking, Mrs. Grey had taken from a basket of hospital supplies such restoratives and such refreshments as she thought best, and in a short time had the pleasure of seeing her patient aroused sufficiently to take the nourishment provided for her. She had now time to take an astonished glance at the room in which she sat. It was not only kept with nicety and care, but there were signs of refinement. A palette with its brushes hung upon the wall; unfinished bits of color were pinned here and there; two or three plants grew thriftily on a shelf by a window, and the seats of several old chairs showed that undeveloped, but artistic taste had had to do with seats covered with woolen patchwork, beautifully put together. By degrees Mrs. Grey gained the woman's story; it was commonplace enough, but was not narrated in a commonplace way, for not only was her tale adorned by a pretty foreign accent, but by sound common sense and good feeling. She had married, young, a poor artist, who found her in her Swiss home, and was too eager to secure her to perfect himself in his profession. Neither of their families approved of the match, and they had made a foolish, runaway affair of it, coming to this country full of hope, but without a friend in it. "My mother hadn't any mother, or brothers, or sisters; and her father wasn't her own father, and wasn't good to her." Mrs. Grey looked the girl full in the face and smiled. "You think that makes a difference?" she said. "I do, Madam. My mother never did anything wrong in her life." What a firm young head was set on those young shoulders! It is not easy to describe, in words, the impression made by both mother and daughter. "And how did you get on?" Mrs. Grey inquired, turning once more to Mrs. Haydon. "Well, Madam, we got the punishment our self-will deserved. We knew no one in this country. My husband worked hard, but had no friend to encourage him. He sold pictures enough to keep us alive and, at times, comfortable. But we lived from hand to mouth, and if we had sickness, things went very hard with us. Then he began to get disgusted with his work. He would begin a picture that looked beautiful to me, but would throw it aside unfinished. And it ended just as such stories always end. He died, and I was left alone with my little ones to support myself as best I could." "You must have married _very_ young?" "Madam, we were a boy and a girl, nothing more. The laws of my country compel education. I was at school when this folly took place, and when I was left a widow, my position was a very embarrassing one. I was not capable of teaching because I had left school so young; and yet I had come of a good family and been used to certain comforts. For a time I supported myself by embroidery, but this life of confinement and deprivation of sleep--for I had to work till midnight--injured my health; and a physician, whom I consulted a few weeks ago, told me that, what with over-work, poor food, want of exercise, and living in a sphere so different from that in which I was born, I should soon break down completely." "What do you propose to do, then? Apply to your own or your husband's family?" "Madam, they return my letters unread. No! I have made up my mind, and Margaret will make up hers when she sees that there is but one way of saving her mother's life. It is a poor life, not worth saving in itself; but it is everything to her. We have supported ourselves with needlework up to the present time, and the work I finished last night will bring in enough to give me a few days' rest, and we shall then go out to service." "To _service_!" cried Margaret. "My mother go out to service!" "Yes, my child. The bad air and the midnight work are killing me. The doctor says so. If we can get a situation in a gentleman's family, and get good air and good food, we yet may be well and happy." "And your other children?" "They are all, Madam, safe with the Good Shepherd." "I admire and respect your resolution, and wish more of my countrywomen were of your mind. Thousands might lead useful, happy lives in our homes, who now lead aimless and comfortless ones. Servitude is no disgrace. I have formed friendships with women in my kitchen that I expect to last a lifetime. Still, I wish I could find some more suitable position for you. You would look for that of seamstress, I suppose?" "The doctor says I must use my needle no longer." "Ah, I have it! One of my daughters wants a nursery governess. That would be the very thing. You would take your meals with the children, drive out with them, get excellent compensation, and be as happy as the day is long. And to have a woman in her nursery who fears God, would be most delightful to her." Mrs. Haydon looked down, and was silent. "You think you could not have Margaret with you, perhaps?" asked Mrs. Grey, surprised. "But I could manage that, I think." "Madam, have you a young daughter?" Mrs. Haydon somewhat abruptly asked, in the pretty foreign accent that made everything she said pleasing. "Yes, and a very beloved one." "Well, Madam, the position you so kindly propose would be everything I could ask for myself, but no lady would allow a girl of Margaret's age to associate, on equal terms, with her own children, nor live in her house in idleness. This would bring her into contact with other servants, who might be such persons as I should be willing to have her associate with, and might not; probably not. But if I undertake general housework, I have my kitchen all to myself, shall be free from the mental strain of not knowing to-day how we are to live to-morrow, can look after Margaret, and keep her out of harm's way. You see, Madam, that my child's welfare ought to be my only thought. If she were older, and steadier, and had fixed religious principle, it would be different. But as it is, I will submit to anything rather than be separated from her." "But general housework is very hard; and you look so delicate. And you would get very low wages." "I am stronger than I look. Housework will come hard at first, after so many years of sitting all day and half the night at needlework; but I gain strength very fast by using what I have, and Margaret is very handy, and will save me a great many steps." "Still, you do not look like a woman born for a general housemaid." "And I don't look like a woman born to be a lady," was the reply, with a faint smile. "You see, Madam, that it is my own fault that I am in this difficult position. A girl who makes a runaway match deserves to suffer for it. But it would grieve me sorely to drag my poor child down with me, and therefore I mean to educate her as well as I can, and try to prepare her for some useful position in the world." "But are you sure of getting situations together?" asked Mrs. Grey. "Yes, Madam--quite sure. God has humbled my pride, which has long held out against this method of support, and made me willing to live in any honest way He suggests. And He will not forsake me now. He knows that my Margaret is not at an age to face the world without her mother's restraint and her mother's love." "But," said Mrs. Grey, "you talk like an educated woman, and Margaret's language is not such as one expects to find in a house like this." "What education we have will make us all the better servants," was the reply. "I _hate_ to have you call yourself a servant!" Margaret broke forth, impetuously. "If it is a disgrace, it is one I deserve," was the reply. "I have brought my trials on to myself." CHAPTER II. Mrs. Grey went home thoroughly interested in her new charge, and tried to concoct some plan for keeping the two together in a sphere better fitted to their evident refinement. She could think of nothing; therefore she tried the next best thing, namely, to find a family capable of appreciating their good fortune in obtaining such services. In this quest she was successful. Mrs. Haydon and Margaret found a home in a small, Christian family; they had a neat room to themselves, and were treated not only with kindness, but consideration. Mrs. Haydon was respectful, quiet, made a system of her work, found time to read, to attend to Margaret's lessons, and the ladies of the family confided to Mrs. Grey that they should feel as if heaven had come down to earth but for the girl. They did not know what to make of her, and did not like her. Mrs. Grey thought she did understand her; she had not forgotten the anguish of the child when she fancied her mother dying, nor the sudden act of self-control occasioned by her presence. She knew she had heart and soul, and that innate desire rather to hide than to display them, only found in a refined nature. And now, as she sat meditating by her lonely fireside, she came to the conclusion that if it could be managed, Margaret Haydon would be her choice. Yet a score of difficulties arose at once. It would never answer for the mother to be at service and the daughter living in ease and luxury; in fact, they ought not to be separated in any way. So thinking, she renounced Margaret, and looked about her for some other young person, seeking, as a matter of course, and constantly, Divine direction. Still, Margaret filled her thoughts to such a degree that she was persuaded that, for some reason, hers was the lot to be cast in with her own. A visit from Mrs. Haydon, and some mysterious hints dropped by her, so far settled the question, that she resolved to lay the case before her, and take counsel with her. It was some time before they met again, but when they did so, she opened the subject as delicately and kindly as she could. Mrs. Haydon listened to the whole story in silence, and at its conclusion said, quietly: "You will see, dear Madam, the hand of God in it all. You say that on the 18th day of January you began to think of my Margaret, and of offering her a home. On that day, after many a sleepless night, I asked leave of my mistress to see a physician; she not only permitted it, but sent for the family doctor. He told me I had six months to live, and no more. Now, here was my poor child to be deprived of her mother, not well-educated enough to teach, too well-educated to be happy among a crowd of ill-bred servants, and I knew not what would become of her. There was only one thing I could do, and that was to leave her with my God. He knew I had no wicked ambition for her, though I did want her so bred, that if her father's family ever fell in with her, they need have no occasion to be ashamed of her. And then I knew that if her natural tastes could be at all gratified, it would keep her from a fondness for dress, and visiting and idling, and other follies to which young women are prone. Now, all my prayers for her are answered. Before you knew of her coming need, your heart was made to yearn over her; and now I can die in perfect peace, for you will be a mother to my child, and teach her all I could have taught her, and far, far more." "And where do you propose to die?" asked Mrs. Grey. Two remarkable women had got together, and were talking in this quiet, passionless way of so solemn an event as death. How was this? It arose from the fact that commotion, and hue and cry, and clamor belong only to undisciplined characters. Who ever heard of the General of an army becoming panic-stricken and demoralized? He leaves that to the common soldier. Both Mrs. Grey and Mrs. Haydon had passed through too many and too deep waters to regard death as anything more than a little rill, over which one passed at a single footstep. "I shall have to go to a hospital," said Mrs. Haydon. "And have Margaret nurse you?" "That is not allowed. And if it is not asking too much, since you so kindly propose to care for my child, might she come to you directly?" "While you go off, alone, to die in a hospital? No; oh, no. Were you to go at once?" "Yes, at once. I have toiled on till I can toil no more." "Is it possible that you are so ill, yet show it so little?" "It's the quiet mind, the doctor says, that keeps me up. He said that if I had worried, it would have hastened my death. Thank God, I have learned to cast all my care on Him, and He has cared for me." There was silence for some minutes. What might be mistaken for dogged submission, Mrs. Grey recognized as the kind of faith that travels across and moves mountains. She was decisive in all her ways always knew her own mind, and now came to a very rapid conclusion. "Does Margaret know?" "No, Madam. Would you be willing to break it to her?" "Yes; and I will see that your last days are made as comfortable as possible. Leave everything to me. On the day you are to leave your employer's, send Margaret to me. I will tell her what is before her. Poor child! her distress will be dreadful." "Would it be right for us to have no farewell?" "No, no, indeed, you shall have a farewell. Leave everything to me." Mrs. Haydon took leave, and Mrs. Grey rang; her factotum immediately appeared. "Mary, we are going to have some visitors; that is, I want _the_ room prepared for a sick person and a young lady. And Mary--their appearance, when they arrive, is to be a matter between you and me; no one else is to know what sort of clothes they wear. When asked questions in the kitchen, just say they are friends of mine." Mary, discretion itself, withdrew, and in a few days Margaret unsuspectingly made her appearance. Mrs. Grey had a most trying task before her, and expected some such burst of anguish as that of four years ago. But Margaret had passed through much discipline during those four years. To see her mother a kitchen housemaid; to feel herself the yoke of servitude, had been hard, very hard. She did not shed a tear when the truth was told her, and only said, setting her teeth together, "I always have said that if the Lord loved my mother half as well as she loved Him, He'd take her out of a kitchen and find a more suitable place for her." "He loves her, as He does all His children, so much more than any of us love Him, that we have no arithmetical terms with which to describe it. And if a manger and a carpenter's shop were suitable places for Him, what spot is too humble for us?" "_You_ would not like to lie in a manger, or work in a carpenter's shop, or drudge in a kitchen." "No, dear, I do not pretend that I should; but I hope I should act, under the same circumstances, as your mother has done. I think she did the best she could for you. And now she has toiled in an uncongenial sphere long enough, and her Master has by His providence told her so." "But what will become of her? Sick people need homes. We have laid by some money, but you know mother's wages were very small because she had an incumbrance. Yes, that's all I am in this world, an _incumbrance_!" "It will not be so in the next world. But here is the question, as to where your mother is to spend her last months. She has decided to go to a hospital." "Poor mother! But I will not let them neglect her. I will take care of her day and night." "My dear, you will not be allowed to do that. An occasional visit is all that is permitted." "An occasional visit to my sick mother!" cried Margaret; "I should like to see them undertake to separate us! I would tear them to pieces first!" Mrs. Grey remained silent, and Margaret ran furiously on till the silence struck and checked her. "We will get your mother safely into a hospital, or what is as good as a hospital, without tearing anyone to pieces. A room is all ready for her, and there you shall take care of her." "Oh, Mrs. Grey, it is impossible. We haven't nearly enough to justify our taking a room." "How would this plan suit you, then? Suppose your mother enters a hospital where I know she will be kindly treated, and I give you a home with me? You would be here exactly as if you were my own child, could be well educated, and surrounded by all the refinements of life. Look around you. This beautiful room, with its luxuries, would be yours; you would have books, pictures, everything you wanted." Margaret looked as she was bidden, and at one glance took in all the charms of the spot. Then rising scornfully to her feet, she burst into tears, jerking out the words in jets of indignation: "That I should live to be bribed to forsake my dying mother! Now I _am_ degraded!" Mrs. Grey's experiment was a success. For that it was only an experiment the sagacious reader has at once divined. "Ah! I knew I was not mistaken in you!" she cried; "I knew you would prove as true as steel!" She rose and caught both the hands of the excited girl in her own, then said in tones that elicited instant obedience: "Follow me." They entered now a large, airy room, which contained two dainty, white beds; an open wood-fire burned on the hearth, near which a cat sat, purring. "Here is your mother's hospital," said Mrs. Grey, "and you are matron, doctor, nurse, daughter, everything she can need. On these shelves," she added, opening a door, "are the hospital supplies; with this spirit-lamp you can make tea, warm liquids, and do a score of things. Here is a shade from the gas at night; this is a tray for food, when your patient takes to bed; this little nursery refrigerator will keep you supplied with ice day and night, and preserve milk and the like twelve hours and more. This candle will be of service when you have to move about at night, and these dressing-gowns can be washed at your pleasure. You see I am an old soldier in this sort of battle-field, and keep my armor always at hand." All this, spoken in a cheerful, business-like manner, gave Margaret time to recover herself; without a word of thanks on the one hand, or of demur on the other, she accepted the situation, took off her outer garments and hung them up, and turning to Mrs. Grey, asked, as if all that was befalling her was an every-day occurrence: "When is my mother coming?" "I am going for her now. She thinks she is merely to call here to bid you farewell, and then go and languish her life away among strangers." And then, as Margaret was going to speak, she said: "I wouldn't talk about it just now, if I were you." So saying, she drove off in her carriage, and in a few hours mother and daughter were alone together in the sweet, fresh room which was now their home. They sat down before the fire, and looked in each other's face as they only look who know that death may part, but never separate them. "Do you know where you are, mother?" Margaret asked at length. "Yes," was the surprised answer, "I am in Mrs. Grey's house, on my way to the hospital." "No, you are _in_ the hospital now, on the way to heaven!" Then they laughed and cried, and said it was a dream. So they sat, hand in hand, in the long twilight; then Margaret made tea, and cut bread and toasted it, and from the adjoining store-room brought out such delicacies as invalids sometimes will fancy when better food grows insipid, and then helped her mother into one of the soft beds, shaded the gas, and sat thinking, thinking, thinking, till the soft breathing of the sleeper admonished her that she, too, ought to be asleep. It was not till late next morning that Mrs. Grey came to inquire after her guests, and when she did so, she was in such brilliant spirits, and acted so exactly as if this were a real hospital, miles away, that there was no use in trying to prove that it was not. They had never seen her otherwise than very much in earnest; now she came out in a new character. She told stories; she read amusing extracts from a book she had with her; said she believed she would take lunch with them in case Margaret could stew some oysters on that wonderful little lamp, and made them feel so thoroughly at home that Margaret became quite gay, ran around laying the table in a way that would have put brisk Mary to the blush, and soon had a cosy little lunch prepared, which they all enjoyed. "If such times could only last!" Margaret thought. "But good times never do." And then she asked leave to exhibit Maud's rooms to her mother, and not an object of beauty escaped their notice, while Mrs. Grey enjoyed their appreciation of her darling's taste. So time slipped by; Mrs. Grey invariably keeping up Mrs. Haydon's and Margaret's spirits; making the best of everything; suggesting employments for hours when the invalid was free from pain; change of food; change of position; change of furniture; change of pictures when the eye wearied of them, and never out of patience or out of heart. At times the two women fell into sweet and grave talk that Margaret, sitting silently at her work, could not understand. Their _doctrines_ puzzled her beyond measure. She said to herself now and again: "_I_ don't think so! _I_ don't believe that!" And then would try to reconcile their happy, cheerful lives, their patience, their submission, with her own theories, failed to do it, but carped and caviled within herself, and watched for flaws in them as cats watch for mice, all ready to spring out upon them and rout or devour them. "It's so queer," she thought, "to hear two people, who have been born and brought up in different countries and in entirely different ways, talk together as if they'd always belonged to one family. They're just like Freemasons--they know each other by the touch. I can't understand it. And now mother has got me off her hands, I verily believe she thinks it the nicest thing in the world to die. But I don't believe she's going to die. People that are going to die are solemn, and mother isn't in the least solemn. She is just exactly what she was before that horrid doctor said she could only live six months. Now I know that, what with freedom from over-work, and nice, tempting food, and living with such a dear, good, funny, quaint old lady, she'll see too well what is good for her, to die. To die! Ugh! I hope _I_ shall live a hundred years! It will take fully that to make up for the time I've lost." It is easy to believe what one wants to believe, and Margaret found it agreeable to delude herself into the fondest hopes. Her love for her mother, though rarely exhibited, was her ruling passion; it was the only master to whom she would ever submit, yet more than once she became its slave. Mrs. Haydon's disease, however, was making progress, as she knew perfectly well; and from time to time she tried to give Margaret the parting counsels a Christian mother would naturally wish to give. But Margaret never would allow any allusion to be made to an event she was resolved should not take place, and so the precious time passed on. Mrs. Haydon conferred with Mrs. Grey on the subject, who advised her to put in writing some of the things she longed to say. But the poor woman did not hold the pen of a ready writer, and was, besides, in constant pain; so day after day passed and nothing was done. Then came a sudden change for the worse, and after that a gradual loss of strength, till at last, to her perfect horror, Margaret had to admit that the case was hopeless. The first warm days of June proved exhaustive of what little vitality was left in the worn frame, and the end came rapidly. Mrs. Grey lived through hard times with the passionate girl, whose grief was like a tempest that threatened to sweep her away. In vain she reminded her of the ecstacy of joy in which her mother had entered into rest; in vain spoke of the peaceable fruits of grievous sorrow; in vain took her from place to place. The unsubdued will could not, would not rest. At the close of the summer, on their return from many wanderings, Margaret was installed in Maud's rooms, and Mrs. Grey introduced her to her friends as her adopted daughter. They had lived under one roof together nearly a year now, but though Margaret's faults were obvious--she taking no pains to conceal them--Mrs. Grey had never wavered in her attachment to and interest in her, and was sure that the Divine hand had brought them together. As to Margaret, she loved Mrs. Grey as she did the few she loved at all, intensely, and by degrees began to regard her with somewhat of the enthusiasm she had felt for her mother. Still she spent a great deal of time by herself, reading the letters of her father and mother in the days of their youthful love. She hardly remembered him, but these letters moved her wonderfully; they were such as she should write if she were in love; and for the first time in her life the thought came to her what it would be to become the object of such devotion. Theirs had been a real romance, and she had never read of one in any book that touched her as these revelations did. There was not much in her mother's handwriting that was original, but what there was, was tender and girlish. One letter, written during the early part of their marriage, and during a temporary separation, contained the only allusion to herself, and she read it with mingled emotions: "Nous chantons deux, je lui répète, Nous chantons d'amour; Deux dans notre nid d'alouette, Trois peut-être un jour." She was recalled from the past to the present by a tap at the door, and reluctantly opening it about an inch, saw Mrs. Grey, who said, "I am sorry to interrupt you, dear; but Mrs. Cameron and Agnes are here, and Mrs. Cameron wants a little confidential talk with me, which would be rather a bore to a young girl; so, if you will entertain her half an hour or so, I shall be very much obliged to you." "I am not looking fit to go down," said Margaret. "So I see, poor child!" replied Mrs. Grey. "But Agnes would not mind coming up; indeed she would like to do so, for she has spent many happy hours here in dear little Maud's day." Margaret rose and went, in a lifeless way, to bathe her tear-swollen eyes, and in a few moments a bright, smiling girl made her appearance. "Oh! this lovely room!" she cried. "How glad I am to see it once more. You naughty child! why haven't you been to see me? Well, I never saw so many pretty things together in any one room in my life. I am sure you must be the happiest girl living. If you couldn't be happy in such a room as this, you couldn't be happy anywhere!" "Well, then, let me tell you that it takes more than a beautiful room to make one happy. All this room is good for for me is to be wretched in!" "Now, Margaret, I did think you would get over moping when you settled down here and found yourself openly adopted by Mrs. Grey. Why, my mother says you ought to be overwhelmed with gratitude." "I know I ought. But I never do what I ought!" "Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Dear me! if I had such a boudoir as this, and such a bedroom, and a bureau all to myself, I should be as happy as the day is long. As it is, my sister Jane and I have one room together. She takes the two upper bureau drawers, and I have to put up with the two lower ones. Then she contrives to use nearly all the nails in the closet, and nearly all the shelves; and she is forever getting my towels, and mislaying her hair-brush and using mine; besides, I dote on having things tidy and in order, and she keeps all her things helter-skelter. Well, if you won't be happy, you won't; so there it is! Good-bye. Come and see me, do." "_Is_ it won't?" Margaret asked herself, as the door closed upon the good-humored chatterbox. "If I thought it was--" She had made the acquaintance of Agnes Cameron during the summer; a shallow friendship had sprung up between them, which would never amount to anything more; now a heedless word from a thoughtless girl had done what all Mrs. Grey's wise counsels had failed to do. Margaret went to the glass and looked at herself. She had no vanity, and had never cared what people thought of her. She stood, straightening up now, and studied her own face for the first time. "What a will you have got, Margaret Haydon!" she said; "and what is the use of it, if you sit crying and wailing like a child? _I am ashamed of you!_" She folded the letters she had been brooding over all the morning, tied them together with a bit of white ribbon, and locked them up in a drawer. Then she climbed upon a chair and threw the key as far and as high as she could; it alighted behind a box, and there it lay for a year, untouched. Then she walked down-stairs and into the library, and gave Mrs. Grey a good, wholesome, sound kiss. "Now, aunty," she said, "I hope you've had the worst of me." Mrs. Grey looked up, and smiled. How many times she had prayed for this day! CHAPTER III. Margaret never knew what caused this sudden change, but it was simply this. If it was a passion with her to love, it was also a passion to avoid unpleasant sights. And the picture drawn by Agnes Cameron revolted her. To have somebody share her room who kept everything in disorder would be something intolerable. All her life long she had been used to the beauty of perfectly-kept rooms; on the mother's part this was mere feminine nicety, such as any woman might possess. In Margaret it was the artistic element inherited from her father; she must have order reign where she dwelt, not because it is meet and right to be orderly, but because it hurt her eye to see confusion. At this stage of her history, she would have been surprised to be told this; perhaps have stoutly denied it. But a realizing sense of what a hardship it would be to her to have such a room-mate as Jane Cameron had come over her now, and, with it, confusion of face that she had behaved in so ungrateful a way. It was not in her to ask any one's pardon, out and out, but the kiss and the little speech from her were equivalent to going down on her knees, had she been somebody else. Mrs. Grey seized this gentler mood at once. "I have been thinking," she said, without comment or ado, "what is to be done about your education. You are too old to go to school, and perhaps I could manage to teach you myself. But in order for that, I shall have to find out how far your mother took you." "She took me as far as she could, and then let me go on by myself. Now, about algebra, for instance. She knew nothing about it, but there was a number of old school-books in the house where we lived, and I was allowed the use of them." "And you studied algebra?" "Yes, I studied it just as I should take a dose of medicine--swallowed it down, and then helped my self to a lump of sugar, to take the taste out." "A metaphorical lump, I suppose?" "Yes, I made patchwork." "What an extraordinary idea! However, I think I understand it. Your needle represented a brush, and those bits of bright-colored flannels, paint. We must look into that. Now, what else did you study?" "Mother _made_ me study English grammar. She said she owed it to my father's family to have me understand his language." "_English_ grammar? How is that?" "Why, as a general rule, mother talked to me in French, but she was very particular to have me keep up what English I had learned from my father. She had a few French books, and taught me to read to him, and until his death I had plenty of time for it." "I did not know your father was an Englishman." "But he was. He was travelling through Europe on foot, stopping to sketch when anything took his fancy, and one day he saw my mother standing near a _châlet_, with a child in her arms, and fell in love with her. The child belonged to a neighbor who often lodged artists for weeks at a time, and he contrived to spend a whole summer there." But our readers need not hear the whole story of Margaret's fragmentary education. She was now between seventeen and eighteen, and had managed to pick up a wonderful amount of information; but culture she had none. This she soon began to feel, but as the companion of a woman cultivated to the last degree, and with her own brilliant powers, she glided, without difficulty, into regions most girls in her position would have had to reach through laborious toil. And as to art, Mrs. Grey had only to provide her with materials, and give her opportunity to experiment, and the next thing she knew, grace and beauty dropped like magic from the tiny point of her pencil. But so many other gifts developed themselves, that there was no danger of one-sidedness. So she dashed on, eager, breathless, like one running a race; entering into everything with zest and enjoyment, and undertaking work enough to exhaust a less dauntless nature. And then another cloud began to arise. Christmas was coming, and with it twelve human beings to criticise, misunderstand, dislike her. Twelve human beings for her to criticise, be jealous of, and, as like as not, hate. At least that was the way she chose to put it, but this is Mrs. Grey's version: "They'll all come, this year; my darling boys and girls, and their little folks. Will they find it somewhat awkward, before they get acquainted with Margaret? It will be trying for her, poor child, to see a mother and children together." However, she had tact--the kind of tact that comes from Christian instincts. She talked to Margaret about the home-comers, exactly as if they were her brothers and sisters, got her interested, asked her to manage a Christmas-tree, and consulted her about everything. "Do the children have a tree every year?" asked Margaret. "Oh, yes--every year." "Then I should like to get up something different; I don't know what, but I can think out a plan." The next morning she came down as radiant as the sun. "I have a plan," she announced, "and now I must have a carpenter." The carpenter was forthcoming, the plan shown him; he had little folks of his own, and entered into the fun of the thing, gleefully. Christmas Eve arrived, and the house was full. As lively greetings were exchanged, Margaret began to shrink into herself, and to wish she could hide in some cranny till all was over. Is this natural? Is this picture true to life? It is. _Reality_ never tries to shine, to display its plumage or clap its wings. It is Unreality that comes strutting forward, crying, "Go to, and admire my gifts!" The Christmas breakfast was a failure. In vain Mrs. Grey tried to persuade herself that her children had taken Margaret into their hearts, and loved her like a sister; in vain they reproached themselves for not being able to do it; in vain Margaret tried to appear at her ease with all those eyes upon her; a cold silence fell upon every sally made by some bold adventurer, and all were thankful when the meal was over. "And now," said Mrs. Grey, "you older boys must come immediately to help Margaret through with her Christmas surprise, whatever it may be: for what it is I know no more than the rest of you." Two or three stout fellows volunteered, and were led off by Margaret, who unfolded her plan to them, and was at once placed on a pedestal as an object of admiration. "It's just capital!" they all agreed, and in a few minutes the ice between them melted, and they were laughing, working, joking together, like fellows well-met. The entertainment was to come directly after the children's dinner, as many of them were too young to bear excitement at night, and while Margaret and her allies were pushing on their preparations, the mother and her children sat together in one of those family councils in which the more there are the merrier. One does not often see so many happy faces together, for while no one forgot how Maud used to enjoy those festivities, they would not allow themselves to spoil the day by sad retrospections. After a time most of the party went to church; then came the bountiful lunch Mrs. Grey was so fond of getting up, and the children's dinner, followed by the expectant procession headed by Margaret silent and shy. Instantly a great hue and cry arose, as they came into view of a real house at the end of the large parlors, rooms rarely used now, from whose tall red chimney Santa Claus was emerging, with his arms full of snow-balls, with which he began pelting the crowd with might and main. Margaret's house appeared to be covered with snow, as was the ground on which it stood; and she had contrived to produce the effect of moonlight, the illusion being perfect. Some of the very little children fell back in affright at the weird scene, the strange figure of Santa Claus and the shower of snow-balls. But that was all set right when they found that the balls were made of cotton, not snow, and each contained a gift. Such a scrambling as followed this disclosure! Little Sam Grey was knocked off his legs, and lay prostrate on his back, holding a large snow-ball in each hand, and a well-aimed blow at delicate, blue-eyed Mabel Heath, sent her spinning over the fleecy floor, to her great amazement, and that of the "baby" she held in her arms. The whole scene was as picturesque as possible; and Margaret was in her element now, and forgot to be either proud or shy, as she moved about among the children, enjoying their enjoyment. She did not know she was fond of girls and boys and babies, for she had never come in contact with them, though she had heard plenty of screaming and quarreling among those who lived in the house with her in times past. But here were sweet, well-bred, daintily-dressed little mortals, the very ideal of babyhood and childhood; and with the quick instinct of their age they speedily elected her as the beloved of their hearts. And as the road to a mother's heart lies through that of her children, before the day closed Margaret had won, without trying to do it, the admiration and the love of the six young mothers whose coming she had so dreaded. They, too, were relieved. They had not known exactly how they were to take this new inmate of the family, and had some misgivings, which they frankly confessed the next morning as they gathered around the library-fire to have a family confab. Margaret had established herself in what used to be the day-nursery, and which was still used as such when the grandchildren came home, and could have been seen with a baby on her lap, a little darling, blue-eyed Mabel standing behind her on the chair she occupied, with her arms around her neck, and two or three others clustered at her knee. "Well, girls," said Mrs. Grey, "what do you think of my Margaret?" "Oh, mamma!" cried Belle Heath, "it is _such_ a relief to find her what she is! Cyril and I were afraid some designing creature had taken you in. You know you are so easily taken in." "I know no such thing," said Mrs. Grey, greatly amused. "I know of no one so hard to impose on as I am." "'O wad some power the giftie gie us,'" quoted Frank Grey, who had just entered the room, after a late breakfast, and was bending his six-feet frame to kiss his mother. "I wish it _wad_," said his sister Laura, "for then you would be up in season for breakfast. It isn't nice to come down after everything has grown as cold as a stone. Does Lily let you do so at home?" "Lily set me the example," he said, laughing. "Besides, mamma grows indulgent in her declining years." "Perhaps I am a little indulgent," said Mrs. Grey. "Parents who are severe with their children when they are young, are apt to relax as they grow older." A shout of laughter followed this remark. Mrs. Grey looked around, surprised. "Now, what have I said that should make you so merry?" she asked, innocently. "That little word 'severe' lies at the bottom of the joke," said Frank. "The idea of our beautiful lady-mother insinuating that she was ever hard upon her offspring!" "At all events, if I could live my life over again, I would deal very differently with my children from what I did--especially with you two older ones." "O, we were more depraved than those that came after," said Belle. "And if you hadn't taken us in hand, in a summary way, I do not know what would have become of us. Papa never would do anything but spoil us, he was so indulgent." "It's not a man's business to manage his children," said Cyril Heath. "It's the mother's." "I don't agree with you," said Frank Grey. "It's the man's." "Of _course_ it is," said his wife. "Well, why?" pursued Cyril. "He is supposed to have more weight of character than she." "And suppose he hasn't?" "I can't suppose any such thing. Men are born to rule, and do rule; women are born to yield, and do yield." "They are born to rule in their own sphere, it is true," interposed Mrs. Grey, who, as the reader ought to know, had written a book on the subject of education. "But home is not their sphere. It is woman's kingdom, and there she should reign." "But I always took the ground that a modest woman would doubt her own judgment in regard to the children, and defer to the father," objected Frank's wife. She was a little, delicate creature, who admired her husband above all things, though she could pretend to be ashamed of him now and then. "A man ought to be master in his own house," said one. "That applies to the kitchen as well as to the nursery," said another. "A woman who makes her husband manage the children will make him manage the servants." "Well, some do." "The more shame to them." "It's rather hard upon a man when he comes home at night, hoping for a smile from his wife, and a romp with his boys, to see an anxious wrinkle on her brow, and hear her say: "'O, John, I am so thankful you have come! There's Tom won't take his powders, and I can do nothing with him! And Sue has stolen and eaten four slices of cake. Four slices! Just think of it! And Hatty struck her nurse twice, and nurse says she'll leave.'" Everybody laughed, and everybody had something to say. "Why, of course such a woman as that has no force of character," said Cyril Heath. "Really sensible women do not behave in that way." "And really good ones do not have children who are disobedient, who steal cake, and strike their nurses," said Mrs. Grey. At this there was a great clamor, some denying, some affirming the point. "I think, mother, you forget some of our childish misdeeds," said Frank. "I know a very good mother who had some very wayward children." "Being wayward is one thing; being low, and vulgar, and rude is another," she replied. "I suppose all spirited children like to have their own way, and will get it if they can; but it is inconsistent with my idea of a Christian home that its inmates should be wanting in refinement, have the habit of giving way to passionate temper, to duplicity, to dishonesty, to meanness--" "We all know you can't stand meanness," interrupted Frank. "But go on, please. We young fathers and mothers are ready for any number of hints." "But children are born totally depraved," said one of the daughters-in-law. "We have to take them as they come." "That depends; my dear, if you and that boy of mine there are living self-controlled lives, are at peace with God and at peace with each other, your children will enter the world at great advantage. They will be different, at their very birth, from the children of undisciplined parents, who pamper their bodies, indulge in unholy passions, and reproduce offspring like unto themselves. You may depend upon it that your duty to your child begins before it sees the light. But lunch is ready, so I'll stop preaching in order to feed you." Lunch was a lively meal, because so many children were there. Margaret came in with her face fairly shining. A score of little feet came pattering in with her. Their quaint ways of eating their dinner amused her so that her own plate remained untouched. She watched, with great amusement, the tiny, infantine hands that held spoons they had not skill to manage; how they picked up their food with their fingers, placed it in the spoons, and then manfully and laboriously conveyed it to their mouths. But not one who could wield a spoon would allow itself to be fed. "After we get through with lunch," Mrs. Grey said to her, "I want the children to see some of your pictures." "Do you suppose they would care for them, auntie?" asked Margaret, in some surprise. "I should think they would enjoy 'Old Mother Hubbard' more." Consternation, then laughter. "Mother means us," explained Frank. "To her we are as much boys and girls as ever." "Oh! But I have done nothing fit to show," said Margaret. "And I don't see how any one who can look at these lovely little children, can even want to look at anything else. Just see these tiny, dimpled hands!" The young mother who had most interest in the dimpled hands, left her seat, and came to Margaret's side of the table on hearing this, and said: "Before I came home I wondered what I should call you. But I know now. I shall call you Mag., and you must call me Oney." "Well, Oney, I will," said Margaret, and then both laughed a gleeful, girlish laugh of good-fellowship. "If you were a boy, you would be a wag," said Laura. "And if you were a horse, you would be a nag," retorted Margaret; upon which the girl-mother took her into her confidence; told her how she felt the first time baby cried, after the nurse left; how many dresses she made for it, and how many things mother knit; and how she nearly died with laughing when it began to walk. She also communicated that she kept four servants, was fond of housekeeping, and "oh, what do you think of mamma? Isn't she splendid? So straight and tall, such white, wavy hair, such bright eyes, and _so_ full of talent!" Margaret would call her Oney, and listen to her; but whether she should ever confide in her she wasn't sure; still, she was very nice, and her baby's hands were so pretty! CHAPTER IV. The next day most of the sons departed, various duties calling them back. The Rev. Cyril Heath, and Belle, his wife, stayed several weeks, as he could take his vacation more conveniently in the winter than in the summer. Among them all they persuaded two of the sisters to remain likewise, and to Margaret's delight, most of her special pets belonged to these three families. "I don't like to say it even to you, mamma," said Belle Heath, "but it is a relief to have Frank's children gone. They are so wide-awake, so independent, and so spoiled." "Their mother tries to do well by them," said Mrs. Grey. "And they are very fond of her. And Frank seems contented enough." "He may seem so, but I am sure he isn't. Is there nothing can be done to tone Lily up? Couldn't you talk to her, and make her see that she will ruin those children?" "My dear Belle, no, indeed. Young wives abhor having their mothers-in-law interfere with them." "But just listen to this. Yesterday Frank, Jr., came rushing in like a mad creature, and rushed up to my poor little Mabel, seized her by the leg, and floored her. Mabel hit her head against a chair, and began to cry. "'Why, Frank,' said his mother, 'what spirits you have. But it is rude to treat your little cousin in that way. Go and tell her you are sorry.' "'I won't,' said Frank. "'Very well, then you shall not dine with me to-day.' Thereupon he set up one of his dreadful shrieks, when Lily said, 'Don't cry; on the whole it won't do to forbid you dining with me, because it would annoy grandma. Ask Aunt Belle if that isn't the case.' "She looked at me, and I said, 'Lily, dear, don't break your word; for the child's sake, I beg you not.' 'Oh,' she said, 'I spoke impulsively; it will just spoil my lunch if Franky is in disgrace. Belle, I wish you didn't make so much of every trifle.' I said I could not think it a trifle to break one's word." "I hope Franky did not hear this discussion," interposed Mrs. Grey. "Not he; the moment Lily let him off as to the matter of dinner he was at his ease, and rushed off into some other piece of mischief. I said a good deal to Lily, and at last, she called Frank and said to him, 'Your aunt thinks you ought to be punished for your naughty ways; now, if I let you off about the dinner, I shall have to think of some other way of dealing with you. Perhaps I shall use papa's little rod.' "'Ho, papa's little rod! _You_ can't hurt me with it.' "'Yes, I can, and I shall, too; and now, go away, and play.' "This morning I reminded her of her threat to the child, and asked her if she had carried it out. "'Why, no,' she said, 'I couldn't punish a child today for what it did yesterday. He is good and pleasant now, and I couldn't go and pick a quarrel with him.' "'Oh, _never_ pick a quarrel with him,' I said, 'but keep your word, Lily.' "She yawned, and called Franky, who came running up. "'Here, you young rogue,' she began, 'come and feel the rod I promised you yesterday;' so then they got into a regular frolic together, and he finally wrenched it out of her hand and threw it into the fire." "Yes," said Mrs. Grey, "that's Lily to the life. But she might be a hundred, yes, a thousand times worse. I had rather see her inefficient and amiable than ever so energetic, but ill-tempered." "Of course. But the children won't respect her." "But they'll love her." Belle sighed. "Frank was always my favorite brother," she said, "and when he became engaged to Lily, I thought him such a lucky fellow; she was so pretty and so sweet, and seemed so fond of him. But those children. She can do nothing with them." "Well, Frank makes them obey him." "But he is able to be with them so little. And you must own, mamma, that it is the mother who moulds the child." "No, not where both parents live to be joint educators of their children. You do not remember much about your father; but Lily reminds me more of him than any of you do. Nothing would have tempted him to punish you; he would contrive to forget his threats, or laugh them off, and I always thought that as you grew up, you would love him better than you did me, he was so gentle with you." "Yet, it is the law-giver who is invariably loved the best. Frank's children love him far better than they do their mother." "Yes; but that is chiefly owing to his loving them so intensely." "Poor Lily. She is never intense in anything. But she is a dear little thing, and they may all get on together, somehow." "I think, my dear, it will not be 'somehow'. I think there will be cause and effect. Frank can do more by his pure and thoroughly religious life, than Lily can undo. As the children grow older they will feel his influence everywhere. It certainly is a fact that in many a home where the mother is amiable, well-disposed, but weak, the father comes to the rescue, becomes the ruling spirit of the house, and his boys and girls turn out good and true men and women." Belle smiled. "You will never say die," she declared. "I wish I was as sure of my mother-in-law as Lily is of hers. And now I want to talk to you about my own little men and women." "No wonder. They are charming." But at this moment several others entered the room, some with babies, some with needlework; they all sat around the library table, by the open fire, making as pleasant a picture as one need desire to see. There was a little desultory conversation; one wanted to learn a particular stitch in knitting, and another taught her. Belle came and looked on, and learned it in half the time. "Now, Belle," said Laura, "I wish you would teach me the secret of your children's excellent manners. They are as full of spirit as mine, but they are not rude, and mine are. They slam doors, and slide down the banisters, and interrupt me when I am talking." Here there was a general outcry. "I never _would_ allow my children to interrupt," said one. "They all do it, except Belle's children." "Then all children are disagreeable--and very disagreeable." "Come, Belle, speak up. How have you contrived it all?" "There has not been much contrivance about it. There were certain things I made up my mind to have, and I've had them. There were certain other things I wanted to have, but have not, thus far, gained. In other words, I do not consider our household life perfect. We every one of us, father, mother, and children, have our faults and foibles." "I should hope so," said Laura. "You would be fearfully uninteresting if you never said or did anything but what was prim and proper." "Oh, as to that, we are not prim, as you very well know." "What, not when you go on straw-rides? Dear me, I have been black-and-blue ever since you and his Reverence inveigled me into going blackberrying in that style. But come, now; what have you done to your children?" "I don't know," said Belle, trying to think. "Perhaps they were born with good manners. I never fuss over them; they seem to take to things naturally." "May I say what _I_ think about it?" asked Margaret, coming eagerly forward. "Yes, do, child," said Mrs. Grey, who had been listening in amused silence to the mixture of fun and earnestness visible in her young folks. "Mrs. Heath always _does_ what she wants the children to do; she never tells them to say 'I thank you,' but always thanks them, down to the youngest, whenever she has a chance; she never orders them about, either, but always gives directions kindly; and she never speaks unkindly to them at any time." "And never slides down the banisters or slams doors," Belle added, right merrily. By this time Margaret had shrunk back, rather frightened at having spoken out before so many listeners. "You are right, Margaret," said Mrs. Grey, not a little pleased at the girl's close observation; "emphatically right. In my observation of life, I have seen plenty of illustrations to prove that you are. "Listen, while I rehearse: "'John!' "'Sir!' "'Go up-stairs and get my slippers.' "John makes no answer, gets the slippers unwillingly, resumes his book, or whatever work he may be at, and then: "'John! John Burt!' "'_Sir!_' "'What under the sun did you bring these old slipshods for? I wonder if you ever did an errand right in your life? I never saw such a boy. Take them up-stairs, and get the other pair. And be quick about it, too. I can't sit here in my stocking-feet all night.' "Or put it thus: "'John, my boy?' "'Yes, papa!' "'I wish you'd trot up-stairs for my slippers?' "'Yes, papa!' "'And don't bring the old ones; they're done for; bring the pair Susy worked for me.' "'Yes, papa, all right.' "'Ah, _thank_ you, old fellow! When I am thirteen and you are fifty, I'll do as much for you. How nice it is to have a pair of young legs at one's service!' "Now, all this may seem small business, but this boy is being _educated_ into refinement, and courtesy, and kindliness, or the reverse." "Curiously enough," said Belle, "without having any conscious theory on the subject, I have always acted on this principle with my children." "Are children, then, mere monkeys, imitating all they see done?" asked Laura. "They are not," was Mrs. Grey's reply. "Some children are so original that they cannot imitate. They think and act for themselves. They are hard to deal with in most cases, each needing a mother all to itself. But they are the exception, not the rule. Most of us owe almost everything to unconscious influence." But all serious talk was for the time put an end to, by a curious little incident. One of the nurses entered the room, leading by the hand Laura's baby-girl, who had just learned to walk. Another baby, who had not yet attained this art, was creeping about, picking up and putting into its mouth everything it could find; and no sooner did the older child perceive this, than down it went on all-fours, and began to creep too, to the great amusement of all present. "How perfectly ridiculous!" said Laura, snatching up and kissing her child. "'She stooped to conquer,'" said Margaret. And then followed any amount of youthful talk, and nursery tales from the family urchins. Mrs. Grey's extraordinary memory, where everything they ever said and did was stored up, together with some that, amid no little protest and fun, was warmly challenged. CHAPTER V. "I have always wondered," Laura proclaimed at the dinner-table that night, "how I came to be such a charming creature. But in the light of this morning's instructions, I perceive that it is through constant imitation of mamma." Now as Laura was considered in every way unlike her mother, this sally called forth, as it was intended to do, numerous personalities. "The resemblance is, indeed, astonishing," said Belle. "For instance, you are punctuality itself." "Of course," said Laura. "What unblushing effrontery!" cried Belle. "And I suppose you never lose money; keep your accounts to a T; can keep a secret--" "Oh, as to that," said Laura, "I am of too generous a disposition to keep anything. You see it is all owing to the nobility of my character that I have the reputation of being such a leaky vessel that you all turn me out of the room, when anything is going on you don't want the whole town to hear. By the by, mamma, you haven't told me what your next book is to be about?" "It is to be the history of Mrs. Laura Hosmer, _née_ Grey," said her mother. "Therein will be set forth all her gifts and graces, her deeds and her misdeeds." "And a most instructive and entertaining work it will be," cried Laura. "I shall buy up a whole edition to give to my friends, shan't I, baby? Mamma, what a mistake you made in giving me the name you did," she ran gaily on. "All the Lauras one reads about in books are such proper creatures! See Miss Edgworth's stories, for instance. Look at her Lauras. But really, now, what _is_ your next book to be?" Mrs. Grey smiled and shook her head. "Very well, if you won't tell me, I shan't tell you what mine is to be." "_Yours!_" cried everybody, amused and incredulous. "Oh, I don't see anything to laugh at," protested Laura. "Pray why shouldn't I write books as well as mamma?" "Mamma didn't begin at your age," said Belle. "She began about as soon as she was born; and so would you if you had inherited her gifts." "That doesn't follow," said Laura. "And I have hit upon a capital subject! Now just listen." And in an animated way she imparted her secret. "It _is_ capital," said Belle. "But it is foolish to proclaim it. Next news some one will get hold of it and cut you out." "Yes; I think so, too," said Mrs. Grey. "I shouldn't mind cutting you out myself." "If you did, it would be your first dishonorable action," said Belle. The children were all brought in now, and had a frolic till bed-time, when they were escorted off by mammas and nurses, and Mrs. Grey and Margaret were left alone. "Oh, aunty," said Margaret, as the door closed, "I do wish _I_ had a baby!" "I don't see that I can help you to one," was the reply. "But I am glad to see your love for the little folks, and when Belle goes home, I think I can persuade her to leave Mabel with us for a while." "Oh, she'll never do that. Mabel is such a perfect little darling!" "I have usually charge of the last robin while a new one is settling into the nest. It keeps me young, and it relieves Belle. In fact, what with one thing and another, there are almost always some of the little ones here." "I'm so glad! so glad! I shall take the whole care of them." "And at the same time study, draw, paint, and dabble with a thousand other things?" "I can study evenings. As to painting--why, aunty, it's nice to paint; but there isn't any picture in the world to be compared to a little live baby!" "I haven't seen all the pictures in the world," said Mrs. Grey; "but I do not doubt that God makes objects of beauty that man can, at best, only imitate. Margaret, my child, do you know how relieved, how thankful I am, to find this true womanly instinct so strong in you? I have been afraid you might live in the mere gifts of genius you must know you possess, and crowd out the feminine element. But you are safe. A little child shall lead you." "Why, aunty, I never knew I had any gifts," Margaret whispered. "There will be plenty of worshippers to tell you so, sooner or later. But I want to impress it upon you, that the greater your gifts the greater your responsibility. Now several paths lie before you. You can devote yourself to art and win a name for yourself, I do not doubt. Or you can choose a literary life, and shine there. And if it were necessary for you to do something for your own support, either of those careers would be honorable. But there is a third vocation in a human sphere open to you. It is to be one of the truest, the best, the most unworldly, most unselfish of women." "Like you, aunty," said Margaret, her eyes moistening. "I choose your vocation." They sat silently together after this, until the rest of the family joined them; and after a time Laura asked: "Where is Hatty? Seems to me it takes her an age to get her kittens to bed." "Something is going wrong with Kitty," explained Belle. "I thought Mabel would never get to sleep, it distressed her so to hear Kitty cry." "But why should Kitty cry?" asked Mrs. Grey, uneasily. "She appeared to be perfectly well when she went up to bed." "It's something about saying her prayers," said Belle, reluctantly. "Poor Hatty means right, but I think she makes mistakes." "That child is crying dreadfully," said Laura, going out into the hall, and listening. "Hatty doesn't know how to manage her. Mamma, do go up and see what the matter is." Mrs. Grey hesitated. She was not fond of meddling with her sons' wives. Just then, however, a servant appeared with a message to the effect that "Mrs. George" would like to see her, and she flew up-stairs, alarmed. She found Hatty flushed and excited, standing over Kitty, aged twenty months, fast asleep on the floor, her breast heaving, the tears shining on her lashes. "Oh, mother, what shall I do? Kitty wouldn't say her prayers, and I said she shouldn't go to bed till she had, and I slapped her arms over and over again, and she wouldn't yield, but at last dropped to sleep here on the floor. And I've got to leave her here all night, and she'll catch her death of cold. Oh, dear, I wish I'd gone home with Fred. Fred can always conquer her." "My dear Hatty," said Mrs. Grey, "I am very sorry for you." There was no reproach in tone or look, but the sincere sorrow of a loving, sympathizing heart, and Hatty, young and inexperienced, burst into tears. "I never saw such a will," she said, "never." "She comes honestly by it," was the reply; "and it will be of service by and by. Meantime I would put her into bed, if I were you." "But that would be breaking my word; and Fred says I must _never_ do that. He says there is a special blessing for him who swears to his own hurt. Oh, my little darling, how can I let you lie on that cold floor all night?" "It is unfortunate to threaten children. But I believe all do it in their youth and inexperience. In this particular case I think you ought to break your word as to its letter. As to its spirit you do not break it; you certainly never meant to treat this dear little lamb cruelly." "But suppose I put her to bed, and she remembers what passed between us to-night, shan't I lose my hold on her? Won't she expect to disobey me again?" "I hardly think this baby-memory will recall to-night's scenes in a definite way. If it does we will devise some way in which to preserve its faith in you. Come, shall I put the little thing to bed? I haven't threatened it, you know." "Oh, dear, I wish Fred was here. Fred is so particular about having Kitty obedient. He says it is indispensable." "I am glad to hear it, and glad to know that you two are united in your plans for the child. And now, suppose as you are a little confused as to your duty, we kneel down and get counsel from One who knows how to set you right." A few simple words followed, and as they rose, the young mother threw her arms around Mrs. Grey's neck, and kissed her. "How I love you!" she said. "Fred said I should if I stayed long enough to know you. I'm glad I stayed." And here baby woke up, rubbed her eyes, and smiled. "Me rested now; me say p'ayer now," she said. "Me was bely tired." "I thought this was how it would end," said Mrs. Grey. "The little creature was all tired out, not naughty. I am afraid you and I should not like to have our arms slapped when we were too tired to pray." "I hope I never shall threaten my poor little kitten again," said Hatty, as she tucked the child snugly in its crib. "Why, I am almost ill with the pain I have suffered. But now about to-morrow night? Suppose Kitty forms a habit of refusing to say her prayers?" "Dear Hatty, the children of _believing_ parents never form habits of disobedience." "Oh, are you sure of that? I know a number of truly good and faithful parents whose children have turned out badly in every way." "Investigate the cases and you will find something wrong in the parents. It may be neglect, it may be over-doing; it may be too much will, it may be too little will; I do not know, and unless I can be of service in the matter, do not want to know the history of individual experiences. But when I see a brook muddy, I like to know who stepped in to trouble it, whether man or beast, especially if I am obliged to drink from it." Hatty smiled. "I rather think it was I who stepped into this brook," she said; "I thought I was acting for Kitty's best good, but perhaps I was as willful, and as resolved to have my own way, as she was. But before you go I want to ask you if we may pray about little things?" "How little?" "Well--for instance, what you did just now?" "My dear Hatty, it is not a little thing to own our human helplessness, and cast ourselves on Divine strength." "But when it comes to a conflict between a mother and child, a mere baby like Kitzie, ought the Lord of heaven and earth to be expected to interfere?" "Let us judge Him out of His own mouth. Recall His language as He moved about on earth among just such beings as we are. He says, distinctly, that He feeds the fowls of the air, sees to the growth of the lily of the field, that no sparrow falls to the ground without His notice and consent, and that He takes such personal interest in each of His children that He knows exactly how many hairs we each have in our heads. Can the tenderest mother say anything like this?" "It is very puzzling." "No, my dear, it is very simple. It is just taking God at His word. Now, you sent for me, a mere mortal, fallible woman, to sympathize with and help you out of an emergency. Do I then love you better than your Father does? Am I any more ready to come to your rescue than He is?" "Do you mean, then, that we are not to seek human counsel, but just go to Him about everything?" "No; I believe also in taking counsel of flesh and blood. The answer to your prayer for light must come from God, but He often sends those answers through human agency. And so I am very glad you sent for me to-night. I love to be intrusted with His commissions. And now don't you think we ought to go down and join the rest of them?" As they entered the library, every one took a hasty glance at their faces, and the tranquil expression of each satisfied what anxiety they had felt. The next day was Sunday, and quite a procession set off for church. Margaret came last of all, leading her beloved little Mabel by the hand. The child had never been to church before, and her mother thought taking her there such a doubtful experiment, that when Margaret proposed it, she demurred a little. Finally, she consented to her occupying a seat whence she could be easily removed, if troublesome. Then she made her stand at her knee, took her hands in hers, and said: "Mabel, darling, we are all going to God's house, because we love Him, and He wants us to come." "Yes, mamma." "And it isn't like other houses; people who go there do not go to talk, and laugh, and play; they go to pray to God, and sing to Him, and hear about Him. And it isn't nice for little children to fidget and whisper while that is being done. And if I let you go to His house this morning, I shall expect you to sit still, and not to say a word." "Yes, mamma. Will Christ be there?" This child, through her whole life, invariably spoke of God as Christ. "Yes, dear, He will be there, and will look at my little Mabel, and know if she is quiet. But you will not see Him; no one does that." And then turning to Margaret, she said: "Have you ever taken a little child to church?" "Oh, no! I wasn't born among such luxuries." "As a general rule, it is anything but a luxury to break these little colts in. They are accustomed to have liberty of action and of speech at home; they do not understand the services at church, they get tired, they nestle, and, if allowed, will whisper, on an average, once in three minutes. Now, if Mabel whispers to you, take no notice whatever; be lost in attention to what is going on. I lay great stress on this. If my children go to church, they shall not distract me or annoy others." This reminded Margaret of many and many a scene she had witnessed at church, and supposed, as far as she had thought of it at all, a necessary evil. At first, in full remembrance of what her mother had said, Mabel sat very still, but before long she began to grow tired and restless. "Is it most done?" she whispered. Margaret appeared to be deaf, and Mabel repeated the question. Margaret's deafness increased. "I'm thirsty," said Mabel. No answer. "Doesn't Christ keep any water in His house?" Here Margaret was tempted to smile, and so open the way for a discussion. But she was true to Mrs. Heath's direction, and presently the child, finding it useless to try to gain attention, gave up the attempt. Now, in most cases, it is the mother herself who is to blame when her little one claims and absorbs her chief attention at church. If she replies to its question, she sets it an example of talking during public worship, an act not to be tolerated, unless a case of illness makes it necessary. And as long as she will listen and reply, the child will vent its restlessness and weariness by incessant whispering. Rather than receive no notice at all, it will call forth such expressions as these: "Julia, if you don't keep still, you sha'n't come to church. Julia, you _must not_ get down from your seat. Julia, if you keep up this whispering I can't hear the sermon. You're thirsty? Well, I can't help it. Tired? I told you you would be tired, but you would come. Put down that fan. Don't open my parasol. What a naughty little girl you are!" On their return from service, Mrs. Heath asked how Mabel had behaved, and Margaret reported things just as they were. "I learned that scheme of deafness from mamma," said Mrs. Heath. "She never would listen to a word from us at church." "Fred says she gave him warning one Sunday morning that if he got down from his seat, as he had a trick of doing, she would take him home," said Hatty: "Yes, Hatty, I remember her doing that, and he never forgot it. Mamma had been an invalid, and unable to attend church, and his nurse used to take Fred, and she let him behave outrageously. It made a sensation, I can tell you, when mamma led him, roaring, down the broad aisle," returned Laura. After dinner, Mabel was allowed to stretch her limbs by playing with Kitty; then her mother read to her and to the child next in age. Mabel sat with her doll in her arms, but intent on the reading. "Why, _Belle_!" said Hatty, who was beginning to get over shyness that had kept her silent hitherto in the family gatherings. "Do you let Mabel have her playthings on Sunday?" "I never made any laws for my children in regard to Sunday, save this: they should not be noisy on that day, and disturb those who wanted quiet. As soon as they ceased to be mere animals, and began to reason and to imitate, they laid aside their toys on Saturday night of their own accord." "But Mabel has her doll." "Yes, she has her baby, and you have yours." Hatty, in fact, played more with Kitty on Sunday than on any other day in the week, except on nurse's afternoon "out"; for, like most mothers, she had charge of her child in order to let the servants attend church. And she would have thought the Lord a very hard Master if He had denied her this privilege. Mabel, on the other hand, had left off playing on Sunday, though she still allowed herself to hold her baby in her loving little arms. Now, is it likely that He who implanted this maternal instinct begrudged this child the caress she gave her doll? "I don't think the cases are parallel," objected Hatty. "I _must_ have Kitzie, and _must_ amuse her. My mother locked up all our toys on Saturday night." "Yes, many mothers do, and pride themselves on it. And so, as children must and will have occupation, they are likely to eat apples, gingerbread, or whatever they can get hold of, to pass away the time. This makes them heavy and ill-natured, and they get to quarrelling." "But think how strict the old Jewish law was! A man stoned to death for picking up sticks!" "The world was in its infancy then; and at any rate, He who made the law had His own reasons for it. But we live under a new dispensation, and ours is a Christian, not a Jewish, Sabbath. I have a great dread of making it a disagreeable day to my children." "But you can't deny," said Laura, joining the group with her baby, "that there is awful laxity in regard to the Sabbath nowadays." "No, I do not deny it; there always is reaction after pressure. It is to be hoped that things will right themselves in time." "Well, I wish the Bible had given explicit directions about everything." "Hasn't it?" "No, indeed. Here are you and Hatty, both good souls as ever lived, taking contrary views of so apparently plain a thing as to how to keep Sunday. Now, the promise to those who don't do their own ways, nor find their own pleasure, or speak their own words, staggers me as much as any admonition or threat could. Thousands of Christians will tell you this is their ideal of Sunday; but who lives up to it? Goodness! Think of the worldly talk that has gone on to-day among those who profess to be saints!" "Now you go too far, Laura," said Belle. "No, I don't, an atom too far. Didn't I dine, not a month ago, at the Rev. Dr. Enoch Rivers', just after he had preached one of his solemn sermons, and didn't he slip into his luxurious dressing-gown and have his own way in it? And didn't he seek his own pleasure when he sat down to his roast-beef? And didn't he speak his own words exactly as if it was Monday?" "And if he had preached while eating his dinner, you would call him a prig. And you surely would not ask him to come to the table in gown and bands! And as to the roast beef, what could be more wholesome?" But by this time signs of discomfort and weariness began to show themselves in the little Heaths, and though their mother saw fit to be blind and deaf to this at church, she would not neglect them elsewhere. So dropping all further discussion, she turned as she always could, into a bright, animated, live mother, and entertained and interested her little flock, till it was time for tea. Sunday to them meant a great deal of mamma; a good many stories, sweet singing, cheerful faces, and invariably some special indulgence, such as having their bread-and-milk in special silver or special china, and eating with special spoons. No hard tasks were given on this day, such as committing to memory chapters from the Bible, hymns, catechism; it was entire rest. Mr. and Mrs. Heath wanted their children to love God's day, and respect it, but they shrank from making them dread it as one full of needless restriction, hard tasks, toils, and tears. Nor were they willing to _force_ them to spiritual exercises too early, or to incur the hazard of religious disgust by long exhortations. Their aim was so to live the week throughout, as they would have their children, in their measures, live. To the casual spectator, they seemed to do very much less for them than other Christian parents did for theirs. But the fact is, they never lost sight of their best interests, but pursued those interests quietly, persistently, without parade or fuss, and with the deepest possible sense, that under God they would lose or gain everything through them. Happy are the children that are in such a case. CHAPTER VI. As the next day was stormy, there was no going out for any one, and everybody seemed to have some special business on hand that kept the groups apart until after lunch, when they all got round the library fire, and Mr. Heath volunteered to read aloud to them. This answered very well for a time, but by degrees the ladies of the party fell into an animated discussion which silenced his voice. Of course the subject was a very important one. "I never heard of such a thing," said Laura; "mamma, Mag does it all on the right side, and _so_ beautifully!" "But it should be done first on the wrong side and then on the right," said Belle. "Oh, no, all on the wrong side," said Laura. "Why, no," said Mrs. Grey, "you should pick up the stitches all around, draw the hole partially together, and then fill in--so." Each was sure she was right, that all the others were wrong, and so they went on, laughing, explaining, exclaiming, and declaiming; the Rev. Mr. Heath looking on amused and puzzled, and wondering on what mighty deed these vivacious creatures were intent. "How provoking that Cyril cannot act as umpire," said Laura; "but of course he knows nothing about it." "What is there, pray, that I know nothing about?" he cried. "Why, how to darn a stocking, to be sure." "Ah, I have you there," he said, gravely. "Hand me the biggest hole you have." "As if I _could_ hand a hole!" "Here's one of your own unconscionable hose," said Laura, "with holes as large as oranges. Oh, Cyril, how can you go so? Just suppose you should break your leg sometime, and somebody take off your boot and see such holes!" "Oh, yes, and suppose when the surgeon comes to set my limb, you refuse to let him approach me lest he should discover my holey habits. There, I defy any of you to mend a hole as quickly as I have just mended this." The grey stocking was passed from hand to hand and received due disgust from every feminine soul. Mr. Heath had gathered the hole into a hard bunch and tied it with a bit of twine. "Well, now, I maintain that my way is the only true and proper one," he declared; "it saves time, saves eye-sight, saves yarn, and has the merit of originality." "Oh, you men!" said Belle. "Mamma, you ought to have seen his clothes when he got home from his last European trip. They were a series of just such bunches, and all his white garments were tied up with black thread, and all the buttons sewed on his coats and pantaloons had been sewed on with white." While this skirmish was going on, Margaret had finished her work and slipped off to the children. It was Saturday's work, but she had neglected it, and everything else in her absorption in her new delight. "Where's Mag?" asked Laura, suddenly missing her. "In the nursery, I'll venture to say," said Mrs. Grey. "She's a perfect enthusiast about those buntlings," said Mr. Heath. "So she is about everything," said Mrs. Grey. "But the last idea, whatever it may be, fills her full, and she can only, by a great struggle with herself, find interest in anything else." "What an inconvenient character to possess," said Mr. Heath. "It is fortunate for my people that I am not of that sort. Fancy my spending weeks shut up sermonizing, and then forsaking that sort of work, and taking to visiting; and then staying both employments and falling to reading." "Why, I don't know that it would be so much amiss," said Laura. "You could make up a batch of sermons when the mood was on you, and that care off your mind you could wander round your parish at your own sweet will, and then, as you would have written and talked yourself out, you might, very properly, read yourself up again." "There's no use in discussing Margaret," said Mrs. Grey. "You can't, any of you, possibly understand her, in this short time." "But I see no complications or contradictions in her," said Mr. Heath; "and if there are none, why should we not understand her? What I should say of her is this: she is a shy, rather awkward, undeveloped girl, very young in her feelings, and so preferring the society of children to that of grown persons, and will, one of these days, make somebody a nice sort of a wife." "Oh, you men!" repeated Belle, "you can't see through mill-stones when they have holes in them." "If you mean by that, that I can't read a feminine at a glance, of course you are right." "It provokes me to think Harry has so little discrimination," said Laura, "that he might have married a dozen girls whom he would have adored as much as he does me. Men are so queer. They fall in love to-day with black eyes, and are sure they shall never think of any other maidens. And then, tomorrow, its all 'blue eyes, of course.' The fact is, marriage is a mere lottery." "Oh, for shame, Laura," said Belle; "I am sure Harry never could have been happy without you. You were made for each other. However, you were not in earnest; you never are, so what's the use of arguing with you?" "Well," returned Laura, "it makes me feel so flat when Cyril reads such a girl as Margaret superficially. Why, that girl is a genius." Mr. Heath smiled incredulously, but further argument was put an end to by the triumphant entrance of all the children, followed by Margaret. She had been teaching them an exercise it is impossible to describe: it was not a dance, nor yet a romp; but they made as pretty and unique an exhibition as it is possible to imagine, delighted themselves, and delighting the spectators. But as they whirled about the room, there flew out of Mabel's pocket a lump of sugar. The child stopped, blushed, and looked anxiously at her mother, who rose instantly, and led the child to her room. "Who gave my little Mabel the sugar?" she asked, gently. Mabel burst into tears. "I didn't eat it, mamma! I wasn't going to eat it! I was going to give it back, I was." Mrs. Heath could not doubt the child's sincerity; every tone of her voice said that, plainly. But that she had taken it by stealth, under sudden temptation, was equally clear. She remembered that she had herself placed her, standing on a chair, to regulate a shelf in the nursery closet, an amusement in which she was often indulged at home, and that a bowl of sugar was on this shelf. Now, in the case of her elder children, whose consciences were well aroused, Mrs. Heath did not find it necessary to keep them out of temptation of this sort; but she was usually careful to be watchful over the little ones. She blamed herself, now, for not putting the sugar out of reach, and as Mabel had, apparently, repented of her petty theft, and not eaten the coveted lump, she felt puzzled to know what course to pursue. At last she said, tenderly, but decidedly, "My little Mabel knew it was wrong to take the sugar, but I am glad she meant to put it back. Never take _any_ thing without leave. And the next time you want a lump of sugar very, very much, don't go and get it, and grieve mamma, and please Satan, but come straight to me and tell me all about it. Very likely I shall give you the lump, for I would rather give you a whole bowlful than have you take the tiniest bit yourself, because God wants all His little girls to be perfectly honest." After the children were in bed that night, Mrs. Heath sought her mother's council in the matter. "Ought I to have punished Mabel?" she asked. "It was a difficult case to manage. I cannot doubt her word. She never has shown the slightest disposition to falsehood." "I think you were wise in doing nothing but give an earnest warning. But I would keep my eye upon her if I were you. You know the tendency to peculate dainties is so inherent in children that the Germans have invented a word for it, a verb, in fact." "Yes; and this sort of peculation in a child might run into great criminality in an adult. You can't think what pains I have taken to keep the children free from this evil habit." "One point is to keep them so busy and so happy, that they will not have time to hanker after forbidden dainties. Another is just what I presume you do: show sympathy with them in their frailties; tell them to come and ask for the luxuries they are in danger of appropriating feloniously, and as far as it is good for them, indulge them." "Yes, I do that; yet isn't there danger of pampering gluttony?" "No danger that a sensible woman, like you, will do that. You will easily lead the children to despise gluttony. And want of sympathy with them in their youthful longings after good things, will be sure to engender habits of deceit and dishonesty." "What power the little creatures have to pain us," said Belle. "Oh, how it _hurt_ me when I saw that bit of sugar! How it _hurt_!" "My dear Belle," replied Mrs. Grey, "I considered you a very conscientious child, but you are a far more conscientious woman. Some might think you take this trespass of little Mabel's too much to heart; but I do not think so. If all young mothers looked at sin as you do, our eyes would not be assailed every time we take up our morning journal with the staring words, 'Embezzlement!' 'Fraud!' 'Burglary!' 'Murder!'" "But, mamma, though my children have had their little faults and foibles, this is the first _dishonorable_ act I have ever met with among them. There were certain things I was determined to have--obedience and uprightness." "By uprightness you do not mean perfection?" "No, I mean by it just what you do: freedom from everything mean and petty; a tendency upward, instead of tendency downward." "And don't you see that this desire has come from God, and that He has responded to it? Don't you know that your children are wonderful children?" "Perhaps they are, but I am not sure. They have been free from the temptations to which many others are exposed, because I have just lived in my nursery and kept the peace there. And their father enters into all my plans for them, and is not only kind--he is positively, and on principle, _courteous_ to them." "Yes, I see that. And you do not know what a mercy this is. Some men, even good men, as the saying goes, seem to think an imperious, harsh tone to their children, perfectly becoming. I can recall some scenes of discord that it makes me sick to think of. I saw a hand-to-hand fight once, between a father and a boy of fourteen. The latter had got irritable over his Greek; his father, a naturally impatient man, reproved him for it, in a sharp way, and at an unfortunate moment; (it is such a mistake to find fault at an untimely season) and the boy answered back. This called forth a severe reprimand; then came an impertinent reply; then an attempt to box on the boy's ears, which, being nearly as tall and strong as his father, the fellow resisted; then followed a scene which I am afraid is witnessed too often in that spot which ought to be a Paradise, but which ungoverned passion can turn into a hell." Belle listened in painful silence. At last she said: "If my husband were that sort of man; if he so tampered with one of my boys--I should drop dead on the spot. Oh, mamma! do you really think such scenes occur in decent homes?--in homes where children are beloved?" "Here you come to head-quarters. A happy home is one where first of all God is loved. Secondly, and as a sequence, where father and mother and children love each other." "But all parents and children love each other," said Laura, who had just joined them. "Yes, but there is love and love. Family affection is an instinct; even animals have it. But the sort of love to which I refer is of a higher sort. For instance, you are my child, less than two years of age, say. I caress and pet you. I supply all your wants, we get on admirably together, till some day you refuse to obey a direction I have given you. Now I may know, well enough, that I ought to oblige you to obey me, but I am weak and irresolute and selfish; I say to myself, I love my child too well to punish it; but do I speak the truth?" "No, you deceive yourself," said Belle. "Well, here is another method. Suppose I suddenly take you by the shoulders and give you a good shaking, or an angry blow?" "The case is not supposable," said Laura, who could not be serious half an hour at a time. "Don't, please, make a jest out of everything," said Belle; "I have got mamma agoing and I want to hear her talk." "Then let me call Hatty if we are to have a treatise on education," said Laura, who rushed off and brought back her young sister-in-law with great zeal. "Go on, mamma," said Belle. "We are talking about the way to deal with such little folks as yours, Hatty." "I was saying," Mrs. Grey went on, "that my little child disobeys me; I may refuse to punish it under the delusion that I love it too well, or I may rudely shake or strike it. Both acts would proceed from selfishness and want of self-discipline. A hasty shake or a hasty blow, means anger, and does not mean love. It means something un-Christ-like, and is, therefore, unholy. Now, there is yet a third course before me. I may refuse to act from impulse, and resolve to act from the principle of love to the child, not its mere emotion." "The _principle of love_?" Hatty repeated, in a low voice to herself. "Yes, my dear. Love, as a principle, can make God its supreme object, while the emotion is, or appears to be, wanting; and this is true of all our earthly relations. Now I love my child better than I do myself, and I am going to hurt myself for its sake. It _must_ learn obedience for its own sake. Therefore, whenever it opposes its will to mine, some penalty shall invariably follow." "What, for instance?" asked Hatty, eagerly. "Oh, there can be no one rule. The gentler the punishment the better, if the object desired is gained. We are dealing now with a child under two years of age. The tender little creature will not need the thunder of the law. Put it in a corner; seat it in a chair apart from the rest; it may be safe to shut it up in a closet, but it may not be; it depends on whether it is of a timid or a courageous character. The point is to make it aware that it is under law. With some natures this is easily taught." "But what of a very willful one?" asked Hatty. "Such a child will greatly tax parental faith and patience," was the reply. "But it will yield to wise, unselfish, Christian determination; and its strong will, once disciplined, may become one of its most serviceable characteristics." "Would you use a rod?" "What, on a little child? No." "Hatty meant a metaphorical rod, I think," said Belle. "Yes, I did. I mean should one slap a child's hands?" "It depends upon the character of the mother, and on that of the child. There is no one rule for all parties. Children ought not to need corporeal punishment after they are two or three years old; and if properly managed, I doubt if they need it at all. But you see, my dear girls, that before a young father and mother are fit to train children they must be disciplined themselves. Pain should be inflicted by them without ill-temper, without hasty impulse, and in tender love. Children should know that love lies at the bottom of all parental law, and is its foundation." "Doesn't it seem strange," asked Hatty, "that God commits children to such youthful hands? Why, how we blunder our way along! I have always heard that the eldest child had the hardest time in the family--the object of all sorts of experiments and mistakes." "The eldest child certainly has that disadvantage," said Mrs. Grey; "and it has also the added disadvantage of entering the world with characteristics that children born later may possess but in a mellowed form. On the other hand, the first-born gets most from its parents as its birthright. Belle, here, has had a mother thirty years; but Fred has had one only twenty-two." "How funny!" said Laura. "Oh, dear! nothing looks funny to me," said Hatty, with a sigh. "Kitzie is so headstrong, and I am such a young little mother, and know so little how to manage her! And Fred can't endure spoiled children." "Why, Hatty, you are not spoiling Kitty," Mrs. Grey said, with some surprise. "Are you sure? Oh, but you don't see me at my worst! I'm on my good behavior when I'm here, trying to make you all love me. But devoted as I am to Kitty, living among you all here has made me see my own faults as I never did before. She often provokes me so that I want to do something awful--something one of my teachers did to me when I was specially naughty." "What was that, pray?" asked Laura. "Look daggers at her!" Hatty reluctantly replied. "If you take lessons from my mother, you'll look milk and honey, not daggers," said Laura. "Dear me! do you know how late it is? Consider yourselves kissed, all around, for I'm off to bed." And singing like a bird, Laura hopped away to her room, hung lightly, for an instant, over her sleeping child, and was soon asleep, not much more than a child herself. CHAPTER VII. This was the last family council, for the time--as Fred grew "wife and child sick," as he expressed it, and came and bore them away in triumph; and the Heaths, and Laura and her babies, soon followed. Little Mabel alone remained, without a fear on Belle's part that grandmamma would over-feed, or spoil, or neglect her darling--who, for her part, was content to stay with Margaret, between whom and herself there had sprung up a beautiful friendship. Before Fred bore away his household gods, he sought a private interview with his mother, eager to know what she thought of them; for immediately on his marriage he had taken his wife abroad, and this was the first time she and his child had come under her roof. "I think you a lucky fellow, young man," she said, good-humoredly. "Hatty is coming into full sympathy with us, and has in her the makings of a very fine woman, as Mrs. Goodwin once said of her Sophie. I suppose you do not expect anything more from me than this?" "Now, mother, this isn't fair," he remonstrated. "I never pretended that she was equal to you, or to the girls; but she has a great deal of character, and yet is very impressible. I can wind her round my finger like a piece of silk." "She's much more likely to wind you round hers. She has a will of iron. But I do not object to that." "Indeed you wouldn't if you could see her bear pain. Oh, you'll love her to distraction when you come to know her as well as I do. Poor little thing, how she did dread running the gauntlet of all you keen-eyed, cultivated women!" "You ought to have spared her that. You know we never pick flaws in each other. Why, Fred, I expect, in time, to love Hatty just about as I love you. But you know my affections move slowly." "I know I never saw anyone whose affections move with more rapidity," laughed Fred. "But I suppose a mother never finds a paragon worthy of her son." "Oh, as to that, I consider Hatty quite your equal, if not your superior. In fact, her greatest fault is one she will outgrow." "And what is that?" "Youth. She stepped out of school into a nursery; she has had no liberty, no stopping-place between girlhood and motherhood. I cannot imagine how her mother could permit her to marry so young, poor child." "Her mother could tell you the reason," said Fred, with a good-humored smile that had in it just the least touch of complacency. "Well, the thing is done, at any rate. And now, my dear boy, I charge you to make allowance for Hatty, if, amid the wear and tear of domestic life, she falls below the ideal you now make of her. Depend upon it, there are no ideal characters on earth." "Well, isn't Kitty a perfect beauty?" "She is very pretty." "Is that all you have to say? In my eyes, she is the most beautiful child on earth. But as to her behavior, I can't say I have anything to boast of. She is a little fury when she is provoked." "Strange, isn't it?" said Mrs. Grey. "But, mother, I have outgrown all that sort of thing. And it is provoking to see one's faults repeated in one's child. But you may depend upon it, we are not going to spoil Kitty. Her mother fights her out on every line of battle." "But be cautious, Fred. This little human flower must expand elsewhere than on a battle-field. You can't begin too soon to let her see that intense, unselfish love lies at the bottom of all restraint and correction. You and Hatty are both, by nature, law-givers, and I do not doubt you will have a family of obedient children, as you ought to do. But think of the goodness as well as the severity of God, when you discipline your child. Never enter upon a conflict with her without asking Him how to proceed; in this way you will avoid a thousand mistakes." Fred colored and looked embarrassed. It had not occurred to him that a grown-up man was not quite equal to the task of training a little child; on the contrary, he had rather prided himself on his skill. "To go back to Hatty," he said, "she is perfectly wild about you." "Well, then, if you have failed to find me as enthusiastic about your little wife as you hoped to do, I may as well own here that I am not fond of having people 'perfectly wild' about me. It can't last. I am no angel; and it isn't pleasant to be soaked in hot water one day, and left to freeze the next. Just as soon as Hatty will let me get off the throne on which she has placed me, and seat myself on the every-day chair on which I belong, I shall love her and enjoy her love as I can't do now, when I have a mean sort of feeling that she is giving more than she gets, and that I am taking more than I deserve. Now the murder is all out, and we can start a little more fairly and squarely than we did at first." Fred smiled and took the frank hand his mother offered him in both his. "I wouldn't own Hatty if she did not admire my mother," he said. "And do you think there is a fair prospect of Kitty's turning out well at last?" "Yes, my dear boy, if you will lay to heart the counsel of your mother, and part with all pride and self-reliance, and rely on Divine strength alone. Oh, that I had realized this in the early years of my married life, and taken counsel of God at every step!" "I don't see but we must go home and reconstruct our domestic life," said Fred. "We were young and strong, and of one mind; we were resolved to have an obedient child, at any cost; and of course we have prayed for her; but I am afraid not specifically enough." "Kitty is not a common child, and I dare say will cost you a great deal. I would make just as few laws for her as possible, and train her to obedience by long patience. Never threaten her, never fight with her, never strike her." "Never fight with her! Why, mother, she disputes every inch of ground. We _have_ to fight with her. And as to whipping her, why, I thought you believed in the rod?" "In some cases I do, but not in Kitty's. She has such a strong character that you might, sometime, whip her to death." "She gets fortitude from her mother," said Fred. "What are we to do with her, then?" "Punish her, invariably, for every act of disobedience, and let the matter rest there." "What, let her have her own way? Why, mother, I know grand-parents generally do grow lax as they advance in years, but I did not expect it of you. Oh, you forget what rebels some of us were." "No, my son, I do not forget. I look at life differently from what I once did. I know that, mingled with some high principle, I had pride, self-reliance, and self-will in the management of my children, and now I want you all to have the benefit of my experience. You may depend upon it, there are times when a wise parent must make humbling concessions to a proud, excited child, when it is acting its worst self." "Well, now, suppose I tell Kitty to say 'Please,' and she won't, what am I to do?" "You might threaten to whip her till she said it, and she become so tired out as to be utterly unable to utter the word. Parents are continually making mistakes of this sort. A child has not always control of its tongue. Doesn't yours sometimes cleave to the roof of your mouth? And there is another thing, Kitzie is shy. What it would cost an ordinary child no effort to do, might be torture to her; you must be careful what you direct her to do, lest you should demand something she cannot perform. I once knew a timid girl of ten years, attempt to slip out of a room full of company unobserved. When her mother called her back to bid the party good-night she came directly, but blushing painfully, and the words she tried to utter died on her lips. Her mother was a strict disciplinarian, and thought it her duty to say, 'You cannot go to bed till you have obeyed me.' The child stood there a long, long time, weeping bitterly; she was not disobedient in her habits, she was tired, she longed to get out of sight of those astonished eyes; but the words would not come. At last, ready to drop with fatigue, she shrieked them out, and was allowed to creep to bed, with a sense of being the naughtiest girl in the world. Ah, Fred, let no careless word tamper with the delicate, complicated machinery of your child's soul." "I shall go home a wiser, but a sadder man," said Fred. "I never realized before that the work of training up a child is such an _awful_ task." "It is only awful when undertaken by a fool or a knave. You will find, as other children come to you, that rules that apply to one, fail in regard to another. What I have advised in regard to Kitzie, may not apply in the least to your Fred, Jr., when you get that young man." Fred Grey was worth all he had cost his mother, for his was a strong, thoughtful character. And all that she had now said to him impressed him, as it did his wife, when he repeated it to her. Poor little baby Kitty never had another battle with her resolute young parents; yet day by day she was learning obedience; day by day they were learning humility and self-control. Their love to each other and to their child grew purer and sweeter, and co-operating together in all their plans for her, her lot bid fair to be a most enviable one. Mrs. Grey and Margaret had plenty of work on their hands after quiet once more settled down upon them. Letters and cards had accumulated, and must be attended to; there were protégés to look after; there was Mabel to love and to watch and to care for. And, as readers ought to know by intuition, but young Master Accuracy declares they do not, there was Mrs. Grey's new book on the stocks, and which the Christmas festivities had brought to a stand-still. CHAPTER VIII. Although Mrs. Grey had spent a large part of her life in the city of Gotham, that was not, at this time, her home. When they had a house full of boys and girls she and her husband met with so many annoyances in their summer resorts, growing out of such a flock to dispose of, that they at last secured a large house in the vicinity, thereby not only adding greatly to the comfort of the family, but improving their health, since, with a table at her command, Mrs. Grey could provide wholesome food for her family. Mr. Grey's death occurred before any of the children had become settled in life, and the loneliness of her widowhood was cheered by their presence. But when, midway between fifty and sixty, she was left alone with Maud, and ceased to have any special cares, she became everybody's property, and was used by all sorts of people in all sorts of ways. Soon after her work on education appeared, she received numerous letters, asking counsel in special cases to which she had made no allusion there, the following being one: DEAR MRS. GREY:--Charlie and I have just finished your last book, and think you must be _perfectly lovely_! I should like _so_ much to see you. May I come? And if I may, will you tell me what train to take? I have so many things to say to you. And Charlie says he shall be so glad to have me come under your influence. Your admiring friend, MRS. LIBBIE CLARE. No.--, Fifth Avenue. Mrs. Grey's keen eye took in the measure of "Mrs. Libbie Clare" at a glance. But if it was keen it was not unkind. Turning to Margaret, who sat near, she said, "Will you answer this, and tell the child she may come out by the 9:10 train any morning this week?" "Oh, aunty, you are not going to give up a _morning_ to a woman who signs herself 'Mrs.'? Can't she come in the afternoon?" "No, the days are too short." "But, aunty, you have had no leisure for a long time, and have got intent on your book again." "Yes, dear, I know, but here is a chance to gratify and perhaps be of use to one of those 'neighbors' we are told to love. Now, selfishness might urge me to go on with my work, but obedience to Christian duty may and ought to be stronger than self." Margaret said no more; but she was puzzled. She did not understand the readiness shown by Mrs. Grey to be "pulled about," as she termed it. Somehow she felt sure that Mrs. Libbie Clare was not much of a woman, and was coming to exhibit herself rather than to see her aunt. And she was right. Mrs. Clare was quite young, was very proud of her husband and children, told their whole history, gave her own views of education, and hardly allowed Mrs. Grey to utter a word. Two mortal hours she stayed, and then when she took leave, put up her mouth for a kiss, without taking her hands from her muff, said she had had a delightful visit, and hoped it would soon be returned. Mrs. Grey went back to her desk feeling decidedly flat, and found that Margaret, according to her wont, had been illustrating her MS. with a ridiculously funny caricature of a young father holding his son and heir most awkwardly in his arms, while there proceeded from its mouth the words, "Oh, how he pinches! how he pinches!" She laughed, cut it out, and threw it into a drawer, where kindred sketches already reposed. She had just resumed her pen when Mrs. Grosgrain was announced. "Who is Mrs. Grosgrain?" asked Margaret. "I don't remember ever seeing or hearing of her." "No, she was in Europe when you came here, and has only just returned. I shall want her to see you, sometime." So saying, Mrs. Grey proceeded to meet her guest, and after some animated conversation together, the latter said: "I hear you have adopted a young orphan girl, to take the place to you of your darling Maud. Yet, I don't see how you could." "You have not heard the story quite correctly," replied Mrs. Grey. "It is true that I have adopted a young girl of Maud's age, but not to fill her place. No one can or ought to fill that. But there were so many things left by her that were adapted to gratify the taste of a young person, and that young person a girl, that I longed to see them enjoyed. There was Maud's piano standing idle; her rooms tastefully furnished, left empty; and, to tell the truth, plenty of love in this old heart to give away. That _I_ was to gain much, if anything, never crossed my mind. But all has turned out delightfully." "Is she like Maud, then?" "Not in the least. She is a girl of very marked character; once I could not have tolerated her faults. But she amuses me and keeps me young; and she is going to become a very fine woman in time." "And in the meanwhile?" "Why, I shall have to put up with some decided opinions and habits that are not to my mind. But I did not look for, or expect to find, a faultless character. Margaret has heart and soul; she has enthusiasm; she knows her own mind and decides upon this and that at once, and once for all. She does not care for music, as Maud did; in fact, she hates it." "_Hates_ it!" Mrs. Grey smiled. "Oh, it is all love or hate with her. She can't be indifferent to anything. I found she had decided, though undeveloped, artistic talent, and she is taking lessons in drawing and painting. I never met a person who could do so many things well." "Is not her sudden good fortune turning her head?" "Not at all. She has too much good common sense for that. In any sphere she would have been self-reliant, and perhaps appear, to some persons, conceited. But she is too proud to be conceited." "Proud, indeed," thought Mrs. Grosgrain, who did not comprehend the vigorous character described. "I should think she had little to be proud of. Poor Mrs. Grey, she ought to have a very different young person about her at her time of life. Some sweet, lovely girl like little Matty Rhodes. Dear Matty! I wish she had such a home as this. What a pity it all happened while I was abroad. I would have spoken a good word for the child if I had known. My sister would have been so thankful to see one of her six girls provided for." During this soliloquy, Mrs. Grey had gone on talking, but Mrs. Grosgrain had not heard a word, and now took leave. "Well, girls," she said, on reaching home, "I have seen Mrs. Grey, but she did not exhibit her new acquisition. Still, you must all go and call on her prize." "I don't intend to go," said Miss Grosgrain. "Mrs. Grey ought not to expect people in society to fall in with her oddities." "You must either call on this girl or give up Mrs. Grey altogether. She has taken her right into poor Maud's place, and is quite infatuated about her; although, from her description, I should judge her to be a disagreeable creature." "But to expect _us_ to associate with a person picked up out of the streets, as it were; really it is too much." "You needn't associate with her; merely go and make a short call, just to keep up appearances with Mrs. Grey, you know." "Why not drop Mrs. Grey, and done with it?" "Because we can't afford to have her drop us. You seem to forget the struggle we have made to get a position, and to fancy we can maintain it without difficulty." "We might forget it if you ever gave us a chance, but you are forever reminding us of it. People are too glad to eat our splendid dinners, and to attend our elegant parties, to drop us." "Mrs. Grey never eats our dinners or comes to our parties. Now, girls, I am determined to keep up the acquaintance. Hers is one of the few old families we have got into; she is rich, she is popular; one meets nice people at her house, and my policy always has been and always will be, 'Hold fast what I give you and catch what you can.'" "For my part," said Miss Mary, "I am curious to see and to put down this upstart of a girl. I flatter myself that I am gifted in that line." "Yes, let's go," said Miss Flora, "it will be such fun!" Accordingly, the next day, the four Misses Grosgrain went in a body to call on Margaret. She had just set her palette in order, to paint some tea-roses before they began to droop, and was anything but pleased at the interruption. The moment she laid eyes upon them she conceived an aversion for them which she found it almost impossible to conceal. They, on their part, had made up their minds that she was of low origin, and intended to make it at once clear that the visit originated in no intention to gratify her. "Mamma has told us about your singular good fortune," began the eldest young lady, "and desired us to show our respect for Mrs. Grey by calling on you." Instantly hurt by this intentional sting, Margaret was tempted to reply in like manner. But she controlled herself, and said, stiffly: "My aunt's friends are welcome, of course." "Oh, is she your aunt, after all?" cried Miss Flora. "We supposed you were not related to her in any way." "Nor am I," replied Margaret; and condescended to no explanations. "It was a curious freak of Mrs. Grey, taking you up so, was it not?" inquired Miss Mary in a most innocent tone. "How surprised you must have been! How strange it must seem to be suddenly introduced to such new scenes! Do excuse our curiosity, we would not do anything ill-bred for the world; but how did you contrive to ingratiate yourself so with her?" "By no contrivance whatever; I scorn contrivance!" "Oh, I did not mean to offend you." "I am not offended." "Well, touched, then. Not one of us would intentionally say anything ill-bred. Mamma has trained us _so_ carefully! We have just returned from Europe, where we spent nearly three years. It is very improving. You ought to coax Mrs. Grey to take you abroad. You have no idea how refining it is to see works of art, and to mix with cultivated people." "I never coax," was the reply. "_Comme elle est fière!_" said one sister to another. "_Et assez jaune!_" said the other. "Proud and yellow," repeated Margaret, "but unfortunately not deaf or dumb." "Goodness! Who could fancy you understood French! What an unlucky blunder we have made." "Our respect for Mrs. Grey--" "Rules of good-breeding--" "Difficult position--" cried the sisters in chorus, each warbling a different tune, and each pretty thoroughly mortified and embarrassed. There was nothing left for it but to take leave. "What a disagreeable scrape that girl has got us into!" said Miss Grosgrain, as soon as they were safe in their carriage. "Well, it's rather hard, I must say," complained another, "to have to demean one's-self to visit a creature about whose antecedents one knows nothing. Where can she have picked up French, I wonder?" "Very likely from some fellow-servant, some nursery-governess, where she has lived," cried Miss Mary. "Now, Mary Grosgrain, you don't mean that she has been anybody's servant?" "Well, I do not say that, positively, but I know Mrs. Grey picked her up in a tenement-house. Fancy our visiting an inmate of a tenement-house!" "How tall she is!" "And how she was dressed! Not a ring or a bracelet, or a bow or a puff. But of course Mrs. Grey has to keep her down." "I saw a great smooch of paint on her sleeve," said Miss Mary. "She hasn't a particle of style," said Miss Flora. "Of course not; how should she? She has not had our advantages." "I heard that she was a splendid-looking girl," said Miss Grosgrain. "From whom?" "Fred Rogers." "Pooh! Fred Rogers!" "Mamma, we've had such a time," cried all four, when they reached home. "Such airs as that girl puts on. And somehow contrived to make us feel flat, though she is a nobody. Mrs. Grey is altogether too Quixotic. It is very annoying to have to humor her whims. What in the world did she want of another daughter, when she has a dozen or so of her own?" "But they are all married, and live at a distance, and she was getting old, and probably needed a companion to wait upon her, mend her lace, do her clear-starching, draw her checks, do her shopping, go to market, and all that sort of thing," said Mrs. Grosgrain. "She has put her right in Maud's room. Of all things how strange! And has given away all Maud's beautiful clothes! Why, if I should lose either of you I should regard your garments as the most sacred things in the world; no mortal should ever touch them. But some people have so little feeling." "It isn't quite fair to say that Mrs. Grey has little feeling," said Miss Grosgrain, "for when they were screwing down the lid of Maud's coffin she fainted away. She's _queer_; that's the word to describe her--_queer_." "Well, yes, that _is_ the word," said Mrs. Grosgrain. "When I called the other day, she seemed--well, it's an awful thing to say, and I hope you won't repeat it, girls, but she actually seemed--happy! Why, if one of you should die I should not have another happy moment. I should consecrate my life to grief." In the privacy of their own room that night, Miss Grosgrain dutifully remarked to Miss Clara: "Mamma did not 'consecrate her life to grief' after papa's death, but to spending his money." "Oh, as to that, I think she did all he could have expected," was the reply. "She wore the deepest and the most fashionable mourning she could find; had the deepest possible black edge to her cards, and always put on a mournful expression whenever anyone called." Miss Grosgrain smiled grimly. "You are right as to the 'mournful expression'; she did 'put it on' with a vengeance." CHAPTER IX. Margaret, meanwhile, returned to her work, with burning cheeks. "It is true," she said to herself, "that people have a right to sneer at me. My mother has been a servant and so have I. But we were not born to it, either of us. Even if Mrs. Grey hadn't taken me up, I shouldn't have spent my life in a kitchen. Nobody ever did who could paint like _that_! And yet, my poor father never got on, and it isn't likely I have more talent than he had. But stop; it was only yesterday aunty was saying that gifts sometimes overleap one generation; it is quite possible that I had a grandfather or grandmother whose abilities have come to me. How horrid it is not to know one's relatives!" Just here letters were brought in; one for Margaret, several for Mrs. Grey. Margaret seized hers with a thrill of surprise and delight, for this was an era in her life, her first letter! And she has no objection to our reading it: DEAR MARGARET:--I cannot help loving you for your love to my mother and to my little Mabel, and wanted to tell you so when I was at home, but have no faculty for showing what I feel. We are all glad mother has your bright face to look at when she misses ours. And, Margaret, don't let her work too hard. She does not realize how dear Maud's death has worn upon her, but I see it plainly, and it almost vexes me to see how she allows herself to be at everybody's beck and call. And yet, I love her for it, too; it is only living out her religion, as we all must learn to do. Now, a word about my little pet; and don't laugh at me as a silly mother who makes a fuss about trifles, but please watch the lammie, without seeming to do it, and if you see anything dishonorable dawning in her character, write and tell me so. I know it is generally a thankless task to tell mothers of their children's faults, but I can bear it if it is done kindly, though as bad as anybody if it is done unkindly. Just now this is all I have time to say, except that I am your affectionate sister, BELLE. "'Your affectionate sister, Belle!'" Great, bright tears filled Margaret's eyes as they fell upon the words. "How _could_ I let those dreadful Grosgrains hurt me so," she asked herself, "when I have such friends? Oh, Belle, how I do admire and love you! But what is this about my pet? Mabel dishonorable? That little white lamb! I'm sure she isn't!" She handed the letter to Mrs. Grey, and stood leaning over her as she read it. "Isn't it just lovely in B.--Mrs. Heath--to write me such a letter, and call herself my sister?" "It is just like her," said Mrs. Grey, "and it is worth having, because it cost her something. Now it is different with Laura. Laura takes everything easy." "But what a curious question about Mabel!" "Oh, that is on account of the bit of sugar the child took from the nursery-closet." "When?" "On the day you exhibited the children so prettily." "And who dares say my innocent little darling is a thief?" cried Margaret, her color rising. "I gave her sugar in order to coax her to take her part with the other children, for she was shy about it at first. Did her mother fancy she took it herself?" "She naturally thought so, but as the child had not eaten it, and said she did not mean to do so, she did not punish her." "It is a thousand pities. But as Mabel knew herself to be innocent, why didn't she declare it? Why did she blush and cry as if she had done something wrong?" "Because she had done wrong in accepting it. It never would answer for such a young child to eat whatever injudicious persons chose to give it, therefore Belle forbids her little ones receiving dainties save from herself or some other authorized hand. You can't imagine how recklessly many people behave in such matters. I have known a conscientious child to be almost laughed into eating and drinking forbidden luxuries, such as coffee, mince-pie, and rich cake." "I did not know one had to be so careful with children." "It is the case, though, and if it seems to you that Belle has made too much of this affair, you must remember that she must adapt herself to the very small world in which Mabel lives, and whose trivial wants are as great to her as the most serious ones will be, by and by." "I shall write to B.--Mrs. Heath--this very minute," cried Margaret, "but what shall I call her?" "I think she has settled that. Call her Belle. But, before you begin I want you to see what a lovely little note the mail has brought me!" And if Margaret reads it, why shouldn't we? DEAR MRS. GREY:--I have not the faintest idea that you are pining for a letter from me, but it is a relief to me now and then to say that I love you, and the size of the sheet I write it on is no symbol how much. I am reading a delightful book to my invalid auntie; in it a lady speaks of a friend as an "Amen to the Bible." _That_, say I, is what Mrs. Grey has been to me. Again, "Mrs. Jameson was the consoler of her sex in England." Ah, say I, _Mrs. Grey_ is the consoler of her sex in America. But you will think I have been kissing the blarney stone. But when people _mean_ things, can't they say them? I stay with auntie all the time, day and night, and am real happy in a quiet way, for I do feel, in a small degree, I know, but a great deal more than ever before, the loving-kindness of my Heavenly Father, the _goodness and severity of God_. Yours, lovingly and gratefully, HELENA. "What a graceful little note, and on what a tiny sheet!" exclaimed Margaret. "Who is this Helena? Any one I know?" "You have never seen her, but she often visits me, and I love her much. Her forte is in writing charming letters. I shall want you to know her. But you want to write to Belle now, and I won't detain you." Margaret rushed off to her room, and rushed, as it were, a shovelful of hot coals at Belle, as reply to her letter. Then what receptacle was worthy to hold this treasure? Her eye fell upon one object after another, and rejected them, till it rested upon her Russian leather mouchoir-case. "The very thing!" she cried; pulled out the handkerchiefs, thrust them, _en masse_, into a drawer, replaced them with the letter, and then flew to hug and kiss Mabel, on whom she vented the feeling she could not express. Ah, Margaret, you will have many, many such idols as you are now making of Belle Heath! How many times they will fall off the altar, and you will put them in their place again! What power they will have to swell your heart with joy, to melt it into tears! And yet--thank God that you have a heart! for even an aching one is better than none at all. "I want you to get dressed, now," said Mrs. Grey, "for I have ordered the carriage, and am going to make some visits." Margaret groaned. She did not believe in paying visits, except to very agreeable people, and was very apt to be silent and stupid in company, unless it was congenial. And this was not entirely her own fault. It belonged to her type of character as much as her gifts did. She went off and dressed now, however, without a word of remonstrance, for she was in a happy mood; Belle's letter warming and brightening her. As they drove from house to house, she chatted gayly with her aunt of a score of innocent, girlish things, and Mrs. Grey listened, and smiled, amused at her keen observation, her simplicity and naturalness. Her mother had so guarded her life that she was very ignorant of evil, and Mrs. Grey had kept up this care successfully. "I know how I would arrange things if I had the management of them. I would go to see people I loved, ever so often, and have them come to see me. But I would have nothing to do with anybody else, in the way of visiting them. Why not? Why should those who do not love each other waste their time in meeting?" "And what reason would you give those you neglected for your conduct?" "Oh, I would speak the truth; I would just say, out and out, I don't love you, so I am not going to see you; you don't love me, and so you needn't come to see me." "And how many friends should you have, at that rate?" "Not so very many, but they would all be after my own heart." "Well, now, let us see how your scheme will work. Here are two sisters; you love one, and can't bear the other. You make your frank statement to both, asking the one to come to see you, and the other to keep her distance; how much sympathy can exist between them after it? You probably will lose the friendship of both. "Take another instance. You meet with a person with whom you fall in love, as you term it; she is more cautious than you, and hesitates to give her friendship until she knows you better. She asks questions about you of sister Number Two, who replies, 'All I know about her is, that she is very odd and very rude, and thinks herself capable of reconstructing society.' Now, the fact is simply this. We are all more or less dependent on each other. And therefore we must put up with some people who are not congenial to us, and they must put up with us." "Yes, I see. Wouldn't it be nice to have an island which no disagreeable or stupid people would be allowed to visit! Everybody in it pleasant, and cultivated, and refined; like Belle, for instance." "It might be nice, but not possible; and, if possible, not best. In the first place, there would be different opinions as to who would be eligible as inhabitants of your famous island. A. would object to B., and B. to C. Besides, life in this world is not to be just to our minds. We need the discipline of contact with uncongenial characters. But then, we are to stay in this world but a short time. By and by we shall go to a far more delightful and ideal spot than your island; an abode into which will be gathered the best, the wisest, the purest beings that ever adorned earth." "Still, it seems hard to have to waste so much precious time in driving about from house to house. You have plenty of things to occupy every moment. You have your books to write, and a thousand other things to do; and as for me, with all the time I've lost, it seems almost wicked to be going to see people who care nothing for me, and for whom I don't care a fig." "The time is not wasted, however. I seldom, if ever, make a morning visit without getting a new thought from somebody; and as for you, you must see something of the world, or be awkward and ill at ease all your life. But here we are at Mrs. Wallace's; she has some pretty little children; they may interest you." Mrs. Wallace was a sweet-looking young woman, and was followed into the parlor by three girls, who soon gave evidence of being strong-minded females, though the eldest was not more than ten years old. They appropriated Margaret at once. One seized her muff and pelted the others with it. Another insisted on unbuttoning her gloves. A third wanted to know how much her hat cost. Now this may sound like exaggeration, but it is the literal truth. Their mother never seemed to realize that a forward, unabashed child is one of the most annoying and unnatural things in the world; she suffered these little girls, who were not bad children, to form these offensive habits, and victimized all her friends with them. When they had got all the entertainment out of Margaret she was able to render them, they thought she might be permitted to depart, and asked their mother, in audible whispers, how long "they" were going to stay. She whispered back, and Mrs. Grey, finding her too much occupied with them to attend further to her, rose to take leave. "What dreadful children!" ejaculated Margaret, as they re-entered the carriage. "Aunty, you say you get some thought out of almost every visit you make; now what did you get out of this one?" Mrs. Grey smiled. "I know those children of old," she said, "and never had so comfortable a visit there before, as this time you were their prey. Well, my thought was this: How much depends on manners! These little girls are not bad children, and yet they are the terror of all their mother's friends. They ought to be kept in their nursery, and not be allowed to come into the parlor to torment visitors." "Doesn't she know what annoyance they cause?" "Perhaps she partially knows it, but fancies their great beauty will atone for that. We must not be hard upon her. The temptation to display those three beautiful faces is very great. We don't know what we should do under similar circumstances." "Don't we?" cried Margaret. "I know what I should do. I should lock them all up in a box rather than let them behave as they do. Why, I would rather they were shy and awkward than bold and presuming as they are. I suppose people began by noticing them on account of their curling hair, and brown eyes, and bright speeches--for they are bright--and that spoiled them." "Yes; and manners one can tolerate in a child of three, are intolerable in one of ten. However, these girls will outgrow these outside faults, I dare say, and grow up into agreeable and estimable women. Their mother has this one weak spot of wanting to display them; but, in the main, she is wise and true, and will exert a good influence over them." "Oh! but, aunty, you did not hear all that passed. They are not merely rude--they are conceited. One of them asked me if I ever saw such pretty hair as hers, and then had a dispute with another who declared hers was prettier!" "Beauty is a snare, no doubt," said Mrs. Grey; "and I am afraid it is over-valued in that home. And now for the Grosgrains." "Oh, those Grosgrains! _Must_ I return their visit? We haven't a single idea in common. And they look down upon me so!" "Yes, I can imagine that. But do not let it disturb you. They will not put on any airs in my presence, for I know, and they know that I know, whence they sprung. Their mother was brought up in a foundling hospital, and after she left it, learned a trade--that of tailoress. She was a hard-working, friendless girl, and had a certain kind of good looks as dowry. A young man took a fancy to, and married her. She kept at work at her trade, and made the first suit of clothes my Frank ever wore. They had no children for some years, so they laid up money, and began to live in more comfort than they ever had dreamed of doing. He had good business capacity, and she was ambitious. They kept rising in the world, and would have liked to have their early history fade out of people's memories. Then came these four girls, by whom they did the best they could. Women rise as men cannot do; they have quick, smart ways, and pick up a certain outside kind of good breeding, and the Grosgrains availed themselves of these advantages to the best of their ability. But the struggle to keep up on the one hand, and unaccustomed luxuries on the other, proved too much for Mrs. Grosgrain, and she sank under it. Now during her career as a woman of means, she had taken a young sister into her home, and educated her as far as money could educate, and it was natural enough for Mr. Grosgrain to marry her. She made as good a mother to the girls as she knew how to be, but in the best sense of the word never made ladies of them. As to Mr. Grosgrain, he had one talent: it was for making money, and money he made; but he had no culture, and no faculty for living in style; and the luxuries which were the delight of his wife and daughters, had no charm for him, especially as they were expensive. There was no end to the family squabbles on the subject of expenditures. He had five females to twit, and to snub, and to set him right--five females to spend his money and ruin him. He became a monomaniac, and worried himself to death on the ground of poverty. His departure was a relief to them all. They immediately went abroad and wandered all over Europe, during a long period. It makes one shudder to think of their being regarded there as representative Americans. Now I have not told you all this for the sake of talking, or to prejudice you against them. I only want you not to allow them to put you in a false position by looking down upon you. Observe a proper self-respect when in their company. You are far less a _parvenu_ than they." "But, aunty, how did they get in with you?" "Why, the first Mrs. Grosgrain, mother of the girls, used to come to me as tailoress, by the day, and would bring her sister to sew with her. Then when they became rich they fancied that that put us on a level. The present Mrs. Grosgrain has been instructed and snubbed by turns, until she has acquired a good use of language; and when they set up their carriage, and came and called on me, I thought it would be a silly pride in me not to return the visit. And I have a benevolent interest in them, for one thing. And then if it is any satisfaction to them to boast that they are, oh! _so_ intimate with me, why not let them have it? It does not hurt me. If I should altogether turn a cold shoulder to them, they would think I despised them for their low origin. Now I despise nobody for accidents of birth over which they have had no control; neither do I bow down to royalty itself, unless it is as pure and high-toned as it is noble." On arriving at Mrs. Grosgrain's ostentatious residence, they were informed that the ladies were all engaged. This was so far true, that they were engaged in peeping over the banisters to see who their visitors were, in dressing-gowns and curl-papers. "Now, girls, it is too bad," said Mrs. Grosgrain, as the cards were handed her. "Here we have lost a visit from Mrs. Grey! We really ought to be dressed at this time of day. There's no knowing when she will call again. And it is such a distinction to have her carriage at our door! I do hope the Van Tropes saw it." "I can't bear her books," said Miss Grosgrain. "Nor I," said Miss Mary. "But it's the fashion to read 'em," said Mrs. Grosgrain, "and to like 'em, too. And when I think your marmer used to be a tailoress, and your parper--" "Now do hush!" cried Miss Grosgrain, putting her hand over the maternal mouth. "Why need you be forever alluding to such things? You never let us have the ghost of a chance to forget them." "If you had gone through all I have, I guess you'd allude to it often enough. Your poor parper and marmer, they--" "Do, for goodness' sake, stop calling him parper! It is _so_ American! Going abroad hasn't done you a bit of good." CHAPTER X. Mabel's "baby" (she never called it dolly) was almost always nestling in her arms. It seemed to fill the maternal element of her character, and though she was a wee little mother, a veritable mother she was, and it was amusing to watch her quaint ways with it. The march of improvement had taken up dolls, as well as everything else. What marvels of art are their generation, nowadays! Compare them with the stiff wooden monsters of fifty years ago, with their back hair done up like that of aged matrons, surmounted with high yellow combs! What a stretch of imagination is required to fancy these angular ladies' _babies_. But now an event befel that nearly broke her heart. Baby's sweet blue eyes suddenly disappeared, leaving two empty holes in her face. From that moment all illusion concerning her vanished. The eyes of real babies never dropped down inside of them. So she begged to have it put away where she could never again be horrified by the sight. Margaret could not understand this. But Mabel had always shrank from the sight of unpleasant objects, and her aversion to her baby in its mutilated state was almost morbid. Still she bemoaned her loss sorely, and when Mrs. Grey, fearing she would make herself ill with crying, left the book she was writing, and everything else, and went to the city to replace the departed, nothing would induce the child to accept the offering, though it was the facsimile of the poor blue-eyed Mary. Margaret spent a large part of the next day in making paper dolls for Mabel. Her nature was opulent; as she loved the few she loved to infatuation, so her gifts were prodigal. Never had a child so suddenly acquired a large family; their name was legion. Still, they did not supersede her darling. "I want a yeal live baby," she said, amid her tears. "So do I," said Margaret, "but I don't cry for one. And there are no live babies for sale, so I can't buy one for myself, or for you." Mabel said no more. She had been taught to pray for what she wanted, so she now stopped crying, went behind the door, and said, softly: "Christ, will you give me a yeal live baby, with yeal eyes that can't drop out?" and came back composed and full of faith. The next morning brought a line from Cyril Heath, announcing that the storks had brought them a splendid pair of twins, one for him and one for Belle. Margaret immediately wrote the history of Mabel's sorrow and Mabel's faith, and asked Cyril to give _his_ baby to Mabel, which drew from him the following letter: MY DARLING LITTLE MABEL:-- I am so sorry to hear that your baby has lost its eyes, so I am going to tell you something. Mamma has had a present of a "yeal live baby," and so have I, and I am going to give mine to you; that is, I shall let you call it yours, and let you love it with all your might and main. At the beginning of your prayer to-night, ask God to bless your baby, and He will. Mamma sends you twenty kisses on your dear little mouth, and says she loves you, oh, ever so much. What fun we shall all have when you come home! The babies are such funny little fellows, with dark, curly hair, and big blue eyes! Good-bye, my pet lamb! PAPA. "Now I know where my baby's eyes have gone!" cried Mabel, clapping her hands. "Christ took them out to give to my yeal baby. And I am going yight home, I am." "No, dearie, you must wait till your papa comes for you," said Mrs. Grey. "Only to think! Two babies! How rich your mamma is getting! It is beautiful to have twins. I think I must go and see them." "What, with going to the city to buy dolls, and make visits, and go to all sorts of meetings, and being on forty-one committees, and now a pair of twins," said Margaret, laughing, "I don't see when your book is to be written. Is it always so? When _do_ you write?" "Yes, it's always so, barring the twins. My dear, industrious people contrive to do a great deal in fragments of time that others waste. Writing books is only an episode in my life, not my profession. Nothing gives way to it. However, I must own that everything is giving way before this piece of news. To think of my Belle having twins! If they look alike, what a pretty sight they'll be!" Margaret had never seen Mrs. Grey so excited, and was much amused. "This is the very first minute I have seen you sit still and do nothing, since I came here," she said. "Oh, and here is a letter from Laura, with one inside for you." Mrs. Grey took her share of the letter, and began to read it aloud, but suddenly stopped. "I forgot, dear, that you have a letter too, and must be eager to read it." "I can wait, please go on; it is very entertaining." Mrs. Grey finished reading, and said, "What a child she is, to be sure! And what does she say to you?" Margaret, who had been glancing over her letter smiled, and read as follows: DEAR OLD MAG:-- Why haven't you written to ask me why I didn't write? You know perfectly well that I am in love with you, and yet you express no surprise that I do not pour out my soul on paper. Well, you must know that as soon as I reached home, and had set the family pendulum swinging again, I trotted out and bought a ream of foolscap on which to write my book. Mamma always buys hers by the quire. Of course I intended to write to you before I began my stupendous undertaking. But when I just ran up to the nursery to see that all was right there, I found all wrong. Pug was lying in his nurse's arms as red as a lobster, and of course I knew he had scarlet fever, and that Trot would have it, and that they both would die. Also, of course, I let them die, and began my book. You know I haven't any heart, only a large hole where one may grow, in time. Well, the two creatures were the sickest creatures I ever knew to get well, but I consoled myself with the fact that I had their portraits anyhow. Harry and I got a trick of sitting up nights with these twain small people, and he says I worked like a tiger over them; but then, he exaggerates awfully. They were not at all tired of this world, and were determined to stay in it; so here I am tied hand and foot to my nursery; and as to my book, there is nothing to show for it but that ream of paper; and that does look like business. I forgot to say that I upset a tea-pot of tea on my hand the first thing I did when I saw Pug looking so dreadfully ill, and that this is the first time I have held a pen in it since I came home. Some other pleasant little items occurred; my cook had a felon, and was nearly wild with the pain, and my laundress went and got married in a tangent. And now, Mag, I've one thing to add, and it is this: I would rather have forty wild Indians, a rattlesnake, and a hyena, enter my nursery than scarlet fever. Still, I'm going to write that book! and am Your devoted admirer, ONEY. "Strange that I had not noticed not hearing from the child," said Mrs. Grey. "But there are so many of them all that they drive each other out of my poor, forgetful old head. It will be a wonder if Georgy and Trot pull safely through. And how poor Laura's hand must have pained her! I must write, immediately, and warn her of the dangers of convalescence in this dreadful disease." "Do you think she is really going to write a book?" "I do not doubt that she will begin half a dozen, but whether she will ever finish one is another question." "What a droll subject she had!" "Yes; but I am not sure that she or anybody else can manage it. One might get fun out of it, though." They both began now to answer Laura's letter; Mrs. Grey giving any amount of counsel about the children; Margaret, throwing care to the winds, and entering, with zest, into the pleasure, so new to her, of having friends to whom to write. And not many days later, Mr. Heath came for Mabel. He was as impatient as a child to have her see the new babies, whom he considered marvelous beings, and of whom he was very proud. As to the child, she was eager to enter into possession of her share of the spoils, and Margaret felt a spasm of pain shoot through her heart when, with smiling faces, they took leave. She had loved Mabel so! Was she to be parted with in this way all her life, she asked herself, always giving amply and receiving sparingly? But one must not reason thus about little children. They know little about time and space; they have not learned to sentimentalize; they live in the present moment. Many a mother has experienced a pang akin to Margaret's, when returning from a journey, longing to fold her dear ones to her heart, the prosaic cry salutes her, "What have you brought me, mamma?" as if in bringing herself she had not done all a loving child ought to ask. Mrs. Grey and Margaret now returned to their interrupted work, and the wintry days flew rapidly by. The weather continued mild until late in February, when the first snow of the season fell. But previously to this an event occurred which put a new aspect on life to Margaret. They had been to the city: Mrs. Grey to make visits to friends in hospitals there; Margaret to take her painting lesson, and on reaching the station found the carriage awaiting them, and the horses in a restive mood, which was provoking the temper of the old coachman not a little. "What is the matter, Samp?" asked Mrs. Grey. "Ain't used enough," returned Samp. "Needs to be took down." "Any danger of their running away with us?" "Never knowed 'em to run away." "Nor I, either," said Mrs. Grey, "and yet I've a good mind to walk. What do you say, Margaret?" "I say that it's too far for you to walk. Belle charged me to not let you overdo." "Very well. But it's not too far for you to walk. I have a queer presentiment that something is going to happen. Suppose I drive, and you come home at your leisure?" "No!" said Margaret decidedly; "if anything is going to happen, it must be to me, not you. But nothing is, except lunch." So saying, she sprang into the carriage, and Samp drove off. "I never saw you nervous, aunty, till now." "And I am not nervous now on my own account." Margaret understood, and was silent. After a few moments, however, she said: "We fly over the ground like lightning. Can it be that Samp has lost control of the horses? Oh, aunty! there he goes! He's off the box! They're running away with us! We must jump out!" "We must _not_ jump out," said Mrs. Grey, in a tone that made Margaret pause. "It would be death to us both." "What shall we do, then?" "We must trust ourselves to Him who, if He can hold the winds in His fist, can certainly control these animals. And if He does not think it best to do that--if they rush on and plunge down the riverbank--why, it would be an easier death than martyrdom." She was as quiet as if seated on her sofa at home. Margaret grew quiet too. They clasped each other's hands and waited. The horses flew on; they were nearing the river; now for it! They are over! Neither knew anything more till they awoke as from a sleep, and found themselves at home; Mrs. Grey lying on her bed; Margaret being borne to her room on a door that hasty hands had torn from its hinges. The house was full, but by degrees faithful Mary cleared it of all but those whose presence was needed; and the physicians proceeded to examine the patients. Mrs. Grey's injury was on the head, but not serious. Margaret had a fractured ankle, and many bruises. Each forgot herself, and thought only of the other; but it was ten days before they met. Margaret was shocked when Mrs. Grey, with a face all colors, from the bruises on her head, was supported into her room, and made light of her own severer injury. It was comfort to see each other even in this unsatisfactory way, but Mrs. Grey had time to recover entirely before Margaret could leave her bed. And for a long time she was in too much pain to think or to feel much on any subject. But at last she said, abruptly: "Aunty, did you expect to be killed that day?" "Yes." "And you were as calm as you are now." "Yes, dear--why not?" "And were you ever afraid to die?" "Yes, very much afraid." "And how did you get over it?" "By realizing that Christ is conqueror over Death, whom He will, sometime, make His messenger to show me the way home." "It was an awful moment when we plunged down the bank! I almost think I never really prayed in my life before! I don't know exactly what I believe about the world of the lost, but I heard a man say once that there will be no little children there--only grown-up sinners. And I don't want to spend my eternity with sinners. It makes me shudder to think of it. I want to spend it with those who were pure and good in this world, and have grown into greater purity in heaven." "Margaret, my child," said Mrs. Grey, leaning tenderly over her, "do you call this the aspiration of an unrenewed heart?" "No, aunty; I have been wanting to tell you that in that awful plunge down the bank, there came to me, as by a lightning's flash, _assurance of faith_. You know how I have distrusted and quarrelled with myself, and refused to believe myself a Christian, because light had come to me so gradually, that I did not know when it began to dawn. I might have gone on so for years but for the revelation of that moment." "I have never doubted that your feet were on the Rock, my child; but, oh! how I have prayed that they might stand steadier there! You have made me very happy." "It has almost killed me to say all this, aunty. And I don't want to say another word, or have you ask me any questions. Only I want to thank you for not plaguing me with exhortations. It wouldn't have done me any good. And I think a great deal more of how people act than of how they talk. One's words can cheat; one's life can't. I watched mother like a lynx, to find flaws in her religion, and sometimes thought I found them. Then I watched you in the same way; and, oh! what sermons you have both preached to me, when you were, very likely, reproaching yourselves for not doing more for me!" By this time Margaret's face, long paled through sleepless nights and distressing days, had become crimson. To give even this beloved "mother-friend" a glimpse into her soul, cost her all the strength of her strong will. But what a new love had now sprung up between them! CHAPTER XI. As soon as Mrs. Grey recovered her health and strength, she took up her abode in Margaret's sickroom, her mother's former "hospital," and devised endless ways of relieving the tedium of her long confinement. Margaret spent her days on one of the little white beds, and her nights on the other; the change was easily effected by members of the household, and was very refreshing. Mrs. Grey read to her, told her stories, played games with her, brought her fresh flowers and fruit every day, and was as companionable as a girl. Yet it cost her brave heart something thus to live over again Maud's illness, without alluding to it; only a mother who has ministered to a dying child can know at what a price. Once, when Margaret was suffering unusual pain, she broke down, and cried heartily; but for herself she shed no tears. "My precious child," she said, "how you need your own dear mother now!" "I wouldn't have her see me suffer so for the world!" cried Margaret. "As long as I live, whatever happens to hurt or distress me, I shall have one comfort--my darling mother never had to see this!" Mrs. Grey made no reply to this exclamation, but took care to put it into every letter she wrote her children, till they had all received this hint how she wished them to feel after she had gone. Meanwhile, letters and luxuries flowed in from them all. Belle wrote about the children, especially Mabel and the twins; Laura kept up her usual artillery of fun; even "the boys," Frank, and Rafe, and Fred, wrote, when they found what a delight it was to Margaret. Under ordinary circumstances, "the girls" would have relieved their mother from the care they all regretted so much; but Belle was tied hand and foot by her babies, and so was Laura, who had become duly impressed with the danger still lurking about her nursery; the daughter who came between, these two (Grace) had her husband's mother with her, of whom people said, "She means no harm, but she is peculiar." She was so very peculiar, that it took all Grace's faith and patience to endure her semi-annual visits, which she looked forward to as she would to a fit of sickness. Old Mrs. Harrison would never have got over it if Grace had deserted her for any reason whatever; yet if any one had accused her of being exacting, she would have been surprised and felt insulted. One morning, when Margaret was beginning to suffer less, she said, earnestly: "Now, aunty, I think I have taken as much of your time, to say the least of it, as the case required, and I want you to go on with your book. What a trial this long interruption must have been!" "It has not been a trial, dear. You will understand why, one of these days. I used to chafe and fret when interrupted in favorite pursuits, but I have learned that my time all belongs to God, and just leave it in His hands. It is very sweet to use it for Him when He has anything for me to do, and pleasant to use it for myself when He hasn't. There's no knowing what I have learned through these weeks that I needed to learn, in order to have my book what He chooses it shall be. Perhaps your fractured ankle has a mission to some soul, which it will accomplish through my pen; who knows?" "I think I shall write a book myself," said Margaret, demurely. Mrs. Grey smiled interrogatively. "It would be such fun years hence to read it over. Yes, I certainly will write it. Come, aunty, you bring your pen and paper and set the inkstand between us, and we'll both write. I am going to write down the nice things that have happened to me; the letters and presents I have had, and my journeys, and excursions, and all that. And I shall illustrate it with pen-and-ink sketches. It will be a bigger book than you ever wrote, if I live much longer, and you all go on being so good to me." "I don't believe you can use ink; however, we'll see. That's a good idea of yours. I wish I had begun such a book at your age. It would be most entertaining reading at my time of life. Oh, what a volume of undeserved mercies." "Well, I have a nice blank-book on hand which you shall have." She went and hunted it up, collected her materials, and they both became absorbed in their work, until a little musical laugh from Margaret broke in upon the stillness. "What is it?" asked Mrs. Grey. Margaret handed her the book by way of reply. She had written its title on the first page: "MY BOOK OF REMEMBRANCE," and had drawn a picture of herself as a miniature angel flying down from heaven into a bright, artistic room. "I remember my father's painting in which I was represented as thus entering the world, and how it was one of the last things mother consented to part with. She finally let it go to our landlord for rent. He refused to take it for a long time, declaring that he must have the money; when he concluded to consent to do so, mother called his attention to its title, 'The Advent of my First-Born,' and explained that it was my father's poetical way of stating a prosaic fact. "'La!' quoth he, 'you don't say that's a angel, do yer? I always thought it was a _lightning bug_!'" Mrs. Grey laughed. It rested and refreshed her to see Margaret's brightness beginning to return. But their books were not destined to grow that day, for Mrs. Cameron and Agnes came and staid an hour and a half, and then Mrs. Huestis drove them away, and Mrs. Cram stepped in for a minute and staid forty-five, and so it went on till dusk. Mrs. Cameron always had some important secret to divulge, and must see Mrs. Grey alone; Mrs. Huestis always wanted advice; Mrs. Cram invariably was in trouble and wanted sympathy; and as to them all they were not in the least to blame for taking so much of her time, for they all knew that _her_ time was not her own. She had, long ago, consecrated it to Christ, and He used, but never abused it. Agnes Cameron amused Margaret, while her mother was in the library below, with scraps of domestic scenes, wherein she hit off, in a good-natured way, some of their household "ways," as she called them. One of her little brothers had a "way" of doing mischief, and his last performance was pouring a can of kerosene oil on the parlor carpet. "Mamma spanked him for it," continued Agnes, "and he said, 'the whipping hurt, but I 'joyed pouring out the oil!'" "What a little scamp!" said Margaret. "Your mother couldn't have whipped him very hard." "Oh, yes, she did; she used her slipper. But he 'joys his mischief too much to care what she does to him. He put the kitten into a pot of hot soup; he drank a lot of sugar of lead; he pushed tacks up his nose, and into his ears; he scratched the piano all over with scissors; he threw papa's razor out of the window; he has poured ink all over himself twice; he climbed out of the window and hung there by his hands till mamma fainted away; and yesterday, when he wanted something she refused him, he climbed up on to the table, and walked across it, and helped himself." "And what was done to him?" "Oh, nothing. We all laughed, that was all." "He would drive me crazy in a week," said Margaret, scandalized. "No, he wouldn't. He is such a good-natured little fellow you couldn't help loving him." Margaret would not dispute the point, but she thought it all the more a fraud upon the child to spoil him, when he was created with agreeable qualities. "I would not laugh at his mischief if I were you," she said, at last. "He'll get to think it is nice and smart to cut up capers." "Oh, he'll outgrow his ways." Margaret had her doubts, but had too little experience with children to venture to offer any further advice. After what seemed an endless period of time, Mrs. Cameron and Agnes departed, and the short wintry day came to an end. Margaret's book of remembrance grew in spite of interruptions, for all sorts of kind deeds and loving deeds kept rushing in, and sometimes after writing for a time, she would lie back on her pillow in silent ecstacy, that she, a little while ago, only an "incumbrance," was now literally surrounded with mercies. If every young person would keep such a record, there would be more smiling and more gratitude in this frowning, grumbling world. And now she was to take the air, and glide over the smooth, white snow that fell just in time to cover all the inequalities of the roads. Samp had not been much hurt when he fell from the box, and new horses had been bought in place of the pair that had to be killed after the accident. Mrs. Grey went with her, and both sat thoughtfully side by side, and quite silent, for they had each lived through a world since their last drive. But on their return, Mrs. Grey said, "I have had a curious request made me during your imprisonment, and want to consult you about it." "You are always having curious requests. How people do act." "It is not their fault. I belong to 'people.' Well, here is a letter from a woman I don't remember ever seeing, though she says she once spent a summer in a boarding-house with me and mine. She wants me to come and examine her home-life, which she pronounces a failure, and tell her what is amiss. But read the letter before you give an opinion." DEAR MRS. GREY:-- Some years ago I spent a summer at Newport in the "House on the Cliffs;" among others, you were there, with your children. I was only a young girl at that time, but I was struck with the difference between your family and those of others; I did not understand then, nor do I know now, wherein this difference lay. But I am the mother of six children, the eldest a boy of fourteen, the youngest a baby. In deep humility, in bitter disappointment, my husband and myself have come to this conclusion: our boys and girls are exceptionally troublesome, or we are very bad managers. Our home-life is beset with disorder and discomfort, which is becoming intolerable. Well, can you, and will you, undertake the task of spending a day or two, more or less, as you think best, in our family? See for yourself where the fault lies, and act the part of a friend to us in the greatest emergency of our lives? It is asking a very self-denying act on your part; we realize that, but virtue has its own reward. Whatever strictures you may find occasion to make, will be thankfully received. We are unknown to you, but you are well known to us, and we put our cause into your hands. Truly yours, LUCY A. THAYER. Please address Mrs. Neilson Thayer, Box 298, New York. "It's a nice letter," Margaret reluctantly owned; "but you mustn't go." "Why not?" "There are five hundred and forty reasons why." "Tell me one." "Why should you, who can speak to thousands through your books, be pinned down to one disorderly family?" "Oh, that's no argument at all. If I were sitting on a pedestal, and had to climb down in order to help my brother, my sister, it might be a different thing. But I am not. My advantage over these younger people is, that I have longer experience of life than they have, and that's all." Margaret smiled. "I believe if the whole world knelt at your feet you wouldn't know it," she said. "I don't think I should, for I _wouldn't_ know it. And, Margaret, I think I shall go and have a long talk with these people; to do it, I may have to stay with them one night, as I suppose Mr. Thayer will only be accessible in the evening." "Well, it's just like you to do such things." "_That's_ not the way to put it. It's just like God to make His children serve one another." "Do go right away, then, and have it over with. You have spoiled me so, that I hate to have you out of my sight. However, I've plenty to do while you are gone." "Oh, I should not leave you if you had not. Let me see, I must write to this Mrs. Thayer, to say that I am coming. To-day is Friday--too late in the week; I'll go on Monday." CHAPTER XII. The task that lay before Mrs. Grey was an uncongenial one, but she entered upon it cheerfully and hopefully; nobody who knew her, would need to be told that she went prayerfully, also. She found, as she expected, intelligent, educated persons in Mr. and Mrs. Thayer, and as he had retired from business, he had plenty of leisure to consult with her. "Things have always gone wrong with us," he said, as soon as the ice was broken. "But we have at last reached a point when everything must be placed on a new basis. I have tried my best with the children; have talked to them by the hour together; have chastised them and indulged them by turns, but all in vain. And now," he added, his voice trembling, "I have just caught my eldest boy, Bob, in an act of theft." "To a large amount?" "Large for a boy of his age. And what makes it hard is, that I have been lavish with him in every way. I did not suppose he had a wish ungratified." "_Ah!_" said Mrs. Grey, in a tone that declared she was beginning to see daylight. "Bob is a good-hearted boy," said Mrs. Thayer, "but his character leans to shiftlessness. We have tried to tone him up, but if a child is born without a backbone, what can one do?" "May I ask in what way you have tried to tone him up?" "Certainly," replied Mr. Thayer, in a tone of surprise. "We have talked to him year in and year out." "Does he like that?" "No. He yawns in my face." "Now, you want my honest opinion?" "We do, most emphatically." "Then, allow me to say that long talks to children seldom, if ever, do any good. A single, loving, wise word dropped just at the right moment, will do infinitely more. But something lies back even of this. It is parental character. Now I don't want to know from which of you two your boy gets his bias; perhaps it is from neither. But he is one of the sort who never should have a promise made him, and then left unfulfilled. He needs to see, every day, prompt, decisive action; what he sees will tell more than what he hears. And, I say it in all kindness, no human being who has his every wish gratified is in a process of toning up. Such luxury tends to enervate, not to strengthen." "I meant it for the best," said Mr. Thayer, with a sigh. "I hoped to win the lad's heart by kindness. But I see how it has all ended in failure. Perhaps," he added, after a pause, "you ought to know the whole story. I am careless about money matters; don't like trouble, and have never kept any account with Bob. He got into the way of boasting to other boys how much he had at his disposal; how much more than any of them, and they dared him to prove that this was the case. In a great hurry one day I threw some loose bills into a drawer, forgot them, and perhaps never should have thought of them again, but a good friend of mine came and told me that Bob was exhibiting a larger sum at school than he thought it likely I had given him; and then the whole thing came out." "What did you do?" "I talked to him, and then thrashed him." "Are you sure it is a good thing to thrash a boy of that age?" "Why, could I do less?" "Of course I cannot legislate in this matter; but you may depend there is a parental screw loose somewhere when a lad of fourteen has to be thrashed. Are you sure that you have kept him out of temptation by constant employment, for instance?" "I never thought of that. Bob's a lazy fellow; he hates work, though he's fond enough of play, to be sure." "It is a vital point to keep children busy," said Mrs. Grey. "Taste for this and that employment can be cultivated. Are you sure he would not like to learn drawing? Or the use of tools? Or music?" "He has no natural taste for either." "Then how does he spend his time out of school?" "I don't know, exactly; I suppose he lounges about the streets more or less." "What sort of boys are his intimate friends?" "I don't know that either, exactly." "I know," said Mrs. Thayer, "what boys visit him, but I do not know of what sort they are. He always sees them in his own room." Mr. Thayer was here called out, and Mrs. Thayer turned eagerly to her guest. "You see what my boy's father is," she said, "a kinder, a better man does not exist; but he never has known how to manage Bob, and most of the care of him has rested on me. And one parent is not enough for children. Still, I did the best I could, and Bob was obedient at any rate--for that I require of my children; but he slipped out of my fingers in this wise. I was just going out to pay some visits, when a boy came to invite him to dine with him. It was on a Friday, when there are no lessons, so I gave my consent, only directing him to put on a clean shirt, adding, remembering his indolence, 'You can go on no other terms. Go directly and dress, or you will get to romping about and forget it.' He promised, and I went out, returning in time to see him just ready, to start in his soiled and crumpled shirt. I said to him, 'I'm sorry for you, Bob, but you know on what terms you were to go.' He began to cry, and the face of the other boy lengthened. My husband never had interfered before, nor has he ever since; but he interfered so decidedly then, and was joined so vehemently by one of his brothers who happened to be present, that it was next to impossible to hold out against them. Bob went off in triumph, and my authority was for ever ended. He has been growing worse ever since. His father meant no harm; but he did not foresee, as I did, what would be the consequences of this one mistake. Now, have you anything to suggest? Is our boy on the absolute road to ruin?" "Before I reply, please answer one question. How much hold have you on his affections?" "Very little. And since we have told him we could not love a boy guilty of his crime, he has grown surly." "Is it true that you do not love him?" "Of course not." "Why then tell him so?" "We are trying, in every way, to make him abhor the sin?" "Poor boy! poor father! poor mother! What a series of mistakes!" thought Mrs. Grey. "Where _shall_ I begin?" And then remembered she had begun in her closet. "I know," she then said, "that some children are born with such amiable instincts, that they give little trouble to their parents and teachers, and become, therefore, their pride and glory. But this is the exception, not the rule. The _general_ rule is that the more character a child possesses, the more he will be faulty. My impression is, that most parental difficulties result from misconception on two radical points. The first is a putting off of God's regenerating work to a period in their children's lives when they can intelligently help Him do it. The second is faith in self. Now I will not say that I know it to be the case that some souls are regenerated before they enter this world; I only suggest the thought for your reflection; but that the mass of mankind enter it unregenerate, is the belief of all who accept the Bible as Divine truth. This being the case, every parent who undertakes to mould and fashion his child into a model of morality and virtue with his own hands, makes a radical mistake. Divine must precede parental work. Until a soul has been regenerated, labor spent on it is external, and cannot reach the roots of being." Mr. and Mrs. Thayer listened with some incredulity, yet with the respect due to superior years. At last Mr. Thayer said, "I must own that this theory is new to me, and that I am not prepared to accept, as I am unwilling to reject it. I have always believed that a soul must _will_ to be born again, and that a child must reach an intelligent age before it would reach such a point." "Do you believe that those who die in infancy are lost, because they never exercised faith in God, or willed to be His?" "No, indeed." "Well, how are they saved?" "By special grace." "And not through the exercise of faith on their part?" "Certainly not." "This concession, then, does away with the notion that faith is a redeeming virtue--a meritorious act. Consequently, a child can be regenerated before birth, at birth, or at an indefinitely early age after birth; the sooner the better. Instead of spending ten or twelve years in forming unholy habits, which it will require as many more to outgrow, it may begin from its earliest consciousness to form holy ones." "Holy is a very holy word," said Mr. Thayer. "One hardly associates it with a laughing child." "It is undoubtedly a very holy word, when applied to a veteran saint; but there has been a Holy Child on earth, the child Jesus; and in virtue of that fact, all our sons and daughters may, at any early age, become partakers of this grace." Mr. and Mrs. Thayer were ominously silent. Mrs. Grey, therefore, proceeded: "Holiness in a young child is in its germ. It may mean little more than a genuine tendency to what is right. There will be faults, and foibles, and mistakes, perhaps falls; why not? Is it to be nearer perfection than its parents? They have faults and foibles, and make fearful mistakes; many of them have seasons of terrible backsliding, and falls that wring the hearts of all Christendom, if they have stood high enough to be seen by it." "I have prayed for the conversion of our children," said Mrs. Thayer, "but expected it to come at some future time, when I wanted it to be a marked, unmistakable experience." "Why not, just as rationally, put off their beginning to love you till they could give a good reason for it, and do it in a very decided way? It seems to me the most natural thing in the world for the children of Christian parents to begin to love Christ as soon as they hear who and what He is. Their love may be poor and meagre, and lack intelligence; but if it is genuine, it will wax stronger and stronger. If it does not exist at all, you can only work on them through the sentiment of fear; whereas love is the master-passion of the human soul." "Oh," cried Mr. Thayer, holding up his right hand, "God is my witness, that I would give this hand to see my children converted unto Him! I never realized till now, what deep-seated yearnings I had for them. But I supposed they must go through some process first; distress of mind, repentance, faith." "Faith they will have; faith that will put yours to the blush, if they are trained aright, with prayer. They may pass through painful processes later on in life, but not necessarily." "But does not the Bible put repentance first?" "It does, when addressing adults. I find no evidence that it thus addresses a child of two years. I believe that if Christ were now on earth, and should go into your nursery in order to save the two little boys there, He would not say a word about repentance; He would do something to make them love Him. Oh, how often I have rejoiced that the first parental words that fell on my ear were tender, affectionate ones about Him; that the law preached to me was, 'Do this because it will please Him! Don't do that because it will grieve Him.'" "I am impressed by what you say," Mr. Thayer remarked, looking at his watch, "and could listen all night. But we have kept you up till eleven o'clock in our selfish interests." "I have kept myself up in the Master's interests," she said, fervently. As the family gathered together at breakfast the next morning, she took special pains to shake hands with Bob, and give him a smile. He was surprised and pleased, for he had vaguely connected this visitor with his own misdeed. "They haven't told her, after all," he thought, and a faint spark of gratitude arose in his heart. "And she ain't one of the long-faced kind, either," he said to himself, as he glanced at her cheerful face. There was a good deal of bustle after breakfast about getting the children off to school. One fretted about her luncheon; another at being directed to wear overshoes because he had a cold. "Mamma," said the eldest daughter, "I'm going to have some girls to lunch next Saturday. And I don't want any of _you_ in the room, either." At this exhibition Mrs. Thayer blushed. She found it not so pleasant to have the children betray themselves to Mrs. Grey present, who was quite another person to Mrs. Grey absent. Two or three little altercations arose, meantime, between the children. "I don't see why you should have lunch all to yourself," said Julia, a girl of ten. "Well, it's enough that I see it," retorted Esther. "Mamma won't let you, I know; will you, mamma?" "I've got to have an excuse for tardiness," said Esther, turning to her mother. "Another excuse? I've a good mind not to give you any. Now, I can't have this. It is the third time this week." And so on, and so on. When they were fairly off, Mrs. Thayer burst into tears of mingled shame and pain. "You see how it is," she said. "Esther regards us as natural enemies, whom she cannot allow to share her interests. And her love of dress tries me, too. And there is Julia following in her steps. If it were not for the younger children I should have no comfort. It is strange that they should degenerate so; in their nursery I saw very little of the unlovely traits they are developing now." "Well, now, Mrs. Grey, have you any counsel to give us?" asked Mr. Thayer. "We are ready to bear reproof and to amend our ways if you can suggest a change." Mrs. Grey replied, very earnestly, "It is not so much outward change that you two need, as a new deep-seated principle within. I think you have dealt with your children too much on the outside. The first thing to _require_ is obedience. The first thing for them to _acquire_ is tenderness of conscience. All the lectures, and all the chastisements in the world will come to naught if this is lacking. A moment's reflection will show you that a time will come when parental law must cease, and that they must then become a law unto themselves. The best lock and key, the best bar and bolt, is conscience. Now we will allow that you have partially erred in this regard; what is the remedy for that and every other error? I maintain that the only remedy is prayer. The Divine hand can overrule your mistakes; no other can." Mr. and Mrs. Thayer maintained an embarrassed silence. At last Mrs. Thayer said: "Perhaps you have laid the axe to the root of all our difficulties. I do not think we have realized our human insufficiency till quite lately." "Thank God, that you realize it now. The next step to such realization, is a laying hold of His strength. I have been watching Bob; he does not look like a vicious boy; if you manage wisely, he may never repeat the offence that has caused you such pain." "And what would you counsel in regard to him?" "I do not know. I have never had to deal with such a case. If he were my boy I should just go to God with my ignorance, and expect to gain wisdom how to act. But let me say, just here, that my experience with boys and girls forbids free use of money. As soon as they reach a proper age, they should have, if possible, an allowance, and be obliged to keep account of every penny of it. I should say in relation to Bob, that he should be indulged very sparingly, and obliged to restore to a mill all he has taken, even if it takes years to do it. This long discipline will do him good. 'The way of transgressors is hard;' let him learn that so effectually that he can never forget it. One thing more. You have told him that you do not love him; go on in that path, and you will lose your boy. You must not only love him, you must let him know that you do by constant acts of kindness. God makes a distinction between the sinner and his sin; He loves the one and hates the other; we must do the same." The unhappy parents began to feel their burden lightened. "Then, you think there is hope for our poor boy?" they asked. "I _know_ there is just as long as you enclose him in your prayers. He will be as safe as an insect in a piece of amber." "But the insect is dead." "Yes, but how much better hath God made a human soul that cannot die?" "I have not breathed so freely for a month," said Mrs. Thayer. "Will you give us some hints now about Esther? You see what she is, superficially; but she has good qualities, and far more character than Bob." "How happens it that she wants to exclude you all from her pleasures?" "I don't know; but she does, and so mortifies and grieves me." "Have you always taken care to show sympathy with her in her pursuits, her friends, and the like?" "Perhaps not all I might." "I fancy this interest is all that is wanting. You might try and see. By the bye, have you any absorbing pursuit or friendship yourself?" "Yes, I have many." "Perhaps, then, you have unconsciously weaned the child from you by only half listening to what she has had to say about hers." "Did you observe that she informed me that she was going to have friends to lunch, instead of asking permission?" "Certainly." "And what should you do in such a case? Reason with her?" "No; I should simply provide no entertainment. As things stand, however, giving her warning to that effect." "You have no idea how angry she will be." Mrs. Grey was silent. "And then how she'll tease!" "The sooner she learns the uselessness of teasing the better." Mrs. Thayer twisted her pocket-handkerchief around her fingers uneasily. At last she said: "I can't tell you how I dread entering on this contest." "There need be no contest. It takes two for that, and I don't propose a fight." "What am I to do, then?" "Do nothing while the tempest lasts. After it is over, speak to her kindly, but firmly; and state it as a simple fact that a new leaf is to be turned over in the family life." "It won't do any good. Esther has such a will. I shall only provoke her!" "You can't provoke her if you speak gently and lovingly." "But I can't do that. When she has one of her tantrums I lose my temper." "Then before you speak to her, speak to God. He will sweeten and humble you if you will let Him do it." CHAPTER XIII. "Mrs. Grey's carriage," announced a servant. "Oh, must you go so soon?" cried Mr. Thayer. "I am sure my wife needs more counsel." "Let me countermand the carriage. Do stay one night more. You may save our children by doing it," urged Mrs. Thayer. "I must send a telegram home if I stay." "Certainly," said Mr. Thayer. "I will take it myself." "Dear Mrs. Grey," said Mrs. Thayer, "I am so thankful to see you alone. You have opened a new world to me in regard to prayer. Beyond praying for my children night and morning, I have never consulted the Lord about them. I have always acted on the impulse of the moment." "We come to grief, sooner or later, if we do that." "But I am naturally impulsive, and look before I leap. I _cannot_ always stop to think where I shall alight." "If your watch is in good order, do you have to do more than wind it up every night to insure its keeping good time? Now if your soul is in a normal condition through the skill and goodness of God, and you do your part towards keeping it so by prayer, be as impulsive as you like. You'll keep good time." "There is another trouble I have with Esther. She is too fond of dress." "Most girls are. Their mothers teach them this by talking as if it were a matter of great moment, and by giving them articles of dress as holiday and birthday gifts, thus implying that this is the greatest favor they can do them." "I have done this, but thoughtlessly. It never occurred to me that I was educating my girls into this folly." She spoke in a weary voice, and at length added: "I am all out of patience with myself. I don't see but that I lie at the bottom of most of my children's faults." "Fenelon tells us to be patient with ourselves, and he is right," Mrs. Grey said, gently, and looking with sympathy at the poor mother's flushed cheeks. "And now about Julia," cried Mrs. Thayer. "She is naturally a nice child; but she is copying all Esther's ways. And before I forget it, I want to consult you about an incident that occurred just before you came. Julia is very energetic, and one day, when I was out, undertook to put my bureau in order. When I came in and found my room in an uproar--the bed, the floors, the sofa covered with heterogeneous masses of clothing--I was extremely displeased, and seized the child by the arm and marched her angrily out of the room. Whereupon she dropped a courtesy and said, 'Thank you, ma'am. You must have had a nice prayer-meeting!' I afterwards found that she had been preparing a pleasant surprise for me by putting my drawers in order. Ought I to say anything to her about it?" "Yes, you ought to ask her pardon." "Ask her pardon! Ask a child's pardon!" "Why not? She has her individual rights as you have yours." "But to degrade myself to a child of ten years!" "To ennoble yourself in her eyes. The degradation was in losing your temper." "Well--well--_well!_ This home has got to be pulled all to pieces and built up again, if we are to follow your suggestions." "Pull away," said Mrs. Grey, smiling; "the sooner the better. And now won't you let me see the little nursery people?" Mrs. Thayer's face cleared as she led the way to baby and his brother, both large for their age. "What splendid boys!" exclaimed Mrs. Grey. "Are they not? And the others were just as fine, apparently." Mrs. Grey took the baby from his nurse's arms and kissed it. "I should think this room would be a city of refuge, with these innocent creatures in it," she said. "Yes; doesn't it _rest_ one to see little children before they are spoiled?" "You speak as if spoiling was inseparable from development; as if life were intended to be all retrograde." "Oh, I thought I should find you ladies here," said Mr. Thayer, entering the room. "Suppose we adjourn to the library." "Let me take Mrs. Grey to my room first, to see the children's portraits." Mr. Thayer assented, and they all proceeded thither. Bob, Esther, and Julia had been grouped together and beautifully painted by an artistic hand. "I never saw a finer face than Bob's," said Mrs. Grey, "nor sweeter ones than those of the girls; it is hard indeed to think such children can turn out ill." "Yes," said Mrs. Thayer, "I little thought when these portraits were painted, how Bob was going to break my heart, and Esther refuse to obey." "Mrs. Grey," asked Mr. Thayer, abruptly, "do you think that children properly trained, invariably turn out well?" "There are exceptions to all rules. Some children seem to enter the world with such low tendencies that no amount of wise training avails to uplift them. But no case is hopeless that can be carried to God." "I want to ask one question more. Do you find us, as parents, exceptionally full of mistakes, and our children exceptionally bad?" "I believe all parents make mistakes. They find out, sooner or later, that they cannot, of themselves, train their children right, and so cease making the experiment, and seek Divine guidance at every step. I see no evidence that yours entered this world materially more depraved than others. But whatever the case may be, you have no reason for discouragement, if you can once make up your minds to distrust yourselves and leave all to Him who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not." Thus with line upon line and precept upon precept, Mrs. Grey tried to show to her eager listeners, that the first step towards reforming their children was a thorough reform in their own lives. She then took leave and gladly returned to her own peaceful home, where so many of her own rules had long been put in practice. Margaret was awaiting her in brilliant spirits, and everything settled down into the old routine; the one busy with scores of interests beyond her own; the other living in an imitation of her as yet remote, but yet original and unique. Meanwhile Mr. and Mrs. Thayer found that it was no easy matter to change habits formed through fourteen years, and still went on making mistakes. Yet a radical change was taking place in their souls, which the children soon began to feel and to comment on. In the first place, Mr. Thayer began to speak to Bob with a kindly yearning in his voice that startled and puzzled the boy. It was plain that his resentment was over, and that he was feeling pity instead of anger. What could it mean? Bob was full of curiosity and anxiety. Did this tenderness portend some coming penalty of the law--perhaps? Was he to be sent to a Reform school, or to jail, or what? His mother changed too. Julia, between whom and himself a certain kind of intimacy existed, took him aside one day, and said: "Does mamma look sick to you?" "She looks as if she cried a great deal." "But does she look as if she was going to die?" "To die!" he repeated. "Yes, to die," said Julia. What heart lay developed under the lad's vest died within him. This, then, was the penalty that lay before him; his crime was to kill his mother! "Who says she's going to die?" he asked, roughly. "No one says so, but I know she is. Read _that_." Bob took the little note the child handed him, and read it in silence: MY DEARLY LOVED JULIA:-- Not very long ago your energetic little hands undertook to arrange my bureau drawers for me. Coming in suddenly I misunderstood the disorder of my room, and drove you from it angrily. It was wrong; I am sorry for it; I have asked God to forgive me, and now I ask you to forgive your poor, faulty MOTHER. "I'll bet she _is_ going to die," said Bob. "Never knew her to do anything like that before. I've been an awfully horrid fellow. I wish I hadn't." "I've been horrid, too," said Julia. "And _I_ wish I hadn't." "You've been splendid compared with me," said Bob. "Let's go and tell Esther," suggested Julia. "What for? She won't care." "You seem to think she's a heathen Chinee," said Julia. "So she is, sometimes. But not always." Esther was accordingly taken into confidence, and expressed a wish to box their ears for a pair of ninnies, until she read the note, which struck terror to her heart. "I don't feel at all nice," she said. "Though I'm not as bad as many girls. I know Mrs. Mather pays Melville five dollars a month if she isn't saucy to her. And Jane Waite tells fibs. And Jemima Watson threw her mother's watch on the floor and stamped on it." "What for?" "Because she couldn't get an example right. Julia, I wish you hadn't shown me that note. It was real mean in you. You knew it would stick in my throat." Meanwhile Mrs. Thayer was looking forward with anxiety to the day of Esther's proposed lunch party, and the storm that was to follow the announcement that she should not sanction it. Great, therefore, was her surprise when Esther came, voluntarily, to say, in a nonchalant way, put on to hide some real feeling, that she had changed her mind, and did not intend to invite the girls. "I am very glad to hear it," was the reply, "for I did not intend to provide lunch save for the family, as usual, and you would have had to recall your invitations. Henceforth, when you wish for an indulgence of this sort, come and ask my consent." The quiet dignity and firmness with which this was said, impressed Esther with such a sense of amazement that she was in no state to wage war. The family leaf was thus turned over without signs of affray; yet, He who seeth in secret witnessed many a struggle with self and pride, and evil habits on the part of the parents. It is not so easy to own that one's whole theory of domestic life has been wrong; not a trifle to drop all querulous tones, sharp reprimands, and hasty penalties. Again and again they were tempted to try new theories; to imitate this and that successful experimenter; to go on searching books and other human counsel. But every such attempt ended in a failure, and at last they went together hand in hand, confided all their interests to God, and resolved henceforth to consult Him and Him alone in every emergency. And now they found rest of the sweetest kind, and a new influence was shed abroad in the house. It is simply impossible to live this life of trust without influencing children powerfully. The young Thayers were too young to be utterly spoiled, and gradually the new principles that controlled the parents began to act upon them. Rome was not built in a day, neither is a human character suddenly so formed. It took time and patience to undo the work so ill-done; but the Holy Spirit so often wooed was lovingly won. He came and brooded, like a peaceful dove, over the disordered household. There is not a more upright man in Wall Street than Robert Thayer. His character was ripened by the discipline of labor through which he had to pass while earning the means to restore the sum feloniously appropriated, and that one act of dishonesty was his last. For parental prayer stood between him and temptation; and through Heaven-taught wisdom his conscience is as tender as a little child. Esther is living a peaceful life of faith in a nursery of her own, and Julia's energies are legitimately spent in true Christian work. As to the three younger children, they never gave their parents, with all their natural depravity combined, an hour's heart-ache; they were not models and not prigs, but just happy, bright, lovable fellows who had heard very little about law, and a great deal about the Gospel; who knew how to fish, and gun, and garden, and play, and frolic, and also knew how to pray when the right time came. More might be said, with truth, but it never answers to paint too close to nature. Those who do not understand the life of faith, fancy it to be all mysticism and effeminacy. But while it is mystical to the mere looker-on, to its possessor it is almost homely in its practical details; touching every point of life from worship to service, from service to worship, claiming the whole being for Christ, and spending and being spent for those whom He came to redeem. CHAPTER XIV. Margaret wrote to Belle and to Laura about the new light and life that had come to her, though it cost her a great effort to do it. In reply, she received four or five pages from each; Belle wrote in great delight and earnestness, saying, she had never doubted for a moment that she was as safely in the ark as herself. "Isn't it strange, darling," she went on, "that you did not see what I saw so plainly, that your love to me was really love to Christ? There is nothing in me to call forth such passionate devotion, and I knew it, all along; and how I have prayed that you might have the bliss of knowing that your Beloved was yours, and you His." "'Bliss!'" re-echoed Margaret, "bliss is no word. It's _heaven_!" Laura wrote one of her lively, domestic letters, full of "Pug" and "Trot;" and Margaret, while enjoying it, wished she could, for once, get a glimpse into her soul. She was just returning the letter to its envelope, a little chilled, when she perceived a scrap upon the floor that had fallen from it. It contained these words: "And thou maun speak o' me to thy God. And I will speak o' thee." "Ah, _she's_ all right!" was Margaret's joyful thought. "I begin to think she's as good as Belle, only different." A few days later, as she sat at her easel, she suddenly felt herself seized from behind, and squeezed by somebody's arms. "Take care, or you'll get covered with paint," she said, as soon as she could speak, and in a moment more, saw Laura's bright face, and Pug and Trot in the rear. "Where's mamma, you naughty child, you, and what do I care for paint?" "Aunty has gone to the city to see a lady, or on the whole, two ladies, in some hospital." "I'll warrant it. Well, the doctor said the children must have change of air, and so I've brought them home. Pug, put your arms round aunty Mag, and squeeze her till she can't breathe; and Trot, do you do the same!" Margaret held out her arms, and the children sprang in. "How good it is to feel your little arms," she said. "I've just been hungry to see you. And I'm ever so glad to see you, too, Oney." "Of course you are. Where's that good, old soul, Mary? Oh, here she comes! Well, Mary, how are you? We've come to make you lots of trouble. Haven't the children grown?" "Why, yes, Miss, only Miss Laura is small for her age." "So are you, Molly," cried Laura, laughing. Mary laughed, too, and tried, furtively, to slip a bit of cake into the children's hands. "Ah, at your old tricks, I see. Very well, if you undertake to make them ill you'll have to nurse them, that's all, for I am worn out." "You do look completely used up," said Margaret, beginning to scrape her pallette. "What are you doing, child?" "Why, you don't suppose I am going to paint when my pets are here?" "Nonsense! Their nurse is here. Now, I tell you, once for all, you shall go on exactly as if we were miles away. You say you are going to give each a picture at Christmas; and how are you going to do it if you let everybody hinder you?" "I don't call Pug and Trot, 'everybody;' I can't do any more work to-day, anyhow." "Well, you can to-morrow, for I am going to the Astor Library." "To the Astor Library? What for?" "I have a sudden thirst for information before I begin my book." "Your book for mothers? Oh, Laura, the idea of going to the Astor Library about that!" "Oh, that scheme fell through." "What a pity! It was such an original one." "So is sin. But one has to get rid of it." "Did you write nothing at all?" "I wrote a little bit. I'll show it to you when my trunk comes. I thought it was a capital idea, and was going to make mamma write a preface for it. How is she, anyhow?" "Very well, if one may judge by her actions." "I suppose that means being at everybody's beck and call." "Yes; first, she had me to nurse, and then she went on a pilgrimage to a family of strangers." "People she knew nothing about?" "She knew they were in great trouble, and judged, by the letter they sent her, that they were respectable, more or less educated people." "Here comes the dear old thing, skipping like a young roe!" cried Laura, who had been to the window half a dozen times. "Now Pug and Trot--goodness! what _have_ they been about while we were talking?" Sure enough, what had they been about. Each, armed with a brush, had been daubing away at Margaret's canvas--their hands, faces, and dresses all colors. "Oh, Margaret! they've ruined your picture!" cried Laura, in dismay. "Oh, Laura! they've ruined their dresses!" cried Margaret; at the same time her enthusiasm about the children cooled down not a little. Here was a week's work destroyed. Meantime, Mrs. Grey entered on this scene of dismay, and she and Laura were too glad to see each other to pay much heed to the children. Margaret rushed off after a bottle of turpentine, and old Mary, and Laura's nurse; and between them all, and a bowl of soap-suds, decency was restored, and the little ones made presentable, though not fragrant. The unexpected scrubbing, and a faint sense that they had been in mischief, gave them a somewhat awe-stricken look, which gave way, when grandma kissed them, to relieved smiles. "It's all my fault," said Laura. "I ought to have warned you that these creatures are always up to something. How much harm have they done to the picture?" "Oh, never mind the picture," said Margaret, who was herself minding it a good deal, but was trying to wrench her heart back to the little culprits. "I am delighted to have you come home, Laura," said her mother. "You look worn out." "I dare say. But it's only want of sleep. I shall be all right in a few days. Pug and Trot are two little plagues, but somehow I didn't want them to die. Did I, poppets?" she said, pulling the children to her knee. "Here's your trunk," said Margaret; and Laura flew off to pay the expressman, and to unpack it. "You poor child," said Mrs. Grey to Margaret, as soon as Laura had gone, "your picture is ruined! And I must say you have borne it beautifully." "It may have looked beautiful on the outside," replied Margaret, "but it wasn't at all so inside. I could have slapped the children, I was so provoked." "Jean Paul says, that an angel, incapable of feeling anger, may well envy one who can feel, yet control it." "I would run the risk of being an angel if I could," said Margaret. Laura now returned with her arms full. "This shawl, mamma, I knit for you; also this afghan, which is to keep your dear old feet warm. And, Margaret, this Madonna is for you, chicken!" "For me!" cried Margaret, flushing with delight. "Oh, it is worth a thousand of the daub the children spoiled. How came you to get it for me?" "I couldn't help it. I can't love people and never give them anything. Dear me, what fun it would be to go through the streets and chuck something into everybody's hand!" While this was going on, Pug, who had escaped from the nursery, was busy fumbling in his mother's pockets, and soon possessed himself of her purse, the contents of which, with a magnificent air, he went and poured into Margaret's lap. On perceiving this, Laura, with a peal of laughter, caught up the child and kissed him. "Oh, Laura, how can you encourage Harry's mischief?" cried Mrs. Grey. "He means no harm," said Laura. "He is a chip of the old block. He does nothing on the sly, but it is his instinct to give. This isn't the first time he has picked my pocket, is it, Pug, you young scamp? Oh, you needn't undertake to give it back," she ran on, as Margaret offered her the money. "I always regard it as providential when Pug robs me and never touches the trash he has given away." Margaret looked embarrassed. Mrs. Grey shook her head. "You needn't shake your head, mamma," said Laura. "You let me do this very thing when I was a child, and it did me good. You think my ways with the children all harum-scarum, but they are not. They are founded on philosophical principles. If there is anything I hate it's prig fathers, prig mothers, and prig children." "I suppose there is no medium," said Mrs. Grey. "There's no nice one," said Laura. "Well, now, about my book. It fell through--or, rather, it died of scarlet-fever." "You promised to let me see what you had written," said Margaret. "I'll read it to you and mamma. You could make nothing out of my scrawls. My idea, if you remember, was to write a receipt-book for young mothers, and you thought it a capital idea, mamma. But such things are easier said than done. I meant to classify everything under different heads, like a medical-book; and then when a mother wanted to know how to act, in an emergency, she could look at the index and find directions instanter. Now listen: "'ILL MANNERS. "'_Diagnosis._ Patient objects to saying please, and forgets to say thank you; slams doors; slides down the banisters; interrupts conversation, etc., etc. "'_Remedy_. _Rx._ Of maternal politeness, 1 lb. "'Of parental ditto, ¾ lb. "'Of firmness, ½ lb. "'Of line upon line, 8 oz. "'Mix intimately, and form into thirty pills, which are to be given according to symptoms.'" "What a girl you are!" said Mrs. Grey, laughing. "Who, do you suppose, would buy such a book?" "I would, for one, if I were not already running over with wisdom. Shall I read any more?" "Yes, go on." "'SELFISHNESS. "'_Diagnosis._ An acute disease, that, if neglected, will become chronic and incurable; patient begins to show disinclination to wait upon papa and mamma; wants the best seat by the fire; steers for the biggest apple. "'_Rx._ Of parental benevolence, 1 lb. "'Of essence of Bible, 1 gall. "'Bottle, but do not cork, that the delightful aroma of this liquid may fill the house.'" "There! I shall not read any more of this nonsense. I have a scheme for another book, which I am quite eager to begin immediately." "I shall put my veto on all brain-work," said Mrs. Grey, "until I see you looking like yourself. The best thing you can do now is to lie down and take a nap till dinner-time. I believe I shall have to do the same, for I am very tired." "Why _will_ you go about waiting on other people, and wearing yourself out, mamma?" "Dear Laura, long before you reach my age you will understand. You will see that 'this world's a room of sickness,' and must have its nurses as well as its doctors, and I can truly say, "'I have often blessed my sorrows, That bring others' griefs so near.'" "You are the nicest old thing in the world," cried Laura, with a tremendous hug, and several admiring pats on her mother's back. "I mean to have ten children exactly like you. But I am not going to bed in the day-time; you may depend on that. There, lie down on the sofa and let me cover you with the afghan." Laura looked so refreshed the next day that her mother could not find it in her heart to make an invalid of her, or forbid her visit to the Astor Library. Armed with pencil and paper, therefore, she set gaily forth, and was soon seated at a table with eight or ten volumes before her, out of which she got some amusement, but nothing serviceable. She went back to her mother rather crestfallen. "I could have saved you all this trouble," said Mrs. Grey, "if you had told me what you wanted;" and going to the nearest book-case she took down several books which exactly met Laura's wishes. The result will be seen by and by. Margaret, meanwhile, had begun a new picture in place of the one defaced by the children, and as the three sat together reading, painting, chatting, they formed a trio almost any one would have enjoyed watching. Laura feeling the relief of her children's convalescence, was particularly happy. "How nice it is to be at home," she cried. "I shouldn't mind living a hundred years if I could always have things just as they are now." "Nor I," said Margaret. "Nor I," said Mrs. Grey, smiling; "but things won't go on a hundred years just so, nor should we live a hundred years if they did. It is better to leave our destiny in wiser hands than our own." And then a pleasant silence settled down upon the group, each busy in her own way, and each, in her own way, very happy. CHAPTER XV. The next morning Mrs. Grey settled herself comfortably near the fire, to enjoy one of the luxuries in which she indulged herself--the daily paper. She liked to know what was going on in the world. But as her eye ran leisurely from column to column, it was suddenly arrested, and she seemed turned into stone. "Oh, mamma darling, what is it?" cried Laura, running to her side, and seizing her hands. "Why, you are as cold as ice!" Mrs. Grey tried to speak, but could not; she pointed to a paragraph, however, and Laura read: "It gives us great pain to announce that the President of the ---- bank is under arrest on a very grave charge. His books have been seized, and are to be thoroughly examined. We make this statement reluctantly, trusting that Mr. Grey will come triumphantly forth from this ordeal." "What horrid, shameful stuff and nonsense!" cried Laura, indignantly. "Oh, mamma, you look ten years older than you did." "I have lived a hundred," faltered Mrs. Grey. "Why, mamma! you don't mean that you believe any of these lies?" demanded Laura, amazed. "Oh, I don't know what I believe. I am stunned." "Frank Grey accused of crime? Frank Grey under arrest? I don't believe a word about it!" cried Laura. "He is utterly incapable of anything wrong!" "Don't say that, my child. We are all capable of _every_ thing wrong if left to ourselves. Try to think for me. I am so bewildered. Oh, I have been too proud of that boy. And I have been too cold and unsympathizing towards distracted parents. I needed this blow. When does the next train leave?" "At 10.40. Yes, of course you must go," said Laura, overawed by her mother's anguish. "And Mary must go too, you are in no state to travel alone." Mrs. Grey made no remonstrance; for the first time in her life, she became passive in the hands of others, and let them act for her. "Mamma, you weren't like this when darling Maud died," said Laura. "When darling Maud died," repeated Mrs. Grey, dreamily. Then after silent reflection she said, "Maud died; yes, but Maud was not accused of crime. To lay away a lovely child in the grave is nothing--nothing, by the side of this horror." "Such a man as Frank can live down disgrace," said Laura. "Disgrace!" repeated Mrs. Grey, "what care I for disgrace? It is sin against God that makes me shudder; the bare suspicion that my boy has wounded my Master." And now, as if the mention of that sacred name was a gigantic power, her passing weakness disappeared, and the prompt, resolute, strong woman stood equipped for her journey. And on the way to her son, her prayers rushed like the engine that bore her to his presence, straight to their end, and she began to reproach herself for her want of faith. "Am I to fancy that my children can break through the hedge my prayers have built about them?" she asked herself. "Suppose Frank has been sorely tempted, am I to forget that he belongs to a covenant-keeping God?" Day and night they flew on; at one station they were joined by Cyril Heath. "Belle thought I should intercept you," he said, cheerily. "I hope this miserable business is not weighing upon you, _mother_," tenderly using this word for the first time. "The shock has been terrible," she replied; "I never could have believed I so little knew what trouble meant." "You do not mean to say that you have the slightest suspicion that these rumors have any foundation in truth? I have none, nor has Belle." "I am afraid my faith in human nature is not as strong as it was twenty years ago. But I ought to have faith in God as a Hearer of prayer, and thought I had." "You have the strongest faith of any one I know, except my dear Belle," he said decidedly. "This shock has staggered you, but you will get over it. Ah, here we are! And whose bright face is that in the crowd--if it isn't Frank's? Hurrah!" In a moment Frank bounded into the train, his face aglow with health and happiness. "I knew you would come," he said, "and I made a nice calculation as to when. But I did not expect you, Cyril. How are you, old fellow? Come, here's the carriage, and Lily in it, waiting for you." "What a ridiculous old goose I am," said Mrs. Grey to herself. "The idea of distrusting a man with such a face." On reaching home Frank could hardly do enough for the travelers, to show his appreciation of their sympathy. "The charge came upon me like a thunder-clap," he said, "and at first I was inclined to treat it as a joke. It is the work of a clerk, whom I had discharged for dishonesty, and who thirsted for revenge. He was under suspicion for a long time before I could convict him of theft, and then he begged so hard for mercy, and expressed so much penitence, that I forgave him. I had no right to employ him, however, for the money under my control was mine in trust for others, and not to be risked. The injury he has done me is a temporary one; that done to himself is irreparable." "Has he a family?" "Yes, a poor old mother and three sisters dependent upon him." "We must do something for them, poor things." "Yes, of course. They are in great distress. As to myself, the main question after all is, have I a clear conscience; I am sure, mother, you never doubted that, who trained it with such care?" "I distrust everything but God," she replied, "and even my faith in Him wavered when I read that terrible paragraph. All my prayers for you, all my instructions and labors, seemed for the time thrown away." "That is like your mother's usual self-distrust," said Cyril Heath, "not want of faith in you, Frank." "Thank you for that suggestion," said Mrs. Grey. "Well, we must send dispatches to Laura, and Margaret, and Belle, at once. You ought to have seen Laura's righteous indignation! It isn't a bad thing for people to find out how they love each other, through some emergency like this. How do you suppose a mother feels when she hears that her first-born son is under arrest? Were you really suspected to that degree?" "Yes; and I am at large now only on bail." "And how soon do you expect to clear yourself?" "I don't know; there may be complications I do not foresee. But I shall come out all right in the end." "Do you stand, with your friends, as you did before these charges?" "With most of them I do. There were any number of them ready to go bail for me to any amount. Outsiders may look at the matter differently. I have taken a very decided religious stand here, and that has prejudiced some men against me, who are very glad to make a handle of this thing to injure the cause of Christ. I am inclined to think that, sooner or later, every one of His faithful disciples will have to suffer something, not only for, but _with_ Him; if we do aggressive work for Him, we must expect aggression in return." "I am glad you have learned that." "Well--yes, but I have been swallowing a bitter pill. If I was ever proud of anything, it was of being the very soul of honor. If I could commit the most tempting sin on earth, unknown to all humanity, unknown even to God, I wouldn't commit it." "My dear boy, I believe you. But it won't do to be proud even of sinlessness. Our only true attitude before God is one of absolute, constant self-distrust. I have known of men standing on as apparently secure ground as yours, and fancying they could never be moved, fall at last." "Into ruin?" "No; a redeemed soul can only fall partially. In the midst of his deepest degradation, he can look on Christ, and say to the Tempter, 'Rejoice not over me, mine enemy; when I fall I shall arise again.'" The affair proved more annoying than Frank Grey had believed it could be. There are any number of people who respect a man while he is up, who will kick him when he is down. Every detail of his life was paraded out for public inspection; all that was most sacred to him was fingered by soiled hands. But for his mother's presence, and faith and prayers, he would have been overwhelmed, for his wife was unto him in this sea of trouble, just what she would have been if he were struggling in mid-ocean, a drag, a dead weight. But it does not hurt a true soul to be tested, even by fire. It comes out stronger, surer, safer, better fitted than ever for the true purposes of life. After a long, hard struggle, Frank Grey came forth from the conflict with as clear a record in his hand, and as pure a light in his eye, as was ever known to mortal man. But there was no unseemly triumph, or blowing of trumpets on his part, or his mother's. Both felt that they had been humbled under the hand of God, and walked softly before Him. And in this mood she wrote an eloquent letter to Mr. and Mrs. Thayer, owning that the sharp experience of the past weeks had quickened her sympathy with them in their parental cares and trials, and assuring them that they might rely upon her friendly services, should they again be needed. She was now at leisure to cast a scrutinizing, but kindly eye at the little world she had so suddenly entered, and saw much that needed correction. Some of the children were like their mother, and she got along with them comfortably enough. But she had next to no control over the others, and had to coax, manage, and bribe them into the little proprieties a mother should require. The table was not neatly arranged; the children's clothes were untidy; dust lay everywhere. The most incomprehensible thing about it was, that Frank, who used to be fastidious about all such matters, did not seem to care how things went. The boys helped themselves to what they wanted; the girls had their wardrobes as nearly in common as their different ages permitted. "Frankie, dear," his mother would drawl out, "aren't you afraid so much mince-pie will make you ill, as it did last week?" And "Frankie, dear, would you mind beating that drum out of doors; it makes my head ache to have it so near." Or, "Frankie, dear, Cyril says those are his mittens; take them off, do, and let him have them; I can't bear to hear him cry so." She had got a habit of whining and crooning over them, of which she was unconscious, in fact she was not conscious of any of her defects. Frank had always said his wife must be amiable, and in one sense Lily was so; but she had not strength of character enough to get angry on, and in her ill-ordered household she was beginning to grow, not morose, not crusty, but nervously peevish. Mrs. Grey kept congratulating herself that she had come to see all these evils, and then kept asking herself what she was going to do about it. She concluded, at last, to begin on a very small matter. "Lily, dear, do not let my being here confine you to me. You must be wanting to use this delightful weather for your spring shopping." "There isn't any hurry about that." "You know hot weather may be upon us any day. I have written to Laura to do Margaret's shopping for her at once." "I don't think it will be hot. I hate to have to see to dress-making." "I'm afraid Frank keeps you low in funds." "He gives me all I want." "Wouldn't it be well, then, to dress the children a little better?" "I thought you believed in dressing them simply." "I do. But they need not be shabby, dear." "It is a great deal of trouble to keep them looking nice. Frank and Cyril get holes in their knees the first thing I know; and the girls tear and stain their dresses so that I can't keep them looking decent." "Well, I shouldn't mind doing the spring shopping for you," said Mrs. Grey, briskly. She hated shopping, cordially; but these ragged children must be taken in hand by somebody. "Shouldn't you mind it, really?" asked Lily, brightening a little. "It tires me to go out, I go so seldom. And I wish you would take the children in hand, as well as their wardrobes. I can't do anything with them." "Nor can I do much in the little time I am here. But if you will try not to be hurt, I will make a suggestion to you. These turbulent boys are too much for you, and are wearing your nerves all out. They would be better off away from home, provided you could find just the right place for them. And, if you and Frank think best, I will take Gabrielle home with me, and see what I can make of her." "Would you, really? What a relief it would be! She and Annabelle torment me and each other. Frank does not see enough of the children to know how they behave. He makes them obey him, and on Sundays does the best he can for them; but somehow our home isn't peaceful and pleasant, though I have such a good disposition, and am never angry with the children." "Frank is not confined to his business all day; could he not contrive to look after the children more?" "I don't know. He is on ever so many committees, and is superintendent of the Sunday-school, and our minister wants him here and there and everywhere. He is so energetic and bright, and people think so much of him, that he has no time. Then the letters he has to write! But if the children do anything _very_ bad, he lets everything go till he has seen to them." "Frank would not have married this poor, languid, inefficient woman if I had had the faith I ought," thought Mrs. Grey. "But she is not accountable for gifts never afforded her, dear child." That evening Lily went early to bed with an attack of neuralgia brought on by one of her fruitless attempts to subdue Frank. Mrs. Grey seized the opportunity to talk with the boy's father on the subject of sending him from home. To her surprise, he at once yielded to her suggestions. "You understand human nature well enough," he said, "to know that while I may allow that my wife has disappointed me in some things, I can't stand it to hear a word said against her, even by you. I love her; and though I wish she had more energy of character, and kept my house and my children in better order, I would not change her for any other woman I know." "I should hope not!" was the reply. "And I think if the three elder children were off her hands she would have better health, and look after the house more." "I shouldn't like to send Gabrielle to a boarding school," he said. "Nor would I have you do it. I propose to take her home with me." Grateful tears filled Frank's eyes as this unexpected offer fell upon his ear. "Oh, mother!" he cried, "if you knew how many times I have wished this could be! If our eldest girl could be trained by you, this home of ours would, by and by, be transformed." "I cannot work miracles," she replied, "but I am more than willing to try to benefit Gabrielle. Now about the boys; have they any vices?" "No, indeed. They are just two great hearty, healthy, noisy fellows, not at all obstinate when I take them in hand, but too much for their delicate little mother." "Are they truthful?" "Yes. Never knew either of them to tell a falsehood." "Then I think I can kill two birds with one stone. Belle and Cyril have a hard time with his insufficient salary, and I think they might be induced to take charge of your boys. Cyril needs more books, and Belle needs a good seamstress; you can afford to pay a fair price for advantages money alone could not purchase. I don't think they would, on a mere pecuniary consideration, burden themselves with new cares. But they do not live for what they can get, but for what they can do." "You have made me almost a boy again," he replied; "you have lifted my greatest cares off my shoulders." "Well, do write to Cyril to-night, and I will write to Belle; then, if they agree to the plan, the boys can start with me, and be left at Lancaster." Frank wrote his letter, and Mrs. Grey wrote hers; this was Belle's reply: DEAREST MAMMA:--When your letter first reached us, I thought the project almost insane, and so did Cyril. But we prayed over it, and altered our minds. I would not take any other boys in the world; but dear Frank always was my favorite brother, and if I can help him in this emergency I will. Poor little Lily never was made to cope with such embodiments of health and mischief as Frank and Cil; but I am now in excellent health, and will do my best for them. How little I foresaw that my daily prayers for these children were going to bring them under our roof! Pray for me, darling mamma, that I may win their confidence and love, and be as true to them as to my own precious ones. As to Cyril, you know his doctrine--that it is the mother who should rule the house, and beyond setting them a perfectly beautiful example and frolicking with them, he will do nothing for them. Give a great deal of love to Frank and Lily. Of course you will stop, on your way home, to see our babies. I think we are just about as happy in each other, our children, our work, everything, as we can be. If you don't believe it, come and see! Your loving, devoted BELLE. Lily's neuralgia confined her to her room six weeks, during which time she suffered so much that Mrs. Grey had to attend to everything; and she took the opportunity to reconstruct the household. Perfect order and cleanliness reigned supreme; inefficient servants were replaced by reliable ones; the children were made neat and tidy, and Frank took his meals from a bountiful, well-ordered table, with great satisfaction. All this took more time, thought, patience, and energy than any man can imagine. It is part of woman's lot to do a large amount of unappreciated work. And the sick-room claimed attention, too. Lily had no relatives living to come to care for her when ill, and it was a great relief to be nursed by experienced hands. Mrs. Grey and Mary took the whole charge of her; bore with her faint-heartedness and childishness, prepared her food, kept her in fresh and dainty white dressing-gowns and caps, and at last pulled her through. They were veterans in sick-rooms, and had long worked manfully together. CHAPTER XVI. The three children were highly excited at the idea of leaving home, and, on the whole, delighted. The preparations for their departure were soon completed, and on a pleasant spring morning the party set off. Lily could hardly conceal her relief as she took leave of them; she was not fond of children, though, of course, she loved her own, more or less; and these vivacious young creatures wearied her beyond everything. She hated care and trouble and exertion, if, indeed, she had life enough to hate anything; and when Frank declined to take leave of them on the train because he knew he should disgrace himself by crying, and did cry, like a big school-boy, as he saw them drive off, she gave him up as a problem too hard for her comprehension. The village in which Cyril Heath was settled was a manufacturing one, and full of activity. His house was a large, old-fashioned, ugly structure; but he and Belle together had made it home-like and pretty within doors, and as no part of it was kept in state and shut up, it smiled a welcome to every guest. Belle was awaiting her mother with a baby on each arm, and a face all smiles and delight. She let the three children loose into the garden immediately, where they were soon joined by Mr. Heath, who chased them up and down the walks with all the joyousness of a boy. "It's splendid here," said Frank, Jr. "I never mean to live in a city again." "Nor I," said Cil. "Is it as pretty as this at grandma's?" asked Gabrielle. "It's a thousand times prettier," replied Mr. Heath. "Have you never been there in the summer?" "No; only at Christmas, and at aunty Maud's funeral." "Oh! then you have a great pleasure before you. Have you all had gardens?" "No, no, indeed!" "You boys must have some at once." "To dig in ourselves? How jolly!" "Would you like to see my workshop?" asked their uncle. Wouldn't they, though? _Any_ thing to work off their steam! Taking twenty steps when one only was needed, they scampered at his heels, and arrived, breathless, at a small room in which was a carpenter's bench in perfect order, a turning-lathe, and other objects, as new to the boys as Paradise was to Adam. "Now, I sha'n't want you fellows meddling with my tools," said Mr. Heath, as the children began to finger and play with whatever they could lay hands on. "Useful things are not meant for toys. I shall have another bench made adapted to your height, and whenever you give your aunty special pleasure, shall give you a tool, till you acquire all you need." "Papa hasn't any workshop," said Frank. "But he's got a bank," said Cil. "Have you a bank, uncle?" Mr. Heath replied that he had not that article, which greatly relieved the two. While this was going on, Mrs. Grey was admiring the babies, lovely little creatures as need be, and rejoicing over Mabel. "You will have a hard time with the boys, I am afraid," she said. "Poor Lily was no more fit to grapple with them than if they were giants." "I suppose it will be hard, at first. But I already love them with a new kind of love--the love of possession. To all intents and purposes, they are mine now. How nice it was that Laura was at Greylock when you left! You wouldn't have liked to leave Margaret alone so many weeks. To be sure, she could have come here." "Not very well, because of her lessons." "True; I had forgotten that. Now come upstairs, please, and look at the boys' room." "Why, you _witch_!" cried Mrs. Grey, "when did you do all this?" For the room was not only neat and fresh and home-like; it was adorned with illuminations, pretty engravings, and other agreeable objects which had cost, not much in money, but a great deal in time. "If I am a witch I learned it of you, mamma," said Belle. "Besides, Cyril helped me. He made the bedsteads, and the washstands, and the brackets, and picture frames. And the illuminations I made years ago. Don't you remember the mania I had for that sort of thing at one time?" "I had forgotten it. How nice these upholstered boxes are." "Yes, Cyril made those, too; and I had chintz left from a piece you gave me ever so long ago. Come, now, and see my room. It has been altered since you were here." "What a pleasant room! How has it been altered?" "Cyril took away the partition between it and the next one, and put up this linen-closet. See, isn't it nice. He did it all with his own hands, and then I painted it." "Not since the twins came?" "No, indeed. It was more than a year ago." "Are these illuminations, also, things of the past, too?" "Why, yes, mamma. Don't you remember trying to impress those truths on us children, and having these very illuminations hung at the foot of our beds, so that we could see them the first thing in the morning?" "Yes, I do, now you speak of it." "How many, many times I have read them!" "'WRONG LIVING LEADS TO WRONG THINKING.' "'WRONG THINKING LEADS TO WRONG LIVING!'" "Yes; one whose life is practically wrong will soon form a theory to adjust to it. And one who starts with a false theory will, inevitably, end with evil acts." "Soon after we came here, Cyril preached two sermons, taking those illuminations for his texts. There were several persons in the congregation who thought it was no matter what they believed, provided they were sincere. And there were others who took the ground that they were just as well off out of the church as in it, and so gradually slipped back into the world they had promised to forsake. But these are only specimens of the errors he has had to contend with--growing out of wrong thinking on the one hand, wrong living on the other. Still, we have some of the very salt of the earth here." During all this time Mabel had followed them about, keeping close to her mother's side, the perfect image of undemonstrative devotion. "It is you and Maud over again," said Belle, responding to Mrs. Grey's intelligent glance. "Mabel and I are just in love with each other. The other children will be home soon. Just look into their bureau-drawers. Now I have trained them as nearly alike as I could, and see the difference. Everything in Amy's possession is in apple-pie order; and unless I see to it every day, Alice keeps hers topsy-turvy." "Never mind. Habit is second nature. Ah, here they come!" Two smiling little girls came, somewhat shyly, forward; but grandmamma soon made them at ease with her. "Have you seen the babies?" was one of the first questions. "Yes, indeed. But they are asleep now." "Which do you think the prettiest, mamma's baby or Mabel's?" was the next. "Dear me! I didn't see any difference. They looked exactly alike to me." "How funny!" "Run down into the garden, now, my darlings, and find your cousins." The little ones darted away like gold-fish, and in a few minutes had renewed their acquaintance with each other. "Don't you think it would be a good plan, mamma," asked Belle, "to let the boys run wild for a week before sending them to school? They are racing in the garden like young colts. Dear me! What is that?" '_That_' was the sound of four noisy feet rushing up the stairs, with such a racket as had never been heard in that house. Both babies woke up in a twinkling, and began to cry. "Now I shall make short work with that sort of thing," said Belle, as soon as she had quieted them. "The boys may make as much noise out of doors as they choose; but such rushing, and tearing, and stamping will never do within." "Of course not. It does not add to their happiness or comfort to be boisterous like that, one iota; and it destroys the peace of the whole household." Here came an Indian war-whoop, and bang, bang, bang down-stairs, with a door slammed tremendously as a _finale_. "Well, I don't wonder Lily's nerves gave out," said Belle, "if that's the way she lets the boys tear up and down. Why, our boys never went on like that." "No; I would not allow it. If boys are to become gentlemen, they must begin in the nursery. I have been astonished at the uproar most of them are allowed to make. One of the first things to teach Frank and Cil, is, that they are to form the habit of regarding the comfort of the household." "I must go down, now, and see about tea," said Belle. "Poor Frank, how he will miss his boys!" Shortly after the tea-bell rang, and the three young Greys, their hair flying, their hands soiled, their feet covered with mud, rushed in, hungry and eager. "I want to sit next to grandma," said Gabrielle. "No, I am going to sit next her," said Frank. "Neither of you will sit next me with such hands and faces," said Mrs. Grey. "I thought I convinced you of that before you left home." The children looked a little crestfallen, and beat a hasty retreat to their rooms, where they made themselves presentable as fast as they could. After tea they were going to rush out again, but Belle detained them. "I want to tell you something funny before you go out," she said. "Some years ago--ten, perhaps--I went to visit an institution for the deaf and dumb, and enjoyed everything I saw. But when school was dismissed, and the boys came running down-stairs, I did not know but I should become deaf myself, they made such a noise. I did not know, before, that one set of fellows made more noise than others; but it seems they do, because they have no idea of sound. Now, you two young men are not deaf, and if you choose to listen to yourselves, you will hear what needless racket you make." The boys looked in her smiling, kindly, but determined face, and saw they had no help for it but to give in. "Alice said she knew we woke the babies this afternoon," said Frank, "but Cil had got my hat, and run after it, and I tumbled up to take it away; I'm real sorry I woke the babies." "Oh, _that's_ not the point. If there wasn't a baby within a mile, I should not approve of your tearing and shrieking like Indians. You may have just as much fun and frolic as you like; the more the better; but I mean to make two little gentlemen of you at the same time. There! be off with you all into the garden, and have as good a time as you can." This was one of thousands of lessons that Belle had to teach day after day, week after week. She made her little sermons as short as she possibly could, and as quaint; and the mixture of earnestness, and banter, and fun, with which she assailed their bad habits, told upon the lads. But there was work to do below this surface-work. She had to teach them the life of faith in Christ, a kind of teaching so eminently the province of woman, and to this end had to efface some impressions that had been falsely made in their nursery days. Long before they comprehended her teachings, her courage and patience were put to their full test. But she was a woman mighty in prayer, and day and night the name of every child in the house was mentioned singly to God. Thus wisely and kindly Providence provided a remedy for Frank Grey's mistaken choice in his wife; thus He will rectify all such errors of judgment for those who put their trust in Him. CHAPTER XVII. Mrs. Grey knew perfectly well, that the task of training Gabrielle would be a most self-denying one. Those who never felt the sweet pain of putting self down in order to help a human soul to rise, have only touched life on the surface; have never been down into its depths; _she had_. So it was cheerily she entered upon this new labor of love, throwing her heart into it without a thought as to how her own interests were to be affected by this invasion of her home. Gabrielle was fourteen years old, and as her mother had never done much thinking for her, had acquired a habit of thinking for herself. During the first few weeks of her stay at Greylock, her grandmother let her drift pretty much as she pleased, studying her, meanwhile, and seeking wisdom from above. The child fancied this state of things was going to last, and was well content. As the spring opened early, and was a very warm one, she adopted a hammock that swung on the piazza as her pet luxury, and there she lay during a large part of the day, reading novels. In the pang of parting with her, Frank thoughtlessly gave her more money than any child should be entrusted with, and she, consequently, laid in a stock of unwholesome dainties, which she fed upon while reading. Very soon this effeminate life began to tell. She woke with a headache, was peevish and irritable about nothings, and at times had a "dumb devil," when it was next to impossible to get a word out of her. It was evidently time to take her in hand, which Mrs. Grey did, on this wise. "My child," she said, kindly, "have I done anything unkind to you since you came here?" "I don't know's you have." "Well, you speak to me as if I had. So I think you can't be well. How much exercise did you take yesterday?" "Not any; I was tired." "And how much the day before?" "Not any; I wanted to read." "But you know I wish you to walk every day." Gabrielle was silent, and looked sullen. "There is another thing; I saw a piece of candy on the piano just after you left; was it yours?" "I suppose so." "Have you been in the habit of buying candy at your pleasure?" "I have a right to spend the money papa gives me." "Yes; but while you are under my charge, it must be spent according to my judgment, not yours. Now I am not trying to plague you; I am trying to find out why you are irritable about everything; and if you have eaten much candy, that, with want of exercise, may be the trouble." Gabrielle looked down morosely, and made no answer. "Won't you tell me all about it, dear?" No answer, only portentous frowns. "Very well; I see you are not in the mood to listen to me. I will pray that you may be more docile another time. And, mark this: I forbid you eating any more candy without leave." With a toss of the head that said: "We shall see!" Gabrielle retreated to the hammock. Mrs. Grey, greatly pained, looked after her till she was out of sight, when Laura, who had been concealed by a curtain, came forward. "It isn't right for you to be treated in this way, at your age, mamma," she said. "If Frank and Lily spoil their children, they ought to reap the fruits, not you. I have been meaning to tell you that old Mary says Gabrielle is nibbling at sweet things all day long, and continually coaxing the cook for more. No wonder she is cross." Mrs. Grey said nothing; at least nothing heard by human ears; but presently rose and went to Gabrielle's room, and examined her bureau-drawers, which she found in confusion, and whence she abstracted a quantity of pernicious articles. Later in the day Gabrielle detected the fact, and came to her defiantly with-- "I am going to write to papa to let me go home." "Very well, my dear." The child, expecting a conflict such as she had often had with her mother, was startled by this cool rejoinder, and at last began to cry. "I am very sorry for you," said Mrs. Grey. "No you ain't sorry either. And my head aches awfully, and I feel sick. I wish I was at home." For answer, Mrs. Grey took her by the hand, led her up to her room, applied remedies with tenderness, and sympathy, and skill, and at last helped her to undress and go to bed. She slept better than she had done for weeks; had some beef-tea for her breakfast, and the devil of indigestion was exorcised, for the time. Laura was going home now; she and the children were now quite well, and Harry could stand his loneliness no longer. "Mag and I had delightful times together while you were gone," she said, as she took leave, "and if she gets out of the tangle of all those lessons, I shall want her to make me a good long visit. You will have your hands so full with Gabrielle that you won't miss her. Mamma--" "Well, dear." "I wish I hadn't been such a bad child." "You weren't bad. You had fits of ill-humor that I did not understand, and therefore mismanaged; I know now that indigestion often lies at the bottom of what looks like moral delinquency in children. Keep them well, and they'll keep themselves good-humored." "Oh, I'm careful enough about Pug and Trot, as need be!" "It's enough to make them ill to call them by such hideous names." "Well, what could I do? Could I call my husband 'the old Harry' to distinguish him from the young Harry?" "There, go, you incorrigible child!" cried Mrs. Grey, kissing her good-bye. Laura drove off, laughing, and the children laughed in concert, they knew not why. Gabrielle was in a much more docile humor now, and Mrs. Grey explained to her the laws of health that made the open air, and exercise, and plain food essential to every one, but especially so to growing children. "I do not intend to treat you in an arbitrary way," she said, "because I happen to have it in my power to do so. What I do will be for your good, not to gratify my self-will. I took away the dainties from your room because, in your condition, they were poison for you; when you are quite well you shall have some of them, from time to time, as a part of your dinner; never between meals." Not more than a month passed, when Gabrielle had another sick head-ache. It soon became apparent that she had gone back to her old trick of eating, at all hours, on the sly. When she recovered, Mrs. Grey said to her: "When your father was a boy, there was not a key turned in the house to hinder his helping himself to forbidden sweets. I could trust to his honor. Now, am I to consider you so far his inferior that I must furnish myself with bolts and bars?" "Mamma did not lock up things, either. It wouldn't have done any good if she had. And we ate whatever we pleased." "And were continually having ill turns. Now, my child, you are old enough to act like a reasonable being, and you must see that you bring on these sick head-aches by your want of self-control. I want you to do me one favor, of your own accord give up tea and coffee." "Oh, I can't!" "With God's help you can." "No, I can't. He won't help me about anything. Old Mary says she should think He would hate me, I plague you so much." "Oh, I don't think old Mary said that!" "Well, maybe she didn't. She said something like it." "My poor child, He hates nobody on earth. And now, if in spite of all your fractious, disobedient ways, I, only a human being at best, love you, how do you think _He_ feels?" "I think He can't bear me. And I don't believe you love me, either. But papa did, and I mean to ask him to let me come home." "So you have said a dozen times. If you think you had better go, and that you will be happier there, and more likely to outgrow your faults, I shall not prevent you." "You won't ever let me have my own way, and mamma did." "And were you becoming a model eldest daughter to her?" "Nobody _could_ be a model in the house with Rosabelle. On the whole, I'd rather stay here than go home. Rosabelle is just _horrid_!" "I can't talk to you any more now. I must pray more and say less." "I want to go to Ellinor Lathrop's party." "I have told you, once for all, that you cannot go." "Then I think you're real mean." "_Gabrielle!_" The girl was startled by the righteous indignation, mingled with dignity, with which she was addressed. Accustomed for fourteen years to look down upon her mother, she fancied she could brow-beat her grandmother also. "You may go to your room now," said Mrs. Grey. "And let me tell you that if you wean my heart from me, you will lose one of the best friends you ever had." For once Gabrielle found she had gone too far. There is a limit no child should be allowed to pass, and she found herself confronted by it now. She flew to her room, and began letter after letter to her father, pouring out her grievances into an ear that had always listened to her with sympathy. But what would be the use of complaining to him about his mother, whom he loved and revered? Suddenly she bethought herself of Margaret; wouldn't she take her part, perhaps? There was another rush here and there, and at last she found Margaret in her own room studying. "Grandma won't let me go to Ellinor Lathrop's party," was her abrupt beginning. "Why, I know that. You and she discussed it at breakfast." "Yes, but I have teased her since then, over and over again, to let me go, and she won't." "Of course not when she had once refused." "Mamma would let me go." "Aunty is your mamma now. And I can't imagine what makes you such a naughty girl when she is so kind and good to you." "Do you call it kind and good to thwart me about everything?" "Gabrielle, I want to tell you something. You've got a guilty conscience. That's what ails you. You are all the time doing something wrong when you know better, and that keeps you unhappy." "I am not unhappy." "Yes, you are; and you grow more and more so every day." "Grandma is awfully mad with me." "Now I know that isn't true. And you ought not to talk so. The idea of saying aunty is 'mad!'" "Gabrielle, why are you here?" asked Mrs. Grey, in a tone of surprise. "Did I not send you to your room?" Gabrielle made no answer, but moved sullenly away. "Oh, aunty," said Margaret, "it doesn't seem right for you to be fretted in this way!" "I am not fretted, dear. I foresaw all these troubles before I came home. The child is trying a series of experiments with me, to see if she can't tame me down. When she once finds that the attempt is useless, we shall get on better." "Aunty--" "I know what you wanted to say. You wonder I do not go to the root of the matter, and try to lead her to Christ. I am praying that she may be drawn to Him, but until she learns to submit to me, it is useless to expect her to submit to Him. Her father thinks the same; and I have his full sympathy in every effort I make to do her good." It must not be supposed that Gabrielle was always unruly and always in disgrace, and that she had no pleasant traits of character. Almost everybody has agreeable little ways that cannot be transferred to a book; and this girl, at times so rude and self-willed, had her gentle, even winning moods, and won love and good-fellowship. Nor was it strange that at an age when young people are apt to be unlovely if they have not been handled aright, she resented the sudden bit and curb of her new surroundings, and fancied herself ill-used. Mrs. Grey did not, in the least, lose heart. She knew she was not working in her own strength, and knew, by long experience, that though for a time the Lord answers never a word, He invariably does answer in His own time, and that that is always the best time. About a number of Gabrielle's faults she said nothing to her; too much fault-finding is almost worse than none; but she deplored them before God, and then tried to meet them with contrary example. There was no good school in the neighborhood, and as soon as under her care and rule the child's health warranted it, she had a daily governess come from the city to give her lessons; and finding she was fond of music, Maud's long-silent piano was opened, and the air was filled, now by the accomplished hand of the master, now by the unmelodious bang of the pupil. Things went better now; Gabrielle had no time for idling; every hour brought its own occupation, and regular exercise, wholesome diet, and agreeable occupation broke up the habit of picking and pecking at dainties, which had been so pernicious. She caught, too, some of Margaret's tastes, and instead of thinking about dress as a matter of great import, would content herself to put on a woodland rig, quaint, yet not ugly, and go off with her in quest of the gems Nature is always flinging lavishly about. They came home from their expeditions with baskets running over with ferns, mosses, lichens, grasses, and nobody knows what not, till their rooms looked verdant with beauty. Margaret got up a mossy bank with red berries nestling in it here and there; Gabrielle must have one, like yet not like it, for no two hands work on one and the same line; and Margaret had a rustic basket hanging from every possible point, and Gabrielle hasted to do the same. Mrs. Grey looked on with delight at all this. No utterly spoiled character riots in such simple pursuits, and she who begins to love Nature, begins to grow cold to all that is artificial. While in that house personal neatness was made a law, dress was never talked about as much more than a necessary evil to be attended to twice a year, and then forgotten. And now that she had taken to ornamenting her room, Gabrielle found she must keep it in order, and learned, too, that she had not a little executive power in the matter of arrangement of furniture and clothing. She began to observe, too, that though grandmamma would not scold, she could and did punish, and that invariably, when infringement of a rule required it. Later on she perceived a regular system of rewards going silently on. After a week of exceptional docility, an invisible good fairy would leave tokens of her presence in her room; now it was a vase for flowers; now a little photograph; now a paper-weight; it was not always possible to tell who this good fairy was; but whoever it was, knew just what she wanted. So the summer bloomed and budded and bore fruit, and faded into autumn, and autumn froze into winter. There was rarely a conflict now; Gabrielle was too busy to find time for them, and too fond of the deeds of the good fairy to run the risk of one when she could help it. Mrs. Grey was not in the least surprised when, one day, the girl came shyly behind her, put her arms around her neck, and whispered, "Grandmamma, I wish I was a Christian!" "So do I, my dear child," was the reply. "And why not become one, this minute?" "I don't know; I've tried ever so many times." "Tried how?" "To be good." "Is it said anywhere in the Bible that being 'good' and being a Christian are synonymous terms?" "I thought it was." "We have our Lord's own declaration that there is only one good Being in the universe, 'that is God.' Salvation is not offered to good people, but to bad ones." "Well--I am _so_ bad that I don't believe it is meant for me." "The Bible says, '_there is no difference_.' Everybody has got to come to Christ on one level." "Some are worse than others." "True; but when it comes to our relation to Christ, we all stand shoulder to shoulder. I have spent a large part of my life in believing on and working for Him, but that does not entitle me to one atom of His favor. I must go to Him, every day, just as you must go now, denouncing, renouncing myself, and receive Him, by faith, as my only ground of hope." Gabrielle looked puzzled, and was about to raise another objection, but they were interrupted, and the conversation was not renewed till the next day. CHAPTER XVIII. Gabrielle knelt that night at her bedside, with a latent, but strong, desire to walk, not by faith, but by sight. She wanted to hear an audible voice from heaven to assure her that she might feel sure of salvation. Mrs. Grey had had large experience in dealing with souls, and soon detected and brought this to light when they next met in her dressing-room. "I wish there was something I could _do_ to make God love me," the child began. "My dear, there is something." "What is it?" was the eager demand. "Believe on His Son, Jesus Christ." Gabrielle's countenance fell. "I can't believe. I don't know how!" she said. "My child, if I should tell you that I was going to take you to drive this afternoon, you would believe me, should you not?" "Yes, indeed." "That would be having faith in me." "Yes; but it wouldn't be loving you, and God says we must love Him. Even if I can believe in Him, I can't make myself love Him. I am sure I would if I could." "If it is true that you cannot love Him, then He will not condemn you at the last day." "It's all perfectly _horrid_!" cried Gabrielle, bewildered and excited. "Don't say so, my poor child!" said Mrs. Grey, drawing the girl to her and kissing her burning cheeks. "Christ is altogether lovely, and all His paths are peace. He puts no difficulties in your way; you make them yourself. Now let me ask you one question. Have you not asked our Lord to save your soul?" "Yes; hundreds of times." "And has He refused hundreds of times?" "He must have, for I am not saved." "Will you prove to me that you are not?" "Why, if I was saved I should be full of joy; and instead of that I am full of misery." "Well, now, here are two poor men, brothers, and they are homeless, and friendless, and weary, and heavy-laden; but a rich man dies and leaves them each a fortune. One of them learns this to be the case, and is relieved of care and want; the other has not heard of his good luck, and therefore is, to all intents and purposes, as poor as ever." "You mean that I may have faith and not know it, and so my faith is of no use to me?" "It brings you no present peace. Of course it would save you in the end; but meanwhile you would lead a dark, joyless life." "Sometimes I feel as if I had been changed a little," said Gabrielle, thoughtfully. "But my feelings are not alike two hours going." "Of course not. A thousand things vary our emotions. The Bible says nothing about feeling this way or feeling that, in order to be saved. It says '_believe_.'" "I think, though, that it would be easier to believe if I felt more. I keep hoping that sometime I shall feel so much that God will pity and forgive me." "In other words, you keep hoping to make yourself agreeable to Him by a great display of emotion. Do not be hurt at my saying this. Human nature is supremely self-righteous, and is not willing to take salvation as a free gift. I beg you to decide for Christ now, with your _will_; having once done that, your heart will follow fast enough." "But suppose I begin and don't hold out?" "Begin thus. Say to God: 'Let me not wander from Thy commandments;' and He will reply: 'I will put my fear in your heart that you shall not depart from me.'" "Then there are so many things to give up if I become a Christian," said Gabrielle, evasively. "There are no good things to give up, and there are thousands to gain. I cannot preach to you below the gospel-standard, which says that the friend of the world is the enemy of God." "Well, He elects some people to save, and rejects others. How can I know that I do not come under the last head?" "By electing Christ as yours, at this moment, when His Spirit is striving with you to that end. I can't tell you how it pains me to see you tampering with divine truth as if it were a straw. I believe this temporizing, argumentative temper comes from a league between Satan and your own evil heart. If you do not take care you will grieve away the Holy Ghost. For my part, I would rather offend than grieve a friend." "Do you mean that the Holy Ghost is my _friend_?" Gabrielle asked, in great surprise. "Certainly. Otherwise why should He hover around you as He is doing now, offering you the greatest prizes of life?" "Why should He love me? Why should He offer me prizes? I have never so much as given Him a thought!" "I do not know. I can only say: 'Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight.'" "Then I won't hold out against Him another minute, if God will take me, just as I am, a dreadfully naughty girl! He may have me and welcome! Only I wish I hadn't done so many things I am ashamed of." Some weeks later she came shyly again behind her grandmamma and whispered: "May I join the church next Sunday?" "'If thou believest with all thine heart thou mayest,'" was the fervent reply, and Gabrielle slipped timidly away. Everybody knows that, as a general rule, young people cannot talk to their nearest friends about their souls when they will confide in strangers. It ought not to be so. A warm-hearted mother once said that she began to talk to her children about Christ when they were _three weeks old_! by which sweet little exaggeration she only meant that she gave her confidence, and won theirs, at the earliest conceivable age. Mrs. Grey perfectly understood that, taking Gabrielle at a disadvantage, she could not expect her to sustain to herself the relation of a little child, and that she would be painfully shy should she try to penetrate her hidden life. Indeed there was little to penetrate. The child apprehended dimly the path on which she had entered. All she knew about herself was, that whereas her chief aim once was to have a nice time, and that in her own way, her earnest desire now was to be "good." Mrs. Grey's life, far more than her instructions, had dropped, as a seed, into soil prepared for it by the hand of Him who hears and answers prayer. Nor did she at once emerge into a saint, with all the holy aspirations and activities of mature life. She was a child still, and needed pruning, grafting, and weeding. But the root of the matter was in her. That tiny spark of grace that sometimes seemed to her and to her friends to have died out, was there; it flickered, and was often invisible to mortal eyes; _but it was there_, and had her soul been at any moment required of her, that grace, small though it was, would have been her humble passport into the company of the redeemed. Mrs. Grey's pastor at this time was quite an inexperienced man, and he would not venture to admit any young people to his church till he had seen their parents or guardians. He came now to see her with reference to Gabrielle. "I think the root of the matter is in the child," she said, "and that she may safely unite with the church. But, if you will allow me to say it, these immature young Christians need a great deal of looking-after. Taking them into the church is like taking plants into shelter. But shelter is not enough. _All_ the conditions of growth should be observed, or instead of blossoms and fruit, we shall have stunted or effeminate growth, or what is worse, no growth at all." "One object I had in calling to-day," he returned, "was to ask you if it would be possible to gather our young people about you once a week for Christian counsel?" Mrs. Grey cast her eye over her already overcrowded life, and shook her head. "I think I am playing the school-ma'am quite as much as is good for me," she said, with a smile. "Sometimes I am almost frightened at the multiplicity of things I am undertaking to do. However, the work you propose looks very attractive; I might spare one evening in the week." "They are almost all confined to their studies in the evening. Perhaps we should have to steal a piece of Sunday." "Oh, I don't see where." "Nor I; unless I succeed in carrying out a plan I have in my mind. My theory is that there is too much preaching, and too little doing, of the word. Men of business, for instance, have next to no time for Christian work, and their piety falls to sleep in consequence. If the church would organize some plan for setting everybody at work on Sunday afternoons, pastors and all, I think we might soon begin to expect the coming of our Lord. By the bye, you love to deal with difficult cases; I wish you would take occasion to talk to Mr. Morrison. You have had great experience, and I have had next to none." "It takes more than experience to reach a polished moralist," she replied. "It needs the Holy Spirit. I doubt if there is anything we can do but pray for him. He is so intrenched in his own virtues that he is farther out of reach than most hardened sinners." "I know it; but there are his poor wife and those six boys to be thought of." "You have been among us so little time that you are, perhaps, not aware that he is my brother." "Indeed, I was not aware of it." "He is my half-brother; we had different mothers. At the time of his birth, and for many years following, our father was not a Christian; his training was different from mine. Our mothers were as unlike as possible, and I can't begin to tell you how it pains me to look at his perfectly useless--because Christless--life. I think he will be saved at last; too much prayer has been offered for him to permit his being lost; but oh, how much he has thrown away!" "He is an interesting man; he would be very useful in the church; I wish I could see him identified with it." "I will make one more attempt to move him. My heart yearns over those dear boys." A few evenings later saw her closeted with Mr. Morrison, a fine-looking man, with complexion almost as pure as a baby's, clear blue eyes, and a noble head, crowned with waving white hair. They talked a while about his boys, and his plans for their future; then she spoke, naturally, for her heart was full of it, of the special religious work then going on in the church. "It is mere excitement," he said; "it will not last." "Time alone can prove that. In my own case the excitement has lasted fifty years, and I see no signs of its passing off. Robert, you can't think how it distresses me to see you coming to church, Sunday after Sunday, with a regularity that might put many a professor to the blush, yet never advancing beyond that point." "I should like to ask you one question, Emily. Haven't I heard you say you were almost certain of my salvation?" "Yes, I have said it. But salvation is not the sole end of man; his first end is to glorify God." "Well, don't I glorify Him? Point out any word or deed of mine that is sinful, if you can. Am I not fair and square in all my dealings? Do not I give, liberally, to the poor? Am I bad-tempered? Am I a backbiter?" "We have gone all over this ground scores of times," she replied. "If mere morality glorifies God, then I must allow that you are living up to all His claims. But the Bible is our standard, and we learn there that Christ rejected a man who had kept the law from his youth up." "I never could see the reason for that. I have always aimed to lead a blameless life, and think I have." "To be saved by a blameless life one must never have transgressed in a single point. Now you do not pretend that you never once transgressed?" "I know it would be a lie to stand up in a prayer-meeting, and say I was the chief of sinners, as so many do." "Did St. Paul lie when he called himself the chief of sinners?" "I suppose he knew what he was saying. I do not pretend to be St. Paul, or saint anybody; but to pretend I am a great sinner, when I know I am not, would be mere nonsense." "That is as far as I ever get with you. You say you believe the Bible; let us see what that says." "Oh, I know what it says; that every man is, by nature, a great sinner; granted, but all are not equally depraved, and it has always been my nature to be upright, faithful, and true. What would you have more?" "A great deal more. Morality is not Christianity." "You think I am not a Christian because I never joined the church. But I consider myself a better man than half your professors. If I ever do set up to be a Christian, I mean to put most of you to the blush. The way old Mr. Whitcomb gets up and whines over his 'coldness' makes me smile." "I don't like whines any better than you do. But I want to call your attention to a fact you overlook. Allowing that your life is blameless, let me judge you by that life. Its whole history is _forgetfulness of God_, and that issues in final condemnation, however faultless your record in regard to man. You are not honest and upright and amiable to please God, therefore He scarcely looks at this exterior, fair as it is in your eyes." "Prove that I forget God, if you please. Is it forgetting Him to go to church twice every Sunday? I do not make the pretension that some men do, but I defy them to find me wanting in any virtue." "Let us define the word 'forget,' before we go any farther. It implies heedlessness, does it not?" "I suppose so." "Then one who forgets God is heedless towards Him. You go to church every Sunday; outwardly this looks well. But the Divine eye penetrates to the heart. Does He find a true worshiper there?" "You cannot prove that He does not." "I cannot _prove_ it, it is true, but I must judge of the state of your heart on Sundays, by what I see of your life on week-days. Now, I see no Christ there." "I believe the Father judges me more leniently than you do. He finds no fault with my worship." "Does He not? Read what is said in prophecy and afterwards repeated by Christ, of those who worship God with the lips while the heart is far from Him." "While my outward life is spotless I am not afraid of my heart's not keeping step with it. Besides, there is nothing malicious, or unkind, or severe in my heart, that God should look upon with displeasure. It is not mere sentiment He wants. He wants a good, honest, manly life, and that He gets from me." "If He gets from you all He wants, why does He declare you must be born again?" "I know most men need regeneration, but I feel no need of any such change, and never did." "My dear brother," said Mrs. Grey, with difficulty suppressing her tears, "I see that further argument is useless. You are living for yourself and not for Christ, though He has died for you. You are training your sons to outward morality like your own. But all your souls are in jeopardy. There are those who have gone far beyond you; they have prophesied in Christ's name; cast out devils in His name; done many wonderful works in His name; and He has said, 'I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity.'" "At any rate," he returned, "you are religious enough to satisfy the most exacting Being possible. If I fail to enter heaven through my good works, I can plead yours." "Mine!" she cried. "There isn't one on record!" "Oh, if it pleases you to take that view of your life, well and good! It seems to be a part of your creed to believe yourself a sinner." "It is, indeed, my creed," she replied, "and I find that creed in the Word of God. One ray from it darting through your soul would reveal to you depths of evil of which you are now unconscious." "'Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise,'" he said, smilingly, and rose to go. Defeated and grieved, Mrs. Grey went to the Refuge of her soul, to plead once more on behalf of this deluded man. But for a time "He answered her never a word." CHAPTER XIX. Christmas came upon Greylock before they were quite ready for it; it seemed to come earlier every year. Margaret had worked very hard to get a picture done for each of the grown folks, and though she had undoubted genius, and wrote poetry with her artistic brush, of course her work was more or less crude. Once more the house flung open its doors, and the scattered family came trooping in. They were a clannish set, wonderfully fond of each other, and willing to take any amount of trouble in order to accomplish this yearly meeting. Everybody found Frank's three elder children marvelously improved in health and behavior, and he and Lily could hardly believe that these three well-bred, gentle, and obedient young creatures were those who went forth from them like so many unruly colts. Belle's twins were now ten months old--a lovely age--and she was positive they could say "papa," a point on which the rest of the family were doubtful. Mabel was as devoted a lover as ever; there was no room for her in her mother's lap nowadays, but she still stood always close at her side, except when Margaret beguiled her away. "How long did it take you to paint all these pictures, Margaret?" Laura one day asked. "A long, long time, small as they are," she replied. "I can tell you, painting means _work_." "It is a great comfort to us common mortals to see genius plodding along the highway like the rest of us," said Laura. "By the bye, that reminds me that my book, such as it is, is done, and I am going to read it aloud for your delectation the first stormy day." "Whose? Mine?" asked Margaret. "Not yours in particular; all you girls in general." "And leave us boys out?" cried Frank. "You boys won't be left out with my consent," said Harry. "_I_ think it's a capital story." "Of course _you'd_ think it capital if it was 'Mother Goose,'" said Laura. "Don't any of you believe a word he says. It isn't half so good as it ought to be." The stormy day was close at hand, and the whole family met in the library, amused at the idea of "Oney's" writing a book, and secretly afraid they might have to quiz it. The ladies had their work, and were, therefore, out of mischief during the reading. But the gentlemen kept Mrs. Grey in a constant state of scandal the whole time. One unscrewed her inkstand and looked in; another took up and laid down her paper-weights, and always in the wrong place; another upset a bottle of mucilage, hoped she didn't know it, and furtively wiped it up with his handkerchief; another bent a leaf-cutter Margaret had painted for her, and every moment she expected to see it snap in two. Now and then, to Laura's vexation, they whispered to each other, and now and then a mamma was called out, and the reading had to be suspended. But she kept at it manfully, and by degrees, as the "boys" became interested, they let the library-table and its contents alone. And this is Laura's story: ERIC. "It is of no use, I cannot stand; you see the ankle is fractured." "But the Signor will perish if he lies here on the ice." "Is there, then, no hope that one of the other sledges will come to our rescue?" "None whatever. We are quite off the usual route; nightfall is approaching, and there is but one way of escape from death--if the Signor will permit me to take him on my shoulders." "Impossible! You could not bear such a burden a single rod." "The Signor does not know the young men of Dalerna." "Nay, I will not suffer you to make the trial. Go, my good Olaf, and leave me to my fate. It is not needful that both of us should perish. Take my watch to my wife, and with it, present her with my parting salutations. My purse I give to you; by its means you can marry some blue-eyed maiden, and tell her Fortune had a smile for her when it played such a freak on me." The young man colored with indignation. "You do not know our muscles, stranger; neither do you comprehend our scorn for money won by cowardice," he said coldly. And, without another word, he proceeded to burden himself with the disabled traveler, who, after making a feeble resistance, yielded himself to his fate. This scene occurred on the frozen surface of the Gulf of Bothnia. A party of Italians, weary of their own luxurious clime, had come to these northern regions in hope of stirring their blood by adventures and perils. Several ladies of the party remained at Upsala in tolerable comfort, while their husbands and brothers, expecting to find the gulf a smooth and glassy expanse, hastened to cross it in sledges in pursuit of a new sensation. With great difficulty they procured sledges and horses with their drivers, from the country about Grisselhamn, a little town whence they proposed to set out on the expedition. It was also necessary to provide themselves with huge coats of bearskin, before encountering the cutting blasts to which these foreigners were unaccustomed. Thus equipped, the party set forth in high spirits. Instead, however, of smooth surface over which they had expected to glide as on the wings of the wind, they soon found, to their dismay, that they were toiling over a rough and dangerous series of masses of ice, by means of which they were jolted and bruised to the last degree of endurance. Again and again they were thrown from the sledges, whence they went rolling in all directions. To add to their dismay, the horses, fancying these strange objects on the ice to be veritable bears, became every moment more and more unmanageable, and one of them, wild with terror, at length took flight. Several of the occupants of the sledge drawn by this horse were scattered along the way, and were gradually rescued by their fellow-travelers. He who remained at the mercy of the terrified horse, kept his seat with the utmost difficulty, and watched, with anxiety, every motion of his sturdy young driver, Olaf Stein, whose strength seemed to be giving way. Mile after mile they flew over the jagged ice-field in awful silence; awaiting at last in breathless suspense the fate that seemed inevitable. When both were thrown violently from the sledge they lay insensible on the ice, while the horse, now left to himself, rushed onward and was heard of no more. Olaf was the first to recover, and by his aid, his companion was also so far restored as to attempt to rise to his feet. But what was his distress to find that one of his ankles was fractured, and that he must sink back again to the hard and icy bed on which he had already lain until almost benumbed. It was at this point that he was generous enough to concern himself for the safety of his guide, while hopeless of his own; and that Olaf, with equal generosity, resolved to rescue him or perish in the attempt. The task he had assumed was severe. They were quite off the usual track; night was approaching, and the cold becoming intense. He toiled on in a sturdy kind of patience, almost instinctively taking the right direction, until at length he had the joy of finding himself on the track whence the terror-stricken horse had diverged. Very shortly, the other sledges came in sight, and the party made the best of its way back to Grisselhamn. The injured traveler was made as comfortable as was possible under the circumstances, and Olaf was sent to Upsala to bring thence his wife, with her maid. The poor fellow had himself sustained a severe injury when thrown from the sledge, and was also exhausted by his toilsome homeward route. But he set forth at once on the journey to Upsala without a word, and under his escort, those he sought returned with him to Grisselhamn. Fortunately, he was not as entirely ignorant of the Italian language as were his new charge of the Dalecarnian speech. He had wandered repeatedly so far as the northern part of Italy in order to dispose of various little articles of his own handiwork, as well as those of his neighbors. His share of the profits of these adventures had enabled him to purchase the horse he had just lost, and by whose means he supported himself. This, therefore, seemed an inauspicious moment for falling in love, and of proposing to himself to take a wife. But love being a sentiment not particularly subject to order and rule, poor Olaf had to yield to his fate. This fate was black-eyed, and brown, and its name was Viola, and she who possessed these attractions was the little maid whose duty it now was to take charge of her master, with such aid as Olaf could render. Nursing was new business to the hardy young peasant, but he was glad of occupation, and thankful for a task that kept him near Viola. She, on her part, felt supreme contempt for black eyes, from the moment she met the first kind glance from Olaf's blue ones; if he proved an awkward nurse, why, there was all the more for her to teach him. Besides, it was not long before she discovered the severe contusion he had received in his fall, and felt it absolutely necessary to take his aching shoulder under her charge, and to treat it with a vast deal of needed and a vast deal of needless compassion and care. Though his nature was honest as the day, Olaf for once was willing to make the very most of his bruises, since Viola was thus led to pour out upon him such floods of pity as would soon lead to love. When, therefore, the fractured ankle was healed, and the Italian party ready to return home, and Olaf was pressed to ask what favor he would wish in return for his services, it is not so strange, considering what human nature is, that all he asked was permission to make a Swede of the little brown maiden who, in his eyes, was the only maiden on earth. Her mistress, a spoiled child of fortune, received this proposal with indignation; said she could not live without Viola, who knew all her ways, and for whom she had done so much, and that, at least, she could not spare her until their return to Italy. When her husband overruled all these objections by reminding her that he owed his life to Olaf, she ceased open argument and resorted to secret strategy. "How do you expect to live in this villainous climate, you silly child?" cried she, when Viola, with downcast eyes, owned her wish to do so. "You will absolutely perish with the cold. Then think what food you will have to eat! Instead of grapes, and melons, and figs, you will have that abominable bread made of bran mixed with bark and resin! I tasted a bit of it one day, and the very thought of it sickens me. You think Olaf will provide you with flour? Nonsense! And then to sit and spin, spin and knit, knit from morning till night! Why, even the very children in their cradles are taught to work, and I have seen them, myself, knitting all the way to school. What do you say? That you are never so happy as when at work? And that work for one you love will be sweet! You cannot really pretend that you love that great clumsy fellow with his round face like the full moon, and his breeches and knee-buckles, and odd little caps. Now, Viola, that is actually too absurd! Think, now, there was young Oglio, who had such a passion for you; think of the cruelty of forsaking him for this stranger." "I cannot forsake that bad man, for I always hated him, and never would listen to him," cried Viola. "And if the Signora thinks I am only fit to marry such a little, idle, impertinent coxcomb, then the Signora thinks very ill of me." "But then the conscience of the thing, Viola! To renounce your religion just to gratify a mere freak of fancy which you will outgrow in less than a month! Really, when I think of it, I feel that I ought to use the authority given me by your poor mother on her death-bed, and absolutely refuse my consent to this crime." "Renounce my religion! Our holy mother forbid!" cried Viola. "Olaf will surely embrace it so soon as he comes under my influence. He already says I can wind him round my finger." "It is very silly in you to repeat such nonsense. Ah! if you but knew men as I do. The winding is all on the other side, I assure you." "It _was_ silly," replied Viola; "I hope the Signora will pardon me. But it is so long since any one was so good as to love me! It is so lonely, so sad to be an orphan in this great world, so full of fathers and mothers." "None can be so sad or so lonely as they who peril their souls as you are about to risk yours," returned her mistress, severely. Viola became very pale, but was silent, and at that time no further conversation took place. At her next interview with Olaf she related to him all that had passed, and begged to know if in marrying him she should be forced to renounce the religion in which she had been brought up. "Nay," said Olaf, smiling, "I do not intend to be so hard a master, little one." Viola was satisfied. "I shall soon convert him," she said to herself. "I will not frighten her," was Olaf's secret thought. "The little thing loves me dearly; I shall soon hear no more of her beads and mummeries. We shall go to church every Sunday; by and by we shall have children; they shall have dark eyes and dark hair, and be Lutherans, every one of them." So in spite of obstacles, true love ran smoothly with the twain into wedded life. Olaf was put into a position to earn his bread and that of his wife, and after taking leave of their friends, he bore his little treasure to his home, where his aged father and mother yet lived. Viola's life had been hitherto spent in a sunny land, which had for her little real sunshine. Her parents died when she was quite a child, and the mistress into whose hands she then passed was too self-absorbed to ask the question whether this human being had emotions, and passions like her own. Now she went from seeming luxury to the real luxury of being beloved. Olaf's father and mother opened their hearts and took her in without delay; they liked her quaint, lively ways, and her foreign habits were a pleasant marvel, breaking in on the monotony of their hard lives. She, for her part, was young and flexible, and adapted herself readily to her new duties. So their domestic life moved on harmoniously in the main, and Olaf took great delight in teaching his wife to speak the language of his own people, and in hearing her pretty, foreign accent which gave a charm to everything she said. She learned with marvelous rapidity, and the long winter evenings, full as they were of necessary work, gave leisure for reading, also. There was only one point on which the two differed seriously, and this was a vital one, their religion. At first Viola began with great zeal to use various arguments with Olaf to convince him how much she was in the right and how far he was wrong, but he would not argue; he only laughed at her, called her his little one, told her what beautiful hair she had, and the like. Then Viola would turn pale and look displeased, but soon would whisper to herself, "But he loves me!" and in that sweet conviction recover her good-humor. Meanwhile she watched his honest, Christian life with increasing respect. She could not help seeing that in his measure, religion reigned over every detail of his existence, nor fail to contrast it with that of her mistress, who, while faithful to fast and feast, and scrupulous as to prayers and masses, did not hesitate to indulge herself in falsehood and passion. It seemed strange to her that she had been able to respect the religion of one whose violence through many years of her servitude had left visible marks on her flesh; then reproaching herself for such thoughts she did penance in secret, and redoubled her zeal on behalf of her husband. With early May came spring, with buds and blossoms, and Viola welcomed the home of her adoption in its new dress. She surprised her husband by appearing one Sunday morning in the national costume worn by the Dalecarnians on all holidays. For the first time he asked her to go with him to church, and for the first time she was in the mood to gratify him. Hitherto, she had resolved, come what might, never to set foot within that dangerous spot, but on this, of all days, should she and Olaf worship apart? Had she not a sweet secret to whisper in his ear that would make him love her better than ever, and would it be so very great a sin just for that once to kneel with him? So with her heart throbbing beneath her new costume, the prettiest little peasant of the whole picturesque scene, she entered the church with mingled curiosity and fear. Watching Olaf, to do as he did, she stood, with folded hands, to utter, silently, a few words of prayer, then seating herself, she cast timid glances about her. The aspect of the congregation was earnest and reverent. So many rosy, blonde children she never had seen, and coming back from higher thoughts to every-day matters, especially to the subject that at this time lay near her heart, she hoped her little daughter--for surely it was to be a little daughter--might be just like a fair, sweet child who sat opposite, with large blue eyes like Olaf's, and hair almost silvery in its soft beauty. And then she smiled to herself to think how quaint and charming her child should look in a little costume of its own, embroidered with her own hands; but after all, would it not be best to have a boy? would not Olaf like a boy? Of course he would! Then it should be a boy tall and strong and ruddy; not the slender, dark-eyed little fellow she had pictured to herself in years gone by, when dreaming of a home and children, but a real Swedish yeoman, with buckles on his shoes and a picturesque holiday suit like his father's. She laughed as this image presented itself to her imagination: a little low laugh, but Olaf heard it, and turned quickly and looked in her face. Tears of vexation filled her eyes. "Oh, Olaf," she whispered to herself, "you would forgive me if you knew why I laughed, I am sure you would!" Olaf's countenance was serious, but he looked down kindly on his little wife, who sat abashed beneath his glance, recalling her wandering thoughts. "Here I have been trying so long to convert him," she said to herself, "and after all he is far better than I am. Nothing could make _him_ laugh in church!" Thus humbled, Viola entered into the service with all her heart, and listened to the sermon with eager attention, striving to catch its meaning, though only able to do so in a dim and misty way, so new was the language. There were many old people in the congregation, some of whom slept through the whole service, while others coughed; there was also no small variety of babies, who cried whenever they saw fit, and were pacified with onions by their mothers. "I never will bring my baby to church," thought Viola, "and on no account will I feed it with onions! But here I am again, as wicked as ever, and not listening to the sermon at all. Ah, I will pinch myself black-and-blue till I learn to fix my thoughts better! Oh, Jesus--the Jesus Olaf loves--come and help me to be good!" This prayer went forth from the very depths of her heart, and an answer came at once. It seemed as if scales fell from her eyes at that moment, and she felt her soul united to Olaf's and those of the true souls about her; felt the points of union and forgot the points of difference, and with all the warmth of her nature, gave herself to Christ. Ever after, this beautiful Sunday lived in her mind and in that of Olaf's as the bright spot in their lives, for thenceforth there was no discussion, no 'my religion,' and 'thy religion,' but a gradual, quiet union of belief and practice. "There's the lunch-bell!" said Mrs. Grey, as Laura finished the last sentence. "We'll hear the rest after we have sustained ourselves with oysters and other creature comforts. Gabrielle, my dear, please don't drag on your father so; you may love him to your heart's content, but you needn't eat him up." Gabrielle would once have fired up at even as good-humored banter as this, and Frank was astonished to see her loosen the hold she had on his arm, and let him follow his mother's significant glance, and offer it to his wife. After lunch there was an hour with the little ones, and any amount of fun and frolic, headed by the Rev. Cyril, whose specialty it was to be a bear, and go round, on all-fours, after a shrieking, laughing, scampering crowd. At length, order was restored, the family group reassembled, and Laura continued her story. CHAPTER XX. Some months later, as Olaf held in his big arms his first-born son, Viola shyly whispered: "It was to have been a girl, but for your sake I decided it should be a boy. Thinking of it on that blessed Sunday, I laughed, wicked little creature that I was. He is not like you, neither is he like me; indeed he is very ugly; but who cares? We shall love him just the same!" "Nay, I will not have him called 'ugly,'" said his father, "for he has your hair, Viola, and my eyes, and haven't you told me a thousand times you fell in love with me on account of my blue eyes?" "In love!" cried Viola; "now, Olaf, you are too absurd. As if anybody _could_ be in love with such a big, burly, giant-like fellow! Why, how should I, half a mile below you, see up so high as to know the color of your eyes, unless indeed I climbed a ladder on purpose?" So saying, Viola pulled the giant down to his knees by her bed-side, laid his great head on her breast, and patted and caressed it, while railing at him and his eyes and his baby to her heart's content. Olaf received these mingled attentions with purrs of satisfaction, and went on his way with the calm conviction that however his wife and child might look to other people, there was no doubt they were both as near perfection as need be. In spite of her happiness and of Olaf's cares, however, Viola did not recover from her illness very rapidly. She missed now many comforts to which she had been accustomed; some dainty to tempt her appetite, or the luscious fruits of her own land. Her brave, true heart, and Olaf's affection sustained her amid these new demands on her fortitude; when strength failed her she made up for it by patience and energy, and though she accomplished it painfully, she did accomplish as much as other vigorous women of her class. Olaf worked diligently to procure for Viola such alleviations as he could think of; but always accustomed to a life of the utmost simplicity, many of her real wants, had they been expressed, would have seemed to him most puerile. The child received the name of Eric; Viola thus honored and gratified Olaf's father; but she promised herself that her second child should bear the name of her own mother. Little Eric, at six months old, had reversed the apparent gifts of his birthright. His dark hair fell off, and was replaced by a crown of luxurious golden curls; his blue eyes became steel-colored, then a soft brown, like his mother's; he was a marvel of the beauty of two races. And as his character developed he proved the truth of the saying, that mingled races produce the finest strain of nature. In his very babyhood the neighbors said he was no common child, and, of course, Olaf and Viola thought so too, though they both said, as they thought they ought to say, that he was like all the other babies in the world. Viola, indeed, knew little about children. She had neither brother or sister, and the mistress with whom she had spent most of her life could not bear the sound of a child's voice. Eric was, therefore, an object of great curiosity to his young mother; a little mystery whom she was never tired of studying. She and Olaf had some pleasant strife together as to the first language the child should speak; naturally enough, he chose that which he heard most frequently, and spoke his first lisping words in her musical tongue. His grandmother thought that for a Swedish boy to speak Italian was nothing less than a miracle, and prophesied that such a child would die before its time. There was her old neighbor, Stenbock; her son died of knowing too much, and of having his hair left to grow till it hung down all over his shoulders like a yellow veil; she hoped Viola would not let Eric's hair grow in that fashion, though, to be sure, its having once been dark might make all the difference in the world. But when Eric soon proved that he could talk Swedish almost as well as herself, the good grandmother shook her head, and hoped, with secret misgivings to the contrary, that this was not some wicked spirit come in human shape to ruin them all. Viola concerned herself very little with such fancies. Everything the child said or did amused her, but she had too little experience to know how individual this little creature was; how imitative and yet how original. As soon as he could speak plainly, Eric began to go singing about the house, as his mother did. He caught both words and air without effort, and when he sang, seemed as unconscious as a bird on the wing. Then one day, as Viola sat at work, using her needle with great rapidity, she was suddenly aroused from her absorption in it by Eric's long silence; unusual quietness in an active child usually means mischief brewing, as every mother knows. Looking up, she saw Eric seated gravely opposite her, with a bit of cloth fastened to his knee, and imitating her every motion with precision. He had fastened his thread to a pin, and was making this pin move in concert with her needle, only, of course, his movements were only a pretence, while hers were real. She threw herself back in her chair to laugh at her ease at this comic scene; whereupon Eric, with no little humor twinkling in his eye, threw himself back likewise, and laughed in unison with her. "You little monkey, how dare you!" she cried, half vexed and half amused; but Eric looked at her with such an open, innocent face, that she saw he meant no harm, and if a monkey, was a harmless one after all. But now the whole household was kept busy and merry with the incessant activity of this quaint child. Nothing escaped his observation. He coughed like his grandfather; he made believe knit, and took snuff like his grandmother. When Viola shook her head at him, he would instantly turn upon her that open, honest face, free from guile and malice, and obey forthwith. No one who caught that glance could help forgiving the unconscious child and taking him into his confidence. Viola, meanwhile, attained the desire of her heart--a little Swedish maiden with rosy cheeks and fair hair, the very funniest miniature of Olaf. Eric, of course, cried when the baby cried, or at least lifted up his voice in perfect imitation, and crept when the baby crept, as if going on all-fours was man's normal mode of locomotion. At the same time he constituted himself her guardian and protector. All the songs he had picked up he sang to her as she lay in her cradle, and as she grew older he repeated to her, with marvelous accuracy, all the tales he had heard in his short life. Then the tenderness Olaf poured out on Viola, Eric lavished on his little sister; words sacred to husbands and wives who love each other, and which they never mean to let fall on profane ears, will sometimes escape; such words and tones the boy treasured in his memory perhaps many long months, and then showered them on Carina with all manner of courtesies and gallantries. She received them without much response, but with sweet content, for her instincts told her that when Eric said he loved her and could not imagine how he ever got along without her, he was not just "making believe." There was no school in the neighborhood, and Viola was too ignorant of the language to teach Eric to read. His grandmother, therefore, undertook this task, which proved to be only a pleasure, he learned with so much ease, and was so joyous and cheerful over his books. His fine ear enabled him to catch her tones, so that when he first began to read aloud to his father the effect was almost ludicrous; by degrees, however, as his mind developed, he read with great spirit, like, yet unlike, all he had ever heard. By degrees the peculiarities and talents of this strange boy began to be much spoken of; strangers who passed that way made the excuse of needing refreshment, in the hope of seeing for themselves some of his performances. Viola received them with true Swedish hospitality, as her husband wished her to do, but she never could succeed in making Eric understand what was desired of him. His unconsciousness saved him from vanity; what he said and sang, and what he did, were all as natural and simple as childhood could make them. There had been one great inconvenience in his imitative propensities; since his early babyhood they had not dared to take him to church. They knew that the whole congregation would be excited to merriment should he have the opportunity to watch the grotesque gestures of the pastor in the pulpit. Eric had already caught them, to a certain extent, when the minister made his visits at the house; but bad must not be suffered to become worse. When he was four years old, however, Olaf resolved that his boy should be cured of a habit which would make him disagreeable, now that he was ceasing to be a child. He, therefore, set himself seriously to work. "Eric, do you know what sort of an animal a monkey is?" he demanded. Eric began eagerly to tell all he knew, which was not a little. "Well, and should you like to have everybody say you were a monkey?" "I don't know," replied Eric, reflectively. "It wouldn't turn me into a monkey to have folks say I was a monkey. And if I really was one, why, then I should have a great long tail, and I could hang to the branches of trees, this way; look, father, I'll show you how!" "Has the boy really no sense of shame?" cried Olaf, angrily. "Leave him to me, I will manage him," said his grandmother. "Do you know, Eric, how nice and pleasant it is to go to church? There are all the good people together praising God. They sing like the angels, so that one actually sheds tears when one hears them. Now, would not you love to go and shed tears at church, listening to such beautiful music?" "I shouldn't want to go there to cry," returned Eric. "I should like to go and sing like an angel, though." "But if we let you go you will not be contented with singing. You will be getting up on the seat, making your arms go like our dear pastor's." "Should I?" said Eric. "But, dear grandmother, couldn't you tie my arms with a string?" "Fie! now you are talking nonsense. And great boys four years old should not talk nonsense." "Yesterday, when I asked for another piece of oaten cake, you said I ate too much for such a little boy," said Eric, thoughtfully. "But it is a long while since yesterday; perhaps I _am_ a great boy now." "Well, well, child; but now suppose we take you to church with us to-morrow, will you behave yourself like a little man, and not fall into any of your tricks?" "I don't know," said Eric, mournfully. "Maybe I should. I never do any tricks on purpose. They come and make me." "Who come and make you?" "The Trolls, and all of them." "Now who has been teaching the child such wicked nonsense?" cried Olaf, starting to his feet. "Oh, mother, I would not have believed this of you!" "Don't be angry with mother, Olaf dear," said Viola, gently. "She can't help believing things she has been taught all her life." Olaf was silent. He felt angry with his mother, and wanted to reproach her. But that must not be in the presence of that keen-eyed child, who would remember every look and tone. "Eric," he said at last, "you will go to church with us to-morrow, for our pastor will have it so. But there are no Trolls in God's house, therefore if you are not a good boy I shall know whose fault it is." "You will be a good boy, Eric, won't you now?" said his mother, coaxingly. "Yes, dear mother, I will," replied Eric, in tones so perfectly like her own, that, as usual, they all burst out laughing. With such management the only wonder is the poor child was not ruined at once. But He who commits little children to the hands of inexperienced and ignorant parents--and are there any earthly hands that are not such?--He overrules the mistakes and corrects the errors. Eric had been used all his life to be coaxed, threatened, laughed at, praised, and argued with, in multitudes of cases where a single word of parental authority was all that was needed. The next day was a bright, cheerful Sunday, and the whole family set off for church in good spirits. Eric was full of curiosity to know what going to church could really mean. He helped pack the basket of dinner, and made himself useful in many ways a less-observing child would not have thought of. On entering the church he watched carefully to see what his father and mother did, and perceiving that they stood for a moment with folded hands, engaged in silent prayer, he, too, closed his eyes and moved his lips, with an aspect of great devotion. When they were all seated, his eager gaze at the unwonted scene around him repaid his mother for bringing him with her. She enjoyed his surprise and pleasure, and showed her sympathy with him by pressing the little hand she held in her own. Nothing was lost upon him, and he responded at the close of every prayer, like a veteran, until that preceding the sermon; for a moment his attention wandered, and he sat lost in thought, till suddenly arousing himself, he uttered a vigorous "Amen" that was heard all over the church, and which broke in upon the text which the pastor was repeating in solemn accents. Viola laughed; Olaf pretended not to have heard, but changed color in spite of himself; the grandmother shook her finger at him, and Eric, amid these contending influences, felt half pleased and half frightened. He now, however, was attracted by the sermon, and the manner of its delivery; he sat erect, silent, almost breathless, a picture of awe and of ecstacy. Gradually, seeing him so absorbed, Olaf and Viola began to feel easy about him; Olaf gave himself up to enjoyment of the sermon; Viola attended to Carina, who continually asked if service were most done, and whom she invariably answered; the old grandmother fell asleep, and the grandfather began to take snuff. Eric unconsciously rose to his feet, climbed up to the seat, stretched forth now this arm, now that, clasped his hands, looked heavenward, and, in short, copied every motion of the pastor with unerring accuracy. The pastor, instead of serious faces, saw endless smiles; he was first surprised, then displeased; his gestures became animated with these emotions, and Eric faithfully repeated them, till, by degrees, nearly the whole congregation was in an uproar. The poor little fellow was ignominiously pulled down from his throne, and borne out of church by his exasperated father, who could hardly wait till he got him to a safe distance, before he gave him a most severe thrashing. He was interrupted in this labor by a hand laid, with force, upon his arm, and turning resentfully to the intruder, was ashamed to find himself confronted by the pastor's wife. He pulled off his cap, and saluted her, and Eric, in the midst of his pain, did the same. The Fru Prostinna looked kindly down upon the little boy, and instantly reassured, a frank smile lighted up his ingenuous face. "You were severe with the poor child," said the Fru Prostinna. "It was because I forgot to have my hands tied!" cried Eric eagerly. "I brought the string, but when I got inside the church and saw so many people, all dressed in holiday clothes so gay, and the Prost with his black gown and big ruff, and heard the singing and praying; oh, I forgot my string! But here it is," he continued, drawing it from his pocket, "and next time father will tie my hands." The Fru Prostinna smiled. "Well, my little fellow," said she, "I think it would be better to tie your hands than to break your bones, and you may thank me for hurrying after you out of church, to see that you were not killed outright. Play about now, while your father and I have a little talk together." As soon as Eric was out of hearing, Olaf began to apologize for his severity to the child. "It is the first time I ever laid my hand on him," he said, "and it shall be the last." "Do not say that, Olaf. Correction is as necessary in our days as it was when Solomon forbid the sparing of the rod. Rather resolve never to strike him again in anger." "Why, I could not strike him at all, if I were not angry," said Olaf. "For though he is wild in his way of mocking everything he sees and hears, he is a good boy in other things; a merry, pleasant boy as need be." "Yes, I know. I have heard all about that. And if I were you, instead of reproving or laughing at this habit, I would turn it to good account. His active nature craves employment; now the next time you manufacture any of those pretty baskets you used to make, lay materials and tools within his reach, and see if instead of imitating, in a superficial way, all your motions, he does not really produce a facsimile of your work." This was a new idea to Olaf, and it gave him pleasure. "Ah, if Eric had the Fru Prostinna for his mother, she would train him so wisely and discreetly; whereas, Viola is never the same person one day that she is the next. She lets the children do so many things I was not allowed to do at their age. And the Fru Prostinna would have made a man of Eric. Not a hard-working peasant, a great rough fellow like myself, but, who knows? a clergyman perhaps, with his parish and his schools, and his farms and his houses!" And Olaf began to feel aggrieved, and as if Viola, in being of his own rank in life, and uninstructed and capricious, had done him a wrong and deprived him of the chance of giving a refined and educated mother to his children. But when she came, at the close of service, to meet him, dressed in her becoming holiday costume, her red bodice and white cap, her face looked, as it always did, home-like and very dear. He laughed at himself for the foolish thoughts that a momentary ambition had awakened, and as they sat on the grass, eating their dinner together, told her what the pastor's good wife had said to him. "But you only make baskets and things of that sort in the winter evenings," said Viola. "And such work as you are doing now, he cannot possibly do. But my work he can learn, and that he shall do forthwith." So the next day, when she swept her house she put a little broom into Eric's hands, saying, "Sweep now, as I do. Don't just move your brush in the air; do just as I do, and make the floor clean for mother." Eric obeyed, and when he saw that his little brush helped to beautify the floor, he used it with delight, singing joyfully to himself the while, and doing his work with his mother's exactitude. So it was in almost all the details of the day; and when, in the afternoon, she sat in her well-ordered room, in her clean, fresh dress, and began to sew, she gave Eric, not a bit of waste cloth, but part of a little garment, saying: "See, now, dear Eric, when I sew I join these pieces together, and make your little sleeve. But when you sew you make nothing. You only move your arms as I move mine." Then Eric watched her more closely, and saw that she pulled her needle through her work, now in, now out; imitated her with joy, and really made the little sleeve. Viola showed it to his father in the evening, and they all thought it a wonderful affair, as it indeed was, for the stitches were not the unwilling, irregular workmanship of compulsion, but the result of a taste that must indulge itself in aiming at perfection. Eric, himself, was not satisfied with his sleeve because it was not so nicely done as his mother's, but she laughed at the idea of his expecting at his first attempt to equal her needlework, of which she was very proud. A few weeks later, two little arms came to fill the little sleeves; the baby-boy to whom they belonged, was beautiful from his birth; even Viola was satisfied with him, though she would not own it. Eric did not cry in imitation of his brother, as he had done with his sister; he knew better, now; besides, he was too busy to waste his time in watching him, except when bidden to do so. His father had been occupied at intervals during several weeks in manufacturing articles which Viola needed about the house: a table, two chairs, and a little bedstead for Carina, who must give up her place by her mother's side to the baby. Eric could hardly contain himself till he had made miniature furniture of the same pattern. To be sure, he pounded his fingers and cut them, and met with all sorts of difficulties, but that made no difference; chairs and table and bedstead he was resolved to make, and make them he did; and then his mother made a little doll of the right size for the furniture, and the whole establishment was given to Carina. His father was astonished at this performance, which he could appreciate better than he could the needlework. He began to find great pleasure in taking Eric with him to his work, and in answering his endless questions, which were daily becoming more and intelligent. He was obliged to work very hard, now that there were so many little children, for though the grandfather owned the house in which they lived, this was all they possessed, except the small bit of land which had been bought at the time of his marriage, when Olaf hoped to add to it; but that he had never been able to do. Shortly after the birth of the third baby, the grandfather began to suffer seriously from rheumatism, particularly in his hands, so that by degrees he became quite unable to do work of any sort. Olaf must do double duty; but it was some relief to see Eric growing every day stronger and more useful, and to look forward to the time as not far distant, when he would materially help in the support of the family. To be sure, the neighbors all said among themselves, that Eric would be Jack of all trades, and master of none; such prodigies, they were sure, never turned out in the end to be anything wonderful; and after all, he wasn't so much of a marvel as he might be. Olaf, however, determined to have Eric's education hurried forward as speedily as possible. But how was this to be done? Viola knew how to keep her house, to bear children, and to be a good, loving mother to them; but beyond these duties she could not go. Her education was far inferior to that of the peasantry about her; she could neither read nor write. The grandmother had taught Eric to do both, and had made him say the catechism every Sunday till he knew it past ever forgetting one of its ponderous words; but this did not satisfy Olaf; he was sure he ought to do more for this boy who had been endowed by nature with such varied powers. CHAPTER XXI. While the subject was under discussion, the Prost came driving over from the village, to make known that he had secured a teacher for the neighborhood, who would collect the children together for instruction, as ought to have been the case long before. The family rejoicings were great; but the question now arose, how was the boy to get to the school? A Dalecarnian mother would easily have led him thither, with her baby strapped upon her back; but Viola was not strong enough for such an undertaking. But as the grandfather's rheumatism had only disabled his hands, he volunteered as escort, and as the old man and the child went to and fro together, many were the godly instructions that fell into the receptive, youthful soul. Not to be entirely outdone by her husband, the grandmother every morning plucked a clover-leaf for the boy, to insure good luck. She was yet in the prime of life; tall and strong and ruddy; she could work on their bit of land like a ploughman, and understood all the petty economies peculiar to the hard lives of her country-women. Bark-bread, revolting to Viola, nourished her powerful frame, and the bracing air of her native valley gave color to her cheek. But for her, Viola could never have endured the hardships of her lot. Olaf, meanwhile, had, during the winter evenings, manufactured a sufficient quantity of articles to justify another pedestrian trip to Italy, but when he spoke of it, Viola clung to him, with tears, entreating him not to go. But he yearned for change; the novelty of domestic life was over; the spirit that had brought Viola's master and his friends to the North, urged him to the South. "Don't cry, little one," he said, "I sha'n't be gone long, and shall bring back what will make us comfortable for a long time. Pray for me, night and morning; take the communion faithfully; watch over the boy's soul in my place, and see that his grandmother reads the Bible to him every day." Eric watched the parting between them with his usual keen observation. Why did the mother cry, and the father smile, he wondered; and why should his soul be watched over more than Carina's? And where was his soul, after all? "Carina mia," he said solemnly, as he started for school next morning, "you should put your arms around my neck and weep when we part, like the dear mother. And I shall watch over your soul, as the father has watched mine." "Was there ever such a boy?" cried Viola. Eric gave her one of his guileless smiles, and said: "No, never," exactly as if he were talking of some third party; and then, with the usual good-bye kiss, proceeded on his way. Everybody they met on the way to and from school was hard at work, save very aged men and women, who, however, were not idle, but might often be seen seated amid groups of fishermen, or peasants at work in the fields, reading the Bible aloud. Eric marked, and inwardly digested, this, and though he had not yet learned to read well, could pretend to do so to perfection. In his father's absence his grandparents read a chapter to him every day; he would then take the book and, by a wonderful act of memory, with his eyes fixed upon the page, repeat word for word to the bewildered Carina. As Olaf pursued his solitary way, his thoughts dwelt fondly on his little home, and proudly on his boy. But when he reflected that his education would, at best, be limited, and that he would grow up to a heritage of economy and care, he sighed, and wondered why nature made such mistakes--lavishing gifts upon the poor, to whom they were of no use, and often withholding them from the rich, to whom they would have been so welcome. He made his way once more into Italy, and disposed of his wares quite readily--more so than ever before, because he now spoke Italian readily. His weary shoulders were gladly relieved of the heavy pack they had borne, and he now bethought himself that he might indulge Viola with some memento of her native land. But what should it be? It was an event in his life to make a present, and he felt almost ashamed of himself for being so sentimental. While he stood stupidly scratching his head, a merry, musical voice fell on his ear, that was so like Viola's that he started and turned, almost expecting to see her before him. It was a young girl, daughter of the man to whom he had sold his wares, and she was asking if he did not mean to carry home some gift to his wife, unconsciously hoping that he hadn't one. Olaf felt that he could confide in one of Viola's country-women, and in a few words told her the dilemma he was in. A quick flash of intelligence lighted the girl's face, and she began searching among the heterogeneous articles scattered about, and finally held up, in triumph, a small picture, in which Italy's beautiful blue was the color that chiefly caught the eye. Olaf knew little about art, but had some general idea that even this small study was beyond his means. But the musical tongue ran merrily on; he should have it for her country-woman for a mere song, and it would warm her heart to see a bit of her own sky. "Yours," she said, "is bleak and cold. I would not live there; it would kill my heart!" At the same time she would have tried the experiment under the guidance of such a genial-looking man as Olaf, provided he had no wife. "And now," she said, "something for the boy, with his blue eyes and rosy cheeks." "Black eyes and olive cheeks, like thine!" cried Olaf. The girl blushed and smiled. "Would this please him, think you?" she asked, producing a miniature palette, on which were fastened cakes, in water colors--a cheap affair, such as, however, has gladdened many a child's heart. "And, stay, here are brushes, likewise--a gift to the Swedish boy with my eyes and hair." Olaf received the little gracefully-offered gift, and took leave, the young girl following his sturdy figure with her eyes as long as it was in sight. "The saints grant that the father does not miss the picture, and beat me for as good as giving it away," she cried; "and if he does, Antonio shall paint him another. Ah, Antonio, if your eyes were but blue, and your cheeks ruddy! If you were tall, and straight, and strong, and not as black as a raven, and round-shouldered, and bow-legged! And still painted divinely!" Olaf proceeded rapidly home, and greeted his wife in a way that procured for Carina, on the part of Eric, embraces, kisses, and asseverations not a few. But when the picture was produced, and Viola saw this bit of her native land, a strange complication of emotions she could not understand made her burst into tears. A sense of the beautiful had long lain dormant in her soul amid the stern scenes about her. Now came reminiscences of sunshine, birds and flowers, and delicious fruit; of works of art seen in the house of her master at Rome, and dimly appreciated. "Thou wicked picture, to make the dear mother cry!" said Eric, rushing at it with a stick of wood. "I'll kill thee!" But as his eye fell upon it, his hand dropped at his side, and a new soul illumined his face. They laughed at him, they shook him, they tried in every way to divert his rapt attention, but all in vain; he stood like a devotee before a shrine, and lost to all beside. "Let him alone," said Olaf, at last. "He has gone clean daft over a picture no bigger than my hand!" Indeed, he and Viola had enough to talk about, for they had had no correspondence during their absence, as Viola could not write. "I have had a strange proposition made to me," said Olaf. "Before selling my wares, who should I stumble upon but your Signor and Signora. The Signor recognized me at once, and made friendly inquiries about you. The Signora was, at first, very haughty and distant; but after a while became more gracious, and spoke of you in a way that made me proud of you. She says she is out of health, and sad, and lonely; and that if we would all come to their villa, near Rome--you to be to her what you once were, and I his valet--they would make it a great object to us." "And I suppose our children count for nothing," said Viola, indignantly. "Yes; they seemed to think the children could stay with their grandparents. But isn't it a pity now that we could not go just for a time, and earn money to educate the boy?" "Olaf, I am ashamed of you," said Viola. "Leave our children, and go and live in that idolatrous land!" "But you hate so to spin." "I adore spinning." "And the bark-bread is so nauseous to you." "It is delicious." "And you have no grapes, no peaches, no melons." "Grapes, and peaches, and melons! Ugh! Disgusting things!" Olaf listened, bewildered, but convinced. "I thought," he faltered, "that you had often said you used to revel in luxuries; but it seems I was mistaken." "Indeed you were, you bad child. Talk not to me of Counts and villas. Did I not enter Paradise when I left them?" "Then the picture does not please you? My mind misgave me when I bought it. But the maiden who selected it was like you, Carissima, and had me round her finger." "The picture is bewitched; it has driven the boy mad. Eric, come to me!" The boy woke from his dream of ecstacy and bounded towards her. "See what the father has brought thee! Put in the thumb--so; no, no, the left thumb; hold the brush thus; ah, I have seen men paint in my country. Bring me a cup of water, and a bit of paper; there, my little man, now thou art an Italian, not a Swedish boy, and shalt paint Carina." The boy looked at her, and then at the colors, delighted, confused, trembling, as she made some inartistic dabs upon the paper; then suddenly seized the materials and began to work himself, making a rude imitation of the picture that had so entranced him. Amid their homely, hard-working life, his parents ceased to heed him. He was out of mischief, and they had much to think of and much to do. Days, weeks passed, and Eric painted on; always at the one subject, never weary, never impatient, but discarding one copy, only to begin on another. At last the Prost drove up in great state, and was in the midst of a solemn harangue, when his eye suddenly fell upon a row of pictures pinned to the wall. "What is all this?" he cried, imperiously. "The boy only does it in his play-hours," said Viola, apologetically. "The boy!" repeated the Prost. "Unhappy mother!" Viola trembled, and caught at the nearest chair. "What is the matter?" she gasped. "_The boy is a genius!_" he hissed in her ear. "Is it my fault?" she asked, piteously. "Did I create him? And what _is_ a genius? Is it anything to come between him and salvation?" "Yes, woman, it is. Take these colors away from the child; give him no more play-hours, and set him at honest work. What has the son of a peasant to do with genius, I should like to know?" "We will do all we can to cure him of it," said Olaf, in deep humility. The Prost departed, leaving the frightened household fluttering behind him, like poultry besieged by a fox. When Eric came home from school the terrific announcement was made to him that his beloved colors were his no longer; that the mother had thrown them into the fire, and the grandmother raked hot coals over them. The boy uttered not a word, and did not shed a tear. He was like one stunned. But there was something awful in his childish silence. "Eric," said his mother, "we have not done this in anger. But the Prost willed it, and who dares resist the Prost?" "Mother, what have I done to anger the Prost?" "He says you are a genius." "Is that something very bad?" "Oh, yes! Very, very bad!" "But you said the dear Lord would not let me be bad, if I prayed to Him. And I have prayed six times, and four times." "Well, you must pray fifty times." "Yes, I will." He went and knelt down, and folded his hands, looking upward and said: "Thou, dear Lord, I did not be a genius on purpose. It came its own self. Help me not to be one any more." But his pale, sorrowful little face smote his mother to the heart. Her spirit rose in rebellion against the Prost. Why should he come with this terrible and mysterious accusation against her godly boy? She lay awake long that night, thinking what was to be done, and the next morning, as soon as Olaf had gone to his work, she said to the grandmother: "If you will take care of the little ones for me, while I go to the village, I will spin for you as long as you require." "And what errand have you at the village, child?" "The Prostinna is always kind; she will make me understand what is evil in the boy; as for me, I see no evil in him, and my heart is breaking." "Yes, go, thou good child. And the dear Lord go with thee!" The Prostinna received Viola with great sympathy, when she learned that she had come in sorrow; but when she heard her artless tale, could with difficulty repress peals of laughter. "You do not understand the Prost, my poor child," she said, as she could trust herself to speak. "The boy is a gifted boy; he will become a great man; there is nothing to be alarmed about." "But the Prost called me an unhappy mother," objected Viola. "Yes, for when your son has won a name and riches, and is abroad in the world, he will despise, nay, he will forget you; you will see him no more." "It is not true!" cried Viola, proudly. "No, thank God, it is not thus my boy will demean himself. And how should having great gifts come between him and salvation? Are not all gifts from the Lord?" "They are; and it is their abuse, only, that makes them perilous. Now let me advise you how to manage the boy. Give him the best education you can; keep him pure, and simple, and pious; and leave the rest to God. He can take care of his future, and, if you trust Him, He will." Viola thanked the kind lady, and went home relieved, though after such a humiliation as that of the previous day, not proud. "Eric, my boy," she said to him, "if you trust in God, and pray to Him every day, as long as you live, it will not be an evil thing to be a genius. The Pastorinna says that to be one means nothing evil, but only that you have wings hidden away in your shoulders that will grow and grow and grow till you are a man, and then they will unfold and be two great, white, strong pinions, that will carry you all over the world, if you like; and that sounds to me like being an archangel, such as we read about in the Bible." The boy slipped his hand under his blouse, and felt his shoulder. "I think I feel a very, very little wing growing," he said. "But I sha'n't want to fly all over the world; I shall fly up to heaven to see the dear Lord." Viola's heart gave a great bound of pain. "You would fly away from us who love you so?" she cried. "Only to see the dear Lord," said Eric, solemnly. Then an inward voice spake to Viola, and said: "Better that than off into the wide, wicked world; better that than name and fame and riches, and a despised, forgotten mother! Even so, Father, if so it seem good in Thy sight." Laura stopped reading, folded her manuscript, and looked shyly about her. "Oh, Laura! you don't mean that you killed that beautiful boy?" cried Belle. "How could I help it?" asked Laura, the tears running down her cheeks. "He _would_ die! I tried all I could to have him live, and so did his father and mother, and all of them. But the wings grew and grew, and he mounted upward, and passed through the golden gate; but he left it ajar for Viola." "Mamma, you'll have to look out," said Frank. "Laura is catching up with you rather too fast." "I like to keep step with those I walk with," she replied, with a smile. "She may catch up, and welcome." "I never did you any kind of justice, Laura," said Belle. "That was not your fault. How _can_ one do justice to a butterfly, as long as it's an ugly chrysalis?" "But, Laura, how could you have the heart to take both Eric and Viola away from Olaf?" asked Margaret. "Poor Olaf, indeed?" cried Laura, "just as if men never survived the loss of their wives. I have no doubt that by the time the first year was out he trotted down into Italy and married that pretty little Italian girl who reminded him so of Viola, and who took such a fancy to him." "But she was a Romanist," objected Belle. "So was Viola; yet he converted her. On the whole, I think I sacrificed her in a proselyting spirit." "Well, what put Eric into your head?" asked Cyril Heath. "What puts anything into anybody's head?" she responded, saucily. "And when I had got him on my hands, I didn't know what to do with him, and his death was a mercy." "I am going to have this story published," said Harry. "I'm right proud of my wife." "Suppose I put it into my book," said Mrs. Grey. "Would you, mamma?" cried Laura, eagerly. "That would be splendid. How can you bring it in?" "Very easily. It is not so far off my track that it will at all interfere with it." "Well, Miss Oney," said Belle, "so you're an authoress at last. But I don't envy you. I would rather be the authoress of these babies, than of any book I know." "So would I," cried Margaret. "So would I, you dear old geese!" said Laura, laughing. "But I have to put up with what comes to me." CHAPTER XXII. "I want a bit of talk with you, Frank," Mrs. Grey took an opportunity to whisper on the way to the dinner-table. "All right," he replied. "Shall it be in the library, after the rest have gone to bed? Or right after dinner, in your dressing-room?" "Right after dinner," she replied; and as soon as the meal was over, they disappeared. "Now for my curtain-lecture," he said, as they seated themselves by the fire. "I want to speak a word for your poor Lily," she said. "You began by loving her extravagantly, and educated her into expecting this sort of thing could last; now you are transferring your attentions to Gabrielle, in a way that must hurt your wife." "Gabrielle has grown charming," he replied, "and it is delightful to have her again." "That may be; but you may depend upon it, I understand my sex better than you do, and that no woman wants to see a girl put into the place once hers, even though the girl is her own child." "Lily never complains of it." "No; but she droops under it." "I don't like the idea of her being jealous of Gabrielle." "That's not the way to put it. It is not jealousy. You lavish on Gabrielle, by the hour together, caresses you used to lavish on Lily, and she would have to be made of stone not to feel it. You must bear with me, my son, when I say that I don't like it. Whatever defects you may find in her, you cannot undo the past. You fell desperately in love with her, and married her; now you owe it to her to keep up that affection." "Our affections are not under our control." "True; but they are under God's control, and He can make all right between you twain." "It never crossed my mind to ask Him to do that. But, mammy dear, who says I am alienated from Lily? Loving Gabrielle does not involve indifference to my wife." "You ask who says it? _I_ say it, and say it with pain. I did hope to see my sons loyal to the wives they themselves chose, however they might be disappointed in them. Lily has never wilfully annoyed you, and she gives you all the affection she is capable of giving, and wants yours in return." Frank sat thoughtfully looking into the fire, and at the same time searching his own heart. At last he said: "I thank my dear mother for her timely faithfulness. I see now that I must have wounded Lily in many ways. I shall ask her pardon, and start afresh. She little knows her indebtedness to you." "What's going on here; secrets?" said Fred, who had knocked and been admitted. "I have had my dressing, and now you may come and have yours," said Frank, rising. "There's hardly a chance to get in a word edge-wise, when Frank is at home," said Fred, taking possession of the seat he had vacated. "And I'm sure he doesn't love and admire you more than I do. I want to tell you, as I could not in a letter, what a happy family you have made of us. We took all your lessons to heart, and the improvement in Kitty is marvelous. She is a very interesting little creature, and a great amusement to us. Hatty keeps a journal, and records all her bright speeches." "I am glad of that. You must let me see it. Every mother ought to keep one, if she can." "Did you keep one about me?" "No. You never said anything bright enough. It wasn't your forte to make smart speeches. Frank and Belle made enough to cover anything wanting in the rest of you. Tell me all about the baby now. Do you know Hatty has never written me once since it was born, and that all I know of it is that it is a boy?" "Is that so? Why, I took it for granted Hatty had written. Well, he's a magnificent fellow, exactly like me." "Shall I ever get the conceit out of you, you foolish boy?" she said, looking up at him with loving eyes. "Yes, a magnificent fellow! Almost as big as Kitty, but not at all like her. He has a thick head of hair, dark eyes, and the prettiest little dumpling of a chin, with a dent in it. Kitty nearly eats him up. He's a good-natured chap, too, always laughing and crowing, and kicking up his heels. I tell you what, mother, it's great fun to have a dear little wife and two splendid children. Hatty says she means to have ten." "I don't see but I shall have to add a large wing to this house if that is the case," she said, much amused and pleased. "But they must all be getting together in the library, and we had better join them." "Yes, I suppose so. What were you and Cyril talking about at dinner? I only caught a word or two." "Oh, I was consulting him on a series of articles I was requested to write for a magazine." "Didn't I hear something about editing one?" "I dare say. That was one out of dozens of similar propositions." "They keep you as busy as ever, it seems. And Laura is following in your footsteps. Wasn't it a little tall in her to read her own story, though?" "No; there's nothing tall about her. She's just as fresh and unspoiled as a rose-bud." "I'm glad you think so. I can't bear to think of either of the girls as being like the common feminine run." They descended to the library, and found them all prepared to play some game of wits, with pencil and paper. "Oh, here come mamma and Fred," said Belle, gaily, "and they are two of the brightest at this game. Where are the pencils? I have no pencil." "I bought a box last Christmas," said Frank. "Surely they can't all be gone." "Oh, I'll get them," said Margaret. "I remember putting them in one of the drawers in the library table. Yes, here they are. But they need sharpening." Thereupon, out came half a dozen penknives, and the gentlemen prepared the pencils with great zeal. They were all, from Mrs. Grey down to Gabrielle, fond of these innocent little games, and some of the inspiration of the moment was so bright that Laura provided herself with a blank-book, and took copies of them, that years later were read, with great applause, at one of the Christmas gatherings. "I want Belle to hold a Bible-reading some evening," said Cyril Heath. "Oh, I couldn't," cried Belle, shrinking back. "What's a Bible-reading?" asked Frank, interested at once. "Belle has learned the English system, and holds two every week; one on Sunday afternoon for myself and the children and servants; one for a company of from twenty to thirty ladies; both in our own house; and they are delightful. I believe that if they were held all over the land, our country would be revolutionized. I never enjoyed the study of the Bible as I have since we began it in this way. The children enjoy it, too." "Let us have one to-morrow evening, by all means," said Frank. "And that will be something you can join in, Lily," he said, turning kindly to his wife; "you who dislike games so." Lily felt the unaccustomed tones, and gave a grateful look. After they went to their room that night, Belle said to her husband: "How could you propose my holding a Bible-reading with all those men?" "Because I think you do it so nicely. Still, if you prefer it, I will conduct it as long as the boys are at home. After they go I hope you will take it." The next evening they all gathered around the library-table, each with a Bible in hand. Old Mary came, with her spectacles, very curious to know what was to be done. Mr. Heath chose the sixty-third Psalm, and called upon Frank, Jr., who sat next him, to read the first verse. But Frank had not found his place, and Gabrielle read for him. "Now, in the ideal Bible-reading," said Mr. Heath, "the reader makes a remark, or asks a question." "I should like to ask, then, why David and others put the word 'my' before the name of God, so often?" "I think there are two reasons. In those days a large number of gods were worshipped, and it was natural enough for men to distinguish between them through the possessive case. Besides, the old saints all had assurance of faith. They not only loved God, but they knew they loved Him." "The moment we put the possessive case before a thing, it assumes a new interest for us," said Belle. "In prayer we say 'my' and 'our', and I don't know that it would not be more reverent if we did it in conversation. Some people have a flippant way, or what seems like it, of saying, 'I told the Lord thus and so, and He said so and so.' Wouldn't it sound less familiar if they put it 'my Lord'?" "Perhaps so," said Mrs. Grey. "At any rate we must have assurance of faith, if we are to grow in grace." "Why must we, grandmamma?" asked Gabrielle. "Because, if we keep digging up our seeds to see if they've sprouted, or how many roots they have, we are in danger of destroying what vitality they have." The children all looked at each other with conscious smiles. "I lost all my beans that way," said Frank, Jr. "Shall I read the next verse, uncle?" "Oh, no, we have only touched a corner of the first one yet." As it turned out, this one verse served them for study an hour; an hour enjoyed by the children as well as the elder ones; and all who engaged in this exercise for the first time, were delighted with it. Mrs. Grey resolved to start a reading among her neighbors; Laura said she should do the same for hers; Margaret wondered if she could get courage to hold one with half a dozen young girls of her acquaintance, and found she could. Meanwhile, Mrs. Grey received a note from Mrs. Grosgrain, imploring her to come to her as soon as possible next morning. "How fortunate that I have kept up the acquaintance," she said, running over the note. "Now comes a chance to do them good." "Grandmamma," said Gabrielle, "you are not going to see those kind of people, and leave us, when we are having such nice times together?" "That kind of people, not those kind. And of course I am going, for they are in trouble." "It's too bad. Everybody thinks you are made to look after them. And I was in hopes you would finish reading that German story to me." "I suppose you don't include yourself among the 'everybody'?" said Frank, laughing. "But, papa, we had just got to the most exciting part." "I'll read the rest of it," said Margaret. "You'll want to be painting." "No; I don't paint in the holidays." "Oh, no, you don't." "I wonder if mamma ever thinks of herself one minute at a time," said Belle, as her mother retired to make preparations for the early expedition of the morrow. "It is a real sacrifice to her to lose a whole day of our visit; but she has trotted off to get ready, like a girl. And she'll be thrown away on those Grosgrains." "Yes, just thrown away," repeated Laura. "I wonder she doesn't see it." "I dare say one of them has put her thumb out of joint," said Margaret, feeling like anything but an angel towards the Grosgrains. "To think of leaving all of you to go to see such people. However, I don't know that it's any stranger than the way she lets herself be interrupted when she is writing." "Writing isn't her profession, you know," said Belle. "It never was. She used to write as long ago as when we were babies, and yet did not neglect us." "I am doing the same," said Laura. "I mean to go on writing, but Pug and Trot won't suffer from it. Of course scribbling is a mere recreation. My profession is to be a good wife and mother, as I am sure mamma's was. As to you, Margaret, you are a genius, and must make up your mind never to marry." "Thank you," said Margaret, dryly. "Why, you don't mean to say that it isn't enough to be an artist!" cried Laura, a little dubious as to what the dry tone meant. "If by being an artist I have got to kill off my heart, and live for fame, then an artist I won't be," returned Margaret. "I am in no hurry to be married; and if I decide to be an old maid, it won't be without children, I can tell you." "And where do you expect to get them?" "By begging, borrowing, buying, or stealing them," said Margaret, her good humor returning at the thought. "What, and bring them here to live?" asked Gabrielle. "No, indeed. I must earn a home of my own first." "Papa says you will make a great name for yourself," pursued Gabrielle. "What do I want of a great name?" cried Margaret. "It is the very last thing in the world a woman ought to seek." "So I think," said Belle. "But suppose she gets it without seeking?" asked Laura. "Look here, Laura," said Margaret, springing up, "let me feel if you have a pair of wings sprouting. It is my private opinion that you have, and that it is you, not I, who is to be famous. And how stupid I was, the first time I saw you, to fancy you just--just--" "A goosey-gander? Yes, I was perfectly delighted to see how you measured me after the first ridiculous talk we had together." "I don't think it's nice to belie one's self as you do, Laura," said Belle. "Even your own mother never knew you till this story of yours opened her eyes." Laura shrugged her shoulders. "I shouldn't care to be so shallow that people could read me at a glance," she said. "One is not necessarily shallow because transparent," said Belle. "Margaret, how nearly done is mamma's book?" asked Laura. "So nearly that I think I hear it ringing the doorbell now. I saw an expressman just drive up. Yes, here comes the parcel. Might we open it, think?" Laura replied by cutting the cord and throwing it upon the floor, whence Belle picked it up and wound it around her fingers, and put it away in her mother's string-box. "How beautifully it is got up," said Laura. "But why wasn't it out at Christmas?" "Aunty thought it would be," said Margaret, "but there was unexpected delay. Oh, are you each going to read it to yourselves?" she added, in a disappointed tone, as she saw each take possession of a volume. "I thought we should read it aloud. Aunty, your books have come," she cried, as Mrs. Grey here entered the room. "Indeed? Just in time for me to take one to Mrs. Grosgrain." "Pooh! Always Grosgrain!" thought Margaret; but took one of the volumes and folded it carefully in a fresh sheet of paper, and placed it on the library-table, and the next morning reminded Mrs. Grey to take it with her. CHAPTER XXIII. Mrs. Grey proceeded on her way, on a bitterly cold day, when so much ice had formed in the harbor that crossing the ferry occupied hours instead of minutes. Foreseeing that return before the morrow would be impossible, she sent a dispatch home to that effect, and at last, weary and benumbed, presented herself to the Grosgrains. She found them too absorbed in tribulation to concern themselves about her condition, and all talked together with briny tears, telling an incoherent story, out of which she at last got at these facts: A young man, to whom Miss Grosgrain had engaged herself on board the steamer that brought them from England, had so won their confidence that they were gradually led to put their entire business affairs into his hands. He conducted them, for a time, so well that they congratulated themselves that their fortune had ceased to be a care to them. Recently he had received letters from his mother summoning him to take possession of a large property, to which he had become heir through his father's death, and had urged to have the marriage celebrated at once, and that they should all accompany the happy pair to Europe, there to live in almost regal splendor. Charmed with the prospect, they sold their palatial residence, their horses, plate, furniture, and prepared for a grand flight. But when all was in trim, one little item disappeared--namely, the foreign lover--who forgot to refund the sums in his hands, the result of the sale, and had also contrived to possess himself of their whole fortune. Whither he had disappeared they failed to learn; and here they were, huddled together in a house no longer theirs, as miserable a group as one need to see. Why had they sent for Mrs. Grey in particular? Well, with a vague hope that she would help them in some way; she had the reputation of being everybody's right hand. And she had come to help them, and listened with real sympathy to their story. "Have you done everything that can be done to arrest the fugitive?" she asked. "Yes; he has fled to some country where he will be safe, and live in luxury while we starve here." "You have your jewels left; they will carry you along till you have time to bethink yourselves what to do next." "Oh!" groaned Miss Grosgrain, "our jewels are gone too. Our seamstress, Jane, whom we trusted as we did each other, disappeared at the same time with--with that wretch, whose name I never will speak as long as I live--and took almost all our valuables with her. No doubt she was his accomplice, and has left the country with him." "It will be necessary, then, to seek remunerative employment," Mrs. Grey said, as cheerfully as she could; "now let me see what gifts you have." "Employment!" shrieked the girls. "What a disgrace!" "Why call it disgrace, when thousands of women are engaged in it? Refined and well-educated women, too." "So I tell the girls," said Mrs. Grosgrain. "If we set still and do nothing, we shall starve." The quartette was too full of dismay to correct the maternal grammar, and listened in gloomy silence. "We never had to work for our living," pursued Mrs. Grosgrain, "but the girls' marmer had to, and she was a master-hand at tailoring. And they've all took after her. Mary can make as handsome a bonnet as any milliner, and so can Flora; and the others can cut and fit beautifully." "But there was a deal of money spent on your education," said Mrs. Grey, turning to the young ladies; "could you not open a school?" She knew they could not, but thought it best to make them face the situation for themselves. "They never took to their books," said Mrs. Grosgrain. "And they never thought to come to this. But they're all handy, like their marmer." "Then the hands must come to the rescue," said Mrs. Grey, looking brightly into the sad faces around her. "What a disgrace!" cried Miss Grosgrain. "We who were born to so much better things!" "I think we were all born to the lot in which we find ourselves," said Mrs. Grey, kindly. "Poverty is no disgrace, nor is work; I would rather see one of my daughters employed as a housemaid, than living a life of ease and luxury and pleasure. In the one case I should hope to see her forming a useful character; in the other I should expect to see her a mere cumberer of the ground. Now, you have asked me to advise you, and I will try to do it. Have you any friends who will aid you until you begin to support yourselves?" They shook their heads mournfully. Their money had plenty of friends; personally, they had none. "We have to leave this house in a week," said Mrs. Grosgrain. "The party that owns it is going to pull it all to pieces." "I would as lief die, as to work for my living!" cried Miss Grosgrain. "Providence has not given you the choice," said Mrs. Grey, gravely. "And all that looks so distressing now, may, through Him, become a benediction." "I had a little money hid away," said Mrs. Grosgrain, brightening up. "I always mistrusted that our luck wouldn't always last, and now and then I hid gold pieces away. But my memory has failed of late years, and I don't remember exactly where I put it. 'Twa'n't all in one place, and when we sold out I forgot all about it. If we could stay in the house long enough, I guess I could find some of it." "To whom did you sell out?" "To James J. Sheldon." "Ah! He is a friend of mine. I can easily persuade him to allow you to stay. He could do nothing to the house in this cold weather." "Still, it isn't likely if we find the money that it will amount to anything; and, for my part, I wish I was dead." Hereupon ensued fresh bursts of tears all around. "My dear," asked Mrs. Grey, seriously, "where should you be if you were dead?" "I could not be worse off than I am now," was the sullen answer. "You must excuse the way she talks," said Mrs. Grosgrain. "She never had no trouble before, and it sets her ag'inst everything. I'm older, and don't feel so bad. If it wasn't for seeing the girls so full of trouble, I should say I hadn't felt so comfortable these twenty year." Poor Mrs. Grosgrain, do you know the reason? You have been snubbed more than "twenty year" by these four young women, and now they let you alone, and you are jogging on in such English as you please; and what a relief it is! Take an old hat, and the more you brush it, the worse it looks. No amount of labor could make a real lady out of one whose instincts were not refined. It was not going to be the hardship to her to descend to what she sprang from, as to these girls who had never been there with her. To make a long story short, however, Mrs. Grey never rested till she had found employment for them all. At first their pride fell flat, and they struggled against their fate in a way that put all her energy to the test; but contact with her strong and steadfast nature at last told upon them all. In the strictest sense of the word, she rescued them from the ruin to which prosperity was leading them; or, rather, she fell in with the Providential plan for their rescue, and helped carry it out. Now, why all this self-sacrifice and labor for five ill-bred, ill-tempered women, with whom she had not five thoughts in common? Well, she saw in them now what she always had seen--human beings to be saved or to be lost; she had kept up an acquaintance with them for years, on the mere chance of sometime finding an entrance to their souls; and she found it "after many days." Even most of her children did not understand this; they loved and respected her too much to call her Quixotic, yet fancied such people as the Grosgrains unworthy so much long patience, such journeys to and fro, such letters, such lines upon line. But they could have found ample explanation for all she did in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew. The fact is, the Grosgrains err in their way; but we err in ours when we draw our sanctified garments about us and pass by on the other side. An eagle may have a more ruinous fall than a butterfly, because he flies higher. Meanwhile, there fell a shadow upon Greylock, and everybody in it. Belle's devoted little lover, Margaret's little pearl, fell sick. Only the mother observed the change in her at first, it was so nearly imperceptible; but as time passed, all had to own that there was a mysterious change, with no marked symptom of disease, except increasing silence and lassitude. Everybody's virtue came to the front now. They told her stories, they sang to her, her father and uncles walked the floor with her by the hour together when a strange restlessness was soothed by it. The elder children moved about the house on tiptoe; the younger ones, not quite up to the situation, but impressed by it, whispered to each other that they would play the "softest plays" they knew. The physician, early called in, was puzzled and helpless. Yet all were full of hope save Mrs. Grey and Belle. They did not tell each other what they feared, yet each saw it in each other's eyes. As the little creature became increasingly nervous and sensitive to noise, it was obvious that the household must be reduced in numbers, and, very reluctantly, most of them departed for their own homes. Margaret's inexperience with children kept her long free from grave anxiety. There were days when Mabel would brighten and become as animated as ever; a new toy would give her pleasure, and she would take it to bed with her. Such days encouraged her inordinately. "How strange it is that the doctor does not give her a tonic, when he sees how weak she is!" she kept saying. "Nothing ails her but want of strength." She and Belle divided the nursing between them, and the one was as tender and devoted as the other, with this difference: Margaret was full of hope, and Belle full of misgivings. "_Where_ are you sick, my darling?" she asked, again and again, and the plaintive, weary little voice invariably answered: "Nowhere; only _so_ tired, _so_ tired." "Cyril, I can't bear this suspense any longer," Belle said, at last. "As soon as I know what God wants of me, He shall have it, if it breaks my heart. You must make the doctor tell what he thinks." "He seems completely puzzled," was the reply. "But I will ask him; and if it would be any relief to you, request a consultation." "It would be a great relief. Cyril, Mabel is _very_ ill." "My dear, you exaggerate the matter. I have seen any number of sicker children, and known them to get well. I don't see, as Margaret says, why no tonic is given her." "You will find out, if the doctor is frank with you. If my fears are well founded I know the reason." "I did not know you had any definite fear." "I have; and so has mamma, though she has not said so. We think there is some insidious disease on the brain." "The brain!" he repeated. "Oh, Belle, what would you do without your devoted little worshipper?" "What every one does who believes in Christ," said Belle, bursting into tears. "Yes; you would give her to Him without a word," he said, earnestly, almost reverently; for while he loved his wife for her own sake and for her love to himself, he loved her far more for her whole-souled devotion to Christ. He went out now to find the doctor and to propose a consultation. The doctor caught at the suggestion eagerly. "The case is an obscure one," he said. "The child's debility is very great, but I find no explanation of it unless there is some insidious disease upon the brain." "So her mother thinks." "Indeed? I am surprised at that. Yet I ought not to be surprised either, after knowing her all her life. She has her mother's quick intuitions. Well, I will arrange about the consultation, immediately." "Could not I do that?" "Why, yes, I will give you the address of the physician I call in for children. You will find him at his office to-morrow morning, at ten." Mr. Heath was thankful to go. Men are generally as out of place in sick-rooms as steam engines; twenty times he had banged the door and made Mabel cry out, and Belle had shuddered again and again, at the sound of his newspaper, which he could have read just as well in the library. The word "consultation" sent a chill to Margaret's heart. She rushed away to her own room, locked the door, threw herself on her face across the bed, and cried with that bitter, heart-breaking cry which had won the love and sympathy in which she had been revelling. "God wouldn't do such a dreadful thing!" she at last said to herself. "Never was a child adored as Mabel is. There is not one among them all, half so sweet. Why should He take her? He won't! I know He won't! What a fool I am for crying so! And there is aunty _slaving_ over the twins!" She flew to the washstand and tried to remove the traces of her tears; then hurried to the nursery, where she found both babies fretting dismally, and Mrs. Grey doing her best to comfort them. "I have been dreadfully selfish, aunty," she said, taking one of the twins from her. "I must have a very contracted mind, for it can only hold one thing at a time. I am as brimful of Mabel as a nest is full of birds." "It isn't so much a contracted mind, as an exaggerating heart," was the reply. "You magnify every one you love, and every pursuit you engage in." The nurses, who had been having their breakfasts, came now to the nursery, and Margaret drew Mrs. Grey away, to see if she could find comfort in her. "God wouldn't do such a thing as to take away Mabel, would He, aunty?" "I used to think He _could_ not do these agonizing things; but He can, He does, and He knows why I have trembled for Belle when I have seen that steadfast little lover of hers follow her as the needle does the pole. It is Maud and her mother over again--only--" She broke down now, but only for a moment, and asked Margaret's pardon as meekly as a child. "Is it wrong, then, to cry?" asked Margaret, bewildered. "It depends on the time and place, and how old one is. I don't think people of my age ought to indulge themselves by giving way to grief in which the spectator cannot share. "'Bury _thy_ sorrow, let others be blest, Give them the sunshine, tell Jesus the rest.'" It was now Margaret's turn to feel humbled. "How could I forget, even for a moment, how you had been afflicted?" she cried, passionately. "But you are so strong, and so patient, and so cheerful, and hide your scars away so carefully, that it is hard to realize that you ever had a sorrow. But, aunty, what will Belle do if she loses Mabel?" "'She will behave and quiet herself as a child weaned of his mother.'" Just then the door opened, and Mabel came quietly in. Both were startled, for she rarely moved about the house now. She saw that they had been crying, and came and put an arm around each. "What makes everybody cry?" she asked. "Is anybody dead?" Even Margaret was astonished at the sunny smile with which Mrs. Grey instantly diverted the child's attention. "See," she said, opening a drawer, "what I forgot to give you at Christmas." Mabel looked in and saw a snow-white dove nestled there. "Oh!" she said, "when I get well I will dance for joy! Grandmamma, I am not so tired to-day as I was yesterday. May I hold my baby a little while and show him this lovely dove?" "You may try, darling." They carried her up to the nursery and put the baby in her arms, but she could not hold him, and burst into tears. They were the last she ever shed. The doctors came in the course of the day, and examined her from head to foot carefully. "Does your head ache even a little?" they asked. "No." "Where are you sick, then? Put your hand on the place, dear." "There isn't any place." "How are her nights?" "Very restless," said Belle, whose eye was reading every thought of the physicians, as if the faces they fancied so well-trained were open books. "She talks and moans in her sleep, and sometimes has painful dreams." Mabel, nearly as keen as her mother, though in a different way, detected a tender, almost mournful glance between her physicians, at this answer, and reached out a little hand to each. They had to fight to keep back the tears, as their fingers closed over her wasted ones. All her life the child had had these touching ways which it is not possible to describe; one of the secrets of the peculiar way in which she attracted every one. After a few more questions the physicians withdrew, promising to return on the following day. Mr. Heath followed them, but learned nothing definite. Mabel had a dreadful night; all the symptoms of water on the brain, hitherto wanting, came on with great force. How they lived through the next harrowing two weeks they hardly knew. Many whom Mrs. Grey had blessed in similar scenes, came now, full of tender sympathy to help support them through the fortnight in which the patient little lamb died daily, so distressing was her exhaustion. They were prayed for by hundreds some of them had never seen; and their faith failed not. For a week the bright eyes remained open, and there was no sleep. They had ceased asking for her life, but prayed for the mercy of rest. And at last it came, and the weary eyes were closed. They knelt around the bed and gave thanks. Then came one of those quick decisions on Margaret's part, that dotted her whole life as with stars. She put off her tears, went quietly to her room, and on a wide white ribbon, with teeth set hard together, began to paint. So, when Belle went to take her parting look at her darling before the funeral, there lay upon the coffin, within the ribbon, delicate flowers and green sprays, with the words: "_Now_ I lay me down to sleep." It was an inexpressible comfort, and Margaret was rewarded by the most loving embrace she had known for years. "You are entering on mamma's mission of sympathizer very early," said Belle. "God bless you for it. After this you will be associated with every thought of my darling." "I think God has special love for those He takes so early," said Mrs. Grey. "Dear little Mabel's character was unusually lovely, and now it will never be anything else." Belle struggled to speak, but could not. At last she said: "I cut this epitaph from a newspaper when quite a young girl. How little I then thought how it would come home to me! "'Oh!' said the gardener, as he passed down the garden-walk, 'who plucked that flower? Who gathered that plant?' His fellow-servant answered, 'THE MASTER!' and the gardener held his peace.'" CHAPTER XXIV. Mrs. Grey went home with the sorrowing family, taking Margaret with her, but leaving Gabrielle and the two boys at Greylock. They were too inexperienced to understand that a sublime joy is perfectly consistent with deep grief, and shrank from witnessing pain they believed to be without alleviation. The thought of a funeral was very repugnant to them, as was everything connected with the subject of death. They had yet to learn how Christ has conquered that last enemy, and how the soul may be cast down, yet always rejoicing. It is hard to lay away in the grave a form we have loved, on a smiling, sunny day, under the green grass; but to put it under the snows of winter is harder still. It needs faith and patience of no common sort to tear the nursling from the breast, and leave it out in the cold. But neither Mrs. Grey's nor Belle's was of the common sort, and in the midst of their tears they could look away from the grave and see the "folded lamb" in green pastures and beside still waters, never so full of life as now. Loving letters came to Belle from every member of the family, which were a great comfort to her; many precious and comforting books were sent her which she was willing to let do their mission to her soul. But the constant, sympathizing presence of Christ was her chief solace. It has been truly said that the best cure for sorrow is an increased, personal love for Him; Mrs. Grey learned this secret long ago, but Belle first learned it now. Margaret had not their consolations. Every thought of Mabel lacerated her, and her health began to suffer. "Poor child, it is her nature to take life hard," said Mrs. Grey to Belle, "and her love for Mabel was a passion." "_Everything_ is a passion with her," Belle replied. "If you had not adopted her and toned her down, and she had been left uneducated and unrestrained, she would have rushed headlong to destruction." "I do not feel sure how she will come out in the end," said Mrs. Grey. "If anything happens to me I shall want you to look after her." "Anything happen to you, mamma?" cried Belle; "do you think anything _is_ going to happen? Why, it isn't living not to have a mother." "In the nature of things you ought to outlive me, my child. And it is well to familiarize yourself to the thought." Belle's eyes filled with tears. "You know what Mabel's death has cost me," she said, "but it is nothing to what yours would." "Well, my dear," said Mrs. Grey, trying to smile away this almost reproachful tone, "I do not expect to die at present, and may live to be a trial to you all. I hope not, though. I should like to live as long as I can work for Christ; not longer, nevertheless not my will." "Nor mine!" said Belle. "I spoke in a cowardly moment, dreading any more suffering. It was most ungrateful after all God's goodness to me." Margaret now came in with a photograph of Mabel she had been coloring. "Oh, this is a great improvement!" cried Belle. "Thank you, ever so much." "What a mercy that you had it taken so recently!" said Mrs. Grey. "Yes; there has been nothing but goodness and mercy from beginning to end." Poor Margaret could not see it, and her face showed that she could not. "Things that look like unmitigated evils now will appear differently as you advance into life. You are only on the outskirts now," said Mrs. Grey, kindly. "Belle, my dear, let Margaret read your Mabel-journal." Belle rose and brought the book. It had been kept from the day of the child's birth till that of her death. Margaret took it to her room and read it eagerly, and amid a rain of tears. Even she had not realized what a lovely character the little one possessed, and every little detail interested her. "This book ought to be published!" she said, as she returned it. "It would not touch the public as it does you," replied Belle. "It would touch anybody who had a heart," said Mrs. Grey. Belle caught it nervously, and locked it up. Mrs. Grey smiled, and said she never meant to urge its publication. At the end of a fortnight she and Margaret returned to Greylock, sent the boys back to Mr. Heath, and everything went on as usual till spring; Mrs. Grey going hither and thither on all sorts of Christian work; Margaret eagerly engaged in painting a portrait of Mabel, partly from a photograph, partly from memory, and busy with her studies also. And now a long-promised visit to Laura was to be made as soon as Gabrielle's vacation should begin, when she was to go home for a visit. Laura lived on the beautiful banks of the Hudson, and so near to the city that her husband could attend to his business there, and go home every afternoon. Since Mrs. Grey had been there, they had built a new house, and Laura was full of delight in the prospect of exhibiting it to her mother and Margaret. She charged the latter to bring her painting-materials, so as to make sketches of some of the fine views in the neighborhood. "I don't know about that," said Margaret. "I doubt if I ought to do anything of that sort till Mabel's portrait is done. That will be such a delightful surprise to Belle." "On the other hand, it would be running some risk to take it with you," Mrs. Grey replied. "Do you mean from the children?" "Not exactly. I don't know what I do mean. I only know that I have an impression that it is best to leave it at home. You have put a great deal of work in it, and it would take months to replace it." "I don't think I could forgive Pug and Trot if they bedaubed this as they did the only other large picture I ever took. I'll leave it." On a beautiful afternoon in. June they met Harry on the steamboat, on their way to his home. He was in splendid health and spirits, and seemed delighted at the prospect of their visit. They sat upon deck, read a little, looked at the blue sky and green banks, and talked when they felt like it. "We shall soon be there," Harry said, at last. "You'll get a glimpse of the house as we skirt this island. Hollo! what's that?" he cried, starting to his feet and running forward. "It's fire!" said Margaret, putting out her hand for Mrs. Grey's. "We are near the shore; there is no danger," said Mrs. Grey. "Why doesn't Harry come back?" asked Margaret. "He ought not to expose himself for Laura's sake. Oh, aunty, see how the flames are rushing between us and him!" There was great rushing to and fro, the flames spread rapidly; orders were given in a loud voice, above which could be heard the cries of the terrified passengers. An attempt was made to make for the shore, but the steamer ran aground. Harry made his way through the flames and came to them now, hardly looking like a human being. His hair was singed, his face black and grimy, and at first they did not recognize him or his voice, as he said, hoarsely: "There isn't a moment to lose! Jump overboard, both of you! I'm a good swimmer; I can save you!" "I have a son on board!" replied Mrs. Grey. "I cannot seek my own safety till I am sure of his! But if you will kindly take charge of this young lady--" "Don't you know me, mother?" cried Harry, impatiently. "I tell you there's not a moment to lose!" The two women kissed each other. "Good-bye, darling, darling aunty, if he doesn't save us!" "Good-bye, my precious child! Good-bye, Harry! Tell Laura--" He almost pushed them into the water, jumped in himself, bade them hold him fast, and began to strike out for the shore. The distance was greater than he supposed, and his strength began to fail; what should he do? which life should he sacrifice? Margaret's, of course, not that of Laura's mother. But Margaret was so young, it was dreadful to die young; and Mrs. Grey at best could not live many years. The conflict was painful, and so was every stroke of his arms. Neither should die, if it killed him! One more heroic stroke and we are there! No, a wave has beaten us back! With a groan of anguish he cried, "I cannot save you both! One of you must loose your hold! Which shall it be?" "_Not aunty!_" said Margaret, instantly loosing her grasp. "_Not Margaret!_" said Mrs. Grey, as instantly relinquishing hers. Harry uttered a cry of horror, and watched to see them rise; but his over-taxed frame had made its last frantic effort; he felt himself going down, down; there was a faint thought of Laura, waiting for him in her white dress, a faint sense of God waiting for him too, and then he knew no more, till he awoke, and found it was all a dream; Laura was there, very pale, but smiling; the doctor was there, and many others. "He's all right now," said the doctor, "and as soon as I've set this arm you may take him home." For reply, Laura, waking also as from a dream, cried, "Where is mamma? Where is Margaret?" "I did my best," Harry said, faintly. "This arm was broken before we took to the water." "You don't mean to tell me that you let my mother _drown_?" Laura hissed in his ear. "Indeed, madam, my patient is in no state to be excited," said the doctor. "Rejoice that Providence has given you back your husband, and only taken your mother." "_Only_ taken!" repeated Laura, almost beside herself. "Only taken my mother! Why, she was one of ten thousand! She was _every_ body's mother! And Margaret! That noble girl! And I am to rejoice, am I!" "There will be little to rejoice over if you go on in this way, madam," said the doctor, pointing to Harry, who had again become insensible. This silenced her, and she spoke no more, but almost the coldness of death steeled her heart to her husband. She did not realize the self-possession he had displayed, the difficulties in his way; she did not know that if the women she lamented had been less heroic one of them might have been saved; all she knew was, they lay dead in the embrace of the river she had once thought beautiful. "What news for poor Belle! What a shock to Frank! What consternation among mother's friends!" she thought, and tried to cry, but not a tear would come. Slowly, when Harry came to himself, and his arm had been set, they drove home. There was the table, set for tea; there was mother's chair; there was the plate of strawberries, and the vase of flowers she had gathered with such delight. She went to the window and threw them out; who cared for fruit and flowers now? Meanwhile, Harry had been taken up-stairs, and laid upon a couch, falling asleep the moment his head touched the pillow. She went and looked at him, and saw how the fire had singed his hair, how death-like he looked; how blistered were his hands. "But he let my mother drown," she thought. All night she sat by him, and when he woke and needed attention, she gave it; but that was all. She gave no kiss, no caress, no loving word, but steeled herself with the thought, "He let my mother drown." Harry was so exhausted that he did not notice this at first; when he did, he was disappointed and grieved, but not surprised. His conscience was clear, and he knew that as soon as he had strength to tell his story, Laura would see her injustice. Then he fell asleep again, and again woke and saw her sitting there, pale, and silent, and stony. He thought she had sat there a week; wondered if she would speak to him again; if she ever ate, or drank, or moved; and then, feeble as a child, he slept again. CHAPTER XXV. It was only one night and part of a day after all, and if Laura neither slept or ate during that time, it was because she had too much else to think of and to do. Vigorous measures must be taken to recover the bodies; that was the first thing. Then to get into communication with her brothers. They would see the news in the daily papers, but that would not be like authentic intelligence from herself. Frank would come to her immediately; she was sure of that; later, if--she could not trust herself even to think there could be an if--they would all be together at Greylock. Dear old Greylock! With mamma and Margaret gone what a mockery it would be! Messages kept coming in from those who were at work at the scene of the disaster, but they all told of defeat. And so, too, did the constant booming of cannon. In this agony of suspense, she was thankful to have neighboring friends gather around her. She clung to them as the drowning cling to the arm that is trying to rescue them. This was due to her youth. In later years she bore her sorrows unaided by human support. Many of Mrs. Grey's friends came up from the city, full of grief and full of sympathy, and uttering words of hope they hardly felt. Frank was the first of the family to arrive, though he lived farthest off; Mr. Heath and Belle came next, and the group waiting in suspense, grew larger every hour. Belle was a marvel to herself; her treble sorrow, far from crushing her, lifted her up to a calm and dignified height where she had such glimpses of the glory of God that she was almost fain to shut her eyes. They all leaned upon her as upon a rock. "Why do you stand at the window all the time?" asked Laura. "To catch the first sight of them when they come," she said, simply. "Are you still hoping? I have given them up." "I think God has heard our prayers and that He will grant us the favor of knowing that their precious dust is spared to us. Still, heaven is as easy to reach from the river as from the dry land; we must remember that. Oh, Laura, look!" A little procession was coming in sight; they bore one body on their shoulders; as they drew near, the sound of heavy boots fell like footsteps on their hearts. "It is our mother," said Frank, who had been all day by the side of the river. "Look!" He removed the covering from her face, and there she lay, the last heroic purpose written there, the eyes closed, the attitude one of perfect rest. "Let us give thanks!" said Cyril Heath. They knelt around her, but he could not master his voice, and it failed him; Frank tried, and broke down. Then a woman's gentle, calm tones were heard; gentle and calm, but strong and victorious; they almost saw the gates of heaven opened, and the triumphant entrance of a glad and glorified spirit into the presence of Christ. Laura's tears came now in floods; as they rose from their knees she threw her arms around Belle, and said: "You are on the wing; we shall lose you next!" "You are mistaken," Belle said, quietly. "Poor Margaret!" sighed Laura. "What a short, eventful career!" "I do not feel sure that Margaret is not living," said Belle. "Mamma was so ripe for heaven that it seemed natural to think of her as being called home without a moment's preparation. She desired to die suddenly; I have heard her say so, repeatedly. But dear Margaret was full of vitality and very human, and while I think she was nobly 'planned,' I also think the plan was not fully carried out." "She was one to suffer intensely." "Yes, and to enjoy intensely." "But if she is alive, where is she? Why don't we hear from her?" "I do not know, but God does. I pray for her; and I never knew Him to let me pray for the dead. Again and again I have been restrained from praying for those for whom I was in the habit of praying daily. It was so in the case of Maud. Just before the telegram came, announcing her death, I prayed for all the rest of you, but when it came to her turn I was speechless." "Dear little Maud! Now she and mamma are together again." This conversation took place amid many interruptions, while the two sisters prepared their mother's form for the grave with their own hands. She had often alluded to the event of her death, and expressed herself as very weak on the point of being handled by strangers. They nerved themselves, therefore, to render all the last services unaided. Some one tapped at the door. Laura opened it, and a weeping figure tottered in. It was old Mary, bent with grief. No one had thought to send her a dispatch, and she was not in the habit of reading the papers. She had heard the disaster spoken of at market, and come away in her working-dress, just as she was, her basket of provisions in her hand. When her first wild burst of grief was over, Mary said: "Sure she's got her wish, and died sudden. She was always ready to go, and now she's gone. Often's the time I've heard her talk about dying, and I mind a time when she thought she was going, and there was a light in her eye, and 'What d'ye think of that?' says she. I declare, it was just as she looked when she says to me, 'Mary, I'm going to be married, and what d'ye think of that?' says she. Well, I bursted right out, and says I, 'We won't be long separated,' says I, 'for I've got the brown creeturs, awful,' says I, 'and all I'll ask is to live to nurse you, and lay ye out, and then there won't be no more need o' me in this world, and the Lord'll say, 'Old Mary, ye'r a poor, ignorant creetur, and you ain't to be trusted without your mistress, and I may as well let you in when I open the gate for her.'" Indeed, the shattered figure looked as if this blow would be too much for it, as it soon proved to be. "God has taken her away without pain," said Belle, "and in great mercy. It was quite right in you to come as soon as you heard the news." "Ye'll let me do her hair with me own hands, Miss Belle," said old Mary. "She always liked me to do her hair. There, now, ain't she a picture?" She did, indeed, look very beautiful, like one sweetly asleep, not dead. Belle went out to call Frank to see her. He was startled. "Is it not possible that she is living?" he asked. "Why, Frank! After two days in the water?" "But she is so like herself, Laura. Harry is very restless; he has asked for you several times." "I had forgotten there was any Harry!" she said, and moved slowly away. Harry had slept most of the time during the two days, but was now awake and able to tell his wife all about the fire, and with what difficulty he made his way back to her mother and Margaret. How his arm was broken he did not know, but it was in the struggle to reach them. When he described the moment when they both dropped away from him, she apprehended the whole situation at once, and was down on her knees at his side in a moment. "And I reproached you!" she cried. "Harry, can you ever forgive me?" "I knew you would come out all right, at last," he said. "I did not know you tried to save them, with one arm disabled," she said, very humbly. "Forgive me, Harry." "There is nothing to forgive, dearie. But there is a great deal I wish I could forget. It was an awful moment when I found I must let one go; but, oh, Laura! when both went! I wonder I did not drop dead." "You did, nearly, poor boy. But tell me how it was they both dropped?" "Oh, I was such a fool! Knowing what characters they were, I ought to have known that when I said one must loose her hold, each would resolve to be that one. Margaret was grasping my disabled arm with all her strength, when I spoke; she actually threw it from her, then, as one _disdaining_ to purchase her life by another's; your mother's last movement was different: she clasped my hand, kissed me, then dropped it gently, or to express it more truly, _laid_ it down, as she would something forever done with; the action symbolized final quiet parting with life. You can't wonder that that awful moment deprived me of my senses." Some one knocked; it proved to be Frank. "There is a possibility, a bare possibility, that Margaret is living. There is a rumor that a young woman floated down the river clinging to a board, and was picked up by a fisherman." "But if it were Margaret she would have sent us some message." "So it would seem. Still, Cyril is going to see. Belle is very hopeful about it." "In religion Belle is an enthusiast," was the reply. "Frank, mamma sacrificed her life to Margaret, and Margaret sacrificed hers to mamma. They both had high notions on such points, and I can easily imagine mamma as dying for almost any one she dearly loved; but I did not believe Margaret had such heroism. They died _sublimely_! Better such death than a thousand narrow, selfish lives!" "Yes, yes, indeed. Shall you be able to leave Harry to go with us to-morrow?" "Yes; I must. George Van Zandt will stay with him. Poor Harry! I have been so unjust to him! Think of his trying to save mamma and Margaret, with one arm broken!" "Harry is a noble fellow. There goes Cyril. And Belle with him, I declare! I must see to that." He ran down and overtook them. "I looked for you everywhere," she said, "and finally left a message for you. If this proves to be Margaret she is in a disabled condition, or she would have sent a message. She knows how careful we are never to leave each other in needless suspense. So I am going to see." "Do you think she ought to go, Cyril?" "Certainly. Let her put on her mother's mantle as soon as she likes. I agree with her that we shall find Margaret, and find her disabled." Very early the next morning Frank received this dispatch: "Margaret is living, but insensible." "Ah, what different news this would be if mamma were alive to hear it!" said Laura. "What a tantalizing telegram! They do not say whether her case is alarming or not." A little later in the day came another dispatch: "Cyril will join you at Greylock. I cannot leave Margaret. BELLA HEATH." "Belle not at mamma's funeral!" cried Laura, in dismay. "How dreadful! Poor Belle! But she is right; and yet, why could not I go to Margaret and release her? Oh, it would not do to leave Harry. We need another sister." "Let me go," said Fred's wife. "Belle ought to be at the funeral, and she must." "Do, Hatty. If Margaret is insensible it cannot matter who takes care of her, if it is only one of the family." There was no time to lose, and Fred and Hatty hurried off. Fred had only time to land, find the fisherman's cottage where Margaret lay, and almost force Belle away, leaving his wife in her place. "It was very, very kind in Hatty," Belle said, as the steamer pushed off. "I will relieve her as soon as possible. How often it happens that the tide of grief is partially stayed by a rush of care. I have been so absorbed in Margaret that I have hardly had time to think of myself." "Can she be made comfortable in that little cottage?" "They are very kind people who live there; and then as to comfort, she would not know if she was in a palace. The physician who attends her says the brain has received a severe shock and is very doubtful as to what the result will be. But she has a strong constitution, and I think she will live." "And where?" Belle turned upon him a look full of astonishment. "I had not thought of that," she said. "Why, she would come to me, I suppose." "It would be a great change for her, and interrupt her studies, and put miles between her and any studio," said Fred. "Yes. It will be time enough to think of that when she recovers." CHAPTER XXVI. The funeral was over, and Frank and his brothers examined their mother's papers, to learn, if possible, her last wishes. Everything was in as perfect order as if she had known she was going forth to die. She wished Margaret to remain at Greylock, and that whichever of the family could most conveniently do so, would reside there with her, and keep up the place as of old, until such time as any striking event in the family should make some other plan more desirable. Nothing, however, could be done at present. Old Mary was left in charge, and the family scattered, gradually, away to their homes. Belle was obliged to go home, on account of her children, and Hatty wanted to go to hers. "Why couldn't Margaret be brought to me?" asked Laura. "I must be at home, for poor Harry's sake, and Hatty ought to return with Fred. Could we not charter a small steamer, and transport her without danger? What a pity Harry is laid up! He knows every craft on the river." Frank took the matter in hand. Margaret was their sacred trust now, and must be cared for exactly as if their mother were living. A small steamer was procured, the transportation safely effected, and Laura gave up all other interests in the care of her two patients. In a few days Harry was able to move about the house, and the first time he left his room it was to accompany the physician to Margaret's. She was lying quietly until their entrance, when she aroused, with a more intelligent aspect than she had worn since the disaster. Harry leaned over her and took her hand; she spurned his clasp instantly, with the decided words: "Not aunty!" "That is the way she acts to every one who takes her hand," said Laura. "I don't know what it means." "It means," said Harry, "that she is living over again that awful moment when I asked which should loose her hold on me, herself or mother. It was with precisely that manner that she spurned me, as it were." "We must avoid taking her hand, if that is the case; and I do not doubt that it is," said the doctor. "What nobility of character she has shown! I never met with so interesting a case. But it is obscure. I should be glad to call in some more experienced man to my aid. Have I your permission to do so?" "Certainly," said Harry. "Call half a dozen, if necessary. This young lady, to all intents and purposes, gave up a life full of promise to save our mother's; we owe her every tender care, and mean to give it." "I think she must also have two attendants, so as never to be left alone a moment." Laura looked at him inquiringly. "As a precaution," he replied. "There is no knowing what the next phase of the disease may be. She might attempt to injure herself. I should like this pair of scissors removed from the room," he added, taking up a pair that lay within reach. "How strange and dreadful it all is," said Laura. "If you could have seen her in her days of health, when she never wasted a minute, and contrast it with this listlessness and idleness! O, it all seems so hard! We had been such a happy family; and now everything is changed." The doctor was silent; he was young and did not know what to say. After a few moments he said, just touching Margaret's hair: "I am sorry to say that this must come off." "She would not care," said Laura. "A more unworldly girl never lived. I believe I was prouder of her than she was of herself." "I will go to the city this afternoon," said the doctor, "and try to bring one or two of our most eminent men to spend the night; they ought to see our patient's condition at the extremes of the day. Mrs. Worcester, may I trouble you to adjust the thermometer under the arm, as you did yesterday?" Laura arranged the instrument, and they watched the result in silence. Harry accompanied the doctor down-stairs. "What was the temperature?" he asked. "100½," was the reply. "Do you consider that favorable?" "Yes. I will see the young lady again to-night." The tramp of four men entering her room together did not arouse Margaret. She lay in an attitude of great exhaustion as the three physicians, accompanied by Harry, came in, and was, evidently, unconscious of their presence. "I should like to arouse her if it could be done through some pleasant channel. Had she any favorite pursuits?" "Yes," said Laura, "she painted beautifully, and was full of enthusiasm about it." "Speak of it, if you please." "Margaret," said Laura, coaxingly, "you haven't painted at all to-day. And you paint so beautifully. You'll paint something for me, won't you?" There was no answer. "Margaret, dear, you tried to save mamma's life. That was very noble in you. We all thank you so much." No response. "Perhaps," very slowly and distinctly, "you think you are lying dead at the bottom of the river, and that God has forgotten your poor soul. But you are not drowned, darling. He could not take you to heaven, because you are alive. Did you fancy, perhaps, that He did not love you, and just left you? Why, He loves you dearly!" The bewildered brain was reached at last. Like one suddenly awaking from sleep, Margaret looked around upon the group gathered about her. Laura had touched the spring few hands could have reached. It was not the shock of believing herself drowned that had dethroned her reason; it was the horror of being dead and finding her religion a fable. At a signal from the eldest physician all stole quietly away, with the exception of Laura. Leaning over his patient, he said in kind, fatherly tones: "You had begun to think there wasn't any God. But there is one. He is here, now. Everything you have ever believed about Him is true. And as it is getting dark, I would say, 'Now I lay me,' and go right to sleep, if I were you." She looked at him, devouring every word; then, as he gently withdrew out of sight, and Laura did the same, Margaret joined her hands, repeated the prayer, and fell into a sweet, natural sleep. When the venerable physician rejoined the younger ones, they gathered about him with great reverence. "I should never have dared to try such an experiment," said one. "Nor I," said another. The old man smiled. "I took counsel of One who never errs," he said. "I commend Him to you in all obscure cases. The whole history of my success in my profession lies in this word of Scripture: 'The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him.' Gentlemen, I think we may return to the city to-night." "I trust, sir, you will do us the favor to remain, if the others feel inclined to go," said Harry. "It would be a great comfort to my wife, who has been under a great strain. We have long desired to make your acquaintance, and our pure, highland air ought to refresh you." "I shall have to be off bright and early in the morning, then," was the reply. The three younger men departed, after a substantial country supper; and as Margaret continued to sleep, only rousing enough to take nourishment, Harry and Laura had Dr. X. all to themselves. They almost sat at his feet, as he told of case after case, that to him, as a man, was hopeless, which yielded to Divine inspiration when that was resorted to. "Some laugh at the old man," he continued, "and ask why I study my cases at all, and do not give them all over to Providence. My answer is this: As a man endowed with genius has to toil for success, so a soul endowed with faith is obliged to use all earthly means available to an end; God gives no premium to the idler. As long as I live I hope to dig deep into treasures of wisdom and knowledge; but I expect, also, to put every case that baffles human wisdom right into the Divine hand." He was a genial old man, and the evening spent with him was something Harry and Laura remembered all their lives. He was up in the morning long before they were, and captivated the children by a joyous frolic with them. This was no small refreshment after so many days of sad faces. He went in to see Margaret just before he left. All the soul had come back into her face, but she was still too feeble to speak. She had a wistful look in her bright eyes, but not an anxious one. "Keep the knowledge of Mrs. Grey's death from her as long as possible," he said to Laura, as he took leave. "Wear a white dress when you go to her room, and assume a cheerful look. Of course, your own physician must watch her with constant care." Laura had great self-control, and was able to appear as usual when in Margaret's presence. And in a week or two her recovery became very rapid. Now the question was how to break the news to her. Strangely enough she had not asked for Mrs. Grey, or expressed surprise at not seeing her. "How soon do you think you shall be able to go home?" Laura asked one day. "I don't know; are you tired of me?" "No; but when you go we are all going too, and we ought to get away before cold weather." "That reminds me," said Margaret, starting, "of Mabel's portrait. Did I ever finish it?" "Not that I know of." "I ought to go home and finish it. Laura, why didn't aunty come when I did? We were to come together; why didn't we?" "You forget things, dear. You have been very ill, you know." "Yes; I suppose she has gone back to Greylock. But why doesn't she write to me? Perhaps I was cross to her when I was sick, and weaned her from me. Was I, Laura?" "No, indeed." "I will write to her and tell her how fast I am getting well; then I shall certainly get a letter. Don't you think so?" Laura was never so tempted to tell a lie. As it was, she answered as carelessly as she could, "It is a long time since I had a letter from her. Are you glad that we are all going to live at Greylock?" asked Laura. "Oh, are you going there to _live_? Going to leave this beautiful house? Why, Laura!" "Mamma wished one of her children to go, and it was most convenient for us; in fact, we are the only ones who could." "It doesn't seem like aunty to want you to leave this house, just as you are so nicely settled in it. Not an atom like her. Something is going wrong; I am sure there is. Has she gone crazy?" "No, no. Don't worry about it. We are perfectly satisfied to go." "Doesn't she like this house? Is that the reason?" "No, that's not the reason. How could she dislike it when she never saw it. Margaret, how you do tease one." "Do I?" asked Margaret, very humbly. "I don't mean to tease. Only I am puzzled." "People always are after such illness as yours." Margaret was silent, and lay back in her chair, to think. It was going to be pleasant to have Harry and Laura at Greylock. The more she saw of them the more she liked them. Then there were the children. By the way, where were the children. "Why, Laura," she said reproachfully, "I haven't seen the children since I came." "You'll see enough of them at Greylock." "Oh, but I want to see the dear little things now. Bring them to me; do." Laura went to the nursery, took off the children's black sashes, charged them to say nothing about grandmamma, and led them in. The moment Margaret's eye fell upon their truthful little faces, she looked at them searchingly, and with a startled air that alarmed Laura. "_Harry, who is dead?_" she asked. "Mamma told me not to tell," said the boy, bursting into tears. "His face has told me, Laura," said Margaret, faintly. "I see it all now. I made Harry save me, and let her drown!" "It is not true; you did _not_ let her drown! You tried to die in order to save her. We all admire and love you for it; we will all do anything and everything for you. Only don't look so; for mercy's sake, don't look as if you were dying. Run, children, and call nurse, and do you stay in the nursery. You've done mischief enough for one day. Margaret, won't you speak to me?" "She's only fainted, ma'am," said the nurse, a middle-aged, experienced woman. "No fear of her dying. Just help me lay her down flat on her back, and sprinkle her face with water. Or, if you please, a little hartshorn." Laura had had little to do with sickness, and was now so frightened that she could not remember whether the hartshorn should be diluted or not. She hastily mixed it, half and half, and the nurse poured it down Margaret's throat. It had the effect of bringing her to life again instantly; and there came a time when she and Laura could both laugh at the blunder. Such is our existence here upon earth. Our hearts break and they are healed. We weep and we smile. We fail, and are disappointed, and we try once more. Nothing had befallen Margaret that has not befallen thousands. Her fate might have been infinitely worse than it was. She might have been left friendless and homeless. But here she was surrounded by loving hearts; her home was secured to her; all her plans of life were to be carried out; had she any right to mourn? Indeed she had. She had lost one of the most magnanimous friends ever given to mortal woman; she had lost the tenderest heart that was beating upon earth for her; she had lost the inspiration of a holy example. Did she well to mourn? Yes, yes. But she bore her grief nobly, and on the very day on which the dreadful truth was revealed to her she wrote in her "book of mercies:" "I understand, now, how one can be glad to _suffer_ God's will when too weak to _do_ it. What a mercy!" CHAPTER XXVII. Once more the doors of Greylock were opened wide, and children and grandchildren flocked together for the Christmas festival. But it was the last assemblage of the sort. It needed an immense power to call so many, and so widely-scattered households into one; and that power was gone. They loved each other dearly still, but she who held them united was gone; the sacrifice of time, and the thousand discomforts of winter-travel, never thought of during her life, now asserted their rights, and were heard. Now one family dropped off, now another, until at last Laura and her husband and children, with Margaret, held undisputed possession of the house. Yet the strong character of the mother lived still. In every one of the homes this was done, that left undone, to please her. On some of them, it is true, her influence was in the main unconscious, but with most of them she was the constant object of love, study, and imitation. They obeyed her as implicitly as when they were little children, for her laws were those of sound common sense, sanctified by the Word of God and by prayer. Belle wore the mantle of her piety, and her judgment was consulted by them all, in every domestic emergency. Laura went on having Pugs and Trots, whom she never seemed to "manage" at all, but who were delightful creatures; bright, wide-awake, spirited, but in all other points original and dissimilar. She always said she destroyed the pattern by which each child was made, that no other might be made like it, and that if they all had dared to have blue, or all black eyes, she would have put some of them out in order to have variety in the house. But it was enough to her to be a mother, so, though she had one of her quaint babies at all sorts of irregular times, she contrived to bring forth books as well, while developing more and more, not into a second Mrs. Grey, but into a character as pronounced, and as formed to influence her day and generation. Gabrielle developed very rapidly. At seventeen, she was where many girls are at twenty-five. Her mother thankfully dropped the household reins the moment she saw her ready to take them up, and with grandmamma for her model, she made a well-ordered home for them all. As to Margaret, there were so many sides to her character that it would be impossible to paint close enough to nature to depict her, without producing an exaggeration. Very few ever did her justice, owing to a modesty of the most deep-seated character. She never did or said anything in order to shine, but when admirers pressed upon her, shrank back, and back, and back, till they wearied of the pursuit and gave her up as a paradox beyond their comprehension. No matter what she acquired or how famous she became, she never seemed to know it, and a little child could always lead her. She knelt to those she loved, even when they were her inferiors; they were not many, but they were a happy few. As Mrs. Grey had predicted, more than one brilliant career lay open to her, but she was too truly a woman, too steadfastly and deeply religious to venture upon either. To follow in the footsteps of that venerated and beloved one, was ambition enough for her; to serve God as she had served Him, to lend herself to every human soul that needed her, as she had done; this was her choice. The humble pathway was little heeded by a world that, struggling for the honors of life, cannot conceive of their being deliberately put by. But it was watched by the eye of God, and how often He met her upon and blessed her in it, is known only to Him. * * * * * By Mrs. E. PRENTISS. STEPPING HEAVENWARD. 12mo, $1.75 THE HOME AT GREYLOCK. 12mo, 1.50 URBAN� AND HIS FRIENDS. 12mo, 1.50 AUNT JANE'S HERO. 12mo, 1.50 THE STORY LIZZIE TOLD. 16mo, 60 GOLDEN HOURS. Hymns and Songs of the Christian life--(originally published under the title of Religious Poems). 16mo, 1.50 THE LITTLE PREACHER. 16mo, cloth, 1.00 SIX LITTLE PRINCESSES. 16mo, 75 _BOOKS FOR CHILDREN._ For Girls from 12 to 16 years of age. THE FLOWER OF THE FAMILY. 16mo, 1.50 For Children from 10 to 12 years of age. THE PERCYS. 16mo, 1.25 For Children from 10 to 14 years of age. ONLY A DANDELION, and other Stories, 1.25 NIDWORTH AND HIS THREE MAGIC WANDS. 16mo, 1.25 For Children from 7 to 10 years of age. HENRY AND BESSIE, and what they did in the Country. 16mo, 1.00 LITTLE THREADS. 16mo, 1.00 For Children from 4 to 8 years of age. PETERCHEN AND GRETCHEN. 16mo, 1.00 For Children from 4 to 6 years of age. SUSY'S SIX TEACHERS. Large type, 85 SUSY'S SIX BIRTHDAYS. Large type, 85 SUSY'S LITTLE SERVANTS. Large type, 85 Sent by mail, prepaid, upon remitting price to the Publishers, ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & CO., 900 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. BY THE SAME AUTHOR. MY GOLDEN HOURS; HYMNS AND SONGS OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. By the Author of "Stepping Heavenward." "For purity of thought, earnestness and spirituality of feeling, and smoothness of diction, they are all, without exception, good--if they are not great. If no one rises to the height which other poets have occasionally reached, they are, nevertheless, always free from those defects which sometimes mar the perfectness of far greater productions. Each portrays some human thirst or longing, and so touches the heart of every thoughtful reader. There is a sweetness running through them all which comes from a higher than earthly source, and which human wisdom can neither produce nor enjoy."--_The Churchman_ (Hartford). "Will have, and deserves to have, many appreciative readers." _Harper's Magazine._ "We do not think there is a poem in this book which it will not do one good to read; while there are many which will quicken the aspirations and desires."--_Christian Weekly._ 12mo, cloth, $1 50. Gilt edges, $3 00. Sent by mail, prepaid, on receipt Of the price. ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & CO., NEW YORK. BOOKS FOR CHILDREN and YOUTH, By Mrs. E. PRENTISS, AUTHOR OF "STEPPING HEAVENWARD." _Adapted to Girls from 12 to 16 years of Age._ THE FLOWER OF THE FAMILY. A Book for Girls. 16mo, 400 pages, $1.50. "It aims to exact trivial home duty, by showing how such duty performed in the fear of God and the love of Christ may lead upward and onward through present self denial, to the highest usefulness, peace and joy." "Published more than seventeen years ago, it has continued to hold its place among the foremost books of its class. It is free from the objections which characterize too many of the modern story books prepared for the young. It is full of interest, without being sensational, and the standard of duty which it sets up is within the possible reach of all." _Adapted to Children from 10 to 12 years of Age._ THE PERCYS. 16mo, 350 pages, $1.25. "The Percys, originally published in the columns of the NEW YORK OBSERVER and now first issued in book form, is a picture of a genial, happy Christian Home, saintly without being sanctimonious, heavenly without asceticism or formality; one too which, when it sorrows, 'is always rejoicing.'" _Adapted to Children from 10 to 14 years of Age._ ONLY A DANDELION, AND OTHER STORIES. 18mo, 300 pages, $1.25. "A collection of stories in Prose and Verse, that cannot fail to interest older readers, as well as the class for whom they were specially prepared." _Adapted to Children from 7 to 10 years of Age._ HENRY AND BESSIE, and what they did in the Country. 16mo, with Illustrations, $1.00. "A charming story of a summer spent in the country, by a family of city children. The new scenes and the change in the daily life are portrayed with unusual naturalness and simplicity. We know of no more beautiful book for the class of children for whom it was prepared." LITTLE THREADS: TANGLED THREAD, SILVER THREAD, AND GOLDEN THREAD. 16mo, with Illustrations, $1.25. "There are few children who would not be interested in this story, while it is full of wise thought and suggestion for parents in matters pertaining to the training of their little ones." _Adapted to Children from 4 to 8 years of Age._ PETERCHEN AND GRETCHEN: TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN. 16mo, with Illustrations, $1.00. "One of the simplest and most pleasing books for young children with which we are acquainted. It has all the quaintness and homeness, if we may use such a word, that belongs to the German-child's book." _Adapted for Children from 4 to 6 years of Age._ THE SUSY BOOKS. 3 volumes. SUSY'S SIX BIRTHDAYS. SUSY'S SIX TEACHERS. SUSY'S LITTLE SERVANTS Price per set, $2.50, or sold separately at 85 cts. each. "There is nothing in the way of story books for young children that will compare with the "Susy Books". Ask any mother of a family in which they have been placed, and she will make answer after this manner. No one but a mother could have written them, and the children never grow weary of Little Susy." THE LITTLE PREACHER. 18mo, 223 pp., $1.00. "A charming, loving, thoughtful book, in its style and in its lessons. Were it not that its title foretells us that it is by an American author, we should say that it was written in Germany. We commend it gladly to old as well as to young readers. It is rich in lessons of Divine Wisdom, as well as deeply interesting." Published by THE STORY LIZZIE TOLD. 2 Illustrations, square 24mo. Paper, 35 cents. Cloth, 60 cents. "Young and old alike will read this little story of one of God's little ones, with pleasure and profit." ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & CO., 900 BROADWAY, COR. 20th ST., NEW YORK. Sent by mail, prepaid, on receipt of the price. AUNT JANE'S HERO "_Aunt Jane's Hero is so like people we meet, that we are anxious to have them read the book, in order to profit by its teachings. We like it and believe others will._"--The Advance. A New Volume by the Author of "Stepping Heavenward." AUNT JANE'S HERO. One Vol. 12mo, 300 pp. $1.50. "The object of _Aunt Jane's Hero_ is to depict a Christian home whose happiness flows from the living Rock, Christ Jesus. It protests also against the extravagance and other evils of the times, which tend to check the growth of such homes, and to show that there are still treasures of love and peace on earth, that may be bought without money and without price." "The plot of this story is the simplest, the materials the commonest--only a young man, professedly a Christian, yet living a life of worldliness--who is brought back through sharp trials to regain some of his lost ground; the story of his love and marriage, and pictures of a happy Christian home, with Aunt Jane's influence, like a golden thread running through the whole; just such scenes and incidents as may happen any day, anywhere. Yet out of these simple materials is wrought a story of great beauty and power. The title of the book seems to us a misnomer. Aunt Jane's Hero is really much less of a hero than is his wife, little Maggie, of a heroine. Her character is one of rare strength and sweetness; but she needs it all in keeping up her husband's courage in dark days, in sustaining his faith, in redeeming him from selfishness and prompting him to active Christian work. The key-note of the volume is struck in one of the closing paragraphs: 'Those who have got into the heart of this happy home have wanted to know its secret, seeing plainly that money had little to do with it; and as you have confided in me, I will be equally frank with you, and tell you this secret in a few words: We love God and we love each other.'"--_The Advance_, Chicago. "The power of a living practical religion, as the main thing in life, is brought out in contrast with the standards of fashionable morality. Some things in the book we might criticise, but these may be safely left to the reader's judgment. It has most of the features which made _Stepping Heavenward_ so deservedly popular, and, like it, deserves thoughtful reading."--_Christian Witness._ "Aunt Jane's Hero is a very human being, and like all of Mrs. Prentiss' characters, has just that taint of 'total depravity' which proves him a child of Adam and not a creature of fancy. Her characters are not _so_ good, but the lessons taught by their lives may be learned and practiced by others."--_The Interior._ "To mention another volume from the pen and heart of Mrs. Prentiss is to send a pleasure and the promise of good to every reader. Already has she secured such a place in the affections of those whose sympathies are with us, that we have but to tell them that this new book is rich in all that wealth of thought and sentiment and feeling which have made her other works so useful and popular, and our readers will wish to see _Aunt Jane's Hero_ at once."--_N. Y. Observer._ ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & CO., 900 Broadway, N. Y. _Sold by all Booksellers, and sent by mail prepaid on receipt of the price._ [Transcriber's Notes: Adjustments to punctuation to correct printers errors (e.g. "!" in place of "?"). Hyphens left as in original even if inconsistent. Spelling only amended if very obvious: e.g. "her" for "hear". No publisher in original for "The Little Preacher". Advert page moved from front to be first advert at back. Table of Contents generated, not in original.] 
19432	----	HEART AND SOUL BY MAVERIC POST [Illustration] NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1921 Copyright, 1921, by THE CENTURY CO. APOLOGY This book was not written with any idea of being published, but simply because I could not help it. I got thinking about various things, in the lives of people about me, and in my own life, and, after a while, I found that my thoughts would not let me alone. They kept coming back, to trouble and haunt me, until finally I realized that the only way I could be rid of them and have a little peace, was to set them down on paper. After that, I had the indiscretion to read parts of them to one or two who are near to me. These seemed to think that they might prove helpful to others who felt the same way and urged me to publish them. I cannot be blamed very much for conceiving a hope that this might prove true. And, in that hope, I have followed their advice. M.P. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I DIAGNOSIS 3 II THE UP-TO-DATE PRINCIPLE 43 III REASON AND EXPERIENCE 59 IV AFFECTION 83 V FAITH 109 VI SCIENCE AND THE INTELLECT 167 VII HOPE 221 VIII HEART AND SOUL 234 APPENDIX 317 HEART AND SOUL HEART AND SOUL I DIAGNOSIS Many of us, to-day, are disturbed and alarmed by the point of view and the behavior of people about us--especially the younger generation. Girls of good family are seen on all sides, who smoke and gamble and drink and paint their faces and laugh with scorn at the traditions and conventions which their grand-parents regarded with almost sacred reverence. The young men are worse, if anything, and as for the married people of the new era, what they are doing to the sanctity of the home and the bonds of matrimony might seem like a weird travesty of the teachings of the past. What is the world coming to? Are things going on indefinitely, this way,--or more so? If not, who, or what, is to stop the movement and turn it in another direction? What is the meaning of it all? What is to be done about it? Before attempting to speculate on these questions, it might be a good idea to consider for a moment the main, fundamental influences which have always been at work, to a greater or less extent, in determining the conduct of human beings. First come the material instincts. Each individual is born with a large number of desires, appetites, feelings, impulses, tastes. There is also a natural wish to gratify these and the process of doing so brings with it a sense of satisfaction and pleasure. So that if these natural instincts were the only things to be considered, the problem of humanity in a general way would resolve itself into preserving life and getting as much pleasure out of it as possible. Why not follow the lead of our instincts, accept all opportunities as they come, and make the most of them? Is not this point of view, however briefly and crudely expressed, the first principle of existence as it confronts each individual to-day, as it has confronted them in the past, and as it will continue to confront them always? Is it not, in its essence, the starting point--the ever-present raw material--which must be recognized and dealt with somehow in any scheme of philosophy or morality? The next consideration, which follows closely after, is that certain wishes cannot be gratified, certain pleasures are forbidden, certain instincts must be repressed or controlled. Why? For various reasons. The first being force and might. Some one stronger interferes and prevents. Every child comes in contact with this principle at an early stage. It cannot have what it wants, it cannot do as it wills--because the nurse or the mother says "no." A little later, if it undertakes to gratify a certain wish which has been forbidden, if it gives free play to an instinct for pleasure, against orders, it is slapped and scolded. It is made to feel that it has done wrong. And when one does wrong, punishment follows--one must learn to expect that. This same principle confronts the individual in later years,--all through life. First the nurse and mother; then the father and other members of the family; then the neighbors and people at large; the police and the laws. All these embody the same principle, they represent greater force, without the individual, which interferes with its instincts, its pleasures, its wishes, which forbids certain things--declares they are wrong--and punishes, if they are done. On top of this comes the church and religion. In a more exalted way, appealing to the imagination and the inner spirit, they nevertheless apply the same principle. Certain things are sinful and wicked, certain instincts and desires are temptations, contrived by an evil spirit. If temptations are yielded to, if evil is committed, punishment is sure to follow, if not in this world, then in another, a world beyond. In this connection, it is not a question of any particular church, or creed, or any particular religion, but simply of the fundamental idea of all churches and all religions,--the idea that somewhere, somehow, in a spiritual world of some sort, good will be rewarded and evil punished. Crudely and briefly stated, it is the same fundamental principle that begins with the child and nursemaid, and runs up through the highest forms of church and religious appeal. This is good, you are allowed and urged to do it, and it will bring reward; that is bad, you are commanded to resist it, and if you yield, it will bring punishment. This, then, is what we have called the second consideration in the problem of life. There is another consideration, of a different order, which exerts an influence on the acts of an individual; which causes it to repress certain appetites and desires, on the one hand, and urges it, on the other hand, to do certain things against its instincts and inclination. This third consideration is the influence of reason and experience. A crude example will suffice to illustrate the principle. A certain individual eats a plate of sliced cucumbers. Their taste is delicious and the sensation most enjoyable. An acute indigestion follows, however, with great discomfort and distress. On a later occasion, another plate of fresh cucumbers is so tempting that the experiment is tried again, with the same results. Before long, this individual will refuse to eat a cucumber, no matter how fresh and tempting it looks. There is no question of right or wrong here involved. There is no outside force or command, to restrain him. It is his own reason, based on experience, which determines him to give up a present pleasure for the sake of avoiding a future pain. In a reverse way, a certain individual who is tired and sleepy and yearns to go to bed, will force himself to sit up and work over annoying papers, in order to be free for a game of golf, the following day. He deliberately denies his desires and accepts present discomfort for the sake of future enjoyment. This principle, if we look into it carefully and follow it through its ramifications and side lights, is an active and important factor in the conduct of nearly everybody. In its essence, it is personal, its force springs from within the individual--and in that respect, at least, it is quite different from the orders of parents, or the commandments of religion, which are issued from without and which the individual is called upon to accept and obey, irrespective of his own notions or preferences. There is still another main consideration in this question of conduct. It is a very great factor in the lives of many people, and in some cases its force and influence are overwhelming. And it is totally different in its very essence and tendency from the other principles we have noted. This is the influence of love and affection. A mother will give up any pleasure, she will accept any pain for the sake of her sick child. She does not do it because any one has ordered her, or because of any commandment of any religion, or because of any reward or punishment in this world, or another. There is no selfish motive of any kind involved in her thought. Any sacrifice of self, she is ready to make without the slightest hesitation. What she does, and what she is willing to do is for her child alone--because she loves it and, for the time being, its little life seems of more importance than everything else in the world put together. Now, if we pause right here a moment and reflect we can hardly fail to realize that we are in the presence of something strange and wonderful. It appears to be the very contrary and contradiction of all that has gone before. The life of the individual, as it unfolds from the first principle, is a question of self-preservation, self-gratification, appetites, desires, pleasures, as full a measure of enjoyment as it is possible to obtain. This is interfered with by outside force and considerations of reason and experience; certain desires have to be controlled by the idea of good and bad, reward and punishment; certain pleasures and pains have to be balanced against each other to determine a choice. But from beginning to end, it is all concerned in considerations of advantage--what is best for self, at the time being, or in the long run--in this world or the next. Why do this, that, or the other? because you will gain most by it, in the end. At bottom, the motive is taken for granted, whether openly admitted or more or less thinly disguised--self, self-interest, selfishness. Then we turn and look upon a mother and her child--and we find that all thought of personal advantage can be transferred to another. Self-interest can be controlled and obliterated by a new and mysterious principle--the principle of love. There are various kinds and degrees of feeling that go under the name of love and nothing in life is more interesting or more vitally important to study and understand. But in this preliminary summary it is enough to signal its existence as one of the factors in the problem of life. It may be just as well to note, in passing, that mothers are to be found whose love for their children is not so completely unselfish. Mothers are to be found who care very little about their children. Mothers are to be found who regard children as a nuisance and a disadvantage and prefer to be without them. That will be found to be one of the curious side-lights of the problem when time comes to discuss it. It does not alter the fact, however, that love exists, that the true mother's love of her child is the most complete and universal illustration of it. Also in many other forms of love and affection, it is easy to recognize this same tendency toward unselfishness--a readiness to sacrifice one's personal pleasures and inclinations for the joy of another. A father may have this feeling for his son, or his brother, just as he may have it for his wife, or his mother. A man, or a woman, may have it for a dear and intimate friend, and be willing to make real sacrifices in order to benefit them. This, then, is the fourth consideration--a fourth factor in the problem of life--and to avoid misunderstanding and confusion of ideas, we will call it affection--the influence of affection. There remains one more consideration--one further class and kind of influence--which has its bearing on conduct. This may be summed up, in a general way, as love of an ideal, or an idea. Although it is less wide-spread and less potent in most lives than affection for fellow beings, yet it is, in varying degrees, a real factor that cannot be left out. A sense of duty exists, to greater or less extent, in nearly all people. In people of breeding and good family it may become pride of race--_noblesse oblige_. A certain individual may have a strong affection for his home town, the little community with which he has been identified as a boy and man. Another is devoted to a cause, a political party, a Red Cross movement; while others have a strong feeling of patriotism, they love their country, their flag, and they are ready, at any time, to give up something for the good cause. Broadly speaking, and for lack of a better name, we may call this fifth principle in the problem of life--devotion to an ideal. As a result of these influences, the character of an individual is formed, his conduct is determined. At any given time, in the presence of any given question as to what he will, or will not do, the answer will depend on the relative force, or sway, of the conflicting considerations. This is merely stating an application of a general law--that all effects must have their causes. Only in the conduct of an individual, the causes at work are often very subtle and complicated. If the average individual at the present time is behaving differently from the way he used to act, it is obviously because of some change in the influences. Certain motives and considerations which used to be decisive have now ceased to dominate. Other considerations have superseded them. So much is fairly obvious, and very little reflection is needed to locate these in a general way. They lie in the second group of our summary--the control of desires from without, enforced by rewards and punishments. In the life of the average individual, this influence has become weaker all along the line. It is probably less dominating and decisive to-day, than it has ever been before in any period of civilization, ancient or modern. And the weakening of the influence begins in the earliest childhood, with the punishments of nurse and parents and extends right on to the end, through neighbors and public opinion, the police and the laws, and finally to the church and religion, with their everlasting retribution, heaven and hell. There has been no great apparent change in the other considerations of our summary. People are still influenced by experience and reason, as heretofore. They still are moved by their affections; and there are the same class of people who will fight for their country and make sacrifices for an ideal. It may be that the change of character which results from the weakening influences under our second heading, has an appreciable effect on the force of other influences, also. But that is a delicate and subtle subject, which will be discussed later on. For the time being, we may stop at this point: that the startling changes which have occurred recently in moral standards and point-of-view are directly traceable to a corresponding weakening of an influence that has been one of the strongest in human lives. The nature and extent of this process are worth considering in detail, because it is at the very root of the problem and the consequences are far-reaching. And before we begin to analyze it, let us be careful to avoid a hasty and easy conclusion. Because the changes in people's views and behavior seem startling and alarming to those of the old school--that does not necessarily mean that the new tendency is bad and wrong. Any change in fundamentals is apt to be upsetting, for the time being. The new way, in the end, may really be better than the old, and represent progress. Or it may mean deterioration and decline. It will be time enough to discuss that phase of the question, after we have made sure that we thoroughly understand what it is, that has been going on. Let us take one thing at a time and start with the simplest and most obvious. A human life begins, with possibilities of development in all sorts of different directions. The child is taken care of from the cradle--guided, educated. In due time, it reaches an age where it is left to decide for itself and its actions are determined by its nature and what it has been taught. "As the twig is bent, the tree's inclined." This is an old adage of the English language and the principle it expresses has been generally accepted throughout the world. "Spare the rod and spoil the child"--is another old adage which has been almost as universally accepted. Still another adage, expresses a fundamental principle: "Children should be seen, not heard." These adages are sufficient to indicate the basic theory that governed the bringing up of children for countless generations. What do they imply? Obedience, discipline, respect--respect for parents, respect for others, respect for traditions and laws--and with it a reverence and fear of God. The aim was to turn out law-abiding, God-fearing citizens; and the method, as expressed in the adages, was unquestioned for centuries and generally adhered to. It has always been usual and natural among various peoples at various times, to inculcate in children from an early age those qualities which are considered worthy and admirable. Among the American Indians, a true brave was he who presented an unflinching countenance to the enemy, even in torture. Consequently, boy children were pricked and burned by their parents, until they were schooled to accept any kind of pain without a whimper. In China, tiny feet were considered desirable in a woman--so girl children's feet were tightly bound and kept so, for long periods, with great suffering, in order to attain the worthy object. In these and similar cases in European civilization, the stern methods employed cannot be taken to mean that parents loved their children any the less--rather the contrary. Because they loved them, they did not hesitate to do what was necessary, according to their lights, to make them grow up as fine specimens as possible. That was the old school. What, now, of the new? It is obvious that, in recent years, there has been a vast change in the attitude of parents toward children, and perhaps an even greater change in the attitude of children toward parents. The rod is used very sparingly, nowadays. In America, at least, it may be said to be no longer used at all. Among families of education and refinement, a child may still be spanked by the mother or father, but not very often. The significance of the proceeding is not very great, and half the time the spanking is occasioned by the irritable nervous condition of the parent rather than the act of the child. A child may sometimes be slapped by a nurse, usually when the nurse is cross and ill-humored. But in nearly all cases, if a nurse dared to whip a child, or cause it real pain, the child would only have to tell its parents and the nurse would be discharged. And such trifling chastisements as do occur to-day, are confined to a very early age of the child. A boy or girl of twelve or fifteen has no fear of a beating from father, or mother, or governess, or school-teacher. School-masters are no longer allowed to whip their pupils, or even to cuff them. The old adage is no longer in force--it has been thrown into the discard. "Spare the rod--" yes, the rod _is_ spared, but it remains to be seen whether on that account the child is necessarily spoiled. "Children should be seen, not heard"--that idea, is also in the discard. Boys and girls have as much right to their say as anybody else. At the family table, in the home circle, the tendency is rather for their ideas and their affairs to usurp the conversation. Their impressions are fresher and more animated, and they are more abreast of the latest up-to-date topics. An attitude of respect and reverence for the opinions and notions of their parents, or grand-parents, would hardly be expected of them. So many of the things to be talked about--motors, wireless, airplanes, new wrinkles and changed conditions--are better understood by them than the old people. It is easy for them to get the feeling that the old people's ideas are rather moth-eaten and of not much account. It is for the rising generation to tell and explain what's doing now and for the setting generation to listen and make the most of it. Of course, this is not meant to imply that children have ceased to have any respect for their parents. In any particular case, it is a question of degree, depending upon the quality of the children, the quality of the parents, the various conditions and influences of the family life. It is the general tendency we are looking for--the underlying principle--which makes itself felt to a greater or less extent, according to circumstances. It is unquestionably true that the average child to-day is less often and less severely punished than the child of the past. If it disobeys, it has less fear of the consequences, so the importance of obedience becomes a dwindling factor in its mental attitude and its behavior. It learns to take orders with a grain of salt and as often as may be, it disregards them, because they are not what it likes. That is the beginning of a tendency--the first bending of a twig. As the twig goes on growing with this slant, and the horizon of the boy and girl opens out beyond the family circle to a larger world, existing conditions are such as to encourage a continuation of the same tendency. The selfish instincts and desires of the individual are opposed by the same kind of influences and restraints that have been in force since the beginning of civilization, but less effectively. And let us bear clearly in mind that, for the time being, we are confining our attention to the forces which act on the individual from without. That is the thread we are following--the second consideration in our summary. The influences and restraints which act on the boy or girl, as they go forth from the home circle, are of various forms and kinds, but they may be grouped in a few simple classes. First: The school with its teachers and teachings. Second: The influence of example and imitation--what others of their age and kind are doing. Third: The influence of public opinion, of tradition and customs--what everybody seems to think is all right and approves, on the one hand, and what is considered wrong and unworthy, on the other. Fourth: Laws and regulations of constituted authorities. Fifth: Sunday school and church--the religious influence with its standards of wickedness and goodness. If we consider these in order, we are not impressed by any striking change in the school influence. In many respects, no doubt, schools are better planned and more intelligently managed than they ever were before. More attention is paid to ventilation, hygiene, recreation, on the one hand; and on the other the methods employed in imparting book knowledge are probably more enlightened. As regards the question we are discussing--obedience, discipline, respect for authority--on the whole, there has probably been no great change. In the class-room and throughout the school régime, strict obedience is still maintained as an essential requisite, just as it has always been. The punishments and penalties for disobedience are perhaps a little less severe and drastic, but without any real difference in effect. The only question worth raising in this connection is how far school-teachers and school-rules are taken to heart by the average boy or girl--how far they are made to apply to their notions and motives, when school is left behind. School-books, school-teachers and school-discipline are so apt to be bunched together and relegated to a special corner of the mind. Our second group--the influence of example and imitation--has probably always been a more important factor in shaping conduct and character. What the older boys, just above you, do and believe, makes a lot of difference to you, if you are a boy. It is no question here of old-fashioned precepts or theories, handed down by parents, grandmothers or school-teachers, to be taken with a grain of salt. It is something living and vital, which concerns you directly. You look up to the older boys: you want to be like them; and approved of by them. What they think and do may be at variance with the ideas of nurse, mother and school-master, but if it is good enough for them, it is good enough for you. It is a practical standard which you can't help being judged by. If you fail to live up to it, or refuse to accept it and try to act differently, there is a sure penalty. You will be sneered at, disliked, looked down upon, or laughed at. If you are a girl, the same principle applies. There is nothing new about the principle. It is as old as the hills and universal. Is the effect of it to-day on the forming character any different from what it has been, in the past? Undoubtedly. A moment's reflection will show why and how this must be so. Whatever the nature and influence of the family bringing-up may have been, in any particular case, the general tendency toward lack of discipline and disregard for authority can hardly fail to be reflected in the prevailing standards of the boys and girls to be found at any school. They have no connection with school regulations or school penalties. It is the fundamental question of instincts, desires, and notions--the attitude toward themselves and toward life outside the school-room which they are going to take with them where-ever they go. The tendency begun at home finds reinforcement and further development in the boy or girl by example and contact with others, who are headed the same way. Next comes the third group: The influence of public opinion--of tradition and customs. There is no mistaking the fact that in the present generation there have been many striking changes in the prevailing customs, as they apply to the behavior and conduct of individuals. The growing boys and girls see these changes taking place on every hand. When mother and father were young, Sunday was a day set aside for church-going and dull and decorous behavior. Games and fun of all kinds were laid away, everybody put on their best clothes and sat around and talked, or took quiet walks with an overhanging air of seemly propriety. To-day there are tennis and golf and baseball games and dinner-parties and gambling at the bridge-table, in which mother and father participate along with the rest. It used to be considered improper for a girl of good family to go out at night to any kind of party without being accompanied by a chaperon. Nowadays, the girl who is obliged to take a chaperon with her wherever she goes, is liable to be laughed at by her up-to-date friends. It was not so long ago that in any respectable community, a woman who painted her face, smoked cigarettes, drank cocktails and gambled with the men, would have been considered a shocking spectacle of depravity that no self-respecting wife, or mother, could accept or tolerate. Nowadays, the growing boy and girl have only to open their eyes to see women doing such things everywhere--as likely as not their aunts and cousins, or their own mothers. Examples of this nature could be given in great variety, but enough has been suggested to show the trend. In another connection it will be interesting to discuss these manifestations in greater detail and reflect on their cause and meaning. For the present, it is sufficient to indicate that the social customs have changed and are changing very materially. Under such conditions, it would not be natural for young people to be unduly impressed by them. Such standards are so unstable and they differ so much to-day from what they were yesterday, and they differ so much in different circles and even in different families, that their force and importance are not very compelling. The authority of past customs has undergone a process of confusion and weakening, much the same as parental authority. There is less respect for it on the part of the new generation. The same thing is true of traditions and public opinion. Traditions have been modified and lost sight of in the new movement, and public opinion on many questions is to-day so confused and indefinite as hardly to exist. Some people still think that divorce and re-marriage is shocking. Other people thoroughly approve of divorce, and believe that when a marriage has proved unsatisfactory and objectionable, it is right and best to call it off and look for something better. Some people think it wrong for young people to run to the picture-shows and see baby vampires and demoralizing examples of licence and misconduct; others are enthusiastic about the educational value of the movies and encourage their children to go as often as they like. Some people disapprove violently of the way young people dance together and of the present attitude of girls and boys toward one another; while others accept it as a part of the new era of emancipation and enlightenment which is all in the way of progress. There is practically no real public opinion to-day on these, and many other similar questions. A diversity of individual opinions and notions has taken its place, which young people are more or less free to follow or ignore, as circumstances may determine. Yet it is not so long ago that public opinion in most communities was a firmly established, vital force. It was generally recognized and carefully respected by anybody, who wished to be considered respectable. Certain acts, certain kinds of conduct, were considered immoral, or shocking, or in bad taste and those who defied public opinion were made to pay the penalty. They were given the cold shoulder, cut off the visiting-list and made to feel the stigma of disapproval. If a girl sneaked off alone with boys in the dark, or was caught smoking cigarettes--if a married man was seen consorting with a divorcee--if a woman drank highballs and gambled and broke up a happy home--if any member of the community did any one of a number of things which were considered improper, or unworthy, or immoral, or dishonorable, public opinion was sternly in evidence, unquestioned and unquestionable, to judge and to sentence. Young people learned to take account of this consideration, just as their mothers and fathers did. They grew up with respect for it. In the new generation the thing itself has lost greatly in consistency and force, and the young people see no reason to be much concerned about it. In the fourth group, are included the laws and regulations of constituted authorities. For the most part these find their chief representative in the policeman, with the jail and law-court, as a background behind him. About the only change in this influence lies in the mental attitude of the average individual. A generation ago, people who got arrested were usually thieves, or drunkards, or crooks and criminals of some kind. To be a law-breaker and in the clutches of the police was something that a reputable citizen shuddered at. The police were the guardians of all good people, majestic, respected and a little awe-inspiring. Nowadays, people of all sorts and kinds are constantly getting into trouble with the police, and getting arrested, and being hauled to court and fined before the same bar of justice as the crooks and drunkards. It is usually in connection with automobile driving. They are law-breakers--they know it and are caught at it. And since the prohibition laws have gone into effect, another crop of law-breakers has sprung up on every hand. Deliberately and defiantly they disregard the law and scoff at it. In addition to this matter of the police, there is a growing tendency on the part of the average person to question the worthiness and integrity of officials and representatives of government, all along the line. Aldermen, commissioners, mayors of cities--even senators of the United States--are frequent objects of mistrust, of sneering disrespect. Political scandals and corrupt deals in high places are commonplace topics in any community. So young people, looking about and absorbing ideas, under these conditions, are inclined to have a lessened respect for constituted authorities and the laws. Above and beyond this, having a deeper significance and effects that are more intimate and constant and far-reaching, is the change which has been taking place in the influences of the fifth and last group--Sunday school and church--the force of religion. This is such a delicate subject, so close to the hearts of so many people and having so many variations and degrees in different individuals, in different families, in different communities, in different churches, that it is extremely difficult to discuss. It is largely a matter of private sentiment, of vague personal feelings for which the average person is unable to find adequate expression. No sooner is the subject broached than the individual mind takes refuge in a defensive attitude. As it does not intend to be disturbed in its own spiritual attitude and beliefs, it is ready to seize the first opportunity to raise objections. Let me reassure such minds by saying that I am quite willing to agree with them concerning the good that is in their minister, or their church, or any other church, or religion they may be interested in. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the purpose and influence of all churches and all religions has always been in the direction of higher thoughts and more exalted motives of conduct. This is no less so to-day than it has been in the past. The change that has occurred is in the attitude of the new generation toward the teachings of the church and the consequent weakening of its influence. Not much reflection or observation is required to arrive at a general idea of the nature and extent of this tendency. In most Christian homes it has been the custom to teach children to say their prayers every night before going to bed. And in teaching them to pray, the idea has been instilled in their minds that the all-wise Lord is listening to them and watching over them. Mothers and Fathers have accustomed them to the belief that no act of theirs--no matter how carefully they may conceal it from the human beings about them--can ever escape the all-seeing eye of the Lord. Children have believed this from time immemorial and the Sunday school and church have encouraged and strengthened this belief, at all stages of their growth. And along with this, as we have observed, went the idea of divine, everlasting justice and retribution--the punishment of evil and the regard of good, if not in this world, then surely in the greater world beyond. Heaven and hell have for centuries been pictured as awe-inspiring realities, established by the Bible, expounded and thundered from pulpits. Children found, as they grew up, that the idea was accepted and shared by mothers, fathers, neighbors--everybody in the community entitled to respect or consideration. In trouble or sickness, they turned to the Lord for comfort and help and those who yielded to temptation and ignored His commandments were in danger of eternal damnation. When people believe such a doctrine, when it is a living conviction in their hearts and souls, no greater influence could be imagined for controlling their material instincts and desires. We have only to refer back to the days of the martyrs and saints to realize what the principle is capable of when it is fully applied. As compared to eternal salvation and everlasting bliss--how petty and unimportant are the temporary experiences of the body. The great mass of normal human beings, while accepting and believing the doctrine, have never deemed it necessary, or practical, to carry it too far. But always in the past, so far as we know, the average individual has been influenced to a very considerable extent by his religious beliefs. The more deeply and intensely he _believed_ in the teachings, the greater their influence in controlling his acts. If we turn to the present generation, we find on all sides, evidences of a growing notion that many of the statements contained in the Bible will no longer hold water, when put to the test of scientific enlightenment. A minister of the gospel in this church, and another in that, announces from the pulpit that it is no longer possible for him to accept the doctrines of hell's fire and eternal damnation. Others follow their example and preach sermons, accordingly, to justify this stand. Next the question of heaven is brought into question by a conscientious divine, who expounds the conviction that it should be accepted in an allegorical meaning, not literally--that instead of being a paradise inhabited by the souls of the elect, it should be considered rather a state of mind of living mortals who behave rightly. Heaven and hell, a jealous and all-mighty Being, seated on a majestic throne, watching and judging each act of mortal man, punishing and rewarding, through all eternity--these and many other biblical teachings, which for centuries awed the imagination and possessed the souls of humble men and women, have gradually been brought into question. Some people are inclined to lay blame for this on the churches and the ministers. But that is superficial thinking. The causes for the change were not within the churches, but outside, and the ministers of the gospel, though human beings like the rest of us, were among the very last to take cognizance of them. The doubts and questions and misgivings evidently began, some time ago, among practical, thoughtful minds of scientific training. Certain statements in the Bible, in the light of modern investigation, were found to be inaccurate. If parts of it were founded on the ignorance of men of more or less primitive instruction, it is easy to see where this line of reasoning was bound to lead. In addition to the statements of fact, many of the ideas and assumptions set forth in the Bible seemed crude, narrow, cruel--as primitive as the lives of those early peoples among whom it came into existence. The moral code contained in it--the essence of its religious significance--was undoubtedly sound and eternally true and very possibly inspired from on high, but the details, the images, the formal conceptions were decidedly antiquated and unimpressive to the enlightened spirit of our advanced civilization. This growing point-of-view began to express itself quite noticeably in the past generation, at least in America. Thoughtful men, when they arrived at it, were inclined to keep it to themselves. They did not care to disturb the simple, whole-souled faith of their wives and mothers and children. But when these men went to church with the family, and had to listen to the literal, orthodox expoundings of antiquated dogmas, they were apt to feel mildly bored and annoyed. They began to beg off from going to church. Then, little by little, in the various church congregations, there was a disquieting falling off in the attendance of men-folk. Then some of these men began to exchange their views quietly with others, who felt the same way. Articles were written, here and there, calling certain dogmas into question--and women were sometimes led to take part in the discussions and face the conclusions. Women, as has been observed from time immemorial, are by nature more conservative than men, more inclined to accept existing conventions and be governed by traditions. They are also more impressionable and the outward forms of church service mean more to them. Religious stimulant can come to them through their feelings and imagination without greatly involving the intellect. The same is true of children. So it has happened that while the men questioned, lost faith and balked at church-going, the women and children kept on dutifully, for the most part content to accept things as they had always been. But the contagion of advanced thought was in the air, spreading among progressive men, reacting to a certain extent among women, and it was probably not until this had been going on for some time that it began to be taken into account by the clergy. Sooner or later it had to be, if the church was to preserve any harmony with the thoughts of its congregation. At the present time, things have reached a point where if you ask any of the younger women, of average intelligence and education, her sentiments concerning hell's fire and heaven's glories, and the jealous on-looking God who demands to be worshipped, the chances are she will answer with a shrug that those things are no longer preached by progressive ministers. She believes in the Bible, certainly, and considers herself a good Christian, but certain portions of the divine word, certain conceptions of the past, are no longer acceptable--they have gone into the discard. And these women, holding such a view, have no hesitancy in expressing it in the presence of their children, if it so happens that they are old enough to be sitting by, listening to the conversation. In the light of all this, when we come to consider the force of religion as a restraining influence in the growing lives of the new generation, the nature and extent of the changes is fairly obvious. Let us suppose that to-day the average little children still have the beginnings of their religious training in much the same way as it has always been. And a large proportion of them undoubtedly do, because that is one of the family traditions which almost any mother would be loath to change. The children, then, are taught to say their daily prayer--they are told that God hears them and sees them--that God is all-wise and all-powerful--that He loves good people and rewards them, while people, who do wrong, anger Him and cannot escape His punishment. And this teaching is continued and developed in the Sunday school, as soon as the children are old enough to go there. The child mind absorbs all this, accepts it with the same simple faith with which it has accepted Santa Claus. If we consider the period of early childhood carefully, we find that these two beliefs, so to speak, go hand in hand--and there is much similarity between them. Most children are also taught about Santa Claus from the earliest days. He becomes very real and wonderfully important in the child imagination. He, too, has a mysterious way of knowing whether people are good or bad; he, too, loves the good ones and rewards them by bringing them beautiful presents--and if the bad ones are too bad, he is liable to punish them by giving them no presents at all. Instead of praying to him at night, you can write him letters which he has a way of getting from the chimney, so that he, too, can understand the innermost wishes of your heart. Sooner or later, however, the time must come when the existence of Santa Claus is called into doubt. The doubt usually begins with some remark made by an older boy or girl. But even if older boys and girls kept their mouths shut, the time would surely come when a growing mind would begin puzzling, reasoning, doubting, and by putting two and two together, would be forced to the conclusion that this pretty idea was only a make-believe, a myth, a humbug. A little further reflection might tell it that the myth must have been invented by some one, long ago, and was kept alive and carried on by people, generation after generation, on account of the value and influence it was found to have in bringing up children. Even after a child has become too wise to believe any longer in Santa Claus, when the first reaction of feeling fooled and cheated is over, it is perfectly willing to go on pretending for the sake of little brother and sister, and when it grows up and has children of its own, it will go on pretending for them. In the present generation, what is happening in the case of many people with regard to religious beliefs, is only one step removed. At a little later period of development, no doubt, but almost as inevitably, the moment arrives when the childhood teachings and conceptions begin to be called into question. Is there really an all-wise Lord, looking on and listening when you say your evening prayers? How many ears and eyes He must have, when so many people are doing the same thing at the same time--hundreds, thousands, millions--all talking to Him at once--in different languages and about different things! It was the same way about Santa Claus. How could he be bringing so many presents to so many people, all over the world, and delivering them personally, on the same Christmas eve? It would have taken him years to get through with all the houses in New York City alone--without thinking of London and Paris and all the other places. In the past, when such a question came to mind and found expression, the answer was comparatively simple and direct. Religion is a matter of faith, not argument; the ways of the Lord surpass the human understanding: the Bible and the church are the authority, what they teach and ordain is to be accepted and obeyed. To doubt, or question, or disbelieve is the beginning of sin, and the consequences may be terrible. When the individual was trained to the habit of obedience--when the attitude of the spirit within was one of respect and reverence for established authority and established traditions--that was one thing. If mothers and fathers and neighbors and wiser heads everywhere accepted this great mystery unqualifiedly, on faith, as the guiding light of their lives, was it not enough for their sons and daughters to follow their example and do likewise? But in the new generation, as we have seen, the twig has already been bent in a different direction. Before the time comes for the young person to be bothered with thoughts about religion, he or she has already acquired the notion that the example of mother and father does not need to be followed in many things. Some of their ideas and traditions have become antiquated and more or less ridiculous in the light of the new movement. When one begins to make enquiries about this question of the Bible, enough has been said and heard to indicate that certain of its assumptions, at least, will no longer hold water and have been discarded by the ministers, themselves. So, say many of the new generation, when you come down to it, what is there to prove that these religious beliefs may not, after all, be only a legend, something like the one about Santa Claus, evolved in the distant past, kept alive and adhered to, generation after generation, for the same sort of reason? A far greater number find it more convenient to refrain from expressing themselves. They may even go to church, occasionally, and they observe a superficial deference for the established forms of religion. But they are very little concerned in the sayings of the Bible, or the sermons of the ministers; they don't ask, or expect, any help from the Lord--nor do they live in fear of His punishment. It is not to be inferred that any large proportion of the new generation have consciously or definitely followed out the chain of reasoning which we have indicated. Most of them don't bother their heads to think very far about such a serious subject. Their attitude, on this question, as on many others, is apt to be arrived at, in a more or less subconscious way. If a growing nature has not been schooled to obedience; if it has learned to question and often disregard the ideas of its parents and elders and has formed the habit of laughing at old-fashioned traditions and conventions, there is nothing to be wondered at, if, when the time comes, it is prepared to take a more or less similar view of Bible and church. That, undoubtedly, is the present tendency. Now it is more than likely that such thoughts as these seem objectionable to many good Christians, because they consider that every well-intentioned person should strive to uphold the church and to refrain from the expression of ideas that might tend to unsettle faith. Let me assure such people that my intentions are really of the best and I am as deeply concerned as they can be about the influences which appear to be undermining the spiritual welfare of my fellow beings. But for the present, my aim is to look facts in the face, and to endeavor, patiently and simply, to understand and explain. When we have done our best in this direction, it will be time enough to hazard opinions and offer suggestions. Also, let us bear in mind that in this question of religion, as in the other questions we have touched upon, it is only a tendency which we have been considering--a fairly general tendency, to be sure, but still only a tendency. In some communities, in some families, in some sects, it may be hardly noticeable. At the moment I write these lines, the newspapers are full of a new movement undertaken by leading church societies of various denominations to have laws enacted, enforcing the observance of the Sabbath. They aim to bring about by this means, a return to the habits of church-going and Bible reading, as they were in the days of our forefathers. The very existence of such a movement is sufficient evidence of the tendency they seek to combat. Whether any law could be counted on to accomplish their purpose is another question, which need not concern us for the time being. If we go back to our main thread of enquiry and draw together the results of our observations, they seem to offer a comparatively simple diagnosis of this supposedly mysterious disease which has gotten hold of our young people. We have located the seat of the trouble and indicated the nature of the developments which have, so to speak, thrown the motives of conduct out of their accustomed balance. Obedience, discipline, respect for authority and traditions, consideration for others, fear of punishment, fear of consequences, fear of God,--these great check-weights to self-interest, self-seeking, have lost in weight and substance to such an extent that they no longer turn the scales and point the way. If our diagnosis is on the whole correct, we have finished with the first part of the problem. _N.Y. Times_, July 5, 1921.--Says lax parents make boy felons. Judge Talley analyzes youthful crime. Defiance begins at home. Judge Alfred J. Talley of the Court of General Sessions told several thousand persons gathered in the Mall in Central Park for an Independence Day celebration by the Knights of Columbus yesterday afternoon that modern American children are not brought up with the proper respect for their parents, law and order, or constituted authority, and that the fault lies with their elders. Judge Talley described the situation as a "cancer on the body politic." He drew a distinction between liberty and license and said that his experience in the criminal courts of New York had brought one great American failing very strongly home to him. "The one thing the American people lack to-day," he said, "is a proper method for bringing up their children. I see the results of this every day. The hardened criminals turn out to be youths of 19 and 20 years who first thrust themselves against law and order at 16 and 17 years, and who at 14 told their fathers that they were leaving school--and left. "Behind this hardened criminal stands the sullen drab figure of a girl who tries to show how loyal she is to the vagabond in the hands of the law. It all began with a misguided idea of liberty. The youth is the one who told his father he had had all the education he needed and promptly became a street corner type, and the girl, she who silenced her mother when bound for a dance by tossing aside criticism of the indecent dress she wore. "In our schools to-day the child stands defiant and the teacher is unable to use the only kind of discipline that would do any good. The parent at home fails to understand disciplinary methods, and so we have the picture of the father obeying the son instead of the son the father; and the mother obeys the daughter." To support his contention, Judge Talley said that statistics supplied a few weeks ago by the New York State Prison Commission showed the average age of penitentiary inmates to be 19 years. "This means that they began their criminal careers at 16 and 17, an age at which no Judge sends them to State prison. What is to be done to stem this tide of youthful depravity? There is only one way--we must encourage morality in public and in private, which means that we must bring back to our American life high standards and high ideals." II THE UP-TO-DATE PRINCIPLE In the eyes of some good folks, the behavior of the girls and boys and young married people to-day appears totally unprincipled; and the good folks throw up their hands and declare "they can't understand it." As a matter of fact, they haven't tried to understand it and most of them are very far from understanding it. There are nearly always two sides to a question--to any question--and no matter how strongly your personal views may incline you to take one side, before passing judgment, it is no more than common fairness to give the other side a chance to explain and justify its attitude. There is certainly very little chance of convincing your opponents that they are wrong, unless you have a fairly clear notion of what it is they have in mind. It is quite natural for a grandmother to regard as "unprincipled," the conduct of this new generation. It is obviously not controlled by the same principles that she has lived by. She is impressed and disturbed by the disappearance of her principles and the shocking effects. The "impossible notions" that have apparently taken their place are beyond her comprehension, but she certainly would not dignify them by the name of principles. But if these "impossible notions" are all that the new generation has to go by, and if they represent its spirit and attitude toward the problem of life, it makes little difference whether they be called principles or not, a principle of some sort is involved in them. The first thing to do, therefore, is to arrive at as clear an understanding as possible as to what this principle is and what it implies. Very little observation is needed to arrive at the conclusion that the essence of this new principle is the right of the individual nature to its fullest expression, to its most untrammelled development. A large proportion of the new generation may not be consciously aware of this doctrine, or of their adhesion to it. But it is in the air and they absorb it; it grows up within them, as an unconscious product of other influences; it is present in those about them, and the "herd instinct" causes them to adopt it. There are also a number who have given thought to the subject and are convinced of the soundness and progress of the new principle. They are prepared to defend it and proclaim it with a touch of superiority. Here and there, in magazine articles and newspapers, it is finding more or less authoritative expression and endorsement. The following quotations, for instance, are from an article which appeared recently on the editorial page of the Hearst Newspapers. They represent some views on education by a leading exponent of advanced thought. One great end of education that ought forever to be in mind is that the greatest enemy of attainment, as it is indeed of life itself, is Fear. No man or woman can ever do good work, in the world, whatever be the task, until he has stricken from his hands and head and his heart the chains of Fear. The very first lesson to teach a baby is to be unafraid. Instead of that, fear is constantly resorted to in the family and in the school-room. We bribe, we threaten, we wheedle, we bull-doze. And by every such act, we do the child irreparable harm. You ought to be much more thankful to God that your child defies you, than that he cringes before you. It should always be kept in mind that what you are after with your child is not that he should learn obedience, but that he should learn how to govern himself. The road to obedience is short, easy and nasty. All you need is a big stick. If you can be cruel and brutal enough, the little one will quickly learn to jump when you speak to him. This is a part of the new principle, forcibly and typically expressed. Is it any wonder that grandmother, brought up under the "Spare the rod, and spoil the child" and "Children should be seen, not heard" convictions, should find herself bewildered by such notions--that she should deem them "impossible." Another article of a somewhat different kind which appeared recently in the Atlantic Monthly, was written by an Englishman, a moralist of the modern school. His lesson is addressed to women and the main point of it, developed in a most interesting and reassuring way, is that they are too much afraid of conventional ideas, of public opinion. They should not permit their aspirations and inclinations to be stifled by such considerations, but have the courage to give freer rein to their inner longings. He refers, in his article, to the fact that American women are said to be far more advanced in this respect than their English cousins and approves of their example. These, of course, are only scattered specimens of the many articles which have appeared and will continue to appear in support of the new principle. And in this connection a rather curious side-light has come to my attention repeatedly, within the past few years. Among a certain class of people, especially those who pride themselves on superior intelligence and advanced thought, there has been a pronounced revival of interest and admiration for the free verse and freer morals of Walt Whitman. He has been, so to speak, re-discovered and embraced as a guide and a prophet. His creed of life, so exuberantly and defiantly expressed, was the exalted importance of his own ego. Wherever his desires led him, wherever joy for himself was to be found, there would he go, unabashed and inconsiderate. With these indications in mind, we may proceed to consider some actual examples which will serve to illustrate. A certain young woman is well-born and well-bred, occupying a prominent social position, decidedly intelligent--and good-looking, to boot. She has a husband of her own class and kind, who has always been devoted to her, and three lovely children, two boys and a girl. She has apparently given considerable thought to the problem of life, and the point-of-view she arrived at finally would seem to be a typical product of modern ideas. She believes first and foremost in the absolute right of the individual soul to recognize no master but itself--to follow out its desires and aspirations to the fullest extent. She has a feeling of scorn and contempt for conventions and conventional people. If you pay any attention to them, or their narrow, sheep-like opinions, or allow them to interfere in any way with your freedom of action, you are belittling yourself and your self-respect. You must never be afraid to obey your own impulses. They come from within you, they are a part of your nature--your self--and that is where your true duty lies. It is better that you should be true to yourself, even at the expense of others, than that you should be afraid and cowardly. The very fact that a desire, or an impulse, makes itself felt within you is the main point. It is not really the things you _do_ that matter so much, as your _wish_ to do them. If you wish to do a thing, and hold back out of cowardice, or fear of the consequences, that doesn't make you any better--only weaker and worse. You can't deny that the wish was there--without lying to yourself--so what's the use? It is finer and braver to go on with it and attain at least the satisfaction of a wish fulfilled. "But," some one objects, "how about your obligations to others? Suppose by doing the thing you wish, you will harm them?" This little lady's answer to such an objection is usually accompanied by a shrug and a mildly condescending expression. "If you are going to keep bothering your head about the effect of your actions on other people, might as well give up at the start and be a nice little sheep. The game isn't worth the candle. "Besides, there's more humbug in that than any of the other bromides, weak natures prate about. Most people in this world have got to look out for themselves. You can't hope to be anything, or do anything worth while without occasionally treading on some one's toes. It has always been that way and if you're honest with yourself, you may as well recognize the fact and accept it philosophically. "In most cases the harm that you do is much less than you imagine. That usually takes care of itself, somehow." If people bore her, she doesn't believe in pretending that they interest her. She will not invite them to her house, or accept their invitations. If she has agreed to go somewhere, where she expects to amuse herself and then, at the last moment, no longer feels in the mood for it, she calls it off. Or if in the meantime, something else turns up that she would prefer to do, she does not hesitate to switch to the thing she prefers. If people don't like that, it is their affair. She has no intention of cramping her freedom, denying her desires, on their account. What she does means more to her than it does to anybody else. There is no good reason for her to pretend to be any different from what she is. Moreover, in this particular case, there can be very little doubt, among those who know her, that she practices what she preaches. This, too, is something which occurs more frequently in the new generation than it did in the past. There is no great trouble in accommodating practice to theory--or rather the theory accommodates itself very readily to the kind of conduct which persons of this kind are ready to practice. For instance, the lady in question wanted to visit Chinatown in one of the large cities and arranged with a professional guide to be taken there at night, alone with a girl friend. Among other things, they saw a Chinaman smoking opium and this gave rise to a desire on her part to experience the sensation for herself. The guide was prevailed upon, for a consideration, to procure her an outfit and a supply of opium; and that very night in her room she took a try at an opium dream. Why not? At another time, at a cabaret party, she was introduced to a somewhat notorious young man of the Bohemian world. He was obviously dissolute, but talented and interesting. She danced with him, gave him encouragement, invited him to her home and was not afraid to be seen going about with him frequently on terms of intimacy. Among other things, he was addicted to the cocaine habit--he sniffed the powder from the back of his hand--and in due time he talked to her about it. He presented her with a bottle of the drug and after that, she always had a supply in reserve which she used when the impulse came. Why not? If her husband had any objection to things that she did, he soon learned to keep them to himself. She could not and would not tolerate any interference with the rights of an individual soul. She must have the same freedom that she conceded to him. The kind of thing he chose to do, apart from her, was a matter for him to decide in accordance with his nature. The same rule must apply to her. The days of slavery had passed. Marriage was an arrangement between equals. In due course of time, the husband had to leave her and the children for war service. While he was away, she fell in with another talented and dissipated Bohemian--a romantic-looking musician very much in the public eye. Very quickly their infatuation for each other was a matter of open comment on the part of the veriest on-looker. As he had the same idea that she had about the rights of the individual, and the same contempt for conventions and conventional people, there was no pretense of concealment, no need of observing the proprieties. When the husband returned from overseas, she informed him, with the utmost candor of what had taken place. There was no shame and no remorse. Why should there be? A simple statement of fact--the forces of human nature in operation. She had found some one who appealed to her impulses more strongly than he. That was a truth which had to be accepted. The simplest way was to allow her to get a divorce. But what of the children? A very simple answer. Whether they went with their father or stayed with their mother--or were taken by the grandparents--anything was really better for children than being brought up in an atmosphere where all was pretense and whence love had flown. Of course she loved her children and always would, but if they grew up to be the right sort, they would understand her motives and admire her the more for being true to herself. This case embodies the practical working of the new principle, carried to an extreme. Here is another example of a different order: Two pretty girls of eighteen or twenty were talking together in the seat in front of me, in a trolley car. They turned out to be telephone operators at central switchboards. They were talking over their plans, which contemplated a visit to the movies with two young men--a supper and dance afterwards. The young men were still to be heard from and as the girls were going to separate places of employment the question was how to let each other know about final arrangements. For reasons best known to themselves, it wouldn't be wise to attempt that over the 'phone--they had better meet somewhere. Whereupon one of the girls suggested a place convenient to them both, where they could slip out and meet each other--at four o'clock. She would "plug in" all the terminals on her switchboard, so that all the lines in that central would be reported "busy" when people called up, and the other girl could do the same. Then they could talk things over quietly. "Nothing to be afraid of." And so they agreed. Why not? Here is another symptom: A married woman of my acquaintance is decidedly old-fashioned in her respect for conventions and moral standards. She has a sweet and rather shy daughter, who has been brought up closely under the mother's wing, and has never lost the habit of asking and telling her mother everything. She is seventeen. One summer evening, recently, the daughter was called up on the 'phone by one of her girl friends and asked to make one of the party, who were arranging an impromptu dance at a private house. The girl friend and her brother would stop for her in their car and bring her home afterwards. When the invitation was referred to mother, after a moment of hesitation and worry about the propriety of the proceeding, she gave her consent. Shortly after, the friend and her brother stopped at the house and took the daughter with them. When she got back home, after midnight, she went to her mother's room and told her, at her bed-side, what had happened. After they got to the house where the dance was to be and the others had all gathered there, it was decided for some reason to adjourn to another house. To get to this other house, the daughter was put into an automobile with a girl and two young men. She sat in front, beside the young man who was driving. She knew him only slightly, had danced with him a few times and thought him rather nice. On the way, after chatting and joking, this young man stopped the car, then suddenly kissed her and took her in his arms. She didn't know what to do. When she looked around, she found that the same thing was going on in the back seat between the other boy and girl. The young man beside her wouldn't listen to her objections. They seemed to take it for granted. If you liked each other, why shouldn't you? He said he liked her. The occurrence is fairly typical of up-to-date standards--except in one particular. Most girls refrain from mentioning it to mother. Here is another symptom, of slightly different complexion which applies to married life and suggests the extent to which the new principle is bearing fruit, in society circles. It was brought to my notice, last summer, that in one colony on Long Island where I happened to be, there were fourteen different houses where the wife had deserted the family and the husband was keeping house alone with the children. This was among members of the fashionable set. In each of these cases, of course, the wife had come across some man who, for the time being at least, appealed to her more than her husband and a divorce had been obtained in some convenient way, or was in the process of obtaining. It usually happens when a discussion takes place concerning the immorality of the present day, that some member of the party will advance the opinion in a more or less authoritative way that the tendency in question is confined almost entirely to the so-called upper crust of society and is consequently not entitled to the significance which is being attributed to it. The great mass of the people, in their simple homes and simple communities, are not in the least contaminated or disturbed by it. They are just as moral and clean-minded as they ever were, probably more so. Among the rich and idle upper classes, there has always been a lot of dissipation and immorality in all countries, at all times. If America is getting a little more than usual of it, at present, that is nothing to get excited about. In the face of such sentiments, cheerily and forcibly expressed, the average gossip and fault-finder is usually willing to acquiesce with a shrug. And so the discussion ends with a feeling that an attempt has been made to exaggerate the importance of a restricted and unrepresentative class. As a matter of fact, this kind of talk would appear to be founded on neither accurate information nor sound reasoning. As regards the lower and middle classes--including those in small communities--especially those in small communities--it has been called to my attention repeatedly by those in a position to know that the change in standards, the so-called demoralization, has been quite as extreme as among the upper crust. And this view is in accord with my own notion. Two important agents of the new movement are the automobile and the moving picture show. The mechanic's daughter, the store-keeper's daughter, the farmer's daughter like to go to the movies. It may be at first the mother, or father, took care to find out who the daughter was going with and how. A girl friend and her brother. How are they going? In the friend's automobile. Another time the father runs the daughter over to the friend's house in the Ford car. Another time the daughter runs herself over to the friend's house in the Ford car. It is only a short way. Or again, it is the friend's brother who stops for her, on his way to get the sister. After a while, this going to the movies has become such a frequent occurrence, that it is accepted as a matter of course, without bother or comment. If perchance the daughter comes home, some night, later than usual and the mother feels uneasy, the explanation is very simple. Instead of going to the nearby theatre, the daughter and her friend went over to a neighboring town where a more interesting picture was showing. In the end the daughter goes off about when she pleases and comes back in the same way. Very often the stories she sees on the screen are largely seasoned with material that stirs the imagination and emotions in a hectic sexual way. If the girl and a young man get into a Ford car together to go home by moonlight, is it to be wondered at that the car comes to a stop on the lonely road and they forget old-fashioned proprieties? The extent to which this sort of thing has been going on in many of the small town communities, according to the information I have received, is far too serious to be glossed over with easy optimism. In one relatively small and primitive district I happened to know of, more than one-half of the families with marriageable daughters have within the last three years had to bear the shame of illegitimate off-spring. In the cities and larger towns, the same tendency appears to be in full swing among the shop-girls, stenographers, and daughters in the humbler walks of life. III REASON AND EXPERIENCE In any case, from the examples and indications which we have cited and countless others of a similar kind which come within the experience of almost every one, nowadays, there can be little room for doubt that the new principle of conduct is very much in evidence throughout the length and breadth of our land. Consciously or unconsciously, it is affecting the character and determining the point-of-view of vast numbers in the new generation. If you attempt to reason with them and they are willing and intelligent enough to express themselves frankly, their answer and justification for the way they are going sums up about as follows: "Why shouldn't I think of myself and do what I like and want, as often as I get the chance? "As long as I steer clear of the law and avoid breaking my neck, what other consequences are there that I need to keep worrying about? "Why shouldn't I be a pleasure-seeker and a pleasure-lover? Why shouldn't I follow my inclinations and do what I like, whenever and wherever I get the chance?" Why not? If you expect them to act contrary to their inclinations, to deny themselves the pleasures that they want, and to do things they do not feel like doing, there ought to be a good and sufficient reason. It ought to be so clear and convincing that it can be accepted with a whole heart and a settled resolve to abide by it. The young people of to-day are made of exactly the same stuff as the young people of any other day. They have the same sort of instincts and the same underlying aspiration to get the most and the best out of life. Owing to altered conditions, for reasons which we have outlined, they are being left to go about it very largely in their own way, with less coercion from without, than young people have probably ever known before in the history of civilization. How far will you get by telling them that the way they are going is immoral and sinful? They can answer by saying "If I choose to be immoral and satisfy myself, why shouldn't I? I'm not afraid of being sinful, or any of those old-fashioned scare-crows." How far will you get by advising that the rod be taken out again and that they be beaten into submission to forms of authority which they no longer believe in or respect? This might result in teaching them duplicity and cunning and resentment, but probably nothing more beneficial to their spiritual health. It seems to me more sensible to be patient with them and talk matters over with them and try to answer their question in exactly the same spirit in which it is asked. The question is "Why shouldn't I go ahead and gratify my inclinations in any way that suits myself." There are many reasons, some of which ought not to be very difficult for any one to understand. Broadly speaking, they are of three different kinds--First, experience; second, affection; third, faith. Let us examine them in order, in a simple, leisurely way, and try to make clear the essence of each. What does the question of experience lead to and imply? First, there is one's own experience; then there is the experience of other people. Our own experience teaches us very quickly that we often have impulses which it would be a mistake to obey. If you feel like pulling a strange dog's tail and the dog turns on you and bites your hand and the wound has to be cauterized, and you have to go through a lot of pain and trouble and fear of hydrophobia, one lesson will probably be enough for you. Suppose you are overheated and feel like sitting in a draft and letting the cool air blow on you, and this is followed by a heavy cold which lays you up for a week or two? Or suppose you are on top of a tall building and feel a strong impulse to jump out and go sailing through the air? Many people have this impulse, but they have previously had enough experience to know what happens to people who fall from high places. The number of such examples might be multiplied indefinitely, but enough has been suggested to indicate the principle. It is quite obvious and childishly simple--the lessons taught to each and every one of us by our own experience. Now let us follow this path a step further. It is quite possible for you to have impulses and inclinations to do things which might cause you irreparable harm. The consequences of these things are not something that you can remember and foresee, because in your own experience they have not occurred before. If you stick to your idea of obeying no one but yourself and of being unafraid to do what you want, the lesson in store for you may come too late. Certain impulses of yours, if followed, may cause death. Others may cause permanent injury to yourself, or irreparable harm to others. A little boy seeing an automobile coming along the road sometimes has an impulse to run across the road in front of the automobile, for the fun and excitement of it. If you are a boy and feel like it, why shouldn't you? You have never tripped and fallen in front of an automobile--you have never misjudged the speed of it and been struck and killed that way. You have never seen any other boy killed that way. There is nothing in your own experience to deter you. If the automobile happens to hit you, you will have acquired experience that might be useful to you, but the cost is too great. If you are not dead, you may be crippled for life. If you are convalescing from typhoid fever, you are likely to have a ravenous appetite. You feel very well and you derive considerable pleasure from the milk-toast and soft-boiled eggs you have been getting, but they do not begin to satisfy you. Every instinct within you calls for a big piece of juicy beef-steak and fried potatoes. There is no reason in your experience why you should not gratify your desire--you may have been told by the doctor that it isn't time for that yet and you must be content with what is ordered for you. But if you believe in doing what you feel like and the doctor is out of the way, why not have your beef-steak? I happen to know of two separate cases where this occurred--friends of mine. The doctor in each case apparently took too much for granted and failed to impress upon their minds forcibly enough the need of obeying his orders rather than their own inclinations. The experience came too late--because it brought death with it. Or suppose you are in some out-of-the-way place and are hot and tired and very thirsty and the only water available comes from a supply which is not fit to drink? You may have been told this by some one who knows more about it than you do, but if you believe in ignoring other people's opinions and thinking only of yourself--and the water is cool and clear and you feel like drinking it, why shouldn't you? Suppose it turns out that clear, cool water may be polluted with cholera, or yellow fever, or other deadly germs? You may never recover from the effects of it. These are crude, haphazard illustrations of a principle which is constantly at work in human lives in a great variety of ways. The obvious meaning of it is that your experience, or your own lack of experience, in many questions and emergencies may not be enough for you to go by, or depend upon. Most young people have had very little experience of many things that are liable to have a vital bearing on their own lives, their own selves, their own hope of happiness. As a matter of fact it must be evident to any one who will reflect a moment, that no one individual, however long he may have lived, or however full and varied his life may have been, can possibly have had in his own personal experience more than a small fraction of the things that may occur and do keep occurring in the world of humanity. If he has led a clean, healthy, vigorous life, he cannot have experienced the feelings and problems of a drunkard and dope-fiend slowly submerging in dissipation and vice. If he married young and has known the joy of entire devotion to a loyal and loving helpmate, he cannot have had the experience of a profligate who has been divorced four times and is about to take another chance with a dashing grass-widow. Hundreds and thousands of situations that other human beings are called upon to face, he cannot have gone through on his own account. But if we are able to find out and bear in mind the experience of other people, we can make use of it, as a warning and a guide, in much the same way as if it had happened to ourselves. If I have seen a boy try to run across the road in front of an automobile and stumble and get killed, it is not necessary for me to get killed in order to appreciate the danger of the experiment. You may never have seen this happen, but if I have and I tell you about it, you can use the information you get from me and still save yourself the necessity of risking your neck. This principle is not at all difficult to understand. It has always been applied, to greater or less extent, in the lives of all human beings, everywhere. It is no more than common sense to profit by the experiences of others, and try to avoid their mistakes. It seems strange that such a universal principle should be overlooked by the up-to-date minds of the new generation. Yet the least little glimmer of light from it would in itself seem to be a sufficient answer to their question. "Why shouldn't I go ahead and gratify all my impulses?" Because although your own limited experience may be insufficient to warn you and guide you, the experience of other people has shown repeatedly that such and such impulses usually lead to such and such consequences which would be very harmful to you. In the long run the results of others' experience are a better guide to follow than your selfish impulses. You wish to be intelligent and reasonable, don't you? Well, if you lack experience and understanding, it is neither intelligent nor reasonable to imagine that you are the best judge of the consequences. Of course, the examples we have cited so far--the strange dog that bites, the boy and the automobile, typhoid fever and polluted water--are very elementary. Also the questions they involve--the harmful consequences of certain impulses--are direct and immediate and entirely material. They serve well enough to answer a question and illustrate a principle and that is all they were intended for. The principle is worth bearing in mind, because its application extends to all sorts of complicated questions of conduct. One reason that the young people of to-day are so confused in their moral ideas is just because they have been allowed to overlook this simple, fundamental principle. It frequently happens that the most important consequences of the thing you do, or fail to do, are not direct and immediate but fairly remote and obscure. An individual without much experience or knowledge of the world may easily neglect to consider them. For instance, I have known several cases where young men of good family forged their fathers' names. They were up-to-date young men, of course. But even so, how could they come to do such a thing? By gratifying their inclinations, in the first place, in accordance with the up-to-date idea. One natural consequence of this is that, in order to gratify a new inclination, or as a result of having gratified the last one, it becomes necessary to have more money. That is one of the annoyances of civilization, which even the most advanced of the new generation haven't yet been able to change. Many of their pet impulses cannot be indulged without money. It is an old-fashioned convention and very irksome, but for the time being, at least, it has to be made the best of. The young men in question eventually found themselves faced with this problem. They had to have money. How could they get it? Not by asking their mother, or father, for it. That source of supply had been used up to the last drop, with the help of all sorts of pretexts, subterfuges and broken promises. There was no longer any available friend or relative to borrow from. That resource had also been used up. They had no jewelry left to pawn--that had been used up, too. So finally, for the want of a better way, they arrived at this scheme of signing their fathers' names to checks. After all, looking at it from their point-of-view, and bearing in mind the freedom of the individual, why shouldn't they? It would do no great harm to their fathers--no real harm at all. They had plenty of money in the bank. But it would constitute forgery--a serious offense, against the law. "What of that? So is speeding an automobile against the law. Who's afraid of breaking the law--if you have the nerve?" Is there no such thing as right and wrong? Don't you know in your heart that this would be wrong--very wrong? "I've been fed up with that kind of talk all my life. What other people think about such things is their affair. I believe in deciding for myself and doing as I like. "The main thing I've got to consider is my chance of getting away with it and what is liable to happen if I don't. I am sure I can make a good enough imitation of my father's signature to get the check cashed at one of the stores the family deals with. If it goes to the bank along with other checks and the amount is not large, there is small chance of any attention being paid to it. If it once gets into father's account at the bank, as likely as not it will never be discovered. And even if it should be, at some future date, no father would bring a charge against his own son. So the worst that can happen is another one of those family scenes which I have gone through before. "The most important thing of all is that I need the money--I've got to have it--and this is the least objectionable way I can think of to get it." This is presumably the process of reasoning the young men in question went through. In each case the immediate consequence of the act was apparently harmless and quite satisfactory to them. They got the money they wanted, the checks were taken in at the bank, time passed and no one knew the difference. The indirect and remote consequences of this kind of conduct, however, came eventually. They nearly always do. The forgeries in each case were repeated--why shouldn't they be? And the day finally arrived when they were brought to light. In each of the cases the suffering and heart-break of the mothers and fathers was pitiful and beyond recovery in this world. That was one of the indirect consequences. One of the young men, whom I had known as a bright, attractive collegian, was sent to prison, eventually, in spite of all his family could do. Another died in an institution for incurables. All forfeited their birthright of home, family, decent associations and ended up in degradation and wreckage. That was one of the remote consequences. Let us take a more usual example, much less extreme--the young man who steps on the throttle of his automobile because he feels like going fast. As far as his own experience is concerned, where is the reason for him to deny his impulse? If a traffic cop happens to see him, he might get "pinched" and fined. That's about the only thing worth considering. But if he keeps his eyes open and his companions in the back seat watch out behind, there's not much chance of that. And after all, suppose he does happen to "get pinched," what of it? There are plenty of others. His father will have to pay a fine and there will be a little scolding and unpleasantness in the family, at the worst. As for the danger, who's afraid of that? It only makes it more exciting and more fun. The result is logical enough, if you start with the premise that each individual is free to follow his inclinations and decide for himself. Very few young men have sufficient experience of their own, or sufficient reflection and wisdom, to give due weight to the indirect and remote consequences which may come from such conduct. Let us pause and imagine a few of them. In the first place, an automobile skimming along the road at the rate of sixty or seventy miles an hour has in it elements of danger which are entitled to some consideration. The danger is not only for those who are in the car, but also for others who may wish to use the same road. An accumulated mass of experience has amply demonstrated this. That is the underlying reason for the speed laws--not that young men may be "pinched" by "traffic cops" and fathers be made to pay fines. If the young man driving the car were the only one concerned in the danger, it might be different. He could claim the right to risk his own neck when he felt like it, and it might be conceded to him. But such is not the case--such is never the case--other people cannot help being affected by his conduct. His companions in the car, their families, his own family, other people on the road and all their families, may be very much concerned in a possible accident caused by his recklessness. If he kills a little girl, or a boy on a bicycle, or a lady coming out of a cross-road, or if the damage is merely the injury of a few people and the wrecking of a car, there are sure to be unpleasant consequences for the young man himself. So much for the question of accident or danger of accident, but there is another question of another sort involved. Suppose the young man has promised his mother and father that he would not drive fast--never above thirty miles an hour--suppose it was on this distinct understanding that their anxiety was allayed and he was trusted to take the car by himself wherever he liked? Does it make any difference to him whether he breaks a promise--to his mother and father? He can say to himself that it is only a natural fussiness on their part, and as they are not in the car, they won't know anything about it. But sooner or later they do know about it; such things nearly always have a way of coming to light. It is an old saying which has been very generally confirmed that, in the long run, "the truth will out." One of the girls in the car tells somebody how fast they went and that somebody refers to it before others until it gets to the boy's mother and father. What harm to the boy? A little scolding, perhaps, and a repetition of the warning and the promise? That's only the superficial consequence. There is a deeper and more remote one. The parents' confidence in their boy receives a shock. The boy can't always be trusted to keep his word. Also he is inclined to be reckless and irresponsible. The parents have always idolized the boy; the father has never ceased looking forward to the day when he could turn over to his son a big share of his responsibilities and see him carry on the name and prestige of the family. It is the most natural and fondest hope that fathers have. This hope begins to be undermined when the boy does something which shows that he cannot be trusted. If he will break his word and take a reckless chance, merely for the sake of gratifying a trivial inclination, what is to keep him from doing so, on other occasions for the same reason? The same spirit and the same point-of-view are certain to find repeated opportunities for the same sort of irresponsible conduct. When, in the course of time, the realization of this finally comes home to the mother and father, the consequences, although remote, are apt to be extremely serious for all concerned--including the boy. His character is irresponsible and untrustworthy. His word, or promise, is of no account--he cannot be counted on to keep it. That has been proved by his conduct--unmistakably. What the harm is to an individual of developing a character of this kind--or a lack of character--is a big and fairly complicated subject which is apparently not much considered by up-to-date young people, who are satisfied to judge things from the point-of-view of selfishness and personal experience. It may be left for discussion later on. The harm to mother and father and members of the family is also a matter which they incline to imagine is no concern of theirs. According to the new principle, the main consideration is one's own ego and its right to freedom. This question, too, may be left for later discussion. But there still remains a harm and a loss of a practical, material kind, which in due course is pretty sure to come to the young man, himself. As it has a direct bearing on his pleasures and inclinations, even the most selfish individual should find it worth considering. If you do things that are reckless and irresponsible, if you break your word and fail to keep your promise, the people who cease to trust you, those who have most to do with you, will treat you accordingly. Those who have it in their power to contribute largely to your enjoyment, and to your opportunities, will refrain from doing so. Invitations, friendships, relationships of various kinds that might have been at your disposal, will be withheld from you. To get the most out of life, even from an entirely material and selfish point-of-view, you need a lot of help from other people. First and foremost you need it from your own family, in countless ways. Suppose your own father, as a result of your irresponsibility, refuses to let you have an automobile to break the speed laws with? Suppose he is forced by experience to realize that you can't be trusted with money, any more than you can be trusted with an automobile? This realization is sure to be a source of great disappointment and sorrow to him, but he has to accept it. He must abandon his hope of turning over his responsibilities to you. If money is placed at your disposal, you may be expected to gamble with it on the stock exchange, or the race-track, or to squander it in gratifications of an unworthy and demoralizing kind. A young man who thinks only of gratifying his inclinations, who is not afraid to be reckless and inconsiderate of others, and who fails to keep his word, is hardly a fit person to be placed in control of money. It frequently happens that a father feels it a duty, when he makes his will, to tie up the family inheritance in such a way that it will be beyond the reach of an untrustworthy son. So that the remote and indirect consequences of this kind of conduct may be more harmful to a young man than his lack of experience and understanding makes him aware of, at the time being. How about the young woman of superior intellect and breeding, who had an inclination to smoke opium, on one occasion, and to sniff cocaine, on another? Suppose she had been better informed on the subject than she apparently was. Suppose she happened to have a friend, who had been connected with one of the state institutions for drug addicts, and this friend had told her about the inmates--how hopeless and pitiful their degradation was--how abject their slavery to the drug sensation for which they continually yearned. No way has been found to cure them, because they have no will to be cured. And the beginnings of the habit are so often accidental and trivial--curiosity, or bravado, or carelessness on the part of a practitioner. A Harvard college student, of good family, for instance, was on a spree in Boston, with some friends--they went to an opium joint and thought it would be fun to try the sensation. This particular boy remained in the den twenty-four hours, under the influence. That was the beginning--and the end. He went there again--he got himself a lay-out--and is now a hopeless wreck in the state institution, twenty-one years old. Another is a society woman who was given a dose of heroin and that one dose proved sufficient for her undoing. The craving for it came and she wanted more and more. Or suppose some one had told her about a very remarkable case which came to my attention, a number of years ago. Four young physicians were associates on the staff of one of our leading medical institutions. A considerable part of their time was devoted to research work and among other things they started experimenting with the effects of cocaine, which was a comparatively recent discovery. They were brilliant young men of unusual character and promise, but all four succumbed to the cocaine habit. The last of them died in pitiful degradation, within five years of their first experiment. Experience has shown that just as there are certain poisons which the bodily functions are unable to resist, so there are certain drugs which have the effect of sapping the will and distorting the judgment. The craving which they leave in their wake may very easily become so compelling that human nature cannot resist it. So that if any society woman has sufficient understanding of the subject, there is plenty of reason why she should dismiss an inclination to try opium-smoking, or cocaine sniffing. The impulse is mere whim, silly curiosity--the consequences may be degrading, terrible. But if she believes in paying no heed to the conventional ideas of other people, and is lacking in experience and knowledge of her own, she may be very well pleased with herself for her daring. "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread"--that is an old saying which suggests that ignorant people, defying the counsels of experience, were known to exist before now--only in the past they were called "fools," whereas to-day they prefer to be considered "exponents of advanced thought," with a superior point-of-view, inaugurating a new era of "emancipation." It is not my purpose here to go on multiplying examples. I merely wished to indicate as simply and clearly as possible an underlying, fundamental principle. It is at work in countless ways, in everybody's life, nearly all the time. Personal impulses and inclinations may be very short-sighted, very unlovely, very unworthy. Greed, murder, arson, lust, theft, lying, betrayal--are only a few samples of the variety of impulses which may come and do come frequently to various individuals upon occasion. Our own limited experience and a little reason may be a sufficient guide in many cases. They teach us to overrule certain inclinations, whose consequences we understand and which we deem contrary to our interests. In many other cases, the consequences may be just as contrary to our interests, though they lie beyond our own experience and present understanding. For that reason people have been taught throughout the centuries to accept and be guided by the accumulated experience and wisdom of those who have gone before. This accumulated experience has been preserved and made available to each new generation, in many ways--traditions, conventions, customs, familiar quotations, standard books, the schools and the Bible. Most of all, it has been the special care and function of parents to instill it into their children. For the first ten or fifteen years of life, children are constantly being told what to do and what not to do, in all sorts of contingencies. And what they are told is the result of accumulated experience in crystallized practical form. In the days of obedience, discipline and fear of punishment, children accepted and respected this guidance, as authoritative. They formed the habit of doing not what they felt like, but what was considered right and best for them. Very often the true reasons, the complicated motives and remote consequences, involved in a question of conduct were not comprehended by the young people, and only vaguely sensed by their parents. They were traditional ideas, generally approved by right-minded people and passed along. Their origin, in nearly all cases, was the accumulated experience and wisdom of people who did comprehend. So it happens that a young woman, or a young man, of the new school, without respect for old-fashioned teachings, and with insufficient experience, or knowledge of their own, can fall into the error of imagining that their selfish interests are best served by gratifying each passing inclination. Their first shallow mistake, as I have tried to show, is in overlooking the lessons of others' experience. This whole point-of-view, of course, is absolutely selfish and for the time being, I have been content to meet them on their own ground and answer them in terms of absolute selfishness. Even on the assumption that a human being is a kind of animal, which feels no need of consideration for others' welfare, and is devoid of any higher aspirations than a full measure of selfish enjoyment--even then, purely as a question of intelligence, a matter of policy, there are excellent reasons why various impulses and inclinations should be resisted and denied. The nature of these reasons I have attempted to suggest and make clear by some haphazard examples and as previously noted, the basis of them all is Experience. IV AFFECTION There remain two other sets of reasons why our selfish inclinations should often be denied--affection and faith. They are of a higher and finer order. We will take them one at a time. The conscious life of a human being is by no means limited to the perception of sensations and the exercise of reason. These are important functions, but they are not all. A human being is also provided with a heart, which is capable of feeling sympathy for other human beings--for all living things. This sympathetic feeling may cover a wide range--pity, commiseration, friendship, admiration, devotion, adoration. It is not the nature of mankind to live an isolated existence, in loneliness. Boys and girls, men and women, from the beginning of life to the end, yearn for the companionship of others with whom they can share their thoughts and feelings, their pleasures and their pains. Through association with others come affectionate feelings for certain ones. We attach ourselves to them with bonds of sympathy, understanding, love. The feeling of affection is such a normal and essential part of human life that it seeks to find expression at every opportunity. A warm-hearted child will lavish it on a kitten, or a rag doll; or will show it for a mongrel dog. If the kitten, or the dog is hurt, or sick, or even hungry, the girl or boy will be distressed by its trouble and want to help it. This is a primitive form of the feeling; carried to its full development in the heart of a sensitive, noble nature it becomes one of the most beautiful and vital of human attributes. As we share our thoughts and feelings with another and are allowed to share his in return, our centre of interest expands, as it were, and the essence of life within us enriches itself by this sympathetic mingling with the essence of the other. His thoughts, his feelings, his welfare are no longer a matter of indifference to us. As our sympathy and attachment grow, we become more and more concerned in this other's interests; they become a part of our existence, in a strange and lovely way, just as real and just as dear to us as if they were our own. Any pleasure, or good fortune, becomes doubly grateful, if we may share it with him; no pleasure is worth considering, if in order to obtain it, we would be obliged to cause him a deprivation. We cannot forget his welfare, or his happiness, we do not wish to forget his welfare or his happiness, because through our sympathy and affection, the essence of another life has become inexpressively near and dear to us. To a greater or less degree, this capacity for affection is inherent in human kind, from the lowest to the highest. It is a most precious human quality and it opens the gates of life to a sort of satisfaction that is infinitely bigger and finer and more lasting than anything that can be obtained from the mere gratification of selfish and material impulses. Now, while it is true that practically everybody is aware of this feeling and has a need for affection and sympathy, not all people by any means have big enough hearts, or fine enough natures, to respond to the need very deeply. Cold, superficial, self-centered people may go through life giving a very small modicum of sympathy or affection to anybody and receiving very little in return. Many a man is incapable and unworthy of being a real true friend to anybody. He may have brains and breeding and plenty of animal desires, but in his heart there is no understanding of what it means to be devoted to a welfare not his own. The same is true no doubt of a great many women, those whose characters are too fickle and unstable to permit of any deep and lasting attachment. Fortunately, even in the case of such men and women, if they marry and have children, some of the joy and meaning of this heart-life is still vouchsafed them. They feel it for their sons and daughters. If they have no children and are unmarried, there are mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters to keep alive some measure of sympathy and endearment. A human being who is totally bereft of such attachments, without any feeling that comes from the heart for any one, is such a rare exception that he need not be considered. Such lives, if they do exist, would appear to normal beings as very pitiful. As a usual thing, for most of us, the affections are constantly in operation. Certain people who are near and dear to us are never really out of our lives at all. Consciously or subconsciously, we carry them with us wherever we go, tucked away in our hearts, ready to rise up at the slightest provocation and take a vital part in our innermost deliberations. A little boy or girl of the right sort, with the right kind of loving parents, grows up naturally with this feeling for them. In all sorts of new experiences and questions of conduct, the thought comes spontaneously: "What will mother think about this?" "She'll be terribly surprised when I tell her that." "Father will be pleased and proud when he knows what I've done." "I don't think she'd approve of that." "He'll laugh at me, when he hears this." And so forth and so on, countless times, in countless connections. Mothers and fathers carry around a similar feeling with regard to their children. Things that they see, things that they hear, things that they read, plans and projects of all kinds, are spontaneously colored by the consideration of their effect on the son or daughter--surprise, pleasure, disappointment, good or ill. The same thing takes place to a remarkable extent between a man and a woman who love each other deeply. Nothing of importance can happen to one, without an immediate reflection of the effect and bearing it will have on the other. A frequent result of this is that, in order to give pleasure to the other, one will act contrary to his own selfish inclination. And the anticipation of this pleasure to be given to the other can be strong enough to transform this denial and deprivation of self into a sweeter and finer form of satisfaction. This same order of feeling, based on sympathy and affection, springing from the heart, extends and ramifies and attaches itself in a great variety of ways, in the life of a human being, as we have already suggested. While instances of complete devotion of one nature to another are comparatively rare, in any walk of life, and while most individuals are lacking in the bigness of heart and depth of feeling to be capable of it, under any circumstances, the importance of affection comes home to nearly everybody, to greater or less extent, and is treasured up as one of the essentials of life. As a result of this human sympathy and affection, it would seem only natural and obvious that there should come to everyone a realization of the fact that in many of the things we do, for our own good or ill, other people besides ourselves can't help being concerned. We may, by thinking only of our own inclinations and seeking to gain our selfish ends, be doing great harm and injustice to them. If other people are affected by what we do, and they have feelings of the same sort as ours, are not they, too, entitled to some consideration? This idea seems so simple and evident that any thinking person might be expected to admit it and understand it. Yet, as we have seen repeatedly in discussing the attitude of the new generation, it is one of the questions about which there prevails the greatest misconception and confusion of mind. Up-to-date young people, absorbed in the habit of doing what they like and deciding for themselves, very easily fall into the way of overlooking this consideration almost entirely. They fail to grasp the importance of the part that sympathy and affection have been assigned to play in their own natures; and at the same time they lose sight of the feelings and interests of others who must be affected by the consequences of their acts. Lack of consideration for others has come to be spoken of currently as one of the marked characteristics of this new generation. For this reason, if for no other, it may be just as well to linger on the subject and make explanations doubly plain, rather than leave any possible ground for a continuation of the confusion and misunderstanding. Suppose you were walking along a country road and you came upon a nice little boy, named Harry, one of your neighbor's sons, and Harry was sitting hunched up on a stump, sniffling and sobbing, with tears streaming down his cheeks. Upon enquiring the cause of his trouble, you learn that a bigger boy, Jake, had taken away Harry's apple. Strictly speaking, the apple didn't belong to either of them, but Harry had spied it on the tree and after a great deal of determined effort had managed to climb out on the branch and shake it down. Then Jake came along and took it. Now, to see a little fellow sobbing with disappointment, deprived of something his heart was set on and which he had worked hard to get, is enough to arouse a feeling of sympathy in any normal and kindly person. You feel sorry for Harry and you'd like to do something for him. Suppose you happen to look along the road, just then, and you spy Jake seated on a fence rail with an air of contentment, proceeding to eat the apple--what would you feel like doing and saying to him? Suppose you controlled yourself and asked him quietly why he took that apple away from Harry, and he replied, with a defiant grin "Because I wanted it. I like apples, and this is a fine big one!" If you continue to talk quietly to Jake, and show him Harry sobbing on the stump, and make him realize the situation, as like as not it will end up by Jake's saying: "All right--if he feels as bad as that, let him have it. I didn't know he was that kind of a cry baby." And he will pass up his own inclination, rather than cause that much harm to another. That is a very primitive example which illustrates the principle in its simplest form. In the first place you are moved by sympathy and consideration for another, when you feel sorry for Harry and want to help him, and so is Jake when he is willing to forego his own desire for Harry's sake--although he lacked consideration in the first place, in taking something on which another's heart was set. Here is another example: A boy, George, is an only son and very dear to his parents, who have watched over him always with loving care. During the summer vacation, George has been invited to make a week's visit at the home of a school-mate which is in another state. The trip is a longer and more complicated one than George has ever undertaken by himself, and his mother cannot help feeling apprehensive and anxious at the thought of possible accidents and emergencies which may occur. It involves a night run on a steamboat, a railroad journey and a long automobile ride through mountainous country. The mother, not wishing to stand in the way of her boy's pleasure, gives a reluctant consent. She makes no attempt to disguise the anxiety she will feel while he is on the way, and impresses on his mind the importance of sending her a telegram, as soon as he has arrived safely at his destination. George laughs at her fears, boy-fashion, and promises to do as she wishes. No sooner has he started on his way, than the mother's heart enters upon a period of increasing perturbation. Suppose something should happen to the steamer--that it should break down, or catch fire, or run on a reef--or that there should be a railroad accident--or that George should lose his ticket, or be robbed of his money and find himself in some far-away spot, not knowing what to do with no one to go to? Then that long motor ride through deserted country--suppose it should be raining and the roads slippery and they should try to make it too fast? So many things are among the possibilities, and one can never be sure until it is over. Some people might feel inclined to smile at this account of a mother's apprehension, but it is only a natural attribute of devoted love, ineffably sweet and beautiful. While the precious child is exposed to possible dangers, she cannot help feeling thus. She talks to the father about it, wanting the comfort of his reassurance; and she lies awake that night imagining things and counting the hours that must separate her from the telegram announcing George's safety. At last the time comes when, according to schedule, she may expect the message. She waits about, in momentary suspense, for the telephone ring from Western Union. Now suppose the minutes pass and then the hours, until the mother's apprehension grows into feverish and unreasoning alarm. She gets word to her husband and communicates her alarm to him. As more time passes, the conviction comes that something has happened to their son, and something must be done. They attempt to get a long distance telephone connection with the home of George's friend, but after a long delay and various appeals, the report comes that there is a break-down on the line somewhere, in the mountain section. They get in communication with the steamboat offices and the railroad station, and after interminable efforts finally ascertain that there has been no accident on either line. There remains the motor trip--or the possibility of a personal mishap to George at some stage of the journey--and no way of telling. In the end, they send a telegram to the mother of George's friend, and resign themselves to wait, in an agony of suspense for the answer. Individuals who are phlegmatic, matter-of-fact, and not very intense in their feelings might be inclined to ridicule this anxiety and suffering on the part of the parents, for so slight a cause; they would fail to understand it. But any mother with children of her own would understand perfectly and be moved to genuine and heart-felt sympathy. The condition of George's mother would naturally evoke the same sort of compassion as the spectacle of Harry on the tree stump, sobbing for his apple. But what of the Jake, in this case--the prime factor of the problem? The Jake in this case, of course, is no other than our only son, George. No trouble of any sort was experienced by him in the various stages of his journey. Upon his arrival, there were a number of new people to meet and various elements of interest in the new surroundings to occupy his attention. For the time being, he forgot to think of the mother he had left behind. Hours later, as they are starting a game of tennis, it suddenly occurs to him that he has not yet sent his telegram home, but as it would be a bother to go back to the house now and he feels like going ahead with the tennis game, he makes a mental note and puts it off. It is not until dinner time that he thinks of it again and when he finds that the telephone is out of order and he would have to motor in to the telegraph office, its doesn't seem worth the trouble. He has allowed so much time to go by already that he decides the most satisfactory way out of it is to wait until he finds time to write a letter and explain, as an excuse for not keeping his promise, that the telephone wasn't working. Before he has an opportunity to write his letter, the telegram arrives from home disclosing his mother's anxiety--whereupon he feels ashamed and sorry, and hurries to the telegraph office to send a reply. This is a more or less typical example of a great many cases where lack of consideration for others is not necessarily due to a lack of affection or sympathy, but comes from a lack of thoughtfulness and understanding. George may love his mother very much and he would not voluntarily hurt her feelings, or be the cause of her suffering. The sight of his mother in tears would cause him unhappiness and he would gladly make a real sacrifice in order to comfort her. But the sight of his mother's suffering, or the thought of his mother's suffering, is not before him--it does not enter into his calculations or motives of conduct. In order for this to take place, a certain amount of reflection and imagination is required on his part. In the case of Harry and Jake and the apple, we assumed that some one came along and called Jake's attention to the unhappiness of Harry. When Jake was made to see and realize, he responded with a feeling of consideration. But in the case of George and the vast majority of cases where this question is involved, no one comes along to explain to you. If the pleasure or pain of others is involved in what you do, the thought of that must come from yourself. Very often those others are not present at the time and the consequences may not be immediately and superficially apparent. Imagination, reflection, and a habit of mind, may be needed to realize the effect upon them. Suppose you have a friend named Brown whom you have known many years and have a good deal of affection for. An unexpected opportunity offers for you to get a week's hunting in the South and you think how fine it would be, if you can get the right sort of companion to share it with you. You see Brown, tell him about it, invite him and he accepts. You immediately start in making plans and arrangements--dogs, guns, food, drinks--leaving nothing undone to make it a bang-up affair and give Brown and yourself the time of your lives. Now suppose when you have fixed up everything and are waiting in joyful anticipation for the hour to arrive, you receive word from Brown, with apologies and a lame excuse, that he must deprive himself of the pleasure of going with you? And suppose you discover later, in an accidental way, that the real reason Brown left you flat was because something else turned up that appealed to him more and he was thinking only of himself? Suppose, now, you are a society lady, or a society man, and you have accepted an invitation from a woman friend to motor out to her country place and dine and spend the night--and suppose when the day arrives, you are offered a box at the opera, that night, to hear Caruso? As this appeals to you much more than the other, you send a wire to the country at the last minute, pretending an indisposition, and go to the opera. What of the woman friend--who had made special efforts and invited certain people on your account, and had counted on you as a main consideration in her whole affair? Your absence upsets her completely, spoils her party, and robs her of something on which she had spent a good deal of time and effort and on which her heart was set. If she ever discovers or suspects the true reason for your desertion, you will have inflicted a wound in her feelings that few friendships can survive and the loss of a friend in this world is hardly to be regarded as a trifling matter. These few examples which we have cited and a countless multitude of others, of a more or less similar nature, which might be drawn from the everyday experiences of any human being, tend to make plain the palpable truth--that very often other people besides ourselves are concerned in our actions and we do violence to our better feelings and theirs, if we leave them out of consideration. Even up-to-date young people of the most selfish order can hardly fail to recognize that and admit it, in certain instances--when the others are before their eyes, or the effect upon them is so direct and immediate that it cannot escape their attention. In such instances they respond instinctively to the finer side of their natures, where sympathy and affection are found. But just as soon as an effort of reflection and imagination is required to realize this same effect on others, there is no longer the same response. The will and the faculty to do this appear, somehow, to be lacking; so that they lose sight of this consideration very easily, and leave it out of account as a controlling influence. Some one else has to direct their attention, do the thinking for them and appeal to their feelings, in order to restore the equilibrium. This difficulty of voluntary reflection and understanding on their part is still greater when it comes to another phase of the question, which is one degree more complicated, but no less vital in its bearing on the affections. You cannot do evil things, or act in such a way as will bring harmful consequences upon yourself, without causing suffering to those who love you. If your mother is very sweet and gentle and loves you devotedly and you have a good deal of tender affection for her, you would not think of striking her a blow on the face with your clenched fist. No impulse within you, however selfish, could make you do that. Yet the pain from such a blow would be as nothing compared to the suffering you might cause her by smoking opium or sniffing cocaine or doing something dishonorable, like forging your father's signature. None of these things affect her directly or personally, but sympathetically, through her love for you. So it is in the case of the boy who, after promising not to drive over thirty miles an hour, goes speeding on the highway and gets arrested. The fine which has to be paid by father is an infinitesimal part of the harm and hurt which is caused the parents. You cannot sit in a draft and catch a heavy cold, without causing a certain amount of anxiety and distress to your sister, or your wife, who are devoted to you--if it runs into pneumonia, the hurt to them is greater; and if you happen to die of it, that may release you from further suffering, only to make theirs heaviest of all. I went to a dance, last summer, at the home of a young married couple in a fashionable community. The hostess was rather an extreme example of the up-to-date school, with the well formed habit of looking at things from the point-of-view of her own inclinations. After the dancing had been going on a short while, she found she was not in the humor for it; the men who asked her to dance didn't interest her, and she felt like going to bed. Being a firm believer in individualism and thinking only of herself, she quietly withdrew and went to bed. A number of her guests had not yet arrived. When they did and sought to greet their hostess, inquiries were made and in the end everybody was apprised of her behavior. She imagined that it concerned only herself, whereas the sympathy, affection, the kindly attitude which all those people were disposed to have for her suffered a shock. A touch of resentment and antipathy was left behind which would make itself felt in future relations. The sympathy and affection of those about us is a part of life too precious and necessary to our well-being to be lightly cast aside. The loss to us and to them, however trifling in any one instance, may in the course of time involve lasting consequences. In the various examples we have cited so far, it has been a question of hurting or depriving others, through lack of consideration. A similar motive comes into play in prompting us to bestow pleasure upon others. Human sympathy causes us to delight in the joy of those we love, just as their sorrow saddens us. We like to give them presents, prepare surprises for them, devise ways and means of adding to their happiness. Such acts on our part are usually accompanied by a very sweet and lovely feeling of sentiment. Our hearts are warmed by the thought and sight of this good that is coming to those we love. Some cynical and shallow reasoners like to argue that such acts are only a disguised form of selfishness because, as we have a sympathetic share in the pleasure, we benefit by it, ourselves. Any such argument is usually found to be no more than a quibble on words and a pretense of cleverness. Nevertheless, as this sort of talk is liable to crop up at any time, in connection with human motives, and cause a confusion of idea, it may be just as well to pause for a moment and dispose of it. If you find our little friend Harry sobbing on a tree stump because he has lost his apple, you feel sorry for him--because you understand and sympathize. If you had an apple in your pocket, you would give it to him. You are not thinking of yourself--you are thinking of him. If Jake comes along and restores the apple and Harry stops crying and offers Jake half, the feeling of gladness that comes to you has nothing selfish in it at all. There is no motive or calculation of self-gratification in the sentiments you have experienced. They are inspired, not by the thought of your own welfare, but the welfare of another. The essence of them is sympathy and affection. So it is with countless acts of kindness which frequently involve the need of denying our selfish inclinations--depriving ourselves of personal gratifications--for the sake of helping others who are in trouble, or bringing pleasure to those we love. The first consideration--the true determining motive--is not any thought of the benefit to ourselves, but the benefit to them. In every-day language the word used to characterize such acts and feelings is generosity--and this is properly and popularly considered the exact opposite of selfishness. Now because it has been observed by thoughtful people that acts of generosity are frequently accompanied by a feeling of satisfaction and gladness, this fact has been seized upon by a certain order of cold-blooded individuals as a pretext for distorting the truth. They argue that this feeling of satisfaction with yourself which comes from generosity is such a desirable thing in your eyes that you want it for yourself--consequently when you show kindness and sympathy for others you are obeying the same motive as the cynic, himself, who having small sympathy for others, prefers the frank gratification of his own ego. This, of course, is pure sophistry. But if any mind is so kinked that it must reason that way, there is a simple answer which will suffice to bring it through the question to the main point. Whenever the pleasure to be derived by an individual comes to him through sympathy and affection and consideration for the feelings of another--that sort of pleasure is so different in its origin and its essence from the pleasure which comes from the gratification of personal appetites and desires that the mass of mankind has recognized the difference since the beginning of civilization. One kind of pleasure flows from acts of sentiment for others' sake; the other kind is rooted in the indulgence of personal desires. The essence of one is usually characterized as generosity; the other, selfishness. If the cynic will promise to keep the distinction clear in his head and stop confusing himself with quibbles or words, he may call the motives any names he likes. This question of consideration for others is so important and far-reaching in its effect on human lives that no pains should be spared to keep it from being lost sight of or misunderstood. And yet, as we have observed, at the present time, among up-to-date individuals, it is apparently being lost sight of, more and more. In a general way, it is being bunched with those other old-fashioned notions and conventions that were wont to interfere with the freedom of the individual. Why should an emancipated ego, brought up in the modern way, be constantly bothered by the thought of others? If we pause and examine this attitude of mind, dispassionately, from another angle, a possible explanation suggests itself. There may be two reasons, of a distinct and different sort why any given person might fail to feel the significance of so vital a part of life. In the first place, some natures may be rather lacking in the qualities of affection and sympathy. All people are not alike, in this respect, by any means. Some are instinctively warm-hearted and intense in their feelings--others are naturally inclined to coldness and indifference. To a cold nature, the woes or pleasures of others are of comparatively minor consequence. There is no rush of heart-felt sympathy, if the supply is so thin and weak that it hardly suffices for the needs of self. That is one explanation of how certain natures, if left to their own resources, can be lacking in consideration. But if we are right in assuming that the general run of human nature is much the same to-day as it has always been, there ought to be the same instincts of sympathy and affection, the same kind of warm-hearts among our new generation, as there were in the time of our grandmothers. As consideration for others is founded on these, there must be some other explanation for the lack of consideration which is a growing tendency, obvious to all. The truth of the matter seems to be that consideration for others is not a primitive instinct like hunger or thirst; nor is it a simple, inborn quality or impulse, like affection or sympathy. It requires a certain amount of thoughtfulness, reflection and control of self, in order to transfer one's attention from one's own inclination and interest to the welfare of another, especially when that other is not at hand to offer a reminder or make an appeal. But under proper guidance, through enlightenment and constant exercise, this faculty is susceptible of such development that it may in time permeate the mind, become an essential part of the character, a sort of second nature, just as real and solid, and infinitely more lovely than the instincts which it dominates. The capacity and capability necessary for this development are present to a greater or less extent in all human natures. But through neglect and mismanagement and lack of enlightenment and exercise, they may shrivel and fade and contribute very little to beauty of character, or the joy of living. In the light of the foregoing observations, there is nothing in the attitude of the new generation toward this whole question which remains incomprehensible, or even very puzzling. Their advanced ideas, when sifted down, would seem to signify no more than insufficient development of the finer and better side of their natures, and a lack of understanding concerning the important rôle which affection and sympathy are capable of playing in the search for happiness. This part of their training and education has been neglected, somehow, in the confusion arising from lost traditions and standards. An essential and beautiful part of their humanity has been allowed to shrivel away until it has been lost sight of in their calculations. In all the past periods of our civilization, when obedience and discipline held sway, no such over-sight was likely to occur. One of the first lessons repeatedly and forcibly impressed upon every growing individual was the necessity of considering other people's wishes. There were three people at least, who had always to be considered--mother, father and God. Consideration of these would be rewarded and lack of consideration, sooner or later, was sure to bring punishment. In this old-fashioned way--crudely, if you will, but nevertheless with relative effectiveness--a habit of mind, was established, involving self-control, which readily became second nature. It became almost instinctive to pause in the presence of temptation or selfish inclination, and consider the effect upon others. Once this habit was formed, the teachings of mother and father, of Sunday school, church and Bible all tended to develop it and extend its application--love your fellows, let your sympathy and affection flow out to them, consider their welfare, in all that you do, and you will be blessed and happy. How is that habit of mind--that second nature--being acquired to-day and how will it be acquired in the future, among people who have ceased to respect the traditions of the past and are pleased to accept the idea of the freedom of the individual, the right to gratify yourself and every inclination, without fear or favor? Must there be a return to the old-fashioned methods and beliefs? Nothing is more unlikely. As a reaction against the present tendency, there may be efforts on the part of some well-intentioned people to return to the régime of obedience, discipline and the fear of God. But such reactions do not usually last very long. The next step that will help toward the real solution of the problem must be forward, not backward. The underlying reason why the old formulas have been losing their prestige is probably because there were fallacies and crudities contained in them which humanity has outgrown. You might look back with longing to the happy state you were in when you believed in Santa Claus, but after you have reached a certain age, all the king's horses and all the king's men cannot bring Santa Claus back to you again. V FAITH If the life of man were confined to the exercise of his senses and material instincts, there would be no problems of conduct. There would be perceptions and sensations,--some pleasant, others disagreeable. Appetites and desires would make themselves felt and he would seek to satisfy them. The underlying motive of all his acts would be to prolong life, go toward pleasure and away from pain. All about us are living things--plants, fish, animals--whose existence, as far as we know, seems limited to these simple considerations. They form part of man's life--one side of his nature--the animal side. If, in addition to this life of the senses, we concede to man a brain, a thinking apparatus, which enables him to remember, compare, calculate, the question of his conduct at any given time is apt to become more complicated, through considerations of reason. As we have seen in our previous discussions, his brain may decide him to forego a present pleasure, in order to escape a future pain; or to endure a present pain, for the sake of a future pleasure. Still, the mere addition of a reasoning mind, would in no way alter the nature of the underlying motive. The considerations would still remain purely animal--prolonging life, getting the greatest sum of pleasure, avoiding the greatest sum of pain. It is not until we begin to take note of the sympathies, affections, generous emotions of which man is capable, that we recognize another and inner nature, which may be concerned and moved by considerations that don't depend upon sensations, or selfish instincts and are not, in their very essence, animal at all. In every day language, this is the heart and the heart-life of man. It is as far removed from the brain, as it is from the senses. The brainiest people may be the least affectionate and the least generous--just as the most sensual people may so be. We have seen, in discussing this side of human nature, the bearing it has on the conduct of the individual. More delicate and more complicated motives and considerations are introduced into the problem through its influence. Its essence is sweeter, finer, less obvious and more elevating than the instincts which the brute beasts share with us. But sensations, calculations and sympathetic emotions are still not enough to explain some of the most important questions and decisions that enter into the life of man. Above and beyond all these, deeper, vaguer, more complicated and more inspiring, is another function or quality--another side of his nature--which distinguishes him completely from all the other earthly creatures. This is the spiritual side, the soul,--the home of conscience, honor, responsibility, idealism. Let us begin with some simple examples: If a big bully kicks a little boy; or a man deserts his friend in the hour of need; or an innocent person is sent to prison;--a feeling of protest arises within me. It tells me such things ought not to be. They are not right, they are wrong. My self-interest has nothing to do with it. As far as I am personally concerned, none of these things makes the slightest difference. If I turn to my intellect, that offers me no explanation. It tells me that the bully is only obeying his natural instincts, in the same way a cat does when it springs on a mouse. It is logical and proper for each and every living thing to act in accordance with its impulses. As for the man who deserts his friend, he is merely looking out for himself--a perfectly reasonable thing for any one to do. When we come to the third case, my intellect tells me that the person sent to prison was given a fair trial in accordance with the laws--the evidence was against him--and he was adjudged guilty. Because I happen to know that he was innocent, does that make the occurrence any less reasonable? As I was not concerned in it, I cannot be held accountable, so what difference does it make to me? My affections give me the same negative response as my self-interest and my reason. The bully, the small boy; the man and his friend; the innocent person--they are strangers to me; no personal attachment applies to any of them. And yet the feeling within me is unmistakable. Where does it come from? That other side of my nature, where dwells the sense of right and wrong. It is just as vague and mysterious, but just as real as another kind of sense to which it may be compared. This other sense also baffles the intellect, but it is none the less generally recognized and accepted. Certain kinds of music, sunsets, moonlight nights, paintings, arouse in me a delicate feeling of pleasure, mixed with admiration. It is not only my physical sensations which are involved--my eyes and my ears--but something deeper within me which seems to be quite apart from reason or intellect. Also my interest and attention are by no means confined to the sensations which I am experiencing; I consider the things themselves and call them beautiful. Certain other sounds and sights strike me as discordant, or unpleasant, and I call them ugly. And the faculty within me which determines this, I call a sense of Beauty. In the same way, this other sense within me is appealed to by certain deeds and qualities of men. That which is fine, just, generous, noble, I call right; another sort of thing, of a contrary tendency, I call wrong. And the faculty, itself, I call a sense of right and wrong. Suppose an individual walking along a road, wondering how he is going to raise fifty dollars which he needs very badly, comes upon an automobile standing in a lonely spot; and then sees a lady who has been picking wild-flowers, get into the automobile and after fussing with her flowers, her wrap, her hand-bag and handkerchief, let drop some small object to the ground, before driving away. He strolls up to the spot and picks up the object, which proves to be a purse containing eighty dollars in bank-notes. There is no one in sight, and after a moment's hesitation, obeying an impulse of self-interest, he pockets the money, throws the purse into the bushes and turns his steps another way. As far as his self-interest and his intellect are concerned, they agree in telling him he is very lucky. He has obtained the money which he wanted, he has broken no law, and there is not the slightest risk or danger of any sort involved in his conduct. He can pay his debt and have money to spare, with every reason to feel happy over his good fortune. But if the spiritual side of his nature is at all developed, he is apt to be tormented by a vague, persistent feeling of another kind. It tells him he has done something unworthy of his better self. In every day language, we say he is troubled by his conscience. It not infrequently happens that individuals who have done wrong are so affected by this feeling that they make restitution and confession when they are safely beyond the reach of detection. Neither the intellect nor self-interest plays any part in such conduct, which is contrary to the advice of both. It is inspired uniquely by this soul-feeling, called conscience. Slightly different from this, but belonging to the same family, is the sentiment of honor. A number of years ago, a young man whom I knew, happened to go to a notorious gambling house in New York, with a couple of companions. One of these young men was a member of a wealthy family and had been frequently to this place, where he was always most welcome. My friend held a clerical position in a financial institution, was making his own living, and at the time had about fifteen hundred dollars in the bank, which represented his entire worldly assets. It was late at night, the young men had been to a party and were in rather a hilarious and reckless mood when they started playing roulette. After they used up the money they had with them, they were allowed to continue playing on credit, chips being supplied to them as called for. My friend, after losing more than he could afford, was urged by desperation to keep on trying to recoup, and when he finally left the house, in the early hours of the morning, he had lost ten thousand dollars. That was the situation which faced him in his sober senses, the next day. A gambling debt has no standing in law. No legal claim of any kind could be made against him and he was perfectly aware of the fact. The proprietor of the establishment was a thoroughly unscrupulous individual with a shady record, and the games played there were open to a suspicion of crookedness. My friend had previously been told that. He had only to let the loss go unpaid and ignore the whole incident, without the slightest fear of consequences, so far as honest people were concerned. But this young man felt that such conduct would not be honorable. So he went to the place again, explained to the proprietor his financial situation and promised to pay off as much as he could, year by year, until the debt was cancelled. It took him five years to accomplish this, and during that time, he stuck faithfully to a resolve not to touch a card or gamble in any way. Later on the young man became vice-president of one of the largest financial institutions in America, a position which he still holds. He had then, and still has a sense of honor. Many a gentleman of good breeding and fine feelings has told deliberate lies and perjured himself under oath, in order to shield the reputation of a lady. Even though he may be under no personal obligation to the lady in question, but merely an accidental witness of some occurrence, a certain kind of man feels compelled by his sense of honor to protect her. It is not honest to tell a lie, it is a legal offense to perjure one's self; there is no reason of the intellect to make you bear false witness and defeat the ends of justice for the sake of an individual, who may have done wrong and be deserving of punishment. Yet so it is and among those who share this sense there is a beauty and nobility about such conduct which is akin to that of a sunset or moonlit night. Let us take an example of a more commonplace kind in the business world. Suppose a certain individual, Jones, living in a small community has a coal yard. When the autumn comes, Jones's bins are piled high and in addition to this, Jones has several carloads of coal on a siding, and numerous other carloads in transit. Jones's brother, who is interested in a coal mine, has advised Jones that as there is prospect of a miner's strike, he had better get his full winter's supply in advance, with a little extra and this has been so arranged. The strike takes place as predicted and then owing to war conditions in Europe, there comes a coal shortage throughout the land. With the arrival of the first touch of winter various people in the community begin sending orders to Jones. In the meantime, he has been doing a little thinking. His customers have got to have coal and they've got to buy it from him. Under existing conditions, there is no other way for them to procure it, at any price. So to speak, he holds them in the hollow of his hand. His entire supply has cost him five dollars a ton and he had figured to sell it at six, which would allow him his usual satisfactory profit. But now it dawns upon him that if he refuses to sell a single ton of it for less than twenty dollars, his people will have to pay that, or freeze, and he will make more profit in this one winter than all the rest of the years put together. So he makes up his mind to put up his price to twenty dollars and to meet all complaints by replying with a shrug that he is not asking any one to buy--they are free to get their coal elsewhere. Is not Jones perfectly honest? Would any business man of the present day blame him? Is he not entitled to make all the money he can, in accordance with the laws? Is there not every reason for his intellect to approve of his shrewdness in taking advantage of his opportunity? But suppose Jones's mother is a sweet, old-fashioned lady whom he has always loved and revered; and suppose upon learning of the situation, she calls her son to her side, takes his hand in hers and talks to him in this wise: "My son, these people are all dependent upon you, to keep from freezing. They are entirely at your mercy. To take advantage of helpless people and fleece them of their savings, because unexpected circumstances have placed them in your power, is not the kind of thing I could bear to see you do. It does not seem to me quite worthy or honorable." I have imagined it to be Jones's mother speaking thus; but if Jones's father happened to be an old-fashioned gentleman of a certain type, or an artist, a poet, a musician, he might be moved by the same feeling--a matter, not of honesty, but of honor. Jones, however, being a typical business man of the present day, is not conscious of any such feeling. If by chance, an idea of this kind did creep into his head, he would dismiss it as quixotic, not practical. He believes that "business is business." If you ask him whether Shylock was right and justified in demanding his pound of flesh, he might hesitate a moment, but after thinking it over, he would probably reply: "If Shylock had a proper contract calling for such a penalty and had lent his money on those conditions, he was entirely within his rights. If the other parties weren't prepared to live up to the terms of the agreement, they had no business to sign their names to it. That was their lookout. Their only recourse is to show something irregular or illegal in the way it was drawn up and quash it on that count, or else settle up in accordance with its stipulations. Shylock had performed his part of the agreement and he demanded that the other party should do the same." If you questioned Jones further about himself, you might learn that he had always believed and practiced the principle that "Honesty is the best policy," and nothing could swerve him from it. This has nothing to do with that inner feeling called a sentiment of honor. It is of a different essence entirely. When sifted down, it is found to consist of reason, experience and a matter-of-fact calculation of self-interest. If you don't cheat, or break the laws, and establish a reputation for honest dealing, you will gain more by it in the long run than you lose. Nothing very inspired or inspiring about that, or very different in kind from the principle of the crook who says: "If I take care to avoid detection, but pay no attention to right and wrong, I will gain more in the long run than I lose." The detail of the calculation is different, but the motive and object are the same--self-interest and self-advantage. The soul, the conscience, the sentiment of honor are not involved in either. During the late war, tens of thousands of individuals and corporations followed Jones's example and chuckled with glee as the undreamed-of profits rolled in. They took advantage of the situation and became what is known as profiteers. The brain and self-interest were acting over time, but the spiritual nature was slumbering. Suppose you are making a visit to a business friend and he leaves you alone in his office for a few minutes, while he is called out by some emergency--and suppose he has left on his desk an envelope containing business secrets which you could profit by--and suppose you take advantage of your opportunity, open the envelope, glance at the papers, get the information and later on make good use of it? An individual who is capable of doing that must be rather lacking in the sense of honor. If a business man happened to tell his wife something of a confidential nature, as some husbands do, and the wife were indiscreet enough to mention it to your wife, without realizing its full import, and your wife repeated it to you, and you thereupon proceeded to communicate it to the business man's competitor--you might not break any law, or do anything dishonest, and your intellect might tell you there was profit for yourself to be gained by it--and many another person in your place might jump at the chance--but for all that, there ought to be a feeling within you to prevent you doing it, because it would not be honorable. In the world of politics, some people might feel that it is not honorable to use a position of public trust for private ends. Suppose you have it in your power to make an appointment which might prove very lucrative to a certain type of individual who has no scruples about graft. Among your political henchmen there is just such an individual and he wants the appointment. There is another man whom you might appoint, if you chose to, a high-minded, public-spirited man, fitter and better for it in every way; but the political henchman was an important factor in obtaining for you the office which you now occupy; his good will and influence may be very helpful in your future campaigns, whereas the other man has done nothing for you and is without political influence. If you gave him the appointment, you would make an enemy of your henchman and his followers. Your self-interest and your intellect combine in showing you what a mistake that would be. Usually a politician, by the time he has been selected by other politicians as a candidate for office, has become amenable to reason and may be counted on to avoid such a mistake. But occasionally a gentleman of another sort finds himself in this position and he refuses to do the usual thing, because it goes counter to an inner feeling--his sense of honor. So it is with countless other questions of conduct, which at various times, in various communities, with various individuals, involve this feeling. In some people it is highly developed and frequently determines the motive of conduct, in a fine, noble, compelling way which is directly opposed to material considerations of self-interest. In other people, it is so feeble, and crude that its wee small voice is seldom heeded or heard in the calculations and decisions of their practical lives. In addition to the sentiments of honor and conscience and right and wrong, there are various other fine and noble feelings to which the soul of man is susceptible, to a greater or less extent, according to the individual nature. Self-respect, loyalty, gratitude, responsibility, self-sacrifice may be cited, by way of suggestion. Now, while there can be no doubt that human nature is capable of all these feelings and that individuals have been found to possess them, in different communities, at different times, it is equally obvious that among vast numbers of other individuals they find little or no expression. There have been periods in the history of certain peoples when nearly all the nobler sentiments seem to have shrivelled up. The Roman Empire, when it was in its decay; the upper classes of England, after the Restoration; France, during the period which preceded the Revolution--are examples of such a condition. The leading citizens appear to have thrown conscience to the winds and let themselves go, without restraint, to a life of dissipation, corruption, and the indulgence of the senses. Also in our country, among certain classes, in certain communities, it is quite apparent that the finer feelings, the moral standards, of the average individual are at a lower ebb, than they seem to be in certain other sections. In view of these observations, it is fairly safe to conclude that the spiritual feelings of man are subject to alteration, through an influence or influences of some sort. The same sort of influence that shows its general effect in a given class or community may be presumed to be at work on the nature or character of the individuals who compose that community. If the sentiment of honor, for instance, is a vital compelling force in one individual, and is so weak or deficient in another as to be a negligible quantity, what is the explanation of this difference? What influence has developed the sentiment in one, and retarded or eliminated it in the other? On what does it depend? What causes it to come to life in the human soul? What good is it, when it does come? The same questions apply to conscience, loyalty, responsibility, right and wrong. Whence do they come--and what are they good for? These questions are simple to ask--but when one attempts to answer them in a simple, convincing way, they are found to be full of hidden depths and complexities. Down below them, is another question which is included in them all and which sooner or later must be faced by each and every one of us: "Why am I here on earth? Has my life any purpose in the great, everlasting scheme of things? What is that purpose?" Until we have arrived at some sort of an answer to that question, we cannot make much headway in answering the others. If there were no purpose at all to an individual life, what difference would it make whether he had a conscience or not? If his purpose is to get as much satisfaction out of life as he can, between his birth and his death, why shouldn't he go about it in any old way that suits himself? What real difference does it make whether he chooses to indulge in alcohol, opium, and other dissipations for a short while, or prefers to prolong his span by sticking to wheat, potatoes and sobriety? Purely a matter of personal taste, to be decided by each individual for himself. Suppose on account of his affections and sympathies for other individuals, the idea occurs to him that he was meant to serve them, also? What real difference would that make if their lives had no other purpose, either? They will all be dead very soon, anyhow, whether you join with them in a mutual serving society, or not. If there is no other end in view for each and every one, but to live and die, what boots it? But suppose it might be that after death their spirits could live on, in an unknown world? Even so, any service you happened to do for them, here, would hardly be counted in their favor, over there. But mightn't it be counted in your favor--over there? Isn't it possible that every kind and helpful thing you do for your fellow men in your life on earth might be to the advantage of your spirit in the other world? Suppose it could be proved that this were the true purpose of life--to win benefit and glory for your spirit in the world beyond? "Well," you might reply, "--if that is the way things stand, it would be putting a big premium on canny foresight. A cold-blooded, utterly selfish individual could make his calculations accordingly and feather his future nest at every opportunity, while the rest of us poor devils who couldn't calculate so well would be piling up future trouble. "Is that what is meant by soul and conscience and honor? Does the 'spiritual side of man's nature,' when stripped of its camouflage, mean a shrewd calculation which seeks to gain a lasting reward for the spirit, after the body is used up?" In the face of such a question, of such a line of thought, there is something within us which revolts. If we can find words to express the cause and nature of this revolt, so much the better; but even if we cannot, a vague but unshakable feeling persists within us that any views of this sort are superficial, inadequate and uncomprehending. Just as we found, in connection with human sympathy and affection, that cold reason might make the mistake of trying to explain them in terms of selfishness, so we find that when reason undertakes to penetrate into the human soul, it is apt to emerge with a distortion which lacks the essence of the whole thing. In the first place, so far as reason goes, after countless generations of man on earth, what evidence has yet been discovered to prove conclusively that when a man dies, the spirit of him disengages itself from the dead body and goes on to an unknown world to continue life there? When a dog dies, does the spirit of him do the same thing? A bird? A spider? A germ? A flower? They all have the spirit of life within them--a wonderful complex life--and a struggle for existence on earth--of much the same sort as man's. I was talking to a charming lady, the other day, who said she firmly believes that the spirits of them all go on to a better world, along with man's. But whether they do, or whether they don't, what means has any intellect been able to find in all these centuries to settle the question and prove it scientifically, without fear of contradiction? Even if the intellect were satisfied to take so much for granted, at a guess, for the sake of having something to go by, there still remains the same element of uncertainty surrounding the question: "Why am I here? If my spirit is the only part of me that is destined to live on, what was the need of chaining it for this short space of time to animal instincts and a perishable body?" All sorts of theories have been advanced, in the search for a plausible explanation, but again, in all the ages of civilization, no conclusive proof has been found that any one of them is the right one. In ancient times the theory seemed to be that the purpose of life was to develop the body to its highest state of prowess and beauty and to make liberal sacrifices to the gods, in order to gain and retain their favor. The idea seems to have been current for many centuries that when the spirit mounted to another world, it somehow carried the shape and characteristics of the earthly body along with it. Reason enough to make the body strong and beautiful, if the spirit were to continue tied up to it eternally. Even in Shakespeare's time and all through the Middle Ages, whenever departed spirits were supposed to come back to earth to communicate with mortals, they always appeared in the same bodily form they had had on earth. On this assumption, if one individual happened to die when his body was young and strong and handsome, his spirit would have an advantage over another individual, who lasted on earth until his body was old, decrepit and ugly. It may be that the unfairness of this thought had something to do with the eventual discarding of the belief. It may also be that in the course of time and accumulated experience, the more advanced intellects arrived at the conclusion that sacrifices made to the gods had little perceptible effect on the course of events. In any case European civilization appears to have arrived at a stage where it was ripe and ready for another sort of conception. This other conception was the unimportance and unworthiness of the body and all material things. The spirit was the only thing that signified and that was to be dedicated to the service of the Lord, as announced in divine commandments. Sacrifices on the altar or gifts to the priests would avail nothing, if the spirit were undutiful. The Lord was to be worshipped and addressed in prayer--and He was at all times prepared to mete out rewards and punishments in strict accordance to the deserts of the spirit. Good and worshipful spirits would be blessed with everlasting life in paradise, while those who disobeyed the commandments, or neglected to be baptized and worship in the ordained way would be consigned to eternal torture and damnation. This theory was accepted by many millions of people and for a long time held an awe-inspiring sway over their imaginations. At the same time, in different parts of the world, India, China, Mexico, Egypt and various countries, a number of other theories concerning the spirit and the body were advanced as the basis of religious beliefs; and these were accepted by countless other millions of people with the same awe-inspiring credulity. One feature of these various religions which appears to apply to them all, is worth noting. Each professed the belief that their God or gods ruled in supreme control of the entire universe, eternally, and that all other so-called gods and so-called religions of other peoples which interfered with this idea must necessarily be false and spurious. In this respect, our own Christian view is like the others. In pursuance of it, immense sums of money, untiring effort and many lives have been spent by devout believers to convince remote peoples of the error of their doctrines and the truth of ours. But if an unbiased and impartial intellect were permitted to go about among all the different religious sects on earth, and found each and every one proclaiming with the same fervid conviction the unique and everlasting truth of their doctrine and the error of all others, how far could it get in the way of a reasonable conclusion? There is a sort of conclusion, which appears fairly obvious. If any one of the doctrines should in truth be all that is claimed for it--the divine revelation, or the divine inspiration, of an Almighty Providence--then all the other doctrines can be no more than theories, more or less ingenious, more or less erroneous, mere products of man's imagination. Then countless millions of people for countless generations have been left to lead their lives without a right understanding of life or death, the body or the soul, or the real purpose or design for which they were created and by which they will be judged? Only the few lucky ones who happened to be born and brought up in the one true belief can have the advantage of grasping the situation. To an impartial intellect, there would seem to be something about such an arrangement hardly fair or just to all the other countless millions. But even so, and admitting what is apparently obvious, how could any amount of reasoning arrive at a decision in the matter? There is nothing to prove that _all_ the theories and doctrines may be any more than guesses, bolstered up with impressive formalities and imagery, according to the needs and temperament, of the races for whom they were made. Taken as a whole, they suggest a great confusion of ideas and many curious contradictions concerning the purpose of man's earthly life and the destiny of his soul. Has man really a soul, at all? In what part of his body is it located? What ground is there for imagining that it is any more immortal than his heart or his eye? We can study the eye and dissect it and arrive at a fairly accurate idea of how it works. We know that it can be blinded--put out; also we know that if anything stops the heart from beating, the eye, the brain and our other functions cease to operate and become transfixed in death. Why should this not apply as well to the soul, if there is a function in man which goes by that name? Enough has been said to indicate a few of the difficulties which stand in the way, when we approach the consideration of man's spiritual nature. A study of the various religions and spiritualistic beliefs which are current in the world to-day would be a tedious task for the average mind and would probably be of little practical use or help to any one. The same may be said about the scientific theory of evolution. That is essentially an effort of the intellect, focusing the attention on details, processes and stages of development in living things and arriving no nearer to a solution of the unexplainable than we were in the beginning. Suppose I happen to be impressed by the beauty and wonder of an orange tree, with its golden, luscious fruit, its delicately tinted and deliciously scented blossoms, its graceful leaves and branches, its symmetrical trunk so firmly rooted in the ground? Merely as a piece of machinery, as a little factory, designed to manufacture a certain kind of edible product, it is far more ingenious, economical and generally marvellous than anything the combined brains of mankind have been able to design throughout the centuries. It is automatic, self-lubricating, self-repairing and goes on, year after year, in fair weather or foul, turning out its brand of juicy pulp, done up charmingly in little yellow packages. How does it operate? How does it always manage to get the necessary raw materials from the earth and the air? How do the roots and the leaves and the sap ever contrive to convert these into perfume and blossoms and pulp and pigment? Now suppose a scientific intellect comes along and, after investigating, dissecting, analyzing, eventually holds out before my eyes a tiny white seed which it has located in the centre of the yellow package--and says: "This is the explanation of the whole thing. That orange tree is merely the result, by a process of natural development and evolution, of this seed. We have studied it all out, step by step. If you will give us one of these seeds to start with and some ground to put it in, there is no mystery about it at all. We can show you how the whole thing happens. Of course, it takes considerable time--but time is nothing to Nature. In this case, only four or five years are required for the seed to become transformed into a fruit-bearing orange tree." "But," say I, "your investigations and explanations only add to my amazement. The design and formation of that little seed is even more wonderful and incomprehensible than the full-grown orange tree. Within its tiny compass, it not only contains all the complicated miraculous processes which convert earth and air and water into fragrant blossoms, juicy pulp and golden oranges, but it contains in addition to that, other miraculous powers which enable it to develop and transform itself into a special kind of beautiful tree, with roots and branches and leaves. As compared to this one little seed, all the greatest inventions and achievements of man seem like the crudest bungling." "Tut, tut," replies the scientific intellect, "this is only one sort of seed. There are hundreds, thousands of others, some so small that they look like grains of dust. Each one of these is a complete manufacturing plant, perfect in every detail, each designed to turn out a special kind of product, different from all the others. One of the most remarkable points about them is that they require no special materials--each and every one of them makes use of the same common ingredients, earth, air, light, water. From those ingredients, this little machine, for instance, working automatically, can turn out a giant red-wood tree, which will last for centuries. This other little one, next to it, working in the same way, will produce thousands upon thousands of roses, of a certain beautiful shade of color and a certain delicate fragrance. And so it is with all these other little machines, which we call seeds,--however amazing the difference in the kind of product, it is due entirely to certain subtle differences in their design." "But," say I, "what sublime intelligence conceived the plan of those machines, and what kind of sublimely skilful craftsman was able to fashion them?" "They were made automatically by the various trees and plants." "But who conceived the plan of the trees and plants?" "The trees and plants were produced automatically by other little seeds, like these." "But the first one of these seeds, or the first one of these trees--who conceived and executed that?" "Oh, that," says the scientific intellect, "came about through a process of evolution, which extends way back thousands of centuries. We have studied it carefully and reasoned it all out to our entire satisfaction. "These plant seeds are only one part of it. There are also all the animals and animalculae, including man. There are thousands of different kinds of living creatures and each kind has a distinct design from all the rest, which appears to have been determined by the special purpose for which it was intended. "As a matter of fact, they are nothing more or less than the results of evolution, natural selection and the survival of the fittest. All we require for the demonstration of our theory, is a little bit of protoplasm at the beginning of things and a mass of elemental matter in an unformed state." "But," say I, "are you sure you are not trying to befuddle me and befuddle yourself by the use of obscure words? You use the word "protoplasm"--but if you mean by that a kind of machine, like the orange pit or the red-wood seed, your evolution theory and your scientific chain of reasoning and all your big words merely bring us back to the point where we started and really explain nothing at all. The orange seed, if left to itself in the midst of elemental matter will produce a certain kind of tree and countless oranges. A bit of protoplasm, if left to itself in the midst of elemental matter, will not only produce an orange tree and a red-wood tree, but an elephant, a spider, a human being--all the countless species of living things to be found in the universe. It may take the protoplasm a longer time to turn all this out, but it is a bigger job and time is of small account in such a consideration. "All I can say is that I prostrate myself in abject and bewildered admiration before that bit of protoplasm. If anything could be more wonderful than the orange seed with which we started, your protoplasm is certainly it. It is a miracle of a million miracles. "But there is one thing you forgot to tell me--the only thing of any real interest or importance to the average mind in such a theory. What sublime intelligence conceived the plan of that bit of protoplasm--and what kind of sublimely skilful craftsman was able to fashion it?" "Oh that," says the scientific intellect--"that just happens to be one point which our chain of reasoning has not yet been able to demonstrate in a logical and satisfactory way. We have left that out of our theory." "Well then," say I, "here are trees and flowers and animals and mankind, each perfectly adapted for the special function on earth for which they were apparently designed. The plan of them appears to have been determined, somewhere, somehow, by a sublime intelligence which surpasses understanding, for some sublime purpose, apparently, which I am yearning to know. All the details, complications and assumptions of your theory when boiled down to simple terms seem more or less of a quibble on words and meanings. "Your conclusions are of much the same sort as those of the intellectual cynic whom we quoted in connection with sympathy and affection. He undertook to prove with a chain of reasoning that I obey only motives of selfishness when I shed tears of grief because my friend has lost his only son." Here we are living together on earth to-day, and here were our fathers and forefathers living, in the same general way with the same general instincts and feelings, as far back as we have any record of; and here presumably will our children and their descendants continue to be living, as far as our imagination can carry us. Whether the process of our creation involved a bit of protoplasm in the midst of chaos, or whether we were evolved from a thought and a breath of an Almighty God, is of very slight consequence as a human consideration. In view of the wonderful harmony and fitness of the countless processes and things which we see everywhere about us in nature, it is not strange that mankind seems always to have taken it for granted that a supremely wise and a supremely resourceful intelligence of some sort is responsible for it all. The beginning, the end, the scheme and purpose of so many miracles, extend into the beyond, the unknown, the incomprehensible. What the Supreme Being is like--how or why He came into existence--where matter or life first came from--or even what the connection is between the creatures of this world and the countless stars and planets which may be other worlds--all this is shrouded in the mystery of mysteries. If we get to thinking very much about it, one of the effects is to make the affairs of man and the like of man seem tiny and unimportant in comparison to the whole--one kind of little creatures on one little globe, when we know there are thousands upon thousands of bigger globes in the firmament and possibly millions and billions of larger and more exalted creatures on many of them. But it is only man's intellect that gets tangled up and discouraged by that kind of reasoning. Another side of man's nature comes to the fore and disposes of this tangle with more inspiring sentiments. These sentiments tell us that a marvellous scheme of life is at work in our world, every detail of which from the lowest to the highest appears to have received exactly the same sort of sublime consideration--and that of this entire scheme, the spirit of man has been constituted the leader and master. On this earth at least man is a kind of divine lieutenant, the captain, the commander, the generalissimo of all living things. Somehow, somewhere, there must be a sublime purpose to it all, because it is dominated throughout by a sublime intelligence, an apparently all-wise Providence. Somehow, somewhere, the spirit of man has a never ending responsibility and an awe-inspiring, exalted destiny. Whether this be true or not, and however, the scientific intellect may be inclined to quibble with arguments and conclusions, there is something inside of each and every one of us to a greater or less extent, which makes us feel that this is so. This something within us, which responds to such a feeling, is a function quite apart from the intellect--the most highly developed intellects often have the least of it; it is equally removed from the loves and hates, sympathies and antipathies of our heart life; and equally far away from the perceptions and appetites of our senses. It is the side of man's nature which for the want of a better name, we call the soul. And the feeling of the soul that there is somewhere an all-wise Providence, sublime purpose in everything, an exalted destiny for man--irrespective of proof, or science, or calculation or demonstrations of any sort--that feeling in its simplest essence is what we call faith. "In God We Trust"--that is the motto which appears on American coins. Without great exaggeration, it might be called the motto of humanity, everywhere, at all times. It is a soul feeling; an expression of fundamental faith. Now as this feeling is not dependent on the reasoning faculty, there should be nothing amazing in the fact that it has been found susceptible of being developed and led far afield in the direction of credulity. All sorts of fairy-tales have been invented by man's imagination, in different countries, at different periods, and imposed upon the simple faith of the masses in order that they might be guided and controlled in a manner that the leading spirits considered best for them. Idols, divine revelations, oracles, prayers, sacrifices, confessionals, priests, prophets, medicine men, sacred dances and prostrations, awe-inspiring rites and ceremonies of almost every conceivable kind have been resorted to, in order to attain results which were considered beneficial. In nearly every case, it is safe to say the effort was inspired by an intense soul feeling on the part of an individual, however much it may have been seasoned with shrewdness and calculation and understanding of the people for whose good it was intended. It is generally admitted that the age in which we live is a scientific age. Scientific investigations, scientific explanations, scientific inventions, scientific methods and theories, are dominant factors in the progress to which modern civilization has been devoting so much of its energy. In our schools, and colleges and text-books, the growing mind is being taught to approach all subjects and questions from a reasonable, practical and scientific point-of-view. One of the first principles of all science is to take as little as possible for granted, but to investigate and prove everything, without prejudice, in strict accordance with the facts. This is the typical attitude of to-day, encouraged and absorbed on every side and becoming more wide-spread with each passing year. Suppose a young man or woman, trained in this way, in school and college, by books of science, magazine articles, newspapers and discussions of one sort or another connected with modern progress, is prompted one fine day to turn his attention to this question of religion and undertake an enquiry into that? Sooner or later, this is very apt to happen to any one, because the churches and ceremonies are all about; and when an individual mind reaches a stage where it wants to think for itself, it can hardly escape from arriving at some conclusion concerning them. A modern person so trained, is apt to perceive very quickly that many of the statements and assumptions made in the name of any particular religion are unscientific and inaccurate and not much more reasonable than Aladdin and his wonderful lamp, or Jack and the Beanstalk. They pre-suppose an amount of childlike credulity and ignorance on the part of the worshipper, which can only be explained to his mind by the primitive state of the people for whom they were originally intended. In view of this, the natural tendency for a practical scientific mind of the present generation is to regard the church question as a rather curious and perplexing survival which, for family and personal reasons, it might be just as well to leave alone. As science cannot discover how the first protoplasm was created, and as the preaching of the various religions is interwoven with fanciful and unsound assumptions, the most logical solution is to cease bothering one's head about it. One trouble with this is, that the soul is an important part of man's life and it has need of faith of some sort. To a great extent, civilization depends upon it. If all the people about us had no soul and no faith, it is hard to imagine what the world would be like. We can imagine, in a way, by turning our attention to the criminal classes. Consider for a moment the make-up of a typical crook--a thief, a burglar, a kidnapper, a hold-up man--a so-called "enemy of the law." What is the underlying difference between him and a worthy citizen? Is it simply that one breaks the law, while the other does not? That is only an apparent, superficial difference, based on results. A worthy man might break the law repeatedly, without becoming in the least a crook; a crook might stay within the law, most carefully and cautiously, without altering in the slightest degree, the essence of his crookedness. The real significant difference lies deeper down, in his nature and attitude--attitude toward his fellow men, toward himself, toward the mystery of life. A crook usually has the same sort of appetites and desires as anybody else. He may have the keenest perceptions and excellent taste in matters of beauty and other pleasure-giving refinements. As far as the sensations of life go, and the development of the senses, he may be far above the average, and many of them undoubtedly are. As for brains, many crooks of the higher order are remarkably quick and resourceful, while not a few have had superior education and book learning. It is also undoubtedly true that they may have warm hearts and loving natures, and be capable of an unusual amount of loyalty and devotion to their pals. In addition to that, they are frequently very patient, self-controlled and fearless. But there is just one quality, one side of their natures, that is deficient--the soul, with its faith. They have no feeling of responsibility within them toward an unknown but holy purpose, toward an all-wise Being, who created the world and entrusted to man a spirit capable of leading it. Without this feeling, there is no real meaning to the words right and wrong; and that is the essential mark of a crook. Outside of a few intimates whom he is attached to, the rest of mankind with its laws and aspirations, represents nothing more than a hostile force to be preyed upon and gotten the best of. Provided he can avoid punishment, a crook feels no objection to cheating, stealing, or cutting a throat. This appears to be the natural principle of life among wild animals, the fish in the sea, the spider and the fly; and it would presumably be the same among men, if man were without a soul and devoid of faith. There is no feeling of right and wrong among animals, when left to themselves. They merely try to get what they want, by any means at their disposal. In doing this, their only concern is to save their own skins and to avoid a mix-up with another animal or animals stronger than themselves. In the case of crooks and criminals, these other animals which concern them are usually the representatives of the law. Certain kinds of animals--dogs, horses, pets--may be tamed and trained by man into an imitation notion of right and wrong. But it is only a superficial imitation, essentially different in composition from the genuine article. A dog may learn in time that if he chases the pet cat, his master will give him a beating. After learning this lesson, he may still occasionally give himself the satisfaction of chasing the cat up a tree, but after he has done so, he will show his training by looking guilty, hanging his tail and sneaking off into the bushes. He knows he has done wrong. In this case, however, it simply means that he is anticipating and seeking to mitigate an expected beating. The pain of a beating is bad; a lump of sugar is good, any animal can grasp that, and some animals may be trained to connect the cause and effect. But that is not at all the same kind of thing as the conception of right and wrong that grows up in man and finds its true explanation in a soul feeling. This vague, but fundamental, feeling of faith in a divine purpose of some sort for the life of each individual is not dependent upon any particular religion, or creed, or doctrine. It appears to have found expression at all stages of civilization in all countries of which we have any record. It was found to exist among the savage American Indians and the Aztec Mexicans, as it existed in the earliest mummy age of ancient Egypt, and among the earlier warriors of Europe, as depicted by Homer. Among the yellow races of China and Japan, the recognition of this same faith extends back to the farther-most records of time. Whether it evolved from a protoplasm, or was implanted in man by the Creator, it may be regarded as an essential part of the all-wise scheme--which is, which was, and which presumably always will be. By some such process of observation and reasoning as we have been going through, it is possible to arrive at a relatively safe and satisfactory conclusion to the first soul question: "Has my life any purpose in the great, everlasting scheme of things?" The answer is: "Undoubtedly. A feeling to that effect is to be found universally among mankind. The intention of the Creator, which surpasses understanding, in this one respect, at least, appears to be unmistakable." Attached to this conclusion is the second part of the question, to which an answer may be found by a similar process of observation and reasoning: "Granted that I am assured by an inner feeling that my life has some purpose--what is that purpose?" It is not difficult to discern a general and practically uniform purpose in normal human beings. First, of course, is the primal instinct of self-preservation, a feeling that life itself is precious and must be held on to as long as possible. Along with this, goes another primal instinct--to create new life and protect that--and thus continue your race and kind on earth indefinitely. It is easy enough to see that if these two instincts were lacking, or if any other considerations were allowed to impair their force, the scheme of the world would come to an end. Whatever the purpose of a human life might be, that purpose would be futile, if there were no human lives to accomplish it. So that these two instincts are necessary conditions of any other plan or design. They are the first and foremost considerations in all life, in all civilizations. Not only are they instinctive impulses of man's animal nature, which he shares with brute beings, but they also appeal to his innermost soul with the strongest feelings of which he is capable. It is right for him to protect himself; it is right for him to protect his wife and children; it is right for him to protect his relatives and friends and fellows from any and all enemies. In order to do this he will kill other human beings, if necessary, in case of war, or attack; and his conscience will not reproach him; it will tell him he has done right. This feeling has been implanted in all normal human beings--it has always been and presumably always will be. It may be regarded as part of the divine intention. It is also an unmistakable purpose for each individual--to preserve his own life and strive for its continuation in his off-spring. That is the first and foremost thing for you to live for. Why? Because the strongest feelings of your whole nature, in accord with your conscience, tell you so. If we consider woman as distinct from man, we find her strongest instinct and deepest inner feelings impel her to care for and protect her off-spring; but that instead of an impulse to go out and fight against the enemy, she feels in her conscience that it is right and natural for her to rely upon the husband and father to do that. It is for her to stick close to the babies and pray for his success. That is the only difference--a fundamental difference in the innermost feeling of the male and the female--which appears to have existed always, and may therefore be regarded as a part of the divine intention. Now, after the continuation of life on earth is safeguarded in this way, is there any other deep and general feeling of man's inner nature which might furnish an indication of a further purpose for his life? Is there not in each and every one of us a deep-rooted desire, which is wholly in accord with conscience, to make good in the rôle which has been assigned to us in the mystery of creation? Does not each individual feel moved to accomplish something beyond the mere continuation of life? Is there not within us a vague aspiration to do well and be something good and fine, according to our means and tastes? Do we not want to be a success rather than a failure, both for our own sake and for the sake of those we love, who also love us, and cannot help being affected by what we do? If by any chance you are deficient in this feeling yourself, or confused about it, you have only to look about any where, at any time, and you will find it in evidence among normal individuals from the days of early childhood. A little girl likes to be pretty, to dance well, to sew neatly, to be helpful to her mother, to be petted, loved, approved. A little boy wants to be a fast runner, a fine swimmer, a good fighter--he wants to be strong and brave and self-reliant and many other things, besides. He admires these qualities in other boys; a feeling of his inner nature, in accord with his conscience, tells him he would like to be that kind of a boy, himself. He feels it is the kind that every one ought to want to be. And if he is a normal, healthy boy, this feeling arises within him just as naturally and spontaneously as the feeling which comes to a sensitive soul in the presence of a sunset, or musical harmonies and tells it they are beautiful. It is quite apart from any far-sighted calculations of the intellect concerning the practical use which those qualities may, or may not, have in after life. The same thing is true of the little girl and what she admires and aspires to. As the youngsters grow up to be men and women, they are still susceptible to the same sort of feeling, in spite of the fact that many other more practical and material considerations are liable to creep in and confuse it, alter it, distort it. Somewhere, in the inner nature of almost everybody, there persists a feeling of admiration for the fine and noble qualities of mankind. Some of those qualities, experience may have demonstrated, are beyond our personal strength and reach--others may have practical disadvantages, which our self-interest and our reason over-rule, but as long as the feeling is there, it keeps whispering to us, however faintly, that we ought to try to live up to the best that is in us and not be satisfied with less. Let us take care to note that this differs completely from another sort of feeling which cold-blooded cynics are apt to confuse it with. This other feeling is inspired by greed and controlled by selfish calculation, and tells certain individuals that by closing their eyes to what is beautiful and admirable in human nature, and by taking advantage of any and every opportunity, they may obtain a greater portion of worldly goods and material pleasures. This latter feeling is not in touch with conscience and neither to ourselves, nor to others, does it inspire ennobling sentiments. A proper name for it is ambition--a selfish quality, whose essence bears no relation to the aspiration of boy and girl, man and woman, toward what is finest and best. This feeling of aspiration, which exists in the soul and appears to be innate in human beings everywhere, offers a clear and indisputable revelation of a purpose for man's life, above and beyond the mere continuation of it. It is one very solid answer to the second part of the great question: What is the purpose of my life? To strive toward betterment and excellence, in accordance with your lights and conscience. Why? Because, just as a feeling within you tells you that a sunset is beautiful, so there is this other feeling within you, which tells you this is fine and right. Those are fundamental feelings, planted in all mankind, not accidental exceptions. They are surely a part of the all-wise design, an essential part of your purpose in being here. The finest types of men, the leading spirits of humanity, in all ages and climes, from the earliest savages to the most advanced civilization, have always had that kind of feeling and responded to it. It is a fundamental fact of the soul life, which leaves no room for doubt. Is there any other feeling of this sort which appears to be so fundamental and world-wide that it may be regarded as an innate and essential part of human nature, independent of climate, or race, or intellectual development? Is there not a sentiment deep down in all mothers and fathers, to want their children to be finer, better, more nearly perfect than they themselves have been? Has not this sentiment something in it which is quite apart from self-interest, or reason, or the impulses of affection? Suppose a normal mother is on her death-bed, with but an hour to live? As far as she is concerned, all considerations of self-interest in this world are at an end. After one hour, nothing that happens can make any difference to her, personally. Her children are in an adjoining room and her thoughts and feelings are full of them. That is only natural--almost inevitable. What is the essence of her feelings? Love, in the first place. They are inexpressibly dear to her and she feels glad and thankful that all is well with them. What next? A prayerful hope that they will be happy and successful and live to a ripe old age. For her sake? No, for theirs. Does she wish them to be liars and cheats and ingrates, dissipated and corrupt, if by so doing they can have most pleasure and satisfy themselves? Oh no--not that. Why not? Because there is something within her which wants them to be fine and good and worthy of their birthright. She wants them to cling fast to the best that is in them, not the worst; to do right and be right, whether it serves their pleasure or not. If a mother would naturally feel this way on her death-bed, so might a father, or a grandmother or a grand-father, in any country--in almost any state of civilization--irrespective of any particular creed or doctrine, to which they might subscribe. This is not to be taken as saying that all mothers or fathers would be conscious of this feeling--or would have this feeling in them to any appreciable extent--or that all individuals may be said to have any of the fundamental soul feelings to which we have referred. Throughout all nature, and in human life as well, there are to be found individual deficiencies and perversions. Since this is as true to-day, as it has been always, in all departments of creation, we can be content to regard it as part of the all-wise but mysterious scheme. To the best of our knowledge and belief, in practically all communities of human beings of which there is any record, these few self-same feelings of man's innermost nature have become plainly, unmistakably, evident. They appear to be inborn fundamentals of the human soul. As far as they go, they may be safely and confidently accepted as indications of man's purpose here on earth: the preservation of life, the continuation of life, an aspiration in one's own development toward what is admirable and right, and an equally great aspiration to inculcate and develop in one's children the essence of what is best in oneself. In the face of any such conclusion, a question naturally arises, which a cynical and selfish mind is not slow to make the most of. "If this is the palpable intention and design of an all-wise Creator, how does it happen that so many human beings fail to carry out the purpose? How does it happen that so many are relatively deficient, or totally unconscious of the feelings themselves? If the general aim and aspiration is toward constant betterment and an ideal of perfection, why, after all these centuries of endeavor, haven't we arrived somewhere near the goal? Why do we find among the individuals of to-day in our country less aspirations toward what is fine and right and honorable than were felt a hundred years ago? Why, when these feelings reached so high a standard in the classic days of Greece, did they decline and shrivel and give way to barbarism? Why did the same thing happen in Rome? If the divine intention is toward progress and betterment and an ideal of right, why has the intention failed so miserably and repeatedly to be carried out? Why haven't I just as much reason to assume that the divine intention, if there be any, is the gradual corruption, decay and disintegration of the human being? Were the motives and behavior of the average man ever more corrupt, immoral and baser than they are to-day--all over the world? If we consider the results, where is the evidence of a constant betterment in man's spiritual nature? My observations and judgment tell me there are no grounds for any such assumption and there probably never was any such divine intention." The answer to such objections is fairly simple: "You are attempting to pass judgment, by means of the reasoning processes of the intellect, on questions which man's intellect is incapable of understanding. As we found to be the case when considering the affections, the result of such an endeavor is a misconception and distortion. "Although you are well aware that neither reason nor science can offer the faintest glimmer of an explanation as to how, or why, the first essence of life came into existence, or the first elemental matter, or as to what is the ultimate intention or end of a single thing in this world, or any other, yet you have the presumption to criticize the means and methods being employed for the attainment of those ends by an all-wise Creator, who presumably did know, and does know, what they are. "Underlying your questions and comments is a complete misunderstanding. In considering man's purpose in life, I had no thought of determining God's purpose in creating man, or in creating life, or in creating the world in which the life of man is to be found. That surpasses my understanding. That there is an all-wise design and purpose of some sort, behind and above it all, I have no doubt. This conviction comes principally from a feeling of my innermost nature, which has been found among mankind, in all ages--faith. It is confirmed and strengthened by the evidence of my perceptions and intellect--the beauty and wonder and fitness in all the processes of creation. "But even in the simplest facts of nature all about us, there are countless principles at work whose intention cannot be penetrated by human reason. Why were wolves permitted and urged by their instincts to devour innocent lambs? Why were the germs of disease and corruption created with the same bewildering perfection of design and the same mysterious, vital force as the good and beautiful creatures which they infest? Why were exquisite flowers and fruit-bearing trees allowed to be overcome by foul fungus and poisonous weeds? "If our reason is unable to discern the underlying intention in such simple, every-day occurrences as these, by what right does it pretend to pass judgment on the great complexities and developments of human civilization?" What good is accomplished by the rise and fall of an empire? Or by the rise and fall of a human individual? What all-wise intention is fulfilled in the deterioration and decay of any thing which has once seemed admirable and worthy? The human intellect cannot tell. As long as the intellect cannot grasp the beginning of creation, or the end, the original cause of man's existence, or the final result--how can it presume to criticize and doubt, without getting out of its element and beyond its depth? God's purpose for man, from the point-of-view of God, is an entirely different thing from an individual's purpose in life, from man's point-of-view. As this difference is something which appears to give rise to a certain amount of confusion in some people's minds, it is worth clearing up by a simple illustration. Suppose a commanding general, in the midst of a campaign, gives orders for a brigade to occupy a certain ridge and defend it at all costs? Suppose these orders are carried out and, after a heroic defence lasting several days, the entire brigade is wiped out by the enemy? In such a case, when an order comes, what is, and ought to be, the purpose of each individual soldier composing the brigade? To obey orders, do his duty as well and bravely as he can, and hope for the best--which may be victory, glory and promotion. What, now, was the purpose of the general, in issuing the orders? Was it to enable those individual soldiers to win victory and gain promotion? Quite the contrary. His purpose was to delay the enemy advance at that point for forty-eight hours, for reasons of high strategy. What was the purpose of God in designing mankind in such a way that millions of fine individuals should go forth to maim and exterminate each other, to the accompaniment of untold suffering and misery? Because the private does not know the purpose of the general; and because neither the private, nor the general, knows the purpose of God, is that a reason to conclude, or imagine, that there is no purpose? Is that a reason to conclude, or imagine, that the private cannot have and know a purpose of his own--a fine and worthy purpose of which his conscience approves? Does not that same observation apply to the general and to all other individuals, high or low? Because certain individuals are born blind or deaf, does that imply that mankind was not designed to see or hear? Because certain individuals, through the effects of disease or abuse, lose their sight, does that disprove a purpose for the eye? Because certain communities, or certain civilizations, decline and decay, through corruption, does that prove anything with regard to the intention and design of the Creator--except that such happenings are apparently a part of the mysterious plan? It may be that in that plan the soul life of a single individual has more lasting significance than the rise and fall of an empire. Such a conception is apt to strike a matter-of-fact intellect as the height of absurdity. But even in the material world, when it was first suggested that the earth was round, that conception also struck the matter-of-fact intellect as the height of absurdity. So did the idea of Columbus--that he might set sail from Spain, going West, and arrive back at Spain, coming from the East. Nearly all the great discoveries and conceptions of genius have struck the matter-of-fact intellect as the height of absurdity. They dealt with an unknown principle which was different from accepted notions. But the meaning of a human soul in the eternal plan, or of a certain phase of civilization in the unknown plan, are also unknown principles and the opinions of the intellect concerning them are purely guess-work. If, however, we feel inclined to use our imaginations, there is a line of thought which might seem to have a remote bearing on this part of the puzzle. In the material world, and the intellectual world, and the esthetic world of art and beauty, we may form a matter-of-fact opinion concerning things of which we do know something. We can see the effects of certain occurrences and judge of their relative importance, from man's point-of-view. Which was more significant and important for the good of civilization--that countless millions of men and women, for countless generations, in Mexico and in Persia, talked and thought and exchanged ideas--or that one single individual, named William Shakespeare, had some ideas which it occurred to him to put on paper? The brain effort of a single individual more significant for future humanity than the rise and fall of an empire! That kind of conception--dealing with something we know about--does not strike the matter-of-fact intellect as the height of absurdity. Was a single painting, the Mona Lisa, of a single individual, Leonardo da Vinci, less important than the millions of paintings made during countless generations throughout the entire empire of China? Do we measure the achievements of a Napoleon, an Alexander, a Washington, by the manner of their decline and death? It seems simple enough to us that one short life may have more meaning for the rest of humanity in this world, than millions of other lives. We can see and understand and measure the effects of such occurrences as these, with the intellect. But in regard to man's inner feelings, the soul life, because the achievement may not be visible--because its record is not written on paper--because its true significance is entirely shrouded in the mysterious intention of creation, how can the intellect know that the conscientious effort of one short life on earth, however humble, may not have a bigger meaning and a more lasting value in the divine scheme than the accomplishments--material, intellectual, artistic--of millions? The spiritual side appears undoubtedly to be the highest and finest part of man's nature--why then is it not possible that the spiritual struggle of each and every single soul, however inconspicuous in a worldly way, may be the thing that counts most in the everlasting scheme? This is a question, we repeat, which all the science of all the wise men of all the generations is completely incapable of deciding. No amount of reasoning can disprove it, any more than it can prove it. That is the special point I have been trying to make clear. Because the cold processes of the intellect are inclined to dismiss as absurd all kinds of beliefs and conceptions which they cannot verify, they need not be abandoned on that account. VI SCIENCE AND THE INTELLECT No amount of reasoning can alter the fact that certain spontaneous and fundamental feelings of man's inner nature inspire him to conscientious effort and, as they presumably owe their origin to an all-wise Creator, they may be safely relied on to indicate his part and responsibility in the mysterious scheme. It seems to me that nothing in the whole problem of life is more important than a thorough realization of this undoubted truth--that the big fundamental feelings of man's better nature are absolutely independent and apart from the working of his intellect, or any calculation of self-interest, conscious or implied, just as they are independent of his material appetites and instincts. A clear understanding of this truth will answer many of the questions which are so apt to confuse the reason and trouble the peace of mind of the average much instructed person. If a scientific doubter asks us how we can be sure of this, we can answer without hesitation that the evidence of our own inner feelings is unmistakable proof of it. The only proof of a feeling is the feeling itself. We have it--we are conscious of it--it is, as far as we are concerned, and it is futile for any outsider to deny it. If any one is so constituted that he cannot get the force of this, we may make the understanding of it easier by turning his attention to the feelings of man's esthetic nature, which operate in a somewhat similar way. We have already had occasion to refer to them, but we may be permitted to do so again, with added emphasis. They are an illustration and a confirmation of the vitally important principle which we have just been stating. If a setting sun, or a harmony, or musical notes, appeal to my sense of beauty and give rise to a vague but delicious emotion of my inner nature, all the arguments of all the intellects on earth are powerless to alter the essence and meaning of that feeling, so far as my nature is concerned. To me that feeling of beauty is a fact, and it would remain just as much a fact, even if no other person in the world shared it with me; and every other person in the world undertook to deny its existence. The only proof I have of it, the only proof I need for it, is that I feel it. Now when the intellect takes upon itself to meddle with such things, a learned professor may explain that a certain musical note is composed of vibrations--so many thousand per second--which are communicated to particles of matter in suspension in the air and carried by them to the tympanum of the ear, which acts thus-and-so upon the various components of the hearing apparatus, and finally arrives through a system of ganglia to a certain nerve centre, located somewhere in a brain cell, or the spinal column. He may use a great many other big words and display various kinds of scientific devices for measuring sound waves and calculating vibrations, but when he has finished, all his science will not enable him to compose a touching melody, or feel the beauty and inspiration of it. A little child, or a negro mammy, with a soul for music, will feel and give out something, whose very essence has nothing to do with the intellect and which the most formidable intellect is powerless to grasp. The same thing is true of painting and poetry and sculpture. The feelings which inspire them and the feelings which they arouse in receptive souls are totally independent of the intellect. The reason may argue that as one leg of the Venus de Milo is found by measurement to be considerably shorter than the other, it is absurd to call that a beautiful figure of a woman--or that it should excite as much admiration as a scientifically constructed statue in which all the proportions would be in accord with carefully tabulated statistics. As a photograph of a young and healthy girl is more accurate and more pleasing in subject than a painting of an old woman, what reason is there for it to arouse less esthetic feeling than an immortal portrait by Rembrandt? If a description of a small water course, drawn up by a surveyor and a lawyer, is exact and comprehensive, why should it not appeal to the imagination and sense of beauty more satisfactorily than a poem by Tennyson, entitled "The Brook?" The obvious answer is that in all such questions the intellect is out of its element, trying to lay hands on something which has no tangible substance. If this point-of-view is not enough to give your intellect food for thought and suggest its very decided limitations in the life of man, you may turn its light upon the simplest and most material sensations and feelings which belong to the animal nature and are common to all mankind. What reason is there for my brother to dote on fried onions, while I cannot endure them? Why does my uncle like pig's feet and eels and snails, while my wife is made almost ill at the sight of them? Your intellect may tell you that you ought to like the taste of castor oil, because it is good for you; but all the intellect in the world cannot make you like the taste of castor oil. The taste, the savor, the feel of things--whether it be in the material world, or the esthetic world, or the spiritual world--is a part of life in which the intellect is forever condemned to remain an outsider. It may be very much interested in what is going on, it may reason with the causes and effects and characteristics of what it sees; it may make suggestions to the will-power and argue against the impulses which are prompted by the feelings; but it cannot prevent the feelings, or the impulses, from being there and having their say. The life and say of the feelings mean much to the welfare of each individual. Let us suppose that the circumstances of my life were such that I could truthfully express myself as follows: "I _feel_ well and strong; I _feel_ that I love my wife devotedly and my wife returns that love; I _feel_ immense affection for my children; I _feel_ I would make any and every sacrifice to protect them and my wife from harm; I _feel_ very hopeful about the future, both for my family and myself; I _feel_ I have done my best, in accordance with my ability; I have a feeling of loyalty to my friends and a feeling of honor in my dealings with my fellow men; I _feel_ content with my lot, in particular, and the way of the world, in general; and whether my life was evolved from a monkey and a protoplasm, or came into being as a divine and perfect conception, I _feel_ an abiding faith in an all-wise but mysterious purpose for everything." There are no material considerations, or calculations of self-interest, or reasoning processes, in this kind of summary. It is made up exclusively of fundamental and spontaneous feelings which are in existence, to a greater or less extent, among all sorts and manners of individuals, in any known stage of civilization. A peasant living in a hut, in a vineyard in Sicily, is just as capable of having them, as a millionaire living in a city palace, or a scientist presiding over an academy of learning. A native Patagonian, or a Swede, or a Chinaman, may be just as susceptible to them as a French artist, or an American steel king. As they come from the inner nature, and as all men have an inner nature, it is possible for them to be experienced by all men. There are, of course, countless other beautiful and inspired feelings that may come to life in the inner nature of an individual, but the few simple ones which we have suggested are sufficient for an illustration. Now let us imagine, for a moment, another illustration. Let us imagine that a modern intellect, scientifically trained and enlightened, undertook to investigate, analyze, dissect, in a methodical and accurate way, the facts which gave rise to my feelings, or are implied by them, in an effort to determine the reason and reasonableness of such interesting phenomena. I _feel_ well and strong. "But," says he, "that does not necessarily prove that you are well or strong. It may be merely an assumption founded on ignorance of scientific facts." The proper way to determine how well and strong I am is to have my health and strength tested and rated in an expert way. According to the report of such an expert, my state of health is only 63 per cent normal and my strength is less than 50 per cent of standard for my weight and age. Strictly speaking, I am neither well _nor_ strong, and my feeling in that respect may be dismissed as unwarranted by the facts and consequently unreasonable. "I _feel_ that I love my wife devotedly and that my wife returns that love." "But," says the intellect, "those are only words. As a matter of fact, how severe and accurate a test have either of those devotions been submitted to? Have you ever been thrown into contact, alone and undisturbed, with a woman who is more beautiful and more appealing than your wife--who yearns for you and invites you with abandoned intensity? Has your wife's devotion been subjected to a corresponding test? Until that has been done, it is only reasonable to assume that there may be a good deal of exaggeration and self-delusion in the conclusions which you have arrived at. As there are certain prejudices and difficulties in the way of having these tests made, and as neither you nor your wife appear willing for the other to try them, any satisfactory estimate of your reciprocal devotions must remain in abeyance. Our statistics show, however, that in 87 per cent. of the cases where a mutual and unalterable devotion is supposed to exist, the determining factor on one side or the other, is the accidental absence of a sufficiently appealing opportunity. The evidence of the divorce courts offers a valuable source of information on this phase of the subject. Purely as a matter of averages, the conjecture may be hazarded that your assumption in this regard, as in the other, may be founded on a misconception." In the same way, the intellect may introduce reasons and deductions in criticism of my hopes for my children, and the fallacies which may have crept into my theories of loyalty and honor and aspiration. Finally, he might say: "Permit me to observe that you made a curious and somewhat amazing statement, just now, in reference to faith and an all-wise purpose. Is it possible that you are still under the influence of an out-grown mediaeval superstition? The only reasonable assumption with regard to man's place in the universe has been quite clearly and scientifically established by the modern theory of evolution. It appears from that, that you and I are descended from an ape, which in turn is a second-cousin-once-removed, so to speak, of the bat, the spider, and the shark. We are all animals together, slowly passing through different phases of evolution, and man owes his existence entirely to the accidental results of natural selection and survival of the fittest. Man's tribe happens to be more numerous than that of the elephant, or the whale, which are larger animals; but less numerous than that of the ant, which is almost his equal in intelligence and decidedly more industrious, though it is so much smaller than man. Millions of ants come into existence and go out of existence, every day, without making any appreciable difference in the gradual processes of evolution. The same thing may be said of man--or bats and whales. Surely it is high time that a well-educated person of the twentieth century should consider such things from a reasonable, scientific point-of-view." When he has finished with this, if I am still in a receptive mood, he may condescend to explain to me that self-interest and enlightened reason supply the true and underlying motives for all conduct; and that this is the only conception of life which is susceptible of intelligent explanation. As a matter of fact, although this illustration is entirely fanciful, I was given a book to read, the other day, a modern book on morals, in which this was the gist of the argument throughout--enlightened self-interest, or selfishness, as the only sound and sufficient motive for everything we do. The friend who gave it to me had accepted it as scientific and authoritative and was thoroughly in accord with its conclusions. I may add that this particular "friend," as far as I have been able to observe, is the quintessence of selfishness. My purpose, in imagining these illustrations, was to render obvious and palpable the limitations of the intellect, when it attempts to translate feelings into terms of reason, or when it attempts to substitute scientific calculations for spontaneous emotions. The essence of one is feeling; the essence of the other is logic; and the idea of replacing the former by the latter is about as incongruous as an attempt to paint the perfume of a violet with an adding machine. In the heart and soul and even in the esthetic nature of every individual is that mysterious element, which goes back to the beginning of creation. In many of the finest and most important acts of man, it may supply either the determining cause, or the principal effect. It cannot be explained in terms of material self-interest, or enlightened reason, because its essence is neither material nor reasonable. It has in it a touch of the ideal and divine, which was implanted in man, or has evolved in man, in accordance with the all-wise intention. When we have succeeded in arriving at a clear realization of this fundamental truth, and imagine we have put man's intellect back in the place where it properly belongs, we must pause a moment to make equally clear that we must not under-estimate the wonder and importance of that same intellect, in the life of every individual and the life of mankind in general. In this age of science, the attention and interest of the universe have been largely focussed on the marvellous achievements of the human intellect. Discoveries, inventions, advanced methods and great strides of progress in countless directions are the boast and pride of modern times. There is no disputing this, nor is there any doubt but that a great wave of scientific accomplishment, which was somewhat slow in developing, has, within the last two generations, suddenly assumed the most stupendous and bewildering proportions. The railroad and the automobile; the telephone and electric light; the airplane, phonograph, moving picture; anti-septic surgery and the germ theory of disease; the dreadnought, the submarine and wireless telegraphy;--these are but a few striking examples of the hundreds and thousands of achievements which the intellect has been able to accomplish in a comparatively short space of time. No wonder that we hear and read on all sides such constant and confident reference to the "advancement of science," the "progress of humanity," and the bewildering resourcefulness of man's brain. All those achievements are objective and impersonal; they concern the comforts and welfare, of each and every one of us, to a greater or less extent, but in a purely material and general way. When we turn to the personal life of the individual and consider his acts and motives, subjectively, we find that the rôle played by the intellect is almost equally important. As we have seen in our previous discussions, the intellect has a say in nearly everything we do or think of doing. It enquires into the cause, and considers the effect, and passes judgment, for or against, in accordance with the dictates of its reason. If a certain instinct within us, which may be purely animal, has a need for food or water, the intellect recognizes and approves the need; but if the food and water set before us is poisonous or unfit, it is the intellect which determines that and overrules the instinct. If another instinct, or impulse, prompts us to set fire to a house, or jump out of a window, the intellect decides that such an act would be unreasonable and forbids us to do so. It frequently happens that two or more of our instincts, inclinations, desires, are opposed to each other. I want to eat my apple now; I want to keep it to eat at the ball-game; and I want to trade it for Tim's lignum-vitæ top. In such a case, it is the intellect which considers the advantages and disadvantages of each and announces its decision. If it is a healthy intellect, in good control, it will enforce its decision, too; but even if it isn't, and an unruly impulse proves too strong to be denied, that won't prevent the intellect from pointing out the mistake that is being made and keeping it in memory for future reference. It is not necessary to go over all this ground again. We have already examined it with sufficient care in connection with the first answer which we gave to the up-to-date youth who wanted to know why he shouldn't follow his every inclination. The various examples which we cited to illustrate the significance of reason and experience are enough to establish the point we are now making. As far as the material things of this world are concerned, and the material needs of the individual, the intellect is generally and properly acknowledged as the sovereign master. The rule of reason in private life; and the rule of science in civilization have become more and more the accepted standards of the world in which we live. If an instinct or a desire is unreasonable, it should not be allowed to prevail; if a tradition or a convention of the past is unscientific, it should be discarded and ridiculed as something out-of-date. That is the conclusion which advanced intellects have reached through scientific methods of enlightenment; it is the message they have been communicating, the example which they have been setting, until the wide-spread results are becoming increasingly apparent among all classes and in nearly all places, where modern science and civilization have penetrated. It ought not to be very difficult for any one to recognize and understand why the methods of science and the rule of reason occupy such a dominant place in public estimation as they undoubtedly do to-day. The only natural question is why they have not always, in by-gone generations, occupied just as high a place. The answer to this question is very simple, though some people's attention may not have been called to it. The scientific method of investigation, as we know it to-day, is a comparatively recent product of the human intellect. There was no science of any such kind when Homer wrote the Iliad, or when the Christian religion was founded, or when Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa and Shakespeare wrote his masterpieces. Even at the time our great American republic was put into operation, modern science was still in its swaddling clothes. It is only in the last two generations that it may be said to have reached its true form and begun turning out in rapid succession the multitude of discoveries and inventions which have had such an immense effect in the daily life of civilization. It also takes a certain amount of time for great changes to permeate, and become absorbed by masses of people, so that it should not seem strange if many of the indirect results have only begun to be noticeable within the past few years. And now if we look about and pause to reflect on these triumphs of modern science, as they affect the life and ideas and feelings of the average individual, a very curious and somewhat startling question is liable to suggest itself. Is it possible that right here may be the main and underlying cause of the so-called "demoralization" of the present generation? Is it possible that the "impossible notions" and the equally "impossible conduct" of the up-to-date young people which grandmother finds so shocking are traceable to this source? Is it possible that faith, honor, loyalty and other ideals and aspirations of man's better nature, are being neglected and corrupted by the methods of modern science and the rule of reason? The very idea of such a possibility, when it first dawned upon me, seemed like such a palpable absurdity that I put it aside, yet as I followed the other trains of thought which have been under discussion, this idea kept recurring with greater and greater persistency. If it happened to be true, the lesson to be derived from it might prove so important and helpful to struggling humanity, that it appears to me, now, entitled to careful consideration. Let us begin with a general commentary and ask ourselves--How comes it, while scientific methods have achieved such amazing results in the material world, they have not succeeded equally well in improving the inner nature of man? How comes it that science, with all its investigations and accurately reasoned conclusions, cannot show the individuals of the present day how to make better paintings than Raphael or Titian? Or better statues than Michael Angelo? Or better music than Chopin or Wagner? Or better literature than Moliere or Shakespeare? It can show him how to make a hundred times better ship, or factory, or surgical operation; but when it comes to this other kind of thing, it appears to have made no improvement at all. Those artists we have named and hundreds of others in past centuries, who made immortal masterpieces, had no intellects enlightened by modern science, nor any of the benefits of modern education and progress. If we may judge at all by results (which is the modern, enlightened way), the only effect of science in teaching people how to get an inspiration and find a beautiful expression for it, has been a detriment rather than a help. If you take a boy to-day, who has a natural bent for poetry, or painting, how much will you help him by filling his mind with scientific methods and theories, rules and exceptions, deductions and compilations, of the various elements which should logically determine the value of the finished product? By giving his intellect a thorough course in scientific training, which may occupy his time and absorb his energy for many years, is it not possible that you will turn out in the end a plodding hack, instead of the inspired artist who might have been? Did anybody ever feel the poetic beauty of a rose with greater intensity for having examined its petals through a microscope, and learned to classify it scientifically, both as to species and variety? Did anybody ever learn by scientific rules of grammar and classified tables of words, to speak a foreign language with the ease and charm of a child, who picks it up from a stupid governess in one-tenth the time? The childlike, natural way to learn a language is to absorb it into the system, almost without effort, until it becomes a part of second nature--in much the same way that we absorb tunes. Without the slightest conscious effort, we are absorbing and retaining countless bars of music, all through our lives--yet can anybody imagine an enlightened intellect, undertaking to analyze and classify with scientific method the use of sharps and flats in different kinds of bars, and attempting to learn them in that form? Homer's Iliad and Virgil's �neid are generally regarded as great masterpieces of literature. They are full of poetic feeling, imagination, charm and inspiring sentiments. They are still being read by thousands of boys and girls, every year, but they are being read to the accompaniment of grammars, lexicons, and the commentary of learned professors, upon roots, derivatives and obsolete usages. A vast amount of time and energy is devoted to this undertaking, which is usually justified on the ground that it affords excellent training for the intellect. But how about the feelings of admiration and enthusiasm which works of such great beauty were intended to inspire? Are they exercised to the same extent? Or is the tendency rather to trammel and divert them by so much laborious and irrelevant interference? When we turn to the more personal feelings of the individual, in his intimate relations with other beings, is not the situation much the same? Has scientific thought discovered, or devised, any means of increasing the warmth and tenderness of the human heart? Has the rule of reason made husbands and wives any more devoted to each other, or to their friends? It has succeeded in providing a great many people with a telephone and an automobile, but has it succeeded equally well in providing them with generous feelings of self-denial and consideration for others? Or has its tendency, on the contrary, been rather to interfere with the spontaneous development of such feelings, by attempting to replace them by an analysis of human motives in which calculations of self-interest are made the prime factor? But it is only when we come to the spiritual feelings that the really radical effects of science upon man's nature are encountered. And the method of these changes is so eminently "reasonable," as to be almost self-explanatory. First is the question of religion, which in all countries and at all times has been such an important influence in the conduct of mankind. For the time being, let us be content to confine our attention to our own country and our own Christian religion, and ask ourselves frankly what conclusions the modern methods of scientific investigation and the modern rule of reason might be expected to arrive at in regard to that? What about all the miracles so devoutly recorded in the Bible? Through investigation and reason, science to-day considers itself in a position to pronounce them totally unscientific; and the rule of reason concludes that they were presumably founded on the imagination, credulity and ignorance which prevailed in an unenlightened period. What about the angels with the flaming swords, and the voices from on high, the golden thrones of heaven, the raging fires of hell, and the childlike account of the world's creation? With the same complacent assurance, modern science and reason are pleased to brush them aside as concoctions of ignorance and credulity. And so with countless other ideas set down in this same holy book--the motives of jealousy and vanity attributed to the all-wise Ruler--His insistence upon formalities in the manner of worship and baptism and christening--His threats concerning other alleged gods and unbelievers, who dare to dispute His sovereignty. All such ideas, when subjected to the acid test of scientifically enlightened reason, are shown in the colors of absurdity and ridicule. The general conclusion arrived at by this kind of investigation is considered by scientific minds entirely logical and inevitable. As this so-called holy book is found to contain so many errors, inaccuracies, false statements and absurdities, the notion, or claim, of its being a "revelation," communicated, or inspired, from a supernatural source, is unreasonable and untenable. An all-wise Creator could not be ignorant, or inaccurate. This particular book, like many other similar and rival ones to be found in other parts of the world, may be scientifically assumed to be no more than a typical and very creditable product of the unenlightened civilization which gave it birth. This tendency and effect of modern science is so direct and obvious that he who runs may read. How far it has already spread and acted upon the great numbers of people who compose our population is not possible to determine. Nor is it of any great importance. As we observed before, it takes considerable time for great changes of this sort to permeate to and become absorbed by the masses. But the evidence is only too plain, on all sides, that this operation is now in full swing and gaining ground rapidly. Among the up-to-date people of the new generation, the religious beliefs of a very large proportion have become so confused and unsettled by it, that they are no longer quite sure in their own hearts whether they have any at all. If you have any doubts about this matter, or have overlooked it, a very little enquiry among the people you meet every day, of all classes and kinds, will suffice to bring it home to you. Of course, there are still in every community a considerable number of people who cling bravely to the traditions of the past, who deplore and combat with indignation the up-to-date and demoralizing tendencies; who still believe in their religion as firmly as ever, who still regard the Bible as a divine revelation; and who still display the same fervid attachment to the various forms and ceremonies of their particular church. There are also probably a few who, for private reasons, although they have really ceased to believe, are still to be found sitting in church pews. But when we consider that modern scientific methods are of comparatively recent origin, the wonder should be, not that so many people have resisted their tendencies in the matter of religion and still cling to their beliefs, but that such great numbers have been affected by them in so short a time. It seems only too plain and palpable that this is the inevitable tendency of modern science, when brought to bear upon traditional doctrines. It eats them away, bit by bit, and step by step, until there is nothing left but a crumbling residue. But this is only one side of it--the negative side--which applies to what science has been taking down. There is also a positive side, which applies to what science has undertaken to set up in its place. As we have had occasion to note, the fundamental feelings of faith and aspiration are not dependent upon any particular form of religion. Faith has been found to subsist and flourish under various creeds and all manners of worship, in all stages of civilization. All that it wants is something to shelter and sustain and encourage it, in its struggles against the baser instincts. Any religion which does this, by appealing to the imagination and inspiring whole-souled belief, might be considered satisfactory in any given community. The next question, therefore, which we are entitled to ask ourselves is this: After science has succeeded in eating into and breaking down the particular temple in which our fundamental faith had found a refuge, what fitting substitute has it been able to discover or devise, in order to meet this universal requirement? The nearest approach to a scientific answer appears to be the theory of evolution, which informs man that, instead of being a special and majestic creation of an all-wise Almighty, as he had so foolishly and ignorantly imagined, he can consider himself a remote and more or less accidental, development of a protoplasm; and more immediately, the lineal descendant of the ape, to whom he still bears a close resemblance, in a scientific way. As there is nothing about an ape, or a protoplasm to be accepted as a haven of refuge, science points to another conclusion. (And in quoting science, here or elsewhere, let it be borne in mind that I make no claim of speaking as a scientific expert, but am merely attempting to give the general gist and point-of-view as it affects the average intelligence. In such a general way, this, then, is what science says:) "If you must worship something, instead of taking a figment of the imagination, why not pick out something real and established, about whose insistence there can be no doubt--the most logical and admirable thing on earth--your own self and your scientifically enlightened intellect? If you need a creed of some sort, to take the place of the antiquated one which science has broken down, why not accept a pleasing and simple creed which is entirely logical? Let your conduct be governed at all times by your own self-interest and the rule of reason. For everything that happens in this world, there must be a cause; and for every act of a living thing, there must be a motive, either conscious or unconscious. These are universal facts which have been adequately established by scientific research. In the case of an individual man, the only logical and sufficient motive which can be arrived at in a scientific way, to explain his conduct, under any and all circumstances, is the principle of self-interest, which he shares, with all other animals. This may be conscious or unconscious, more or less enlightened, or more or less deluded by ignorance and instinct; but that in no way affects the application of the principle." This is the only practical substitute which science has to offer for the religious structures which it has been slowly, but surely, destroying. But as this also is no haven of refuge for the vague feelings of faith and aspiration, where are they to go? In the process of demolition, they appear to have been left groping about, more dead than alive, under the ruins. With an upheaval of this kind, spreading in the souls of great numbers of people, and their fundamental faith groping in confusion, is there anything strange in the fact that we hear and see constant references to "the spirit of unrest," which has become so prevalent among all classes at the present time? In the relations of capital and labor, in the political world and the business world; in the divorce courts and domestic life, the deportment of women and the bringing up of children; in various other forms and directions, both public and private, no less than in church circles--there has been rapidly accumulating evidence of a mysterious influence of some sort, with a tendency to confuse and unsettle the standards and conduct of mankind. This state of affairs is not confined to our own country. It appears to be equally evident in England, if we may believe the testimony of those who pretend to know. In confirmation of this, it may be worth while to give a few quotations from a more or less authoritative and much discussed English book which was published recently. In the concluding chapter of his work, the author refers more particularly to the aristocracy of England, a privileged class of men who in the past have generally been considered a bulwark of traditional and lofty standards. At the present time, the author says: We are a nation without standards, kept in health rather by memories which are fading than by examples which are compelling.... We still march to the dying music of great traditions, but there is no captain of civilization at the head of our ranks. We have indeed almost ceased to be an army marching with confidence towards the enemy, and have become a mob breaking impatiently loose from the discipline and ideals of our past. ... Aristocracy has lost its respect for learning, it has grown careless of manners, it has abandoned faith in its duty, it is conscious of no solemn obligations, but it still remains for the multitude a true aristocracy, and looking up at that aristocracy, for its standards, the multitude has become materialistic, throwing Puritanism to the dogs, and pushing as heartily forward to the trough as any full-fed glutton in the middle or the upper ranks of life. ... There is no example of modesty, restraint, thrift, duty, or culture. Everything is sensual and ostentatious, and shamefacedly sensual and ostentatious. ... It is a grievous thing to corrupt the minds of the simple. The poor have always believed in heartiness and cheerfulness. All their proverbs spring out of a keen sense of virtue. All their games are of a manly character. To materialize this glorious people, to commercialize and mamonize it, to make it think of economics, instead of life, to make it bitter, discontented and tyrannous, this is to strike at the very heart of England. The author of this book has a very clear idea, very forcibly expressed, that the example of the upper classes, the leading citizens in the community, exerts a great influence on the others. That is a universal principle which applies, in greater or less degree, to all other countries, including America. It furnishes a simple explanation of how comparatively stupid people, who do very little thinking of any kind, may be found putting into effect motives and points-of-view which owe their origin to the enlightened reason of a few superior intellects. Also it may be observed that while the author appears to recognize and affirm with conviction a general demoralization of standards among the aristocracy, he does not attempt to suggest any visible cause for it. It may be gathered, in a way, that he takes for granted that, somehow, it is a consequence of the World War. This notion, as we have seen, is so apt to be fallen back on as a convenient excuse for anything and everything that is now taking place. But to the best of my knowledge and belief, confirmed by all manner of testimony and information, the tendencies in England which the author refers to, no less than the similar tendencies in America, were plainly in evidence and rapidly gathering momentum before the beginning of war. For tendencies which appear to be world-wide, it is fair to assume that there must be some cause, or causes, which are world-wide also. The spread of modern science complies with that. Our English author refers to the declining influence and lack of vitality of the English church, without hazarding an opinion as to the cause. The idea which we have gotten hold of affords a clue to that part of it, at least. If it is also a clue to all the rest, as I suggest it may be, then, by following its lead in different directions, we ought to unearth lucid explanations for the various phenomena which are disturbing and perplexing so many people. Let us go on a little further and see just what we do find. Let us imagine, for a moment, that I am a workman, a mechanic, of the average intelligence to be found among the great run of so-called common people. I have heard enough about modern science to be lost in wonder of it and I received a good modern education at the high school. I gave up going to church because it didn't appeal to me--a lot of the Bible preaching seemed out-of-date, unreasonable and unpractical. I've heard a little about this theory of evolution--man descended from an ape--and as modern science is said to have proved it, I guess it must be so. The main thing that concerns me is that I'm here, on the job, with a living to make. There are a lot of other men around me, about the same as I am. We're reasonable and practical and believe in getting all we can, honestly. We think we're about as good as anybody else and we believe in the rule of the majority. When I look about at the people born luckier than I am, with more of the world's goods, I can't see that they're any different from the rest of us. They're trying to get all they can, too, only they've managed to get a blame sight more than the rest of us. Take my boss, for instance. Is there any reason for him to be living in a big house with eight servants, and riding around in a limousine car, when all I can afford is a flivver? Does he work any harder than I do? Is he any better man? or any smarter? I haven't seen any proof of it. But just because he happened to have a rich father before him, he's allowed to get the lion's share of all we make. Is that reasonable? We all want the good things of life, as much as he does, and if we're in the majority, why shouldn't we have our share? He didn't make the capital that's in this business, and he didn't have anything to do with making his rich father; and the money his father made, when you come down to it, was squeezed from men like us. If the world is supposed to be run by reason, and reason says the majority ought to rule, why shouldn't each one of us have an equal share with him? I'm thinking of myself, of course, the same as everybody else--first, last and all the time--and in that way I'd be a lot better off, but that doesn't prevent what I want from being reasonable. Without saying it, in so many words, is it not plain that I am merely following in a way that an ordinary mind might understand, the creed which science has recommended as the underlying motive for all conduct--self-interest and the rule of reason. Doubtless a very highly developed scientific intellect might declare that my reason is not sufficiently enlightened; but it has received a high school education, and looked about at what other people are doing, and formed the scientific habit of sticking to the facts. Isn't that about as much as Enlightened Reason could expect of me? * * * * * Now if you happen to be another type of workman, less affected by the modern scientific conclusions concerning life, you might reply as follows: "I feel very contented and humbly grateful to the Lord for all the benefits he has given us. I am well and strong, I have a better home, and better wages, and squarer treatment than workmen ever received in any country in the world. I can make enough to provide modestly and comfortably for my wife and children, which after all is the main thing for my happiness. It is not for me to pass judgment on the life of our employer, or his inheritance, or the life of his father before him, or the great scheme of human existence which is behind and beyond it all. It is enough for me to accept such things, as the wish of an all-wise Creator." Of these two opposing points of view, which appears to be the one that has been spreading and gaining in the world to-day--in America and England, Italy, France, Spain and other countries? Which one is dependent upon the fundamental feelings of faith and aspiration, which have always found shelter in a religion of some sort--and which one may be traced, almost directly, to a crude interpretation of the progress and dictates of modern science? And let it be noted that in this field, also, before the world war began, this movement of self-interest and reason was already in evidence and well on its way. If we examine the Labor Union and the Closed Shop, and Strikes and Socialism and Bolshevism, and all those other kindred isms, we can see, readily enough, that the under side of them all is tarred with the same brush--self-interest, selfishness, greed, individual and collective, and reason, argument, excuse, more or less distorted and perverted, but more or less enlightened by the principles of modern Science, as they appear to the average intellect. The fundamental and innate spiritual feelings of man's better nature have been so covered over by the energy of this brush that, for the most part, they are only rarely and intermittently discernible. Suppose we now follow our clue in another direction--into the home and family and private life of the average up-to-date woman. And it is permitted us to imagine, if we choose, that I am such a woman, while you are my well-meaning, but rather out-of-date, husband. I have received my education at a typical school of the present day, organized on thoroughly modern and scientific principles. In my studies and my general instruction, I have learned to consider everything from a strictly rational point-of-view--hygiene, psychology, economics, the equal rights of the individual, the expediency of the laws, the need of judges to interpret them and of police to enforce them--and a variety of other school subjects which are regarded as an excellent training for the intellect. Among other things which I learned very quickly, both outside and inside of school, is that most pompous and impressive preachers don't practise what they preach. It's so unpractical and unreasonable that it appears to be a sort of pretence and convention for the benefit of the young and gullible. I find it more sensible to be guided by what other intelligent people around you are actually doing and learn in that way what they really think. This is the era of woman's emancipation and the most intellectual and leading women of to-day believe that woman is the equal of man; and has as much right as he to the privileges and freedom of action, in every direction, which he was able so long and so unfairly to reserve for himself. As other women think that way about it and it's much more satisfactory to me, I thoroughly agree with them. Marriage is an agreement between equals, a partnership for mutual convenience and happiness, and exactly the same obligations apply to one, as the other. If men find pleasure in smoking and drinking and gambling and flirting with pretty women, why shouldn't I smoke and drink and gamble and flirt with attractive men? If other women paint their faces, or dye their hair, or wear short skirts to show their silk stockings, or low-necked and low-backed gowns, to make themselves more attractive, why shouldn't I? In regard to my children, I love them, of course, and I believe in bringing them up in accordance with modern, enlightened ideas. First of all, I want their love and affection--the pleasure of having them run to me and throw their arms about me, when I come into the room. If I scold them and spank them and keep interfering with their natural instincts, I might end up by making them afraid of me--as they are of their father. I don't want that. I much prefer to pet them and spoil them and find excuses for them. I have so many interests and engagements of my own to attend to,--social, civic, musical, charitable--that I haven't much time or nerves left, to devote to my children. An up-to-date emancipated woman could hardly be expected to subject herself to that kind of hum-drum strain, in any case. My nervous system is very highly organized and their restless activity makes me irritable. I couldn't stand very much of it--even if I didn't have my own affairs to occupy most of my time. I always try to make it a point, however, to see them and kiss them and have them throw their arms about me, before going to bed. I get the best nurse I can for them--the present one is a Swede, the last one, Irish--but they seem to be such stupid, cranky things! However, one thing I insist upon--they are not to slap the children, and are to let them have their own way, as far as possible. And I make it equally plain to the children that if they have any grievance, they needn't mind about their father--all they have to do is come to me, and throw their arms about my neck, and I will do the best to straighten it out for them. That does a great deal to help me keep their affection. If I get tired of my husband and cease to love him (or find some other man whom I love more), or if my husband neglects and humiliates me and I find him involved in an affair with another woman; or for any other reason which seems sufficient to me; I consider it only proper that I should have the right to go to a divorce court and dissolve the partnership. As it is an arrangement between equals, for mutual convenience and happiness, when it ceases to be convenient or agreeable to me, it is perfectly reasonable that I should withdraw. That is to my self-interest guided by reason. Thousands upon thousands of other women are doing it, and no up-to-date enlightened person thinks any the worse of them--so why shouldn't I? You, my well meaning, but out-of-date husband, may be imagined as replying to this briefly as follows: "What has become of all the deep and beautiful feelings of faith and devotion and self-sacrifice, which throughout the ages have given a heavenly significance to the ideal of motherhood and wife-hood? Woman was not made in the same mold as man and such was evidently not the intention of the all-wise Creator. But in man's imagination and in his better nature, the essence of woman's purpose and greatness has appeared to consist in being a sort of guardian angel of the home and family. Her crown was made of purity, chastity, modesty, infinite tenderness and patience and underlying fidelity to her sacred cause. It is to her in this capacity, with such a crown upon her head, that the noblest of men have been willing to bow down, in humbleness and submission, not as to an equal, or a rival in worldly prowess, but as to a superior and more exquisite soul. "That is the birthright of woman, the glory of her creation, yet between your petty motives of self-interest and the up-to-date enlightenment of your intellect, you are trying to argue it off the face of the earth. You have exchanged a spiritual ideal of womanhood for a material mess of pottage." * * * * * There have been plenty of vain and selfish women, in the past, just as there have been profligate women and immoral men; but in the communities of the past, where faith and aspiration were wont to flourish and be sustained and encouraged by religion, such selfishness was not to be avowed or imitated. In the light of finer and more spiritual feelings, it appeared as a deficiency and corruption of character. But in the up-to-date rule of reason, backed by the analysis and conclusions of science, there is no need to conceal it, or excuse it. It is the strong minds, not the weak ones, which set the example; the enlightened, scientific, matter-of-fact intellects, which proclaim the principle and encourage the timid and less advanced to follow in their wake. As regards the training of children, up-to-date considerations of self-interest on the part of the parents, mixed in with instinctive love, as I have suggested by my illustration, would naturally result in giving them an early start on the broad highway of calculating selfishness. All the imposing school houses which dot the length and breadth of our land--public-schools, private-schools, boarding-schools--are constructed and administered in accordance with modern principles. In them no effort is spared to educate and enlighten the youthful intellect. It is trained in scientific information, and scientific methods, and scientific habits of thought. Rewards of one kind or another--diplomas, marks, privileges, prizes--are designed to operate as a stimulant for intellectual endeavor and excellence. Also considerable effort is expended, to care for health and develop the body, in accordance with scientific principles. In the gymnasium and on the athletic field, prizes are given to stimulate excellence in this branch of endeavor. But where, in all these institutions, are scientific professors devoting an equal amount of energy to the care and development of the feelings and sentiments of the spiritual nature? Where are the teachers of modesty and self-denial? Of cheerfulness and sympathy and consideration for others? Of sincerity, honor, fidelity,--conscience, aspiration, and faith in a mysterious, all-wise destiny? Where are the prizes and marks to stimulate endeavor in these? What eloquent and inspiring assurance does this science give to the youthful soul that its delicate feelings are of more importance in the life of man than any excellence of the body, or the intellect? A simple, old-fashioned mother, who loved her children with her whole soul, might go a long way toward supplying this need. With no thought of self-interest, but with a feeling of deepest devotion to them and their welfare, she was usually more than willing, to do all that seemed best for their spiritual growth, with the help of God. In this inspired cause, she had no thought of sparing herself, or them, from self-denial or self-sacrifice. Such an undertaking on the part of motherhood has generally been regarded as a beautiful thing, the most beautiful and sublime on earth--perhaps for the very reason that it calls for so much self-denial and is so completely devoid of selfishness. But an up-to-date mother, reasonably persuaded that she is the equal and rival of her husband in worldly pursuits, could hardly be expected to handicap herself in any such way. In accordance with the principle of self-interest and the rule of reason, she can make a much more convenient and agreeable arrangement. The money which her husband provides can be used to hire nurses and governesses, who will take the children off her hands; and at an early age they can be sent away to a first-class school and so relieve her of all bother and responsibility. After that, comes college and then, of course, the rest is their affair. While they are little, she can kiss them good-night and feel their little arms about her neck and dote on their tender affection; and later, when they come back from school for their vacations, she can make a great fuss about them and let everybody admire the fond and foolish demonstrations of a mother's love. With due regard for the variations and differences of degree which occur in specific cases, does this not represent, both with regard to up-to-date women and the training of up-to-date children, the general underlying tendency which is causing so much comment? It can hardly by any stretch of the imagination, be attributed to the world war, especially as it was already in evidence before the war. But, as we have tried to make plain, it can be traced very simply and almost directly to the influences and effects of the modern scientific movement, and the matter-of-fact habit of mind engendered by it, which accepts as a logical conclusion, the principle of self-interest and the rule of reason. If we continue to follow our clue in other directions, wherever the up-to-date principles, or lack of principle, have been causing comment, disturbing traditions, or appearing as a spirit of unrest, we find them susceptible of the same general observations and the same general explanation. A distinctly modern idea, that the nations of the world, as well as the individuals, should forever remain at peace; and that all differences between them should be settled by arbitration, is a typical product of the modern and scientific intellect. It has been much talked of lately and widely endorsed by logical persons. It is perfectly in accord with the principle of self-interest and the rule of reason. There is no rational justification for the immense loss of life, suffering, destruction and devastation caused by war. The only trouble about the principle is that, as it deals with human beings, there is with this, as with other questions of conduct, that same unknown factor--the spiritual side of man's nature. One of the most fundamental feelings of manhood--true for a nation, as it is for an individual--is that it is right, sublimely and everlastingly right, for a man to fight for his wife and children, to fight for his home and native land, to fight for honor and to fight for right, as his conscience points to it. It was in obedience to such a feeling that countless devout Christians, in the Middle Ages, fought and killed to uphold their religion. Their consciences did not reprove them, it inspired them--notwithstanding the curious fact that one of the doctrines of their Bible was "to resist not evil" and to "turn the other cheek." But the fundamental feelings within them, of right and wrong, of faith and aspiration, were stronger than a creed. The same thing was true of one of the wisest and most spiritual men who ever lived--Abraham Lincoln. In his conscience, he felt it was right for slaves to be freed and for the integrity of our nation to be preserved, no matter how great the cost of life and suffering and devastation. The decisions of a board of arbitration, of cold intellects, basing their decisions on reasons of expediency, or abstract and scientific principles of a worldly kind, could not satisfy such feelings, or be permitted to override them. Lincoln would not, and could not, have felt justified in abandoning his cause to the opinion of European intellects, any more than the militant Christians could have their faith regulated by the decisions of Chinese and Persians. It is in recognition of this principle, that up to the present time questions which may affect the honor of a nation have not been considered a fit subject for arbitration. As long as faith and aspiration and their kindred feelings are in the ascendant, conscience will tell the individual, as it will tell the nation, that certain things cannot and must not be abandoned, even at the cost of life. If through the influence of the rule of reason, such a conception may be overlooked by the enlightened intellects of W.J. Bryan and Woodrow Wilson, and a host of other well-educated people, that fact in itself may be regarded as an additional symptom of the extent to which modern scientific training has spread confusion in the sentiments of the present generation. Countless people are to be met with every day whose strongest inner feelings are not strong enough to revolt at the thought of being passed upon, or decided against, by the matter-of-fact arbitration of reason. I could not love thee, dear, so well Loved I not honor more. The meaning of those inspired words, to the average up-to-date mind, is so lacking in common-sense and self-interest, as to appear simple silliness. The other day, I was talking to a friend about the bringing up of our boys and, in the course of our conversation, he expressed a sentiment which struck me as profoundly significant. He said: "I would rather have my boy _be_ something fine, even if he got nowhere by it, than to see him receive recognition and reward for doing something not so fine--and I would rather have my boy feel that way about it, too." By way of illustration, if a bully were kicking a little tot, my friend would rather have his boy fight the bully and get licked and rolled in the dust, than to see his boy win first prize and much applause, for out-boxing a boy smaller than himself. Of course that is quite contrary to up-to-date principles and scientific enlightenment. There is no course in any of the high schools which teaches that sentiment, and the whole tendency of scientific training is to judge things by their tangible results. Moreover, the rule of reason would decide that your boy is not justified in resorting to a fight, under any circumstances. He might get hurt, or hurt somebody else. The propriety and right of the bully to do his kicking, should be settled by arbitration. An impartial investigation might determine that the little tot had done something to irritate the bully to such an extent that his display of anger and brutality was but a natural reaction. Again and again, we arrive at the same underlying observation and explanation. The intellect, scientifically enlightened, would argue away and take the place of innate, inspired feelings, whose faith has been correspondingly impaired and shaken by the breaking down of religious shelter and sustenance. The relative passing away of honor in the business affairs of man, and its replacement by technical and hair-splitting calculations of legality, which pass for honesty; the system of graft and pull and private benefit, which appears to have permeated and fastened itself upon most of the political machines in most of the cities of our land; the personal immorality, or unmorality, and practical cynicism, which are so much in evidence, even among the best educated and most enlightened--especially among the best educated and most enlightened--in public and in private, in their own homes and in their neighbors' homes, as well as in the divorce courts; the conduct of the up-to-date young men, turned out by our most progressive schools--those of the leading families, no less than those in humbler walks of life--their increasing readiness to treat every pretty girl they meet as a proper field of endeavor and a possible instrument of pleasure; and the corresponding attitude among thoroughly educated and up-to-date girls, in accepting and welcoming such treatment; all these characteristic symptoms of the modern spirit, of the so-called "unrest," need not be referred, in any but a secondary and accessory way, to the after effects of a war, which did not begin until their line of progress was already plainly indicated. Instead of that, with all these symptoms in mind, let us sum up the logical effect upon the average individual of our progressive methods and training. Does he not say to himself, and should he not be expected to say to himself: "This is a wonderful age we live in, with the automobile, telephone, moving picture, victrola, and all the other inventions. Modern science is the greatest thing ever. And one of the biggest things it has done was to puncture a lot of old-fashioned superstitions and conventions, so that nowadays no sensible person need believe in them. Each person can run his own life in his own way, in accordance with the dictates of his own reason. Of course, there are the laws--but barring prohibition, which everybody breaks,--there's nothing in the others that a reasonable person need have trouble with." The obvious tendency of this is toward unmorality, rather than immorality--what is good for self, in the eyes of self, without reference to religion, tradition or convention. The fundamental feelings of faith and aspiration which found protection and expression in those forms have been obscured and disregarded in the confusion of the break-down. Also the practical wisdom and accumulated experience of ages, which were crystallized in them, has gone by the board in the same way. Modern science has scuttled the ships which carried them. The material desires of each individual, left to the judgment of the individual intellect, are apt to be treated with a certain amount of indulgence--even when the intellect has received the full benefit of modern scientific enlightenment. Unmorality, lack of restraint, lack of faith and aspiration, self-indulgence and pleasure seeking in all its forms--this is the natural and inevitable consequence of the kind of progress which modern science is accomplishing, in connection with the conduct of the individual. Is not this a perfectly plausible explanation for the condition of affairs which the English author describes so concisely, without apparently comprehending? "We are a nation without standards, kept in health rather by memories which are fading than by examples which are compelling.... We have become a mob breaking impatiently loose from the discipline and ideals of our past.... Everything is sensual and ostentatious." In our own country, among people of my class and kind, I may add the testimony of first-hand information, that a large proportion of them, at the present time, have come to regard passing pleasure and acts of immediate self-interest as the chief object and motive of their lives. It is the pleasure of eating and drinking which concerns them and not the needs of hunger or thirst; the appeal of sex solely as a source of pleasure, far removed from any thought or aspiration to create new life and care for it; the pursuit of money for the pleasure of gain, and the pleasure of out-witting others, and the gratification of vanities and luxuries, far removed from essential needs; meaningless distractions and entertainments, which tickle the wit and nerves of the material senses, but by which neither the heart feelings, nor the soul feelings, nor even the deeper esthetic feelings, are stirred or stimulated; jazz music, bright colors, lively movement, jokes and snappy ideas, seasoned preferably with spice and sex--this is the state, apparently, to which modern methods and the rule of reason have led them. To judge from observation and various information, which is only too available, this tendency is steadily increasing; while, to judge it by the light of the underlying causes which we have attempted to trace and make plain, there is logical reason to expect that it will keep on increasing. What, then, of the future? Is our civilization, like that of the Roman Empire, destined to decline and decay? If the present condition is indeed an effect of modern science, either directly or indirectly, how can it fail to continue? Modern science and the enlightened intellect were never in fuller ascendency than they are at the present moment. They are the proudest boast of our time. The very people who are lamenting the demoralization in our standards of living, are at the same time applauding the triumphant march of science. Could they ever be convinced that there is any connection between the two--that the downfall which they deplore was brought about by the rise which they applaud? Self-determination, as a modern principle of enlightened reason, was established and expounded by no less an authority than the scientifically educated intellect of our distinguished ex-president--in its application to the smaller and weaker peoples of the earth, as well as to the large and strong. If self-determination is the proper thing for each nation, should it not be an equally proper thing for each individual? And, as it is hoped and assumed that in this advanced age each nation will be guided by the rule of reason, why may the same assumption not be applied to the individual? If all the nations in the world were to follow the lead of Russia and respond to motives not approved by the intellect of our ex-president, he might conclude that a large proportion of the world's population was still unreasonable, without being convinced of the unsoundness of a principle which was, and would remain, in his mind the correct answer of enlightened reason. If the rule of the majority, in any thickly populated community, was found to result in the election of demagogues and grafters and unscrupulous politicians, who are clever enough to take advantage of the private selfishness and prejudices and indifference of the individual; and if you considered it a reasonable and enlightened principle that every citizen should have equal rights and the majority rule, the unfortunate results might lead you to have a very poor opinion of the majority and resentment for the corrupt politicians, without convincing you of the unsoundness of the enlightened principle. If the system of compulsory education--of enforced attendance at the high school--of all manner of children from the humbler walks of life were found to result in filling their simple heads with extravagant notions and worldly ambitions for which nature did not intend them, which breed discontent with the kind of work for which they are suited, which separate them from their parents and their congenial inheritance, and impel them in mistaken paths to learn bitterness and revolt--if this were found to be the tendency in a large percentage of cases; and if your reason considered that all individuals are entitled to equal opportunity, and that the education of the masses is an enlightened modern principle, the tangible results, however unfortunate they might appear, would not convince you of the unsoundness of the principle. As a matter of fact, very few people may be convinced of anything which is contrary to their liking, or in opposition to their preconceived notions. An open mind may be helped to form an opinion, and people may be confirmed and enlightened by ideas which are congenial to their way of thinking, but that is as much as may reasonably be expected. This phase of the subject has not been my concern. I am merely trying to find expression for what seems to me the truth, as I feel it and see it. And the truth is, obviously, that the aim and effort of modern science has been to build up rather than to tear down. It has been striving, with all the means at its command, to discover the true facts and the true principles with regard to all things and to utilize them for the benefit of mankind. It may be its attention has been chiefly occupied with the material things of life, and the material principles which apply to them, but modern progress, in many ways is a splendid thing. As applied to the life of the individual, it is a splendid thing to improve the health and strength and condition of the human body. And as for the intellect, anything that science has done or could do to develop it to the highest degree, must be regarded as a step in the right direction. The body and the mind are essential parts of a human being and, as we have had occasion to observe, it is a fundamental aspiration of man to make them always better. If science, in investigating the true facts of existence, has been led to conclude that many old-time traditions and beliefs were largely composed of imagination and ignorance, and the indirect results of such a conclusion have proved unsettling and disconcerting, should blame be attached to any effort which seeks only the truth? The present condition, however unfortunate it may appear to us who are experiencing it, may be no more than a passing phase of development. The dawn of better days and finer standards, may lie just ahead of us, and when they come, it may be found that the enlightenment of the intellect by modern science was a necessary step in preparation for them. I, for one, am by no means without hope. Upon what grounds that hope is founded remains to be considered carefully. VII HOPE If we admit, or assume, that the ideals and moral standards of our civilization are on the decline--that materialism, selfishness, pleasure-seeking and dissipation of various kinds, are tending to supplant the finer feelings; and that this movement has been gaining ground rapidly in recent years--the question that naturally arises is: Where will it lead to? Who, or what, is going to stop it? A distinguished gentleman has lately been delivering a lecture in various nearby cities on "The Break-down of Civilization," and from the brief reports I have seen of it, he is thoroughly convinced that things are going from bad to worse. I quoted a while ago from an English author, whose summing up is to the same effect. Newspaper editorials and magazine articles and the private conversation of various people, are constantly expressing similar views, and I have just come upon the expressed opinion of the eminent writer and thinker, H.G. Wells, that unless something is done very soon, civilization is facing "the greatest wreckage yet known in world history." As the present "demoralization" was well under way before the World War began, that may be referred to, at most, as an accelerating influence, but not as the underlying cause. It is more intelligent, and more to the point, to recognize frankly that among a large and increasing proportion of our people there has been a crumbling away of religious belief. As a result of that, the fundamental feelings of the soul--faith, conscience, aspiration--are being neglected and starved. So much ought to be fairly obvious to any one who is willing to observe and enquire. When we go one step deeper and look for the cause why religious belief has been crumbling down, there is more room for confusion of ideas and differences of opinion. Many people blame the churches and the ministers and the lack of proper training of the children by their parents. Others blame the automobile and sports and recreations which are being indulged in on Sunday, through the laxity and insufficiency of the law-makers. Still others attribute it largely to the pernicious influence of the alien population. Finally, there are some who blame the vain, selfish spirit of the age, without bothering their heads to decide where that came from (except to infer a general relationship to the devil.) These opinions are opposed by those who regard the decline of religion as a source of satisfaction. In their eyes, it is an antiquated, narrow-minded influence which has been allowed to interfere too long with modern progress. The cause of its decline, as they see it, is a perfectly natural one--due to the fact that it has long since out-lived its usefulness, and in the present stage of civilization, people are much better off without it. They want Sunday to be, not a holy day, but a holiday, unhampered by Blue Laws or religious cant of any kind. As for the so-called demoralization of the present day, this latter class are inclined to laugh at the croakers who look at things that way. Conventions and styles are always changing and the modern ones are more practical and sensible than the old ones. New ways of doing things have always appeared more or less shocking, until people got used to them. That is the law of progress. The present age is an age of progress and on the whole the world is more progressive and more enlightened than it has ever been before. These are the two prevailing currents of opinion, clashing against each other, losing patience with each other, and attempting to get the best of each other by means of agitation and organization, movements and anti-movements, of one kind and another, including legislative enactments. It is fairly safe to assume that no effort of the religious sects can stay the march of the modern movement. It is possible to conceive that, through the forces of reaction, certain Blue Laws may be passed again and that in certain communities the religious observance of Sunday may be made obligatory. Such things, at most, would be only of superficial consequence. They cannot stop the spread of scientific enlightenment. And scientific enlightenment cannot be made to believe in tenets which are contrary to facts and conclusions, as it has been able to demonstrate them. On the other hand, it seems equally safe to assume that modern science and the rule of reason, if left to themselves, cannot be expected to nourish and encourage spiritual feelings. Their tendency, as has been quite plainly indicated, is in the opposite direction--to leave them out in the cold. Another conclusion, which is beginning to dawn on many people--even those scientifically enlightened--and which is likely to be more and more generally recognized, is that the life of man without the inspiration of a faith of some sort, and the other inner feelings which attach to it, rapidly tends to materialism, selfishness, demoralization, corruption and decay. That, in brief, is the situation which confronts us all collectively, and upon the solution of which the future of our civilization, to a large extent, undoubtedly depends. Suggestions of one kind or another, tending toward an alleged solution, will presumably keep making their appearance at intervals and a perfectly reasonable question is whether a sufficiently inspiring and sufficiently compelling solution will emerge in time to prevent the threatened chaos. For the moment, let us be content to defer consideration of the possible solutions and turn our attention to the predicament which, in the meantime, confronts the average individual. Let us suppose that such an individual, whatever may be the status of his religious belief, or unbelief, becomes convinced in his own mind that the selfishness and immorality and lack of sentiment, which seem to be spreading in all classes, is a bad thing. Suppose he is willing to admit, after due consideration, that our diagnosis and explanation of what is taking place is relatively correct. As most minds of the present day have a practical turn, the thing which interests him most, the thing he asks at once and really wants to know is what you have to propose as a remedy. How are you going to make people less selfish and more considerate of others? Less mercenary and more honorable? Less immoral, or unmoral, and more virtuous? That is the main thing which counts, from a practical, personal point-of-view: "How am I to benefit by your conclusions and how are you going to make others benefit by them? Unless you have something tangible and useful to offer, your observations, though curious and instructive, are not of much account." Let us try, therefore, to reply, in this same spirit, and hazard some suggestions which may prove helpful to those who want help. In the first place, let us call attention to the fact that after an individual has reached maturity, and his character and habits are formed, it is extremely difficult to change them to any great extent. The motives and point-of-view which determine most of his acts have become, so to speak, a part of his second nature. This second nature is something of slow growth and development. That is the obvious meaning of the old adage--"As the twig is bent, the tree's inclined." To change the inclination of a full-grown tree, requires a great deal of determination. In the case of human character, it may occasionally be done, through a great inspiration of the heart, or the soul. For a deep, ennobling love, or a new-born, exalted faith, the spirit and will are capable of almost any transformation. But usually good intentions, whose origin is confined to the reason and which are at variance with an established inclination, don't persist very long. The natural inference and expectation should be therefore, that most people of mature years, however much they might approve of other people's mending their ways, or even of mending their own, will be found to limit their effort principally to talk. In the absence of a great inspiration, the chief influence which keeps acting on them is the example and standards of their associates--the prevailing style and custom. Most people are very susceptible to this--women especially. For the sake of being in the fashion--or for the sake of not being considered out-of-date--many a nice woman may be led to do things which her instincts tell her are not nice at all. To a slightly less degree, the same thing may be said of men. But as the people who set new styles and establish new customs, in a selfish, materialistic age, are not apt to be guided by any great reverence for the finer traditional feelings, there is little help to be looked for, from this kind of influence. The immediate tendency is all in the opposite direction. A woman's own reason might tell her that it is more becoming to pencil her eye-brows and paint her lips and face and yet, if left to herself, an inherited instinct might keep her from doing so. But as soon as she finds that has become the fashion, she hesitates no longer. Women of innate modesty are to be seen, exposing their legs and bodies in public, drinking, smoking, gambling and dancing in a sensual manner with sensual men--things which they would revolt at doing, if it were not for the style. It matters not that the people who set the style were devoid of modesty and prompted solely by material considerations of self-indulgence and immorality. Under such conditions, how can people who are headed in this direction be prevailed upon by any amount of advice, however well-founded and helpful it might be? They may feel that they would like to see others doing differently, but until that takes place, their brains will not give them sufficient inspiration, or sufficient determination, to make a lone fight. There may be exceptions, of course, and in time these exceptions may become fairly numerous; but as long as the main issue lies between a return to old-fashioned religious beliefs on the one hand, and the dictates of enlightened self-interest on the other, individuals who can have no real enthusiasm for either, will be left to mark time or drift, more or less reluctantly, with the current. This is what may be reasonably expected to happen for some time to come, unless a great and fateful thing comes to pass, which will alter the entire course of modern civilization. As this great and fateful thing is purely a matter of conjecture, and may have no bearing on the conduct of people now living, we will defer the discussion of it until after we have finished with more immediate and practical considerations. There appears to be one way, at least, in which a clear understanding of the moral situation may result in practical benefit. The little children of the present day may still be bent and guided, their second natures may yet be helped to grow and their characters to form, in any desired direction. If we feel it is too late to bother over much about trying to change ourselves, or the people about us, that feeling does not apply to our children. That is a hopeful and helpful thought, and thoroughly practical. If all the mothers and fathers of the present generation wanted their children to be better and finer than the demoralized people so much in evidence; and if they set about it in the right way, all might yet be well for the future. And as a matter of fact, nearly all parents do want their children to be better and finer. All that they ask is to be shown the right way and they are ready, or think they are ready, to follow it. This is not only a question of good intentions, prompted by reason,--it also involves, as we have seen, the most fundamental feelings of the heart and soul. It is a wonderful and beautiful thing--the depth and strength of this feeling of parental love, especially the mother's. Nothing seems able to kill it, or corrupt it, in the vast majority of cases. The exceptions are infinitesimal. Even in those communities, and classes, and individuals where materialism and self-indulgence have become most pronounced, it is extremely rare to find a mother who does not love her child; who does not hope and strive, in accordance with her lights, for its welfare; who is not willing, if occasion demands, to make a real sacrifice for its sake. Many mothers have not over-much deep feeling of any other kind; many mothers have little understanding of the problems of life which confront themselves, let alone those which confront their husbands, or their children; very few mothers have more than a confused idea of the influences at work in forming character, in developing ideals and generous impulses, on the one hand; or self-interest, self-indulgence, and the rule of reason, on the other. Hardly anything could be of more help to the future of our race than a clear and settled realization on the part of every mother of one simple truth, which so many of our observations, in the preceding pages, have tended to bring out. The body of your child and the brain of your child are beautiful things, worthy of careful attention; but they are not nearly so beautiful, or so deeply significant, as the heart of your child, or the soul of your child. A strong and healthy body and a highly educated intellect do not make a fine character; they may belong, just as well, to a mean and selfish man, or an immoral woman,--a crook, or a profligate. A warm heart and a sensitive, dominant soul, do make a fine character, and they cannot possibly result in meanness and immorality. Those sides of your child's nature are entitled to the most loving care, the most constant attention, it is humanely possible to give them. In the average family of to-day, how much thought, or time, is devoted to the observance of this essential principle? How many mothers are consistently striving to watch over every tender requirement of the heart feelings and soul feelings of their children? The bodies are well enough cared for, as a matter of course. The modern rules of hygiene and the advice of doctors may be relied on for that. The same thing is true as regards the education of the intellect. Kindergartens, primaries, high schools, boarding schools, colleges,--relieve parents of all anxiety on that score. These two sides of a growing life, the physical and the mental, are so well taken care of, more or less impersonally, by the modern scientific system, that even if the mother neglects them entirely, they still receive adequate attention. Is this equally true of the heart and the soul, the development of character, so vitally important in the life and worth of every human being? If, in spite of her love for her child, these considerations are neglected by the mother, through lack of understanding, or the demands of her own self-interest, is the remedy for this neglect also to be found in the modern system? Unfortunately not. And right there is the source of a great measure of the present demoralization. If the truth of this could only be brought home to every mother, would not many a loving mother, for the sake of her child, be willing to sacrifice some of her own selfishness? If not, then indeed there is little hope left for the future of our civilization. But the beauty and wonder and endurance of that God-given mother's love, in all ages and in all climes, ought to convince us that the only difficulty lies in clearing away from the head of the up-to-date woman the confusion of ideas, the materialistic theories of sexless intellects, and the force of pernicious example, which have been brought to bear on her self-interest, and obscured, for the time being, her intuitive and eternally right understanding. VIII HEART AND SOUL As the heart of a child naturally begins developing before the soul feelings, let us talk about that first. And when we speak about the "heart," it is, of course, understood that we are not referring to the physical organ which pumps blood, but to that part of human nature which responds to affection and sympathy. The heart of a child--what a mysterious, wonderful, sensitive, beautiful thing it is! How much it gives and how much it is capable of receiving! And the one thing it wants most--the one it craves and hungers for, as an essential of its nourishment and growth--is love, tender, devoted, unfailing love. From the earliest babyhood, straight on to the years of maturity, and still on, that is the greatest need of the human heart for its full and happy growth. In early childhood, where is it to get that tender, devoted love, if not from its mother? Will it get it from a well-paid nurse or governess, whether Swede or Irish, French or English? In the vast majority of cases, the nurse or governess hasn't it to give. Love is something which can't be bought with money. Many a governess is a discontented person, who thinks she is worthy of better things. Many a nurse is thick-skinned and bad-tempered. A large proportion of both have much more tender feeling for their wages and their selfish interests, than they have for the child entrusted to their care. Should anything different be expected? It is not their child. In a few months, or a few years, it will pass out entirely from their existence. Plenty of people can be hired to take care of your child's body and its physical needs--nurses, governesses, doctors; plenty of people can look after the education of its intellect; nurses, teachers, tutors, professors--but no one can be employed to take your place in feeding it devoted love, because that love is God-given and God has not given it to the others, but has given it to you. The mother who turns over the heart life of her child to the keeping of a paid employee is guilty of a vital neglect. If later on, it should happen that the child proves lacking in affection, sympathy, consideration for others, and fails to fulfill the mother's fond aspirations, in that respect, she has herself to blame, first of all. If this simple truth could be brought home to every modern mother, it might prove very helpful to the next generation. It is not difficult to suggest how the affections find nourishment and development. And remember we are not yet considering the moral feelings, but only the heart. Love begets love; love is largely mutual; love thrives on the companionship of the loved ones. The tenderness, sympathy, devotion of a mother, very surely and quickly open out the heart feelings of her child and meet with warm response. The more constant the companionship, the more constant the outpouring of affection on both sides, the more that side of the child nature grows. And the more it grows,--with mother watching over it, helping and guiding, setting the example--the more it has to give to other people and things. It will love a doll, a kitten, a puppy dog, and show them the same sort of tender attention that it receives from mother. It will feel sorry for a poor little bird with a broken wing; it will feel sorry for father, when he comes home tired with a headache; it will put its arms about father's neck and want to kiss the headache away. As it grows older, it should be allowed to feel, and made to feel, that mother's love and father's love will never desert it--that that love may be counted on, as a mainstay of life, through thick and thin, fair weather and foul, to the very end. This should not be left as a matter of uncertainty, or wonder, or doubt. No mother should ever say to a child, or allow it to imagine, that if it should be naughty or bad, or do this, that or the other, mother would cease to love it, or father would cease to love it. Such an idea is poisonous to the true feeling and conception of love, which should be cherished in every child by every mother. Mother should take pains to make the child feel,--and she should take pains to make father do so, too,--that no matter what it does, their love for it will never weaken or waver. It is not enough to assume that this will be taken for granted--it should be confided to the child, at opportune moments, as the most sacred of secrets, the holiest of promises. And no time is more opportune for the telling of it--no time means more or counts more--than one of those moments when the child has done wrong and is troubled in its conscience, and feels ashamed and forsaken. That is a splendid occasion, for a mother's love and a father's love to prove themselves, by making doubly plain that although they, too, may feel ashamed, the strength and warmth of their love is undiminished. With nourishment and care of this kind the heart nature of a child is almost sure to grow and thrive. Its love will feel the influence of the big love it receives and want to respond in kind. In due time, it may say to itself, and confide as a holy secret to mother, that its feeling for her and father will never change, either, no matter what happens, to the end of time. As regards consideration for others, with the constant help and guidance and example of a devoted mother, this can be made to grow and thrive, too, until it becomes a beautiful and sensitive part of second nature. With such feelings nourished and cherished in this way, there is ground for hope that one of a parent's sweetest and most fundamental aspirations, in regard to the off-spring, will not be disappointed. The heart will be in the right place. Now, on the other hand, it is only too easy to see what may happen and what does frequently happen, if this sacred responsibility of a mother is neglected. Suppose the child is left, for the greater part of the time, day in and day out, to the companionship and care of a hired substitute, a nurse or governess? In the first place, the substitute is very apt to have no love at all, or what little it has, may be a very thin and shoddy variety. Frequently a nurse is unsympathetic, irritable, and selfish. That does not provide either good nourishment, or good example, for the tender heart feelings. When a child does wrong, the nurse scolds it and displays an ill-feeling which is the very contrary of tenderness and affection. That is bad enough, but it is not half so bad as the fact that this same repellent treatment is very often accorded a child when it has not done wrong at all, but has merely obeyed some spontaneous and beautiful impulse of its little nature, which an irritable nurse does not bother to understand. The way that a nurse wishes a child to go is not usually prompted by any loving consideration for the heart feelings of the child, but a very selfish consideration for the convenience and prejudices of the nurse. I have known many cases where the sensitive feelings of a little boy or girl have been turned to violent dislike by a nurse, or a governess. For days and weeks and months they have been obliged to live in the constant companionship and under the constant influence of an antipathy which sours and freezes their affections. I have known cases where a nurse, in order to achieve her own ends and relieve herself of trouble, has told a child to lie quietly in bed, when the light goes out, or a big and horrible bugaboo will creep out of the darkness and spring upon it. In such cases, the nurse takes good care to keep the child from giving a hint of this to mother or father, under pain of equally terrifying consequences. I have friends to-day, grown up men and women, who cannot go into a dark room, anywhere, without a shiver and shudder of nameless dread, which began with that same black bugaboo. I have known countless cases, where a nurse has said to a child, who has done something wrong or annoying: "I don't love you any more. I don't like you now at all." And I have known countless cases where mothers, themselves, have said and acted the same thing. And the effect of that is to belittle and corrupt in the child's heart a bigger and deeper conception of love, as a loyal and steadfast thing, with no string attached to it. If a nurse, or a mother, can withdraw her love, for a slight cause, then a child when it grows up can expect to do the same; a wife can withdraw her love from her husband, if he does something to displease her; a husband from his wife; a son and a daughter from their parents; a sister from her brother. How sad that seems, at first, and how it hurts! But little by little, as one sees and learns, and as the twig is bent--do not many up-to-date young people adapt themselves very comfortably to that belittled conception of love? Do not the divorce courts and remarriages and scattered children and the talk and acts of emancipated women give ample evidence of it? How glibly a certain kind of woman talks about sons and daughters lacking affection, and being so selfish, and so inconsiderate of others! How many of those women have taken the trouble to consider whether the heart feelings of those sons and daughters were nourished and cherished and guided, by the devotion of a loving mother? This is a woefully inadequate sketch of one of the most important elements of life, one of the most vital factors in the formation of human character, about which volumes might be written. It may be enough, however, to suggest reflection and a better understanding on the part of some mothers, well-intentioned, but confused by progressive theories, who are really in need of help. We may now move on to the moral and spiritual feelings. The most casual observer has no difficulty in noting the fact that most children to-day are lacking in discipline, obedience, respect, consideration for others, and many other qualities, which have been regarded as essential to a well-bred person. There has been no end of talk about it lately, as we know. As far as I have been able to learn, there is a fairly general consensus of opinion that this is due to a lack of the proper kind of early training in the home. As often as this question has come up in my presence, it has always been answered readily and confidently to this same effect, and the answer has met with unanimous approval of men and women alike. But I have never heard one single woman attempt to explain how it is that, with all the emancipation, and higher education, and scientific enlightenment, which has been placed at her disposal, modern mothers should fail to give their children a better training than ever, instead of a worse. Is it good for the children? No, of course not, they admit. Don't modern mothers love their children? How absurd! Every mother loves her children--more than a man can understand. Then why is it modern children don't receive proper training by their modern mothers? Oh, well, a good many women, nowadays, have so many other things to do, they haven't the time. Are these other things more important than the welfare of their children? Not that--nothing could be more important. Then, why--? If anybody gets that far with the average modern woman, he has done very well. She usually shrugs her shoulders, tells you not to be silly and parries with some feeling remarks about husbands and fathers. What do they do? And how do they do it? And who's really to blame? If you ask a modern man the same question, and no women are present, he may express himself confidentially, that most women, nowadays, are so fed up on civic committees, or recreation centers--bridge parties or pink teas--uplift movements or school boards--golf, tennis, automobiling--that they don't know what's going on in their own homes. They have advanced ideas about everything--principally themselves. When it comes to the children, their advanced ideas result, pretty much, in letting them get along without any home training at all. The women, when left to themselves, usually have little trouble in convincing themselves that if men had the proper kind of love for their wives and showed them the consideration and devotion which every feminine heart craves and is entitled to, there would be no trouble at all about the home. Every true woman would be found to respond magnificently. In nearly every case, the fault begins with the man--in his neglect and selfishness--and then man-fashion, he turns around and tries to lay it at the door of the woman. And so forth and so on. But again, no one attempts to suggest, or explain, why it is that the modern husband, who is better educated and more enlightened than husbands ever were before, should be behaving so badly. It is enough to agree and expatiate on the fact, without countless examples, that that is how it is. And the average mother, to-day, will be found expressing the fervent hope that her son will not grow up to be as self-centered and neglectful of his wife, as most husbands are. The effect of such talk, naturally, is to becloud the point at issue and confuse the mind. The point is that even in the minds of the women, the unseemly behavior of young people of both sexes is due to a lack of proper training in childhood. No enlightened woman believes, or claims, that two wrongs make a right. She does not believe that a man could, or should, take the place of a mother in dealing with children. She does not believe that he should become soft and effeminate, for the tender training of infants, but on the contrary, should be energetic and manly, for the battle of success. As far as the children are concerned, she cannot but admit that the immediate responsibility has nowhere else to rest but in her. If she chooses to pass it over to a nurse or governess, that is her affair. It is for her to engage or discharge the nurse and governess as she sees fit. And it is rare indeed to find a mother anywhere who would think of allowing any interference with what she considers her fundamental right. If she neglects her responsibility, or fails in it, and the results are more or less disastrous, it is a very feminine excuse, to argue that she has a selfish and inconsiderate husband. The care of the children was her affair, not his; both herself and nature agree upon insisting that this should be so. In this connection, therefore, it is to the mothers, principally, that we should address ourselves. At some other time, we may, if we choose, enter upon a discussion of that complex and much confused question of husband and wife in their relation to each other. Under present-day conditions, curiously enough, the first thing it seems necessary to ask a mother is this: Did you ever stop to reflect upon the tremendous and wonderful importance which may attach to the bringing up of one single child? Even if your heart feelings are rather anemic and your soul-feelings have become so muddled and confused by practical considerations that you no longer get any real message or inspiration from those two divine sources, yet you still have left a modern and enlightened brain. Even that is enough to make you almost dizzy at the thought of this thing, if you will pause long enough to give it careful attention. A modern battleship, or an airplane, or an automobile, is a vastly complicated and efficient piece of machinery. If you, yourself, left to your own resources, had the ability to turn out a complete battleship of the most improved design, you would doubtless consider that you had achieved something to be immensely proud of. But the greatest battleship on earth is not one-hundredth part as complicated and efficient a piece of machinery as your little son. And one of a dozen different faculties with which your son is equipped--the power of memory, for instance--is infinitely more intricate and more wonderful than anything and everything about a battleship put together. You might have an ambition to paint a beautiful picture, or compose beautiful music, or write beautiful poetry, or do something else with your life which you deem to be useful or beneficial to your fellow men. But by cherishing such ambitions in your son and transmitting to him all that is best in your own self, this same result may be obtained for the use and benefit of your fellow men. And in addition to that, you will have given to the world a wonderful human being, who may be able to achieve many bigger and better things than you could hope to do. More than that, your son may be able to transmit the ambitions and feelings which you have given him, to his children and their children, until your one achievement in making a splendid son, may expand and multiply into a wonderful lot of men and women, each and every one of whom may achieve more useful and beautiful things for the benefit of mankind than you could hope to do. All this may readily come about, if you apply yourself unsparingly to the unique and glorious task of making your son the right kind of man. This is only one part of the wonder. If you are willing to devote your heart and soul to this one task, another recompense is in store for you--a multitude of sublime recompenses. Each and every fine and beautiful thing your son does, as long as you live, will fill you with deeper gladness, more intense joy, than anything you yourself could possibly accomplish, through your own efforts. That is the crowning miracle of a mother's love and every mother who loves her own with all her heart, knows that it is eternally true. Just to look at your son and feel that he is fine and right and worthy of all the love you have lavished on him, is to taste an exquisite contentment, to which no other kind of earthly pleasure is comparable. And this same feeling of contentment will be waiting to steal into your heart upon the coming of your son's children--each and every one. Your mother's love will find a renewal of its glory in your grandchildren. For they, too, have in them the same mysterious spirit of you which you cherished in your son. And so, as you sit back, in old age, in brooding contentment over the young lives, so full of possibilities, you may reflect, in the sweetest way imaginable, that it is going on indefinitely, this essence of you and yours, on and on, to the end of time, fulfilling on earth the unfathomed but divine purpose of the all-wise Creator. People whose interest in life is centered in self-indulgence and material pleasure, may regard with dread the approach of old age; but not so a mother, whose deepest feelings have gone unreservedly to her children. To her it will come smiling, with the radiance of that most beautiful of all periods--a golden Indian summer. Take it all in all--for the reasons we have suggested and many others--the bringing up and giving to the world of a fine human being, the endeavor to make that human being as nearly right as possible, is the most important, the most profoundly significant undertaking that exists on earth. The all-wise Creator has entrusted that work, in a most beautiful and soul-stirring way, to mother love, the deepest and strongest feeling of which humanity is capable. If a mere man will devote the greatest part of his energies, day in and day out, year in and year out, to making pictures, or making stoves, or making money, to support the family,--how can a mother be unwilling to devote as much of her energy to this sacred task, which she knows is of more vital consequence than any material thing? Would that some one might be found to carry this message to every mother in the land--some one whose voice is so tender and true and appealing, that it might find its way straight to the core of their hearts and souls--clearing up the tangle of confused notions which the sexless reason and self-interest of progressive intellects have been making! In the meanwhile, we must be content to see things as they are and pin our faith to the belief that, as the baleful effects of the current misunderstanding become more and more apparent, the mother love, of its own accord, will become sufficiently alarmed, to throw aside its lethargy and seek to make amends by devoting itself more consistently to the welfare of its own. Let us assume, therefore, that a mother of the present day, is deeply concerned in the moral and spiritual feelings of her children--that she wants them to have fine sentiments and fine characters--and that she is anxious to do anything within her power to bring this result about. What is she to do? What method is she to follow? In this age of enlightenment, with all sorts of theories in the air, how is she to know the proper way of forming a fine character? As a matter of fact, in many cases, it is just because her ideas on this subject have become so confused, that many a modern mother has been led to side-step the responsibility and let things drift along in the easiest way, after the example of those about her. One of the first questions that is sure to confront her is the question of discipline and obedience. On the one hand, is the traditional idea of the past--"Spare the rod and spoil the child." She is familiar with this and there is nearly always someone near her who advocates it firmly--very possibly her own husband. On the other hand, she has read and heard and seen a lot which is directly opposed to that. Children should not be controlled by fear, like animals. There is something mean and ugly and revolting in the very idea. It is better to be loved than feared--better for the mother and better for the child. Between these two contradictory principles, even if she has the best intentions in the world, what is she to do? Is it to be wondered at, if many a modern mother, in this predicament, vacillates between the two? She doesn't like to punish the child and most of the time she avoids doing it; but now and then, when things have gone too far, or she is tired and irritable, she makes up for it by losing her temper and going to extremes. And the effect of this kind of treatment on the forming of a child's character is about as bad as could be. It doesn't produce discipline and it doesn't produce obedience; and it doesn't lead the way to any moral conception or principle. What it does inculcate in the child spirit very quickly is a feeling that the attitude of mother is largely a matter of mood, a very uncertain and variable quantity, which for the time being has to be put up with. And as the child cares more for mother, presumably, than anybody else in the world, it is no more than natural for it to apply this same point-of-view to other people with whom it comes into contact. There may be a certain amount of precocious wisdom in this, but it does not help the growth of moral feeling. And so it happens, in many cases, that at the very start, the twig is given a bend in the wrong direction. No mother really wants to spoil her child. She may say, with a loving and enigmatical smile, that she prefers to "spoil" it; but that is only her way of saying that she knows better than some stern and misguided people what is best for its tender wants. If she thought for a moment she was really spoiling the child's character, she would stop smiling at once and become very much exercised. As we have started with this question of discipline, let us not leave it until we have followed it out to the full limit of our reflections. If the choice necessarily resolved itself into one or the other of these two principles--strict obedience, rigidly enforced by punishment; or a vacillating policy of petting and scolding, leading to moral confusion--there could be little hesitation in deciding which would be apt to give better results in the formation of character. The old way, if somewhat crude and summary, has proved itself capable of producing discipline and respect for authority, a womanly woman and a manly man. The other way has not given much evidence of producing anything nearly so worthy or admirable. But, as a matter of fact, the choice need not be, and should not be, limited to these two principles at all. There is another method of arriving at the formation of character which is essentially different from either. The chief fault of the old method of giving the child a whipping, if it disobeys, is by no means confined to a lessening of a child's love for the mother, who whips it. This is one consideration which is given great weight by many women, at present. It would in itself be a real hurt to the mother and a real hurt to the child. But there are other considerations. Sometimes the whipping may not be deserved--it may be occasioned by a loss of temper, or a misunderstanding--and in such cases it is apt to leave a feeling of resentment and injustice. This is in addition to the feeling of fear, which corporal punishment is apt to produce. Quite irrespective of the harm to love, it introduces a false motive into the formation of character. The little sprouts of conscience may be overshadowed by this weed of fear. The fear of a whip, in a hand which may be strong but not necessarily just, very naturally brings into play the instinct of self-defence, to prompt and justify all manner of concealment, deception, cunning, lying. Those are a lot more weeds which may in time crowd out the more delicate soul feelings. Discipline, bought at such a price, is paid for very dearly. In my own personal experience as boy and man, the most hypocritical, mean-spirited treacherous characters I have come into contact with, were among those who had been most disciplined by unsympathetic and unrelenting parents. This is not to say, or imply, that corporal punishment, or stern treatment, necessarily leads to such unfortunate results. It is merely to indicate some of the possible dangers and drawbacks. With sturdy, primitive natures, an occasional beating is a matter of little moment; while for unthinking, commonplace minds, and undeveloped, unsensitive souls, the habit of obedience and docile respect for authority, in any and all forms, may be an excellent thing. A wolf cannot be trained in the same way as a setter dog, or a canary bird; and even among horses, the kind of treatment that a cart-horse thrives under, would ruin a thoroughbred completely. The traditional methods of handling children date back to a time when there were many wolves and cart-horses and no method would have generally survived which did not include them. But in our advanced civilization, as mothers frequently have more sensitive stock to deal with, there is reason for them to feel that, somehow, they should go about it differently. This appears to be a partial explanation of what we see going throughout the length and breadth of our land. It is for their benefit that a more sympathetic principle has been gradually emerging from the confusion. And let us note in passing that the altered sentiment on the part of mothers, and the principle which responds to it, cannot be credited in any way to the achievements of modern science, because a similar tendency showed itself sooner and became more pronounced and wide-spread in communities of China and Japan, where no modern science had penetrated. It would seem rather an intuitive growth of delicate understanding on the part of parents, as they become relieved from the strenuous needs of material existence. This third principle does not tend to "spoil" the child, or repress its affection, or distort any of the finer impulses of its spiritual nature. It does not destroy obedience or discipline; but instead of obedience and discipline inspired by a whip, it seeks to erect self-obedience, self-discipline and self-control. How does it work? First, through love, because in nature that comes first; then, little by little, through the unfolding of conscience and faith. We have talked about the heart feelings of a child, so it is only necessary to refer to them again, not for the joy they may bring to mothers, but because loyalty, fidelity, consideration for others, growing out of affection, may merge imperceptibly with feelings which are essentially moral and spiritual, to the immense advantage of both. Let a mother love her child, then, and cherish its love, with all the lavishness, tenderness, constancy of which she is capable. There can never be too much of it--there can never be enough of it--either for the child's good, or the mother's. And before the child is really old enough to think, let it have a radiant, deep-rooted feeling that mother's love is a mainstay of life, which will never waver or desert it, under any possible contingency, and which it, in turn, will never, never desert. And let a mother never trifle with that feeling, or prove fickle to it, at any stage, but treasure it as the holiest of holies, the very essence of the character she hopes to see formed. In the early stages of development, when a child's mind is unable to reason or understand, little habits of second nature are formed. The moral questions do not come to the fore until the age of reason and the first awakening of the spiritual feelings. And they bring with them unavoidably, the problem of obedience and discipline. Suppose your son disobeys you, what then? Or suppose he has disobeyed the nurse, and she comes and tells you? Something has to be done about that, surely. What must you do? Well, first of all, there is one thing you must be very careful _not_ to do. Don't scold--don't speak harshly--don't look cross--don't get angry. Look at your child with sympathy and understanding, and when he meets your eye, with a cunning little look of shame and defiance, smile back at him reassuringly, and hold out your hand to him. Then, after the nurse has had her say, thank her for telling you about it and ask her to leave you, because in the tender confidences between mother and son it is not proper that an outside and possibly antagonistic influence should intrude. When she has gone, take him on your knee, put your arms about him and hug him tight. Don't let him forget for an instant that he is your very own and you are his very own mother. Whatever may be going to come of it, keep that point clear--that you are his partner and help-mate and he is never going to be left out in the cold. Nothing will help more toward a fair-minded understanding of the situation. Ask him to tell you all about it, just how and why it all happened and help him with your sympathy and patience to express himself fully. Let us imagine that this is what has occurred: When he was out walking, he saw a dead bird lying under the bushes on the other side of a ditch. The nurse, Delia, told him not to, but he did climb across the ditch and picked it up. It was an awfully pretty bird and he just wanted to look at it. When she told him to throw it away, he wouldn't come back. Then she caught him and shook his arm and he couldn't help it--he just got angry. He threw the bird at her and called her "an ugly old crow." When mother has heard it all, she can start in very gently to answer and explain. And it won't hurt a bit to begin by letting him see that she understands perfectly just how he felt. She remembers a dead bird she found once, when she was little. But, on the other hand, Delia was only doing what she thought was best. There might have been nasty worms on the bird. But that, after all, is not the main thing. The main thing is, that if he is to be trusted to go out walking with his nurse, he must be willing to do as she says, no matter how unreasonable it may seem. Otherwise mother would be worrying all the time--and something dreadful might happen--he might get lost, or run over. He doesn't have to go out walking with Delia, if he doesn't want to; that is for him to decide. But if he does decide to go, it must be on the distinct understanding that he agrees not to disobey her. The boy is rightly entitled to his say about this and if he has any objections, it is for mother to meet them and dissipate them with her love and reasons. Nothing should be demanded between mother and son which does not seem just and fair to both. One final point remains to be considered. He threw the bird in Delia's face and called her a name which must have hurt her feelings. _Boy:_ "I couldn't help it. I was angry." _Mother:_ "I understand that perfectly. But all the same, it was rather hard on Delia, especially when she was only trying to do what she thought was right." _Boy:_ "Sometimes, I've got an awful temper." _Mother:_ "I don't mind that a bit. I'm glad of it. It's only because you have such strong feelings." _Boy:_ "Have you got a temper, too?" _Mother (smiling and nodding):_ "Of course I have--as bad as yours--or worse." _Boy (delighted):_ "Really?" _Mother:_ "But it's something we all have to learn to control. Because if we can't control it, it's sure to make us do things that we're ashamed of afterwards--things that are unkind and unfair to others. Aren't you just a little bit ashamed of what you did to Delia?" _Boy (meeting her eye with smile of enquiry--then looking away and thinking, with feeling):_ "No--I'm not!" _Mother (petting his hand):_ "Well--I suppose you're still thinking about the bird--and there's still a little of that old temper left. But wait awhile and think it over. And--I'm going to tell you something that _I_ think would be awfully nice. Sometime, if you did happen to feel like it and went to Delia of your own accord and explained to her how you lost your temper and were sorry for calling her that awful name----?" _Boy (looking away, thinking, then turning to her, hesitating and shaking his head):_ "I couldn't mummy, please,--I couldn't--not now----" _Mother:_ "I'm sure she'd appreciate it, a lot. Poor Delia--she tries so hard and she's so sensitive and she's really so fond of you. Of course, I wouldn't want you to say you were sorry, unless it was really true. It's only a sham and a humbug to make people say things they don't mean. It's entirely a question of how you feel about it, in your own heart. And nobody can decide that for you but yourself." After an incident of this sort, how would a mother feel if Delia told her, the next afternoon, that Master Bob had come to her and apologized like a little gentleman--and he'd been so sweet and dear--and he'd kissed her--and it touched her so, it broke her all up and she couldn't help crying? If we take the pains to examine a little every-day example of this sort, it is not difficult to see that it involves some fairly important feelings. First of all, it encourages a feeling of faith--faith in mother, in her sympathy and understanding and justice. Then consideration for others--self-control--and finally conscience, what the inner nature, of its own accord, feels to be right. All these may be of vital account in the formation of a fine character, and they may be brought into play by this sort of treatment just as effectually as by a beating. Of course it cannot be assumed, or expected, that the immediate result in any given case will prove so satisfactory. Sooner or later, with nearly all children, there are sure to come times when gentle explanations will not suffice. Something more impressive has to be resorted to. This final resort was, in fact, faintly indicated in our example--but so faintly, that it might be overlooked. It was carefully explained to the boy that if he would not agree to obey Delia, when he went out walking with her, then he could not enjoy the privilege of going out walking with Delia. This is a principle of punishment, which may be applied to any and all cases, to almost any desired degree. And it has at least one great advantage over other kinds of punishment. It can be made to avoid all danger of seeming unjust and arousing resentment. Let us look into the application of this principle with reference to the more serious problems of misconduct which are liable to arise. In general experience, the most serious troubles, or faults, which a mother has to contend with, are forgetfulness, temper, selfishness, deception, lying. Her aim is to see them supplanted by a habit of reflection, self-control, consideration for others, sincerity, truth. She believes and feels that these latter qualities are better for the boy's own welfare, better for the people he loves, better for everybody. She wants her boy to feel this way about it, too. Very well, then, the first thing to be sure of is that the boy really understands the meaning of those things which you expect of him--the whys and wherefores and the good that is in them. Otherwise--if he is not sincere about it, if he must do things in which he doesn't believe--there's an element of sham about it which leads quite naturally to concealment and hypocrisy. It is true, he may always be counted on to do a great deal for love, for mother's sake,--provided that mother has cared for that love. But that is a sacred privilege, which should not be abused. It may have the effect of setting a bad example. If she has the right to ask him to do something which he doesn't see the sense of and doesn't feel like doing, why shouldn't he have the same right to ask her to let him do things which she doesn't see the sense of and doesn't feel like letting him do? If that is the way of love, why doesn't it apply to one, as well as the other? This may be very cunning and sweet, upon occasion; but for steady diet, it does not help the growth of moral feeling. It is much better that he should never be required to do things which he cannot understand sufficiently to feel the right of. This all comes about quite naturally, in the course of companionship. There are countless opportunities for explaining and questioning, about this, that, or the other. No growing child is slow about asking innumerable questions and trying his best to understand. Preaching of any kind isn't necessary. It seldom, if ever, gets home in the best way. The same thing is true of scolding and harsh words. They are not at all necessary; and they usually do a great deal more harm than good. Let us suppose, then, that your son has been guilty of an act of selfishness--and to make matters worse, through a feeling of shame, he has first attempted concealment and then resorted to lying. That is a rather trying situation for mother to face. It is about as hard a nut as she will ever have to crack. In the old days, there would be no hesitation in saying that the first thing it called for was a good sound beating. But instead of that, let us imagine that mother is brave enough to stick to her love feeling, reassures her boy, smilingly, and holds him close. First she gives him a chance to tell all about it, in his own way, and helps him along to a confidential admission of the shameful facts. And to make the case as extreme as possible, we will assume that there were no palliating circumstances whatever. The best that the boy can say for himself is that he just didn't stop to think--he went ahead and did it--and afterwards, he felt ashamed and didn't want anyone to know--and then, well, he tried to get out of it by lying. _Mother (smiling, thinking):_ "Well, well--here's a pretty kettle of fish--isn't it? What in the world are we going to do about it?" _Boy (looking down, nervous, does not answer)._ _Mother:_ "I suppose there's no use crying over it. The main thing is how we can find a way to keep it from happening again. Perhaps it would help, if we could find the right kind of punishment?" (No answer.) "What kind of punishment shall it be--the fairest we can think of? Suppose you decide it for yourself. What would you suggest?" _Boy (very nervous):_ "I don't know." _Mother:_ "How would it be if, the next time you told a lie, you and mother couldn't, either of you, go riding in the automobile for two days?" _Boy (troubled, thinking, giving her a look):_ "Two whole days?" _Mother (smiling):_ "That's a pretty big punishment but, after all, lying is a pretty bad thing, which we don't want to have happen. Suppose we start with that and agree on it--two whole days?" _Boy (looking down, thinking, very nervous):_ "If you couldn't go riding, either--why should you be punished?" _Mother:_ "Because I'm your own mother and I love you better than anything in the world. Whatever you do, can't help affecting me. Besides, you see, in a way, I'm largely responsible for whatever you do. If I don't bring you up right--isn't it my fault? And if we both have to be punished together, that may help you to remember." _Boy gives her a glance, looks down, thinking--begins to smile, hesitates._ _Mother:_ "What are you thinking? Tell me." _Boy:_ "You mightn't know anything about it--if it was to the cook, or Delia, or Vincent--or somebody else?" _Mother:_ "That's true. It's something else for us to think about. If a boy tells a lie to anybody--because he's ashamed or afraid--that's bad enough. But afterwards, if he doesn't own up to it like a little man, but tries to conceal it from his mother, or deny it, that is ever so much worse. It deserves a much bigger punishment. Isn't that right?... Isn't it?" _Boy looks down, showing more nervousness, finally assents._ _Mother:_ "Very well, then--this is what seems fair to me: If my boy tells another lie and doesn't attempt to deny it, afterwards--then the punishment will be as we agreed--two days, with no automobile for either of us. But if, before she hears of it, he comes, of his own accord, and tells mother all about it--that's better, and we'll reduce the punishment to one day. But if, on the contrary, he tries to conceal it and denies it and tells more lies, that is worst of all--and when it is found out, as it is very apt to be, sooner or later--then the punishment will have to be harder on all of us--and father will have to be included too." _Boy (quickly):_ "Father?" _Mother:_ "If father is going to have that kind of a son, he will have to know about it and suffer for it, too. He will have to take his punishment, whether he wants to or not--the same as you and I." _Boy:_ "Oh, mummy, please! Does father have to know about that, yet?" _Mother:_ "Well, you see, dear, father loves us both, very much. We both belong to him--we both bear his name--and he works very hard to give us everything he can to make us happy." _Boy:_ "But if I don't do it again----?" _Mother (hugging him):_ "All right! If you really mean to try very hard, perhaps we'll never have to come to that. I'm quite sure I don't want to, any more than you do. There! it's understood and agreed--and we won't say another word about it." That is a simple example of the principle; but it is enough to suggest the beginning and end of the whole thing. It can be made elastic enough--gentle or severe enough--to fit almost any or all cases that may be imagined. The punishment is talked over and understood in advance, not in any way as a chastisement, inflicted by an angry parent, but as a necessary and eminently fair means of impressing upon an unformed character the need of self-control, and the avoidance of an act which he knows is unworthy. There are always certain things in every child's life which mean a lot to him--dolls, toys, games, skates, baseball, bicycle, automobile rides, swimming, tennis, golf--or something else--at all ages, up to manhood. To be deprived of an important pleasure is a sure way of making him stop and think over the meaning of it. There is only one thing that will bring it home more surely and more deeply, and that is to see the one he loves best deprived of her important pleasures, too, as a result of his misconduct. If mother cannot go out in the automobile; if mother cannot play the piano; if mother cannot read to him, or tell him stories; if mother cannot come to the table for her meals;--the sight of this and the knowledge that he is the cause of it, will put a terrible tug on the heart-strings and the conscience. And in extreme cases, if father has to be included in the punishment, and deprived of his pleasures, too, that makes the boy's feeling of guilty responsibility even more pronounced. Yet, with it all, there is no chance for a sense of personal resentment and injustice to obscure the meaning. The unfairness and severity--if there be any--applies most to mother and is inflicted by the boy's own act. And if mother sets the example of accepting it bravely and smilingly, with no complaint and no scolding, and clings fast to her love and sympathy, in this trial of love, such experiences may be counted on to prove entirely helpful to the growth of moral feeling and self-discipline. And once a punishment has been determined and agreed upon in advance, it should never be deviated from in the slightest degree. If a child were allowed to evade it, or modify it, by cajolery or cunning appeal, that would tend to destroy the spirit of fairness and faith in mother's word. If a child will not respond to this kind of treatment and this kind of punishment, it is fairly safe to assume that he would respond even less, as far as the development of character is concerned, to ill-temper, harsh language, and the whip. So much for the question of discipline, about which many well-intentioned mothers of the present day are so perplexed and confused. In this connection, however, there remains to be made a general observation and warning, upon which too much stress can hardly be laid. A certain amount of discipline, in a few important matters which involve moral feeling, is almost essential to the proper formation of character. On the other hand, constant restraint and excessive discipline, in the natural exuberance of youthful impulses and activities, is unwise and unfair to human nature. A mother who puts a healthy, normal boy in a pretty suit of clothes, and then would talk punishment, because he plays in the mud, or climbs a tree, doesn't deserve to have a healthy, normal boy. His impulse to play in the mud and climb trees is infinitely more vital and admirable than the vanity and sentimentality which attaches to spotless clothes. Sturdy vitality is a splendid foundation for sturdy character. Almost any kind of activity which does not endanger his life or health is good for him. Lots of love and a little helpful guidance, in essential things, is all that he usually needs--and very, very little repression, of any kind--the less the better. In a child's nature the faculty of imagination and the force of example are important considerations in the development of the spiritual feelings and the formation of fine ideals. The world of make-believe, of purest fantasy, is just as interesting and just as significant as the every day actualities of life. It makes not the slightest difference to a little boy, or girl, whether the stories you read them, or the acts of hero and heroine, are reasonable or not. (And if, in the preceding pages, I have referred to the child as being a boy, that is only for convenience in writing and not to imply that the observations would differ in the case of a girl.) The child's imagination is ready and eager to follow you anywhere and the main thing is the exercise of the feelings occasioned by fictitious events. This is one of the earliest ways for the tender soul nature to find nourishment and growth. The more rhymes and jingles it can hear, the more fairy tales, stories of adventure, thrilling deeds of heroism, the better it is for the forming traits of character. In nearly all the stories a mother may find to read or tell to her children, there are examples and side-lights of courage, devotion, honor, loyalty, cheerfulness, patience, and other exhilarating qualities. There is no necessity of picking and choosing too carefully, or of attempting to confine the exercise to a certain sort of fiction whose tendency is obviously moral. The biggest part of it is to give the imagination and feelings plenty of food to grow on, to encourage and stimulate a liking and admiration for things which appeal to the interest through the imagination. Given half a chance, nature can be fairly well trusted to look after the rest--and in the long run is apt to prove as true a guide as finicky and restricted notions which may be lacking in broad comprehension. One of the loveliest and most helpful occupations any mother can have is to learn to tell stories to her children. Many mothers may find themselves a little deficient in this ability, at first; but, with the inspiration of love and their holy cause, almost any mother can soon acquire a charming facility in doing it. And the advantage to the children, as well as to mother, which may be derived from this method is very considerable. A story told by mother is easier to understand, more sympathetic, more delightful, less set and cumbersome than nearly any story which has to be read methodically from the printed pages of a book. A mother is in close touch with the needs and natures of her own flock--she can embellish and interpret and add her own loving comments, as such and as often as she feels the call for it. I have found by experience that so many stories which are supposedly designed for children, make use of big and stilted words, complicated ideas, and tedious, long-winded explanations. Mother can read them so quickly by herself and then preserve the pith and point of them in her own manner of recounting. There is practically no limit to the variety of kinds and subjects which may be interpreted and rendered available in this way. The story of Ivanhoe, or Quentin Durward, or Lohengrin, may be just as readily told in this way as Cinderella, or Robin Hood, or Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp. But set any child the task of reading for itself a great volume of Ivanhoe, or many of the other world classics, or of listening to any one who waded through the long descriptions for hours on end, is hardly to be thought of. Fortunately there are a number of books which seem to have been written by people who love children and understand them. These a mother can search out and select from and make good use of. One of the curious things about youth is that children love to hear the same stories over and over again, even after they know them almost by heart. This is undoubtedly due to the fact that the appeal is principally to the feelings and not to the intellect. Intellectual people, when once they know the contents of a book, seldom have any further interest in it. But music and painting and poetry do not lose interest through familiarity, even for mature natures. Their appeal is more like that which stories have for children. Owing to this condition of affairs, a mother need never be at a loss for stories to tell or stories to read. This part of child life should not be an exceptional occurrence due to her mood or whim, but a constant feature of the daily life to be counted on and treasured up. The lovely atmosphere which surrounds it, the moral and spiritual ideals which are engendered by it, combine in making it a precious influence in the rearing of a new generation. "But," exclaims the up-to-date woman, of enlightened intellect, "what kind of old-fashioned, benighted mother are you prating about! This is the era of woman's rights and woman's emancipation! What time would a woman have for her own affairs--for the exercise of her rights, which have been won with so much effort--if she had to keep bothering her head with that sort of thing?" That is true. It would seem as if we had forgotten about the self-interest and selfishness of the modern movement, which is there on all sides to poke its tongue at a mother's devotion to her sacred cause. Indeed, we have no answer to give to that kind of selfishness. The essence of our thought is love and faith in the love of motherhood. There is no selfishness in it and the language it uses is not translatable into terms which the rule of reason can hope to understand. But to those mothers whose hearts are still in the right place, even if their heads have become more or less confused by the shouting and example of intellectual leaders, there is a very simple observation to suggest, as an answer to such objections. Is it of much importance or benefit to you, yourself, or to anybody, or any thing, that you should spend so much of your time in gambling at the bridge table? Or gossiping at an afternoon tea? Or attending a meeting at the woman's club? Or at the hair-dresser's and manicure's? Or in intellectual pursuits of any kind? Is it not more important to you and to your family and to the future of your race and kind, to devote a considerable amount of your time and energy to the children, who love you and need you and can profit greatly by your help? Is not that entitled to the best you can give, not only because it is the most important of all earthly occupations, but because by doing it you set the blessed example of thinking first and most of others, and last and least of self? After the children are tucked in their beds, peaceful and happy in the land of dreams, then it is time enough for you to turn your thoughts to personal distractions and pleasures, which are proper and wholesome for a human being when the daily work of life is done. Nobody will begrudge it to you, and you need not begrudge it to yourself. It is what distractions are for. It is also what the great majority of husbands and fathers and grandfathers have been doing since the beginning of time--working to the best of their ability for the good of home and family--content with their recreation, after the work is done? How can any true mother in her heart and soul be so disturbed and misguided by intellectual enlightenment that she could be led to desert her eternal responsibility for the pursuit of selfishness--or the agitation of _isms_? It ought to be reasonably clear that if a mother does desert her responsibility, and leaves to the care of a hired employee the development of her child's moral and spiritual feelings, the results are liable to be very unsatisfactory. It is the same story over again, which we took account of in connection with the heart feelings. Nagging, scolding, lack of sympathy, false standards, superstitions, threats, deceptions, bug-a-boos--are all apt to take a hand in forcing a necessity for discipline and deforming character. The tangles of temper, fear, deception, resentment, will never be unravelled and patiently straightened out. In their wake, are pretty sure to come, sooner or later, scenes with mother and father--hypocritical or defiant, cajoling, whining, or tempestuous--in which harsh and ugly words will sometimes play a part. And one fine day, the mother will probably vouchsafe the remark, as so many modern mothers have done in my presence, that when certain boys, or girls, reach a certain age, they get so that it is quite impossible to do anything with them at home and the only sensible way is to ship them off to a boarding-school. How much of a mother's time is required for the right kind of care for her children? Who can judge of each case, but the right kind of mother? Whatever the child has need of, that is for her to watch over and give, to the fullest of her capacity. And what of the rôle of a father in this most vital of responsibilities? It is essentially that of a help-mate--to bring cheer and comfort and courage, and the tenderest of protection and support. "The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world"--so says the old adage. In any case, it is upon the sanctity and devotion of mother love that the future of our race depends--and the deepest feeling of a manly man has never doubted it. There is much, much more that might be said about the relationship of a father to a mother, and of a mother to a father. The right foundation for it should be the deepest of moral and spiritual feelings. The true significance of it cannot help being eternal, not temporary. In no department of life, has the scientific principle of self-interest and the rule of reason had a more confusing, corrupting, and destructive influence. To attempt to translate the meaning of a marriage into terms of a business partnership is a ghastly mockery. This subject is too big and the discussion of it would carry us too far afield, to be undertaken in the present connection. Our attention has been confined, for the time being, to mother love and the formation of character for the next generation. And the next question which confronts mother love is the question of schools and school education--one of the most perplexing and troubling of all, and yet unavoidable. Let us suppose that our mother is an ideal one--that she has gladly responded with the best that is in her to her love and responsibility--that she has cherished and nourished every tender little bud in the heart and soul of her boy--that the twig of character is rising up straight and beautiful, in every respect. Then comes the day when Master Bob must go off to school--a day school, or a boarding school, or first one and then the other. Why does he have to do this? In the first place because it is the custom every boy is supposed to do it, when he arrives at a certain age--and then, to receive proper instruction, his brain must be taught, his mind enlightened. So off to school he must go, and when he gets there, a new and different atmosphere surrounds him, a new influence is brought to bear on the little character, so tenderly forming, and in the main the nature of this influence is two-fold. First, there is the school-room and the school books and the teaching of teachers--and second, there is the companionship, intimacy, teaching, of the other boys with whom he is thrown into contact. As the action of this latter influence is usually the more immediate, direct, and compelling, we may as well give it the foremost place in our consideration. And let us be careful to state frankly and bear constantly in mind that all cases are by no means alike. The conditions to be met with may be largely accidental and differ materially in degree or kind. And the consequences, for any particular boy, may depend very largely upon accidental circumstances, or inherited tendencies. A boy, who is naturally warm-blooded and very impulsive, may not react in the same way as another boy, who is inclined to be reserved and reflective. If I am led by my observations to make use of extreme or exceptional examples it is not my intention to imply that they are the rule, but merely to bring out clearly a point, or meaning, which, in less degree, may have a more general application. We have already had occasion to refer repeatedly to the force of example in shaping the conduct and ideas of a vast majority of people. Nowhere is this force more rapidly effective, than in the case of growing children. It is their instinct to absorb and imitate, consciously or unconsciously, and so adapt themselves to new conditions of development. And this instinct is sure to be very much alive, more than ever alive, when boys and girls find themselves removed from the family influence, amid new conditions and new companions of the school. Before we follow our boy, Bob, so far, let us pause for a moment and consider this question of companionship with other boys and the influence of example, as it may have applied to him, while mother was still at hand to watch over him. Any boy or boys that Bob might come into contact with, or make companions of, would also come under mother's eye. Not only that, but Bob would repeat to her, spontaneously and gushingly, every new thing that they said, or did. And if Bob still had a nurse hanging about, she would have an eye and an ear and something to say to mother, too. If one of these boys happened to be tricky and deceitful, resentful and cruel, mother would be sure to know about it very quickly. She could straighten out Bob's feelings with regard to any of those things before real damage occurred; and she could see to it that such contamination was kept away from him. As long as a boy remains under the home influence, it is part of mother's responsibility to guard against just such things. As soon as he goes away to school, and gets under the new influence, it is no longer possible for her to do so. Of all the various kinds of boys to be found at any school, which ones Bobby is destined to have as closest companions, to exchange confidences with constantly, and have set him the example, is largely a matter of luck, or accident. It may come about through adjoining seats in class, or though proficiency in the same games, or a common interest in collecting bird's eggs, or postage stamps, or through being room-mates, or sleeping in the same corridor at boarding-school, or one of a dozen other haphazard reasons. Let us imagine that by chance, in this way, Bobby's closest companions turn out, in due time, to be four in number. And for the sake of emphasizing our meaning and the principle involved, let us imagine that the accident, in this particular case, is more extreme than usual. The first boy, Ed, has been brought up chiefly by a stern and rigidly moral father of the old school, who has reprimanded, disciplined, chastised, most consistently and thoroughly. The second boy, Sam, has a society mother, somewhat of a belle, and so feverishly absorbed in her vanities and distractions, that his up-bringing, from the cradle, has devolved entirely upon a series of Irish, Swedish and German nurses. The third boy, Bill, has a very intellectual mother, an ardent devotee of woman's rights, and an active worker in various up-lift and educational movements. She laid out a plan of mental development for him, in early childhood, in accordance with the latest scientific books, but not having the time to attend to it herself, and having had constant rows with her nurses, she has ended up by heaping the blame on the natural stupidity and stubbornness of the boy, which could only have been inherited from his father. The fourth boy, Hal, is the most up-to-date of all. His mother and father were both divorced and both remarried and both have new families, for which his only feeling is mild resentment and disdain. These boys are hardly to blame if, as a result of such home training, the growth of their characters has already become tangled and somewhat over-run by the weeds of selfishness and calculation. If they were only mischievous, high-spirited and lacking in respect, the harm might not be great; but there is also a deficiency of the generous feelings of sympathy and affection, of moral standards, and of any abiding faith in what should be. Their bodies and their brains may be well developed; but not their hearts and souls. They may find it to their interest to display perfect discipline in the school-room and receive high marks and commendation from their teachers; they may also excel in the various games and win prizes on the athletic field; but this in no way prevents them from setting an insidious example to a less precocious companion. For practical purposes, the point-of-view and controlling motives of these four boys is in fairly complete accord. They think it is very smart to do things which are against the rules; but they think it is very stupid to get caught. They believe in using their wits to get the best of other people--especially older people, like parents and teachers. They believe in practising concealment, dissimulation and insincerity; but they are very wary of getting saddled with a downright lie. They have the utmost contempt for a "tell-tale," and they include in this opprobrium any boy who hasn't sense enough to keep from older people an inkling of any sort, as to what he himself may have been up to, as well as any others of the crowd. Nothing is half so bad as blabbing what you know--not even the risk of getting caught in a lie. They laugh at scruples of conscience; and they place little dependence on mother love, or father love, or any kind of love which isn't self-centered and decidedly material. They also have little use for high-flown sentiment, poetry, old-fashioned prejudices and pretences of romance; and if they do have time to read a book, they want it to be something up-to-date and exciting--a detective story, for instance, with a master thief and vampires. In addition to this, they have a number of other precocious and undigested notions about a variety of things, which they are ready to pass out confidentially, in almost any connection. Again we repeat that it is not to be inferred that all the boys in any school, or any great proportion of them, are necessarily of this sort. But in almost any school, some of them are liable to be met with--more so to-day than ever, for reasons which have been amply explained. There is no way of telling, at school, what certain boys may be thinking and saying and doing, when they are out of sight and hearing. If our boy, Bob, is unfortunate enough to be thrown in close and constant contact with that kind, it is unreasonable to imagine that he is at all to blame. His natural effort is to try and adapt himself to conditions as he finds them; he sees and feels that he is but a tiny part of a big system, in which most matters are determined for him, by the system itself. Aside from which, his nature is very trusting and sensitive, rather shy at first, and totally without experience of this new and perplexing world. The feelings and ideals which have been growing so tenderly in his little heart and soul are not robust enough to offer much resistance to repeated and covert attacks. They are in as great a need as ever, of guidance and encouragement and nourishment and the sunlight of loving sympathy. The formation of character was proceeding in a beautiful and promising way, but it may not be safely assumed that the results are complete and permanent at such an early age--the customary age which most parents accept for sending their children to school. And where, in the chance companionship of school life, is a fitting substitute to be found for the right kind of family influence and the devotion of mother love? It is sad to say it, but I have, in my own experience, known a number of cases, where the havoc caused in a promising character was directly traceable to the influence and bad example of youthful associates. A practical, up-to-date mind might say complacently that such characters must have been so weak that they would probably have gone that way, anyhow. But that is merely to close one's eyes to the understanding of a vital principle, the inner feelings of heart and soul which play such a large part in the formation of character, are subject to growth and alteration, like all other living things; and until they are given a fair chance to become strong, by development and exercise and proper care, why should anything more than a relative weakness be expected of them? If you abandon them too soon to blighting influences, there is always danger of their being more or less spoiled. The other side of the school question relates to the school-books and school-rooms and the teaching of the teachers. When we stop and consider that the average little boy, or girl, between the ages of six and fourteen, spends thousands upon thousands of hours, in a more or less dreary and distasteful and uninspiring way, over school-books, in school and out, it might seem as if we had a right to ask ourselves: Does the result justify the means? Does any one claim, or imagine, that school-books contain much nourishment for the heart and soul, or the moral feelings, or love of beauty? Upon what grounds, does any one claim, or imagine, that such things are less important to the growth of character, and a cheerful disposition, and fine standards of conduct, than the training of the intellect? If we are perfectly satisfied that the method employed to train the intellect does not and need not interfere with a corresponding development of those other sides of human nature--that is one thing. But let us not be satisfied to take so much for granted, without giving it a little thought. That is the first point to get clear. All those thousands of hours spent over school-books, in school-rooms, if they were not confined to that, might be devoted to other things. That is obvious and inevitable. What kind of things? If they were allowed a freedom of choice, children would want to do the things that interested them the most--things they felt like doing. And the natural feelings of each growing individual would be the dominant factor in nearly all cases. The natural feelings of a little boy, or a little girl, are nothing for any one to be ashamed of, or deplore, or wish to make otherwise. They are part of the all-wise plan, designed more profoundly and beautifully than any science of man can comprehend. And nothing is more natural than that a boy, or a girl, growing up in an atmosphere of love and sympathy and kindness, and what is right and fair and admirable, should respond to those feelings, more and more, and grow to have them, too. Some selfish instincts have to be guided and controlled by deeper and better feelings and the exercise of reason, and that is natural, too. And even the selfish instincts are just as natural and just as wisely planned as the deeper and better feelings, or the exercise of reason. In the advanced stage of enlightenment at which we have arrived can any reasonable person fail to recognize this palpable truth? It is possible that some people might be found who have happened to overlook it; but less easy to believe that they could fail to recognize it, when it is called to their attention. Any normal child delights in the exercise of all its faculties and instincts and feelings--whether they be of the heart and the soul, or the body and the brain. This is the natural method of their growth. And the ideal individual would be one in whom all these sides had reached their fullest development, in a perfectly balanced whole. The vast majority of things which interest children and which they naturally like and seek to do are unconsciously in line with this endeavor. They all give exercise to some quality which is useful and proper to human nature. And the variety of interests which may act in this way is so infinitely great, that children are seldom at a loss to find something that appeals to them. Sometimes they need advice, or help from older people, but that, too, is as it should be. If children, between six and fourteen, had at their disposal those thousands of hours which we have referred to, and did not have to bother with school or school-books--what kind of use might they be expected to put them to? It is not at all difficult to imagine. Play, in the first place, and games--in the sunshine and open air. And if the sun isn't shining, on rainy days, more play and games--in the play-room, or about the house, or somewhere under shelter. Marbles and tops and kites; jumping rope, rolling hoops, making pin-wheels; skating, sledding, snow-balling; baseball, fishing, tennis; leap-frog, running, climbing trees; and dozens of other pastimes, too numerous to think of. The very sound of them is healthy and joyous and exhilarating and the general effect of them on a growing nature is just as wholesome. But this is not all, by any means--only one kind of thing, chiefly of value to the physical side of development--health and strength and vitality and cheerfulness. In addition to this, there are many other interests of a different order which may appeal to youth very strongly. A collection of postage stamps, or birds' eggs, or picture cards, may become of absorbing interest to boys and girls, with time on their hands. These may encourage patience and perseverance and observation and enthusiasm, which are most admirable as traits of character. A boy may become deeply absorbed in a set of carpenter's tools and the things he can do with them. He can set his heart on making a pair of stilts, and a boat that will float and steer and sail, and tables and boxes and chests of drawers for his collections--all of which may develop skill and determination and an aspiration to fine accomplishment. And the interest so begun may lead to a bracket-saw and carving tools, or a turning lathe, and the fashioning of more intricate and beautiful things. A boy, or a girl, may have a camera and learn to take pictures and develop them and print them, and encourage in this way the growth of feelings and tastes and much useful knowledge--in addition to mental training. Boys and girls may set their hearts on building a beautiful snow fort--and work and slave and overcome obstacles--until they have given themselves a fine lesson in industry, and the rewards of successful accomplishment. A boy may become interested in a printing press, or a steam engine, or an electric machine of some sort, and acquire by means of it, not only a lot of worthy satisfaction and pleasure, but the enthusiasm of deep, spontaneous feelings--in addition to useful information and mental training. A perfectly normal boy, without any special bent for music, or art, may want to play on a drum, or a banjo--or to paint pictures with water-colors--and through the effort devoted to this want, encourage the growth of tastes and feelings, which may prove of benefit and value, all through life. If boys and girls are not occupied and tired by forced application to school-books, there is hardly any limit to the number of things, to which they may turn their attention, with natural energy and enthusiasm, and frequently with great benefit to feelings and qualities which involve not only the body and the mind, but the heart and soul, as well. We have named but a few of the activities to which those thousands of hours, now consumed by school-books and school-rooms, might be otherwise devoted. Whether or not those things are more important to general development of character, they certainly cannot be indulged in to anything like the same extent, if so much time and energy is daily required for school education. When children are released from the school-room, their heads and their nerves are fairly tired and their bodies longing for freedom. There is usually another period of study hanging over them, before bed-time; and although a certain number of hours are allowed them for recreation, that recreation is not apt to take the form of heart-felt interests which put an added strain on nerves and head. With this point-of-view in mind, it may prove worth while to illustrate by some concrete examples the kind of results that are liable to occur. And in choosing examples, this time, it will not be necessary to rely upon conjecture or imagination. It so happens that I may refer to some actual cases where boys and girls have not been obliged to go to school, or even to open a school-book, during all those thousands of hours. And, strangely enough, in spite of the forebodings and disapproval of many intellectual people, who always feel it their duty to protest against such a procedure, the results in all the cases I have any knowledge of, were not disastrous at all, but very much the contrary. Let us begin with some girls--three sisters. Their parents were well-born and well-educated, the father being a man of considerable distinction and originality. From a position of comparative wealth, they were reduced by business reverses, to relative poverty, and retired to a farmhouse in an unsettled district. The mother was in delicate health, the father under the need of trying to repair his fortunes, and there was no school-house within reach. In addition to that, the father had very little belief in current school methods, or the efficacy of school books. The result was that the three girls were allowed to go without any education of the prescribed kind; but an old man who happened to be living nearby, with nothing to do, was prevailed upon to come every day and help along with their enlightenment in any way they desired, or he saw fit. This old man had once had artistic tendencies, had tried his hand at various things, and was well-read and well-travelled. He soon took a great interest in the three bright and charming girls, and came to regard himself in the light of a kindly, sympathetic companion--which is the next best thing to a mother, or a father. He helped the girls with their flower garden, went walking with them in the fields and answered as many of their questions as he could about flowers and planting and trees and shrubs and plants, birds, snakes and bees--anything and everything they showed an interest in. When it was raining, he played on the piano for them and showed them how to play little tunes for themselves--which they thought was great fun. He could paint and draw very well and he brought them a box of water colors and showed them how to color pictures and draw flowers and birds and simple things for themselves. He also got some clay and played with them at modelling figures of various kinds. In addition to that, he had one idea, which was a sort of hobby, and about which he talked to them a lot. Every girl, as she grew up, as well as every boy and man, would be called upon, sooner or later, to write letters to people she cared about, and wanted those letters to be nice and interesting. Most people didn't know how to express their thoughts. So every day, they sat down together, indoors or out, and each wrote a letter to an imaginary friend. Little by little, the letters became easier and longer and more interesting. Frequently he recited poetry that he knew by heart, and told them fairy tales, and stories of every description from the many books he had read. And so the thousands of hours were spent with simple natural interests, in a most enjoyable way, without a thought of school-books, or anything distasteful, compulsory or confining. What, in this case, were some of the results? One was that the life of their inner feelings was developed to an unusual degree. Everything was done to encourage them, and nothing to suppress, or distort them. The stories and poems made a constant appeal to their imagination, while the daily letters which they wrote became a means of reflecting and applying this appeal. A love of beautiful things was naturally developed in them, and they naturally conceived a fondness for music and painting and modelling and poetry and story-telling. There was no pressure exerted upon them in any of these directions--merely the encouragement of spontaneous interest and the help of example. These tastes and qualities, became the common possession of all three girls. They could all write poetry and stories; they could all draw and paint and model and play tunes on the piano--with more or less feeling and facility--and they all grew up with remarkably sympathetic and gracious personalities--which became, later on, very widely admired and commented upon. One of the girls, the eldest, conceived a deeper liking than the others for music. As time went on, she wanted to spend more and more time at the piano--playing and practising and learning to read the notes. The second girl, in a similar way, was more attracted to drawing and modelling and painting. The youngest one, while the other two were thus engaged, liked to sit down with pencil and paper and amuse herself in writing rhymes and stories. The eldest daughter became a fine musician and composer of music, and a brilliant career was in sight for her at the time of her death, which occurred when she was just out of her teens. The second daughter, won for herself a distinguished place as a painter, in Paris and in this country. The youngest one left to her own resources, a widow with a little son to support, achieved much wealth and fame as a literary celebrity, one of the most admired of her generation. Let us now refer to some other cases, this time to boys, where the bringing-up happened to be accomplished without any aid, or interference, of school-books or school-teaching. In some instances this procedure was due to illness and delicate health on the part of the boy, which made fresh air and freedom from confinement seem more important than the benefits of mental training. In other cases, the parents deliberately believed and decided it was better for self-development and the formation of character to dispense with what they considered the disadvantages of school methods. As long as a boy does not know how to read, and is not taught how, it is the most natural thing in the world for him to want somebody to tell--or read--to him fairy-tales and verses and stories of every kind that he can understand. And this want is sure to be supplied, when there are loving parents to watch out for it. It may be the mother, the nurse, the father, or an aunt, or an uncle, who take turns at it. Sooner or later, as a result of this, the child is very apt to feel a curiosity and interest and ambition to learn how to read stories for himself. In the absence of any forcing, the more he thinks about it, the more his heart becomes set on it. He asks questions about letters and words in books--surprises his mother by showing how he can print his own name, then her name and father's. Little by little, without anybody's teaching him, almost without any one's realizing it, he has learned to read. This might not happen, of course, in an unsympathetic atmosphere--if there were no story telling, and no story books lying about, to bring the inspiration. But as far as my experience goes, it has always happened, somewhere between the ages of eight and ten, if not before. One boy I know, after learning to read for himself, in this way, in rummaging through the bookshelves, came upon a queer little book of Experimental Chemistry. It was very old and primitive and had curious wood-cut illustrations in it. It had long ago belonged to the boy's grand-father. It was easy to read and told about simple experiments that any boy could try himself. The necessary ingredients for many of them could be found at home, or be bought for a few cents at the drug-store. It happened to arouse his interest. The first experiment described how to take a little powdered sugar and mix it with a little powder obtained by crushing up a tablet of chlorate of potash--such as people put in their mouths for a sore throat. That would make an explosive, as powerful as the powder used in guns. It could be set off by dropping on it from an eye-dropper one drop of a certain kind of acid, from the druggist's. The boy procured the necessary things, then ran to his mother, and asked her if he might try the experiment. She responded to his enthusiasm and only asked permission to stand by and look on. He dropped the acid on the powder--and sure enough, the powder went off with a big flash. Wonderful excitement and joy! The experiment had to be repeated again and again, for the amazement of the waitress and the cook--and especially for father, as soon as he came home. That was the beginning of a new interest. The boy kept the book by him and pored over it, and set his heart upon acquiring first one thing after another, as they became necessary. As he accumulated bottles and glass tubes, and chemicals and apparatus, he made shelves and stands for them with his carpenter tools. In due time, he got other books on the same subject and became the possessor of a very practical little chemical laboratory, which was all of his very own making. At the age of twelve, he was thoroughly at home in dozens of complicated processes and experiments. This was only one of the many interests which he had plenty of time to follow, with the same sort of enthusiasm. At the age of fourteen, his laboratory was a thing of the past, but for all that, years after, at college, among his various other achievements, he had no trouble in winning a prize scholarship in chemistry. Another boy, brought up in a similar way and having learned to read without teaching, first took a lively interest in automobiles. When the family car went wrong, he watched the repairs, asked questions, and was ready to lend a helping hand. Many of the troubles on a modern car are apt to be in connection with the electrical equipment--battery, lights, magneto, timer, self-starter, etc. Sooner or later, a boy who takes an interest, is apt to become more or less familiar with the principle of all these things, especially if his nerves and brain are not deadened by forced application. At any rate, this boy soon did. This led to an interest in other electrical things--the ringing of bells and buzzers about the house, and the installation of an electric motor which would run the sewing machine, or a grindstone, or a little lathe. Then he got hold of a booklet about wireless telegraphy. There is something thrilling about the idea which appeals to the imagination--the receiving of mysterious messages from afar, through the air, and sending back from your little instrument the far-flying answers. At the age of twelve, this boy with the aid of a Japanese servant, had set up his own aerial and apparatus, had learned the code alphabet and was thoroughly familiar with all the delicate intricacies of detector, tuning coil, sparker and the rest of it. He had gotten in touch with certain other wireless operators within a radius of ten miles and, although he had never seen any of them, he could recognize instantly the sound of their different instruments and it was a joy and delight to hold conversations with them and call them up for a good-night, before he went to bed. And before he was thirteen, he undertook to construct with his own hands a tuning coil which would be better for his purposes than the kind he could afford to buy at the store. After much determined effort, he succeeded and installed it and had the satisfaction of finding that it was, indeed, decidedly better. Another boy, who had never had to bother his head with school-books, but who had also learned to read, in due time got started on a new interest by a printing-press, which was given to him for Christmas. He puzzled with it and worked over it, until he learned to set up type and operate it very nicely. Then he began printing visiting cards--first for himself, then mother and father, then the servants and friends. It was great fun to take orders from them and charge them ten cents a dozen, in a business-like way. Next he got a larger press and different kinds of type, and by dint of perseverance he found among the trades-people a few kindly souls, who allowed him to print their business cards for them at so much a hundred. Out of this interest grew a more ambitious one. How fine it would be to print and publish a little newspaper, with stories and verses and advertisements and subscriptions and everything! This appealed to the imagination and became an absorbing ambition. In this particular case, the newspaper project soon outdistanced the printing press. The newspaper must be bigger and finer than a press of that kind could possibly manage. So the boy went to a regular printer and found out about the cost and details of publishing such a paper as he had in mind. He didn't have enough money of his own for that, but he figured out that by going again to the tradespeople and getting them to pay for advertising in his paper and by making people pay for subscriptions to the paper, the problem could be solved. He decided to limit the scope of his enterprise to the publication of six numbers, one every month. He went to different tradespeople with whom the family dealt, stated his intentions, and asked for advertisements at the rate of fifty cents a number. He was only twelve years old at the time and they naturally had doubts about his ability to carry out the project; but some were found with enough kindly sympathy to agree to pay him, when he brought them the paper containing the advertisement. In the same way, among relatives and friends and neighbors, he sought subscriptions at the rate of five cents a copy and succeeded in obtaining a sufficient number for his purpose. He chose a name for his paper by himself but, when it came to the question of the reading matter, he did not presume to attempt much of that, at first, but felt he could do better by appealing to his mother and aunt and others for the kind of contributions he had in mind. He carried out his project, to the letter,--six numbers, one a month--and at the end of it, he not only had the satisfaction of a fine effort well done, but he had also earned a clear profit of over fifteen dollars. Likewise, he had helped the growth of character, the taste for literary achievement, the acquisition of much useful experience and information, and considerable mental training of an admirable sort. I might continue in this way, almost indefinitely, telling about the interests and results which may come quite naturally to boys and girls freed from the routine of school training. Enough has been said, however, to suggest food for thought. With a feeling of interest, or enthusiasm, behind it, almost any kind of mental exercise, or physical exercise, takes on the color of gladness. Without interest, or enthusiasm, almost any kind of compulsory effort becomes drab and drear and irksome. The intellect can be a splendid friend to the feelings--it can bring all sorts of suggestions to them, and point out their usefulness and their charm--but if, for some reason which may be entirely intuitive and fundamental and all-wise, the feelings refuse to respond, or to coöperate, any further compulsion is apt to prove futile and unproductive of the right growth of character. These are a few of the considerations which led to the remark, in connection with our boy, Bob, that the question of schools and school education is one of the most perplexing and troubling. No loving mother is responsible for the existing school system, nor could she alter it, if she wanted to. Even if she has a little pinch of the heart at the thought of subjecting her sensitive boy to such an ordeal, how can she dare to do otherwise? Among people of all classes, it is considered proper and necessary, for children to be sent to school. But provided a mother has a clear understanding that her child's feelings and vitality are the most important things, it is always possible for her to seek some sort of a compromise in his favor. She can delay the time of sending him away, until nine, or ten, or eleven. If he goes to a private school, she can very often arrange matters so that he need only attend the morning session, and never be "kept in," after hours, for punishment. She can help him with the studies which he brings home, and take great pains never to scold him, or show displeasure, or disappointment, if he gets bad marks. She can explain to him that while it is only natural for a school-teacher to attach an exaggerated importance to the training of the brain, mothers and fathers care a great deal more about deeper and finer interests and the right kind of conduct. That is about all most mothers can do,--no matter how great their love--as long as the present system remains in force. When, or how, it will ever be changed radically, is something about which it would be futile to express an opinion. Another question which naturally arises in this connection has to do with college and the very difficult entrance examinations which a modern boy is required to pass. How is he to do that, unless he is sent to school in time to be prepared? Many mothers and fathers want their boys to have a college education. To this objection, there is an easy and reassuring answer. Even if your boy has never seen the inside of a school-book, before the age of thirteen or fourteen, that need not prevent him from being prepared for college, just as well and at about the same time, as the average boy who has been attending school from the age of five, or six. All of the boys I have referred to, passed their examinations far better than the average. All those thousands of hours which were devoted to other interests, entirely apart from school-books, did not have the effect of retarding the boys' mental development and training. It was only a different kind of training, more in accordance with the methods of nature. When these boys arrived at the age of thirteen, they had more character, more self-control, more determination and more mental equipment, than the vast majority of boys acquire at school. I think it is a fair presumption, that under favorable conditions, such a result may be expected. It was the college question that eventually brought these boys to preparatory schools, at the ages of thirteen, or fourteen. And in order to enter a preparatory school and get used to the ways of school-books, it may be necessary for the boy to do some preliminary studying, for a few months, with some one to help him. But by that time, he has an object in view, his interest is involved, and he will seldom require the slightest urging. Without exception, the boys I have referred to attained high rank, both in school and in college. There remains one more thing to think about in connection with the bringing up of children. What about religion? Here is also a consideration which can hardly be avoided. If the parents are church-goers and still believe in the truth and teachings of the Bible,--that is one thing. In that case, all a mother has to do is to encourage her children in the same belief, take them to church and Sunday School, and teach them to say their prayers from earliest childhood. But there are also many parents, who no longer go to church and whose faith in the traditional teachings has become very much shaken. Their numbers have been increasing very rapidly, for reasons which we have referred to, and are extremely likely to keep on increasing. Suppose a loving mother belongs to this class--what is best and wisest for her to do with her son? "Mother, where did I come from? And who made all these other people? What for?" Those are simple and natural questions, which are apt to come fairly soon in the growth of intelligence. They call for some sort of answer. It is the first beginning of a soul feeling, a groping for a faith of some sort in human destiny. What is to be mother's answer? If she says she doesn't know--nobody does--that is very unsatisfactory and very troubling. The groping will still continue, with more and more persistency. If mother has a reason for refusing to tell, the information must be sought elsewhere. And it will very soon be forthcoming from some one--the nurse, or the cook, or the waitress. God made the world--He lives in heaven--He rewards people if they are good, by making them angels; and if they are bad, He sends them to hell, to be roasted by the devil. The churches, which the child has seen, are where people go to pray to God and worship Him. This answers the question and is perfectly satisfactory, for the time being. But the attitude of mother is apt to give rise to suspicion that she was only pretending, when she said she didn't know. If the nurse knows--and all the people who go to church, know--then mother must know, too. Perhaps mother, for reasons of her own, doesn't wish him to know yet, and would blame the nurse for telling him? Then the nurse would blame him. If mother chooses to conceal things from him, he can avoid trouble by concealing things from mother. This implies a breach of confidence between mother and son--which is not at all good for a forming character. It is far better for mother to show a sympathetic understanding of the soul need and respond to it accordingly. A child has no end of imagination, and feelings to correspond. It is the spirit and meaning of ideas which signify, and not their material accuracy. Rhymes and jingles and mother goose and fairy tales and Santa Claus are all founded on an understanding of this. They supply in fanciful form a very real and necessary food for the inner nature. In the same way, with this religious groping, food that will satisfy must be given in some form. But as a religious belief is something which it is hoped will last through life, it would seem best to clothe it, as far as possible, in ideas that will not have to be discarded by the intellect, when that becomes enlightened. Nearly every mother believes that the world and all it contains were created, somehow, by an all-wise Being--and that this Being has an everlasting existence somewhere. The usual name for that Being, in the English language, is God, and the unknown place where He dwells, is usually called heaven. That is something which may be told to any child; the idea is easy to grasp, it responds to a fundamental need, and it can never be disproved by any amount of science, or enlightenment. As compared to God, mother and father and all people on the earth are like little children, and each and every one is allowed to share in the benefits of His love and wisdom. He wishes all his children to do what they feel is right and fine, and fight against what is mean and wrong. If some people have less money than others, and fewer material pleasures, and in other ways seem less fortunate, that does not mean that they are less worthy of love and consideration. Nor does it mean that they are less fine, or necessarily less fortunate. The highest kind of satisfaction in life comes almost entirely from being true to your own generous feelings and doing the best you can under any and all circumstances. A poor little cripple may have this satisfaction, just as well as a rich man's son. It is very possible that the little cripple's spirit and his life on earth, will count for more in the eternal scheme, than the rich man's son. Material pleasures are perfectly natural and right and desirable; but they are only one part of life. A mother who has a beautiful boy and loves him with her whole heart and soul, has a more precious treasure than all the money in the world can buy. Those are also religious beliefs which may be told to any boy, or girl, and allowed to take root and grow, for all time. They are the expression of fundamental feelings which no amount of science can disprove, or deny. As regards the question of spoken prayers, we come upon considerations of a slightly different order. The idea of spoken prayer and the spirit which underlies it are beautiful and inspiring. The soul of an individual to be in direct, personal communication with the all-wise Creator--how thrilling and sublime! It would seem almost the deepest and dearest wish that mortal man could have. It is also an idea which a child can readily grasp and believe and put into practise. But certain mothers and fathers, whom I have heard talk on this subject, find themselves confronted by scruples and objections which are entirely sincere and conscientious. While admitting the beauty of the idea, they point to the fact that they themselves no longer believe in it, or practise it. To their minds, it has become no more than the survival of a superstition, which is no longer tenable. Under such circumstances, they can see no justification for imposing it upon the credulity of their children. One answer to such an objection is that it is always possible for the reason to be at fault in matters which involve the unknown. Aside from that, there are many worse things for children than the survival of a beautiful superstition. The same scruples might be applied, without any element of doubt, to the idea of Santa Claus; but the spirit of that belief, while it lasts, is so joyful, and its influence so benign, that it would take an extremely dry heart and an excessive rule of reason to desire its abolition. CONJECTURE And now, at last, we have reached a point, where, in thinking of the future and the hope for coming generations, we may turn our gaze in a new direction and enter the realm of conjecture and prophecy. There is an old saying that "Coming events cast their shadows before." If we let our thoughts dwell on the confused shadows which appear to be hanging over the spirit of our present civilization, it is possible to imagine that we can see in them the outlines of a coming event of the most profound importance. This would be neither more, nor less, than the birth of a new religion--or what amounts to the same thing, a new form of religious belief. What grounds are there for imagining such an absurdity? It is only a conjecture--it could not be anything else--but for all that, it is not necessarily an absurdity. The conflict which is going on between the old traditional beliefs and the advanced spirit of enlightenment has in it elements of contradiction, too deep and too radical, to permit of a complete victory on the part of either. If the struggle were to continue indefinitely, on the present lines, it seems inevitable that countless numbers must be found, on one extreme, who would never be willing to abandon their faith; and, on the other extreme, would be countless numbers who could never consent to a return to what they consider disproved and antiquated superstitions. And somewhere between these two, will be a constantly increasing mass of others, pushed and pulled in opposite directions, half-pretending agreement with both sides, but without real loyalty to either, trying in a more or less troubled way, to remain non-committal, and arriving at a state of indifference, drifting along, without leadership, or conviction. If we may believe the testimony of observers in England, this condition of affairs is already quite plainly indicated there--as much or more, as it is in this country. Such a situation is well nigh intolerable to humanity. The palpable results of it can hardly fail to be disheartening to any normal being. And out of this disheartenment will inevitably come a yearning, more or less unconscious, but more and more appealing, for something different and something better, a yearning for true and unquestionable leadership, which can inflame the imagination, inspire new faith, and command whole-souled devotion, as it points the way. In the mysterious scheme of the universe, in the all-wise design, when such a yearning becomes intense enough and widespread enough, I cannot but believe that somehow, somewhere, out of a tenement, or out of a palace, or out of the wilderness, will come the appointed leader. This is the fateful event of my conjecture, which I imagine is casting its shadow before, and which may bring a renewal of light and enthusiasm to millions of troubled souls. It may not come for a generation, or it may not come in a century, or it may be close at hand. What the particular form and force of the new inspiration will be like, is beyond the scope of the imagination. But it is not so difficult to hazard a prophecy in regard to its essence. There will be no claim, or creed, of any kind, to which scientific information, or enlightened reason, can ever find ground to take exception. It will not belittle admiration for the human body, or the human brain, or even of pleasures and desires which may be purely material; but, on the contrary, will encourage the development of them all, as a relatively important part of the all-wise design. Above and beyond these, will be a deeper and greater appeal to the most generous and noble intuitions of the heart and soul. There will be very little consideration for punishments, or rewards, or threats, or anger,--to force the human soul into submission of any kind; but there will be immense consideration for love of others and love of right, individual responsibility and self-control. Pervading and illuminating all, will be a blessed faith in the beauty and wisdom and purpose of the eternal mystery. And whenever, or wherever, this kind of ideal comes, and rings out through the land, with compelling inspiration, I venture the prophecy that the prevailing spirit of civilization will be ripe and ready to receive it with open arms. APPENDIX _Los Angeles Times_, Feb. 8, 1921. CRIMINAL IMPROPRIETY We had supposed that the decadence obvious in the sartorial modes for society women reached its limit last year and that a saner and more decent sense of propriety would evince itself in the revulsion of public taste. But the tendency to bizarre indecency has increased so that now we are offered in our public ballrooms the spectacle of criminal impropriety--of women's bare legs with painted knees, of naked backs and lewdly veiled bosoms, of transparent skirts and suggestive nudity, of decorated flesh and vulgar exposure generally--the sort of thing that has ever preceded the downfall of civilizations. It has no relation whatever to the nudity of innocence, as is perfectly obvious with one glance at the type of dancing women that affects these disgusting extremes, for their whole deportment is entirely in accord with their scant covering and nastily conceived exposures. They are brazenly inviting a certain kind of attention and they get only the sort of attention they invite. They are degrading all womanhood with their shamelessness, at a time when the more worthy of their sex have striven to win and deserve to win that respect which should rightfully be theirs. The people are all overwhelmed by the appalling crime wave that has beset the world--not only by murders, robberies and hold-ups, but by the ghastly increase in marital unfaithfulness which clogs the divorce courts; and the attacks against women and girls which have become a daily department of the news. The incredible and loathsome conditions cannot be overstated. They are widespread, staggering in their viciousness. And we unhesitatingly declare that the preposterous vulgarity and criminal impropriety of that vastly increasing number of women who adopt these indecent modes for "party gowns" is, if not responsible for the dirty conditions, at least a large and important factor. And it is deplorable that, as the extremists jump from extreme to extreme, the presumably decent women follow. They are slower to adopt the full measure of indecency, but each season finds them "conservatively" following at a respectful distance, so that the modes for decent women to-day were the extremes of indecency a few short seasons back. Why do they do it? It is a poor explanation to declare that they thus become more attractive to men. If they are honest with themselves, they know very well that the sort of attraction thus engendered makes the lowest possible appeal. If they are honest with themselves, they know very well that masculine taste in such matters is absolutely in the hands of women, that the standard they set is the standard which will inevitably be adopted. It has been said that every country gets the women it deserves, but rather would we say that every woman gets the sort of attention she deserves. Intelligent women know this, no matter what their argument to the contrary. But the women, who are going to these disgusting and revolting extremes, are not intelligent. Man may be vile, but he also has perception. Observe the women in any public ballroom to-day--those who expose the most have the least worthy of exposure. These lewd revelations are certainly not in the cause of beauty. It is the fat and podgy, or the lean and bony, female, for the most part, one who has neither natural physical nor mental attraction, that resorts to this means of commanding attention. She makes one appeal, and only one, and that to the very lowest instincts of masculine human nature. No matter how she may deceive herself to the contrary, she is deliberately catering to the animal passion of men. Beautiful and charming women of mind and character do not feel this urge to trade upon their "private charms." But the unintelligent and dubious female is invariably the one to make a bid for the only sort of attention she can hope to inspire. Theodore Maynard, now lecturing before the women's clubs upon the "Imminent Break-up of Civilization," defines civilization as that condition of a people founded upon justice and honor. It is not a question of brilliant inventions, of motor cars, telephones, magnificent hotels, luxury and comfort. It is essentially a state of refinement, culture and honor. "I could not love thee, dear, so well, loved I not honor more." That honor which is the very basis of civilization is essentially chaste. And civilized women must be the essential guardians of chastity and honor. Where women cater to the dishonorable and unchaste, there can be no civilization, no sanctity of the home, which should be the very citadel of honor. Adam in Eden whined that Eve had demoralized him. Eve to-day whines that Adam and his war have demoralized her. They are both wrong and both culpable. And as in the old biblical story, God will hold both Adam and Eve responsible and both shall be driven from the Garden of Eden, our great modern civilization that is gaining all save honor, that keystone of the arch without which it must fall to ruin. And the modern unchastity of women's clothes, the crude, lewd, wholly indefensible appeal to man's lowest instincts, the deliberate trading on the unclean and the lustful side of human nature, is, we repeat, a basic cause of that widespread dishonor and crime that are polluting civilization to-day. Surely there are enough decent, intelligent, noble-minded women left to halt this mad craze for criminal impropriety. Surely they can and will take the lead for purity, decency and honor, rather than be content to follow at long distance that road which leads to nothing but degradation for all humanity. Women and only women, can halt this mad delirium--this hideous craving for attention at any cost, at all cost. Where can it end, except in utter degradation, not only for their own sex, but for their husbands and their sons? This utter debasement of that precious heritage called "love" is the bitterest possible reflection upon our modern civilization. The sort of attraction these unchaste, nakedly adorned, women "of fashion" hold out can never inspire that precious, priceless thing which "passeth all understanding," which survives all the travail of tribulation, that beautiful emotion that "age cannot wither nor custom stale," which radiates the dark places with shining light. "Oh, woman, lovely woman! nature made thee To temper man; we had been brutes without you; There's in you all that we believe of heaven Amazing brightness, purity and truth, Eternal joy and everlasting love." _Los Angeles Times_, Dec. 17, 1920. The financial and business summary for December, issued by the Citizens' National Bank, will be circulated to-day. This careful review of general conditions classes business as unsatisfactory from the standpoint of current activity, but hastens to explain that data supporting this conclusion is on the surface, and then, arguing from the human standpoint, says that there is greater need just now that we determine when the tendency to cancel contracts, and otherwise strike the element of integrity from our business relations, will cease, than there is that we know when commodity prices will reach the bottom. "To-day," the summary continues, "we are registering a very low point of commercial morality, and as we approach the portals of a new year, a year full of promise and plenty, there is a great need of a full individual sense of our personal relations to one another. "It is not a struggling that is tearing apart the commercial, social and home circles of to-day; instead, it is the lack of struggle, a missing ambition to stamp out the measure of selfishness that has been permitted to breed in the human consciousness. Our growth during the coming years, both as individual business concerns, as a nation, and as a race, will be in a direct ratio to our re-establishment of individual and mass integrity. "The weakness of the bond market is merely an affair of permanence. It seems to be purely a seller's market with the cause of the selling temporarily prohibitive to reinvestment. The income tax has caused a new seasonal liquidation period to be written into the category of investment influences so that the present bond market, though definitely in a major trend upward, still hangs down around bargain levels. "Possibly some sympathetic bear influence is reflected into the present bond market through the sharp breaks in the stock market, yet whatever may be the cause of present low bond prices and dull activity, it is certain that the underlying fundamentals in control of the investment situation are favorable to a long swing upward, with the course to higher levels graded and fit for rapid travel when the turn of the year re-energizes the sinews of finance." * * * * * The protest against the present "blue-laws" is strong and the laws under fire are branded as the limit of legislative meddling, but here are some of the old laws that were really blue: These laws once were in force in Connecticut: No one shall run on the Sabbath day, or walk in his garden or elsewhere, except reverently to and from meeting. No one shall travel, cook victuals, make beds, sweep house, cut hair, or shave on the Sabbath day. No woman shall kiss her child on the Sabbath or fasting day. The Sabbath shall begin at sunset on Saturday. Whoever brings cards or dice into this dominion shall pay a fine of five pounds. No one shall read common prayer, keep Christmas or Saints' days, make mince pies, dance, play cards or play on any instrument of music except the drum, trumpet and Jew's harp. No gospel minister shall join people in marriage; the magistrates only shall join in marriage, as they may do it with less scandal to Christ's church. A man that strikes his wife shall pay a fine of ten pounds; a woman that strikes her husband shall be punished as the court directs. A wife shall be deemed good evidence against her husband. No man shall court a maid in person, or by letter, without first obtaining consent of her parents; five pounds penalty for the first offense to imprisonment for the third offense. Married persons must live together or be imprisoned. Every male person shall have his hair cut round according to a cap. A child over sixteen years old who strikes his father shall be put to death. A child over sixteen years old who is stubborn and rebellious shall be put to death. Whoever, professing the Christian religion, shall wittingly deny the Song of Solomon to be the infallible word of God, may be whipped forty lashes and fined fifty pounds. Whoever marries two wives or more shall be executed. Saying that the Christian religion is a politic device to keep ignorant men in awe shall be punished with death. Any man who uses tobacco in the street shall be fined, or if he do so in his own house, a stranger being present, he shall be fined, but if on a journey, five miles from any house, he may smoke. Any single person without a servant, wishing to keep house by himself, must get the consent of the selectmen unless he be a public officer. Persons not proved guilty, but lying under a strong suspicion of guilt, may be punished, though not so severely as would be the case had they been convicted. Every family must have a Bible, catechism and other good books. _Los Angeles Times_, Feb. 5, 1921. CROOKED MINDS The prompt detection and punishment of the two kidnappers, who were fools enough to believe that they could carry out a melodramatic abduction and get away with it, is a satisfaction to the public. But it does not remove the possibility of similar crimes, attempted and perhaps executed, by the large class of individuals who, like the Carrs, have crooked minds--minds that see only glamour and excitement in the life of a criminal, that are willing to take any chance and gamble with their own lives and liberty as the stakes, for revenge or merely to get money to satisfy their physical demands. Ten years, more or less, spent in the penitentiary is not likely to straighten out the false conceptions of such men. The Carrs will probably leave the prison with criminal tendencies strengthened by the associations and repressions of penitentiary life. It is just that such criminals should be put where they cannot prey upon society. But, while we are dealing out due punishment, the main effort of the social body should be put into the prevention of crime. We are talking greatly, just now, of the world-wave of crime following the war. Tomes are being written concerning its causes and its cures. But the primary cause of all crime is the lack of true comprehension of the meaning of life--a distorted viewpoint--a crooked mind. The causes of such minds are many: heredity, environment, associations, lack of proper self-control and understanding; they can all be summed up, however, as the lack of moral sense in the individual and in the race. The guiding star of existence, the conscience, in such cases, has ceased to function; the goal ahead, a future existence, has been lost sight of. Souls are adrift. Here is the secret of the unrest, the crime, the upheaval of to-day. The old forms of religion, with their rituals and professions, have lost their hold upon a large portion of humanity. The newer and clearer conceptions of the great truths that are the basis of all religion have not, as yet, taken the place of the old beliefs in the minds and lives of the majority. The people of the world are to-day at sea, with no definite port ahead, with no guiding hand upon the helm of their ship. In the chaos of this rudderless age state and church are making desperate efforts to palliate the evils of nonreligion and its consequence, non-morality. In our own country we are multiplying state-provided nurseries, schools, playgrounds, gymnasiums, colleges and hundreds of other substitutes for the homes and the home training that fails under the strenuous tests of present-day life. We are enormously attempting to train bodies and brains from the cradle to full citizenship. But with all our provisions and equipment we are failing to touch the real keystone of all character--the spiritual nature of man. We are teaching morality because it is morality, proved by experience to be expedient, on the whole, for a satisfactory career on the earth. But our schools and our churches, also, are failing to teach the highest secret of life--the self-control of mind and body through willed righteousness, based upon a knowledge and comprehension of a God-created and governed universe. Nor do our schools and colleges train their pupils to an understanding of their own mental powers and the development of right will, of sound reason, of controlled and regulated action. We flood our children and youth with equipment, with teachers, with opportunity for learning things from the outside; yet our educational training is failing, as a whole, in giving to the youth of this country the one essential thing for right living--a true and high ideal and the strength of will to attain it. Men like the two just sent away; women like Mrs. Peete (whether she be guilty of murder or not) are the products of a generation that has torn itself away from its old anchors of religion, of duty and responsibility and has not yet set up a new standard to true its conduct. State and church, with all their will to do and their efforts and expenditure of means, can never take the place of right-minded parents and homes where children are taught by example and by word their true relations to God and to their fellow-men. Crooked minds can only be prevented by heritage from men and women, who understand their responsibility to God and to their country, and who start their sons and daughters out upon the journey of life with a chance, at least, for decency and uprightness. _New York Tribune_, April 22, 1921. MACAULAY ON AMERICA _"Your Constitution Is All Sail and No Anchor"_ _The subjoined letter from the historian Macaulay to Henry S. Randall, of Cortland, N.Y., is taken from an old file of The Cortland Standard. It was published originally in Harper's Magazine._ Holly Lodge, Kensington, London, May 23, 1857. Dear Sir: The four volumes of the Colonial History of New York reached me safely. I assure you that I shall value them highly. They contain much to interest an English as well as an American reader. Pray accept my thanks and convey them to the Regents of the University. You are surprised to learn that I have not a high opinion of Mr. Jefferson, and I am surprised at your surprise. I am certain that I never wrote a line, and that I never, in Parliament, in conversation, or even on the hustings--a place where it is the fashion to court the populace--uttered a word indicating an opinion that the supreme authority in a state ought to be intrusted to the majority of citizens told by the head; in other words, to the poorest and most ignorant part of society. I have long been convinced that institutions purely democratic must, sooner or later, destroy liberty or civilization or both. In Europe, where the population is dense, the effect of such institutions would be almost instantaneous. What happened lately in France is an example. In 1848 a pure democracy was established there. During a short time there was reason to expect a general spoliation, a national bankruptcy, a new partition of the soil, a maximum of prices, a ruinous load of taxation laid on the rich for the purpose of supporting the poor in idleness. Such a system would, in twenty years, have made France as poor and barbarous as the France of the Carlovingians. Happily the danger was averted; and now there is a despotism, a silent tribune, an enslaved press. Liberty is gone, but civilization has been saved. I have not the smallest doubt that if we had a purely democratic government here the effect would be the same. Either the poor would plunder the rich and civilization would perish, or order and prosperity would be saved by a strong military government, and liberty would perish. You may think that your country enjoys an exemption from these evils. I will frankly own to you that I am of a very different opinion. Your fate I believe to be certain, though it is deferred by a physical cause. As long as you have a boundless extent of fertile and unoccupied land your laboring population will be far more at ease than the laboring population of the Old World, and while that is the case the Jeffersonian politics may continue to exist without causing any fatal calamity. But the time will come when New England will be as thickly peopled as old England. Wages will be as low and will fluctuate as much with you as with us. You will have your Manchesters and Birminghams, and in those Manchesters and Birminghams hundreds of thousands of artisans will assuredly be sometimes out of work. Then your institutions will be fairly brought to the test. Distress everywhere makes the laborer mutinous and discontented, and inclines him to listen with eagerness to agitators who tell him that it is a monstrous iniquity that one man should have a million while another cannot get a full meal. In bad years there is plenty of grumbling here, and sometimes a little rioting. But it matters little. For here the sufferers are not the rulers. The supreme power is in the hands of a class, numerous indeed, but select; of an educated class; of a class which is, and knows itself to be, deeply interested in the security of property and the maintenance of order. Accordingly, the malcontents are firmly yet gently restrained. The bad time is got over without robbing the wealthy to relieve the indigent. The springs of national prosperity soon begin to flow again; work is plentiful, wages rise and all is tranquillity and cheerfulness. I have seen England pass three or four times through such critical seasons as I have described. Through such seasons the United States will have to pass in the course of the next century, if not this. How will you pass through them? I heartily wish you a good deliverance. But my reason and my wishes are at war and I cannot help foreboding the worst. It is quite plan that your government will never be able to restrain a distressed and discontented majority. For with you the majority is the government, and has the rich, who are always a minority, absolutely at its mercy. The day will come when in the State of New York a multitude of people, none of whom has had more than half a breakfast, or expects to have more than half a dinner, will choose a legislature. Is it possible to doubt what sort of a legislature will be chosen? On one side is a statesman preaching patience, respect for vested rights, strict observance of public faith. On the other is a demagogue ranting about the tyranny of capitalists and usurers and asking why anybody should be permitted to drink champagne and to ride in a carriage while thousands of honest folks are in want of necessaries. Which of the two candidates are likely to be preferred by a workingman who hears his children cry for more bread? I seriously apprehend that you will, in some such seasons of adversity as I have described, do things which will prevent prosperity from returning; that you will act like people who should in a year of scarcity devour all the seed corn and thus make the next year not of scarcity, but of absolute famine. There will be, I fear, spoliation. The spoliation will increase the distress. The distress will produce fresh spoliation. There is nothing to stop you. Your Constitution is all sail and no anchor. As I said before, when a society has entered on this downward progress, either civilization or liberty must perish. Either some Cæsar or Napoleon will seize the reins of government with a strong hand, or your republic will be as fearfully plundered and laid waste by barbarians in the twentieth century as the Roman Empire was in the fifth, with this difference, that the Huns and vandals who ravaged the Roman Empire came from without, and that your Huns and vandals will have been engendered within your own country by your own institutions. I have the honor to be, dear sir, your faithful servant, T.B. Macaulay. H.S. Randall, Esq., etc., etc., etc. A FOOL'S PARADISE Radical propagandists, with a sublime disregard for facts and history, persist in extolling the tenets of Russian Communism as new discoveries in the art of government. They assert that the Bolshevists have solved for the first time in history the problem of social equality. They say the experiment of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" has never before been attempted and that it fails to find favor outside Russia because peoples are always prone to condemn what they do not understand. Russia, however, is but the last of many countries to rebel against its own prosperity. During the twenty years preceding the World War Russia enjoyed the greatest growth and development, both of its resources and education, in the history of the country. Two-thirds of the agricultural land in the nation was owned and occupied by the farming classes, which comprised nearly three-fourths of the population. In ten years the number of depositors in the savings banks of Russia had doubled and the gross amount of the deposits had quadrupled. Then came the war, to be followed by Bolshevism. The experience of Russia in the last two years, however, is not unique in the history of nations. The narration of the spoliation of the rich, the confiscation of the estates and the profligate waste of the national substance is only a repetition, almost verse for verse and line for line, of the license and the abuses of the last years of the Athenian democracy. It was then demonstrated that the impoverishing of the rich could not enrich the poor, and that a state without wealth will soon be a state without liberty. In the idiom of the gallery gods, it is all "old stuff." The Charmides of Xenophon's "Banquet" celebrates the pleasures and profits of poverty. He once possessed a fortune that made him fear thieves and sycophants--in reality the same thing--Athens had levied heavy taxes on the rich and had passed laws making it a capital offense for a person of wealth to attempt to flee the state. The money raised by thus taxing the wealthy was distributed to the poor in the public places. Any one holding a certificate showing that he had not sufficient wealth to be taxed was admitted free to the theaters and was entitled to one meal a day at restaurants supported by the state. The people's council, fearful that there might be a disposition to stop this waste of public money, passed acts which decreed capital punishment to any orator who should propose to modify the laws which made "poverty a blessing." Charmides recounts that he once lived in a state of perpetual terror. New taxes were decreed every day, each of which he was compelled to pay. He was deprived of the liberty even of leaving the state. His lot was worse than that of the meanest slave. Behold! a fertile imagination came to his rescue. He embarked in a speculation in which failure was inevitable. Good fortune attended him. Within a brief time he was penniless and happy. The unfortunate speculator who had gained possession of the wealth of Charmides lived for a brief time in the agony of wealth; then he attempted to flee the state, was apprehended and executed. Charmides makes votive offerings to the gods of Athens for his escape from the terror and servitude of property. "How comfortably I sleep!" he cries. "The republic has confidence in me. I am no longer threatened. It is I who threaten others. A free man, I can go or stay. I appear at the theater. I am admitted free. The rich rise in trembling and offer me the best seats. When I walk abroad in the streets they stand aside to offer me an unobstructed passage. To-day I resemble a tyrant. Then I was a slave. Then I paid tribute to the state. Now the state, my tributary, supports me. I lose nothing; for I have nothing." For a time democratic Athens was a veritable Bolshevist paradise. But when the ranks of the rich became depleted, when none cared longer to engage in any profitable industry, the public revenue fell until there was no money to support the happy idlers. The rich were tortured in the vain hope that they would produce hidden treasure; but the public treasury remained empty. This period of riotous profligacy followed the happy conclusion for Athens of the Theban war. When the Athenian proletariat discovered that the state was about to pass under the yoke of Philip they hunted down the remnant of the wealthy class that still remained, executed some, banished others and sold still others into slavery for "betraying the Athenian state and leaving it helpless before its enemies." Shortly afterwards Athens came under the despotism of Philip, who speedily conscripted this proletariat for forced labor. For a hundred years afterwards, however, Athenian writers in bewailing their loss of liberty blamed the fall of Athens upon the "rich," who failed to arm and equip a force to fight Philip. All the wisdom of her philosophers, all the art and learning whose loss the world still mourns, fell before the onslaught of this triumphant democracy. The culture of the few could not prevail against the greed of the many. Domestic conditions became so intolerable that a majority of the Athenians welcomed the stern but salutary rule of the tyrant. For they had learned that the tyranny of a despot is easier to be borne than that of universal poverty. One does not have to interrogate the future to learn whither Russia under Bolshevism is tending; one has but to look to the past. Like causes cannot produce unlike effects. Under given conditions national eclipses can be predicted as surely as the eclipses of the planets. _Los Angeles Times_, May 4, 1921. NAPOLEON'S CENTENNIAL The hundredth anniversary of the passing of Napoleon centers attention anew on one of the baffling figures of all time--a man at once attractive and repulsive; a soldier of infinite courage who on at least one occasion acted the coward; a master strategist who, to the last, seemed never to fully grasp that strategy by which he almost recast a world. He found Europe feudal and left it modern. He opened up new realms of knowledge to the servants; revolutionized military tactics; founded lasting industries; gave a new birth to French law; mocked and yet fostered freedom. More volumes have been written regarding him than any other character in history--one excepted. Nevertheless, he still remains the most elusive, the most unsatisfying genius that the world has ever known. His accomplishments have by this time been fully set forth and properly valued. We know that he stands practically alone as the greatest strategist of the ages. Cromwell, on a smaller scale and within a far more limited sphere, more nearly approaches him, perhaps, than does any other. We know also that he was an adroit politician and a statesman on a scale rarely equalled in Europe. He was also an orator and an adept at coining phrases. He was an executive of immense power and a man of tremendous personal charm. Of course, he was relentless, cruel, unscrupulous and all the rest of it, as we have been so often told. But, praise and blame aside, the question of the source of his power still remains the important thing. Certainly he was not great because he was a brilliant student, for, all in all, he was not deeply read. It could hardly be claimed that he was of the electric, assimilative type, for he would listen to no one and held opinions of others in contempt. He was not even a strong reasoner as the term is generally used. Wherein, then, lay that genius which makes him the outstanding Frenchman and one of the supreme personages of history? Apparently he was pre-eminent because, more than almost any man who ever lived, he had the power of harnessing his intuitive processes to his practical problems. He, it seems, was able to tap that vast, hidden and unsung reservoir of knowledge which is the epitome of all that the human mind has grasped and which, though flowing through the subconscious mind of all, is available in its entirety to but few--and then in all too brief flashes. The theory of the quality of the human mind, with its every-day, jerky reasoning powers and its submerged, smooth intuitions, finds its strongest support in such an individual. The subliminal mind, psychologists tell us, reaches out into daily life when the normal intelligence is in abeyance--as in sleep or profound relaxation. This subliminal (below the threshold) mind is swifter than the conscious mind and over-reaches it in a flash. It is practically unerring. It is controlled by laws not yet grasped to any great extent. It is hidden from life, yet rules it. Mystics have the gift, in varying degree, of allowing their subconscious minds to engulf and enfold them. The real poets have written in words that live because, unknowingly, they have fallen back on and given expression to the accumulated hopes and visions of the mind of man. The prophets have simply been those with the power to make their instincts vocal. Genius, in all its phases, is seemingly but the measure of the extent to which men coördinate their two minds, their instinct and their reason. Napoleon, in practically every crisis in which he functioned, struck those about him as being in a dazed and unnatural condition. He had those same periods of semi-stupefaction that characterized Cæsar, Paul, Alexander, Goethe, Lincoln and other exceptional men at the time of or immediately following a terrific use of their mental machinery. What, then, if, in the final analysis, it should be shown that Napoleon's greatness lay in the fact that he did not take his own mind or any other man's mind too seriously? Transcriber's notes: Obvious typographical errors corrected. Obvious Punctuation errors standardised. Page 333 "It is quite plan that": As per original. 
11667	----	[Illustration: AUTHORITY.] GENTLE MEASURES IN THE MANAGEMENT AND TRAINING OF THE YOUNG; OR, THE PRINCIPLES ON WHICH A FIRM PARENTAL AUTHORITY MAY BE ESTABLISHED AND MAINTAINED, WITHOUT VIOLENCE OR ANGER, AND THE RIGHT DEVELOPMENT OF THE MORAL AND MENTAL CAPACITIES BE PROMOTED BY METHODS IN HARMONY WITH THE STRUCTURE AND THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JUVENILE MIND. By JACOB ABBOTT, AUTHOR OF "SCIENCE FOR THE YOUNG," "HARPER'S STORY BOOKS," "FRANCONIA STORIES," "ABBOTT'S ILLUSTRATED HISTORIES," ETC. _NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS_. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. THREE MODES OF MANAGEMENT CHAPTER II. WHAT ARE GENTLE MEASURES? CHAPTER III. THERE MUST BE AUTHORITY CHAPTER IV. GENTLE PUNISHMENT OF DISOBEDIENCE CHAPTER V. THE PHILOSOPHY OF PUNISHMENT CHAPTER VI. REWARDING OBEDIENCE CHAPTER VII. THE ART OF TRAINING CHAPTER VIII. METHODS EXEMPLIFIED CHAPTER IX. DELLA AND THE DOLLS CHAPTER X. SYMPATHY:--I. THE CHILD WITH THE PARENT CHAPTER XI. SYMPATHY:--II. THE PARENT WITH THE CHILD CHAPTER XII. COMMENDATION AND ENCOURAGEMENT CHAPTER XIII. FAULTS OF IMMATURITY CHAPTER XIV. THE ACTIVITY OF CHILDREN CHAPTER XV. THE IMAGINATION IN CHILDREN CHAPTER XVI. TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD CHAPTER XVII. JUDGMENT AND REASONING CHAPTER XVIII. WISHES AND REQUESTS CHAPTER XIX. CHILDREN'S QUESTIONS CHAPTER XX. THE USE OF MONEY CHAPTER XXI. CORPORAL PUNISHMENT CHAPTER XXII. GRATITUDE IN CHILDREN CHAPTER XXIII. RELIGIOUS TRAINING CHAPTER XXIV. CONCLUSION ILLUSTRATIONS AUTHORITY INDULGENCE "IT IS NOT SAFE" THE LESSON IN OBEDIENCE ROUNDABOUT INSTRUCTION AFRAID OF THE COW THE INTENTION GOOD THE IMAGINATIVE FACULTY STORY OF THE HORSE "MOTHER, WHAT MAKES IT SNOW?" THE RUNAWAY THE FIRST INSTINCT GENTLE MEASURES. CHAPTER I. THE THREE MODES OF MANAGEMENT. It is not impossible that in the minds of some persons the idea of employing gentle measures in the management and training of children may seem to imply the abandonment of the principle of _authority_, as the basis of the parental government, and the substitution of some weak and inefficient system of artifice and manoeuvring in its place. To suppose that the object of this work is to aid in effecting such a substitution as that, is entirely to mistake its nature and design. The only government of the parent over the child that is worthy of the name is one of authority--complete, absolute, unquestioned _authority_. The object of this work is, accordingly, not to show how the gentle methods which will be brought to view can be employed as a substitute for such authority, but how they can be made to aid in establishing and maintaining it. _Three Methods_. There are three different modes of management customarily employed by parents as means of inducing their children to comply with their requirements. They are, 1. Government by Manoeuvring and Artifice. 2. By Reason and Affection. 3. By Authority. _Manoeuvring and Artifice_. 1. Many mothers manage their children by means of tricks and contrivances, more or less adroit, designed to avoid direct issues with them, and to beguile them, as it were, into compliance with their wishes. As, for example, where a mother, recovering from sickness, is going out to take the air with her husband for the first time, and--as she is still feeble--wishes for a very quiet drive, and so concludes not to take little Mary with her, as she usually does on such occasions; but knowing that if Mary sees the chaise at the door, and discovers that her father and mother are going in it, she will be very eager to go too, she adopts a system of manoeuvres to conceal her design. She brings down her bonnet and shawl by stealth, and before the chaise comes to the door she sends Mary out into the garden with her sister, under pretense of showing her a bird's nest which is not there, trusting to her sister's skill in diverting the child's mind, and amusing her with something else in the garden, until the chaise has gone. And if, either from hearing the sound of the wheels, or from any other cause, Mary's suspicions are awakened--and children habitually managed on these principles soon learn to be extremely distrustful and suspicious--and she insists on going into the house, and thus discovers the stratagem, then, perhaps, her mother tells her that they are only going to the doctor's, and that if Mary goes with them, the doctor will give her some dreadful medicine, and compel her to take it, thinking thus to deter her from insisting on going with them to ride. As the chaise drives away, Mary stands bewildered and perplexed on the door-step, her mind in a tumult of excitement, in which hatred of the doctor, distrust and suspicion of her mother, disappointment, vexation, and ill humor, surge and swell among those delicate organizations on which the structure and development of the soul so closely depend--doing perhaps an irreparable injury. The mother, as soon as the chaise is so far turned that Mary can no longer watch the expression of her countenance, goes away from the door with a smile of complacency and satisfaction upon her face at the ingenuity and success of her little artifice. In respect to her statement that she was going to the doctor's, it may, or may not, have been true. Most likely not; for mothers who manage their children on this system find the line of demarkation between deceit and falsehood so vague and ill defined that they soon fall into the habit of disregarding it altogether, and of saying, without hesitation, any thing which will serve the purpose in view. _Governing by Reason and Affection_. 2. The theory of many mothers is that they must govern their children by the influence of reason and affection. Their method may be exemplified by supposing that, under circumstances similar to those described under the preceding head, the mother calls Mary to her side, and, smoothing her hair caressingly with her hand while she speaks, says to her, "Mary, your father and I are going out to ride this afternoon, and I am going to explain it all to you why you can not go too. You see, I have been sick, and am getting well, and I am going out to ride, so that I may get well faster. You love mamma, I am sure, and wish to have her get well soon. So you will be a good girl, I know, and not make any trouble, but will stay at home contentedly--won't you? Then I shall love you, and your papa will love you, and after I get well we will take you to ride with us some day." The mother, in managing the case in this way, relies partly on convincing the reason of the child, and partly on an appeal to her affection. _Governing by Authority_. 3. By the third method the mother secures the compliance of the child by a direct exercise of authority. She says to her--the circumstances of the case being still supposed to be the same-- "Mary, your father and I are going out to ride this afternoon, and I am sorry, for your sake, that we can not take you with us." "Why can't you take me?" asks Mary. "I can not tell you why, now," replies the mother, "but perhaps I will explain it to you after I come home. I think there _is_ a good reason, and, at any rate, I have decided that you are not to go. If you are a good girl, and do not make any difficulty, you can have your little chair out upon the front door-step, and can see the chaise come to the door, and see your father and me get in and drive away; and you can wave your handkerchief to us for a good-bye." Then, if she observes any expression of discontent or insubmission in Mary's countenance, the mother would add, "If you should _not_ be a good girl, but should show signs of making us any trouble, I shall have to send you out somewhere to the back part of the house until we are gone." But this last supposition is almost always unnecessary; for if Mary has been habitually managed on this principle she will _not_ make any trouble. She will perceive at once that the question is settled--settled irrevocably--and especially that it is entirely beyond the power of any demonstrations of insubmission or rebellion that she can make to change it. She will acquiesce at once.[A] She may be sorry that she can not go, but she will make no resistance. Those children only attempt to carry their points by noisy and violent demonstrations who find, by experience, that such measures are usually successful. A child, even, who has become once accustomed to them, will soon drop them if she finds, owing to a change in the system of management, that they now never succeed. And a child who never, from the beginning, finds any efficiency in them, never learns to employ them at all. _Conclusion_. Of the three methods of managing children exemplified in this chapter, the last is the only one which can be followed either with comfort to the parent or safety to the child; and to show how this method can be brought effectually into operation by gentle measures is the object of this book. It is, indeed, true that the importance of tact and skill in the training of the young, and of cultivating their reason, and securing their affection, can not be overrated. But the influences secured by these means form, at the best, but a sandy foundation for filial obedience to rest upon. The child is not to be made to comply with the requirements of his parents by being artfully inveigled into compliance, nor is his obedience to rest on his love for father and mother, and his unwillingness to displease them, nor on his conviction of the rightfulness and reasonableness of their commands, but on simple _submission to authority_--that absolute and almost unlimited authority which all parents are commissioned by God and nature to exercise over their offspring during the period while the offspring remain dependent upon their care. CHAPTER II. WHAT ARE GENTLE MEASURES? It being thus distinctly understood that the gentle measures in the training of children herein recommended are not to be resorted to as a _substitute_ for parental authority, but as the easiest and most effectual means of establishing and maintaining that authority in its most absolute form, we have now to consider what the nature of these gentle measures is, and by what characteristics they are distinguished, in their action and influence, from such as may be considered more or less violent and harsh. Gentle measures are those which tend to exert a calming, quieting, and soothing influence on the mind, or to produce only such excitements as are pleasurable in their character, as means of repressing wrong and encouraging right action. Ungentle measures are those which tend to inflame and irritate the mind, or to agitate it with _painful_ excitements. _Three Degrees of Violence_. There seem to be three grades or forms of violence to which a mother may resort in controlling her children, or, perhaps, rather three classes of measures which are more or less violent in their effects. To illustrate these we will take an example. _Case supposed_. One day Louisa, four years old, asked her mother for an apple. "Have you had any already?" asked her mother. "Only one," replied Louisa. "Then Bridget may give you another," said the mother. What Louisa said was not true. She had already eaten two apples. Bridget heard the falsehood, but she did not consider it her duty to betray the child, so she said nothing. The mother, however, afterwards, in the course of the day, accidentally ascertained the truth. Now, as we have said, there are three grades in the kind and character of the measures which may be considered violent that a mother may resort to in a case like this. _Bodily Punishment_. 1. First, there is the infliction of bodily pain. The child may be whipped, or tied to the bed-post, and kept in a constrained and uncomfortable position for a long time, or shut up in solitude and darkness, or punished by the infliction of bodily suffering in other ways. And there is no doubt that there is a tendency in such treatment to correct or cure the fault. But measures like these, whether successful or not, are certainly violent measures. They shock the whole nervous system, sometimes with the excitement of pain and terror, and always, probably, with that of resentment and anger. In some cases this excitement is extreme. The excessively delicate organization of the brain, through which such agitations reach the sensorium, and which, in children of an early age, is in its most tender and sensitive state of development, is subjected to a most intense and violent agitation. _Evil Effects of Violence in this Form_. The evil effects of this excessive cerebral action may _perhaps_ entirely pass away in a few hours, and leave no trace of injury behind; but then, on the other hand, there is certainly reason to fear that such commotions, especially if often repeated, tend to impede the regular and healthful development of the organs, and that they may become the origin of derangements, or of actual disorganizations, resulting very seriously in future years. It is impossible, perhaps, to know with certainty whether permanent ill effects follow in such cases or not. At any rate, such a remedy is a violent one. _The Frightening System_. 2. There is a second grade of violence in the treatment of such a case, which consists in exciting pain or terror, or other painful or disagreeable emotions, through the imagination, by presenting to the fancy of the child images of phantoms, hobgoblins, and other frightful monsters, whose ire, it is pretended, is greatly excited by the misdeeds of children, and who come in the night-time to take them away, or otherwise visit them with terrible retribution. Domestic servants are very prone to adopt this mode of discipline. Being forbidden to resort to personal violence as a means of exciting pain and terror, they attempt to accomplish the same end by other means, which, however, in many respects, are still more injurious in their action. _Management of Nurses and Servants_. Nurses and attendants upon children from certain nationalities in Europe are peculiarly disposed to employ this method of governing children placed under their care. One reason is that they are accustomed to this mode of management at home; and another is that many of them are brought up under an idea, which prevails extensively in some of those countries, that it is right to tell falsehoods where the honest object is to accomplish a charitable or useful end. Accordingly, inasmuch as the restraining of the children from wrong is a good and useful object, they can declare the existence of giants and hobgoblins, to carry away and devour bad girls and boys, with an air of positiveness and seeming honesty, and with a calm and persistent assurance, which aids them very much in producing on the minds of the children a conviction of the truth of what they say; while, on the other hand, those who, in theory at least, occupy the position that the direct falsifying of one's word is _never_ justifiable, act at a disadvantage in attempting this method. For although, in practice, they are often inclined to make an exception to their principles in regard to truth in the case of what is said to young children, they can not, after all, tell children what they know to be not true with that bold and confident air necessary to carry full conviction to the children's minds. They are embarrassed by a kind of half guilty feeling, which, partially at least, betrays them, and the children do not really and fully believe what they say. They can not suppose that their mother would really tell them what she knew was false, and yet they can not help perceiving that she does not speak and look as if what she was saying was actually true. _Monsieur and Madame Croquemitaine_. In all countries there are many, among even the most refined and highly cultivated classes, who are not at all embarrassed by any moral delicacy of this kind. This is especially the case in those countries in Europe, particularly on the Continent, where the idea above referred to, of the allowableness of falsehood in certain cases as a means for the attainment of a good end, is generally entertained. The French have two terrible bugbears, under the names of Monsieur and Madame Croquemitaine, who are as familiar to the imaginations of French children as Santa Claus is, in a much more agreeable way, to the juvenile fancy at our firesides. Monsieur and Madame Croquemitaine are frightful monsters, who come down the chimney, or through the roof, at night, and carry off bad children. They learn from their _little fingers_--which whisper in their ears when they hold them near--who the bad children are, where they live, and what they have done. The instinctive faith of young children in their mother's truthfulness is so strong that no absurdity seems gross enough to overcome it. _The Black Man and the Policeman_. There are many mothers among us who--though not quite prepared to call in the aid of ghosts, giants, and hobgoblins, or of Monsieur and Madame Croquemitaine, in managing their children--still, sometimes, try to eke out their failing authority by threatening them with the "black man," or the "policeman," or some other less, supernatural terror. They seem to imagine that inasmuch as, while there is no such thing in existence as a hobgoblin, there really are policemen and prisons, they only half tell an untruth by saying to the recalcitrant little one that a policeman is coming to carry him off to jail. _Injurious Effects_. Although, by these various modes of exciting imaginary fears, there is no direct and outward infliction of bodily suffering, the effect produced on the delicate organization of the brain by such excitements is violent in the extreme. The paroxysms of agitation and terror which they sometimes excite, and which are often spontaneously renewed by darkness and solitude, and by other exciting causes, are of the nature of temporary insanity. Indeed, the extreme nervous excitability which they produce sometimes becomes a real insanity, which, though it may, in many cases, be finally outgrown, may probably in many others lead to lasting and most deplorable results. _Harsh Reproofs and Threatenings_. 3. There is a third mode of treatment, more common, perhaps, among _us_ than either of the preceding, which, though much milder in its character than they, we still class among the violent measures, on account of its operation and effects. It consists of stern and harsh rebukes, denunciations of the heinousness of the sin of falsehood, with solemn premonitions of the awful consequences of it, in this life and in that to come, intended to awaken feelings of alarm and distress in the mind of the child, as a means of promoting repentance and reformation. These are not violent measures, it is true, so far as outward physical action is concerned; but the effects which they produce are sometimes of quite a violent nature, in their operation on the delicate nervous and mental susceptibilities which are excited and agitated by them. If the mother is successful in making the impression which such a mode of treatment is designed to produce, the child, especially if a girl, is agitated and distressed. Her nervous system is greatly disturbed. If calmed for a time, the paroxysm is very liable to return. She wakes in the night, perhaps, with an indefinable feeling of anxiety and terror, and comes to her mother's bedside, to seek, in her presence, and in the sense of protection which it affords, a relief from her distress. The conscientious mother, supremely anxious to secure the best interests of her child, may say that, after all, it is better that she should endure this temporary suffering than not be saved from the sin. This is true. But if she can be saved just as effectually without it, it is better still. _The Gentle Method of Treatment_. 4. We now come to the gentle measures which may be adopted in a case of discipline like this. They are endlessly varied in form, but, to illustrate the nature and operation of them, and the spirit and temper of mind with which they should be enforced, with a view of communicating; to the mind of the reader some general idea of the characteristics of that gentleness of treatment which it is the object of this work to commend, we will describe an actual case, substantially as it really occurred, where a child, whom we will still call Louisa, told her mother a falsehood about the apple, as already related. _Choosing the Right Time_. Her mother--though Louisa's manner, at the time of giving her answer, led her to feel somewhat suspicious--did not express her suspicions, but gave her the additional apple. Nor did she afterwards, when she ascertained the facts, say any thing on the subject. The day passed away as if nothing unusual had occurred. When bed-time came she undressed the child and laid her in her bed, playing with her, and talking with her in an amusing manner all the time, so as to bring her into a contented and happy frame of mind, and to establish as close a connection as possible of affection and sympathy between them. Then, finally, when the child's prayer had been said, and she was about to be left for the night, her mother, sitting in a chair at the head of her little bed, and putting her hand lovingly upon her, said: _The Story_. "But first I must tell you one more little story. "Once there was a boy, and his name was Ernest. He was a pretty large boy, for he was five years old." Louisa, it must be recollected, was only four. "He was a very pretty boy. He had bright blue eyes and curling hair. He was a very good boy, too. He did not like to do any thing wrong. He always found that it made him feel uncomfortable and unhappy afterwards when he did any thing wrong. A good many children, especially good children, find that it makes them feel uncomfortable and unhappy when they do wrong. Perhaps you do." "Yes, mamma, I do," said Louisa. "I am glad of that," replied her mother; "that is a good sign." "Ernest went one day," added the mother, continuing her story, "with his little cousin Anna to their uncle's, in hopes that he would give them some apples. Their uncle had a beautiful garden, and in it there was an apple-tree which bore most excellent apples. They were large, and rosy, and mellow, and sweet. The children liked the apples from that tree very much, and Ernest and Anna went that day in hopes that their uncle would give them some of them. He said he would. He would give them three apiece. He told them to go into the garden and wait there until he came. They must not take any apples off the tree, he said, but if they found any _under_ the tree they might take them, provided that there were not more than three apiece; and when he came he would take enough off the tree, he said, to make up the number to three. "So the children went into the garden and looked under the tree. They found _two_ apples there, and they took them up and ate them--one apiece. Then they sat down and began to wait for their uncle to come. While they were waiting Anna proposed that they should not tell their uncle that they had found the two apples, and so he would give them three more, which he would take from the tree; whereas, if he knew that they had already had one apiece, then he would only give them two more. Ernest said that his uncle would ask them about it. Anna said, 'No matter, we can tell him that we did not find any.' "Ernest seemed to be thinking about it for a moment, and then, shaking his head, said, 'No, I think we had better not tell him a lie!' "So when he saw their uncle coming he said, 'Come, Anna, let us go and tell him about it, just how it was. So they ran together to meet their uncle, and told him that they had found two apples under the tree, one apiece, and had eaten them. Then he gave them two more apiece, according to his promise, and they went home feeling contented and happy. "They might have had one more apple apiece, probably, by combining together to tell a falsehood; but in that case they would have gone home feeling guilty and unhappy." _The Effect_. Louisa's mother paused a moment, after finishing her story, to give Louisa time to think about it a little. "I think," she added at length, after a suitable pause, "that it was a great deal better for them to tell the truth, as they did." "I think so too, mamma," said Louisa, at the same time casting down her eyes and looking a little confused. "But you know," added her mother, speaking in a very kind and gentle tone, "that you did not tell me the truth to-day about the apple that Bridget gave you." Louisa paused a moment, looked in her mother's face, and then, reaching up to put her arms around her mother's neck, she said, "Mamma, I am determined never to tell you another wrong story as long as I live." _Only a Single Lesson, after all_. Now it is not at all probable that if the case had ended here, Louisa would have kept her promise. This was one good lesson, it is true, but it was only _one_. And the lesson was given by a method so gentle, that no nervous, cerebral, or mental function was in any degree irritated or morbidly excited by it. Moreover, no one who knows any thing of the workings of the infantile mind can doubt that the impulse in the right direction given by this conversation was not only better in character, but was greater in amount, than could have been effected by either of the other methods of management previously described. _How Gentle Measures operate_. By the gentle measures, then, which are to be here discussed and recommended, are meant such as do not react in a violent and irritating manner, in any way, upon the extremely delicate, and almost embryonic condition of the cerebral and nervous organization, in which the gradual development of the mental and moral faculties are so intimately involved. They do not imply any, the least, relaxation of the force of parental authority, or any lowering whatever of the standards of moral obligation, but are, on the contrary, the most effectual, the surest and the safest way of establishing the one and of enforcing the other. CHAPTER III. THERE MUST BE AUTHORITY. The first duty which devolves upon the mother in the training of her child is the establishment of her _authority_ over him--that is, the forming in him the habit of immediate, implicit, and unquestioning obedience to all her commands. And the first step to be taken, or, rather, perhaps the first essential condition required for the performance of this duty, is the fixing of the conviction in her own mind that it _is_ a duty. Unfortunately, however, there are not only vast numbers of mothers who do not in any degree perform this duty, but a large proportion of them have not even a theoretical idea of the obligation of it. _An Objection_. "I wish my child to be governed by reason and reflection," says one. "I wish him to see the _necessity_ and _propriety_ of what I require of him, so that he may render a ready and willing compliance with my wishes, instead of being obliged blindly to submit to arbitrary and despotic power." She forgets that the faculties of reason and reflection, and the power of appreciating "the necessity and propriety of things," and of bringing considerations of future, remote, and perhaps contingent good and evil to restrain and subdue the impetuousness of appetites and passions eager for present pleasure, are qualities that appear late, and are very slowly developed, in the infantile mind; that no real reliance whatever can be placed upon them in the early years of life; and that, moreover, one of the chief and expressly intended objects of the establishment of the parental relation is to provide, in the mature reason and reflection of the father and mother, the means of guidance which the embryo reason and reflection of the child could not afford during the period of his immaturity. _The two great Elements of Parental Obligation_. Indeed, the chief end and aim of the parental relation, as designed by the Author of nature, may be considered as comprised, it would seem, in these two objects, namely: first, the _support_ of the child by the _strength_ of his parents during the period necessary for the development of _his_ strength, and, secondly, his guidance and direction by their _reason_ during the development of his reason. The second of these obligations is no less imperious than the first. To expect him to provide the means of his support from the resources of his own embryo strength, would imply no greater misapprehension on the part of his father and mother than to look for the exercise of any really controlling influence over his conduct by his embryo reason. The expectation in the two cases would be equally vain. The only difference would be that, in the failure which would inevitably result from the trial, it would be in the one case the body that would suffer, and in the other the soul. _The Judgment more slowly developed than the Strength_. Indeed, the necessity that the conduct of the child should be controlled by the reason of the parents is in one point of view greater, or at least more protracted, than that his wants should be supplied by their power; for the development of the thinking and reasoning powers is late and slow in comparison with the advancement toward maturity of the physical powers. It is considered that a boy attains, in this country, to a sufficient degree of strength at the age of from _seven to ten_ years to earn his living; but his reason is not sufficiently mature to make it safe to intrust him with the care of himself and of his affairs, in the judgment of the law, till he is of more than twice that age. The parents can actually thus sooner look to the _strength_ of the child for his support than they can to his _reason_ for his guidance. _What Parents have to do in Respect to the Reasoning Powers of Children_. To aid in the development and cultivation of the thinking and reasoning powers is doubtless a very important part of a parent's duty. But to cultivate these faculties is one thing, while to make any control which may be procured for them over the mind of the child the basis of government, is another. To explain the reasons of our commands is excellent, if it is done in the right time and manner. The wrong time is when the question of obedience is pending, and the wrong manner is when they are offered as inducements to obey. We may offer reasons for _recommendations_, when we leave the child to judge of their force, and to act according to our recommendations or not, as his judgment shall dictate. But reasons should never be given as inducements to obey a command. The more completely the obedience to a command rests on the principle of simple submission to authority, the easier and better it will be both for parent and child. _Manner of exercising Authority_. Let no reader fall into the error of supposing that the mother's making her authority the basis of her government renders it necessary for her to assume a stern and severe aspect towards her children, in her intercourse with them; or to issue her commands in a harsh, abrupt, and imperious manner; or always to refrain from explaining, at the time, the reasons for a command or a prohibition. The more gentle the manner, and the more kind and courteous the tones in which the mother's wishes are expressed, the better, provided only that the wishes, however expressed, are really the mandates of an authority which is to be yielded to at once without question or delay. She may say, "Mary, will you please to leave your doll and take this letter for me into the library to your father?" or, "Johnny, in five minutes it will be time for you to put your blocks away to go to bed; I will tell you when the time is out;" or, "James, look at the clock"--to call his attention to the fact that the time is arrived for him to go to school. No matter, in a word, under how mild and gentle a form the mother's commands are given, provided only that the children are trained to understand that they are at once to be obeyed. _A second Objection_. Another large class of mothers are deterred from making any efficient effort to establish their authority over their children for fear of thereby alienating their affections. "I wish my child to love me," says a mother of this class. "That is the supreme and never-ceasing wish of my heart; and if I am continually thwarting and constraining her by my authority, she will soon learn to consider me an obstacle to her happiness, and I shall become an object of her aversion and dislike." There is some truth, no doubt, in this statement thus expressed, but it is not applicable to the case, for the reason that there is no need whatever for a mother's "continually thwarting and constraining" her children in her efforts to establish her authority over them. The love which they will feel for her will depend in a great measure upon the degree in which she sympathizes and takes part with them in their occupations, their enjoyments, their disappointments, and their sorrows, and in which she indulges their child-like desires. The love, however, awakened by these means will be not weakened nor endangered, but immensely strengthened and confirmed, by the exercise on her part of a just and equable, but firm and absolute, authority. This must always be true so long as a feeling of respect for the object of affection tends to strengthen, and not to weaken, the sentiment of love. The mother who does not govern her children is bringing them up not to love her, but to despise her. _Effect of Authority._ If, besides being their playmate, their companion, and friend, indulgent in respect to all their harmless fancies, and patient and forbearing with their childish faults and foolishness, she also exercises in cases requiring it an authority over them which, though just and gentle, is yet absolute and supreme, she rises to a very exalted position in their view. Their affection for her has infused into it an element which greatly aggrandizes and ennobles it--an element somewhat analogous to that sentiment of lofty devotion which a loyal subject feels for his queen. _Effect of the Want of Authority._ On the other hand, if she is inconsiderate enough to attempt to win a place in her children's hearts by the sacrifice of her maternal authority, she will never succeed in securing a place there that is worth possessing. The children will all, girls and boys alike, see and understand her weakness, and they will soon learn to look down upon her, instead of looking up to her, as they ought. As they grow older they will all become more and more unmanageable. The insubordination of the girls must generally be endured, but that of the boys will in time grow to be intolerable, and it will become necessary to send them away to school, or to adopt some other plan for ridding the house of their turbulence, and relieving the poor mother's heart of the insupportable burden she has to bear in finding herself contemned and trampled upon by her own children. In the earlier years of life the feeling entertained for their mother in such a case by the children is simply that of contempt; for the sentiment of gratitude which will modify it in time is very late to be developed, and has not yet begun to act. In later years, however, when the boys have become young men, this sentiment of gratitude begins to come in, but it only changes the contempt into pity. And when years have passed away, and the mother is perhaps in her grave, her sons think of her with a mingled feeling excited by the conjoined remembrance of her helpless imbecility and of her true maternal love, and say to each other, with a smile, "Poor dear mother! what a time she had of it trying to govern us boys!" If a mother is willing to have her children thus regard her with contempt pure and simple while they are children, and with contempt transformed into pity by the infusion of a tardy sentiment of gratitude, when they are grown, she may try the plan of endeavoring to secure their love by _indulging_ them without _governing_ them. But if she sets her heart on being the object through life of their respectful love, she may indulge them as much as she pleases; but she _must govern_ them. _Indulgence_. A great deal is said sometimes about the evils of indulgence in the management of children; and so far as the condemnation refers only to indulgence in what is injurious or evil, it is doubtless very just. But the harm is not in the indulgence itself--that is, in the act of affording gratification to the child--but in the injurious or dangerous nature of the things indulged in. It seems to me that children are not generally indulged enough. They are thwarted and restrained in respect to the gratification of their harmless wishes a great deal too much. Indeed, as a general rule, the more that children are gratified in respect to their childish fancies and impulses, and even their caprices, when no evil or danger is to be apprehended, the better. When, therefore, a child asks, "May I do this?" or, "May I do that?" the question for the mother to consider is not whether the thing proposed is a wise or a foolish thing to do--that is, whether it would be wise or foolish for _her_, if she, with her ideas and feelings, were in the place of the child--but only whether there is any harm or danger in it; and if not, she should give her ready and cordial consent. _Antagonism between Free Indulgence and Absolute Control_. There is no necessary antagonism, nor even any inconsistency, between the freest indulgence of children and the maintenance of the most absolute authority over them. Indeed, the authority can be most easily established in connection with great liberality of indulgence. At any rate, it will be very evident, on reflection, that the two principles do not stand at all in opposition to each other, as is often vaguely supposed. Children may be greatly indulged, and yet perfectly governed. On the other hand, they may be continually checked and thwarted, and their lives made miserable by a continued succession of vexations, restrictions, and refusals, and yet not be governed at all. An example will, however, best illustrate this. _Mode of Management with Louisa_. A mother, going to the village by a path across the fields, proposed to her little daughter Louisa to go with her for a walk. Louisa asked if she might invite her Cousin Mary to go too. "Yes," said her mother; "I _think_ she is not at home; but you can go and see, if you like." Louisa went to see, and returned in a few minutes, saying that Mary was _not_ at home. "Never mind," replied her mother; "it was polite in you to wish to invite her." They set out upon the walk. Louisa runs hither and thither over the grass, returning continually to her mother to bring her flowers and curiosities. Her mother looks at them all, seems to approve of, and to sympathize in, Louisa's wonder and delight, and even points out new charms in the objects which she brings to her, that Louisa had not observed. At length Louisa spied a butterfly. "Mother," said she, "here's a butterfly. May I run and catch him?" "You may try," said her mother. Louisa ran till she was tired, and then came back to her mother, looking a little disappointed. "I could not catch him, mother." "Never mind," said her mother, "you had a good time trying, at any rate. Perhaps you will see another by-and-by. You may possibly see a bird, and you can try and see if you can catch _him_." So Louisa ran off to play again, satisfied and happy. A little farther on a pretty tree was growing, not far from the path on one side. A short, half-decayed log lay at the foot of the tree, overtopped and nearly concealed by a growth of raspberry-bushes, grass, and wild flowers. "Louisa," said the mother, "do you see that tree with the pretty flowers at the foot of it?" "Yes, mother." "I would rather not have you go near that tree. Come over to this side of the path, and keep on this side till you get by." Louisa began immediately to obey, but as she was crossing the path she looked up to her mother and asked why she must not go near the tree. "I am glad you would like to know why," replied her mother, "and I will tell you the reason as soon as we get past." Louisa kept on the other side of the path until the tree was left well behind, and then came back to her mother to ask for the promised reason. "It was because I heard that there was a wasp's nest under that tree," said her mother. "A wasp's nest!" repeated Louisa, with a look of alarm. "Yes," rejoined her mother, "and I was afraid that the wasps might sting you." Louisa paused a moment, and then, looking back towards the tree, said, "I am glad I did not go near it." "And I am glad that you obeyed me so readily," said her mother. "I knew you would obey me at once, without my giving any reason. I did not wish to tell you the reason, for fear of frightening you while you were passing by the tree. But I knew that you would obey me without any reason. You always do, and that is why I always like to have you go with me when I take a walk." [Illustration: INDULGENCE.] Louisa is much gratified by this commendation, and the effect of it, and of the whole incident, in confirming and strengthening the principle of obedience in her heart, is very much greater than rebukes or punishments for any overt act of disobedience could possibly be. "But, mother," asked Louisa, "how did you know that there was a wasp's nest under that tree?" "One of the boys told me so," replied her mother. "And do you really think there is one there?" asked Louisa. "No," replied her mother, "I do not really think there is. Boys are very apt to imagine such things." "Then why would you not let me go there?" asked Louisa. "Because there _might be_ one there, and so I thought it safer for you not to go near." Louisa now left her mother's side and resumed her excursions, running this way and that, in every direction, over the fields, until at length, her strength beginning to fail, she came back to her mother, out of breath, and with a languid air, saying that she was too tired to go any farther. "I am tired, too," said her mother; "we had better find a place to sit down to rest." "Where shall we find one?" asked Louisa. "I see a large stone out there before us a little way," said her mother. "How will that do?" "I mean to go and try it," said Louisa; and, having seemingly recovered her breath, she ran forward to try the stone. By the time that her mother reached the spot she was ready to go on. These and similar incidents marked the whole progress of the walk. We see that in such a case as this firm government and free indulgence are conjoined; and that, far from there being any antagonism between them, they may work together in perfect harmony. _Mode of Management with Hannah_. On the other hand, there may be an extreme limitation in respect to a mother's indulgence of her children, while yet she has no government over them at all. We shall see how this might be by the case of little Hannah. Hannah was asked by her mother to go with her across the fields to the village under circumstances similar to those of Louisa's invitation, except that the real motive of Hannah's mother, in proposing that Hannah should accompany her, was to have the child's help in bringing home her parcels. "Yes, mother," said Hannah, in reply to her mother's invitation, "I should like to go; and I will go and ask Cousin Sarah to go too." "Oh no," rejoined her mother, "why do you wish Sarah to go? She will only be a trouble to us." "She won't be any trouble at all, mother, and I mean to go and ask her," said Hannah; and, putting on her bonnet, she set off towards the gate. "No, Hannah," insisted her mother, "you _must not_ go. I don't wish to have Sarah go with us to-day." Hannah paid no attention to this prohibition, but ran off to find Sarah. After a few minutes she returned, saying that Sarah was not at home. "I am glad of it," said her mother; "I told you not to go to ask her, and you did very wrong to disobey me. I have a great mind not to let you go yourself." Hannah ran off in the direction of the path, not caring for the censure or for the threat, knowing well that they would result in nothing. Her mother followed. When they reached the pastures Hannah began running here and there over the grass. "Hannah!" said her mother, speaking in a stern and reproachful tone; "what do you keep running about so for all the time, Hannah? You'll get tired out before we get to the village, and then you'll be teasing me to let you stop and rest. Come and walk along quietly with me." But Hannah paid no attention whatever to this injunction. She ran to and fro among the rocks and clumps of bushes, and once or twice she brought to her mother flowers or other curious things that she found. "Those things are not good for any thing, child," said her mother. "They are nothing but common weeds and trash. Besides, I told you not to run about so much. Why can't you come and walk quietly along the path, like a sensible person?" Hannah paid no attention to this reiteration of her mother's command, but continued to run about as before. "Hannah," repeated her mother, "come back into the path. I have told you again and again that you must come and walk with me, and you don't pay the least heed to what I say. By-and-by you will fall into some hole, or tear your clothes against the bushes, or get pricked with the briers. You must not, at any rate, go a step farther from the path than you are now." Hannah walked on, looking for flowers and curiosities, and receding farther and farther from the path, for a time, and then returning towards it again, according to her own fancy or caprice, without paying any regard to her mother's directions. "Hannah," said her mother, "you _must not_ go so far away from the path. Then, besides, you are coming to a tree where there is a wasps' nest. You must not go near that tree; if you do, you will get stung." Hannah went on, looking for flowers, and gradually drawing nearer to the tree. "Hannah!" exclaimed her mother, "I tell you that you must not go near that tree. You will _certainly_ get stung." Hannah went on--somewhat hesitatingly and cautiously, it is true--towards the foot of the tree, and, seeing no signs of wasps there, she began gathering the flowers that grew at the foot of it. "Hannah! Hannah!" exclaimed her mother; "I told you not to go near that tree! Get your flowers quick, if you must get them, and come away." Hannah went on gathering the flowers at her leisure. "You will _certainly_ get stung," said her mother. "I don't believe there is any hornets' nest here," replied Hannah. "Wasps' nest," said her mother; "it was a wasps' nest." "Or wasps' nest either," said Hannah. "Yes," rejoined her mother, "the boys said there was." "That's nothing," said Hannah; "the boys think there are wasps' nests in a great many places where there are not any." After a time Hannah, having gathered all the flowers she wished for, came back at her leisure towards her mother. "I told you not to go to that tree," said her mother, reproachfully. "You told me I should certainly get stung if I went there," rejoined Hannah, "and I didn't." "Well, you _might_ have got stung," said her mother, and so walked on. Pretty soon after this Hannah said that she was tired of walking so far, and wished to stop and rest. "No," replied her mother, "I told you that you would get tired if you ran about so much; but you would do it, and so now I shall not stop for you at all." Hannah said that _she_ should stop, at any rate; so she sat down upon a log by the way-side. Her mother said that _she_ should go on and leave her. So her mother walked on, looking back now and then, and calling Hannah to come. But finding that Hannah did not come, she finally found a place to sit down herself and wait for her. _The Principle illustrated by this Case_. Many a mother will see the image of her own management of her children reflected without exaggeration or distortion in this glass; and, as the former story shows how the freest indulgence is compatible with the maintenance of the most absolute authority, this enables us to see how a perpetual resistance to the impulses and desires of children may co-exist with no government over them at all. Let no mother fear, then, that the measures necessary to establish for her the most absolute authority over her children will at all curtail her power to promote their happiness. The maintenance of the best possible government over them will not in any way prevent her yielding to them all the harmless gratifications they may desire. She may indulge them in all their childish impulses, fancies, and even caprices, to their heart's content, without at all weakening her authority over them. Indeed, she may make these very indulgences the means of strengthening her authority. But without the authority she can never develop in the hearts of her children the only kind of love that is worth possessing--namely, that in which the feeling of affection is dignified and ennobled by the sentiment of respect. _One more Consideration_. There is one consideration which, if properly appreciated, would have an overpowering influence on the mind of every mother in inducing her to establish and maintain a firm authority over her child during the early years of his life, and that is the possibility that he may not live to reach maturity. Should the terrible calamity befall her of being compelled to follow her boy, yet young, to his grave, the character of her grief, and the degree of distress and anguish which it will occasion her, will depend very much upon the memories which his life and his relations to her have left in her soul. When she returns to her home, bowed down by the terrible burden of her bereavement, and wanders over the now desolated rooms which were the scenes of his infantile occupations and joys, and sees the now useless playthings and books, and the various objects of curiosity and interest with which he was so often and so busily engaged, there can, of course, be nothing which can really assuage her overwhelming grief; but it will make a vital difference in the character of this grief, whether the image of her boy, as it takes its fixed and final position in her memory and in her heart, is associated with recollections of docility, respectful regard for his mother's wishes, and of ready and unquestioning submission to her authority and obedience to her commands; or whether, on the other hand, the picture of his past life, which is to remain forever in her heart, is to be distorted and marred by memories of outbreaks, acts of ungovernable impulse and insubordination, habitual disregard of all authority, and disrespectful, if not contemptuous, treatment of his mother. There is a sweetness as well as a bitterness of grief; and something like a feeling of joy and gladness will spring up in the mother's heart, and mingle with and soothe her sorrow, if she can think of her boy, when he is gone, as always docile, tractable, submissive to her authority, and obedient to her commands. Such recollections, it is true, can not avail to remove her grief--perhaps not even to diminish its intensity; but they will greatly assuage the bitterness of it, and wholly take away its _sting_. CHAPTER IV. GENTLE PUNISHMENT OF DISOBEDIENCE. Children have no natural instinct of obedience to their parents, though they have other instincts by means of which the habit of obedience, as an acquisition, can easily be formed. The true state of the case is well illustrated by what we observe among the lower animals. The hen can call her chickens when she has food for them, or when any danger threatens, and they come to her. They come, however, simply under the impulse of a desire for food or fear of danger, not from any instinctive desire to conform their action to their mother's will; or, in other words, with no idea of submission to parental authority. It is so, substantially, with many other animals whose habits in respect to the relation between parents and offspring come under human observation. The colt and the calf follow and keep near the mother, not from any instinct of desire to conform their conduct to her will, but solely from love of food, or fear of danger. These last are strictly instinctive. They act spontaneously, and require no training of any sort to establish or to maintain them. The case is substantially the same with children. They run to their mother by instinct, when want, fear, or pain impels them. They require no teaching or training for this. But for them to come simply because their mother wishes them to come--to be controlled, in other words, by her will, instead of by their own impulses, is a different thing altogether. They have no instinct for that. They have only a _capacity for its development_. _Instincts and Capacities_. It may, perhaps, be maintained that there is no real difference between instincts and capacities, and it certainly is possible that they may pass into each other by insensible gradations. Still, practically, and in reference to our treatment of any intelligent nature which is in course of gradual development under our influence, the difference is wide. The dog has an instinct impelling him to attach himself to and follow his master; but he has no instinct leading him to draw his master's cart. He requires no teaching for the one. It comes, of course, from the connate impulses of his nature. For the other he requires a skillful and careful training. If we find a dog who evinces no disposition to seek the society of man, but roams off into woods and solitudes alone, he is useless, and we attribute the fault to his own wolfish nature. But if he will not fetch and carry at command, or bring home a basket in his mouth from market, the fault, if there be any fault, is in his master, in not having taken the proper time and pains to train him, or in not knowing how to do it. He has an instinct leading him to attach himself to a human master, and to follow his master wherever he goes. But he has no instinct leading him to fetch and carry, or to draw carts for any body. If he shows no affection for man, it is his own fault--that is, the fault of his nature. But if he does not fetch and carry well, or go out of the room when he is ordered out, or draw steadily in a cart, it is his teacher's fault. He has not been properly trained. _Who is Responsible?_ So with the child. If he does not seem to know how to take his food, or shows no disposition to run to his mother when he is hurt or when he is frightened, we have reason to suspect something wrong, or, at least, something abnormal, in his mental or physical constitution. But if he does not obey his mother's commands--no matter how insubordinate or unmanageable he may be--the fault does not, certainly, indicate any thing at all wrong in _him_. The fault is in his training. In witnessing his disobedience, our reflection should be, not "What a bad boy!" but "What an unfaithful or incompetent mother!" I have dwelt the longer on this point because it is fundamental As long as a mother imagines, as so many mothers seem to do, that obedience on the part of the child is, or ought to be, a matter of course, she will never properly undertake the work of training him. But when she thoroughly understands and feels that her children are not to be expected to submit their will to hers, _except so far as she forms in them the habit of doing this by special training_, the battle is half won. _Actual Instincts of Children_. The natural instinct which impels her children to come at once to her for refuge and protection in all their troubles and fears, is a great source of happiness to every mother. This instinct shows itself in a thousand ways. "A mother, one morning"--I quote the anecdote from a newspaper[B] which came to hand while I was writing this chapter--"gave her two little ones books and toys to amuse them, while she went to attend to some work in an upper room. Half an hour passed quietly, and then a timid voice at the foot of the stairs called out: "'Mamma, are you there?' "'Yes, darling.' "'All right, then!' and the child went back to its play. "By-and-by the little voice was heard again, repeating, "'Mamma, are you there?' "'Yes.' "'All right, then;' and the little ones returned again, satisfied and reassured, to their toys." The sense of their mother's presence, or at least the certainty of her being near at hand, was necessary to their security and contentment in their plays. But this feeling was not the result of any teachings that they had received from their mother, or upon her having inculcated upon their minds in any way the necessity of their keeping always within reach of maternal protection; nor had it been acquired by their own observation or experience of dangers or difficulties which had befallen them when too far away. It was a native instinct of the soul--the same that leads the lamb and the calf to keep close to their mother's side, and causes the unweaned babe to cling to its mother's bosom, and to shrink from being put away into the crib or cradle alone. _The Responsibility rests upon the Mother_. The mother is thus to understand that the principle of obedience is not to be expected to come by nature into the heart of her child, but to be implanted by education. She must understand this so fully as to feel that if she finds that her children are disobedient to her commands--leaving out of view cases of peculiar and extraordinary temptation--it is _her_ fault, not theirs. Perhaps I ought not to say her _fault_ exactly, for she may have done as well as she knows how; but, at any rate, her failure. Instead, therefore, of being angry with them, or fretting and complaining about the trouble they give her, she should leave them, as it were, out of the case, and turn her thoughts to herself, and to her own management, with a view to the discovery and the correcting of her own derelictions and errors. In a word, she must set regularly and systematically about the work of _teaching_ her children to subject their will to hers. _Three Methods_. I shall give three principles of management, or rather three different classes of measures, by means of which children may certainly be made obedient. The most perfect success will be attained by employing them all. But they require very different degrees of skill and tact on the part of the mother. The first requires very little skill. It demands only steadiness, calmness, and perseverance. The second draws much more upon the mother's mental resources, and the last, most of all. Indeed, as will presently be seen, there is no limit to the amount of tact and ingenuity, not to say genius, which may be advantageously exercised in the last method. The first is the most essential; and it will alone, if faithfully carried out, accomplish the end. The second, if the mother has the tact and skill to carry it into effect, will aid very much in accomplishing the result, and in a manner altogether more agreeable to both parties. The third will make the work of forming the habit of obedience on the part of the mother, and of acquiring it on the part of the child, a source of the highest enjoyment to both. But then, unfortunately, it requires more skill and dexterity, more gentleness of touch, so to speak, and a more delicate constitution of soul, than most mothers can be expected to possess. But let us see what the three methods are. _First Method_. 1. The first principle is that the mother should so regulate her management of her child, that he should _never_ gain any desired end by any act of insubmission, but _always_ incur some small trouble, inconvenience, or privation, by disobeying or neglecting to obey his mother's command. The important words in this statement of the principle are _never_ and _always_. It is the absolute certainty that disobedience will hurt him, and not help him, in which the whole efficacy of the rule consists. It is very surprising how small a punishment will prove efficacious if it is only _certain_ to follow the transgression. You may set apart a certain place for a prison--a corner of the sofa, a certain ottoman, a chair, a stool, any thing will answer; and the more entirely every thing like an air of displeasure or severity is excluded, in the manner of making the preliminary arrangements, the better. A mother without any tact, or any proper understanding of the way in which the hearts and minds of young children are influenced, will begin, very likely, with a scolding. "Children, you are getting very disobedient. I have to speak three or four times before you move to do what I say. Now, I am going to have a prison. The prison is to be that dark closet, and I am going to shut you up in it for half an hour every time you disobey. Now, remember! The very next time!" _Empty Threatening_. Mothers who govern by threatening seldom do any thing but threaten. Accordingly, the first time the children disobey her, after such an announcement, she says nothing, if the case happens to be one in which the disobedience occasions her no particular trouble. The next time, when the transgression is a little more serious, she thinks, very rightly perhaps, that to be shut up half an hour in a dark closet would be a disproportionate punishment. Then, when at length some very willful and grave act of insubordination occurs, she happens to be in particularly good-humor, for some reason, and has not the heart to shut "the poor thing" in the closet; or, perhaps, there is company present, and she does not wish to make a scene. So the penalty announced with so much emphasis turns out to be a dead letter, as the children knew it would from the beginning. _How Discipline may be both Gentle and Efficient_. With a little dexterity and tact on the mother's part, the case may be managed very differently, and with a very different result. Let us suppose that some day, while she is engaged with her sewing or her other household duties, and her children are playing around her, she tells them that in some great schools in Europe, when the boys are disobedient, or violate the rules, they are shut up for punishment in a kind of prison; and perhaps she entertains them with invented examples of boys that would not go to prison, and had to be taken there by force, and kept there longer on account of their contumacy; and also of other noble boys, tall and handsome, and the best players on the grounds, who went readily when they had done wrong and were ordered into confinement, and bore their punishment like men, and who were accordingly set free all the sooner on that account. Then she proposes to them the idea of adopting that plan herself, and asks them to look all about the room and find a good seat which they can have for their prison--one end of the sofa, perhaps, a stool in a corner, or a box used as a house for a kitten. I once knew an instance where a step before a door leading to a staircase served as penitentiary, and sitting upon it for a minute or less was the severest punishment required to maintain most perfect discipline in a family of young children for a long time. When any one of the children violated any rule or direction which had been enjoined upon them--as, for example, when they left the door open in coming in or going out, in the winter; or interrupted their mother when she was reading, instead of standing quietly by her side and waiting until she looked up from her book and gave them leave to speak to her; or used any violence towards each other, by pushing, or pulling, or struggling for a plaything or a place; or did not come promptly to her when called; or did not obey at once the first command in any case, the mother would say simply, "Mary!" or "James! Prison!" She would pronounce this sentence without any appearance of displeasure, and often with a smile, as if they were only playing prison, and then, in a very few minutes after they had taken the penitential seat, she would say _Free_! which word set them at liberty again. _Must begin at the Beginning_. I have no doubt that some mothers, in reading this, will say that such management as this is mere trifling and play; and that real and actual children, with all their natural turbulence, insubordination, and obstinacy, can never be really governed by any such means. I answer that whether it proves on trial to be merely trifling and play or not depends upon the firmness, steadiness, and decision with which the mother carries it into execution. Every method of management requires firmness, perseverance, and decision on the part of the mother to make it successful, but, with these qualities duly exercised, it is astonishing what slight and gentle penalties will suffice for the most complete establishment of her authority. I knew a mother whose children were trained to habits of almost perfect obedience, and whose only method of punishment, so far as I know, was to require the offender to stand on one foot and count five, ten, or twenty, according to the nature and aggravation of the offense. Such a mother, of course, begins early with her children. She trains them from their earliest years to this constant subjection of their will to hers. Such penalties, moreover, owe their efficiency not to the degree of pain or inconvenience that they impose upon the offender, but mainly upon their _calling his attention, distinctly_, after every offense, to the fact that he has done wrong. Slight as this is, it will prove to be sufficient if it _always_ comes--if no case of disobedience or of willful wrong-doing of any kind is allowed to pass unnoticed, or is not followed by the infliction of the proper penalty. It is in all cases the certainty, and not the severity, of punishment which constitutes its power. _Suppose one is not at the Beginning_. What has been said thus far relates obviously to cases where the mother is at the commencement of her work of training. This is the way to _begin_; but you can not begin unless you are at the beginning. If your children are partly grown, and you find that they are not under your command, the difficulty is much greater. The principles which should govern the management are the same, but they can not be applied by means so gentle. The prison, it may be, must now be somewhat more real, the terms of imprisonment somewhat longer, and there may be cases of insubordination so decided as to require the offender to be carried to it by force, on account of his refusal to go of his own accord, and perhaps to be held there, or even to be tied. Cases requiring treatment so decisive as this must be very rare with children under ten years of age; and when they occur, the mother has reason to feel great self-condemnation--or at least great self-abasement--at finding that she has failed so entirely in the first great moral duty of the mother, which is to train her children to complete submission to her authority from the beginning. _Children coming under New Control_. Sometimes, however, it happens that children are transferred from one charge to another, so that the one upon whom the duty of government devolves, perhaps only for a time, finds that the child or children put under his or her charge have been trained by previous mismanagement to habits of utter insubordination. I say, trained to such habits, for the practice of allowing children to gain their ends by any particular means is really training them to the use of those means. Thus multitudes of children are taught to disobey, and trained to habits of insubmission and insubordination, by the means most effectually adapted to that end. _Difficulties_. When under these circumstances the children come under a new charge, whether permanently or temporarily, the task of re-form in or their characters is more delicate and difficult than where one can begin at the beginning; but the principles are the same, and the success is equally certain. The difficulty is somewhat increased by the fact that the person thus provisionally in charge has often no natural authority over the child, and the circumstances may moreover be such as to make it necessary to abstain carefully from any measures that would lead to difficulty or collision, to cries, complaints to the mother, or any of those other forms of commotion or annoyance, which ungoverned children know so well how to employ in gaining their ends. The mother may be one of those weak-minded women who can never see any thing unreasonable in the crying complaints made by their children against other people. Or she may be sick, and it may be very important to avoid every thing that could agitate or disturb her. _George and Egbert_. This last was the case of George, a young man of seventeen, who came to spend some time at home after an absence of two years in the city. He found his mother sick, and his little brother, Egbert, utterly insubordinate and unmanageable. "The first thing I have to do," said George to himself, when he observed how things were, "is to get command of Egbert;" and as the first lesson which he gave his little brother illustrates well the principle of gentle but efficient punishment, I will give it here. Egbert was ten years of age. He was very fond of going a-fishing, but he was not allowed to go alone. His mother, very weak and vacillating about some things, was extremely decided about this. So Egbert had learned to submit to this restriction, as he would have done to all others if his mother had been equally decided in respect to all. The first thing that Egbert thought of the next morning after his brother's return was that George might go a-fishing with him. "I don't know," replied George, in a hesitating and doubtful tone. "I don't know whether it will do for me to go a-fishing with you. I don't know whether I can depend upon your always obeying me and doing as I say." Egbert made very positive promises, and so it was decided to go. George took great interest in helping Egbert about his fishing-tackle, and did all in his power in other ways to establish friendly relations with him, and at length they set out. They walked a little distance down what was in the winter a wood road, and then came to a place where two paths led into a wood. Either of them led to the river. But there was a brook to cross, and for one of these paths there was a bridge. There was none for the other. George said that they would take the former. Egbert, however, paid no regard to this direction, but saying simply "No, I'd rather go this way," walked off in the other path. "I was afraid you would not obey me," said George, and then turned and followed Egbert into the forbidden path, without making any further objection. Egbert concluded at once that he should find George as easily to be managed as he had found other people. _The Disobedience_. When they came in sight of the brook, George saw that there was a narrow log across it, in guise of a bridge. He called out to Egbert, who had gone on before him, not to go over the log until _he_ came. But Egbert called back in reply that there was no danger, that he could go across alone, and so went boldly over. George, on arriving at the brook, and finding that the log was firm and strong, followed Egbert over it. "I told you I could go across it," said Egbert. "Yes," replied George, "and you were right in that. You did cross it. The log is very steady. I think it makes quite a good bridge." Egbert said he could hop across it on one foot, and George gave him leave to try, while he, George, held his fishing-pole for him. George followed him over the log, and then told him that he was very sorry to say it, but that he found that they could not go a-fishing that day. Egbert wished to know the reason. George said it was a private reason and he could not tell him then, but that he would tell him that evening after he had gone to bed. There was a story about it, too, he said, that he would tell him at the same time. Egbert was curious to know what the reason could be for changing the plan, and also to hear the story. Still he was extremely disappointed in having to lose his fishing, and very much disposed to be angry with George for not going on. It was, however, difficult to get very angry without knowing George's reason, and George, though he said that the reason was a good one--that it was a serious difficulty in the way of going a-fishing that day, which had only come to his knowledge since they left home, steadily persisted in declining to explain what the difficulty was until the evening, and began slowly to walk back toward the house. _Egbert becomes Sullen_. Egbert then declared that, at any rate, he would not go home. If he could not go a-fishing he would stay there in the woods. George readily fell in with this idea. "Here is a nice place for me to sit down on this flat rock under the trees," said he, "and I have got a book in my pocket. You can play about in the woods as long as you please. Perhaps you will see a squirrel; if you do, tell me, and I will come and help you catch him." So saying, he took out his book and sat down under the trees and began to read. Egbert, after loitering about sullenly a few minutes, began to walk up the path, and said that he was going home. George, however, soon succeeded in putting him in good-humor again by talking with him in a friendly manner, and without manifesting any signs of displeasure, and also by playing with him on the way. He took care to keep on friendly terms with him all the afternoon, aiding him in his various undertakings, and contributing to his amusement in every way as much as he could, while he made no complaint, and expressed no dissatisfaction with him in any way whatever. _Final Disposition of the Case_. After Egbert had gone to bed, and before he went to sleep, George made him a visit at his bedside, and, after a little playful frolic with him, to put him in special good-humor, said he would make his explanation. "The reason why I had to give up the fishing expedition," he said, "was, I found that I could not depend upon your obeying me." Egbert, after a moment's pause, said that he did not disobey him; and when George reminded him of his taking the path that he was forbidden to take, and of his crossing the log bridge against orders, he said that that path led to the river by the shortest way, and that he knew that the log was firm and steady, and that he could go over it without falling in. "And so you thought you had good reasons for disobeying me," rejoined George. "Yes," said Egbert, triumphantly. "That is just it," said George. "You are willing to obey, except when you think you have good reasons for disobeying, and then you disobey. That's the way a great many boys do, and that reminds me of the story I was going to tell you. It is about some soldiers." George then told Egbert a long story about a colonel who sent a captain with a company of men on a secret expedition with specific orders, and the captain disobeyed the orders and crossed a stream with his force, when he had been directed to remain on the hither side of it, thinking himself that it would be better to cross, and in consequence of it he and all his force were captured by the enemy, who were lying in ambush near by, as the colonel knew, though the captain did not know it. George concluded his story with some very forcible remarks, showing, in a manner adapted to Egbert's state of mental development, how essential it was to the character of a good soldier that he should obey implicitly all the commands of his superior, without ever presuming to disregard them on the ground of his seeing good reason for doing so. He then went on to relate another story of an officer on whom the general could rely for implicit and unhesitating obedience to all his commands, and who was sent on an important expedition with orders, the reasons for which he did not understand, but all of which he promptly obeyed, and thus brought the expedition to a successful conclusion. He made the story interesting to Egbert by narrating many details of a character adapted to Egbert's comprehension, and at the end drew a moral from it for his instruction. _The Moral_. This moral was not, as some readers might perhaps anticipate, and as, indeed, many persons of less tact might have made it, that Egbert ought himself, as a boy, to obey those in authority over him. Instead of this he closed by saying: "And I advise you, if you grow up to be a man and ever become the general of an army, never to trust any captain or colonel with the charge of an important enterprise, unless they are men that know how to obey." Egbert answered very gravely that he was "determined that he wouldn't." Soon after this George bade him good-night and went away. The next day he told Egbert not to be discouraged at his not having yet learned to obey. "There are a great many boys older than you," he said, "who have not learned this lesson; but you will learn in time. I can't go a-fishing with you, or undertake any other great expeditions, till I find I can trust you entirely to do exactly as I say in cases where I have a right to decide; but you will learn before long, and then we can do a great many things together which we can not do now." _The Principles Illustrated_. Any one who has any proper understanding of the workings of the juvenile mind will see that George, by managing Egbert on these principles, would in a short time acquire complete ascendency over him, while the boy would very probably remain, in relation to his mother, as disobedient and insubordinate as ever. If the penalty annexed to the transgression is made as much as possible the necessary and natural consequence of it, and is insisted upon calmly, deliberately, and with inflexible decision, but without irritation, without reproaches, almost without any indications even of displeasure, but is, on the contrary, lightened as much as possible by sympathy and kindness, and by taking the most indulgent views, and admitting the most palliating considerations in respect to the nature of the offense, the result will certainly be the establishment of the authority of the parent or guardian on a firm and permanent basis. There are a great many cases of this kind, where a child with confirmed habits of insubordination comes under the charge of a person who is not responsible for the formation of these habits. Even the mother herself sometimes finds herself in substantially this position with her own children; as, for example, when after some years of lax and inefficient government she becomes convinced that her management has been wrong, and that it threatens to bring forth bitter fruits unless it is reformed. In these cases, although the work is somewhat more difficult, the principles on which success depends are the same. Slight penalties, firmly, decisively, and invariably enforced--without violence, without scolding, without any manifestation of resentment or anger, and, except in extreme cases, without even expressions of displeasure--constitute a system which, if carried out calmly, but with firmness and decision, will assuredly succeed. _The real Difficulty_. The case would thus seem to be very simple, and success very easy. But, alas! this is far from being the case. Nothing is required, it is true, but firmness, steadiness, and decision; but, unfortunately, these are the very requisites which, of all others, it seems most difficult for mothers to command. They can not govern their children because they can not govern themselves. Still, if the mother possess these qualities in any tolerable degree, or is able to acquire them, this method of training her children to the habit of submitting implicitly to her authority, by calmly and good-naturedly, but firmly and invariably, affixing some slight privation or penalty to every act of resistance to her will, is the easiest to practice, and will certainly be successful. It requires no ingenuity, no skill, no contrivance, no thought--nothing but steady persistence in a simple routine. This was the first of the three modes of action enumerated at the commencement of this discussion. There were two others named, which, though requiring higher qualities in the mother than simple steadiness of purpose, will make the work far more easy and agreeable, where these qualities are possessed. Some further consideration of the subject of punishment, with special reference to the light in which it is to be regarded in respect to its nature and its true mode of action, will occupy the next chapter. CHAPTER V. THE PHILOSOPHY OF PUNISHMENT. It is very desirable that every parent and teacher should have a distinct and clear conception of the true nature of punishment, and of the precise manner in which it is designed to act in repressing offenses. This is necessary in order that the punitive measures which he may employ may accomplish the desired good, and avoid the evils which so often follow in their train. _Nature and Design of Punishment_. The first question which is to be considered in determining upon the principles to be adopted and the course to be pursued with children in respect to punishment, is, which of the two views in respect to the nature and design of punishment which prevail in the minds of men we will adopt in shaping our system. For, 1. Punishment may be considered in the light of a vindictive retribution for sin--a penalty demanded by the eternal principles of justice as the natural and proper sequel and complement of the past act of transgression, with or without regard to any salutary effects that may result from it in respect to future acts. Or, 2. It may be considered as a remedial measure, adopted solely with reference to its influence as a means of deterring the subject of it, or others, from transgression in time to come. According to the first view, punishment is a _penalty_ which _justice_ demands as a satisfaction for the past. According to the other it is a _remedy_ which _goodness_ devises for the benefit of the future. Theologians have lost themselves in endless speculations on the question how far, in the government of God, punishment is to be considered as possessing one or the other of these two characters, or both combined. There seems to be also some uncertainty in the minds of men in relation to the precise light in which the penalties of violated law are to be regarded by civil governments, and the spirit in which they are to be administered--they being apparently, as prescribed and employed by most governments, in some respects, and to some extent, retributive and vindictive, and in other respects remedial and curative. It would seem, however, that in respect to school and family government there could be no question on this point. The punishment of a child by a parent, or of a pupil by a teacher, ought certainly, one would think, to exclude the element of vindictive retribution altogether, and to be employed solely with reference to the salutary influences that may be expected from it in time to come. If the injunction "Vengeance is mine, I will repay it, saith the Lord" is to be recognized at all, it certainly ought to be acknowledged here. This principle, once fully and cordially admitted, simplifies the subject of punishment, as administered by parents and teachers, very much. One extremely important and very striking result of it will appear from a moment's reflection. It is this, namely: It excludes completely and effectually all manifestations of irritation or excitement in the infliction of punishment--all harsh tones of voice, all scowling or angry looks, all violent or threatening gesticulations, and every other mode, in fact, of expressing indignation or passion. Such indications as these are wholly out of place in punishment considered as the _application of a remedy_ devised beneficently with the sole view of accomplishing a future good. They comport only with punishment considered as vengeance, or a vindictive retribution for the past sin. This idea is fundamental. The mother who is made angry by the misconduct of her children, and punishes them in a passion, acts under the influence of a brute instinct. Her family government is in principle the same as that of the lower animals over their young. It is, however, at any rate, a _government_; and such government is certainly better than none. But human parents, in the training of their human offspring, ought surely to aim at something higher and nobler. They who do so, who possess themselves fully with the idea that punishment, as they are to administer it, is wholly remedial in its character--that is to say, is to be considered solely with reference to the future good to be attained by it, will have established in their minds a principle that will surely guide them into right ways, and bring them out successfully in the end. They will soon acquire the habit of never threatening, of never punishing in anger, and of calmly considering, in the case of the faults which they observe in their children, what course of procedure will be most effectual in correcting them. Parents seem sometimes to have an idea that a manifestation of something like anger--or, at least, very serious displeasure on their part--is necessary in order to make a proper impression in respect to its fault on the mind of the child. This, however, I think, is a mistake. The impression is made by what we _do_, and not by the indications of irritation or displeasure which we manifest in doing it. To illustrate this, I will state a case, narrating all its essential points just as it occurred. The case is very analogous, in many particulars, to that of Egbert and George related in the last chapter. _Mary's Walk_. "Mary," said Mary's aunt, Jane, who had come to make a visit at Mary's mother's in the country, "I am going to the village this afternoon, and if you would like you may go with me." Mary was, of course, much pleased with this invitation. "A part of the way," continued her aunt, "is by a path across the fields. While we are there you must keep in the path all the time, for it rained a little this morning, and I am afraid that the grass may not be quite dry." "Yes, Aunt Jane; I'll keep in the path," said Mary. So they set out on the walk together. When they came to the gate which led to the path across the fields, Aunt Jane said, "Remember, Mary, you must keep in the path." Mary said nothing, but ran forward. Pretty soon she began to walk a little on the margin of the grass, and, before long, observing a place where the grass was short and where the sun shone, she ran out boldly upon it, and then, looking down at her shoes, she observed that they were not wet. She held up one of her feet to her aunt as she came opposite to the place, saying, "See, aunt, the grass is not wet at all." "I see it is not," said her aunt. "I _thought_ it would not be wet; though I was not sure but that it might be. But come," she added, holding out her hand, "I have concluded not to go to the village, after all. We are going back home." "Oh, Aunt Jane!" said Mary, following her aunt as she began retracing her steps along the path. "What is that for?" "I have altered my mind," said her aunt. "What makes you alter your mind?" By this time Aunt Jane had taken hold of Mary's hand, and they were walking together along the path towards home. "Because you don't obey me," she said. "Why, auntie," said Mary, "the grass was not wet at all where I went." "No," said her aunt, "it was perfectly dry." "And it did not do any harm at all for me to walk upon it," said Mary. "Not a bit of harm," said her aunt. "Then why are you going home?" asked Mary. "Because you don't obey me," replied her aunt. "You see," said her aunt, "there is one thing about this that you don't understand, because you are such a little girl. You will understand it by-and-by, when you grow older; and I don't blame you for not knowing it now, because you are so young." "What is it that I don't know?" asked Mary. "I am afraid you would not understand it very well if I were to explain it," replied her aunt. "Try me," said Mary. "Well, you see," replied her aunt, "I don't feel safe with any child that does not obey me. This time no harm was done, because the grass happened to be dry; but farther on there was a brook. I might have told you not to go near the brink of the brook for fear of your falling in. Then you might have gone, notwithstanding, if you thought there was no danger, just as you went out upon the grass because you thought it was not wet, notwithstanding my saying that you must keep in the path. So you see I never feel safe in taking walks in places where there is any danger with children that I can not always depend upon to do exactly what I say." Mary was, of course, now ready to make profuse promises that she would obey her aunt in future on all occasions and began to beg that she would continue her walk to the village. "No," said her aunt, "I don't think it would be quite safe for me to trust to your promises, though I have no doubt you honestly mean to keep them. But you remember you promised me that you would keep in the path when we planned this walk; and yet when the time of temptation came you could not keep the promise; but you will learn. When I am going on some perfectly safe walk I will take you with me again; and if I stay here some time you will learn to obey me so perfectly that I can take you with me to any place, no matter how dangerous it may be." Aunt Jane thus gently, but firmly, persisted in abandoning the walk to the village, and returning home; but she immediately turned the conversation away from the subject of Mary's fault, and amused her with stories and aided her in gathering flowers, just as if nothing had happened; and when she arrived at home she said nothing to any one of Mary's disobedience. Here now was punishment calculated to make a very strong impression--but still without scolding, without anger, almost, in fact, without even any manifestations of displeasure. And yet how long can any reasonable person suppose it would be before Mary would learn, if her aunt acted invariably on the same principles, to submit implicitly to her will? _A Different Management_. Compare the probable result of this mode of management with the scolding and threatening policy. Suppose Aunt Jane had called to Mary angrily, "Mary! Mary! come directly back into the path. I told you not to go out of the path, and you are a very naughty child to disobey me. The next time you disobey me in that way I will send you directly home." Mary would have been vexed and irritated, perhaps, and would have said to herself, "How cross Aunt Jane is to-day!" but the "next time" she would have been as disobedient as ever. If mothers, instead of scowling, scolding, and threatening now, and putting off doing the thing that ought to be done to the "next time," would do that thing at once, and give up the scowling, scolding, and threatening altogether, they would find all parties immensely benefited by the change. It is evident, moreover, that by this mode of management the punishment is employed not in the way of retribution, but as a remedy. Mary loses her walk not on the ground that she deserved to lose it, but because it was not safe to continue it. _An Objection_. Some mother may perhaps say, in reference to the case of Mary and her aunt, that it may be all very well in theory, but that practically mothers have not the leisure and the means for adopting such moderate measures. We can not stop, she may say, every time we are going to the village, on important business perhaps, and turn back and lose the afternoon on account of the waywardness of a disobedient child. My answer is that it will not have to be done _every time,_ but only very seldom. The effect of acting once or twice on this principle, with the certainty on the part of the child that the mother or the aunt will always act so when the occasion calls for it, very soon puts an end to all necessity for such action. Indeed, if Mary, in the instance above given, had been managed in this way from infancy, she would not have thought of leaving the path when forbidden to do so. It is only in some such case as that of an aunt who knows how to manage right, coming as a visitor into the family of a mother who manages wrong, that such an incident as this could occur. Still it must be admitted that the gentle methods of discipline, which reason and common sense indicate as the true ones for permanently influencing the minds of children and forming their characters, do, in each individual case, require more time and care than the cuffs and slaps dictated by passion. A box on the ear, such as a cat gives to a rebellious kitten, is certainly the _quickest_ application that can be made. The measures that are calculated to reach and affect the heart can not vie with blows and scoldings in respect to the promptness of their action. Still, the parent or the teacher who will begin to act on the principles here recommended with children while they are young will find that such methods are far more prompt in their action and more effectual in immediate results than they would suppose, and that they will be the means of establishing the only kind of authority that is really worthy of the name more rapidly than any other. The special point, however, with a view to which these illustrations are introduced, is, as has been already remarked, that penalties of this nature, and imposed in this spirit, are not vindictive, but simply remedial and reformatory. They are not intended to satisfy the sense of justice for what is past, but only to secure greater safety and happiness in time to come. _The Element of Invariableness_. Punishments may be very light and gentle in their character, provided they are certain to follow the offense. It is in their _certainty_, and not in their _severity_, that the efficiency of them lies. Very few children are ever severely burnt by putting their fingers into the flame of a candle. They are effectually taught not to put them in by very slight burnings, on account of the _absolute invariableness_ of the result produced by the contact. Mothers often do not understand this. They attempt to cure some habitual fault by scoldings and threats, and declarations of what they will certainly do "next time," and perhaps by occasional acts of real severity in cases of peculiar aggravation, instead of a quiet, gentle, and comparatively trifling infliction in _every instance_ of the fault, which would be altogether more effectual. A child, for example, has acquired the habit of leaving the door open. Now occasionally scolding him, when it is specially cold, and now and then shutting him up in a closet for half an hour, will never cure him of the fault. But if there were an automaton figure standing by the side of the door, to say to him _every time_ that he came through without shutting it, _Door_! which call should be a signal to him to go back and shut the door, and then sit down in a chair near by and count ten; and if this slight penalty was _invariably_ enforced, he would be most effectually cured of the fault in a very short time. Now, the mother can not be exactly this automaton, for she can not always be there; but she can recognize the principle, and carry it into effect as far as possible--that is, _invariably, when she is there_. And though she will not thus cure the boy of the fault so soon as the automaton would do it, she will still do it very soon. _Irritation and Anger_. Avoid, as much as possible, every thing of an irritating character in the punishments inflicted, for to irritate frequently the mind of a child tends, of course, to form within him an irritable and unamiable temper. It is true, perhaps, that it is not possible absolutely to avoid this effect of punishment in all cases; but a great deal may be done to diminish the evil by the exercise of a little tact and ingenuity on the part of the mother whose attention is once particularly directed to the subject. The first and most important measure of precaution on this point is the absolute exclusion of every thing like angry looks and words as accompaniments of punishment. If you find that any wrong which your child commits awakens irritation or anger in your mind, suspend your judgment of the case and postpone all action until the irritation and anger have subsided, and you can consider calmly and deliberately what to do, with a view, not of satisfying your own resentment, but of doing good to the child. Then, when you have decided what to do, carry your decision into effect in a good-natured manner--firmly and inflexibly--but still without any violence, or even harshness, of manner. _Co-operation of the Offender_. There are many cases in which, by the exercise of a little tact and ingenuity, the parent can actually secure the _co-operation_ of the child in the infliction of the punishment prescribed for the curing of a fault. There are many advantages in this, when it can be done. It gives the child an interest in curing himself of the fault; it makes the punishment more effectual; and it removes almost all possibility of its producing any irritation or resentment in his mind. To illustrate this we will give a case. It is of no consequence, for the purpose of this article, whether it is a real or an imaginary one. Little Egbert, seven years old, had formed the habit so common among children of wasting a great deal of time in dressing himself, so as not to be ready for breakfast when the second bell rang. His mother offered him a reward if he would himself devise any plan that would cure him of the fault. "I don't know what to do, exactly, to cure you," she said; "but if you will think of any plan that will really succeed, I will give you an excursion in a carriage." "How far?" asked Egbert. "Ten miles," said his mother. "I will take you in a carriage on an excursion anywhere you say, for ten miles, if you will find out some way to cure yourself of this fault." "I think you ought to punish me," said Egbert, speaking in rather a timid tone. "That's just it," said his mother, "It is for you to think of some kind of punishment that won't be too disagreeable for me to inflict, and which will yet be successful in curing you of the fault. I will allow you a fortnight to get cured. If you are not cured in a fortnight I shall think the punishment is not enough, or that it is not of a good kind; but if it works so well as to cure you in a fortnight, then you shall have the ride." Egbert wished to know whether he must think of the punishment himself, or whether his sister Mary might help him. His mother gave him leave to ask any body to help him that he pleased. Mary, after some reflection, recommended that, whenever he was not dressed in time, he was to have only one lump of sugar, instead of four, in his tumbler of water for breakfast. His usual drink at breakfast was a tumbler of water, with four lumps of sugar in it. The first bell was rung at half-past six, and breakfast was at half-past seven. His sister recommended that, as half an hour was ample time for the work of dressing, Egbert should go down every morning and report himself ready before the clock struck seven. If he failed of this, he was to have only one lump of sugar, instead of four, in his glass of water. There was some question about the necessity of requiring him to be ready before seven; Egbert being inclined to argue that if he was ready by breakfast-time, that would be enough. But Mary said no. "To allow you a full hour to dress," she said, "when half an hour is enough, may answer very well in respect to having you ready for breakfast, but it is no way to cure you of the fault. That would enable you to play half of the time while you are dressing, without incurring the punishment; but the way to cure you is to make it sure that you will have the punishment to bear if you play at all." So it was decided to allow only half an hour for the dressing-time. Egbert's mother said she was a little afraid about the one lump of sugar that was left to him when he failed. "The plan _may_ succeed," she said; "I am very willing that you should try it; but I am afraid that when you are tempted to stop and play in the midst of your dressing, you will say, I shall have _one_ lump of sugar, at any rate, and so will yield to the temptation. So perhaps it would be safer for you to make the rule that you are not to have any sugar at all when you fail. Still, _perhaps_ your plan will succeed. You can try it and see. I should wish myself to have the punishment as slight as possible to produce the effect." By such management as this, it is plain that Egbert is brought into actual co-operation with his mother in the infliction of a punishment to cure him of a fault. It is true, that making such an arrangement as this, and then leaving it to its own working, would lead to no result. As in the case of all other plans and methods, it must be strictly, firmly, and perseveringly followed up by the watchful efficiency of the mother. We can not _substitute_ the action of the child for that of the parent in the work of early training, but we can often derive very great advantage by securing his cooperation. _Playful Punishments_. So true is it that the efficacy of any mode of punishment consists in the _certainty of its infliction_, that even playful punishments are in many cases sufficient to accomplish the cure of a fault. George, for example, was in the habit of continually getting into disputes and mild quarrels with his sister Amelia, a year or two younger than himself. "I know it is very foolish," he said to his mother, when she was talking with him on the subject one evening after he had gone to bed, and she had been telling him a story, and his mind was in a calm and tranquil state. "It is very foolish, but somehow I can't help it. I forget." "Then you must have some punishment to make you remember," said his mother. "But sometimes _she_ is the one to blame," said George, "and then she must have the punishment." "No," replied his mother. "When a lady and a gentleman become involved in a dispute in polite society, it is always the gentleman that must be considered to be to blame." "But Amelia and I are not polite society," said George. "You ought to be," said his mother. "At any rate, when you, an older brother, get into disputes with your sister, it is because you have not sense enough to manage so as to avoid them. If you were a little older and wiser you would have sense enough." "Well, mother, what shall the punishment be?" said George. "Would you really like to have a punishment, so as to cure yourself of the fault?" asked his mother. George said that he _would_ like one. "Then," said his mother, "I propose that every time you get into a dispute with Amelia, you turn your jacket wrong side out, and wear it so a little while as a symbol of folly." George laughed heartily at this idea, and said he should like such a punishment as that very much. It would only be fun, he said. His mother explained to him that it would be fun, perhaps, two or three times, but after that it would only be a trouble; but still, if they decided upon that as a punishment, he must submit to it in every case. Every time he found himself getting into any dispute or difficulty with his sister, he must stop at once and turn his jacket inside out; and if he did not himself think to do this, she herself, if she was within hearing, would simply say, "Jacket!" and then he must do it. "No matter which of us is most to blame?" asked George. "You will always be the one that is most to blame," replied his mother, "or, at least, almost always. When a boy is playing with a sister younger than himself, _he_ is the one that is most to blame for the quarrelling. His sister may be to blame by doing something wrong in the first instance; but he is the one to blame for allowing it to lead to a quarrel. If it is a little thing, he ought to yield to her, and not to mind it; and if it is a great thing, he ought to go away and leave her, rather than to stop and quarrel about it. So you see you will be the one to blame for the quarrel in almost all cases. There may possibly be some cases where you will not be to blame at all, and then you will have to be punished when you don't deserve it, and you must bear it like a man. This is a liability that happens under all systems." "We will try the plan for one fortnight," she continued. "So now remember, every single time that I hear you disputing or quarrelling with Amelia, you must take off your jacket and put it on again wrong side out--no matter whether you think you were to blame or not--and wear it so a few minutes. You can wear it so for a longer or shorter time, just as you think is best to make the punishment effectual in curing you of the fault. By the end of the fortnight we shall be able to see whether the plan is working well and doing any good." "So now," continued his mother, "shut up your eyes and go to sleep. You are a good boy to wish to cure yourself of such faults, and to be willing to help me in contriving ways to do it. And I have no doubt that you will submit to this punishment good-naturedly every time, and not make me any trouble about it." Let it be remembered, now, that the efficacy of such management as this consists not in the devising of it, nor in holding such a conversation as the above with the boy--salutary as this might be--but in the _faithfulness and strictness with which it is followed up_ during the fortnight of trial. In the case in question, the progress which George made in diminishing his tendency to get into disputes with his sister was so great that his mother told him, at the end of the first fortnight, that their plan had succeeded "admirably"--so much so, she said, that she thought the punishment of taking off his jacket and turning it inside out would be for the future unnecessarily severe, and she proposed to substitute for it taking off his cap, and putting it on wrong side before. The reader will, of course, understand that the object of such an illustration as this is not to recommend the particular measure here described for adoption in other cases, but to illustrate the spirit and temper of mind in which all measures adopted by the mother in the training of her children should be carried into effect. Measures that involve no threats, no scolding, no angry manifestations of displeasure, but are even playful in their character, may be very efficient in action if they are firmly and perseveringly maintained. _Punishments that are the Natural Consequence of the Offense_. There is great advantage in adapting the character of the punishment to that of the fault--making it, as far as possible, the natural and proper consequence of it. For instance, if the boys of a school do not come in promptly at the close of the twenty minutes' recess, but waste five minutes by their dilatoriness in obeying the summons of the bell, and the teacher keeps them for _five minutes beyond the usual hour of dismissal_, to make up for the lost time, the punishment may be felt by them to be deserved, and it may have a good effect in diminishing the evil it is intended to remedy; but it will probably excite a considerable degree of mental irritation, if not of resentment, on the part of the children, which will diminish the good effect, or is, at any rate, an evil which is to be avoided if possible. If now, on the other hand, he assigns precisely the same penalty in another form, the whole of the good effect may be secured without the evil. Suppose he addresses the boys just before they are to go out at the next recess, as follows: "I think, boys, that twenty minutes is about the right length of time for the recess, all told--that is, from the time you go out to the time when you are _all_ back in your seats again, quiet and ready to resume your studies. I found yesterday that it took five minutes for you all to come in--that is, that it was five minutes from the time the bell was rung before all were in their seats; and to-day I shall ring the bell after _fifteen_ minutes, so as to give you time to come in. If I find to-day that it takes ten minutes, then I will give you more time to come in to-morrow, by ringing the bell after you have been out _ten_ minutes." "I am sorry to have you lose so much of your recess, and if you can make the time for coming in shorter, then, of course, your recess can be longer. I should not wonder if, after a few trials, you should find that you could all come in and get into your places in _one_ minute; and if so, I shall be very glad, for then you can have an uninterrupted recess of _nineteen_ minutes, which will be a great gain." Every one who has had any considerable experience in the management of boys will readily understand how different the effect of this measure will be from that of the other, while yet the penalty is in both cases precisely the same--namely, the loss, for the boys, of five minutes of their play. _The Little Runaway_. In the same manner, where a child three or four years old was in the habit, when allowed to go out by himself in the yard to play, of running off into the street, a very appropriate punishment would be to require him, for the remainder of the day, to stay in the house and keep in sight of his mother, on the ground that it was not safe to trust him by himself in the yard. This would be much better than sending him to bed an hour earlier, or subjecting him to any other inconvenience or privation having no obvious connection with the fault. For it is of the greatest importance to avoid, by every means, the exciting of feelings of irritation and resentment in the mind of the child, so far as it is possible to do this without impairing the efficiency of the punishment. It is not always possible to do this. The efficiency of the punishment is, of course, the essential thing; but parents and teachers who turn their attention to the point will find that it is much less difficult than one would suppose to secure this end completely without producing the too frequent accompaniments of punishment--anger, ill-temper, and ill-will. [Illustration: "IT IS NOT SAFE"] In the case, for example, of the child not allowed to go out into the yard, but required to remain in the house in sight of his mother, the mother should not try to make the punishment _more heavy_ by speaking again and again of his fault, and evincing her displeasure by trying to make the confinement as irksome to the child as possible; but, on the other hand, should do all in her power to alleviate it. "I am very sorry," she might say, "to have to keep you in the house. It would be much pleasanter for you to go out and play in the yard, if it was only safe. I don't blame you very much for running away. It is what foolish little children, as little as you, very often do. I suppose you thought it would be good fun to run out a little way in the street. And it is good fun; but it is not safe. By-and-by, when you grow a little larger, you won't be so foolish, and then I can trust you in the yard at any time without having to watch you at all. And now what can I get for you to amuse you while you stay in the house with me?" Punishment coming in this way, and administered in this spirit, will irritate the mind and injure the temper comparatively little; and, instead of being less; will be much more effective in accomplishing the _right kind_ of cure for the fault, than any stern, severe, and vindictive retribution can possibly be. _The Question of Corporal Punishment_. The question of resorting to corporal punishment in the training of the young has been much, very much, argued and discussed on both sides by writers on education; but it seems to me to be mainly a question of competency and skill. If the parent or teacher has tact or skill enough, and practical knowledge enough of the workings of the youthful mind, he can gain all the necessary ascendency over it without resort to the violent infliction of bodily pain in any form. If he has not these qualities, then he must turn to the next best means at his disposal; for it is better that a child should be trained and governed by the rod than not trained and governed at all. I do not suppose that savages could possibly control their children without blows; while, on the other hand, Maria Edgeworth would have brought under complete submission to her will a family of the most ardent and impulsive juveniles, perhaps without even a harsh word or a frown. If a mother begins with children at the beginning, is just and true in all her dealings with them, gentle in manner, but inflexibly firm in act, and looks constantly for Divine guidance and aid in her conscientious efforts to do her duty, I feel quite confident that it will never be necessary for her to strike them. The necessity may, however, sooner or later come, for aught I know, in the case of those who act on the contrary principle. Under such management, the rod may come to be the only alternative to absolute unmanageableness and anarchy. There will be occasion, however, to refer to this subject more fully in a future chapter. CHAPTER VI. REWARDING OBEDIENCE. The mode of action described in the last two chapters for training children to habits of obedience consisted in discouraging disobedience by connecting some certain, though mild and gentle disadvantage, inconvenience, or penalty, with every transgression. In this chapter is to be considered another mode, which is in some respects the converse of the first, inasmuch as it consists in the encouragement of obedience, by often--not necessarily always--connecting with it some advantage, or gain, or pleasure; or, as it may be stated summarily, the cautious encouragement of obedience by rewards. This method of action is more difficult than the other in the sense that it requires more skill, tact, and delicacy of perception and discrimination to carry it successfully into effect. The other demands only firm, but gentle and steady persistence. If the penalty, however slight it may be, _always comes,_ the effect will take care of itself. But judiciously to administer a system of rewards, or even of commendations, requires tact, discrimination, and skill. It requires some observation of the peculiar characteristics of the different minds acted upon, and of the effects produced, and often some intelligent modification of the measures is required, to fit them to varying circumstances and times. _Obedience must not be Bought_. If the bestowing of commendation and rewards is made a matter of mere blind routine, as the assigning of gentle penalties may be, the result will become a mere system of _bribing_, or rather paying children to be good; and goodness that is bought, if it deserves the name of virtue at all, is certainly virtue of a very inferior quality. Whether a reward conferred for obedience shall operate as a bribe, or rather as a price paid--for a _bribe_, strictly speaking, is a price paid, not for doing right, but for doing wrong--depends sometimes on very slight differences in the management of the particular case--differences which an undiscriminating mother will not be very ready to appreciate. A mother, for example, going into the village on a summer afternoon, leaves her children playing in the yard, under the general charge of Susan, who is at work in the kitchen, whence she can observe them from time to time through the open window. She thinks the children will be safe, provided they remain in the yard. The only thing to be guarded against is the danger that they may go out through the gate into the road. _Two Different Modes of Management_. Under some circumstances, as, for example, where the danger to which they would be exposed in going into the road was very great, or where the mother can not rely upon her power to control her children's conduct by moral means in any way, the only safe method would be to fasten the gate. But if she prefers to depend for their safety on their voluntary obedience to her commands, and wishes, moreover, to promote the spirit of obedience by rewarding rather than punishing, she can make her rewards of the nature of hire or not, according to her mode of management. If she wishes to _hire_ obedience, she has only to say to the children that she is going into the village for a little time, and that they may play in the yard while she is gone, but must not go out of the gate; adding, that she is going to bring home some oranges or candies, which she will give them if she finds that they have obeyed her, but which she will not give them if they have disobeyed. Such a promise, provided the children have the double confidence in their mother which such a method requires--namely, first, a full belief that she will really bring home the promised rewards, if they obey her; and secondly--and this is a confidence much less frequently felt by children, and much less frequently deserved by their mothers--a conviction that, in case they disobey, no importunities on their part or promises for the next time will induce their mother to give them the good things, but that the rewards will certainly be lost to them unless they are deserved, according to the conditions of the promise--in such a case--that is, when this double confidence exists, the promise will have great influence upon the children. Still, it is, in its nature, _hiring_ them to obey. I do not say that this is necessarily a bad plan, though I think there is a better. Children may, perhaps, be trained gradually to habits of obedience by a system of direct rewards, and in a manner, too, far more agreeable to the parent and better for the child than by a system of compulsion through threats and punishment. _The Method of Indirect Rewarding_. But there is another way of connecting pleasurable ideas and associations with submission to parental authority in the minds of children, as a means of alluring them to the habit of obedience--one that is both more efficient in its results and more healthful and salutary in its action than the practice of bestowing direct recompenses and rewards. Suppose, for example, in the case above described, the mother, on leaving the children, simply gives them the command that they are not to leave the yard, but makes no promises, and then, on returning from the village with the bonbons in her bag, simply asks Susan, when she comes in, whether the children have obeyed her injunction not to leave the yard. If Susan says yes, she nods to them, with a look of satisfaction and pleasure, and adds: "I thought they would obey me. I am very glad. Now I can trust them again." Then, by-and-by, towards the close of the day, perhaps, and when the children suppose that the affair is forgotten, she takes an opportunity to call them to her, saying that she has something to tell them. "You remember when I went to the village to-day, I left you in the yard and said that you must not go out of the gate, and you obeyed. Perhaps you would have liked to go out into the road and play there, but you would not go because I had forbidden it. I am very glad that you obeyed. I thought of you when I was in the village, and I thought you would obey me. I felt quite safe about you. If you had been disobedient children, I should have felt uneasy and anxious. But I felt safe. When I had finished my shopping, I thought I would buy you some bonbons, and here they are. You can go and sit down together on the carpet and divide them. Mary can choose one, and then Jane; then Mary, and then Jane again; and so on until they are all chosen." _Difference in the Character of the Effects_. It may, perhaps, be said by the reader that this is substantially the same as giving a direct reward for the obedience. I admit that it is in some sense _substantially_ the same thing, but it is not the same in form. And this is one of those cases where the effect is modified very greatly by the form. Where children are directly promised a reward if they do so and so, they naturally regard the transaction as of the nature of a contract or a bargain, such that when they have fulfilled the conditions on their part the reward is their due, as, indeed, it really is; and they come and demand it as such. The tendency, then, is, to divest their minds of all sense of obligation in respect to doing right, and to make them feel that it is in some sense optional with them whether to do right and earn the reward, or not to do right and lose it. In the case, however, last described, which seems at first view to differ only in form from the preceding one, the commendation and the bonbons would be so connected with the act of obedience as to associate very agreeable ideas with it in the children's minds, and thus to make doing right appear attractive to them on future occasions, while, at the same time, they would not in any degree deprive the act itself of its spontaneous character, as resulting from a sense of duty on their part, or produce the impression on their minds that their remaining within the gate was of the nature of a service rendered to their mother for hire, and afterwards duly paid for. The lesson which we deduce from this illustration and the considerations connected with it may be stated as follows: _The General Principle_. That the rewards conferred upon children with a view of connecting pleasurable ideas and associations with good conduct should not take the form of compensations stipulated for beforehand, and then conferred according to agreement, as if they were of the nature of payment for a service rendered, but should come as the natural expression of the satisfaction and happiness felt by the mother in the good conduct of her child--expressions as free and spontaneous on her part as the good conduct was on the part of the child. The mother who understands the full import of this principle, and whose mind becomes fully possessed of it, will find it constantly coming into practical use in a thousand ways. She has undertaken, for example, to teach her little son to read. Of course learning to read is irksome to him. He dislikes extremely to leave his play and come to take his lesson. Sometimes a mother is inconsiderate enough to be pained at this. She is troubled to find that her boy takes so little interest in so useful a work, and even, perhaps, scolds him, and threatens him for not loving study. "If you don't learn to read," she says to him, in a tone of irritation and displeasure, "you will grow up a dunce, and every body will laugh at you, and you will be ashamed to be seen." _Children's Difficulties_. But let her imagine that she herself was to be called away two or three times a day, for half an hour, to study Chinese, with a very exacting teacher, always more or less impatient and dissatisfied with her progress; and yet the irksomeness and difficulty for the mother, in learning to decipher Chinese, would be as nothing compared with that of the child in learning to read. The only thing that could make the work even tolerable to the mother would be a pretty near, distinct, and certain prospect of going to China under circumstances that would make the knowledge of great advantage to her. But the child has no such near, distinct, and certain prospect of the advantages of knowing how to read. He has scarcely any idea of these advantages at all. You can describe them to him, but the description will have no perceptible effect upon his mind. Those faculties by which we bring the future vividly before us so as to influence our present action, are not yet developed. His cerebral organization has not yet advanced to that condition, any more than his bones have advanced to the hardness, rigidness, and strength of manhood. His mind is only capable of being influenced strongly by what is present, or, at least, very near. It is the design of Divine Providence that this should be so. The child is not made to look forward much yet, and the mother who is pained and distressed because he will not look forward, shows a great ignorance of the nature of the infantile mind, and of the manner of its development. If she finds fault with her boy for not feeling distinctly enough the future advantages of learning to lead him to love study now, she is simply finding fault with a boy for not being possessed of the most slowly developed faculties of a man. The way, then, to induce children to attend to such duties as learning to read, is not to reason with them on the advantages of it, but to put it simply on the ground of authority. "It is very irksome, I know, but you must do it. When you are at play, and having a very pleasant time, I know very well that it is hard for you to be called away to puzzle over your letters and your reading. It was very hard for me when I was a child. It is very hard for all children; but then it must be done." The way in this, as in all other similar cases, to reduce the irksomeness of disagreeable duties to a minimum is not to attempt to convince or persuade the child, but to put the performance of them simply on the ground of submission to authority. The child must leave his play and come to take his lesson, not because he sees that it is better for him to learn to read than to play all the time, nor because he is to receive a reward in the form of compensation, but because his mother requires him to do it. _Indirect Rewarding_. If, therefore, she concludes, in order to connect agreeable ideas with the hard work of learning to read, that she will often, at the close of the lessons, tell him a little story, or show him a picture, or have a frolic with him, or give him a piece of candy or a lump of sugar, or bestow upon him any other little gratification, it is better not to promise these things beforehand, so as to give to the coming of the child, when called, the character of a service rendered for hire. Let him come simply because he is called; and then let the gratifications be bestowed as the expressions of his mother's satisfaction and happiness, in view of her boy's ready obedience to her commands and faithful performance of his duty. _Obedience, though Implicit, need not be Blind_. It must not be supposed from what has been said that because a mother is not to _rely upon_ the reason and forecast of the child in respect to future advantages to accrue from efforts or sacrifices as motives of present action, that she is not to employ the influence of these motives at all. It is true that those faculties of the mind by which we apprehend distant things and govern our conduct by them are not yet developed in the child; but they are _to be_ developed, and the aid of the parent will be of the greatest service in promoting the development of them. At proper times, then, the pleasures and advantages of knowing how to read should be described to the child, and presented moreover in the most attractive form. The proper time for doing this would be when no lesson is in question-- during a ride or a walk, or in the midst of a story, or while looking at a book of pictures. A most improper time would be when a command had been given and was disregarded, or was reluctantly obeyed; for then such representations would only tend to enfeeble the principle of authority by bringing in the influence of reasonings and persuasions to make up for its acknowledged inefficiency. It is one of those cases where a force is weakened by reinforcement--as a plant, by being long held up by a stake, comes in the end not to be able to stand alone. So a mother can not in any way more effectually undermine her authority, as _authority_, than by attempting to eke out its force by arguments and coaxings. _Authority not to be made Oppressive_. While the parent must thus take care to establish the _principle of authority_ as the ground of obedience on the part of his children, and must not make their doing what he requires any the less acts of _obedience_, through vainly attempting to diminish the hardship of obeying a command by mingling the influence of reasonings and persuasions with it, he may in other ways do all in his power--and that will be a great deal--to make the acts of obedience easy, or, at least, to diminish the difficulty of them and the severity of the trial which they often bring to the child. One mode by which this may be done is by not springing disagreeable obligations upon a child suddenly, but by giving his mind a little time to form itself to the idea of what is to come. When Johnny and Mary are playing together happily with their blocks upon the floor, and are, perhaps, just completing a tower which they have been building, if their mother comes suddenly into the room, announces to them abruptly that it is time for them to go to bed, throws down the tower and brushes the blocks into the basket, and then hurries the children away to the undressing, she gives a sudden and painful shock to their whole nervous system, and greatly increases the disappointment and pain which they experience in being obliged to give up their play. The delay of a single minute would be sufficient to bring their minds round easily and gently into submission to the necessity of the case. If she comes to them with a smile, looks upon their work a moment with an expression of interest and pleasure upon her countenance, and then says, "It is bed-time, children, but I would like to see you finish your tower." One minute of delay like this, to soften the suddenness of the transition, will make the act of submission to the necessity of giving up play and going to bed, in obedience to the mother's command, comparatively easy, instead of being, as it very likely would otherwise have been, extremely vexatious and painful. _Give a Little Time_. In the same way, in bringing to a close an evening party of children at play, if the lady of the house comes a little before the time and says to them that after "one more play," or "two more plays," as the case may be," the party must come to an end," the closing of it would be made easy; while by waiting till the hour had come, and then suddenly interrupting the gayety, perhaps in the middle of a game, by the abrupt announcement to the children that the clock has struck, and they must stop their plays and begin to get ready to go home, she brings upon them a sudden shock of painful surprise, disappointment, and, perhaps, irritation. So, if children are to be called away from their play for any purpose whatever, it is always best to give them a little notice, if it be only a moment's notice, beforehand. "John, in a minute or two I shall wish you to go and get some wood. You can be getting your things ready to be left." "Mary, it is almost time for your lesson. You had better put Dolly to sleep and lay her in the cradle." "Boys, in ten minutes it will be time for you to go to school. So do not begin any new whistles, but only finish what you have begun." On the same principle, if boys are at play in the open air--at ball, or skating, or flying kites--and are to be recalled by a bell, obedience to the call will be made much more easy to them by a preliminary signal, as a warning, given five minutes before the time. Of course, it will not always be convenient to give these signals and these times of preparation. Nor will it be always necessary to give them. To determine how and in what cases it is best to apply the principle here explained will require some tact and good judgment on the part of the parent. It would be folly to lay down a rigid rule of this kind to be considered as always obligatory. All that is desirable is that the mother should understand the principle, and that she should apply it as far as she conveniently and easily can do so. She will find in practice that when she once appreciates the value of it, and observes its kind and beneficent working, she will find it convenient and easy to apply it far more generally than she would suppose. _No weakening of Authority in this_. It is very plain that softening thus the hardship for the child of any act of obedience required of him by giving him a little time implies no abatement of the authority of the parent, nor does it detract at all from the implicitness of the obedience on the part of the child. The submission to authority is as complete in doing a thing in five minutes if the order was to do it in five minutes, as in doing it at once if the order was to do it at once. And the mother must take great care, when thus trying to make obedience more easy by allowing time, that it should be prompt and absolute when the time has expired. The idea is, that though the parent is bound fully to maintain his authority over his children, in all its force, he is also bound to make the exercise of it as little irksome and painful to them as possible, and to prevent as much as possible the pressure of it from encroaching upon their juvenile joys. He must insist inexorably on being obeyed; but he is bound to do all in his power to make the yoke of obedience light and easily to be borne. _Influence on the healthful Development of the Brain_. Indeed, besides the bearing of these views on the happiness of the children, it is not at all improbable that the question of health may be seriously involved in them. For, however certain we may be of the immateriality of the soul in its essence, it is a perfectly well established fact that all its operations and functions, as an animating spirit in the human body, are fulfilled through the workings of material organs in the brain; that these organs are in childhood in an exceedingly immature, tender, and delicate condition; and that all sudden, sharp, and, especially, painful emotions, greatly excite, and sometimes cruelly irritate them. When we consider how seriously the action of the digestive organs, in persons in an ordinary state of health, is often interfered with by mental anxiety or distress; how frequently, in persons subject to headaches, the paroxysm is brought on by worryings or perplexities endured incidentally on the preceding day; and especially how often violent and painful emotions, when they are extreme, result in decided and sometimes in permanent and hopeless insanity--that is, in an irreparable damage to some delicate mechanism in the brain--we shall see that there is every reason for supposing that all sudden shocks to the nervous system of children, all violent and painful excitements, all vexations and irritations, and ebullitions of ill-temper and anger, have a tendency to disturb the healthy development of the cerebral organs, and may, in many cases, seriously affect the future health and welfare, as well as the present happiness, of the child. It is true that mental disturbances and agitations of this kind can not be wholly avoided. But they should be avoided as far as possible; and the most efficient means for avoiding them is a firm, though calm and gentle, establishment and maintenance of parental authority, and not, as many mothers very mistakingly imagine, by unreasonable indulgences, and by endeavors to manage their children by persuasions, bribings, and manoeuvrings, instead of by commands. The most indulged children, and the least governed, are always the most petulant and irritable; while a strong government, if regular, uniform, and just, and if administered by gentle measures, is the most effectual of all possible instrumentalities for surrounding childhood with an atmosphere of calmness and peace. In a word, while the mother is bound to do all in her power to render submission to her authority easy and agreeable to her children, by softening as much as possible the disappointment and hardship which her commands sometimes occasion, and by connecting pleasurable ideas and sensations with acts of obedience on the part of the child, she must not at all relax the authority itself, but must maintain it under all circumstances in its full force, with a very firm and decided, though still gentle hand. CHAPTER VII. THE ART OF TRAINING. It is very clear that the most simple and the most obvious of the modes by which a parent may establish among his children the habit of submission to his authority, are those which have been already described, namely, punishments and rewards--punishments, gentle in their character, but invariably enforced, as the sure results of acts of insubordination; and rewards for obedience, occasionally and cautiously bestowed, in such a manner that they may be regarded as recognitions simply, on the part of the parent, of the good conduct of his children, and expressions of his gratification, and not in the light of payment or hire. These are obviously the most simple modes, and the ones most ready at hand. They require no exalted or unusual qualities on the part of father or mother, unless, indeed, we consider gentleness, combined with firmness and good sense, as an assemblage of rare and exalted qualities. To assign, and firmly and uniformly to enforce, just but gentle penalties for disobedience, and to recognize, and sometimes reward, special acts of obedience and submission, are measures fully within the reach of every parent, however humble may be the condition of his intelligence or his attainments of knowledge. _Another Class of Influences_. There is, however, another class of influences to be adopted, not as a substitute for these simple measures, but in connection and co-operation with them, which will be far more deep, powerful, and permanent in their results, though they require much higher qualities in the parent for carrying them successfully into effect. This higher method consists in a _systematic effort to develop in the mind of the child a love of the principle of obedience_, by express and appropriate training. _Parents not aware of the Extent of their Responsibility_. Many parents, perhaps indeed nearly all, seem, as we have already shown, to act as if they considered the duty of obedience on the part of their children as a matter of course. They do not expect their children to read or to write without being taught; they do not expect a dog to fetch and carry, or a horse to draw and to understand commands and signals, without being _trained_. In all these cases they perceive the necessity of training and instruction, and understand that the initiative is with _them_. If a horse, endowed by nature with average good qualities, does not work well, the fault is attributed at once to the man who undertook to train him. But what mother, when her child, grown large and strong, becomes the trial and sorrow of her life by his ungovernable disobedience and insubordination, takes the blame to herself in reflecting that he was placed in her hands when all the powers and faculties of his soul were in embryo, tender, pliant, and unresisting, to be formed and fashioned at her will? _The Spirit of filial Obedience not Instinctive_. Children, as has already been remarked, do not require to be taught and trained to eat and drink, to resent injuries, to cling to their possessions, or to run to their mother in danger or pain. They have natural instincts which provide for all these things. But to speak, to read, to write, and to calculate; to tell the truth, and to obey their parents; to forgive injuries, to face bravely fancied dangers and bear patiently unavoidable pain, are attainments for which no natural instincts can adequately provide. There are instincts that will aid in the work, but none that can of themselves be relied upon without instruction and training. In actual fact, children usually receive their instruction and training in respect to some of these things incidentally--as it happens--by the rough knocks and frictions, and various painful experiences which they encounter in the early years of life. In respect to others, the guidance and aid afforded them is more direct and systematic. Unfortunately the establishment in their minds of the principle of obedience comes ordinarily under the former category. No systematic and appropriate efforts are made by the parent to implant it. It is left to the uncertain and fitful influences of accident--to remonstrances, reproaches, and injunctions called forth under sudden excitement in the various emergencies of domestic discipline, and to other means, vague, capricious, and uncertain, and having no wise adaptedness to the attainment of the end in view. _Requires appropriate Training_. How much better and more successfully the object would be accomplished if the mother were to understand distinctly at the outset that the work of training her children to the habit of submission to her authority is a duty, the responsibility of which devolves not upon her children, but upon her; that it is a duty, moreover, of the highest importance, and one that demands careful consideration, much forethought, and the wise adaptation of means to the end. _Methods_. The first thought of some parents may possibly be, that they do not know of any other measures to take in order to teach their children submission to their authority, than to reward them when they obey and punish them when they disobey. To show that there are other methods, we will consider a particular case. Mary, a young lady of seventeen, came to make a visit to her sister. She soon perceived that her sister's children, Adolphus and Lucia, were entirely ungoverned. Their mother coaxed, remonstrated, advised, gave reasons, said "I wouldn't do this," or "I wouldn't do that,"--did every thing, in fact, except simply to command; and the children, consequently, did pretty much what they pleased. Their mother wondered at their disobedience and insubordination, and in cases where these faults resulted in special inconvenience for herself she bitterly reproached the children for their undutiful behavior. But the reproaches produced no effect. "The first thing that I have to do," said Mary to herself, in observing this state of things, "is to teach the children to obey--at least to obey _me_. I will give them their first lesson at once." _Mary makes a Beginning_. So she proposed to them to go out with her into the garden and show her the flowers, adding that if they would do so she would make each of them a bouquet. She could make them some very pretty bouquets, she said, provided they would help her, and would follow her directions and obey her implicitly while gathering and arranging the flowers. This the children promised to do, and Mary went with them into the garden. There, as she passed about from border to border, she gave them a great many different directions in respect to things which they were to do, or which they were not to do. She gathered flowers, and gave some to one child, and some to the other, to be held and carried--with special instructions in respect to many details, such as directing some flowers to be put together, and others to be kept separate, and specifying in what manner they were to be held or carried. Then she led them to a bower where there was a long seat, and explained to them how they were to lay the flowers in order upon the seat, and directed them to be very careful not to touch them after they were once laid down. They were, moreover, to leave a place in the middle of the seat entirely clear. They asked what that was for. Mary said that they would see by-and-by. "You must always do just as I say," she added, "and perhaps I shall explain the reason afterwards, or perhaps you will see what the reason is yourselves." After going on in this way until a sufficient number and variety of flowers were collected, Mary took her seat in the vacant place which had been left, and assigned the two portions of the seat upon which the flowers had been placed to the children, giving each the charge of the flowers upon one portion, with instructions to select and give to her such as she should call for. From the flowers thus brought she formed two bouquets, one for each of the children. Then she set them both at work to make bouquets for themselves, giving them minute and special directions in regard to every step. If her object had been to cultivate their taste and judgment, then it would have been better to allow them to choose the flowers and determine the arrangement for themselves; but she was teaching them _obedience_, or, rather, beginning to form in them the _habit_ of obedience; and so, the more numerous and minute the commands the better, provided that they were not in them selves unreasonable, nor so numerous and minute as to be vexatious, so as to incur any serious danger of their not being readily and good-humoredly obeyed. [Illustration: THE LESSON IN OBEDIENCE.] _THE ART OF TRAINING_. 101 When the bouquets were finished Mary gave the children, severally, the two which had been made for them; and the two which they had made for themselves she took into the house and placed them in glasses upon the parlor mantel-piece, and then stood back with the children in the middle of the room to admire them. "See how pretty they look! And how nicely the work went on while we were making them! That was because you obeyed me so well while we were doing it. You did exactly as I said in every thing." _A Beginning only_. Now this was an excellent _first lesson_ in training the children to the habit of obedience. It is true that it was _only_ a first lesson. It was a beginning, but it was a very good beginning. If, on the following day, Mary had given the children a command which it would be irksome to them to obey, or one which would have called for any special sacrifice or self-denial on their part, they would have disregarded it. Still they would have been a little less inclined to disregard it than if they had not received their first lesson; and there can be no doubt that if Mary were to continue her training in the same spirit in which she commenced it she would, before many weeks, acquire a complete ascendency over them, and make them entirely submissive to her will. And yet this is a species of training the efficacy of which depends on influences in which the hope of reward or the fear of punishment does not enter. The bouquets were not promised to the children at the outset, nor were they given to them at last as rewards. It is true that they saw the advantages resulting from due subordination of the inferiors to the superior in concerted action, and at the end they felt a satisfaction in having acted right; but these advantages did not come in the form of rewards. The efficacy of the lesson depended on a different principle altogether. _The Philosophy of it_. The philosophy of it was this: Mary, knowing that the principle of obedience in the children was extremely weak, and that it could not stand any serious test, contrived to bring it into exercise a great many times under the lightest possible pressure. She called upon them to do a great many different things, each of which was very easy to do, and gave them many little prohibitions which it required a very slight effort of self-denial on their part to regard; and she connected agreeable associations in their minds with the idea of submission to authority, through the interest which she knew they would feel in seeing the work of gathering the flowers and making the bouquets go systematically and prosperously on, and through the commendation of their conduct which she expressed at the end. Such persons as Mary do not analyze distinctly, in their thoughts, nor could they express in words, the principles which underlie their management; but they have an instinctive mental perception of the adaptation of such means to the end in view. Other people, who observe how easily and quietly they seem to obtain an ascendency over all children coming within their influence, and how absolute this ascendency often becomes, are frequently surprised at it. They think there is some mystery about it; they say it is "a knack that some people have;" but there is no mystery about it at all, and nothing unusual or strange, except so far as practical good sense, considerate judgment, and intelligent observation and appreciation of the characteristics of childhood are unusual and strange. Mary was aware that, although the principle of obedience is seldom or never entirely obliterated from the hearts of children--that is, that the impression upon their minds, which, though it may not be absolutely instinctive, is very early acquired, that it is incumbent on them to obey those set in authority over them, is seldom wholly effaced, the sentiment had become extremely feeble in the minds of Adolphus and Lucia; and that it was like a frail and dying plant, which required very delicate and careful nurture to quicken it to life and give it its normal health and vigor. Her management was precisely of this character. It called the weak and feeble principle into gentle exercise, without putting it to any severe test, and thus commenced the formation of a _habit of action_. Any one will see that a course of training on these principles, patiently and perseveringly continued for the proper time, could not fail of securing the desired end, except in cases of children characterized by unusual and entirely abnormal perversity. We can not here follow in detail the various modes in which such a manager as Mary would adapt her principle to the changing incidents of each day, and to the different stages of progress made by her pupils in learning to obey, but can only enumerate certain points worthy of the attention of parents who may feel desirous to undertake such a work of training. _Three practical Directions_. 1. Relinquish entirely the idea of expecting children to be _spontaneously_ docile and obedient, and the practice of scolding or punishing them vindictively when they are not so. Instead of so doing, understand that docility and obedience on their part is to be the result of wise, careful, and persevering, though gentle training on the part of the parent. 2. If the children have already formed habits of disobedience and insubordination, do not expect that the desirable change can be effected by sudden, spasmodic, and violent efforts, accompanied by denunciations and threats, and declarations that you are going to "turn over a new leaf." The attempt to change perverted tendencies in children by such means is like trying to straighten a bend in the stem of a growing tree by blows with a hammer. 3. Instead of this, begin without saying at all what you are going to do, or finding any fault with the past, and, with a distinct recognition of the fact that whatever is bad in the _native tendencies_ of your children's minds is probably inherited from their parents, and, perhaps, specially from yourself, and that whatever is wrong in their _habits of action_ is certainly the result of bad training, proceed cautiously and gently, but perseveringly and firmly, in bringing the bent stem gradually up to the right position. In doing this, there is no amount of ingenuity and skill, however great, that may not be usefully employed; nor is there, on the other hand, except in very rare and exceptional cases, any parent who has an allotment so small as not to be sufficient to accomplish the end, if conscientiously and faithfully employed. CHAPTER VIII. METHODS EXEMPLIFIED. In order to give a more clear idea of what I mean by forming habits of obedience in children by methods other than those connected with a system of rewards and punishments, I will specify some such methods, introducing them, however, only as illustrations of what is intended. For, while in respect to rewards and punishments something like special and definite rules and directions may be given, these other methods, as they depend on the tact, ingenuity, and inventive powers of the parents for their success, depend also in great measure upon these same qualities for the discovery of them. The only help that can be received from without must consist of suggestions and illustrations, which can only serve to communicate to the mind some general ideas in respect to them. _Recognizing the Right._ 1. A very excellent effect is produced in forming habits of obedience in children, by simply _noticing_ their good conduct when they do right, and letting them see that you notice it. When children are at play upon the carpet, and their mother from time to time calls one of them--Mary, we will say--to come to her to render some little service, it is very often the case that she is accustomed, when Mary obeys the call at once, leaving her play immediately and coming directly, to say nothing about the prompt obedience, but to treat it as a matter of course. It is only in the cases of failure that she seems to notice the action. When Mary, greatly interested in what for the moment she is doing, delays her coming, she says, "You ought to come at once, Mary, when I call you, and not make me wait in this way." In the cases when Mary did come at once, she had said nothing. Mary goes back to her play after the reproof, a little disturbed in mind, at any rate, and perhaps considerably out of humor. Now Mary may, perhaps, be in time induced to obey more promptly under this management, but she will have no heart in making the improvement, and she will advance reluctantly and slowly, if at all. But if, at the first time that she comes promptly, and then, after doing the errand, is ready to go back to her play, her mother says, "You left your play and came at once when I called you. That was right. It pleases me very much to find that I can depend upon your being so prompt, even when you are at play," Mary will go back to her play pleased and happy; and the tendency of the incident will be to cause her to feel a spontaneous and cordial interest in the principle of prompt obedience in time to come. Johnny is taking a walk through the fields with his mother. He sees a butterfly and sets off in chase of it. When he has gone away from the path among the rocks and bushes as far as his mother thinks is safe, she calls him to come back. In many cases, if the boy does not come at once in obedience to such a call, he would perhaps receive a scolding. If he does come back at once, nothing is said. In either case no decided effect would be produced upon him. But if his mother says, "Johnny, you obeyed me at once when I called you. It must be hard, when you are after a butterfly and think you have almost caught him, to stop immediately and come back to your mother when she calls you; but you did it," Johnny will be led by this treatment to feel a desire to come back more promptly still the next time. _A Caution._ Of course there is an endless variety of ways by which you can show your children that you notice and appreciate the efforts they make to do right. Doubtless there is a danger to be guarded against. To adopt the practice of noticing and commending what is right, and paying _no attention whatever_ to what is wrong, would be a great perversion of this counsel. There is a danger more insidious than this, but still very serious and real, of fostering a feeling of vanity and self-conceit by constant and inconsiderate praise. These things must be guarded against; and to secure the good aimed at, and at the same time to avoid the evil, requires the exercise of the tact and ingenuity which has before been referred to. But with proper skill and proper care the habit of noticing and commending, or even noticing alone, when children do right, and of even being more quick to notice and to be pleased with the right than to detect and be dissatisfied with the wrong, will be found to be a very powerful means of training children in the right way. Children will act with a great deal more readiness and alacrity to preserve a good character which people already attribute to them, than to relieve themselves of the opprobrium of a bad one with which they are charged. In other words, it is much easier to allure them to what is right than to drive them from what is wrong. _Giving Advice._ 2. There is, perhaps, nothing more irksome to children than to listen to advice given to them in a direct and simple form, and perhaps there is nothing that has less influence upon them in the formation of their characters than advice so given. And there is good reason for this; for either the advice must be general, and of course more or less abstract, when it is necessarily in a great measure lost upon them, since their powers of generalization and abstraction are not yet developed; or else, if it is practical and particular at all, it must be so with reference to their own daily experience in life--in which case it becomes more irksome still, as they necessarily regard it as an indirect mode of fault-finding. Indeed, this kind of advice is almost certain to assume the form of half-concealed fault-finding, for the subject of the counsel given would be, in almost all cases, suggested by the errors, or shortcomings, or failures which had been recently observed in the conduct of the children. The art, then, of giving to children general advice and instruction in respect to their conduct and behavior, consists in making it definite and practical, and at the same time contriving some way of divesting it entirely of all direct application to themselves in respect to their _past_ conduct. Of course, the more we make it practically applicable to them in respect to the future the better. There are various ways of giving advice of this character. It requires some ingenuity to invent them, and some degree of tact and skill to apply them successfully. But the necessary tact and skill would be easily acquired by any mother whose heart is really set upon finding gentle modes of leading her child into the path of duty. _James and his Cousins_. James, going to spend one of his college vacations at his uncle's, was taken by his two cousins, Walter and Ann--eight and six years old--into their room. The room was all in confusion. There was a set of book-shelves upon one side, the books upon them lying tumbled about in all directions. There was a case containing playthings in another place, the playthings broken and in disorder; and two tables, one against the wall, and the other in the middle of the room, both covered with litter. Now if James had commenced his conversation by giving the children a lecture on the disorder of their room, and on the duty, on their part, of taking better care of their things, the chief effect would very probably have been simply to prevent their wishing to have him come to their room again. But James managed the case differently. After going about the room for a few minutes with the children, and looking with them at their various treasures, and admiring what they seemed to admire, but without finding any fault, he sat down before the fire and took the children upon his lap--one upon each knee--and began to talk to them. Ann had one of her picture-books in her hand, some of the leaves torn, and the rest defaced with dog's-ears. "Now, Walter," said James, "I'm going to give you some advice. I am going to advise you what to do and how to act when you go to college. By-and-by you will grow to be a young man, and will then, perhaps, go to college." The idea of growing to be a young man and going to college was very pleasing to Walter's imagination, and brought his mind into what may be called a receptive condition--that is, into a state to receive readily, and entertain with favor, the thoughts which James was prepared to present. James then went on to draw a very agreeable picture of Walter's leaving home and going to college, with many details calculated to be pleasing to his cousin's fancy, and came at length to his room, and to the circumstances under which he would take possession of it. Then he told him of the condition in which different scholars kept their respective rooms--how some were always in disorder, and every thing in them topsy-turvy, so that they had no pleasant or home-like aspect at all; while in others every thing was well arranged, and kept continually in that condition, so as to give the whole room, to every one who entered it, a very charming appearance. "The books on their shelves were all properly arranged," he said, "all standing up in order--those of a like size together. Jump down, Ann, and go to your shelves, and arrange the books on the middle shelf in that way, to show him what I mean." Ann jumped down, and ran with great alacrity to arrange the books according to the directions. When she had arranged one shelf, she was proceeding to do the same with the next, but James said she need not do any more then. She could arrange the others, if she pleased, at another time, he said. "But come back now," he added, "and hear the rest of the advice." "I advise you to keep your book-shelves in nice order at college," he continued; "and so with your apparatus and your cabinet. For at college, you see, you will perhaps have articles of philosophical apparatus, and a cabinet of specimens, instead of playthings. I advise you, if you should have such things, to keep them all nicely arranged upon their shelves." Here James turned his chair a little, so that he and the children could look towards the cabinet of playthings. Walter climbed down from his cousin's lap and ran off to that side of the room, and there began hastily to arrange the playthings. "Yes," said James, "that is the way. But never mind that now. I think you will know how to arrange your philosophical instruments and your cabinet very nicely when you are in college; and you can keep your playthings in order in your room here, while you are a boy, if you please. But come back now and hear the rest of the advice." So Walter came back and took his place again upon James's knee. "And I advise you," continued James, "to take good care of your books when you are in college. It is pleasanter, at the time, to use books that are clean and nice, and then, besides, you will like to take your college books with you, after you leave college, and keep them as long as you live, as memorials of your early days, and you will value them a great deal more if they are in good order." Here Ann opened the book which was in her hand, and began to fold back the dog's-ears and to smooth down the leaves. _The Principle Involved_. In a word, by the simple expedient of shifting the time, in the imagination of the children, when the advice which he was giving them would come to its practical application, he divested it of all appearance of fault-finding in respect to their present conduct, and so secured not merely its ready admission, but a cordial welcome for it, in their minds. Any mother who sees and clearly apprehends the principle here illustrated, and has ingenuity enough to avail herself of it, will find an endless variety of modes by which she can make use of it, to gain easy access to the hearts of her children, for instructions and counsels which, when they come in the form of fault-finding advice, make no impression whatever. _Expectations of Results must be Reasonable_. Some persons, however, who read without much reflection, and who do not clearly see the principle involved in the case above described, and do not understand it as it is intended--that is, as a single specimen or example of a mode of action capable of an endless variety of applications, will perhaps say, "Oh, that was all very well. James's talk was very good for the purpose of amusing the children for a few minutes while he was visiting them, but it is idle to suppose that such a conversation could produce any permanent or even lasting impression upon them; still less, that it could work any effectual change in respect to their habits of order." That is very true. In the work of forming the hearts and minds of children it is "line upon line, and precept upon precept" that is required; and it can not be claimed that one such conversation as that of James is any thing more than _one line_. But it certainly is that. It would be as unreasonable to expect that one single lesson like that could effectually and completely accomplish the end in view, as that one single watering of a plant will suffice to enable it to attain completely its growth, and enable it to produce in perfection its fruits or its flowers. But if a mother often clothes thus the advice or instruction which she has to give to her children in some imaginative guise like this, advising them what to do when they are on a journey, for example, or when they are making a visit at the house of a friend in the country; or, in the case of a boy, what she would counsel him to do in case he were a young man employed by a farmer to help him on his farm, or a clerk in a store, or a sea-captain in charge of a ship, or a general commanding a force in the field; or, if a girl, what dangers or what undesirable habits or actions she should avoid when travelling in Europe, or when, as a young lady, she joins in picnics or goes on excursions, or attends concerts or evening parties, or in any of the countless other situations which it is pleasant for young persons to picture to their minds, introducing into all, so far as her ingenuity and skill enable her to do it, interesting incidents and details, she will find that she is opening to herself an avenue to her children's hearts for the sound moral principles that she wishes to inculcate upon them, which she can often employ easily, pleasantly, and very advantageously, both to herself and to them. When a child is sick, it may be of little consequence whether the medicine which is required is agreeable or disagreeable to the taste. But with moral remedies the case is different. Sometimes the whole efficiency of the treatment administered as a corrective for a moral disorder depends upon the readiness and willingness with which it is taken. To make it disagreeable, consequently, in such cases, is to neutralize the intended action of it--a result which the methods described in this chapter greatly tend to avoid. CHAPTER IX. DELLA AND THE DOLLS. This book may, perhaps, sometimes fall into the hands of persons who have, temporarily or otherwise, the charge of young children without any absolute authority over them, or any means, or even any right, to enforce their commands, as was the case, in fact, with the older brothers or sister referred to in the preceding illustrations. To such persons, these indirect modes of training children in habits of subordination to their will, or rather of yielding to their influence, are specially useful. Such persons may be interested in the manner in which Delia made use of the children's dolls as a means of guiding and governing their little mothers. _Della_. Della had a young sister named Maria, and a cousin whose name was Jane. Jane used often to come to make Maria a visit, and when together the children were accustomed to spend a great deal of time in playing with their dolls. Besides dressing and undressing them, and playing take them out to excursions and visits, they used to talk with them a great deal, and give them much useful and valuable information and instruction. [Illustration: ROUNDABOUT INSTRUCTION.] Now Delia contrived to obtain a great influence and ascendency over the minds of the children by means of these dolls. She fell at once into the idea of the children in regard to them, and treated them always as if they were real persons; often speaking of them and to them, in the presence of the other children, in the most serious manner. This not only pleased the children very much, but enabled Della, under pretense of talking to the dolls, to communicate a great deal of useful instruction to the children, and sometimes to make very salutary and lasting impressions upon their minds. _Lectures to the Dolls_. For instance, sometimes when Jane was making Maria a visit, and the two children came into her room with their dolls in their arms, she would speak to them as if they were real persons, and then taking them in her hands would set them before her on her knee, and give them a very grave lecture in respect to the proper behavior which they were to observe during the afternoon. If Delia had attempted to give precisely the same lecture to the children themselves, they would very soon have become restless and uneasy, and it would have made very little impression upon them. But being addressed to the dolls, they would be greatly interested in it, and would listen with the utmost attention; and there is no doubt that the counsels and instructions which she gave made a much stronger impression upon their minds than if they had been addressed directly to the children themselves. To give an idea of these conversations I will report one of them in full. "How do you do, my children?" she said, on one such occasion. "I am very glad to see you. How nice you look! You have come, Andella (Andella was the name of Jane's doll), to make Rosalie a visit. I am very glad. You will have a very pleasant time, I am sure; because you never quarrel. I observe that, when you both wish for the same thing, you don't quarrel for it and try to pull it away from one another; but one waits like a lady until the other has done with it. I expect you have been a very good girl, Andella, since you were here last." Then, turning to Jane, she asked, in a somewhat altered tone, "Has she been a good girl, Jane?" "She has been a _pretty_ good girl," said Jane, "but she has been sick." "Ah!" said Della in a tone of great concern, and looking again at Andella, "I heard that you had been sick. I heard that you had an attack of Aurora Borealis, or something like that. And you don't look very well now. You must take good care of yourself, and if you don't feel well, you must ask your mother to bring you in to me and I will give you a dose of my medicine--my _aqua saccharina_. I know you always take your medicine like a little heroine when you are sick, without making any difficulty or trouble at all." _Aqua saccharina_ was the Latin name which Delia gave to a preparation of which she kept a supply in a small phial on her table, ready to make-believe give to the dolls when they were sick. Maria and Jane were very fond of playing that their dolls were sick and bringing them to Della for medicine, especially as Della always recommended to them to taste the medicine themselves from a spoon first, in order to set their children a good example of taking it well. Sometimes Della would let the children take the phial away, so as to have it always at hand in case the dolls should be taken suddenly worse. But in such cases as this the attacks were usually so frequent, and the mothers were obliged to do so much tasting to encourage the patients, that the phial was soon brought back nearly or quite empty, when Delia used to replenish it by filling it nearly full of water, and then pouring a sufficient quantity of the saccharine powder into the mouth of it from the sugar-bowl with a spoon. Nothing more was necessary except to shake up the mixture in order to facilitate the process of solution, and the medicine was ready. _A Medium of Reproof._ Delia was accustomed to use the dolls not only for the purpose of instruction, but sometimes for reproof, in many ingenious ways. For instance, one day the children had been playing upon the piazza with blocks and other playthings, and finally had gone into the house, leaving all the things on the floor of the piazza, instead of putting them away in their places, as they ought to have done. They were now playing with their dolls in the parlor. Delia came to the parlor, and with an air of great mystery beckoned the children aside, and said to them, in a whisper, "Leave Andella and Rosalie here, and don't say a word to them. I want you to come with me. There is a secret--something I would not have them know on any account." So saying, she led the way on tiptoe, followed by the children out of the room, and round by a circuitous route to the piazza. "There!" said she, pointing to the playthings; "see! all your playthings left out! Put them away quick before Andella and Rosalie see them. I would not have them know that their mothers leave their playthings about in that way for any consideration. They would think that they might do so too, and that would make you a great deal of trouble. You teach them, I have no doubt, that they must always put their playthings away, and they must see that you set them a good example. Put these playthings all away quick, and carefully, and we will not let them know any thing about your leaving them out." So the children went to work with great alacrity, and put the playthings all away. And this method of treating the case was much more effectual in making them disposed to avoid committing a similar fault another time than any direct rebukes or expressions of displeasure addressed personally to them would have been. Besides, a scolding would have made them unhappy, and this did not make them unhappy at all; it amused and entertained them. If you can lead children to cure themselves of their faults in such a way that they shall have a good time in doing it, there is a double gain. In due time, by this kind of management, and by other modes conceived and executed in the same spirit, Bella gained so great an ascendency over the children that they were far more ready to conform to her will, and to obey all her directions, than they would have been to submit to the most legitimate authority that was maintained, as such authority too often is, by fault-finding and threats, and without any sympathy with the fancies and feelings which reign over the hearts of the children in the little world in which they live. CHAPTER X. SYMPATHY:--1. THE CHILD WITH THE PARENT. The subject of sympathy between children and parents is to be considered in two aspects: first, that of the child with the parent; and secondly, that of the parent with the child. That is to say, an emotion may be awakened in the child by its existence and manifestation in the parent, and secondly, it may be awakened in the parent by its existence in the child. We are all ready to acknowledge in words the great power and influence of sympathy, but very few are aware how very vast this power is, and how inconceivably great is the function which this principle fulfills in the formation of the human character, and in regulating the conduct of men. _Mysterious Action of the Principle of Sympathy_. There is a great mystery in the nature of it, and in the manner of its action. This we see very clearly in the simplest and most striking material form of it--the act of gaping. Why and how does the witnessing of the act of gaping in one person, or even the thought of it, produce a tendency to the same action in the nerves and muscles of another person? When we attempt to trace the chain of connection through the eye, the brain, and the thoughts--through which line of agencies the chain of cause and effect must necessarily run--we are lost and bewildered. Other states and conditions in which the mental element is more apparent are communicated from one to another in the same or, at least, in some analogous way. Being simply in the presence of one who is amused, or happy, or sad, causes us to feel amused, or happy, or sad ourselves--or, at least, has that tendency--even if we do not know from what cause the emotion which is communicated to us proceeds. A person of a joyous and happy disposition often brightens up at once any little circle into which he enters, while a morose and melancholy man carries gloom with him wherever he goes. Eloquence, which, if we were to hear it addressed to us personally and individually, in private conversation, would move us very little, will excite us to a pitch of the highest enthusiasm if we hear it in the midst of a vast audience; even though the words, and the gestures, and the inflections of the voice, and the force with which it reaches our ears, were to be precisely the same in the two cases. And so a joke, which would produce only a quiet smile if we read it by ourselves at the fireside alone, will evoke convulsions of laughter when heard in a crowded theatre, where the hilarity is shared by thousands. A new element, indeed, seems to come into action in these last two cases; for the mental condition of one mind is not only communicated to another, but it appears to be increased and intensified by the communication. Each does not feel _merely_ the enthusiasm or the mirth which would naturally be felt by the other, but the general emotion is vastly heightened by its being so largely shared. It is like the case of the live coal, which does not merely set the dead coal on fire by being placed in contact with it, but the two together, when together, burn far more brightly than when apart. _Wonderful Power of Sympathy_. So much for the reality of this principle; and it is almost impossible to exaggerate the extent and the magnitude of the influence it exerts in forming the character and shaping the ideas and opinions of men, and in regulating all their ordinary habits of thought and feeling. People's opinions are not generally formed or controlled by arguments or reasonings, as they fondly suppose. They are imbibed by sympathy from those whom they like or love, and who are, or have been, their associates. Thus people, when they arrive at maturity, adhere in the main to the associations, both in religion and in politics, in which they have been brought up, from the influence of sympathy with those whom they love. They believe in this or that doctrine or system, not because they have been convinced by proof, but chiefly because those whom they love believe in them. On religious questions the arguments are presented to them, it is true, while they are young, in catechisms and in other forms of religious instruction, and in politics by the conversations which they overhear; but it is a mistake to suppose that arguments thus offered have any material effect as processes of ratiocination in producing any logical conviction upon their minds. An English boy is Whig or Tory because his father, and his brothers, and his uncles are Whigs or Tories. He may, indeed, have many arguments at his command with which to maintain his opinions, but it is not the force of the arguments that has convinced him, nor do they have any force as a means of convincing the other boys to whom he offers them. _They_ are controlled by their sympathies, as he is by his. But if he is a popular boy, and makes himself a favorite among his companions, the very fact that he is of this or that party will have more effect upon the other boys than the most logical and conclusive trains of reasoning that can be conceived. So it is with the religious and political differences in this and in every other country. Every one's opinions--or rather the opinion of people in general, for of course there are many individual exceptions--are formed from sympathy with those with whom in mind and heart they have been in friendly communication during their years of childhood and youth. And even in those cases where persons change their religious opinions in adult age, the explanation of the mystery is generally to be found, not in seeking for the _argument that convinced them_, but for the _person that led them_, in the accomplishment of the change. For such changes can very often, and perhaps generally, be traced to some person or persons whose influence over them, if carefully scrutinized, would be found to consist really not in the force of the arguments they offered, but in the magic power of a silent and perhaps unconscious sympathy. The way, therefore, to convert people to our ideas and opinions is to make them like us or love us, and then to avoid arguing with them, but simply let them perceive what our ideas and opinions are. The well-known proverb, "Example is better than precept," is only another form of expressing the predominating power of sympathy; for example can have little influence except so far as a sympathetic feeling in the observer leads him to imitate it. So that, example is better than precept means only that sympathy has more influence in the human heart than reasoning. _The Power of Sympathy in Childhood_. This principle, so powerful at every period of life, is at its maximum in childhood. It is the origin, in a very great degree, of the spirit of imitation which forms so remarkable a characteristic of the first years of life. The child's thoughts and feelings being spontaneously drawn into harmony with the thoughts and feelings of those around him whom he loves, leads, of course, to a reproduction of their actions, and the prevalence and universality of the effect shows how constant and how powerful is the cause. So the great secret of success for a mother, in the formation of the character of her children, is to make her children respect and love her, and then simply to _be_ herself what she wishes them to be. And to make them respect and love her, is to control them by a firm government where control is required, and to indulge them almost without limit where indulgence will do no harm. _Special Application of the Principle_. But besides this general effect of the principle of sympathy in aiding parents in forming the minds and hearts of their children, there are a great many cases in which a father or mother who understands the secret of its wonderful and almost magic power can avail themselves of it to produce special effects. One or two examples will show more clearly what I mean. William's aunt Maria came to pay his mother a visit in the village where William's mother lived. On the same day she went to take a walk with William--who is about nine years old--to see the village. As they went along together upon the sidewalk, they came to two small boys who were trying to fly a kite. One of the boys was standing upon the sidewalk, embarrassed a little by some entanglement of the string. "Here, you fellow!" said William, as he and his aunt approached the spot, "get out of the way with your kite, and let us go by." The boy hurried out of the way, and, in so doing, got his kite-string more entangled still in the branches of a tree which grew at the margin of the sidewalk. Now William's aunt might have taken the occasion, as she and her nephew walked along, to give him some kind and friendly instruction or counsel about the duty of being kind to every body in any difficulty, trouble, or perplexity, whether they are young or old; showing him how we increase the general sum of happiness in so doing, and how we feel happier ourselves when we have done good to any one, than when we have increased in any way, or even slighted or disregarded, their troubles. How William would receive such a lecture would depend a great deal upon his disposition and state of mind. But in most cases such counsels, given at such a time, involving, as they would, some covert though very gentle censure, would cause the heart of the boy to close itself in a greater or less degree against them, like the leaves of a sensitive-plant shrinking from the touch. The reply would very probably be, "Well, he had no business to be on the sidewalk, right in our way." William and his aunt walked on a few steps. His aunt then stopped, hesitatingly, and said, "How would it do to go back and help that boy disentangle his kite-string? He's a little fellow, and does not know so much about kites and kite-strings as you do." Here the suggestion of giving help to perplexity and distress came associated with a compliment instead of what implied censure, and the leaves of the sensitive-plant expanded at once, and widely, to the genial influence. "Yes," said William; "let's go." So his aunt turned and went back a step or two, and then said, "You can go and do it without me. I'll wait here till you come back. I don't suppose you want any help from me. If you do, I'll come." "No," aid William, "I can do it alone." So William ran on with great alacrity to help the boys clear the string, and then came back with a beaming face to his aunt, and they walked on. William's aunt made no further allusion to the affair until the end of the walk, and then, on entering the gate, she said, "We have had a very pleasant walk, and you have taken very good care of me. And I am glad we helped those boys out of their trouble with the kite." "So am I," said William. _Analysis of the Incident_. Now it is possible that some one may say that William was wrong in his harsh treatment of the boys, or at least in his want of consideration for their perplexity; and that his aunt, by her mode of treating the case, covered up the wrong, when it ought to have been brought distinctly to view and openly amended. But when we come to analyze the case, we shall find that it is not at all certain that there was any thing wrong on William's part in the transaction, so far as the state of his heart, in a moral point of view, is concerned. All such incidents are very complicated in their nature, and in their bearings and relations. They present many aspects which vary according to the point of view from which they are regarded. Even grown people do not always see all the different aspects of an affair in respect to which they are called upon to act or to form an opinion, and children, perhaps, never; and in judging their conduct, we must always consider the aspect in which the action is presented to their minds. In this case, William was thinking only of his aunt. He wished to make her walk convenient and agreeable to her. The boy disentangling his string on the sidewalk was to him, at that time, simply an obstacle in his aunt's way, and he dealt with it as such, sending the boy off as an act of kindness and attention to his aunt solely. The idea of a sentient being suffering distress which he might either increase by harshness or relieve by help was not present in his mind at all. We may say that he ought to have thought of this. But a youthful mind, still imperfect in its development, can not be expected to take cognizance at once of all the aspects of a transaction which tends in different directions to different results. It is true, that he ought to have thought of the distress of the boys, if we mean that he ought to be taught or trained to think of such distress when he witnessed it; and that was exactly what his aunt was endeavoring to do. We ourselves have learned, by long experience of life, to perceive at once the many different aspects which an affair may present, and the many different results which may flow in various directions from the same action; and we often inconsiderately blame children, simply because their minds are yet so imperfectly developed that they can not take simultaneous cognizance of more than one or two of them. This is the true philosophy of most of what is called heedlessness in children, and for which, poor things, they receive so many harsh reprimands and so much punishment. A little girl, for example, undertakes to water her sister's plants. In her praiseworthy desire to do her work well and thoroughly, she fills the mug too full, and spills the water upon some books that are lying upon the table. The explanation of the misfortune is simply that her mind was filled, completely filled, with the thoughts of helping her sister. The thought of the possibility of spilling the water did not come into it at all. There was no room for it while the other thought, so engrossing, was there; and to say that she _ought_ to have thought of both the results which might follow her action, is only to say that she ought to be older. _Sympathy as the Origin of childish Fears_. The power of sympathy in the mind of a child--that is, its tendency to imbibe the opinions or sentiments manifested by others in their presence--may be made very effectual, not only in inculcating principles of right and wrong, but in relation to every other idea or emotion. Children are afraid of thunder and lightning, or of robbers at night, or of ghosts, because they perceive that their parents, or older brothers or sisters, are afraid of them. Where the parents do not believe in ghosts, the children are not afraid of them; unless, indeed, there are domestics in the house, or playmates at school, or other companions from whom they take the contagion. So, what they see that their parents value they prize themselves. They imbibe from their playmates at school a very large proportion of their tastes, their opinions, and their ideas, not through arguments or reasoning, but from sympathy; and most of the wrong or foolish notions of any kind that they have acquired have not been established in their minds by false reasoning, but have been taken by sympathy, as a disease is communicated by infection; and the remedy is in most cases, not reasoning, but a countervailing sympathy. _Afraid of a Kitten_. Little Jane was very much afraid of a kitten which her brother brought home--the first that she had known. She had, however, seen a picture of a tiger or some other feline animal devouring a man in a forest, and had been frightened by it; and she had heard too, perhaps, of children being scratched by cats or kittens. So, when the kitten was brought in and put down on the floor, she ran to her sister in great terror, and began to cry. Now her sister might have attempted to reason with her by explaining the difference between the kitten and the wild animals of the same class in the woods, and by assuring her that thousands of children have kittens to play with and are never scratched by them so long as they treat them kindly--and all without producing any sensible effect. But, instead of this, she adopted a different plan. She took the child up into her lap, and after quieting her fears, began to talk to the kitten. "Poor little pussy," said she, "I am glad you have come. You never scratch any body, I am sure, if they are kind to you. Jennie will give you some milk some day, and she and I will like to see you lap it up with your pretty little tongue. And we will give you a ball to play with some day upon the carpet. See, Jennie, see! She is going to lie down upon the rug. She is glad that she has come to such a nice home. Now she is putting her head down, but she has not any pillow to lay it upon. Wouldn't you like a pillow, kitty? Jennie will make you a pillow some day, I am sure, if you would like one. Jennie is beginning to learn to sew, and she could make you a nice pillow, and stuff it with cotton wool. Then we can see you lying down upon the rug, with the pillow under your head that Jennie will have made for you--all comfortable." Such a talk as this, though it could not be expected entirely and at once to dispel Jennie's unfounded fears, would be far more effectual towards beginning the desired change than any arguments or reasoning could possibly be. Any mother who will reflect upon the principle here explained will at once recall to mind many examples and illustrations of its power over the hearts and minds of children which her own experience has afforded. And if she begins practically and systematically to appeal to it, she will find herself in possession of a new element of power--new, at least, to her realization--the exercise of which will be as easy and agreeable to herself as it will be effective in its influence over her children. CHAPTER XI. SYMPATHY:--II. THE PARENT WITH THE CHILD. I think there can be no doubt that the most effectual way of securing the confidence and love of children, and of acquiring an ascendency over them, is by sympathizing with them in their child-like hopes and fears, and joys and sorrows--in their ideas, their fancies, and even in their caprices, in all cases where duty is not concerned. Indeed, the more child-like, that is, the more peculiar to the children themselves, the feelings are that we enter into with them, the closer is the bond of kindness and affection that is formed. _An Example_. If a gentleman coming to reside in a new town concludes that it is desirable that he should be on good terms with the boys in the streets, there are various ways by which he can seek to accomplish the end. Fortunately for him, the simplest and easiest mode is the most effectual. On going into the village one day, we will suppose he sees two small boys playing horse. One boy is horse, and the other driver. As they draw near, they check the play a little, to be more decorous in passing by the stranger. He stops to look at them with a pleased expression of countenance, and then says, addressing the driver, with a face of much seriousness, "That's a first-rate horse of yours. Would you like to sell him? He seems to be very spirited." The horse immediately begins to prance and caper. "You must have paid a high price for him. You must take good care of him. Give him plenty of oats, and don't drive him hard when it is hot weather. And if ever you conclude to sell him, I wish you would let me know." So saying, the gentleman walks on, and the horse, followed by his driver, goes galloping forward in high glee. Now, by simply manifesting thus a fellow-feeling with the boys in their childish play, the stranger not only gives a fresh impulse to their enjoyment at the time, but establishes a friendly relationship between them and him which, without his doing any thing to strengthen or perpetuate it, will of itself endure for a long time. If he does not speak to the boys again for months, every time they meet him they will be ready to greet him with a smile. The incident will go much farther towards establishing friendly relations between him and them than any presents that he could make them--except so far as his presents were of such a kind, and were given in such a way, as to be expressions of kindly feeling towards them--that is to say, such as to constitute of themselves a manifestation of sympathy. The uncle who gives his nephews and nieces presents, let them be ever so costly or beautiful, and takes no interest in their affairs, never inspires them with any feeling of personal affection. They like him as they like the apple-tree which bears them sweet and juicy apples, or the cow that gives them milk--which is on their part a very different sentiment from that which they feel for the kitten that plays with them and shares their joys--or even for their dolls, which are only pictured in their imagination as sharing them. _Sophronia and Aurelia_. Miss Sophronia calls at a house to make a visit. A child of seven or eight years of age is playing upon the floor. After a little time, at a pause in the conversation, she calls the child--addressing her as "My little girl"--to come to her. The child--a shade being cast over her mind by being thus unnecessarily reminded of her littleness--hesitates to come. The mother says, "Come and shake hands with the lady, my dear!" The child comes reluctantly. Miss Sophronia asks what her name is, how old she is, whether she goes to school, what she studies there, and whether she likes to go to school, and at length releases her. The child, only too glad to be free from such a tiresome visitor, goes back to her play, and afterwards the only ideas she has associated with the person of her visitor are those relating to her school and her lessons, which may or may not be of an agreeable character. Presently, after Miss Sophronia has gone, Miss Aurelia comes in. After some conversation with the mother, she goes to see what the child is building with her blocks. After looking on for a moment with an expression of interest in her countenance, she asks her if she has a doll. The child says she has four. Miss Aurelia then asks which she likes best, and expresses a desire to see that one. The child, much pleased, runs away to bring it, and presently comes back with all four. Miss Aurelia takes them in her hands, examines them, talks about them, and talks to them; and when at last the child goes back to her play, she goes with the feeling in her heart that she has found a new friend. Thus, to bring ourselves near to the hearts of children, we must go to them by entering into _their world_. They can not come to us by entering ours. They have no experience of it, and can not understand it. But we have had experience of theirs, and can enter it if we choose; and in that way we bring ourselves very near to them. _Sympathy must be Sincere_. But the sympathy which we thus express with children, in order to be effectual, must be sincere and genuine, and not pretended. We must renew our own childish ideas and imaginations, and become for the moment, in feeling, one with them, so that the interest which we express in what they are saying or doing may be real, and not merely assumed. They seem to have a natural instinct to distinguish between an honest and actual sharing of their thoughts and emotions, and all mere condescension and pretense, however adroitly it may be disguised. _Want of Time_. Some mothers may perhaps say that they have not time thus to enter into the ideas and occupations of their children. They are engrossed with the serious cares of life, or busy with its various occupations. But it does not require time. It is not a question of time, but of manner. The farmer's wife, for example, is busy ironing, or sewing, or preparing breakfast for her husband and sons, who are expected every moment to come in hungry from their work. Her little daughter, ten years old, comes to show her a shawl she has been making from a piece of calico for her doll. The busy mother thinks she must say, "Yes; but run away now, Mary; I am very busy!"--because that is the easiest and quickest thing to say; but it is just as easy and just as quick to say, "What a pretty shawl! Play now that you are going to take Minette out for a walk in it!" The one mode sends the child away repulsed and a little disappointed; the other pleases her and makes her happy, and tends, moreover, to form a new bond of union and sympathy between her mother's heart and her own. A merchant, engrossed all day in his business, comes home to his house at dinner-time, and meets his boy of fifteen on the steps returning from his school. "Well, James," he says, as they walk together up stairs, "I hope you have been a good boy at school to-day." James, not knowing what to say, makes some inaudible or unmeaning reply. His father then goes on to say that he hopes his boy will be diligent and attentive to his studies, and improve his time well, as his future success in life will depend upon the use which he makes of his advantages while he is young; and then leaves him at the head of the stairs, each to go to his room. All this is very well. Advice given under such circumstances and in such a way produces, undoubtedly, a certain good effect, but it does not tend at all to bring the father and son together. But if, instead of giving this common-place advice, the father asks--supposing it to be winter at the time--"Which kind of skates are the most popular among the boys nowadays, James?" Then, after hearing his reply, he asks him what _his_ opinion is, and whether any great improvement has been made within a short time, and whether the patent inventions are any of them of much consequence. The tendency of such a conversation as this, equally brief with the other, will be to draw the father and son more together. Even in a moral point of view, the influence would be, indirectly, very salutary; for although no moral counsel or instruction was given at the time, the effect of such a participation in the thoughts with which the boy's mind is occupied is to strengthen the bond of union between the heart of the boy and that of his father, and thus to make the boy far more ready to receive and be guided by the advice or admonitions of his father on other occasions. Let no one suppose, from these illustrations, that they are intended to inculcate the idea that a father is to lay aside the parental counsels and instructions that he has been accustomed to give to his children, and replace them by talks about skates! They are only intended to show one aspect of the difference of effect produced by the two kinds of conversation, and that the father, if he wishes to gain and retain an influence over the hearts of his boys, must descend sometimes into the world in which they live, and with which their thoughts are occupied, and must enter it, not merely as a spectator, or a fault-finder, or a counsellor, but as a sharer, to some extent, in the ideas and feelings which are appropriate to it. _Ascendency over the Minds of Children_. Sympathizing with children in their own pleasures and enjoyments, however childish they may seem to us when we do not regard them, as it were, with children's eyes, is, perhaps, the most powerful of all the means at our command for gaining a powerful ascendency over them. This will lead us not to interfere with their own plans and ideas, but to be willing that they should be happy in their own way. In respect to their duties, those connected, for example, with their studies, their serious employments, and their compliance with directions of any kind emanating from superior authority, of course their will must be under absolute subjection to that of those who are older and wiser than they. In all such things they must bring their thoughts and actions into accord with ours. In these things they must come to us, not we to them. But in every thing that relates to their child-like pleasures and joys, their modes of recreation and amusement, their playful explorations of the mysteries of things, and the various novelties around them in the strange world into which they find themselves ushered--in all these things we must not attempt to bring them to us, but must go to them. In this, their own sphere, the more perfectly they are at liberty, the better; and if we join them in it at all, we must do so by bringing our ideas and wishes into accord with theirs. _Foolish Fears_. The effect of our sympathy with children in winning their confidence and love, is all the more powerful when it is exercised in cases where they are naturally inclined not to expect sympathy--that is, in relation to feelings which they would suppose that older persons would be inclined to condemn. Perhaps the most striking example of this is in what is commonly called foolish fears. Now a fear is foolish or otherwise, not according to the absolute facts involving the supposed danger, but according to the means which the person in question has of knowing the facts. A lady, for example, in passing along the sidewalk of a great city comes to a place where workmen are raising an immense and ponderous iron safe, which, slowly rising, hangs suspended twenty feet above the walk. She is afraid to pass under it. The foreman, however, who is engaged in directing the operation, passing freely to and fro under the impending weight, as he has occasion, and without the least concern, smiles, perhaps, at the lady's "foolish fears." But the fears which might, perhaps, be foolish in him, are not so in her, since he _knows_ the nature and the strength of the machinery and securities above, and she does not. She only knows that accidents do sometimes happen from want of due precaution in raising heavy weights, and she does not know, and has no means of knowing, whether or not the due precautions have been taken in this case. So she manifests good sense, and not folly, in going out of her way to avoid all possibility of danger. This is really the proper explanation of a large class of what are usually termed foolish fears. Viewed in the light of the individual's knowledge of the facts in the case, they are sensible fears, and not foolish ones at all. A girl of twelve, from the city, spending the summer in the country, wishes to go down to the river to join her brothers there, but is stopped by observing a cow in a field which she has to cross. She comes back to the house, and is there laughed at for her foolishness in being; "afraid of a cow!" But why should she not be afraid of a cow? She has heard stories of people being gored by bulls, and sometimes by cows, and she has no means whatever of estimating the reality or the extent of the danger in any particular case. The farmer's daughters, however, who laugh at her, know the cow in question perfectly well. They have milked her, and fed her, and tied her up to her manger a hundred times; so, while it would be a very foolish thing for them to be afraid to cross a field where the cow was feeding, it is a very sensible thing for the stranger-girl from the city to be so. Nor would it certainly change the case much for the child, if the farmer's girls were to assure her that the cow was perfectly peaceable, and that there was no danger; for she does not know the girls any better than she does the cow, and can not judge how far their statements or opinions are to be relied upon. It may possibly not be the cow they think it is. They are very positive, it is true; but very positive people are often mistaken. Besides, the cow may be peaceable with them, and yet be disposed to attack a stranger. What a child requires in such a case is sympathy and help, not ridicule. [Illustration: AFRAID OF THE COW.] This, in the case supposed, she meets in the form of the farmer's son, a young man browned in face and plain in attire, who comes along while she stands loitering at the fence looking at the cow, and not daring after all, notwithstanding the assurances she has received at the house, to cross the field. His name is Joseph, and he is a natural gentleman--a class of persons of whom a much larger number is found in this humble guise, and a much smaller number in proportion among the fashionables in elegant life, than is often supposed. "Yes," says Joseph, after hearing the child's statement of the case, "you are right. Cows are sometimes vicious, I know; and you are perfectly right to be on your guard against such as you do not know when you meet them in the country. This one, as it happens, is very kind; but still, I will go through the field with you." So he goes with her through the field, stopping on the way to talk a little to the cow, and to feed her with an apple which he has in his pocket. It is in this spirit that the fears, and antipathies, and false imaginations of children are generally to be dealt with; though, of course, there may be many exceptions to the general rule. _When Children are in the Wrong_. There is a certain sense in which we should feel a sympathy with children in the wrong that they do. It would seem paradoxical to say that in any sense there should be sympathy with sin, and yet there is a sense in which this is true, though perhaps, strictly speaking, it is sympathy with the trial and temptation which led to the sin, rather than with the act of transgression itself. In whatever light a nice metaphysical analysis would lead us to regard it, it is certain that the most successful efforts that have been made by philanthropists for reaching the hearts and reforming the conduct of criminals and malefactors have been prompted by a feeling of compassion for them, not merely for the sorrows and sufferings which they have brought upon themselves by their wrongdoing, but for the mental conflicts which they endured, the fierce impulses of appetite and passion, more or less connected with and dependent upon the material condition of the bodily organs, under the onset of which their feeble moral sense, never really brought into a condition of health and vigor, was over-borne. These merciful views of the diseased condition and action of the soul in the commission of crime are not only in themselves right views for man to take of the crimes and sins of his fellow-man, but they lie at the foundation of all effort that can afford any serious hope of promoting reformation. This principle is eminently true in its application to children. They need the influence of a kind and considerate sympathy when they have done wrong, more, perhaps, than at any other time; and the effects of the proper manifestation of this sympathy on the part of the mother will, perhaps, be greater and more salutary in this case than in any other. Of course the sympathy must be of the right kind, and must be expressed in the right way, so as not to allow the tenderness or compassion for the wrong-doer to be mistaken for approval or justification of the wrong. _Case supposed_. A boy, for instance, comes home from school in a state of great distress, and perhaps of indignation and resentment, on account of having been punished. Mothers sometimes say at once, in such a case, "I don't pity you at all. I have no doubt you deserved it." This only increases the tumult of commotion in the boy's mind, without at all tending to help him to feel a sense of his guilt. His mind, still imperfectly developed, can not take cognizance simultaneously of all the parts and all the aspects of a complicated transaction. The sense of his wrong-doing, which forms in his teacher's and in his mother's mind so essential a part of the transaction, is not present in his conceptions at all. There is no room for it, so totally engrossed are all his faculties with the stinging recollections of suffering, the tumultuous emotions of anger and resentment, and now with the additional thought that even his mother has taken part against him. The mother's conception of the transaction is equally limited and imperfect, though in a different way. She thinks only that if she were to treat the child with kindness and sympathy, she would be taking the part of a bad boy against his teacher; whereas, in reality, she might do it in such a way as only to be taking the part of a suffering boy against his pain. It would seem that the true and proper course for a mother to take with a child in such a case would be to soothe and calm his agitation, and to listen, if need be, to his account of the affair, without questioning or controverting it at all, however plainly she may see that, under the blinding and distorting influence of his excitement, he is misrepresenting the facts. Let him tell his story. Listen to it patiently to the end. It is not necessary to express or even to form an opinion on the merits of it. The ready and willing hearing of one side of a case does not commit the tribunal to a decision in favor of that side. On the other hand, it is the only way to give weight and a sense of impartiality to a decision against it. Thus the mother may sympathize with her boy in his troubles, appreciate fully the force of the circumstances which led him into the wrong, and help to soothe and calm his agitation, and thus take his part, and place herself closely to him in respect to his suffering, without committing herself at all in regard to the original cause of it; and then, at a subsequent time, when the tumult of his soul has subsided, she can, if she thinks best, far more easily and effectually lead him to see wherein he was wrong. CHAPTER XII. COMMENDATION AND ENCOURAGEMENT. We are very apt to imagine that the disposition to do right is, or ought to be, the natural and normal condition of childhood, and that doing wrong is something unnatural and exceptional with children. As a consequence, when they do right we think there is nothing to be said. That is, or ought to be, a matter of course. It is only when they do wrong that we notice their conduct, and then, of course, with censure and reproaches. Thus our discipline consists mainly, not in gently leading and encouraging them in the right way, but in deterring them, by fault-finding and punishment, from going wrong. Now we ought not to forget that in respect to moral conduct as well as to mental attainments children know nothing when they come into the world, but have every thing to learn, either from the instructions or from the example of those around them. We do not propose to enter at all into the consideration of the various theological and metaphysical theories held by different classes of philosophers in respect to the native constitution and original tendencies of the human soul, but to look at the phenomena of mental and moral action in a plain and practical way, as they present themselves to the observation of mothers in the every-day walks of life. And in order the better to avoid any complication with these theories, we will take first an extremely simple case, namely, the fault of making too much noise in opening and shutting the door in going in and out of a room. Georgie and Charlie are two boys, both about five years old, and both prone to the same fault. We will suppose that their mothers take opposite methods to correct them; Georgie's mother depending upon the influence of commendation and encouragement when he does right, and Charlie's, upon the efficacy of reproaches and punishments when he does wrong. _One Method_. Georgie, eager to ask his mother some question, or to obtain some permission in respect to his play, bursts into her room some morning with great noise, opening and shutting the door violently, and making much disturbance. In a certain sense he is not to blame for this, for he is wholly unconscious of the disturbance he makes. The entire cognizant capacity of his mind is occupied with the object of his request. He not only had no intention of doing any harm, but has no idea of his having done any. His mother takes no notice of the noise he made, but answers his question, and he goes away making almost as much noise in going out as he did in coming in. The next time he comes in it happens--entirely by accident, we will suppose--that he makes a little less noise than before. This furnishes his mother with her opportunity. "Georgie," she says, "I see you are improving." "Improving?" repeats Georgie, not knowing to what his mother refers. "Yes," said his mother; "you are improving, in coming into the room without making a noise by opening and shutting the door. You did not make nearly as much noise this time as you did before when you came in. Some boys, whenever they come into a room, make so much noise in opening and shutting the door that it is very disagreeable. If you go on improving as you have begun, you will soon come in as still as any gentleman." The next time that Georgie comes in, he takes the utmost pains to open and shut the door as silently as possible. He makes his request. His mother shows herself unusually ready to grant it. "You opened and shut the door like a gentleman," she says. "I ought to do every thing for you that I can, when you take so much pains not to disturb or trouble me." _Another Method_. Charlie's mother, on the other hand, acts on a different principle. Charlie comes in sometimes, we will suppose, in a quiet and proper manner. His mother takes no notice of this. She considers it a matter of course. By-and-by, however, under the influence of some special eagerness, he makes a great noise. Then his mother interposes. She breaks out upon him with, "Charlie, what a noise you make! Don't you know better than to slam the doer in that way when you come in? If you can't learn to make less noise in going in and out, I shall not let you go in and out at all." Charlie knows very well that this is an empty threat. Still, the utterance of it, and the scolding that accompanies it, irritate him a little, and the only possible good effect that can be expected to result from it is to make him try, the next time he comes in, to see how small an abatement of the noise he usually makes will do, as a kind of make-believe obedience to his mother's command. He might, indeed, honestly answer his mother's angry question by saying that he does _not_ know better than to make such a noise. He does not know why the noise of the door should be disagreeable to his mother. It is not disagreeable to _him_. On the contrary, it is agreeable. Children always like noise, especially if they make it themselves. And although Charlie has often been told that he must not make any noise, the reason for this--namely, that though noise is a source of pleasure, generally, to children, especially when they make it themselves, it is almost always a source of annoyance and pain to grown persons--has never really entered his mind so as to be actually comprehended us a practical reality. His ideas in respect to the philosophy of the transaction are, of course, exceedingly vague; but so far as he forms any idea, it is that his mother's words are the expression of some mysterious but unreasonable sensitiveness on her part, which awakens in her a spirit of fault-finding and ill-humor that vents itself upon him in blaming him for nothing at all; or, as he would express it more tersely, if not so elegantly, that she is "very cross." In other words, the impression made by the transaction upon his moral sense is that of wrong-doing on his _mother's part_, and not at all on his own. It is evident, when we thus look into the secret workings of this method of curing children of their faults, that even when it is successful in restraining certain kinds of outward misconduct, and is thus the means of effecting some small amount of good, the injury which it does by its reaction on the spirit of the child may be vastly greater, through the irritation and ill-humor which it occasions, and the impairing of his confidence in the justice and goodness of his mother. Before leaving this illustration, it must be carefully observed that in the first-mentioned case--namely, that of Georgie--the work of curing the fault in question is not to be at all considered as _effected_ by the step taken by his mother which has been already described. That was only a beginning--a _right_ beginning, it is true, but still only a beginning. It produced in him a cordial willingness to do right, in one instance. That is a great thing, but it is, after all, only one single step. The work is not complete until a _habit_ of doing right is formed, which is another thing altogether, and requires special and continual measures directed to this particular end. Children have to be _trained_ in the way they should go--not merely shown the way, and induced to make a beginning of entering it. We will now try to show how the influence of commendation and encouragement may be brought into action in this more essential part of the process. _Habit to be Formed_. Having taken the first step already described, Georgie's mother finds some proper opportunity, when she can have the undisturbed and undivided attention of her boy--perhaps at night, after he has gone to his crib or his trundle-bed, and just before she leaves him; or, perhaps, at some time while she is at work, and he is sitting by her side, with his mind calm, quiet, and unoccupied. "Georgie," she says, "I have a plan to propose to you." Georgie is eager to know what it is. "You know how pleased I was when you came in so still to-day." Georgie remembers it very well. "It is very curious," continued his mother, "that there is a great difference between grown people and children about noise. Children _like_ almost all kinds of noises very much, especially, if they make the noises themselves; but grown people dislike them even more, I think, than children like them. If there were a number of boys in the house, and I should tell them that they might run back and forth through the rooms, and rattle and slam all the doors as they went as loud as they could, they would like it very much. They would think it excellent fun." "Yes," says Georgie, "indeed, they would. I wish you would let us do it some day." "But grown people," continues his mother, "would not like such an amusement at all. On the contrary, such a racket would be excessively disagreeable to them, whether they made it themselves or whether somebody else made it. So, when children come into a room where grown people are sitting, and make a noise in opening and shutting the door, it is very disagreeable. Of course, grown people always like those children the best that come into a room quietly, and in a gentlemanly and lady-like manner." As this explanation comes in connection with Georgia's having done right, and with the commendation which he has received for it, his mind and heart are open to receive it, instead of being disposed to resist and exclude it, as he would have been if the same things exactly had been said to him in connection with censure and reproaches for having acted in violation of the principle. "Yes, mother," says he, "and I mean always to open and shut the door as still as I can." "Yes, I know you _mean_ to do so," rejoined his mother, "but you will forget, unless you have some plan to make you remember it until the _habit is formed_. Now I have a plan to propose to help you form the habit. When you get the habit once formed there will be no more difficulty. "The plan is this: whenever you come into a room making a noise, I will simply say, _Noise_. Then you will step back again softly and shut the door, and then come in again in a quiet and proper way. You will not go back for punishment, for you would not have made the noise on purpose, and so would not deserve any punishment. It is only to help you remember, and so to form the habit of coming into a room in a quiet and gentlemanly manner." Now Georgie, especially if all his mother's management of him is conducted in this spirit, will enter into this plan with great cordiality. "I should not propose this plan," continued his mother, "if I thought that when I say _Noise_, and you have to go out and come in again, it would put you out of humor, and make you cross or sullen. I am sure you will be good-natured about it, and even if you consider it a kind of punishment, that you will go out willingly, and take the punishment like a man; and when you come in again you will come in still, and look pleased and happy to find that you are carrying out the plan honorably." Then if, on the first occasion when he is sent back, he _does_ take it good-naturedly, this must be noticed and commended. Now, unless we are entirely wrong in all our ideas of the nature and tendencies of the infantile mind, it is as certain that a course of procedure like this will be successful in curing the fault which is the subject of treatment, as that water will extinguish fire. It cures it, too, without occasioning any irritation, annoyance, or ill-humor in the mind either of mother or child. On the contrary, it is a source of real satisfaction and pleasure to them both, and increases and strengthens the bond of sympathy by which their hearts are united to each other. _The Principle involved_. It must be understood distinctly that this case is given only as an illustration of a principle which is applicable to all cases. The act of opening and shutting a door in a noisy manner is altogether too insignificant a fault to deserve this long discussion of the method of curing it, were it not that methods founded on the same principles, and conducted in the same spirit, are applicable universally in all that pertains to the domestic management of children. And it is a method, too, directly the opposite of that which is often--I will not say generally, but certainly very often--pursued. The child tells the truth many times, and in some cases, perhaps, when the inducement was very strong to tell an untruth. We take no notice of these cases, considering it a matter of course that he should tell the truth. We reserve our action altogether for the first case when, overcome by a sudden temptation, he tells a lie, and then interpose with reproaches and punishment. Nineteen times he gives up what belongs to his little brother or sister of his own accord, perhaps after a severe internal struggle. The twentieth time the result of the struggle goes the wrong way, and he attempts to retain by violence what does not belong to him. We take no notice of the nineteen cases when the little fellow did right, but come and box his ears in the one case when he does wrong. _Origin of the Error_. The idea on which this mode of treatment is founded--namely, that it is a _matter of course_ that children should do right, so that when they do right there is nothing to be said, and that doing wrong is the abnormal condition and exceptional action which alone requires the parent to interfere--is, to a great extent, a mistake. Indeed, the _matter of course_ is all the other way. A babe will seize the plaything of another babe without the least compunction long after it is keenly alive to the injustice and wrongfulness of having its own playthings taken by any other child. So in regard to truth. The first impulse of all children, when they have just acquired the use of language, is to use it in such a way as to effect their object for the time being, without any sense of the sacred obligation of making the words always correspond truly with the facts. The principles of doing justice to the rights of others to one's own damage, and of speaking the truth when falsehood would serve the present purpose better, are principles that are developed or acquired by slow degrees, and at a later period. I say developed _or_ acquired--for different classes of metaphysicians and theologians entertain different theories in respect to the way by which the ideas of right and of duty enter into the human mind. But all will agree in this, that whatever may be the origin of the moral sense in man, it does not appear as a _practical element of control for the conduct_ till some time after the animal appetites and passions have begun to exercise their power. Whether we regard this sense as arising from a development within of a latent principle of the soul, or as an essential element of the inherited and native constitution of man, though remaining for a time embryonic and inert, or as a habit acquired under the influence of instruction and example, all will admit that the period of its appearance as a perceptible motive of action is so delayed, and the time required for its attaining sufficient strength to exercise any real and effectual control over the conduct extends over so many of the earlier years of life, that no very material help in governing the appetites and passions and impulses can be reasonably expected from it at a very early period. Indeed, conscience, so far as its existence is manifested at all in childhood, seems to show itself chiefly in the form of the simple _fear of detection_ in what there is reason to suppose will lead, if discovered, to reproaches or punishment. At any rate, the moral sense in childhood, whatever may be our philosophy in respect to the origin and the nature of it, can not be regarded as a strong and settled principle on which we can throw the responsibility of regulating the conduct, and holding it sternly to its obligations. It is, on the contrary, a very tender plant, slowly coming forward to the development of its beauty and its power, and requiring the most gentle fostering and care on the part of those intrusted with the training of the infant mind; and the influence of commendation and encouragement when the embryo monitor succeeds in its incipient and feeble efforts, will be far more effectual in promoting its development, than that of censure and punishment when it fails. _Important Caution_. For every good thing there seems to be something in its form and semblance that is spurious and bad. The principle brought to view in this chapter has its counterfeit in the indiscriminate praise and flattery of children by their parents, which only makes them self-conceited and vain, without at all promoting any good end. The distinction between the two might be easily pointed out, if time and space permitted; but the intelligent parent, who has rightly comprehended the method of management here described, and the spirit in which the process of applying it is to be made, will be in no danger of confounding one with the other. This principle of noticing and commending, within proper limits and restrictions, what is right, rather than finding fault with what is wrong, will be found to be as important in the work of instruction as in the regulation of conduct. We have, in fact, a very good opportunity of comparing the two systems, as it is a curious fact that in certain things it is almost the universal custom to adopt one method, and in certain others, the other. _The two Methods exemplified_. There are, for example, two arts which children have to learn, in the process of their mental and physical development, in which their faults, errors, and deficiencies are never pointed out, but in the dealings of their parents with them all is commendation and encouragement. They are the arts of walking and talking. The first time that a child attempts to walk alone, what a feeble, staggering, and awkward exhibition it makes. And yet its mother shows, by the excitement of her countenance, and the delight expressed by her exclamations, how pleased she is with the performance; and she, perhaps, even calls in persons from the next room to see how well the baby can walk! Not a word about imperfections and failings, not a word about the tottering, the awkward reaching out of arms to preserve the balance, the crookedness of the way, the anxious expression of the countenance, or any other faults. These are left to correct themselves by the continued practice which encouragement is sure to lead to. It is true that words would not be available in such a case for fault-finding; for a child when learning to walk would be too young to understand them. But the parent's sense of the imperfections of the performance might be expressed in looks and gestures which the child would understand; but he sees, on the contrary, nothing but indications of satisfaction and pleasure, and it is very manifest how much he is encouraged by them. Seeing the pleasure which his efforts give to the spectators, he is made proud and happy by his success, and goes on making efforts to improve with alacrity and delight. It is the same with learning to talk. The mistakes, deficiencies, and errors of the first rude attempts are seldom noticed, and still more seldom pointed out by the parent. On the contrary, the child takes the impression, from the readiness with which its words are understood and the delight it evidently gives its mother to hear them, that it is going on triumphantly in its work of learning to talk, instead of feeling that its attempts are only tolerated because they are made by such a little child, and that they require a vast amount of correction, alteration, and improvement, before they will be at all satisfactory. Indeed, so far from criticising and pointing out the errors and faults, the mother very frequently meets the child half way in its progress, by actually adopting the faults and errors herself in her replies. So that when the little beginner in the use of language, as he wakes up in his crib, and stretching out his hands to his mother says, "I want _to get up_" she comes to take him, and replies, her face beaming with delight, "My little darling! you shall _get up_;" thus filling his mind with happiness at the idea that his mother is not only pleased that he attempts to speak, but is fully satisfied, and more than satisfied, with his success. The result is, that in learning to walk and to talk, children always go forward with alacrity and ardor. They practise continually and spontaneously, requiring no promises of reward to allure them to effort, and no threats of punishment to overcome repugnance or aversion. It might be too much to say that the rapidity of their progress and the pleasure which they experience in making it, are owing wholly to the commendation and encouragement they receive--for other causes may co-operate with these. But it is certain that these influences contribute very essentially to the result. There can be no doubt at all that if it were possible for a mother to stop her child in its efforts to learn to walk and to talk, and explain to it, no matter how kindly, all its shortcomings, failures, and mistakes, and were to make this her daily and habitual practice, the consequence would be, not only a great diminution of the ardor and animation of the little pupil, in pressing forward in its work, but also a great retardation in its progress. _Example of the other Method_. Let us now, for the more full understanding of the subject, go to the other extreme, and consider a case in which the management is as far as possible removed from that above referred to. We can not have a better example than the method often adopted in schools and seminaries for teaching composition; in other words, the art of expressing one's thoughts in written language--an art which one would suppose to be so analogous to that of learning to talk--that is, to express one's thoughts in _oral_ language--that the method which was found so eminently successful in the one would be naturally resorted to in the other. Instead of that, the method often pursued is exactly the reverse. The pupil having with infinite difficulty, and with many forebodings and anxious fears, made his first attempt, brings it to his teacher. The teacher, if he is a kind-hearted and considerate man, perhaps briefly commends the effort with some such dubious and equivocal praise as it is "Very well for a beginner," or "As good a composition as could be expected at the first attempt," and then proceeds to go over the exercise in a cool and deliberate manner, with a view of discovering and bringing out clearly and conspicuously to the view, not only of the little author himself, but often of all his classmates and friends, every imperfection, failure, mistake, omission, or other fault which a rigid scrutiny can detect in the performance. However kindly he may do this, and however gentle the tones of his voice, still the work is criticism and fault-finding from beginning to end. The boy sits on thorns and nettles while submitting to the operation, and when he takes his marked and corrected manuscript to his seat, he feels mortified and ashamed, and is often hopelessly discouraged. _How Faults are to be Corrected_. Some one may, perhaps, say that pointing out the errors and faults of pupils is absolutely essential to their progress, inasmuch as, unless they are made to see what their faults are, they can not be expected to correct them. I admit that this is true to a certain extent, but by no means to so great an extent as is often supposed. There are a great many ways of teaching pupils to do better what they are going to do, besides showing them the faults in what they have already done. Thus, without pointing out the errors and faults which he observes, the teacher may only refer to and commend what is right, while he at the same time observes and remembers the prevailing faults, with a view of adapting his future instructions to the removal of them. These instructions, when given, will take the form, of course, of general information on the art of expressing one's thoughts in writing, and on the faults and errors to be avoided, perhaps without any, or, at least, very little allusion to those which the pupils themselves had committed. Instruction thus given, while it will have at least an equal tendency with the other mode to form the pupils to habits of correctness and accuracy, will not have the effect upon their mind of disparagement of what they have already done, but rather of aid and encouragement for them in regard to what they are next to do. In following the instructions thus given them, the pupils will, as it were, leave the faults previously committed behind them, being even, in many instances, unconscious, perhaps, of their having themselves ever committed them. The ingenious mother will find various modes analogous to this, of leading her children forward into what is right, without at all disturbing their minds by censure of what is wrong--a course which it is perfectly safe to pursue in the case of all errors and faults which result from inadvertence or immaturity. There is, doubtless, another class of faults--those of willful carelessness or neglect--which must be specially pointed out to the attention of the delinquents, and a degree of discredit attached to the commission of them, and perhaps, in special cases, some kind of punishment imposed, as the most proper corrective of the evil. And yet, even in cases of carelessness and neglect of duty, it will generally be found much more easy to awaken ambition, and a desire to improve, in a child, by discovering, if possible, something good in his work, and commending that, as an encouragement to him to make greater exertion the next time, than to attempt to cure him of his negligence by calling his attention to the faults which he has committed, as subjects of censure, however obvious the faults may be, and however deserving of blame. The advice, however, made in this chapter, to employ commendation and encouragement to a great extent, rather than criticism and fault-finding, in the management and instruction of children, must, like all other general counsels of the kind, be held subject to all proper limitations and restrictions. Some mother may, perhaps, object to what is here advanced, saying, "If I am always indiscriminately praising my child's doings, he will become self-conceited and vain, and he will cease to make progress, being satisfied with what he has already attained." Of course he will, and therefore you must take care not to be always and indiscriminately praising him. You must exercise tact and good judgment, or at any rate, common sense, in properly proportioning your criticism and your praise. There are no principles of management, however sound, which may not be so exaggerated, or followed with so blind a disregard of attendant circumstances, as to produce more harm than good. It must be especially borne in mind that the counsels here given in relation to curing the faults of children by dealing more with what is good in them than what is bad, are intended to apply to faults of ignorance, inadvertence, or habit only, and not to acts of known and willful wrong. When we come to cases of deliberate and intentional disobedience to a parent's commands, or open resistance to his authority, something different, or at least something more, is required. _The Principle of Universal Application._ In conclusion, it is proper to add that the principle of influencing human character and action by noticing and commending what is right, rather than finding fault with what is wrong, is of universal application, with the mature as well as with the young. The susceptibility to this influence is in full operation in the minds of all men everywhere, and acting upon it will lead to the same results in all the relations of society. The way to awaken a penurious man to the performance of generous deeds is not by remonstrating with him, however kindly, on his penuriousness, but by watching his conduct till we find some act that bears some semblance of liberality, and commending him for that. If you have a neighbor who is surly and troublesome--tell him that he is so, and you make him worse than ever. But watch for some occasion in which he shows you some little kindness, and thank him cordially for such a good neighborly act, and he will feel a strong desire to repeat it. If mankind universally understood this principle, and would generally act upon it in their dealings with others--of course, with such limitations and restrictions as good sense and sound judgment would impose--the world would not only go on much more smoothly and harmoniously than it does now, but the progress of improvement would, I think, in all respects be infinitely more rapid. CHAPTER XIII. FAULTS OF IMMATURITY. A great portion of the errors and mistakes, and of what we call the follies, of children arise from simple ignorance. Principles of philosophy, whether pertaining to external nature or to mental action, are involved which have never come home to their minds. They may have been presented, but they have not been understood and appreciated. It requires some tact, and sometimes delicate observation, on the part of the mother to determine whether a mode of action which she sees ought to be corrected results from childish ignorance and inexperience, or from willful wrong-doing. Whatever may be the proper treatment in the latter case, it is evident that in the former what is required is not censure, but instruction. _Boasting_. A mother came into the room one day and found Johnny disputing earnestly with his Cousin Jane on the question which was the tallest--Johnny very strenuously maintaining that he was the tallest, _because he was a boy_. His older brother, James, who was present at the time, measured them, and found that Johnny in reality was the tallest. Now there was nothing wrong in his feeling a pride and pleasure in the thought that he was physically superior to his cousin, and though it was foolish for him to insist himself on this superiority in a boasting way, it was the foolishness of ignorance only. He had not learned the principle--which half mankind do not seem ever to learn during the whole course of their lives--that it is far wiser and better to let our good qualities appear naturally of themselves, than to claim credit for them beforehand by boasting. It would have been much wiser for Johnny to have admitted at the outset that Jane might possibly be taller than he, and then to have awaited quietly the result of the measuring. But we can not blame him much for not having learned this particular wisdom at five years of age, when so many full-grown men and women never learn it at all. Nor was there any thing blameworthy in him in respect to the false logic involved in his argument, that his being a boy made him necessarily taller than his cousin, a girl of the same age. There was a _semblance_ of proof in that fact--what the logicians term a presumption. But the reasoning powers are very slowly developed in childhood. They are very seldom aided by any instruction really adapted to the improvement of them; and we ought not to expect that such children can at all clearly distinguish a semblance from a reality in ideas so extremely abstruse as those relating to the logical connection between the premises and the conclusion in a process of ratiocination. In this case as in the other we expect them to understand at once, without instruction, what we find it extremely difficult to learn ourselves; for a large portion of mankind prove themselves utterly unable ever to discriminate between sound arguments and those which are utterly inconsequent and absurd. In a word, what Johnny requires in such a case as this is, not ridicule to shame him out of his false reasoning, nor censure or punishment to cure him of his boasting, but simply instruction. And this instruction it is much better to give _not_ in direct connection with the occurrence which indicated the want of it. If you attempt to explain to your boy the folly of boasting in immediate connection with some act of boasting of his own, he feels that you are really finding fault with him; his mind instinctively puts itself into a position of defense, and the truth which you wish to impart to it finds a much less easy admission. If, for example, in this case Johnny's mother attempts on the spot to explain to him the folly of boasting, and to show how much wiser it is for us to let our good qualities, if we have any, speak for themselves, without any direct agency of ours in claiming the merit of them, he listens reluctantly and nervously as to a scolding in disguise. If he is a boy well managed, he waits, perhaps, to hear what his mother has to say, but it makes no impression. If he is badly trained, he will probably interrupt his mother in the midst of what she is saying, or break away from her to go on with his play. _A right Mode of Treatment._ If now, instead of this, the mother waits until the dispute and the transaction of measuring have passed by and been forgotten, and then takes some favorable opportunity to give the required _instruction_, the result will be far more favorable. At some time, when tired of his play, he comes to stand by her to observe her at her work, or perhaps to ask her for a story; or, after she has put him to bed and is about to leave him for the night, she says to him as follows: "I'll tell you a story about two boys, Jack and Henry, and you shall tell me which of them came off best. They both went to the same school and were in the same class, and there was nobody else in the class but those two. Henry, who was the most diligent scholar, was at the head of the class, and Jack was below him, and, of course, as there were only two, he was at the foot. "One day there was company at the house, and one of the ladies asked the boys how they got along at school. Jack immediately said, 'Very well. I'm next to the head of my class.' The lady then praised him, and said that he must be a very good scholar to be so high in his class. Then she asked Henry how high he was in his class. He said he was next to the foot. "The lady was somewhat surprised, for she, as well as the others present, supposed that Henry was the best scholar; they were all a little puzzled too, for Henry looked a little roguish and sly when he said it. But just then the teacher came in, and she explained the case; for she said that the boys were in the same class, and they were all that were in it; so that Henry, who was really at the head, was next but one to the foot, while Jack, who was at the foot, was next but one to the head. On having this explanation made to the company, Jack felt very much confused and ashamed, while Henry, though he said nothing, could not help feeling pleased. "And now," asks the mother, in conclusion, "which of these boys do you think came off the best?" Johnny answers that Henry came out best. "Yes," adds his mother, "and it is always better that people's merits, if they have any, should come out in other ways than by their own boasting of them." It is true that this case of Henry and Jack does not correspond exactly--not even nearly, in fact--with that of Johnny and his cousin. Nor is it necessary that the instruction given in these ways should logically conform to the incident which calls them forth. It is sufficient that there should be such a degree of analogy between them, that the interest and turn of thought produced by the incident may prepare the mind for appreciating and receiving the lesson. But the mother may bring the lesson nearer if she pleases. "I will tell you another story," she says. "There were two men at a fair. Their names were Thomas and Philip. "Thomas was boasting of his strength. He said he was a great deal stronger than Philip. 'Perhaps you are,' said Philip. Then Thomas pointed to a big stone which was lying upon the ground, and dared Philip to try which could throw it the farthest. 'Very well,' said Philip, 'I will try, but I think it very likely you will beat me, for I know you are very strong.' So they tried, and it proved that Philip could throw it a great deal farther than Thomas could. Then Thomas went away looking very much incensed and very much ashamed, while Philip's triumph was altogether greater for his not having boasted." "Yes," says Johnny, "I think so." The mother may, if she pleases, come still nearer than this, if she wishes to suit Johnny's individual case, without exciting any resistance in his heart to the reception of her lesson. She may bring his exact case into consideration, provided she changes the names of the actors, so that Johnny's mind may be relieved from the uneasy sensitiveness which it is so natural for a child to feel when his own conduct is directly the object of unfavorable comment. It is surprising how slight a change in the mere outward incidents of an affair will suffice to divert the thoughts of the child from himself in such a case, and enable him to look at the lesson to be imparted without personal feeling, and so to receive it more readily. Johnny's mother may say, "There might be a story in a book about two boys that were disputing a little about which was the tallest. What do you think would be good names for the boys, if you were making up such a story?" When Johnny has proposed the names, his mother could go on and give an almost exact narrative of what took place between Johnny and his cousin, offering just such instructions and such advice as she would like to offer; and she will find, if she manages the conversation with ordinary tact and discretion, that the lessons which she desires to impart will find a ready admission to the mind of her child, simply from the fact that, by divesting them of all direct personal application, she has eliminated from them the element of covert censure which they would otherwise have contained. Very slight disguises will, in all such cases, be found to be sufficient to veil the personal applicability of the instruction, so far as to divest it of all that is painful or disagreeable to the child. He may have a vague feeling that you mean him, but the feeling will not produce any effect of irritation or repellency. Now, the object of these illustrations is to show that those errors and faults which, when we look at their real and intrinsic character, we see to be results of ignorance and inexperience, and not instances of willful and intentional wrong-doing, are not to be dealt with harshly, and made occasions of censure and punishment. The child does not deserve censure or punishment in such cases; what he requires is instruction. It is the bringing in of light to illuminate the path that is before him which he has yet to tread, and not the infliction of pain, to impress upon him the evil of the missteps he made, in consequence of the obscurity, in the path behind him. Indeed, in such cases as this, it is the influence of pleasure rather than pain that the parent will find the most efficient means of aiding him; that is, in these cases, the more pleasant and agreeable the modes by which he can impart the needed knowledge to the child--in other words, the more attractive he can make the paths by which he can lead his little charge onward in its progress towards maturity--the more successful he will be. _Ignorance of Material Properties and Laws._ In the example already given, the mental immaturity consisted in imperfect acquaintance with the qualities and the action of the mind, and the principles of sound reasoning; but a far larger portion of the mistakes and failures into which children fall, and for which they incur undeserved censure, are due to their ignorance of the laws of external nature, and of the properties and qualities of material objects. A boy, for example, seven or eight years old, receives from his father a present of a knife, with a special injunction to be careful of it. He is, accordingly, very careful of it in respect to such dangers as he understands, but in attempting to bore a hole with it in a piece of wood, out of which he is trying to make a windmill, he breaks the small blade. The accident, in such a case, is not to be attributed to any censurable carelessness, but to want of instruction in respect to the strength of such a material as steel, and the nature and effects of the degree of tempering given to knife-blades. The boy had seen his father bore holes with a gimlet, and the knife-blade was larger--in one direction at least, that is, in breadth--than the gimlet, and it was very natural for him to suppose that it was stronger. What a boy needs in such a case, therefore, is not a scolding, or punishment, but simply information. A girl of about the same age--a farmer's daughter, we will suppose--under the influence of a dutiful desire to aid her mother in preparing the table for breakfast, attempts to carry across the room a pitcher of milk which is too full, and she spills a portion of it upon the floor. _The Intention good_. [Illustration: THE INTENTION GOOD.] The mother, forgetting the good intention which prompted the act, and thinking only of the inconvenience which it occasions her, administers at once a sharp rebuke. The cause of the trouble was, simply, that the child was not old enough to understand the laws of momentum and of oscillation that affect the condition of a fluid when subjected to movements more or less irregular. She has had no theoretical instruction on the subject, and is too young to have acquired the necessary knowledge practically, by experience or observation. It is so with a very large portion of the accidents which befall children. They arise not from any evil design, nor even any thing that can properly be called carelessness, on their part, but simply from the immaturity of their knowledge in respect to the properties and qualities of the material objects with which they have to deal. It is true that children may be, and often, doubtless, are, in fault for these accidents. The boy may have been warned by his father not to attempt to bore with his knife-blade, or the girl forbidden to attempt to carry the milk-pitcher. The fault, however, would be, even in these cases, in the disobedience, and not in the damage that accidentally resulted from it. And it would be far more reasonable and proper to reprove and punish the fault when no evil followed than when a damage was the result; for in the latter case the damage itself acts, ordinarily, as a more than sufficient punishment. _Misfortunes befalling Men_. These cases are exactly analogous to a large class of accidents and calamities that happen among men. A ship-master sails from port at a time when there are causes existing in the condition of the atmosphere, and in the agencies in readiness to act upon it, that must certainly, in a few hours, result in a violent storm. He is consequently caught in the gale, and his topmasts and upper rigging are carried away. The owners do not censure him for the loss which they incur, if they are only assured that the meteorological knowledge at the captain's command at the time of leaving port was not such as to give him warning of the danger; and provided, also, that his knowledge was as advanced as could reasonably be expected from the opportunities which he had enjoyed. But we are very much inclined to hold children responsible for as much knowledge of the sources of danger around them as we ourselves, with all our experience, have been able to acquire, and are accustomed to condemn and sometimes even to punish them, for want of this knowledge. Indeed, in many cases, both with children and with men, the means of knowledge in respect to the danger may be fully within reach, and yet the situation may be so novel, and the combination of circumstances so peculiar, that the connection between the causes and the possible evil effects does not occur to the minds of the persons engaged. An accident which has just occurred at the time of this present writing will illustrate this. A company of workmen constructing a tunnel for a railway, when they had reached the distance of some miles from the entrance, prepared a number of charges for blasting the rock, and accidentally laid the wires connected with the powder in too close proximity to the temporary railway-track already laid in the tunnel. The charges were intended to be fired from an electric battery provided for the purpose; but a thunder-cloud came up, and the electric force from it was conveyed by the rails into the tunnel and exploded the charges, and several men were killed. No one was inclined to censure the unfortunate men for carelessness in not guarding against a contingency so utterly unforeseen by them, though it is plain that, as is often said to children in precisely analogous cases, they _might have known_. _Children's Studies_.--_Spelling_. There is, perhaps, no department of the management of children in which they incur more undeserved censure, and even punishment, and are treated with so little consideration for faults arising solely from the immaturity of their minds, than in the direction of what may be called school studies. Few people have any proper appreciation of the enormous difficulties which a child has to encounter in learning to read and spell. How many parents become discouraged, and manifest their discouragement and dissatisfaction to the child in reproving and complaints, at what they consider his slow progress in learning to spell--forgetting that in the English language there are in common, every-day use eight or ten thousand words, almost all of which are to be learned separately, by a bare and cheerless toil of committing to memory, with comparatively little definite help from the sound. We have ourselves become so accustomed to seeing the word _bear_, for example, when denoting the animal, spelt _b e a r_, that we are very prone to imagine that there is something naturally appropriate in those letters and in that collocation of them, to represent that sound when used to denote that idea. But what is there in the nature and power of the letters to aid the child in perceiving--or, when told, in remembering--whether, when referring to the animal, he is to write _bear_, or _bare_, or _bair_, or _bayr_, or _bere_, as in _where_. So with the word _you._ It seems to us the most natural thing in the world to spell it _y o u_. And when the little pupil, judging by the sound, writes it _y u_, we mortify him by our ridicule, as if he had done something in itself absurd. But how is he to know, except by the hardest, most meaningless, and distasteful toil of the memory, whether he is to write _you_, or _yu_, or _yoo,_ or _ewe_, or _yew_, or _yue_, as in _flue_, or even _yo_ as in _do_, and to determine when and in what cases respectively he is to use those different forms? The truth is, that each elementary sound that enters into the composition of words is represented in our language by so many different combinations of letters, in different cases, that the child has very little clue from the sound of a syllable to guide him in the spelling of it. We ourselves, from long habit, have become so accustomed to what we call the right spelling--which, of course, means nothing more than the customary one--that we are apt to imagine, as has already been said, that there is some natural fitness in it; and a mode of representing the same sound, which in one case seems natural and proper, in another appears ludicrous and absurd. We smile to see _laugh_ spelled _larf,_ just as we should to see _scarf_ spelled _scaugh_, or _scalf_, as in _half_; and we forget that this perception of apparent incongruity is entirely the result of long habit in us, and has no natural foundation, and that children can not be sensible of it, or have any idea of it whatever. They learn, in learning to talk, what sound serves as the name by which the drops of water that they find upon the grass in the morning is denoted, but they can have no clue whatever to guide them in determining which of the various modes by which precisely that sound is represented in different words, as _dew, do, due, du, doo_, and _dou_, is to be employed in this case, and they become involved in hopeless perplexity if they attempt to imagine "_how it ought to be spelled_;" and we think them stupid because they can not extricate themselves from the difficulty on our calling upon them to "think!" No doubt there is a reason for the particular mode of spelling each particular word in the language--but that reason is hidden in the past history of the word and in facts connected with its origin and derivation from some barbarous or dead language, and is as utterly beyond the reach of each generation of spellers as if there were no such reasons in existence. There can not be the slightest help in any way from the exercise of the thinking or the reasoning powers. It is true that the variety of the modes by which a given sound may be represented is not so great in all words as it is in these examples, though with respect to a vast number of the words in common use the above are fair specimens. They were not specially selected, but were taken almost at random. And there are very few words in the language the sound of which might not be represented by several different modes. Take, for example, the three last words of the last sentence, which, as the words were written without any thought of using them for this purpose, may be considered, perhaps, as a fair specimen of words taken actually at random. The sound of the word _several_ might be expressed in perfect accordance with the usage of English spelling, as _ceveral, severul, sevaral, cevural_, and in many other different modes. The combinations _dipherant, diferunt, dyfferent, diffurunt_, and many others, would as well represent the sound of the second word as the usual mode. And so with _modes_, which, according to the analogy of the language, might as well be expressed by _moads, mowdes, moades, mohdes_, or even _mhodes_, as in _Rhodes_. An exceptionally precise speaker might doubtless make some slight difference in the sounds indicated by the different modes of representing the same syllable as given above; but to the ordinary appreciation of childhood the distinction in sound between such combinations, for example, as _a n t_ in _constant_ and _e n t_ in _different_ would not be perceptible. Now, when we consider the obvious fact that the child has to learn mechanically, without any principles whatever to guide him in discovering which, out of the many different forms, equally probable, judging simply from analogy, by which the sound of the word is to be expressed, is the right one; and considering how small a portion of his time each day is or can be devoted to this work, and that the number of words in common use, all of which he is expected to know how to spell correctly by the time that he is twelve or fifteen years of age, is probably ten or twelve thousand (there are in Webster's dictionary considerably over a hundred thousand); when we take these considerations into account, it would seem that a parent, on finding that a letter written by his daughter, twelve or fourteen years of age, has all but three or four words spelled right, ought to be pleased and satisfied, and to express his satisfaction for the encouragement of the learner, instead of appearing to think only of the few words that are wrong, and disheartening and discouraging the child by attempts to make her ashamed of her spelling. The case is substantially the same with the enormous difficulties to be encountered in learning to read and to write. The names of the letters, as the child pronounces them individually, give very little clue to the sound that is to be given to the word formed by them. Thus, the letters _h i t_, as the child pronounces them individually--_aitch, eye, tee_--would naturally spell to him some such word as _achite_, not _hit_ at all. And as for the labor and difficulty of writing, a mother who is impatient at the slow progress of her children in the attainment of the art would be aided very much in obtaining a just idea of the difficulties which they experience by sitting upon a chair and at a table both much too high for her, and trying to copy Chinese characters by means of a hair-pencil, and with her left hand--the work to be closely inspected every day by a stern Chinaman of whom she stands in awe, and all the minutest deviations from the copy pointed out to her attention with an air of dissatisfaction and reproval! _Effect of Ridicule_. There is, perhaps, no one cause which exerts a greater influence in chilling the interest that children naturally feel in the acquisition of knowledge, than the depression and discouragement which result from having their mistakes and errors--for a large portion of which they are in no sense to blame--made subjects of censure or ridicule. The effect is still more decided in the case of girls than in that of boys, the gentler sex being naturally so much more sensitive. I have found in many cases, especially in respect to girls who are far enough advanced to have had a tolerably full experience of the usual influences of schools, that the fear of making mistakes, and of being "thought stupid," has had more effect in hindering and retarding progress, by repressing the natural ardor of the pupil, and destroying all alacrity and courage in the efforts to advance, than all other causes combined. _Stupidity_. How ungenerous, and even cruel, it is to reproach or ridicule a child for stupidity, is evident when we reflect that any supposed inferiority in his mental organization can not, by any possibility, be _his_ fault. The question what degree of natural intelligence he shall be endowed with, in comparison with other children, is determined, not by himself, but by his Creator, and depends, probably, upon conditions of organization in his cerebral system as much beyond his control as any thing abnormal in the features of his face, or blindness, or deafness, or any other physical disadvantage. The child who shows any indications of inferiority to others in any of these respects should be the object of his parent's or his teacher's special tenderness and care. If he is near-sighted, give him, at school, a seat as convenient as possible to the blackboard or the map. If he is hard of hearing, place him near the teacher; and for reasons precisely analogous, if you suspect him to be of inferior capacity, help him gently and tenderly in every possible way. Do every thing in your power to encourage him, and to conceal his deficiencies both from others and from himself, so far as these objects can be attained consistently with the general good of the family or of the school. And, at all events, let those who have in any way the charge of children keep the distinction well defined in their minds between the faults which result from evil intentions, or deliberate and willful neglect of known duty, and those which, whatever the inconvenience they may occasion, are in part or in whole the results of mental or physical immaturity. In all our dealings, whether with plants, or animals, or with the human soul, we ought, in our training, to act very gently in respect to all that pertains to the embryo condition. CHAPTER XIV. THE ACTIVITY OF CHILDREN. In order rightly to understand the true nature of that extraordinary activity which is so noticeable in all children that are in a state of health, so as to be able to deal with it on the right principles and in a proper manner, it is necessary to turn our attention somewhat carefully to certain scientific truths in respect to the nature and action of force in general which are now abundantly established, and which throw great light on the true character of that peculiar form of it which is so characteristic of childhood, and is, indeed, so abundantly developed by the vital functions of almost all young animals. One of the fundamental principles of this system of scientific truth is that which is called the persistence of force. _The Persistence of Force_. By the persistence of force is meant the principle--one now established with so much certainty as to command the assent of every thinking man who examines the subject--that in the ordinary course of nature no force is either ever originated or ever destroyed, but only changed in form. In other words, that all existing forces are but the continuation or prolongation of other forces preceding them, either of the same or other forms, but precisely equivalent in amount; and that no force can terminate its action in any other way than by being transmuted into some other force, either of the same or of some other form; but still, again, precisely equivalent in amount. It was formerly believed that a force might under certain circumstances be _originated_--created, as it were--and hence the attempts to contrive machines for perpetual motion--that is, machines for the _production_ of force. This idea is now wholly renounced by all well-informed men as utterly impossible in the nature of things. All that human mechanism can do is to provide modes for using advantageously a force previously existing, without the possibility of either increasing or diminishing it. No existing force can be destroyed. The only changes possible are changes of direction, changes in the relation of intensity to quantity, and changes of form. The cases in which a force is apparently increased or diminished, as well as those in which it seems to disappear, are all found, on examination, to be illusive. For example, the apparent increase of a man's power by the use of a lever is really no increase at all. It is true that, by pressing upon the outer arm with his own weight, he can cause the much greater weight of the stone to rise; but then it will rise only a very little way in comparison with the distance through which his own weight descends. His own weight must, in fact, descend through a distance as much greater than that by which the stone ascends, as the weight of the stone is greater than his weight. In other words, so far as the balance of the forces is concerned, the whole amount of the _downward motion_ consists of the smaller weight descending through a greater distance, which will be equal to the whole amount of that of the larger one ascending through a smaller distance; and, to produce a preponderance, the whole amount of the downward force must be somewhat greater. Thus the lever only _gathers_ or _concentrates_ force, as it were, but does not at all increase it. It is so with all the other contrivances for managing force for the accomplishment of particular purposes. None of them, increase the force, but only alter its form and character, with a view to its better adaptation to the purpose in view. Nor can any force be extinguished. When a bullet strikes against a solid wall, the force of its movement, which seems to disappear, is not lost; it is converted into heat--the temperature of both the bullet and of that part of the wall on which it impinges being raised by the concussion. And it is found that the amount of the heat which is thus produced is always in exact proportion to the quantity of mechanical motion which is stopped; this quantity depending on the weight of the bullet, and on the velocity with which it was moving. And it has been ascertained, moreover, by the most careful, patient, and many times repeated experiments and calculations, that the quantity of this heat is exactly the same with that which, through the medium of steam, or by any other mode of applying it, may be made to produce the same quantity of mechanical motion that was extinguished in the bullet. Thus the force was not destroyed, but only converted into another form. And if we should follow out the natural effects of this heat into which the motion of the bullet was transferred, we should find it rarefying the air around the place of concussion, and thus lifting the whole mass of the atmosphere above it, and producing currents of the nature of wind, and through these producing other effects, thus going on forever; the force changing its form, but neither increasing or diminishing its quantity through a series of changes without end. _The Arrest and temporary Reservation of Force_. Now, although it is thus impossible that any force should be destroyed, or in any way cease to exist in one form without setting in action a precisely equal amount in some other form, it may, as it were, pass into a condition of _restraint_, and remain thus suspended and latent for an indefinite period--ready, however, to break into action again the moment that the restraint is removed. Thus a perfectly elastic spring may be bent by a certain force, and retained in the bent position a long time. But the moment that it is released it will unbend itself, exercising in so doing precisely the degree of force expended in bending it. In the same manner air may be compressed in an air-gun, and held thus, with the force, as it were, imprisoned, for any length of time, until at last, when the detent is released by the trigger, the elastic force comes into action, exercising in its action a power precisely the same as that with which it was compressed. Force or power may be thus, as it were, stored up in a countless variety of ways, and reserved for future action; and, when finally released, the whole amount may be set free at once, so as to expend itself in a single impulse, as in case of the arrow or the bullet; or it may be partially restrained, so as to expend itself gradually, as in the case of a clock or watch. In either case the total amount expended will be precisely the same--namely, the exact equivalent of that which was placed in store. _Vegetable and Animal Life_. There are a vast number of mechanical contrivances in use among men for thus putting force in store, as it were, and then using it more or less gradually, as may be required. And nature, moreover, does this on a scale so stupendous as to render all human contrivances for this purpose utterly insignificant in comparison. The great agent which nature employs in this work is vegetation. Indeed, it may truly be said that the great function of vegetable life, in all the infinitude of forms and characters which it assumes, is to _receive and store up force_ derived from the emanations of the sun. Animal life, on the other hand, exists and fulfills its functions by the _expenditure_ of this force. Animals receive vegetable productions containing these reserves of force into their systems, which systems contain arrangements for liberating the force, and employing it for the purposes it is intended to subserve in the animal economy. The manner in which these processes are performed is in general terms as follows: The vegetable absorbs from the earth and from the air substances existing in their natural condition--that is, united according to their strongest affinities. These substances are chiefly water, containing various mineral salts in solution, from the ground, and carbonic acid from the air. These substances, after undergoing certain changes in the vessels of the plant, are exposed to the influence of the rays of the sun in the leaves. By the power of these rays--including the calorific, the luminous, and the actinic--the natural affinities by which the above-mentioned substances were united are overcome, and they are formed into new combinations, in which they are united by very weak affinities. Of course, they have a strong tendency to break away from the new unions, and fall back into the old. But, by some mysterious and incomprehensible means, the sun has power to lock them, so to speak, in their new forms, so as to require a special condition of things for the releasing of them. Thus they form a reserve of force, which can be held in restraint until the conditions required for their release are realized. The process can be illustrated more particularly by a single case. Water, one of the substances absorbed by plants, is composed of oxygen and hydrogen, which are united by an affinity of prodigious force. It is the same with carbon and oxygen, in a compound called carbonic acid, which is also one of the principal substances absorbed by plants from the air. Now the heat and other emanations from the sun, acting upon these substances in the leaves, forces the hydrogen and the carbon away from their strong bond of union with oxygen, and sets the oxygen free, and then combines the carbon and hydrogen into a sort of unwilling union with each other--a union from which they are always ready and eager to break away, that they may return to their union with the object of their former and much stronger attachment--namely, oxygen; though they are so locked, by some mysterious means, that they can not break away except when certain conditions necessary to their release are realized. _Hydrocarbons_. The substances thus formed by a weak union of carbon with hydrogen are called hydrocarbons. They comprise nearly all the highly inflammable vegetable substances. Their being combustible means simply that they have a great disposition to resume their union with oxygen--combustion being nothing other than a more or less violent return of a substance to a union with oxygen or some other such substance, usually one from which it had formerly been separated by force--giving out again by its return, in the form of heat, the force by which the original separation had been effected. A compound formed thus of substances united by very weak affinities, so that they are always ready to separate from each other and form new unions under the influence of stronger affinities, is said to be in a state of _unstable equilibrium._ It is the function of vegetable life to create these unstable combinations by means of the force derived from the sun; and the combinations, when formed, of course hold the force which formed them in reserve, ready to make itself manifest whenever it is released. Animals receive these substances into their systems in their food. A portion of them they retain, re-arranging the components in some cases so as to form new compounds, but still unstable. These they use in constructing the tissues of the animal system, and some they reserve for future use. As fast as they require the heat and the force which are stored in them they expend, them, thus recovering the force which was absorbed in the formation of them, and which now, on being released, re-appears in the three forms of _animal heat, muscular motion_, and _cerebral_ or _nervous energy_. There are other modes besides the processes of animal life by which the reserved force laid up by the vegetable process in these unstable compounds may be released. In many cases it releases itself under ordinary exposures to the oxygen of the atmosphere. A log of wood--which is composed chiefly of carbon and hydrogen in an unstable union--lying upon the ground will gradually _decay_, as we term it--that is, its elements will separate from each other, and form new unions with the elements of the surrounding air, thus returning to their normal condition. They give out, in so doing, a low degree of heat, which, being protracted through a course of years, makes up, in the end, the precise equivalent of that expended by the sun in forming the wood--that is, the power expended in the formation of the wood is all released in the dissolution of it. This process may be greatly accelerated by heat. If a portion of the wood is raised in temperature to a certain point, the elements begin to combine with the oxygen near, with so much violence as to release the reserved power with great rapidity. And as this force re-appears in the form of heat, the next portions of the wood are at once raised to the right temperature to allow the process of reoxidation to go on rapidly with them. This is the process of combustion. Observations and experiments on decaying wood have been made, showing that the amount of heat developed by the combustion of a mass of wood, though much more intense for a time, is the same in _amount_ as that which is set free by the slower process of re-oxidation by gradual decay; both being the equivalent of the amount absorbed by the leaves from the sun, in the process of deoxidizing the carbon and hydrogen when the wood was formed. The force imprisoned in these unstable compounds may be held in reserve for an unlimited period, so long as all opportunity is denied them of returning the elements that compose them to their original combinations. Such a case occurs when large beds of vegetable substances are buried under layers of sediment which subsequently become stone, and thus shut the hydrocarbonaceous compounds beneath them from all access to oxygen. The beds of coal thus formed retain their reserved force for periods of immense duration; and when at length the material thus protected is brought to the surface, and made to give up its treasured power, it manifests its efficiency in driving machinery, propelling trains, heating furnaces, or diffusing warmth and comfort around the family fireside. In all these cases the heat and power developed from the coal is heat and power derived originally from the sun, and now set free, after having lain dormant thousands and perhaps millions of years. This simple case of the formation of hydrocarbons from the elements furnished by carbonic acid and water is only adduced as an illustration of the general principle. The modes by which the power of the sun actually takes effect in the decomposition of stable compounds, and the formation of unstable ones from the elements thus obtained, are innumerable, and the processes as well as the combinations that result are extremely complicated. These processes include not only the first formation of the unstable compounds in the leaf, but also an endless series of modifications and re-arrangements which they subsequently undergo, as well in the other organs of the plant as in those of the animal when they are finally introduced into an animal system. In all, however, the general result is substantially the same--namely, the forcing of elements into unnatural combinations, so to speak, by the power of the sun acting through the instrumentality of vegetation, in order that they may subsequently, in the animal system, give out that power again by the effort they make to release themselves from the coercion imposed upon them, and to return to the natural unions in which they can find again stability and repose. One of the chief elements employed in the formation of these weakly-combined substances is _nitrogen_--its compounds being designated as nitrogenous substances, and noted, as a class, for the facility with which they are decomposed. Nitrogen is, in fact, the great _weak-holder_ of nature. Young students in chemistry, when they learn that nitrogen is distinguished by the weakness of its affinities for other elements, and its consequent great _inertness_ as a chemical agent, are often astonished to find that its compounds--such as nitric acid, nitre, which gives its explosive character to gunpowder, nitro-glycerine, gun-cotton, and various other explosive substances which it helps to form--are among the most remarkable in nature for the violence and intensity of their action, and for the extent to which the principle of vitality avails itself of them as magazines of _force_, upon which to draw in the fulfillment of its various functions. 186 _GENTLE MEASURES_. But this is really just what should be expected. It is the very _weakness of the hold_ which nitrogen maintains upon the elements combined with it that facilitates their release, and affords them the opportunity to seize with so much avidity and violence on those for which they have a strong attraction. It is as if a huntsman should conduct a pack of ferocious dogs into a field occupied by a flock of sheep, quietly grazing, holding the dogs securely by very strong leashes. The quiet and repose of the field might not be seriously disturbed; but if, on the other hand, a child comes in, leading the dogs by threads which they can easily sunder, a scene of the greatest violence and confusion would ensue. In the same manner, when nitrogen, holding the particles of oxygen with which it is combined in the compounds above named by a very feeble control, brings them into the presence of other substances for which they have a very strong affinity, they release themselves at once from their weak custodian, and rush into the combinations which their nature demands with so much avidity as to produce combustions, deflagrations, and explosions of the most violent character. The force which the elements display in these reunions is always--and this is one aspect of the great discovery of modern times in respect to the _persistence_ or _constancy_ of force which has already been referred to--precisely the same in amount as that which was required for dissevering them from their original combinations with such substances at some previous time. The _processes of vegetation_ are the chief means employed for effecting the original separations, by the power of the sun, and for forming the unstable compounds by which this power is held in reserve. The _animal system_, on the other hand, takes in these compounds, remodels them so far as is required to adapt them to its structure, assimilates them, and then, as occasion requires quires, it releases the concealed force, which then manifests itself in the forms of _animal heat_, of _muscular motion_, and of _cerebral and nervous power_. In what way, and to what extent, the knowledge of these truths should influence us in the management and training of children in respect to their extraordinary activity, is the question we have next to consider. _Practical Applications of these Principles_. If we watch a bird for a little while hopping along upon the ground, and up and down between the ground and the branches of a tree, we shall at first be surprised at his incessant activity, and next, if we reflect a little, at the utter aimlessness and uselessness of it. He runs a little way along the path; then he hops up upon a twig, then down again upon the ground; then "makes believe" peck at something which he imagines or pretends that he sees in the grass; then, canting his head to one side and upward, the branch of a tree there happens to strike his eye, upon which he at once flies up to it. Perching himself upon it for the moment, he utters a burst of joyous song, and then, instantly afterwards, down he comes upon the ground again, runs along, stops, runs along a little farther, stops again, looks around him a moment, as if wondering what to do next, and then flies off out of our field of view. If we could follow, and had patience to watch him so long, we should find him continuing this incessantly changing but never-ceasing activity all the day long. We sometimes imagine that the bird's movements are to be explained by supposing that he is engaged in the search for food in these evolutions. But when we reflect how small a quantity of food his little crop will contain, we shall be at once convinced that a large proportion of his apparent pecking for food is only make-believe, and that he moves thus incessantly not so much on account of the end he seeks to attain by it, as on account of the very pleasure of the motion. He hops about and pecks, not for the love of any thing he expects to find, but just for the love of hopping and pecking. The real explanation is that the food which he has taken is delivering up, within his system, the force stored in it that was received originally from the beams of the sun, while the plant which produced it was growing. This force must have an outlet, and it finds this outlet in the incessant activity of the bird's muscles and brain. The various objects which attract his attention without, _invite_ the force to expend itself in _certain special directions_; but the impelling cause is within, and not without; and were there nothing without to serve as objects for its action, the necessity of its action would be none the less imperious. The lion, when imprisoned in his cage, walks to and fro continuously, if there is room for him to take two steps and turn; and if there is not room for this, he moves his head incessantly from side to side. The force within him, which his vital organs are setting at liberty from its imprisonment in his food, must in some way find issue. Mothers do not often stop to speculate upon, and may even, perhaps, seldom observe the restless and incessant activity of birds, but that of their children forces itself upon their attention by its effects in disturbing their own quiet avocations and pleasures; and they often wonder what can be the inducement which leads to such a perpetual succession of movements made apparently without motive or end. And, not perceiving any possible inducement to account for it, they are apt to consider this restless activity so causeless and unreasonable as to make it a fault for which the child is to be censured or punished, or which they are to attempt to cure by means of artificial restraints. They would not attempt such repressions as this if they were aware that all this muscular and mental energy of action in the child is only the outward manifestation of an inward force developed in a manner wholly independent of its will--a force, too, which must spend itself in some way or other, and that, if not allowed to do this in its own way, by impelling the limbs and members to outward action, it will do so by destroying the delicate mechanism within. We see this in the case of men who are doomed for long periods to solitary confinement. The force derived from their food, and released within their systems by the vital processes, being cut off by the silence and solitude of the dungeon from all usual and natural outlets, begins to work mischief within, by disorganizing the cerebral and other vital organs, and producing insanity and death. _Common Mistake_. We make a great mistake when we imagine that children are influenced in their activity mainly by a desire for the objects which they attain by it. It is not the ends attained, but the pleasurable feeling which the action of the internal force, issuing by its natural channels, affords them, and the sense of power which accompanies the action. An end which presents itself to be attained invites this force to act in one direction rather than another, but it is the action, and not the end, in which the charm resides. Give a child a bow and arrow, and send him out into the yard to try it, and if he does not happen to see any thing to shoot at, he will shoot at random into the air. But if there is any object which will serve as a mark in sight, it seems to have the effect of drawing his aim towards it. He shoots at the vane on the barn, at an apple on a tree, a knot in a fence--any thing which will serve the purpose of a mark. This is not because he has any end to accomplish in hitting the vane, the apple, or the knot, but only because there is an impulse within him leading him to shoot, and if there happens to be any thing to shoot at, it gives that impulse a direction. It is precisely the same with the incessant muscular activity of a child. He comes into a room and sits down in the first seat that he sees. Then he jumps up and runs to another, then to another, until he has tried all the seats in the room. This is not because he particularly wishes to try the seats. He wishes to _move_, and the seats happen to be at hand, and they simply give direction to the impulse. If he were out of doors, the same office would be fulfilled by a fence which he might climb over, instead of going through an open gate close by; or a wall that he could walk upon with difficulty, instead of going, without difficulty, along a path at the foot of it; or a pole which he could try to climb, when there was no motive for climbing it but a desire to make muscular exertion; or a steep bank where he can scramble up, when there is nothing that he wishes for on the top of it. In other words, the things that children do are not done for the sake of the things, but for the sake of the _doing_. Parents very often do not understand this, and are accordingly continually asking such foolish questions as, "George, what do you wish to climb over that fence for, when there is a gate all open close by?" "James, what good do you expect to get by climbing up that tree, when you know there is nothing on it, not even a bird's nest?" and, "Lucy, what makes you keep jumping up all the time and running about to different places? Why can't you, when you get a good seat, sit still in it?" The children, if they understood the philosophy of the case, might answer, "We don't climb over the fence at all because we wish to be on the other side of it; or scramble up the bank for the sake of any thing that is on the top of it; or run about to different places because we wish to be in the places particularly. It is the internal force that is in us working itself off, and it works itself off in the ways that come most readily to hand." _Various Modes in which the Reserved Force reappears_. The force thus stored in the food and liberated within the system by the vital processes, finds scope for action in several different ways, prominent among which are, First, in the production of animal heat; Secondly, in muscular contractions and the motions of the limbs and members resulting from them; and Thirdly, in mental phenomena connected with the action of the brain and the nerves. This last branch of the subject is yet enveloped in great mystery; but the proof seems to be decisive that the nervous system of man comprises organs which are actively exercised in the performance of mental operations, and that in this exercise they consume important portions of the vital force. If, for example, a child is actually engaged at play, and we direct him to take a seat and sit still, he will find it very difficult to do so. The inward force will soon begin to struggle within him to find an issue. But if, while he is so sitting, we begin to relate to him some very surprising or exciting story, to occupy his _mind_, he will become motionless, and very likely remain so until the story is ended. It is supposed that in such cases the force is drawn off, so to speak, through the cerebral organs which it is employed in keeping in play, as the instruments by which the emotions and ideas which the story awakens in the mind are evolved. This part of the subject, as has already been remarked, is full of mystery; but the general fact that a portion of the force derived from the food is expended in actions of the brain and nervous system seems well established. Indeed, the whole subject of the reception and the storing up of force from the sun by the processes of vegetable and animal life, and the subsequent liberation of it in the fulfillment of the various functions of the animal system, is full of difficulties and mysteries. It is only a very simple view of the _general principle_ which is presented in these articles. In nature the operations are not simple at all. They are involved in endless complications which are yet only to a very limited extent unravelled. The general principle is, however, well established; and if understood, even as a general principle, by parents and teachers, it will greatly modify their action in dealing with the incessant restlessness and activity of the young. It will teach them, among other things, the following practical rules: _Practical Rules_. 1. Never find fault with children for their incapacity to keep still. You may stop the supply of force, if you will, by refusing to give them food; but if you continue the supply, you must not complain of its manifesting itself in action. After giving your boy his breakfast, to find fault with him for being incessantly in motion when his system has absorbed it, is simply to find fault with him for being healthy and happy. To give children food and then to restrain the resulting activity, is conduct very analogous to that of the engineer who should lock the action of his engine, turn all the stop-cocks, and shut down the safety-valve, while he still went on all the time putting in coal under the boiler. The least that he could expect would be a great hissing and fizzling at all the joints of his machine; and it would be only by means of such a degree of looseness in the joints as would allow of the escape of the imprisoned force in this way that could prevent the repression ending in a frightful catastrophe. Now, nine-tenths of the whispering and playing of children in school, and of the noise, the rudeness, and the petty mischief of children at home, is just this hissing and fizzling of an imprisoned power, and nothing more. In a word, we must favor and promote, by every means in our power, the activity of children, not censure and repress it. We may endeavor to turn it aside from wrong channels--that is, to prevent its manifesting itself in ways injurious to them or annoying to others. We must not, however, attempt to divert it from these channels by damming it up, but by opening other channels that will draw it away in better directions. 2. In encouraging the activity of children, and in guiding the direction of it in their hours of play, we must not expect to make it available for useful results, other than that of promoting their own physical development and health. At least, we can do this only in a very limited degree. Almost all useful results require for their attainment a long continuance of efforts of the same kind--that is, expenditure of the vital force by the continued action of the same organs. Now, it is a principle of nature that while the organs of an animal system are in process of formation and growth, they can exercise their power only for a very brief period at a time without exhaustion. This necessitates on the part of all young animals incessant changes of action, or alternations of action and repose. A farmer of forty years of age, whose organs are well developed and mature, will chop wood all day without excessive fatigue. Then, when he comes home at night, he will sit for three hours in the evening upon the settle by his fireside, _thinking_--his mind occupied, perhaps, upon the details of the management of his farm, or upon his plans for the following day. The vital force thus expends itself for many successive hours through his muscles, and then, while his muscles are at rest, it finds its egress for several other hours through the brain. But in the _child_ the mode of action must change every few minutes. He is made tired with five minutes' labor. He is satisfied with five minutes' rest. He will ride his rocking-horse, if alone, a short time, and then he comes to you to ask you to tell him a story. While listening to the story, his muscles are resting, and the force is spending its strength in working the mechanism of the brain. If you make your story too long, the brain, in turn, becomes fatigued, and he feels instinctively impelled to divert the vital force again into muscular action. If, instead of being alone with his rocking-horse, he has company there, he will _seem_ to continue his bodily effort a long time; but he does not really do so, for he stops continually, to talk with his companion, thus allowing his muscles to rest for a brief period, during which the vital force expends its strength in carrying on trains of thought and emotion through the brain. He is not to be blamed for this seeming capriciousness. These frequent changes in the mode of action are a necessity, and this necessity evidently unfits him for any kind of monotonous or continued exertion--the only kind which, in ordinary cases, can be made conducive to any useful results. 3. Parents at home and teachers at school must recognize these physiological laws, relating to the action of the young, and make their plans and arrangements conform to them. The periods of confinement to any one mode of action in the very young, and especially mental action, must be short; and they must alternate frequently with other modes. That rapid succession of bodily movements and of mental ideas, and the emotions mingling and alternating with them, which constitutes what children call play, must be regarded not simply as an indulgence, but as a necessity for them. The play must be considered as essential as the study, and that not merely for the very young but for all, up to the age of maturity. For older pupils, in the best institutions of the country, some suitable provision is made for this want; but the mothers of young children at home are often at a loss by what means to effect this purpose, and many are very imperfectly aware of the desirableness, and even the necessity, of doing this. As for the means of accomplishing the object--that is, providing channels for the complete expenditure of this force in the safest and most agreeable manner for the child, and the least inconvenient and troublesome for others, much must depend upon the tact, the ingenuity, and the discretion of the mother. It will, however, be a great point gained for her when she once fully comprehends that the _tendency_ to incessant activity, and even to turbulence and noise, on the part of her child, only shows that he is all right in his vital machinery, and that this exuberance of energy is something to be pleased with and directed, not denounced and restrained. CHAPTER XV. THE IMAGINATION IN CHILDREN. The reader may, perhaps, recollect that in the last chapter there was an intimation that a portion of the force which was produced, or rather liberated and brought into action, by the consumption of food in the vital system, expended itself in the development of thoughts, emotions, and other forms of mental action, through the organization of the brain and of the nerves. _Expenditure of Force through the Brain._ The whole subject of the expenditure of material force in maintaining those forms of mental action which are carried on through the medium of bodily organs, it must be admitted, is involved in great obscurity; for it is only a glimmering of light which science has yet been able to throw into this field. It is, however, becoming the settled opinion, among all well-informed persons, that the soul, during the time of its connection with a material system in this life, performs many of those functions which we class as mental, through the medium, or instrumentality, in some mysterious way, of material organs, just as we all know is the case with the sensations--that is, the impressions made through the organs of sense; and that the maintaining of these mental organs, so to speak, in action, involves a certain expenditure of some form of physical force, the source of this force being in the food that is consumed in the nourishment of the body. There is certainly no apparent reason why there should be any antecedent presumption against the supposition that the soul performs the act of remembering or of conceiving an imaginary scene through the instrumentality of a bodily organ, more than that it should receive a sensation of light or of sound through such a channel. The question of the independent existence and the immateriality of the thinking and feeling principle, which takes cognizance of these thoughts and sensations, is not at all affected by any inquiries into the nature of the instrumentality by means of which, in a particular stage of its existence, it performs these functions. _Phenomena explained by this Principle_. This truth, if it be indeed a truth, throws great light on what would be otherwise quite inexplicable in the playful activity of the mental faculties of children. The curious fantasies, imaginings, and make-believes--the pleasure of listening to marvellous and impossible tales, and of hearing odd and unpronounceable words or combination of words --the love of acting, and of disguises--of the impersonation of inanimate objects--of seeing things as they are not, and of creating and giving reality to what has no existence except in their own minds--are all the gambollings and frolics, so to speak, of the embryo faculties just becoming conscious of their existence, and affording, like the muscles of motion, so many different issues for the internal force derived from the food. Thus the action of the mind of a child, in holding an imaginary conversation with a doll, or in inventing or in relating an impossible fairy story, or in converting a switch on which he pretends to be riding into a prancing horse, is precisely analogous to that of the muscles of the lamb, or the calf, or any other young animal in its gambols--that is, it is the result of the force which the vital functions are continually developing within the system, and which flows and must flow continually out through whatever channels are open to it; and in thus flowing, sets all the various systems of machinery into play, each in its own appropriate manner. In any other view of the subject than this, many of the phenomena of childhood would be still more wonderful and inexplicable than they are. One would have supposed, for example, that the imagination--being, as is commonly thought, one of the most exalted and refined of the mental faculties of man--would be one of the latest, in the order of time, to manifest itself in the development of the mind; instead of which it is, in fact, one of the earliest. Children live, in a great measure, from the earliest age in an ideal world--their pains and their pleasures, their joys and their fears being, to a vast extent, the concomitants of phantasms and illusions having often the slightest bond of connection with the realities around them. The realities themselves, moreover, often have far greater influence over them by what they suggest than by what they are. Indeed, the younger the child is, within reasonable limits, the more susceptible he seems to be to the power of the imagination, and the more easily his mind and heart are reached and influenced through this avenue. At a very early period the realities of actual existence and the phantasms of the mind seem inseparably mingled, and it is only after much experience and a considerable development of his powers, that the line of distinction between them becomes defined. The power of investing an elongated bag of bran with the attributes and qualities of a thinking being, so as to make it an object of solicitude and affection, which would seem to imply a high exercise of one of the most refined and exalted of the human faculties, does not come, as we might have expected, at the end of a long period of progress and development, but springs into existence, as it were, at once, in the very earliest years. The progress and development are required to enable the child to perceive that the rude and shapeless doll is _not_ a living and lovable thing. This mingling of the real and imaginary worlds shows itself to the close observer in a thousand curious ways. The true explanation of the phenomenon seems to be that the various embryo faculties are brought into action by the vital force at first in a very irregular, intermingled, and capricious manner, just as the muscles are in the endless and objectless play of the limbs and members. They develop themselves and grow by this very action, and we ought not only to indulge, but to cherish the action in all its beautiful manifestations by every means in our power. These mental organs, so to speak--that is, the organs of the brain, through which, while its connection with the body continues, the mind performs its mental functions--grow and thrive, as the muscles do, by being reasonably kept in exercise. It is evident, from these facts, that the parent should be pleased with, and should encourage the exercise of these embryo powers in his children; and both father and mother may be greatly aided in their efforts to devise means for reaching and influencing their hearts by means of them, and especially through the action of the imagination, which will be found, when properly employed, to be capable of exercising an almost magical power of imparting great attractiveness and giving great effect to lessons of instruction which, in their simple form, would be dull, tiresome, and ineffective. Precisely what is meant by this will be shown more clearly by some examples. _Methods exemplified_. One of the simplest and easiest modes by which a mother can avail herself of the vivid imagination of the child in amusing and entertaining him, is by holding conversations with representations of persons, or even of animals, in the pictures which she shows him. Thus, in the case, for example, of a picture which she is showing to her child sitting in her lap--the picture containing, we will suppose, a representation of a little girl with books under her arm--she may say, "My little girl, where are you going?--I am going" (speaking now in a somewhat altered voice, to represent the voice of the little girl) "to school.--Ah! you are going to school. You don't look quite old enough to go to school. Who sits next to you at school?--George Williams.--George Williams? Is he a good boy?--Yes, he's a very good boy.--I am glad you have a good boy, and one that is kind to you, to sit by you. That must be very pleasant." And so on, as long as the child is interested in listening. Or, "What is your name, my little girl?--My name is Lucy.--That's a pretty name! And where do you live?--I live in that house under the trees.--Ah! I see the house. And where is your room in that house?--My room is the one where you see the window open.--I see it. What have you got in your room?--I have a bed, and a table by the window; and I keep my doll there. I have got a cradle for my doll, and a little trunk to keep her clothes in. And I have got--" The mother may go on in this way, and describe a great number and variety of objects in the room, such as are calculated to interest and please the little listener. It is the pleasurable exercise of some dawning faculty or faculties acting through embryo organs of the brain, by which the mind can picture to itself, more or less vividly, unreal scenes, which is the source of the enjoyment in such cases as this. A child may be still more interested, perhaps, by imaginary conversations of this kind with pictures of animals, and by varying the form of them in such a way as to call a new set of mental faculties into play; as, for example, "Here is a picture of a squirrel. I'll ask him where he lives. 'Bunny! bunny! stop a minute; I want to speak to you. I want you to tell me where you live.--I live in my hole.--Where is your hole?--It is under that big log that you see back in the woods.' Yes" (speaking now to the child), "I see the log. Do you see it? Touch it with your finger. Yes, that must be it. But I don't see any hole. 'Bunny' (assuming now the tone of speaking again to the squirrel), 'I don't see your hole.--No, I did not mean that any body should see it. I made it in a hidden place in the ground, so as to have it out of sight.--I wish I could see it, and I wish more that I could look down into it and see what is there. What is there _in_ your hole, bunny?--My nest is there, and my little bunnies.--How many little bunnies have you got?'"--And so on, to any extent that you desire. It is obvious that conversations of this kind may be made the means of conveying, indirectly, a great deal of instruction to young children on a great variety of subjects; and lessons of duty may be inculcated thus in a very effective manner, and by a method which is at the same time easy and agreeable for the mother, and extremely attractive to the child. This may seem a very simple thing, and it is really very simple; but any mother who has never resorted to this method of amusing and instructing her child will be surprised to find what an easy and inexhaustible resource for her it may become. Children are always coming to ask for stories, and the mother often has no story at hand, and her mind is too much preoccupied to invent one. Here is a ready resort in every such emergency. "Very well," replies the mother to such a request, "I'll tell you a story; but I must have a picture to my story. Find me a picture in some book." The child brings a picture, no matter what. There is no possible picture that will not suggest to a person possessed of ordinary ingenuity an endless number of talks to interest and amuse the child. To take an extreme case, suppose the picture is a rude pencil drawing of a post, and nothing besides. You can imagine a boy hidden behind the post, and you can call to him, and finally obtain an answer from him, and have a long talk with him about his play and who he is hiding from, and what other way he has of playing with his friend. Or you can talk with the post directly. Ask him where he came from, who put him in the ground, and what he was put in the ground for, and what kind of a tree he was when he was a part of a tree growing in the woods; and, following the subject out, the conversation may be the means of not only amusing the child for the moment, but also of gratifying his curiosity, and imparting a great amount of useful information to him which will materially aid in the development of his powers. Or you may ask the post whether he has any relatives, and he may reply that he has a great many cousins. He has some cousins that live in the city, and they are called lamp-posts, and their business is to hold lamps to light people along the streets; and he has some other cousins who stand in a long row and hold up the telegraph-wire to carry messages from one part of the world to another; and so on without end. If all this may done by means of a rude representation of a simple post, it may easily be seen that no picture which the child can possibly bring can fail to serve as a subject for such conversations. Some mothers may, perhaps, think it must require a great deal of ingenuity and skill to carry out these ideas effectively in practice, and that is true; or rather, it is true that there is in it scope for the exercise of a great deal of ingenuity and skill, and even of genius, for those who possess these qualities; but the degree of ingenuity required for a commencement in this method is very small, and that necessary for complete success in it is very easily acquired. _Personification of Inanimate Objects_. It will at once occur to the mother that any inanimate object may be personified in this way and addressed as a living and intelligent being. Your child is sick, I will suppose, and is somewhat feverish and fretful. In adjusting his dress you prick him a little with a pin, and the pain and annoyance acting on his morbid sensibilities bring out expressions of irritation and ill-humor. Now you may, if you please, tell him that he must not be so impatient, that you did not mean to hurt him, that he must not mind a little prick, and the like, and you will meet with the ordinary success that attends such admonitions. Or, in the spirit of the foregoing suggestions, you may say, "Did the pin prick you? I'll catch the little rogue, and hear what he has to say for himself. Ah, here he is--I've caught him! I'll hold him fast. Lie still in my lap, and we will hear what he has to say. "'Look up here, my little prickler, and tell me what your name is.--My name is pin.--Ah, your name is pin, is it? How bright you are! How came you to be so bright?--Oh, they brightened me when they made me.--Indeed! And how did they make you?--They made me in a machine.--In a machine? That's very curious! How did they make you in the machine? Tell us all about it!--They made me out of wire. First the machine cut off a piece of the wire long enough to make me, and then I was carried around to different parts of the machine to have different things done to me. I went first to one part to get straightened. Don't you see how straight I am?--Yes, you are very straight indeed.--Then I went to another part of the machine and had my head put on; and then I went to another part and had my point sharpened; and then I was polished, and covered all over with a beautiful silvering, to make me bright and white.'" And so on indefinitely. The mother may continue the talk as long as the child is interested, by letting the pin give an account of the various adventures that happened to it in the course of its life, and finally call it to account for pricking a poor little sick child. Any mother can judge whether such a mode of treating the case, or the more usual one of gravely exhorting the child to patience and good-humor, when sick, is likely to be most effectual in soothing the nervous irritation of the little patient, and restoring its mind to a condition of calmness and repose. The mother who reads these suggestions in a cursory manner, and contents herself with saying that they are very good, but makes no resolute and persevering effort to acquire for herself the ability to avail herself of them, will have no idea of the immense practical value of them as a means of aiding her in her work, and in promoting the happiness of her children. But if she will make the attempt, she will most certainly find enough encouragement in her first effort to induce her to persevere. [Illustration: THE IMAGINATIVE FACULTY.] She must, moreover, not only originate, herself, modes of amusing the imagination of her children, but must fall in with and aid those which _they_ originate. If your little daughter is playing with her doll, look up from your work and say a few words to the doll or the child in a grave and serious manner, assuming that the doll is a living and sentient being. If your boy is playing horses in the garden while you are there attending to your flowers, ask him with all gravity what he values his horse at, and whether he wishes to sell him. Ask him whether he ever bites, or breaks out of his pasture; and give him some advice about not driving him too fast up hill, and not giving him oats when he is warm. He will at once enter into such a conversation in the most serious manner, and the pleasure of his play will be greatly increased by your joining with him in maintaining the illusion. There is a still more important advantage than the temporary increase to your children's happiness by acting on this principle. By thus joining with them, even for a few moments, in their play, you establish a closer bond of sympathy between your own heart and theirs, and attach them to you more strongly than you can do by any other means. Indeed, in many cases the most important moral lessons can be conveyed in connection with these illusions of children, and in a way not only more agreeable but far more effective than by any other method. _Influence without Claim to Authority_. Acting through the imagination of children--if the art of doing so is once understood--will prove at once an invaluable and an inexhaustible resource for all those classes of persons who are placed in situations requiring them to exercise an influence over children without having any proper authority over them; such, for example, as uncles and aunts, older brothers and sisters, and even visitors residing more or less permanently in a family, and desirous, from a wish to do good, of promoting the welfare and the improvement of the younger members of it. It often happens that such a visitor, without any actual right of authority, acquires a greater influence over the minds of the children than the parents themselves; and many a mother, who, with all her threatenings and scoldings, and even punishments, can not make herself obeyed, is surprised at the absolute ascendency which some inmate residing in the family acquires over them by means so silent, gentle, and unpretending, that they seem mysterious and almost magical. "What is the secret of it?" asks the mother sometimes in such a case. "You never punish the children, and you never scold them, and yet they obey you a great deal more readily and certainly than they do me." There are a great many different means which may be employed in combination with each other for acquiring this kind of ascendency, and among them the use which may be made of the power of the imagination in the young is one of the most important. _The Intermediation of the Dolls again_. A young teacher, for example, in returning from school some day, finds the children of the family in which she resides, who have been playing with their dolls in the yard, engaged in some angry dispute. The first impulse with many persons in such a case might be to sit down with the children upon the seat where they were playing, and remonstrate with them, though in a very kind and gentle manner, on the wrongfulness and folly of such disputings, to show them that the thing in question is not worth disputing about, that angry feelings are uncomfortable and unhappy feelings, and that it is, consequently, not only a sin, but a folly to indulge in them. Now such a remonstrance, if given in a kind and gentle manner, will undoubtedly do good. The children will be somewhat less likely to become involved in such a dispute immediately after it than before, and in process of time, and through many repetitions of such counsels, the fault may be gradually cured. Still, at the time, it will make the children uncomfortable, by producing in their minds a certain degree of irritation. They will be very apt to listen in silence, and with a morose and sullen air; and if they do not call the admonition a scolding, on account of the kind and gentle tones in which it is delivered, they will be very apt to consider it much in that light. Suppose, however, that, instead of dealing with the case in this matter-of-fact and naked way, the teacher calls the imagination of the children to her aid, and administers her admonition and reproof indirectly, through the dolls. She takes the dolls in her hand, asks their names, and inquires which of the two girls is the mother of each. The dolls' names are Bella and Araminta, and the mothers' are Lucy and Mary. "But I might have asked Araminta herself," she adds; and, so saying, she holds the doll before her, and enters into a long imaginary conversation with her, more or less spirited and original, according to the talent and ingenuity of the young lady, but, in any conceivable case, enough so to completely absorb the attention of the children and fully to occupy their minds. She asks each of them her name, and inquires of each which of the girls is her mother, and makes first one of them, and then the other, point to her mother in giving her answer. By this time the illusion is completely established in the children's minds of regarding their dolls as living beings, responsible to mothers for their conduct and behavior; and the young lady can go on and give her admonitions and instructions in respect to the sin and folly of quarrelling to them--the children listening. And it will be found that by this management the impression upon the minds of the children will be far greater and more effective than if the counsels were addressed directly to them; while, at the same time, though they may even take the form of very severe reproof, they will produce no sullenness or vexation in the minds of those for whom they are really intended. Indeed, the very reason why the admonition thus given will be so much more effective is the fact that it does _not_ tend in any degree to awaken resentment and vexation, but associates the lesson which the teacher wishes to convey with amusement and pleasure. "You are very pretty"--she says, we will suppose, addressing the dolls--"and you look very amiable. I suppose you _are_ very amiable." Then, turning to the children, she asks, in a confidential undertone, "Do they ever get into disputes and quarrels?" "_Sometimes,_" says one of the children, entering at once into the idea of the teacher. "Ah!" the teacher exclaims, turning again to the dolls. "I hear that you dispute and quarrel sometimes, and I am very sorry for it. That is very foolish. It is only silly little children that we expect will dispute and quarrel. I should not have supposed it possible in the case of such young ladies as you. It is a great deal better to be yielding and kind. If one of you says something that the other thinks is not true, let it pass without contradiction; it is foolish to dispute about it. And so if one has any thing that the other wants, it is generally much better to wait for it than to quarrel. It is hateful to quarrel. Besides, it spoils your beauty. When children are quarrelling they look like little furies." The teacher may go on in this way, and give a long moral lecture to the dolls in a tone of mock gravity, and the children will listen to it with the most profound attention; and it will have a far greater influence upon them than the same admonitions addressed directly to _them_. So effectually, in fact, will this element of play in the transaction open their hearts to the reception of good counsel, that even direct admonitions to _them_ will be admitted with it, if the same guise is maintained; for the teacher may add, in conclusion, addressing now the children themselves with the same mock solemnity: "That is a very bad fault of your children--very bad, indeed. And it is one that you will find very hard to correct. You must give them a great deal of good counsel on the subject, and, above all, you must be careful to set them a good example yourselves. Children always imitate what they see in their mothers, whether it is good or bad. If you are always amiable and kind to one another, they will be so too." The thoughtful mother, in following out the suggestions here given, will see at once how the interest which the children take in their dolls, and the sense of reality which they feel in respect to all their dealings with them, opens before her a boundless field in respect to modes of reaching and influencing their minds and hearts. _The Ball itself made to teach Carefulness_. There is literally no end to the modes by which persons having the charge of young children can avail themselves of their vivid imaginative powers in inculcating moral lessons or influencing their conduct. A boy, we will suppose, has a new ball. Just as he is going out to play with it his father takes it from him to examine it, and, after turning it round and looking at it attentively on every side, holds it up to his ear. The boy asks what his father is doing. "I am listening to hear what he says." "And what does he say, father?" "He says that you won't have him to play with long." "Why not?" "I will ask him, why not?" (holding the ball again to his ear). "What does he say, father?" "He says he is going to run away from you and hide. He says you will go to play near some building, and he means, when you throw him or knock him, to fly against the windows and break the glass, and then people will take your ball away from you." "But I won't play near any windows." "He says, at any rate you will play near some building, and when you knock him he means to fly up to the roof and get behind a chimney, or roll down into the gutter where you can't get him." "But, father, I am not going to play near any building at all." "Then you will play in some place where there are holes in the ground, or thickets of bushes near, where he can hide." "No, father, I mean to look well over the ground, and not play in any place where there is any danger at all." "Well, we shall see; but the little rogue is determined to hide somewhere." The boy takes his ball and goes out to play with it, far more effectually cautioned than he could have been by any direct admonition. _The Teacher and the Tough Logs_ A teacher who was engaged in a district school in the country, where the arrangement was for the older boys to saw and split the wood for the fire, on coming one day, at the recess, to see how the work was going on, found that the boys had laid one rather hard-looking log aside. They could not split that log, they said. "Yes," said the teacher, looking at the log, "I don't wonder. I know that log. I saw him before. His name is Old Gnarly. He says he has no idea of coming open for a parcel of boys, even if they _have_ got beetle and wedges. It takes a man, he says, to split _him_." The boys stood looking at the log with a very grave expression of countenance as they heard these words. "Is that what he says?" asked one of them. "Let's try him again, Joe." "It will do no good," said the teacher, "for he won't come open, if he can possibly help it. And _there's_ another fellow (pointing). His name is Slivertwist. If you get a crack in him, you will find him full of twisted splinters that he holds himself together with. The only way is to cut them through with a sharp axe. But he holds on so tight with them that I don't believe you can get him open. He says he never gives up to boys." So saying, the teacher went away. It is scarcely necessary to say to any one who knows boys that the teacher was called out not long afterwards to see that Old Gnarly and Old Slivertwist were both split up fine--the boys standing around the heaps of well-prepared fire-wood which they had afforded, and regarding them with an air of exultation and triumph. _Muscles reinvigorated through the Action of the Mind_. An older sister has been taking a walk, with little Johnny, four years old, as her companion. On their return, when within half a mile of home, Johnny, tired of gathering flowers and chasing butterflies, comes to his sister, with a fatigued and languid air, and says he can not walk any farther, and wants to be carried. "I can't carry you very well," she says, "but I will tell you what we will do; we will stop at the first tavern we come to and rest. Do you see that large flat stone out there at the turn of the road? That is the tavern, and you shall be my courier. A courier is a man that goes forward as fast as he can on his horse, and tells the tavern-keeper that the traveller is coming, and orders supper. So you may gallop on as fast as you can go, and, when you get to the tavern, tell the tavern-keeper that the princess is coming--I am the princess--and that he must get ready an excellent supper." The boy will gallop on and wait at the stone. When his sister arrives she may sit and rest with him a moment, entertaining him by imagining conversations with the inn-keeper, and then resume their walk. "Now," she may say, "I must send my courier to the post-office with a letter. Do you see that fence away forward? That fence is the post-office. We will play that one of the cracks between the boards is the letter-box. Take this letter (handing him any little scrap of paper which she has taken from her pocket and folded to represent a letter) and put it in the letter-box, and speak to the postmaster through the crack, and tell him to send the letter as soon as he can." Under such management as this, unless the child's exhaustion is very great, his sense of it will disappear, and he will accomplish the walk not only without any more complaining, but with a great feeling of pleasure. The nature of the action in such a case seems to be that the vital force, when, in its direct and ordinary passage to the muscles through the nerves, it has exhausted the resources of that mode of transmission, receives in some mysterious way a reinforcement to its strength in passing round, by a new channel, through the organs of intelligence and imagination. These trivial instances are only given as examples to show how infinitely varied are the applications which may be made of this principle of appealing to the imagination of children, and what a variety of effects may be produced through its instrumentality by a parent or teacher who once takes pains to make himself possessed of it. But each one must make himself possessed of it by his own practice and experience. No general instructions can do any thing more than to offer the suggestion, and to show how a beginning is to be made. CHAPTER XVI. TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD. The duty of telling the truth seems to us, until we have devoted special consideration to the subject, the most simple thing in the world, both to understand and to perform; and when we find young children disregarding it we are surprised and shocked, and often imagine that it indicates something peculiar and abnormal in the moral sense of the offender. A little reflection, however, will show us how very different the state of the case really is. What do we mean by the obligation resting upon us to tell the truth? It is simply, in general terms, that it is our duty to make our statements correspond with the realities which they purport to express. This is, no doubt, our duty, as a general rule, but there are so many exceptions to this rule, and the principles on which the admissibility of the exceptions depend are so complicated and so abstruse, that it is wonderful that children learn to make the necessary distinctions as soon as they do. _Natural Guidance to the Duty of telling the Truth_. The child, when he first acquires the art of using and understanding language, is filled with wonder and pleasure to find that he can represent external objects that he observes, and also ideas passing through his mind, by means of sounds formed by his organs of speech. Such sounds, he finds, have both these powers--that is, they can represent realities or fancies. Thus, when he utters the sounds _I see a bird_, they may denote either a mere conception in his mind, or an outward actuality. How is he possibly to know, by any instinct, or intuition, or moral sense when it is right for him to use them as representations of a mere idea, and when it is wrong for him to use them, unless they correspond with some actual reality? The fact that vivid images or conceptions may be awakened in his mind by the mere hearing of certain sounds made by himself or another is something strange and wonderful to him; and though he comes to his consciousness of this susceptibility by degrees, it is still, while he is acquiring it, and extending the scope and range of it, a source of continual pleasure to him. The necessity of any correspondence of these words, and of the images which they excite, with actual realities, is a necessity which arises from the relations of man to man in the social state, and he has no means whatever of knowing any thing about it except by instruction. There is not only no ground for expecting that children should perceive any such necessity either by any kind of instinct, or intuition, or embryo moral sense, or by any reasoning process of which his incipient powers are capable; but even if he should by either of these means be inclined to entertain such an idea, his mind would soon be utterly confused in regard to it by what he observes constantly taking place around him in respect to the use of language by others whose conduct, much more than their precepts, he is accustomed to follow as his guide. _A very nice Distinction_. A mother, for example, takes her little son, four or five years old, into her lap to amuse him with a story. She begins: "When I was a little boy I lived by myself. All the bread and cheese I got I laid upon the shelf," and so on to the end. The mother's object is accomplished. The boy is amused. He is greatly interested and pleased by the wonderful phenomenon taking place within him of curious images awakened in his mind by means of sounds entering his ear--images of a little boy living alone, of his reaching up to put bread and cheese upon a shelf, and finally of his attempting to wheel a little wife home--the story ending with the breaking and downfall of the wheelbarrow, wife and all. He does not reflect philosophically upon the subject, but the principal element of the pleasure afforded him is the wonderful phenomenon of the formation of such vivid and strange images in his mind by means of the mere sound of his mother's voice. He knows at once, if any half-formed reflections arise in his mind at all, that what his mother has told him is not true--that is, that the words and images which they awaken in his mind had no actual realities corresponding with them. He knows, in the first place, that his mother never was a boy, and does not suppose that she ever lived by herself, and laid up her bread and cheese upon a shelf. The whole story, he understands, if he exercises any thought about it whatever--wheelbarrow catastrophe and all--consists only of words which his mother speaks to him to give him pleasure. By-and-by his mother gives him a piece of cake, and he goes out into the garden to play. His sister is there and asks him to give her a piece of his cake. He hesitates. He thinks of the request long enough to form a distinct image in his mind of giving her half of it, but finally concludes not to do so, and eats it all himself. When at length he comes in, his mother accidentally asks him some question about the cake, and he says he gave half of it to his sister. His mother seems much pleased. He knew that she would be pleased. He said it, in fact, on purpose to please her. The words represented no actual reality, but only a thought passing through his mind, and he spoke, in a certain sense, for the purpose of giving his mother pleasure. The case corresponds in all these particulars with that of his mother's statement in respect to her being once a little boy and living by herself. Those words were spoken by her to give him pleasure, and he said what he did to give her pleasure. To give her pleasure! the reader will perhaps say, with some surprise, thinking that to assign such a motive as that is not, by any means, putting a fair and proper construction upon the boy's act. His design was, it will be said, to shield himself from censure, or to procure undeserved praise. And it is, no doubt, true that, on a nice analysis of the motives of the act, such as we, in our maturity, can easily make, we shall find that design obscurely mingled with them. But the child does not analyze. He can not. He does not look forward to ultimate ends, or look for the hidden springs that lie concealed among the complicated combinations of impulses which animate him. In the case that we are supposing, all that we can reasonably believe to be present to his mind is a kind of instinctive feeling that for him to say that he ate the cake all himself would bring a frown, or at least a look of pain and distress, to his mother's face, and perhaps words of displeasure for him; while, if he says that he gave half to his sister, she will look pleased and happy. This is as far as he sees. And he may be of such an age, and his mental organs may be in so embryonic a condition, that it is as far as he ought to be expected to look; so that, as the case presents itself to his mind in respect to the impulse which at the moment prompts him to act, he said what he did from a desire to give his mother pleasure, and not pain. As to the secret motive, which might have been his ultimate end, _that_ lay too deeply concealed for him to be conscious of it. And we ourselves too often act from the influence of hidden impulses of selfishness, the existence of which we are wholly unconscious of, to judge him too harshly for his blindness. At length, by-and-by, when his sister conies in, and the untruth is discovered, the boy is astonished and bewildered by being called to account in a very solemn manner by his mother on account of the awful wickedness of having told a lie! _How the Child sees it_. Now I am very ready to admit that, notwithstanding the apparent resemblance between these two cases, this resemblance is only apparent and superficial; but the question is, whether it is not sufficient to cause such a child to confound them, and to be excusable, until he has been enlightened by appropriate instruction, for not clearly distinguishing the cases where words must be held strictly to conform to actual realities, from those where it is perfectly right and proper that they should only represent images or conceptions of the mind. A father, playing with his children, says, "Now I am a bear, and am going to growl." So he growls. Then he says, "Now I am a dog, and am going to bark." He is not a bear, and he is not a dog, and the children know it. His words, therefore, even to the apprehension of the children, express an untruth, in the sense that they do not correspond with any actual reality. It is not a wrongful untruth. The children understand perfectly well that in such a case as this it is not in any sense wrong to say what is not true. But how are they to know what kind of untruths are right, and what kind are wrong, until they are taught what the distinction is and upon what it depends. Unfortunately many parents confuse the ideas, or rather the moral sense of their children, in a much more vital manner by untruths of a different kind from this--as, for example, when a mother, in the presence of her children, expresses a feeling of vexation and annoyance at seeing a certain visitor coming to make a call, and then, when the visitor enters the room, receives her with pretended pleasure, and says, out of politeness, that she is very glad to see her. Sometimes a father will join with his children, when peculiar circumstances seem, as he thinks, to require it, in concealing something from their mother, or deceiving her in regard to it by misrepresentations or positive untruths. Sometimes even the mother will do this in reference to the father. Of course such management as this must necessarily have the effect of bringing up the children to the idea that deceiving by untruths is a justifiable resort in certain cases--a doctrine which, though entertained by many well-meaning persons, strikes a fatal blow at all confidence in the veracity of men; for whenever we know of any persons that they entertain this idea, it is never afterwards safe to trust in what they say, since we never can know that the case in hand is not, for some reason unknown to us, one of those which justify a resort to falsehood. But to return to the case of the children that are under the training of parents who will not themselves, under any circumstances, falsify their word--that is, will never utter words that do not represent actual reality in any of the wrongful ways. Such children can not be expected to know of themselves, or to learn without instruction, what the wrongful ways are, and they never do learn until they have made many failures. Many, it is true, learn when they are very young. Many evince a remarkable tenderness of conscience in respect to this as well as to all their other duties, so fast as they are taught them. And some become so faithful and scrupulous in respect to truth, at so early an age, that their parents quite forget the progressive steps by which they advanced at the beginning. We find many a mother who will say of her boy that he never told an untruth, but we do not find any man who will say of himself, that when he was a boy he never told one. _Imaginings and Rememberings easily mistaken for each other_. But besides the complicated character of the general subject, as it presents itself to the minds of children--that is, the intricacy to them of the question when there must be a strict correspondence between the words spoken and an actual reality, and when they may rightly represent mere images or fancies of the mind--there is another great difficulty in their way, one that is very little considered and often, indeed, not at all understood by parents--and that is, that in the earliest years the distinction between realities and mere fancies of the mind is very indistinctly drawn. Even in our minds the two things are often confounded. We often have to pause and think in order to decide whether a mental perception of which we are conscious is a remembrance of a reality, or a revival of some image formed at some previous time, perhaps remote, by a vivid description which we have read or heard, or even by our own fancy. "Is that really so, or did I dream it?" How often is such a question heard. And persons have been known to certify honestly, in courts of justice, to facts which they think they personally witnessed, but which were really pictured in their minds in other ways. The picture was so distinct and vivid that they lost, in time, the power of distinguishing it from other and, perhaps, similar pictures which had been made by their witnessing the corresponding realities. Indeed, instead of being surprised that these different origins of present mental images are sometimes confounded, it is actually wonderful that they can generally be so clearly distinguished; and we can not explain, even to ourselves, what the difference is by which we do distinguish them. For example, we can call up to our minds the picture of a house burning and a fireman going up by a ladder to rescue some person appearing at the window. Now the image, in such a case, may have had several different modes of origin. 1. We may have actually witnessed such a scene the evening before. 2. Some one may have given us a vivid description of it. 3. We may have fancied it in writing a tale, and 4. We may have dreamed it. Here are four different prototypes of a picture which is now renewed, and there is something in the present copy which enables us, in most cases, to determine at once what the real prototype was. That is, there is something in the picture which now arises in our mind as a renewal or repetition of the picture made the day before, which makes us immediately cognizant of the cause of the original picture--that is, whether it came from a reality that we witnessed, or from a verbal or written description by another person, or whether it was a fanciful creation of our own mind while awake, or a dream. And it is extremely difficult for us to discover precisely what it is, in the present mental picture, which gives us this information in respect to the origin of its prototype. It is very easy to say, "Oh, we _remember_." But remember is only a word. We can only mean by it, in such a case as this, that there is some _latent difference_ between the several images made upon our minds to-day of things seen, heard of, fancied, or dreamed yesterday, by which we distinguish each from all the others. But the most acute metaphysicians--men who are accustomed to the closest scrutiny of the movements and the mode of action of their minds--find it very difficult to discover what this difference is. _The Result in the Case of Children_. Now, in the case of young children, the faculties of perception and consciousness and the power of recognizing the distinguishing characteristics of the different perceptions and sensations of their minds are all immature, and distinctions which even to mature minds are not so clear but that they are often confounded, for them form a bewildering maze. Their minds are occupied with a mingled and blended though beautiful combination of sensations, conceptions, fancies, and remembrances, which they do not attempt to separate from each other, and their vocal organs are animated by a constant impulse to exercise themselves with any utterances which the incessant and playful gambollings of their faculties frame. In other words, the vital force liberated by the digestion of the food seeks an issue now in this way and now in that, through every variety of mental and bodily action. Of course, to arrange and systematize these actions, to establish the true relations between all these various faculties and powers, and to regulate the obligations and duties by which the exercise of them should be limited and controlled, is a work of time, and is to be effected, not by the operation of any instinct or early intuition, but by a course of development--effected mainly by the progress of growth and experience, though it is to be aided and guided by assiduous but gentle training and instruction. If these views are correct, we can safely draw from them the following conclusions. _Practical Conclusions_. 1. We must not expect from children that they will from the beginning understand and feel the obligation to speak the truth, any more than we look for a recognition, on their part, of the various other principles of duty which arise from the relations of man to man in the social state. We do not expect that two babies creeping upon the floor towards the same plaything should each feel instinctively impelled to grant the other the use of it half of the time. Children must be taught to tell the truth, just as they must be taught the principles of justice and equal rights. They generally get taught by experience--that is, by the rough treatment and hard knocks which they bring upon themselves by their violation of these principles. But the faithful parent can aid them in acquiring the necessary knowledge in a far easier and more agreeable manner by appropriate instruction. 2. The mother must not be distressed or too much troubled when she finds that her children, while very young are prone to fall into deviations from the truth, but only to be made to feel more impressed with the necessity of renewing her own efforts to teach them the duty, and to train them to the performance of it. 3. She must not be too stern or severe in punishing the deviations from truth in very young children, or in expressing the displeasure which they awaken in her mind. It is instruction, not expressions of anger or vindictive punishment, that is required in most cases. Explain to them the evils that would result if we could not believe what people say, and tell them stories of truth-loving children on the one hand, and of false and deceitful children on the other. And, above all, notice, with indications of approval and pleasure, when the child speaks the truth under circumstances which might have tempted him to deviate from it. One instance of this kind, in which you show that you observe and are pleased by his truthfulness, will do more to awaken in his heart a genuine love for the truth than ten reprovals, or even punishments, incurred by the violation of it. And in the same spirit we must make use of the religious considerations which are appropriate to this subject--that is, we must encourage the child with the approval of his heavenly Father, when he resists the temptation to deviate from the truth, instead of frightening him, when he falls, by terrible denunciations of the anger of God against liars; denunciations which, however well-deserved in the cases to which they are intended to apply, are not designed for children in whose minds the necessary discriminations, as pointed out in this chapter, are yet scarcely formed. _Danger of confounding Deceitfulness and Falsehood_. 4. Do not confound the criminality of deceitfulness by acts with falsehood by words, by telling the child, when he resorts to any artifice or deception in order to gain his ends, that it is as bad to deceive as to lie. It is not as bad, by any means. There is a marked line of distinction to be drawn between falsifying one's word and all other forms of deception, for there is such a sacredness in the spoken word, that the violation of it is in general far more reprehensible than the attempt to accomplish the same end by mere action. If a man has lost a leg, it may be perfectly right for him to wear a wooden one which is so perfectly made as to deceive people--and even to wear it, too, with the _intent_ to deceive people by leading them to suppose that both his legs are genuine--while it would be wrong; for him to assert in words that this limb was not an artificial one. It is right to put a chalk egg in a hen's nest to deceive the hen, when, if the hen could understand language, and if we were to suppose hens "to have any rights that we are bound to respect," it would be wrong to _tell_ her that it was a real egg. It would be right for a person, when his house was entered by a robber at night, to point an empty gun at the robber to frighten him away by leading him to think that the gun was loaded; but it would be wrong, as I think--though I am aware that many persons would think differently--for him to say in words that the gun was loaded, and that he would fire unless the robber went away. These cases show that there is a great difference between deceiving by false appearances, which is sometimes right, and doing it by false statements, which, as I think, is always wrong. There is a special and inviolable sacredness, which every lover of the truth should attach to his spoken word. 5. We must not allow the leniency with which, according to the views here presented, we are to regard the violations of truth by young persons, while their mental faculties and their powers of discrimination are yet imperfectly developed, to lead us to lower the standard of right in their minds, so as to allow them to imbibe the idea that we think that falsehood is, after all, no great sin, and still less, to suppose that we consider it sometimes, in extreme cases, allowable. We may, indeed, say, "The truth is not to be spoken at all times," but to make the aphorism complete we must add, that _falsehood_ is to be spoken _never_. There is no other possible ground for absolute confidence in the word of any man except the conviction that his principle is, that it is _never, under any circumstances, or to accomplish any purpose whatever,_ right for him to falsify it. A different opinion, I am aware, prevails very extensively among mankind, and especially among the continental nations of Europe, where it seems to be very generally believed that in those cases in which falsehood will on the whole be conducive of greater good than the truth it is allowable to employ it. But it is easy to see that, so far as we know that those around us hold to this philosophy, all reasonable ground for confidence in their statements is taken away; for we never can know, in respect to any statement which they make, that the case is not one of those in which, for reasons not manifest to us, they think it is expedient--that is, conducive in some way to good--to state what is not true. While, therefore, we must allow children a reasonable time to bring their minds to a full sense of the obligation of making their words always conform to what is true, instead of shaping them so as best to attain their purposes for the time being--which is the course to which their earliest natural instincts prompt them--and must deal gently and leniently with their incipient failures, we must do all in our power to bring them forward as fast as possible to the adoption of the very highest standard as their rule of duty in this respect; inculcating it upon them, by example as well as by precept, that we can not innocently, under any circumstances, to escape any evil, or to gain any end, falsify our word. For there is no evil so great, and no end to be attained so valuable, as to justify the adoption of a principle which destroys all foundation for confidence between man and man. CHAPTER XVII. JUDGMENT AND REASONING. It is a very unreasonable thing for parents to expect young children to be reasonable. Being reasonable in one's conduct or wishes implies the taking into account of those bearings and relations of an act which are more remote and less obvious, in contradistinction from being governed exclusively by those which are immediate and near. Now, it is not reasonable to expect children to be influenced by these remote considerations, simply because in them the faculties by which they are brought forward into the mind and invested with the attributes of reality are not yet developed. These faculties are all in a nascent or formative state, and it is as idle to expect them, while thus immature, to fulfill their functions for any practical purpose, as it would be to expect a baby to expend the strength of its little arms in performing any useful labor. _Progress of Mental Development_. The mother sometimes, when she looks upon her infant lying in her arms, and observes the intentness with which he seems to gaze upon objects in the room--upon the bright light of the window or of the lamp, or upon the pictures on the wall--wonders what he is thinking of. The truth probably is that he is not thinking at all; he is simply _seeing_--that is to say, the light from external objects is entering his eyes and producing images upon his sensorium, and that is all. He _sees_ only. There might have been a similar image of the light in his mind the day before, but the reproduction of the former image which constitutes memory does not probably take place at all in his case if he is very young, so that there is not present to his mind, in connection with the present image, any reproduction of the former one. Still less does he make any mental comparison between the two. The mother, as she sees the light of to-day, may remember the one of yesterday, and mentally compare the two; may have many _thoughts_ awakened in her mind by the sensation and the recollection--such as, this is from a new kind of oil, and gives a brighter light than the other; that she will use this kind of oil in all her lamps, and will recommend it to her friends, and so on indefinitely. But the child has none of these thoughts and can have none; for neither have the faculties been developed within him by which they are conceived, nor has he had the experience of the previous sensations to form the materials for framing them. He is conscious of the present sensations, and that is all. As he advances, however, in his experience of sensations, and as his mental powers gradually begin to be unfolded, what may be called _thoughts_ arise, consisting at first, probably, of recollections of past sensations entering into his consciousness in connection with the present ones. These combinations, and the mental acts of various kinds which are excited by them, multiply as he advances towards maturity; but the images produced by present realities are infinitely more vivid and have a very much greater power over him than those which memory brings up from the past, or that his fancy can anticipate in the future. This state of things, though there is, of course, a gradual advancement in the relative influence of what the mind can conceive, as compared with that which the senses make real, continues substantially the same through all the period of childhood and youth. In other words, the organs of sense and of those mental faculties which are directly occupied with the sensations, are the earliest to be developed, as we might naturally suppose would be the case; and, by consequence, the sensible properties of objects and the direct and immediate effects of any action, are those which have a controlling influence over the volitions of the mind during all the earlier periods of its development. The _reason_, on the other hand, which, as applied to the practical affairs of life, has for its function the bringing in of the more remote bearings and relations of a fact, or the indirect and less obvious results of an action, is very slowly developed. It is precisely on this account that the period of immaturity in the human species is so long protracted in comparison with that of the inferior animals. The lives of these animals are regulated by the cognizance simply of the sensible properties of objects, and by the immediate results of their acts, and they accordingly become mature as soon as their senses and their bodily organs are brought completely into action. But man, who is to be governed by his reason--that is, by much more far-reaching and comprehensive views of what concerns him--requires a much longer period to fit him for independent action, since he must wait for the development of those higher faculties which are necessary for the attainment of these extended views; and during this period he must depend upon the reason of his parents instead of being governed by his own. _Practical Effect of these Truths_. The true course, then, for parents to pursue is not to expect too much from the ability of their children to see what is right and proper for them, but to decide all important questions themselves, using their own experience and their own power of foresight as their guide. They are, indeed, to cultivate and train the reasoning and reflective powers of their children, but are not to expect them in early life to be sufficiently developed and strengthened to bear any heavy strain, or to justify the placing of any serious reliance upon them. They must, in a word, treat the reason and the judgment of their children as the farmer treats the strength of his colt, which he exercises and, to a certain extent, employs, but never puts upon it any serious burden. It results from this view of the case that it is not wise for a parent to resort to arguing or reasoning with a child, as a substitute for authority, or even as an aid to make up for a deficiency of authority, in regard to what it is necessary that the child should do. No doubt it is a good plan sometimes to let the child decide for himself, but when you pretend to allow him to decide let him do it really. When you go out with him to take a walk, if it is so nearly immaterial which way you go that you are willing that he should determine the question, then lay the case before him, giving him the advantages and disadvantages of the different ways, and let him decide; and then act according to his decision. But if you have determined in your own mind which way to go, simply announce your determination; and if you give reasons at all, do not give them in such a way as to convey the idea to his mind that his obligation to submit is to rest partly on his seeing the force of them. For every parent will find that this principle is a sound one and one of fundamental importance in the successful management of children--namely, that it is much easier for a child to do what he does not like to do as an act of simple submission to superior authority, than for him to bring himself to an accordance with the decision by hearing and considering the reasons. In other words, it is much easier for him to obey your decision than to bring himself to the same decision against his own will. _In serious Cases no Reliance to be placed on the Reason of the Child_. In all those cases, therefore, in which the parent can not safely allow the children really to decide, such as the question of going to school, going to church, taking medicine, remaining indoors on account of indisposition or of the weather, making visits, choice of playmates and companions, and a great many others which it would not be safe actually to allow them to decide, it is true kindness to them to spare their minds the painful perplexity of a conflict. Decide for them. Do not say, "Oh, I would not do this or that"--whatever it may be--"because"--and then go on to assign reasons thought of perhaps at the moment to meet the emergency, and indeed generally false; but, "Yes, I don't wonder that you would like to do it. I should like it if I were you. But it can not be done." When there is medicine to be taken, do not put the child in misery for half an hour while you resort to all sorts of arguments, and perhaps artifices, to bring him to a willingness to take it; but simply present it to him, saying, "It is something very disagreeable, I know, but it must be taken;" and if it is refused, allow of no delay, but at once, though without any appearance of displeasure, and in the gentlest-manner possible, force it down. Then, after the excitement of the affair has passed away, and you have your little patient in your lap, and he is in good-humor--this is all, of course, on the supposition that he is not very sick--say to him, "You would not take your medicine a little while ago, and we had to force it down: I hope it did not hurt you much." The child will probably make some fretful answer. [Illustration: STORY OF THE HORSE.] "It is not surprising that you did not like to take it. All children, while they are too young to be reasonable, and all animals, such as horses and cows, when they are sick, are very unwilling to take their medicine, and we often have to force it down. You will, perhaps, refuse to take yours a good many times yet before you are old enough to see that it is a great deal easier to take it willingly than it is to have it forced down." And then go on and tell him some amusing story of the difficulty some people had in forcing medicine down the throat of a sick horse, who did not know enough to take it like a man. The idea is--for this case is only meant as an illustration of a general principle--that the comfort and enjoyment of children, as well as the easy and successful working of parental government, is greatly promoted by deciding for the children at once, and placing their action on the simple ground of obedience to authority in all those cases where the _decision can not really and honestly be_ left to the children themselves. To listen reluctantly to the persistent arguments of children in favor of their being allowed to do what we are sure that we shall decide in the end that it is not best for them to do, and to meet them with counter arguments which, if they are not actually false, as they are very apt to be in such a case, are utterly powerless, from the incapacity of the children to appreciate them, on account of their being blinded by their wishes, is not to strengthen the reasoning powers, but to confuse and bewilder them, and impede their development. _Mode of Dealing with the Reason of a Child_. The effect, however, will be excellent of calling into exercise the reason and the judgment of the child in cases where the conclusion which he arrives at can be safely allowed to determine his action. You can help him in such cases by giving him any information that he desires, but do not embarrass him, and interfere with his exercising his own judgment by obtruding advice. Allow him in this way to lay out his own garden, to plan the course of a walk or a ride, and to decide upon the expenditure of his own pocket-money, within certain restrictions in respect to such things as would be dangerous or hurtful to himself, or annoying to others. As he grows older you can give him the charge of the minor arrangements on a journey, such as taking care of a certain number of the parcels carried in the hand, choosing a seat in the car, selecting and engaging a hand on arriving at the place of destination. Commit such things to his charge only so fast as you can really intrust him with power to act, and then, with slight and not obtrusive supervision on your part, leave the responsibility with him, noticing encouragingly whatever of fidelity and success you observe, and taking little notice--generally in fact, none at all--of such errors and failures as result simply from inexperience and immaturity. In a word, make no attempt to seek support from his judgment, or by convincing his reason, in important cases, where his feelings or wishes are involved, but in all such cases rest your decisions solely upon your own authority. But then, on the other hand, in unimportant cases, where no serious evil can result whichever of the various possible courses are taken, call his judgment into exercise, and abide by its decisions. Give him the responsibility if he likes to take it, but with the responsibility give him the power. Substantially the same principles as explained above, in their application to the exercise of the judgment, apply to the cultivation of the reasoning powers--that is to say, in the act of arguing, or drawing conclusions from premises. Nothing can be more unprofitable and useless, to say nothing of its irritating and vexatious effect, than maintaining an argument with a child--or with any body else, in fact--to convince him against his will. Arguing very soon degenerates, in such a case, into an irritating and utterly useless dispute. The difference of opinion which gives occasion for such discussions arises generally from the fact that the child sees only certain of the more obvious and immediate relations and bearings of the subject in question, which is, in fact, all that can be reasonably expected of him, and forms his opinion from these alone. The parent, on the other hand, takes a wider view, and includes among the premises on which his conclusion is founded considerations which have never been brought to the attention of the child. The proper course, therefore, for him to pursue in order to bring the child's mind into harmony with his own, is not to ridicule the boy's reasoning, or chide him for taking so short-sighted a view of the subject, or to tell him it is very foolish for him to talk as he does, or silence him by a dogmatic decision, delivered in a dictatorial and overbearing manner, all of which is too often found to characterize the discussions between parents and children, but calmly and quietly to present to him the considerations bearing upon the question which he has not yet seen. To this end, and to bring the mind of the child into that listening and willing state without which all arguments and even all attempts at instruction are wasted, we must listen candidly to what he says himself, put the best construction upon it, give it its full force; see it, in a word, as nearly as possible as _he_ sees it, and let him know that we do so. Then he will be much more ready to receive any additional considerations which we may present to his mind, as things that must also be taken into account in forming a final judgment on the question. A boy, for example, who is full of health and increasing vigor, and in whom, of course, those organs on which the consciousness of strength and the impulses of courage depend are in the course of rapid and healthy development, in reading to his mother a story in which a thief that came into a back store-room of a house in the evening, with a bag, to steal meal, was detected by the owner and frightened away, looks up from his book and says, in a very valiant manner, "If I had been there, and had a gun, I would have shot him on the spot." _The Rough Mode of Treatment_. Now, if the mother wishes to confuse and bewilder, and to crush down, so to speak, the reasoning faculties of her child, she may say, "Nonsense, George! It is of no use for you to talk big in that way. You would not dare to fire a gun in such a case, still less, to shoot a man. The first thing you would do would be to run away and hide. And then, besides, it would be very wicked for you to kill a man in that way. You would be very likely to get yourself hung for murder. Besides, the Bible says that we must not resist evil; so you should not talk so coolly about shooting a man." The poor boy would be overpowered by such a rebuke as this, and perhaps silenced. The incipient and half-formed ideas in his mind in respect to the right of self-defense, the virtue of courage, the sanctity of life, the nature and the limits of the doctrine of non-resistance, would be all thrown together into a jumble of hopeless confusion in his mind, and the only result would be his muttering to himself, after a moment of bewilderment and vexation, "I _would_ shoot him, anyhow." Such treatment would not only fail to convince him that his idea was wrong, but would effectually close his heart against any such conviction. _The Gentle Mode of Treatment_. But let the mother first see and recognize those bearings and relations of the question which the boy sees--that is, those which are the most direct and immediate--and allow them their full force, and she establishes a sympathy between his mind and hers, and prepares the way for his being led by her to taking into the account other considerations which, though of greater importance, are not so obvious, and which it would be wholly unreasonable to expect that the boy would see himself, since they do not come within the range of observation that could be reached spontaneously by the unaided faculties of such a child. Suppose the mother says, in reply to her boy's boastful declaration that he would shoot the robber, "There would be a certain degree of justice in that, no doubt." "Yes," rejoins the boy, "it would be no more than he deserved." "When a man engages in the commission of a crime," adds the mother, "he runs the risk of all the perils that he exposes himself to, from the efforts of people to defend their property, and perhaps their lives; so that, perhaps, _he_ would have no right to complain if people did shoot at him." "Not a bit of right," says the boy. "But then there are some other things to be considered," says the mother, "which, though they do not show that it would be unjust towards him, might make it bad for _us_ to shoot him." "What things?" asks the boy. The mother having candidly admitted whatever there was of truth in the boy's view of the subject, and thus placed herself, as it were, side by side with him, he is prepared to see and admit what she is going to point out to his observation--not as something directly antagonistic to what he has said, but as something additional, something which is _also_ to be taken into the account. "In the first place," continues the mother, "there would be the body to be disposed of, if you were to shoot him. How should we manage about that?" It would make a great difference in such a case in respect to the danger of putting the boy's mind into a state of antagonism against his mother's presentation of the case, whether she says, "How shall _we_ manage about that?" or, "How will _you_ manage about that?" "Oh," replies the boy, "we would send to where he lives, and let his people come and take him away; or, if he was in a city, we would call in the police." "That would be a good plan," says his mother. "We would call in the police, if there were any police at hand. But then there would be the blood all over the carpet and the floor." "There would not be any carpet on the floor in a store-room," says the boy. "True," replies the mother; "you are right there; so that there would not be, after all, any great trouble about the blood. But the man might not be killed outright, and it might be some time before the policemen would come, and we should see him all that time writhing and struggling in dreadful convulsions, which would fix horrid impressions upon our minds, that would haunt us for a long time afterwards." The mother could then go on to explain that, if the man had a wife and children, any one who had killed the husband and father would pity them as long as he lived, and could never see them or hear them spoken of without feeling pain, and even some degree of self-reproach; although, so far as the man himself was concerned, it might be that no injustice had been done. After the excitement was over, too, he would begin to make excuses for the man, thinking that perhaps he was poor, and his children were suffering for bread, and it was on their account that he was tempted to steal, and this, though it would not justify, might in some degree palliate the act for which he was slain; or that he had been badly brought up, having never received any proper instruction, but had been trained and taught from his boyhood to pilfer and steal. These and many analogous considerations might be presented to the child, going to show that, whatever the rule of strict justice in respect to the criminal may enjoin, it is not right to take the life of a wrong-doer merely to prevent the commission of a minor offense. The law of the land recognizes this principle, and does not justify the taking of life except in extreme cases, such as those of imminent personal danger. A friendly conversation of this kind, carried on, not in a spirit of antagonism to what the boy has said, but in the form of presenting information novel to him in respect to considerations which were to be taken into the account in addition to those which he had himself perceived, will have a great effect not only in modifying his opinion in this case, but also in impressing him with the general idea that, before adopting a decisive opinion on any subject, we must take care to acquaint ourselves not merely with the most direct and obvious relations of it, but must look farther into its bearings and results, so that our conclusion may have a solid foundation by reposing upon as many as possible of the considerations which ought really to affect it. Thus, by avoiding all appearance of antagonism, we secure a ready reception for the truths we offer, and cultivate the reasoning powers at the same time. _General Principles_. The principles, then, which are meant to be illustrated and enforced in this chapter are these: 1. That the mental faculties of children on which the exercise of judgment and of the power of reasoning depend are not among those which are the earliest developed, and they do not attain, in the first years of life, to such a degree of strength or maturity as to justify placing any serious reliance upon them for the conduct of life. 2. Parents should, accordingly, not put them to any serious test, or impose any heavy burden upon them; but should rely solely on their own authority, as the expression of their own judgment, and not upon their ability to convince the judgment of the child, in important cases, or in those where its inclinations or its feelings are concerned. 3. But they may greatly promote the healthy development of these faculties on the part of their children, by bringing to their view the less obvious bearings and relations of various acts and occurrences on which judgment is to be passed, in cases where their feelings and inclinations are not specially concerned--doing this either in the form of explaining their own parental principles of management, or practically, by intrusting them with responsibility, and giving them a degree of actual power commensurate with it, in cases where it is safe to do so; and, 4. They may enlarge the range of the children's ideas, and accustom them to take wider views of the various subjects which occupy their attention, by discussing with them the principles involved in the several cases; but such discussions must be conducted in a calm, gentle, and considerate manner, the parent looking always upon what the child says in the most favorable light, putting the best construction upon it, and admitting its force, and then presenting such additional views as ought also to be taken into account, with moderate earnestness, and in an unobtrusive manner, thus taking short and easy steps himself in order to accommodate his own rate of progress to the still imperfectly developed capabilities of the child. In a word, it is with the unfolding of the mental faculties of the young as it is with the development of their muscles and the improvement of their bodily powers; and just as the way to teach a child to walk is not to drag him along hurriedly and forcibly by the arm faster than he can himself form the necessary steps, but to go slowly, accommodating your movements to those which are natural to him, and encouraging him by letting him perceive that his own efforts produce appreciable and useful results--so, in cultivating any of their thinking and reasoning powers, we must not put at the outset too heavy a burden upon them, but must call them gently into action, within the limits prescribed by the degree of maturity to which they have attained, standing a little aside, as it were, in doing so, and encouraging them to do the work themselves, instead of taking it out of their hands and doing it for them. CHAPTER XVIII. WISHES AND REQUESTS. In respect to the course to be pursued in relation to the requests and wishes of children, the following general rules result from the principles inculcated in the chapter on Judgment and Reasoning, or, at least, are in perfect accordance with them--namely: _Absolute Authority in Cases of vital Importance_. 1. In respect to all those questions in the decision of which their permanent and essential welfare are involved, such as those relating to their health, the company they keep, the formation of their characters, the progress of their education, and the like, the parent should establish and maintain in the minds of the children from their earliest years, a distinct understanding that the decision of all such questions is reserved for his own or her own exclusive jurisdiction. While on any of the details connected with these questions the feelings and wishes of the child ought to be ascertained, and, so far as possible, taken into the account, the course to be pursued should not, in general, be discussed with the child, nor should their objections be replied to in any form. The parent should simply take such objections as the judge takes the papers in a case which has been tried before him, and reserve his decision. The principles by which the parent is governed in the course which he pursues, and the reasons for them, may be made the subject of very free conversation, and may be fully explained, provided that care is taken that this is never done when any practical question is pending, such as would give the explanations of the parent the aspect of persuasions, employed to supply the deficiency of authority too weak to enforce obedience to a command. It is an excellent thing to have children see and appreciate the reasonableness of their parents' commands, provided that this reasonableness is shown to them in such a way that they are not led to imagine that their being able to see it is in any sense a condition precedent of obedience. _Great Indulgence in Cases not of vital Importance_. 2. The authority of the parent being thus fully established in regard to all those things which, being of paramount importance in respect to the child's present and future welfare, ought to be regulated by the comparative far-seeing wisdom of the parent, with little regard to the evanescent fancies of the child, it is on every account best, in respect to all other things, to allow to the children the largest possible indulgence. The largest indulgence for them in their occupations, their plays, and even in their caprices and the freaks of their fancy, means _freedom of action_ for their unfolding powers of body and mind; and freedom of action for these powers means the most rapid and healthy development of them. The rule is, in a word, that, after all that is essential for their health, the formation of their characters, and their progress in study is secured, by being brought under the dominion of absolute parental authority, in respect to what remains the children are to be indulged and allowed to have their own way as much as possible. When, in their plays, they come to you for permission to do a particular thing, do not consider whether or not it seems to you that you would like to do it yourself, but only whether there is any _real and substantial objection to their doing it_. _The Hearing to come before the Decision, not after it_. The courts of justice adopt what seems to be a very sensible and a very excellent mode of proceeding, though it is exactly the contrary to the one which many parents pursue, and that is, they hear the case _first_, and decide afterwards. A great many parents seem to prefer to decide first, and then hear--that is to say, when the children come to them with any request or proposal, they answer at once with a refusal more or less decided, and then allow themselves to be led into a long discussion on the subject, if discussion that may be called which consists chiefly of simple persistence and importunity on one side, and a gradually relaxing resistance on the other, until a reluctant consent is finally obtained. Now, just as it is an excellent way to develop and strengthen the muscles of a child's arms, for his father to hold the two ends of his cane in his hands while the child grasps it by the middle, and then for them to pull against each other, about the yard, until, finally, the child is allowed to get the cane away; so the way to cherish and confirm the habit of "teasing" in children is to maintain a discussion with them for a time in respect to some request which is at first denied, and then finally, after a protracted and gradually weakening resistance, to allow them to gain the victory and carry their point. On the other hand, an absolutely certain way of preventing any such habit from being formed, and of effectually breaking it up when it is formed, is the simple process of hearing first, and deciding afterwards. When, therefore, children come with any request, or express any wish, in cases where no serious interests are involved, in deciding upon the answer to be given, the mother should, in general, simply ask herself, not Is it wise? Will they succeed in it? Will they enjoy it? Would I like to do it if I were they?--but simply, Is there any harm or danger in it? If not, readily and cordially consent. But do not announce your decision till _after_ you have heard all that they have to say, if you intend to hear what they have to say at all. If there are any objections to what the children propose which affect the question in relation to it as a means of _amusement for them_, you may state them in the way of information for them, _after_ you have given your consent. In that way you present the difficulties as subjects for their consideration, and not as objections on your part to their plan. But, however serious the difficulties may be in the way of the children's accomplishing the object which they have in view, they constitute no objection to their making the attempt, provided that their plans involve no serious harm or damage to themselves, or to any other person or interest. _The Wrong Way_. Two boys, for example, William and James, who have been playing in the yard with their little sister Lucy, come in to their mother with a plan for a fish-pond. They wish for permission to dig a hole in a corner of the yard and fill it with water, and then to get some fish out of the brook to put into it. The mother, on hearing the proposal, says at once, without waiting for any explanations, "Oh no, I would not do that. It is a very foolish plan. You will only get yourselves all muddy. Besides, you can't catch any fishes to put into it, and if you do, they won't live. And then the grass is so thick that you could not get it up to make your hole." But William says that they can dig the grass up with their little spades. They had tried it, and found that they could do so. And James says that they have already tried catching the fishes, and found that they could do it by means of a long-handled dipper; and Lucy says that they will all be very careful not to get themselves wet and muddy. "But you'll get your feet wet standing on the edge of the brook," says the mother. "You can't help it." "No, mother," replies James, "there is a large flat stone that we can stand upon, and so keep our feet perfectly dry. See!" So saying, he shows his own feet, which are quite dry. Thus the discussion goes on; the objections made--being, as usual in such cases, half of them imaginary ones, brought forward only for effect--are one after another disposed of, or at least set aside, until at length the mother, as if beaten off her ground after a contest, gives a reluctant and hesitating consent, and the children go away to commence their work only half pleased, and separated in heart and affection, for the time being, from their mother by not finding in her, as they think, any sympathy with them, or disposition to aid them in their pleasures. They have, however, by their mother's management of the case, received an excellent lesson in arguing and teasing. They have found by it, what they have undoubtedly often found on similar occasions before, that their mother's first decision is not at all to be taken as a final one; that they have only to persevere in replying to her objections and answering her arguments, and especially in persisting in their importunity, and they will be pretty sure to gain their end at last. This mode of management, also, has the effect of fixing the position of their mother in their minds as one of antagonism to them in respect to their childish pleasures. _The Right Way_. If in such a case as this the mother wishes to avoid these evils, the way is plain. She must first consider the proposal herself, and come to her own decision in regard to it. Before coming to a decision, she may, if she has leisure and opportunity, make additional inquiries in respect to the details of the plan; or, if she is otherwise occupied, she may consider them for a moment in her own mind. If the objections are decisive, she should not state them at the time, unless she specially wishes them not to have a fair hearing; for when children have a plan in mind which they are eager to carry out, their very eagerness entirely incapacitates them for properly appreciating any objections which may be offered to it. It is on every account better, therefore--as a general rule--not to offer any such objections at the time, but simply to give your decision. On the other hand, if there is no serious evil to be apprehended in allowing children to attempt to carry any particular plan they form into effect, the foolishness of it, in a practical point of view, or even the impossibility of success in accomplishing the object proposed, constitute no valid objection to it; for children amuse themselves as much, and sometimes learn as much, and promote as effectually the development of their powers and faculties, by their failures as by their successes. In the case supposed, then, the mother, in order to manage it right, would first consider for a moment whether there was any decisive objection to the plan. This would depend, perhaps, upon the manner in which the children were dressed at the time, or upon the amount of injury that would be done to the yard; and this question would in its turn depend, in many cases, on the comparative value set by the mother upon the beauty of her yard, and the health, development, and happiness of her children. But supposing that she sees--which she can do in most instances at a glance--that there can no serious harm be done by the experiment, but only that it is a foolish plan so far as the attainment of the object is concerned, and utterly hopeless of success, which, considering that the real end to be attained is the healthy development of the children's powers by the agreeable exercise of them in useless as well as in useful labors, is no objection at all, then she should answer at once, "Yes, you can do that if you like; and perhaps I can help you about planning the work." After saying this, any pointing out of obstacles and difficulties on her part does not present itself to their minds in the light of opposition to their plan, but of aid in helping it forward, and so places her, in their view, _on their side_, instead of in antagonism to them. "What do you propose to do with the earth that you take out of the hole?" she asks. The children had, perhaps, not thought of that. "How would it do," continues the mother, "to put it in your wheelbarrow and let it stay there, so that in case your plan should not succeed--and men, in any thing that they undertake, always consider it wise to take into account the possibility that they may not succeed--you can easily bring it all back and fill up the hole again." The children think that would be a very good plan. "And how are you going to fill your hole with water when you get it dug out?" asks the mother. They were going to carry the water from the pump in a pail. "And how are you going to prevent spilling the water over upon your trousers and into your shoes while carrying it?" "Oh, we will be very careful," replied William. "How would it do only to fill the pail half full each time," suggests the mother. "You would have to go more times, it is true, but that would be better than getting splashed with water." The boys think that that would be a very good plan. In this manner the various difficulties to be anticipated may be brought to the notice of the children, while, they and their mother being in harmony and sympathy with each other--and not in opposition--in the consideration of them, she can bring them forward without any difficulty, and make them the means of teaching the children many useful lessons of prudence and precaution. _Capriciousness in Play_. The mother, then, after warning the children that they must expect to encounter many unexpected difficulties in their undertaking, and telling them that they must not be too much disappointed if they should find that they could not succeed, dismisses them to their work. They proceed to dig the hole, putting the materials in the wheelbarrow, and then fill up the hole with water brought in half pailfuls at a time from the pump; but are somewhat disappointed to find that the water soaks away pretty rapidly into the ground, and that, moreover, it is so turbid, and the surface is so covered with little leaves, sticks, and dust, as to make it appear very doubtful whether they would be able to see the fishes if they were to succeed in catching any to put in. However, they take their long-handled dipper and proceed towards the brook. On the way they stop to gather some flowers that grow near the path that leads through the field, when the idea suddenly enters Lucy's head that it would be better to make a garden than a fish-pond; flowers, as she says, being so much prettier than fishes. So they all go back to their mother and explain the change of their plan. They ask for leave to dig up a place which they had found where the ground was loose and sandy, and easy to dig, and to set out flowers in it which they had found in the field already in bloom. "We are going to give up the fish-pond," they say in conclusion, "because flowers are so much prettier than fishes." The mother, instead of finding fault with them for being so capricious and changeable in their plans, says, "I think you are right. Fishes look pretty enough when they are swimming in the brook, but flowers are much prettier to transport and take care of. But first go and fill up the hole you made for the pond with the earth that is in the wheelbarrow; and when you have made your garden and moved the flowers into it, I advise you to get the watering-pot and give them a good watering." It may be said that children ought to be brought up in habits of steadiness and perseverance in what they undertake, and that this kind of indulgence in their capriciousness would have a very bad tendency in this respect. The answer is, that there are times and seasons for all the different kinds of lessons which children have to learn, and that when in their hours of recreation they are amusing themselves in play, lessons in perseverance and system are out of place. The object to be sought for _then_ is the exercise and growth of their bodily organs and members, the development of their fancy and imagination, and their powers of observation of nature. The work of training them to habits of system and of steady perseverance in serious pursuits, which, though it is a work that ought by no means to be neglected, is not the appropriate work of such a time. _Summary of Results_. The general rules for the government of the parent in his treatment of his children's requests and wishes are these: In all matters of essential importance he is to decide himself and simply announce his decision, without giving any reasons _for the purpose of justifying it_, or for _inducing submission to it_. And in all matters not of essential importance he is to allow the children the greatest possible freedom of action. And the rule for children is that they are always to obey the command the first time it is given, without question, and to take the first answer to any request without any objection or demurring whatever. It is very easy to see how smoothly and happily the affairs of domestic government would go on if these rules were established and obeyed. All that is required on the part of parents for their complete establishment is, first, a clear comprehension of them, and then a calm, quiet, and gentle, but still inflexible firmness in maintaining them. Unfortunately, however, such qualities as these, simple as they seem, are the most rare. If, instead of gentle but firm consistency and steadiness of action, ardent, impulsive, and capricious energy and violence were required, it would be comparatively easy to find them. How seldom do we see a mother's management of her children regulated by a calm, quiet, gentle, and considerate decision that thinks before it speaks in all important matters, and when it speaks, is firm; and yet, which readily and gladly accords to the children every liberty and indulgence which can do themselves or others no harm. And on the other hand, how often do we see foolish laxity and indulgence in yielding to importunity in cases of vital importance, alternating with vexatious thwartings, rebuffs, and refusals in respect to desires and wishes the gratification of which could do no injury at all. CHAPTER XIX. CHILDREN'S QUESTIONS. The disposition to ask questions, which is so universal and so strong a characteristic of childhood, is the open door which presents to the mother the readiest and most easy access possible to the mind and heart of her child. The opportunities and facilities thus afforded to her would be the source of the greatest pleasure to herself, and of the greatest benefit to her child, if she understood better how to avail herself of them. I propose, in this chapter, to give some explanations and general directions for the guidance of mothers, of older brothers and sisters, and of teachers--of all persons, in fact, who may, from time to time, have young children under their care or in their society. I have no doubt that some of my rules will strike parents, at first view, as paradoxical and, perhaps, almost absurd; but I hope that on more mature reflection they will be found to be reasonable and just. _The Curiosity of Children not a Fault_. 1. The curiosity of children is not a fault, and therefore we must never censure them for asking questions, or lead them to think that we consider the disposition to do so a fault on their part; but, on the other hand, this disposition is to be encouraged as much as possible. We must remember that a child, when his powers of observation begin to be developed, finds every thing around him full of mystery and wonder. Why some things are hard and some are soft--why some things will roll and some will not--why he is not hurt when he falls on the sofa, and is hurt when he falls on the floor--why a chair will tumble over when he climbs up by the rounds of it, while yet the steps of the stairs remain firm and can be ascended without danger--why one thing is black, and another red, and another green--why water will all go away of itself from his hands or his dress, while mud will not--why he can dig in the ground, but can not dig in a floor--all is a mystery, and the little adventurer is in a continual state of curiosity and wonder, not only to learn the meaning of all these things, but also of desire to extend his observations, and find out more and more of the astonishing phenomena that are exhibited around him. The good feeling of the mother, or of any intelligent friend who is willing to aid him in his efforts, is, of course, invaluable to him as a means of promoting his advancement in knowledge and of developing his powers. Remember, therefore, that the disposition of a child to ask questions is not a fault, but only an indication of his increasing mental activity, and of his desire to avail himself of the only means within his reach of advancing his knowledge and of enlarging the scope of his intelligence in respect to the strange and wonderful phenomena constantly observable around him. _Sometimes, perhaps, a Source of Inconvenience_. Of course there will be times when it is inconvenient for the parent to attend to the questions of the child, and when he must, consequently, be debarred of the pleasure and privilege of asking them; but even at such times as these the disposition to ask them must not be attributed to him as a fault. Never tell him that he is "a little tease"--that "you are tired to death of answering his questions"--that he is "a chatter-box that would weary the patience of Job;" or that, if he will "sit still for half an hour, without speaking a word, you will give him a reward." If you are going to be engaged, and so can not attend to him, say to him that you _wish_ you could talk with him, and answer the questions, but that you are going to be busy and can not do it; and then, after providing him with some other means of occupation, require him to be silent: though even then you ought to relieve the tedium of silence for him by stopping every ten or fifteen minutes from your reading, or your letter-writing, or the planning of your work, or whatever your employment may be, and giving your attention to him for a minute or two, and affording him an opportunity to relieve the pressure on his mind by a little conversation. _Answers to be short and simple_. 2. Give generally to children's questions the shortest and simplest answers possible. One reason why parents find the questions of children so fatiguing to them, is that _they attempt too much_ in their answers. If they would give the right kind of answers, they would find the work of replying very easy, and in most of their avocations it would occasion them very little interruption. These short and simple answers are all that a child requires. A full and detailed explanation of any thing they ask about is as tiresome for them to listen to as it is for the mother to frame and give; while a short and simple reply which advances them one step in their knowledge of the subject is perfectly easy for the mother to give, and is, at the same time, all that they wish to receive. For example, let us suppose that the father and mother are taking a ride on a summer afternoon after a shower, with little Johnny sitting upon the seat between them in the chaise. The parents are engaged in conversation with each other, we will suppose, and would not like to be interrupted. Johnny presently spies a rainbow on a cloud in the east, and, after uttering an exclamation of delight, asks his mother what made the rainbow. She hears the question, and her mind, glancing for a moment at the difficulty of giving an intelligible explanation of so grand a phenomenon to such a child, experiences an obscure sensation of perplexity and annoyance, but not quite enough to take off her attention from her conversation; so she goes on and takes no notice of Johnny's inquiry. Johnny, accordingly, soon repeats it, "Mother! mother! what makes the rainbow?" At length her attention is forced to the subject, and she either tells Johnny that she can't explain it to him--that he is not old enough to understand it; or, perhaps, scolds him for interrupting her with so many teasing questions. In another such case, the mother, on hearing the question, pauses long enough to look kindly and with a smile of encouragement upon her face towards Johnny, and to say simply, "The sun," and then goes on with her conversation. Johnny says "Oh!" in a tone of satisfaction. It is a new and grand idea to him that the sun makes the rainbow, and it is enough to fill his mind with contemplation for several minutes, during which his parents go on without interruption in their talk. Presently Johnny asks again, "Mother, _how_ does the sun make the rainbow?" His mother answers in the same way as before, "By shining on the cloud:" and, leaving that additional idea for Johnny to reflect upon and receive fully into his mind, turns again to her husband and resumes her conversation with him after a scarcely perceptible interruption. Johnny, after having reflected in silence some minutes, during which he has looked at the sun and at the rainbow, and observed that the cloud on which the arch is formed is exactly opposite to the sun, and fully exposed to his beams, is prepared for another step, and asks, "Mother, how does the sun make a rainbow by shining on the cloud?" His mother replies that it shines on millions of little drops of rain in the cloud, and makes them of all colors, like drops of dew on the ground, and all the colors together make the rainbow. Here are images presented to Johnny's mind enough to occupy his thoughts for a considerable interval, when perhaps he will have another question still, to be answered by an equally short and simple reply; though, probably, by this time his curiosity will have become satisfied in respect to his subject of inquiry, and his attention will have been arrested by some other object. To answer the child's questions in this way is so easy, and the pauses which the answers lead to on the part of the questioner are usually so long, that very little serious interruption is occasioned by them to any of the ordinary pursuits in which a mother is engaged; and the little interruption which is caused is greatly overbalanced by the pleasure which the mother will experience in witnessing the gratification and improvement of the child, if she really loves him, and is seriously interested in the development of his thinking and reasoning powers. _Answers should attempt to communicate but little Instruction_. 3. The answers which are given to children should not only be short and simple in form, but each one should be studiously designed to communicate as small an amount of information as possible. [Illustration: "MOTHER, WHAT MAKES IT SNOW?"] This may seem, at first view, a strange idea, but the import of it simply is that, in giving the child his intellectual nourishment, you must act as you do in respect to his bodily food--that is, divide what he is to receive into small portions, and administer a little at a time. If you give him too much at once in either case, you are in danger of choking him. For example, Johnny asks some morning in the early winter, when the first snow is falling, and he has been watching it for some time from the window in wonder and delight, "Mother, what makes it snow?" Now, if the mother imagines that she must give any thing like a full answer to the question, her attention must be distracted from her work to enable her to frame it; and if she does not give up the attempt altogether, and rebuke the boy for teasing her with "so many silly questions," she perhaps suspends her work, and, after a moment's perplexing thought, she says the vapor of the water from the rivers and seas and damp ground rises into the air, and there at last congeals into flakes of snow, and these fall through the air to the ground. The boy listens and attempts to understand the explanation, but he is bewildered and lost in the endeavor to take in at once this extended and complicated process--one which is, moreover, not only extended and complicated, but which is composed of elements all of which are entirely new to him. If the mother, however, should act on the principle of communicating as small a portion of the information required as it is possible to give in one answer, Johnny's inquiry would lead, probably, to a conversation somewhat like the following, the answers on the part of the mother being so short and simple as to require no perceptible thought on her part, and so occasioning no serious interruption to her work, unless it should be something requiring special attention. "Mother," asks Johnny, "what makes it snow?" "It is the snow-flakes coming down out of the sky," says his mother. "Watch them!" "Oh!" says Johnny, uttering the child's little exclamation of satisfaction. He looks at the flakes as they fall, catching one after another with his eye, and following it in its meandering descent. He will, perhaps, occupy himself several minutes in silence and profound attention, in bringing fully to his mind the idea that a snow-storm consists of a mass of descending flakes of snow falling through the air. To us, who are familiar with this fact, it seems nothing to observe this, but to him the analyzing of the phenomenon, which before he had looked upon as one grand spectacle filling the whole sky, and only making an impression on his mind by its general effect, and resolving it into its elemental parts of individual flakes fluttering down through the air, is a great step. It is a step which exercises his nascent powers of observation and reflection very deeply, and gives him full occupation for quite a little interval of time. At length, when he has familiarized himself with this idea, he asks again, perhaps, "Where do the flakes come from, mother?" "Out of the sky." "Oh!" says Johnny again, for the moment entirely satisfied. One might at first think that these words would be almost unmeaning, or, at least, that they would give the little questioner no real information. But they do give him information that is both important and novel. They advance him one step in his inquiry. Out of the sky means, to him, from a great height. The words give him to understand that the flakes are not formed where they first come into his view, but that they descend from a higher region. After reflecting on this idea a moment, he asks, we will suppose, "How high in the sky, mother?" Now, perhaps, a mother might think that there was no possible answer to be given to such a question as this except that "she does not know;" inasmuch as few persons have any accurate ideas of the elevation in the atmosphere at which snow-clouds usually form. But this accurate information is not what the child requires. If the mother possessed it, it would be useless for her to attempt to communicate it to him. In the sense in which he asks the question she _does_ understand it, and can give him a perfectly satisfactory answer. "How high is it in the sky, mother, to where the snow comes from?" asks the child. "Oh, _very_ high--higher than the top of the house," replies the mother. "As high as the top of the chimney?" "Yes, higher than that." "As high as the moon?" "No, not so high as the moon." "How high is it then, mother?" "About as high as birds can fly." "Oh!" says Johnny, perfectly satisfied. The answer is somewhat indefinite, it is true, but its indefiniteness is the chief element in the value of it. A definite and precise answer, even if one of that character were ready at hand, would be utterly inappropriate to the occasion. _An Answer may even be good which gives no Information at all_. 4. It is not even always necessary that an answer to a child's question should convey _any information at all_. A little conversation on the subject of the inquiry, giving the child an opportunity _to hear and to use language_ in respect to it, is often all that is required. It must be remembered that the power to express thoughts, or to represent external objects by language, is a new power to young children, and, like all other new powers, the mere exercise of it gives great pleasure. If a person in full health and vigor were suddenly to acquire the art of flying, he would take great pleasure in moving, by means of his wings, through the air from one high point to another, not because he had any object in visiting those high points, but because it would give him pleasure to find that he could do so, and to exercise his newly acquired power. So with children in their talk. They talk often, perhaps generally, for the sake of the _pleasure of talking_, not for the sake of what they have to say. So, if you will only talk with them and allow them to talk to you about any thing that interests them, they are pleased, whether you communicate to them any new information or not. This single thought, once fully understood by a mother, will save her a great deal of trouble in answering the incessant questions of her children. The only essential thing in many cases is to _say something_ in reply to the question, no matter whether what you say communicates any information or not. If a child asks, for instance, what makes the stars shine so, and his mother answers, "Because they are so bright," he will be very likely to be as well satisfied as if she attempted to give a philosophical explanation of the phenomenon. So, if he asks what makes him see himself in the looking-glass, she may answer, "You see an _image_ of yourself there. They call it an image. Hold up a book and see if you can see an image of that in the glass too." He is pleased and satisfied. Nor are such answers useless, as might at first be supposed. They give the child practice in the use of language, and, if properly managed, they may be made the means of greatly extending his knowledge of language and, by necessary consequence, of the ideas and realities which language represents. "Father," says Mary, as she is walking with her father in the garden, "what makes some roses white and some red?" "It is very curious, is it not?" says her father. "Yes, father, it is very curious indeed. What makes it so?" "There must be _some_ cause for it" says her father. "And the apples that grow on some trees are sweet, and on others they are sour. That is curious too." "Yes, very curious indeed," says Mary. "The _leaves_ of trees seem to be always green," continues her father, "though the flowers are of various colors." "Yes, father," says Mary. "Except," adds her father, "when they turn yellow, and red, and brown, in the fall of the year." A conversation like this, without attempting any thing like an answer to the question with which it commenced, is as satisfactory to the child, and perhaps as useful in developing its powers and increasing its knowledge of language, as any attempt to explain the phenomenon would be; and the knowledge of this will make it easy for the mother to dispose of many a question which might seriously interrupt her if she conceived it necessary either to attempt a satisfactory explanation of the difficulty, or not to answer it at all. _Be always ready to say "I don't know_." 5. The mother should be always ready and willing to say "I don't know," in answer to children's questions. Parents and teachers are very often somewhat averse to this, lest, by often confessing their own ignorance, they should lower themselves in the estimation of their pupils or their children. So they feel bound to give some kind of an explanation to every difficulty, in hopes that it may satisfy the inquirer, though it does not satisfy themselves. But this is a great mistake. The sooner that pupils and children understand that the field of knowledge is utterly boundless, and that it is only a very small portion of it that their superiors in age and attainment have yet explored, the better for all concerned. The kind of superiority, in the estimation of children, which it is chiefly desirable to attain, consists in their always finding that the explanation which we give, whenever we attempt any, is _clear, fair_, and _satisfactory_, not in our being always ready to offer an explanation, whether satisfactory or not. _Questions on Religious Subjects._ The considerations presented in this chapter relate chiefly to the questions which children ask in respect to what they observe taking place around them in external nature. There is another class of questions and difficulties which they raise--namely, those that relate to religious and moral subjects; and to these I have not intended now to refer. The inquiries which children make on these subjects arise, in a great measure, from the false and puerile conceptions which they are so apt to form in respect to spiritual things, and from which they deduce all sorts of absurdities. The false conceptions in which their difficulties originate are due partly to errors and imperfections in our modes of teaching them on these subjects, and partly to the immaturity of their powers, which incapacitates them from clearly comprehending any elements of thought that lie beyond the direct cognizance of the senses. We shall, however, have occasion to refer to this subject in another chapter. In respect, however, to all that class of questions which children ask in relation to the visible world around them, the principles here explained may render the mother some aid in her intercourse with the little learners under her charge, if she clearly understands and intelligently applies them. And she will find the practice of holding frequent conversations with them, in these ways, a source of great pleasure to her, as well as of unspeakable advantage to them. Indeed, the conversation of a kind and intelligent mother is far the most valuable and important means of education for a child during many years of its early life. A boy whose mother is pleased to have him near her, who likes to hear and answer his questions, to watch the gradual development of his thinking and reasoning powers, and to enlarge and extend his knowledge of language--thus necessarily and of course expanding the range and scope of his ideas--will find that though his studies, strictly so called--that is, his learning to read, and the committing to memory lessons from books--may be deferred, yet, when he finally commences them he will go at once to the head of his classes at school, through the superior strength and ampler development which his mental powers will have attained. CHAPTER XX. THE USE OF MONEY. The money question in the management and training of children has a distinct bearing on the subjects of some of the preceding chapters. It is extremely important, first, in respect to opportunities which are afforded in connection with the use of money for cultivating and developing the qualities of sound judgment and of practical wisdom; and then, in the second place, the true course to be pursued with them in respect to money forms a special point to be considered in its bearing upon the subject of the proper mode of dealing with their wishes and requests. _Evil Results of a very Common Method_. If a parent wishes to eradicate from the mind of his boy all feelings of delicacy and manly pride, to train him to the habit of obtaining what he wants by importunity or servility, and to prevent his having any means of acquiring any practical knowledge of the right use of money, any principles of economy, or any of that forethought and thrift so essential to sure prosperity in future life, the best way to accomplish these ends would seem to be to have no system in supplying him with money in his boyish days, but to give it to him only when he asks for it, and in quantities determined only by the frequency and importunity of his calls. Of course under such a system the boy has no inducement to take care of his money, to form any plans of expenditure, to make any calculations, to practise self-denial to-day for the sake of a greater good to-morrow. The source of supply from which he draws money, fitful and uncertain as it may be in what it yields to him, he considers unlimited; and as the amount which he can draw from it does not depend at all upon his frugality, his foresight, or upon any incipient financial skill that he may exercise, but solely upon his adroitness in coaxing, or his persistence in importunity, it is the group of bad qualities, and not the good, which such management tends to foster. The effect of such a system is, in other words, not to encourage the development and growth of those qualities on which thrift and forehandedness in the management of his affairs in future life, and, in consequence, his success and prosperity, depend; but, on the contrary, to cherish the growth of all the mean and ignoble propensities of human nature by accustoming him, so far as relates to this subject, to gain his ends by the arts of a sycophant, or by rude pertinacity. Not that this system always produces these results. It may be, and perhaps generally is, greatly modified by other influences acting upon the mind of the child at the same time, as well as by the natural tendencies of the boy's character, and by the character and general influence upon him of his father and mother in other respects. It can not be denied, however, that the above is the tendency of a system which makes a boy's income of spending-money a matter of mere chance, on which no calculations can be founded, except so far as he can increase it by adroit manoeuvring or by asking for it directly, with more or less of urgency or persistence, as the case may require; that is to say, by precisely those means which are the most ignoble and most generally despised by honorably-minded men as means for the attainment of any human end. Now one of the most important parts of the education of both girls and boys, whether they are to inherit riches, or to enjoy a moderate income from the fruits of their own industry, or to spend their lives in extreme poverty, is to teach them the proper management and use of money. And this may be very effectually done by giving them a fixed and definite income to manage, and then throwing upon them the responsibility of the management of it, with such a degree of guidance, encouragement, and aid as a parent can easily render. _Objection to the Plan of a regular Allowance_. There are no parents among those who will be likely to read this book of resources so limited that they will not, from time to time, allow their children _some_ amount of spending-money in a year. All that is necessary, therefore, is to appropriate to them this amount and pay it to them, or credit them with it, in a business-like and regular manner. It is true that by this system the children will soon begin to regard their monthly or weekly allowance as their due; and the parent will lose the pleasure, if it is any pleasure to him or her, of having the money which they give them regarded in each case as a present, and received with a sense of obligation. This is sometimes considered an objection to this plan. "When I furnish my children with money," says the parent, "as a gratification, I wish to have the pleasure of _giving_ it to them. Whereas, on this proposed plan of paying it to them regularly at stated intervals, they will come to consider each payment as simply the payment of a debt. I wish them to consider it as a gratuity on my part, so that it may awaken gratitude and renew their love for me." There is some seeming force in this objection, though it is true that the adoption of the plan of a systematic appropriation, as here recommended, does not prevent the making of presents of money, or of any thing else, to the children, whenever either parent desires to do so. Still the plan will not generally be adopted, except by parents in whose minds the laying of permanent foundations for their children's welfare and happiness through life, by training them from their earliest years to habits of forecast and thrift, and the exercise of judgment and skill in the management of money, is entirely paramount to any petty sentimental gratification to themselves, while the children are young. _Two Methods_. In case the parent--it may be either the father or the mother--decides to adopt the plan of appropriating systematically and regularly a certain sum to be at the disposal of the child, there are two modes by which the business may be transacted--one by paying over the money itself in the amounts and at the stated periods determined upon, and the other by opening an account with the child, and giving him credit from time to time for the amount due, charging on the other side the amounts which he draws. 1. _Paying the money_. This is the simplest plan. If it is adopted, the money must be ready and be paid at the appointed time with the utmost exactitude and certainty. Having made the arrangement with a child that he is to have a certain sum--six cents, twelve cents, twenty-five cents, or more, as the case may be--every Saturday night, the mother--if it is the mother who has charge of the execution of the plan--must consider it a sacred debt, and must be _always_ ready. She can not expect that her children will learn regularity, punctuality, and system in the management of their money affairs, if she sets them the example of laxity and forgetfulness in fulfilling her engagements, and offering excuses for non-payment when the time comes, instead of having the money ready when it is due. The money, when paid, should not, in general, be carried by the children about the person, but they should be provided with a purse or other safe receptacle, which, however, should be entirely in their custody, and so exposed to all the accidents to which any carelessness in the custody would expose it. The mother must remember that the very object of the plan is to have the children learn by experience to take care of money themselves, and that she defeats that object by virtually relieving them of this care. It should, therefore, be paid to them with the greatest punctuality, especially at the first introduction of the system, and with the distinct understanding that the charge and care of keeping it devolves entirely upon them from the time of its passing into their hands. 2. _Opening an account_. The second plan, and one that will prove much the most satisfactory in its working--though many mothers will shrink from it on the ground that it would make them a great deal of trouble--is to keep an account. For this purpose a small book should be made, with as many leaves as there are children, so that for each account there can be two pages. The book should be ruled for accounts, and the name of each child should be entered at the head of the two pages appropriated to his account. Then, from time to time, the amount of his allowance that has fallen due should be entered on the credit side, and any payment made to him on the other. The plan of keeping an account in this way obviates the necessity of paying money at stated times, for the account will show at any time how much is due. There are some advantages in each of these modes. Much depends on the age of the children, and still more upon the facilities which the father or mother have at hand for making entries in writing. To a man of business, accustomed to accounts, who could have a book made small enough to go into his wallet, or to a mother who is systematic in her habits, and has in her work-table or her secretary facilities for writing at any time, the plan of opening an account will be found much the best. It will afford an opportunity of giving the children a great deal of useful knowledge in respect to account-keeping--or, rather, by habituating them from an early age to the management of their affairs in this systematic manner, will train them from the beginning to habits of system and exactness. A very perceptible effect in this direction will be produced on the minds of children, even while they have not yet learned to read, and so can not understand at all the written record made of their pecuniary transactions. They will, at any rate, understand that a written record is made; they will take a certain pride and pleasure in it, and impressions will be produced which may have an effect upon their habits of accuracy and system in their pecuniary transactions through all future life. _Interest on Balances_. One great advantage of the plan of having an account over that of paying cash at stated times is, that it affords an opportunity for the father or mother to allow interest for any balances left from time to time in their hands, so as to initiate the children into a knowledge of the nature and the advantages of productive investments, and familiarize them with the idea that money reserved has within it a principle of increase. The interest allowed should be altogether greater than the regular rate, so as to make the advantage of it in the case of such small sums appreciable to the children--but not too great. Some judgment and discretion must be exercised on this as on all other points connected with the system. The arrangements for the keeping of an account being made, and the account opened, there is, of course, no necessity, as in the case of payments made simply in cash, that the business should be transacted at stated times. At any time when convenient, the entry may be made of the amount which has become due since the time of the last entry. And when, from time to time, the child wishes for money, the parent will look at his account and see if there is a balance to his credit. If there is, the child will be entitled to receive whatever he desires up to the amount of the balance. Once in a month, or at any other times when convenient, the account can be settled, and the balance, with the accrued interest, carried to a new account. All this, instead of being a trouble, will only be a source of interest and pleasure to the parent, as well as to the children themselves, and, without occupying any sensible portion of time, will be the means of gradually communicating a great deal of very useful instruction. _Employment of the Money_. It will have a great effect in "training up children in the way in which they should go," in respect to the employment of money, if a rule is made for them that a certain portion, one-quarter or one-half, for example, of all the money which comes into their possession, both from their regular allowance and from gratuities, is to be laid aside as a permanent investment, and an account at some Savings Bank be opened, or some other formal mode of placing it be adopted--the bank-book or other documentary evidence of the amount so laid up to be deposited among the child's treasures. In respect to the other portion of the money--namely, that which is to be employed by the children themselves as spending-money, the disbursement of it should be left _entirely at their discretion_, subject only to the restriction that they are not to buy any thing that will be injurious or dangerous to themselves, or a means of disturbance or annoyance to others. The mother may give them any information or any counsel in regard to the employment of their money, provided she does not do it in the form of expressing any _wish_, on her part, in regard to it. For the very object of the whole plan is to bring out into action, and thus to develop and strengthen, the judgment and discretion of the child; and just as children can not learn to walk by always being carried, so they can not learn to be good managers without having the responsibility of actual management, on a scale adapted to their years, thrown really upon them. If a boy wishes to buy a bow and arrow, it may in some cases be right not to give him permission to do it, on account of the danger accompanying the use of such a plaything. But if he wishes to buy a kite which the mother is satisfied is too large for him to manage, or if she thinks there are so many trees about the house that he can not prevent its getting entangled in them, she must not object to it on that account. She can explain these dangers to the boy, if he is inclined to listen, but not in a way to show that she herself wishes him not to buy the kite. "Those are the difficulties which you may meet with," she may say, "but you may buy the kite if you think best." Then when he meets with the difficulties, when he finds that he can not manage the kite, or that he loses it among the trees, she must not triumph over him, and say, "I told you how it would be. You would not take my advice, and now you see how it is." On the contrary, she must help him, and try to alleviate his disappointment, saying, "Never mind. It is a loss, certainly. But you did what you thought was best at the time, and we all meet with losses sometimes, even when we have done what we thought was best. You will make a great many other mistakes, probably, hereafter in spending money, and meet with losses; and this one will give you an opportunity of learning to bear them like a man." _The most implicit Faith to be kept with Children in Money Transactions_. I will not say that a father, if he is a man of business, ought to be as jealous of his credit with his children as he is of his credit at the bank; but I think, if he takes a right view of the subject, he will be extremely sensitive in respect to both. If he is a man of high and honorable sentiments, and especially if he looks forward to future years when his children shall have arrived at maturity, or shall be approaching towards it, and sees how important and how delicate the pecuniary relations between himself and them may be at that time, he will feel the importance of beginning by establishing, at the very commencement, not only by means of precept, but by example, a habit of precise, systematic, and scrupulous exactitude in the fulfillment of every pecuniary obligation. It is not necessary that he should do any thing mean or small in his dealings with them in order to accomplish this end. He may be as liberal and as generous with them in many ways as he pleases, but he must keep his accounts with them correctly. He must always, without any demurring or any excuse, be ready to fulfill his engagements, and teach them to fulfill theirs. _Possible Range of Transactions between Parents and Children_. The parent, after having initiated his children into the regular transaction of business by his mode of managing their allowance-fund, may very advantageously extend the benefits of the system by engaging with them from time to time in other affairs, to be regulated in a business-like and systematic manner. For example, if one of his boys has been reserving a portion of his spending-money as a watch-fund, and has already half enough for the purchase, the father may offer to lend him the balance and take a mortgage of the watch, to stand until the boy shall have taken it up out of future savings; and he can make out a mortgage-deed expressing in a few and simple words the fact that the watch is pledged to him as security for the sum advanced, and is not to become the absolute property of the boy till the money for which it is pledged is paid. In the course of years, a great number of transactions in this way may take place between the father or mother and their boy, each of which will not only be a source of interest and enjoyment to both parties, but will afford the best possible means of imparting, not only to the child directly interested in them, but to the other children, a practical knowledge of financial transactions, and of forming in them the habit of conducting all their affairs in a systematic and business-like manner. The number and variety of such transactions in which the modes of doing business among men may be imitated with children, greatly to their enjoyment and interest, is endless. I could cite an instance when what was called a bank was in operation for many years among a certain number of children, with excellent effect. One was appointed president, another cashier, another paying-teller. There was a ledger under the charge of the cashier, with a list of stockholders, and the number of shares held by each, which was in proportion to the respective ages of the children. The bank building was a little toy secretary, something in the form of a safe, into which there mysteriously appeared, from time to time, small sums of money; the stockholders being as ignorant of the source from which the profits of the bank were derived as most stockholders probably are in the case of larger and more serious institutions. Once in six months, or at other periods, the money was counted, a dividend was declared, and the stockholders were paid in a regular and business-like manner. The effect of such methods as these is not only to make the years of childhood pass more pleasantly, but also to prepare them to enter, when the time comes, upon the serious business of life with some considerable portion of that practical wisdom in the management of money which is often, when it is deferred to a later period, acquired only by bitter experience and through much suffering. Indeed, any parent who appreciates and fully enters into the views presented in this chapter will find, in ordinary cases, that his children make so much progress in business capacity that he can extend the system so as to embrace subjects of real and serious importance before the children arrive at maturity. A boy, for instance, who has been trained in this way will be found competent, by the time that he is ten or twelve years old, to take the contract for furnishing himself with caps, or boots and shoes, and, a few years later, with all his clothing, at a specified annual sum. The sum fixed upon in the case of caps, for example, should be intermediate between that which the caps of a boy of ordinary heedlessness would cost, and that which would be sufficient with special care, so that both the father and the son could make money, as it were, by the transaction. Of course, to manage such a system successfully, so that it could afterwards be extended to other classes of expenses, requires tact, skill, system, patience, and steadiness on the part of the father or mother who should attempt it; but when the parent possesses these qualities, the time and attention that would be required would be as nothing compared with the trouble, the vexation, the endless dissatisfaction on both sides, that attend upon the ordinary methods of supplying children's wants--to say nothing of the incalculable benefit to the boy himself of such a training, as a part of his preparation for future life. _Evil Results to be feared_. Nor is it merely upon the children themselves, and that after they enter upon the responsibilities of active life, that the evils resulting from their having had no practical training in youth in respect to pecuniary responsibilities and obligations, that evil consequences will fall. The great cities are full of wealthy men whose lives are rendered miserable by the recklessness in respect to money which is displayed by their sons and daughters as they advance towards maturity, and by the utter want, on their part, of all sense of delicacy, and of obligation or of responsibility of any kind towards their parents in respect to their pecuniary transactions. Of course this must, in a vast number of cases, be the result when the boy is brought up from infancy with the idea that the only limit to his supply of money is his ingenuity in devising modes of putting a pressure upon his father. Fifteen or twenty years spent in managing his affairs on this principle must, of course, produce the fruit naturally to be expected from such seed. _The great Difficulty_. It would seem, perhaps, at first view, from what has been said in this chapter, that it would be a very simple and easy thing to train up children thus to correct ideas and habits in respect to the use of money; and it would be so--for the principles involved seem to be very plain and simple--were it not that the _qualities which it requires in the parent_ are just those which are most rare. Deliberateness in forming the plan, calmness and quietness in proposing it, inflexible but mild and gentle firmness in carrying it out, perfect honesty in allowing the children to exercise the power and responsibility promised them, and an indulgent spirit in relation to the faults and errors into which they fall in the exercise of it--these and other such qualities are not very easily found. To make an arrangement with a child that he is to receive a certain sum every Saturday, and then after two or three weeks to forget it, and when the boy comes to call for it, to say, petulantly, "Oh, don't come to bother me about that now--I am busy; and besides, I have not got the money now;" or, when a boy has spent all his allowance on the first two or three days of the week, and comes to beg importunately for more, to say, "It was very wrong in you to spend all your money at once, and I have a great mind not to give you any more. I will, however, do it just this time, but I shall not again, you may depend;" or, to borrow money in some sudden emergency out of the fund which a child has accumulated for a special purpose, and then to forget or neglect to repay it--to manage loosely and capriciously in any such ways as these will be sure to make the attempt a total failure; that is to say, such management will be sure to be a failure in respect to teaching the boy to act on right principles in the management of money, and training him to habits of exactness and faithfulness in the fulfillment of his obligations. But in making him a thoughtless, wasteful, teasing, and selfish boy while he remains a boy, and fixing him, when he comes to manhood, in the class of those who are utterly untrustworthy, faithless in the performance of their promises, and wholly unscrupulous in respect to the means by which they obtain money, it may very probably turn out to be a splendid success. CHAPTER XXI. CORPORAL PUNISHMENT. It might, perhaps, be thought that, in a book which professes to show how an efficient government can be established and maintained by _gentle measures_, the subject of corporal punishment could have no place. It seems important, however, that there should be here introduced a brief though distinct presentation of the light in which, in a philosophical point of view, this instrumentality is to be regarded. _The Teachings of Scripture_. The resort to corporal punishment in the training of children seems to be spoken of in many passages contained in the Scriptures as of fundamental necessity. But there can be no doubt that the word _rod_, as used in those passages, is used simply as the emblem of parental authority. This is in accordance with the ordinary custom of Hebrew writers in those days, and with the idiom of their language, by which a single visible or tangible object was employed as the representative or expression of a general idea--as, for example, the sword is used as the emblem of magisterial authority, and the sun and the rain, which are spoken of as being sent with their genial and fertilizing power upon the evil and the good, denote not specially and exclusively those agencies, but all the beneficent influences of nature which they are employed to represent. The injunctions, therefore, of Solomon in respect to the use of the rod are undoubtedly to be understood as simply enjoining upon parents the necessity of bringing up their children _in complete subjection_ to their authority. No one can imagine that he could wish the rod to be used when complete subjection to the parental authority could be secured by more gentle means. And how this is to be done it is the object precisely of this book to show. In this sense, therefore--and it is undoubtedly the true sense--namely, that children must be _governed by the authority of the parent_, the passages in question express a great and most essential truth. It is sometimes said that children must be governed by reason, and this is true, but it is the reason of their parents, and not their own which must hold the control. If children were endowed with the capacity of seeing what is best for them, and with sufficient self-control to pursue what is best against the counter-influences of their animal instincts and propensities, there would be no necessity that the period of subjection to parental authority should be extended over so many years. But so long as their powers are yet too immature to be safely relied upon, they must, of necessity, be subject to the parental will; and the sooner and the more perfectly they are made to understand this, and to yield a willing submission to the necessity, the better it will be, not only for their parents, but also for themselves. The parental authority must, therefore, be established--by gentle means, if possible--but it must by all means be established, and be firmly maintained. If you can not govern your child without corporal punishment, it is better to resort to it than not to govern him at all. Taking a wide view of the field, I think there may be several cases in which a resort to the infliction of physical pain as the only available means of establishing authority may be the only alternative. There are three cases of this kind that are to be specially considered. [Illustration: THE RUNAWAY] _Possible Cases in which it is the only Alternative.--Savages_. 1. In savage or half-civilized life, and even, perhaps, in so rude a state of society as must have existed in some parts of Judea when the Proverbs of Solomon were written, it is conceivable that many parents, owing to their own ignorance, and low animal condition, would have no other means at their command for establishing their authority over their children than scoldings and blows. It must be so among savages. And it is certainly better, if the mother knows no other way of inducing her boy to keep within her sight, that she should whip him when he runs away, than that he should be bitten by serpents or devoured by bears. She _must_ establish her authority in some way, and if this is the best that she is capable of pursuing, she must use it. _Teachers whose Tasks surpass their Skill_. 2. A teacher, in entering upon the charge of a large school of boys made unruly by previous mismanagement, may, perhaps, possibly find himself unable to establish submission to his authority without this resource. It is true that if it is so, it is due, in a certain sense, to want of skill on the teacher's part; for there are men, and women too, who will take any company of boys that you can give them, and, by a certain skill, or tact, or knowledge of human nature, or other qualities which seem sometimes to other persons almost magical, will have them all completely under subjection in a week, and that without violence, without scolding, almost without even a frown. The time may, perhaps, come when every teacher, to be considered qualified for his work, must possess this skill. Indeed, the world is evidently making great and rapid progress in this direction. The methods of instruction and the modes by which the teacher gains and holds his influence over his pupils have been wonderfully improved in recent times, so that where there was one teacher, fifty years ago, who was really beloved by his pupils, we have fifty now. In Dr. Johnson's time, which was about a hundred and fifty years ago, it would seem that there was no other mode but that of violent coercion recognized as worthy to be relied upon in imparting instruction, for he said that he knew of no way by which Latin could be taught to boys in his day but "by having it flogged into them." From such a state of things to that which prevails at the present day there has been an astonishing change. And now, whether a teacher is able to manage an average school of boys without physical force is simply a question of tact, knowledge of the right principles, and skill in applying them on his part. It is, perhaps, yet too soon to expect that all teachers can possess, or can acquire, these qualifications to such a degree as to make it safe to forbid the infliction of bodily pain in any case, but the time for it is rapidly approaching, and in some parts of the country it has, perhaps, already arrived. Until that time comes, every teacher who finds himself under the necessity of beating a boy's body in order to attain certain moral or intellectual ends ought to understand that the reason is the incompleteness of his understanding and skill in dealing directly with his mind; though for this incompleteness he may not himself be personally at all to blame. _Children spoiled by Neglect and Mismanagement_. 3. I am even willing to admit that one or more boys in a family may reach such a condition of rudeness and insubordination, in consequence of neglect or mismanagement on the part of their parents in their early years, and the present clumsiness and incapacity of the father in dealing with the susceptibilities and impulses of the human soul, that the question will lie between keeping them within some kind of subordination by bodily punishment or not controlling them at all. If a father has been so engrossed in his business that he has neglected his children, has never established any common bond of sympathy between himself and them, has taken no interest in their enjoyments, nor brought them by moral means to an habitual subjection to his will; and if their mother is a weak, irresolute woman, occupying herself with the pursuits and pleasures of fashionable society, and leaving her children to the management of servants, the children will, of course, in general, grow up exacting, turbulent, and ungovernable; and when, with advancing maturity, their increasing strength and vigor makes this turbulence and disorder intolerable in the house, and there is, as of course there usually will be in such a case, no proper knowledge and skill in the management of the young on the part of either parent to remedy the evil by gentle measures, the only alternative in many cases may be either a resort to violent punishment, or the sending away of the unmanageable subjects to school. The latter part of the alternative is the best, and, fortunately, it is the one generally adopted. But where it can not be adopted, it is certainly better that the boys should be governed by the rod than to grow up under no government at all. _Gentle Measures effectual where Rightfully and Faithfully employed_. However it may be with respect to the exceptional cases above enumerated, and perhaps some others, there can, I think, be no doubt that parents who should train their children from the beginning on the principles explained in this volume, and upon others analogous to them, would never, in any case, have to strike a blow. They would accomplish the end enjoined by the precepts of Solomon, namely, the complete subjection of their children to their authority, by improved methods not known in his day, or, at least, not so fully developed that they could then be relied upon. They who imagine that parents are bound to use the rod as the instrumentality, because the Scriptures speak of the rod as the means of establishing parental authority best known in those days, instead of employing the more effective methods which the progress of improvement has developed and made available at the present day, ought, in order to be consistent, to insist on the retention of the harp in religious worship, because David enjoins it upon believers to "praise the Lord with harp:" to "sing unto him with psaltery, and an instrument of ten strings." The truth is, that what we are to look at in such injunctions is the end that is to be attained, which is, in this last case, the impressive and reverential exaltation of Almighty God in our minds by the acts of public worship; and if, with the improvements in musical instruments which have been made in modern times, we can do this more satisfactorily by employing in the place of a psaltery or a harp of ten strings an organ of ten or a hundred stops, we are bound to make the substitution. In a word, we must look at the end and not at the means, remembering that in questions of Scripture interpretation the "letter killeth, the spirit maketh alive." _Protracted Contests with Obstinacy_. It seems to me, though I am aware that many excellent persons think differently, that it is never wise for the parent to allow himself to be drawn into a contest with a child in attempting to compel him to do something that from ill-temper or obstinacy he refuses to do. If the attempt is successful, and the child yields under a moderate severity of coercion, it is all very well. But there is something mysterious and unaccountable in the strength of the obstinacy sometimes manifested in such cases, and the degree of endurance which it will often inspire, even in children of the most tender age. We observe the same inexplicable fixedness sometimes in the lower animals--in the horse, for example; which is the more unaccountable from the fact that we can not suppose, in his case, that peculiar combination of intelligence and ill-temper which we generally consider the sustaining power of the protracted obstinacy on the part of the child. The degree of persistence which is manifested by children in contests of this kind is something wonderful, and can not easily be explained by any of the ordinary theories in respect to the influence of motives on the human mind. A state of cerebral excitement and exaltation is not unfrequently produced which seems akin to insanity, and instances have been known in which a child has suffered itself to be beaten to death rather than yield obedience to a very simple command. And in vast numbers of instances, the parent, after a protracted contest, gives up in despair, and is compelled to invent some plausible pretext for bringing it to an end. Indeed, when we reflect upon the subject, we see what a difficult task we undertake in such contests--it being nothing less than that of _forcing the formation of a volition_ in a human mind. We can easily control the bodily movements and actions of another person by means of an external coercion that we can apply, and we have various indirect means of _inducing_ volitions; but in these contests we seem to come up squarely to the work of attempting, by outward force, to compel the _forming of a volition_ in the mind; and it is not surprising that this should, at least sometimes, prove a very difficult undertaking. _No Necessity for these Contests_. There seems to be no necessity that a parent or teacher should ever become involved in struggles of this kind in maintaining his authority. The way to avoid them, as it seems to me, is, when a child refuses out of obstinacy to do what is required of him, to impose the proper punishment or penalty for the refusal, and let that close the transaction. Do not attempt to enforce his compliance by continuing the punishment until he yields. A child, for example, going out to play, wishes for his blue cap. His mother chooses that he shall wear his gray one. She hangs the blue cap up in its place, and gives him the gray one. He declares that he will not wear it, and throws it down upon the floor. The temptation now is for the mother, indignant, to punish him, and then to order him to take up the cap which he had thrown down, and to feel that it is her duty, in case he refuses, to persist in the punishment until she conquers his will, and compels him to take it up and put it upon his head. But instead of this, a safer and a better course, it seems to me, is to avoid a contest altogether by considering the offense complete, and the transaction on his part finished by the single act of rebellion against her authority. She may take the cap up from the floor herself and put it in its place, and then simply consider what punishment is proper for the wrong already done. Perhaps she forbids the boy to go out at all. Perhaps she reserves the punishment, and sends him to bed an hour earlier that night. The age of the boy, or some other circumstances connected with the case, may be such as to demand a severer treatment still. At any rate, she limits the transaction to the single act of disobedience and rebellion already committed, without giving an opportunity for a repetition of it by renewing the command, and inflicts for it the proper punishment, and that is the end of the affair. And so a boy in reciting a lesson will not repeat certain words after his mother. She enters into no controversy with him, but shuts the book and puts it away. He, knowing his mother's usual mode of management in such cases, and being sure that some penalty, privation, or punishment will sooner or later follow, relents, and tells his mother that he will say the words if she will try him again. "No, my son," she should reply, "the opportunity is past. You should have done your duty at the right time. You have disobeyed me, and I must take time to consider what to do." If, at the proper time, in such a case, when all the excitement of the affair is over, a penalty or punishment apportioned to the fault, or some other appropriate measures in relation to it, are _certain to come_, and if this method is always pursued in a calm and quiet manner but with inflexible firmness in act, the spirit of rebellion will be much more effectually subdued than by any protracted struggles at the time, though ending in victory however complete. But all this is a digression, though it seemed proper to allude to the subject of these contests here, since it is on these occasions, perhaps, that parents are most frequently led, or, as they think, irresistibly impelled, to the infliction of bodily punishments as the last resort, when they would, in general, be strongly inclined to avoid them. _The Infliction of Pain sometimes the speediest Remedy_. There are, moreover, some cases, perhaps, in the ordinary exigencies of domestic life, as the world goes, when some personal infliction is the _shortest_ way of disposing of a case of discipline, and may appear, for the time being, to be the most effectual. A slap is very quickly given, and a mother may often think that she has not time for a more gentle mode of managing the case, even though she may admit that if she had the time at her command the gentle mode would be the best. And it is, indeed, doubtless true that the principles of management advocated in this work are such as require that the parents should devote some time and attention, and, still more essentially, some _heart_ to the work; and they who do not consider the welfare and happiness of their children in future life, and their own happiness in connection with them as they advance towards their declining years, as of sufficient importance to call for the bestowment of this time and attention, will doubtless often resort to more summary methods in their discipline than those here recommended. _The Sting that it leaves behind_. Indeed, the great objection, after all, to the occasional resort to the infliction of bodily pain in extreme cases is, as it seems to me, the sting which it leaves behind; not that, which it leaves in the heart of the child who may suffer it--for that soon passes away--but in the heart of the parent who inflicts it. The one is, or may be, very evanescent; the other may very long remain; and what is worse, the anguish of it may be revived and made very poignant in future years. This consideration makes it specially imperative on every parent never, for any cause, to inflict punishment by violence when himself under the influence of any irritation or anger awakened by the offense. For though the anger which the fault of the child naturally awakens in you carries you through the act of punishing well enough, it soon afterwards passes away, while the memory of it remains, and in after years, like any other sin, it may come back to exact a painful retribution. When the little loved one who now puts you out of patience with her heedlessness, her inconsiderateness, and, perhaps, by worse faults and failings--all, however, faults which may very possibly, in part or in whole, be the result of the immature and undeveloped condition of her mental or bodily powers--falls sick and dies, and you follow her as she is borne away, and with a bursting heart see her laid in her little grave, it will be a great comfort to you then to reflect that you did all in your power, by means of the gentlest measures at your command, to train her to truth and duty, that you never lost patience with her, and that she never felt from your hand any thing but gentle assistance or a loving caress. And your boy--now so ardent and impulsive, and often, perhaps, noisy, troublesome, and rude, from the exuberant action of his growing powers--when these powers shall have received their full development, and he has passed from your control to his place in the world as a man, and he comes back from time to time to the maternal home in grateful remembrance of his obligations to his mother, bringing with him tokens of his affection and love, you will think with pain of the occasions when you subjected him to the torture of the rod under the impulse of irritation or anger, or to accomplish the ends of discipline which might have been attained in other ways. Time, as you then look back over the long interval of years which have elapsed, will greatly soften the recollection of the fault, but it will greatly aggravate that of the pain which was made the retribution of it. You will say to yourself, it is true, I did it for the best. If I had not done it, my son would perhaps not be what he is. He, if he remembers the transaction, will doubtless say so too; but there will be none the less for both a certain sting in the recollection, and you will wish that the same end could have been accomplished by gentler means. The substance of it is that children must, at all events, be governed. The proper authority over them _must be_ maintained; but it is a great deal better to secure this end by gentle measures, if the parent have or can acquire the skill to employ them. CHAPTER XXII. GRATITUDE IN CHILDREN. Mothers are very often pained at what seems to them the ingratitude of their children. They long, above all things, for their love. They do every thing in their power--I mean, of course, that some mothers do--to win it. They make every sacrifice, and give every possible evidence of affection; but they seem to fail entirely of bringing out any of those evidences of gratitude and affection in return which, if they could only witness them, would fill their hearts with gladness and joy. But the only feeling which their children manifest towards them seems to be a selfish one. They come to them when in trouble, they even fly to them eagerly when in danger, and they consider their parents the chief resource for procuring nearly all their means of gratification. But they think little, as it often seems, of the mother's comfort and enjoyment in return, and seldom or never do any thing voluntarily to give her pleasure. It would be a great exaggeration to say that this is always the feeling of the mother in respect to her children. I only mean that this is sometimes, and I might probably say very often, the case. _Two Forms of Love._ Now there are two distinct forms which the feeling of love may assume in the mature mind, both of which are gratifying to the object of it, though they are very different, and indeed in some sense exactly the opposite of each other. There is the _receiving_ and the _bestowing_ love. It is true that the two forms are often conjoined, or rather they often exist in intimate combination with each other; but in their nature they are essentially distinct. A young lady, for example, may feel a strong attachment for the gentleman to whom she is engaged--or a wife for her husband--in the sense of liking to receive kindness and attention from him more than from any other man. She may be specially pleased when he invites her to ride with him, or makes her presents, or shows in any way that he thinks of her and seeks her happiness--more so than she would be to receive the same attentions from any other person. This is love. It may be very genuine love; but it is love in the form of taking special pleasure in the kindness and favor bestowed by the object of it. Yet it is none the less true, as most persons have had occasion to learn from their own experience, that this kind of love may be very strong without being accompanied by any corresponding desire on the part of the person manifesting it to make sacrifices of her own ease and comfort in order to give happiness to the object of her love in return. In the same manner a gentleman may feel a strong sentiment of love for a lady, which shall take the form of enjoying her society, of being happy when he is near her, and greatly pleased at her making sacrifices for his sake, or manifesting in any way a strong attachment for him. There _may be_ also united with this the other form of love--namely, that which would lead him to deny himself and make sacrifices _for her_. But the two, though they may often--perhaps generally--exist together, are in their nature so essentially different that they may be entirely separated, and we may have one in its full strength while there is very little of the other. You may love a person in the sense of taking greater pleasure in receiving attentions and favors from him than from all the world beside, while yet you seldom think of making efforts to promote his comfort and happiness in any thing in which you are not yourself personally concerned. On the other hand, you may love him with the kind of affection which renders it the greatest pleasure of your life to make sacrifices and endure self-denial to promote his welfare in any way. In some cases these two forms are in fact entirely separated, and one or the other can exist entirely distinct from the other--as in the case of the kind feelings of a good man towards the poor and miserable. It is quite possible to feel a very strong interest in such objects, and to be willing to put ourselves to considerable inconvenience to make them comfortable and happy, and to take great pleasure in learning that our efforts have been effectual, without feeling any love for them at all in the other form--that is, any desire to have them with us, to receive attentions and kindness from them, and to enjoy their society. On the other hand, in the love of a young child for his mother the case is reversed. The love of the child consists chiefly in liking to be with his mother, in going to her rather than to any one else for relief from pain or for comfort in sorrow, and is accompanied with very few and very faint desires to make efforts, or to submit to privations, or to make sacrifices, for the promotion of her good. _Order of their Development_. Now the qualities and characteristics of the soul on which the capacity for these two forms of love depend seem to be very different, and they advance in development and come to maturity at different periods of life; so that the mother, in feeling dejected and sad because she can not awaken in the mind of her child the gratitude and the consideration for her comfort and happiness which she desires, is simply looking for a certain kind of fruit at the wrong time. You have one of the forms of love for you on the part of the child now while he is young. In due time, when he arrives at maturity, if you will wait patiently, you will assuredly have the other. Now he runs to you in every emergency. He asks you for every thing that he wants. He can find comfort nowhere else but in your arms, when he is in distress or in suffering from pain, disappointment, or sorrow. But he will not make any effort to be still when you are sick, or to avoid interrupting you when you are busy; and insists, perhaps, on your carrying him when he is tired, without seeming to think or care whether you may not be tired too. But in due time all this will be changed. Twenty years hence he will conceal all his troubles from you instead of coming with them to you for comfort. He will be off in the world engaged in his pursuits, no longer bound closely to your side. But he will think all the time of your comfort and happiness. He will bring you presents, and pay you innumerable attentions to cheer your heart in your declining years. He will not run to you when he has hurt himself; but if any thing happens to _you_, he will leave every thing to hasten to your relief, and bring with him all the comforts and means of enjoyment for you that his resources can command. The time will thus come when you will have his love to your heart's content, in the second form. You must be satisfied, while he is so young, with the first form of it, which is all that his powers and faculties in their present stage are capable of developing. The truth of the case seems to be that the faculties of the human mind--or I should perhaps rather say, the susceptibilities of the soul--like the instincts of animals, are developed in the order in which they are required for the good of the subject of them. Indeed, it is very interesting and curious to observe how striking the analogy in the order of development, in respect to the nature of the bond of attachment which binds the offspring to the parent, runs through all those ranks of the animal creation in which the young for a time depend upon the mother for food or for protection. The chickens in any moment of alarm run to the hen; and the lamb, the calf, and the colt to their respective mothers; but none of them would feel the least inclination to come to the rescue of the parent if the parent was in danger. With the mother herself it is exactly the reverse. Her heart--if we can speak of the seat of the maternal affections of such creatures as a heart--is filled with desires to bestow good upon her offspring, without a desire, or even a thought, of receiving any good from them in return. There is this difference, however, between the race of man and those of the inferior animals--namely, that in his case the instinct, or at least a natural desire which is in some respects analogous to an instinct, prompting him to repay to his parents the benefits which he received from them in youth, comes in due time; while in that of the lower animals it seems never to come at all. The little birds, after opening their mouths so wide every time the mother comes to the nest during all the weeks while their wings are growing, fly away when they are grown, without the least care or concern for the anxiety and distress of the mother occasioned by their imprudent flights; and once away and free, never come back, so far as we know, to make any return to their mother for watching over them, sheltering them with her body, and working so indefatigably to provide them with food during the helpless period of their infancy--and still less to seek and protect and feed her in her old age. But the boy, reckless as he sometimes seems in his boyhood, insensible apparently to his obligations to his mother, and little mindful of her wishes or of her feelings--his affection for her showing itself mainly in his readiness to go to her with all his wants, and in all his troubles and sorrows--will begin, when he has arrived at maturity and no longer needs her aid, to remember with gratitude the past aid that she has rendered him. The current of affection in his heart will turn and flow the other way. Instead of wishing to receive, he will now only wish to give. If she is in want, he will do all he can to supply her. If she is in sorrow, he will be happy if he can do any thing to comfort her. He will send her memorials of his gratitude, and objects of comfort and embellishment for her home, and will watch with solicitude and sincere affection over her declining years. And all this change, if not the result of a new instinct which reaches its development only when the period of maturity arrives, is the unfolding of a sentiment of the heart belonging essentially to the nature of the subject of it as man. It is true that this capacity may, under certain circumstances, be very feebly developed. In some cases, indeed, it would seem that it was scarcely developed at all; but there is a provision for it in the nature of man, while there is no provision for it at all in the sentient principles of the lower animals. _Advancing the Development of the Sentiment of Gratitude._ Now, although parents must not be impatient at the slow appearance of this feeling in their children, and must not be troubled in its not appearing before its time, they can do much by proper efforts to cultivate its growth, and give it an earlier and a more powerful influence over them than it would otherwise manifest. The mode of doing this is the same as in all other cases of the cultivation of moral sentiments in children, and that is by the influence over them of sympathy with those they love. Just as the way to cultivate in the minds of children a feeling of pity for those who are in distress is not to preach it as a duty, but to make them love you, and then show such pity yourself; and the way to make them angry and revengeful in character--if we can conceive of your being actuated by so unnatural a desire--would be often to express violent resentment yourself, with scowling looks and fierce denunciations against those who have offended you; so, to awaken them to sentiments of gratitude for the favors they receive, you must gently lead them to sympathize with you in the gratitude which _you_ feel for the favors that _you_ receive. When a child shows some special unwillingness to comply with her mother's desires, her mother may address to her a kind but direct and plain expostulation on the obligations of children to their parents, and the duty incumbent on them of being grateful for their kindness, and to be willing to do what they can in return. Such an address would probably do no good at all. The child would receive it simply as a scolding, no matter how mildly and gently the reproof might be expressed, and would shut her heart against it. It is something which she must stand still and endure, and that is all. But let the mother say the same things precisely when the child has shown a willingness to make some little sacrifice to aid or to gratify her mother, so that the sentiment expressed may enter her mind in the form of approval and not of condemnation, and the effect will be very different. The sentiments will, at any rate, now not be rejected from the mind, but the way will be open for them to enter, and the conversation will have a good effect, so far as didactic teaching can have effect in such a case. But now to bring in the element of sympathy as a means of reaching and influencing the mind of the child: The mother, we will suppose, standing at the door some morning before breakfast in spring, with her little daughter, seven or eight years old, by her side, hears a bird singing on a tree near by. She points to the tree, and says, in a half-whisper, "Hark!" When the sound ceases, she looks to the child with an expression of pleasure upon her countenance, and says, "Suppose we give that bird some crumbs because he has been singing us such a pretty song." "Well!" says the child. "Would you?" asks the mother. "Yes, mother, I should like to give him some very much. Do you suppose he sang the song for us?" "I don't _know_ that he did," replies the mother. "We don't know exactly what the birds mean by all their singing. They take some pleasure in seeing us, I think, or else they would not come so much around our house; and I don't know but that this bird's song may come from some kind of joy or gladness he felt in seeing us come to the door. At any rate, it will be a pleasure to us to give him some crumbs to pay him for his song." The child will think so too, and will run off joyfully to bring a piece of bread to form crumbs to be scattered upon the path. And the whole transaction will have the effect of awakening and cherishing the sentiment of gratitude in her heart. The effect will not be great, it is true, but it will be of the right kind. It will be a drop of water upon the unfolding cotyledons of a seed just peeping up out of the ground, which will percolate below after you have gone away, and give the little roots a new impulse of growth. For when you have left the child seated upon the door-step, occupied in throwing out the crumbs to the bird, her heart will be occupied with the thoughts you have put into it, and the sentiment of gratitude for kindness received will commence its course of development, if it had not commenced it before. _The Case of older Children_. Of course the employment of such an occasion as this of the singing of a little bird and such a conversation in respect to it for cultivating the sentiment of gratitude in the heart, is adapted only to the case of quite a young child. For older children, while the principle is the same, the circumstances and the manner of treating the case must be adapted to a maturer age. Robert, for example--twelve years of age--had been sick, and during his convalescence his sister Mary, two years older than himself, had been very assiduous in her attendance upon him. She had waited upon him at his meals, and brought him books and playthings, from time to time, to amuse him. After he had fully recovered his health, he was sitting in the garden, one sunny morning in the spring, with his mother, and she said, "How kind Mary was to you while you were sick!" "Yes," said Robert, "she was very kind indeed." "If you would like to do something for her in return," continued his mother, "I'll tell you what would be a good plan." Robert, who, perhaps, without this conversation would not have thought particularly of making any return, said he should like to do something for her very much. "Then," said his mother, "you might make her a garden. I can mark off a place for a bed for her large enough to hold a number of kinds of flowers, and then you can dig it up, and rake it over, and lay it off into little beds, and sow the seeds. I'll buy the seeds for you. I should like to do something towards making the garden for her, for she helped me a great deal, as well as you, in the care she took of you." "Well," said Robert, "I'll do it." "You are well and strong now, so you can do it pretty easily," added the mother; "but still, unless you would like to do it yourself for her sake, I can get the man to do it. But if you would like to do it yourself, I think it would please her very much as an expression of your gratitude and love for her." "Yes," said Robert, "I should a great deal rather do it myself, and I will begin this very day." And yet, if his mother had not made the suggestion, he would probably not have thought of making any such return, or even any return at all, for his sister's devoted kindness to him when he was sick. In other words, the sentiment of gratitude was in his heart, or, rather, the capacity for it was there, but it needed a little fostering care to bring it out into action. And the thing to be observed is, that by this fostering care it was not only brought out at the time, but, by being thus brought out and drawn into action, it was strengthened and made-to grow, so as to be ready to come out itself without being called, on the next occasion.-It was like a little plant just coming out of the ground under influences not altogether favorable. It needs a little help and encouragement; and the aid that is given by a few drops of water at the right time will bring it forward and help it to attain soon such a degree of strength and vigor as will make it independent of all external aid. But there must be consideration, tact, a proper regard to circumstances, and, above all, there must be no secret and selfish ends concealed, on the part of the mother in such cases. You may deluge and destroy your little plant by throwing on the water roughly or rudely; or, in the case of a boy upon whose mind you seem to be endeavoring to produce some moral result, you may really have in view some object of your own--your interest in the moral result being only a pretense. For instance, Egbert, under circumstances similar to those recited above--in respect to the sickness of the boy, and the kind attentions of his sister--came to his mother one afternoon for permission to go a-fishing with some other boys who had called for him. He was full of excitement and enthusiasm at the idea. But his mother was not willing to allow him to go. The weather was lowering. She thought that he had not yet fully recovered his health; and she was afraid of other dangers. Instead of saying calmly, after a moment's reflection, to show that her answer was a deliberate one, that he could not go, and then quietly and firmly, but without assigning any reasons, adhering to her decision--a course which, though it could not have saved the boy from emotions of disappointment, would be the best for making those feelings as light and as brief in duration as possible--began to argue the case thus; "Oh no, Egbert, I would not go a-fishing this afternoon, if I were you. I think it is going to rain. Besides, it is a nice cool day to work in the garden, and Lucy would like to have her garden made very much. You know that she was very kind to you when you were sick--how many things she did for you; and preparing her garden for her would be such a nice way of making her a return. I am sure you would not wish to show yourself ungrateful for so much kindness." Then follows a discussion of some minutes, in which Egbert, in a fretful and teasing tone, persists in urging his desire to go a-fishing. He can make the garden, he says, some other day. His mother finally yields, though with great unwillingness, doing all she can to extract all graciousness and sweetness from her consent, and to spoil the pleasure of the excursion to the boy, by saying as he goes away, that she is sure he ought not to go, and that she shall be uneasy about him all the time that he is gone. Now it is plain that such management as this, though it takes ostensibly the form of a plea on the part of the mother in favor of a sentiment of gratitude in the heart of the boy, can have no effect in cherishing and bringing forward into life any such sentiment, even if it should be already existent there in a nascent state; but can only tend to make the object of it more selfish and heartless than ever. Thus the art of cultivating the sentiment of gratitude, as is the case in all other departments of moral training, can not be taught by definite lessons or learned by rote. It demands tact and skill, and, above all, an honest and guileless sincerity. The mother must really look to, and aim for the actual moral effect in the heart of the child, and not merely make formal efforts ostensibly for this end, but really to accomplish some temporary object of her own. Children easily see through all covert intentions of any kind. They sometimes play the hypocrite themselves, but they are always great detectors of hypocrisy in others. But gentle and cautious efforts of the right kind--such as require no high attainments on the part of the mother, but only the right spirit--will in time work wonderful effects; and the mother who perseveres in them, and who does not expect the fruits too soon, will watch with great interest for the time to arrive when her boy will spontaneously, from the promptings of his own heart, take some real trouble, or submit to some real privation or self-denial, to give pleasure to her. She will then enjoy the double gratification, first, of receiving the pleasure, whatever it may be, that her boy has procured for her, and also the joy of finding that the tender plant which she has watched and watered so long, and which for a time seemed so frail that she almost despaired of its ever coming to any good, is really advanced to the stage of beginning to bear fruit, and giving her an earnest of the abundant fruits which she may confidently expect from it in future years. CHAPTER XXIII. RELIGIOUS TRAINING. It has been my aim in this volume to avoid, as far as possible, all topics involving controversy, and only to present such truths, and to elucidate such principles, as can be easily made to commend themselves to the good sense and the favorable appreciation of all the classes of minds likely to be found among the readers of the work. There are certain very important aspects of the religious question which may be presented, I think, without any serious deviation from this policy. _In what True Piety consists_. Indeed; I think there is far more real than seeming agreement among parents in respect to this subject, or rather a large portion of the apparent difference consists in different modes of expressing in words thoughts and conceptions connected with spiritual things, which from their very nature can not any of them be adequately expressed in language at all; and thus it happens that what are substantially the same ideas are customarily clothed by different classes of persons in very different phraseology, while, on the other hand, the same set of phrases actually represent in different minds very different sets of ideas. For instance, there is perhaps universal agreement in the idea that some kind of change--a change, too, of a very important character--is implied in the implanting or developing of the spirit of piety in the heart of a child. There is also universal agreement in the fact--often very emphatically asserted in the New Testament--that the essential principles in which true piety consists are those of entire submission in all things to the will of God, and cordial kind feeling towards every man. There is endless disagreement, and much earnest contention among different denominations of Christians, in respect to the means by which the implanting of these principles is to be secured, and to the modes in which, when implanted, they will manifest themselves; but there is not, so far as would appear, any dissent whatever anywhere from the opinion that the end to be aimed at is the implanting of these principles--that is that it consists in bringing the heart to a state of complete and cordial submission to the authority and to the will of God, and to a sincere regard for the welfare and happiness of every human being. _A Question of Words_ There seems, at first view, to be a special difference of opinion in respect to the nature of the process by which these principles come to be implanted or developed in the minds of the young; for all must admit that in early infancy they are not there, or, at least, that they do not appear. _No_ one would expect to find in two infants--twin-brothers, we will suppose--creeping on the floor, with one apple between them, that there could be, at that age, any principles of right or justice, or of brotherly love existing in their hearts that could prevent their both crying and quarrelling for it. "True," says one; "but there are germs of those principles which, in time, will be developed." "No," rejoins another," there are no _germs_ of them, there are only _capacities_ for them, through which, by Divine power, the germs may hereafter be introduced." But when we reflect upon the difficulty of forming any clear and practical idea of the difference between a _germ_--in a bud upon an apple-tree, for instance--which may ultimately produce fruit, and a _capacity_ for producing it which may subsequently be developed, and still more, how difficult is it to picture to our minds what is represented by these words in the case of a human soul, it would seem as if the apparent difference in people's opinions on such a point must be less a difference in respect to facts than in respect to the phraseology by which the facts should be represented. And there would seem to be confirmation of this view in the fact that the great apparent difference among men in regard to their theoretical views of human nature does not seem to produce any marked difference in their action in practically dealing with it. Some parents, it is true, habitually treat their children with gentleness, kindness, and love; others are harsh and severe in all their intercourse with them. But we should find, on investigation, that such differences have very slight connection with the theoretical views of the nature of the human soul which the parents respectively entertain. Parents who in their theories seem to think the worst of the native tendencies of the human heart are often as kind and considerate and loving in their dealings with it as any; while no one would be at all surprised to find another, who is very firm in his belief in the native tendency of childhood to good, showing himself, in practically dealing with the actual conduct of children, fretful, impatient, complaining, and very ready to recognize, in fact, tendencies which in theory he seems to deny. And so, two bank directors, or members of the board of management of any industrial undertaking, when they meet in the street on Sunday, in returning from their respective places of public worship, if they fall into conversation on the moral nature of man, may find, or think they find, that they differ extremely in their views, and may even think each other bigoted or heretical, as the case may be; but yet the next day, when they meet at a session of their board, and come to the work of actually dealing with the conduct and the motives of men, they may find that there is _practically_ no difference between them whatever. Or, if there should be any difference, such as would show itself in a greater readiness in one than in the other to place confidence in the promises or to confide in the integrity of men, the difference would, in general, have no perceptible relation whatever to the difference in the theological phraseology which they have been accustomed to hear and to assent to in their respective churches. All which seems to indicate, as has already been said, that the difference in question is rather apparent than real, and that it implies less actual disagreement about the facts of human nature than diversity in the phraseology by which the facts are represented. _Agency of the Divine Spirit_. It may, however, be said that in this respect, if not in any other, there is a radical difference among parents in respect to human nature, in relation to the religious education of children--namely, that some think that the implanting of the right principles of repentance for all wrong-doing, and sincere desires for the future to conform in all things to the will of God, and seek the happiness and welfare of men, can not come except by a special act of Divine intervention, and is utterly beyond the reach--in respect to any actual efficiency--of all human instrumentalities. This is no doubt true; but it is also no less true in respect to all the powers and capacities of the human soul, as well as to those pertaining to moral and religious duty. If the soul itself is the product of the creative agency of God, _all_ its powers and faculties must be so, and, consequently, the development of them all--and there certainly can be no reason for making the sentiment of true and genuine piety an exception--must be the work of the same creative power. But some one may say. There is, however, after all, a difference; for while we all admit that both the original entrance of the embryo soul into existence, and every step of its subsequent progress and development, including the coming into being and into action of all its various faculties and powers, are the work of the Supreme creative power, the commencement of the divine life in the soul is, in a _special and peculiar sense_, the work of the Divine hand. And this also is doubtless true; at least, there is a certain important truth expressed in that statement. And yet when we attempt to picture to our minds two modes of Divine action, one of which is special and peculiar, and the other is not so, we are very likely to find ourselves bewildered and confused, and we soon perceive that in making such inquiries we are going out of our depth--or, in other words, are attempting to pass beyond the limits which mark the present boundaries of human knowledge. In view of these thoughts and suggestions, in the truth of which it would seem that all reasonable persons must concur, we may reasonably conclude that all parents who are willing to look simply at the facts, and who are not too much trammelled by the forms of phraseology to which they are accustomed, must agree in admitting the substantial soundness of the following principles relating to the religious education of children. _Order of Development in respect to different Propensities and Powers_. [Illustration: THE FIRST INSTINCT.] 1. We must not expect any perceptible awakening of the moral and religious sentiments too soon, nor feel discouraged and disheartened because they do not earlier appear; for, like all the other higher attributes of the soul, they pertain to a portion of the mental structure which is not early developed. It is the group of purely animal instincts that first show themselves in the young, and those even, as we see in the young of the lower animals, generally appear somewhat in the order in which they are required for the individual's good. Birds just hatched from the egg seem to have, for the first few days, only one instinct ready for action--that of opening their mouths wide at the approach of any thing towards their nest. Even this instinct is so imperfect and immature that it can not distinguish between the coming of their mother and the appearance of the face of a boy peering down upon them, or even the rustling of the leaves around them by a stick. In process of time, as their wings become formed, another instinct begins to appear--that of desiring to use the wings and come forth into the air. The development of this instinct and the growth of the wings advance together. Later still, when the proper period of maturity arrives, other instincts appear as they are required--such as the love of a mate, the desire to construct a nest, and the principle of maternal affection. Now there is something analogous to this in the order of development to be observed in the progress of the human being through the period of infancy to that of maturity, and we must not look for the development of any power or susceptibility before its time, nor be too much troubled if we find that, in the first two or three years of life, the animal propensities--which are more advanced in respect to the organization which they depend upon--seem sometimes to overpower the higher sentiments and principles, which, so far as the capacity for them exists at all, must be yet in embryo. We must be willing to wait for each to be developed in its own appointed time. _Dependence upon Divine Aid_. 2. Any one who is ready to feel and to acknowledge his dependence upon Divine aid for any thing whatever in the growth and preservation of his child, will surely be ready to do so in respect to the work of developing or awakening in his heart the principles of piety, since it must be admitted by all that the human soul is the highest of all the manifestations of Divine power, and that that portion of its structure on which the existence and exercise of the moral and religious sentiments depend is the crowning glory of it. It is right, therefore--I mean right, in the sense of being truly philosophical--that if the parent feels and acknowledges his dependence upon Divine power in any thing, he should specially feel and acknowledge it here; while there is nothing so well adapted as a deep sense of this dependence, and a devout and habitual recognition of it, and reliance upon it, to give earnestness and efficiency to his efforts, and to furnish a solid ground of hope that they will be crowded with success. _The Christian Paradox_. 3. The great principle so plainly taught in the Sacred Scriptures--namely, that while we depend upon the exercise of Divine power for the success of all our efforts for our own spiritual improvement or that of others, just as if we could do nothing ourselves, we must do every thing that is possible ourselves, just us if nothing was to be expected from Divine power--may be called the Christian paradox. "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do." It would seem, it might be thought, much more logical to say, "Work out your own salvation, for there is nobody to help you;" or, "It is not necessary to make any effort yourselves, for it is God that worketh in you." It seems strange and paradoxical to say, "_Work out your own_ salvation, _for_ it is _God that worketh in you_ both to will and to do." But in this, as in all other paradoxes, the difficulty is in the explanation of the theory, and not in the practical working of it. There is in natural philosophy what is called the hydrostatic paradox, which consists in the fact that a small quantity of any liquid--as, for example, the coffee in the nose of the coffee-pot--will balance and sustain a very much larger quantity--as that contained in the body of it--so as to keep the surface of each at the same level. Young students involve themselves sometimes in hopeless entanglements among the steps of the mathematical demonstration showing how this can be, but no housekeeper ever meets with any practical difficulty in making her coffee rest quietly in its place on account of it. The Christian paradox, in the same way, gives rise to a great deal of metaphysical floundering and bewilderment among young theologians in their attempts to vindicate and explain it, but the humble-minded Christian parent finds no difficulty in practice. It comes very easy to him to do all he can, just as if every thing depended upon his efforts, and at the same time to cast all his care upon God, just as if there was nothing at all that he himself could do. _Means must be Right Means_. 4. We are apt to imagine--or, at least, to act sometimes as if we imagined--that our dependence upon the Divine aid for what our Saviour, Jesus, designated as the new birth, makes some difference in the obligation on our part to employ such means as are naturally adapted to the end in view. If a gardener, for example, were to pour sand from his watering-pot upon his flowers, in time of drought, instead of water, he might make something like a plausible defense of his action, in reply to a remonstrance, thus: "_I_ have no power to make the flowers grow and bloom. The secret processes on which the successful result depends are altogether beyond my reach, and in the hands of God, and he can just as easily bless one kind of instrumentality as another. I am bound to do something, it is true, for I must not be idle and inert; but God, if he chooses to do so, can easily bring out the flowers into beauty and bloom, however imperfect and ill-adapted the instrumentalities I use may be. He can as easily make use, for this purpose, of sand as of water." Now, although there may be a certain plausibility in this reasoning, such conduct would appear to every one perfectly absurd; and yet many parents seem to act on a similar principle. A mother who is from time to time, during the week, fretful and impatient, evincing no sincere and hearty consideration for the feelings, still less for the substantial welfare and happiness, of those dependent upon her; who shows her insubmission to the will of God, by complaints and repinings at any thing untoward that befalls her; and who evinces a selfish love for her own gratification--her dresses, her personal pleasures, and her fashionable standing; and then, as a means of securing the salvation of her children, is very strict, when Sunday comes, in enforcing upon them the study of their Sunday lessons, or in requiring them to read good books, or in repressing on that day any undue exuberance of their spirits--relying upon the blessing of God upon her endeavors--will be very apt to find, in the end, that she has been watering her delicate flowers with sand. The means which we use to awaken or impart the feelings of sorrow for sin, submission to God, and cordial good-will to man, in which all true piety consists, must be means that are _appropriate in themselves_ to the accomplishment of the end intended. The appliance must be water, and not sand--or rather water _or_ sand, with judgment, discrimination, and tact; for the gardener often finds that a judicious mixture of sand with the clayey and clammy soil about the roots of his plants is just what is required. The principle is, that the appliance must be an appropriate one--that is, one indicated by a wise consideration of the circumstances of the case, and of the natural characteristics of the infantile mind. _Power of Sympathy_. 5. In respect to religious influence over the minds of children, as in all other departments of early training, the tendency to sympathetic action between the heart of the child and the parent is the great source of the parental influence and power. The principle, "Make a young person love you, and then simply _be_ in his presence what you wish him to be," is the secret of success. The tendency of young children to become what they see those around them whom they love are, seems to be altogether the most universally acting and the most powerful of the influences on which the formation of the character depends; and yet it is remarkable that we have no really appropriate name for it. We call it sometimes sympathy; but the word sympathy is associated more frequently in our minds with the idea of compassionate participation in the sufferings of those we love. Sometimes we term it a spirit of imitation, but that phrase implies rather a conscious effort to _act_ like those whom we love, than that involuntary tendency to _become_ like them, which is the real character of the principle in question. The principle is in some respects like what is called _induction_ in physical science, which denotes the tendency of a body, which is in any particular magnetic or electric condition, to produce the same condition, and the same direction of polarity, in any similar body placed near it. There is a sort of _moral induction_, which is not exactly sympathy, in the ordinary sense of that word, nor a desire of imitation, nor the power of example, but an immediate, spontaneous, and even unconscious tendency to _become what those around us are_. This tendency is very strong in the young while the opening faculties are in the course of formation and development, and it is immensely strengthened by the influence of love. Whatever, therefore, a mother wishes her child to be--whether a sincere, honest Christian, submissive to God's will and conscientious in the discharge of every duty, or proud, vain, deceitful, hypocritical, and pharisaical--she has only to be either the one or the other herself, and without any special teaching her child will be pretty sure to be a good copy of the model. _Theological Instruction._ 6. If the principle above stated is correct, it helps to explain why so little good effect is ordinarily produced by what may be called instruction in theological truth on the minds of the young. Any system of theological truth consists of grand generalizations, which, like all other generalizations, are very interesting, and often very profitable, to mature minds, especially to minds of a certain class; but they are not appreciable by children, and can only in general be received by them as words to be fixed in the memory by rote. Particulars first, generalizations afterwards, is, or ought to be, the order of progress in all acquisition of knowledge. This certainly has been the course pursued by the Divine Spirit in the moral training of the human race. There is very little systematic theology in the Old Testament, and it requires a considerable degree of ingenuity to make out as much as the theologians desire to find even in the teachings of Jesus Christ. It is very well to exercise this ingenuity, and the systematic results which are to be obtained by it may be very interesting, and very beneficial, to those whose minds are mature enough to enter into and appreciate them. But they are not adapted to the spiritual wants of children, and can only be received by them, if they are received at all, in a dry, formal, mechanical manner. Read, therefore, the stories in the Old Testament, or the parables and discourses of Jesus in the New, without attempting to draw many inferences from them in the way of theoretical belief, but simply to bring out to the mind and heart of the child the moral point intended in each particular case, and the heart of the child will be touched, and he will receive an _element_ of instruction which he can arrange and group with others in theological generalization by-and-by, when his faculties have advanced to the generalizing stage. _No repulsive Personal Applications_. 7. In reading the Scriptures, and, indeed, in all forms of giving religious counsel or instruction, we must generally beware of presenting the thoughts that we communicate in the form of reproachful personal application. There may be exceptions to this rule, but it is undoubtedly, in general, a sound one. For the work which we have to do, is not to attempt to drive the heart from the wrong to the right by any repellent action which the wrong may be made to exert, but to allure it by an attractive action with which the right may be invested. We must, therefore, present the incidents and instructions of the Word in their alluring aspect--assuming, in a great measure, that our little pupil will feel pleasure with us in the manifestations of the right, and will sympathize with us in disapproval of the wrong. To secure them to our side, in the views which we take, we must show a disposition to _take_ them to it by an affectionate sympathy. Our Saviour set us an excellent example of relying on the superior efficiency of the bond of sympathy and love in its power over the hearts of children, as compared with that of formal theological instruction, in the few glimpses which we have of his mode of dealing with them. When they brought little children to him, he did not begin to expound to them the principles of the government of God, or the theoretical aspects of the way of salvation; but took them _up in his arms and blessed them_, and called the attention of the by standers at the same time to qualities and characteristics which they possessed that he seemed to regard with special affection, and which others must imitate to be fit for the kingdom of God. Of course the children went away pleased and happy from such an interview, and would be made ready by it to receive gladly to their hearts any truths or sentiments which they might subsequently hear attributed to one who was so kind a friend to them. If, however, instead of this, he had told them--no matter in what kind and gentle tones--that they had very wicked hearts, which must be changed before either God or any good man could truly love them, and that this change could only be produced by a power which they could only understand to be one external to themselves, and that they must earnestly pray for it every day, how different would have been the effect. They would have listened in mute distress, would have been glad to make their escape when the conversation was ended, and would shrink from ever seeing or hearing again one who placed himself in an attitude so uncongenial to them. And yet all that might be true. They might have had yet only such appetites and propensities developed within them as would, if they continued to hold paramount control over them all their lives, make them selfish, unfeeling, and wicked men; and that they were, in a special though mysterious manner, dependent on the Divine power for bringing into action within them other and nobler principles. And so, if a physician were called in to see a sick child, he might see that it was in desperate danger, and that unless something could be done, and that speedily, to arrest the disease, his little patient would be dead in a few hours; and yet to say that to the poor child, and overwhelm it with terror and distress, would not be a very suitable course of procedure for averting the apprehended result. _Judge not, that ye be not judged_. 8. And this leads us to reflect, in the eighth place, that we ought to be very careful, in our conversations with children, and especially in addresses made to them in the Sunday-school, or on any other occasion, not to say any thing to imply that we consider them yet unconverted sinners. No one can possibly know at how early an age that great change which consists in the first faint enkindling of the Divine life in the soul may begin to take place, nor with what faults, and failings, and yieldings to the influence of the mere animal appetites and passions of childhood it may, for a time, co-exist. We should never, therefore, say any thing to children to imply that, in the great question of their relations to God and the Saviour, we take it for granted that they are on the wrong side. We can not possibly know on which side they really are, and we only dishearten and discourage them, and alienate their hearts from us, and tend to alienate them from all good, by seeming to take it for granted that, while _we_ are on the right side, _they_ are still upon the wrong. We should, in a word, say _we_, and not _you_, in addressing children on religious subjects, so as to imply that the truths and sentiments which we express are equally important and equally applicable to us as to them, and thus avoid creating that feeling of being judged and condemned beforehand, and without evidence, which is so apt to produce a broad though often invisible gulf of separation in heart between children, on the one hand, and ministers and members of the Church, on the other. _Promised Rewards and threatened Punishments_. 9. It is necessary to be extremely moderate and cautious in employing the influence of promised rewards or threatened punishments as a means of promoting early piety. In a religious point of view, as in every other, goodness that is bought is only a pretense of goodness--that is, in reality it is no goodness at all; and as it is true that love casteth out fear, so it is also true that fear casteth out love. Suppose--though it is almost too violent a supposition to be made even for illustration's sake--that the whole Christian world could be suddenly led to believe that there was to be no happiness or suffering at all for them beyond the grave, and that the inducement to be grateful to God for his goodness and submissive to his will, and to be warmly interested in the welfare and happiness of man, were henceforth to rest on the intrinsic excellence of those principles, and to their constituting essentially the highest and noblest development of the moral and spiritual nature of man--how many of the professed disciples of Jesus would abandon their present devotion to the cause of love to God and love to man? Not one, except the hypocrites and pretenders! The truth is, that as piety that is genuine and sincere must rest on very different foundations from hope of future reward or fear of future punishment, so this hope and this fear are very unsuitable instrumentalities to be relied on for awakening it. The kind of gratitude to God which we wish to cherish in the mind of a child is not such as would be awakened towards an earthly benefactor by saying--in the case of a present made by an uncle, for instance--"Your uncle has made you a beautiful present. Go and thank him very cordially, and perhaps you will get another." It is rather of a kind which might be induced by saying, "Your uncle, who has been so kind to you in past years, is poor and sick, and can never do any thing more for you now. Would you like to go and sit in his sick-room to show your love for him, and to be ready to help him if he wants any thing?" True piety, in a word, which consists in entering into and steadily maintaining the right moral and spiritual relations with God and man, marks the highest condition which the possibilities of human nature allow, and must rest in the soul which attains to it on a very different foundation from any thing like hope or fear. That there is a function which it is the province of these motives to fulfill, is abundantly proved by the use that is sometimes made of them in the Scriptures. But the more we reflect upon the subject, the more we shall be convinced, I think, that all such considerations ought to be kept very much in the back-ground in our dealings with children. If a child is sick, and is even likely to die, it is a very serious question whether any warning given to him of his danger will not operate as a hindrance rather than a help, in awakening those feelings which will constitute the best state of preparation for the change. For a sense of gratitude to God for his goodness, and to the Saviour for the sacrifice which he made for his sake, penitence for his sins, and trust in the forgiving mercy of his Maker, are the feelings to be awakened in his bosom; and these, so far as they exist, will lead him to lie quietly, calmly, and submissively in God's hands, without anxiety in respect to what is before him. It is a serious question whether an entire uncertainty as to the time when his death is to come is not more favorable to the awakening of these feelings, than the state of alarm and distress which would be excited by the thought that it was near. _The Reasonableness of Gentle Measures in Religious Training_. The mother may sometimes derive from certain religious considerations the idea that she is bound to look upon the moral delinquencies and dangers which she observes in her children, under an aspect more stern and severe than seems to be here recommended. But a little reflection must convince us that the way to true repentance of, and turning from sin, is not necessarily through the suffering of terror and distress. The Gospel is not an instrumentality for producing terror and distress, even as means to an end. It is an instrumentality for saving us from these ills; and the Divine Spirit, in the hidden and mysterious influence which it exercises in forming, or transforming, the human soul into the image of God, must be as ready, it would seem, to sanction and bless efforts made by a mother to allure her child away from its sins by loving and gentle invitations and encouragements, as any attempts to drive her from them by the agency of terror or pain. It would seem that no one who remembers the way in which Jesus Christ dealt with the children that were brought to him could possibly have any doubt of this. CHAPTER XXIV. CONCLUSION. Any person who has acquired the art of examining and analyzing his own thoughts will generally find that the mental pictures which he forms of the landscapes, or the interiors, in which the scenes are laid of the events or incidents related in any work of fiction which interests him, are modelled more or less closely from prototypes previously existing in his own mind, and generally upon those furnished by the experiences of his childhood. If, for example, he reads an account of transactions represented as taking place in an English palace or castle, he will usually, on a careful scrutiny, find that the basis of his conception of the scene is derived from the arrangement of the rooms of some fine house with which he was familiar in early life. Thus, a great many things which attract our attention, and impress themselves upon our memories in childhood, become the models and prototypes--more or less aggrandized and improved, perhaps--of the conceptions and images which we form in later years. _Nature of the Effect produced by Early Impressions_. Few persons who have not specially reflected on this subject, or examined closely the operations of their own minds, are aware what an extended influence the images thus stored in the mind in childhood have in forming the basis, or furnishing the elements of the mental structures of future life. But the truth, when once understood, shows of what vast importance it is with what images the youthful mind is to be stored. A child who ascends a lofty mountain, under favorable circumstances in his childhood, has his conceptions of all the mountain scenery that he reads of, or hears of through life, modified and aggrandized by the impression made upon his sensorium at this early stage. Take your daughter, who has always, we will suppose, lived in the country, on an excursion with you to the sea-shore, and allow her to witness for an hour, as she sits in silence on the cliff, the surf rolling in incessantly upon the beach, and infinitely the smallest part of the effect is the day's gratification which you have given her. That is comparatively nothing. You have made a life-long change, if not in the very structure, at least in the permanent furnishing of her mind, and performed a work that can never by any possibility be undone. The images which have been awakened in her mind, the emotions connected with them, and the effect of these images and emotions upon her faculties of imagination and conception, will infuse a life into them which will make her, in respect to this aspect of her spiritual nature, a different being as long as she lives. _The Nature and Origin of general Ideas_. It is the same substantially in respect to all those abstract and general ideas on moral or other kindred subjects which constitute the mental furnishing of the adult man, and have so great an influence in the formation of his habits of thought and of his character. They are chiefly formed from combinations of the impressions made in childhood. A person's idea of justice, for instance, or of goodness, is a generalization of the various instances of justice or goodness which ever came to his knowledge; and of course, among the materials of this generalization those instances that were brought to his mind during the impressible years of childhood must have taken a very prominent part. Every story, therefore, which you relate to a child to exemplify the principles of justice or goodness takes its place, or, rather, the impression which it makes takes its place, as one of the elements out of which the ideas that are to govern his future life are formed. _Vast Importance and Influence of this mental Furnishing,_ For the ideas and generalizations thus mainly formed from the images and impressions received in childhood become, in later years, the elements of the machinery, so to speak, by which all his mental operations are performed. Thus they seem to constitute more than the mere furniture of the mind; they form, as it were, almost a part of the structure itself. So true, indeed, is this, and so engrossing a part does what remains in the mind of former impressions play in its subsequent action, that some philosophers have maintained that the whole of the actual consciousness of man consists only in the _resultant_ of all these impressions preserved more or less imperfectly by the memory, and made to mingle together in one infinitely complicated but harmonious whole. Without going to any such extreme as this, we can easily see, on reflection, how vast an influence on the ideas and conceptions, as well as on the principles of action in mature years, must be exerted by the nature and character of the images which the period of infancy and childhood impresses upon the mind. All parents should, therefore, feel that it is not merely the present welfare and happiness of their child that is concerned in their securing to him a tranquil and happy childhood, but that his capacity for enjoyment through life is greatly dependent upon it. They are, in a very important sense, intrusted with the work of building up the structure of his soul for all time, and it is incumbent upon them, with reference to the future as well as to the present, to be very careful what materials they allow to go into the work, as well as in what manner they lay them. Among the other bearings of this thought, it gives great weight to the importance of employing gentle measures in the management and training of the young, provided that such measures can be made effectual in the accomplishment of the end. The pain produced by an act of hasty and angry violence to which a father subjects his son may soon pass away, but the memory of it does not pass away with the pain. Even the remembrance of it may at length fade from the mind, but there is still an _effect_ which does not pass away with the remembrance. Every strong impression which you make upon his perceptive powers must have a very lasting influence, and even the impression itself may, in some cases, be forever indelible. Let us, then, take care that these impressions shall be, as far as possible, such as shall be sources of enjoyment for them in future years. It is true that we _must_ govern them. They are committed to our charge during the long time which is required for the gradual unfolding of their embryo powers for the express purpose that during that interval they may be guided by our reason, and not by their own. We can not surrender this trust. But there is a way of faithfully fulfilling the duties of it--if we have discernment to see it, and skill to follow it--which will make the years of their childhood years of tranquillity and happiness, both to ourselves and to them. THE END. [Footnote A: See Frontispiece.] [Endnote B: The "Boston Congregationalist."] 
57283	----	[Illustration: ELLEN KEY From a photograph] The Century of the Child By Ellen Key G. P. Putnam's Sons New York and London The Knickerbocker Press COPYRIGHT, 1909 BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS Published, February, 1909 Reprinted, December, 1909 The Knickerbocker Press, New York PUBLISHERS' NOTE The present translation is from the German version of Frances Maro, which was revised by the author herself. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. THE RIGHT OF THE CHILD TO CHOOSE HIS PARENTS 1 II. THE UNBORN RACE AND WOMAN'S WORK 63 III. EDUCATION 106 IV. HOMELESSNESS 191 V. SOUL MURDER IN THE SCHOOLS 203 VI. THE SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE 233 VII. RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 284 VIII. CHILD LABOUR AND THE CRIMES OF CHILDREN 316 The Century of the Child CHAPTER I THE RIGHT OF THE CHILD TO CHOOSE HIS PARENTS Filled with sad memories or eager hopes, people waited for the turn of the century, and as the clock struck twelve, felt innumerable undefined forebodings. They felt that the new century would certainly give them only one thing, peace. They felt that those who are labouring to-day would witness no new development in that process of change to which they had consciously or unconsciously contributed their quota. The events at the turn of the century caused the new century to be represented as a small naked child, descending upon the earth, but drawing himself back in terror at the sight of a world bristling with weapons, a world in which for the opening century there was not an inch of free ground to set one's foot upon. Many people thought over the significance of this picture; they thought how in economic and in actual warfare all the lower passions of man were still aroused; how despite all the tremendous development of civilisation in the century just passed, man had not yet succeeded in giving to the struggle for existence nobler forms. Certainly to the question why this still is so, very different answers were given. Some contented themselves with declaring, after consideration, that things must remain just as they are, since human nature remains the same; that hunger, the propagation of the race, the desire for gold and power, will always control the course of the world. Others again were convinced that if the teaching which has tried in vain for nineteen hundred years to transform the course of the world could one day become a living reality in the souls of men, swords would be turned into pruning hooks. My conviction is just the opposite. It is that nothing will be different in the mass except in so far as human nature itself is transformed, and that this transformation will take place, not when the whole of humanity becomes Christian, but when the whole of humanity awakens to the consciousness of the "holiness of generation." This consciousness will make the central work of society the new race, its origin, its management, and its education; about these all morals, all laws, all social arrangements will be grouped. This will form the point of view from which all other questions will be judged, all other regulations made. Up to now we have only heard in academic speeches and in pedagogical essays that the training of youth is the highest function of a nation. In reality, in the family, in the school, and in the state, quite other standards are put in the foreground. The new view of the "holiness of generation" will not be held by mankind until it has seriously abandoned the Christian point of view and taken the view, born thousands of years ago, whose victory has been first foreshadowed in the century just completed. The thought of development not only throws light on the course of the world that lies behind us, continued through millions of years, with its final and highest point in man; it throws light, too, on the way we have to travel over; it shows us that we physically and psychically are ever in the process of becoming. While earlier days regarded man as a fixed phenomenon, in his physical and psychical relations, with qualities that might be perfected but could not be transformed, it is now known that he can re-create himself. Instead of a fallen man, we see an incompleted man, out of whom, by infinite modifications in an infinite space of time, a new being can come into existence. Almost every day brings new information about hitherto unsuspected possibilities; tells us of power extended physically or psychically. We hear of a closer reciprocal action between the external and internal world; of the mastery over disease, of the prolongation of life and youth; of increased insight into the laws of physical and psychical origins. People even speak of giving incurable blind men a new kind of capacity of sight, of being able to call back to life the dead; all this and much else which it must be allowed still belongs simply to the region of hypothesis, to what psychical and physical investigators reckon among possibilities. But there are enough great results analysed already to show that the transformations made by man before he became a human being are far from being the last word of his genesis. He who declares to-day that human nature always remains the same, that is, remains just as it did in those petty thousands of years in which our race became conscious of itself, shows in making this statement that he stands on the same level of reflection as an ichthyosaurus of the Jura period, that apparently had not even an intimation of man as a possibility of the future. But he who knows that man has become what he now is under constant transformations, recognises the possibility of so influencing his future development that a higher type of man will be produced. The human will is found to be a decisive factor in the production of the higher types in the world of animal and plant life. With what concerns our own race, the improvement of the type of man, the ennobling of the human race, the accidental still prevails in both exalted and lower forms. But civilisation should make man conscious of an end and responsible in all these spheres where up to the present he has acted only by impulse, without responsibility. In no respect has culture remained more backward than in those things which are decisive for the formation of a new and higher race of mankind. It will take the thorough influence of the scientific view of humanity to restore the full naïve conviction, belonging to the ancient world, of the significance of the body. In the later period of antiquity, in Socrates and Plato, the soul began to look down upon the body. The Renaissance tried to reconcile the two but the effort was unfortunately not serious enough. Boldness it did not lack, but its effort was not successful in carrying out a task which Goethe himself said must be approached both with boldness and with serious purpose. Only now that we know how soul and body together build up or undermine one another, people are beginning to demand again a second higher innocence in relation to the holiness and the rights of the body. A Danish writer has shown how the Mosaic Seventh Commandment sinks back into nothing, as soon as one sees that marriage is only an accidental social form for the living together of two people, while the ethically decisive factor is the way they live together. In morality there is taking place a general displacement from objective laws of direction and compulsion to the subjective basis from which actions proceed. Ethics become an ethic of character, a matter dealing with the constitution of the temperament. We demand, we forgive, or we judge according to the inner constitution of the individual; we do not readily call an action immoral which only in an external point of view does not harmonise with the law or is opposed to the law. In each particular case we decide according to the inner circumstances of the individual. Applying this point of view to marriage, we find in the first place that this form offers no guarantee that the proper disposition towards the relation of the two sexes is present. This can exist as well outside of as within marriage. Many noble and earnest human beings prefer for their relation the freer form as the more moral one. But as the result of this, the significance of the Seventh Commandment is altered, that states explicitly that every relationship of sex outside of marriage is immoral. People have commenced already to experiment with unions outside of marriage. People are looking for new forms for the common life between man and woman. The whole problem is being made the subject of debate. In this respect humanity occupies a field of discovery. People are seeing more and more what a complicated subject the whole relation of sex is, how full it is of dangers to the happiness of man. New observations are being constantly made both in regard to the significance of this relation for individuals and for posterity. To bring light gradually into this chaos is supremely important for humanity, and literature should therefore have the greatest possible freedom in this sphere,--just the opposite to the tendencies of the present day that would limit this freedom. While I fully agree with what has been said I should like to state that the greatest obstacle to the free discussion of this theme is still the Christian way of looking at the origin and nature of man. His only possible escape from the results of the fall is made to consist in his belief in Christ; for with this point of view, there came into Western Europe, by means of Christianity, the opinion that everything concerning the continuation of the race was impure; to be suppressed if possible, and if this could not be done, that it must at least be veiled in silence and obscurity. For Christianity, eternal life, not life in the world, is ever the significant factor. The dualism of existence it tries in the first place to remove by asceticism, not by attempting to ennoble the life of human impulses. This standpoint still continues to be popular in our days, as is shown in its victories through legislation directed against the nude in art and in literature. The Christian way of looking at the relation of the sexes as something ignoble, alone capable of being made holy by indissoluble marriage, has had great direct influence on man's development during a certain period of time. It has caused progress in self-mastery, which has elevated the life of the soul. Modesty, domesticity, sincerity, have been promoted by it; these along with innumerable other influences have developed the impulse to love. If these emotions disappeared from love, it would not be human, but only animal. But allowing that the individual love between every new pair of human beings always requires seclusion and reserve; allowing too that personal modesty always remains an achievement wrought by mankind, differentiating man from the animal world, it is still true that this kind of spirituality, which passes over in silence and shame all the serious questions connected with this subject, or treats them as occasions for ambiguities calling forth joking and blushes, must be rooted out. Each one from earliest childhood should on every question asked about this subject receive honest answers, suitable for the especial stage of his development. One should be in this way completely enlightened about one's own nature as man or woman, and so acquire a deep feeling of responsibility in relation to one's future duty as man or woman. One should be trained in habits of earnest thought and earnest speaking on this subject. In this way alone can there come into existence a higher type of sex with a higher type of morality. But at the time when Bjoernsen in _Thomas Rendelen_ brought up the question of training youth to purity through intelligence of nature's laws, I objected to his book on the ground that like the purity sermons of Christianity his efforts were rather directed to the mastery of natural impulses than towards their ennoblement. I showed that Bjoernsen certainly brought up two new points of view, that of bodily health, and that of the ennobling of sex. He did not, as Christianity does, stress the spiritual and personal side of the question. These new points of view of his were significant, because they united the just egoism of the individual with the combining altruism produced by the feeling of solidarity. The great purpose of Bjoernsen's book was to transform inherited characteristics as they are related to man's attitude towards morality. So he proposed to create a sound and happy new generation, in which the sufferings of present day sexual discord should be brought to an end. For this purpose he wished the collaboration of the schools. They were to communicate the knowledge of human beings as members of sex, and to instruct their scholars how, as human beings, they should protect themselves and their posterity. I objected at that time to this plan, showing that the school was not the place to lay the foundation for such knowledge. It should be slowly and carefully communicated by the mother herself; the school should only give a theoretical basis. More defective still, I found the question of chastity handled essentially and solely as a question of bodily purity, as a negative not a positive ideal. I maintain that only erotic idealism could awaken enthusiasm for chastity. The basis for such idealism must be found in stories, history, and belles-lettres. Information derived from physiology is, in this respect, very inadequate, unless the imagination and the feeling are moved in the same direction. Neither imagination nor feeling can be helped by natural science and bodily exercises alone, and just as little by Christian religious instruction. No, we must on the basis of natural science attain, in a newer and nobler form, the whole antique love for bodily strength and beauty, the whole antique reverence for the divine character of the continuation of the race, combined with the whole modern consciousness of the soulful happiness of ideal love. Only so can the demand for real chastity save mankind from the torments which sexual divisions and degradations now bring with them. It is profoundly significant that in the world of the past, divinity was associated with woman on the ground of observations concerning the continuation of the race; while in Christianity, woman became divine as the Virgin Mother. Through heathen and Christian thought, reunited and ennobled, the woman will receive a new reference for herself as a sexual being. Antique and modern love, the love of the senses and the love of soul, will, united and ennobled, induce human beings, men and women alike, to adore again Eros the All-powerful. To diminish the significance of love, to oppose it as a lowering sensualism, does not mean the elevation of mankind; it means, on the other hand, working for its debasement. For as lowering as sexual life would be if it were continued in man accompanied by a feeling of shame as a characteristic of animal life, it would be just the same if it were regarded as a degrading duty, reluctantly carried out for the preservation of the species. Antiquity stood higher than the present day, for example when Lycurgus' laws asserted that a people's strength lies in the breast of blooming womanhood. Accordingly in Sparta, the physical development of the woman was watched over as well as of the man, and the age of marriage was determined with reference to a healthy offspring. Higher, too, stood Judaism in relation to the conception of the seriousness of bearing children. This conviction expressed itself in the strictest hygienic legislation known to history. Jewish, like other Oriental legislation, depended, in relation to sexual morality as in relation to diet, on sharp-sighted observations of natural law and disease. The foundation to a new ethic in these questions cannot be laid, until men begin with Old Testament shrewdness and Old Testament seriousness to handle the life questions which the idealism of Christianity has indeed spiritualised but at the same time debased. This new ethic will call no other common living of man and woman immoral, except that which gives occasion to a weak offspring, and produces bad conditions for the development of their offspring. The Ten Commandments on this subject will not be prescribed by the founders of religion, but by scientists. Up to the present day, partly as a result of a perverted modesty in such things, science has only been able to offer incomplete observations on the physical and psychical conditions for the improvement of the human type in its actual genesis. Ontogeny is really a new science in our century, introduced by Von Leeuwenhock, de Graaf, and others. It was founded in 1827, by von Baer. The differences of opinion and the discovery of different theories are very far from being ended. Purely scientific points of view are being combined with social, physiological, or ethical ones. It is maintained that by changing the diet of the mother the sex of the child can be determined. Attempts have been made to show that about three fifths of all men of genius were first-born children. People are studying what influence the age of parents has on the child; extreme youth of parents seems unfavourable for the offspring as well as extreme age. The first child of a too youthful mother is often weak, and besides ordinarily the joys of motherhood are not desired, because she feels that physically and psychically a child is too great a burden to her, who herself is only a child. The conditions of a strong, well-nourished offspring require the postponement of the marriage age for women. In northern countries it should be established, if not by law at least by custom, at about twenty years. This is all the more necessary because then the young woman can have behind her some years of careless youthful joy, an undisturbed self-development, and will also have reached the physical development necessary for motherhood. While twenty years should be regarded as the earliest period of marriage it should actually be often postponed some years still for the well-being of the woman, the man, and the children, and married life as a whole, in which most conflicts arise because women have decided about their fate before their personality was definitely formed, before their heart was able to find its choice. The love of the man chooses and the young girl often confuses the happiness of being loved with the happiness of loving, an experience which later on is gone through in a tragic way. To the many questions which are related to heredity and natural selection, belongs one which notices the significance of nature's purpose to cause strong opposites to exert upon one another the strongest attraction. This attraction often during married life changes into antipathy; it almost results in impatience against the characteristics which originally had so deep an attraction. Nature in this case seems to wish to reach its end with the greatest lack of consideration for the happiness of the individual. So often the contradictions of parents seem really to be moulded in full in the child. Occasionally these contradictions are expressed as a deep discord, but in both cases there often arises an exceptional being. To attain correct results in this case, belongs to the numerous still open possibilities. Differences of opinion are most apparent in the theory of heredity, where there is a struggle between Darwin's view, that even acquired characteristics are inherited, and Galton's and Weissmann's conviction that this is not the case. In connection with this stands, also, the question of the marriage of consanguineous relations; some regard these marriages as dangerous, _per se_, for the posterity; others only as dangerous from the point of view that the same family trait is often found in both parents, and so becomes strongly impressed on the children. For example, congenital shortsightedness of both parents develops into blindness of the children, their stupidity becomes idiocy, their melancholy, insanity. The Occident has gradually abolished the Oriental marriage law to which Moses gave validity, while other Oriental legislators, for example, Manes and Mohammed, are still followed to a great extent. In China, too, similar prohibitions have a binding power. Here and there the feeling of the significance of heredity has vaguely appeared in some Occidental writers. Sir Thomas More, like Plato, required a physical examination before entering into marriage. It was not until the nineteenth century that the question of the rights of the child in this respect began to be noticed. It was Robert Owen who in one way awakened the general right feeling in favour of children, by investigations begun in 1815. They showed that children under eight years old were forced to work by blows from leather whips, to work from fifteen to sixteen hours a day, with the result that a fourth or fifth of them ended as cripples. Another Englishman, Malthus, published in 1798 an essay on the _Principle of Population_, and directed the attention of society to the conditions which had caused him to write his work. He pointed to the deficiency of food supply produced by over-population and the obstacles it offered to legitimate marriages. Again, these conditions, he showed, resulted partly in great mortality among children, partly in the murder of children. Malthus saw the significance of selection and the danger of degeneration. With perfect calmness of conscience he met the storm he had evoked. Personally a blameless and tender hearted man, Malthus, as all other reformers of moral ideas, had to allow the shameless accusations of corruption and immorality to pass over his head. Harriet Martineau, who advocated Malthus's views, had the same experience. When she wrote her novels on this subject she knew very well to what she was exposing herself; but this remarkable woman, who died unmarried and childless, was at an early period of her life filled with a feeling for the holiness of the child. When nineteen years old, at the time of the birth of a small sister, she fell on her knees and devoutly thanked God that she had been allowed to be the witness of the great wonder of the development of the human being from the beginning. The same feeling caused her in her novels to expound the duty of voluntary limitation of population. She was pained by the thought of the fate endured by children, when they were so numerous that their parents were unable to maintain and educate them. This part of the subject of the right of the child called forth in all countries books for and against it. Everywhere the question is discussed. I shall briefly handle the differences of opinion about other sides of the right of the child. In Francis Galton's celebrated work, _Hereditary Genius_, almost all has been said that is required to-day from the point of view of the improvement of the race. Galton, as early as the seventies, opposed Darwin's view that acquired characteristics were inherited. In this respect he had a fellow-champion in the German Weissmann, who on his side was opposed, among others, by the English Darwinian Romanes. Galton invented from a Greek word a name for the science of the amelioration of the race, Eugenics. He showed that civilised man, so far as care for the amelioration of the race is concerned, stands on a much lower plane than savages, not to speak of Sparta which did not allow the weak, the too young, and the too old to marry, and where national pride in a pure race, a strong offspring, was so great that individuals were sacrificed to the attainment of this end. Galton, like Darwin, Spencer, A. R. Wallace, and others, has brought out the fact that the law of natural selection, which in the rest of nature has secured the survival of the fittest, is not applicable to human society, where economic motives lead to unsuitable marriages, made possible by wealth. Poverty hinders suitable marriages. Besides the development of sympathy has come into the field as a factor which disturbs natural selection. The sympathy of love, chooses according to motives that certainly tend to the happiness of the individual, but this does not mean that they guarantee the improvement of the race. And while other writers hope for a voluntary abstinence from marriage in those cases, where an inferior offspring is to be expected, Galton, on the other hand, is in favour of very strict rules, to hinder inferior specimens of humanity from transmitting their vices or diseases, their intellectual or physical weaknesses. Just because Galton does not believe in the inheritance of acquired characteristics, selection has the greatest significance for him. On the other side, he advocates using all means to encourage such marriages, where the family on both sides gives promise of distinguished offspring. For him, as later for Nietzsche, the purpose of married life is the production of strong, able personalities. Galton makes it plain that civilised man, by his sympathy with weak, inefficient individuals, has helped to continue their existence. This tendency on its own side has lessened the possibility of the efficient individuals to continue the species. Wallace, too, and several others, have on different occasions declared that men in relation to this question must have harder hearts, if the human race is not to become inferior. The moral, social, and sympathetic factors, they say, which in humanity work against the law of the survival of the fittest, and have made it possible for the lower type, to continue and to multiply in excess, must give way to new points of view where certain moral and social questions are concerned. So the natural law will be supported by altruism, instead of as now being opposed by this sentiment. Spencer's thoughts contain a great truth. They have been quoted in just this connection. He says: We see the germ of many things that later on are developed in a way no one now suspects. Profound transformations are worked in society and its members, transformations which we could not have hoped for as immediate results, but which we could have looked for in confidence as final consequences. The effort to find natural laws which cause racial progress or deterioration is one of these germinal ideas. As to scientific investigation in this field, we can apply another maxim of the same thinker, one often overlooked by science. "The passion to discover truth must be accompanied by the passion to use it for the welfare of mankind." But science must really reach universally accepted conclusions before we can expect humanity to begin seriously its self-purification; but it is certain to come then. When we read in ethnographical and sociological works what restrictions in marriage are imposed by savage people on themselves, and religiously obeyed on the ground of superstitious prejudice, we have a right to hope that civilised men will one day bow before scientific proofs. This hope is not too optimistic. Wallace pleads not for such absolute regulations as Galton, in order to prevent the marriages of the less worthy and to encourage the marriages of the superior types of humanity. He perceives that the problem is tremendously complicated. One thing is, that the personal attraction of love is extremely essential from the point of view of the improvement of the race. If human beings could be bred like prize cattle, it is not likely that a superior type of humanity would be produced. In the Middle Ages, the human race deteriorated, Galton said, because the best fled to the monasteries and the worst reproduced themselves. But if Galton's strict requirements had to be carried out in every case before a marriage could be allowed, not only would marriage lose its deepest meaning, but the race also would lose its noblest inheritance. But even with a strict limitation of Galton's principles and with a wise limitation of his requirements, science has already shown the truth of so many of the first, that the significance of the last, taken as a whole, must be granted. We know that in the inherited tendencies of children, often another form is taken from that which appears in their parents. Of three hundred idiots, one hundred and forty-five had alcoholic parents. Epilepsy, too, is often produced by the same cause. It is known that apparently sound individuals are often attacked at the same age by a disease to which their parents were subject. On the other hand, there are fortunately proofs that individuals endowed with power of will can resist certain dangerous inherited weaknesses. In the discussion on this subject, it should also be justly brought out, that it is possible for the unsound tendency of one parent to be neutralised in the case of children, by the soundness of the other. But this result, as well as the many other questions involved, as I have shown above, are far from being established. The question as to the inheritance of mental diseases has been especially examined by Maudsley. In this case, too, nervous and psychic diseases of the parents often change their character in the children. He requires medical testimony before marriage, and asks that the appearance of mental diseases after marriage shall form a legitimate ground for divorce. And he hopes that a pure descent, in a new sense of the word, will be as important for the marriages of the future, as for aristocratic marriages in early times. One of Maudsley's statements is so interesting that it should be mentioned here. Fathers, he says, who have directed their whole energy towards attainment of wealth, have degenerate children; for this sort of nerve strain undermines the system as infallibly as alcohol or opium. If this statement be true, we would add another point of view to the many already existent, that show how hostile to life is our best social order, which aims at power and gain. It proves how necessary is that transformation of existence which will make work and production serve a new end. Each man should claim to live wholly, broadly, and in a way worthy of humanity. He should be able to leave behind him a posterity provided with all capacities for a similar life. When this day dawns people will regard, as a terrible atavism, that expression on the face of a child, which an artist of the present day has preserved in a picture of a boy represented as a future millionaire. I will mention now from literary sources, some of Nietzsche's work on this subject. Although this author did not base his ideas of the "superman" directly on Darwin's theories, yet they are, as Brandes has lately shown, the great consequences of Darwinism, that Darwin himself did not see. In no contemporary was there a stronger conviction than in Nietzsche that man as he now is, is only a bridge, only a transition between the animal and the "superman." In connection with this, Nietzsche looked upon the obligations of man for the amelioration of the race as seriously as Galton, but he expressed his principles with the power of poetic and prophetic expression, not with scientific proof. Literature on this subject is increasing every day; different opinions press one another hard. As long as this is the case, there is every reason to observe the warning of the German sociologist Kurella, who says that we must reckon with social as well as with anthropological factors if we wish to prevent the degeneration of the human species. A vital point in his position is, that it is a matter of indifference whether the Darwinian theory of the transmission of acquired characteristics, or its contrary is victorious. The former is the theory of an unchangeable germ plasm transmitted by the parents to the children; so that better types can only originate through a new combination of the characteristics of father and mother, and also by natural selection in the struggle for existence. We must be careful before beginning to act in a social and political way on the basis of anthropological motives. He finally lays down with perfect justice, that the material to be gathered from the works of Spencer, Galton, Lombroso, Ferri, Ribot, Latourneau, Havelock Ellis, J. B. Haycraft, Colajanni, Sergi, Ritchie, and others, must be systematically worked over. The sociologist must be zoölogist, anthropologist, and psychologist before his plans for civilising man, and for elevating the human race could be carried out. As to intellectual characteristics it has been maintained that exceptionally gifted men have mostly inherited their characteristics from the mother. This fact has in our day, so very much increased the interest taken in the mothers of famous men. This truth is supposed to hold good for a son, but if the daughter is gifted, her talent is held to come from the father. Another and certainly a better founded phenomenon seems to be this: That when in a family characteristics find their culmination in a world genius, this genius either remains childless or his children are not only ordinary, but often insignificant. It may be that nature has exhausted her power of production in these great personalities, or as is often assumed, the creative power of genius in an intellectual direction, diminishes the creative power in the physical direction. Along with the question of heredity stands that of the development of races. In the beginning of the _Origin of Species_ Darwin showed how essential pure descent is for the production of a noble race. This theory is appealed to by a modern anti-Semitic writer, who represents the Jew as a typical example of pure race, an idea which one of the most conspicuous representatives of Judaism, Disraeli, has also expressed in the following words: "Race is everything; there is no other truth, and every race which carelessly allows mixed blood, perishes." Yet other specialists consider some racial mixture as highly advantageous to the offspring. Professor Westermark has offered a good reason for the significance attached to beauty in the case of love, and therefore its importance for the race. He has shown how man has conceived physical beauty to be the full development of all of those characteristics which distinguish the human organism from the animal, and which mark sex distinctions, and, most of all, race distinctions. He thinks individuals with these characteristics are best suited for their life work. Accordingly it is the result of natural selection that exactly those individuals are found most beautiful and are most desired, who first as human beings best fulfil the general demands of the human organism, as sexual beings fulfil those of their sex, and as members of the race are best suited to the conditions which surround them. In the struggle for existence, those are overcome, who are descended from human beings, whose instincts of love are directed to individuals badly adapted to that struggle; while those who are victorious are children happily so adapted. In this way, taste has developed by which, what is best adapted to environment appears as the highest beauty. This is equivalent to health, the power to resist the attacks of the external world. While every considerable deviation from the pure type in sex and race, has a lesser degree of adaptability; that is of health, and also of beauty. Another writer has used the foot as an example of this principle. The small, high-arched foot with the fine ankle is always, he says, regarded as the most beautiful. But such a foot is only combined with a fine, strong, and elastic bony structure. Such a foot besides has, by its great elasticity, a considerably higher power of bearing weight than the flat foot. The high-vaulted foot, in walking and jumping, increases the activity of the lungs and the heart. This again makes the walk elastic, strong, and easy, agile and stately. These traits, for the same reason as the beauty of the foot itself, are looked upon as a racial sign. This physical power and ease influence the mind, and produce self-confidence, and so increase the feeling of superiority and the joy of living, marks of distinction in human beings. Whether the illustration in this special case holds good or not, it proves nothing against the truth of the theory on which it rests, and which is gradually becoming prevalent; the view I mean, according to which souls and bodies are mutually developed through adaptability to their surroundings. So it is necessary not only to investigate what conditions give the best selection, but also what external ones strengthen or weaken the characteristics found in natural selection. We must again see the importance of bodily exercise. Painful experiences have taught us to prevent the consequences of overstrain, over-exertion in competitive imbecility, and mania for sport. Such results have specially shown themselves to be harmful for women in respect to motherhood. Sport and play, gymnastics and pedestrianism, life in nature and in the open air, a regenerated system of dancing, after the model of the Swedish peasant dances, will be most excellent bases for the physical and psychical renewal of the new generation. In plans concerning this renewal, people have pointed to the influence of art; it has been shown how Burne-Jones created the new English type of woman. It was formed by an adaption to the quiet, distinguished style, by a process that went slowly on. This was the type regarded by him as the model one. It is maintained that we only need to see a pair of young English girls in front of one of his pictures, in order to notice how not only the faces but the expressions show a resemblance. The artist has impressed his trait on youth before it was conscious of it. Before these forms they grew up, they have seen them in their picture books, they have been dressed in clothes cut in the fashion of the master's pictures. There is another reason. Mothers of the present day are supposed to have passed on to their children the Burne-Jones type in the same way in which the charm of the Greeks was influenced by the beauty of their statuary. In antiquity it was believed, even in other details, (for example, in attaining the much-longed-for blonde hair) that this end could be secured by observing the proper directions. As to the significance of external influences of this kind on mothers, there is too little material still to build up conclusions. On this point, learned men also disagree. I have only, therefore, incidentally mentioned this factor among others. All should be established before we can get a final and certain insight into the conditions of human birth. In the absence of scientific knowledge I can only refer to the literature and comprehensive investigations commenced in the preceding century, that throw light on the riddle of man's coming into the world. Many of these matters are still involved in obscurity. But man's spirit is resting on the waters; gradually a new creation will be called forth from them. In connection with this, must be discussed the development of new ideas of law in these spheres. Heathen society in its hardness, exposed weak or crippled children. Christian society on the other hand, has gone so far in its mildness, that it prolongs the life of the child who is incurably ill, physically and psychically, even if he is misshapen and so becomes an hourly torment to himself and his surroundings. Yet respect for life is still not strong enough in a social order, which keeps up among other things, the death penalty and war, that one can without danger suggest the extinction of such a life. Only when death is inflicted through compassion, will the humanity of the future show itself in such a way, that the doctor under control and responsibility can painlessly extinguish such suffering. On the other hand, this Christian society still maintains the distinction between legitimate children and the children of sin, a distinction which more than anything else has helped to obstruct a real ethical conception of the duties of parents. Every child has the same rights in respect to both father and mother. Both parents have just the same obligation to every child. Until this is recognised there will be no basis for the future morality of the common life between man and woman. Some day society will look upon the arrangements of the love relation as the private affair of responsible individuals. Those who are lovers, those who are married will regard themselves as completely free, and will also be so regarded. Binding promises in respect of emotions, demands of exclusive possession over personality, have already come to be regarded by fine feeling and fully developed human beings as a relic of erotic sentiments on a lower plane. These sentiments were the outcome of desire for mastery, vanity, cruelty, and blind passion. People are beginning to see that perfect fidelity is only to be obtained by perfect freedom; that complete exchange of individuality can only take place in perfect freedom; that complete excellence can only come into being in perfect freedom. Each must cease to try to force and bend the emotions, opinions, habits, and inclinations of the other towards him- or herself. Each must regard the continuance of the feeling of the other as a happiness, not as a right. Each must regard the possible cessation of this feeling as a pain, not as an injustice. Only in this way can there arise between the two souls such pure, full, freedom that both can move with absolute independence, and complete unity. Freedom is no danger to fidelity. The kind of fidelity required by the church and by the law has certainly been a notable means of education. But the method, as it is, is opposed to the end. For it has produced the feeling of possession. This has led to loss of respect in the worship of love. The requirements based on force have awakened hostility in soul and sense; the fear of public opinion has produced all sorts of dishonesty between man and wife, between them and the world. When the bonds of compulsion fall away feeling will be strengthened. For when the external supports of fidelity are wanting, the power required for it will come from the inner life. Although human beings will be exposed always to the possibility of serious mistakes about themselves and the object of their love; although time can always change human beings and their emotions; although, even in a marriage which has resulted from mutual love, conditions can arise which make Nietzsche's ideal legitimate, that it is better to break up the marriage than to be broken up by it; yet on the whole freedom will encourage fidelity, which itself will always have a support through the experience of its psychological and ethical value. It is not through a series of lightly entered into and lightly dissolved connections that one is prepared for the happiness of great love. Voluntary fidelity is a sign of nobility, because it assumes the will to concentrate about the centre of life's meaning; because it signifies the unity with our own proper innermost ego. This is as true of fidelity in love as of all other kinds of fidelity. Only when love is the practical religion of the work-day, and the devotion of the holiday, when it is kept under the constant supervision of the soul, when it brings with it a constant growth, (why should not the fine old word "sanctification" be used) of personality, is love great. Then it comes into possession of a higher right than some earlier union, because it then means really fidelity and nothing else towards our own highest ego. But where it does not have this character, it does not possess this right. It is then a petty emotion even when it is made pardonable by great passion. The children which issue from temporary unions are often as imperfect as their origin. Great love is, as a young doctor once said, only that which grips so deeply, that after its loss one no longer feels as a whole, but as a half of a whole. Yet nature has protected itself against annihilation by giving the possibility of love more than once. But what nature's ideal is cannot be doubted. The race which would come into existence, provided young men and women were given the possibility of uniting when the first love took possession of them,--that love which is the deepest,--this race would be sound and strong, different from what our own race is now. But when young people love now they seldom have the means for union, and when they have the means, then that which leads them to the marriage union is not the deepest feeling they have ever felt, but only an impulse, which, even if real, is still only a substitute. Such a transformation of the conditions of society and of the individual view of the true worth of life will enable young men and women, between the ages of twenty and thirty, to found their own home and under simple conditions, to secure their happiness. Here would be one of the most essential foundations for the origin of a new race, which would have the ancient feeling for the hearth as an altar, and would have the life of love as the service of a divinity. Only through such a transformation might it be expected that the deepest misery of society, prostitution, could be restrained. Only after such a transformation could we with full right require from our youth that self-mastery which is the best pre-condition of the sound development of the new generation. As things are at present, it is certain that just as there are really immoral, unmarried mothers, so there are others deeply moral, who would be mothers with a great pure love to the father of their child, but who for various reasons should not be united with them in legal marriage. And even if the contraction of marriage were simplified, such motherhood on the part of single women, should continue to exist. Bjoernsen, when he gave lectures in Norway on sexual morality, maintained the view that the woman who wished for motherhood, but who was not adapted in her opinion for marriage, should be fully entitled to the first, without the last being regarded as necessary, on condition that she was willing to fulfil to the child her maternal duties. This idea certainly has a future. In Germany there was a well-known case in which a fully mature woman, not a mere girl, saw shortly after her marriage that the temperaments and conditions of both parties to the marriage would make it an unhappiness for both. She separated, therefore, brought her child into the world unmarried, educated it publicly and with self-sacrifice. Now she has along with the peace which comes from work and the happiness of motherhood, the possibility of fulfilling her duty also as daughter, while married life would have destroyed this for all parties. This is one of the many cases out of the great collection of life, that shows how foolish is that requirement of society to press human nature, in its manifold types, into one mould, with a sphere of duty arranged in the same way for all. But the sphere of duty, an ever-widening one, is the sphere which embraces the right of the child. Yet its lines will be drawn in the future bounded in quite a different way from now. It will then be looked upon as the supreme right of the child that he shall not be born in a discordant marriage. Above everything, therefore, marriage must be free. This means that the two parties can freely separate after mutual agreement. In entering into marriage and in dissolving it, only certain duties towards the children are to be assumed. Such legal provisions might well be superfluous even in this case; in others, they might be important. But in none are they to become an obstacle to the development of this relation to the children. On the other hand, the compulsory marriage laws of to-day, as well in relation to divorce as to the guardianship given the man, have become obstacles to the higher development of the common life of man and woman. The vigorous drawing together of the bonds of marriage will not protect children from growing up in a destroyed home. This protection will be secured by deeper earnestness in entering upon marriage, but above all by a deeper sense of responsibility to the children themselves. This will make it possible for the parents who see themselves deceived in their married happiness to keep a peaceful resignation, a high character, as they continue to live together, if they feel that this is the best solution of the conflict, for the children who are already born. But this resolution does not mean the continuance of real married life, but parenthood alone. Only so can it be really useful to the children that the marriage should not be dissolved. The parents, who are profoundly and finally alienated must not bestow life on any new being. Marriages lightly entered into are many; lightly entered into divorces are few, at least where there are children. It is not the prescriptions of the law, but those of blood which work as a restraining influence here even at the present day. The decisive sentence is not spoken by society but by the children. But these deep motives are just as decisive in the case of a free union as in the case of a legal one; if the father or the mother is only kept with the children by compulsion, the children have not much to lose. The important thing for unwritten duties, duties which largely can not be determined by law, is to awaken the conscience of fathers and mothers in order to create a better morality. Perhaps for this, new legislation is necessary for the present. Certainly antiquated legal conceptions should be done away with; they have done good duty as a past training for morality. Now they stand in the way of the higher morality. The man or the woman who plays the rôle of seduction, spoiling the life of a young woman or a young man, or disturbing the peace of a happy marriage, this type of character, is being treated with ever-increasing contempt. The more one learns to distinguish the heartless play of masculine or feminine desire for conquest, the selfish soulless claims of the senses, from those of love, the more does the conception of morality become equivalent to the feeling of responsibility towards the new generation. The gratification of natural impulses, which act contrary to the real profound intention of nature, is what destroys individuals and peoples. But as has been said, these devastations cannot be successfully restrained by the extermination of man's material nature. It is a favourable symptom when a poet opposes the mastery of material nature, apart from the feeling of responsibility. But it is harmful when this sensuousness is made, as Tolstoi does, equivalent to the conception of love. Love must not be debased to simple sensuousness, nor must it be etherealised to a simple spiritual quality, if the human race is to be freed from the debasing mastery of impulse. This happens, as I have often shown before, and in an earlier part of this work as well, by the elevation of sensuousness to love. I mean by this that the spiritual unity of beings, the indulgence of tenderness, the sympathy of souls, the community of work, and the happiness of comradeship, will be as really decisive factors in the lofty emotions of love, and in the charm of love, as the attraction of the senses. This wealth in the elements of mutual dependence is what keeps fidelity in love both inwardly and outwardly. This soft current of the soul's depths keeps the sensuous charm fresh; while mere relation, both legal marriage and free union, very soon exhausts happiness and leaves behind ennui, if love has contained only sensuous attraction, and not that mutual feeling of dependence, which involves the union of the soul and the sense, and which unites the spirit and the sympathies. The duty and responsibility towards the children will be all the more strict as society learns to regard it as one of its principal duties to hinder all thoughtless and undeserved suffering. The morality of the future will not be found in sacrificing to the holiness of the family so-called illegitimate children, who are often by nature richly endowed, but who by the prevailing legal system receive such treatment, that they often become what they are called, and so are filled with vengeance against society and the perverse conceptions of law whose victims they are. Child murder, phosphorous poisonings, "angel-making"--all these are connected with these perverse legal ideas. But all of these results are still less pernicious than those which society draws upon itself through those "disgraced" children, who go to ruin not physically but psychically. In them, there are not only frequently good powers lost, but socially destructive powers developed. When the whole of Europe shuddered over the murder of the Empress Elizabeth, one fact above every other seemed to me terrible. The murderer confessed, "I know nothing of my parents." The time will come in which the child will be looked upon as holy, even when the parents themselves have approached the mystery of life with profane feelings; a time in which all motherhood will be looked upon as holy, if it is caused by a deep emotion of love, and if it has called forth deep feelings of duty. Then the child, who has received its life from sound, loving human beings and has been afterwards brought up wisely and lovingly, will be called legitimate, even if its parents have been united in complete freedom. Then will the child, who has been born in a loveless marriage, and has been burdened by the fault of its parents with bodily or mental disease, be regarded as illegitimate, even if its parents have been united in marriage by the Pope at St. Peter's. The shadow of contempt will not fall on the unmarried tender mother of a radiantly healthy child, but on the legitimate or illegitimate mother of a being made degenerate by the misdeeds of its forefathers. In a much discussed drama called _The Lion's Whelp_, there occurs the following dialogue between an older and younger man: THE OLDER MAN: The next century will be the century of the child, just as this century has been the woman's century. When the child gets his rights, morality will be perfected. Then every man will know that he is bound to the life which he has produced with other bonds, than those imposed by society and the laws. You understand that a man cannot be released from his duty as father even if he travels around the world; a kingdom can be given and taken away, but not fatherhood. THE YOUTH: I know this. THE OLDER MAN: But in this all righteousness is still not fulfilled--in man's carefully preserving the life which he has called into existence. No man can early enough think over the other question, whether and when he has the right to call life into existence. This dialogue has supplied me with a title for this book. It is the point of departure of my assertion, that the first right of the child is to select its own parents. What here must be first considered is the thought constantly being brought out by Darwinian writers, that the natural sciences, in which must now be numbered psychology, should be the basis of juristic science as well as of pedagogy. Man must come to learn the laws of natural selection and act in the spirit of these laws. Man must arrange the punishments of society in the service of development; they must be protective measures for natural selection. In the first place this must be secured by hindering the criminal type from perpetuating itself. The characteristics of this type can only be determined by specialists. But the criminal must be prevented from handing on his characteristics to his posterity. So the human race will be gradually freed from atavisms which reproduce lower and preceding stages of development. This is the first condition of that evolution by which mankind will be able to let the ape and tiger die. Then comes the requirement that those with inherited physical or psychical diseases shall not transmit them to an offspring. As to this type of heredity opinions are still very much divided. Great authorities are in conflict with one another on the question of tuberculosis. Some contend that it is hereditary, others declare that it is only transmitted by infection. Accordingly when a child is born of a tuberculous mother, and is taken away from her, there is no danger for the child. Views are also divided on the subject of cancer. Regarding other diseases, however, there is complete certainty. Legislation has already interfered in the case of epilepsy, although the law in practice is not always applied. But in the case of syphilis, alcoholism, and many kinds of nervous complaints, diseases which afflict children most certainly, in various ways, legislation has yet done nothing. There is an old axiom that we are obliged to thank our parents for life. Our parents, I know from my own experience, can themselves have been the heirs of bodily and mental health, resulting from the fact that maternal and paternal ancestors all made early, right, and happy marriages. But generally, parents must on their part, ask the children's pardon for the children's existence. It makes no difference, whether we talk with people sunken in necessity or crime, or with those suffering from nervous and other diseases, or finally with people who are spiritually maimed. In most cases we are convinced that the main cause of their condition as indicated by them, goes back to their birth, or to the time of their childish consciousness. Sometimes their parents have been too young or too old, their fathers or mothers invalids. Sometimes they are the offspring of intemperance. Again their mother may have been overburdened by the torment of work, or by a large family of children; or they may have received their life in marriages concluded without love, or after the cessation of love. They have been unwelcome, or born under feelings of revulsion, bearing in their blood the germ of discord or disgust of life. Numerous abnormal tendencies, among them misanthropy in women, can be traced back to these causes. Finally they have been brought up in a home where they have suffered from the burden of bad examples, or conflicting influences. So strong has the conviction of the meaning of heredity become that young men, who have themselves borne a burden, imposed by generations of one character or another, have begun to see that it is their duty rather to abstain from marriage than to transmit their unfortunate inheritence to a new generation. I knew a woman in whose family on her father's and mother's side, mental disease was inherited. Therefore, though healthy herself, she refused to marry the man she loved. I know of another who broke her engagement, because she was convinced that the man whom she loved was a drinker, and she did not want to give her children such a father. It is especially on this point that women sin in marrying from ignorance, because they do not know that epilepsy and other diseases, especially alcoholism, are often caused because the child has had a drunkard for a father. A young woman could have no more certain test for the continuance of her feelings for a man, than whether she feels exalted joy or tormenting distress, at the thought of seeing his characteristics transmitted to their child. Men sin against the coming race not only by excessive drinking, but in other respects where the results are still more destructive. Besides the conscience of men must begin to awaken. This will express itself partly in the requirement to abstain from marriage when they know that they have to transmit a bad inheritance, partly in other spheres of morality as in the following examples: A young man, himself a physician, thought he was healthy when he married. He discovered his mistake and found himself confronting the choice of wronging his wife or separating from her. As they were deeply in love, the only possible way was separation. He chose death which he inflicted on himself in such a way that his wife thought it was caused by accident. Another man acted in the same way after he had been married several years and had three children; he found out that he was his wife's half-brother. But these incidents as the one before mentioned, where women are concerned, are notoriously only isolated examples. It will require the development of several generations before it will be the woman's instinct, an irresistibly mastering instinct, to allow no physically or psychically degenerated or perverted man to become the father of her children. The instinct of the man is far stronger in this direction, but it is dulled too by an antiquated legal conception, according to which the woman must subject herself as a duty to requirements against which her whole being revolts. In this respect a woman has only one duty, an unmistakable one, against which every transgression is a sin, namely that the new being to which she gives life, must be born in love and purity, in health and beauty, in full mutual harmony, in a complete common will, in a complete common happiness. Until women see this as a duty, the earth will continue to be peopled by beings, who in a moment of their existence have been robbed of the best pre-conditions of their life's happiness and their life's efficiency. Occasionally they show plainly at an early age the sign of degeneration or of discord. Occasionally they seem for a long time to be healthy and powerful specimens of humanity, until in some critical moment they go to pieces through an insufficient supply of physical and psychical vitality caused by their very origin. As to marriages between healthy and active individuals, legislation can do nothing. Ethics alone can exert an influence for betterment. Children must be taught from their earliest years about their existence and their future duties as men and women. So mothers and fathers together can impress on the conscience of the children not any abstract conception of purity, but the concrete commandment of chastity in letters of fire. So they will keep their health, their attractiveness, their guilelessness, for the being they are to love; for the children who from this love will receive their life. The impulse to preserve the species, it is true, makes human beings low, small, or laughable; as poets like Maupassant, Tolstoi, and others have depicted from quite different points of view; but it only does so when the impulse appears without relation to the end given it in nature, or when this end is attained without consideration for the production of an offspring qualified to live. The kind of love which disturbs life is that which diminishes the value of an individual as a creator of life. This type of love really degrades human beings, is immoral from the standpoint of the modern view, which wills life to be, but above all, wills the progress of life to ever higher forms. Young people must therefore learn to reverence their future duties. These they altogether miss, if they squander their spiritual and bodily obligations, in unions formed and dissolved thoughtlessly, without any intention of fidelity, without the worth of responsibility. But they must also know that it is a still greater transgression of their duty if the life of a child is called forth with cold hearts and cold temper, whether this happens in a marriage based on worldly motives or one maintained on moral grounds in which the previously existing discord is transmitted to a new being. Mothers made apathetic and unresponsive, by the consciousness of numerous breaches of faith, towards their youthful dreams, their ideal convictions, are often precisely those, who in their children, struggle against the pure instincts of love, its chaste and strong feelings, its higher aims. They often teach that love as a rule ends after marriage, that marriages can be made without love. This is a process of thought resembling the conclusion that a vessel can quite well go into the sea with some defect, since it is possible in any event that it will be damaged. They speak of the impurity of the senses, of the advantages of a marriage based on friendship and reason, of the calming power of duty. All of these are chilly processes of reason by which souls, filled with the warmth of life, are killed. Daughters must be helped by their mothers, wisely and delicately, in order to be protected from hasty acts, in order to distinguish with open eyes, when their feelings themselves are uncertain. It must be branded upon their souls and their nerves that they will be fallen beings if they give themselves from other reasons than from reciprocated love. Under these convictions alone, will there be a great transformation of present ethical standards. Men think that they can do with marriage what they will; that they can enter upon it with any kind of motive; they think that they must marry from feelings of duty, to fulfil some given engagement, or to atone for some fault; that they have the right to enter upon a marriage without love because they long for home life. While these things are regarded as legitimate, men stand on the same ethical level as the person who commits murder because he has first stolen, or has stolen because he was hungry. The great crime against the holiness of generation is believing that one can treat arbitrarily, the most sensitive sphere of life, the sphere where innumerable secret influences order the destiny of a new generation. While children continue to be born in the cold atmosphere of duty, or in the stormy atmosphere of discord, while people continue to regard such marriages as moral, while people can transmit to their children all kinds of intellectual mutilation and bodily unsoundness, and their parents continue to be called honorable, so long will the world be without the slightest conception of that morality which will mould the new mankind. This morality has still more exalted precepts. To-day it seldom happens that a young girl enters marriage in ignorance, but in my generation I know cases where the ignorance of the bride resulted in insanity. In another case this ignorance led to thoughts of suicide; in a third, the child was regarded with coldness by its mother; in the fourth, the child had abnormal psychic qualities. Still it is not sufficient for the ideal beauty of marriage and the harmony of the child that the woman knows in general what is before her. A young man said once to me that most marriages are spoilt at the very beginning, because the man brings with him the point of view and the habits of those degraded women, from whom he has received his initiation into love; frequently he annihilates forever the tenderest element in his relation to his wife. He damages the most beautiful factor in their mutual feelings. Man must learn to have reverence and patience, and I know men who have shown these characteristics really because they saw that their wives gave, as is not unfrequently the case, their souls and their hearts before their senses were awakened. Only the constant close association taught them to desire a completed marriage. A child should receive life only through this common impulse. Many children are born, as it is, in legalised prostitution, in legalised rape. Yet there is wanting in the consciences of many women and men, the slightest shadow of religious reverence, of æsthetic feeling before the greatest mystery of existence. And yet we continue in the name of morality to veil for youth the nakedness of nature and we neglect to inspire their feeling of devotion towards their own being as the shrine in which the mystery of life must some day be fulfilled. In this mystery there are still hidden fields only penetrated by the intuition. Here and there a profound poet has surmised the innumerable affinities or repulsions which under changing spiritual and material dispositions with altering opinions, condition the life of love in modern human beings, the mystic influences which sometimes forever, sometimes partially, can change the deepest feeling. All these mystic influences, the tender woof of all these fine threads, will then be a part of the living fabric of the child. These secret processes explain the great differences between children of the same parents,--children who externally are born and brought up in quite similar conditions. In all these promptings of instinct, in all these categorical imperatives of the nerves and the blood, human beings must be at the same time obedient listeners and strict masters. On this depends the future happiness of love, and with it a happier future race. The people of to-day live under inherited morals and newly acquired transgressions of morality. Both must be conquered before soul and sense in love can become inseparable, or in other words, before this unity is recognised as the only possible moral basis of the relation between man and woman. Talented men, as well as one-sided advocates of women's rights, think that the development will take quite a different course, after the low impulse which is at the basis of love has been laid bare and scientifically analysed. They say that the superior person will satisfy the impulse shamelessly and animally, without any emotional decoration; or he will isolate himself from its influence and devote to more noble purposes that vital power, that emotional capacity, which is now consumed by love. Nothing impossible is to be found in this point of view. I have shown more than once that woman by her maternal functions, uses up so much physical and psychical energy, that in the sphere of intellectual production she must remain of less significance. What I at an earlier period assumed intuitively, has been substantiated since then by a specialist. A Finnish doctor has shown how the vital power of lower organisms, is concentrated in sexual production. But the higher man goes, so much more power is made free. This power which is not consumed in the production of new generations, can serve intellectual production. Each of the two different productive expressions of human vital action must to a certain extent limit the development of the power of the other, and restrict its capacity of work. The same writer contends that this is the natural cause of the more limited fertility of civilised man, and will be, according to the pessimists named above, the decisive factor in the prophesied downfall of love. According to my conception of the word, it is love on the contrary, which will win the victory by the relative weakening of impulse, and by scientific analysis of the same. Men will no longer mistake impulse for love. Of course this impulse is always present in love, but in the same way in which the sculpture of the cave man is present in the work of Michael Angelo. Man will then, with all the powers of his being, be able to love, when love, according to the happy expression of Thoreau, is not a glow, but a light. Then he will see for the first time, what wealth life can have through love, when love becomes a happiness worthy of man because it becomes an æsthetic creation, a religious worship; when the completed unity of those who love is expressed in a new being,--a being that will some day be really grateful for the life it has received. Where the amelioration of the human race is concerned, the transformation of customs and feelings is always the essential thing. Influence of legislation in comparison with it is ever slight. But as has been said before, legislation has its role to play. Especially where there are diseases which can certainly be transmitted, society must interfere to restrict marriage. In Germany and America a good proposal has been made, for the period of transition in this direction. It is suggested that the law shall require as an obligatory condition for marriage, a certificate of a medical witness with complete data as to the health of both parties. Those who contract marriage will continue to have their freedom of choice but at least they would not enter ignorantly upon marriage as they do now, and expose themselves and their children to disastrous consequences. It appears to me to be at least as important for society to have a medical certificate as to capacity for marriage, as it is for military service. In the one case, we deal with giving life, in the other with taking it away. And although the latter has certainly been, up till now, regarded as a more serious occasion than the former, still an awakening social conscience should demand progress in this direction. It is conceivable that from this beginning new customs will develop; further legislation may be dispensed with; human beings will agree to sacrifice the most dangerous of all liberties, giving life to a defective offspring, while prohibition of marriage now would not hinder parenthood. For the great mass might continue, outside of marriage, to rob children of the possibilities of health and happiness, by burdening them with inherited diseases or bad tendencies. Nietzsche, who knew little of love because he knew nothing of woman, and who therefore on this subject says little worthy of attention, has still spoken more profoundly on the subject of parenthood than any contemporary writer. He saw what impurity, what poverty are concealed under the name of marriage. He saw how meretricious, how ignorant education is. In his writings are to be found prophetical and poetical words describing the end aimed at in parenthood, and showing what true parenthood should be. I will that thy victory and thy emancipation shall yearn for a child. Living memorials shalt thou build for thy victory, and for thy emancipation. Thou must build upward to a height beyond thyself. But first I would have thee thyself built with a square foundation, body and soul. See that through thee the race progresses, not continues only. Let a true marriage help thee to this end. A more exalted being must thou create, a being gifted with initiative like a wheel that turns itself. A creative principle shouldst thou create. Marriage: I call marriage the will shared by two, to create the one,--the one that is in itself more than its creators. Reverence for one another, I call marriage; such reverence as is meet for those whose wills are united in this one act of will. CHAPTER II THE UNBORN RACE AND WOMAN'S WORK There are few factors in the life of the present in which the dualism between theory and practice is greater and more unconscious than in questions concerning woman. The protagonists of the feminist movement are in many cases sturdily Christian. They protest with vigour against the idea that they could have any share in the sort of emancipation of personality that includes freedom for all the powers and activities of the personality. Individualism, and the assertion of self are for them degrading words with a sinful significance. That the emancipation of women is practically the greatest egoistic movement of the nineteenth century, and the most intense affirmation of the right of the self that history has yet seen, they have no suspicion. Freedom for the powers and the personality of woman have never appeared to them except as an ideal struggle for justice, as a noble victory to be won. In its deepest meaning this is as true of every other effort at self-affirmation, the end of which is the recognition of the right of human personality to the full development of capacities in a sphere of freedom, where responsibility belongs to the self alone. But just as every other such affirmation of the individual self, of a class, of a race, easily falls into an unjustifiable egoism, so with the emancipation of woman. This great, deep, serious movement for woman's emancipation has in the course of time received a new name, the "Woman Question." The change in terminology signifies a change in the attitude of thought. From a real emancipation movement, that is, a movement to free the restricted powers of woman and her restricted personality, the movement has become a question, a social institution with officers, a church system with dogmas. Certainly we still hear in books and speeches that the woman question is being discussed and urged, in its relation to the happiness and development of the whole of humanity. But in reality the woman question, since it became a fact, a cause with an end of its own, since its champions have lost more and more their appreciation of its connection with other great questions of the day, is tending to increase the civil rights and the fields of woman's labour. In both cases people really have the women of the upper classes in view. This has been the end, and it is thoroughly justified and justifiable. But, in striving for this end, those who are aiming at it have come more and more into opposition to the first and highest of all rights, the rights of the individual woman to think her own thoughts, to go her own ways, even when these thoughts and these ways follow other courses than those of the advocates of woman's rights. While this group is, on one hand, very far from conceding to the individual woman the freedom which belongs to her, it is, on the other hand, blind to the results of the self-assertion of the whole female sex. In taking up work more and more external in character, they are blind to the profound and revolutionary effects of this movement, on the conditions of labour in the present day, on the existence of man and the family, on society as a whole. Doing away with an unjust paragraph in a law which concerns woman, turning a hundred women into a field of work where only ten were occupied before, giving one woman work where formerly not one was employed,--these are the mile-stones in the line of progress of the woman's rights movement. It is a line pursued without consideration of feminine capacities, nature, and environment. The exclamation of a woman's rights champion when another woman had become a butcher, "Go thou and do likewise," and an American young lady working as an executioner, are, in this connection, characteristic phenomena. The emancipation of woman has practically ceased to be the freedom which enlarges soul and heart. It is conducted quite officially, like a business, and dogmatically, too, without feeling for the pulsating manifoldness of life, and has become an egoistic self-concentrated campaign. On this account I, and many others of my generation, with many more of the younger generation, stand outside of the movement, although we actively wished, and still wish, for the freedom of woman. The champions of woman's rights, like the champions of other movements for rights, illustrate the truth of the old Swedish saying, that "what we are pursuing is really only a runaway horse attached to our waggon." How blindly the fanatics of woman's rights have rushed by the other needs of the time can be best measured by considering their attitude towards the greatest question of the day--I mean the social question. The old advocates of woman's rights maintain that the adult woman must have the same right as the adult man to "protect" herself, and they ask why the woman is hindered from working because she is married, or because she has children. Protective legislation drives woman from the factories and workshops; and this legislation is very far, they tell us, from meriting the support of women. Women, on the contrary, they say, should demand the same protective legislation for women as for men. They ask for technical instruction and an extended field of work for women. This whole argument is quite logical from the point of view that limitation of woman's labour is opposed to one of the foremost principles of our time,--the self-determination of the individual. This implies the right of the adult woman, as well as the adult man, to choose her own work. Privileges on the ground of sex only hinder the woman from being put on an equality with man before the law. But all these arguments are based on the sophistical notion which perverts the whole feminist movement. The idea is to free woman from the limitations of nature. It involves, too, the other sophistical notion with which capitalistic society meets every demand of protective legislation for men, women, or children. Such legislation is said to be an interference with the individual's right of choice. Every human being who is socially alive is aware that this right to control one's life is the emptiest phrase to describe reality in a society built up on a capitalistic basis. It is doubly empty where woman is concerned. I have never heard a woman desire that woman should fulfil military duties as an equivalent for having civil rights like man. But this would be the consequence of the argument that woman should have no privileges on the ground of her sex. The greatest privilege that can be thought of in modern society is to be spared the discomforts and loss of time that come from military training, to be exempt from the dangers and the terrors of war. That women are not absolutely incapable of service in warfare, women have shown on many occasions, especially in the Boer War. So when the advocates of women's rights hesitate before this extreme consequence of their principle, and introduce the functions of motherhood as a cogent ground for the privilege of being freed from military service in time of war (even if women at some time should receive the same civil rights now enjoyed by man), they are in the highest degree illogical. Other women with more logic declare that on another battle-field, a still more destructive one, that of the factory system, the same maternal functions require certain privileges for woman, and these same functions must result in subjecting her to certain limitations of her individual right to control her life. That is, she cannot pass beyond the limits drawn by nature, without interfering with the rights of another, the potential child. It lies in the individual sphere of woman's choice as of man's choice not to choose marriage, or to desire it without parenthood; and for exemption from the latter, real altruistic as well as real egoistic reasons can be urged. It lies in the individual choice of the woman, as well as of the man, to isolate herself from what may be regarded as an obstacle to her individual development, or to her freedom of movement. She can do without love or motherhood, if the one or both of these are regarded from this point of view. Woman has the full right to allow herself to be turned into a third sex, the sex of the working bees, or the sexless ant, provided she finds in this her highest happiness. A good while ago I was ingenuous enough to maintain that motherhood was the central factor of existence for most women. In the discussion of this question I considered several facts: woman's work imposed by necessity, woman's ambition stimulated by the freedom of her power, woman's intellectual life modified by many other influences of contemporary thought,--all these have forced the maternal instinct into the background for the time being. Here was a danger which, it seemed, was not too late to expose. There are women in whom the feeling of love is really and absolutely stunted; there are others who do not find in modern man the soulful and profound harmony in love that they quite rightly demand; there are others, more numerous, who wish for love but do not wish for motherhood. They absolutely fear it. The famous German authoress Gabrielle Reuter has spoken of this fear, this alarm of motherhood continually vigilant, active, placing woman in an attitude of self-defence,--a fear which to-day has taken possession of so many strenuous and creative women. The alarm, the aversion, becomes so strong, so dominant in them that one might almost believe it a dark perverse instinct, which, like all unnatural instincts, has been conceived and born through cruel necessities, and through these necessities has become overmastering. It is as if a secret voice in the depths of their nature was telling these women that, by paying their tribute to their sex, they would lose that power, brilliancy, and sharpness of intellect by which they have elevated themselves above their sex; and perhaps certain kinds of women are right in having this fear. I am convinced, just as the German writer is, that every actual phenomenon of disease and of health alike is a necessary result from given causes; and I am more convinced than the advocates of women's rights ever were, that it is in the sphere of human freedom to choose one's own type of development, happiness, or ruin. I am not inclined to say anything further to the women who do not desire motherhood. It would be very disastrous if these women, who have never been moved by tenderness when they felt a soft childish hand in their own, who have never longed to surrender themselves entirely to another being, were to become mothers. Their children would be more unfortunate than they themselves. Many women like these are to be found to-day, and if things remain as they are, they are bound to increase in numbers. In some of them, however, the maternal instinct is not dead, but only dormant. Modern women with their capacity for psychic analysis, with their physical and psychical refinement, are often repelled by the crudeness, the ignorance, or the importunities of man's nature. The whole factor of love in the being of these women is shrivelled up as a bud that has never blossomed, and in enthusiasm for a duty, or for a woman friend, they find an expression for that sacrifice whose real aim they deny or overlook, a something which ends often by avenging itself in a tragic way. I am simply insisting that every woman, who has not yet ceased to desire motherhood, has duties as a girl, and still more as a woman, to the unborn generation from which she cannot free herself without absolute selfishness. This selfishness is often disguised under a great impulse, an impulse which, like that of the preservation of the species, masters existence. I mean the impulse of self-protection. But it is just this that should make the "obligatory" egoism of the modern working woman appear so terrible to those who are busied with the emancipation of woman. To talk of the freedom of woman, of her individual right to control her actions, when she works like a beast of burden to reach a minimum of existence, to keep from dying of starvation, to talk of the freedom of women where conditions are such that the free choice of work, for man as well as for woman, is an empty phrase--to put it mildly, it is senseless. I will throw some light on the results of freedom by the following illustration: When women in England worked in white lead factories, seventy-seven women were examined in one factory. It appeared in the time covered by the investigation that there were among this number ninety miscarriages, twenty-seven cases of still-born children; beside, forty young children died of convulsions produced by the poisoning of their mothers. The effects of this occupation were most harmful in the case of women from eighteen to twenty-three years of age. Lameness, blindness, and other infirmities resulted from this kind of work. An English doctor has shown from exact investigations conducted during a number of years, that the enormous mortality among young children in factory districts arises chiefly because the child is deprived of a mother's care a few weeks after birth. A child needs its mother's milk at least six months, and the mother's milk cannot be substituted by artificial means, least of all when the substitutes are used with carelessness. In certain textile factory districts, in Nottingham, for example, where lace is produced, and where people have complained of the law limiting women's work, out of each thousand children, two hundred die annually. Mortality in factory districts is four to five times greater than in country districts; and yet the death of children is, relatively speaking, a lesser evil. More unfortunate still is it that those who survive always suffer partial weakness from the lack of a mother's care at a tender age. In Silesia, where children and quite young girls are employed in the glass industry, the work has so distorted their bodily structure that when they bear children, their sufferings are intense. Such unique material do they offer for the study of obstetrics, that doctors make pilgrimages to Silesia to learn from their cases. Before women have reached maturity, when they can, according to the advocates of women's rights, protect themselves, they are ruined physically. If it is said that the facts mentioned above belong to the question of the protection of children, not to that of the protection of women, the answer lies close at hand. The physical and moral interest of children and of women are so mutually related, that they cannot be separated. Crippled women have children who are stunted at the time of their birth. The burden of toil they take up with weakened power of resistance and they transmit this weakness to their offspring. Cause and effect are so intimately associated here, that they cannot be accurately apportioned between the work of women and the work of children. Even the advocates of women's rights must, allow that the limit of their claims to right is to be found where the right of another begins. They cannot suppose that the individual right of the woman to control her life should go so far that a woman could take a piece of a neighbour's property to lay out a garden, or use for an industrial scheme a part of the water power belonging to some one else. Can they not see that woman's individual freedom is limited by the rights of another, by the rights of the potential child? The potential child has its own proper rights, its own vital power. This property, the woman has not the right to encroach upon in advance. A woman, who from one motive or another, great or small, permanently keeps outside of the marriage relation, has complete right to ruin herself by work, provided she does not, as a result of so doing, become a burden to others through incapacity. But the woman who looks forward to motherhood as a possibility for herself, or the woman who is expecting to become a mother, should not, through an unlimited amount of voluntary work or of work forced upon her contrary to her will, sacrifice the capacities for life and work of an unborn generation, in such a way that she will bring into the world weak, invalid, or physically incapable children, who will later on be neglected. It does not occur to the dogmatic advocates of women's rights that their talk about the individual freedom of the woman to control her career, their contention that no limitation need restrict woman's power of deciding her own vocation, because they are married or are mothers, mean the most crying injury, not only to children, but to women themselves. For the demand of equality, where nature has made inequality, brings about the injury of the weaker factor. Equality is not justice. Often it is just the opposite, the most absolute injustice. The strongest reasoning will not convince those advocates of women's rights who discuss woman's labour from the old-fashioned level of individualism, unaffected by the social feeling of solidarity, which is the solution offered by our age. But fortunately protective legislation does not depend on the women who advocate the rights of women. The workingmen's movement, aided by women and men of all classes who are active in it, will carry through this legislation. The movement for the normal working day is steadily gaining ground. Experience has shown that, because of the greater intensity of the work done, just as much can be accomplished in a shorter as in a longer time. The first concern has been the work of children and of younger adults. The effect of factory life on the health of women themselves, as well as on their children, has excited general attention. In England first, then in other European countries, it has become recognised as necessary that a normal period of work should be laid down for women as well. The programme was and continues to be threefold:--a maximum working time for women's work; limitation, or, better still, the cessation of night work on the part of women; the prevention, too, of the work of women in mines and in certain other industries dangerous to health; finally the protection of women who are about to become mothers. In most European countries there is now a maximum working time fixed at eight to eleven hours. Night work, work in mines, and extra work, is either forbidden or considerably limited, and a rest period of three to eight weeks is established for women at childbirth. From all points of view, an eight-hour working day should be the highest limit for woman's work. There are more reasons for it in her case than for man's work. The eight-hour day means not only for the woman as for the man the possibility of enjoying her life in permanent health; it secures time for improving recreation. For the married woman it is an indispensable requirement. Without it her home cannot be kept in order and comfort, her children cannot be physically cared for; without it she is not able to co-operate in their education. The normal working day is, therefore, more necessary for the woman than for the man, because on her, rather than on him, comes the burden of household work. The dangers of night work, as of work in mines, are from the standpoint of health and morality so plain, that no further reason need be urged to defend protective legislation in this case. But not only the theoretical principles of women's rights are urged against this legislation. Socialists as well as the advocates of women's rights are responsible for different objections of a more solid character. It is urged that legislation will increase the number of unemployed women who, in order to live, will be forced into prostitution, but it is forgotten that the same result comes from low wages in many occupations, and that these low wages are caused by an over-supply of working women. It is said, also, that if protective legislation hinders or prevents women from working, they will not be able to care for their children and the children will be employed in the factory in their stead. The way out of the last difficulty is absolutely plain: the complete prohibition of all work by children under fifteen years of age. It is urged also that if women are hindered by legislation from fulfilling the demands of their occupation, the result will be, not that they are protected in their occupation, but that the occupation is protected against them. The remedy in this case is certainly difficult, but not impossible to find. Let only the tenth part of the energy now used in agitation for the free right of women to labour be employed in preparing women for such labour as they are suited to undertake. But even when this cannot be done protective legislation carries with it its own corrective. It is always urged that the occupation will be destroyed by protective legislation. Then new methods and new machines will be invented to replace cheap labour power. Those who are protected often themselves complain that they suffer economically under protective legislation, but a long experience will show them how, through the reciprocal effects of all factors in production, the temporary failures will be balanced. A potent remedy for this effect of protective legislation may be looked for in the assertion, found in the programmes of all labour parties, of the right of the unemployed to have work, and a fixed minimum wage. These demands along with that for a normal working day, in which is included rest at night and rest on Sunday, and other measures for the protection of workingmen against accident and old age, are the chief methods by which the labour question, both for men and women, will be solved. Until these aims are realised Ruskin's judgment on modern industrialism which kills the real humanity in man holds good both for men and for women. We make, he says, everything except real men; we bleach cotton; we harden and improve steel; we refine sugar; we make porcelain and print books; but to refine a single living soul, to reform it, to improve it never enters into our reckoning of profit. The women of the working classes must continue to endure the suffering, to bear the dangers, to subject themselves to the forces which solidarity in this great struggle implies. Only under these conditions can men as well as women elevate themselves, partly by their own combination, partly by the extension of the principle, more and more coming to be recognised, that society, through its legislation, can determine the conditions under which its members work. So will be produced conditions of life and of work worthy of mankind,--a healthier, stronger, and more beautiful race. In this ever continuing progress every part is related to every other part. Unorganised, ordinary and therefore badly paid work, done by woman, diminishes the wages of man and his opportunity of work. Work in a factory unfits the woman for the conduct of the household, for her duties as a mother. In the turmoil, heat, and rush of the factory her nerves are destroyed and with them her finer emotions. The woman loses not only the right hand, but also the right heart for family life. Badly conditioned women make marriage more difficult for the man; through celibacy, his mortality is increased. Low wages, or times of lack of employment, cause bad dwellings, bad clothes, and bad nourishment. The tortured or ill-conditioned woman is not able to prepare anything good with the small amount of money which the man may earn. From all of this come intemperance and disease. Through these causes, combined with those already noted, the population of factory districts degenerates, in republican Switzerland, not less than in absolutistic Russia. It is true that such limitations of work in many cases are felt, as well by the single woman as by the family. The restriction of child labour may bring immediate discomfort. But all this is a passing evil. It can be corrected, as soon as it is clearly seen in what direction the advance along all the line is being made. This kind of progress moves in zigzag fashion. What decides whether temporary limitation of freedom makes for progress or not is whether one finds, in turning from the individual, or small groups, to the great whole, that the last is gaining, that in the future, freedom and happiness for all will be increased by this temporary limitation of freedom. In other relations of life it is a just law that he who goes into a game must abide by its rules. But this rule cannot be applied to that very cruel game which we call life. We do not go into it of our own will. Children have the right not to be obliged to suffer for the mistakes and errors of their parents. How this suffering can be best avoided in case of an inharmonious marriage must be decided by the different individuals, as a question belonging to them alone. As I have already shown, change of custom in relation to the time, age, and motives for marriage is the surest protection for the children, a protection that will gradually be extended. Under a serious conviction of woman's duty as a member of her sex, it will be regarded as a crime for a young wife voluntarily to ill-treat her person, either by excessive study, or excessive attention to sports, by tight-lacing, or consumption of sweets, by smoking or the use of stimulants, by sitting up at night, excessive work, or by all the thousand other ways by which these attractive simpletons sin against nature, until nature finally loses all patience with them. It must be demanded of the laws of society that they hinder involuntary crimes of unprotected women against their feminine nature. This is the great work of woman's emancipation; everything else compared with it is non-essential. Through their failure to see this the present representatives of women's rights are working against progress, though they themselves apply the word reactionary to all who assert that the only way by which the woman question as a whole can be solved is through the social revolution. In this revolution protective legislation is an important factor. According to my method of thinking, and that of many others, not woman but the mother is the most precious possession of the nation, so precious that society advances its own highest well-being when it protects the functions of the mother. These functions are not limited to birth nor to the nourishment of the child; but they go on during the whole time of its training. I believe that in the new society where all women and men alike will be compelled to work (not children, not invalids, and not the aged) people will regard the maternal function as so important for the whole social order, that every mother under fixed conditions, subject to certain control, during a certain period, and for a certain number of children, will obtain from society an allowance for education. She will receive this during the time in which her children require all her care, while she herself is freed from work outside the home. Naturally this does not exclude the case of mothers who from one or another reason cannot devote themselves to the care and training of their children; they can by their own productive work secure a substitute. But for the majority of women, the proposal made above would undoubtedly be the real solution of many problems which now seem insoluble. I do not believe that social development will maintain the old ideal of the father as the one who takes care of the family. I hope, rather, that the new conception of having every individual look after himself will gain more ground. The father will then be, in the real sense of the word, the educator, when the care for the maintenance of the family does not press him down to the ground. A woman will then, as mother of the family, not be in dependence on the man,--a position she feels as humiliating, if as a girl she earned her own living. People are bound to return to this new form of matriarchy, when they begin to consider care of the new generation, as the great business the mother takes over for society. During its progress society must guarantee her existence. In many cases, the answer of the married woman who works outside the home would be as follows: That her happiness would consist in quietly looking after her children, and in being able to keep house, but that she must have an income that would make her independent of her husband. A Swedish evening paper, the special organ of the feminist movement, two years ago started an investigation on the productive work of married women. The answers, contrary to the expectations of the paper, were nearly unanimous in showing what dangers for children, and what interference with household comfort, were caused by the woman working outside the home. An impartial investigation of the causes of the increasing brutality of the young would show certainly that the rapid increase in crime in several countries among the young is caused partly by their prematurely taking up productive work, and partly by early lack of home life, the result of the mother working outside the home. If the world is agreed that children must still continue to be born and that a home furnishes generally the best means for training them during the first years of their life, the present consequences of woman's work done outside the home must cause pessimism; such work must be stopped. After we have thought over the matter, it is plain that nothing is now more needed than such plans of social order, such programmes of education, as will give the mother back to her children and to her home. Everything that philanthropy now does to heal the injurious and disintegrating effects of the capitalistic industrial system is on the whole wasted power. Children's crèches, kindergartens, providing meals for children, hospitals, vacation homes, cannot with all their noble efforts replace a hundredth part of the life energy, taken directly or indirectly from the new generation by women working outside the home. There are some people who expect the problem of domestic life to be solved by collective institutions which will take care of the children, and give them meals. Just as brewing, baking, slaughtering, making candles and clothes, have more and more ceased to be done in the home, much of the work which now absorbs the greatest part of household activity, cooking, washing, mending and cleaning clothes, will, I firmly believe, finally be done by collective effort, by the help of electricity and machines. But I hope the tendency of man towards individualisation will overcome the tendency towards impersonal, uniform application of power _en masse_, in everything by which the innermost relations of life and private habits are deeply affected. A strong family life will, I hope, be regarded as the basis for true happiness and for the development of personality. When women are free from the barbarous relics of present methods of housekeeping,--the market basket, the kitchen utensils, the scrubbing brush gone from every house, electricity everywhere spreading warmth and life,--they will still be forced to do a certain amount of work. This cannot be avoided even by the help of the most perfect apparatus and by co-operative methods, provided the house is not to be replaced by the barrack. And since the custom of keeping servants will soon cease because, probably, there will be no servants to keep, all women will be forced to do housework, or find the remedy already discovered in America where bureaus supply domestic help for a fixed time for a fixed price. In London, too, there is at present a guild for general houseworkers who are trained for occupation and work under regularly established conditions. In the country, not only wives but daughters will be needed for agricultural labour, when there are no more hired labourers to be had. This will be a natural corrective against that pressure towards outside fields of labour, that has taken the daughters in multitudes away from home, and has crowded and overflowed the cities with them. Finally if we weigh the economic loss occasioned by the fact that women after five or ten years' preparation have to give up work or study as a result of marriage, it is easy to see that the modern work of women has had results which must soon lead to earnest thought, in balancing up the accounts for or against the system. From the point of view of the woman herself, from the children's point of view, from the man's point of view, and finally, from the productive point of view, it has become pretty plain that society must either change the conditions of woman's labour or see a progressive disintegration in home life. Society must either transform the conditions of life and work, or it will witness the degeneration of the sexes. All philanthropy--no age has seen more of it than our own--is only a savoury fumigation burning at the mouth of a sewer. This incense offering makes the air more endurable for passers-by, but it does not hinder the infection in the sewer from spreading. Selfishness, the instinct of self-preservation, will perhaps end by forcing the leaders of society to direct their actions from the social point of view. Then the woman question will become a question of humanity; then will its champions perhaps come to see that there can be no enduring good for the woman, if she works under conditions injurious to men and to children. It will be seen that the old axiom can be justly applied to the demands made in the name of woman's individuality; supreme right becomes supreme injustice. Justice is not to be reached by having the woman work under conditions which ruin both her and the whole generation physically. In other respects she must be able to use her free choice, and be educated enough to make good use of it. Justice consists in protecting innumerable women, who are not able as yet to protect themselves, against the abuses of which capital is guilty in employing their labour power. It is an instructive feature in the history of class conflict, and of the movement for women's progress, that as women began by driving men out of certain fields of labour, so now unmarried women try to force married women from the labour market. In America, where everything goes at full speed, an association has been founded among unmarried women with this intention. These and similar phenomena belong to the system of free competition, the creation of the "leading thought of our time, the right of the individual to determine his own vocation." Perhaps when the war of women against women becomes the rule, the women's rights women will see that the problem of woman's work is more complicated than they imagine. They have continued to look at it till now only from the point of view of a woman's right to take care of herself. Perhaps they will then understand that individualism, apart from the feeling of solidarity, leads to social conflict, class against class, sex against sex, unmarried against married, young against old. So it will be seen that only in the transformation of the whole of society can woman attain her full rights without impairing, through her advance, the rights of others. The sooner the women's rights party understands this, the better. Instead of fighting protective legislation, they should advocate it; instead of regarding unions and strikes with disfavour, they should help labouring women to organise unions, and support strikes where strikes are justified. Our century, which has opened up to women new fields of labour, has made life very hard for her by forcing her in the competitive struggle. As wives, as married or unmarried mothers, as divorced women, as widows, women often not only have the burden of their own support to bear, but they have frequently the rôle of guardian of a family, working for an invalid or intemperate husband; for children, or sisters, or aged parents. These women, whether they belong to those who labour with the brain or with the hand, are worn out, partly by earning their own living, partly by household tasks. While the man goes from home to his work, refreshed by rest, the woman often goes already tired out, and she comes back to the house perhaps to work at night. It is as clear as day that by so doing she loses her bodily health and mental equanimity, both needed by her children. It is astonishing how many working women despite all this have enough energy for intellectual effort in reading and thinking. They soon see, women like these, that an occupation is not emancipation. The best that can be said is that it is only a means to emancipation. Those who work with their hands are not the worst off in this respect. Bookkeepers, telephone and telegraph operators, post-office employees, shop girls, waiters in public establishments, and servants in private houses, who must often serve the public standing, and who are often deprived of rest at night and on Sunday, are practically labour's worst slaves. Who can wonder if the possible income obtained by an immoral life is reckoned by the employer, when he secures for his establishment, at low wages, the services of attractive young girls? Small wonder it is that such employees, worried to death in shops, telephone bureaus, post and telegraph offices, should often be driven to hysteria, insanity, and suicide. The advocates of women's rights are not blind to all these incongruities. They ask equal salaries for men and women, and claim, often with justice, and often without, that women's work is too inadequately compensated. But they do not see that they have contributed to the evil by constantly urging women to work in all possible occupations, and that a low rate of wages and an overcrowding of all fields of labour is the result. It is far more necessary to pay attention to these things than to open up new fields of labour to women, if their vital energy is not to be dried up, if they are not to lose their youthful freshness and attractiveness prematurely, and their possibilities for development and happiness as human beings, wives, and mothers. A loss of freedom accomplished gradually, this is, on the whole, the sad result of the so-called emancipation of women in our century, if the subject is looked at broadly, apart from the few thousand women of the upper classes in good paying positions. For several decades, I have felt strongly against the importance given by the advocates of women's rights to the work of women outside of the home, for the reasons I have given above. I have applied to such work the objection formulated by Feuerbach in these words: "Mediocrity always weighs correctly, only its weight is false." Wherever we look, in Europe or America, we find new and injurious results from the new conditions, from the free activity of women's work through the development of industry on a large scale, through the transformation of home work, and the growing conviction on the part of women that "celibacy is the aristocracy of the future," to quote the words of a distinguished supporter of woman's rights. Yet it would be foolish to wish a change in these unhappy results through a reaction that would again rob the woman of her essential freedom in relation to her choice of work, and the control of her life. The line of progress is tending towards a new society, where all will be compelled to work and all will find work; where all will work moderately under healthy conditions for an adequate wage. Then neither the unmarried nor the married woman will lose her strength by exhausting work done to earn a living, or impair the powers she needs for motherhood. If she becomes a mother, in most cases she will really rejoice at the possibility offered to her by society of working for society, as a mother and an educator. We are yet very far from such a society, but every social regulation should, as we have said, be tested as to whether it brings us nearer this ideal or leads us farther away from it. The question should be asked whether the direction of thought is encouraged or restricted, that will in the end transform everything, the conviction I mean that economic production is here in the world for the sake of men, not, as now, men for the sake of production; that work is to be done for the sake of freedom, not, as now, freedom created for the sake of work. When I tried in my book called _The Misuse of the Power of Woman_ to urge women to test the consequences of this process, my thesis was as follows: In our programme of civilisation, we must start out with the conviction that motherhood is something essential to the nature of woman and the way in which she carries out this profession is of value for society. On this basis we must alter the conditions which more and more are robbing woman of the happiness of motherhood and are robbing children of the care of a mother. Or, we must begin with the assumption that motherhood is not essential: then everything must continue to go on as it is going on now, and work directed towards external spheres with its satisfaction in the joy of creation, of ambition, of gain, of enjoyment, of independence, will be more and more the end towards which women will arrange their plan of life. For this end they will modify their fundamental habits and remould their feelings. The naïve belief that every woman, who has the liberty to do so, is following her own nature, shows a complete ignorance of psychology and history. Some ideal considered worth striving for, the prevailing view of a period, will obtain supremacy over nature. This is shown best in the stunted feeling of motherhood peculiar to the eighteenth century, by the plain results of mediæval asceticism. By a new ideal innumerable women are now driven from a life directed inwards to a life directed outwards. I am in favour of real freedom for woman; that is, I wish her to follow her own nature, whether she be an exceptional or an ordinary woman. But the opinion held by the feminine advocates of woman's emancipation, in regard to the nature and the aims of the everyday woman, does violence to the real nature of most women. It is one of the most remarkable manifestations of the times that, while women preach about the rights of woman and her will to work and to act unrestrained by family ties, men like Ibsen, for example, in _When We Dead People Awake_, show that the real Fall of Man in life is transgression of the law of love, meaning that man through this transgression not only diminishes his personality, but lessens his creative capacity. It would appear as though men were approaching the conception of love once held by women, while women were beginning to regard love as a petty episode in life compared with what are really its true concerns, an episode which gives life the colour of a sensual, sentimental, psychological, or sportsmanlike adventure, an episode which she treats as a game which she can get into, and just as easily get out of. From this new position in which extremes meet, suffering, previously undreamed of, must arise. Such results coming to the emancipated woman will I hope reveal to her the eternal laws of her own being, laws from which she cannot be freed without destroying herself. I would not put the slightest hindrance, however, in the way of a single isolated woman pursuing her own path freely, if it leads her even to the most unusual forms of labour and attempts to make a living. But for the sake of women themselves, for the sake of children, for the sake of society, I wish men as well as women to think earnestly over the present position of things. They will see that in the near future, one of two things must be chosen. Either there must be such a transformation of the way in which modern society thinks and works that the majority of women will be restored to motherhood, or the disintegration of the home and the substitution of general institutions will inevitably result. There is no alternative. Undoubtedly it required the whole egoistic self-assertion of woman, all her efforts towards individuality, her temporary separation from home and from family, her independent efforts to make a living to convince man and society of the following truths: that woman is not solely a sexual being, not solely dependent on man, the home and the family, no matter in what form these may exist. Only in this way could woman fulfil her destiny as wife and mother with really free choice. Only in this way could she secure the right of being regarded as man's intellectual equal in the field of the home and the family, the recognition that in her way she was just as complete a being as he. But it is clear that this fragment of feminine egoism must have a further consequence. With the rights of sex the feeling of solidarity must be awakened. The woman must see that her emancipated and developed human personality will lead to this solidarity by the realisation of her especial vocation as woman. Women in parliament and in journalism, their representation in the local and general government, in peace congress and in workingmen's meetings, science and literature, all this will produce small results until women realise that the transformation of society begins with the unborn child, with the conditions for its coming into existence, its physical and psychical training. It must be the general conviction that the new instincts, the new feelings, the new thoughts, the new ideas, which mothers and fathers pass on into the flesh and blood of their children, will transform existence. When, after many successive generations, the new spiritual kingdom of this world has arisen, there will come into being these greater ideas through which life may be renewed. Until that time secular misdeeds, political injustice, economic struggles,--all these socially destructive abuses will go on from generation to generation. Mankind remains the same though its acts may take different shapes. Thinkers will always find new ideas, scholars new methods and systems, artists new æsthetic creations, but on the whole everything must remain the same. Only when woman heeds the message which life proclaims to her, that, through her, salvation must come--will the face of the earth be renewed. Oratorical talk of the high task of mothers and of the great profession of education are empty phrases, until we see that the possibility of humanity and civilisation winning some day the victory over savagery depends on the physiological and psychological transformation of man's nature. This transformation requires an entirely new conception of the vocation of mother, a tremendous effort of will, continuous inspiration. Those who believe they can fulfil their duties as mothers and at the same time can accomplish other valuable work have never made the experiment of education. The long continued habit of alternately caressing and striking one's children is not education. It needs tremendous power to do one's duty to a single child. This by no means signifies giving up to the child every hour of one's time, but it does mean that our soul is to be filled by the child, just as the man of science is possessed by his investigations and the artist by his work. The child should be in one's thoughts when one is sitting at home or walking along the road, when one is lying down or when one is standing up. This devotion, much more than the hours immediately given to one's children, is the absorbing thing; the occupation which makes an earnest mother always go to any external activity with divided soul and dissipated energy. Therefore the mother, if she gives her children the share they need, can devote to social activities only her occasional attention. And for the same reason she should be entirely free from working to earn her living during the most critical years of the children's training. Neither in the upper nor in the lower classes, have I ever heard of any mother forced to do work of this kind or one engaged in artistic productions through the stimulus of her talents, who was able to satisfy her children in the period when they were growing up. Adele Gerhard and Helen Simon under the title of _Motherhood and Intellectual Work_ published a very interesting investigation in which I found my own observations substantiated. The book showed that a mother who wished to train her children and at the same time engage in an occupation, or take part in some public activity, could give to neither her whole personality. The result is a mediocre education for the children and for herself; mediocre work done with a divided soul. This is allowed to be true by all of those really conscientious mothers who have maintained a high aim in their work and in the bringing up of their children. They are dilettantes in both directions; what they do is half done owing to the effort to unite two separate fields of work. From the point of view of women's rights, it is said, in reply to these opinions of mine, that motherhood can be made infinitely easier by a natural method of life, that work can be very well combined with it. It is said that children soon grow out of needing the protection of their mother, that the mothers can then devote themselves entirely to their work. They contend besides that motherhood is no unconditional obligation; that people are fully justified in making different individual arrangements; one woman wishes to become a mother, another not. The one gets married with the hope of becoming a mother; the other with the resolution of avoiding maternity. The third does not marry at all. Attempts to generalise on this matter in which individual freedom has every right to be recognised, they consider reactionary. Full freedom for the woman, married or unmarried, to choose her work and to continue it; full freedom to choose motherhood or to do without it, this they say is the way to free woman, this is the line of progress. Here woman is subject to that economic law which has made it necessary for her to work for her own living. Just as woman's household work has been superseded by factory work, so too, they say, will the maternal obligations of woman be fulfilled collectively, and the difficulties on which the so-called reactionary members of the women's rights movement base their arguments, will in the future only arise in exceptional cases. As regards these arguments, I have already shown that I recognise fully the right of the feminine individual to go her own way, to choose her own fortune or misfortune. I have always spoken of women collectively and of society collectively. From this general, not from the individual standpoint, I am trying to convince women that vengeance is being exacted on the individual, on the race, when woman gradually destroys the deepest vital source of her physical and psychical being, the power of motherhood. But present-day woman is not adapted to motherhood; she will only be fitted for it when she has trained herself for motherhood and man is trained for fatherhood. Then man and woman can begin together to bring up the new generation out of which some day society will be formed. In it, the completed man--the Superman--will be bathed in that sunshine whose distant rays but colour the horizon of to-day. CHAPTER III EDUCATION Goethe showed long ago in his _Werther_ a clear understanding of the significance of individualistic and psychological training, an appreciation which will mark the century of the child. In this work he shows how the future power of will lies hidden in the characteristics of the child, and how along with every fault of the child an uncorrupted germ capable of producing good is enclosed. "Always," he says, "I repeat the golden words of the teacher of mankind, 'if ye do not become as one of these,' and now, good friend, those who are our equals, whom we should look upon as our models, we treat as subjects; they should have no will of their own; do we have none? Where is our prerogative? Does it consist in the fact that we are older and more experienced? Good God of Heaven! Thou seest old and young children, nothing else. And in whom Thou hast more joy, Thy Son announced ages ago. But people believe in Him and do not hear Him--that, too, is an old trouble, and they model their children after themselves." The same criticism might be applied to our present educators, who constantly have on their tongues such words as evolution, individuality, and natural tendencies, but do not heed the new commandments in which they say they believe. They continue to educate as if they believed still in the natural depravity of man, in original sin, which may be bridled, tamed, suppressed, but not changed. The new belief is really equivalent to Goethe's thoughts given above, _i.e._, that almost every fault is but a hard shell enclosing the germ of virtue. Even men of modern times still follow in education the old rule of medicine, that evil must be driven out by evil, instead of the new method, the system of allowing nature quietly and slowly to help itself, taking care only that the surrounding conditions help the work of nature. This is education. Neither harsh nor tender parents suspect the truth expressed by Carlyle when he said that the marks of a noble and original temperament are wild, strong emotions, that must be controlled by a discipline as hard as steel. People either strive to root out passions altogether, or they abstain from teaching the child to get them under control. To suppress the real personality of the child, and to supplant it with another personality continues to be a pedagogical crime common to those who announce loudly that education should only develop the real individual nature of the child. They are still not convinced that egoism on the part of the child is justified. Just as little are they convinced of the possibility that evil can be changed into good. Education must be based on the certainty that faults cannot be atoned for, or blotted out, but must always have their consequences. At the same time, there is the other certainty, that through progressive evolution, by slow adaptation to the conditions of environment they may be transformed. Only when this stage is reached will education begin to be a science and art. We will then give up all belief in the miraculous effects of sudden interference; we shall act in the psychological sphere in accordance with the principle of the indestructibility of matter. We shall never believe that a characteristic of the soul can be destroyed. There are but two possibilities. Either it can be brought into subjection or it can be raised up to a higher plane. Madame de Staël's words show much insight when she says that only the people who can play with children are able to educate them. For success in training children the first condition is to become as a child oneself, but this means no assumed childishness, no condescending baby-talk that the child immediately sees through and deeply abhors. What it does mean is to be as entirely and simply taken up with the child as the child himself is absorbed by his life. It means to treat the child as really one's equal, that is, to show him the same consideration, the same kind confidence one shows to an adult. It means not to influence the child to be what we ourselves desire him to become but to be influenced by the impression of what the child himself is; not to treat the child with deception, or by the exercise of force, but with the seriousness and sincerity proper to his own character. Somewhere Rousseau says that all education has failed in that nature does not fashion parents as educators nor children for the sake of education. What would happen if we finally succeeded in following the directions of nature, and recognised that the great secret of education lies hidden in the maxim, "do not educate"? Not leaving the child in peace is the greatest evil of present-day methods of training children. Education is determined to create a beautiful world externally and internally in which the child can grow. To let him move about freely in this world until he comes into contact with the permanent boundaries of another's right will be the end of the education of the future. Only then will adults really obtain a deep insight into the souls of children, now an almost inaccessible kingdom. For it is a natural instinct of self-preservation which causes the child to bar the educator from his innermost nature. There is the person who asks rude questions; for example, what is the child thinking about? a question which almost invariably is answered with a black or a white lie. The child must protect himself from an educator who would master his thoughts and inclinations, or rudely handle them, who without consideration betrays or makes ridiculous his most sacred feelings, who exposes faults or praises characteristics before strangers, or even uses an open-hearted, confidential confession as an occasion for reproof at another time. The statement that no human being learns to understand another, or at least to be patient with another, is true above all of the intimate relation of child and parent in which, understanding, the deepest characteristic of love, is almost always absent. Parents do not see that during the whole life the need of peace is never greater than in the years of childhood, an inner peace under all external unrest. The child has to enter into relations with his own infinite world, to conquer it, to make it the object of his dreams. But what does he experience? Obstacles, interference, corrections, the whole livelong day. The child is always required to leave something alone, or to do something different, to find something different, or want something different from what he does, or finds, or wants. He is always shunted off in another direction from that towards which his own character is leading him. All of this is caused by our tenderness, vigilance, and zeal, in directing, advising, and helping the small specimen of humanity to become a complete example in a model series. I have heard a three-year-old child characterised as "trying" because he wanted to go into the woods, whereas the nursemaid wished to drag him into the city. Another child of six years was disciplined because she had been naughty to a playmate and had called her a little pig,--a natural appellation for one who was always dirty. These are typical examples of how the sound instincts of the child are dulled. It was a spontaneous utterance of the childish heart when a small boy, after an account of the heaven of good children, asked his mother whether she did not believe that, after he had been good a whole week in heaven, he might be allowed to go to hell on Saturday evening to play with the bad little boys there. The child felt in its innermost consciousness that he had a right to be naughty, a fundamental right which is accorded to adults; and not only to be naughty, but to be naughty in peace, to be left to the dangers and joys of naughtiness. To call forth from this "unvirtue" the complimentary virtue is to overcome evil with good. Otherwise we overcome natural strength by weak means and obtain artificial virtues which will not stand the tests which life imposes. It seems simple enough when we say that we must overcome evil with good, but practically no process is more involved, or more tedious, than to find actual means to accomplish this end. It is much easier to say what one shall not do than what one must do to change self-will into strength of character, slyness into prudence, the desire to please into amiability, restlessness into personal initiative. It can only be brought about by recognising that evil, in so far as it is not atavistic or perverse, is as natural and indispensable as the good, and that it becomes a permanent evil only through its one-sided supremacy. The educator wants the child to be finished at once, and perfect. He forces upon the child an unnatural degree of self-mastery, a devotion to duty, a sense of honour, habits that adults get out of with astonishing rapidity. Where the faults of children are concerned, at home and in school, we strain at gnats, while children daily are obliged to swallow the camels of grown people. The art of natural education consists in ignoring the faults of children nine times out of ten, in avoiding immediate interference, which is usually a mistake, and devoting one's whole vigilance to the control of the environment in which the child is growing up, to watching the education which is allowed to go on by itself. But educators who, day in and day out, are consciously transforming the environment and themselves are still a rare product. Most people live on the capital and interest of an education, which perhaps once made them model children, but has deprived them of the desire for educating themselves. Only by keeping oneself in constant process of growth, under the constant influence of the best things in one's own age, does one become a companion half-way good enough for one's children. To bring up a child means carrying one's soul in one's hand, setting one's feet on a narrow path; it means never placing ourselves in danger of meeting the cold look on the part of the child that tells us without words that he finds us insufficient and unreliable. It means the humble realisation of the truth that the ways of injuring the child are infinite, while the ways of being useful to him are few. How seldom does the educator remember that the child, even at four or five years of age, is making experiments with adults, seeing through them, with marvellous shrewdness making his own valuations and reacting sensitively to each impression. The slightest mistrust, the smallest unkindness, the least act of injustice or contemptuous ridicule, leave wounds that last for life in the finely strung soul of the child. While on the other side unexpected friendliness, kind advances, just indignation, make quite as deep an impression on those senses which people term as soft as wax but treat as if they were made of cowhide. Relatively most excellent was the old education which consisted solely in keeping oneself whole, pure, and honourable. For it did not at least depreciate personality, although it did not form it. It would be well if but a hundredth part of the pains now taken by parents were given to interference with the life of the child and the rest of the ninety and nine employed in leading, without interference, in acting as an unforeseen, an invisible providence through which the child obtains experience, from which he may draw his own conclusions. The present practice is to impress one's own discoveries, opinions, and principles on the child by constantly directing his actions. The last thing to be realised by the educator is that he really has before him an entirely new soul, a real self whose first and chief right is to think over the things with which he comes in contact. By a new soul he understands only a new generation of an old humanity to be treated with a fresh dose of the old remedy. We teach the new souls not to steal, not to lie, to save their clothes, to learn their lessons, to economise their money, to obey commands, not to contradict older people, say their prayers, to fight occasionally in order to be strong. But who teaches the new souls to choose for themselves the path they must tread? Who thinks that the desire for this path of their own can be so profound that a hard or even mild pressure towards uniformity can make the whole of childhood a torment. The child comes into life with the inheritance of the preceding members of the race; and this inheritance is modified by adaptation to the environment. But the child shows also individual variations from the type of the species, and if his own character is not to disappear during the process of adaptation, all self-determined development of energy must be aided in every way and only indirectly influenced by the teacher, who should understand how to combine and emphasise the results of this development. Interference on the part of the educator, whether by force or persuasion, weakens this development if it does not destroy it altogether. The habits of the household, and the child's habits in it must be absolutely fixed if they are to be of any value. Amiel truly says that habits are principles which have become instincts, and have passed over into flesh and blood. To change habits, he continues, means to attack life in its very essence, for life is only a web of habits. Why does everything remain essentially the same from generation to generation? Why do highly civilised Christian people continue to plunder one another and call it exchange, to murder one another _en masse_, and call it nationalism, to oppress one another and call it statesmanship? Because in every new generation the impulses supposed to have been rooted out by discipline in the child, break forth again, when the struggle for existence--of the individual in society, of the society in the life of the state--begins. These passions are not transformed by the prevalent education of the day, but only repressed. Practically this is the reason why not a single savage passion has been overcome in humanity. Perhaps man-eating may be mentioned as an exception. But what is told of European ship companies or Siberian prisoners shows that even this impulse, under conditions favourable to it, may be revived, although in the majority of people a deep physical antipathy to man-eating is innate. Conscious incest, despite similar deviations, must also be physically contrary to the majority, and in a number of women, modesty--the unity between body and soul in relation to love--is an incontestable provision of nature. So too a minority would find it physically impossible to murder or steal. With this list I have exhausted everything which mankind, since its conscious history began, has really so intimately acquired that the achievement is passed on in its flesh and blood. Only this kind of conquest can really stand up against temptation in every form. A deep physiological truth is hidden in the use of language when one speaks of unchained passions; the passions, under the prevailing system of education, are really only beasts of prey imprisoned in cages. While fine words are spoken about individual development, children are treated as if their personality had no purpose of its own, as if they were made only for the pleasure, pride, and comfort of their parents; and as these aims are best advanced when children become like every one else, people usually begin by attempting to make them respectable and useful members of society. But the only correct starting point, so far as a child's education in becoming a social human being is concerned, is to treat him as such, while strengthening his natural disposition to become an individual human being. The new educator will, by regularly ordered experience, teach the child by degrees his place in the great orderly system of existence; teach him his responsibility towards his environment. But in other respects, none of the individual characteristics of the child expressive of his life will be suppressed, so long as they do not injure the child himself, or others. The right balance must be kept between Spencer's definition of life as an adaptation to surrounding conditions, and Nietzsche's definition of it as the will to secure power. In adaptation, imitation certainly plays a great rôle, but individual exercise of power is just as important. Through adaptation life attains a fixed form; through exercise of power, new factors. Thoughtful people, as I have already stated, talk a good deal about personality. But they are, nevertheless, filled with doubts when their children are not just like all other children; when they cannot show in their offspring all the ready-made virtues required by society. And so they drill their children, repressing in childhood the natural instincts which will have freedom when they are grown. People still hardly realise how new human beings are formed; therefore the old types constantly repeat themselves in the same circle,--the fine young men, the sweet girls, the respectable officials, and so on. And new types with higher ideals,--travellers on unknown paths, thinkers of yet unthought thoughts, people capable of the crime of inaugurating new ways,--such types rarely come into existence among those who are well brought up. Nature herself, it is true, repeats the main types constantly. But she also constantly makes small deviations. In this way different species, even of the human race, have come into existence. But man himself does not yet see the significance of this natural law in his own higher development. He wants the feelings, thoughts, and judgments already stamped with approval to be reproduced by each new generation. So we get no new individuals, but only more or less prudent, stupid, amiable, or bad-tempered examples of the genus man. The still living instincts of the ape, double, in the case of man, the effect of heredity. Conservatism is for the present stronger in mankind than the effort to produce new types. But this last characteristic is the most valuable. The educator should do anything but advise the child to do what everybody does. He should rather rejoice when he sees in the child tendencies to deviation. Using other people's opinion as a standard results in subordinating one's self to their will. So we become a part of the great mass, led by the Superman through the strength of his will, a will which could not have mastered strong personalities. It has been justly remarked that individual peoples, like the English, have attained the greatest political and social freedom, because the personal feeling of independence is far in excess of freedom in a legal form. Accordingly legal freedom has been constantly growing. For the progress of the whole of the species, as well as of society, it is essential that education shall awake the feeling of independence; it should invigorate and favour the disposition to deviate from the type in those cases where the rights of others are not affected, or where deviation is not simply the result of the desire to draw attention to oneself. The child should be given the chance to declare conscientiously his independence of a customary usage, of an ordinary feeling, for this is the foundation of the education of an individual, as well as the basis of a collective conscience, which is the only kind of conscience men now have. What does having an individual conscience mean? It means submitting voluntarily to an external law, attested and found good by my own conscience. It means unconditionally heeding the unwritten law, which I lay upon myself, and following this inner law even when I must stand alone against the whole world. It is a frequent phenomenon, we can almost call it a regular one, that it is original natures, particularly talented beings, who are badly treated at home and in school. No one considers the sources of conduct in a child who shows fear or makes a noise, or who is absorbed in himself, or who has an impetuous nature. Mothers and teachers show in this their pitiable incapacity for the most elementary part in the art of education, that is, to be able to see with their own eyes, not with pedagogical doctrines in their head. I naturally expect in the supporters of society, with their conventional morality, no appreciation of the significance of the child's putting into exercise his own powers. Just as little is this to be expected of those Christian believers who think that human nature must be brought to repentance and humility, and that the sinful body, the unclean beast, must be tamed with the rod,--a theory which the Bible is brought to support. I am only addressing people who can think new thoughts and consequently should cease using old methods of education. This class may reply that the new ideas in education cannot be carried out. But the obstacle is simply that their new thoughts have not made them into new men; the old man in them has neither repose, nor time, nor patience, to form his own soul, and that of the child, according to the new thoughts. Those who have "tried Spencer and failed," because Spencer's method demands intelligence and patience, contend that the child must be taught to obey, that truth lies in the old rule, "As the twig is bent the tree is inclined." _Bent_ is the appropriate word, bent according to the old ideal which extinguishes personality, teaches humility and obedience. But the new ideal is that man, to stand straight and upright, must not be bent at all, only supported, and so prevented from being deformed by weakness. One often finds, in the modern system of training, the crude desire for mastery still alive and breaking out when the child is obstinate. "You won't!" say father and mother; "I will teach you whether you have a will. I will soon drive self-will out of you." But nothing can be driven out of the child; on the other hand, much can be scourged into it which should be kept far away. Only during the first few years of life is a kind of drill necessary, as a pre-condition to a higher training. The child is then in such a high degree controlled by sensation, that a slight physical pain or pleasure is often the only language he fully understands. Consequently for some children discipline is an indispensable means of enforcing the practice of certain habits. For other children, the stricter methods are entirely unnecessary even at this early age, and as soon as the child can remember a blow, he is too old to receive one. The child must certainly learn obedience, and, besides, this obedience must be absolute. If such obedience has become habitual from the tenderest age, a look, a word, an intonation is enough to keep the child straight. The dissatisfaction of those who are bringing him up can only be made effective when it falls as a shadow in the usual sunny atmosphere of home. And if people refrain from laying the foundations of obedience while the child is small, and his naughtiness is entertaining, Spencer's method undoubtedly will be found unsuitable after the child is older and his caprice disagreeable. With a very small child, one should not argue, but act consistently and immediately. The effort of training should be directed at an early period to arrange the experiences in a consistent whole of impressions according to Rousseau and Spencer's recommendation. So certain habits will become impressed in the flesh and blood of the child. Constant crying on the part of small children must be corrected when it has become clear that the crying is not caused by illness or some other discomfort,--discomforts against which crying is the child's only weapon. Crying is now ordinarily corrected by blows. But this does not master the will of the child, and only produces in his soul the idea that older people strike small children, when small children cry. This is not an ethical idea. But when the crying child is immediately isolated, and it is explained to him at the same time that whoever annoys others must not be with them; if this isolation is the absolute result, and cannot be avoided, in the child's mind a basis is laid for the experience that one must be alone when one makes oneself unpleasant or disagreeable. In both cases the child is silenced by interfering with his comfort; but one type of discomfort is the exercise of force on his will; the other produces slowly the self-mastery of the will, and accomplishes this by a good motive. One method encourages a base emotion, fear. The other corrects the will in a way that combines it with one of the most important experiences of life. The one punishment keeps the child on the level of the animal. The other impresses upon him the great principle of human social life, that when our pleasure causes displeasure to others, other people hinder us from following our pleasures; or withdraw themselves from the exercise of our self-will. It is necessary that small children should accustom themselves to good behaviour at table, etc. If every time an act of naughtiness is repeated, the child is immediately taken away, he will soon learn that whoever is disagreeable to others must remain alone. Thus a right application is made of a right principle. Small children, too, must learn not to touch what belongs to other people. If every time anything is touched without permission, children lose their freedom of action one way or another, they soon learn that a condition of their free action is not to injure others. It is quite true, as a young mother remarked, that empty Japanese rooms are ideal places in which to bring up children. Our modern crowded rooms are, so far as children are concerned, to be condemned. During the year in which the real education of the child is proceeding by touching, tasting, biting, feeling, and so on, every moment he is hearing the cry, "Let it alone." For the temperament of the child as well as for the development of his powers, the best thing is a large, light nursery, adorned with handsome lithographs, wood-cuts, and so on, provided with some simple furniture, where he may enjoy the fullest freedom of movement. But if the child is there with his parents and is disobedient, a momentary reprimand is the best means to teach him to reverence the greater world in which the will of others prevails, the world in which the child certainly can make a place for himself but must also learn that every place occupied by him has its limits. If it is a case of a danger, which it is desirable that the child should really dread, we must allow the thing itself to have an alarming influence. When a mother strikes a child because he touches the light, the result is that he does this again when the mother is away. But let him burn himself with the light, then he is certain to leave it alone. In riper years when a boy misuses a knife, a toy, or something similar, the loss of the object for the time being must be the punishment. Most boys would prefer corporal punishment to the loss of their favourite possession. But only the loss of it will be a real education through experience of one of the inevitable rules of life, an experience which cannot be too strongly impressed. We hear parents who have begun with Spencer and then have taken to corporal punishment declare that when children are too small to repair the clothing which they have torn there must be some other kind of punishment. But at that age they should not be punished at all for such things. They should have such simple and strong clothes that they can play freely in them. Later on, when they can be really careful, the natural punishment would be to have the child remain at home if he is careless, has spotted his clothes, or torn them. He must be shown that he must help to put his clothes in good condition again, or that he will be compelled to buy what he has destroyed carelessly with money earned by himself. If the child is not careful, he must stay at home, when ordinarily allowed to go out, or eat alone if he is too late for meals. It may be said that there are simple means by which all the important habits of social life may become a second nature. But it is not possible in all cases to apply Spencer's method. The natural consequences occasionally endanger the health of the child, or sometimes are too slow in their action. If it seems necessary to interfere directly, such action must be consistent, quick, and immutable. How is it that the child learns very soon that fire burns? Because fire does so always. But the mother who at one time strikes, at another threatens, at another bribes the child, first forbids and then immediately after permits some action; who does not carry out her threat, does not compel obedience, but constantly gabbles and scolds; who sometimes acts in one way and just as often in another, has not learned the effective educational methods of the fire. The old-fashioned strict training that in its crude way gave to the character a fixed type rested on its consistent qualities. It was consistently strict, not as at present a lax hesitation between all kinds of pedagogical methods and psychological opinions, in which the child is thrown about here and there like a ball, in the hands of grown people; at one time pushed forward, then laughed at, then pushed aside, only to be brought back again, kissed till it is disgusted, first ordered about, and then coaxed. A grown man would become insane if joking Titans treated him for a single day as a child is treated for a year. A child should not be ordered about, but should be just as courteously addressed as a grown person in order that he may learn courtesy. A child should never be pushed into notice, never compelled to endure caresses, never overwhelmed with kisses, which ordinarily torment him and are often the cause of sexual hyperæsthesia. The child's demonstrations of affection should be reciprocated when they are sincere, but one's own demonstrations should be reserved for special occasions. This is one of the many excellent maxims of training that are disregarded. Nor should the child be forced to express regret in begging pardon and the like. This is excellent training for hypocrisy. A small child once had been rude to his elder brother and was placed upon a chair to repent his fault. When the mother after a time asked if he was sorry, he answered, "Yes," with emphasis, but as the mother saw a mutinous sparkle in his eyes she felt impelled to ask, "Sorry for what?" and the youngster broke out, "Sorry that I did not call him a liar besides." The mother was wise enough on this occasion, and ever after, to give up insisting on repentance. Spontaneous penitence is full of significance; it is a deeply felt desire for pardon. But an artificial emotion is always and everywhere worthless. Are you not sorry? Does it make no difference to you that your mother is ill, your brother dead, your father away from home? Such expressions are often used as an appeal to the emotions of children. But children have a right to have feelings, or not have them, and to have them as undisturbed as grown people. The same holds good of their sympathies and antipathies. The sensitive feelings of children are constantly injured by lack of consideration on the part of grown people, their easily stimulated aversions are constantly being brought out. But the sufferings of children through the crudeness of their elders belong to an unwritten chapter of child psychology. Just as there are few better methods of training than to ask children, when they have behaved unjustly to others, to consider whether it would be pleasant for them to be treated in that way, so there is no better corrective for the trainer of children than the habit of asking oneself, in question small and great,--Would I consent to be treated as I have just treated my child? If it were only remembered that the child generally suffers double as much as the adult, parents would perhaps learn physical and psychical tenderness without which a child's life is a constant torment. As to presents, the same principle holds good as with emotions and marks of tenderness. Only by example can generous instincts be provoked. Above all the child should not be allowed to have things which he immediately gives away. Gifts to a child should always imply a personal requital for work or sacrifice. In order to secure for children the pleasure of giving and the opportunity of obtaining small pleasures and enjoyments, as well as of replacing property of their own or of others which they may have destroyed, they should at an early age be accustomed to perform seriously certain household duties for which they receive some small remuneration. But small occasional services, whether volunteered or asked for by others, should never be rewarded. Only readiness to serve, without payment, develops the joy of generosity. When the child wants to give away something, people should not make a pretence of receiving it. This produces the false conception in his mind that the pleasure of being generous can be had for nothing. At every step the child should be allowed to meet the real experiences of life; the thorns should never be plucked from his roses. This is what is least understood in present-day training. Thus we see reasonable methods constantly failing. People find themselves forced to "afflictive" methods which stand in no relation with the realities of life. I mean, above all, what are still called means of education, instead of means of torture,--blows. Many people of to-day defend blows, maintaining that they are milder means of punishment than the natural consequences of an act; that blows have the strongest effect on the memory, which effect becomes permanent through association of ideas. But what kinds of association? Is it not with physical pain and shame? Gradually, step by step, this method of training and discipline has been superseded in all its forms. The movement to abolish torture, imprisonment, and corporal punishment failed for a long time owing to the conviction that they were indispensable as methods of discipline. But the child, people answer, is still an animal, he must be brought up as an animal. Those who talk in this way know nothing of children nor of animals. Even animals can be trained without striking them, but they can only be trained by men who have become men themselves. Others come forward with the doctrine that terror and pain have been the best means of educating mankind, so the child must pursue the same road as humanity. This is an utter absurdity. We should also, on this theory, teach our children, as a natural introduction to religion, to practise fetish worship. If the child is to reproduce all the lower development stages of the race, he would be practically depressed beneath the level which he has reached physiologically and psychologically through the common inheritance of the race. If we have abandoned torture and painful punishments for adults, while they are retained for children, it is because we have not yet seen that their soul life so far as a greater and more subtle capacity for suffering is concerned has made the same progress as that of adult mankind. The numerous cases of child suicide in the last decade were often the result of fear of corporal punishment; or have taken place after its administration. Both soul and body are equally affected by this practice. Where this is not the result, blows have even more dangerous consequences. They tend to dull still further the feeling of shame, to increase the brutality or cowardice of the person punished. I once heard a child pointed out in a school as being so unruly that it was generally agreed he would be benefited by a flogging. Then it was discovered that his father's flogging at home had made him what he was. If statistics were prepared of ruined sons, those who had been flogged would certainly be more numerous than those who had been pampered. Society has gradually given up employing retributive punishments because people have seen that they neither awaken the feeling of guilt, nor act as a deterrent, but on the contrary retribution applied by equal to equal brutalises the ideas of right, hardens the temper, and stimulates the victim to exercise the same violence towards others that has been endured by himself. But other rules are applied to the psychological processes of the child. When a child strikes his small sister the mother strikes him and believes that he will see and understand the difference between the blows he gets and those he gives; that he will see that the one is a just punishment and the other vicious conduct. But the child is a sharp logician and feels that the action is just the same, although the mother gives it a different name. Corporal punishment was long ago admirably described by Comenius, who compared an educator using this method with a musician striking a badly tuned instrument with his fist, instead of using his ears and his hands to put it into tune. These brutal attacks work on the active sensitive feelings, lacerating and confusing them. They have no educative power on all the innumerable fine processes in the life of the child's soul, on their obscurely related combinations. In order to give real training, the first thing after the second or third year is to abandon the very thought of a blow among the possibilities of education. It is best if parents, as soon as the child is born, agree never to strike him, for if they once begin with this convenient and easy method, they continue to use corporal discipline even contrary to their first intention, because they have failed while using such punishment to develop the child's intelligence. If people do not see this it is no more use to speak to them of education than it would be to talk to a cannibal about the world's peace. But as these savages in educational matters are often civilised human beings in other respects, I should like to request them to think over the development of marriage from the time when man wooed with a club and when woman was regarded as the soulless property of man, only to be kept in order by blows, a view which continued to be held until modern times. Through a thousand daily secret influences, our feelings and ideas have been so transformed that these crude conceptions have disappeared, to the great advantage of society and the individual. But it may be hard to awaken a pedagogical savage to the conviction that, in quite the same way, a thousand new secret and mighty influences will change our crude methods of education, when parents once come to see that parenthood must go through the same transformation as marriage, before it attains to a noble and complete development. Only when men realise that whipping a child belongs to the same low stage of civilisation as beating a woman, or a servant, or as the corporal punishment of soldiers and criminals, will the first real preparation begin of the material from which perhaps later an educator may be formed. Corporal punishment was natural in rough times. The body is tangible; what affects it has an immediate and perceptible result. The heat of passion is cooled by the blows it administers; in a certain stage of development blows are the natural expression of moral indignation, the direct method by which the moral will impresses itself on beings of lower capacities. But it has since been discovered that the soul may be impressed by spiritual means, and that blows are just as demoralising for the one who gives them as for the one who receives them. The educator, too, is apt to forget that the child in many cases has as few moral conceptions as the animal or the savage. To punish for this--is only a cruelty, and to punish by brutal methods is a piece of stupidity. It works against the possibility of elevating the child beyond the level of the beast or the savage. The educator to whose mind flogging never presents itself, even as an occasional resource, will naturally direct his whole thought to finding psychological methods of education. Administering corporal punishment demoralises and stupefies the educator, for it increases his thoughtlessness, not his patience, his brutality, not his intelligence. A small boy friend of mine when four years old received his first punishment of this kind; happily it was his only one. As his nurse reminded him in the evening to say his prayers he broke out, '"Yes, to-night I really have something to tell God," and prayed with deep earnestness, "Dear God, tear mamma's arms out so that she cannot beat me any more." Nothing would more effectively further the development of education than for all flogging pedagogues to meet this fate. They would then learn to educate with the head instead of with the hand. And as to public educators, the teachers, their position could be no better raised than by legally forbidding a blow to be administered in any school under penalty of final loss of position. That people who are in other respects intelligent and sensitive continue to defend flogging, is due to the fact that most educators have only a very elementary conception of their work. They should constantly keep before them the feelings and impressions of their own childhood in dealing with children. The most frequent as well as the most dangerous of the numerous mistakes made in handling children is that people do not remember how they felt themselves at a similar age, that they do not regard and comprehend the feelings of the child from their own past point of view. The adult laughs or smiles in remembering the punishments and other things which caused him in his childhood anxious days or nights, which produced the silent torture of the child's heart, infinite despondency, burning indignation, lonely fears, outraged sense of justice, the terrible creations of his imagination, his absurd shame, his unsatisfied thirst for joy, freedom, and tenderness. Lacking these beneficent memories, adults constantly repeat the crime of destroying the childhood of the new generation,--the only time in life in which the guardian of education can really be a kindly providence. So strongly do I feel that the unnecessary sufferings of children are unnatural as well as ignoble that I experience physical disgust in touching the hand of a human being that I know has struck a child; and I cannot close my eyes after I have heard a child in the street threatened with corporal punishment. Blows call forth the virtues of slaves, not those of freemen. As early as Walther von der Vogelweide, it was known that the honourable man respects a word more than a blow. The exercise of physical force delivers the weak and unprotected into the hands of the strong. A child never believes in his heart, though he may be brought to acknowledge verbally, that the blows were due to love, that they were administered because they were necessary. The child is too keen not to know that such a "must" does not exist, and that love can express itself in a better way. Lack of self-discipline, of intelligence, of patience, of personal effort--these are the corner-stones on which corporal punishment rests. I do not now refer to the system of flogging employed by miserable people year in and year out at home, or, particularly in schools, that of beating children outrageously, or to the limits of brutality. I do not mean even the less brutal blows administered by undisciplined teachers and parents, who avenge themselves in excesses of passion or fatigue or disgust,--blows which are simply the active expression of a tension of nerves, a detestable evidence of the want of self-discipline and self-culture. Still less do I refer to the cruelties committed by monsters, sexual perverts, whose brutal tendencies are stimulated by their disciplinary power and who use it to force their victims to silence, as certain criminal trials have shown. I am only speaking of conscientious, amiable parents and teachers who, with pain to themselves, fulfil what they regard as their duty to the child. These are accustomed to adduce the good effects of corporal discipline as a proof that it cannot be dispensed with. The child by being whipped is, they say, not only made good but freed from his evil character, and shows by his whole being that this quick and summary method of punishment has done more than talks, and patience, and the slowly working penalties of experience. Examples are adduced to prove that only this kind of punishment breaks down obstinacy, cures the habit of lying and the like. Those who adopt this system do not perceive that they have only succeeded, through this momentarily effective means, in repressing the external expression of an evil will. They have not succeeded in transforming the will itself. It requires constant vigilance, daily self-discipline, to create an ever higher capacity for the discovery of intelligent methods. The fault that is repressed is certain to appear on every occasion when the child dares to show it. The educator who finds in corporal punishment a short way to get rid of trouble, leads the child a long way round, if we have the only real development in view, namely that which gradually strengthens the child's capacity for self-control. I have never heard a child over three years old threatened with corporal punishment without noticing that this wonderfully moral method had an equally bad influence on parents and children. The same can be said of milder kinds of folly, coaxing children by external rewards. I have seen some children coaxed to take baths and others compelled by threats. But in neither case was their courage, or self-control, or strength of will increased. Only when one is able to make the bath itself attractive is that energy of will developed that gains a victory over the feeling of fear or discomfort and produces a real ethical impression, viz., that virtue is its own reward. Wherever a child is deterred from a bad habit or fault by corporal punishment, a real ethical result is not reached. The child has only learnt to fear an unpleasant consequence, which lacks real connection with the thing itself, a consequence it well knows could have been absent. Such fear is as far removed as heaven from the conviction that the good is better than the bad. The child soon becomes convinced that the disagreeable accompaniment is no necessary result of the action, that by greater cleverness the punishment might have been avoided. Thus the physical punishment increases deception not morality. In the history of humanity the effect of the teaching about hell and fear of hell illustrates the sort of morality produced in children's souls by corporal punishment, that inferno of childhood. Only with the greatest trouble, slowly and unconsciously, is the conviction of the superiority of the good established. The good comes to be seen as more productive of happiness to the individual himself and his environment. So the child learns to love the good. By teaching the child that punishment is a consequence drawn upon oneself he learns to avoid the cause of punishment. Despite all the new talk of individuality the greatest mistake in training children is still that of treating the "child" as an abstract conception, as an inorganic or personal material to be formed and transformed by the hands of those who are educating him. He is beaten, and it is thought that the whole effect of the blow stops at the moment when the child is prevented from being bad. He has, it is thought, a powerful reminder against future bad behaviour. People do not suspect that this violent interference in the physical and psychical life of the child may have lifelong effects. As far back as forty years ago, a writer showed that corporal punishment had the most powerful somatic stimulative effects. The flagellation of the Middle Ages is known to have had such results; and if I could publish what I have heard from adults as to the effect of corporal punishment on them, or what I have observed in children, this alone would be decisive in doing away with such punishment in its crudest form. It very deeply influences the personal modesty of the child. This should be preserved above everything as the main factor in the development of the feeling of purity. The father who punishes his daughter in this way deserves to see her some day a "fallen woman." He injures her instinctive feeling of the sanctity of her body, an instinct which even in the case of a small child can be passionately profound. Only when every infringement of sanctity (forcible caressing is as bad as a blow) evokes an energetic, instinctive repulsion, is the nature of the child proud and pure. Children who strike back when they are punished have the most promising characters of all. Numerous are the cases in which bodily punishment can occasion irremediable damage, not suspected by the person who administers it, though he may triumphantly declare how the punishment in the specific case has helped. Most adults feel free to tell how a whipping has injured them in one way or another, but when they take up the training of their own children they depend on the effect of such chastisement. What burning bitterness and desire for vengeance, what canine fawning flattery, does not corporal punishment call forth. It makes the lazy lazier, the obstinate more obstinate, the hard, harder. It strengthens those two emotions, the root of almost all evil in the world, hatred and fear. And as long as blows are made synonymous with education, both of these emotions will keep their mastery over men. One of the most frequent occasions for recourse to this punishment is obstinacy, but what is called obstinacy is only fear or incapacity. The child repeats a false answer, is threatened with blows, and again repeats it just because he is afraid not to say the right thing. He is struck and then answers rightly. This is a triumph of education; refractoriness is overcome. But what has happened? Increased fear has led to a strong effort of thought, to a momentary increase of self-control. The next day the child will very likely repeat the fault. Where there is real obstinacy on the part of children, I know of cases when corporal punishment has filled them with the lust to kill, either themselves or the person who strikes them. On the other hand I know of others, where a mother has brought an obstinate child to repentance and self-mastery by holding him quietly and calmly on her knees. How many untrue confessions have been forced by fear of blows; how much daring passion for action, spirit of adventure, play of fancy, and stimulus to discovery has been repressed by this same fear. Even where blows do not cause lying, they always hinder absolute straightforwardness and the downright personal courage to show oneself as one is. As long as the word "blow" is used at all in a home, no perfect honour will be found in children. So long as the home and the school use this method of education, brutality will be developed in the child himself at the cost of humanity. The child uses on animals, on his young brothers and sisters, on his comrades, the methods applied to himself. He puts in practice the same argument, that "badness" must be cured with blows. Only children accustomed to be treated mildly, learn to see that influence can be gained without using force. To see this is one of man's privileges, sacrificed by man through descending to the methods of the brute. Only by the child seeing his teacher always and everywhere abstaining from the use of actual force, will he come himself to despise force on all those occasions which do not involve the defence of a weaker person against physical superiority. The foundation of the desire for war is to be sought for less in the war games than in the teachers' rod. To defend corporal discipline, children's own statements are brought in evidence, they are reported as saying they knew they deserved such discipline in order to be made good. There is no lower example of hypocrisy in human nature than this. It is true the child may be sincere in other cases in saying that he feels that through punishment he has atoned for a fault which was weighing upon his conscience. But this is really the foundation of a false system of ethics, the kind which still continues to be preached as Christian, namely; that a fault may be atoned for by sufferings which are not directly connected with the fault. The basis of the new morality is just the opposite as I have already shown. It teaches that no fault can be atoned for, that no one can escape the results of his actions in any way. Untruthfulness belongs to the faults which the teacher thinks he must most frequently punish with blows. But there is no case in which this method is more dangerous. When the much-needed guide-book for parents is published, the well-known story of George Washington and the hatchet must appear in it, accompanied by the remark which a clever ten-year-old child added to the anecdote: "It is no trouble telling the truth when one has such a kind father." I formerly divided untruthfulness into unwilling, shameless, and imaginative lies. A short time ago I ran across a much better division of lying; first "cold" lies, that is, fully conscious untruthfulness which must be punished, and "hot" lies; the expression of an excited temperament or of a vigorous fancy. I agree with the author of this distinction that the last should not be punished but corrected, though not with a pedantic rule of thumb measure, based on how much it exceeds or falls short of truth. It is to be cured by ridicule, a dangerous method of education in general, but useful when one observes that this type of untruthfulness threatens to develop into real untrustworthiness. In dealing with these faults we are very strict towards children, so strict that no lawyer, no politician, no journalist, no poet, could exercise his profession if the same standard were applied to them as to children. The white lie is, as a French scientist has shown, partly caused by pure morbidness, partly through some defect in the conception. It is due to an empty space, a dead point in memory, or in consciousness, that produces a defective idea or gives one no idea at all of what has happened. In the affairs of everyday life the adults are often mistaken as to their intentions or acts. They may have forgotten about their actions, and it requires a strong effort of memory to call them back into their minds; or they suggest to themselves that they have done, or not done, something. In all of these cases, if they were forced to give a distinct answer, they would lie. In every case of this kind, where a child is concerned, the lie is assumed to be a conscious one, and when on being submitted to a strict cross-examination, he hesitates, becomes confused, and blushes, it is looked upon as a proof that he knows he has been telling an untruth, although as a rule there has been no instance of untruthfulness, except the finally extorted confession from the child that he has lied. Yet in all these complicated psychological problems, corporal punishment is treated as a solution. The child who never hears lying at home, who does not see exaggerated weight placed on small, merely external things, who is not made cowardly by fear, who hears conscious lies always spoken of with contempt, will get out of the habit of untruthfulness simply by psychological means. First he will find that untruthfulness causes astonishment, and a repetition of it, scorn and lack of confidence. But these methods should not be applied to untruthfulness caused by distress or by richness of imagination; or to such cases as originate from the obscure mental ideas noted above, ideas whose connection with one another the child cannot make clear to himself. The cold untruth on the other hand, must be punished; first by going over it with the child, then letting him experience its effect in lack of confidence, which will only be restored when the child shows decided improvement in this regard. It is of the greatest importance to show children full and unlimited confidence, even though one quietly maintains an attitude of alert watchfulness; for continuous and undeserved mistrust is just as demoralising as blind and easy confidence. No one who has been beaten for lying learns by it to love truth. The accuracy of this principle is illustrated by adults who despise corporal punishment in their childhood yet continue to tell untruths by word and deed. Fear may keep the child from technical untruth, but fear also produces untrustworthiness. Those who have been beaten in childhood for lying have often suffered a serious injury immeasurably greater than the direct lie. The truest men I ever knew lie voluntarily and involuntarily; while others who might never be caught in a lie are thoroughly false. This corruption of personality begins frequently at the tenderest age under the influence of early training. Children are given untrue motives, half-true information; are threatened, admonished. The child's will, thought, and feeling are oppressed; against this treatment dishonesty is the readiest method of defence. In this way educators who make truth their highest aim, make children untruthful. I watched a child who was severely punished for denying something he had unconsciously done, and noted how under the influence of this senseless punishment he developed extreme dissimulation. Truthfulness requires above everything unbroken determination; and many nervous little liars need nourishing food and life in the open air, not blows. A great artist, one of the few who live wholly according to the modern principles of life, said to me on one occasion: "My son does not know what a lie is, nor what a blow is. His step-brother, on the other hand, lied when he came into our house; but lying did not work in the atmosphere of calm and freedom. After a year the habit disappeared by itself, only because it always met with deep astonishment." This makes me, in passing, note one of the other many mistakes of education, viz., the infinite trouble taken in trying to do away with a fault which disappears by itself. People take infinite pains to teach small children to speak distinctly who, if left to themselves, would learn it by themselves, provided they were always spoken to distinctly. This same principle holds good of numerous other things, in children's attitude and behaviour, that can be left simply to a good example and to time. One's influence should be used in impressing upon the child habits for which a foundation must be laid at the very beginning of his life. There is another still more unfortunate mistake, the mistake of correcting and judging by an external effect produced by the act, by the scandal it occasions in the environment. Children are struck for using oaths and improper words the meaning of which they do not understand; or if they do understand, the result of strictness is only that they go on keeping silence in matters in which sincerity towards those who are bringing them up is of the highest importance. The very thing the child is allowed to do uncorrected at home, is not seldom corrected if it happens away from home. So the child gets a false idea that it is not the thing that deserves punishment, but its publicity. When a mother is ashamed of the bad behaviour of her son she is apt to strike him--instead of striking her own breast! When an adventurous feat fails he is beaten, but he is praised when successful. These practices produce demoralisation. Once in a wood I saw two parents laughing while the ice held on which their son was sliding; when it broke suddenly they threatened to whip him. It required strong self-control in order not to say to this pair that it was not the son who deserved punishment but themselves. On occasions like these, parents avenge their own fright on their children. I saw a child become a coward because an anxious mother struck him every time he fell down, while the natural result inflicted on the child would have been more than sufficient to increase his carefulness. When misfortune is caused by disobedience, natural alarm is, as a rule, enough to prevent a repetition of it. If it is not sufficient blows have no restraining effect; they only embitter. The boy finds that adults have forgotten their own period of childhood; he withdraws himself secretly from this abuse of power, provided strict treatment does not succeed in totally depressing the level of the child's will and obstructing his energies. This is certainly a danger, but the most serious effect of corporal punishment is that it has established an unethical morality as its result. Until the human being has learnt to see that effort, striving, development of power, are their own reward, life remains an unbeautiful affair. The debasing effects of vanity and ambition, the small and great cruelties produced by injustice, are all due to the idea that failure or success sets the value to deeds and actions. A complete revolution in this crude theory of value must come about before the earth can become the scene of a happy but considerate development of power on the part of free and fine human beings. Every contest decided by examinations and prizes is ultimately an immoral method of training. It awakens only evil passions, envy and the impression of injustice on the one side, arrogance on the other. After I had during the course of twenty years fought these school examinations, I read with thorough agreement a short time ago, Ruskin's views on the subject. He believed that all competition was a false basis of stimulus, and every distribution of prizes a false means. He thought that the real sign of talent in a boy, auspicious for his future career, was his desire to work for work's sake. He declared that the real aim of instruction should be to show him his own proper and special gifts, to strengthen them in him, not to spur him on to an empty competition with those who were plainly his superiors in capacity. Moreover it ought not to be forgotten that success and failure involve of themselves their own punishment and their own reward, the one bitter, the other sweet enough to secure in a natural way increased strength, care, prudence, and endurance. It is completely unnecessary for the educator to use, besides these, some special punishments or special rewards, and so pervert the conceptions of the child that failure seems to him to be a wrong, success on the other hand as the right. No matter where one turns one's gaze, it is notorious that the externally encouraging or awe-inspiring means of education, are an obstacle to what are the chief human characteristics, courage in oneself and goodness to others. A people whose education is carried on by gentle means only (I mean the people of Japan), have shown that manliness is not in danger where children are not hardened by corporal punishment. These gentle means are just as effective in calling forth self-mastery and consideration. These virtues are so imprinted on children, at the tenderest age, that one learns first in Japan what attraction considerate kindliness bestows upon life. In a country where blows are never seen, the first rule of social intercourse is not to cause discomfort to others. It is told that when a foreigner in Japan took up a stone to throw it at a dog, the dog did not run. No one had ever thrown a stone at him. Tenderness towards animals is the complement in that country of tenderness in human relationship, a tenderness whose result is observed, among other effects, in a relatively small number of crimes against life and security. War, hunting for pleasure, corporal discipline, are nothing more than different expressions of the tiger nature still alive in man. When the rod is thrown away, and when, as some one has said, children are no longer boxed on their ears but are given magnifying glasses and photographic cameras to increase their capacity for life and for loving it, instead of learning to destroy it, real education in humanity will begin. For the benefit of those who are not convinced that corporal punishment can be dispensed with in a manly education, by so remote and so distant an example as Japan, I should like to mention a fact closer to us. Our Germanic forefathers did not have this method of education. It was introduced with Christianity. Corporal discipline was turned into a religious duty, and as late as the seventeenth century there were intelligent men who flogged their children once a week as a part of spiritual guardianship. I once asked our great poet, Victor Rydberg, and he said that he had found no proof that corporal punishment was usual among the Germans in heathen times. I asked him whether he did not believe that the fact of its absence had encouraged the energetic individualism and manliness in the Northern peoples. He thought so, and agreed with me. Finally, I might note from our own time, that there are many families and schools, our girls' schools for example, and also boys' schools in some countries, where corporal punishment is never used. I know a family with twelve children whose activity and capacity are not damaged by bringing them under the rule of duty alone. Corporal punishment is never used in this home; a determined but mild mother has taught the children to obey voluntarily, and has known how to train their wills to self-control. By "voluntary obedience," I do not mean that the child is bound to ask endless questions for reasons, and to dispute them before he obeys. A good teacher never gives a command without there being some good reason, but whether the child is convinced or not, he must always obey, and if he asks "why" the answer is very simple; every one, adults as well as children, must obey the right and must submit to what cannot be avoided. The great necessity in life must be imprinted in childhood. This can be done without harsh means by training the child, even previous to his birth, by cultivating one's self-control, and after his birth by never giving in to a child's caprices. The rule is, in a few cases, to work in opposition to the action of the child, but in other cases work constructively; I mean provide the child with material to construct his own personality and then let him do this work of construction. This is, in brief, the art of education. The worst of all educational methods are threats. The only effective admonitions are short and infrequent ones. The greatest skill in the educator is to be silent for the moment and then so reprove the fault, indirectly, that the child is brought to correct himself or make himself the object of blame. This can be done by the instructor telling something that causes the child to compare his own conduct with the hateful or admirable types of behaviour about which he hears information. Or the educator may give an opinion which the child must take to himself although it is not applied directly to him. On many occasions a forceful display of indignation on the part of the elder person is an excellent punishment, if the indignation is reserved for the right moment. I know children to whom nothing was more frightful than their father's scorn; this was dreaded. Children who are deluged with directions and religious devotions, who receive an ounce of morality in every cup of joy, are most certain to be those who will revolt against all this. Nearly every thinking person feels that the deepest educational influences in his life have been indirect; some good advice not given to him directly; a noble deed told without any direct reference. But when people come themselves to train others they forget all their own personal experience. The strongest constructive factor in the education of a human being is the settled, quiet order of home, its peace, and its duty. Openheartedness, industry, straightforwardness at home develop goodness, desire to work, and simplicity in the child. Examples of artistic work and books in the home, its customary life on ordinary days and holidays, its occupations and its pleasures, should give to the emotions and imagination of the child, periods of movement and repose, a sure contour and a rich colour. The pure, warm, clear atmosphere in which father, mother, and children live together in freedom and confidence; where none are kept isolated from the interests of the others; but each possesses full freedom for his own personal interest; where none trenches on the rights of others; where all are willing to help one another when necessary,--in this atmosphere egoism, as well as altruism, can attain their richest development, and individuality find its just freedom. As the evolution of man's soul advances to undreamed-of possibilities of refinement, of capacity, of profundity; as the spiritual life of the generation becomes more manifold in its combinations and in its distinctions; the more time one has for observing the wonderful and deep secrets of existence, behind the visible, tangible, world of sense, the more will each new generation of children show a more refined and a more consistent mental life. It is impossible to attain this result under the torture of the crude methods in our present home and school training. We need new homes, new schools, new marriages, new social relations, for those new souls who are to feel, love, and suffer, in ways infinitely numerous that we now can not even name. Thus they will come to understand life; they will have aspirations and hopes; they will believe; they will pray. The conceptions of religion, love, and art, all these must be revolutionised so radically, that one now can only surmise what new forms will be created in future generations. This transformation can be helped by the training of the present, by casting aside the withered foliage which now covers the budding possibilities of life. The house must once more become a home for the souls of children, not for their bodies alone. For such homes to be formed, that in their turn will mould children, the children must be given back to the home. Instead of the study preparation at home for the school taking up, as it now does, the best part of a child's life, the school must get the smaller part, the home the larger part. The home will have the responsibility of so using the free time as well on ordinary days as on holidays, that the children will really become a part of the home both in their work and in their pleasures. The children will be taken from the school, the street, the factory, and restored to the home. The mother will be given back from work outside, or from social life to the children. Thus natural training in the spirit of Rousseau and Spencer will be realised; a training for life, by life at home. Such was the training of Old Scandanavia; the direct share of the child in the work of the adult, in real labours and dangers, gave to the life of our Scandanavian forefathers (with whom the boy began to be a man at twelve years of age), unity, character, and strength. Things specially made for children, the anxious watching over all their undertakings, support given to all their steps, courses of work and pleasure specially prepared for children,--these are the fundamental defects of our present day education. An eighteen-year-old girl said to me a short time ago, that she and other girls of the same age were so tired of the system of vigilance, protection, amusement, and pampering at school and at home, that they were determined to bring up their own children in hunger, corporal discipline, and drudgery. One can understand this unfortunate reaction against an artificial environment; the environment in which children and young people of the present grow up; an existence that evokes a passionate desire for the realities of life, for individual action at one's own risk and responsibility, instead of being, as is now the case, at home and in the school, the object of another's care. What is required, above all, for the children of the present day, is to be assigned again real home occupations, tasks they must do conscientiously, habits of work arranged for week days and holidays without oversight, in every case where the child can help himself. Instead of the modern school child having a mother and servants about him to get him ready for school and to help him to remember things, he should have time every day before school to arrange his room and brush his clothes, and there should be no effort to make him remember what is connected with the school. The home and the school should combine together systematically to let the child suffer for the results of his own negligence. Just the reverse of this system rules to-day. Mothers learn their children's lessons, invent plays for them, read their story books to them, arrange their rooms after them, pick up what they have let fall, put in order the things they have left in confusion, and in this and in other ways, by protective pampering and attention, their desire for work, their endurance, the gifts of invention and imagination, qualities proper to the child, become weak and passive. The home now is only a preparation for school. In it, young people growing up, are accustomed to receive services, without performing any on their part. They are trained to be always receptive instead of giving something in return. Then people are surprised at a youthful generation, selfish and unrestrained, pressing forward shamelessly on all occasions before their elders, crudely unresponsive in respect of those attentions, which in earlier generations were a beautiful custom among the young. To restore this custom, all the means usually adopted now to protect the child from physical and psychical dangers and inconveniences, will have to be removed. Throw the thermometer out of the window and begin with a sensible course of toughening; teach the child to know and to bear natural pain. Corporal punishment must be done away with not because it is painful but because it is profoundly immoral and hopelessly unsuitable. Repress the egoistic demands of the child when he interferes with the work or rest of others; never let him either by caresses or by nagging usurp the rights of grown people; take care that the servants do not work against what the parents are trying to insist on in this and in other matters. We must begin in doing for the child in certain ways a thousand times more and in others a hundred thousand times less. A beginning must be made in the tenderest age to establish the child's feeling for nature. Let him live year in and year out in the same country home; this is one of the most significant and profound factors in training. It can be held to even where it is now neglected. The same thing holds good of making a choice library, commencing with the first years of life; so that the child will have, at different periods of his life, suitable books for each age; not as is now often the case, get quite spoilt by the constant change of summer excursions, by worthless children's books, and costly toys. They should never have any but the simplest books; the so-called classical ones. They should be amply provided with means of preparing their own playthings. The worst feature of our system are the playthings which imitate the luxury of grown people. By such objects the covetous impulse of the child for acquisition is increased, his own capacity for discovery and imagination limited, or rather, it would be limited if children with the sound instinct of preservation, did not happily smash the perfect playthings, which give them no creative opportunity, and themselves make new playthings from fir cones, acorns, thorns, and fragments of pottery, and all other sorts of rubbish which can be transformed into objects of great price by the power of the imagination. To play with children in the right way is also a great art. It should never be done if children do not themselves know what they are going to do; it should always be a special treat for them as well as their elders. But the adults must always on such occasions, leave behind every kind of educational idea and go completely into the child's world of thought and imagination. No attempt should be made to teach them at these times anything else but the old satisfactory games. The experiences derived from these games about the nature of the children, who are stimulated in one direction or another by the game, must be kept for later use. Games in this way increase confidence between children and adults. They learn to know their elders better. But to allow children to turn all the rooms into places to play in, and to demand constantly that their elders shall interest themselves in them, is one of the most dangerous species of pampering common to the present day. The children become accustomed to selfishness and mental dependence. Besides this constant educational effort brings with it the dulling of the child's personality. If children were free in their own world, the nursery, but out of it had to submit to the strict limits imposed by the habits, wills, work, and repose of parents, their requirements and their wishes, they would develop into a stronger and more considerate race than the youth of the present day. It is not so much talking about being considerate, but the necessity of considering others, of really helping oneself and others, that has an educational value. In earlier days, children were quiet as mice in the presence of elder persons. Instead of, as they do now, breaking into a guest's conversation, they learned to listen. If the conversation of adults is varied, this can be called one of the best educational methods for children. The ordinary life of children, under the old system, was lived in the nursery where they received their most important training from an old faithful servant and from one another. From their parents they received corporal punishment, sometimes a caress. In comparison with this system, the present way of parents and children living together would be absolute progress, if parents could but abstain from explaining, advising, improving, influencing every thought and every expression. But all spiritual, mental, and bodily protective rules make the child now indirectly selfish, because everything centres about him and therefore he is kept in a constant state of irritation. The six-year-old can disturb the conversation of the adult, but the twelve-year-old is sent to bed about eight o'clock, even when he, with wide open eyes, longs for a conversation that might be to him an inspiring stimulus for life. Certainly some simple habits so far as conduct and order, nourishment and sleep, air and water, clothing and bodily movement, are concerned, can be made the foundations for the child's conceptions of morality. He cannot be made to learn soon enough that bodily health and beauty must be regarded as high ethical characteristics, and that what is injurious to health and beauty must be regarded as a hateful act. In this sphere, children must be kept entirely independent of custom by allowing the exception to every rule to have its valid place. The present anxious solicitude that children should eat when the clock strikes, that they get certain food at fixed meals, that they be clothed according to the degree of temperature, that they go to bed when the clock strikes, that they be protected from every drop of unboiled water and every extra piece of candy, this makes them nervous, irritable slaves of habit. A reasonable toughening process against the inequalities, discomforts, and chances of life, constitutes one of the most important bases of joy of living and of strength of temper. In this case too, the behaviour of the person who gives the training, is the best means of teaching children to smile at small _contretemps_, things which would throw a cloud over the sun, if one got into the habit of treating them as if they were of great importance. If the child sees the parent doing readily an unpleasant duty, which he honestly recognises as unpleasant; if he sees a parent endure trouble or an unexpected difficulty easily, he will be in honour bound to do the like. Just as children without many words learn to practice good deeds when they see good deeds practised about them; learn to enjoy the beauty of nature and art when they see that adults enjoy them, so by living more beautifully, more nobly, more moderately, we speak best to children. They are just as receptive to impressions of this kind as they are careless of those made by force. Since this is my _alpha_ and _omega_ in the art of education, I repeat now what I said at the beginning of this book and half way through it. Try to leave the child in peace; interfere directly as seldom as possible; keep away all crude and impure impressions; but give all your care and energy to see that personality, life itself, reality in its simplicity and in its nakedness, shall all be means of training the child. Make demands on the powers of children and on their capacity for self-control, proportionate to the special stage of their development, neither greater nor lesser demands than on adults. But respect the joys of the child, his tastes, work, and time, just as you would those of an adult. Education will thus become an infinitely simple and infinitely harder art, than the education of the present day, with its artificialised existence, its double entry morality, one morality for the child, and one for the adult, often strict for the child and lax for the adult and _vice versa_. By treating the child every moment as one does an adult human being we free education from that brutal arbitrariness, from those over-indulgent protective rules, which have transformed him. Whether parents act as if children existed for their benefit alone, or whether the parents give up their whole lives to their children, the result is alike deplorable. As a rule both classes know equally little of the feelings and needs of their children. The one class are happy when the children are like themselves, and their highest ambition is to produce in their children a successful copy of their own thoughts, opinions, and ideals. Really it ought to pain them very much to see themselves so exactly copied. What life expected from them and required from them was just the opposite--a richer combination, a better creation, a new type, not a reproduction of that which is already exhausted. The other class strive to model their children not according to themselves but according to their ideal of goodness. They show their love by their willingness to extinguish their own personalities for their children's sake. This they do by letting the children feel that everything which concerns them stands in the foreground. This should be so, but only indirectly. The concerns of the whole scheme of life, the ordering of the home, its habits, intercourse, purposes, care for the needs of children, and their sound development, must stand in the foreground. But at present, in most cases, children of tender years, as well as those who are older, are sacrificed to the chaotic condition of the home. They learn self-will without possessing real freedom; they live under a discipline which is spasmodic in its application. When one daughter after another leaves home in order to make herself independent they are often driven to do it by want of freedom, or by the lack of character in family life. In both directions the girl sees herself forced to become something different, to hold different opinions, to think different thoughts, to act contrary to the dictates of her own being. A mother happy in the friendship of her own daughter, said not long ago that she desired to erect an asylum for tormented daughters. Such an asylum would be as necessary as a protection against pampering parents as against those who are overbearing. Both alike, torture their children though in different ways, by not understanding the child's right to have his own point of view, his own ideal of happiness, his own proper tastes and occupation. They do not see that children exist as little for their parent's sake as parents do for their children's sake. Family life would have an intelligent character if each one lived fully and entirely his own life and allowed the others to do the same. None should tyrannise over, nor should suffer tyranny from, the other. Parents who give their home this character can justly demand that children shall accommodate themselves to the habits of the household as long as they live in it. Children on their part can ask that their own life of thought and feeling shall be left in peace at home, or that they be treated with the same consideration that would be given to a stranger. When the parents do not meet these conditions they themselves are the greater sufferers. It is very easy to keep one's son from expressing his raw views, very easy to tear a daughter away from her book and to bring her to a tea-party by giving her unnecessary occupations; very easy by a scornful word to repress some powerful emotion. A thousand similar things occur every day in good families through the whole world. But whenever we hear of young people speaking of their intellectual homelessness and sadness, we begin to understand why father and mother remain behind in homes from which the daughters have hastened to depart; why children take their cares, joys, and thoughts to strangers; why, in a word, the old and the young generation are as mutually dependent as the roots and flowers of plants, so often separate with mutual repulsion. This is as true of highly cultivated fathers and mothers as of simple bourgeois or peasant parents. Perhaps, indeed, it may be truer of the first class; the latter torment their children in a naïve way, while the former are infinitely wise and methodical in their stupidity. Rarely is a mother of the upper class one of those artists of home life who through the blitheness, the goodness, and joyousness of her character, makes the rhythm of everyday life a dance, and holidays into festivals. Such artists are often simple women who have passed no examinations, founded no clubs, and written no books. The highly cultivated mothers and the socially useful mothers on the other hand are not seldom those who call forth criticism from their sons. It seems almost an invariable rule that mothers should make mistakes when they wish to act for the welfare of their sons. "How infinitely valuable," say their children, "would I have found a mother who could have kept quiet, who would have been patient with me, who would have given me rest, keeping the outer world at a distance from me, with kindly soothing hands. Oh, would that I had had a mother on whose breast I could have laid my head, to be quiet and dream." A distinguished woman writer is surprised that all of her well-thought-out plans for her children fail--those children in whom she saw the material for her passion for governing, the clay that she desired to mould. The writer just cited says very justly that maternal unselfishness alone can perform the task of protecting a young being with wisdom and kindliness, by allowing him to grow according to his own laws. The unselfish mother, she says, will joyfully give the best of her life energy, powers of soul and spirit to a growing being and then open all doors to him, leaving him in the broad world to follow his own paths, and ask for nothing, neither thanks, nor praise, nor remembrance. But to most mothers may be applied the bitter exclamation of a son in the book just mentioned, "even a mother must know how she tortures another; if she has not this capacity by nature, why in the world should I recognise her as my mother at all." Certain mothers spend the whole day in keeping their children's nervous system in a state of irritation. They make work hard and play joyless, whenever they take a part in it. At the present time, too, the school gets control of the child, the home loses all the means by which formerly it moulded the child's soul life and ennobled family life. The school, not father and mother, teaches children to play, the school gives them manual training, the school teaches them to sing, to look at pictures, to read aloud, to wander about out of doors; schools, clubs, sport and other pleasures accustom youth in the cities more and more to outside life, and a daily recreation that kills the true feeling for holiday. Young people, often, have no other impression of home than that it is a place where they meet society which bores them. Parents surrender their children to schools in those years in which they should influence their minds. When the school gives them back they do not know how to make a fresh start with the children, for they themselves have ceased to be young. But getting old is no necessity; it is only a bad habit. It is very interesting to observe a face that is getting old. What time makes out of a face shows better than anything else what the man has made out of time. Most men in the early period of middle age are neither intellectually fat nor lean, they are hardened or dried up. Naturally young people look upon them with unsympathetic eyes, for they feel that there is such a thing as eternal youth, which a soul can win as a prize for its whole work of inner development. But they look in vain for this second eternal youth in their elders, filled with worldly nothingnesses and things of temporary importance. With a sigh they exclude the "old people" from their future plans and they go out in the world in order to choose their spiritual parents. This is tragic but just, for if there is a field on which man must sow a hundred-fold in order to harvest tenfold it is the souls of children. When I began at five years of age to make a rag doll, that by its weight and size really gave the illusion of reality and bestowed much joy on its young mother, I began to think about the education of my future children. Then as now my educational ideal was that the children should be happy, that they should not fear. Fear is the misfortune of childhood, and the sufferings of the child come from the half-realised opposition between his unlimited possibilities of happiness and the way in which these possibilities are actually handled. It may be said that life, at every stage, is cruel in its treatment of our possibilities of happiness. But the difference between the sufferings of the adult from existence, and the sufferings of the child caused by adults, is tremendous. The child is unwilling to resign himself to the sufferings imposed upon him by adults and the more impatient the child is against unnecessary suffering, the better; for so much the more certainly will he some day be driven to find means to transform for himself and for others the hard necessities of life. A poet, Rydberg, in our country who had the deepest intuition into child's nature, and therefore had the deepest reverence for it, wrote as follows: "Where we behold children we suspect there are princes, but as to the kings, where are they?" Not only life's tragic elements diminish and dam up its vital energies. Equally destructive is a parent's want of reverence for the sources of life which meet them in a new being. Fathers and mothers must bow their heads in the dust before the exalted nature of the child. Until they see that the word "child" is only another expression for the conception of majesty; until they feel that it is the future which in the form of a child sleeps in their arms, and history which plays at their feet, they will not understand that they have as little power or right to prescribe laws for this new being as they possess the power or might to lay down paths for the stars. The mother should feel the same reverence for the unknown worlds in the wide-open eyes of her child, that she has for the worlds which like white blossoms are sprinkled over the blue orb of heaven; the father should see in his child the king's son whom he must serve humbly with his own best powers, and then the child will come to his own; not to the right of asking others to become the plaything of his caprices but to the right of living his full strong personal child's life along with a father and a mother who themselves live a personal life, a life from whose sources and powers the child can take the elements he needs for his own individual growth. Parents should never expect their own highest ideals to become the ideals of their child. The free-thinking sons of pious parents and the Christian children of freethinkers have become almost proverbial. But parents can live nobly and in entire accordance to their own ideals which is the same thing as making children idealists. This can often lead to a quite different system of thought from that pursued by the parent. As to ideals, the elders should here as elsewhere, offer with timidity their advice and their experience. Yes they should try to let the young people search for it as if they were seeking fruit hidden under the shadow of leaves. If their counsel is rejected, they must show neither surprise nor lack of self-control. The query of a humourist, why he should do anything for posterity since posterity had done nothing for him, set me to thinking in my early youth in the most serious way. I felt that posterity had done much for its forefathers. It had given them an infinite horizon for the future beyond the bounds of their daily effort. We must in the child see the new fate of the human race; we must carefully treat the fine threads in the child's soul because these are the threads that one day will form the woof of world events. We must realise that every pebble by which one breaks into the glassy depths of the child's soul will extend its influence through centuries and centuries in ever widening circles. Through our fathers, without our will and without choice, we are given a destiny which controls the deepest foundation of our own being. Through our posterity, which we ourselves create, we can in a certain measure, as free beings, determine the future destiny of the human race. By a realisation of all this in an entirely new way, by seeing the whole process in the light of the religion of development, the twentieth century will be the century of the child. This will come about in two ways. Adults will first come to an understanding of the child's character and then the simplicity of the child's character will be kept by adults. So the old social order will be able to renew itself. Psychological pedagogy has an exalted ancestry. I will not go back to those artists in education called Socrates and Jesus, but I commence with the modern world. In the hours of its sunrise, in which we, who look back, think we see a futile Renaissance, then as now the spring flowers came up amid the decaying foliage. At this period there came a demand for the remodelling of education through the great figure of modern times, Montaigne, that skeptic who had so deep a reverence for realities. In his _Essays_, in his _Letters to the Countess of Gurson_, are found all of the elements for the education of the future. About the great German and Swiss specialists in pedagogy and psychology, Comenius, Basedow, Pestalozzi, Salzmann, Froebel, Herbart, I do not need to speak. I will only mention that the greatest men of Germany, Lessing, Herder, Goethe, Kant and others, took the side of natural training. In regard to England it is well known that John Locke in his _Thoughts on Education_, was a worthy predecessor of Herbert Spencer, whose book on education in its intellectual, moral, and physical relations, was the most noteworthy book on education in the last century. It has been noted that Spencer in educational theory is indebted to Rousseau; and that in many cases, he has only said what the great German authorities, whom he certainly did not know, said before him. But this does not diminish Spencer's merit in the least. Absolutely new thoughts are very rare. Truths which were once new must be constantly renewed by being pronounced again from the depth of the ardent personal conviction of a new human being. That rational thoughts on the subject of pedagogy as on other subjects, are constantly expressed and re-expressed, shows among other things that reasonable, or practically untried education has certain principles which are as axiomatic as those of mathematics. Every reasonable thinking man must as certainly discover anew these pedagogical principles, as he must discover anew the relation between the angles of a triangle. Spencer's book it is true has not laid again the foundation of education. It can rather be called the crown of the edifice founded by Montaigne, Locke, Rousseau, and the great German specialists in pedagogy. What is an absolutely novel factor in our times is the study of the psychology of the child, and the system of education that has developed from it. In England, through the scientist Darwin, this new study of the psychology of the child was inaugurated. In Germany, Preyer contributed to its extension. He has done so partly by a comprehensive study of children's language, partly by collecting recollections of childhood on the part of the adult. Finally he experimented directly on the child, investigating his physical and psychical fatigue and endurance, acuteness of sensation, power, speed, and exactness in carrying out physical and mental tasks. He has studied his capacity of attention in emotions and in ideas at different periods of life. He has studied the speech of children, association of ideas in children, etc. During the study of the psychology of the child, scholars began to substitute for this term the expression "genetic psychology." For it was found that the bio-genetic principle was valid for the development both of the psychic and the physical life. This principle means that the history of the species is repeated in the history of the individual; a truth substantiated in other spheres; in philology for example. The psychology of the child is of the same significance for general psychology as embryology is for anatomy. On the other hand, the description of savage peoples, of peoples in a natural condition, such as we find in Spencer's _Descriptive Sociology_ or Weitz's _Anthropology_ is extremely instructive for a right conception of the psychology of the child. It is in this kind of psychological investigation that the greatest progress has been made in this century. In the great publication, _Zeitschrift für psychologie_, etc., there began in 1894 a special department for the psychology of children and the psychology of education. In 1898, there were as many as one hundred and six essays devoted to this subject, and they are constantly increasing. In the chief civilised countries this investigation has many distinguished pioneers, such as Prof. Wundt, Prof. T. H. Ribot, and others. In Germany this subject has its most important organ in the journal mentioned above. It numbers among its collaborators some of the most distinguished German physiologists and psychologists. As related to the same subject must be mentioned Wundt's _Philosophischen Studien_, and partly the _Vierteljahrschrift für Wissenschaftlichie Philosophie_. In France, there was founded in 1894, the _Année Psychologique_, edited by Binet and Beaunis, and also the _Bibliotheque de Pedagogie et de Psychologie_, edited by Binet. In England there are the journals, _Mind_ and _Brain_. Special laboratories for experimental psychology with psychological apparatus and methods of research are found in many places. In Germany the first to be founded was that of Wundt in the year 1878 at Leipzig. France has a laboratory for experimental psychology at Paris, in the Sorbonne, whose director is Binet; Italy, one in Rome. In America experimental psychology is zealously pursued. As early as 1894, there were in that country twenty-seven laboratories for experimental psychology and four journals. There should also be mentioned the societies for child psychology. Recently one has been founded in Germany; others before this time have been at work in England and America. A whole series of investigations carried out in Kraepelin's laboratory in Heidelberg are of the greatest value for determining what the brain can do in the way of work and impressions. An English specialist has maintained that the future, thanks to the modern school system, will be able to get along without originally creative men, because the receptive activities of modern man will absorb the co-operative powers of the brain to the disadvantage of the productive powers. And even if this were not a universally valid statement but only expressed a physiological certainty, people will some day perhaps cease filing down man's brain by that sandpapering process called a school curriculum. A champion of the transformation of pedagogy into a psycho-physiological science is to be found in Sweden in the person of Prof. Hjalmar Oehrwal who has discussed in his essays native and foreign discoveries in the field of psychology. One of his conclusions is that the so-called technical exercises, gymnastics, manual training, sloyd, and the like, are not, as they are erroneously called, a relaxation from mental overstrain by change in work, but simply a new form of brain fatigue. All work, he finds, done under conditions of fatigue is uneconomic whether one regards the quantity produced or its value as an exercise. Rest should be nothing more than rest,--freedom to do only what one wants to, or to do nothing at all. As to fear, he proves, following Binet's investigation in this subject, how corporal discipline, threats, and ridicule lead to cowardice; how all of these methods are to be rejected because they are depressing and tend to a diminution of energy. He shows, moreover, how fear can be overcome progressively, by strengthening the nervous system and in that way strengthening the character. This result comes about partly when all unnecessary terrorising is avoided, partly when children are accustomed to bear calmly and quietly the inevitable unpleasantnesses of danger. Prof. Axel Key's investigations on school children have won international recognition. In Sweden they have supplied the most significant material up to the present time for determining the influence of studies on physical development and the results of intellectual overstrain. It is to be hoped that when through empirical investigation we begin to get acquainted with the real nature of children, the school and the home will be freed from absurd notions about the character and needs of the child, those absurd notions which now cause painful cases of physical and psychical maltreatment, still called by conscientious and thinking human beings in schools and in homes, education. CHAPTER IV HOMELESSNESS From time to time the present age is criticised, as if its corruption contrasted with the moral strictness of earlier periods. Such charges are as crude and as groundless as is most of the same kind of criticism that is common to every generation of man's history. They have been repeated ever since man began to strive consciously for other ends than the momentary gratification of his undisciplined impulses. One need only to consult the men of the present generation and the still living representatives of the past generation, to be assured that bad conduct at school is not characteristic of our time. Let any one read the account of life at universities in earlier periods when the younger students were of the same age as schoolboys in high schools and it will soon be plain that the cause of the evil is not modern literature nor modern belief. The really direct causes of this difficulty must be looked for in human emotions. This side of the question I do not intend to discuss here. It can only be solved by an expert in psychology and physiology; by one who, along with this capacity, is a pedagogical genius. There might not be sufficient material for such a task, even if an individual could be found able to put together the original elements in the systems of Socrates, Rousseau, Spencer, and give them life. Under no other condition could a real contribution be made adequate to meet the requirements of the present day in the field of education. My intention is only to make some remarks on the secondary cause of the evil, for not sufficient attention has been devoted to this side of the problem. The cause I have in view is the increasing homelessness of all branches of society. Living with one's parents as children do who go to school in the city is not the same as living at home. Family life in the working classes is unsettled by the mother working out of the house. In the upper classes the same result is produced by the constantly increasing pressure of social pleasures and obligations. Formerly it was only the husband and father whom outside interests took from the home. Now the home is deserted by the wife and mother also, not alone for social gatherings but for clubs for self-improvement, meetings, lectures, committees; one evening after another, just at the time which she should be devoting herself to her children who have been occupied in the morning at school. The ever-growing social life, the incessant extension of club and out-of-door life, result in the mother sending her children as early as possible to school, even when there is nothing but the conditions above mentioned to prevent her from giving the children their first instruction herself. As a rule the present generation of mothers who have had school training could do this quite well, in the case of children who do not need the social stimulus of the school. Indeed before the school time begins, and in the hours out of school, children are as a rule taken by a maid servant to walk or to skate and so on. Children of the upper classes in most cases receive just as much, perhaps more, of their education from the nursery maid or from the school than from the mother. The father need not be mentioned at all, for as a rule he is an only occasional and unessential factor in the education of the child. Many will say by way of objection, that at no time has so much been done for the education of children as at present; that parents were never so watchful over the physical and psychical needs of the children; that at no time has the intercourse between children and parents been so free; at no time have schools been so actively at work. This is true but much of this tends to increase the homelessness of which I am speaking. The more the schools develop the more they are burdened with all the instruction for children, the more hours of the day they require for their demands. The school is expected to give instruction even in such simple matters as making children acquainted with their national literature, and handwork, which mothers could do perfectly well, certainly as well as our grandmothers. The greater the attention given at school to such essentially good things as gymnastics, handwork, and games, the more children are withdrawn from home. And even when at home, they are hindered by lessons and written exercises from being with their father and mother, on those exceptional occasions when the parents are at home. If we take into consideration the way in which the modern school system uses up the children's time, and present social and club life take up the time of parents, we come to the conclusion I began with, that domestic life is more and more on the decline. The reforms that must be demanded from the schools in order to restore the children to the home cannot be discussed now, since it is my intention to deal here only with those matters which must be reformed by the family itself, if reforms at school are to really benefit the young. Reforms of this kind have been made in schools but mothers complain that children have too little work at home or too few hours at school; that they, the mothers, absolutely do not know how they can keep the children occupied in so much free time. What may justly be considered the great progress in the family life of the present day, the confidential intercourse between parents and children, has not taken an entirely right direction. The result has been that children have been permitted to behave like grown people, sharing the habits and pleasures of their parents, or that the parents have ceased to live their own life. In neither of these two ways can a deep and sound relation between children and parents be produced. We see on the one side a minority of conscientious mothers and fathers, who in a real sense live only for the children. They mould their whole life for the life of the children; and the children get the idea that they are the central point of existence. On the other side, we see children who take part in all the life and over-refinements of the home. They demand like adults the amusements and elegancies of life; they even give balls and suppers at home or in hotels for their school companions. In these social functions, the vanity and stupidity of adults are conscientiously imitated. Then we require from these boys and girls, when they reach a time of life in which the passions awake, a self-control, a capacity of self-denial, a stoicism towards temptations to which they have never been trained, and which they have never seen their parents exercise. Most homes of the upper classes have not the means to keep up the life that is lived in them. By the money of creditors, or by an exorbitant profit made at the cost of working people, or by careless consumption of the very necessary savings to be laid by for hard times, or against the death of the family provider, a luxurious style of living is maintained. But even when in rare cases there is real ability to live in this way, parents would not do it, if the best interests of the children were taken into account. Elders may speak of industry as much as they like; if the father's and mother's work for children has no reality about it, the parents would do best to be silent. The same must be said of warnings and arbitrary prohibitions to children concerning the satisfaction of their desire for enjoyment, if the parents themselves do not influence the children by their own example. On the other hand there are just as disturbing consequences when industrious parents conceal their self-denial from their children, when they deprive themselves in the effort to spare their children the knowledge that their parents are not in a position to clothe them as well as their companions or to give them the same pleasures. Least of all is home life successful in helping children through the difficulties of their earlier years, when discipline has killed confidence between them and their parents, when they become insincere from want of courage and careless from want of freedom; when parents present themselves to the children as exceptional beings, asking for blind reverence and absolute subjection. From such homes in old days fine men and women could proceed, but now extremely seldom. Young people recognise in our days no such requirements; confidential intercourse with parents has robbed them of this nimbus of infallibility. Homes which send out men and women with the strongest morality, with the freshest stimulus to work, are those where children and parents are companions in labour, where they stand on the same level, where, like a good elder sister or an elder brother, parents regard the younger members of the household as their equals; where parents by being children with the children, being youthful with young people, help those who are growing up, without the exercise of force, to develop into human beings, always treating them as human beings. In a home like this nothing is especially arranged for children; they are regarded not as belonging to one kind of being while parents represent another, but parents gain the respect of their children by being true and natural; they live and conduct themselves in such a way that the children gain an insight into their work, their efforts, and as far as possible into their joys and pains, their mistakes and failures. Such parents without artificial condescension or previous consideration gain the sympathy of children and unconsciously educate them in a free exchange of thought and opinions. Here children do not receive everything as a gift; according to the measure of their power they must share in the work of the home; they learn to take account of their parents, of servants, and one another. They have duties and rights that are just as firmly fixed as those of their parents; and they are respected themselves just as they are taught to respect others. They come into daily contact with realities, they can do useful tasks, not simply pretend that they are doing them; they can arrange their own amusements, their own small money accounts, their own punishments even, by their parents never hindering them from suffering the natural consequences of their own acts. In such a home a command is never given unless accompanied at the same time with a reason for it, just as soon as a reason can be understood. So the feeling of responsibility is impressed upon the children from the tenderest age. The children are as seldom as possible told not to do things, but such commands when given are absolute because they always rest on good reasons, not on a whim. Mother and father are watchful, but they do not act as spies on their children. Partial freedom teaches children to make use of complete freedom. A system of negative commands and oversight produces insincerity and weakness. An old illiterate housekeeper who earned a living by taking school children to board was one of the best educators I have ever seen. Her method was loving young people and believing in them--a confidence that they as a rule sought to deserve. Moreover a good home is always cheerful, its affection real, not sentimental. No time is wasted in it in preaching about petty details or prosing. Mother and sisters do not look shocked when the small boy tells a funny story or uses strong language. A joke is not regarded as evidence of moral corruption, nor keen views as an indication of depravity. Liveliness, want of prudishness, which can be combined, so far as the feminine part of the household is concerned, with purity of mind and simple nobility, are characteristics for which there can be no substitutes. In such a household concord prevails, the young and old work, read, and talk together, together take common diversions; sometimes the young people, sometimes their elders, take the lead. The house is open for the friends of the children; they are free to enjoy themselves as completely as possible but in all naturalness without allowing their amusements to change the habits of the home. It is told of the childhood of a great Finnish poet, Runeberg, that his mother when she invited the young guests of her son to dance as long as they could, added, "When you are thirsty, the water cooler is there, and by it hangs the cup"; and more delightful dances, the old lady who told the story never remembered to have seen. This old-fashioned distinction, the courage to show oneself as one is, is absent from modern homes, and lack of courage has resulted in lack of happiness. The simple hospitable homely pleasures that have now been superseded by children's parties, lesson drudgery, and by parents living outside of the home must come back again if what is bad now is not to become worse. Evil is not to be expelled by evil; it is to be overcome by good. If the home is not to be again sunny, quiet, simple, and lively, mothers may go out as much as they like to discuss education and morality in the evening. There will be no real change. Mothers must seriously perceive that no social activity has greater significance than education, and that in this nothing can replace their own appropriate influence in a home. They must make up their minds to real reform, such reforms as those introduced by a lady in Stockholm; burdened though she was with social engagements and public obligations, she refused to accept any invitation except on one day of the week, in order to spend her evenings quietly with her children. How long will the majority of mothers sacrifice children to the eternal ennui and vacuity of our modern social and club life? There is no intention here to recommend that social life and public activities shall be deprived of the influence of experienced and thinking mothers. But I only wish to point to the cases of overstrain now caused by the stress of excessive sociability and outside activity. This kind of over-exertion, more especially, injures the home through the mother. In our day as in all other periods, be our opinions in other respects what they may, pagan, Christian, Jewish, or free thinking, a good home is only created by those parents who have a religious reverence for the holiness of the home. CHAPTER V SOUL MURDER IN THE SCHOOLS Any one who would attempt the task of felling a virgin forest with a penknife would probably feel the same paralysis of despair that the reformer feels when confronted with existing school systems. The latter finds an impassable thicket of folly, prejudice, and mistakes, where each point is open to attack, but where each attack fails because of the inadequate means at the reformer's command. The modern school has succeeded in doing something which, according to the law of physics, is impossible: the annihilation of once existent matter. The desire for knowledge, the capacity for acting by oneself, the gift of observation, all qualities children bring with them to school, have, as a rule, at the close of the school period disappeared. They have not been transformed into actual knowledge or interests. This is the result of children spending almost the whole of their life from the sixth to the eighteenth year at the school desk, hour by hour, month by month, term by term; taking doses of knowledge, first in teaspoonfuls, then in dessert-spoonfuls, and finally in tablespoonfuls, absorbing mixtures which the teacher often has compounded from fourth- or fifth-hand recipes. After the school, there often comes a further period of study in which the only distinction in method is, that the mixture is administered by the ladleful. When young people have escaped from this régime, their mental appetite and mental digestion are so destroyed that they for ever lack capacity for taking real nourishment. Some, indeed, save themselves from all these unrealities by getting in contact with realities; they throw their books in the corner and devote themselves to some sphere of practical life. In both cases the student years are practically squandered. Those who go further acquire knowledge ordinarily at the cost of their personality, at the price of such qualities as assimilation, reflection, observation, and imagination. If any one succeeds in escaping these results, it happens generally with a loss of thoroughness in knowledge. A lower grade of intelligence, a lower capacity for work, or a lower degree of assimilation, than that bestowed upon the scholar by nature, is ordinarily the result of ten or twelve school years. There is much common-sense in the French humourist's remark. "You say that you have never gone to school and yet you are such an idiot." The cases in which school studies are not injurious, but partially useful, are those where no regular school period has been passed through. In place of this there was a long period of rest, or times of private instruction, or absolutely no instruction at all, simply study by oneself. Nearly every eminent woman in the last fifty years has had such self-instruction, or was an irregularly instructed girl. Knowledge so acquired, therefore, has many serious gaps, but it has much more freshness and breadth. One can study with far greater scope and apply what one studies. Yet it is still true to-day that, however vehemently families complain about schools, they do not see that their demands in general education must change, before a reasonable school system, a school system in all respects different from the prevailing one, can come into existence. The private schools, few in number, that differ to a certain extent from the ordinary system are swallows that are very far from making a summer. Rather they have met the fate of birds who have come too early on the scene. As long as schools represent an idea, stand for an abstract conception, like the family and the state, so long will they, just as the family and the state, oppress the individuals who belong to them. The school no more than the family and the state represents a higher idea or something greater than just the number of individuals out of which it is formed. It, like the family and the state, has no other duty, right, or purpose than to give to each separate individual as much development and happiness as possible. To recognise these principles is to introduce reason into the school question. The school should be nothing but the mental dining-room in which parents and teachers prepare intellectual bills-of-fare suitable for every child. The school must have the right to determine what it can place on its bill-of-fare, but the parents have the right to choose, from the mental nourishment supplied by it, the food adapted to their children. The phantom of general culture must be driven from school curricula and parents' brains; the training of the individual must be a reality substituted in its place; otherwise reform plans will be drawn up in vain. But just as certain simple chemical elements are contained in all nourishment, there are certain simple elements of knowledge that make up the foundation of all higher forms of learning. Reading and writing one's own language, the elements of numbers, geography, natural science, and history, must be required by the schools, as the obligatory basis for advanced independent study. The elementary school beginning with the age of nine to ten years, I regard as the real general school. The system of instruction must assume that the children have breadth, repose, comprehensiveness, and capacity for individual action. All these qualities are destroyed by the present "hare and hound" system and by its endless abstractions. Such are the results of course readings, multiplicity of subjects, and formalism, all defects that have passed from the boys' schools into the girls' schools, from the elementary schools into the people's schools. They too are burdened by all these faults, which, though deplored by most people, can only be cured by radical reform. The instruction must be arranged in groups, certain subjects placed among the earlier stages of study while others are put aside for a later period. And in this connection it is not sufficient to consider the psychological development of the child. Certain subjects must be assigned to certain times of the year. The courses in these schools must come to an end at about the age of fifteen or sixteen. From them our young people can pass either into practical life, or go on to schools of continuation and application. It would be desirable to adopt the plan recommended by Grundtvig, that one or more vacation years should follow, before studies are taken up again. Girls, especially, would then come back to their studies with strengthened bodily powers and an increased desire for knowledge. It is now a common experience that the desire to learn, even in the case of talented young people, becomes quiescent, if they go on continuously with their studies, as they often do, from the sixth to the twentieth year and longer. To mark out the courses of such a school would offer tremendous difficulties. But these difficulties will not be found insuperable, after people have agreed that the souls of children require more consideration than a school programme. Among objections coming from parents, may be heard the following: That while the state refuses to take initiative in school reform, no one would dare to embark on a road which makes the future of their children so uncertain. In the meantime children must be allowed to learn what all others learn. When the state has taken the first step, the parents would be willing they say to follow with remarkable eagerness. What, I ask, has been always the right way to carry out reforms? There must be first an active revolt against existing evils. This particular revolt is yet not sufficiently supported, especially on the part of parents. The children themselves have begun to feel the need of protest, and, if not earlier, I hope that when the present generation of school children become fathers, mothers, and teachers, a reform will come about. No one can expect a system to be changed, until those who disapprove of it show that they are in earnest, show that they are taking upon themselves the sacrifices necessary to protect themselves from the unhappy results of the system. Families complain of the excessive aggregation of subjects, and yet they constantly burden the school with new subjects, even when these subjects are things the family can undertake itself. While families complain of overstrain, but make no use of the elective system in schools, where it has been introduced, while parents are willing to risk nothing to realise their principles, we cannot wonder that the state does not embark on reforms of any kind. There is an old pedagogical maxim, "Man learns for life not for school." While, for a great part of their time, the sexes are separated from one another, boys studying by themselves and the girls by themselves, the training for their future life is a bad one--a life in which the common work and co-operation between man and woman is, according to nature's ordinance, the normal thing. So long as the general school is a school for a special class, and not for everybody, it is no general school in the high sense of the word, and besides no school in which people learn for life. I have therefore always warmly held that the school should be no boys', no girls' school, no elementary and no people's school, but should be a real general or public school as in America, where both sexes, the children of all grades of society, will learn that mutual confidence, respect, understanding, by which their efficient co-operation in the family and state may be made possible. The common school, so arranged, is perhaps the most important means to solve definitely the problem of morality, the woman question, the marriage question, the labour question, in less one-sided and more human ways. From this point of view the establishment of the common school is much more than a pedagogical question; it is the vital question of our social order. Men and women, upper and lower classes, are walking on different sides of a wall. They can stretch their hands over it; the important thing to be done is to break the wall down. The school, as described above, is the first breach in this wall. A school like this would be like leaven. The many never reform the few; it is the few who gradually introduce reforms for the many. Because the few have strong enough dissatisfaction with present defects, courage great enough to show their disgust, a belief in the new truths real enough, they are ready to prepare the ground for the future. Such a school must be guided by the same principle which has humanised morality and law in other spheres. It must consider individual peculiarities. Personal freedom will thus have as few hindrances as possible to obstruct it. The rights of others must not be approached too close. The limits, where the rights of others can be affected, must be maintained, even enlarged. This humanising process will be introduced into the schools, when scholars are no longer regarded as classes, but each individual for himself. The schools will then commence to fulfil one of the many conditions necessary to give young people real nourishment and so develop them and make them happy. Such a school life will make its first aim to discover in early years uncommon talent, to direct such talent to special studies. Secondly, for those who lack definite talent, a plan of study will be arranged, in which their individuality too can be developed, and their intellectual tension increased. This condition is, if possible, more important than the first, for unusual talents are accompanied by greater power of self-conservation. Ordinary or lesser talented people, _i.e._, the larger majority, are rather confused by a plurality of studies and are much easier impaired, as personalities, by the uniformity of the prevailing system. The rights of unusually gifted people, and those of other classes too, can be considered when, as mentioned above, the school curriculum is so arranged, that certain subjects are studied during part of the school year, another class of subjects during another part. Moreover, certain subjects are to be studied at different times, not finished once for all. The instruction must be so arranged that real independent study, under the direction of the teacher, will be the ordinary method. The presentation of the subject by the teacher will be the exception, a treat for holidays, not for every day. The instruction too must take the scholar to the real thing, as far as possible, not direct him to report about the thing. Such a school must break up absolutely the whole system of lecturing, arranged in concentric circles. In certain cases, it must return to the methods of the old-fashioned school, which concentrated its attention on humanistic study. But dead languages should not be the subjects around which its studies should centre. Early specialisation must be allowed, where there are distinct individual tendencies for such work; Concentration on certain subjects at certain points of time; Independent work during the whole period of school; Contact with reality in the whole school curriculum;--these must be the four corner-stones of the new school. But the time is far distant still, when government schools will begin to build on this basis. What follows is meant, therefore, to apply, not to the great revolutions of school systems indicated above, but deals with improvements to take place at present. Learning lessons should be assigned to school hours as in France. Children should have an entirely free day in the week; study at home should be confined to the reading of literary works, tales of travel, and the like, which teachers can recommend in combination with the studies pursued at school. Tasks done at home are inconvenient; they do not increase the independence of the scholar; they are prepared as a rule with excessively free and often unwise help from the parents. At school such work would be done as a rule without help; besides, it is individual and quickly finished. In the school, time can be taken for study selected at the scholar's free choice. It can be arranged for in the following way. Take a class of about twelve scholars; in larger classes no reasonable or personal method of instruction is possible. There may be three scholars with distinct tastes, one for history, one for languages, one for mathematics. There may be two without any distinct talent for mathematics or languages. The other seven may have ordinary capacities. The first three must, during the whole term, apply themselves specially in certain hours, set aside for independent study, each in his chosen subject. The first will read some historical work on the periods taken up in the history class; the second will devote this time to mathematics; the third will read the books in foreign languages, mentioned in the language course. The other seven with ordinary gifts can devote this time to ordinary reading and handwork. In this way all will get some portion of history, mathematics, and languages, but those who are specially interested will have the opportunity of going deeper into the subject. If one of the three gifted scholars shows a great inclination for and a ready comprehension of all three subjects, he should study by himself at home, provided the more thorough study of one subject does not impair work on the other. The two who have special difficulty in mathematics or languages could either substitute one subject wholly for the other, or in those periods remain away from school, or, finally, the hours used by gifted scholars for individual study beyond the requirements of the common course could be devoted by these to work, under the teacher's supervision, in the course common to the whole class. To carry out this plan, there is need of such concentration of subjects as I have mentioned; there should be never more than one or at most two main subjects--history, geography, natural science--studied at once. Moreover no more than one language should be studied at the same time; practice in those already learnt is to be acquired by literary readings, written résumés, and conversation. Another kind of concentration is necessary. Not every subject should be split up into subdivisions but history should be made to include literary history, church history, etc. In geography at the early stage, a part of natural science should be included, and the history of art combined with both. Another not less important method implied in concentration is in all general courses to direct one's attention to the main questions, and to sacrifice the mass of details. Detailed work should not have been incorporated, as indispensable for general culture (from generation to generation), during the constant growth of the contents of knowledge. In regard to instruction, methods now popular should be forced out of the field. The two obligatory features, the careful hearing of lessons by the teacher, and the equally careful preparation of the next lesson, must be changed for other methods according to the age of the scholar, the special character of the subject, and of the scholar himself; or according to the particular stage of the subject. At one time the teacher should give an attractive, comprehensive account of a period, a character, a land, a natural phenomenon. Another time it will be enough to give a simple, introductory reference to the reading of one or more works on the subject, best of all an original authority. Sometimes he should require an oral account of what he has said, or what has been read; sometimes this should be done in writing. When the lesson is filled with many facts the scholar should write them down in the hour; another time he should summarise them from memory. An assigned amount too can be gone through along with the teacher's explanation; on another occasion, the assignment need not be gone over at all, but the scholars could show their capacity to understand it and comprehend it without assistance. Occasionally the task might be done in a short time from one day to another, sometimes it might take a longer period. But this work would, as has been said, take place ordinarily in the school. Purely literary readings and books of a similar type must be assigned for work at home, to be done during a considerable length of time. For we all know that the reading which has made a deep impression on us was only what was read freely; reading for which we ourselves could set the time, place, and inclination. And since, in this case, the important thing is the impression, not the knowledge, freedom is more important than in other subjects. Individual initiative can be furthered by having the teacher, as is done in France, explain in passing all words and subjects in a poem difficult to understand. The teacher too should now and then, by reading poetry aloud, stimulate the desire of the scholar to learn more of the same poet. A poem has the greatest effect when it is presented unexpectedly. When a history lesson is ended there should be read aloud a passage from an historical poem. Scholars do not forget either the poem, or the episode handled in it, even if they forget everything else. But test questions, used in the period of literature-study, go in at one ear and out at the other. A teacher who wishes to use this concentrated system in detail, that rests on the intelligent co-operation of the scholar, will naturally find that the method is to be derived from the personality of the teacher himself. I think the teacher of history should not take up the prehistoric period, but should give the scholar some good popular work on it and let him go to a museum; he should then require a written essay, to be illustrated by the scholar with drawings of characteristic types of archæological specimens. In the same way, he could give a comparative view of the same period among other people. Then, if there were a scholar especially anxious to learn, he could put in his hands a work about the primitive condition of man. Every teacher, man or woman, can easily think out, for the subjects they teach, analogous methods. The teacher of geography who is talking about Siberia can give some good general description of it to all the scholars for their private study. Those particularly interested would be recommended to read a narrative of travels in Siberia, Dostojewsky's _Out of the Dead House_, and so on. If the teacher of history were taking up Napoleon, he could read in the French hour a work like Vigny's _Servitude et Grandeur Militaire_. For the Dutch War of Independence, Motley's history, Goethe's _Egmont_, and Schiller's _Don Carlos_ could be read. A whole book could be written on plans like these, with indications how the different fields of knowledge could supplement one another, how history, geography, literature, and art could be intertwined just as on the other side geography and natural science. Similarly it would show how different teachers could be of use to one another in communicating to their scholars a fuller knowledge. I should like to propose an hypothesis for discussion and examination that I have formulated, after a wide experience in story-telling, both as a listener and as a narrator. If I might put together in a statement, without intending to prove it, the result of my experience in the subject named, I should say that the mental food which is most attractive for the child, also gives the most nourishment. This is the fact that the physiology of our day has proved in the case of the organic existence of the child. Pedagogy is beginning, consciously or unconsciously, to apply it to the mental sphere, yet without daring to hold that nature is so simple, that need and inclination can be so nearly related. Naturally, it cannot be maintained that what is most attractive for children's stories should constitute their whole training, as physiology maintains that what tastes most agreeable to the child, for example sugar, should form his sole nourishment. What every story-teller finds as specially attractive to children, is the epic smoothness, the clear comprehensiveness of the tale, its consistent objectivity. Every narrative which will win the attention of the child, whether it be from Scandinavian, classical, or biblical history, must have these characteristics of the tale. There are hardly any story-tellers who so completely absorb children as old nurses. They never forget any picturesque trait in the tale, they always give the same broad, full narrative. They tell their stories without explanations and without applications, with the real direct feeling of the child for grasping the subject. Everything which disturbs the smooth flow of the narrative, above all, when the narrator puts himself outside of it by indulging in a joke, strikes the child as a profound incongruity. Children are always more or less artistic in their nature, in the sense that they desire to receive an impression in its purity, not as a means to something else. They wish through the story to go through a real experience; at the same time they will say "No," if they are asked whether they would prefer to hear a real history to a story. This apparent contradiction can be explained in this way: the tale presents reality, as reality is conceived of by the naïve fancy of early ages, and is in just the form in which the imagination of the child can receive it. In telling stories, we find, besides, that what attracts children is the narrative of actions; in this roundabout way they get hold of emotions and sentiments. The development of the child--this is a truth which has to be worked out before it can really be taken in--answers in miniature to the development of mankind as a whole. And it follows from this that children combine idealism and realism, as epic national poetry does. Great, good, heroic, supernatural traits affect them most; but only in a concrete shape sensibly perceived, with the richness of the power which comes from life, without any adaptation to our present conceptions. We can test this by telling a real folk-lore tale, and Anderson's version of it. With a few exceptions children are unanimous in calling the first type the most beautiful. Besides what is attractive for lively children, with sound appetites, is quantity, but in no way multiplicity. First of all they ask whether the story is long after they have begun to hope that it is beautiful. They are glad to hear the same story innumerable times; they have an unconscious need for thorough assimilation, just as soon as what is given to them harmonises with their stage of development. This is true of all subjects. I know children who detest the "choice stories" from the Bible, with which their morning prayers are commenced, but who read the New Testament as a story-book. In this respect, all small children are like great ones, the artists. The imagination of children requires full, entire, deep impressions, as material for their energies that are incessantly creating and reconstructing. And if their sound feeling has not been disturbed by a dualism foreign to them it brings them with remarkably sure instinct to choose the sound, pure, and beautiful, and to reject the unsound, hateful, and crude. Finally, we find in story-telling that children much prefer continuity of impressions though they are said to express preference for change. We never hear children say, "Now tell a funny story, the one before was too gloomy." But if we commence telling gloomy stories they want one after another of the same type. If we had begun telling amusing stories, they never tire of laughing. The changeableness of children in playing, reading, and working is not so general a characteristic of childish nature as is believed. It is true only of children whose readings and games are not adapted to their nature and inclinations. Changeableness is, in a certain way, nature's self-defence against what is unconsciously injurious. As to comic narratives, it is found in story-telling that the child has the most keen sense for the humour of a situation. On the other hand they have hardly a trace of feeling for the humour that rests on deep intellectual contrasts, least of all for humour of the ironical type. If a narrative out of their own world is really to make impression on them, it must be like a tale, full of life, with action and surprises, broad and naïve in its style, without any noticeable aim. All the children's books which children through their life recollect and by which they are impressed, are those that at least in one way or another fulfil these conditions. The rest give other impressions, but even so they become no more harmless than arsenic wall-paper covered by fresh undyed layers. As to the humour of children, it can be easily tested. We can tell them the most comic psychological children's stories; ninety-nine out of a hundred they will declare to be terribly stupid, while a simple history presenting a funny situation doubles them up with laughter. Children do not feel drawn to abstract things; this is an old truth, whose correctness is established best by story-telling. All virtues and qualities, no matter how well concealed they may be, are very quickly pronounced stupid by children. For fables, children have seldom any taste, least of all for essays. The introduction of a fox or a bear into the story or in a real adventure makes the story-teller the dearest friend of children. But the most lively and childish essay on the bear or the fox leaves them cold, unless it is made real by some personal experience in the country or by a visit to a zoölogical garden. This truth is so recognised and proved from so many points of view, that I will simply say here that experience in story-telling gives additional evidence of it. Children show, in listening to stories, a finely developed sensitiveness to all attempts to descend to, or to adopt, the standpoint of the child, to everything that is artificial in the narrative. In intercourse with children, especially with those who represent progressive methods, can be seen how the reaction against the old lesson and hidebound methods has produced an artificial naïveté, a richness of illustrations, and a liveliness that children soon feel as something specially prepared for them, something not quite real. This way of partially giving to children their own imaginative power puts them to sleep, even when it succeeds at first in giving them a good entertainment in their lessons. For the illustrations and comparisons, as well as the consequences which another has thought out for them, obstruct the initiative of the child; besides they are all soon forgotten. It is the same with playthings; those they make themselves give inexhaustible pleasure, while those that are ready made only confer joy once or twice. They are shown and then broken in pieces in order to extract the clockwork, for this is the only possible way for the child to do something with it himself. Instruction is beginning to resemble children's playthings and children's books; it is too complete, too richly illustrated. It hinders individual free voyages of discovery of the imagination. Even good illustrations are often injurious; but we do not intend to speak at length on this subject. As a matter of fact children often feel themselves deceived by illustrations. The reserve in a story is also a property that attracts the child. Its pictures are indicated with a few definite but repeated details. The imagination is allowed to fill the picture with colours. The uniformity, the rhythm, and the symmetry, all qualities belonging to the folk-lore tale, are for the child extremely absorbing. They enjoy such repetitions as "the first, second, and third year" and so on, quite like the refrain in rhyme and poetry. But all these observations lead to a final result. The present reading-book system is neither the most attractive for children, nor does it best supply them with what they want. Instead of epic smoothness and unity, reading-books bring a confused mixture of all kinds, nursery rhymes, religious teaching, poetry, natural history, and history. Occasionally there comes a tale or a real poem, standing apart distinctly from its neighbours, in tone and in comprehensiveness. Instead of clear impressions, children get through the reading-book a disturbing jumble; instead of objectivity, they get instructive children's stories; instead of poetry, edifying versification; instead of action, reflection; instead of much of one thing, a little of everything; instead of continuity of impressions, constant change; instead of concrete impressions of life, essays; instead of naïve tales, things written down to their level. I ask what is the result of this reading-book system on the development of the child from six to sixteen years old? What, in general, is the result on the development of character when one flits from impression to impression, nipping in flight at different things, letting one picture after another slip away, making no halt anywhere? As to the effect on adults, immediate answers can be given. These answers are so unfavourable that they do not need to be repeated. But, should a principle which applies to the adult be less suitable for the child? It really applies much more to the child. Adults generally have some work, some occupation, some one centre around which they can arrange manifold events, change may often be advantageous for them; but the whole school day of the child is change; the way the child absorbs knowledge is by the teaspoonful. Is not this condition enough to urge us to work with all our might against the system of diffusion wherever it is unnecessary? In reading-books diffusion is not necessary; in foreign languages, as in his own tongue, the interest of the child is much more stimulated by a book than by a reader; his vocabulary is increased. But even if this were not the case, what the child gains through reading-books, in quick readiness in the mother tongue or in foreign languages, does not compensate for the loss their use signifies in development in the way already mentioned. The schools deal improperly with the mental powers of youth, through their lack of specialising, of concentration, in their depreciation of initiative, in their being out of touch with reality. High schools and colleges are absolutely destructive to personality. Here, where only oral examinations should take place from time to time, where all studies should tend to be individual, the hunger of the scholar for reality is hardly satisfied in any direction. Nothing is done to help his longing to see for himself, to read, to judge, to get impressions at first-hand, not from second-hand reports. Certainly here, too, the direction of the teacher is necessary. He can economise superfluous work by clarifying generalisations; he can criticise a one-sided account in order to complete the picture fully himself. Often the teacher must excite interest by a vigorous account from his own point of view; by a fine psychological study, he can illustrate a complex historical picture. He will help the scholar to find laws, governing the phenomena which he has come to know by his own experiments, or he can suggest comparisons which lead to such experiments. Here, also, oral and written exercise must have great weight. But the end of all instruction in college, as in the school, should not consist in examinations and diplomas; these must be obliterated from the face of the earth. The aim should be that the scholars themselves, at first hand, should acquire their knowledge, should get their impressions, should form their opinions, should work their way through to intellectual tastes, not as they now do, taking no trouble themselves, but being supposed to acquire these gifts through interesting lectures given by the teacher on five different subjects, heard every morning while the students are dozing, and soon forgotten. Facts slip away from every one's memory, quickest from the memory of those who have learned according to the dose and teaspoonful system. But education happily is not simply the knowledge of facts, it is, as an admirable paradox has put it, what is left over after we have forgotten all we have learnt. The richer one is in such permanent acquisitions, the greater the profit of study. The more subjective pictures we have; the more numerous our vibrating emotions and associations of ideas are; the more we are filled with suggestively active impressions;--so much the more development we have, won by study for our personality. The fact that our students acquire so little, even if they have passed through every school with excellent marks, is a serious injustice they feel during their whole life. The beautifully systematised, ticketed, checkerboard knowledge given by examinations soon disappears. The person who has kept his desire for knowledge and his capacity for work by his free choice and by his independent labor can easily fill out the gaps left by this method of study in the knowledge he has acquired. Only the person who by knowledge has obtained a view of the great connected system of existence, the connection between nature and man's life, between the present and the past, between peoples and ideas, cannot lose his education. Only the person who, through the mental nourishment he has received, sees more clearly, feels more ardently, has absorbed completely the wealth of life, has been really educated. This education can be gained in the most irregular way, perhaps around the hearth or in the field, on the seashore or in the wood; it can be acquired from old tattered books or from nature itself. It can be terribly incomplete, very one-sided, but how real, personal, and rich it appears to those who for the period of fifteen years in school have ground out the wheat on strange fields, like oxen with muzzled mouths! Our age cries for personality; but it will ask in vain, until we let our children live and learn as personalities, until we allow them to have their own will, think their own thoughts, work out their own knowledge, form their own judgments; or, to put the matter briefly, until we cease to suppress the raw material of personality in schools, vainly hoping later on in life to revive it again. CHAPTER VI THE SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE I should like to set down here briefly my dreams of a future school, in which the personality may receive a free and complete self-development. I purposely say "dreams," because I do not want any one to believe that I am pretending in the following outline to give a reformed programme for the present time. My first dream is that the kindergarten and the primary school will be everywhere replaced by instruction at home. Undoubtedly a great influence has proceeded from that whole movement which has resulted, among other things, in the Pestalozzi-Froebel kindergartens, and in institutions modelled after them. Better teachers have been produced by it; but what I regard as a great misfortune, is the increasing inclination to look upon the crèche, the kindergarten, and the school as the ideal scheme of education. Every discussion dealing with the possibilities of women working in public life exalts the advantage of freeing the mother from the care of children, emancipating children from the improper care of their mothers, and giving women possibilities of work outside of the home. Mrs. Perkins Stetson proposes as a compromise, that every mother, pedagogically qualified, shall take care of a group of children along with her own. But what her own children will receive under such conditions is sufficiently shown in the case of those poor children who grow up in educational institutions presided over by their parents; and also by the experience of the poor parents who are not able under these conditions to look after their own children. The crèche and the kindergarten were and continue to be a blessing undoubtedly for those innumerable mothers who work outside of their homes and are badly prepared for their duties. Some type of kindergarten will perhaps be necessary under particular circumstances as a partial substitute for the home, as, for example, when a child has no companions to play with, or when the mother herself is disinclined or not able to educate the child. This incapacity is ordinarily the result of an extremely nervous temperament, caused by weak will or depression. Mary Wollstonecraft's remarks, made more than a hundred years ago, still call for our approval. "If children are not physically murdered by their ignorant mothers, they are ruined psychically by the inability of the mother to bring them up. Mothers, in those first six years that determine the whole development of the child's character, turn them over to the hands of servants, whose authority is often undermined by the way in which they are treated. Then children are passed on to school to control the bad behaviour which the vigilance of the mother could have prevented, and which she controls with means that become the basis for all kinds of vices." But because such cases are still frequent and because there will always be mothers incapable of bringing their children up, it would be a premature assumption to believe that the majority of women cannot be trained to become parents, if the development of the woman has this end in view. One of the tasks of the future is the creation of a generation of trained mothers, who among other things will emancipate children from the kindergarten system. Children are handled in crowds from two and three years up, they are made to appear before the public in crowds, made to work on the one plan, made to do the same petty, idiotic, and useless tasks. In this way, we believe at the present time that we are forming men, while actually we are only training units. Any one who remembers how, as a child, he played on the beach or in the wood, in a big nursery or in an old-fashioned attic, or has seen other children playing in these surroundings, will know how such unrestrained play deepens the soul, increases the capacity for invention, and stimulates the imagination a hundredfold more than children's games and occupations devised by the arrangement, and promoted by the interference, of elder persons. Adults are accustomed to amuse children in crowds, a custom which comes from intellectual vulgarity, instead of leaving them alone to amuse themselves. Besides this system encourages children to produce what they do not need, and leads them to imagine that they are working by so doing. Children should be taught to despise all the numerous unnecessary things which put life on a false level and make it artificial. They should be taught to try to simplify it, to aim for its supreme values; this should be the end of education. The kindergarten system is, on the contrary, one of the most effective means to produce the weak dilletante and the self-satisfied average man. If there is any further need for the kindergarten in the near or distant future, let it be a place where children may have the same freedom as cats or dogs, to play by themselves, and for themselves, to think out something of their own, where they can be provided with means to carry out their own plans, where they have companions to play with them. A sensible woman may be near at hand to look on or to supervise, but only to interfere when the children are likely to hurt themselves. Let her draw something for them occasionally, tell them a story, or teach them an amusing game, but otherwise let her be apparently quite passive and yet untiringly active in the observation of the traits of character and of disposition which play of this free type reveals. In like manner the mother should observe the play of children, their treatment of their companions at play, their inclinations, and collect as much material as she can but interfere as little directly as possible. The mother finally by this constant, many-sided, strenuous, yet passive kind of observation gets a knowledge of the child that is partially exact. One being never learns to know another being entirely, not even when that being has received its life from the other, not even when that life is daily renewed by the other being, in order to reach the full happiness of spiritual motherhood. It has been well said that as people regard the birth of a child as the sign of physical maturity, the education of a child is regarded as a sign of psychical maturity. But through lack in psychological insight, most parents remain their whole life immature. They can have the best principles, the most zealous fidelity to duty, combined with absolute blindness to the nature of children, the real causes of their actions, and the different combinations of different characteristics. Take some examples of the worst blunders of this type; the small child is often called vain who studies, full of interest, his own identity in the glass; the child who, from fear or confusion at a hard or incomprehensible question, does not answer or obey is called stubborn; the child that cannot explain his actions in those small things which adults every day entirely forget is looked upon as lying; and even before the child has a conception of the right of property, when he pilfers, he is called thievish. The child who says that he knows that he is naughty, and wants to be naughty, is called obdurate and impertinent, while this statement is really a self-confession and shows a character to which one may appeal with the best results. The child, sunk in thought, who forgets the small things of daily life, people call thoughtless. Even when a child is really selfish and is really lying or lazy, these characteristics are treated as if they were something individual, while actually they are caused often by some serious fault which must be dealt with. These characteristics can proceed from a good quality which may be destroyed, if the fault is not treated suitably. But even parents who now observe their children with more psychological insight than was used in earlier times are not able to study them, if their children go to school and kindergarten at an early age. This want of insight produces mistakes which often cause deep antagonisms between children and their parents, the sort of thing which now embitters so many households. Only fathers and mothers who reverence the individuality of their children, and combine with this feeling a careful observation of them through their whole life, are able to avoid this typical fault of our own time. People expect to gather grapes from thistles, instead of being satisfied with haws. Parents must see that they cannot create where there is no material to be created. But they must be capable of developing the characteristics which they discover in the nature of their children. This work they must undertake with optimism and resignation, for it represents the teaching of real psychological study. This will stop those efforts, painful alike for children and parents, that are applied in directions which offer no reward to effort. But the study of the psychology of the child, begun at its birth, continued in its play, its work, its rest, means a daily comparative study, and requires the undivided attention of one person. It can only be done by a person who has charge of but a few children; in a crowd it is impossible. It is all the more impossible because children in a crowd resemble one another more or less; and this makes observation more difficult. The kindergarten is only a factory. Children learn in it to model, instead of making mud pies according to their own taste. This process is typical of what these small atoms of humanity go through themselves. From the first floor of the factory the objects that have been turned out there are sent to the next floor above, the school; and from this they then go out put up in packages. The aim of school training is to carry out, with all its might, production by quantities that expresses the demands of our time in all spheres. The invention of individual school methods may reduce the influence of "canned education." As long as there are large cities, poor children in them must be able to obtain the possibilities of country children. Their playthings must be made out of the world which surrounds them. The obligations of their own home must supply them with work. This is altogether different from the play work of the kindergarten that has no connection with the seriousness of reality. A wise mother or teacher will adopt from the kindergarten system just so much as will enable her to teach children to observe nature and their surroundings; will take from it what enables her to make them combine their activity with some useful end; their amusement with some kind of knowledge. The Froebel dictum, "Let us live for the children," must be changed into a more significant phrase, "Let us allow the children to live." This, among other things, means "let them be emancipated from the burden of learning by heart," from the forms of system, from the pressure of the crowd, in those years while the quiet, secret work of the soul is as vital for them as the growing of the seed in the earth. The kindergarten system is opposed to this; it is forcing up the seed to life on a plate, where it looks very pretty, but only for the time being. The school with its _esprit de corps_ opens the way public lack of conscience. Modern society manages thus to reproduce the crimes of every past period; manages too, to reproduce them through men who are conscientious in their own private life. For those without consciences, who lead criminal movements, would never be able to put the masses of people in motion, unless they were just masses and nothing more; unless they were made to follow collective laws of honour, collective patriotic feelings, collective conceptions of duty. The child learns to be obedient to his school, to be loyal to his comrades, just as later on in life he learns these qualities as they are presented in his university, his student society, and his profession. All of this he learns sooner than to reverence his conscience, his feeling of right, his individual impulse. He learns to wink at, pardon, and disguise the sins committed by his own circle of companions, his own club, and his own country. This is the way the world produces its "Dreyfus Affairs," its Transvaal Wars. If the aim is to create men and not masses, we should follow the educational programme of the great statesman Stein--"to develop all those impulses on which the value and strength of mankind depend." This is only possible when the child is taught, at the earliest age, the freedom and danger of his own choice, the right and responsibility of his own will, the conditions and duties of being put to the test himself. All of these elements of character are unconsciously opposed by the kindergarten; the home alone can develop them. The highest result of education is to bring the individual into contact with his own conscience. This does not mean that the individual cannot experience by degrees the happiness and the necessity of being a factor in the service of the whole, first in his home, then among his companions and in his country, and finally in the world. The difference is this: in the first case the man is a living cell, co-operating and building up living forms; in the other he is a piece of cut stone used in artificial construction. Both for the development of individuality, as well as for the cultivation of the emotions, the home is to be preferred to the kindergarten and to the school. In the limited small circle of the home the emotional element can be deepened and tenderness can be developed, by the acts called for in the realities of domestic life. The kindergarten first, and then the school, free children from their natural individual obligations and put in their place demands that can only be fulfilled _en masse_. The child enters into a number of superficial relations. This situation tends to make his emotions superficial; here is the great danger of beginning school life at a tender age. On the other hand a one-sided home life brings with it the danger of concentrating the emotions to an excess. Education at home in the years when the emotions become harmonious and receive their decisive training is just as important for the child as is later on a pleasant sociable life with others of the same age, after the twelfth year is passed. All intellectual cultivation done according to the most excellent method, all social feelings, are worthless unless they have as their basis an individual development of the emotions. Somewhere in our body we must have a heart, to act as a real balance against our head. Only the man who has learnt to love a few, deep enough to die for them, is able to live profitably for the many. I should like to see not only the kindergarten but the preparatory school transferred to the home. There things can be considered that are never taken into account in a general school. The child need not have the nourishment he does not want, and which he does not need, at the time he now generally receives it. In the home school, one child can put off reading to a later age, another can be taught reading early. The desire for action in one child can be satisfied; the book-hunger of the other encouraged. Bodily development, the desire to make a real acquaintance with external nature can be considered in home work, play, and out-of-door activities. Then we can begin to teach when the child himself asks for teaching; that is, when he wishes to hear or do something in which knowledge alone can assist him. The child can twice as easily learn at ten years, under these conditions, what he now learns at eight; at eight what he now learns at six, if he comes to his study with developed powers of observation and an eager desire for action. Schools can never attain a full insight into the peculiar character of personality, into the ways in which knowledge must be placed before different individuals, into the right time for taking a subject or giving it up. The home school must be considered the ideal method where the child studies with a small group of well-selected companions. Individuality can be considered, plans of study and courses can be neglected. Through such neglect only, is a real living instruction possible. The advantages the modern school has over the home are hardly worth discussing. The order of the school, its method, system, and discipline, so much praised by its advocates as advantages, are, from my point of view, nothing but disadvantages. Habits of fulfilling duties, or work, orderly and punctual activity, that belong to a sound education, can be attained in the home school through far less artificial means. Of course it is urged as another advantage of the school that the school child becomes a member of a small community where he learns social duties. But the home is the natural community where the child, in full seriousness, learns the real social duties of readiness to help, and readiness to act, while the present-day school artificially replaces that domestic social education, of which the child is now robbed by studies at school and preparation at home. The real value of school life among companions can be had from the home school without its ordinary dangers. These dangers are not only evil influences, but, more than anything else, that collective process of reaching a standard of stupidity, due to the pressure of public opinion that comes from association in masses. The fear of common opinion, of being laughed at, is created in the receptive years of childhood, so open to such influences. The slightest deviation in dress, or taste, is criticised unsparingly. If an investigation were conducted on the sufferings of children through the tyranny of their fellows, a tyranny which sometimes takes harsher, sometimes milder forms, it would upset the prejudice that the usefulness of the school in this respect cannot be replaced. Besides there is the levelling pressure of a uniform discipline, which stunts personality from above, while life with school companions restricts it on all sides. Every criticism on this formal pedantry is met with the answer, "In a school it is absolutely impossible to permit children to do what can be done in the household; only fancy if all children in the school were to sharpen their lead pencils or erase words in their exercises." There is no need to insist further on this point. Hundreds of petty rules must exist, we are told, for the sake of discipline. And even if the rules could be reduced to a fourth of their present cubic contents, even the best schools would still feel the pressure of uniformity. The more this pressure is resisted by individuals, so much the better. Education in the first years must aim to strengthen individuality. The whole of biographical literature supplies an almost uniform proof of the importance of not commencing too early the levelling social education of the school. Early attendance at school is one of the reasons why we so frequently meet, as Dumas says, so many clever children, and so many stupid adults. Almost all great men and women, who have thought and created for themselves, have received either no education in school at all, or have gone to school at a rather later period, with longer or shorter interruptions, or have been trained in different schools. In most cases it was an accident, some living point of view, a book read in secret, a personal choice of subject that gave these exceptional beings their training. In this respect Goethe's education was ideal, considered apart from some pedantry due to his father's influence. At his mother's work-table he learnt to know the Bible; French he learnt from a theatrical company; English from a language master, in company with his father; Italian, because he heard his sister being taught the language; mathematics from a friend in the household, a study which Goethe applied immediately, first in cardboard diagrams, later in architectural drawings. His essays he prepared in the form of a correspondence in different languages between different relatives, scattered in various parts of the world. Geography he eagerly studied in books of travel in order to be able to give his narrative local colour. He knocked about with his father, learnt to observe different kinds of handwork, and also to try himself small experiments of his own skill. But some one may say, all men are not geniuses, and accordingly the majority without distinct talent need the school. Is it possible that the connection between originality and irregular attendance at school is merely accidental? How often does the school sin in its watering down of originality! As for unoriginal people, the argument urged here is an application of the biblical axiom, that from him who has nothing even the little will be taken away. I mean the individual who has no distinct personality will be forced in the school to give up the little that he can call his own. The old-fashioned school where a few subjects were learnt by heart, where the teachers were often badly prepared, where the students could go to sleep or pretend to learn, where the courses were simple and attention concentrated on Latin, seems barbarous to us. But it had less danger for the personality than the present-day school with its thorough preparation, its interest in readings, its perfected methods, its capital instructors who take every little stone out of the student's road, and prepare as much delightful intellectual nourishment as possible, sometimes even in a cooked-up form. This "good school" with its over-insistence on versatility is responsible for the nervousness of our day. Its general intellectual apathy has caused the negativeness of our times. The quietest, most obedient child is thought the best pupil, that is, the most impersonal individual is the model. So we see how the school confuses its conception of values. The more the soul and body are passive, are willing to be controlled and receptive, so much the better are the results from the school standpoint. Mischievous children, obstinate characters, one-sided and original natures, are always martyrs at school because of their desire for action, their spirit of opposition, their so-called "stupidity." Only the easy-going, amiable, commonly endowed natures can keep some of their own individual tendencies, slip through the school, and at the same time get good certificates of industry, moral character, order, and progress. In the first-class modern school, the mobile structure of personality is forced into shape--or rather it is knocked about by wind and waves, like a pebble on the seashore. It is struck by one wave after another, day by day, term by term; on they come--forty-five minutes for religious instruction, the same period for history, then French, then sloyd, then natural history; the next day new subjects in new, small doses. In the afternoon, there is preparation at home, and writing exercises, previously arranged and marked out, then corrected with care, and the prepared readings made the basis of questioning by the most approved methods, the mother having at home first gone over them with the child. These powerful billows stupefy the brain, and take the edge off the souls of both teacher and scholar. Even the most active teachers move along fettered by requirements and prejudices, unconditional necessities and methodical principles. Only occasionally is a soul saved from this fate by total skepticism. Some exalt this pettifogging professionalism to a plan of salvation, others are untiringly busy in changing details, in discussing minor improvements. Every real thoroughgoing reform affecting the principle, not the methods alone, goes to pieces, because it conflicts with the system supported by the state. It fails, through the obedient acceptance of the system on the part of parents, through the incapacity of teachers to look at the whole results of the system, through their disinclination to all radical methods of improvement. The school, like the home and society, in general should aim to fight more vigorously and more successfully the influences belittling life, and should further its development towards ever higher forms. This end is opposed by the modern schools. It is a gross mistake to hold up their excellent material and their number as proofs of popular culture. How the people are educated in the schools, how the material is used, what subjects are pursued in them are the momentous questions. Goethe's saying that "fortune is the development of our capacities" is as applicable to children as to adults. What these capacities are can be determined soon in the case of the talented child; his future can be secured by obtaining for him the possibility of such a development. But there are common capacities, proper to every normal human being, and from their development, fortune too can be the outcome. Among such capacities is memory, which modern man has nearly destroyed. "We throw ashes," says Max Muller, "every day on the glowing coals of memory while men of past ages could retain in their minds the treasures of our present literature." To these capacities belong, among others, power of thought, not in the sense of philosophic thinking, but in the simpler use of the word, gifts of observation, ability to draw conclusions and to exercise judgment. Of the common universal human faculties the emotions suffer most at the hand of the modern school. One of the fundamentally wrong pedagogical assumptions, is that mathematics and grammar develop the understanding. This is only true after a higher stage is reached in these courses. But there is no one who seriously maintains that, so far as nature or man is concerned, he has used directly or indirectly, in a single observation, conclusion, or exercise of judgment, the theses, hypotheses, statements, problems, the rules and exceptions, of mathematics and grammar, with which his childish brain was burdened. I have heard from mathematicians and philologians the same heresy that I am proclaiming, that mathematics and grammar, when they are not pursued as sciences, must be reduced to a minimum. Provided a person has mathematical talent, the study of mathematics is naturally agreeable, through the development of a capacity in a certain direction. If one has the gift for languages, the same is true of linguistic study. But without such special talent, these subjects have no educational value, because the powers of observation, drawing conclusions, exercising judgment, are just as undeveloped as they were before the mathematical problem was solved or the grammatical rules learned. Life--the life of nature and of man--this alone is the preparation for life. What the world of nature and the world of man offers in the way of living forms, objects of beauty, types of work, processes of development, can, by natural history, geography, history, art, and literature, give real value to memory; can teach the understanding to observe, to judge and distinguish; can train the feeling to become intense, and through its intensity combine the varying material in that unity which alone is education. In brief, real things are what the home and school should offer children in broad, rich, and warm streams. But the streams should not be taken off in canals and dammed up by methods, systems, divisions of courses, and examinations. I never read a pedagogical discussion without the fine words "self-activity, individual development, freedom of choice," suggesting to me the music which accompanies the sacrificial feasts of cannibals. The moment these words are used, limitations and reservations are introduced by their advocates. Their proposed application is ludicrously insignificant, in contrast with the great principle in the name of which they urge these changes. And so the pupil continues to be sacrificed to educational ideals, pedagogical systems, and examination requirements, that they refuse to abandon. The everlasting sin of the school against children is to be always talking about the child. The sloyd system (manual dexterity, handwork, artistic production) has certain good results on children. Accordingly the sloyd must be introduced into the school, and all must be made to share the advantages of this training; but there are children for whom the sloyd is as inappropriate and as useless a requirement as learning Latin. The child who wants to devote himself to his books should be no more forced to take up the sloyd, than the child who is happy with his planing table should be dragged to literature. All talk about "harmonious training" must be given the place where it belongs--in the pedagogical culinary science. Certainly harmonious development is the finest result of man's training, but it is only to be attained by his own choice. It implies a harmony between the real capacities of the individual, not a harmony worked up from a pedagogical formula. The results from the school kneading trough with its mince-meat processes are something quite different. Isolated reforms in the modern school have no significance; they will continue to have none, until we prepare for the great revolution, which will smash to pieces the whole present system and will leave not one stone of it upon another. Undoubtedly a "Deluge" of pedagogy must come, in which the ark need only contain Montaigne, Rousseau, Spencer, and the modern literature of the psychology of the child. When the ark comes to dry land man need not build schools but only plant vineyards where teachers will be employed to bring the ripe grapes to the children, who now get only a taste of the juice of culture in a thin watery mixture. The school has only one great end, to make itself unnecessary, to allow life and fortune, which is another way of saying self-activity, to take the place of system and method. From the kindergarten period on the child is now, as has been said, a material moulded, sometimes by hostile, sometimes by friendly hands. The mildest, the apparently freest methods produce uniformity by insisting on the same work, the same impression, the same regulations, day by day, year by year. Besides in the school, classes are never arranged according to the child's temperament and tendency, but according to his age and knowledge. So he is condemned in deadly tediousness to waste an infinite amount of time while he is waiting for others. The very earliest period of instruction should use the power the child has for observation and work. These capacities should be made the means of his education, the standard for using his own observation. If the power of observation is vigorous, no general rules are to be drawn, but only particular ones. One child must read, play, or do handwork in a different degree to another. One can at an early age, the other only at a later period, take advantage of the education to be obtained from going to museums or from travel (the best of all travel is tramping). The indispensable elements will be reduced to their lowest measure; for what any one man needs to be able to do, in order to find himself at home in life, is not considerable. The minimum is to read well, to spell properly, to write with both hands, to copy simple objects, so that one learns picture writing just as alphabet writing. This skill is quite different from artistic gifts. Besides there must be instruction in looking at things geometrically, the four simple rules of arithmetic and decimal fractions, as much geography as will help one to use a map and a time-table, as much knowledge of nature as will give one a fundamental conception of the simplest requirements of hygiene; and finally, the English language, in order to put one in touch with the increasing intercourse in the great world. Through these requirements the child will be endowed with what he needs, in order to find himself at home in the world of books and of life. Let there be added to these the ability to darn a stocking, sew on a button, and thread a needle. Only the indispensable should be the obligatory foundation of further culture, which is only the trimming on a simple garment. The trimming receives its entire value because the individual has prepared it himself; it must not be made by a machine according to a model prepared in a factory. What is mentioned here supplies the same basis for all, but children should be able to throw themselves into the pastoral life of the Old Testament, into the life of the Greek and Scandinavian gods and heroes, into the life of popular legends and national history; but this should be done only through the books which they get for their amusement. At the present time all of these things are made pure subjects of study! Assume, then, that this foundation is laid. The school of the future, which will be a school for all, will advance general education, but the plan it follows will be adapted to every individual. In the school of my dreams there will be no report books, no rewards, no examinations; at graduation time examinations will be arranged for but they will be oral. In them detailed knowledge will not be considered; education as a whole will determine the decision of the examiners, who will personally accompany the children in the open air in order to become quietly acquainted with what they know of mankind, of past and present history. And the education which will make the training aim at this end will be diametrically opposed to that given by the teacher of the present day. The teacher will be required to make his own observations, he will guide the scholar in the choice of books, and show him how to work. But he will not give first his own observation, judgment, and knowledge in the form of lectures, preparations, and experiments. Occasionally he will without giving notice ask for an oral or written account of work, and so ascertain how thoroughly the scholar has gone into the subject. At another time, when he knows that the scholar is prepared for it, he will give a general treatment, a comprehensive review of the subject, a stimulating and stirring impression, as a reward for independent work. Finally, when the scholar wishes it, he will examine him formally, but his real work will be to teach the scholar to make his own observations, to solve his own problems, to find his own aids to study in books, dictionaries, maps, etc., to fight his way through his own difficulties to victory and so reach the only moral reward for his trouble with broadened insight and increased strength. The scholar who sits down and listens to, or looks at, the demonstration or experiment of the teacher does not learn to observe, nor does he whose exercise book is corrected with painful accuracy learn to write; nor does the one who pedantically carries out the system of models in the sloyd system learn to make articles fit for every-day use. The student must make his investigations himself, he must find the mistakes himself when their presence is indicated to him, he must himself think out the objects brought before him. Above all, the separate errors must not be corrected except when they are so constant and serious that they waste time. But the scholar himself must try to find out the correct and complete method of work and of expression. This is what training, what education is. Text-books will be attractive and virile, the "Reader" will disappear, the complete books in the original (the text may be revised if it is filled with confusing details) will be placed in the hands of children. The school library will be the largest, most beautiful, and important room; lending books in the schools will be an essential part of the curriculum. The future school of my dreams will be surrounded by large gardens, where, as in already-existing schools in some places, the feeling for beauty will be directly encouraged. The individual scholars will arrange the flowers in the school and at home. They will take them home in order to adorn the window garden, and every schoolroom in winter will have a garden of this kind. This will be the natural method of making the simplest of all esthetic enjoyments a universal need. But taste must not be developed by instruction in the art of arranging flowers; this is to be attained only by pointing out those that have been arranged in the most beautiful way. In this as in all other things, self-help is essential. Natural dexterity will be attained by book-binding, turning, and other kinds of handwork, also by gardening and play. Such training has far greater educational value than the systematic types. The purposelessness and the uniformity of these are the terror of youth. Gymnastics should only be used on days when the weather makes bodily exercise in the open air impossible; they can certainly be made more living by being connected with physiology and hygiene, just as mathematics can be made real by being combined with handwork and drawing. But nothing can equal the value of movement in the open air. Besides its garden, the future school will have its hall. Outside it will have a playground for dancing and really free play--I mean the kind of play where children, after they have learnt the game, are left to themselves. Games constantly accompanied by a teacher make play a parody. The development of beauty will become the aim of physical instruction as it once was with the Greeks, not simply physical strength. Through different kinds of hand and garden work, the child will be spared from a number of requirements in mathematics and physics, because he will in many things make discoveries himself. In the methods of school drudgery the child learns that a seed grows by warmth and moisture. In real training, the child himself sows the seed and sees what happens to it; this system is followed I believe in many schools, but only as proofs of a given abstract statement. The mistake of the modern school is really just here; it illustrates its course of instruction by, as it were, over-charging the child's attention, instead of giving him time and opportunity to originate for himself. In the future school-building, there will be no class-rooms at all, but different halls with ample material provided for different subjects, and, by the side of them, rooms for work where each scholar will have a place assigned to him for private study. Common examinations will only take place when several scholars are ready and willing, anxious to be examined on the same subject; and each student can ask for the examination independent of the rest. In every room, on the outside of the building, architecture and decoration will form a beautiful whole; and the artistic objects, detached from the building, for the adornment of the school will be partly originals, partly casts and copies of famous originals. The sense for art will not be awakened by direct artistic instruction, either in the school or when visiting museums. Classes can perhaps get such knowledge when taken around museums; but love for art can only be gained when the scholar is surrounded by art; when he can absorb it in peace and freedom. Let this quiet progress be anticipated by instruction--I don't mean the admiring criticism of the teacher himself, which he in passing expresses without explanation or questioning--and the inevitable result is troubling the water of a living well. Interference here, as in all other cases, destroys the individual pleasure of discovery. Constantly being taken about really impairs the capacity for seeing for oneself. In art, in literature, and in religion, all instruction is a mistake until the young mind has chosen some part of it as an object to be known. Knowledge destroys, feeling creates, life. But the roots of feeling are easily injured. As to visits to museums under the direction of a teacher, they are only of use when the scholar has previously made, on his own account, his own discoveries. To these he should be stimulated by the teacher. When occupied in the study of Greek history, he will be asked for a description of Greek sculpture that is to be found in such and such a museum. When lectures are given on the Dutch War of Independence, Dutch pictures will be described. Only after the scholar has used his own eyes, and formed his own judgments, will a synthesis of his experiences under external guidance be of use. The same holds good of natural-history, historical, and ethnographical museums. Taking children around in herds produces very slight results unless they have been put in the way of noticing things by themselves. Among the books of the school, the best literature in the original and in good accessible translations should be found. Works should be at hand capable of giving aid to those who have artistic interests. There is no greater fault in modern education than the care spent in selecting books for different ages. This is essentially an individual matter, and can only be decided by the choice of the child himself. A general crusade against all children's books, and freedom for the young to read great literature, is essential to the sound development of the modern child. What is too old for him may be set aside according to the taste of the child himself. Suppose at the age of ten years, the child is absorbed in _Faust_ (I know such cases); the child then gets at this age an impression for life that does not prevent him receiving from the same poem another impression at twenty years, or again another at thirty or forty years. The so-called dangers in standard literature are, for the child, almost nil. Incidents that excite adults, his calm feelings pass over entirely. And even if children reach the emotional period of youth, only rarely does the plain downright expression of a great mind about natural things stain the imagination, falsify reality, and spoil taste. It is the modern romance, women's novels, just as much as French novels, that do this. Children cannot in these days, even if parents are unreasonable enough to wish it, be kept in ignorance. Crude or stolen impurity gets a greater power over a mind that has not absorbed respect for the absolute seriousness of natural processes. This reverence is sure to come from education, and through the impressions of standard literature and first-class art. Veiling this subject is apt to lead astray and to vulgarise. To those who can be harmed in this way the Bible is as suggestive as any of the crudities of modern literature. In the temperament which quietly accepts natural things as a matter of course, is laid the foundation of real purity, and only through real purity can life, like art and literature, become great and sound. In the works of great minds, one meets an infinite world in which the erotic element is only one factor. This gives them great repose. Moreover imagination must have nourishment outside of itself; otherwise it will live upon its own product. Its nourishment should be what is most readable. The child's mind should be first fed on legends and then on great literature. This should be all the more insisted on because great literature often remains unread, when modern literature in its varied types begins later on to be absorbing. To be able to use one's eyes in the worlds of nature, man, and art, to be able to read good things--these are the two great ends to which home and school education should direct their course. If the child has these capacities, he can learn almost everything else himself. I may remark in passing, that a sound development of the imagination has not only an æsthetic but an ethical significance. It is really the foundation for active sympathy all round. Numerous cruelties are committed now by people who have not sufficient imagination to see how their acts affect others. In my dreamed-of school, founded along these lines, there is perfect freedom in selecting subjects. The school offers the subjects, but it forces no one to take them. English, German, French, natural science, mathematics, history, and geography are taught. The mother tongue is practiced fluently in speaking, reading, and writing. But in this case grammar is superfluous both for general education and for using a language; it belongs to scientific study, not to general culture. Grammar should be applied in the case of foreign languages, only so far as it is absolutely necessary to appreciate the literature. This is the sole aim general culture has in view. Those who wish to speak the languages fluently, and write them correctly, must attain facility by continual study. Those who have mastered the literature very easily learn the rest. Those who are familiar with the literature of a foreign language, write it, even with the mistakes they make, better than the person who has put together a perfectly correct composition according to grammatical rules. After the child, in his language study, has made enough progress to understand a fairly easy book, he ought to work through one book after another, with the help of a dictionary and explain in his own language extempore what he reads. In this way is laid the foundation of a knowledge of literature, not the ready-made opinions of the histories of literature. Both in their own and in foreign literatures, the young must be lead to reality, not, as now, to its copy; to the sea, not to the water pipe. While the teacher is directing the study of language, he should try at the same time to help the scholar to a definite choice of books, and his choice should if possible be brought into relation with other subjects. So he will recommend literature connected with historical, scientific, or geographical study. Afterwards he will give a general analysis, and will read a passage aloud, or will encourage the scholar to read some favorite poem. But all poetry mongering--such as hacking a poem to pieces by divisions into strophies and sections--is to be forbidden. Since childhood is the best time for securing the familiar use of languages, after parents and teachers agree which scholars shall take up languages, children so selected will study English and French, each for two years successively, then let them have two years of German, or reverse this arrangement. In this way a language will always be studied with other subjects, never three languages together. It is really only possible to take in a language, as a possession to be kept through the future, and never lost, by giving to it alone two years of really thorough study. Scholars who want to continue their drawing or learn any kind of handwork, can combine it with the study of the main subjects. Chorus singing should be practised every day for the whole year, indoors and in the open air. It should be treated as a means of expressing the feelings, not as an introduction for developing musical capacities, though for that matter singing can give a lead to the discovery of musical talent. As to the four principal subjects, history, geography, natural science, and mathematics, they should not be studied at the same time. The shallow multiplicity of the present system is a burden to all; it works like the "water torture" on talented individuals. It wears out their desire to learn, their initiative, their individuality, their joy of living. Those under this torture never get a breathing spell, are never able to do thorough work, and so become superficial. In my ideal school, mathematics will be learnt in winter, as it is suitable for the cold and clear winter air. In spring and in autumn, nature, out of doors, in nature itself, will be studied, not each department of nature as a special subject. An insight into geology, botany, and the animal world will be attained in their close natural union. The scholar will learn separate objects through the actual observation of life. In the text-book of life they will gain in its broad outlines a combined sketch of what they have acquired through intellectual processes. On rainy days they will construct for themselves in writing and in drawing a general sketch of what they have seen. General culture does not mean knowing the number of stamens or the number of articulations of a hundred flowers or skeletons. What educates and acts on the feelings and imagination, on thought and character, too, for that matter, is observing and combining natural phenomena; the ability to follow the laws of life and development in the natural world about us. The last member in the scheme of development is man. So the study of man from the standpoint of physiology and hygiene, should come last; consideration for the psychology of the child, urges too, that the foundation for the knowledge of organic nature, physics, and chemistry, should complete the educational structure. As in natural sciences we are beginning to give up false methods, and make the student return to the same subject, with a broader point of view, in the same way the child should at certain periods devote his attention to history and geography, and then leave them entirely alone. The endless circle, the drudgery, the repetitions, all looking to examinations as the end, will with the examinations be abolished. It is a matter of experience that the small details of all subjects slip from the memory two months after examinations. Most educated men have no recollection of the detailed knowledge they acquired in school, while the general impressions of that period still influence soul, heart, character, and will. This experience will be used, not as is done now, simply recognised as a common one. In my school the scholar interested in history will apply himself to it in the winter months; will read works about it, while others are devoting themselves to mathematics or geography. In spring these two classes of students can share in the excursions without active participation in the studies, while those who are inclined to natural science will draw, make collections, and use the microscope. One group can by studying geography bring themselves into contact with the life of nature and the life of man. So they will be led next year to study history in winter and to take part in science study during the spring and autumn. All these different combinations are to be thought out by parents, teachers, and scholars; they can only be indicated here. The final principle is that only two subjects can be studied at the same time. After the scholar has acquired from these all the education he can absorb at this stage, these subjects will be dismissed and taken up again by those who wish to specialise in one direction or the other. Instead of the separation of subjects that divides interest and strength in our present schools, in the new ones the chief aim will be concentration. In history, the space devoted to work will be limited to the amount demanded by present-day culture. History will then be the only subject suitable for general intellectual training,--the history of man's development. It will bring out the great principles of ethnography and sociology, of political economy, the lives of great men, the history of the church, art, and literature. In scientific study and in teaching mathematics, the men prominent in science and in discovery will find a place. Geography brings up points of view related to almost every study, and experience already acquired gives good reason for making this subject the centre of all instruction. What are the results of the present-day school? Exhausted brain power, weak nerves, limited originality, paralysed initiative, dulled power of observing surrounding facts, idealism blunted under the feverish zeal of getting a position in the class--a wild chase in which parents and children regard the loss of a year as a great misfortune. After the examinations have been passed and the year gone by, the best students realise the need of beginning their studies in a living way at almost every point. The majority of students are unable to read even a paper with any real profit, and those who are given a book in a foreign language to which they have devoted innumerable hours, very seldom understand it completely, unless the language instruction of the school has been supplemented at home. The incapacity to observe for one's self, to get at the bottom of what is observed and reflect upon it, is constantly more remarkable, as a result of the preparation system at school, even when this is aided by the mothers hearing lessons at home. The late Professor Key said that it was his experience, as teacher in a medical institution, that scholars in school were incapable of seeing, thinking, or working. I have heard the same observation made in Stockholm lately in a government office, that the young men were incapable of taking up practical duties in which they should have shown the knowledge they were supposed to have after the fine examination they had passed. The system then does not serve even secondary ends; to all the higher aims of human existence it is directly opposed. In the course of a hundred years or so, experience of this sort will cause the downfall of the system. Then, perhaps, these dreamed-of schools will arise. In them, the youth will learn first of all to observe and to love life, and their own powers will be consciously cultivated as the highest values in life. By mixing children of all classes together, the upper class, provided it still exists, will get that "colouring of earnest character which it now lacks," as Almquist said long ago; the lower classes will get the polish, that general cultivation they now lack. Through these schools, where common training is given to all, the natural circulation between all classes will be furthered. The aristocrat's son and the workingman's son will change places, if nature has made the first adapted for the position of the second, and _vice versa_. Through these schools the country child will always be able to grow up in the country, and need not be sent for educational purposes into the city, provided there are still great cities. Finally boys and girls will enjoy in them all the advantages of co-education, without the particular capacities of each being forced into the uniformity of a common examination system. After the children all over the country have been educated to about fifteen years of age, in such real common schools, some working more with the brain, others with their hands, the application schools will begin--schools for classical studies, for exact, for social or æsthetic sciences; for handicrafts and handwork; for different professions and state positions; schools with different principles and methods, schools which can produce manifold differing forms of training and individuality. Education then, instead of being as now, the creator of servile souls, the devotees of formalism, or of characters who hate all forms in a spirit of revolt, will bring fresh personal powers to intellectual and material culture alike, to the sciences and the inventive faculties, to artistic talent and to the whole art of life. It will awaken and encourage capacity to find out new scientific methods, to think youthful thoughts, to make clever discoveries. Educated human beings will apply to the whole sphere of culture their experience in their own experiments, their own activity, their own efforts; for all of which the school and the home will have already laid the foundation. In the school, the painful restlessness of the present "to get somewhere" will disappear entirely. In the calm, profound atmosphere of my school, the young generation will be trained to believe that the most important thing for man is not to do something, but to be something. It may be harsh to say that common natures are reckoned by what they do, noble natures by what they are; yet it is a deep truth, forgotten in this century of activity, in this age of woman. But it is bound to be remembered in the century of contemplation, in the century of the child. These principles will be applied, too, perhaps, in the field of practical work. Machines and electricity accomplish work that can give no creative enjoyment; handwork will be again a portion of man's happiness; we shall live through a second Renaissance, the renewal of the personal joy which the man of earlier times experienced when the artistic moulding, when the rich, coloured tapestry, the beautiful piece of carving came from his own hand. The present school system leads to the fabrication of unnecessary articles by the dozen. It does not lead to a true love and appreciation of professional work, that love and appreciation from which, in the great period of art, artistic production organically arose. The present system, in all fields of study, limits the natural capacity of the child in the concentration, the combination, and development of its powers. When it produces its best results, it turns children at the close of their school years into pocket encyclopedias, representing humanity's progress and knowledge. Only when such results as these cease to be called a harmonious development, will it be conceded that the school can and should have no other meaning than to give the child a preparation for continuing, through his whole life, the work of training and education. Only then will the school become a place where individuals get learning to last a lifetime, not as now, even when the best face is put upon it--where they are impoverished for life. Through the victory of these convictions alone will each individual get his rights at school; both the person who does not want to study, as well as the one who does. Consideration will be given to the individual who has to have books as means of training and to the other case where the activity of the eye and hand is required as a means to the same end. It will be a place for the person with practical talent and for the theorist, for the realist as well as for the idealist. Both classes can freely do what they can do best; the members of each class will often feel tempted to test their powers by doing what the other class is able to do. One-sidedness will be corrected naturally, not, as it is now, mercilessly flattened out through the steam-roller methods of the "harmonious ideal of training." To supply workers in these future schools, new normal schools must be provided. Patented pedagogy will give place to a type of teaching which considers the individual. Only the person who naturally or by training can play with children, live with children, learn from children, is fond of children, will be placed in the school to develop there for himself his individual methods. Positions will be given only after a year's trial. When this period is passed the teachers will not be tested by the examiner alone, one who has followed the instruction given by them during the year, but the children themselves will also be heard from on this question. Of course, no absolute value can be assigned to the judgment of children, but nevertheless it has a really great importance. The instinct of the child chooses with astonishing accuracy what is first-class. But what, in the case of the child, has this character? This question has been answered by Goethe, "The greatest fortune of the earth's children is personality alone." At the present time objectivity in instruction is exalted, but every great educator has achieved success by being entirely subjective. The teacher should be a lover of truth. Therefore he should never force a resisting object to serve his own views. As a result of this attitude, the more subjective he is, the better. The fuller and richer he communicates to the children the essence and power of his own view of life and his own character, so much the more will he forward their real development, provided, however, that he does not force upon them his opinions with the claim of infallibility. In this as in all other matters, the young should be allowed to exercise free choice. The teachers of both sexes in my school will have short hours of work, a long time to rest, and a large salary; that is, they will have the possibility of a continuous development. The limit of their service will be twenty years. After this period, they will become members of a school jury composed of parents and teachers, or they will assist in final examinations, as censors. These will be conducted as indicated above, in such a way that each censor shall pass a summer either at home or abroad, in company with young people, not more than five in number. By living with them the censor will be able to measure their capacity for absorbing an education; he can direct them in the choice of a profession. By a "Socratic" communication of practical wisdom, he will supply a substitute for the Confirmation Instruction which will no longer be given. The psychological value of this instruction is not to be actually found in what one learns from it, but in the direction of the mind to the serious questions and pursuits of life, in the awakening of ethical self-development, which is the factor of supreme importance in passing from childhood to youth. In this way the young will be initiated into the art of life. I mean by this the art of making one's own personality, one's own existence, an object of artistic interest and pursuit. The initiation will be conducted by a wise man, or by a woman who has kept her youthfulness, so that she understands the joys and pains of the young, their play and their seriousness, their dreams and aspirations, their faults and their dangers--leaders who can give indirect suggestions how young people should play their own melodies in the orchestra of life. My school will not come into existence while governments make their greatest sacrifices for militarism. Only when this tendency is overcome, a point in development will be reached, where one can see that the dearest school programme is also the cheapest. People will realise that strong manly brains and heart have the greatest social value. I have already said that this is no reform plan for the present that I am outlining here, only a dream for the future. But in our wonderful existence dreams are becoming at last actual realities.[1] [Footnote 1: Since I wrote the above, there have been founded in England, France, also in Norway, reformed schools, working more or less in the direction I have outlined.] CHAPTER VII RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION At the present moment the most demoralising factor in education is Christian religious instruction. What I mean by this is principally catechism, Scripture history, theology, and church history. Even earnest Christians have said, regarding the ordinary instruction in these subjects, that nothing shows better how deeply religion is rooted in man's nature than the fact that "religious education" is not able to destroy religion. But beside this, I believe that even a more living, a more actual instruction in Christianity injures the child. Children should bring themselves by themselves to live in the patriarchal world of the Old Testament; indeed, in the world of the New Testament as well. This can be done best in the form of children's Bibles. These works will be treasured by children; they will find in them infinite material for nourishing the imagination and the emotions. But this can only be done by allowing children to read the Bible undisturbed, without the need of pedagogical or dogmatic explanation. At home this book, like other children's books, should be only talked about and explained when the child requests it. It should never be treated as a school book or appear on the school desk. If the child gets impressions in this way from the Bible, freed from all other authority, apart from the subjective one of the impressions themselves, the myths of the Bible will no more contradict the rest of his instruction, than the Scandinavian story of creation or the Greek legends of the gods. But the most dangerous of all educational mistakes in influencing humanity, is due to the fact, that children are now taught the Old Testament account of the world as absolute truth, although it wholly contradicts their physical and historical instruction. Besides children learn to regard the morality of the New Testament as absolutely binding, while its commands are everywhere seen to be transgressed by the child, the moment he takes his first step into life. Our whole industrial and capitalistic society rests on a contradiction of the Christian command to love one's neighbour as one's self. The capitalistic axiom is that every man is nearest neighbour to himself. The eyes of children are here and in similar cases, clear-sighted in their simplicity. At a tender age they are able to observe whether their surroundings are in living accord with Christian teaching. From a four-year-old child, with whom I was talking about Jesus' commandment to love one another, I received the reply, "If Jesus really said so, Papa is no Christian." Before long the child gets into conflict with his instructors and with the commands of Christianity. A small child in a Swedish city took the word of Jesus about charity to heart. Not only his playthings, but his clothes he gave to the poor; his parents cured, by corporal punishment, this practical type of Christianity. A teacher who was impressing on a small girl in a Finnish city the commandment to love one's enemies, received as an answer that this was impossible, for no one in Finland could love Bobrikoff. I know the sophism used in both cases to overcome the invulnerable logic of the child; but I also know how these sophisms make hypocrisy so natural among Christians, that it is now unconscious. It would take a new Kirkegaard to shake up our consciences. Everywhere Rousseau's words hold true, "The child gets high principles to direct him, but he is forced by his surroundings to act according to petty principles, every time he wishes to put the high ones into practice." He goes on to say people have innumerable "ifs" and "buts," by which the child has to learn that great principles are only words, that the reality of life is something quite different. The dangerous thing is not that the ideal of Christianity is high; it comes from the fact that every ideal in its essence is unattainable. The nearer we get to it the more lofty it is. This is the characteristic of every ideal. But the demoralising feature in Christianity as an ideal is, that it is presented as absolute, while man as a social being is obliged to transgress it every day. Besides he is taught in his religious instruction, that as a fallen being he cannot in any case attain the ideal, although the only possibility of his living righteously in temporal things, and happily in the world to come, depends on his capacity for realising it. In this net of unsolvable contradictions, generation after generation has seen its ideal of belief obscured. Gradually each new generation has learned not to take its new ideal seriously. As to the cowardly or braggart concessions to the idiocies of fashion, and the follies by which people are ruined in order to live according to their position, among other psychological grounds for man's lack of steadiness must be placed, as its ultimate cause, the following: The child, along with religion, has breathed in the conviction that opinions are one thing, actions another. This experience goes through the whole of life, even in the case of those who have lost the conviction that the Christian religion is absolute. The free-thinker is married, has his children baptised, and allows them to be confirmed, without considering whether he is forced to it by his own wish, or the wish of doing like other people. The republican sings the royal hymn, sends loyal salutations by telegraph, accepts decorations,--but I must break off, otherwise I should have to enumerate all the small acts of insincerity to one's self, of which the daily life of most people consists, and which are defended under the name of non-essentials; I could never get to the end. This is not the way the Christian martyrs thought who might have freed themselves from death by casting a few grains of incense on the emperor's altar. Two grains of incense,--what an unimportant matter, thinks the modern man, and with quiet conscience he daily sacrifices to many gods in whom he does not believe. How illogical Protestantism is too, and yet for so long it possessed a spiritually educative power, while its dualism was unsuspected, while one with full sincerity gave to holiday and work day its due share. But now that a new Protestantism is come to life within the fold of Protestantism, this method of speaking in two voices is deeply demoralising. Piece by piece has been torn down that system of teaching which the Catholic church built up, so wonderfully adapted to the psychological needs of the majority of people. It formed its fundamental creeds, just as they still remain, on the deepest experiences of mankind. But Protestantism is ever looking back from the results of its own handiwork. In home, in the school, in the high school, during military service, in office work, everywhere passive dependence is insisted on under the name of discipline, discretion, faithfulness to duty. And like all the fine words, by which the living souls of men are turned into the slaves of discipline, these terms exalt _esprit de corps_, and pass over really serious faults. Discipline means subordinating one's self to every crude force. Only when all Protestants really become actual Protestants, and refuse to receive the greatest good of life, their religion, through authority, will they begin even in social and political questions to attain an independent opinion of their own. As teachers and leaders, they will secure for school children, and for students, for officers and for officials, the freedom in word and deed that is the right of the citizen and the man. Men and women, who in their private life are strictly honourable, have learnt, in general questions, to put their thoughts, their acts, under the command of a leader, and above all they have learnt to do this in the name of religious belief. The courage to construct one's own opinion in everything that makes the essential worth of life, but chiefly in one's religious belief, the power to express it, the will of making some sacrifice for it, all these give man a new share of civilisation and culture. As long as education and social life do not consciously forward this kind of courage, power, and will, the world will remain as it is, a parade ground of stupidity, crudeness, force, and selfishness, no matter whether radicals or conservatives, the democratic or aristocratic elements, have the upper hand. The most demoralising of all principles of belief was the discouraging teaching that human nature was fallen and incapable of reaching holiness by its own effort--the teaching that one could only come through grace and forgiveness of sins into a proper relation with temporal and eternal things. For those below the ordinary level, this position of grace produced spiritual stagnation, not to speak of the business people, who daily allowed the blood of Jesus to wipe out their day's debit in the score of morality. Only those who were naturally superior increased in holiness on being convinced that they were children of God in Christ. Mankind, on the whole, showed the deep demoralisation of a double morality. This dualism commenced as soon as the first Christians ceased to expect the return of Jesus,--an expectation which brought their life into real unity with his teaching. But this double morality has for nineteen hundred years retained man's soul and the social order in practical heathenism. Although some pure and great spirits really received aid from Christianity in their longings for infinity, and although in the Middle Ages many strong hearts tried seriously to realise its teaching, yet the majority of mankind lived and lives still in wavering irresolution. This is the result of having no place to anchor to while the citizens of antiquity had an ethic, which could be translated into reality and could turn them into sincere, steadfast personalities. Since nineteen hundred years have proved that there is no possibility, in a humanly constructed society, of living according to the teaching of Jesus, as a practical, infallible rule of holiness, man can escape this immoral duplicity only in one way: the way already travelled over by many separate individuals, who with Prometheus cry out, "Hast thou not, thyself, completed all, O holy glowing heart!" In other words, these individuals have become convinced that Christianity is the product of humanity. Just as little as any other product of humanity does it exhaust absolute and eternal truth. When men cease to teach their children belief in an eternal providence, without whose will no sparrow falls from the roof, they will be able, instead of this, to imprint on the minds of children the new religious conception of the divinity of a world, proceeding according to law. The new morality will be built on this new religious idea. It will be filled with reverence for the absolute conjunction of cause and effect--a connection which no grace can remove. Man's actions will really be directed by this certainty. He will not rock himself to sleep in any sort of hope, based on providence or a reconciliation, able to defer surely fixed effects. This new morality, strengthened by the realities of life, admits of logical consequences. No single command of this teaching needs to remain an empty phrase. In its system, too, there will be a place to apply all the eternal profound words uttered by Jesus or by other great human souls. These words will ever furnish further material for application, which is the same as saying material for self-application. Yet the application will be worked out in complete freedom. Each word will be used as furnishing the material just suited to that style which men wish to apply to the architecture of their personality. Yet neither the words nor the examples of one or the other teacher will be taught as absolutely binding. The soul of the child will not be stained by tears of repentance for sins nor by the fear of hell. It will not be stained by a realism without ideas and without ideals, by the contemptuous mistrust, which the mouldering effects of fine words leave behind, like cold damp spots. The weak, as well as the strong, will progress in the happy and responsible belief in their own personality, as their only source of help. The pulse of their purpose will be strong and warm with red blood. They will not be forced to humility; they will not accept even equality with all others, or with any other one. On the contrary they will be strengthened in their right, to give their own individual stamp to their joys, their sufferings, and their works. They will be warned to do their best because it is their own; to seek their highest good, by drawing their own boundaries at the place where the rights of others begin. While the home and the school make compromises between two opposed views of life, people obtain from neither of them any real good for the education of children. I have already shown how in one and the same school religious instruction and a certain amount of knowledge and love for nature as well as history can be communicated. In one and the same school the course of natural development and history can be taught in connection with instruction in religious history. In this instruction Judaism and Christianity will receive the first place. So the reverence and love children were wont to acquire for the personality and morality of Jesus, previously obtained in the Bible, can be increased. Guided by sincere and serious purposes one can select either plan. But, during religious instruction, to make Moses and Christ the absolute teachers of truth, and in the hours devoted to natural history, to expound Darwinism, cause more than anything else that want of logic, that moral laxity and flaccidity that can effect nothing and want nothing. Everything I have learnt, since these words were written, has strengthened a hundred fold my previous convictions that the most essential thing is not, what kind of view of life we have--this may be important enough too--but that we have enough capacity of faith to appropriate for ourselves some view of life, enough force to bring it to reality in life. But nothing works more depressingly on the ethical energy of growing generations than the dualistic view of life, received at the present time at school. The school too must exercise its choice; there must be no compromise between two schemes of education and two views of life, if the strength of will and the power of faith in young people is not to be broken. The question of a compromise is in this case not a question of application; it is a most important question of principle in education. Since I set down these words, many points of view have been brought out in this connection. One which made a sensation when it was published, in 1890, was Professor Dodel's book, _Moses or Darwin?_ The author showed how deeply Darwinism was implanted in science and in civilisation; how popular education was restricted, because it was kept remote from the scientific views of the present day and forced into the circle of ecclesiastical ideas. Religious instruction is simply a crime against the psychological law of development. For children are taught by a theological system to think about abstract conceptions, while they are in no condition to do it. The worst is, he said, that in high schools the theory of development is now taught as scientific truth, while in the common schools, built and maintained by the same government, the myth of the Mosaic story of creation continues to be taught, in the sharpest contrast with what science and living nature teach the child. This is an immoral and dishonest state of affairs that must be brought to an end. It is my deepest conviction that man, without religion in the emotional element of his nature, can pursue no ideal ends, cannot see beyond his own personal interest, cannot realise great purposes, cannot be ready to sacrifice himself. Religious enthusiasm broadens our soul, binds us to the acts we hold as ideals. But because Christianity weighs upon the soul and can no longer be the connecting link of all factors in our conduct, earnest men are abandoning it more and more, influenced by purely religious reasons. Such men should not have their children brought up as Christians, under the excuse that the child requires Christianity. Here, as in other cases, in which adults are not agreed about what the child needs, we should try to get, not from adults but from children themselves, some information about their real needs. In this way we can learn that the child himself begins at a very early period to be concerned with the eternal riddles of mankind, to be troubled with the questions of whence and whither. At the same time one discovers that the sincere and honest childish nature is opposed to the Christian explanation of the world, until the child's sincerity is dulled and he either takes without question what is taught, or in his own soul denies what his lips must repeat, or finally allows his heart to be possessed by the only nourishment offered to his religious needs. My own recollections of childhood caused me to make observations of the religious ideas of children at an early period. I have now before me comprehensive accounts of this investigation, going back twenty-five years. I recollect my own fierce hate against God, when I, at the age of six years, heard of the death of Jesus being caused by God's demand for an atonement, and at ten years I recall my denial of God's providence, when a young workman died far away from his wife and his five children, to whom his existence was so necessary. My brooding about the existence of God took on this occasion the form of a challenge. I wrote in the sand, "God is dead." In doing so I thought, If there is a God, he will kill me now with a thunderbolt. But since the sun continued to shine, the question was answered for the time being; but it soon turned up again. I had no other religious instruction than reading the Bible on Sunday, preaching on Sunday, and reading from the catechism, which, by the way, was never explained. Yet the New Testament belonged to my play books; I learnt in it to love Jesus as profoundly as other great personalities of whom I read. But during the confirmation period, I received explanations of the Bible; in them every point, every name in the Gospel was explained, every sentence made the basis of hair-splitting distinctions, to show the fulfilment of prophecies and the edifying hidden meaning of every word, that formerly seemed so simple. The dogma of the Trinity for example was shown to be contained in the second verse of Genesis. This was a terribly sad discovery for me, that the living book of my childish heart and my childish imagination could be so stone dead. That religious indifference is a frequent result of religious instruction, that spiritual maladies come from the desire to convert the souls of children, numerous proofs can be given. I have heard children of six years speak with holy horror of their four-year-old brother who dug with a spade on Sunday. On the other hand I have heard a six-year-old child who was dragged in one day to three church services ask after reflection whether it was not more tolerable to go to hell immediately. The Judaic Christian conception of a creative and sustaining providence, which gives the fullest perfection to all things, is so absolutely opposed to all that experience and evolution teaches us about existence, that one cannot even conceive of the possibility of holding both ideas theoretically at the same time. Much less can one practically unite them by the paste of compromise. The child with sharp-sighted simplicity does not allow himself to be deceived. If we do not wish to speak the truth then let us not speak to children about life at all--life in its unity and diversity, its manifold creative acts, its process of continuous creation, its eternal divine subjection to law. But this means that it is impossible to save the Christian God for children, after the child begins to think about this God, in whom he is taught blind confidence. Nor can the child be prepared in this way for the new conception of God with its religious, its uniting and elevating power, I mean for the conception of a God whose revealed book is the starry heavens, and whose prophetic sight is in the unfathomable sea, and in the deeps of man's heart, the God who is in life and is life. Nothing shows better how imperfect is the real belief of modern thinkers, than the fact that they always teach their children a system which they do not wish to live by spiritually themselves, but which they hold as indispensable for the moral and social future of the child. When we pass from the conception of providence to the conception of sin, we find in children the same natural logic. A small girl, an only child, asked: "How could God allow his only child to be killed? You could not have done it to me!" And a small boy said, "It is a very good thing for us that the Jews crucified Christ, so that nothing happened to us." These are both poles of an emotional and a practical way of looking at the Atonement. Within them all similar circumferences are drawn. To a more comic and naïve sphere of ideas belongs the proposal of a small girl to call the Virgin Mary God's wife. Also there is the story of a boy who spoke in school of Our Lord and the two other Lords, meaning the Trinity. From the classes in Bible history and catechism, there are innumerable examples of children reading the words incorrectly, and misunderstanding the ideas they stand for. A boy, warned to keep the lamps burning, answered contentedly, "We have petroleum gratis." Another, asked whether he would like to be born again, said, "No, I might be turned into a girl." These are typical examples. There is an anecdote of a child, who, on being consoled with the statement that God was in the dark near her, asked her mother to put God out and light the lamp. Another child, seeing the pictures of the Christian martyrs in the arena, cried out sympathetically, "Look at that poor tiger; he hasn't got a Christian." These are a few out of a mass of examples, typical of the explanation given by children to the religious ideas they receive, notions forcing them into a world of ideas which they either accept in a material sense, or by which they are absolutely nonplussed. The childish circle of ideas is revealed by anecdotes of this kind, or by the comment of a small girl who asked when she heard that she had been born about eleven o'clock at night, "How could I have remained out so late?" These examples show that such conceptions as original sin, the fall of man, regeneration and salvation, are first necessarily meaningless words, and afterwards terribly difficult words. In my whole life fear of hell never absorbed my attention for five minutes, but I know children and grown people who are martyrs to this terror. I know children too who, when belief in hell was presented to them in school as absolutely necessary, bewailed that their mother had said she did not believe in hell, and therefore thought she must be very wicked. We are certainly a long way off from those times when, to use the picturesque expression of an historian of civilisation, "The fear of the devil constantly darkened the life of men, as the shadow of the sails of a windmill darkens the windows of the miller"; far from the times, too, when divine persons constantly revealed themselves to the believer, and when miracles belonged just as really to the daily habits of thought as to-day they are disregarded even by the believer. But so long as belief in the devil, providence and miracles is upheld in religious instruction, it will be impossible for the sunshine of the civilised view, which is the scientific as opposed to the superstitious view, to penetrate the darkness where the bacilli of cruelty and insanity are nurtured. The ideas children form of heaven are generally fine examples of childish realism. A child thought his brother could not be in heaven, because he would have to climb a ladder, and so would be disobedient, for he had been forbidden to climb one. A girl asked, when she heard that her grandmother was in heaven, whether God was sitting there and holding her from falling out. These are a few of the many proofs of the child's sense of reality, that leads to mistaken answers here, as in so many other instances. If it is said by way of protest that the childish imagination needs myths and symbolism, the answer is an easy one. We cannot and should not rob the child of the play of imagination, but play should not be taken in earnest. It is not to be wondered at that children construct for themselves realistic ideas about spiritual things. This practice is no more to be opposed, than any of the other expressions of the life of the child's soul. But when these false ideas are presented as the highest truth of life, they must disturb the sacred simplicity of the child. I know children in whom the origin of unbelief is to be traced to the words of Jesus, that everything asked for by the believing heart will be received. A small child, locked up in a dark room, prayed that God might show people how badly he was being treated, by causing a lamp of precious stones to be lit in the dark. Another asked to have a sick mother saved; another prayed by the side of a dead companion that she might rise again. For all these three, the experience of having their most believing, most fervent prayer unanswered, was the great turning point in their spiritual life. I can authenticate from my own experience and the experiences of others the ethical revolt which the cases of injustice in the Old Testament--for example God's preference of Jacob over Esau--occasion in a healthy child. The explanations offered in this case and in others like it fill the child with silent contempt. When the child ends in finding that adults themselves do not believe the religion they teach, the childish instinct for belief and for reverence, that capacity which is the real ground for all religious feeling, is injured for life. I will say nothing of the heroes and heroines of the pious literature written for children, with their stories of conversion and holiness. Parents are able to protect their children from them. I speak here only of that way of looking at the world, which is forced on children with or against the will of their parents. This degrades their conceptions of God, of Jesus, of nature. These conceptions, the child if left to himself can develop simply or powerfully. It is this way of looking at the world that causes unnecessary suffering and dangerous prejudices. The inclination of the child to deep religious feeling, sound faith, and ardent zeal for holiness will be strengthened by an ability to draw the standards of life as freely from the Bible as from the world's literature. The same result will be produced by books on other religions, like Buddhism, from the great religious personalities who illustrate the struggle for an ideal, and from such children's books as show like efforts in a healthy form. No child has the slightest need of the catechism or theology for his religion or for his training; no other church history is needed than that connected with the general history of the world. In this last study the chief stress should be laid in teaching on the errors, in order to impress on the young the conviction, that all new truths are called by their contemporaries "errors." In other words these "errors" are the best negative material man has for discovering the truth. Working over and explaining the contradictions met with by the child in such religious instruction, as I am outlining here, belongs to the preparation for a true life, in which people have to put up with innumerable contradictions. But this personal work injures neither the piety nor the soundness of the child's soul. Such injuries come rather from irritating pietism or vain hypocrisy, from spiritual fanaticism, from deceits of the reason, barrenness of soul, or perverted feeling of right, all of which are the notorious results of Christian training and Christian instruction, given according to the usual methods of the present day. For the present as well as for the future, a child will be able to solve more easily these spiritual problems if his fine feeling for right and his quick logic have not been dulled by the dogmatic answers to those eternal problems, that place him in as much difficulty as the thinker. Kant exposed long ago the most serious injuries of the kind of religious instruction which still prevails. He showed that by making the church's teaching the basis of morality, improper motives were assigned to action. A thing must be avoided, not because God has forbidden it, but because it is in and for itself wrong. Man must aim at good, not because heaven or hell awaits the good or the bad, but because good has a higher value than evil. To this point of view of Kant there must be added the truth, that a position is ethically weakening, when man is presented as incapable of doing good by his own power. So he is told in this as in all other cases, he must be humble and trust in God's help. Confidence in our strength and the feeling of our own responsibility have a strong moral influence. The belief that man is sin-laden, without chance of change, has led him to remain where he is. If the future generation is to grow up with upright souls, the first condition of such growth is to obliterate from the existence of children and young people, by a mighty scratch of the pen, the catechism, Bible history, theology and church history. We must bow down before the infinities and mysteries of our earthly existence and of the world beyond. We must distinguish between and select real ethical values; we must be convinced of the solidarity of mankind, of man's individual duty, to construct for the benefit of the whole race a rich and strong personality. We must look to great models. We must reverence the divine and the regular in the course of the world, in the processes of development of man's mind. These are the new lines of meditation, the new religious feelings of reverence and love, that will make the children of the new century strong, sound, and beautiful. These changes will destroy that idea of God that combines "God help us" with our victories, that has increased the national lust for conquest, the passion for mastery, the instinct of gain. It will be felt that mixing up God in the standards of human passions is blasphemous. People will see, that patriotism, nourished on egoism and ambition, is the most godless thing because the most inhuman of all the life-perverting sins with which man outrages the holiness of life. Intellects which can now pass over the contradiction between Christianity and war, which can even derive strength and consolation from them, have been depraved by the ideas forced upon mankind through thousands of years. Nothing more can be expected from men of such brains, than that they should die in the wilderness, without ever obtaining a sight of the promised land. But the brains of children can be protected from the most unholy of all mental misconceptions, from the superstition that the patriotism, and the nationalism, which injures the rights of others, have something in common with ideas about God. Let children be taught that national characteristics, the use of force, the right of independent action, is as essential for a people as for an individual, that it is worth every sacrifice. Let them be taught that, on their appreciation of the nature of their country, of its life in the past and in the present, depends their own development. Let them be taught to dream beautiful inspiring dreams of the future of their country, of their own work, as the necessary foundation of this future. They should be taught at an early age to understand the deep gulf between patriotic feeling and the egoism which is called patriotism. This is the patriotism in whose name small countries are oppressed by great countries, in whose name nineteenth-century Europe has armed itself under the stimulus of revenge, in whose name the close of the century witnessed the extension of violence in north and south, in west and east. Militarism and clericalism, both principles presenting authority as opposed to individual standards of right, are ever closely combined; but they are not what they are called. They are not patriotism and religion. These two words involve a sense of common citizenship, of freedom, of justice, exalted above the narrow sphere of the individual, of the interests of class, of the interests of one's own country. Such are the principles which unite different groups within a land in great interests common to all, just as they unite different peoples in great vital questions common to all. But militarism and clericalism oppress freedom by the principles of authority, oppress the idea of individual development, by that of discipline, oppress the feeling of common weal by the desire for glory and war, oppress the feeling for right by the feeling for military honour. In Germany under the badge of Christianity and militarism, the civil rights of the citizen, his claims for social freedom, have been seriously menaced. Hypnotised by these principles many members of the Russian, French, and English nations, respectable as they are individually, have gloated over the deeds of unrighteousness committed by their respective governments. All this will go on; people will continue to be burdened to the ground by ever increasing military preparations. The rights of the small nations will be constantly encroached upon by the larger ones, even after the present world powers, like those that have preceded them, have broken down under the burden of their own expansion. It will continue to be so, until mothers implant in the souls of their children the feeling for humanity before the feeling for their country; until they strive to expand the sympathies of their children to embrace all living things, plants, animals, and men; until they teach them to see, that sympathy involves not only suffering with others but rejoicing with others, and that the individual increases his own emotional capacity, when he learns to feel with other individuals and with other peoples. It will go on, as it is now, until mothers implant in the souls of their children the certainty, that the patriotism which, in the name of national interests, treads under foot the rights of other people, is to be condemned. The moment children undertake to act as adults, we shall see a harmony between ideas so taught and facts. When the conception of nationalism in the child's mind is freed from injustice and arrogance; when the idea of God is freed from its debased union with a selfish patriotism, then the idea of the soldier will be ennobled. It will no longer be identified with blind obedience and limited class courage. The word will come to mean a man and a fellow-citizen with the same civilised interests, the same conception of law, the same need of freedom, the same feeling for honour, as all other fellow-citizens. The soldier will be a defender of his fatherland, whose character will have no other warlike traits, than those called forth for the protection of sacred human and civil rights. Self-defense, personal or national, will be imprinted on the child as the first of duties, not as it is represented in the commands of Christianity. Or to speak more accurately the child has this instinctive feeling; all that need be done is not to confuse this instinct. The child understands quite well, that evil men, when not resisted, become lords over the property of others. He knows that the low and the unrighteous get the victory, and that right-thinking and high-minded people are sacrificed by unrighteous and low-thinking people. The impulse to resistance is the first germ of the social feeling for righteousness, and by this feeling will the unreflecting judgment of the child be led also in the study of history. The child never doubts that William Tell was right, even when, in his instruction in religion, he has been definitely taught obedience to the powers that be, that come from God. Every straight childish soul applauds Andreas Hofer, despite his uncompromising conflict with lawful authority. With his natural directness the child cuts off all sophisms; at least all children do who are not irrevocably stupefied by Christian principles. To conclude what I have said against religious instruction, I will add a statement of a ten-year-old child, made after three years struggling with the catechism and biblical history: "I do not believe any of this, but I hope, when men are some day wise enough, each person may have his own belief, just as each one has his own face." This small philosopher in these words hit unconsciously upon the most serious spiritual injury done by religious instruction. It forces on man's mind a special view of the world, like a conventional mask on a man's face. But freedom and the rights of the soul's life can only be secured by its own reflections. The soul itself must work out that assurance of belief in which man can live and die. For generations the great spiritual dangers of mankind have been caused by looking backwards to find the ideal and the truth, by regarding both as once for all given, as absolutely limited. As soon as a child becomes conscious of himself he should feel that he is a discoverer with infinities before him. The king's son, in the realm of life, will no longer do menial service as a prodigal son in a foreign land. With the whole power of his will, he can repeat those old words, "I will arise and go to my father." When Jaquino di Fiori in the Middle Ages preached of the Kingdom of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, till his hair became as silvery grey as the leaves of the olive tree, he compared these three realms with the nettle, the rose, and the lily, the light of the stars, the sunlight, and the sun. In all the ends of the world this preaching is being heard now. But that dream of a Third Kingdom, pure as the lily, warm as the sun, can only be realised in the temper of the child who looks for life and happiness, who brushes away joyously and frankly the clouds of man's fall and man's humiliation. Without becoming as little children, men cannot enter into the Third Kingdom, the Kingdom of the Holy Ghost, the Kingdom of the human spirit. CHAPTER VIII CHILD LABOUR AND THE CRIMES OF CHILDREN Leaving aside questions of heredity and kindred topics, and considering only the conditions under which the child is born, developed, and reared, it is terrible to contemplate the misfortunes which happen to children through lack of insight on the part of their mothers. Doctors are never tired of telling what malformations tight-lacing causes. How many children in the first year of their life become blind through neglect. We only mention here some of the troubles which crude ignorance or lack of conscience on the part of the mothers inflict on themselves or on their children. There must be noticed too the uncertainty and the want of system in the care of children that come from such ignorance. A thorough improvement in all these things is not to be expected until women have secured universal suffrage, and until they, at the same age in which men serve their years of military service, are legally obliged to pass through a period of training lasting just as long, devoting themselves to the care of children, hygiene, and sick nursing. No other exceptions must be made, except those which exempt a man from military service. Such duties done for one's country would come for many women just at the time in which their interest in the subject is awakened by marrying or the thought of marrying. This training would give a profounder meaning to their thoughts on this subject. But even women who never become mothers themselves would in this way learn certain general principles of psychology, hygiene, and care of the sick, that they might make use of afterwards in every station of life. Further, I look for increasing limitations of the right of parents over children. Such limitations I mean as those which have forbidden the exposure of children, have imposed penalties for child murder, for cruelty towards children, and the laws which have enforced obligatory attendance at school. In England there are organisations which investigate the treatment of children at home and which prevent cruelties against them. Mothers who forget their duties can be reported and punished with imprisonment; neglectful fathers can be made to support their children, etc.; and where parents show themselves hopelessly incompetent children can be taken from them by law. In the different states of Germany there are also laws which allow children to be taken from parents who, through misuse of that relationship, injure the child's spiritual or bodily welfare. Children receive this so-called compulsory training in cases, too, where it is necessary to preserve them from moral destruction. The compulsory training may be carried out either in a suitable family or in institutions; it continues up to the eighteenth year. A notable provision is that which places the supervision over such children, in the hands of women. An increased extension of the right of society in this direction is one of its most important provisions for self-protection, and is just as legitimate a limitation of individual freedom, as the laws to prevent the extension of contagious diseases. Unfortunately such regulations are often made ineffective by red tape. The parents or guardians of the neglected child must be admonished; the unruly child must be warned, and if this is not sufficient, the law provides that it must be disciplined. All of these provisos are absolutely senseless in such cases. By such warnings bad parents are not instructed in the art of training their children, nor is an incorrigible child to be led by admonitions to change its character, if he is left in the surroundings which have caused his degeneration. By corporal punishment administered in the presence of witnesses, a child already accustomed to cuffs and blows is made more hardened and shameless. A person with only a superficial knowledge of the subject, enough to understand the causes which produce such parents and such children, soon realises that he is concerned in each detail with the infinite horizon of the social question. It is clear for example that low wages, combined with the work of women and children, are the main factors in poor dwellings, insufficient food, and bad clothing. The fact that the wife works out of the house causes the neglect of the children and the home. The lodging-house system is the result of the lack of dwellings; want of comfort at home causes the husband to frequent saloons and public houses. All these factors, taken together, cause immorality and intemperance; these last again produce those physical and mental diseases to which children are often heirs at their birth. Leaving out of discussion the notion that by God's help the battlefields are covered with torn, maimed beings, with whose destroyed brains innumerable thoughts and feelings are extinguished which could have enriched humanity, I know no more abnormal idea than the custom of people speaking of a guardian angel when a chance has kept two children from an accident. Where is this guardian angel in the innumerable other cases of misfortune: when children remain alone because their mother must go to work and they fall out of the window or into the fire? When they lose their eyesight in dark cellars? When they are pressed to death because in miserable lodgings they have to share a bed with their parents? When the parents are drunk and the children lose their lives? Where is this guardian angel when parents murder their children, from religious fanaticism or disgust of life: when the children themselves, tired of life or through fear of parental cruelty, take their own lives? Where are these protective angels on the occasions when they are most wanted?--in the narrow streets of great cities, in the great industrial centres where lack of sunlight, of pure air, and of all the other primary conditions for the development of soul and body, undermines the bodily strength and efficiency of children before their birth? To see the hand of Providence in an accidental case of preservation, while the same Providence is released from all share in natural occurrences, from all part in the terrible phenomena of society, that fill every second of the earth's existence with terror, is a relic of superstition to be overcome if man is to be filled with a sense of obligation to conditions he must master and mould. Modern man is ever becoming more and more his own Providence; he has already protected himself against fire by fire engines and fire insurance; against the sea by life-saving stations; against smallpox and cholera, diphtheria and tuberculosis, he has found other means of defence. The blind belief that death is dependent on God's will man is losing by the witness of statistics which declare that duration of life increases with improved sanitary condition; which show that when disease or summer heat mows down the children of the poor in dark tenements the rich man can preserve his own children in his healthy, light dwelling. Every man who has his heart in the right spot does not wait for an angel, but rushes to save a child from danger. But the superstitious belief of the majority of people in God's Providence perhaps will cause the same man to regard with complete apathy conditions by which millions and millions of children are yearly sacrificed. Doctors know that the destruction caused by bacteria is insignificant, as compared with pauperism as a cause of disease. Mothers who have over-exerted themselves, drunken fathers, bad dwellings, like those where the poor dry out newly built houses for the rich, induced by the low rate of rents, insufficient nourishment, inherited diseases, especially syphilis, too early work,--all this shows its result in the emaciated, shrivelled, ulcerated bodies of children who occasionally are cured of their momentary disease in hospitals, but cannot be freed from the results of the conditions of life under which they were born and brought up. The efforts of doctors will be in vain while they, like the other factors in society, do not devote their whole energy to avoiding diseases, instead of healing them. What they can now do in the way of prevention is but a palliative in comparison with the incurable evil which flourishes in abundance. The situation will remain as it is so long as hygiene does not receive the same attention in society as the soul. This solicitude may take the form of religious edification, or intellectual enlightenment, but it remains nothing but a cut flower, stuck in a dust heap. It is possible, with sufficient certainty, to show from criminal statistics that degenerate children are the creation of society itself. By allowing them to be forced into "the path of virtue," by punishment, society behaves like a tyrant, who has put out a man's eyes and then beats him because he cannot by himself find his road. The categorical imperative for the social consciousness at the present moment, is an effective legislation for the protection of children and women. Wherever industry is developed, the woman is taken away from the home, the child from play and school. In the period of guilds, women and children worked in the house, and in the workshop of the husband. But since the factory system has constantly restricted the household work of woman, industrial occupations on the scale of modern capitalism can satisfy its needs for cheaper work by woman's work. This like children's work has forced down in many places the pay of adult workmen. The pay with which a married man can care for his family by his work is now divided among several members of the family. As long as special work required great personal bodily strength or developed manual dexterity, it fell as a rule to the men, not to women or children. But the natural protection of women and children disappeared with the introduction of machinery. In many cases working a machine required neither strength nor dexterity. In other cases, like cotton spinning or mining, delicate fingers were more valued because they were more adaptable, tender bodies more desirable because they were smaller. In England the work of women and children first reached its highest point. The poorhouses sent crowds of children to the wool weaving industry in Lancashire, children who worked in shifts at the same machine and slept in the same dirty beds. The population in the industrial districts pined away, as the result; diseases unknown before came into existence; ignorance and roughness increased. Women and children from four to five years old worked fourteen to eighteen hours. The report of the investigations made on this subject caused Elizabeth Barrett to write her poem, "The Cry of the Children" that made the employers of children so indignant, but which helped to produce the Ten Hour bill. This bill laid down that women, children, and young persons should not work more than ten hours a day in textile factories. This law was succeeded by others of the same type. Similar conditions in other lands have produced similar legislation. In Saxony, Belgium, Alsace, and the Rhine Provinces the results of the system seemed to be just as frightful as in England. On the Rhine, as early as the year 1838, a Prussian army officer noticed that the number of those able to bear arms had diminished as a result of the degenerating influence of woman and child labour. But notwithstanding the introduction of this legislation generally, the labour of women and children continues. It takes the most destructive forms in those occupations which lie outside of the sphere of legislation. There are places in which child labour is as shocking as it was in England in 1848. In Russia, in the Bastmat weaving industry, children of three or four years have been found at work; and masses of children under ten working as much as eighteen hours a day. In Germany the toy industry can show as cruel figures in connection with children's work, all the more cruel because in order to provide enjoyment for happy children the living energy of others is forced out of existence. Industrial work at home is done by children four to five years old, while the age limit for child labour in factories, both in Germany and in Switzerland, is fourteen years. The government of Denmark has proposed the same limit of age. In Italy most of the crippled young children were brought up in the sulphur districts of Sicily, crowded together in low galleries, burdened with heavy sacks at an age at which their tender limbs under such conditions must inevitably and incurably be contorted. As early as twelve and thirteen years old many of them are incapable of work. In the magnesium mines of Spain, quantities of children six to eight years old are kept at work; through the poisonous odours they fall victims to severe diseases. Other children carrying heavy pitchers on their head are employed to water dry places. The child is a cheaper means of transportation than the ass. Despite protective legislation the average of height and weight in the Lancashire children is and continues to be lower than anywhere else. Of the two thousand children investigated in this district only one hundred and fifty-one were really sound and strong; one hundred and ninety-eight were seriously crippled; the rest more or less under the standard of good health. All work in the cotton industry done from six o'clock in the morning till five in the evening changes, so this doctor says, the hopeful ten-year-old child into the thin pallid thirteen-year-old boy. This degeneration of the population in industrial districts is becoming a serious danger for England's future. After people are convinced that all civilised nations are exposed to this same danger, industrial and street work of children will be everywhere forbidden. This will be a victory for the principle of child protection, which, in this as in other like spheres, was opposed at first on both economic and industrial grounds. Among these was the uncontested right of fathers to decide on the work of their children. It is not alone the question of child labour that reveals the low standpoint taken by the civil authorities of Europe, but it is proved also by the introduction of corporal punishment. Corporal punishment is as humiliating for him who gives it as for him who receives it; it is ineffective besides. Neither shame nor physical pain have any other effect than a hardening one, when the blow is delivered in cold blood long after the act occasioning it has been done. Most of the victims are so accustomed to blows already that the physical effect is little or nothing, but they awaken feelings of detestation against a society which so avenges its own faults. If the soul of the child is sensitive, corporal punishment can produce deep spiritual torment, as was the case with Lars Kruse, the hero of Skagen, who some years ago met his death by drowning. Everybody knows his story from the fine account of him by the Danish poet, Drachmann. Lars, in his childhood, had taken a plank, a piece of driftwood, and sold it. For this he was condemned to be punished. Till late in life, what he had suffered was ever present with him. He was not ashamed of his action but of his punishment--a punishment which embittered the whole life of a really great character. The blows administered by society are inflicted on children whose poverty and neglected education are in most cases responsible for their faults. The victims, often emaciated by hunger, and trembling with shame or terror, can experience no spiritual emotion fit to be the basis of moral shame. If the statistics of the life-history of those who are so disciplined were revealed, we should find that the majority come from, and return to, a home where the mother, as a result of working out of the home, is hindered from caring for her children. They have suffered from the custom of sleeping together, the result of overcrowded dwellings, with its demoralising influence. It may be the child has commenced to make his living on the street as messenger, cigar picker, or newspaper boy, or has been engaged in such like occupations, and so in his immediate neighbourhood has seen the luxurious living of the upper classes, which he strives to imitate. Hardly a week passes that the street youngster does not read about the embezzlements, fraudulent acts in the capitalistic classes, frequently committed by grey-headed men, whose childish impressions go back to the good old time, on whom the lax education of the present could not have any influence. No day passes in which he does not see how the representatives of the upper classes, old and young alike, satisfy their desires for pleasure. But from the child of the tenement and the street, people expect Spartan virtue or try to thrash it into him. It is hard to say which is greater here, stupidity or savagery. While the upper classes show that they are crude, immoderate, lazy, devoted to enjoying themselves; while the majority are aiming at getting and spending money; while so many are able to eat without working, and so few can find work who look for it; while careless luxury lives side by side with careless necessity, the upper class has not the shadow of right to expect an improved lower class. The society of the present day creates and maintains a social system whose effects are notorious in the economic crimes of the upper and lower class alike. It is not surprising that great cities are full of tramps and street urchins, like a spoilt cheese full of maggots. A destroyed home life, an idiotic school system, premature work in the factory, stupefying life in the streets, these are what the great city gives to the children of the under classes. It is more astonishing that the better instincts of human nature generally are victorious in the lower class, than the fact that this result is occasionally reversed. There is another argument against child labour, to be found in its immediate effect on industry itself. Working men trained in the schools are everywhere notoriously most efficient; even in Russia, where popular education is still so defective, this experience has been noted. The working man able to read and to write receives without exception on that account a higher pay than the illiterate ones who can be only used for the coarsest kind of work. The present development of German industry, as compared with English, is to be ascribed among other things to the superior educational training of the German people. The intensive and intelligent work of the American working man has apparently the same cause. But when children made sleepy by work in the factory enter evening schools, or when children are taken too early from school, they lose under continuous hard work the desire and possibility of adapting themselves to a higher education; they become organic machines which feed the inorganic ones. This must cause the value of their work to decline. These organic machines are passive, they do not try to improve their condition of life, as do the higher workmen. Besides living machines cannot increase the product of labour. Intelligent working men who watch over their own rights and increase them are also those who learn easiest new methods of work, discover new inventions which are of advantage to their line of work, and so increase the value of their product. It is only by the growth of this class of workmen, that any country to-day can stand the pressure of foreign competition. But the chief condition of this growth is that the bodily and mental powers of the child shall be used for his own development in school games and play; at the same time his capacity for work must be trained by occupation at home and in the technical school, not by work in a factory. Some years ago, a poem created a furore over the whole civilised world, from Canada to the islands of Polynesia. The author of this poem, Edwin Markham, was inspired by Millet's simple and wonderful picture, _The Man with the Hoe_. An agricultural labourer with bowed back stands there, one hand folded on the other, supported on the handle of the hoe. Millet in him has eternalised the expression so often observed in old workmen, especially in those who are worn out by day labour. The man's face is empty, says nothing, every human aspect has disappeared; we only see in his face the look of the patient beast of burden. For while moderate work ennobles the animal in man, immoderate work kills humanity in the beast. Millet's picture was to the poet, who was once himself a slave to bodily labor, a revelation, the eternal artistic type of the generation of man bowed down from childhood under the yoke of labour. In one strophe after another of that finely conceived poem he pictures this being that does not sorrow, and never hopes, his destroyed soul for which Plato and the Pleiades, the sunrise and the rose, all the treasures of mind and nature, are nothing. The poet asks sovereigns, masters, and governors how they will restore to this thing a soul, how they will give it music and dreams. What, he asks, will become of the people who have made this being what it is now; when after a thousand years' silence God's terrible question is answered,--What has become of his soul. Many such employers of labour go to church, they hear explanations of texts like these, "Inasmuch as ye did it unto ... even the least of these, ... ye did it unto me. All that ye wish others should do to you, that do to them." It does not occur to them to think how Jesus, the most inconsiderate of men, at the right place, would have characterised their demands to have small children employed in glass works at ten years of age. It never occurs to them to ask whether they would like to see their own children in these factories or others like them. This complete dualism between life and teaching in our present-day society will continue to exist until people realise that the opinions about life which are expressed by the lips, but are denied by deeds, should no longer be proclaimed as an absolute explanation of life and rule of life. The permanent element in Christianity can only be realised through the conviction that mankind is master of Christianity just as it is over all its other creations. The ardent idea of the Galilean carpenter, fraternity among men, will give man no rest until man has wiped out the last trace of injustice in his social relations. But the thought will not be realised by those ideals regarded by Jesus as absolute. This is the point of view which has crippled man's conscience and it applies equally to the realisation of this and all other ideals. An ideal impossible to carry out under the ordinary assumptions of human life, yet to which men have given the authority of a divine revelation, and which they conceive of as absolute, this is the main cause for the demoralisation which has gone on for nineteen hundred years. The history of humanity has really revealed to men how this absolute ideal of theirs has been betrayed. The cause of this demoralisation must cease before existence can be remodelled seriously by those who are convinced that ideals can really be binding. People will then not do as they do now, misuse the name of the Father, whom Jesus has taught men to proclaim with their lips, will not murder one another _en masse_ on the battlefield, to solve political and economic questions of supremacy. A society which calls itself Christian will no longer tolerate capital punishment, prostitution, stock exchange gambling, and child slavery. Men will not then as they do now, learn on their mother's breast to love their neighbours as themselves, and then tread in the footsteps of their fathers, trampling one another down in the struggle for bread. Our reverence for God will then be found in our capacity to humanise existence by humanising the human race. The youth of our day have not always successfully passed out of the Christian circles of ideals into another circle. The successful method would be to face immediately new purposes and aims that are really believed, and for which men wish to live. But many of our young generation know of no new purposes and aims in which they can believe. Hence comes that spiritual apathy which has mastered a great part of the young generation. Without undervaluing the influences of environment, I still believe that young people who have lost their ideals without getting new ones in their place are to be pitied. The young who are not making ideals out of their own souls will have no other time than this to find ideals. A generation of young men of this type laughed at Socrates. They would have nailed Jesus of Nazareth to the Cross, with a shrug of the shoulders; they would have become, undoubtedly, in 1789, _emigrés_ with the Bourbons. When the youth of any period remains without ideals, we pass through a _fin de siècle_ period no matter what the exact date may be. But when the young generation is inspired with the feeling of having great acts to do, a new century begins. It is always the fortunate right of young people to stimulate individualism before everything else. This is done every time a young person full of sound egoism develops his own personality completely and powerfully, throws himself keenly into the struggle for his own fortune. Any one who takes his individual development seriously will find that it is hard to become an independent, noble, and exalted personality by treading underfoot other individuals. He will moreover see that it makes more demands on his personal powers to try to create new values by new means, to devote his youthful energy to new tasks, than to look back to ideas that are already exhausted. There is another truth the young man will soon find to be valid. If an individual throws himself into the struggle of life without consideration for any one else, he is all the more likely to get hurt in the struggle. The more developed, too, an individual is, the more assailable points there are about him to be wounded. Great pain, as well as great happiness, is for great men a part of the fulness of life. Failures of a personality are often better proofs that it is above the average than its victories. But failures, even if they frequently leave our innermost personality shattered, can be borne, when we have learnt that there is a bandage to heal our own wounds, the bandage, I mean, that we lay on the wounds of others. No real man needs to wait until life has taught him, to sympathise with others. The inspiring age of youth may experience this, as well as the strong individual feeling of power. In this sense, many remain ever young, always able to pass through inspired moments, such moments when a great action, a great truth, a great and beautiful thing, or great good fortune, absorbs our whole existence; moments when our eyes fill with tears, when our arms stretch out to embrace the world and the thoughts which it contains. Such moments include the most intensive emotion of our own personality; at the same time they bring the fullest absorption in the common feeling of existence as a whole. A great life means giving continuity of action to such inspired moments. There are young people who can look back on no such moments, who arrogantly look down on the problems of their times from the height of their "superman" theories or from their superior learning; who measure them by the iron law of historical development. At all times there have been such people. There is no question in which it is more fatal for young people to isolate themselves, than that which deals with social conflicts. This age requires the young above all others to test this question from all points of view, to investigate all other ideas in connection with it. Every reform plan must be investigated in connection with its influence on the problems of individualism and socialism. From youth we have a right to expect something for the future. This hope implies that youth, in approaching it, in thinking and acting for the many whose lot it is the immediate task of the future to improve, adopt as their own the words of Walt Whitman, "I do not ask whether my wounded brother suffers; I will myself be this wounded brother." ADVERTISEMENTS _A Selection from the Catalogue of_ G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS Complete Catalogues sent on application _Clever, original, and fascinating_ The Lost Art of Reading _Mount Tom Edition_ New Edition in Two Volumes I. The Child and the Book A Manual for Parents and for Teachers in Schools and Colleges II. The Lost Art of Reading or, The Man and The Book _Two Volumes, Crown 8vo. Sold separately._ _Each net, $1.50_ By Gerald Stanley Lee "I must express with your connivance the joy I have had, the enthusiasm I have felt, in gloating over every page of what I believe is the most brilliant book of any season since Carlyle's and Emerson's pens were laid aside. The title does not hint at any more than a fraction of the contents. It is a highly original critique of philistinism and gradgrindism in education, library science, science in general, and life in general. It is full of humor, rich in style, and eccentric in form and all suffused with the perfervid genius of a man who is not merely a thinker but a force. Every sentence is tinglingly alive, and as if furnished with long antennæ of suggestiveness. I do not know who Mr. Lee is, but I know this--that if he goes on as he has been, we need no longer whine that we have no worthy successors to the old Brahminical writers of New England. "I have been reading with wonder and laughter and with loud cheers. It is the word of all words that needed to be spoken just now. It makes me believe that after all we haven't a great kindergarten about us in authorship, but that there is virtue, race, sap in us yet. I can conceive that the date of the publication of this book may well be the date of the moral and intellectual renaissance for which we have long been scanning the horizon."--WM. SLOANE KENNEDY in _Boston Transcript_. New York--G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS--London _A Book for Parents and Teachers_ Up Through Childhood A Study of Some Principles of Education in Relation to Faith and Conduct By George Allen Hubbell, Ph.D. (Columbia) Vice-President of Berea College With Introduction by Dr. Frank M. McMurray Teachers College, N. Y. _12mo. $1.25 net. By mail, $1.40_ The book is divided into four parts: Part I., dealing with the School of Life, in which are discussed (1) life as opportunity, (2) that aim of education which will make it possible to use this opportunity aright, and (3) the institutions of education which, as environment, contribute to the unfolding and instruction of the child. Part II. deals with the teacher in relation to his work as a quickener, and then passes to the teacher's preparation, his relation to the Bible, and last and best his relation to the child. Part III. deals with the young being in all stages of his growth from birth to adult life, first taking up the broad question of man's place in nature, and dealing with that as fundamental to all further interpretation. The other topics concern themselves with man's reaction on environment, with the development of the mental powers and the placing of these in due relation to each other, with the training of the child's faith, with the specific consideration of the boy's and girl's experiences to adult life, and with the rounded life. New York--G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS--London 
7966	----	THE CHILD AND CHILDHOOD IN FOLK-THOUGHT STUDIES OF THE ACTIVITIES AND INFLUENCES OF THE CHILD AMONG PRIMITIVE PEOPLES, THEIR ANALOGUES AND SURVIVALS IN THE CIVILIZATION OF TO-DAY THE CHILD AND CHILDHOOD IN FOLK-THOUGHT (THE CHILD IN PRIMITIVE CULTURE) BY ALEXANDER FRANCIS CHAMBERLAIN M.A., PH.D. TO HIS FATHER AND HIS MOTHER THEIR SON Dedicates this Book "Vom Vater hab' ich die Statur, Des Lebens ernstes Führen; Vom Mutterchen die Frohnatur Und Lust zu fabulieren."--_Goethe_. PREFATORY NOTE. The present volume is an elaboration and amplification of lectures on "The Child in Folk-Thought," delivered by the writer at the summer school held at Clark University in 1894. In connection with the interesting topic of "Child-Study" which now engages so much the attention of teachers and parents, an attempt is here made to indicate some of the chief child-activities among primitive peoples and to point out in some respects their survivals in the social institutions and culture-movements of to-day. The point of view to be kept in mind is the child and what he has done, or is said to have done, in all ages and among all races of men. For all statements and citations references are given, and the writer has made every effort to place himself in the position of those whose opinion he records,--receiving and reporting without distortion or alteration. He begs to return to his colleagues in the University, especially to its distinguished president, the _genius_ of the movement for "Child-Study" in America, and to the members of the summer school of 1894, whose kind appreciation of his efforts has mainly led to the publication of this work, his sincerest gratitude for the sympathy and encouragement which they have so often exhibited and expressed with regard to the present and allied subjects of study and investigation in the field of Anthropology, pedagogical and psychological. A. F. CHAMBERLAIN CLARK UNIVERSITY, WORCESTER, Mass., April, 1895. CONTENTS. I. CHILD-STUDY II. THE CHILD'S TRIBUTE TO THE MOTHER III. THE CHILD'S TRIBUTE TO THE MOTHER (Continued) IV. THE CHILD'S TRIBUTE TO THE FATHER V. THE NAME CHILD VI. THE CHILD IN THE PRIMITIVE LABORATORY VII. THE BRIGHT SIDE OF CHILD-LIFE: PARENTAL AFFECTION VIII. CHILDHOOD THE GOLDEN AGE IX. CHILDREN'S FOOD X. CHILDREN'S SOULS XI. CHILDREN'S FLOWERS, PLANTS, AND TREES XII. CHILDREN'S ANIMALS, BIRDS, ETC. XIII. CHILD-LIFE AND EDUCATION IN GENERAL XIV. THE CHILD AS MEMBER AND BUILDER OF SOCIETY XV. THE CHILD AS LINGUIST XVI. THE CHILD AS ACTOR AND INVENTOR XVII. THE CHILD AS POET AND MUSICIAN XVIII. THE CHILD AS TEACHER AND WISEACRE XIX. THE CHILD AS JUDGE XX. THE CHILD AS ORACLE-KEEPER AND ORACLE-INTERPRETER XXI. THE CHILD AS WEATHER-MAKER XXII. THE CHILD AS HEALER AND PHYSICIAN XXIII. THE CHILD AS SHAMAN AND PRIEST XXIV. THE CHILD AS HERO, ADVENTURER, ETC. XXV. THE CHILD AS FETICH AND DIVINITY XXVI. THE CHILD AS GOD: THE CHRIST-CHILD XXVII. PROVERBS, SAYINGS, ETC., ABOUT PARENTS, FATHER AND MOTHER XXVIII. PROVERBS, SAYINGS, ETC., ABOUT THE CHILD, MANKIND, GENIUS XXIX. PROVERBS, SAYINGS, ETC., ABOUT MOTHER AND CHILD XXX. PROVERBS, SAYINGS, ETC., ABOUT FATHER AND CHILD XXXI. PROVERBS, SAYINGS, ETC., ABOUT CHILDHOOD, YOUTH, AND AGE XXXII. PROVERBS, SAYINGS, ETC., ABOUT THE CHILD AND CHILDHOOD INDEX TO PROVERBS XXXIII. CONCLUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY SUBJECT-INDEX TO SECTION A OF BIBLIOGRAPHY SUBJECT-INDEX TO SECTION B OF BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX I.--AUTHORITIES INDEX II.--PLACES, PEOPLES, TRIBES, LANGUAGES INDEX III.--SUBJECTS CHAPTER I. CHILD-STUDY. Oneness with Nature is the glory of Childhood; oneness with Childhood is the glory of the Teacher.--_G. Stanley Hall_. Homes ont l'estre comme metaulx, Vie et augment des vegetaulx, Instinct et sens comme les bruts, Esprit comme anges en attributs. [Man has as attributes: Being like metals, Life and growth like plants, Instinct and sense like animals, Mind like angels.]--_Jehan de Meung_. The Child is Father of the Man.--_Wordsworth_. And he [Jesus] called to him a little child, and set him in the midst of them.--_Matthew_ xviii. 2. It was an Oriental poet who sang:-- "On parent knees, a naked, new-born child, Weeping thou sat'st, while all around thee smiled; So live, that, sinking in thy last, long sleep, Calm thou mayst smile, while all around thee weep," and not so very long ago even the anthropologist seemed satisfied with the approximation of childhood and old age,--one glance at the babe in the cradle, one look at the graybeard on his deathbed, gave all the knowledge desired or sought for. Man, big, burly, healthy, omniscient, was the subject of all investigation. But now a change has come over the face of things. As did that great teacher of old, so, in our day, has one of the ministers of science "called to him a little child and set him in the midst of them,"--greatest in the kingdom of anthropology is assuredly that little child, as we were told centuries ago, by the prophet of Galilee, that he is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. The child, together with woman, who, in so many respects in which the essential human characteristics are concerned, so much resembles him, is now beyond doubt the most prominent figure in individual, as well as in racial, anthropology. Dr. D. G. Brinton, in an appreciative notice of the recent volume on _Man and Woman_, by Havelock Ellis, in which the secondary sexual differences between the male and the female portions of the human race are so well set forth and discussed, remarks: "The child, the infant in fact, alone possesses in their fulness 'the chief distinctive characters of humanity. The highest human types, as represented in men of genius, present a striking approximation to the child-type. In man, from about the third year onward, further growth is to some extent growth in degeneration and senility.' Hence the true tendency of the progressive evolution of the race is to become child-like, to become feminine." (_Psych. Rev._ I. 533.) As Dr. Brinton notes, in this sense women are leading evolution--Goethe was right: _Das Ewig-weibliche zieht uns hinan_. But here belongs also the child-human, and he was right in very truth who said: "A little child shall lead them." What new meaning flashes into the words of the Christ, who, after declaring that "the kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo, here! or, There! for lo, the kingdom of God is within you," in rebuke of the Pharisees, in rebuke of his own disciples, "called to him a little child and set him in the midst of them, and said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven." Even physically, the key to the kingdom of heaven lies in childhood's keeping. Vast indeed is now the province of him who studies the child. In Somatology,--the science of the physical characteristics and constitution of the body and its members,--he seeks not alone to observe the state and condition of the skeleton and its integuments during life, but also to ascertain their nature and character in the period of prenatal existence, as well as when causes natural, or unnatural, disease, the exhaustion of old age, violence, or the like, have induced the dissolution of death. In Linguistics and Philology, he endeavours to discover the essence and import of those manifold, inarticulate, or unintelligible sounds, which, with the long flight of time, develop into the splendidly rounded periods of a Webster or a Gladstone, or swell nobly in the rhythmic beauties of a Swinburne or a Tennyson. In Art and Technology, he would fain fathom the depths of those rude scribblings and quaint efforts at delineation, whence, in the course of ages, have been evolved the wonders of the alphabet and the marvellous creations of a Rubens and an Angelo. In Psychology, he seeks to trace, in childish prattlings and lore of the nursery, the far-off beginnings of mythology, philosophy, religion. Beside the stories told to children in explanation of the birth of a sister or a brother, and the children's own imaginings concerning the little new-comer, he may place the speculations of sages and theologians of all races and of all ages concerning birth, death, immortality, and the future life, which, growing with the centuries, have ripened into the rich and wholesome dogmas of the church. Ethnology, with its broad sweep over ages and races of men, its searchings into the origins of nations and of civilizations, illumined by the light of Evolution, suggests that in the growth of the child from helpless infancy to adolescence, and through the strong and trying development of manhood to the idiosyncrasies of disease and senescence, we have an epitome in miniature of the life of the race; that in primitive tribes, and in those members of our civilized communities, whose growth upward and onward has been retarded by inherited tendencies which it has been out of their power to overcome, or by a _milieu_ and environment, the control and subjugation of which required faculties and abilities they did not possess, we see, as it were, ethnic children; that in the nursery, the asylum, the jail, the mountain fastnesses of earth, or the desert plains, peopled by races whose ways are not our ways, whose criteria of culture are far below ours, we have a panorama of what has transpired since, alone and face to face with a new existence, the first human beings partook of the fruit of the tree of knowledge and became conscious of the great gulf, which, after millenniums of struggle and fierce competition, had opened between the new, intelligent, speaking anthropoids and their fellows who straggled so far behind. Wordsworth has said: "The child is father of the man," and a German writer has expanded the same thought:-- "Die Kindheit von heute Ist die Menschheit von morgen, Die Kindheit von heute Ist die Menschheit von gestern." ["The childhood of to-day Is the manhood of to-morrow, The childhood of to-day Is the manhood of yesterday."] In brief, the child is father of the man and brother of the race. In all ages, and with every people, the arcana of life and death, the mysteries of birth, childhood, puberty, adolescence, maidenhood, womanhood, manhood, motherhood, fatherhood, have called forth the profoundest thought and speculation. From the contemplation of these strange phenomena sprang the esoteric doctrines of Egypt and the East, with their horrible accompaniments of vice and depravity; the same thoughts, low and terrible, hovered before the devotees of Moloch and Cybele, when Carthage sent her innocent boys to the furnace, a sacrifice to the king of gods, and Asia Minor offered up the virginity of her fairest daughters to the first-comer at the altars of the earth-mother. Purified and ennobled by long centuries of development and unfolding, the blossoming of such conceptions is seen in the great sacrifice which the Son of Man made for the children of men, and in the cardinal doctrine of the religion which he founded,--"Ye must be born again,"--the regeneration, which alone gave entrance into Paradise. The Golden Age of the past of which, through the long lapse of years, dreamers have dreamt and poets sung, and the Golden City, glimpses of whose glorious portal have flashed through the prayers and meditations of the rapt enthusiast, seem but one in their foundation, as the Eden of the world's beginning and the heaven that shall open to men's eyes, when time shall be no more, are but closely allied phases, nay, but one and the same phase, rather, of the world-old thought,--the ethnic might have been, the ought to be of all the ages. The imagined, retrospect childhood of the past is twin-born with the ideal, prospective childhood of the world to come. Here the savage and the philosopher, the child and the genius, meet; the wisdom of the first and of the last century of human existence is at one. Childhood is the mirror in which these reflections are cast,--the childhood of the race is depicted with the same colours as the childhood of the individual. We can read a larger thought into the words of Hartley Coleridge:-- "Oh what a wilderness were this sad world, If man were always man, and never child." Besides the anthropometric and psycho-physical investigations of the child carried on in the scientific laboratory with exact instruments and unexceptionable methods, there is another field of "Child-Study" well worthy our attention for the light it can shed upon some of the dark places in the wide expanse of pedagogical science and the art of education. Its laboratory of research has been the whole wide world, the experimenters and recorders the primitive peoples of all races and all centuries,--fathers and mothers whom the wonderland of parenthood encompassed and entranced; the subjects, the children of all the generations of mankind. The consideration of "The Child in Folk-Thought,"--what tribe upon tribe, age after age, has thought about, ascribed to, dreamt of, learned from, taught to, the child, the parent-lore of the human race, in its development through savagery and barbarism to civilization and culture,--can bring to the harvest of pedagogy many a golden sheaf. The works of Dr. Ploss, _Das kleine Kind_, _Das Kind_, and _Das Weib_, encyclopædic in character as the two last are, covering a vast field of research relating to the anatomy, physiology, hygiene, dietetics, and ceremonial treatment of child and mother, of girl and boy, all over the world, and forming a huge mine of information concerning child-birth, motherhood, sex-phenomena, and the like, have still left some aspects of the anthropology of childhood practically untouched. In English, the child has, as yet, found no chronicler and historian such as Ploss. The object of the present writer is to treat of the child from a point of view hitherto entirely neglected, to exhibit what the world owes to childhood and the motherhood and the fatherhood which it occasions, to indicate the position of the child in the march of civilization among the various races of men, and to estimate the influence which the child-idea and its accompaniments have had upon sociology, mythology, religion, language; for the touch of the child is upon them all, and the debt of humanity to the little children has not yet been told. They have figured in the world's history and its folk-lore as _magi_ and "medicine-men," as priests and oracle-keepers, as physicians and healers, as teachers and judges, as saints, heroes, discoverers, and inventors, as musicians and poets, actors and labourers in many fields of human activity, have been compared to the foolish and to the most wise, have been looked upon as fetiches and as gods, as the fit sacrifice to offended Heaven, and as the saviours and regenerators of mankind. The history of the child in human society and of the human ideas and institutions which have sprung from its consideration can have here only a beginning. This book is written in full sympathy with the thought expressed in the words of the Latin poet Juvenal: _Maxima debetur pueris reverentia_, and in the declaration of Jean Paul: "I love God and every little child." CHAPTER II. THE CHILD'S TRIBUTE TO THE MOTHER. A good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters.--_English Proverb_. The first poet, the first priest, was the first mother. The first empire was a woman and her children.--_O. T. Mason_. When society, under the guidance of the "fathers of the church," went almost to destruction in the dark ages, it was the "mothers of the people" who saved it and set it going on the new right path. --_Zmigrodski_ (adapted). The story of civilization is the story of the mother. --_Zmigrodski_. One mother is more venerable than a thousand fathers. --_Laws of Manu_. If the world were put into one scale, and my mother into the other, the world would kick the beam.--_Lord Langdale_. _Names of the Mother_. In _A Song of Life_,--a book in which the topic of sex is treated with such delicate skill,--occurs this sentence: "The motherhood of mammalian life is the most sacred thing in physical existence" (120. 92), and Professor Drummond closes his _Lowell Institute Lectures on the Evolution of Man_ in the following words: "It is a fact to which too little significance has been given, that the whole work of organic nature culminates in the making of Mothers--that the animal series end with a group which even the naturalist has been forced to call the _Mammalia_. When the savage mother awoke to her first tenderness, a new creative hand was at work in the world" (36. 240). Said Henry Ward Beecher: "When God thought of Mother, he must have laughed with satisfaction, and framed it quickly,--so rich, so deep, so divine, so full of soul, power, and beauty, was the conception," and it was unto babes and sucklings that this wisdom was first revealed. From their lips first fell the sound which parents of later ages consecrated and preserved to all time. With motherhood came into the world song, religion, the thought of immortality itself; and the mother and the child, in the course of the ages, invented and preserved most of the arts and the graces of human life and human culture. In language, especially, the mother and the child have exercised a vast influence. In the names for "mother," the various races have recognized the debt they owe to her who is the "fashioner" of the child, its "nourisher" and its "nurse." An examination of the etymologies of the words for "mother" in all known languages is obviously impossible, for the last speakers and interpreters of many of the unwritten tongues of the earth are long since dead and gone. How primitive man--the first man of the race--called his mother, we can but surmise. Still, a number of interesting facts are known, and some of these follow. The word _mother_ is one of the oldest in the language; one of the very few words found among all the great branches of the widely scattered Aryan race, bearing witness, in ages far remote, before the Celt, the Teuton, the Hellene, the Latin, the Slav, and the Indo-Iranian were known, to the existence of the family, with the _mother_ occupying a high and honourable place, if not indeed the highest place of all. What the etymological meaning was, of the primitive Aryan word from which our _mother_ is descended, is uncertain. It seems, however, to be a noun derived, with the agent-suffix _-t-r_, from the root _ma_, "to measure." Skeat thinks the word meant originally "manager, regulator [of the household]," rejecting, as unsupported by sufficient evidence, a suggested interpretation as the "producer." Kluge, the German lexicographer, hesitates between the "apportioner, measurer," and the "former [of the embryo in the womb]." In the language of the Klamath Indians of Oregon, _p'gishap_, "mother," really signifies the "maker." The Karankawas of Texas called "mother," _kaninma_, the "suckler," from _kanin_, "the female breast." In Latin _mamma_, seems to signify "teat, breast," as well as "mother," but Skeat doubts whether there are not two distinct words here. In Finnish and some other primitive languages a similar resemblance or identity exists between the words for "breast" and "mother." In Lithuanian, _móte_--cognate with our _mother_--signifies "wife," and in the language of the Caddo Indians of Louisiana and Texas _sássin_ means both "wife" and "mother." The familiar "mother" of the New England farmer of the "Old Homestead" type, presents, perhaps, a relic of the same thought. The word _dame_, in older English, from being a title of respect for women--there is a close analogy in the history of _sire_--came to signify "mother." Chaucer translates the French of the _Romaunt of the Rose_, "Enfant qui craint ni père ni mère Ne pent que bien ne le comperre," by "For who that dredeth sire ne dame Shall it abie in bodie or name," and Shakespeare makes poor Caliban declare: "I never saw a woman, But only Sycorax, my dam." Nowadays, the word _dam_ is applied only to the female parent of animals, horses especially. The word, which is one with the honourable appellation _dame_, goes back to the Latin _domina_, "mistress, lady," the feminine of _dominus_, "lord, master." In not a few languages, the words for "father" and "mother" are derived from the same root, or one from the other, by simple phonetic change. Thus, in the Sandeh language of Central Africa, "mother" is _n-amu_, "father," _b-amu_; in the Cholona of South America, _pa_ is "father," _pa-n_, "mother"; in the PEntlate of British Columbia, "father" is _mãa_, "mother," _tãa_, while in the Songish _mãn_ is "father" and _tan_ "mother" (404. 143). Certain tongues have different words for "mother," according as it is a male or a female who speaks. Thus in the Okanak·ên, a Salish dialect of British Columbia, a man or a boy says for "mother," _sk'õi_, a woman or a girl, _tõm_; in Kalispelm the corresponding terms for "my mother" are _isk'õi_ and _intoop_. This distinction, however, seems not to be so common as in the case of "father." In a number of languages the words for "mother" are different when the latter is addressed and when she is spoken of or referred to. Thus in the Kwakiutl, Nootka, and Çatloltq, three British Columbia tongues, the two words for "mother" are respectively _ât_, _abóuk_; _ãt_, _abEmp_; _nikH_, _tãn_. It is to be noted, apparently, that the word used in address is very often simpler, more primitive, than the other. Even in English we find something similar in the use of _ma_ (or _mama_) and _mother_. In the Gothic alone, of all the great Teutonic dialects,--the language into which Bishop Wulfila translated the Scriptures in the fourth century,--the cognate equivalent of our English _mother_ does not appear. The Gothic term is _aithiei,_ evidently related to _atta,_ "father," and belonging to the great series of nursery words, of which our own _ma, mama,_ are typical examples. These are either relics of the first articulations of the child and the race, transmitted by hereditary adaptation from generation to generation, or are the coinages of mother and nurse in imitation of the cries of infancy. These simple words are legion in number and are found over the whole inhabited earth,--in the wigwam of the Redskin, in the tent of the nomad Bedouin, in the homes of cultured Europeans and Americans. Dr. Buschmann studied these "nature-sounds," as he called them, and found that they are chiefly variations and combinations of the syllables _ab, ap, am, an, ad, at, ba, pa, ma, na, da, ta,_ etc., and that in one language, not absolutely unrelated to another, the same sound will be used to denote the "mother" that in the second signifies "father," thus evidencing the applicability of these words, in the earliest stages of their existence, to either, or to both, of the parents of the child (166. 85). Pott, while remarking a wonderful resemblance in the names for parents all over the world, seeks to establish the rather doubtful thesis that there is a decided difference in the nature of the words for "father" and those for "mother," the former being "man-like, stronger," the latter "woman-like, mild" (517. 57). Some languages apparently do not possess a single specialized word for "mother." The Hawaiian, for example, calls "mother and the sisters of the mother" _makua wahine,_ "female parent," that being the nearest equivalent of our "mother," while in Tonga, as indeed with us to-day, sometimes the same term is applied to a real mother and to an adopted one (100. 389). In Japan, the paternal aunt and the maternal aunt are called "little mother." Similar terms and appellations are found in other primitive tongues. A somewhat extended discussion of names for "mother," and the questions connected with the subject, will be found in Westermarck (166. 85). Here also will be found notices of the names among various peoples for the nearest relatives of the mother and father. Incidentally it is worth noting that Westermarck controverts Professor Vambéry's opinion that the Turko-Tartar words for "mother," _ana_, _ene_, originally meant "nurse" or "woman" (from the root _an_, _en_), holding that exactly the reverse is the fact, "the terms for _mother_ being the primitive words." He is also inclined to think that the Aryan roots _pa_, "to protect, to nourish," and _ma_, "to fashion," came from _pa_, "father," and _ma_, "mother," and not _vice versâ_. Mr. Bridges, the missionary who has studied so well the Yahgans of Tierra del Fuego, states that "the names _imu_ and _dabi_--father and mother--have no meaning apart from their application, neither have any of their other very definite and ample list of terms for relatives, except the terms _macu_ [cf. _magu_, "parturition"] and _macipa_ [cf. _cipa_, "female"], son and daughter." This statement is, however, too sweeping perhaps (166. 88). According to Colonel Mallery, the Ute Indians indicate "mother" by placing the index finger in the mouth (497a. 479). Clark describes the common Indian sign as follows: "Bring partially curved and compressed right hand, and strike with two or three gentle taps right or left breast, and make sign for _female_; though in conversation the latter is seldom necessary. Deaf mutes make sign for _female_, and cross hands as in their sign for _baby_, and move them to front and upwards" (420. 262). Somewhat similar is the sign for "father": "Bring the compressed right hand, back nearly outwards, in front of right or left breast, tips of fingers few inches from it; move the hand, mostly by wrist action, and gently tap the breast with tips of fingers two or three times, then make sign for _male_. Some Indians tap right breast for 'father,' and left for 'mother.' Deaf-mutes make sign for _male_, and then holding hands fixed as in their sign for _baby_, but a little higher, move the hands to front and upwards" (420. 167). Interesting is the following statement of Mr. Codrington, the well-known missionary to the Melanesians:-- "In Mota the word used for 'mother' is the same that is used for the division [tribe?] _veve_, with a plural sign _ra veve_. And it is not that a man's kindred are so called after his mother, but that his mother is called his kindred, as if she were the representative of the division to which he belongs; as if he were not the child of a particular woman, but of the whole kindred for whom she brought him into the world." Moreover, at Mota, in like fashion, "the word for 'consort,' 'husband,' or 'wife,' is in a plural form _ra soai_, the word used for members of a body, or the component parts of a canoe" (25. 307-8). _Mother-Right_. Since the appearance of Bachofen's famous book on the matriarchate, "mother-right," that system of society in which the mother is paramount in the family and the line of inheritance passes through her, has received much attention from students of sociology and primitive history. Post thus defines the system of mother-right:-- "The matriarchate is a system of relationship according to which the child is related only to his mother and to the persons connected with him through the female line, while he is looked upon as not related to his father and the persons connected with him through the male line. According to this system, therefore, the narrowest family circle consists not, as with us to-day, of father, mother, and child, but of mother, mother's brother, and sister's child, whilst the father is completely wanting, and the mother's brother takes the father's place with the sister's children. The real father is not the father of his own children, but of his nephews and nieces, whilst the brother of his wife is looked upon as father to his children. The brothers and sisters of the mother form with her a social group, to which belong also the children of the sisters, the children of the daughters of the sisters, etc., but not the children of the brothers, the children of the sisters' sons, etc. With every husband the relationship ceases" (127. I. 13-14). The system of mother-right prevails widely over the whole globe; in some places, however, only in fragmentary condition. It is found amongst nearly all the native tribes of America; the peoples of Malaysia, Melanesia, Australia, Micronesia, and Polynesia, the Dravidian tribes of India; in Africa it is found in the eastern Sahara, the Soudan, the east and west coast, and in the centre of the continent, but not to the exclusion, altogether, of father-right, while in the north the intrusion of Europeans and the followers of Islam has tended to suppress it. Traces of its former existence are discovered among certain of the ancient tribes of Asia Minor, the old Egyptians, Arabs, Greeks, Romans, Teutons, the Aryans of India, the Chinese, Japanese, etc. Mother-right has been recognized by many sociologists as a system of family relationship, perhaps the most widespread, perhaps the most primitive of all. Dr. Brinton says:-- "The foundation of the gentile system, as of any other family life, is ... the mutual affection between kindred. In the primitive period this is especially between children of the same mother, not so much because of the doubt of paternity, as because physiologically and obviously, it is the mother in whom is formed, and from whom alone proceeds, the living being" (412. 47). Professor O. T. Mason, in the course of his interesting address on "Woman's Share in Primitive Culture," remarks (112. 10):-- "Such sociologists as Morgan and McLennan affirm that the primitive society had no family organization at all. They hypothecate a condition in which utter promiscuity prevailed. I see no necessity for this. There is some organization among insects. Birds mate and rear a little family. Many animals set up a kind of patriarchal horde. On the other hand, they err greatly who look among savages for such permanent home life as we enjoy. Marriages are in groups, children are the sons and daughters of these groups; divorces are common. The fathers of the children are not known, and if they were, they would have no authority on that account. The mother never changes her name, the children are named after her, or, at least, are not named after the father. The system of gentes prevails, each gens consisting of a hypothetical female ancestress, and all her descendants through females. These primitive men and women, having no other resort, hit upon this device to hold a band of kin together. Here was the first social tie on earth; the beginning of the state. The first empire was a woman and her children, regardless of paternity. This was the beginning of all the social bonds which unite us. Among our own Indians mother-right was nearly universal. Upon the death of a chief whose office was hereditary, he was succeeded, not by his son, but by the son of a sister, or an aunt, or a niece; all his property that was not buried with him fell to the same parties, could not descend to his children, since a child and the father belonged to different gentes." McLennan has discussed at some length the subject of kinship in ancient Greece (115. 193-246), and maintains that "the system of double kinship, which prevailed in the time of Homer, was preceded by a system of kinship through females only," referring to the cases of Lycaon, Tlepolemus, Helen, Arnaeus, Glaucus, and Sarpedon, besides the evidence in the _Orestes_ of Euripides, and the _Eumenides_ of Aeschylus. In the last, "the jury are equally divided on the plea [that Orestes was not of kin to his mother, Clytemnestra, whom he had killed, --"Do you call _me_ related by blood to my mother?"], and Orestes gains his cause by the casting vote of Athene." According to tradition, "in Greece, before the time of Cecrops, children always bore the name of their mothers," in marked contrast to tha state of affairs in Sparta, where, according to Philo, "the marriage tie was so loose that men lent their wives to one another, and cared little by whom children were begotten, provided they turned out strong and healthy." We have preserved for us, by Plutarch and others, some of the opinions of Greek philosophers on the relation of the father and the mother to the child. Plato is represented as calling "mind the conception, idea, model, and _father_; and matter the mother, _nurse_, or seat and region capable of births." Chrysippus is said to have stated: "The foetus is nourished in the womb like a plant; but, being born, is refrigerated and hardened by the air, and its spirit being changed it becomes an animal," a view which, as McLennan points out, "constitutes the mother the mere nurse of her child, just as a field is of the seed sown in it." The view of Apollo, which, in the council of the gods, influenced Athene to decide for Orestes, is this:-- "The bearer of the so-called offspring is not _the mother_ of it, but only the nurse of the newly conceived foetus. It is the male who is the author of its being; while she, as a stranger, for a stranger, preserves the young plant for those for whom the god has not blighted it in the bud. And I will show you a proof of this assertion; one _may_ become a father without a mother. There stands by a witness of this in the daughter of Olympian Zeus, who was not even nursed [much less engendered or begotten] in the darkness of the womb" (115. 211). "This is akin to the wild discussion in the misogynistic Middle Ages about the possibility of _lucina sine concubitu_. The most recent and most scholarly discussion of all questions involved in "mother-right" will be found people in the world; for it stands on record that the five companies (five hundred men) recruited from the Iroquois of New York and Canada during our civil war stood first on the list among all the recruits of our army for height, vigour, and corporeal symmetry" (412. 82). And it was this people too who produced Hiawatha, a philosophic legislator and reformer, worthy to rank with Solon and Lycurgus, and the founder of a great league whose object was to put an end to war, and unite all the nations in one bond of brotherhood and peace. Among the Choctaw-Muskogee tribes, women-chiefs were also known; the Yuchis, Chetimachas, had "Queens"; occasionally we find female rulers elsewhere in America, as among the Winnebagos, the Nah-ane, etc. Scattered examples of gynocracy are to be found in other parts of the world, and in their later development some of the Aryan races have been rather partial to women as monarchs, and striking instances of a like predilection are to be met with among the Semitic tribes,--Boadicea, Dido, Semiramis, Deborah are well-known cases in point, to say nothing of the Christian era and its more enlightened treatment of woman. The fate of women among those peoples and in those ages where extreme exaltation of the male has been the rule, is sketched by Letourneau in his chapter on _The Condition of Women_ (100. 173-185); the contrast between the Australians, to whom "woman is a domestic animal, useful for the purposes of genesic pleasure, for reproduction, and, in case of famine, for food," the Chinese, who can say "a newly-married woman ought to be merely as a shadow and as an echo in the house," the primitive Hindus, who forbade the wife to call her husband by name, but made her term him "master, lord," or even "god," and even some of our modern races in the eye of whose law women are still minors, and the Iroquois, is remarkable. Such great differences in the position and rights of women, existing through centuries, over wide areas of the globe, have made the study of comparative pedagogy a most important branch of human sociology. The mother as teacher has not been, and is not now, the same the world over. As men holding supreme power have been termed "father," women have in like manner been called "mother." The title of the queen-mother in Ashanti is _nana,_ "Grandmother" (438. 259), and to some of the Indian tribes of Canada Queen Victoria is the "Great White Mother," the "Great Mother across the Sea." In Ashanti the "rich, prosperous, and powerful" are termed _oman enna,_ "mothers of the tribe," and are expected to make suitably large offerings to the dead, else there will be no child born in the neglectful family for a certain period (438. 228). With the Romans, _mater_ and its derivative _matrona,_ came to be applied as titles of honour; and beside the rites of the _parentalia_ we find those of the _matronalia_ (492. 454). In the ancient Hebrew chronicles we find mention of Deborah, that "mother in Israel." With us, off whose tongues "the fathers," "forefathers," "ancestors" (hardly including ancestresses) and the like rolled so glibly, the "Pilgrim Fathers" were glorified long before the "Pilgrim Mothers," and hardly yet has the mother of the "father of his country" received the just remembrance and recognition belonging to her who bore so noble and so illustrious a son. By and by, however, it is to be hoped, we shall be free from the reproach cast upon us by Colonel Higginson, and wake up to the full consciousness that the great men of our land have had mothers, and proceed to re-write our biographical dictionaries and encyclopædias of life-history. In Latin _mater,_ as does _mother_ with us, possessed a wide extent of meaning, "mother, parent, producer, nurse, preparer, cause, origin, source," etc. _Mater omnium artium necessitas,_ "Necessity is the mother of invention," and similar phrases were in common use, as they are also in the languages of to-day. Connected with _mater_ is _materia,_ "matter,"--_mother_-stuff, perhaps,--and from it is derived _matrimonium,_ which testifies concerning primitive Roman sociology, in which the mother-idea must have been prominent, something we cannot say of our word _marriage,_ derived ultimately from the Latin _mas,_ "a male." Westermarck notes the Nicaraguans, Dyaks, Minahassers, Andaman Islanders, Pádam, Munda Kols, Santals, Moors of the Western Soudan, Tuaregs, Teda, among the more or less primitive peoples with whom woman is held in considerable respect, and sometimes, as among the Munda Kols, bears the proud title "mistress of the house" (166. 500, 501). As Havelock Ellis remarks, women have shown themselves the equals of men as rulers, and most beneficial results have flowed from their exercise of the great political wisdom, and adaptation to statecraft which seems to belong especially to the female sex. The household has been a training-school for women in the more extended spheres of human administrative society. _Alma Mater._ The college graduate fondly calls the institution from which he has obtained his degree _Alma Mater_, "nourishing, fostering, cherishing mother," and he is her _alumnus_ (foster-child, nourished one). For long years the family of the benign and gracious mother, whose wisdom was lavished upon her children, consisted of sons alone, but now, with the advent of "sweeter manners, purer laws," daughters have come to her also, and the _alumnae_, "the sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair," share in the best gifts their parent can bestow. To Earth also, the term _Alma Mater_ has been applied, and the great nourishing mother of all was indeed the first teacher of man, the first university of the race. _Alma, alumnus, alumna_, are all derived from _alo_, "I nourish, support." From the radical _al_, following various trains of thought, have come: _alesco_, "I grow up"; _coalesco_, "I grow together"; _adolesco_, "I grow up,"--whence _adolescent_, etc.; _obsolesco_, "I wear out"; _alimentum_, "food"; _alimonium_, "support"; _altor, altrix_, "nourisher"; _altus_, "high, deep" (literally, "grown"); _elementum_, "first principle," etc. Connected With _adolesco_ is _adultus_, whence our _adult_, with the radical of which the English word _old_ (_eld_) is cognate. From the root _al_, "to grow, to make to grow, to nourish," spring also the Latin words _prôles_, "offspring," _suboles_, "offspring, sprout," _indôles_, "inborn or native quality." _"Mother's Son."_ The familiar expression "every mother's son of us" finds kin in the Modern High German _Muttersohn, Mutterkind_, which, with the even more significant _Muttermensch_ (human being), takes us back to the days of "mother-right." Rather different, however, is the idea called up by the corresponding Middle Low German _modersone_, which means "bastard, illegitimate child." _Lore of Motherhood_ A synonym of _Muttermensch_ is _Mutterseele_, for soul and man once meant pretty much, the same. The curious expression _mutterseelenallein_, "quite alone; alone by one's self," is given a peculiar interpretation by Lippert, who sees in it a relic of the burial of the dead (soul) beneath the hearth, threshold, or floor of the house; "wessen Mutter im Hause ruht, der kann daheim immer nur mit seiner Mutterseele selbander allein sein." Or, perhaps, it goes back to the time when, as with the Seminoles of Florida, the babe was held over the mouth of the mother, whose death resulted from its birth, in order that her departing spirit might enter the new being. In German, the "mother-feeling" makes its influence felt in the nomenclature of the lower brute creation. As contrasted with our English female donkey (she-donkey), mare, ewe, ewe-lamb, sow, doe-hare (female hare), queen-bee, etc., we find _Mutteresel_, "mother-donkey "; _Mutterpferd_, "mother-horse"; _Mutterschaf_, "mother-sheep"; _Mutterlamm_, "mother lamb"; _Mutterschwein_, "mother swine"; _Mutterhase_, "mother-hare"; _Mutterbiene_, "mother-bee." Nor is this feeling absent from the names of plants and things inanimate. We have _Mutterbirke_, "birch"; _Mutterblume_, "seed-flower"; _Mutternelke_, "carnation"; _Mutternagelein_ (our "mother-clove"); _Mutterholz_. In English we have "mother of thyme," etc. In Japan a triple arrangement in the display of the flower-vase--a floral trinity--is termed _chichi_, "father"; _haha_, "mother"; _ten_, "heaven" (189. 74). In the nursery-lore of all peoples, as we can see from the fairy-tales and child-stories in our own and other languages, this attribution of motherhood to all things animate and inanimate is common, as it is in the folk-lore and mythology of the adult members of primitive races now existing. _Mother Poet._ The arts of poetry, music, dancing, according to classic mythology, were presided over by nine goddesses, or Muses, daughters of Mnemosyne, goddess of memory, "Muse-mother," as Mrs. Browning terms her. The history of woman as a poet has yet to be written, but to her in the early ages poetry owed much of its development and its beauty. Mr. Vance has remarked that "among many of the lowest races the only love-dances in vogue are those performed by the women" (545a. 4069). And Letourneau considers that "there are good grounds for supposing that women may have especially participated in the creation of the lyric of the erotic kind." Professor Mason, in the course of his remarks upon woman's labour in the world in all ages, says (112. 12):-- "The idea of a _maker_, or creator-of-all-things found no congenial soil in the minds of savage men, who manufactured nothing. But, as the first potters, weavers, house-builders were women, the idea of a divine creator as a moulder, designer, and architect originated with her, or was suggested by her. The three Fates, Clotho, who spins the thread of life; Lachesis, who fixes its prolongation; and Atropos, who cuts this thread with remorseless shears, are necessarily derived from woman's work. The mother-goddess of all peoples, culminating in the apotheosis of the Virgin Mary, is an idea, either originated by women, or devised to satisfy their spiritual cravings." And we have, besides the goddesses of all mythologies, personifying woman's devotion, beauty, love. What shall we say of that art, highest of all human accomplishments, in the exercise of which men have become almost as gods? The old Greeks called the singer [Greek: poiaetaes], "maker," and perhaps from woman the first poets learned how to worship in noble fashion that great _maker_ of all, whose poem is the universe. Religion and poetry have ever gone hand in hand; Plato was right when he said: "I am persuaded, somehow, that good poets are the inspired interpreters of the gods." Of song, as of religion, it may perhaps be said: _Dux foemina facti_. To the mother beside the cradle where lies her tender offspring, song is as natural as speech itself to man. Lullabies are found in every land; everywhere the joyous mother-heart bursts forth into song. The German proverb is significant: "Wer ein saugendes Kind hat, der hat eine singende Frau," and Fischer, a quaint poet of the sixteenth century, has beautifully expressed a like idea:-- "Wo Honig ist, da sammlen sieb die Fliegen, Wo Kinder sind, da singt man um die Wiegen." Ploss, in whose book is to be found a choice collection of lullabies from all over the globe, remarks: "The folk-poetry of all peoples is rich in songs whose texts and melodies the tender mother herself imagined and composed" (326. II. 128). The Countess Martinengo-Cesaresco devotes an interesting chapter of her _Essays in the Study of Folk-Song_ to the subject of lullabies. But not cradle-songs alone have sprung from woman's genius. The world over, dirges and funeral-laments have received their poetical form from the mother. As name-giver, too, in many lands, the mother exercised this side of her imaginative faculty. The mother and the child, from whom language received its chief inspiration, were also the callers forth of its choicest and most creative form. _Mother-Wit._ "An ounce o' mother-wit is worth a pound o' clergy," says the Scotch proverb, and the "mother-wit," _Muttergeist_ and _Mutterwitz_, that instructive common-sense, that saving light that make the genius and even the fool, in the midst of his folly, wise, appear in folk-lore and folk-speech everywhere. What the statistics of genius seem to show that great men owe to their mothers, no less than fools, is summed up by the folk-mind in the word _mother-wit_. Jean Paul says: "Die Mütter geben uns von Geiste Wãrme und die Vãter Licht," and Goethe, in a familiar passage in his _Autobiography_, declares:-- "Vom Vater hab'ich die Statur, Des Lebens ernstes Führen; Vom Mütterchen die Frobnatur, Und Lust zu fabulieren." Shakespeare makes Petruchio tell the shrewish Katherine that his "goodly speech" is "_extempore_ from my mother-wit," and Emerson calls "mother-wit," the "cure for false theology." Quite appropriately Spenser, in the _Faerie Queene_, speaks of "all that Nature by her mother-wit could frame in earth." It is worth noting that when the ancient Greeks came to name the soul, they personified it in Psyche, a beautiful female, and that the word for "soul" is feminine in many European languages. Among the Teton Indians, according to the Rev. J. Owen Dorsey, the following peculiar custom exists: "Prior to the naming of the infant is the ceremony of the transfer of character; should the infant be a boy, a brave and good-tempered man, chosen beforehand, takes the infant in his arms and breathes into his mouth, thereby communicating his own disposition to the infant, who will grow up to be a brave and good-natured man. It is thought that such an infant will not cry as much as infants that have not been thus favoured. Should the infant be a girl, it is put into the arms of a good woman, who breathes into its mouth" (433. 482). Here we have _father_-wit as well as _mother_-wit. _Mother-Tongue_. Where women have no voice whatever in public affairs, and are subordinated to the uttermost in social and family matters, little that is honourable and noble is named for them. In East Central Africa, a Yao woman, asked if the child she is carrying is a boy or a girl, frequently replies: "My child is of the sex that does not speak" (518. XLIII. 249), and with other peoples in higher stages of culture, the "silent woman" lingers yet. _Taceat mulier in ecclesiâ_ still rings in our ears to-day, as it has rung for untold centuries. Though the poet has said:-- "There is a sight all hearts beguiling-- A youthful mother to her infant smiling, Who, with spread arms and dancing feet, And cooing voice, returns its answer sweet," and mothers alone have understood the first babblings of humanity, they have waited long to be remembered in the worthiest name of the language they have taught their offspring. The term _mother-tongue_, although Middle English had "birthe-tonge," in the sense of native speech, is not old in our language; the _Century Dictionary_ gives no examples of its early use. Even immortal Shakespeare does not know it, for, in _King Richard II._, he makes Mowbray say:-- "The language I have learned these forty years (My native English) now must I forego." The German version of the passage has, however, _mein mütterliches Englisch_. Cowper, in the _Task_, does use "mother-tongue," in the connection following:-- "Praise enough To fill the ambition of a private man, That Chatham's language was his mother-tongue." _Mother-tongue_ has now become part and parcel of our common speech; a good word, and a noble one. In Modern High German, the corresponding _Mutterzunge_, found in Sebastian Franck (sixteenth century) has gradually given way to _Muttersprache_, a word whose history is full of interest. In Germany, as in Europe generally, the esteem in which Latin was held in the Middle Ages and the centuries immediately following them, forbade almost entirely the birth or extension of praiseworthy and endearing names for the speech of the common people of the country. So long as men spoke of "hiding the beauties of Latin in homely German words," and a Bacon could think of writing his chief work in Latin, in order that he might be remembered after his death, it were vain to expect aught else. Hence, it does not surprise us to learn that the word _Muttersprache_ is not many centuries old in German. Dr. Lübben, who has studied its history, says it is not to be found in Old High German or Middle High German (or Middle Low German), and does not appear even in Luther's works, though, judging from a certain passage in his _Table Talk_, it was perhaps known to him. It was only in the seventeenth century that the word became quite common. Weigand states that it was already in the _Dictionarium latino-germanicum_ (Zurich, 1556), and in Maaler's _Die Teutsch Spraach_ (Zurich, 1561), in which latter work (S. 262 a) we meet with the expressions _vernacula lingua_, _patrius sermo_, _landspraach_, _muoterliche spraach_, and _muoterspraach_ (S. 295 c). Opitz (1624) uses the word, and it is found in Schottel's _Teutsche Haupt-Sprache_ (Braunschweig, 1663). Apparently the earliest known citation is the Low German _modersprake_, found in the introduction of Dietrich Engelhus' (of Einbeck) _Deutsche Chronik_ (1424). Nowadays _Muttersprache_ is found everywhere in the German book-language, but Dr. Lübben, in 1881, declared that he had never heard it from the mouth of the Low German folk, with whom the word was always _lantsprake, gemene sprake_. Hence, although the word has been immortalized by Klaus Groth, the Low German Burns, in the first poem of his _Quickborn:_-- "Min Modersprak, so slicht un recht, Du ole frame Red! Wenn blot en Mund 'min Vader' seggt, So klingt mi't as en Bed," and by Johann Meyer, in his _Ditmarscher Gedichte:_-- "Vaderhus un Modersprak! Lat mi't nöm'n un lat mi't rop'n; Vaderhus, du belli Sted, Modersprak, da frame Red, Schönres klingt der Nix tohopen," it may be that _modersprak_ is not entirely a word of Low German origin; beautiful though it is, this dialect, so closely akin to our own English, did not directly give it birth. Nor do the corresponding terms in the other Teutonic dialects,--Dutch _moederspraak, moedertaal_, Swedish _modersmål_, etc.,--seem more original. The Romance languages, however, offer a clue. In French, _langue mère_ is a purely scientific term of recent origin, denoting the root-language of a number of dialects, or of a "family of speech," and does not appear as the equivalent of _Muttersprache_. The equivalents of the latter are: French, _langue maternelle_; Spanish, _lengua materna_; Italian, _lingua materna_, etc., all of which are modifications or imitations of a Low Latin _lingua materna_, or _lingua maternalis_. The Latin of the classic period seems not to have possessed this term, the locutions in use being _sermo noster, patrius sermo_, etc. The Greek had [Greek: _ae egchorios glossa ae idia glossa,_] etc. Direct translations are met with in the _moderlike sprake_ of Daniel von Soest, of Westphalia (sixteenth century), and the _muoterliche spraach_ of Maaler (1561). It is from an Italian- Latin source that Dr. Lübben supposes that the German prototypes of _modersprak_ and _Muttersprache_ arose. In the _Bôk der Byen_, a semi-Low German translation (fifteenth century) of the _Liber Apium_ of Thomas of Chantimpré, occurs the word _modertale_ in the passage "Christus sede to er [the Samaritan woman] mit sachte stemme in erre modertale." A municipal book of Treuenbrietzen informs us that in the year 1361 it was resolved to write in the _ydeoma maternale_--what the equivalent of this was in the common speech is not stated--and in the _Relatio_ of Hesso, we find the term _materna lingua_ (105 a). The various dialects have some variants of _Muttersprache_, and in Göttingen we meet with _moimen spraken_, where _moime_ (cognate with Modern High German _Muhme_, "aunt"), signifies "mother," and is a child-word. From the _mother-tongue_ to the _mother-land_ is but a step. As the speech she taught her babe bears the mother's name, so does also the land her toil won from the wilderness. _Mother-Land._ As we say in English most commonly "native city," so also we say "native land." Even Byron sings:-- "Adieu, adieu I my native shore Fades o'er the waters blue; * * * * * My native land--good night!" and Fitz-Greene Halleck, in his patriotic poem "Marco Bozzaris," bids strike "For God, and your native land." Scott's far-famed lines:-- "Breathes there a man with soul so dead, Who never to himself has said, This is my own, my native land!" and Smith's national hymn, "My country,'tis of thee," know no _mother-land_. In the great _Century Dictionary_, the only illustration cited of the use of the word _mother-land_ is a very recent one, from the _Century Magazine_ (vol. xxix. p. 507). Shakespeare, however, comes very near it, when, in _King John_ (V. ii.), he makes the Bastard speak of "your dear Mother-England," --but this is not quite "mother-land." In German, though, through the sterner influences which surrounded the Empire in its birth and reorganization, _Vaterland_ is now the word, _Mutterland_ was used by Kant, Wieland, Goethe, Herder, Uhland, etc. Lippert suggests an ingenious explanation of the origin of the terms _Mutterland_, _Vaterland_, as well as for the predominance of the latter and younger word. If, in primitive times, man alone could hold property,--women even and children were his chattels,--yet the development of agriculture and horticulture at the hands of woman created, as it were, a new species of property, property in land, the result of woman's toil and labour; and this new property, in days when "mother-right" prevailed, came to be called _Mutterland_, as it was essentially "mothers' land." But when men began to go forth to war, and to conquer and acquire land that was not "mothers' land," a new species of landed property,--the "land of the conquering father,"--came into existence (and with it a new theory of succession, "father-right"), and from that time forward "Vaterland" has extended its signification, until it has attained the meaning which it possesses in the German speech of to-day (492. 33, 36). The inhabitants of the British colonies scattered all over the world speak of Britain as the "mother country," "Mother England"; and R. H. Stoddard, the American poet, calls her "our Mother's Mother." The French of Canada term France over-sea "la mère patrie" (mother fatherland). Even Livy, the Roman historian, wrote _terra quam matrem appellamus_,--"the land we call mother,"--and Virgil speaks of Apollo's native Delos as _Delum maternum_. But for all this, the proud Roman called his native land, not after his mother, but after his father, _patria_; so also in corresponding terms the Greek, [Greek: _patris_], etc. But the latter remembered his mother also, as the word _metropolis_, which we have inherited, shows. [Greek: _Maetropolis_] had the meanings: "mother-state" (whence daughter-colonies went forth); "a chief city, a capital, metropolis; one's mother-city, or mother-country." In English, _metropolis_ has been associated with "mother-church," for a _metropolis_ or a _metropolitan_ city, was long one which was the seat of a bishopric. Among the ancient Greeks the Cretans were remarkable for saying not [Greek: _patris_] (father-land), but [Greek: _maetris_] (mother-land), by which name also the Messenians called their native land. Some light upon the loss of "mother-words" in ancient Greece may be shed from the legend which tells that when the question came whether the new town was to be named after Athene or Poseidon, all the women voted for the former, carrying the day by a single vote, whereupon Poseidon, in anger, sent a flood, and the men, determining to punish their wives, deprived them of the power of voting, and decided that thereafter children were not to be named after their mothers (115. 235). In Gothic, we meet with a curious term for "native land, home," _gabaurths_ (from _gabairan_ "to bear"), which signifies also "birth." As an exemplification of the idea in the Sophoclean phrase "all-nourishing earth," we find that at an earlier stage in the history of our own English tongue _erd_ (cognate with our _earth_) signified "native land," a remembrance of that view of savage and uncivilized peoples in which _earth, land_ are "native country," for these are, in the true sense of the term, _Landesleute, homines_. In the language of the Hervey Islands, in the South Pacific, "the place in which the placenta of an infant is buried is called the _ipukarea_, or _native soil_" (459. 26). Our English language seems still to prefer "native city, native town, native village," as well as "native land," "mother-city" usually signifying an older town from which younger ones have come forth. In German, though _Vaterstadt_ in analogy with _Vaterland_ seems to be the favorite, _Mutterstadt_ is not unknown. Besides _Mutterland_ and _Mutterstadt_, we find in German the following:-- _Mutterboden_, "mother-land." Used by the poet Uhland. _Muttergefilde_, "the fields of mother-earth." Used by Schlegel. _Muttergrund_, "the earth," as productive of all things. Used by Goethe. _Mutterhimmel_, "the sky above one's native land." Used by the poet Herder. _Mutterluft_, "the air of one's native land." _Mutterhaus_, "the source, origin of anything." Uhland even has:-- "Hier ist des Stromes Mutterhaus, Ich trink ihn frisch vom Stein heraus." More far-reaching, diviner than "mother-land," is "mother-earth." CHAPTER III. THE CHILD'S TRIBUTE TO THE MOTHER (_Continued_). To the child its mother should be as God.--_G. Stanley Hall_. A mother is the holiest thing alive.--_Coleridge_. God pardons like a mother, who kisses the offence into everlasting forgetfulness.--_Henry Ward Beecher_. When the social world was written in terms of mother-right, the religious world was expressed in terms of mother-god. There is nothing more charming than to see a mother with a child in her arms, and nothing more venerable than a mother among a number of her children.--_Goethe_. _Mother-Earth_. "Earth, Mother of all," is a world-wide goddess. Professor O.T. Mason, says: "The earth is the mother of all mankind. Out of her came they. Her traits, attributes, characteristics, they have so thoroughly inherited and imbibed, that, from any doctrinal point of view regarding the origin of the species, the earth may be said to have been created for men, and men to have been created out of the earth. By her nurture and tuition they grow up and flourish, and, folded in her bosom, they sleep the sleep of death. The idea of the earth-mother is in every cosmogony. Nothing is more beautiful in the range of mythology than the conception of Demeter with Persephone, impersonating the maternal earth, rejoicing in the perpetual return of her daughter in spring, and mourning over her departure in winter to Hades" (389 (1894). 140). Dr. D.G. Brinton writes in the same strain (409. 238): "Out of the earth rises life, to it it returns. She it is who guards all germs, nourishes all beings. The Aztecs painted her as a woman with countless breasts; the Peruvians called her '_Mama_ Allpa,' _mother_ Earth; in the Algonkin tongue, the words for earth, mother, father, are from the same root. _Homo, Adam, chamaigenes_, what do all these words mean but earth-born, the son of the soil, repeated in the poetic language of Attica in _anthropos_, he who springs up like a flower?" Mr. W. J. McGee, treating of "Earth the Home of Man," says (502. 28):-- "In like manner, mankind, offspring of Mother Earth, cradled and nursed through helpless infancy by things earthly, has been brought well towards maturity; and, like the individual man, he is repaying the debt unconsciously assumed at the birth of his kind, by transforming the face of nature, by making all things better than they were before, by aiding the good and destroying the bad among animals and plants, and by protecting the aging earth from the ravages of time and failing strength, even as the child protects his fleshly mother. Such are the relations of earth and man." The Roman babe had no right to live until the father lifted him up from "mother-earth" upon which he lay; at the baptism of the ancient Mexican child, the mother spoke thus: "Thou Sun, Father of all that live, and thou Earth, our Mother, take ye this child and guard it as your son" (529. 97); and among the Gypsies of northern Hungary, at a baptism, the oldest woman present takes the child out, and, digging a circular trench around the little one, whom she has placed upon the earth, utters the following words: "Like this Earth, be thou strong and great, may thy heart be free from care, be merry as a bird" (392 (1891). 20). All of these practices have their analogues in other parts of the globe. In another way, infanticide is connected with "mother-earth." In the book of the "Wisdom of Solomon" (xiv. 23) we read: "They slew their children in sacrifices." Infanticide--"murder most foul, as in the best it is, but this most foul, strange, and unnatural"--has been sheltered beneath the cloak of religion. The story is one of the darkest pages in the history of man. A priestly legend of the Khonds of India attributes to child-sacrifice a divine origin:-- "In the beginning was the Earth a formless mass of mud, and could not have borne the dwelling of man, or even his weight; in this liquid and ever-moving slime neither tree nor herb took root. Then God said: 'Spill human blood before my face!' And they sacrificed a child before Him. ... Falling upon the soil, the bloody drops stiffened and consolidated it." But too well have the Khonds obeyed the command: "And by the virtues of the blood shed, the seeds began to sprout, the plants to grow, the animals to propagate. And God commanded that the Earth should be watered with blood every new season, to keep her firm and solid. And this has been done by every generation that has preceded us." More than once "the mother, with her boys and girls, and perhaps even a little child in her arms, were immolated together,"--for sometimes the wretched children, instead of being immediately sacrificed, were allowed to live until they had offspring whose sad fate was determined ere their birth. In the work of Reclus may be read the fearful tale of the cult of "Pennou, the terrible earth-deity, the bride of the great Sun-God" (523. 315). In Tonga the paleness of the moon is explained by the following legend: Vatea (Day) and Tonga-iti (Night) each claimed the first-born of Papa (Earth) as his own child. After they had quarrelled a great deal, the infant was cut in two, and Vatea, the husband of Papa, "took the upper part as his share, and forthwith squeezed it into a ball and tossed it into the heavens, where it became the sun." But Tonga-iti, in sullen humour, let his half remain on the ground for a day or two. Afterward, however, "seeing the brightness of Vatea's half, he resolved to imitate his example by compressing his share into a ball, and tossing it into the dark sky during the absence of the sun in Avaiki, or netherworld." It became the moon, which is so pale by reason of "the blood having all drained out and decomposition having commenced," before Tonga-iti threw his half up into the sky (458. 45). With other primitive peoples, too, the gods were infanticidal, and many nations like those of Asia Minor, who offered up the virginity of their daughters upon the altars of their deities, hesitated not to slay upon their high places the first innocent pledges of motherhood. The earth-goddess appears again when the child enters upon manhood, for at Brahman marriages in India, the bridegroom still says to the bride, "I am the sky, thou art the earth, come let us marry" (421. 29). And last of all, when the ineluctable struggle of death is over, man returns to the "mother-earth"--dust to dust. One of the hymns of the Rig-Veda has these beautiful words, forming part of the funeral ceremonies of the old Hindus:-- "Approach thou now the lap of Earth, thy mother, The wide-extending Earth, the ever-kindly; A maiden soft as wool to him who comes with gifts, She shall protect thee from destruction's bosom. "Open thyself, O Earth, and press not heavily; Be easy of access and of approach to him, As mother with her robe her child, So do thou cover him, O Earth!" (421. 31). The study of the mortuary rites and customs of the primitive peoples of all ages of the world's history (548) reveals many instances of the belief that when men, "the common growth of mother-earth," at last rest their heads upon her lap, they do not wholly die, for the immortality of Earth is theirs. Whether they live again,--as little children are often fabled to do,--when Earth laughs with flowers of spring, or become incarnate in other members of the animate or inanimate creation, whose kinship with man and with God is an article of the great folk-creed, or, in the beautiful words of the burial service of the Episcopal Church, sleep "earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in sure and certain hope of the resurrection," all testifies that man is instinct with the life that throbs in the bosom of Earth, his Mother. As of old, the story ran that man grew into being from the dust, or sprang forth in god-like majesty, so, when death has come, he sinks to dust again, or triumphantly scales the lofty heights where dwell the immortal deities, and becomes "as one of them." With the idea of the earth-mother are connected the numerous myths of the origin of the first human beings from clay, mould, etc., their provenience from caves, holes in the ground, rocks and mountains, especially those in which the woman is said to have been created first (509. 110). Here belong also not a few ethnic names, for many primitive peoples have seen fit to call themselves "sons of the soil, _terrae filii_, _Landesleute_." Muller and Brinton have much to say of the American earth-goddesses, _Toci_, "our mother," and goddess of childbirth among the ancient Mexicans (509. 494); the Peruvian _Pachamama_, "mother-earth," the mother of men (509. 369); the "earth-mother" of the Caribs, who through earthquakes manifests her animation and cheerfulness to her children, the Indians, who forthwith imitate her in joyous dances (509. 221); the "mother-earth" of the Shawnees, of whom the Indian chief spoke, when he was bidden to regard General Harrison as "Father": "No, the sun yonder is my father, and the earth my mother; upon her bosom will I repose," etc. (509. 117). Among the earth-goddesses of ancient Greece and Rome are Demeter, Ceres, Tellus, Rhea, Terra, Ops, Cybele, Bona Dea, Bona Mater, Magna Mater, Gaea, Ge, whose attributes and ceremonies are described in the books of classical mythology. Many times they are termed "mother of the gods" and "mother of men"; Cybele is sometimes represented as a woman advanced in pregnancy or as a woman with many breasts; Rhea, or Cybele, as the hill-enthroned protectress of cities, was styled _Mater turrita_. The ancient Teutons had their _Hertha_, or _Erdemutter_, the _Nertha_ of Tacitus, and fragments of the primitive earth-worship linger yet among the folk of kindred stock. The Slavonic peoples had their "earth-mother" also. The ancient Indian Aryans worshipped Prithîvî-mâtar, "earth-mother," and Dyaus pitar, "sky-father," and in China, Yang, Sky, is regarded as the "father of all things," while Yu, Earth, is the "mother of all things." Among the ancient Egyptians the "earth-mother," the "parent of all things born," was Isis, the wife of the great Osiris. The natal ceremonies of the Indians of the Sia Pueblo have been described at great length by Mrs. Stevenson (538. 132-143). Before the mother is delivered of her child the priest repeats in a low tone the following prayer:-- "Here is the child's sand-bed. May the child have good thoughts and know its mother-earth, the giver of food. May it have good thoughts and grow from childhood to manhood. May the child be beautiful and happy. Here is the child's bed; may the child be beautiful and happy. Ashes man, let me make good medicine for the child. We will receive the child into our arms, that it may be happy and contented. May it grow from childhood to manhood. May it know its mother Ct'sêt [the first created woman], the Ko'pishtaia, and its mother-earth. May the child have good thoughts and grow from childhood to manhood. May it be beautiful and happy" (538. 134). On the fourth morning after the birth of the child, the doctress in attendance, "stooping until she almost sits on the ground, bares the child's head as she holds it toward the rising sun, and repeats a long prayer, and, addressing the child, she says: 'I bring you to see your Sun-father and Ko'pishtaia, that you may know them and they you'" (538. 141). _Mother-Mountain._ Though we are now accustomed, by reason of their grandeur and sublimity, to personify mountains as masculine, the old fable of Phædrus about the "mountain in labour, that brought forth a mouse,"--as Horace has it, _Montes laborabant et parturitur ridiculus mus_,--shows that another concept was not unknown to the ancients. The Armenians call Mount Ararat "Mother of the World" (500. 39), and the Spaniards speak of a chief range of mountains as _Sierra Madre_. In mining we meet with the "mother-lode," _veta, madre_, but, curiously enough, the main shaft is called in German _Vaterschacht_. We know that the Lapps and some other primitive peoples "transferred to stones the domestic relations of father, mother, and child," or regarded them as children of Mother-Earth (529. 64); "eggs of the earth" they are called in the magic songs of the Finns. In Suffolk, England, "conglomerate is called 'mother of stones,' under the idea that pebbles are born of it"; in Germany _Mutterstein_. And in litholatry, in various parts of the globe, we have ideas which spring from like conceptions. _Mother-Night._ Milton speaks of the "wide womb of uncreate night," and some of the ancient classical poets call _Nox_ "the mother of all things, of gods as well as men." "The Night is Mother of the Day," says Whittier, and the myth he revives is an old and wide-spread one. "Out of Night is born day, as a child comes forth from the womb of his mother," said the Greek and Roman of old. As Bachofen (6. 16, 219) remarks: "Das Mutterthum verbindet sich mit der Idee der den Tag aus sich gebierenden Nacht, wie das Vaterrecht dem Reiche des Lichts, dem von der Sonne mit der Mutter Nacht gezeugten Tage." Darkness, Night, Earth, Motherhood, seem all akin in the dim light of primitive philosophy. Yet night is not always figured as a woman. James Ferguson, the Scotch poet, tells us how "Auld Daddy Darkness creeps frae his hole, Black as a blackamoor, blin' as a mole," and holds dominion over earth till "Wee Davie Daylicht comes keekin' owre the hill" (230. 73). An old Anglo-Saxon name for Christinas was _modra-neht,_ "mother's night." _Mother-Dawn._ In Sanskrit mythology Ushas, "Dawn," is daughter of Heaven, and poetically she is represented as "a young wife awakening her children and giving them new strength for the toils of the new day." Sometimes she is termed _gavam ganitri,_ "the mother of the cows," which latter mythologists consider to be either "the clouds which pour water on the fields, or the bright mornings which, like cows, are supposed to step out one by one from the stable of the night" (510. 431). In an ancient Hindu hymn to Ushas we read:-- "She shines upon us like a young wife, rousing every living being to go to his work. When the fire had to be kindled by men, she made the light by striking down darkness. "She rose up, spreading far and wide, and moving everywhere. She grew in brightness, wearing her brilliant garment. The mother of the cows, the leader of the days, she shone gold-coloured, lovely to behold" (421. 29). This daughter of the sky was the "lengthener of life, the love of all, the giver of food, riches, blessings." According to Dr. Brinton, the Quiche Indians of Guatemala speak of Xmucane and Xpiyacoc as being "the great ancestress and the great ancestor" of all things. The former is called _r'atit zih, r'atit zak,_ "primal mother of the sun and light" (411. 119). _Mother-Days_. In Russia we meet with the days of the week as "mothers." Perhaps the most remarkable of these is "Mother Friday," a curious product of the mingling of Christian hagiology and Slavonic mythology, of St. Prascovia and the goddess Siwa. On the day sacred to her, "Mother Friday" wanders about the houses of the peasants, avenging herself on such as have been so rash as to sew, spin, weave, etc., on a Friday (520. 206). In a Wallachian tale appear three supernatural females,--the holy mothers Friday, Wednesday, and Sunday,--who assist the hero in his quest of the heroine, and in another Wallachian story they help a wife to find her lost husband. "Mother Sunday" is said "to rule the animal world, and can collect her subjects by playing on a magic flute. She is represented as exercising authority over both birds and beasts, and in a Slovak story she bestows on the hero a magic horse" (520. 211). In Bulgaria we even find mother-months, and Miss Garnett has given an account of the superstition of "Mother March" among the women of that country (61.I. 330). William Miller, the poet-laureate of the nursery, sings of _Lady Summer_:-- "Birdie, birdie, weet your whistle! Sing a sang to please the wean; Let it be o' Lady Summer Walking wi' her gallant train! Sing him how her gaucy mantle, Forest-green, trails ower the lea, Broider'd frae the dewy hem o't Wi' the field flowers to the knee! "How her foot's wi' daisies buskit, Kirtle o' the primrose hue, And her e'e sae like my laddie's, Glancing, laughing, loving blue! How we meet on hill and valley, Children sweet as fairest flowers, Buds and blossoms o' affection, Rosy wi' the sunny hours" (230. 161). _Mother-Sun_. In certain languages, as in Modern German, the word for "sun" is feminine, and in mythology the orb of day often appears as a woman. The German peasant was wont to address the sun and the moon familiarly as "Frau Sonne" and "Herr Mond," and in a Russian folk-song a fair maiden sings (520. 184):-- "My mother is the beauteous Sun, And my father, the bright Moon; My brothers are the many Stars, And my sisters the white Dawns." Jean Paul beautifully terms the sun "Sonne, du Mutterauge der Welt!" and Hölty sings: "Geh aus deinem Gezelt, Mutter des Tags hervor, und vergülde die wache Welt"; in another passage the last writer thus apostrophizes the sun: "Heil dir, Mutter des Lichts!" These terms "mother-eye of the world," "mother of day," "mother of light," find analogues in other tongues. The Andaman Islanders have their _chän-a bô-dô_, "mother-sun" (498. 96), and certain Indians of Brazil call the sun _coaraçy_, "mother of the day or earth." In their sacred language the Dakota Indians speak of the sun as "grandmother" and the moon as "grandfather." The Chiquito Indians "used to call the sun their mother, and, at every eclipse of the sun, they would shoot their arrows so as to wound it; they would let loose their dogs, who, they thought, went instantly to devour the moon" (100. 289). The Yuchi Indians called themselves "children of the sun." Dr. Gatschet tells us: "The Yuchis believe themselves to be the offspring of the sun, which they consider to be a female. According to one myth, a couple of human beings were born from her monthly efflux, and from, these the Yuchis afterward originated." Another myth of the same people says: "An unknown mysterious being once came down upon the earth and met people there who were the ancestors of the Yuchi Indians. To them this being (_Hi'ki_, or _Ka'la hi'ki_) taught many of the arts of life, and in matters of religion admonished them to call the sun their mother as a matter of worship" (389 (1893). 280). _Mother-Moon_. Shelley sings of "That orbed maiden, with white fire laden, Whom mortals call the moon," and in other languages besides Latin the word for moon is feminine, and the lunar deity a female, often associated with childbirth. The moon-goddesses of the Orient--Diana (Juno), Astarte, Anahita, etc.--preside over the beginnings of human life. Not a few primitive peoples have thought of the moon as mother. The ancient Peruvians worshipped _Mama-Quilla_, "mother-moon," and the Hurons regarded Ataensic, the mother or grandmother of Jouskeha, the sun, as the "creatress of earth and man," as well as the goddess of death and of the souls of the departed (509. 363). The Tarahumari Indians of the Sierra of Chihuahua, Mexico, call the sun _au-nau-ru-a-mi_, "high father," and the moon, _je-ru-a-mi_, "high mother." The Tupi Indians of Brazil term the moon _jacy_, "our mother," and the same name occurs in the Omagua and other members of this linguistic stock. The Muzo Indians believe that the sun is their father and the moon their mother (529. 95). Horace calls the moon _siderum regina_, and Apuleius, _regina coeli_, and Milton writes of "mooned Ashtaroth, Heaven's queen and mother both." Froebel's verses, "The Little Girl and the Stars," are stated to be based upon the exclamation of the child when seeing two large stars close together in the heavens, "Father-Mother-Star," and a further instance of like nature is cited where the child applied the word "mother" to the moon. _Mother-Fire._ An ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus of Ephesus, taught that the world was created from fire, the omnipotent and omniscient essence, and with many savage and barbaric peoples fire-worship has nourished or still flourishes. The Indie Aryans of old produced fire by the method of the twirling stick, and in their symbolism "the turning stick, Pramanta, was the father of the god of fire; the immovable stick was the mother of the adorable and luminous Agni [fire]"--a concept far-reaching in its mystic and mythological relations (100. 564). According to Mr. Gushing the Zuñi Indians term fire the "Grandmother of Men." In their examination of the burial-places of the ancient Indian population of the Salado River Valley in Arizona, the Hemenway Exploring Expedition found that many children were buried near the kitchen hearths. Mr. Cushing offers the following explanation of this custom, which finds analogies in various parts of the world: "The matriarchal grandmother, or matron of the household deities, is the fire. It is considered the guardian, as it is also, being used for cooking, the principal 'source of life' of the family. The little children being considered unable to care for themselves, were placed, literally, under the protection of the family fire that their soul-life might be nourished, sustained, and increased" (501. 149). Boecler tells us that the Esthonian bride "consecrates her new home and hearth by an offering of money cast into the fire, or laid on the oven, for _Tule-ema_, [the] Fire Mother" (545. II. 285). In a Mongolian wedding-song there is an invocation of "Mother Ut, Queen of Fire," who is said to have come forth "when heaven and earth divided," and to have issued "from the footsteps of Mother-Earth." She is further said to have "a manly son, a beauteous daughter-in-law, bright daughters" (484. 38). _Mother-Water._ The poet Homer and the philosopher Thales of Miletus agreed in regarding water as the primal element, the original of all existences, and their theory has supporters among many primitive peoples. At the baptism festivals of their children, the ancient Mexicans recognized the goddess of the waters. At sunrise the midwife addressed the child, saying, among other things: "Be cleansed with thy mother, Chalchihuitlicue, the goddess of water." Then, placing her dripping finger upon the child's lips, she continued: "Take this, for on it thou must live, grow, become strong, and flourish. Through it we receive all our needs. Take it." And, again, "We are all in the hands of Chalchihuitlicue, our mother"; as she washed the child she uttered the formula: "Bad, whatever thou art, depart, vanish, for the child lives anew and is born again; it is once more cleansed, once more renewed through our mother Chalchihuitlicue." As she lifted the child up into the air, she prayed, "O Goddess, Mother of Water, fill this child with thy power and virtue" (326. I. 263). In their invocation for the restoration of the spirit to the body, the Nagualists,--a native American mystic sect,--of Mexico and Central America, make appeal to "Mother mine, whose robe is of precious gems," _i.e._ water, regarded as "the universal mother." The "robe of precious stones" refers to "the green or vegetable life" resembling the green of precious stones. Another of her names is the "Green Woman,"--a term drawn from "the greenness which follows moisture" (413. 52-54). The idea of water as the source of all things appears also in the cosmology of the Indie Aryans. In one of the Vedic hymns it is stated that water existed before even the gods came into being, and the Rig-veda tells us that "the waters contained a germ from which everything else sprang forth." This is plainly a myth of the motherhood of the waters, for in the Brâhmanas we are told that from the water arose an egg, from which came forth after a year Pragâpati, the creator (510. 248). Variants of this myth of the cosmic egg are found in other quarters of the globe. _Mother-Ocean._ The Chinchas of Peru looked upon the sea as the chief deity and the mother of all things, and the Peruvians worshipped _Mama-Cocha_, "mother sea" (509. 368), from which had come forth everything, even animals, giants, and the Indians themselves. Associated with _Mama-Cocha_ was the god _Vira-Cocha_, "sea-foam." In Peru water was revered everywhere,--rivers and canals, fountains and wells,--and many sacrifices were made to them, especially of certain sea-shells which were thought to be "daughters of the sea, the mother of all waters." The traditions of the Incas point to an origin from Lake Titicaca, and other tribes fabled their descent from fountains and streams (412. 204). Here belong, doubtless, some of the myths of the sea-born deities of classical mythology as well as those of the water-origin of the first of the human race, together with kindred conceits of other primitive peoples. In the Bengalese tale of "The Boy with the Moon on his Forehead," recorded by Day, the hero pleads: "O mother Ocean, please make way for me, or else I die" (426. 250), and passes on in safety. The poet Swinburne calls the sea "fair, white mother," "green-girdled mother," "great, sweet mother, mother and lover of men, the sea." _Mother-River._ According to Russian legend "the Dnieper, Volga, and Dvina used once to be living people. The Dnieper was a boy, and the Volga and Dvina his sisters." The Russians call their great river "Mother Volga," and it is said that, in the seventeenth century, a chief of the Don Cossacks, inflamed with wine, sacrificed to the mighty stream a Persian princess, accompanying his action with these words: "O Mother Volga, thou great River! much hast thou given me of gold and of silver, and of all good things; thou hast nursed me and nourished me, and covered me with glory and honor. But I have in no way shown thee my gratitude. Here is somewhat for thee; take it!" (520. 217-220). In the Mahábhárata, the great Sanskrit epic, King Sántanu is said to have walked by the side of the river one day, where "he met and fell in love with a beautiful girl, who told him that she was the river Ganges, and could only marry him on condition he never questioned her conduct. To this he, with a truly royal gallantry, agreed; and she bore him several children, all of whom she threw into the river as soon as they were born. At last she bore him a boy, Bhíshma; and her husband begged her to spare his life, whereupon she instantly changed into the river Ganges and flowed away" (258. 317). Similar folk-tales are to be met with in other parts of the world, and the list of water-sprites and river-goddesses is almost endless. Greater than "Mother Volga," is "Mother Ganges," to whom countless sacrifices have been made. In the language of the Caddo Indians, the Mississippi is called _báhat sássin_, "mother of rivers." _Mother-Plant._ The ancient Peruvians had their "Mother Maize," _Mama Cora_, which they worshipped with a sort of harvest-home having, as Andrew Lang points out, something in common with the children's last sheaf, in the north-country (English and Scotch) "kernaby," as well as with the "Demeter of the threshing-floor," of whom Theocritus speaks (484. 18). An interesting legend of the Indians of the Pueblos of Arizona and New Mexico is recorded by Muller (509. 60). Ages ago there dwelt on the green plains a beautiful woman, who refused all wooers, though they brought many precious gifts. It came to pass that the land was sore distressed by dearth and famine, and when the people appealed to the woman she gave them maize in plenty. One day, she lay asleep naked; a rain-drop falling upon her breast, she conceived and bore a son, from whom are descended the people who built the "Casas Grandes." Dr. Fewkes cites a like myth of the Hopi or Tusayan Indians in which appears _kó-kyan-wüq-ti_, "the spider woman," a character possessing certain attributes of the Earth-Mother. Speaking of certain ceremonies in which _Cá-li-ko_, the corn-goddess, figures, he calls attention to the fact that "in initiations an ear of corn is given to the novice as a symbolic representation of mother. The corn is the mother of all initiated persons of the tribe" (389 (1894). 48). Mr. Lummis also speaks of "Mother Corn" among the Pueblos Indians: "A flawless ear of pure white corn (type of fertility and motherhood) is decked out with a downy mass of snow-white feathers, and hung with ornaments of silver, coral, and the precious turquoise" (302. 72). Concerning the Pawnee Indians, Mr. Grinnell tells us that after the separation of the peoples, the boy (medicine-man) who was with the few who still remained at the place from which the others had departed, going their different ways, found in the sacred bundle--the Shekinah of the tribe--an ear of corn. To the people he said: "We are to live by this, this is our Mother." And from "Mother Corn" the Indians learned how to make bows and arrows. When these Indians separated into three bands (according to the legend), the boy broke off the nub of the ear and gave it to the Mandans, the big end he gave to the Pawnees, and the middle to the Rees. This is why, at the present time, the Pawnees have the best and largest corn, the Rees somewhat inferior, and the Mandans the shortest of all--since they planted the pieces originally given them (480 (1893). 125). The old Mexicans had in Cinteotl a corn-goddess and deity of fertility in whose honour even human sacrifices were made. She was looked upon as "the producer," especially of children, and sometimes represented with a child in her arms (509. 491). In India there is a regular cult of the holy basil (_Ocymum sanetum_), or _Tulasî_, as it is called, which appears to be a transformation of the goddess Lakshmî. It may be gathered for pious purposes only, and in so doing the following prayer is offered: "Mother _Tulasî_, be thou propitious. If I gather thee with care, be merciful unto me. O _Tulasî_, mother of the world, I beseech thee." This plant is worshipped as a deity,--the wife of Vishnu, whom the breaking of even a little twig grieves and torments,--and "the pious Hindus invoke the divine herb for the protection of every part of the body, for life and for death, and in every action of life; but above all, in its capacity of ensuring children to those who desire to have them." To him who thoughtlessly or wilfully pulls up the plant "no happiness, no health, no children." The _Tulasî_ opens the gates of heaven; hence on the breast of the pious dead is placed a leaf of basil, and the Hindu "who has religiously planted and cultivated the _Tulasî_, obtains the privilege of ascending to the palace of Vishnu, surrounded by ten millions of parents" (448. 244). In Denmark, there is a popular belief that in the elder (_Sambucus_) there lives a spirit or being known as the "elder-mother" (_hylde-moer_), or "elder-woman" (_hilde-qvinde_), and before elder-branches may be cut this petition is uttered: "Elder-mother, elder-mother, allow me to cut thy branches." In Lower Saxony the peasant repeats, on bended knees, with hands folded, three times the words: "Lady Elder, give me some of thy wood; then will I also give thee some of mine, when it grows in the forest" (448. 318-320). In Huntingdonshire, England, the belief in the "elder-mother" is found, and it is thought dangerous to pluck the flowers, while elder-wood, in a room, or used for a cradle, is apt to work evil for children. In some parts of England, it is believed that boys beaten with an elder stick will be retarded in their growth; in Sweden, women who are about to become mothers kiss the elder. In Germany, a somewhat similar personification of the juniper, "Frau Wachholder," exists. And here we come into touch with the dryads and forest-sprites of all ages, familiar to us in the myths of classic antiquity and the tales of the nursery (448. 396). In a Bengalese tale, the hero, on coming to a forest, cries: "O mother _kachiri_, please make way for me, or else I die," and the wood opens to let him pass through (426. 250). Perhaps the best and sweetest story of plant mythology under this head is Hans Christian Andersen's beautiful tale of "The Elder-Tree Mother,"--the Dryad whose name is Remembrance (393. 215). _Mother-Thumb._ Our word _thumb_ signifies literally "thick or big finger," and the same idea occurs in other languages. With not a few primitive peoples this thought takes another turn, and, as in the speech of the Karankawas, an extinct Indian tribe of Texas, "the _biggest_, or _thickest_ finger is called '_father_, _mother_, or _old_'" (456. 68). The Creek Indians of the Southeastern United States term the "thumb" _ingi itchki_, "the hand its mother," and a like meaning attaches to the Chickasaw _ilbak-ishke_, Hichiti _ilb-iki_, while the Muskogees call the "thumb," the "mother of fingers." It is worthy of note, that, in the Bakaïri language of Brazil, the thumb is called "father," and the little finger, "child," or "little one" (536. 406). In Samoa the "thumb" is named _lima-matua_, "forefather of the hand," and the "first finger" _lima-tama_, "child of the hand." In the Tshi language of Western Africa a finger is known as _ensah-tsia-abbah_, "little child of the hand," and in some other tongues of savage or barbaric peoples "fingers" are simply "children of the hand." Professor Culin in his notes of "Palmistry in China and Japan," says: "The thumb, called in Japanese, _oya-ubi_, 'parent-finger,' is for parents. The little finger, called in Japanese, _ko-ubi_, 'child-finger,' is for children; the index-finger is for uncle, aunt, and elder brother and elder sister. The third finger is for younger brother and younger sister" (423a). A short little finger indicates childlessness, and lines on the palm of the hand, below the little finger, children. There are very many nursery-games and rhymes of various sorts based upon the hand and fingers, and in not a few of these the thumb and fingers play the _rôle_ of mother and children. Froebel seized upon this thought to teach the child the idea of the family. His verses are well-known:-- "Das ist die Groszmama, Das ist der Groszpapa, Das ist der Vater, Das ist die Mutter, Das ist's kleine Kindchen ja; Seht die ganze Familie da. Das ist die Mutter lieb und gut, Das ist der Vater mit frohem Muth; Das ist der Bruder lang und grosz; Das ist die Schwester mit Puppchen im Schoosz; Und dies ist das Kindchen, noch klein und zart, Und dies die Familie von guter Art." Referring to Froebel's games, Elizabeth Harrison remarks:-- "In order that this activity, generally first noticed in the use of the hands, might be trained into right and ennobling habits, rather than be allowed to degenerate into wrong and often degrading ones, Froebel arranged his charming set of finger-games for the mother to teach her babe while he is yet in her arms; thus establishing the right activity before the wrong one can assert itself. In such little songs as the following:-- 'This is the mother, good and dear; This the father, with hearty cheer; This is the brother, stout and tall; This is the sister, who plays with her doll; And this is the baby, the pet of all. Behold the good family, great and small,' the child is led to personify his fingers and to regard them as a small but united family over which he has control." (257 a. 14). Miss Wiltse, who devotes a chapter of her little volume to "Finger-songs related to Family Life and the Imaginative Faculty," says:-- "The dawning consciousness of the child so turned to the family relations is surely better than the old nursery method of playing 'This little pig went to market'" (384. 45). And from the father and mother the step to God is easy. Dr. Brewer informs us that in the Greek and Roman Church the Trinity is symbolized by the thumb and first two fingers: "The thumb, being strong, represents the _Father_; the long, or second finger, _Jesus Christ_; and the first finger, the _Holy Ghost_, which proceedeth from the Father and the Son" (_Dict. of Phrase and Fable_, P. 299). _Mother-God_. The "Motherhood of God" is an expression that still sounds somewhat strangely to our ears. We have come to speak readily enough of the "Fatherhood of God" and the "Brotherhood of Man," but only a still small voice has whispered of the "Motherhood of God" and the "Sisterhood of Woman." Yet there have been in the world, as, indeed, there are now, multitudes to whom the idea of Heaven without a mother is as blank as that of the home without her who makes it. If over the human babe bends the human mother who is its divinity,-- "The infant lies in blessed ease Upon his mother's breast; No storm, no dark, the baby sees Invade his heaven of rest. He nothing knows of change or death-- Her face his holy skies; The air he breathes, his mother's breath-- His stars, his mother's eyes,"-- so over the infant-race must bend the All-Mother, _das Ewigweibliche._ Perhaps the greatest service that the Roman Catholic Church has rendered to mankind is the prominence given in its cult of the Virgin Mary to the mother-side of Deity. In the race's final concept of God, the embodiment of all that is pure and holy, there must surely be some overshadowing of a mother's tender love. With the "Father-Heart" of the Almighty must be linked the "Mother-Soul." To some extent, at least, we may expect a harking back to the standpoint of the Buddhist Kalmuck, whose child is taught to pray: "O God, who art my father and my mother." In all ages and over the whole world peoples of culture less than ours have had their "mother-gods," all the embodiments of motherhood, the joy of the _Magnificat_, the sacrosanct expression of the poet's truth:-- "Close to the mysteries of God art thou, My brooding mother-heart," the recognition of that outlasting secret hope and love, of which the Gospel writer told in the simple words: "Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother," and faith in which was strong in the Mesopotamians of old, who prayed to the goddess Istar, "May thy heart be appeased as the heart of a mother who has borne children." The world is at its best when the last, holiest appeal is _ad matrem_. Professor O.T. Mason has eloquently stated the debt of the world's religions to motherhood (112. 12):--"The mother-goddess of all peoples, culminating in the apotheosis of the Virgin Mary, is an idea either originated by women, or devised to satisfy their spiritual cravings. So we may go through the pantheons of all peoples, finding counterparts of Rhea, mother-earth, goddess of fertility; Hera, queen of harvests, feeder of mankind; Hestia, goddess of the hearth and home, of families and states, giving life and warmth; Aphrodite, the beautiful, patron of romantic love and personal charms; Hera, sovereign lady, divine caciquess, embodiment of queenly dignity; Pallas Athene, ideal image of that central inspiring force that we learn at our mother's knee, and that shone in eternal splendour; Isis, the goddess of widowhood, sending forth her son Horus, to avenge the death of his father, Osiris; as moon-goddess, keeping alive the light until the sun rises again to bless the world." _The All-Mother._ In Polynesian mythology we find, dwelling in the lowest depths of Avaiki (the interior of the universe), the "Great Mother,"--the originator of all things, _Vari-ma-te-takere_, "the very beginning,"--and her pet child, Tu-metua, "Stick by the parent," her last offspring, inseparable from her. All of her children were born of pieces of flesh which she plucked off her own body; the first-born was the man-fish Vatea, "father of gods and men," whose one eye is the sun, the other the moon; the fifth child was Raka, to whom his mother gave the winds in a basket, and "the children of Raka are the numerous winds and storms which distress mankind. To each child is allotted a hole at the edge of the horizon, through which he blows at pleasure." In the songs the gods are termed "the children of Vatea," and the ocean is sometimes called "the sea of Vatea." Mr. Gill tells us that "the Great Mother approximates nearest to the dignity of creator"; and, curiously enough, the word _Vari_, "beginning," signifies, on the island of Rarotonga, "mud," showing that "these people imagined that once the world was a 'chaos of mud,' out of which some mighty unseen agent, whom they called _Vari_, evolved the present order of things" (458. 3, 21). Another "All-Mother" is she of whom our own poets have sung, "Nature," the source and sustainer of all. _Mother-Nature_. "So übt Natur die Mutterpflicht," sang the poet Schiller, and "Mother Nature" is the key-word of those modern poets who, in their mystic philosophy, consciously or unconsciously, revive the old mythologies. With primitive peoples the being, growing power of the universe was easily conceived as feminine and as motherly. Nature is the "great parent," the "gracious mother," of us all. In "Mother Nature," woman, the creator of the earliest arts of man, is recognized and personified, and in a wider sense even than the poet dreamt of: "One touch of Nature makes the whole world kin." Pindar declared that "gods and men are sons of the same mother," and with many savage and barbaric tribes, gods, men, animals, and all other objects, animate and inanimate, are akin(388.210). As Professor Robertson Smith has said: "The same lack of any sharp distinction between the nature of different kinds of visible beings appears in the old myths in which all kinds of objects, animate and inanimate, organic and inorganic, appear as cognate with one another, with men, and with the gods" (535.85). Mr. Hartland, speaking of this stage of thought, says: "Sun and moon, the wind and the waters, perform all the functions of living beings; they speak, they eat, they marry and have children" (258.26). The same idea is brought out by Count D'Alviella: "The highest point of development that polytheism could reach, is found in the conception of a monarchy or divine family, embracing all terrestrial beings, and even the whole universe" (388.211). Mr. Frank Cushing attributes like beliefs in the kinship of all existences to the Zuni Indians (388.66), and Mr. im Thurn to the Indians of Guiana (388.99). This feeling of kinship to all that is, is beautifully expressed in the words of the dying Greek Klepht: "Do not say that I am dead, but say that I am married in the sorrowful, strange countries, that I have taken the flat stone for a mother-in-law, the black earth for my wife, and the little pebbles for brothers-in-law." (Lady Verney, _Essays_, II. 39.) In the Trinity of Upper Egypt the second person was Mut, "Mother Nature." the others being Armin, the chief god, and their son, Khuns. Among the Slavs, according to Mone, Ziwa is a nature-goddess, and the Wends regard her as "many-breasted Mother Nature," the producing and nourishing power of the earth. Her consort is Zibog, the god of life (125. II. 23). Curiously reminiscent of the same train of ideas which has given to the _moderson_ of Low German the signification of "bastard," is our own equivalent term "natural son." Poets and orators have not failed to appeal to "Mother Nature" and to sing her panegyrics, but there is perhaps nothing more sweet and noble than the words of Elizabeth Cady Stanton: "Nature, like a loving mother, is ever trying to keep land and sea, mountain and valley, each in its place, to hush the angry winds and waves, balance the extremes of heat and cold, of rain and drought, that peace, harmony, and beauty may reign supreme," and the verses of Longfellow:-- "And Nature, the old nurse, took The child upon her knee, Saying, 'Here is a story-book Thy Father has--written for thee. "'Come wander with me,' she said, 'Into regions yet untrod; And read what is still unread, In the manuscripts of God.' "And he wandered away and away With Nature, the dear old nurse, Who sang to him, night and day, The rhymes of the universe. "And whenever the way seemed long, Or his heart began to fail, She--would sing a more wonderful song, Or tell a more marvellous tale." Through the long centuries Nature has been the mother, nurse, and teacher of man. _Other Mother-Goddesses_. Among other "mother-goddesses" of ancient Italy we find _Maia Mater_, _Flora Mater_, both deities of growth and reproduction; _Lua Mater_, "the loosing mother," a goddess of death; _Acca Larentia_, the mother of the Lares (_Acca_ perhaps = _Atta_, a child-word for mother, as Lippert suggests); _Mater matuta_, "mother of the dawn," a goddess of child-birth, worshipped especially by married women, and to whom there was erected a temple at Cære. The mother-goddesses of Germany are quite numerous. Among those minor ones cited by Grimm and Simrock, are: Haulemutter, Mutter Holle, the Klagemütter or Klagemuhmen, Pudelmutter (a name applied to the goddess Berchta), Etelmutter, Kornmutter, Roggenmutter, Mutterkorn, and the interesting Buschgroszmutter, "bush grandmother," as the "Queen of the Wood-Folk" is called. Here the mother-feeling has been so strong as to grant to even the devil a mother and a grandmother, who figure in many proverbs and folk-locutions. When the question is asked a Mecklenburger, concerning a social gathering: "Who was there?" he may answer: "The devil and his mother (_möm_)"; when a whirlwind occurs, the saying is: "The Devil is dancing with his grandmother." In China the position of woman is very low, and, as Mr. Douglas points out: "It is only when a woman becomes a mother that she receives the respect which is by right due to her, and then the inferiority of her sex disappears before the requirements of filial love, which is the crown and glory of China" (434. 125). In Chinese cosmogony and mythology motherhood finds recognition. Besides the great Earth-Mother, we meet with Se-wang-moo, the "Western Royal Mother," a goddess of fairy-land, and the "Mother of Lightning," thunder being considered the "father and teacher of all living beings." Lieh-tze, a philosopher of the fifth century B.C., taught: "My body is not my own; I am merely an inhabitant of it for the time being, and shall resign it when I return to the 'Abyss Mother'" (434. 222, 225, 277). In the Flowery Kingdom there is also a sect "who worship the goddess Pity, in the form of a woman holding a child in her arms." Among the deities and semi-deities of the Andaman Islanders are _chän·a·ê·lewadi_, the "mother of the race,"--Mother E·lewadi; _chän·a·erep_, _chän·a·châ·riâ_, _chän·a·te·liu_, _chän·a·li·mi_, _chän·a·jär·a·ngûd_, all inventors and discoverers of foods and the arts. In the religious system of the Andaman Islanders, _Pû·luga-_, the Supreme Being, by whom were created "the world and all objects, animate and inanimate, excepting only the powers of evil," and of whom it is said, "though his appearance is like fire, yet he is (nowadays) invisible," is "believed to live in a large stone house in the sky with a wife whom he created for himself; she is green in appearance, and has two names, _chän·a·àu·lola_ (Mother Freshwater Shrimp) and _chän·a·pâ·lak-_--(Mother Eel); by her he has a large family, all except the eldest being girls; these last, known as _mô·ro-win--_ (sky-spirits or angels), are said to be black in appearance, and, with their mother, amuse themselves from time to time by throwing fish and prawns into the streams and sea for the use of the inhabitants of the world" (498. 90). With these people also the first woman was _chän·a·ê·lewadi_ (Mother E-lewadi), the ancestress of the present race of natives. She was drowned, while canoeing, and "became a small crab of a description still named after her _ê·lewadi_" (498. 96): Quite frequently we find that primitive peoples have ascribed the origin of the arts or of the good things of life to women whom they have canonized as saints or apotheosized into deities. We may close our consideration of motherhood and what it has given the world with the apt words of Zmigrodzki:-- "The history of the civilization (Kulturgeschichte) of our race, is, so to speak, _the history of the mother-influence_. Our ideas of morality, justice, order, all these are simply _mother-ideas_. The mother began our culture in that epoch in which, like the man, she was _autodidactic_. In the epoch of the Church Fathers, the highly educated mother saved our civilization and gave it a new turn, and only the highly educated mother will save us out of the moral corruption of our age. Taken individually also, we can mark the ennobling, elevating influence which educated mothers have exercised over our great men. Let us strive as much as possible to have highly accomplished mothers, wives, friends, and then the wounds which we receive in the struggle for life will not bleed as they do now" (174. 367). The history of civilization is the story of the mother, a story that stales not with repetition. Richter, in his _Levana_, makes eloquent appeal:-- "Never, never has one forgotten his pure, right-educating mother! On the blue mountains of our dim childhood, towards which we ever turn and look, stand the mothers who marked out for us from thence our life; the most blessed age must be forgotten ere we can forget the warmest heart. You wish, O woman, to be ardently loved, and forever, even till death. Be, then, the mothers of your children." Tennyson in _The Foresters_ uses these beautiful words: "Every man for the sake of the great blessed Mother in heaven, and for the love of his own little mother on earth, should handle all womankind gently, and hold them in all honour." Herein lies the whole philosophy of life. The ancient Germans were right, who, as Tacitus tells us, saw in woman _sanctum aliquid et providum_, as indeed the Modern German _Weib_ (cognate with our _wife_) also declares, the original signification of the word being "the animated, the inspirited." CHAPTER IV. THE CHILD'S TRIBUTE TO THE FATHER. If the paternal cottage still shuts us in, its roof still screens us; and with a father, we have as yet a prophet, priest, and king, and an obedience that makes us free.--_Carlyle_. To you your father should be as a god.--_Shakespeare_. Our Father, who art in Heaven.--_Jesus_. Father of all! in every age, In every clime adored, By saint, by savage, and by sage, Jehovah, Jove, or Lord.--_Pope_. _Names of the Father._ _Father_, like _mother_, is a very old word, and goes back, with the cognate terms in Italic, Hellenic, Teutonic, Celtic, Slavonic, and Indo-Aryan speech, to the primitive Indo-European language, and, like _mother_, it is of uncertain etymology. An English preacher of the twelfth century sought to derive the word from the Anglo-Saxon _fédan_, "to feed," making the "father" to be the "feeder" or "nourisher," and some more modern attempts at explanation are hardly better. This etymology, however incorrect, as it certainly is, in English, does find analogies in the tongues of primitive peoples. In the language of the Klamath Indians, of Oregon, the word for "father" is _t'shishap_ (in the Modoc dialect, _p'tishap_), meaning "feeder, nourisher," from a radical _tshi_, which signifies "to give somebody liquid food (as milk, water)." Whether there is any real connection between our word _pap_,--with its cognates in other languages,--which signifies "food for infants," as well as "teat, breast," and the child-word _papa_, "father," is doubtful, and the same may be said of the attempt to find a relation between _teat, tit_, etc., and the widespread child-words for "father," _tat_, _dad_. Wedgewood (Introd. to _Dictionary_), however, maintained that: "Words formed of the simplest articulations, _ma_ and _pa_, are used to designate the objects in which the infant takes the earliest interest,--the mother, the father, the mother's breast, the act of taking or sucking food." Tylor also points out how, in the language of children of to-day, we may find a key to the origin of a mass of words for "father, mother, grandmother, aunt, child, breast, toy, doll," etc. From the limited supply of material at the disposal of the early speakers of a language, we can readily understand how the same sound had to serve for the connotation of different ideas; this is why "_mama_ means in one tongue _mother_, in another _father_, in a third, _uncle_; _dada_ in one language _father_, in a second _nurse_, in another _breast_; _tata_ in one language _father_, in another _son_," etc. The primitive Indo-European _p-tr_, Skeat takes to be formed, with the agent-suffix _tr_, from the radical _pâ_, "to protect, to guard,"--the father having been originally looked upon as the "protector," or "guarder." Max Müller, who offers the same derivation, remarks: "The father, as begetter, was called in Sanskrit _ganitár_, as protector and supporter of his posterity, however, _pitár_. For this reason, in the Veda both names together are used in order to give the complete idea of 'father.' In like manner, _mâtar_, 'mother,' is joined with _ganit_, 'genetrix,' and this shows that the word _mâtar_ must have soon lost its etymological signification and come to be a term, of respect and caress. With the oldest Indo-Europeans, _mâtar_ meant 'maker,' from _mâ_, 'to form.'" Kluge, however, seems to reject the interpretation "protector, defender," and to see in the word a derivative from the "nature-sound" _pa_. So also Westermarck (166. 86-94). In Gothic, presumably the oldest of the Teutonic dialects, the most common word for "father" is _atta_, still seen in the name of the far-famed leader of the Huns, _Attila_, i.e. "little father," and in the _ätti_ of modern Swiss dialects. To the same root attach themselves Sanskrit _atta_, "mother, elder sister"; Ossetic _ädda_, "little father (Väterchen)"; Greek _årra_, Latin _atta_, "father"; Old Slavonic _otí-ci_, "little father"; Old Irish _aite_, "foster-father." _Atta_ belongs to the category of "nature-words" or "nursery-words" of which our _dad_ (_daddy_) is also a member. Another member is the widespread _papa, pa._ Our word _papa_, Skeat thinks, is borrowed, through the French, from Latin _papa_, found as a Roman cognomen. This goes back in all probability to ancient Greek, for, in the Odyssey (vi. 57), Nausicaa addresses her father as [Greek: pappa phile], "dear _papa_." The Papa of German is also borrowed from French, and, according to Kluge, did not secure a firm, place in the language until comparatively late in the eighteenth century. In some of the Semitic languages the word for "father" signifies "maker," and the same thing occurs elsewhere among primitive people (166. 91). As with "mother," so with "father"; in many languages a man (or a boy) does not employ the same term as a woman (or a girl). In the Haida, Okanak'en, and Kootenay, all Indian languages of British Columbia, the words used by males and by females are, respectively: _kun, qat; lEe'u, mistm; tito, so._ In many languages the word for "father," as is also the case with "mother," is different when the parent is addressed from that used when he is spoken of or referred to. In the Tsimshian, Kwakiutl, Nootka, Ntlakyapamuq, four Indian languages of British Columbia, the words for "father" when addressed, are respectively _a'bo, ats, no'we, pap,_ and for "father" in other cases, _nEgua'at, au'mp, nuwe'k'so, ska'tsa._ Here, again, it will be noticed that the words used in address seem shorter and more primitive in character. In the Chinantee language of Mexico, _nuh_ signifies at the same time "father" and "man." In Gothic _aba_ means both "father" and "husband" (492. 33). Here belongs also perhaps the familiar "father" with which the New England housewife was wont to address her husband. With many peoples the name "father" is applied to others than the male parent of the child. The following remarks of McLennan, regarding the Tamil and Telugu of India, will stand for not a few other primitive tribes: "All the brothers of a father are usually called fathers, but, in strictness, those who are older than the father are called _great fathers_, and those who are younger, _little fathers_. With the Puharies, all the brothers of a father are equally fathers to his children." In Hawaii, the term "male parent" "applied equally to the father, to the uncles, and even to distant relations." In Japan, the paternal uncle is called "little father" and the maternal uncle "second little father" (100. 389, 391). A lengthy discussion of these terms, with a wealth of illustration from many primitive languages, will be found in Westermarck (166. 86-94). _Father-Right_. Of the Roman family it has been said: "It was a community comprising men and things. The members were maintained by adoption as well as by consanguinity. The father was before all things the chief, the general administrator. He was called father even when he had no son; paternity was a question of law, not one of persons. The heir is no more than the continuing line of the deceased person; he was heir in spite of himself for the honour of the defunct, for the lares, the hearth, the manes, and the hereditary sepulchre" (100. 423). In ancient Rome the _paterfamilias_ and the _patina potestas_ are seen in their extreme types. Letourneau remarks further: "Absolute master, both of things and of people, the paterfamilias had the right to kill his wife and to sell his sons. Priest and king in turn, it was he who represented the family in their domestic worship; and when, after his death, he was laid by the side of his ancestors in the common tomb, he was deified, and helped to swell the number of the household gods" (100. 433). Post thus defines the system of "father-right":-- "In the system of 'father-right' the child is related only to the father and to the persons connected with him through the male line, but not with his mother and the persons connected with him through the female line. The narrowest group organized according to father-right consists of the father and his children. The mother, for the most part, appears in the condition of a slave to the husband. To the patriarchal family in the wider sense belong the children of the sons of the father, but not the children of his daughters; the brothers and sisters of the same father, but not those merely related to the same mother; the children of the brother of the same father, but not the children of the sisters of the same father, etc. With every wife the relationship ceases every time" (127. I. 24). The system of father-right is found scattered over the whole globe. It is found among the Indo-European peoples (Aryans of Asia, Germans, Slavs, Celts, Romans), the Mongol-Tartar tribes, Chinese, Japanese, and some of the Semitic nations; in northern Africa and scattered through the western part of the continent, among the Kaffirs and Hottentots; among some tribes in Australia and Polynesia and the two Americas (the culture races). The position of the father among those peoples with whom strict mother-right prevails is thus sketched by Zmigrodski (174.206):-- "The only certain thing was motherhood and the maternal side of the family,--mother, daughter, granddaughter, that was the fixed stem continuing with certainty. Father, son, grandson, were only the leaves, which existed only until the autumnal wind of death tore them away, to hurl them into the abyss of oblivion. In that epoch no one said, 'I am the son of such a father and the grandson of such a grandfather,' but 'I am the son of such a mother and the grandson of such a grandmother.' The inheritance went not to the son and grandson, but to the daughter and to the granddaughter, and the sons received a dowry as do the daughters in our society of to-day. In marriage the woman did not assume the name of the man, but _vice versa._ The husband of a woman, although the father of her children, was considered not so near a relative of them as the wife's brother, their uncle." Dr. Brinton says, concerning mother-right among the Indians of North America (412. 48):-- "Her children looked upon her as their parent, but esteemed their father as no relation whatever. An unusually kind and intelligent Kolosch Indian was chided by a missionary for allowing his father to suffer for food. 'Let him go to his own people,' replied the Kolosch, 'they should look after him.' He did not regard a man as in any way related or bound to his paternal parent." In a certain Polynesian mythological tale, the hero is a young man, "the name of whose father had never been told by his mother," and this has many modern parallels (115. 97). On the Gold Coast of West Africa there is a proverb, "Wise is the son that knows his own father" (127.1. 24), a saying found elsewhere in the world,--indeed, we have it also in English, and Shakespeare presents but another view of it when he tells us: "It is a wise father that knows his own child." In many myths and folk-and fairy-tales of all peoples the discovery by the child of its parent forms the climax, or at least one of the chief features of the plot; and we have also those stories which tell how parents have been killed unwittingly by their own children, or children have been slain unawares by their parents. _Father-King_. In his interesting study of "Royalty and Divinity" (75), Dr. von Held has pointed out many resemblances between the primitive concepts "King" and "God." Both, it would seem, stand in close connection with "Father." To quote from Dr. von Held: "Fathership (Vaterschaft, _patriarcha_), lordship (Herrentum), and kingship (Konigtum) are, therefore (like _rex_ and [Greek: _Basileus_]), ideas not only linguistically, but, to even a greater degree really, cognate, having altogether very close relationship to the word and idea 'God.' Of necessity they involve the existence and idea of a people, and therefore are related not only to the world of faith, but also to that of intellect and of material things." The Emperor of China is the "father and mother of the empire," his millions of subjects being his "children"; and the ancient Romans had no nobler title for their emperor than _pater patrice_, the "father of his country," an appellation bestowed in these later days upon the immortal first President of the United States. In the Yajnavalkya, one of the old Sanskrit law-books, the king is bidden to be "towards servants and subjects as a father" (75. 122), and even Mirabeau and Gregoire, in the first months of the States-General, termed the king "le pere de tous les Franqais," while Louis XII. and Henry IV. of France, as well as Christian III. of Denmark, had given to them the title "father of the people." The name _pater patrice_ was not borne by the Caesars alone, for the Roman Senate conferred the title upon Cicero, and offered it to Marius, who refused to accept it. "Father of his Country" was the appellation of Cosmo de' Medici, and the Genoese inscribed the same title upon the base of the statue erected to Andrea Doria. One of the later Byzantine Emperors, Andronicus Palæologus, even went so far as to assume this honoured title. Nor has the name "Father of the People" been confined to kings, for it has been given also to Gabriel du Pineau, a French lawyer of the seventeenth century. The "divinity that doth hedge a king" and the fatherhood of the sovereign reach their acme in Peru, where the Inca was king, father, even god, and the halo of "divine right" has not ceased even yet to encircle the brows of the absolute monarchs of Europe and the East. _Landesvater_ (Vater des Volkes) is the proudest designation of the German Kaiser. "Little Father" is alike the literal meaning of _Attila_, the name of the far-famed leader of the "Huns," in the dark ages of Europe, and of _batyushka_, the affectionate term by which the peasant of Russia speaks of the Czar. _Nana_, "Grandfather," is the title of the king of Ashanti in Africa, and "Sire" was long in France and England a respectful form of address to the monarch. Some of the aboriginal tribes of America have conferred upon the President of the United States the name of the "Great Father at Washington," the "Great White Father," and "Father" was a term they were wont to apply to governors, generals, and other great men of the whites with whom they came into contact. The father as head of the family is the basis of the idea of "father-king." This is seen among the Matchlapis, a Kaffir tribe, where "those who own a sufficient number of cattle to maintain a family have the right to the title of chief"; this resembles the institution of the _pater familias_ in ancient Latium (100. 459,533). Dr. von Held thus expresses himself upon this point: "The first, and one may say also the last, naturally necessary society of man is the family in the manifold forms out of which it has been historically developed. Its beginning and its apex are, under given culture-conditions, the man who founds it, the father. What first brought man experientially to creation as a work of love was fatherhood. This view is not altered by the fact that the father, in order to preserve, or, what is the same, to continue to produce, to bring up, must command, force, punish. If the family depends on no higher right, it yet appears as the first state, and then the father appears not only as father, but also as king" (75. 119). The occurrence to-day of "King" as a surname takes us back to a time when the head of the family enjoyed the proud title, which the Romans conferred upon Cæsar Augustus, _Pater et Princeps_, the natural development from Ovid's _virque paterque gregis_. The Romans called their senators _patres_, and we now speak of the "city fathers," aldermen, _elder_men, in older English, and the "fathers" of many a primitive people are its rulers and legislators. The term "father" we apply also to those who were monarchs and chiefs in realms of human activity other than that of politics. Following in the footsteps of the Latins, who spoke of Zeno as _Pater stoicorum_, of Herodotus as _Pater historioe_, and even of the host of an inn as _Pater cenoe_, we speak of "fathering" an idea, a plot, and the like, and denominate "father," the pioneer scientists, inventors, sages, poets, chroniclers of the race. From _pater_ the Romans derived _patrimonium_, patrimony, "what was inherited from the father," an interesting contrast to _matrimonium_; _patronus_, "patron, defender, master of slaves"; _patria_ (_terra_), "fatherland,"--Ovid uses _paterna terra_, and Horace speaks of _paternum flumen_; _patricius_, "of fatherly dignity, high-born, patrician," etc. Word after word in the classic tongues speaks of the exalted position of the father, and many of these have come into our own language through the influence of the peoples of the Mediterranean. _Father-Priest_. Said Henry Ward Beecher: "Look at home, father-priest, mother-priest; your church is a hundred-fold heavier responsibility than mine can be. Your priesthood is from God's own hands." The priesthood of the father is widespread. Mr. Gomme tells us: "Certainly among the Hindus, the Greeks, the Romans, and, so late down as Tacitus, the Germans, the house-father was priest and judge in his own clan" (461.104). Max Müller speaks to the same effect: "If we trace religion back to the family, the father or head of the family is _ipso facto_ the priest. When families grew into clans, and clans into tribes and confederacies, a necessity would arise of delegating to some heads of families the performance of duties which, from having been the spontaneous acts of individuals, had become the traditional acts of families and clans" (510.183). Africa, Asia, America, furnish us abundant evidence of this. Our own language testifies to it also. We speak of the "Fathers of the Church,"--_patres_, as they were called,--and the term "Father" is applied to an ecclesiastic of the Roman Catholic Church, just as in the Romance languages of Europe the descendants of the Latin _pater_ (French _pere_, Spanish _padre_, Italian _padre_, etc.) are used to denote the same personage. In Russian an endearing term for "priest" is _batyushka_, "father dear"; the word for a village-priest, sometimes used disrespectfully, is _pop_. This latter name is identical with the title of the head of the great Catholic Church, the "Holy Father," at Rome, viz. _papa_, signifying literally "papa, father," given in the early days of Latin Christianity, and the source of our word _Pope_ and its cognates in the various tongues of modern Europe. The head of an abbey we call an _abbot_, a name coming, through the Church-Latin _abbas_, from the Syriac _abba_, "father"; here again recurs the correlation of priest and father. It is interesting to note that both the words _papa_ and _abba_, which we have just discussed, and which are of such importance in the history of religion, are child-words for "father," bearing evidence of the lasting influence of the child in this sphere of human activity. Among the ancient Romans we find a _pater patratus_, whose duty it was to ratify treaties with the proper religious rites. Dr. von Held is of opinion that, "in the case of a special priesthood, it is not so much the character of its members as spiritual fathers, as their calling of servants of God, of servants of a Father-God, which causes them to be termed fathers, papas" (75. 120). _Father-God_. Shakespeare has aptly said, in the words which Theseus addresses to the fair Hermia:-- "To you your father should be as a god; One that composed your beauties, yea, and one To whom you are but as a form in wax, By him imprinted, and within his power To leave the figure or disfigure it," and widespread indeed, in the childhood of the race, has been the belief in the Fatherhood of God. Concerning the first parents of human kind the ancient Hebrew Scripture declares: "And God created man in His own image," and long centuries afterwards, in his memorable oration to the wise men of Athens upon Mars' Hill, the Apostle Paul quoted with approval the words of the Greek poet, Cleanthes, who had said: "For we are all His off-spring." Epictetus, appealing to a master on behalf of his slaves, asked: "Wilt thou not remember over whom thou rulest, that they are thy relations, thy brethren by nature, the offspring of Zeus?" (388.210). At the battle of Kadshu, Rameses II., of Egypt, abandoned by his soldiers, as a last appeal, exclaimed: "I will call upon thee, O my father Amon!" (388. 209). Many prophets and preachers have there been who taught to men the doctrine of "God, the Father," but last and best of all was the "Son of Man," the Christ, who taught his disciples the world-heard prayer: "Our Father, who art in Heaven," who pro-claimed that "in my Father's house are many mansions," and whose words in the agony of Gethsemane were: "Abba, Father, all things are possible unto Thee; remove this cup from me: howbeit not what I will, but what Thou wilt." Between the Buddhist Kalmucks, with whom the newly married couple reverently utter these words: "I incline myself this first time to my Lord God, who is my father and my mother" (518. I. 423), and the deistic philosophers of to-day there is a vast gulf, as there is also between the idea of Deity among the Cakchiquel Indians of Guatemala, where the words for God _alom_ and _achalom_ signify respectively "begetter of children," and "begetter of sons," and the modern Christian concept of God, the Father, with His only begotten Son, the Saviour of the world. The society of the gods of human creation has everywhere been modelled upon that of man. He was right who said Olympus was a Greek city and Zeus a Greek father. According to D'Alviella: "The highest point of development that polytheism could reach is found in the conception of a monarchy or divine family, embracing all terrestrial beings, and even the whole universe. The divine monarch or father, however, might still be no more than the first among his peers. For the supreme god to become the Only God, he must rise above all beings, superhuman as well as human, not only in his power, but in his very nature" (388. 211). Though the mythology of our Teutonic forefathers knew of the "All-Father,"--the holy Odin,--it is from those children-loving people, the Hebrews, that our Christian conception of "God the Father," with some modifications, is derived. As Professor Robertson Smith has pointed out, among the Semites we find the idea of the tribal god as father strongly developed: "But in heathen religions the fatherhood of the gods is a physical fatherhood. Among the Greeks, for example, the idea that the gods fashioned men out of clay, as potters fashion images, is relatively modern. The older conception is that the races of men have gods for their ancestors, or are the children of the earth, the common mother of gods and men, so that men are really of the same stock or kin of the gods. That the same conception was familiar to the older Semites appears from the Bible. Jeremiah describes idolaters as saying to a stock, Thou art my father; and to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth. In the ancient poem, Num. xxi. 29, the Moabites are called the sons and daughters of Chemosh, and, at a much more recent date, the prophet Malachi calls a heathen woman, 'the daughter of a strange god'" (535. 41-43). Professor Smith cites also the evidence furnished by genealogies and personal names: "The father of Solomon's ally, Hiram, King of Tyre, was called _Abibaal_, 'my father is Baal'; Ben-Hadad, of Damascus, is 'the son of the god Hadad'; in Aramæan we find names like _Barlâhâ_, 'son of God,' _Barba'shmîn_, 'son of the Lord of Heaven,' _Barate_, 'son of Ate,' etc." We have also that passage in Genesis which tells how the "sons of God saw the daughters of men that were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose" (vi. 2), while an echo of the same thought dwells with the Polynesians, who term illegitimate children _tamarika na te Atua_, "children of the gods" (458. 121). D'Alviella further remarks: "Presently these family relations of the gods were extended till they embraced the whole creation, and especially mankind. The confusion between the terms for creating and begetting, which still maintained itself in half-developed languages, must have led to a spontaneous fusion of the ideas of creator and father." But there is another aspect of this question. Of the Amazulu Callaway writes: "Speaking generally, the head of each house is worshipped by the children of that house; for they do not know the ancients who are dead, nor their laud-giving names, nor their names. But their father whom they knew is the head by whom they begin and end in their prayer, for they know him best, and his love for his children; they remember his kindness to them whilst he was living; they compare his treatment of them whilst he was living, support themselves by it, and say, 'He will treat us in the same way now he is dead. We do not know why he should regard others beside us; he will regard us only.'" Of these people it is true, as they themselves say: "Our father is a great treasure to us, even when he is dead" (417.144). Here we pass over to ancestor worship, seen at its height in China, whose great sage, Confucius, taught: "The great object of marriage is to beget children, and especially sons, who may perform the required sacrifices at the tombs of their parents" (434. 126). In this connection, the following passage from Max Müller is of interest: "How religious ideas could spring from the perception of something infinite or immortal in our parents, grandparents, and ancestors, we can see even at the present day. Among the Zulus, for instance, _Unkulunkulu_ or _Ukulukulu_, which means the great-great-grandfather, has become the name of God. It is true that each family has its own _Unkulunkulu,_ and that his name varies accordingly. But there is also an _Unkulunkulu_ of all men (_unkulunladu wabantu bonke_), and he comes very near to being a father of all men. Here also we can watch a very natural process of reasoning. A son would look upon his father as his progenitor; he would remember his father's father, possibly his father's grandfather. But beyond that his own experience could hardly go, and therefore the father of his own great-grandfather, of whom he might have heard, but whom he had never seen, would naturally assume the character of a distant unknown being; and, if the human mind ascended still further, it would almost by necessity be driven to a father of all fathers, that is to a creator of mankind, if not of the world" (510. 156). Again we reach the "Father" of Pope's "Universal Prayer"-- "Father of all! in every age, In every clime adored, By saint, by savage, and by sage, Jehovah, Jove, or Lord," having started from the same thought as the Hebrews in the infancy of their race. An Eastern legend of the child Abraham has crystallized the idea. It is said that one morning, while with his mother in the cave in which they were hiding from Nimrod, he asked his mother, "Who is my God?" and she replied, "It is I." "And who is thy God?" he inquired farther. "Thy father" (547.69). Hence also we derive the declaration of Du Vair, "Nous devons tenir nos pères comme des dieux en terre," and the statement of another French writer, of whom Westermarck says: "Bodin wrote, in the later part of the sixteenth century, that, though the monarch commands his subjects, the master his disciples, the captain his soldiers, there is none to whom nature has given any command except the father, 'who is the true image of the great sovereign God, universal father of all things'" (166. 238). _Father-Sky._ "Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, The bridal of the earth and sky," sang the poet Herbert, unconsciously renewing an ancient myth. As many cosmologies tell, Day and Dawn were born of the embraces of Earth and Sky. Ushas, Eos, Aurora, is the daughter of heaven, and one story of the birth is contained in the Maori myth of Papa and Rangi. Ushas, Max Muller tells us, "has two parents, heaven and earth, whose lap she fills with light" (510. 431). From Rangi, "Father-Sky," and Papa, "Mother-Earth," say the Maoris of New Zealand, sprang all living things; and, in like manner, the Chinese consider the Sky or Heaven,--Yang, the masculine, procreative, active element,--to be the "father of all things," while the Earth,--Yu, the feminine, conceiving, passive element,--is the "mother of all things." From the union of these two everything in existence has arisen, and consequently resembles the one or the other (529. 107). Among the primitive Aryans, the Sky, or Heaven God, was called "Father," as shown by the Sanskrit _Dyaus Pitâr_, Greek _Zeus Patær_, Latin _Jupiter_, all of which names signify "sky father." Dyaus is also called _janitâr_, "producer, father," and Zeus, the "eternal father of men," the "father of gods and men, the ruler and preserver of the world." In the Vedic hymns are invocations of Dyaus (Sky), as "our Father," and of Prithivi (Earth), as "our Mother" (388. 210). Dyaus symbolizes the "bright sky"; from the same primitive Indo-European root come the Latin words _dies_ (day), _deus_ or _divus_ (god); the dark sombre vault of heaven is Varuna, the Greek [Greek: _Ouranós_], Latin _Uranus_. Other instances of the bridal of earth and sky,--of "mother earth," and "father sky,"--are found among the tribes of the Baltic, the Lapps, the Finns (who have Ukko, "Father Heaven," Akka, "Mother Earth"), and other more barbaric peoples. In Ashanti, the new deity, which the introduction of Christianity has added to the native pantheon, is called _Nana Nyankupon_, "Grandfather-sky" (438. 24). The shaman of the Buryats of Alarsk prays to "Father Heaven"; in the Altai Mountains the prayer is to "Father Yulgen, thrice exalted, Whom the edge of the moon's axe shuns, Who uses the hoof of the horse. Thou, Yulgen, hast created all men, Who are stirring round about us, Thou, Yulgen, hast endowed us with all cattle; Let us not fall into sorrow! Grant that we may resist the evil one!" (504. 70, 77). We too have recollections of that "Father-Sky," whom our far-off ancestors adored, the bright, glad, cheerful sky, the "ancestor of all." Max Müller has summed up the facts of our inheritance in brief terms:-- "Remember that this _Dyaush Pitar_ is the same as the Greek [Greek: _Zeus Patær_], and the Latin _Jupiter_, and you will see how this one word shows us the easy, the natural, the almost inevitable transition from the conception of the active sky as a purely physical fact, to the _Father-Sky_ with all his mythological accidents, and lastly to that Father in heaven whom Æschylus meant when he burst out in his majestic prayer to Zeus, _whosoever he is_" (510. 410). Unnumbered centuries have passed, but the "witchery of the soft blue sky" has still firm hold upon the race, and we are, as of old, children of "our Father, who art in Heaven." _Father-Sea._ Montesinos tells us that Viracocha, "sea-foam," the Peruvian god of the sea, was regarded as the source of all life and the origin of all things,--world-tiller, world-animator, he was called (509. 316). Xenophanes of Kolophon, a Greek philosopher of the sixth century B.C., taught that "the mighty sea is the father of clouds and winds and rivers." In Greek mythology Oceanus is said to be the father of the principal rivers of earth. Neptune, the god of the sea,--"Father Neptune," he is sometimes called,--had his analogue in a deity whom the Libyans looked upon as "the first and greatest of the gods." To Neptune, as the "Father of Streams," the Romans erected a temple in the Campus Martius and held games and feasts in his honour. The sea was also spoken of as _pater aequoreus_. _Father-River._ The name "Father of Waters" is assigned, incorrectly perhaps, to certain American Indian languages, as an appellation of the Mississippi. From Macaulay's "Lay of Horatius," we all know "O Tiber, Father Tiber, To whom the Romans pray," and "Father Thames" is a favourite epithet of the great English river. _Father-Frost._ In our English nursery-lore the frost is personified as a mischievous boy, "Jack Frost," to whose pranks its vagaries are due. In old Norse mythology we read of the terrible "Frost Giants," offspring of Ymir, born of the ice of Niflheim, which the warmth exhaled from the sun-lit land of Muspelheim caused to drop off into the great Ginnunga-gap, the void that once was where earth is now. In his "Frost Spirit" Whittier has preserved something of the ancient grimness. We speak commonly of the "Frost-King," whose fetters bind the earth in winter. In Russia the frost is called "Father Frost," and is personified as a white old man, or "a mighty smith who forges strong chains with which to bind the earth and the waters," and on Christmas Eve "the oldest man in each family takes a spoonful of kissel (a sort of pudding), and then, having put his head through the window, cries: 'Frost, Frost, come and eat kissel! Frost, Frost, do not kill our oats! Drive our flax and hemp deep into the ground'" (520.223-230). Quite different is the idea contained in Grimm's tale of "Old Mother Frost,"--the old woman, the shaking of whose bed in the making causes the feathers to fly, and "then it snows on earth." _Father Fire_. Fire has received worship and apotheosis in many parts of the globe. The Muskogee Indians of the southeastern United States "gave to fire the highest Indian title of honour, _grandfather_, and their priests were called 'fire-makers'" (529. 68). The ancient Aztecs called the god of fire "the oldest of the gods, _Huehueteotl_, and also 'our Father,' _Tota_, as it was believed that from him all things were derived." He was supposed "to govern the generative proclivities and the sexual relations," and he was sometimes called _Xiuhtecutli_, "'God of the Green Leaf,' that is, of vegetable fecundity and productiveness." He was worshipped as "the life-giver, the active generator of animate existence,"--the "primal element and the immediate source of life" (413). These old Americans were in accord with the philosopher, Heraclitus of Ephesus, who held that "fire is the element, and all things were produced in exchange for fire"; and Heraclitus, in the fragments in which he speaks of "God," the "one wise," that which "knows all things," means "Fire." In the rites of the Nagualists occurs a "baptism by fire," which was "celebrated on the fourth day after the birth of the child, during which time it was deemed essential to keep the fire burning in the house, but not to permit any of it to be carried out, as that would bring bad luck to the child," and, in the work of one of the Spanish priests, a protest is made: "Nor must the lying-in women and their assistants be permitted to speak of Fire as the father and mother of all things, and the author of nature; because it is a common saying with them that Fire is present at the birth and death of every creature." It appears also that the Indians who followed this strange cult were wont to speak of "what the Fire said and how the Fire wept" (413. 45-46). Among various other peoples, fire is regarded as auspicious to children; its sacred character is widely recognized. In the Zend-Avesta, the Bible of the ancient Persians, whose religion survives in the cult of the Parsees, now chiefly resident in Bombay and its environs, we read of Ahura-Mazda, the "Wise Lord," the "Father of the pure world," the "best thing of all, the source of light for the world." Purest and most sacred of all created things was fire, light (421. 32). In the Sar Dar, one of the Parsee sacred books, the people are bidden to "keep a continual fire in the house during a woman's pregnancy, and, after the child is born, to burn a lamp [or, better, a fire] for three nights and days, so that the demons and fiends may not be able to do any damage and harm." It is said that when Zoroaster, the founder of the ancient religion of Persia, was born, "a demon came at the head of a hundred and fifty other demons, every night for three nights, to slay him, but they were put to flight by seeing the fire, and were consequently unable to hurt him" (258. 96). In ancient Rome, among the Lithuanians on the shores of the Baltic, in Ireland, in England, Denmark, Germany, "while a child remained unbaptized," it was, or is, necessary "to burn a light in the chamber." And in the island of Lewis, off the northwestern coast of Scotland, "fire used to be carried round women before they were churched, and children before they were christened, both night and morning; and this was held effectual to preserve both mother and infant from evil spirits, and (in the case of the infant) from being changed." In the Gypsy mountain villages of Upper Hungary, during the baptism of a child, the women kindle in the hut a little fire, over which the mother with the baptized infant must step, in order that milk may not fail her while the child is being suckled (392. II. 21). In the East Indies, the mother with her new-born child is made to pass between two fires. Somewhat similar customs are known to have existed in northern and western Europe; in Ireland and Scotland especially, where children were made to pass through or leap over the fire. To Moloch ("King"), their god of fire, the Phoenicians used to sacrifice the first-born of their noblest families. A later development of this cult seems to have consisted in making the child pass between two fires, or over or through a fire. This "baptism of fire" or "purification by fire," was in practice among the ancient Aztecs of Mexico. To the second water-baptism was added the fire-baptism, in which the child was drawn through the fire four times (509. 653). Among the Tarahumari Indians of the Mexican Sierra Madre, the medicine-man "cures" the infant, "so that it may become strong and healthy, and live a long life." The ceremony is thus described by Lumholtz: "A big fire of corn-cobs, or of the branches of the mountain-cedar, is made near the cross [outside the house], and the baby is carried over the smoke three times towards each cardinal-point, and also three times backward. The motion is first toward the east, then toward the west, then south, then north. The smoke of the corn-cobs assures him of success in agriculture. With a fire-brand the medicine-man makes three crosses on the child's forehead, if it is a boy, and four, if a girl" (107. 298). Among certain South American tribes the child and the mother are "smoked" with tobacco (326. II. 194). With marriage, too, fire is associated. In Yucatan, at the betrothal, the priest held the little fingers of bridegroom and bride to the fire (509. 504), and in Germany, the maiden, on Christmas night, looks into the hearth-fire to discover there the features of her future husband (392. IV. 82). Rademacher (130a) has called attention to the great importance of the hearth and the fireplace in family life. In the Black Forest the stove is invoked in these terms: "Dear oven, I beseech thee, if thou hast a wife, I would have a man" (130 a. 60). Among the White Russians, before the wedding, the house of the bridegroom and that of the bride are "cleansed from evil spirits," by burning a heap of straw in the middle of the living-room, and at the beginning of the ceremonies, after they have been elevated upon a cask, as "Prince" and "Princess," the guests, with the wedding cake and two tapers in their hands, go round the cask three times, and with the tapers held crosswise burn them a little on the neck, the forehead, and the temples, so that the hair is singed away somewhat. At church the wax tapers are of importance: if they burn brightly and clearly, the young couple will have a happy, merry married life; if feeble, their life will be a quiet one; if they flicker, there will be strife and quarrels between them (392 (1891). 161). Writing of Manabozho, or Michabo, the great divinity of the Algonkian tribes of the Great Lakes, Dr. D. G. Brinton says: "Michabo, giver of life and light, creator and preserver, is no apotheosis of a prudent chieftain, still less the fabrication of an idle fancy, or a designing priestcraft, but, in origin, deeds, and name, the not unworthy personification of the purest conceptions they possessed concerning the Father of All" (409. 469). To Agni, fire, light, "in whom are all the gods," the ancient Hindu prayed: "Be unto us easy of access, as a father to his son" (388. 210), and later generations of men have seen in light the embodiment of God. As Max Müller says, "We ourselves also, though we may no longer use the name of Morning-Light for the Infinite, the Beyond, the Divine, still find no better expression than _Light_ when we speak of the manifestations of God, whether in nature or in our mind" (510. 434). In the Christian churches of to-day hymns of praise are sung to God as "Father of Light and Life," and their neophytes are bidden, as of old, to "walk as Children of Light." _Father-Sun._ At the naming of the new-born infant in ancient Mexico, the mother thus addressed the Sun and the Earth: "Thou Sun, Father of all that live, and thou Earth, our Mother, take ye this child, and guard it as your son." A common affirmation with them was: "By the life of the Sun, and of our Lady, the Earth" (529. 97). Many primitive tribes have the custom of holding the newborn child up to the sun. Not a few races and peoples have called themselves "children of the sun." The first of the Incas of Peru--a male and a female--were children of the Sun "our Father," who, "seeing the pitiable condition of mankind, was moved to compassion, and sent to them, from Heaven, two of his children, a son and a daughter, to teach them how to do him honour, and pay him divine worship "; they were also instructed by the sun in all the needful arts of life, which they taught to men (529. 102). When the "children of the Sun" died, they were said to be "called to the home of the Sun, their Father" (100. 479). The Comanche Indians, who worship the sun with dances and other rites, call him _taab-apa_, "Father Sun," and the Sarcees speak of the sun as "Our Father," and of the earth as "Our Mother" (412. 122, 72). With the Piute Indians "the sun is the father and ruler of the heavens. He is the big chief. The moon is his wife, and the stars are their children. The sun eats his children whenever he can catch them. They fall before him, and are all the time afraid when he is passing through the heavens. When he (their father) appears in the morning, you see all the stars, his children, fly out of sight,--go away back into the blue of the above,--and they do not wake to be seen again until he, their father, is about going to his bed" (485. I. 130). Dr. Eastman says of the Sioux Indians: "The sun was regarded as the father, and the earth as the mother, of all things that live and grow; but, as they had been married a long time and had become the parents of many generations, they were called the great-grandparents" (518 (1894). 89). Widespread over the earth has been, and still is, the worship of the sun; some mythologists, indeed, would go too far and explain almost every feature of savage and barbarous religion as a sun-myth or as smacking of heliolatry. Imagery and figurative language borrowed from the consideration of the aspect and functions of the great orb of day have found their way into and beautified the religious thought of every modern Christian community. The words of the poet Thomson: "Prime cheerer light! Of all material beings first and best! Efflux divine! Nature's resplendent robe! Without whose vesting beauty all were wrapt In unessential gloom; and thou, O Sun! Soul of surrounding worlds! in whom best seen Shines out thy Maker!" find briefer expression in the simple speech of the dying Turner: "The sun is God." _Father-Earth_. Though, in nearly every portion of the globe the apotheosis of earth is as a woman, we find in America some evidences of a cult of the terrestrial Father-God. Concerning the cave-worship of the Mexican aborigines, Dr. Brinton says (413. 38, 50): "The intimate meaning of this cave-cult was the worship of the Earth. The Cave-God, the Heart of the Hills, really typified the Earth, the Soil, from whose dark recesses flow the limpid streams and spring the tender shoots of the food-plants as well as the great trees. To the native Mexican the Earth was the provider of food and drink, the common Father of All; so that, to this day, when he would take a solemn oath, he stoops to the earth, touches it with his hand, and repeats the solemn formula: '_Cuix amo nechitla in toteotzin?_ Does not our Great God see me?'" _Father-Wind_. Dr. Berendt, when travelling through the forests of Yucatan, heard his Maya Indian guide exclaim in awe-struck tones, as the roar of a tornado made itself heard in the distance: _He catal nohoch yikal nohoch tat_, "Here comes the mighty wind of the Great Father." As Dr. Brinton points out, this belief has analogues all over the world, in the notion of the wind-bird, the master of breath, and the spirit, who is father of all the race, for we learn also that "the whistling of the wind is called, or attributed to, _tat acmo_, words which mean 'Father Strong-Bird'" (411. 175). The cartography of the Middle Ages and the epochs of the great maritime discoveries has made us familiar with the wind-children, offspring of the wind-father, from whose mouths came the breezes and the storms, and old Boreas, of whom the sailors sing, has traces of the fatherhood about him. More than one people has believed that God, the Father, is Spirit, breath, wind. _Other Father-Gods_. The ancient Romans applied the term _Pater_ to many of their gods beside the great Jove. Vulcan was called _Lemnus Pater_, the "Lemnian Father"; Bacchus, _Pater Lenæus_; Janus, the "early god of business," is termed by Horace, _Matutinus Pater,_ "Early-morning Father"; Mars is _Mars Pater,_ etc. The Guarayo Indians, of South America, prayed for rain and bountiful harvests to "Tamoï, the grandfather, the old god in heaven, who was their first ancestor and had taught them agriculture" (100. 288). The Abipones, of Paraguay, called the Pleiades their "Grandfather" and "Creator." When the constellation was invisible, they said: "Our Grandfather, Keebet, is ill" (509. 274, 284). In his account of the folk-lore of Yucatan, Dr. Brinton tells us that the giant-beings known as _Hbalamob,_ or _balams,_ are sometimes "affectionately referred to as _yum balam,_ or 'Father Balam.'" The term _yum_ is practically the equivalent of the Latin _pater,_ and of the _"father,"_ employed by many primitive peoples in addressing, or speaking of, their great male divinities (411. 176). In his acute exposition of the philosophy of the Zuñi Indians, Mr. Gushing tells us (424. 11) that "all beings, whether deistic and supernatural, or animistic and mortal, are regarded as belonging to one system; and that they are likewise believed to be related by blood seems to be indicated by the fact that human beings are spoken of as the 'children of men,' while _all_ other beings are referred to as 'the Fathers,' the 'All-Fathers (Á-tä-tchu),' and 'Our Fathers.'" The "Priest'of the Bow," when travelling alone through a dangerous country, offers up a prayer, which begins: "Si! This day, My Fathers, ye Animal Beings, although this country be filled with enemies, render me precious" (424. 41). The hunter, in the ceremonial of the "Deer Medicine," prays: "Si! This day, My Father, thou Game Animal, even though thy trail one day and one night hast (been made) round about; however, grant unto me one step of my earth-mother. Wanting thy life-blood, wanting that flesh, hence I address to thee good fortune, address to thee treasure," etc. When he has stricken down the animal, "before the 'breath of life' has left the fallen deer (if it be such), he places its fore feet back of its horns, and, grasping its mouth, holds it firmly, closely, while he applies his lips to its nostrils and breathes as much wind into them as possible, again inhaling from the lungs of the dying animal into his own. Then, letting go, he exclaims: 'Ah! Thanks, my father, my child. Grant unto me the seeds of earth ('daily bread') and the gift of water. Grant unto me the light of thy favour, do" (424. 36). Something of a like nature, perhaps, attaches to the bear-ceremonials among the Ainu and other primitive peoples of northeastern Asia, with whom that animal is held in great respect and reverence, approaching to deification. Of Pó-shai-an-k'ia, "the God (Father) of the Medicine Societies, or sacred esoteric orders of the Zuñis," Mr. Gushing tells us: "He is supposed to have appeared in human form, poorly clad, and therefore reviled by men; to have taught the ancestors of the Zuñi, Taos, Oraibi, and Coçonino Indians their agricultural and other arts; their systems of worship by means of plumed and painted prayer-sticks; to have organized their medicine societies, and then to have disappeared toward his home in Shi-pä-pu-li-ma (from _shi-pa-a_ = mist, vapour; _u-lin_, surrounding; and _i-mo-na_ = sitting-place of; 'The mist-enveloped city'), and to have vanished beneath the world, whence he is said to have departed for the home of the Sun. He is still the conscious auditor of the prayers of his children, the invisible ruler of the spiritual Shi-pä-pu-li-ma, and of the lesser gods of the medicine orders, the principal 'Finisher of the Paths of our Lives.' He is, so far as any identity can be established, the 'Montezuma' of popular and usually erroneous Mexican tradition" (424. 16). Both on the lowest steps of civilization and on the highest, we meet with this passing over of the Father into the Son, this participation of God in the affairs and struggles of men. CHAPTER V. THE NAME CHILD. Liebe Kinder haben viele Namen [Dear children have many names].--_German Proverb_. Child or boy, my darling, which you will.--_Swinburne_. Men ever had, and ever will have, leave To coin new words well-suited to the age. Words are like leaves, some wither every year, And every year a younger race succeeds.--_Roscommon_. _Child and its Synonyms_. Our word _child_--the good old English term; for both _babe_ and _infant_ are borrowed--simply means the "product of the womb" (compare Gothic _kilthei_, "womb"). The Lowland-Scotch dialect still preserves an old word for "child" in _bairn_, cognate with Anglo-Saxon _bearn_, Icelandic, Swedish, Danish, and Gothic _barn_ (the Gothic had a diminutive _barnilo_, "baby"), Sanskrit _bharna_, which signifies "the borne one," "that which is born," from the primitive Indo-European root _bhr_, "to bear, to carry in the womb," whence our "to _bear_" and the German "ge-_bären_." _Son_, which finds its cognates in all the principal Aryan dialects, except Latin, and perhaps Celtic,--the Greek [Greek: yios] is for [Greek: syios], and is the same word,--a widespread term for "male child, or descendant," originally meant, as the Old Irish _suth_, "birth, fruit," and the Sanskrit _sû_, "to bear, to give birth to," indicate, "the fruit of the womb, the begotten"--an expression which meets us time and again in the pages of the Hebrew Bible. The words _offspring_, _issue_, _seed_, used in higher diction, explain themselves and find analogues all over the world. To a like category belong Sanskrit _gárbha_, "brood of birds, child, shoot"; Pali _gabbha_, "womb, embryo, child"; Old High German _chilburra_, "female lamb"; Gothic _kalbô_, "female lamb one year old"; German _Kalb_; English _calf_; Greek [Greek: _delphus_], "womb"; whence [Greek: _adelphus_], "brother," literally "born of the same womb." Here we see, in the words for their young, the idea of the kinship of men and animals in which the primitive races believed. The "brought forth" or "born" is also the signification of the Niskwalli Indian _ba'-ba-ad_, "infant"; _de-bád-da_, "infant, son"; Maya _al_, "son or daughter of a woman"; Cakchiquel 4_ahol_, "son," and like terms in many other tongues. Both the words in our language employed to denote the child before birth are borrowed. _Embryo_, with its cognates in the modern tongues of Europe, comes from the Greek [Greek: _embruon_], "the fruit of the womb before delivery; birth; the embryo, foetus; a lamb newly born, a kid." The word is derived from _eu_, "within"; and _bruo_, "I am full of anything, I swell or teem with"; in a transitive sense, "I break forth." The radical idea is clearly "swelling," and cognates are found in Greek [Greek: _bruon_], "moss"; and German _Kraut_, "plant, vegetable." _Foetus_ comes to us from Latin, where it meant "a bearing, offspring, fruit; bearing, dropping, hatching,--of animals, plants, etc.; fruit, produce, offspring, progeny, brood." The immediate derivation of the word is _feto_, "I breed," whence also _effetus_, "having brought forth young, worn out by bearing, effete." _Feto_ itself is from an old verb _feuere_, "to generate, to produce," possibly related to _fui_ and our _be_. The radical signification of _foetus_ then is "that which is bred, or brought to be"; and from the same root _fe_ are derived _feles_, "cat" (the fruitful animal); _fe-num_, "hay"; _fe-cundus_, "fertile"; _fe-lix,_ "happy" (fruitful). The corresponding verb in Greek is [Greek: _phuein_], "to grow, to spring forth, to come into being," whence the following: [Greek: _phusis_], "a creature, birth, nature,"--nature is "all that has had birth"; [Greek: _phuton_] "something grown, plant, tree, creature, child"; [Greek: _phulae, philon_] "race, clan, tribe,"--the "aggregate of those born in a certain way or place"; [Greek: _phus_], "son"; [Greek: _phusas_], "father," etc. In English, we formerly had the phrase "to look _babies_ in the eyes," and we still speak of the _pupil_ of the eye, the old folk-belief having been able to assert itself in the every-day speech of the race,--the thought that the soul looked out of the windows of the eyes. In Latin, _pupilla pupila,_ "girl, pupil of the eye," is a diminutive of _pupa_ (_puppa_), "girl, damsel, doll, puppet"; other related words are _pupulus_, "little boy"; _pupillus_, "orphan, ward," our _pupil_; _pupulus_, "little child, boy"; _pupus_, "child, boy." The radical of all these is _pu_, "to beget"; whence are derived also the following: _puer_, "child, boy"; _puella_ (for _puerula_), a diminutive of _puer_, "girl"; _pusus_, "boy"; _pusio_, "little boy," _pusillus_; "a very little boy"; _putus_, "boy"; _putillus_, "little boy"; _putilla_, "little girl,"--here belongs also _pusillanimus_, "small-minded, boy-minded"; _pubis_, "ripe, adult"; _pubertas_, "puberty, maturity"; _pullus_, "a young animal, a fowl," whence our _pullet_. In Greek we find the cognate words [Greek: polos] "a young animal," related to our _foal, filly_; [Greek: polion], "pony," and, as some, perhaps too venturesome, have suggested, [Greek: pais], "child," with its numerous derivatives in the scientifical nomenclature and phraseology of to-day. In Sanskrit we have _putra_, "son," a word familiar as a suffix in river-names,--_Brahmaputra_, "son of Brahma,"--_pota_, "the young of an animal," etc. Skeat thinks that our word _boy_, borrowed from Low German and probably related to the Modern High German _Bube_, whence the familiar "bub" of American colloquial speech, is cognate with Latin _pupus_. To this stock of words our _babe_, with its diminutive _baby_, seems not akin. Skeat, rejecting the theory that it is a reduplicative child-word, like _papa_, sees in it merely a modification (infantine, perhaps) of the Celtic _maban_, diminutive of _mab_, "son," and hence related to _maid_, the particular etymology of which is discussed elsewhere. _Infant_, also, is a loan-word in English. In Latin, _infans_ was the coinage of some primitive student of children, of some prehistoric anthropologist, who had a clear conception of "infancy" as "the period of inability to speak,"--for _infans_ signifies neither more nor less than "not speaking, unable to speak." The word, like our "childish," assumed also the meanings "child, young, fresh, new, silly," with a diminutive _infantulus_. The Latin word _infans_ has its representatives in French and other Romance languages, and has given rise to _enfanter_, "to give birth to a child," _enfantement_, "labour," two of the few words relating to child-birth in which the child is directly remembered. The history of the words _infantry_, "foot-soldiers," and _Infanta_, "a princess of the blood royal" in Spain (even though she be married), illustrates a curious development of thought. Our word _daughter_, which finds cognates in Teutonic, Slavonic, Armenian, Zend, Sanskrit, and Greek, Skeat would derive from the root _dugh_, "to milk," the "daughter" being primitively the "milker," --the "milkmaid,"--which would remove the term from the list of names for "child" in the proper sense of the word. Kluge, however, with justice perhaps, considers this etymology improbable. A familiar phrase in English is "babes and sucklings," the last term of which, cognate with German _Säugling_, meets with analogues far and wide among the peoples of the earth. The Latin words for children in relation to their parents are _filius_ (diminutive _filiolus_), "son," and _filia_ (diminutive _filiola_), "daughter," which have a long list of descendants in the modern Neo-Latin or Romance languages,--French _fils, fille, filleul_, etc.; Italian _figlio, figlia_, etc. According to Skeat, _filius_ signified originally "infant," perhaps "suckling," from _felare_, "to suck," the radical of which, _fe_ (Indo-European _dhe_), appears also in _femina_, "woman," and _femella_, "female," the "sucklers" _par excellence_. In Greek the cognate words are [Greek: _titthae_], "nurse," _thaelus_, "female," _thaelae_, "teat," etc.; in Lithuanian, _dels_, "son." With _nonagan_, "teat, breast," are cognate in the Delaware Indian language _nonoshellaan_, "to suckle," _nonetschik_, "suckling," and other primitive tongues have similar series. The Modern High German word for child is _Kind_, which, as a substantive, finds representatives neither in Gothic nor in early English, but has cognates in the Old Norse _kunde_, "son," Gothic _-kunds_, Anglo-Saxon _-kund_, a suffix signifying "coming from, originating from." The ultimate radical of the word is the Indo-European root _gen_ (Teutonic _ken_), "to bear, to produce," whence have proceeded also _kin_, Gothic _kuni_; _queen_, Gothic _qvêns_, "woman"; _king_, Modern High German _König_, originally signifying perhaps "one of high origin"; Greek _genos_ and its derivatives; Latin _genus, gens, gigno_; Lithuanian _gentis_, "relative"; Sanskrit _janas_, "kin, stock," _janús_, "creature, kin, birth," _jantú_, "child, being, stock," _jâtá_, "son." _Kind_, therefore, while not the same word as our _child_, has the same primitive meaning, "the produced one," and finds further cognates in _kid_ and _colt_, names applied to the young of certain animals, and the first of which, in the slang of to-day, is applied to children also. In some parts of Germany and Switzerland _Kind_ has the sense of _boy_; in Thuringia, for example, people speak of _zwei Kinder und ein Mädchen,_ "two boys and a girl." From the same radical sprang the Modern High German _Knabe_, Old High German _chnabo_, "boy, youth, young fellow, servant," and its cognates, including our English _knave_, with its changed meaning, and possibly also German _Knecht_ and English _knight_, of somewhat similar import originally. To the same original source we trace back Greek [Greek: _genetaer_], Latin _genitor_, "parent," and their cognates, in all of which the idea of _genesis_ is prominent. Here belong, in Greek: [Greek: _genesis_], "origin, birth, beginning"; [Greek: _gynae_], "woman"; [Greek: _genea_], "family, race"; [Greek: _geinomai_], "I beget, produce, bring forth, am born"; [Greek: _gignomai_], "I come into a new state of being, become, am born." In Latin: _gigno_, "I beget, bring forth"; _gens_, "clan, race, nation,"--those born in a certain way; _ingens_, "vast, huge, great,"--"not _gens_," _i.e._ "born beyond or out of its kind"; _gentilis_, "belonging to the same clan, race, tribe, nation," then, with various turns of meaning, "national, foreign," whence our _gentile, genteel, gentle, gentry,_ etc.; _genus_, "birth, race, sort, kind"; _ingenium_, "innate quality, natural disposition"; _ingeniosus_, "of good natural abilities, born well-endowed," hence _ingenious; ingenuus_, "native, free-born, worthy of a free man," hence "frank, _ingenuous_"; _progenies_, "descent, descendants, offspring, progeny"; _gener_, "son-in-law"; _genius_, "innate superior nature, tutelary deity, the god born to a place," hence the _genius_, who is "born," not "made"; _genuinus_, "innate, born-in, _genuine_"; _indigena_, "native, born-there, indigenous"; _generosus_, "of high, noble birth," hence "noble-minded, _generous_"; _genero_, "I beget, produce, engender, create, procreate," and its derivatives _degenero, regenero_, etc., with the many words springing from them. From the same radical _gen_ comes the Latin _(g)nascor_, "I am born," whose stem _(g)na_ is seen also in _natio_, "the collection of those born," or "the birth," and _natura_, "the world of birth,"--like Greek [Greek: _phnsis_],--for "nations" and "nature" have both "sprung into being." The Latin _germen_ (our _germ_), which signified "sprig, offshoot, young bud, sprout, fruit, embryo," probably meant originally simply "growth," from the root _ker_, "to make to grow." From the same Indo-European radical have come the Latin _creare_, "to create, make, produce," with its derivatives _procreare_ and _creator_, which we now apply to the Supreme Being, as the "maker" or "producer" of all things. Akin are also _crescere_, "to come forth, to arise, to appear, to increase, to grow, to spring, to be born," and _Ceres_, the name of the goddess of agriculture (growth and creation), whence our word _cereal_; and in Greek [Greek: Kronos], the son of Uranus (Heaven) and Gæa (Earth), [Greek: kratos], "strength," and its derivatives ("democracy," etc.). Another interesting Latin word is _pario_, "I bring forth, produce," whence _parens_, "producer, parent," _partus_, "birth, bearing, bringing forth; young, offspring, foetus, embryo of any creature," _parturio, parturitio_, etc. _Pario_ is used alike of human beings, animals, birds, fish, while _parturio_ is applied to women and animals, and, by Virgil, even to trees,--_parturit arbos_, "the tree is budding forth,"--and by other writers to objects even less animate. In the Latin _enitor_, "I bring forth or bear children or young,"--properly, "I struggle, strive, make efforts,"--we meet with the idea of "labour," now so commonly associated with child-bearing, and deriving from the old comparison of the tillage of the soil and the bearing of the young. This association existed in Hebrew also, and Cain, the first-born of Adam, was the first agriculturist. We still say the tree _bears_ fruit, the land _bears_ crops, is _fertile_, and the most characteristic word in English belonging to the category in question is "to _bear_" children, cognate with Modern High German _ge-bären_, Gothic _gabairan_, Latin _ferre_ (whence _fertilis_), Greek _[Greek: ferein]_, Sanskrit _bhri_, etc., all from the Indo-European root _bher_, "to carry"--compare the use of _tragen_ in Modern High German: _sie trägt ein Kind unter dem Herzen_. The passive verb is "to be _born_" literally, "to be borne, to be carried, produced," and the noun corresponding, _birth_, cognate with German _Geburt_, and Old Norse _burthr_, which meant "embryo" as well. Related ideas are seen in _burden_, and in the Latin, _fors, fortuna_, for "fortune" is but that which is "borne" or "produced, brought forth," just as the Modern High German _Heil_, "fortune, luck," is probably connected with the Indo-European radical _gen_, "to produce." Corresponding to the Latin _parentes_, in meaning, we have the Gothic _berusjos_, "the bearers," or "parents"; we still use in English, "forbears," in the sense of ancestors. The good old English phrase "with child," which finds its analogues in many other languages, has, through false modesty, been almost driven out of literature, as it has been out of conversational language, by _pregnant_, which comes to us from the Latins, who also used _gravidus_,--a word we now apply only to animals, especially dogs and ants,--and _enceinte_, borrowed from French, and referring to the ancient custom of girding a woman who was with child. Similarly barren of direct reference to the child are _accouchement_, which we have borrowed from French, and the German _Entbindung_. In German, Grimm enumerates, among other phrases relating to child-birth, the following, the particular meanings and uses of which are explained in his great dictionary: _Schwanger, gross zum Kinde, zum Kinde gehen, zum Kinde arbeiten, um's Kind kommen, mit Kinde, ein Kind tragen, Kindesgrosz, Kindes schwer, Kinder haben, Kinder bekommen, Kinder kriegen, niederkommen, entbinden,_ and the quaint and beautiful _eines Kindes genesen_,--all used of the mother. Applied to both parents we find _Kinder machen_, _Kinder bekommen_ (now used more of the mother), _Kinder erzeugen_ (more recently, of the father only), _Kinder erzielen_. Our English word _girl_ is really a diminutive (from a stem _gir_, seen in Old Low German _gör_, "a child") from some Low German dialect, and, though it now signifies only "a female child, a young woman," in Middle English _gerl_ (_girl, gurl_) was applied to a young person of either sex. In the Swiss dialects to-day _gurre_, or _gurrli_, is a name given to a "girl" in a depreciatory sense, like our own "girl-boy." In many primitive tongues there do not appear to be special words for "son" and "daughter," or for "boy" and "girl," as distinguished from each other, these terms being rendered "male-child (man-child)," and "female-child (woman-child)" respectively. The "man-child" of the King James' version of the Scriptures belongs in this category. In not a few languages, the words for "son" and "daughter" and for "boy" and "girl" mean really "little man," and "little woman"--a survival of which thought meets us in the "little man" with which his elders are even now wont to denominate "the small boy." In the Nahuatl language of Mexico, "woman" is _ciuatl_, "girl" _ciuatontli_; in the Niskwalli, of the State of Washington, "man" is _stobsh_, "boy" _stótomish_, "woman" _sláne_, "girl" _cháchas_ (_i.e._ "small") _sláne_; in the Tacana, of South. America, "man" is _dreja_, "boy" _drejave_, "woman" _epuna_, "girl" _epunave_. And but too often the "boys" and "girls" even as mere children are "little men and women" in more respects than that of name. In some languages the words for "son," "boy," "girl" are from the same root. Thus, in the Mazatec language, of Mexico, we find _indidi_ "boy," _tzadi_ "girl," _indi_ "son," and in the Cholona, of Peru, _nun-pullup_ "boy," _ila-pullup_ "girl," _pul_ "son,"--where _ila_ means "female," and _nun_ "male." In some others, as was the case with the Latin _puella_, from _puer_, the word for "girl" seems derived from that for "boy." Thus, we have in Maya, _mehen_ "son," _ix-mehen_ "daughter,"-- _-ix_ is a feminine prefix; and in the Jívaro, of Ecuador, _vila_ "son," _vilalu_, "daughter." Among very many primitive peoples, the words for "babe, infant, child," signify really "small," "little one," like the Latin _parvus_, the Scotch _wean_ (for _wee ane_, "wee one"), etc. In Hawaiian, for example, the "child" is called _keiki_, "the little one," and in certain Indian languages of the Western Pacific slope, the Wiyot _kusha'ma_ "child," Yuke _únsil_ "infant," Wintun _cru-tut_ "infant," Niskwalli _chá chesh_ "child (boy)," all signify literally "small," "little one." Some languages, again, have diminutives of the word for "child," often formed by reduplication, like the _wee wean_ of Lowland Scotch, and the _pilpil_, "infant" of the Nahuatl of Mexico. In the Snanaimuq language, of Vancouver Island, the words _k·ä'ela_, "male infant," and _k·ä'k·ela_, "female infant," mean simply "the weak one." In the Modoc, of Oregon, a "baby" is literally, "what is carried on one's self." In the Tsimshian, of British Columbia, the word _wok·â'ûts_, "female infant," signifies really "without labrets," indicating that the creature is yet too young for the lip ornaments. In Latin, _liberi_, one of the words for "children," shows on its face that it meant only "children, as opposed to the slaves of the house, _servi_"; for _liberi_ really denotes "the free ones." In "the Galibi language of Brazil, _tigami_ signifies 'young brother, son, and little child,' indiscriminately." The following passage from Westermarck recalls the "my son," etc., of our higher conversational or even officious style (166.93):-- "Mr. George Bridgman states that, among the Mackay blacks of Queensland, the word for 'daughter' is used by a man for any young woman belonging to the class to which his daughter would belong if he had one. And, speaking of the Australians, Eyre says, 'In their intercourse with each other, natives of different tribes are exceedingly punctilious and polite; ... almost everything that is said is prefaced by the appellation of father, son, brother, mother, sister, or some other similar term, corresponding to that degree of relationship which would have been most in accordance with their relative ages and circumstances." Similar phenomena meet us in the language of the criminal classes, and the slang of the wilder youth of the country. Among the Andaman Islanders: "Parents, when addressing or referring to their children, and not using names, employ distinct terms, the father calling his son _dar ô-dire,_ i.e. 'he that has been begotten by me,' and his daughter, _dar ô-dire-pail-;_ while the mother makes use of the word _dab ê-tire,_ i.e. 'he whom I have borne,' for the former, and _dab ê-tire pail-_ for the latter; similarly, friends, in speaking of children to their parents, say respectively, _ngar ô-dire,_ or _ngab ê-tire_ (your son), _ngar ô-dire-pail-,_ or _ngab ê-tire-pail-_ (your daughter)" (498. 59). In the Tonkawé Indian language of Texas, "to be born" is _nikaman yekéwa,_ literally, "to become bones," and in the Klamath, of Oregon, "to give birth," is _nkâcgî,_ from _nkák,_ "the top of the head," and _gî,_ "to make," or perhaps from _kák'gî,_ "to produce bones," from the idea that the seat of life is in the bones. In the Nipissing dialect of the Algonkian tongue, _ni kanis,_ "my brother," signifies literally, "my little bone," an etymology which, in the light of the expressions cited above, reminds one of the Greek [Greek: adelphos], and the familiar "bone of my bone," etc. A very interesting word for "child" is Sanskrit _toka,_ Greek [Greek: teknon], from the Indo-European radical _tek,_ "to prepare, make, produce, generate." To the same root belong Latin _texere,_ "to weave," Greek [Greek: technae] "art"; so that the child and art have their names from the same primitive source--the mother was the former of the child as she was of the chief arts of life. _"Flower-Names."_ The people who seem to have gone farthest in the way of words for "child" are the Andaman Islanders, who have an elaborate system of nomenclature from the first year to the twelfth or fifteenth, when childhood may be said to end. There are also in use a profusion of "flower-names" and complimentary terms. The "flower-names" are confined to girls and young women who are not mothers. The following list shows the peculiarity of the name-giving:-- 1. Proper name chosen before birth of child: ._dô'ra_. 2. If child turns out to be a boy, he is called: ._dô'ra-ô'ta_; if a girl, ._dô'ra-kâ'ta_; these names (_ô'ta_ and _kâ'ta_ refer to the genital organs of the two sexes) are used during the first two or three years only. 3. Until he reaches puberty, the boy is called: ._dô'ra dâ'la_, and the girl, _.dô'ra-po'il'ola_. 4. When she reaches maturity, the girl is said to be _ún-lâ-wi_, or _â'kà-lá-wi_, and receives a "flower-name" chosen from the one of "the eighteen prescribed trees which blossom in succession" happening to be in season when she attains womanhood. 5. If this should occur in the middle of August, when the _Pterocarpus dalbergoides_, called _châ'langa_, is in flower, "._dô'ra-po-ilola_ would become ._chà'garu dô'ra_, and this double name would cling to the girl until she married and was a mother, then the 'flower' name would give way to the more dignified term _chän'a_ (madam or mother)._dô'ra_; if childless, a woman has to pass a few years of married life before she is called _chän'a_, after which no further change is made in her name." Much other interesting information about name-giving may be found in the pages of Mr. Man's excellent treatise on this primitive people (498. 59-61; 201-208). _Sign Language._ Interesting details about signs and symbols for "child" may be found in the elaborate article of Colonel Mallery on "Sign Language among North American Indians" (497a), and the book of Mr. W. P. Clark on _Indian Sign Language_ (420). Colonel Mallery tells us that "the Egyptian hieroglyphists, notably in the designation of Horus, their dawn-god, used the finger in or on the lips for 'child.' It has been conjectured in the last instance that the gesture implied, not the mode of taking nourishment, but inability to speak, _in-fans_." This conjecture, however, the author rejects (497a. 304). Among the Arapaho Indians "the sign for _child, baby_, is the forefinger in the mouth, _i.e._ a nursing child, and a natural sign of a deaf-mute is the same;" related seem also the ancient Chinese forms for "son" and "birth," as well as the symbol for the latter among the Dakota Indians (494 a. 356). Clark describes the symbol for "child," which is based upon those for "parturition" and "height," thus: "Bring the right hand, back outwards, in front of centre of body, and close to it, fingers extended, touching, pointing outwards and downwards; move the hands on a curve downwards and outwards; then carry the right hand, back outwards, well out to front and right of body, fingers extended and pointing upwards, hand resting at supposed height of child; the hand is swept into last position at the completion of first gesture. In speaking of children generally, and, in fact, unless it is desired to indicate height or age of the child, the first sign is all that is used or is necessary. This sign also means the young of any animal. In speaking of children generally, sometimes the signs for different heights are only made. Deaf-mutes make the combined sign for male and female, and then denote the height with right hand held horizontally" (420. 109). For "baby," deaf-mutes "hold extended left hand back down, in front of body, forearm about horizontal and pointing to right and front; then lay the back of partially compressed right hand on left forearm near wrist" (420. 57). _Names._ The interesting and extensive field of personal onomatology--the study of personal names--cannot be entered upon exhaustively here. Shakespeare has said:-- "What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet,"-- and the same remark might be made of the children of some primitive peoples. Not infrequently the child is named before it is born. Of the Central Eskimo we read that often before the birth of the child, "some relative or friend lays his hand upon the mother's stomach, and decides what the infant is to be called; and, as the name serves for either sex, it is of no consequence whether it be a girl or a boy" (402. 612, 590). Polle has a good deal to say of the deep significance of the name with certain peoples--"to be" and "to be named" appearing sometimes as synonymous (517. 99). "Hallowed be Thy name" expresses the ideas of many generations of men. With the giving of a name the soul and being of a former bearer of it were supposed to enter into and possess the child or youth upon whom it was conferred. Kink says of the Eskimo of East Greenland, that "they seemed to consider man as consisting of three independent parts,--soul, body, name" (517. 122). One can easily understand the mysterious associations of the name, the taboos of its utterance or pronunciation so common among primitive peoples--the reluctance to speak the name of a dead person, as well as the desire to confer the name of such a one upon a new-born child, spring both from the same source. The folk-lore and ceremonial of name-giving are discussed at length in Ploss, and the special treatises on popular customs. In several parts of Germany, it is held to be ominous for misfortune or harm to the child, if the name chosen for it should be made known before baptism. Sometimes, the child is hardly recognized as existing until he has been given a name. In Gerbstadt in Mansfeld, Germany, the child before it receives its name is known as "dovedung," and, curiously enough, in far-off Samoa, the corresponding appellation is "excrement of the family-god" (517.103). The following statement, regarding one of the American Indian tribes, will stand for many other primitive peoples: "The proper names of the Dakotas are words, simple and compounded, which are in common use in the language. They are usually given to children by the father, grandfather, or some other influential relative. When young men have distinguished themselves in battle, they frequently take to themselves new names, as the names of distinguished ancestors of warriors now dead. The son of a chief when he comes to the chieftainship, generally takes the name of his father or grandfather, so that the same names, as in other more powerful dynasties, are handed down along the royal lines" (524. 44-45). Of the same people we are also told: "The Dakotas have no family or surnames. But the children of a family have particular names which belong to them, in the order of their birth up to the fifth child. These names are for boys, Caske, Hepan, Hepi, Catan, and Hake. For girls they are, Windna, Hapan, Hapistinna, Wanske, and Wihake." _Terms applied to Children._ An interesting study might be made of the words we apply to children in respect of size, _little, small, wee, tiny,_ etc., very many of which, in their etymology, have no reference to childhood, or indeed to smallness. The derivation of little is uncertain, but the word is reasonably thought to have meant "little" in the sense of "deceitful, mean," from the radical _lut_, "to stoop" (hence "to creep, to sneak"). Curiously enough, the German _klein_ has lost its original meaning,--partly seen in our clean,--"bright, clear." _Small_ also belongs in the same category, as the German _schmal_, "narrow, slim," indicates, though perhaps the original signification may have been "small" as we now understand it; a cognate word is the Latin _macer_, "thin, lean," which has lost an s at the beginning. Even wee, as the phrase "a little wee bit" hints, is thought (by Skeat) to be nothing more than a Scandinavian form of the same word which appears in our English _way_. Skeat also tells us that "a little teeny boy," meant at first "a little fractious (peevish) boy," being derived from an old word _teen_, "anger, peevishness." Analogous to _tiny_ is _pettish_, which is derived from _pet_, "mama's pet," "a spoiled child." Endless would the list of words of this class be, if we had at our disposal the projected English dialect dictionary; many other illustrations might be drawn from the numerous German dialect dictionaries and the great Swiss lexicon of Tobler. Still more interesting, perhaps, would be the discussion of the special words used to denote the actions and movements of children of all ages, and the names and appellatives of the child derived from considerations of age, constitution, habits, actions, speech, etc., which are especially numerous in Low German dialects and such forms of English speech as the Lowland Scotch. Worthy of careful attention are the synonyms of child, the comparisons in which the child figures in the speech of civilized and uncivilized man; the slang terms also, which, like the common expression of to-day, _kid_, often go back to a very primitive state of mind, when "children" and "kids" were really looked upon as being more akin than now. Beside the terms of contempt and sarcasm,--_goose_, _loon_, _pig_, _calf_, _donkey_, etc.,--those figures of speech which, the world over, express the sentiment of the writer of the _Wisdom of Solomon_ regarding the foolishness of babes,--we, like the ancient Mexicans and many another lower race, have terms of praise and endearment,--"a jewel of a babe," and the like,--legions of caressives and diminutives in the use of which some of the Low German dialects are more lavish even than Lowland Scotch. In Grimm's great _Deutsches Wörterbuch_, the synonymy of the word _Kind_ and its semasiology are treated at great length, with a multitude of examples and explanations, useful to students of English, whose dictionaries lag behind in these respects. The child in language is a fertile subject for the linguist and the psychologist, and the field is as yet almost entirely unexplored. CHAPTER VI. THE CHILD IN THE PRIMITIVE LABORATORY. As if no mother had made you look nice.--_Proverbial Saying of Songish Indians._ Spare the rod and spoil the child.--_Hebrew Proverb._ Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting.--_Daniel_ v. 27. He has lost his measure.--_German Saying._ _"Licking into Shape."_ Pope, in the _Dunciad_, has the well-known lines:-- "So watchful Bruin forms, with plastic care, Each growing lump, and brings it to a bear," a conceit found in Burton, Montaigne, Byron, and other writers, and based upon an old folk-belief that the cubs are born a formless lump which the mother-bear has to "lick into shape." The same idea gave rise to the "ours mal léché" of French, and our own colloquial expression "an ill-licked cub." In an Alemanian lullaby sung while washing and combing the child, occurs the following curious passage:-- "I bin e chleine Pumpernickel, I bin e chleine Bär, Und wie mi Gott erschaffe hät, So wagglen ich derher," ["I am a little Pumpernickel, I am a little bear, And just as God has fashioned me I wiggle about,"] which, perhaps, contains the same thought. In a recent article, Professor E. W. Fay offers an etymology of the word "livid" which facilitates the passage from animal to man: "_Lividus_ meant 'licked.' The word derives from an animal's licking hurts and sores on the young. A mother of the human species still kisses (licks) a child's hurt to make it well" (_Mod. Lang. Notes_, IX. 263). Who has not had his mother say: "Does it hurt? Come and let me kiss it, and make it well." Moreover, Reclus tells us, "There are Esquimaux who go further in their demonstrations of affection, and carrying their complaisance as far as Mamma Puss and Mamma Bruin, lick their babies to clean them, lick them well over from head to foot" (523. 38). Nor is it always the mother who thus acts. Mantegazza observes: "I even know a very affectionate child, who, without having learnt it from any one, licks the people to whom he wishes to show friendship" (499. 144). _Massage._ _Che nasce bella nasce maritata_,--"the girl born pretty is born married,"--says the Italian proverb, and many devices there are among primitive races to ensure the beauty which custom demands, but which nature has failed to provide. Among the Songish Indians of British Columbia, there is a saying: _Tôu ô'wuna täns ksEtctcâ'ai_,--"as if no mother had made you look nice." Doctor Boas describes the "making the child look nice" as follows (404. 20):-- "As soon as it is born, the mother rubs it from the mouth towards the ears, so as to press the cheek-bones somewhat upward. The outer corners of the eyes are pulled outward that they may not become round, which is considered ill-looking. The calves of the legs are pressed backward and upward, the knees are tied together to prevent the feet from turning inward, the forehead is pressed down." Among the Nootka Indians, according to the same authority: "Immediately after birth, the eyebrows of the babe are pressed upward, its belly is pressed forward, and the calves of the legs are squeezed from the ankles upward. All these manipulations are believed to improve the appearance of the child. It is believed that the pressing of the eyebrows will give them the peculiar shape that may be noticed in all carvings of the Indians of the North Pacific Coast. The squeezing of the legs is intended to produce slim ankles" (404. 39). The subject of the human physiognomy and physical characteristics in folk-lore and folk-speech is a very entertaining one, and the practices in vogue for beautifying these are legion and found all over the world (204). _Face-Games._ Some recollection of such procedure as that of the Songish Indians seems to linger, perhaps, in the game, which Sicilian nurses play on the baby's features. It consists in "lightly touching nose, mouth, eyes, etc., giving a caress or slap to the chin," and repeating at the same time the verses:-- "Varvaruttedu Vucca d'aneddu, Nasu affilatu, Ocehi di stiddi Frunti quatrata E te 'ccà 'na timpulata." In French we have corresponding to this:-- "Beau front Petits yeux, Nez can can, Bouche d'argent, Menton fleuri, Chichirichi." In Scotch:-- "Chin cherry, Moo merry, Nose nappie, Ee winkie, Broo brinkie, Cock-up jinkie." In English:-- "Eye winker, Tom Tinker, Nose dropper, Mouth eater. Chin chopper." And cognate practices exist all over the globe (204. 21). _Primitive Weighing._ "Worth his weight in gold" is an expression which has behind it a long history of folk-thought. Professor Gaidoz, in his essay on _Ransom by Weight_ (236), and Haberlandt, in his paper on the _Tulâpurusha, Man-Weighing_ (248) of India, have shown to what extent has prevailed in Europe and Asia the giving of one's weight in gold or other precious substances by prisoners to their captors, in order to secure their liberty, by devotees to the church, or to some saint, as a cure for, or a preventitive of disease, or as an act of charity or of gratitude for favours received. The expression used of Belshazzar in Daniel v. 27, "Thou art weighed in the balance, and found wanting" (and the analogue in Job xxxi. 6), has been taken quite literally, and in Brittany, according to the Abbot of Soissons, there was a Chapel of the Balances, "in which persons who came to be cured miraculously, were weighed, to ascertain whether their weight diminished when prayer was made by the monks in their behalf." Brewer informs us that "Rohese, the mother of Thomas Becket, used to weigh her boy every year on his birthday, against the money, clothes, and provisions which she gave to the poor" (191.41). From Gregory of Tours we learn that Charicus, King of the Suevi, when his son was ill, "hearing of the miraculous power of the bones of St. Martin, had his son weighed against gold and silver, and sent the amount to his sepulchre and sanctuary at Tours" (236. 60). Weighing of infants is looked upon with favour in some portions of western Europe, and to the same source we may ultimately trace the modern baby's card with the weight of the newcomer properly inscribed upon it,--a fashion which bids fair to be a valuable anthropometric adjunct. "Hefting the baby" has now taken on a more scientific aspect than it had of yore. The following curious custom of the eastern Eskimo is perhaps to be mentioned here, a practice connected with their treatment of the sick. "A stone weighing three or four pounds, according to the gravity of the sickness, is placed by a matron under the pillow. Every morning she weighs it, pronouncing meanwhile words of mystery. Thus she informs herself of the state of the patient and his chances of recovery. If the stone grows constantly heavier, it is because the sick man cannot escape, and his days are numbered" (523. 39). It is a far cry from Greenland to England, but there are connecting links in respect of folk-practice. Mr. Dyer informs us that in the parish church of Wingrove, near Ailesbury, as late as 1759, a certain Mrs. Hammokes was accused of witchcraft, and her husband demanded the "trial by the church Bible." So "she was solemnly conducted to the parish church, where she was stript of all her clothes to her shift, and weighed against the great parish Bible in the presence of all her neighbours. The result was that, to the no small mortification of her accuser, she outweighed the Bible, and was triumphantly acquitted of the charge" (436. 307, 308). How often has not woman, looked upon in the light of a child, been subjected to the same practices and ceremonies! _Primitive Measurements._ The etymology and original significance of our common English words, _span_, _hand_, _foot_, _cubit_, _fathom_, and their cognates and equivalents in other languages, to say nothing of the self-explanatory _finger's breadth_, _arm's length_, _knee-high_, _ankle-deep_, etc., go back to the same rude anthropometry of prehistoric and primitive times, from which the classic peoples of antiquity obtained their canons of proportion and symmetry of the human body and its members. Among not a few primitive races it is the child rather than the man that is measured, and we there meet with a rude sort of anthropometric laboratory. From Ploss, who devotes a single paragraph to "Measurements of the Body," we learn that these crude measurements are of great importance in folk-medicine:-- "In Bohemia, the new-born child is usually measured by an old woman, who measures all the limbs with a ribbon, and compares them with one another; the hand, _e.g._, must be as long as the face. If the right relations do not subsist, prayers and various superstitious practices are resorted to in order to prevent the devil from injuring the child, and the evil spirits are driven out of the house by means of fumigation. In the case of sick children in Bohemia the measuring is resorted to as a sympathetic cure. In other parts of Germany, on the other hand, in Schleswig-Holstein, Thuringia, Oldenburg, it is thought that measuring and weighing the new-born child may interfere with its thriving and growth" (326. I. 302). Sibree states that in Madagascar, at circumcision, the child is measured and sprinkled with water (214. 6), and Ellis, in his history of that island, gives the following details of the ceremony (_History of Madagascar_, Vol. I. p. 182):-- "The children on whom the rite is to be performed are next led across the blood of the animal just killed, to which some idea of sacredness is attached. They are then placed on the west side of the house, and, as they stand erect, a man holding a light cane in his hand, measures the first child to the crown of the head, and at one stroke cuts off a piece of the cane measured to that height, having first carefully dipped the knife in the blood of the slaughtered sheep. The knife is again dipped in the blood, and the child measured to the waist, when the cane is cut to that height. He is afterwards measured to the knee with similar results. The same ceremony is performed on all the children successively. The meaning of this, if indeed any meaning can be attached to it, seems to be the symbolical removal of all evils to which the children might be exposed,--first from the head to the waist, then from the waist to the knees, and finally, from the knees to the sole of the foot." The general question of the measurement of sick persons (not especially children), and of the payment of an image or a rod of precious metal of the height of a given person, or the height of his waist, shoulders, knee, etc., of the person, in recompense for some insult or injury, has been treated of by Grimm, Gaidoz, and Haberlandt. Gaidoz remarks (236. 74): "It is well known that in Catholic countries it is customary to present the saints with votive offerings in wax, which are representative of the sicknesses for which the saints are invoked; a wax limb, or a wax eye, for instance, are representative of a sore limb or of a sore eye, the cure of which is expected from the saint. Wax bodies were offered in the same way, as we learn from a ludicrous story told by Henri Estienne, a French writer of the sixteenth century. The story is about a clever monk who made credulous parents believe he had saved their child by his prayers, and he says to the father, 'Now your son is safe, thanks to God; one hour ago I should not have thought you would have kept him alive. But do you know what you are to do? You ought to have a wax effigy of his own size made for the glory of God, and put it before the image of the holy Ambrose, at whose intercession our Lord did this favour to you.'" Even poorer people were in the habit of offering wax candles of the height or of the weight of the sick person. In 1888, M. Letourneau (299) called attention to the measurement of the neck as a test of puberty, and even of the virginity of maidens. In Brittany, "According to popular opinion, there is a close relation between the volume of the neck and puberty, sometimes even the virginity of girls. It is a common sight to see three young girls of uncertain age measure in sport the circumference of the neck of one of them with a thread. The two ends of this thread are placed between the teeth of the subject, and the endeavour is made to make the loop of the thread pass over the head. If the operation succeeds, the young girl is declared 'bonne à marier.'" MM. Hanoteau and Letourneau state that among the Kabyles of Algeria a similar measurement is made of the male sex. In Kabylia, where the attainment of the virile state brings on the necessity of paying taxes and bearing arms, families not infrequently endeavour to conceal the puberty of their young men. If such deceit is suspected, recourse is had to the test of neck-measurement. Here again, as in Brittany, if the loop formed by the thread whose two ends are held in the teeth passes over the head, the young man is declared of age, and enrolled among the citizens, whilst his family is punished by a fine. M. Manouvrier also notes that the same test is also employed to discover whether an adolescent is to be compelled to keep the fast of Rhamadan. _Measurements of Limbs and Body._ M. Mahoudeau cites from Tillaux's _Anatomie topographique,_ and MM. Perdrizet and Gaidoz in _Mélusine_ for 1893, quote from the _Secrets merveilleux de la magie naturette et cabalistique du Petit Albert_ (1743) extracts relating to this custom, which is also referred to by the Roman writers C. Valerius, Catullus, Vossius, and Scaliger. The subject is an interesting one, and merits further investigation. Ellis (42. 233) has something to say on the matter from a scientific point of view. Grimm has called attention to the very ancient custom of measuring a patient, "partly by way of cure, partly to ascertain if the malady were growing or abating." This practice is frequently mentioned in the German poems and medical books of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In one case a woman says of her husband, "I measured him till he forgot everything," and another, desirous of persuading hers that he was not of sound mind, took the measure of his length and across his head. In a Zürich Ms. of 1393, "measuring" is included among the unchristian and forbidden things of sorcery. In the region about Treves, a malady known as night-grip (_Nachtgriff_) is ascertained to be present by the following procedure: "Draw the sick man's belt about his naked body lengthwise and breadthwise, then take it off and hang it on a nail with the words 'O God, I pray thee, by the three virgins, Margarita, Maria Magdalena, and Ursula, be pleased to vouchsafe a sign upon the sick man, if he have the nightgrip or no'; then measure again, and if the belt be shorter than before, it is a sign of the said sickness." In the Liegnitz country, in 1798, we are told there was hardly a village without its _messerin_ (measuress), an old woman, whose _modus operandi_ was this: "When she is asked to say whether a person is in danger from consumption, she takes a thread and measures the patient, first from head to heel, then from tip to tip of the outspread arms; if his length be less than his breadth then he is consumptive; the less the thread will measure his arms, the farther has the disease advanced; if it reaches only to the elbow, there is no hope for him. The measuring is repeated from time to time; if the thread stretches and reaches its due length again, the danger is removed. The wise woman must never ask money for her trouble, but take what is given." In another part of Germany, "a woman is stript naked and measured with a piece of red yarn spun on a Sunday." Sembrzycki tells us that in the Elbing district, and elsewhere in that portion of Prussia, the country people are firmly possessed by the idea that a decrease in the measure of the body is the source of all sorts of maladies. With an increase of sickness the hands and feet are believed to lose more and more their just proportional relations one with another, and it is believed that one can determine how much measure is yet to be lost, how long the patient has yet to live. This belief has given rise to the proverbial phrase _das Maas verlieren_--"to lose one's measure" (462. III. 1163-5). Not upon adults alone, however, were these measurements carried out, but upon infants, children, and youths as well. Even in the New World, among the more conservative of the population of Aryan origin, these customs still nourish, as we learn from comparatively recent descriptions of trustworthy investigators. Professor J. Howard Gore, in the course of an interesting article on "The Go-Backs," belief in which is current among the dwellers in the mountain regions of the State of Virginia, tells us that when some one has suggested that "the baby has the 'go-backs,'" the following process is gone through: "The mother then must go alone with the babe to some old lady duly instructed in the art or science of curing this blighting disease. She, taking the infant, divests it of its clothing and places it on its back. Then, with a yarn string, she measures its length or height from the crown of the head to the sole of the heel, cutting off a piece which exactly represents this length. This she applies to the foot, measuring off length by length, to see if the piece of yarn contains the length of the foot an exact number of times. This operation is watched by the mother with the greatest anxiety, for on this coincidence of measure depends the child's weal or woe. If the length of the string is an exact multiple of the length of the foot, nothing is wrong, but if there is a remainder, however small, the baby has the go-backs, and the extent of the malady is proportional to this remainder. Of course in this measuring, the elasticity of the yarn is not regarded, nor repetitions tried as a test of accuracy" (244. 108). Moreover, "the string with which the determination was made must be hung on the hinge of a gate on the premises of the infant's parents, and as the string by gradual decay passes away, so passes away the 'go-backs.' But if the string should be lost, the ailment will linger until a new test is made and the string once more hung out to decay. Sometimes the cure is hastened by fixing the string so that wear will come upon it." Professor Gore aptly refers to the Latin proverb _ex pede Herculem_, which arose from the calculation of Pythagoras, who from the _stadium_ of 6000 feet laid out by Hercules for the Olympian games, by using his own foot as the unit, obtained the length of the foot of the mighty hero, whence he also deduced his height. We are not told, however, as the author remarks, whether or not Hercules had the "go-backs." Among the white settlers of the Alleghanies between southwestern Georgia and the Pennsylvania line, according to Mr. J. Hampden Porter, the following custom is in vogue: "Measuring an infant, whose growth has been arrested, with an elastic cord that requires to be stretched in order to equal the child's length, will set it right again. If the spell be a wasting one, take three strings of similar or unlike colours, tie them to the front door or gate in such a manner that whenever either are opened there is some wear and tear of the cords. As use begins to tell upon them, vigour will recommence" (480. VII. 116). Similar practices are reported from Central Europe by Sartori (392 (1895). 88), whose article deals with the folk-lore of counting, weighing, and measuring. _Tests of Physical Efficiency._ That certain rude tests of physical efficiency, bodily strength, and power of endurance have been and are in use among primitive peoples, especially at the birth of children, or soon after, or just before, at, or after, puberty, is a well-known fact, further testified to by the occurrence of these practices in folk-tales and fairy-stories. Lifting stones, jumping over obstacles, throwing stones, spears, and the like, crawling or creeping through holes in stones, rocks, or trees, have all been in vogue, and some of them survive even to-day in England and in other parts of Europe as popular tests of puberty and virginity. Mr. Dyer, in his _Church Lore Gleanings_, mentions the "louping," or "petting" stone at Belford, in Northumberland (England), a stone "placed in the path outside the church porch, over which the bridal pair with their attendants must leap"--the belief is that "the bride must leave all her pets and humours behind her when she crosses it." At High-Coquetdale, according to Mr. Henderson, in 1868, a bride was made to jump over a stick held by two groomsmen at the church door (436. 125). Another very curious practice is connected with St. Wilfrid's "needle" at Ripon Cathedral--said to be an imitation of the Basilican transenna. Through this passage maidens who were accused of unchastity crept in order to prove their innocence. If they could not pass through, their guilt was presumed. It is also believed that "poor palsied folk crept through in the expectation of being healed." At Boxley Church in Kent, there was a "small figure of St. Rumbold, which only those could lift who had never sinned in thought or deed" (436. 312, 313). At a marriage among the Nootka Indians of Vancouver Island, the groom's party essay feats like these: "Heavy weights are lifted; they try who is the best jumper. A blanket with a hole in the centre is hung up, and men walk up to it blindfolded from a distance of about twenty steps. When they get near it they must point with their fingers towards the blanket, and try to hit the hole. They also climb a pole, on top of which an eagle's nest, or something representing an eagle's nest, is placed. The winner of each game receives a number of blankets from the girl's father. When the games are at an end, the groom's father distributes blankets among the other party" (404. 43). This reminds us of the games at picnics and social gatherings of our own people. In the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for January, 1895, S. O. Addy, in an article entitled "English Surnames and Heredity," points out how the etymologies give us some indications of the physical characteristics of the persons on whom the names were conferred. In primitive times and among the lower races names are even of more importance in this respect. Clark says: "I have seen a baby not two days old snugly tied up in one of these little sacks; the rope tied to the pommel of the saddle, the sack hanging down alongside of the pony, and mother and child comfortably jogging along, making a good day's march in bitter cold winter weather, easily keeping up with a column of cavalry which was after hostile Indians. After being carefully and firmly tied in the cradle, the child, as a rule, is only taken out to be cleaned in the morning, and again in the evening just before the inmates of a lodge go to sleep; sometimes also in the middle of the day, but on the march only morning and evening" (420. 57). In his account of the habits of the Tarahumari Indians, Lumholtz observes: "Heat never seems to trouble them. I have seen young babies sleeping with uncovered heads on the backs of their mothers, exposed to the fierce heat of the summer sun." The same writer tells us that once he pulled six hairs at once from a sleeping child, "without causing the least disturbance," and only when twenty-three had been extracted at once did the child take notice, and then only scratched its head and slept on (107. 297). Colonel Dodge notes the following practice in vogue among the wild Indians of the West:-- "While the child, either boy or girl, is very young, the mother has entire charge, control, and management of it. It is soon taught not to cry by a very summary process. When it attempts to 'set up a yell,' the mother covers its mouth with the palm of her hand, grasps its nose between her thumb and forefinger, and holds on until the little one is nearly suffocated. It is then let go, to be seized and smothered again at the first attempt to cry. The baby very soon comprehends that silence is the best policy" (432.187). Of the Indians of Lower California, who learn to stand and walk before they are a year old, we are told on the authority of the missionary Baegert: "When they are born they are cradled in the shell of a turtle or on the ground. As soon as the child is a few months old, the mother places it perfectly naked astraddle on her shoulders, its legs hanging down on both sides in front. In this guise the mother roves about all day, exposing her helpless charge to the hot rays of the sun and the chilly winds that sweep over the inhospitable country" (306. 185). _Sleep._ Curious indeed are some of the methods in use among primitive peoples to induce sleep. According to Mr. Fraser, the natives of a village near the banks of the Girree, in the Himalayan region of India, had the following custom (_Quart. Rev._ XXIV. 109):-- "The mother, seizing the infant with both arms and aided by the knees, gives it a violent whirling motion, that would seem rather calculated to shake the child in pieces than to produce the effect of soft slumber; but the result was unerring, and in a few seconds the child was fast asleep." Somewhat akin to this procedure is the practice our modern mothers and nurses have of swinging the baby through a sort of semicircle in their arms, accompanying it with the familiar song,-- "This way, And that way," etc. This song and action, their dolls doing duty as children, have been introduced into the kindergarten, and even figure now in "doll-drills" on the stage, and at church festivals and society entertainments. Of the same village the author goes on to say:-- "Several straw sheds are constructed on a bank, above which a cold clear stream is led to water their fields, and a small portion of this, probably of three fingers' breadth, is brought into the shed by a hollow stick or piece of bark, and falls from this spout into a small drain, which carries it off about two feet below. The women bring their children to these huts in the heat of the day, and having lulled them to sleep and wrapt their bodies and feet warm in a blanket, they place them on a small bench or tray horizontally, in such a way that the water shall fall upon the crown of the head, just keeping the whole top wet with its stream. We saw two under this operation, and several others came in while we remained, to place their children in a similar way. Males and females are equally used thus, and their sleep seemed sound and unruffled." _"Heroic Treatment."_ The Andamanese baby "within a few hours of its birth has its head shaved and painted with _kòvob_--(an ochre-mixture), while its diminutive face and body are adorned with a design in _tiela-og_--(white clay); this latter, as may be supposed, is soon obliterated, and requires therefore to be constantly renewed." We are further informed that before shaving an infant, "the mother usually moistens the head with milk which she presses from her breast," while with older children and adults water serves for this purpose (498. 114). The "heroic treatment," meted out by primitive peoples to children, as they approach puberty, has been discussed in detail by Ploss, Kulischer, Daniels. Religion and the desire to attract the affection or attention of the other sex seem to lie very close to the fundamental reasons for many of these practices, as Westermarck points out in his chapter on the "Means of Attraction." (166. 165-212). A divine origin is often ascribed to these strange mutilations. "The Australian Dieyerie, on being asked why he knocks out two front teeth of the upper jaw of his children, can answer only that, when they were created, the Muranaura, a good spirit, thus disfigured the first child, and, pleased at the sight, commanded that the like should be done to every male or female child for ever after. The Pelew Islanders believe that the perforation of the septum of the nose is necessary for winning eternal bliss; and the Nicaraguans say that their ancestors were instructed by the gods to flatten their children's heads. Again, in Fiji it is supposed that the custom of tattooing is in conformity with the appointment of the god Dengei, and that its neglect is punished after death. A similar idea prevails among the Kingsmill Islanders and Ainos; and the Greenlanders formerly believed that the heads of those girls who had not been deformed by long stitches made with a needle and black thread between the eyes, on the forehead, and upon the chin, would be turned into train tubs and placed under the lamps in heaven, in the land of souls" (165. 170, 171). Were all the details of the fairy-tales true, which abound in every land, the cruelty meted out to the child suspected of being a changeling would surpass human belief. Hartland enumerates the following procedures as having been in use, according to legend, to determine the justice of the suspicion: Flinging the child on a dung-heap; putting in the oven; holding a red-hot shovel before the child's face; heating a poker red-hot to mark a cross on its forehead; heating the tongs red-hot to seize it by the nose; throwing on, or into, the fire; suspending over the fire in a pot; throwing the child naked on the glowing embers at midnight; throwing into lake, river, or sea (258. 120-123). These and many more figure in story, and not a few of them seem to have been actually practised upon the helpless creatures, who, like the heathen, were not supposed to call for pity or love. Mr. Hartland cites a case of actual attempt to treat a supposed changeling in a summary manner, which occurred no later than May 17,1884, in the town of Clonmel, Ireland. In the absence of the mother of a three-year-old child (fancied by the neighbours to be a changeling), two women "entered her house and placed the child naked on a hot shovel, 'under the impression that it would break the charm,'"--the only result being, of course, that the infant was very severely burned (258. 121). On the other hand, children of true Christian origin, infants who afterwards become saints, are subject to all sorts of torment at the hands of Satan and his angels, at times, but come forth, like the "children" of the fiery furnace in the time of Daniel, in imitation of whose story many of the hagiological legends have doubtless been put forth, unscathed from fire, boiling water, roaring torrents, and other perilous or deadly situations (191. 9,122). CHAPTER VII. THE BRIGHT SIDE OF CHILD-LIFE: PARENTAL AFFECTION. These are my jewels.--_Cornelia (mother of the Gracchi)_. A simple child That lightly draws its breath, And feels its life in every limb, What should it know of death?--_Wordsworth_. Children always turn towards the light.--_Hare_. That I could bask in Childhood's sun And dance o'er Childhood's roses!--_Praed_. Grief fills the room up of my absent child.--_Shakespeare_. _Parental Love_. In his essay on _The Pleasures of Home_, Sir John Lubbock makes the following statement (494. 102):-- "In the _Origin of Civilization_, I have given many cases showing how small a part family affection plays in savage life. Here I will only mention one case in illustration. The Algonquin (North America) language contained no word for 'to love,' so that when the missionaries translated the Bible into it they were obliged to invent one. What a life, and what a language, without love!" How unfortunately inaccurate, how entirely unjustifiable, such a declaration is, may be seen from the study of the words for love in two of the Algonkian dialects,--Cree and Chippeway,--which Dr. Brinton has made in one of his essays, _The Conception of Love in some American Languages_. Let us quote the _ipsissima verba_ (411. 415):-- (1) "In both of them the ordinary words for love and friendship are derived from the same monosyllabic root, _sak_. On this, according to the inflectional laws of the dialects, are built up the terms for the love of man to woman, a lover, love in the abstract, a friend, friendship, and the like. It is also occasionally used by the missionaries for the love of man to God and of God to man." (2) "The Cree has several words which are confined to parental and filial love, and to that which the gods have for men." (3) "In the Chippeway there is a series of expressions for family love and friendship which in their origin carry us back to the same psychological process which developed the Latin _amare_ from the Sanscrit _sam_." (4) "The highest form of love, however, that which embraces all men and all beings, that whose conception is conveyed in the Greek [Greek: _agapæ_], we find expressed in both the dialects by derivatives from a root different from any I have mentioned. It is in its dialectic forms _kis_, _keche_, or _kiji_, and in its origin it is an intensive interjectional expression of pleasure, indicative of what gives joy. Concretely, it signifies what is completed, permanent, powerful, perfected, perfect. As friendship and love yield the most exalted pleasure, from this root the natives drew a fund of words to express fondness, attachment, hospitality, charity; and from the same worthy source they selected that adjective [_kije, kise_], which they applied to the greatest and most benevolent divinity." Surely this people cannot be charged with a lack of words for love, whose language enables them so well to express its every shade of meaning. Nay, they have even seen from afar that "God is Love," as their concept of Michabo tells us they had already perceived that He was "Light." _Motherhood and Fatherhood_. The nobility and the sanctity of motherhood have found recognition among the most primitive of human races. A Mussulman legend of Adam and Eve represents the angel Gabriel as saying to the mother of mankind after the expulsion from Paradise: "Thou shalt be rewarded for all the pains of motherhood, and the death of a woman in child-bed shall be accounted as martyrdom" (547. 38). The natives of the Highlands of Borneo hold that to a special hereafter, known as "Long Julan," go those who have suffered a violent death (been killed in battle, or by the falling of a tree, or some like accident), and women who die in child-birth; which latter become the wives of those who have died in battle. In this Paradise everybody is rich, with no need for labour, as all wants are supplied without work (475. 199). Somewhat similar beliefs prevailed in ancient Mexico and among the Eskimo. Even so with the father. Zoroaster said in the book of the law: "I name the married before the unmarried, him who has a household before him who has none, the father of a family before him who is childless" (125. I. 108). Dr. Winternitz observes of the Jews: "To possess children was always the greatest good-fortune that could befall a Jew. It was deemed the duty of every man to beget a son; the Rabbis, indeed, considered a childless man as dead. To the Cabbalists of the Middle Ages, the man who left no posterity behind him seemed one who had not fulfilled his mission in this world, and they believed that he had to return once more to earth and complete it" (385. 5). Ploss (125. I. 108) and Lallemand (286. 21) speak in like terms of this children-loving people. The Talmud ranks among the dead "the poor, the leprous, the blind, and those who have no children," and the wives of the patriarchs of old cheerfully adopted as their own the children born to their husband by slave or concubine. To be the father of a large family, the king of a numerous people, was the ideal of the true Israelite. So, also, was it in India and China. Ploss and Haberlandt have a good deal to say of the ridicule lavished upon old maids and bachelors among the various peoples and races, and Rink has recorded not a few tales on this head from the various tribes of the Eskimo--in these stories, which are of a more or less trifling and _outré_ character, bachelors are unmercifully derided (525. 465). With the Chippeways, also, the bachelor is a butt for wit and sarcasm. A tale of the Mississagas of Skugog represents a bachelor as "having gone off to a certain spot and built a lot of little 'camps.' He built fires, etc., and passed his time trying to make people believe he was not alone. He used to laugh and talk, and pretend that he had people living there." Even the culture-heroes Gluskap and Näniboju are derided in some of the tales for not being married (166. 376). According to Barbosa (67. 161), a writer of the early part of the sixteenth century, the Nairs, a Dravidian people of the Malabar coast (523. 159), believed that "a maiden who refused to marry and remained a virgin would be shut out of Paradise." The Fijians excluded from Paradise all bachelors; they were smashed to pieces by the god Nangganangga (166. 137). In the early chronicles and mythic lore of many peoples there are tales of childless couples, who, in their quaint fashion, praying to the gods, have been blest with the desired offspring. There is, however, no story more pathetic, or more touching, than the Russian folk-tale cited by Ralston, in which we read concerning an old childless couple (520. 176): "At last the husband went into the forest, felled wood, and made a cradle. Into this his wife laid one of the logs he had cut, and began swinging it, crooning the while a tune beginning:-- 'Swing, blockie dear, swing.' After a little time, behold! the block already had legs. The old woman rejoiced greatly, and began swinging anew, and went on swinging until the block became a babe." The rude prayers and uncouth aspirations of barbarous and savage peoples, these crude ideas of the uncivilized races of men, when sounded in their deepest depths, are the folk-expression of the sacredness of the complete family, the forerunners of the poet's prayer:-- "Seigneur! préservez-moi, préservez ceux que j'aime, Frères, parents, amis, et ennemis même Dans le mal triomphants, De jamais voir, Seigneur! l'été sans fleurs vermeilles, La cage sans oiseaux, la ruche sans abeilles, La maison sans enfants." The affection of the ancient Egyptians for their children is noted by Erman. The child is called "mine," "the only one," and is "loved as the eyes of its parents"; it is their "beauty," or "wealth." The son is the "fair-come" or "welcome"; at his birth "wealth comes." At the birth of a girl it is said "beauty comes," and she is called "the lady of her father" (441. 216-230). Interesting details of Egyptian child-life and education may be read in the recently edited text of Amélineau (179), where many maxims of conduct and behaviour are given. Indeed, in the naming of children we have some evidence of motherly and fatherly affection, some indication of the gentle ennobling influence of this emotion over language and linguistic expression. True is it all over the world:-- Liebe Kinder haben viele Namen. [Dear children have many names.] _The Dead Child_. Parental affection is nowhere more strongly brought out than in the lamentations for the dead among some of the lowest tribes of Californian Indians. Of the Yokaia, Mr. Powers tells us (519. 166):-- "It is their custom to 'feed the spirits of the dead' for the space of one year, by going daily to places which they were accustomed to frequent while living, where they sprinkle piñole upon the ground. A Yokaia mother who has lost her babe goes every day for a year to some place where her little one played while alive, or to the spot where its body was burned, and milks her breasts into the air. This is accompanied by plaintive mourning and weeping and piteous calling upon her little one to return, and sometimes she sings a hoarse and melancholy chant, and dances with a wild, ecstatic swaying of the body." Of the Miwok the same authority says:-- "The squaws wander off into the forest, wringing their arms piteously, beating the air, with eyes upturned, and adjuring the departed one, whom they tenderly call 'dear child,' or 'dear cousin' (whether a relative or not), to return." Of the Niskwaili Indians, of the State of Washington, Dr. Gibbs observes (457. 205):-- "They go out alone to some place a little distant from the lodge or camp, and in a loud, sobbing voice, repeat a sort of stereotyped formula, as, for instance, a mother on the loss of her child:-- 'Ah seahb! shed-da bud-dah ah-ta-bud! ad-de-dah! Ah chief my child dead! alas!' When in dreams they see any of their deceased friends this lamentation is renewed." Very beautiful and touching in the extreme is the conduct of the Kabinapek of California:-- "A peculiarity of this tribe is the intense sorrow with which they mourn for their children when dead. Their grief is immeasurable. They not only burn up everything that the baby ever touched, but everything that they possess, so that they absolutely begin life over again--naked as they were born, without an article of property left" (519. 206). Besides the custom of "feeding the spirits of the dead," just noticed, there exists also among certain of the Californian Indians the practice of "whispering a message into the ear of the dead." Mr. Powers has preserved for us the following most beautiful speech, which, he tells us, was whispered into the ear of a child by a woman of the Karok ere the first shovelful of earth was cast upon it (519. 34): "O, darling, my dear one, good-bye! Never more shall your little hands softly clasp these old withered cheeks, and your pretty feet shall print the moist earth around my cabin never more. You are going on a long journey in the spirit-land, and you must go alone, for none of us can go with you. Listen then to the words which I speak to you and heed them well, for I speak the truth. In the spirit-land there are two roads. One of them is a path of roses, and it leads to the Happy Western Land beyond the great water, where you shall see your dear mother. The other is a path strewn with thorns and briars, and leads, I know not whither, to an evil and dark land, full of deadly serpents, where you wander forever. O, dear child, choose you the path of roses, which leads to the Happy Western Land, a fair and sunny land, beautiful as the morning. And may the great Kareya [the Christ of these aborigines] help you to walk in it to the end, for your little tender feet must walk alone. O, darling, my dear one, good-bye!" This whispering to the dead is found in other parts of the world. Mr. Hose, describing the funeral of a boy, which he witnessed in Borneo, says (475. 198):-- "As the lid of the coffin was being closed, an old man came out on the verandah of the house with a large gong (Tetawak) and solemnly beat it for several seconds. The chief, who was sitting near, informed me that this was done always before closing the lid, that the relations of the deceased might know that the spirit was coming to join them; and upon his arrival in Apo Leggan [Hades] they would probably greet him in such terms as these: 'O grandchild, it was for you the gong was beating, which we heard just now; what have you brought? How are they all up above? Have they sent any messages?'" The new arrival then delivers the messages entrusted to him, and gives the cigarettes--which, rolled up in a banana-leaf, have been placed in his hand--as proof of the truth of what he says. These cigarettes retain the smell of the hand that made them, which the dead relations are thought to be able to recognize. _Motherhood and Infanticide_. The intimate relationship recognized as existing between the infant and its mother has been among many primitive peoples a frequent cause of infanticide, or has been held at least to excuse and justify that crime. Of the natives of Ashanti, Ellis says:-- "Should the mother die in childbirth, and the child itself be born alive, it is customary to bury it with the mother.... The idea seems to be that the child belongs to the mother, and is sent to accompany her to _Srahmanadzi_ [ghost-land], so that her _srahman_ [ghost] may not grieve for it" (438. 234). Post states that in Unyóro, when the mother dies in childbirth, the infant is killed; among the Hottentots it was exposed (if the mother died during the time of suckling, the child was buried alive with her); among the Damara, "when poor women die and leave children behind them, they are often buried with the mother" (127. I. 287). According to Collins and Barrington, among certain native tribes of Australia, "when the mother of a suckling dies, if no adoptive parents can be found, the child is placed alive in the arms of the corpse and buried together with it" (125. II. 589). Of the Banians of Bombay, Niebuhr tells us that children under eighteen months old are buried when the mother dies, the corpse of the latter being burned at ebb tide on the shore of the sea, so that the next tide may wash away the ashes (125. II. 581). In certain parts of Borneo: "If a mother died in childbirth, it was the former practice to strap the living babe to its dead mother, and bury them both, together. 'Why should it live?' say they. 'It has been the death of its mother; now she is gone, who will suckle it?'" (481 (1893). 133). In certain parts of Australia, "children who have caused their mother great pain in birth are put to death" (127. I. 288), and among the Sakalavas of Madagascar, the child of a woman dying in childbed is buried alive with her, the reason given being "that the child may thus be punished for causing the death of its mother" (125. II. 590). As has been noted elsewhere, not a few primitive peoples have considered that death, in consequence of giving birth to a child, gained for the mother entrance into Paradise. But with some more or less barbarous tribes quite a different idea prevails. Among the Ewe negroes of the slave coast of West Africa, women dying in childbirth become blood-seeking demons; so also in certain parts of Borneo, and on the Sumatran island of Nias, where they torment the living, plague women who are with child, and kill the embryo in the womb, thus causing abortion; in Java, they make women in labour crazy; in Amboina, the Uliase and Kei Islands, and Gilolo, they become evil spirits, torturing women in labour, and seeking to prevent their successful delivery; in Gilolo, the Kei group, and Celebes, they even torment men, seeking to emasculate them, in revenge for the misfortune which has overtaken them (397.19). Of the Doracho Indians of Central America, the following statement is made: "When a mother, who is still suckling her child, dies, the latter is placed alive upon her breast and burned with her, so that in the future life she may continue to suckle it with her own milk" (125. II. 589). Powers remarks concerning the Korusi (Patwin) Indians of California (519. 222): "When a woman died, leaving her infant very young, the friends shook it to death in a skin or blanket. This was done even with a half-breed child." Of the Nishinam Indians, the same authority informs us: "When a mother dies, leaving a very young infant, custom allows the relatives to destroy it. This is generally done by the grandmother, aunt, or other near relative, who holds the poor innocent in her arms, and, while it is seeking the maternal fountain, presses it to her breast until it is smothered. We must not judge them too harshly for this. They knew nothing of bottle nurture, patent nipples, or any kind of milk whatever, other than the human" (519. 328). Among the Wintun, also, young infants are known to have been buried when the mother had died shortly after confinement (519. 232). The Eskimo, Letourneau informs us, were wont to bury the little child with its dead mother, for they believed that unless this were done, the mother herself would call from _Killo_, the other world, for the child she had borne (100. 147, 148). _The Dead Mother._ To none of the saintly dead, to none of our race who have entered upon the life beyond the grave, is it more meet to pray than to the mother; folk-faith is strong in her power to aid and bless those left behind on earth. That sympathetic relation existing between mother and child when both are living, is often believed to exist when one has departed into the other world. By the name _wa-hdé ca-pi_, the Dakota Indians call the feeling the (living) mother has for her absent (living) child, and they assert that "mothers feel peculiar pain in their breasts when anything of importance happens to their absent children, or when about to hear from them. This feeling is regarded as an omen." That the mother, after death, should feel the same longing, and should return to help or to nourish her child, is an idea common to the folk-belief of many lands, as Ploss (125. II. 589) and Zmigrodzki have noted. "Amid the song of the angels," says Zmigrodzki (174. 142), "the plaint of her child on earth reaches the mother's ear, and pierces her heart like a knife. Descend to earth she must and does." In Brittany she is said to go to God Himself and obtain permission to visit earth. Her flight will be all the easier, if, before burial, her relatives have loosed her hair. In various parts of Germany and Switzerland, the belief is that for six weeks the dead mother will come at night to suckle her child, and a pair of slippers or shoes are always put into the coffin with the corpse, for the mother has to travel over thistles, thorns, and sharp stones to reach her child. Widespread over Europe is this belief in the return of the mother, who has died in giving life to her little one. Till cock-crow in the morning she may suckle it, wash it, fondle it; the doors open of themselves for her. If the child is being well treated by its relatives, the mother rejoices, and soon departs; but if it has been neglected, she attends to it, and waits till the last moment, making audible her unwillingness to depart. If the neglect continues, the mother descends to earth once more, and, taking the child with her, returns to heaven for good. And when the mother with her offspring approaches the celestial gates, they fly wide open to receive them. Never, in the folk-faith, was entrance readier granted, never was Milton's concept more completely realized, when "Heaven open'd wide Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound, On golden hinges moving." In a modern Greek folk-song three youths plot to escape from Hades, and a young mother, eager to return to earth to suckle her infant child, persuades them to allow her to accompany them. Charon, however, suddenly appears upon the scene and seizes them just as they are about to flee. The beautiful young woman then appeals to him: "Let go of my hair, Charon, and take me by the hand. If thou wilt but give my child to drink, I will never try to escape from thee again" (125. II. 589). The watchful solicitude of the mother in heaven over her children on earth appears also in the Basque country (505. 73), and Ralston, noting its occurrence in Russia, observes (520. 265):-- "Appeals for aid to a dead parent are of frequent occurrence in the songs still sung by the Russian peasantry at funerals or over graves; especially in those in which orphans express their grief, calling upon the grave to open, and the dead to appear and listen and help. So in the Indian story of Punchkin, the seven hungry, stepmother-persecuted princesses go out every day and sit by their dead mother's tomb, and cry, and say, 'Oh, mother, mother, cannot you see your poor children, how unhappy we are,' etc., until a tree grows up out of the grave laden with fruits for their relief. So, in the German tale, Cinderella is aided by the white bird, which dwells in the hazel-tree growing out of her mother's grave." Crude and savage, but born of a like faith in the power of the dead mother, is the inhuman practice of the people of the Congo, where, it is said, "the son often kills his mother, in order to secure the assistance of her soul, now a formidable spirit" (388. 81). Heavy upon her offspring weighs the curse of a mother. Ralston, speaking of the Russian folk-tales, says (520. 363):-- "Great stress is laid in the skazkas and legends upon the terrible power of a parent's curse. The 'hasty word' of a father or a mother will condemn even an innocent child to slavery among devils, and, when it has once been uttered, it is irrevocable," The same authority states, however, that "infants which have been cursed by their mothers before their birth, or which are suffocated during their sleep, or which die from any causes unchristened or christened by a drunken priest, become the prey of demons," and in order to rescue the soul of such a babe from the powers of evil "its mother must spend three nights in a church, standing within a circle traced by the hand of a priest; when the cocks crow on the third morning the demons will give her back her dead child." _Fatherly Affection._ That the father, as well as the mother, feels for his child after death, and appears to him, is an idea found in fairy-story and legend, but nowhere so sweetly expressed as in the beautiful Italian belief that "the kind, dear spirits of the dead relatives and parents come out of the tombs to bring presents to the children of the family,--whatever their little hearts most desire." The proverb,--common at Aci,--_Veni mè patri?--Appressu_, "Is my father coming?--By and by," used "when an expected friend makes himself long waited for," is said to have the following origin:-- "There was once a little orphan boy, who, in his anxiety to see his dead father once again, went out into the night when the kind spirits walk, and, in spite of all the fearful beating of his little heart, asked of every one whom he met: _Veni mè patri?_ and each one answered: _Appressu_. As he had the courage to hold out to the end, he finally had the consolation of seeing his father and having from him caresses and sweetmeats" (449. 327). Rev. Mr. Grill speaks highly of the affection for children of the Polynesians. Following is the translation of a song composed and sung by Rakoia, a warrior and chief of Mangaia, in the Hervey Archipelago, on the death of his eldest daughter Enuataurere, by drowning, at the age of fifteen (459. 32):-- "My first-born; where art thou? Oh that my wild grief for thee, Pet daughter, could be assuaged! Snatched away in time of peace. Thy delight was to swim, Thy head encircled with flowers, Interwoven with fragrant laurel And the spotted-leaved jessamine. Whither is my pet gone-- She who absorbed all my love-- She whom I had hoped To fill with ancestral wisdom? Red and yellow pandanus drupes Were sought out in thy morning rambles, Nor was the sweet-scented myrtle forgotten. Sometimes thou didst seek out Fugitives perishing in rocks and caves. Perchance one said to thee, 'Be mine, be mine, forever; For my love to thee is great.' Happy the parent of such a child! Alas for Enuataurere! Alas for Enuataurere! Thou wert lovely as a fairy! A husband for Enuataurere! Each envious youth exclaims: 'Would that she were mine!' Enuataurere now trips o'er the ruddy ocean. Thy path is the foaming crest of the billow. Weep for Enuataurere-- For Enuataurere." This song, though, published in 1892, seems to have been composed about the year 1815, at a _fête_ in honour of the deceased. Mr. Gill justly calls attention to the beauty of the last stanza but one, where "the spirit of the girl is believed to follow the sun, tripping lightly over the crest of the billows, and sinking with the sun into the underworld (Avaiki), the home of disembodied spirits." Among others of the lower races of men, we find the father, expressing his grief at the loss of a child, as tenderly and as sincerely as, if less poetically than, the Polynesian chief, though often the daughter is not so well honoured in death as is the son. Our American Indian tribes furnish not a few instances of such affectionate lamentation. Much too little has been made of the bright side of child-life among the lower races. But from even the most primitive of tribes all traces of the golden age of childhood are not absent. Powers, speaking of the Yurok Indians of California, notes "the happy cackle of brown babies tumbling on their heads with the puppies" (519. 51), and of the Wintun, in the wild-clover season, "their little ones frolicked and tumbled on their heads in the soft sunshine, or cropped the clover on all-fours like a tender calf" (519. 231). Of the Pawnee Indians, Irving says (478. 214): "In the farther part of the building about a dozen naked children, with faces almost hid by their tangled hair, were rolling and wrestling upon the floor, occasionally causing the lodge to re-echo with their childish glee." Mr. im Thurn, while among the Indians of Guiana, had his attention "especially attracted by one merry little fellow of about five years old, whom I first saw squatting, as on the top of a hill, on top of a turtle-shell twice as big as himself, with his knees drawn up to his chin, and solemnly smoking a long bark cigarette" (477. 39). Of the wild Indians of the West, Colonel Dodge tells us: "The little children are much petted and spoiled; tumbling and climbing, unreproved, over the father and his visitors in the lodge, and never seem to be an annoyance or in the way" (432. 189). Mr. MacCauley, who visited the Seminole Indians of Florida, says: "I remember seeing, one day, one jolly little fellow, lolling and rollicking on his mother's back, kicking her and tugging away at the strings of beads which hung temptingly between her shoulders, while the mother, hand-free, bore on one shoulder a log, which, a moment afterwards, still keeping her baby on her back as she did so, she chopped into small wood for the camp-fire." (496. 498). There is a Zuñi story of a young maiden, "who, strolling along, saw a beautiful little baby boy bathing in the waters of a spring; she was so pleased with his beauty that she took him home, and told her mother that she had found a lovely little boy" (358. 544). Unfortunately, it turned out to be a serpent in the end. _Kissing_. As Darwin and other authorities have remarked, there are races of men upon the face of the earth, in America, in Africa, in Asia, and in the Island world, who, when first seen of white discoverers, knew not what it meant to kiss (499. 139). The following statement will serve for others than the people to whom it refers: "The only kiss of which the Annamite woman is cognizant is to place her nose against the man's cheek, and to rub it gently up and down, with a kind of canine sniff." Mantegazza tells us that Raden-Saleh, a "noble and intelligent" Javanese painter, told him that, "like all Malays, he considered there was more tenderness in the contact of the noses than of the lips," and even the Japanese, the English of the extreme Orient, were once ignorant of the art of kissing (499. 139). Great indeed is the gulf between the Javanese artist and the American, Benjamin West, who said: "A kiss from my mother made me a painter." To a kiss from the Virgin Mother of Christ, legend says, St. Chrysostom owed his "golden mouth." The story runs thus: "St. Chrysostom was a dull boy at school, and so disturbed was he by the ridicule of his fellows, that he went into a church to pray for help to the Virgin. A voice came from the image: 'Kiss me on the mouth, and thou shalt be endowed with all learning.' He did this, and when he returned to his schoolfellows they saw a golden circle about his mouth, and his eloquence and brilliancy astounded them" (347. 621). Among the natives of the Andaman Islands, Mr. Man informs us, "Kisses are considered indicative of affection, but are only bestowed upon infants" (498. 79). _Tears_. "Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depths of some divine despair, Rise in the heart and gather to the eyes, In looking at the happy autumn fields, And thinking of the days that are no more." Thus sang the great English laureate, and to the simple folk--the treasure-keepers of the lore of the ages--his words mean much. Pliny, the Elder, in his _Natural History_, makes this statement: "Man alone at the very moment of his birth, cast naked upon the naked earth, does she [Nature] abandon to cries and lamentations;" the writer of the _Wisdom of Solomon_, in the Apocrypha, expresses himself in like manner: "When I was born, I drew in the common air, and fell upon the earth, which is of like nature, and the first voice I uttered was crying, as all others do." Burton, in his _Anatomy of Melancholy_, bluntly resumes both: "He is born naked, and falls a-whining at the first." The Spaniards have a proverb, brusque and cynical:-- "Des que naeí lloré, y cada dia nace porqué. [I wept as soon as I was born, and every day explains why.]" A quaint legend of the Jewish Rabbis, however, accounts for children's tears in this fashion:-- "Beside the child unborn stand two angels, who not only teach it the whole Tora [the traditional interpretation of the Mosaic law], but also let it see all the joys of Paradise and all the torments of Hell. But, since it may not be that a child should come into the world endowed with such knowledge, ere it is born into the life of men an angel strikes it on the upper lip, and all wisdom vanishes. The dimple on the upper lip is the mark of the stroke, and this is why new-born babes cry and weep" (385. 6). Curiously enough, as if to emphasize the relativity of folk-explanations, a Mussulman legend states that it is "the touch of Satan" that renders the child "susceptible of sin from its birth," and that is the reason why "all children cry aloud when they are born" (547. 249). Henderson tells us that in the north and south of England "nurses think it lucky for the child to cry at its baptism; they say that otherwise the baby shows that it is too good to live." But there are those also who believe that "this cry betokens the pangs of the new birth," while others hold that it is "the voice of the Evil Spirit as he is driven out by the baptismal water" (469. 16). Among the untaught peasantry of Sicily, the sweet story goes that "Mary sends an angel from Heaven one day every week to play with the souls of the unbaptized children [in hell]; and when he goes away, he takes with him, in a golden chalice, all the tears which the little innocents have shed all through the week, and pours them into the sea, where they become pearls" (449. 326). Here again we have a borrowing from an older myth. An Eastern legend has it that when Eden was lost, Eve, the mother of all men, wept bitterly, and "her tears, which flowed into the ocean, were changed into costly pearls, while those which fell on the earth brought forth all beautiful flowers" (547. 34). In the classic myth, the pearl is said to have been born of the tears of Venus, just as a Greek legend makes _ælektron_ come from the tears of the sisters of Phaëthon, the daughters of the sun, and Teutonic story turns the tears of the goddess Freyja into drops of gold (462. III. 1218). In the _Kalevala_ we read how, after the wonderful harping of Wäinämöinen, the great Finnish hero, which enchanted beasts, birds, and even fishes, was over, the musician shed tears of gratitude, and these, trickling down his body and through his many garments, were transmuted into pearls of the sea. Shakespeare, in _King Henry V_., makes Exeter say to the King,-- "But all my mother came into mine eyes, And gave me up to tears,"-- and the tears of the mother-god figures in the folk-lore of many lands. The vervain, or verbena, was known as the "Tears of Isis," as well as the "Tears of Juno,"--a name given also to an East Indian grass (_Coix lacryma_). The lily of the valley, in various parts of Europe, is called "The Virgin's Tears," "Tears of Our Lady," "Tears of St. Mary." Zmigrodzki notes the following belief as current in Germany: "If the mother weeps too much, her dead child comes to her at night, naked and trembling, with its little shirt in its hand, and says: 'Ah, dearest mother, do not weep! See! I have no rest in the grave; I cannot put on my little shirt, it is all wet with your tears.'" In Cracow, the common saying is, "God forbid that the tears of the mother should fall upon the corpse of her child." In Brittany the folk-belief is that "the dead child has to carry water up a hill in a little bucket, and the tears of the mother increase its weight" (174. 141). The Greeks fabled Eos, the dawn-goddess, to have been so disconsolate at the death of Memnon, her son, that she wept for him every morning, and her tears are the dewdrops found upon the earth. In the mythology of the Samoans of the Pacific, the Heaven-god, father of all things, and the Earth-goddess, mother of all things, once held each other in firm embrace, but were separated in the long ago. Heaven, however, retains his love for earth, and, mourning for her through the long nights, he drops many tears upon her bosom,--these, men call dewdrops. The natives of Tahiti have a like explanation for the thick-falling rain-drops that dimple the surface of the ocean, heralding an approaching storm,--they are tears of the heaven-god. The saying is:-- "Thickly falls the small rain on the face of the sea, They are not drops of rain, but they are tears of Oro." (Tylor, Early Hist. of Mankind, p. 334.) An Indian tribe of California believe that "the rain is the falling tears of Indians sick in heaven," and they say that it was "the tears of all mankind, weeping for the loss of a good young Indian," that caused the deluge, in which all were drowned save a single couple (440. 488). Oriental legend relates, that, in his utter loneliness after the expulsion from Paradise, "Adam shed such an abundance of tears that all beasts and birds satisfied their thirst therewith; but some of them sunk into the earth, and, as they still contained some of the juices of his food in Paradise, produced the most fragrant trees and spices." We are further told that "the tears flowed at last in such torrents from Adam's eyes, that those of his right started the Euphrates, while those of his left set the Tigris in motion" (547. 34). These are some of the answers of the folk to the question of Shakespeare:-- "What's the matter, That this distempered messenger of wet, The many-coloured Iris, rounds thine eye?" And many more are there that run along the lines of Scott's epigrammatic summation:-- "A child will weep a bramble's smart, A maid to see her sparrow part, A stripling for a woman's heart: But woe betide a country, when She sees the tears of bearded men." _Cradles._ According to Mr. Powers: "The conspicuous painstaking which the Modok squaw expends upon her baby-basket is an index of her maternal love. And indeed the Modok are strongly attached to their offspring,--a fact abundantly attested by many sad and mournful spectacles witnessed in the closing scenes of the war of 1873. On the other hand, a California squaw often carelessly sets her baby in a deep, conical basket, the same in which she carries her household effects, leaving him loose and liable to fall out. If she makes a baby-basket, it is totally devoid of ornament; and one tribe, the Miwok, contemptuously call it 'the dog's nest.' It is among Indians like these that we hear of infanticide" (519. 257). The subject of children's cradles, baby-baskets, baby-boards, and the methods of manipulating and carrying the infant in connection therewith, have been treated of in great detail by Ploss (325), Pokrovski, and Mason (306), the second of whom has written especially of the cradles in use among the various peoples of European and Asiatic Eussia, with a general view of those employed by other races, the last with particular reference to the American aborigines. The work is illustrated, as is also that of Ploss, with many engravings. Professor Mason thus briefly sums up the various purposes which the different species of cradle subserve (306. 161-162):-- "(1) It is a mere nest for the helpless infant. "(2) It is a bed so constructed and manipulated as to enable the child to sleep either in a vertical or a horizontal position. "(3) It is a vehicle in which the child is to be transported, chiefly on the mother's back by means of a strap over the forehead, but frequently dangling like a bundle at the saddle-bow. This function, of course, always modifies the structure of the cradle, and, indeed, may have determined its very existence among nomadic tribes. "(4) It is indeed a cradle, to be hung upon the limbs to rock, answering literally to the nursery-rhyme:-- 'Rock-a-bye baby upon the tree-top, When the wind blows the cradle will rock, When the bough bends, the cradle will fall, Down will come baby, and cradle, and all.' "(5) It is also a playhouse and baby-jumper. On many--nearly all--specimens may be seen dangling objects to evoke the senses, foot-rests by means of which the little one may exercise its legs, besides other conveniences anticipatory of the child's needs. "(6) The last set of functions to which the frame is devoted are those relating to what we may call the graduation of infancy, when the papoose crawls out of its chrysalis little by little, and then abandons it altogether. The child is next seen standing partly on the mother's cincture and partly hanging to her neck, or resting like a pig in a poke within the folds of her blanket." Professor Mason sees in the cradle-board or frame "the child of geography and of meteorology," and in its use "a beautiful illustration of Bastian's theory of 'great areas.'" In the frozen North, for example, "the Eskimo mother carries her infant in the hood of her parka whenever it is necessary to take it abroad. If she used a board or a frame, the child would perish with the cold." The varieties of cradles are almost endless. We have the "hood" (sometimes the "boot") of the Eskimo; the birch-bark cradle (or hammock) of several of the northern tribes (as in Alaska, or Cape Breton); the "moss-bag" of the eastern Tinné, the use of which has now extended to the employés of the Hudson's Bay Company; the "trough-cradle" of the Bilqula; the Chinook cradle, with its apparatus for head-flattening; the trowel-shaped cradle of the Oregon coast; the wicker-cradle of the Hupas; the Klamath cradle of wicker and rushes; the Pomo cradle of willow rods and wicker-work, with rounded portion for the child to sit in; the Mohave cradle, with ladder-frame, having a bed of shredded bark for the child to lie upon; the Yaqui cradle of canes, with soft bosses for pillows; the Nez Percé cradle-board with buckskin sides, and the Sahaptian, Ute, and Kootenay cradles which resemble it; the Moki cradle-frame of coarse wicker, with an awning; the Navajo cradle, with wooden hood and awning of dressed buckskin; the rude Comanche cradle, made of a single stiff piece of black-bear skin; the Blackfoot cradle of lattice-work and leather; the shoe-shaped Sioux cradle, richly adorned with coloured bead-work; the Iroquois cradle (now somewhat modernized), with "the back carved in flowers and birds, and painted blue, red, green, and yellow." Among the Araucanians of Chili we meet with a cradle which "seems to be nothing more than a short ladder, with cross-bars," to which the child is lashed. In the tropical regions and in South America we find the habit of "carrying the children in the shawl or sash, and bedding them in the hammock." Often, as in various parts of Africa, the woman herself forms the cradle, the child clinging astride her neck or hips, with no bands or attachments whatever. Of woman as carrier much may be read in the entertaining and instructive volume of Professor Mason (113). The primitive cradle, bed, and carrier, was the mother. _Father and Child._ With many of the more primitive races, the idea so tritely expressed in our familiar saying, "He is a chip of the old block,"--_patris est filius_, "he is the son of his father,"--and so beautifully wrought out by Shakespeare,-- "Behold, my lords, Although the print be little, the whole matter And copy of the father: eye, nose, lip, The trick of his frown, his forehead; nay, the valley, The pretty dimples of his chin and cheek; his smiles, The very mould and frame of hand, nail, finger," has a strong hold, making itself felt in a thousand ways and fashions. The many rites and ceremonies, ablutions, fastings, abstentions from certain foods and drinks, which the husband has to undergo and submit to among certain more or less uncivilized peoples, shortly before, or after, or upon, the occasion of the birth of a child, or while his wife is pregnant, arise, in part at least, from a firm belief in the influence of parent upon child and the intimate sympathy between them even while the latter is yet unborn. Of the Indians of British Guiana, Mr. im Thurn says, they believe that if the father should eat the flesh of the capybara, the child would have large protruding teeth like that animal, while if he should eat that of the labba, the child's skin would be spotted. "Apparently there is also some idea that for the father to eat strong food, to wash, to smoke, to handle weapons, would have the same result as if the new-born baby ate such food, washed, smoked, or played with edged tools." The connection between the father and the child, the author thinks, is thought by these Indians to be much closer than that existing between the mother and her offspring (477. 218). Much has been written about, and many explanations suggested for, this ancient and widespread custom. The investigations of recent travellers seem to have cast some light upon this difficult problem in ethnology. Dr. Karl von den Steinen (536. 331-337) tells us that the native tribes of Central Brazil not only believe that the child is "the son of the father," but that it _is_ the father. To quote his own significant words: "The father is the patient in so far as he feels himself one with the new-born child. It is not very difficult to see how he arrives at this conclusion. Of the human egg-cell and the Graafian follicle the aborigine is not likely to know anything, nor can he know that the mother lodges the thing corresponding to the eggs of birds. For him the man is the bearer of the eggs, which, to speak plainly and clearly, lays in the mother, and which she hatches during the period of pregnancy. In the linguistic material at hand we see how this very natural attempt to explain generation finds expression in the words for 'father', 'testicle,' and 'egg.' In Guarani _tub_ means 'father, spawn, eggs,' _tupia_ 'eggs,' and even _tup-i_, the name of the people (the _-i_ is diminutive) really signifies 'little father,' or 'eggs,' or 'children,' as you please; the 'father' is 'egg,' and the 'child' is 'the little father.' Even the language declares that the 'child' is nothing else than the 'father.' Among the Tupi the father was also accustomed to take a new name after the birth of each new son; to explain this, it is in no way necessary to assume that the 'soul' of the father proceeds each time into the son. In Karaïbi we find exactly the same idea; _imu_ is 'egg,' or 'testicles,' or 'child.'" Among other cognate tribes we find the same thoughts:-- In the Ipurucoto language _imu_ signifies "egg." In the Bakaïrí language _imu_ signifies "testicles." In the Tamanako language _imu_ signifies "father." In the Makusi language _imu_ signifies "semen." In several dialects _imu-ru_ signifies "child." Dr. von den Steinen further observes: "Among the Bakaïrí 'child' and 'small' are both _iméri_, 'the child of the chief,' _píma iméri_; we can translate as we please, either 'the child of the chief,' or 'the little chief,' and in the case of the latter form, which we can use more in jest of the son, we are not aware that to the Indian the child is really nothing more than the little chief, the miniature of the big one. Strange and hardly intelligible to us is this idea when it is a girl that is in question. For the girl, too, is 'the little _father_,' and not 'the little _mother_'; it is only the father who has made her. In Bakaïrí there are no special words for 'son' and 'daughter,' but a sex-suffix is added to the word for child when a distinction is necessary; _píma iméri_ may signify either the son or the daughter of the chief. The only daughter of the chief is the inheritrix of possession and rank, both of which pass over with her own possession to the husband." The whole question of the "Couvade" and like practices finds its solution in these words of the author: "The behaviour of the mother, according as she is regarded as more or less suffering, may differ much with the various tribes, while the conduct of the father is practically the same with all She goes about her business, if she feels strong enough, suckles her child, etc. Between the father and the child there is no mysterious correlation; the child is a multiplication of him; the father is duplicated, and in order that no harm may come to the helpless, irrational creature, a miniature of himself, he must demean himself as a child" (536. 338). The close relationship between father and child appears also in folk-medicine, where children (or often adults) are preserved from, or cured of, certain ailments and diseases by the application of blood drawn from the father. In Bavaria a popular remedy against cramps consisted in "the father pricking himself in the finger and giving the child in its mouth three drops of blood out of the wound," and at Rackow, in Neu Stettin, to cure epilepsy in little children, "the father gives the child three drops of blood out of the first joint of his ring-finger" (361. 19). In Annam, when a physician cures a small-pox patient, it is thought that the pocks pass over to his children, and among the Dieyerie of South Australia, when a child has met with an accident, "all the relatives are beaten with sticks or boomerangs on the head till the blood flows over their faces. This is believed to lessen the pain of the child" (397. 60, 205). Among some savage and uncivilized peoples, the father is associated closely with the child from the earliest days of its existence. With the Mincopies of the Andaman Islands, it is the father who, "from the day of its birth onwards presses the skull and body of the child to give them the proper form," and among the Macusi Indians of Guiana, the father "in early youth, pierces the ear-lobe, the lower lip, and the septum of the nose," while with the Pampas Indians of the Argentine, in the third year of the child's life, the child's ears are pierced by the father in the following fashion: "A horse has its feet tied together, is thrown to the ground, and held fast. The child is then brought out and placed on the horse, while the father bores its ears with a needle" (326.1.296,301). With some primitive peoples the father evinces great affection for his child. Concerning the natives of Australia whom he visited, Lumholtz observes: "The father may also be good to the child, and he frequently carries it, takes it in his lap, pats it, searches its hair, plays with it, and makes little boomerangs which he teaches it to throw. He, however, prefers boys to girls, and does not pay much attention to the latter" (495.193). Speaking of another region of the world where infanticide prevailed,--the Solomon Islands,--Mr. Guppy cites not a few instances of parental regard and affection. On one occasion "the chief's son, a little shapeless mass of flesh, a few months old, was handed about from man to man with as much care as if he had been composed of something brittle." Of chief Gorai and his wife, whose child was blind, the author says: "I was much struck with the tenderness displayed in the manner of both the parents towards their little son, who, seated in his mother's lap, placed his hand in that of his father, when he was directed to raise his eyes towards the light for my inspection" (466. 47). Of the Patwin Indians of California, who are said to rank among the lowest of the race, Mr. Powers tells us: "Parents are very easygoing with their children, and never systematically punish them, though they sometimes strike them in momentary anger. On the Sacramento they teach them how to swim when a few weeks old by holding them on their hands in the water. I have seen a father coddle and teeter his baby in an attack of crossness for an hour with the greatest patience, then carry him down to the river, laughing good-naturedly, gently dip the little brown smooth-skinned nugget in the waves clear under, and then lay him on the moist, warm sand. The treatment was no less effectual than harmless, for it stopped the perverse, persistent squalling at once" (519. 222). Such demonstrations of tenderness have been supposed to be rare among the Indians, but the same authority says again: "Many is the Indian I have seen tending the baby with far more patience and good-nature than a civilized father would display" (519. 23). Concerning the Eskimo, Eeclus observes: "All over Esquimaux Land fathers and mothers vie with one another in spoiling their offspring, never strike, and rarely rebuke them" (523. 37). Among the Indians of British Guiana, according to Mr. im Thurn, both mother and father are "very affectionate towards the young child." The mother "almost always, even when working, carries it against her hip, slung in a small hammock from her neck or shoulder," while the father, "when he returns from hunting, brings it strange seeds to play with, and makes it necklaces and other ornaments." The young children themselves "seem fully to reciprocate the affection of their parents; but as they grow older, the affection on both sides seems to cool, though, in reality, it perhaps only becomes less demonstrative" (477. 219). Everywhere we find evidence of parental affection and love for children, shining sometimes from the depths of savagery and filling with sunshine at least a few hours of days that seem so sombre and full of gloom when viewed afar off. Mr. Scudder has treated at considerable length the subject of "Childhood in Literature and Art" (350), dealing with it as found in Greek, Roman, Hebrew, Early Christian, English, French, German, American, literature, in mediæval art, and in Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales. Of Greek the author observes: "There is scarcely a child's voice to be heard in the whole range of Greek poetic art. The conception is universally of the child, not as acting, far less as speaking, but as a passive member of the social order. It is not its individual so much as its related life which is contemplated." The silent presence of children in the rôles of the Greek drama is very impressive (350. 21). At Rome, though childhood is more of a "vital force" than in Greece, yet "it is not contemplated as a fine revelation of nature." Sometimes, in its brutal aspects, "children are reckoned as scarcely more than cubs," yet with refinement they "come to represent the more spiritual side of the family life." The folktale of Romulus and Remus and Catullus' picture of the young Torquatus represent these two poles (350. 32). The scant appearances of children in the Old Testament, the constant prominence given to the male succession, are followed later on by the promise which buds and flowers in the world-child Jesus, and the childhood which is the new-birth, the golden age of which Jewish seers and prophets had dreamt. In early Christianity, it would appear that, with the exception of the representation in art of the child, the infant Christ, "childhood as an image had largely faded out of art and literature" (350. 80). The Renaissance "turned its face toward childhood, and looked into that image for the profoundest realization of its hopes and dreams" (350. 102), and since then Christianity has followed that path. And the folk were walking in these various ages and among these different peoples humbly along the same road, which their geniuses travelled. Of the great modern writers and poets, the author notes especially Wordsworth, through whom the child was really born in our literature, the linker together of the child and the race; Rousseau, who told of childhood as "refuge from present evil, a mournful reminiscence of a lost Paradise, who (like St. Pierre) preached a return to nature, and left his own offspring to the tender mercy of a foundling asylum"; Luther, the great religious reformer, who was ever "a father among his children"; Goethe, who represents German intellectualism, yet a great child-artist; Froebel, the patron saint of the kindergarten; Hans Andersen, the "inventor" of fairy-tales, and the transformer of folk-stories, that rival the genuine, untouched, inedited article; Hawthorne, the child-artist of America. CHAPTER VIII. CHILDHOOD THE GOLDEN AGE. Heaven lies about us in our infancy.--_Wordsworth_. Die Kindheit ist ein Augenblick Gottes.--_Achim v. Arnim_. Wahre dir den Kindersinn, Kindheit blüht in Liebe bin, Kinderzeit ist heil'ge Zeit, Heidenkindheit--Christenheit. --_B. Goltz_. Happy those early days, when I Shined in my angel infancy. --_Henry Vaughan_. Childhood shall be all divine.--_B. W. Proctor_. But Heaven is kind, and therefore all possess, Once in their life, fair Eden's simpleness.--_H. Coleridge_. But to the couch where childhood lies, A more delicious trance is given, Lit up by rays from seraph eyes, And glimpses of remembered heaven.--_W. M. Praed_. O for boyhood's time of June, Crowding years in one brief moon!--_Whittier_. _Golden Age_. The English word _world_, as the Anglo-Saxon _weorold_, Icelandic _veröld_, and Old High German _weralt_ indicate, signified originally "age of man," or "course of man's life," and in the mind of the folk the life of the world and the life of man have run about the same course. By common consent the golden age of both was at the beginning, _ab ovo_. With Wordsworth, unlettered thousands have thought:-- "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!" _Die Kindheit ist ein Augenblick Gottes_, "childhood is a moment of God," said Achim Ton Arnim, and Hartley Coleridge expresses the same idea in other words:-- "But Heaven is kind, and therefore all possess, Once in their life, fair Eden's simpleness." This belief in the golden age of childhood,--_die heilige Kinderzeit_, the heaven of infancy,--is ancient and modern, world-wide, shared in alike by primitive savage and nineteenth-century philosopher. The peasant of Brittany thinks that children preserve their primal purity up to the seventh year of their age, and, if they die before then, go straight to heaven (174. 141), and the great Chinese philosopher, linking together, as others have done since his time, the genius and the child, declared that a man is great only as he preserves the pure ideas of his childhood, while Coleridge, in like fashion tells us: "Genius is the power of carrying the feelings of childhood into the power of manhood." Everywhere we hear the same refrain:-- "Aus der Jugendzeit, aus der Jugendzeit, Klingt ein Lied immerdar; O wie liegt so weit, o wie liegt so weit, Was mein einst war!" The Paradise that man lost, the Eden from which he has been driven, is not the God-planted Garden by the banks of Euphrates, but the "happy days of angel infancy," and "boyhood's time of June," the childhood out of which in the fierce struggle--for existence the race has rudely grown, and back to which, for its true salvation, it must learn to make its way again. As he, who was at once genius and child, said, nearly twenty centuries ago: "Except ye turn and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven." When we speak of "the halcyon days of childhood," we recall an ancient myth, telling how, in an age when even more than now "all Nature loved a lover," even the gods watched over the loves of Ceyx and Halcyone. Ever since the kingfisher has been regarded as the emblem, of lasting fidelity in love. As Ebers aptly puts it: "Is there anywhere a sweeter legend than that of the Halcyons, the ice-birds who love each other so tenderly that, when the male becomes enfeebled by age, his mate carries him on her outspread wings whithersoever he wills; and the gods desiring to reward such faithful love cause the sun to shine more kindly, and still the winds and waves on the 'Halcyon Days' during which these birds are building their nests and brooding over their young" (390. II. 269). Of a special paradise for infants, something has been said elsewhere. Of Srahmanadzi, the other world, the natives of Ashanti say: "There an old man becomes young, a young man a boy, and a boy an infant. They grow and become old. But age does not carry with it any diminution of strength or wasting of body. When they reach the prime of life, they remain so, and never change more" (438. 157). The Kalmucks believe that some time in the future "each child will speak immediately after its birth, and the next day be capable of undertaking its own management" (518. I. 427). But that blissful day is far off, and the infant human still needs the overshadowing of the gods to usher him into the real world of life. _Guardian Angels and Deities._ Christ, speaking his memorable words about little children to those who had inquired who was greatest in the kingdom of heaven, uttered the warning: "See that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven." In the hagiology of the Christian churches, and in the folk-lore of modern Europe, the idea contained in our familiar expression "guardian angel" has a firm hold; by celestial watchers and protectors the steps of the infant are upheld, and his mind guided, until he reaches maturity, and even then the guardian spirit often lingers to guide the favoured being through all the years of his life (191. 8). The natives of Ashanti believe that special spirits watch over girls until they are married, and in China there is a special mother-goddess who guards and protects childhood. Walter Savage Landor has said:-- "Around the child bend all the three Sweet Graces,--Faith, Hope, Charity," and the "three Fates" of classic antiquity, the three Norns of Scandinavian mythology, the three Sudiêicky or fate-goddesses of the Czechs of Bohemia, the three fate- and birth-goddesses of the other Slavonic peoples, the three [Greek: _Moirai_] of Modern Greece, the three Phatite of Albania, the three white ladies, three virgins, three Mary's, etc., of German legend of to-day, have woven about them a wealth of quaint and curious lore (326. I. 42-47). The survival of the old heathen belief alongside the Christian is often seen, as, e.g., at Palermo, in Sicily, where "the mother, when she lifts the child out of the cradle, says aloud: _'Nuome di Dio_, In God's name,' but quickly adds sotto voce: _'Cu licenzi, signuri mui_, By your leave, Ladies.'" The reference is to the "three strange ladies," representing the three Fates, who preside over the destiny of human beings. Ploss has discussed at length the goddesses of child-birth and infancy, and exhibited their relations to the growing, fertilizing, regenerative powers of nature, especially the earth, sun, moon, etc.; the Hindu _Bhavani_ (moon-goddess); the Persian _Anahita_; the Assyrian _Belit_, the spouse of _Bel_; the Phoenician _Astarte_; the Egyptian _Isis_; the Etruscan _Mater matuta_; the Greek _Hera Eileithyia, Artemis_,; the Roman _Diana, Lucina, Juno_; the Phrygian _Cybele_; the Germanic _Freia, Holla, Gude, Harke_; the Slavonic _Siwa, Libussa, Zlata Baba_ ("the golden woman"); the ancient Mexican _Itzcuinam, Yohmaltcitl, Tezistecatl_; the Chibchan rainbow-goddess _Cuchavira_; the Japanese _Kojasi Kwanon_, and hundreds more. The number of gods and goddesses presiding over motherhood and childhood is legion; in every land divine beings hover about the infant human to protect it and assure the perpetuity of the race. In ancient Rome, besides the divinities who were connected with generation, the embryo, etc., we find, among others, the following tutelary deities of childhood:-- _Parca_ or _Partula_, the goddess of child-birth; _Diespiter_, the god who brings the infant to the light of day; _Opis_, the divinity who takes the infant from within the bosom of mother-earth; _Vaticanus_, the god who opens the child's mouth in crying; _Cunina_, the protectress of the cradle and its contents; _Rumina_, the goddess of the teat or breast; _Ossipaga_, the goddess who hardens and solidifies the bones of little children; _Carna_, the goddess who strengthens the flesh of little children; _Diva potina_, the goddess of the drink of children; _Diva edusa_, the goddess of the food of children; _Cuba_, the goddess of the sleep of the child; _Levana_, the goddess who lifts the child from the earth; _Statanus_, the god, and _Dea Statina_, the goddess, of the child's standing; _Fabulinus_, the god of the child's speech; _Abeona_ and _Adiona_, the protectresses of the child in its goings out and its comings in; _Deus catus pater_, the father-god who "sharpens" the wits of children; _Dea mens_, the goddess of the child's mind; _Minerva_, the goddess who is the giver of memory to the child; _Numeria_, the goddess who teaches the child to count; _Voleta_, the goddess, and _Volumnus_ the god, of will or wishing; _Venilia_, the goddess of hope, of "things to come"; _Deus conus_, the god of counsel, the counsel-giver; _Peragenor_ or _Agenona_, the deity of the child's action; _Cam�na_, the goddess who teaches the child to sing, etc. (398.188). Here the child is overshadowed, watched over, taught and instructed by the heavenly powers:-- "But to the couch where childhood lies A more delicious trance is given, Lit up by rays from seraph eyes, And glimpses of remembered heaven." In line with the poet's thought, though of a ruder mould, is the belief of the Iroquois Indians recorded by Mrs. Smith: "When a living nursing child is taken out at night, the mother takes a pinch of white ashes and rubs it on the face of the child so that the spirits will not trouble, because they say that a child still continues to hold intercourse with the spirit-world whence it so recently came" (534. 69). _Birth-Myths_. President Hall has treated of "The Contents of Children's Minds on Entering School" (252), but we yet lack a like elaborate and suggestive study of "The Contents of Parents' Minds on Entering the Nursery." We owe to the excellent investigation carried on by Principal Russell and his colleagues at the State Normal School in Worcester, Mass., "Some Records of the Thoughts and Reasonings of Children" (194), and President Hall has written about "Children's Lies" (252a), but we are still without a correspondingly accurate and extensive compilation of "The Thoughts and Reasonings of Parents," and a plain, unbiassed register of the "white lies" and equivoques, the fictions and epigrammatic myths, with which parents are wont to answer, or attempt to answer, the manifold questions of their tender offspring. From time immemorial the communication between parent (and nurse) and child, between the old of both sexes and little children, far from being yea and nay, has been cast in the mould of the advice given in the German quatrain:-- "Ja haltet die Aequivocabula nur fest, Sind sie doch das einzige Mittel, Dem Kind die Wahrheit zu bergen und doch Zu brauchen den richtigen Titel." ["Hold fast to the words that we equivoques call; For they are indeed the only safe way To keep from the children the truth away, Yet use the right name after all."] Around the birth of man centres a great cycle of fiction and myth. The folk-lore respecting the provenience of children may be divided into two categories. The first is represented by our "the doctor brought it," "God sent it," and the "van Moor" of the peasantry of North Friesland, which may signify either "from the moor," or "from mother." The second consists of renascent myths of bygone ages, distorted, sometimes, it is true, and recast. As men, in the dim, prehistoric past, ascribed to their first progenitors a celestial, a terrestrial, a subterranean, a subaqueous origin, a coming into being from animals, birds, insects, trees, plants, rocks, stones, etc.,--for all were then akin,--so, after long centuries have rolled by, father, mother, nurse, older brother or sister, speaking of the little one in whom they see their stock renewed, or their kinship widened, resurrect and regild the old fables and rejuvenate and reanimate the lore that lay sunk beneath the threshold of racial consciousness. Once more "the child is father of the man"; his course begins from that same spring whence the first races of men had their remotest origins. George Macdonald, in the first lines of his poem on "Baby" (337. 182):-- "Where did you come from, baby dear? Out of the _everywhere_ into here," has expressed a truth of folk-lore, for there is scarcely a place in the "everywhere" whence the children have not been fabled to come. Children are said to come from heaven (Germany, England, America, etc.); from the sea (Denmark); from lakes, ponds, rivers (Germany, Austria, Japan); from moors and sand-hills (northeastern Germany); from gardens (China); from under the cabbage-leaves (Brittany, Alsace), or the parsley-bed (England); from sacred or hollow trees, such as the ash, linden, beech, oak, etc. (Germany, Austria); from inside or from underneath rocks and stones (northeastern Germany, Switzerland, Bohemia, etc.). It is worthy of note how the topography of the country, its physiographic character, affects these beliefs, which change with hill and plain, with moor and meadow, seashore and inland district. The details of these birth-myths may be read in Ploss (326. I. 2), Schell (343), Sundermann (366). Specially interesting are the _Kindersee_ ("child-lake"), _Kinderbaum_ ("child-tree"), and _Kinderbrunnen_ ("child-fountain") of the Teutonic lands,--offering analogies with the "Tree of Life" and the "Fountain of Eternal Youth" of other ages and peoples; the _Titistein_, or "little children's stone," and the _Kindertruog_ ("child's trough") of Switzerland, and the "stork-stones" of North Germany. Dr. Haas, in his interesting little volume of folk-lore from the island of Rügen, in the Baltic, records some curious tales about the birth of children. The following practice of the children in that portion of Germany is significant: "Little white and black smooth stones, found on the shore, are called 'stork-stones.' These the children are wont to throw backwards over their heads, asking, at the same time, the stork to bring them a little brother or sister" (466 a. 144). This recalls vividly the old Greek deluge-myth, in which we are told, that, after the Flood, Deucalion was ordered to cast behind him the "bones of his mother." This he interpreted to mean the "stones," which seemed, as it were, the "bones" of "mother-earth." So he and his wife Pyrrha picked up some stones from the ground and cast them over their shoulders, whereupon those thrown by Deucalion became men, those thrown by Pyrrha, women. Here belongs, also, perhaps, the Wallachian custom, mentioned by Mr. Sessions (who thinks it was "probably to keep evil spirits away"), in accordance with which "when a child is born every one present throws a stone behind him." On the island of Rügen erratic blocks on the seashore are called _Adeborsteine_, "stork-stones," and on such a rock or boulder near Wrek in Wittow, Dr. Haas says "the stork is said to dry the little children, after he has fetched them out of the sea, before he brings them to the mothers. The latter point out these blocks to their little sons and daughters, telling them how once they were laid upon them by the stork to get dry." The great blocks of granite that lie scattered on the coast of Jasmund are termed _Schwansteine_, "swan-stones," and, according to nursery-legend, the children to be born are shut up in them. When a sister or brother asks: "Where did the little _swan-child_"--for so babies are called--"come from?" the mother replies: "From the swan-stone. It was opened with a key, and a little swan-child taken out." The term "swan-child" is general in this region, and Dr. Haas is inclined to think that the swan-myth is older than the stork-myth (466 a. 143, 144). Curious indeed is the belief of the Hidatsa Indians, as reported by Dr. Matthews, in the "Makadistati, or house of infants." This is described as "a cavern near Knife River, which, they supposed, extended far into the earth, but whose entrance was only a span wide. It was resorted to by the childless husband or the barren wife. There are those among them who imagine that in some way or other their children come from the Makadistati; and marks of contusion on an infant, arising from tight swaddling or other causes, are gravely attributed to kicks received from his former comrades when he was ejected from his subterranean home" (433. 516). In Hesse, Germany, there is a children's song (326. I. 9):-- Bimbam, Glöckchen, Da unten steht ein Stöckchen, Da oben steht ein golden Haus, Da gucken viele schöne Kinder raus. The current belief in that part of Europe is that "unborn children live in a very beautiful dwelling, for so long as children are no year old and have not yet looked into a mirror, everything that comes before their eyes appears to be gold." Here folk-thought makes the beginnings of human life a real golden age. They are Midases of the eye, not of the touch. _Children's Questions and Parents' Answers._ Another interesting class of "parents' lies" consists in the replies to, or comments upon, the questionings and remarks of children about the ordinary affairs of life. The following examples, selected from Dirksen's studies of East-Frisian Proverbs, will serve to indicate the general nature and extent of these. 1. When a little child says, "I am hungry," the mother sometimes answers, "Eat some salt, and then you will be thirsty, too." 2. When a child, seeing its mother drink tea or coffee, says, "I'm thirsty," the answer may be, "If you're thirsty, go to Jack ter Host; there's a cow in the stall, go sit under it and drink." Some of the variants of this locution are expressed in very coarse language (431. I. 22). 3. If a child asks, when it sees that its parent is going out, "Am I not going, too?" the answer is, "You are going along, where nobody has gone, to Poodle's wedding," or "You are going along on Stay-here's cart." A third locution is, "You are going along to the Kükendell fair" (Kükendell being a part of Meiderich, where a fair has never been held). In Oldenburg the answer is: "You shall go along on Jack-stay-at-home's (Janblievtohûs) cart." Sometimes the child is quieted by being told, "I'll bring you back a little silver nothing (enn silwer Nickske)" (431. I. 33). 4. If, when he is given a slice of bread, he asks for a thinner one, the mother may remark, "Thick pieces make fat bodies" (431. I. 35). 5. When some one says in the hearing of the father or mother of a child that it ought not to have a certain apple, a certain article of clothing, or the like, the answer is, "That is no illegitimate child." The locution is based upon the fact that illegitimate children do not enjoy the same rights and privileges as those born in wedlock (431. I. 42). 6. Of children's toys and playthings it is sometimes said, when they are very fragile, "They will last from twelve o'clock till midday" (431.1.43). 7. When any one praises her child in the presence of the mother, the latter says, "It's a good child when asleep" (431. I. 51). 8. In the winter-time, when the child asks its mother for an apple, the latter may reply, "the apples are piping in the tree," meaning that there are no longer any apples on the tree, but the sparrows are sitting there, crying and lamenting. In Meiderich the locution is "Apples have golden stems," _i.e._ they are rare and dear in winter-time (431. I. 75). 9. When the child says, "I can't sit down," the mother may remark, "Come and sit on my thumb; nobody has ever fallen off it" (_i.e._ because no one has ever tried to sit on it) (431. I. 92). 10. When a lazy child, about to be sent out upon an errand, protests that it does not know where the person to whom the message is to be sent lives, and consequently cannot do the errand, the mother remarks threateningly, "I'll show where Abraham ground the mustard," _i.e._ "I give you a good thrashing, till the tears come into your eyes (as when grinding mustard)" (431. I. 105). 11. When a child complains that a sister or brother has done something to hurt him, the mother's answer is, "Look out! He shall have water in the cabbage, and go barefoot to bed" (431. I. 106). 12. Sometimes their parents or elders turn to children and ask them "if they would like to be shown the Bremen geese." If the child says yes, he is seized by the ears and head with both hands and lifted off the ground. In some parts of Germany this is called "showing Rome," and there are variants of the practice in other lands (431. II. 14). 13. When a child complains of a sore in its eye, or on its neck, the answer is: "That will get well before you are a great-grandmother" (431. II. 50). 14. When one child asks for one thing and another for something else, the mother exclaims petulantly, "One calls out 'lime,' the other 'stones.'" The reference is to the confusion of tongues at Babel, which is assumed to have been of such a nature that one man would call out "lime," and another "stones" (431. II. 53). 15. When a child asks for half a slice of bread instead of a whole one, the mother may say, "Who doesn't like a whole, doesn't like a half either" (431. II. 43). 16. When a child says, "That is my place, I sat there," the reply is, "You have no place; your place is in the churchyard" (_i.e._ a grave) (431. II. 76). When the child says "I will," the mother says threateningly, "Your 'will' is in your mother's pocket." It is in her pocket that she carries the rope for whipping the child. Another locution is, "Your will is in the corner" (_i.e._ the corner of the room in which stands the broomstick) (431. II. 81). These specimens of the interchange of courtesies between the child and its parent or nurse might be paralleled from our own language; indeed, many of the correspondences will suggest themselves at once. The deceits practised in the Golden Age of childhood resemble those practised by the gods in the Golden Age of the world, when divine beings walked the earth and had intercourse with the sons and daughters of men. "_Painted Devils_." Even as the serpent marred the Eden of which the sacred legends of the Semites tell, so in the folk-thought does some evil sprite or phantom ever and anon intrude itself in the Paradise of childhood and seek its ruin. Shakespeare has well said:-- "Tis the eye of childhood That fears a painted devil," and the chronicle of the "painted devils," bogies, scarecrows, _et id genus omne_, is a long one, whose many chapters may be read in Ploss, Hartland, Henderson, Gregor, etc. Some of the "devils" are mild and almost gentlemen, like their lord and master at times; others are fierce, cruel, and bloodthirsty; their number is almost infinite, and they have the forms of women as well as of men. Over a large portion of western Europe is found the nursery story of the "Sand-Man," who causes children to become drowsy and sleepy; "the sand-man is coming, the sand-man has put dust in your eyes," are some of the sayings in use. By and by the child gets "so fast asleep that one eye does not see the other," as the Frisian proverb puts it. When, on a cold winter day, her little boy would go out without his warm mittens on, the East Frisian mother says, warningly: _De Fingerbiter is buten_, "the Finger-biter is outside." Among the formidable evil spirits who war against or torment the child and its mother are the Hebrew Lilith, the long-haired night-flier; the Greek _Strigalai_, old and ugly owl-women; the Roman _Caprimulgus_, the nightly goat-milker and child-killer, and the wood-god Silvanus; the Coptic _Berselia_; the Hungarian "water-man," or "water-woman," who changes children for criples or demons; the Moravian _Vestice_, or "wild woman," able to take the form of any animal, who steals away children at the breast, and substitutes changelings for them; the Bohemian _Polednice_, or "noon-lady," who roams around only at noon, and substitutes changelings for real children; the Lithuanian and Old Prussian _Laume_, a child-stealer, whose breast is the thunderbolt, and whose girdle is the rainbow; the Servian _Wjeschtitza_, or witches, who take on the form of an insect, and eat up children at night; the Russian "midnight spirit," who robs children of rest and sleep; the Wendish "Old mountain-woman"; the German (Brunswick) "corn-woman," who makes off with little children looking for flowers in the fields; the Röggenmuhme ( "rye-aunt"), the _Tremsemutter_, who walks about in the cornfields; the _Katzenveit_, a wood spirit, and a score of bogies called _Popel, Popelmann, Popanz, Butz_, etc.; the Scotch "Boo Man," "Bogie Man," "Jenny wi' the Airn Teeth," "Jenny wi' the lang Pock "; the English and American bogies, goblins, ogres, ogresses, witches, and the like; besides, common to all peoples, a host of werwolves and vampires, giants and dwarfs, witches, ogres, ogresses, fairies, evil spirits of air, water, land, inimical to childhood and destructive of its peace and enjoyment. The names, lineage, and exploits of these may be read in Ploss, Grimm, Hartland, etc. In the time of the Crusades, Richard C�ur de Lion, the hero-king of England, became so renowned among the Saracens that (Gibbon informs us) his name was used by mothers and nurses to quiet their infants, and other historical characters before and after him served to like purpose. To the children of Rome in her later days, Attila, the great Hun, was such a bogy, as was Narses, the Byzantian general (d. 568 A.D.), to the Assyrian children. Bogies also were Matthias Corvinus (d. 1490 A.D.), the Hungarian king and general, to the Turks; Tamerlane (Timur), the great Mongolian conqueror (d. 1405 A.D.), to the Persians; and Bonaparte, at the close of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, in various parts of the continent of Europe. These, and other historical characters have, in part, taken the place of the giants and bogies of old, some of whom, however, linger, even yet, in the highest civilizations, together with fabulous animals (reminiscent of stern reality in primitive times), with which, less seriously than in the lands of the eastern world, childhood is threatened and cowed into submission. The Ponka Indian mothers tell their children that if they do not behave themselves the Indaciñga (a hairy monster shaped like a human being, that hoots like an owl) will get them; the Omaha bogy is Icibaji; a Dakota child-stealer and bogy is Añungite or "Two Faces" (433. 386, 473). With the Kootenay Indians, of south-eastern British Columbia, the owl is the bogy with which children are frightened into good behaviour, the common saying of mothers, when their children are troublesome, being, "If you are not quiet, I'll give you to the owl" (203). Longfellow, in his _Hiawatha_, speaks of one of the bogies of the eastern Indians:-- "Thus the wrinkled old Nokomis Nursed the little Hiawatha, Rooked him in his linden cradle, Stilled his fretful wail by saying, 'Hush! the naked bear will get thee!'" Among the Nipissing Algonkian Indians, _koko_ is a child-word for any terrible being; the mothers say to their children, "beware of the _koko_." Champlain and Lescarbot, the early chroniclers of Canada, mention a terrible creature (concerning which tales were told to frighten children) called _gougou_, supposed to dwell on an island in the Baie des Chaleurs (200. 239). Among the bogies of the Mayas of Yucatan, Dr. Brinton mentions: the _balams_ (giant beings of the night), who carry off children; the _culcalkin_, or "neckless priest"; besides giants and witches galore (411. 174, 177). Among the Gualala Indians of California, we find the "devil-dance," which Powers compares to the _haberfeldtreiben_ of the Bavarian peasants,--an institution got up for the purpose of frightening the women and children, and keeping them in order. While the ordinary dances are going on, there suddenly stalks forth "an ugly apparition in the shape of a man, wearing a feather mantle on his back, reaching from the arm-pits down to the mid-thighs, zebra-painted on his breast and legs with black stripes, bear-skin shako on his head, and his arms stretched out at full length along a staff passing behind his neck. Accoutred in this harlequin rig, he dashes at the squaws, capering, dancing, whooping; and they and the children flee for life, keeping several hundred yards between him and themselves." It is believed that, if they were even to touch his stick, their children would die (519. 194). Among the Patwin, Nishinam, and Pomo Indians, somewhat similar practices are in vogue (519. 157, 160, 225). From the golden age of childhood, with its divinities and its demons, we may now pass to the consideration of more special topics concerning the young of the races of men. CHAPTER IX. CHILDREN'S FOOD. Der Mensch ist, was er isst.--_Feuerbach_. For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise.--_Coleridge_. Man did eat angels' food.--_Psalm_ ixxviii. 25. _Honey_. _Der Mensch ist, was er isst_,--"man is what he eats,"--says Feuerbach, and there were food-philosophies long before his time. Among primitive peoples, the food of the child often smacks of the Golden Age. Tennyson, in _Eleanore_, sings:-- "Or, the yellow-banded bees, Through half-open lattices Coming in the scented breeze, Fed thee, a child lying alone, With white honey, in fairy gardens cull'd-- A glorious child dreaming alone, In silk-soft folds, upon yielding down, With the hum of swarming bees Into dreamful slumber lull'd." This recalls the story of Cretan Zeus, fed, when an infant, by the nymphs in a cave on Mount Ida with the milk of the goat Amalthæa and honey brought by the bees of the mountain. In the sacred books of the ancient Hindus we read: "The father puts his mouth to the right ear of the new-born babe, and murmurs three times, 'Speech! Speech!' Then he gives it a name. Then he mixes clotted milk, honey, and butter, and feeds the babe with it out of pure gold" (460.129). Among the ancient Frisians and some other Germanic tribes, the father had the right to put to death or expose his child so long as it had not taken food; but "so soon as the infant had drunk milk and eaten honey he could not be put to death by his parents" (286. 69). The custom of giving the new-born child honey to taste is referred to in German counting-out rhymes, and the ancient Germans used to rub honey in the mouth of the new-born child. The heathen Czechs used to drop honey upon the child's lips, and in the Eastern Church it was formerly the custom to give the baptized child milk and honey to taste (392. II. 35). When the Jewish child, in the Middle Ages, first went to school, one of the ceremonial observances was to have him lick a slate which had been smeared with honey, and upon which the alphabet, two Bible verses, and the words "The Tora shall be my calling" were written; this custom is interestingly explanative of the passage in Ezekiel (iii. 3) where we read "Then I did eat it [the roll of a book given the prophet by God]; and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness." There were also given to the child sweet cakes upon which Bible verses were written. Among the Jews of Galicia, before a babe is placed in the cradle for the first time, it is customary to strew into the latter little pieces of honey-comb. Among the Wotjaks we find the curious belief that those who, in eating honey, do not smear their mouth and hands with it, will die. With children of an older growth,--the second Golden Age,--honey and cakes again appear. Magyar maidens at the new moon steal honey and cakes, cook them, and mix a part in the food of the youth of their desires; among the White Russians, the bridal couple are fed honey with a spoon. Even with us "the first sweet month of matrimony," after the "bless you, my children" has been spoken by parents, church, and state, is called the "honey-moon," for our Teutonic ancestors were in the habit of drinking honey-wine or mead for the space of thirty days after marriage (392. IV. 118,211). In wedding-feasts the honey appears again, and, as Westermarck observes, the meal partaken of by the bride and bridegroom practically constitutes the marriage-ceremony among the Navajos, Santal, Malays, Hovas, and other primitive peoples (166. 419). In Iceland, in ancient times, "the food of sucklings was sweetened by honey," and "in the mouths of weakly children a slice of meat was placed at which they sucked." Among other interesting items from Scandinavia, Ploss (326. II. 182) gives the following: "In Iceland, if the child has been suckled eight (at most, fourteen) days, it is henceforth placed upon the ground; near it is put a vessel with luke-warm whey, in which a reed or a quill is stuck, and a little bread placed before it. If the child should wake and show signs of hunger, he is turned towards the vessel, and the reed is placed in his mouth. When the child is nine months old, it must eat of the same food as its parents do." In Shropshire, England, the first food given a child is a spoonful of sugar and butter, and, in the Highlands of Scotland, "at the birth of an infant the nurse takes a green stick of ash, one end of which she puts into the fire, and, while it is burning, receives in a spoon the sap that oozes from the other, which she administers to the child as its first food." This recalls the sap of the sacred ash of Scandinavian mythology. Solinus states that the ancient Irish mother "put the first food of her newborn son on the sword of her husband, and, lightly introducing it into his mouth, expressed a wish that he might never meet death otherwise than in war and amid arms," and a like custom is said "to have been kept up, prior to the union, in Annandale and other places along the Scottish border" (460. 129, 131). _Salt._ Among the Negritos of the Philippine Islands, when a child is born, one of the other children immediately gives it to eat some salt on the point of a knife (326. I. 258). The virtues of salt are recognized among many peoples. In the Middle Ages, when mothers abandoned their infants, they used to place beside them a little salt in token that they were unbaptized (326. I. 284); in Scotland, where the new-born babe is "bathed in salted water, and made to taste it three times, because the water was strengthening and also obnoxious to a person with the evil eye," the lady of the house first visited by the mother and child must, with the recital of a charm, put some salt in the little one's mouth. In Brabant, during the baptismal ceremony, the priest consecrates salt, given him by the father, and then puts a grain into the child's mouth, the rest being carefully kept by the father. The great importance of salt in the ceremonies of the Zuñi and related Indians of the Pueblos has been pointed out by Mr. Gushing. Salt appears also at modern European wedding-feasts and prenuptial rites, as do also rice and meal, which are also among the first foods of some primitive races. Among the Badagas of the Nilgiri Hills, when the child is named (from twenty to thirty days after birth), the maternal uncle places three small bits of rice in its mouth (326. I. 284). _Folk-Medicine_. Among the Tlingit Indians, of Alaska, the new-born infant "is not given the breast until all the contents of its stomach (which are considered the cause of disease) are removed by vomiting, which is promoted by pressing the stomach" (403. 40), and among the Hare Indians, "the infant is not allowed food until four days after birth, in order to accustom it to fasting in the next world" (396. I. 121). The Songish Indians do not give the child anything to eat on the first day (404. 20); the Kolosh Indians, of Alaska, after ten to thirty months "accustom their children to the taste of a sea-animal," and, among the Arctic Eskimo, Kane found "children, who could not yet speak, devouring with horrible greediness, great lumps of walrus fat and flesh." Klutschak tells us how, during a famine, the Eskimo of Hudson's Bay melted and boiled for the children the blood-soaked snow from the spot where a walrus had been killed and cut up (326. II. 181). In Culdaff, in the county of Donegal, Ireland, "an infant at its birth is forced to swallow spirits, and is immediately afterwards [strange anticipation of Dr. Robinson] suspended by the upper jaw on the nurse's forefinger. Whiskey is here the representative of the Hindu sôma, the sacred juice of the ash, etc., and the administration of alcoholic liquors to children of a tender age in sickness and disease so common everywhere but a few years ago, founded itself perhaps more upon this ancient belief than upon anything else" (401. 180). The study of the food of sick children is an interesting one, and much of value may be read of it in Zanetti (173), Black (401), and other writers who have treated of folk-medicine. The decoctions of plants and herbs, the preparations of insects, reptiles, the flesh, blood, and ordure of all sorts of beasts (and of man), which the doctrines of signatures and sympathies, the craze of _similia similibus_, forced down the throat of the child, in the way of food and medicine, are legion in number, and must be read in Folkard and the herbalists, in Bourke (407), Strack, etc. In some parts of the United States even snail-water and snail-soup are not unknown; in New England, as Mrs. Earle informs us (221. 6), much was once thought of "the admirable and most famous snail-water." _Milk and Honey_. As we have abundantly seen, the first food of the child is the "food of the gods," for so were honey and milk esteemed among the ancient Germans, Greeks, Slavs, Hindus, etc., and of the Paradise where dwelt the Gods, and into which it was fabled children were born, we have some recollection, as Ploss suggests, in the familiar "land flowing with milk and honey," into the possession of which the children of Israel entered after their long wandering in the wilderness (462. II. 696). Of the ancient Hindu god Agni, Letourneau (100. 315) observes: "After being for a long time fed upon melted butter and the alcoholic liquor from the acid asclepias, the sacred Sôma, he first became a glorious child, then a metaphysical divinity, a mediator living in the fathers and living again in the sons." It was the divine _Sôma_ that, like the nectar of the Greeks, the elixirs of the Scandinavians, conferred youth and immortality upon those who drank it. According to Moslem legend, after his birth, Abraham "remained concealed in a cave during fifteen months, and his mother visited him sometimes to nurse him. But he had no need of her food, for Allah commanded water to flow from one of Abraham's fingers, milk from another, honey from the third, the juice of dates from the fourth, and butter from the fifth" (547. 69). _Poison_. In the _Gesta Romanorum_ (Cap. XI.) we read of the "Queen of the North," who "nourished her daughter from the cradle upon a certain kind of deadly poison; and when she grew up, she was considered so beautiful, that the sight of her alone affected one with madness." Moreover, her whole nature had become so imbued with poisons that "she herself had become the deadliest poison in existence. Poison was her element of life. With that rich perfume of her breath she blasted the very air. Her love would have been poison, her embrace death." Hawthorne's story of "Rappaccini's Daughter,"--"who ever since infancy had grown and blossomed with the plants whose fatal properties she had imbibed with the air she breathed,"--comes from the same original source (390. II. 172). Here we are taken back again to the Golden Age, when even poisons could be eaten without harm. _Priest and Food_. With the giving of the child's food the priest is often associated. In the Fiji Islands, at Vitilevu, on the day when the navel-string falls off, a festival is held, and the food of the child is blest by the priest with prayers for his life and prosperity. In Upper Egypt, a feast is held at the house of the father and the child consecrated by the cadi or a priest, to whom is brought a plate with sugar-candy. The priest chews the candy and lets the sweet juice fall out of his mouth into that of the child, and thus "gives him his name out of his mouth" (326. I. 284). The over-indulgence of children in food finds parallels at a later period of life, when, as with the people of southern Nubia and the Sahara between Talifet and Timbuktu, men fatten girls before marriage, making them consume huge quantities of milk, butter, etc. For children, among many primitive peoples, there are numerous _taboos_ of certain classes and kinds of food, from religious or superstitious motives. This _taboo_-system has not lost all its force even to-day, as no other excuse can reasonably be offered for the refusal of certain harmless food to the young. _Tobacco_. Concerning certain Australian tribes, Lumholtz remarks: "Before the children are big enough to hold a pipe in their mouth they are permitted to smoke, and the mother will share her pipe with the nursing babe" (495. 193). In like manner, among the natives of the Solomon Islands, Mr. Guppy witnessed displays of precocity in this regard: "Bright-looking lads, eight or nine years of age, stood smoking their pipes as gravely as Haununo [a chief] himself; and even the smallest babe in its father's arms caught hold of his pipe and began to suck instinctively" (466.42). With the Jivaro Indians of Ecuador, according to Simson, the child, when three or four years old, is initiated into the mysteries of tobacco-smoking, amid great festivities and ceremonies (533. 388). _Drink of Immortality_. Feeding the dead has been in practice among many primitive peoples. The mother, with some of the Indian tribes of New Mexico, used to drop milk from her breast on the lips of her dead babe; and in many parts of the world we meet with the custom of placing food near the grave, so that the spirits may not hunger, or of placing it in the grave or coffin, so that on its way to the spirit-land the soul of the deceased may partake of some refreshment. Among the ancient natives of Venezuela, "infants who died a few days after their birth, were seated around the Tree of Milk, or Celestial Tree, that distilled milk from the extremity of its branches"; and kindred beliefs are found elsewhere (448. 297). We have also the tree associated beautifully with the newborn child, as Reclus records concerning the Todas of the Nilgiri Hills, in India: "Immediately the deliverance has taken place--it always happens in the open air--three leaves of the aforementioned tree [under which the mother and father have passed the night] are presented to the father, who, making cups of them, pours a few drops of water into the first, wherewith he moistens his lips; the remainder he decants into the two other leaves; the mother drinks her share, and causes the baby to swallow his. Thus, father, mother, and child, earliest of Trinities, celebrate their first communion, and drink the living water, more sacred than wine, from the leaves of the Tree of Life" (523. 201). The sacred books of the Hebrews tell us that the race of man in its infancy became like the gods by eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and in the legends of other peoples immortality came to the great heroes by drinking of the divine sap of the sacred tree, or partaking of some of its fruit. The ancient Egyptians believed that milk from the breast of the divine mother Isis conferred divinity and immortality upon him who drank of it or imbibed it from the sacred source. Wiedemann aptly compares with this the Greek story of the infancy of Hercules. The great child-hero was the son of the god Jupiter and Alcmena, daughter of Electryon, King of Argos. He was exposed by his mother, but the goddess Athene persuaded Hera to give him her breast (another version says Hermes placed Hercules on the breast of Hera, while she slept) and the infant Hercules drew so lustily of the milk that he caused pain to the goddess, who snatched him away. But Hercules had drunk of the milk of a goddess and had become immortal, and as one of the gods (167. 266). CHAPTER X. CHILDREN'S SOULS. The soul that rises with us, our life's star, Hath elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar.--_Wordsworth_. And rest at last where souls unbodied dwell In ever-flowing meads of Asphodel. --_Homer (Pope's Transl_.). _Baptism_. With certain Hindu castes, the new-born child is sprinkled with cold water, "in order that the soul, which, since its last existence, has remained in a condition of dreamy contemplation, may be brought to the consciousness that it has to go through a new period of trial in this corporeal world" (326. II. 13). Perhaps, among the myriad rites and ceremonies of immersion and sprinkling to which the infant is submitted with other primitive peoples, some traces of similar beliefs may be found. When the new world-religion was winning its way among the gentiles, baptism was the great barrier erected between the babe and the power of ill, spirits of air, earth, and water, survivals of old heathenism antagonistic to Christianity. Before that holy rite was performed, the child lay exposed to all their machinations. Baptism was the armour of the infant against the assaults of Satan and his angels, against the cunning of the wanderers from elfin-land, the fairy-sprites, with their changelings and their impish tricks. Hence, the souls of still-born and unbaptized children came into the power of these evil ones and were metamorphosed into insects, birds, beasts, and the like, whose peculiar notes and voices betray them as having once been little children, or were compelled to join, the train of the wild huntsman, or mingle in the retinue of some other outcast, wandering sprite or devil; or, again, as some deceitful star, or will-o'-the-wisp, mislead and torment the traveller on moor and in bog and swamp, and guide him to an untimely death amid desert solitudes. Ploss, Henderson, and Swainson have a good deal to say on the subject of Frau Berctha and her train, the Wild Huntsman, the "Gabble Retchet," "Yeth Hounds," etc. Mr. Henderson tells us that, "in North Devon the local name is 'yeth hounds,' _heath_ and _heathen_ being both 'yeth' in the North Devon dialect. Unbaptized infants are there buried in a part of the churchyard set apart for the purpose called 'Chrycimers,' i.e. Christianless, hill, and the belief seems to be that their spirits, having no admittance into Paradise, unite in a pack of 'Heathen' or 'yeth' hounds, and hunt the Evil One, to whom they ascribe their unhappy condition" (469. 131, 132). The prejudice against unbaptized children lingers yet elsewhere, as the following extract from a newspaper published in the year 1882 seems to indicate (230. 272):-- "There is in the island of Mull a little burial-ground entirely devoted to unbaptized children, who were thus severed in the grave from those who had been interred in the hope of resurrection to life. Only one adult lies with the little babes--an old Christian woman--whose last dying request it was that she should be buried with the unbaptized children." The Rev. Mr. Thorn has given the facts poetic form and made immortal that mother-heart whose love made holy--if hallowed it needed to be--the lonely burial-ground where rest the infant outcasts:-- "A spot that seems to bear a ban, As if by curse defiled: No mother lies there with her babe, No father by his child." Among primitive peoples we find a like prejudice against still-born children and children who die very young. The natives of the Highlands of Borneo think that still-born infants go to a special spirit-land called _Tenyn lallu_, and "the spirits of these children are believed to be very brave and to require no weapon other than a stick to defend themselves against their enemies. The reason given for this idea is, that the child has never felt pain in this world and is therefore very daring in the other" (475. 199). In Annam the spirits of children still-born and of those dying in infancy are held in great fear. These spirits, called _Con Ranh_, or _Con Lôn_ (from _lôn_, "to enter into life"), are ever seeking "to incorporate themselves in the bodies of others, though, after so doing, they are incapable of life." Moreover, "their names are not mentioned in the presence of women, for it is feared they might take to these, and a newly-married woman is in like manner afraid to take anything from a woman, or to wear any of the clothing of one, who has had such a child. Special measures are necessary to get rid of the _Con Ranh_" (397. 18-19). The Alfurus, of the Moluccas, "bury children up to their waists and expose them to all the tortures of thirst until they wrench from them the promise to hurl themselves upon the enemies of the village. Then they take them out, but only to kill them on the spot, imagining that the spirits of the victims will respect their last promise" (388. 81). On the other hand, Callaway informs us that the Zulu diviner may divine by the _Amatongo_ (spirit) of infants, "supposed to be mild and beneficent" (417. 176). _Transmigration_. Wordsworth, in that immortal poem, which belongs to the jewels of the treasure-house of childhood, has sung of the birth of man:-- "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; The soul that rises with us, our life's star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar. Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But, trailing clouds of glory, do we come From God, who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy,"-- and the humbler bards of many an age, whose names have perished with the races that produced them, have thought and sung of soul-incarnation, metempsychosis, transmigration, and kindred concepts, in a thousand different ways. In their strangely poetical language, the Tupi Indians, of Brazil, term a child _pitanga_, "suck soul," from _piter_, "to suck," _anga_, "soul." The Seminole Indians, of Florida, "held the baby over the face of the woman dying in child-birth, so that it might receive her parting spirit" (409. 271). A similar practice (with the father) is reported from Polynesia. In a recently published work on "Souls," by Mrs. Mary Ailing Aber, we read:-- "Two-thirds of all the babies that are born in civilized lands to-day have no souls attached to them. These babies are emanations from their parents,--not true entities; and, unless a soul attaches itself, no ordinary efforts can carry one of them to the twentieth year. Souls do attach themselves to babies after birth sometimes so late as the third year. On the other hand, babies who have souls at birth sometimes lose them because the soul finds a better place, or is drawn away by a stronger influence; but this rarely occurs after the third year." This somewhat _outré_ declaration of modern spiritualism finds kindred in some of the beliefs of primitive peoples, concerning which there is much in Ploss, Frazer, Bastian, etc. In one of the Mussulman stories of King Solomon, the Angel of Death descends in human form to take the soul of an aged man, whose wish was to die when he had met the mightiest prophet. He dies talking to the wise Hebrew king. Afterwards the Angel says to Solomon:-- "He [the angel, whose head reaches ten thousand years beyond the seventh heaven, whose feet are five hundred years below the earth, and upon whose shoulders stands the Angel of Death] it is who points out to me when and how I must take a soul. His gaze is fixed on the tree Sidrat Almuntaha, which bears as many leaves inscribed with names as there are men living on the earth. "At each new birth a new leaf, bearing the name of the newly-born, bursts forth; and when any one has reached the end of his life, his leaf withers and falls off, and at the same instant I am with him to receive his soul.... "As often as a believer dies, Gabriel attends me, and wraps his soul in a green silken sheet, and then breathes it into a green bird, which feeds in Paradise until the day of the resurrection. But the soul of the sinner I take alone, and, having wrapped it in a coarse, pitch-covered, woollen cloth, carry it to the gates of Hell, where it wanders among abominable vapours until the last day" (547. 213, 214). According to the belief of the Miao-tse, an aboriginal tribe of the province of Canton, in China, the souls of unborn children are kept in the garden of two deities called "Flower-Grandfather" and "Flower-Grandmother," and when to these have been made by a priest sacrifices of hens or swine, the children are let out and thus appear among men. As a charm against barrenness, these people put white paper into a basket and have the priest make an invocation. The white paper represents the deities, and the ceremony is called _kau fa; i.e._ "Flower Invocation." In Japan, a certain Lake Fakone, owing its origin to an earthquake, and now surrounded by many temples, is looked upon as the abode of the souls of children about to be born (326. I. 3). Certain Californian Indians, near Monterey, thought that "the dead retreated to verdant islands in the West, while awaiting the birth of the infants whose souls they were to form" (396. III. 525). In Calabria, Italy, when a butterfly flits around a baby's cradle, it is believed to be either an angel or a baby's soul, and a like belief prevails in other parts of the world; and we have the classic personification of Psyche, the soul, as a butterfly. Among the uneducated peasantry of Ireland, the pure white butterfly is thought to be the soul of the sinless and forgiven dead on the way to Paradise, whilst the spotted ones are the embodiments of spirits condemned to spend their time of purgatory upon earth, the number of the sins corresponding with the number of spots on the wings of the insect (418. 192). In early Christian art and folk-lore, the soul is often figured as a dove, and in some heathen mythologies of Europe as a mouse, weasel, lizard, etc. In various parts of the world we find that children, at death, go to special limbos, purgatories, or heavens, and the folk-lore of the subject must be read at length in the mythological treatises. The Andaman Islanders "believe that every child which is conceived has had a prior existence, but only as an infant. If a woman who has lost a baby is again about to become a mother, the name borne by the deceased is bestowed on the fetus, in the expectation that it will prove to be the same child born again. Should it be found at birth that the babe is of the same sex as the one who died, the identity is considered to be sufficiently established; but, if otherwise, the deceased one is said to be under the ràu- (_Ficus laccifera_), in _châ-itân-_ (Hades)." Under this tree, upon the fruit of which they live, also dwell "the spirits and souls of all children who die before they cease to be entirely dependent on their parents (_i.e._ under six years of age)" (498. 86, 93). There was a somewhat similar myth in Venezuela (448. 297). Mr. Codrington gives some interesting illustrations of this belief from Melanesia (25. 311):-- "In the island of Aurora, Maewo, in the New Hebrides, women sometimes have a notion that the origin, beginning, of one of their children is a cocoanut or a bread-fruit, or something of that kind; and they believe, therefore, that it would be injurious to the child to eat that food. It is a fancy of the woman, before the birth of the child, that the infant will be the _nunu_, which may be translated the echo, of such an object. Women also fancy that a child is the _nunu_ of some dead person. It is not a notion of metempsychosis, as if the soul of the dead person returned in the new-born child; but it is thought that there is so close a connection that the infant takes the place of the deceased. At Mota, also, in the Banks Islands, there was the belief that each person had a source of his being, his origin, in some animate or inanimate thing, which might, under some circumstances, become known to him." As Mr. Codrington suggests, such beliefs throw light upon the probable origin of totemism and its development. _Spirit-World_. Mrs. Stevenson informs us that "although the Sia do not believe in a return of the spirits of their dead when they have once entered Shipapo [the lower world], there was once an exception to this." The priestly tale, as told to Mrs. Stevenson, is as follows (538. 143):-- "When the years were new, and this village had been built perhaps three years, all the spirits of our dead came here for a great feast. They had bodies such as they had before death; wives recognized husbands, husbands wives, children parents, and parents children. Just after sundown the spirits began arriving, only a few passing over the road by daylight, but after dark they came in great crowds and remained until near dawn. They tarried but one night; husbands and wives did not sleep together; had they done so, the living would have surely died. When the hour of separation came, there was much weeping, not only among the living, but the dead. The living insisted upon going with the dead, but the dead declared they must wait,--that they could not pass through the entrance to the other world; they must first die or grow old and again become little children to be able to pass through the door of the world for the departed. It was then that the Sia first learned all about their future home. They learned that the fields were vast, the pastures beautiful, the mountains high, the lakes and rivers clear like crystal, and the wheat and cornfields flourishing. During the day the spirits sleep, and at night they work industriously in the fields. The moon is father to the dead as the sun is father to the living, the dead resting when the sun travels, for at this time they see nothing; it is when the sun returns to his home at night that the departed spirits work and pass about in their world below. The home of the departed spirits is in the world first inhabited by the Sia." We learn further: "It is the aim of the Sia to first reach the intermediate state at the time the body ceases to develop, and then return gradually back to the first condition of infancy; at such periods one does not die, but sleeps to awake in the spirit-world as a little child. Many stories have come to the Sia by those who have died only for a time; the heart becomes still and the lips cold, and the spirit passes to the entrance of the other world and looks in, but does not enter, and yet it sees all, and in a short time returns to inhabit its earthly body. Great alarm is felt when one returns in this way to life, but much faith is put in the stories afterwards told by the one who has passed over the road of death." In the belief of these Indians of North America we see some foreshadowing of the declaration of Jesus, a rude expression of the fundamental thought underlying his words:-- "Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall in nowise enter therein." Certain Siouan Indians think: "The stars are all deceased men. When a child is born, a star descends and appears on earth in human form; after death it reascends and appears as a star in heaven" (433. 508). How like this is the poet's thought:-- "Our birth, is but a sleep and a forgetting: The soul that rises with us, our life's star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar." CHAPTER XI CHILDREN'S FLOWERS, PLANTS, AND TREES. As for man, his days are as grass; as a flower of the field so he flourishes. --_Psalm_ ciii. 15. A child at play in meadows green, Plucking the fragrant flowers, Chasing the white-winged butterflies,-- So sweet are childhood's hours. We meet wi' blythesome and kythesome cheerie weans, Daffin' and laughin' far adoon the leafy lanes, Wi' gowans and buttercups buskin' the thorny wands-- Sweetly singin' wi' the flower-branch wavin' in their hands. Many savage nations worship trees, and I really think my first feeling would be one of delight and interest rather than of surprise, if some day when I am alone in a wood, one of the trees were to speak to me.--_Sir John Lubbock_. O who can tell The hidden power of herbs, and might of magic spell?--_Spenser_. _Plant Life and Human Life_. Flowers, plants, and trees have ever been interwoven with the fate of man in the minds of poets and folk-thinkers. The great Hebrew psalmist declared: "As for man, his days are as grass; as a flower of the field so he flourisheth," and the old Greeks said beautifully, [greek: _oiæper phyllôn geneæ, toiæde kai andrôn_], "as is the generation of leaves, so is also that of men"; or, to quote the words of Homer (_Iliad_, vi. 146):-- "Like as the generation of leaves, so also is that of men; For the wind strews the leaves on the ground; but the forest, Putting forth fresh buds, grows on, and spring will presently return. Thus with the generation of men; the one blooms, the other fades away." One derivation (a folk-etymology, perhaps) suggested for the Greek [Greek: _anthropos_] connects it with [Greek: _anthos_], making _man_ to be "that which springs up like a flower." We ourselves speak of the "flower of chivalry," the "bloom of youth," "budding youth"; the poets call a little child a "flower," a "bud," a "blossom,"--Herrick even terms an infant "a virgin flosculet." Plants, beasts, men, cities, civilizations, grow and _flourish_; the selfsame words are applied to them all. The same idea comes out strongly in the words relating to birth and childhood in the languages of many primitive peoples. With the Cakchiquel Indians of Guatemala the term _boz_ has the following meanings: "to issue forth; (of flowers) to open, to blow; (of a butterfly) to come forth from the cocoon; (of chicks) to come forth from the egg; (of grains of maize) to burst; (of men) to be born"; in Nahuatl (Aztec), _itzmolini_ signifies "to sprout, to grow, to be born"; in Delaware, an Algonkian Indian dialect, _mehittuk_, "tree," _mehittgus_, "twig," _mehittachpin_, "to be born," seem related, while _gischigin_ means "to ripen, to mature, to be born." In many tongues the words for "young" reveal the same flow of thought. In Maya, an Indian language of Yucatan, _yax_ signifies "green, fresh, young"; in Nahuatl, _yancuic_, "green, fresh, new," and _yancuic pilla_, "a new-born babe"; in Chippeway, _oshki,_ "new, fresh, young," whence _oshkigin_, "young shoot," _oshkinawe_, "lad, youth," _oshkinig_, "newly born," _oshkinaiaa_, "a new or young object," _oshkiaiaans_, "a young animal or bird," oshkiabinodji_, "babe, infant, new-born child"; in Karankawa, an Indian language of Texas, _kwa'-an_, "child, young," signifies literally "growing," from _ka'-awan_, "to grow" (said of animals and plants). Our English words _lad_ and _lass_, which came to the language from Celtic sources, find their cognate in the Gothic _jugga-lauths_, "young lad, young man," where _jugga_ means "young," and _lauths_ is related to the verb _liudan_, "to grow, to spring up," from which root we have also the German _Leute_ and the obsolete English _leet_, for "people" were originally "the grown, the sprung up." _Maid (maiden)_, Anglo-Saxon _moegd_, Modern High German _Magd_, Gothic _magaths_ (and here belongs also old English _may_) is an old Teutonic word for "virgin, young girl." The Gothic _magaths_ is a derivative from _magus_, "son, boy, servant," cognate with Old Irish _mac_, "boy, son, youth," _mog_ (mug), "slave," Old Norse _mqgr_, "son," Anglo-Saxon _mago_, "son, youth, servant, man," the radical of all these terms being _mag_, "to have power, to increase, to grow,"--the Gothic _magus_ was properly "a growing (boy)," a "maid" is "a growing (girl)." The same idea underlies the month-name _May_, for, to the Romans, this was "the month of growth,"--flowery, bounteous May,--and dedicated to _Maia_, "the increaser," but curiously, as Ovid tells us, the common people considered it unlucky to marry in May, for then the rites of Bona Dea, the goddess of chastity, and the feasts of the dead, were celebrated. _Plant-Lore._ The study of dendanthropology and human florigeny would lead us wide afield. The ancient Semitic peoples of Asia Minor had their "Tree of Life," which later religions have spiritualized, and more than one race has ascribed its origin to trees. The Carib Indians believed that mankind--woman especially--were first created from two trees (509. 109). According to a myth of the Siouan Indians, the first two human beings stood rooted as trees in the ground for many ages, until a great snake gnawed at the roots, so that they got loose and became the first Indians. In the old Norse cosmogony, two human beings--man and woman--were created from two trees--ash and elm--that stood on the sea-shore; while Tacitus states that the holy grove of the Semnones was held to be the cradle of the nation, and in Saxony, men are said to have grown from trees. The Maya Indians called themselves "sons of the trees" (509. 180, 264). Doctor Beauchamp reports a legend of the Iroquois Indians, according to which a god came to earth and sowed five handfuls of seed, and these, changing to worms, were taken possession of by spirits, changed to children, and became the ancestors of the Five Nations (480. IV. 297). Classical mythology, along with dryads and tree-nymphs of all sorts, furnishes us with a multitude of myths of the metamorphosis of human beings into trees, plants, and flowers. Among the most familiar stories are those of Adonis, Crocus, Phyllis, Narcissus, Leucothea, Hyacinthus, Syrinx, Clytie, Daphne, Orchis, Lotis, Philemon and Baucis, Atys, etc. All over the world we find myths of like import. A typical example is the Algonkian Indian legend of the transformation of Mishosha, the magician, into the sugar-maple,--the name _aninatik_ or _ininatik_ is interpreted by folk-etymology as "man-tree," the sap being the life-blood of Mishosha. Gluskap, the culture-hero of the Micmacs, once changed "a mighty man" into the cedar-tree. Many of the peculiarities of trees and plants are explained by the folk as resulting from their having once been human creatures. Grimm and Ploss have called attention to the widespread custom of planting trees on the occasion of the birth of a child, the idea being that some sort of connection between the plant and the human existed and would show itself sympathetically. In Switzerland, where the belief is that the child thrives with the tree, or _vice versa_, apple-trees are planted for boys and pear- or nut-trees for girls. Among the Jews, a cedar was planted for a boy and a pine for a girl, while for the wedding canopy, branches were cut from both these trees (385. 6). From this thought the orators and psalmists of old Israel drew many a noble and inspiring figure, such as that used by David: "The righteous shall flourish like the palm-tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon." Here belong also "flourishing like a green bay-tree," and the remark of the Captain in Shakespeare's _King Richard Second:_-- "'Tis thought the king is dead. We will not stay; The bay-trees in our country are all withered." _Child-Flowers and -Plants._ The planting of trees for the hero or the heroine and the belief that these wither when a death is near, blossom when a happy event approaches, and in many ways react to the fate and fortune of their human fellows, occur very frequently in fairy-tales and legends. There is a sweet Tyrolian legend of "a poor idiot boy, who lived alone in the forest and was never heard to say any words but 'Ave Maria.' After his death a lily sprang up on his grave, on whose petals 'Ave Maria' might be distinctly read." (416. 216). An old Greek myth relates that the Crocus "sprang from the blood of the infant Crocus, who was accidentally struck by a metal disc thrown by Mercury, whilst playing a game" (448.299). In Ossianic story, "Malvina, weeping beside the tomb of Fingal, for Oscar and his infant son, is comforted by the maids of Morven, who narrate how they have seen the innocent infant borne on a light mist, pouring upon the fields a fresh harvest of flowers, amongst which rises one with golden disc, encircled with rays of silver, tipped with a delicate tint of crimson." Such, according to this Celtic legend, was the origin of the daisy (448. 308). The peasants of Brittany believe that little children, when they die, go straight to Paradise and are changed into beautiful flowers in the garden of heaven (174. 141). Similar beliefs are found in other parts of the world, and a like imagery is met with among our poets. Well known is Longfellow's little poem "The Reaper and the Flowers," in which death, as a reaper, reaps not alone the "bearded grain," but also "the flowers [children] that grow between," for:-- "'My Lord has need of these flowerets gay,' The reaper said, and smiled; 'Dear tokens of the earth are they, Where he was once a child.'" And so:-- "The mother gave, in tears and pain, The flowers she most did love; She knew she should find them all again In the field of light above." According to a myth of the Chippeway Indians, a star once came down from heaven to dwell among men. Upon consulting with a young man in a dream as to where it should live, it was told to choose a place for itself, and, "at first, it dwelt in the white rose of the mountains; but there it was so buried that it could not be seen. It went to the prairie; but it feared the hoof of the buffalo. It next sought the rocky cliff; but there it was so high that the children whom it loved most could not see it." It decided at last to dwell where it could always be seen, and so one morning the Indians awoke to find the surface of river, lake, and pond covered with thousands of white flowers. Thus came into existence the beautiful water-lilies (440. 68-70). Perhaps the most beautiful belief regarding children's flowers is that embodied in Hans Christian Andersen's tale _The Angel_, where the Danish prose-poet tells us: "Whenever a child dies, an angel from heaven comes down to earth and takes the dead child in his arms, spreads out his great white wings, and flies away over all the places the child has loved and picks quite a handful of flowers, which he carries up to the Almighty, that they may bloom in heaven more brightly than on earth. And the Father presses all the flowers to His heart; but He kisses the flower that pleases Him best, and the flower is then endowed with a voice and can join in the great chorus of praise" (393.341). _Star-Flowers_. Beside this, however, we may perhaps place the following quaint story of "The Devils on the Meadows of Heaven," of which a translation from the German of Rudolph Baumbach, by "C. F. P.," appears in the _Association Record_ (October, 1892), published by the Young Women's Christian Association of Worcester, Mass.:-- "As you know, good children, when they die, come to Heaven and become angels. But if you perhaps think they do nothing the sweet, long day but fly about and play hide-and-seek behind the clouds, you are mistaken. The angel-children are obliged to go to school like the boys and girls on the earth, and on week days must be in the angel-school three hours in the forenoon and two in the afternoon. There they write with golden pens on silver slates, and instead of ABC-books they have story-books with gay-coloured pictures. They do not learn geography, for of what use in Heaven is earth-knowledge; and in eternity one doesn't know the multiplication table at all. Dr. Faust is the angel-school teacher. On earth he was an A.M., and on account of a certain event which does not belong here, he is obliged to keep school in Heaven three thousand years more before the long vacation begins for him. Wednesday and Saturday afternoons the little angels have holiday; then they are taken to walk on the Milky Way by Dr. Faust. But Sunday they are allowed to play on the great meadow in front of the gate of Heaven, and that they joyfully anticipate during the whole week. "The meadow is not green, but blue, and on it grow thousands and thousands of silver and golden flowers. They shine in the night and we men call them stars. "When the angels are sporting about before the gate of Heaven, Dr. Faust is not present, for on Sunday he must recover from the toil of the past week. St. Peter, who keeps watch at the Heavenly gate, then takes charge. He usually sees to it that the play goes on properly, and that no one goes astray or flies away; but if one ever gets too far away from the gate, then he whistles on his golden key, which means 'Back!' "Once--it was really very hot in Heaven--St. Peter fell asleep. When the angels noticed this, they ceased swarming hither and thither and scattered over the whole meadow. But the most enterprising of them went out on a trip of discovery, and came at last to the place where the world is surrounded by a board fence. First they tried to find a crack somewhere through which they might peep, but as they found no gap, they climbed up the board fence and hung dangling and looking over. Yonder, on the other side, was hell, and before its gate a crowd of little devils were just running about. They were coal-black, and had horns on their heads and long tails behind. One of them chanced to look up and noticed the angels, and immediately begged imploringly that they would let them into Heaven for a little while; they would behave quite nice and properly. This moved the angels to pity, and because they liked the little black fellows, they thought they might perhaps allow the poor imps this innocent pleasure. "One of them knew the whereabouts of Jacob's ladder. This they dragged to the place from the lumber-room (St. Peter had, luckily, not waked up), lifted it over the fence of boards, and let it down into hell. Immediately the tailed fellows clambered up its rounds like monkeys, the angels gave them their hands, and thus came the devils upon Heaven's meadows. "At first they behaved themselves in a quite orderly manner. Modestly they stepped along and carried their tails on their arms like trains, as the devil grandmother, who sets great value on propriety, had taught them. But it did not last long; they became frolicsome, turned wheels and somersaults, and shrieked at the same time like real imps. The beautiful moon, who was looking kindly out of a window in Heaven, they derided, thrust out their tongues and made faces (German: long noses) at her, and finally began to pluck up the flowers which grew on the meadow and throw them down on the earth. Now the angels grew frightened and bitterly repented letting their evil guests into Heaven. They begged and threatened, but the devils cared for nothing, and kept on in their frolic more madly. Then, in terror, the angels waked up St. Peter and penitently confessed to him what they had done. He smote his hands together over his head when he saw the mischief which the imps had wrought. 'March in!' thundered he, and the little ones, with drooping wings, crept through the gate into Heaven. Then St. Peter called a few sturdy angels. They collected the imps and took them where they belonged. "The little angels did not escape punishment. Three Sundays in succession they were not allowed in front of Heaven's gate, and, if they were taken to walk, they were obliged to first unbuckle their wings and lay aside their halos; and it is a great disgrace for an angel to go about without wings and halo. "But the affair resulted in some good, after all. The flowers which the devils had torn up and thrown upon the earth took root and increased from year to year. To be sure, the star-flower lost much of its heavenly beauty, but it is still always lovely to look at, with its golden-yellow disk, and its silvery white crown of rays. "And because of its Heavenly origin, a quite remarkable power resides in it. If a maiden, whose mind harbours a doubt, pulls off, one by one, the white petals of the flower-star, whispering meanwhile a certain sentence at the fall of the last little petal, she is quite sure of what she desires to know." The very name _Aster_ is suggestive of star-origin and recalls the lines of Longfellow:-- "Spake full well, in language quaint and olden, One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine, When he called the flowers, so blue and golden, Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine." The reference seems to be to Friedrich Wilhelm Carové, of Coblentz, in whose _Märchen ohne Ende_, a forget-me-not is spoken of as "twinkling as brightly as a blue star on the green firmament of earth" (390. II. 149). Another contribution to floral astrology is the brief poem of H. M. Sweeny in the _Catholic World_ for November, 1892:-- "The Milky Way is the foot-path Of the martyrs gone to God; Its stars are the flaming jewels To show us the way they trod. "The flowers are stars dropped lower, Our daily path to light, In daylight to lead us upward As those jewels do at night." Flower-oracles are discussed in another section, and the "language of flowers" of which the poet tells,-- "In Eastern lands they talk in flowers, And they tell in a garland their loves and cares; Each blossom that blooms in their garden bower On its leaves a mystic language bears," must be studied in Dyer, Friend, and Folkard, or in the various booklets which treat of this entertaining subject. Though in Bohemia it is believed that "seven-year-old children will become beautiful by dancing in the flax," and in some parts of Germany "when an infant seems weakly and thrives slowly, it is placed naked upon the turf on Midsummer Day, and flax-seed is sprinkled over it; the idea being, that, as the flax-seed grows, so the child will gradually grow stronger" (435. 278, 279); flowers and plants are sometimes associated with ill-luck and death. In Westphalia and Thuringia the superstition prevails that "any child less than a year old, who is permitted to wreathe himself with flowers, will soon die." In the region about Cockermouth, in the county of Cumberland, England, the red campion (_Lychnis diurna_) is known as "mother-die," the belief being that, if children gather it, some misfortune is sure to happen to the parents. Dyer records also the following: "In West Cumberland, the herb-robert (_Geranium robertianum_) is called 'death come quickly,' from a like reason, while in parts of Yorkshire, the belief is that the mother of a child who has gathered the germander speedwell (_Veronica chamoedrys_) will die ere the year is out" (435. 276). _Children's Plant-Names._ Mr. H. C. Mercer, discussing the question of the presence of Indian corn in Italy and Europe in early times, remarks (_Amer. Naturalist_, Vol. XXVIII., 1894, p. 974):-- "An etymology has been suggested for the name _Grano Turco_ [Turkish grain], in the antics of boys when bearded and moustached with maize silk, they mimic the fierce looks of Turks in the high 'corn.' We cannot think that the Italian lad does not smoke the mock tobacco that must tempt him upon each ear. If he does, he apes a habit no less American in its origin than the maize itself. So the American lad playing with a 'shoe-string bow' or a 'corn-stalk fiddle' would turn to Italy for his inspiration." In the interesting lists of popular American plant-names, published by Mrs. Fanny D. Bergen (400), are found the following in which the child is remembered:-- Babies' breath, _Galium Mollugo._ In Eastern Massachusetts. Babies' breath, _Muscari botryoides._ In Eastern Massachusetts. Babies' feet, _Polygala paucifolia._ In New Hampshire. Babies' slippers, _Polygala paucifolia._ In Western Massachusetts. Babies' toes, _Polygala paucifolia._ In Hubbardston, Mass. Baby blue-eyes, _Nemophila insignis._ In Sta. Barbara, Cal. Blue-eyed babies, _Houstonia coerulea._ In Springfield, Mass. Boys and girls, _Dicentra cucullaria._ In New York. Boys' love, _Artemisia absinthium._ In Wellfleet, Mass. Death-baby, _Phallus sp. (?)._ In Salem, Mass. Girls and boys, _Dicentra cucullaria._ In Vermont. Little boy's breeches, _Dicentra cucullaria._ In Central Iowa. "Blue-eyed babies" is certainly an improvement upon "Quaker ladies," the name by which the _Houstonia_ is known in some parts of New England; "death-baby" is a term that is given, Mrs. Bergen tells us, "from the fancy that they foretell death in the family near whose house they spring up. I have known of intelligent people rushing out in terror and beating down a colony of these as soon as they appeared in the yard." The parents have not been entirely forgotten, as the following names show:-- Mother's beauties, _Calandrina Menziesii_. In Sta. Barbara, Cal. Mother of thousands, _Tradescantia crassifolia_ (?). In Boston, Mass. Daddy-nuts, _Tilia sp._ (?). In Madison, Wis. At La Crosse, Wis., the _Lonicera talarica_, is called "twin sisters," a name which finds many analogues. As we have seen, the consideration of children as flowers, plants, trees, traverses many walks of life. Floral imagery has appealed to many primitive peoples, perhaps to none more than to the ancient Mexicans, with whom children were often called flowers, and the Nagualists termed Mother-Earth "the flower that contains everything," and "the flower that eats everything"--being at once the source and end of life (413. 54). A sweet old German legend has it that the laughter of little children produced roses, and the sweetest and briefest of the "good-night songs" of the German mothers is this:-- "Guten Abend, gute Nacht! Mit Rosen bedacht, Mit Näglein besteckt; Morgen früh, wenn's Gott will, Wirst du wieder geweckt." CHAPTER XII. CHILDREN'S ANIMALS, BIRDS, ETC. My brother, the hare, ... my sisters, the doves. --_St. Francis of Assisi._ Love of animals is inborn. The child that has had no pets is to be pitied.--_G. Stanley Hall._ For what are the voices of birds-- Aye, and of beasts,--but words, our words, Only so much more sweet?--_Browning._ I know not, little Ella, what the flowers Said to you then, to make your cheek so pale; And why the blackbird in our laurel bowers Spoke to you, only: and the poor pink snail Fear'd less your steps than those of the May-shower It was not strange those creatures loved you so, And told you all. 'Twas not so long ago You were yourself a bird, or else a flower. --_Lord Lytton (Owen Meredith)._ _Children and Young Animals._ The comparisons sometimes made of children with various of the lower animals, such as monkeys, bears, pigs, etc., come more naturally to some primitive peoples, who, as Ploss has pointed out, suckle at the breast the young of certain animals simultaneously with their own offspring. In this way, the infant in the Society Islands comes early into association with puppies, as he does also among several of the native tribes of Australia and America; so was it likewise in ancient Rome, and the custom may yet be found among the tent-gypsies of Transylvania, in Persia, and even within the present century has been met with in Naples and Göttingen. The Maori mother, in like manner, suckles young pigs, the Arawak Indian of Guiana young monkeys (as also do the Siamese), the natives of Kamtschatka young bears. An old legend of the city of Breslau has it that the fashion certain ladies have of carrying dogs around with them originated in the fact that Duke Boleslau, in the last quarter of the eleventh century, punished the women of Breslau, for some connubial unfaithfulness, by taking away their suckling children and making them, carry instead puppies at the breast (392. I. 61). Of the Arekuna of Guiana, Schomburgk tells us:--"They bring up children and monkeys together. The monkeys are members of the family, eat with the other members, are suckled by the women, and have great affection for their human nurses. Oftentimes a woman is to be seen with a child and a monkey at the breast, the two nurselings quarrelling" (529. 13). The young children of the less nomadic tribes grow up in close association with the few domestic animals possessed by their parents, tumbling about with the puppies on the wigwam-floor or racing with them around the camp-stead. The history of totemism and fetichism, primitive medicine, and the arts connected therewith, their panaceas, talismans, and amulets, show early association of the child with animals. In the village of Issapoo, on the island of Fernando Po, in Western Africa, there is fastened to a pole in the market-place a snake-skin, to touch which all infants born the preceding year are brought by their mothers during an annual festival (529. 32). In various parts of the world, novices and neophytes are put to dream or fast in seclusion until they see some animal which becomes their tutelary genius, and whose form is often tattooed upon their body. Sir John Maundeville, the veracious mediaeval chronicler, reported that in Sicily serpents were used to test the legitimacy of children; "if the children be illegitimate, the serpents bite and kill them." Hartland cites, on the authority of Thiele, "a story in which a wild stallion colt is brought in to smell two babes, one of which is a changeling. Every time he smells one he is quiet and licks it; but, on smelling the other, he is invariably restive and strives to kick it. The latter, therefore, is the changeling" (258. 111). _Animal Nurses._ Akin to these practices are many of the forms of exposure and abandonment all over the world. Shakespeare, in _The Winter's Tale_, makes Antigonus say:-- "Come on (poor Babe). Some powerful Spirit instruct the Kites and Ravens To be thy Nurses. Wolves and Bears, they say (Casting their savageness aside), have done Like offices of pity." An old Egyptian painting represents a child and a calf being suckled by the same cow, and in Palestine and the Canary Islands, goats are used to suckle children, especially if the mother of the little one has died (125. II. 393). The story of Psammetichus and the legend of Romulus and Remus find parallels in many lands. Gods, heroes, saints, are suckled and cared for in their infancy by grateful beasts. _Wild Children._ Doctor Tylor has discussed at some length the subject of "wild men and beast children" (376), citing examples from many different parts of the globe. Procopius, the chronicler of the Gothic invasion of Italy, states (with the additional information that he saw the child in question himself), that, after the barbarians had ravaged the country, "an infant, left by its mother, was found by a she-goat, which suckled and took care of it. When the survivors came back to their deserted homes, they found the child living with its adopted mother, and called it Aegisthus." Doctor Tylor calls attention to the prevalence of similar stories in Germany after the destruction and devastation of the Napoleonic wars; there appears to be record of several children wild or animal-reared having, during this period, been received into Count von Recke's asylum at Overdyke. Many of these tales we need not hesitate to dismiss as purely fabulous, though there may be truth in some of the rest. Among the best-known cases (some of which are evidently nothing more than idiots, or poor wandering children) are: Peter, the "Wild Boy" of Hameln (in 1724); the child reported in the Hessian Chronicle as having been found by some hunters living with wolves in 1341; the child reported by Bernard Connor as living with she-bears, and the child found with bears at Grodno in Poland; the wolf-child of the Ardennes, mentioned by Koenig, in his treatise on the subject; the Irish boy said to feed on grass and hay, found living among the wild sheep; the girl found living wild in Holland in 1717; the two goat-like boys of the Pyrenees (in 1719); the amphibious wild girl of Châlons sur Marne (in 1731); the wild boy of Bamberg, who lowed like an ox; and, the most renowned of all, Kaspar Hauser. This celebrated "wild boy" has recently been made the subject of a monograph by the Duchess of Cleveland (208), of which the first words are these: "The story of Kaspar Hauser is both curious and instructive. It shows on how commonplace and unpromising a foundation a myth of European celebrity may rest." Sir William Sleeman has something to say of "beast-children" in the Kingdom of Oude (183), and Mr. Ball, who writes of wolf-reared children in India, calls attention to the fact that in that country there seems to have been no instance of a wolf-reared girl (183. 474). In the _Kathâ sarit sâgara_ ("Ocean of the River of Story"), a work belonging to the twelfth century, there is the story of the immoral union of a _yaksha_, or _jin_, and the daughter of a holy man, who was bathing in the Granges. The relatives of the girl by magic changed the two guilty persons into a lion and a lioness. The latter soon died, but gave birth to a human child, which the lion-father made the other lionesses suckle. The baby grew up and became "the world-ruling king, Satavahana" (376. 29). Another Hindu story tells how the daughter of a Brahman, giving birth to a child while on a journey, was forced to leave it in a wood, where it was suckled and nursed by female jackals until rescued by merchants who happened to pass by. Herodotus repeats the tales that Cyrus was nursed and suckled by a bitch; Zeus figures as suckled by a goat; Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome according to the ancient legend, were nursed by a she-wolf; and others of the heroes and gods of old were suckled by animals whose primitive kinship with the race of man the folk had not forgotten. Professor Rauber of Dorpat, in his essay on "Homo Sapiens Ferus" (335), discusses in detail sixteen cases of wild children (including most of those treated by Tylor) as follows: the two Hessian wolf-children, boys (1341-1344); the Bamberg boy, who grew up among the cattle (at the close of the sixteenth century); Hans of Liège; the Irish boy brought up by sheep; the three Lithuanian bear-boys (1657, 1669, 1694); the girl of Oranienburg (1717); the two Pyrenæan boys (1719); Peter, the wild boy of Hameln (1724); the girl of Songi in Champagne (1731); the Hungarian bear-girl (1767); the wild man of Cronstadt (end of eighteenth century); the boy of Aveyron (1795). It will be noticed that in this list of sixteen cases but two girls figure. As a result of his studies Professor Rauber concludes: "What we are wont to call reason does not belong to man as such; in himself he is without it. The appellation _Homo sapiens_ does not then refer to man as such, but to the ability under certain conditions of becoming possessed of reason. It is the same with language and culture of every sort. The title _Homo sapiens ferus_ (Linnæus) is in a strict sense unjustifiable and a contradiction in itself." To prehistoric man these wild children are like, but they are not the same as he; they resemble him, but cannot be looked upon as one and the same with him. From the stand-point of pedagogy, Professor Rauber, from the consideration of these children, feels compelled to declare that "the ABC-school must be replaced by the culture-school." In other words: "The ABC is not, as so many believe, the beginning of all wisdom. In order to be able to admeasure this sufficiently, prehistoric studies are advisable, nay, necessary. Writing is a very late acquisition of man. In the arrangement of a curriculum for the first years of the culture-school, reading and writing are to be placed at the end of the second school year, but never are they to begin the course ... Manual training ought also to be taken up in the schools; it is demanded by considerations of culture-history" (335.133). _Animal Stories._ Professor W. H. Brewer of New Haven, discussing the "instinctive interest of children in bear and wolf stories," observes (192): "The children of European races take more interest in bear and wolf stories than in stories relating to any other wild animals. Their interest in bears is greater than that in wolves, and in the plays of children bears have a much more conspicuous part. There is a sort of fascination in everything relating to these animals that attracts the child's attention from a very early age, and 'Tell me a bear story' is a common request long before it learns to read." After rejecting, as unsatisfactory, the theory that would make it a matter of education with each child,--"the conservative traditions of children have preserved more stories about bears and wolves, parents and nurses talk more about them, these animals have a larger place in the literature for children; hence the special interest,"--Professor Brewer expresses his own belief that "the special interest our children show towards these two animals is instinctive, and it is of the nature of an inherited memory, vague, to be sure, yet strong enough to give a bend to the natural inclinations." He points out that the bear and the wolf are the two animals "which have been and still are the most destructive to human life (and particularly to children) in our latitude and climate," and that "several of the large breeds of dogs,--the wolf-hound proper, the mastiff (particularly the Spanish mastiff), and even the St. Bernard,--were originally evolved as wolf-dogs for the protection of sheep and children." His general conclusion is: "The fear inspired by these animals during the long ages of the childhood of our civilization, and the education of the many successive generations of our ancestors in this fear, descends to us as an inherited memory, or, in other words, an instinct. While not strong, it is of sufficient force to create that kind of fascination which stories of bears and wolves have in children before the instincts are covered up and obscured by intellectual education. The great shaggy bear appeals more strongly to the imagination of children, hence its superior value to play 'boo' with." _Rabbit and Hare._ The rabbit and the hare figure in many mythologies, and around them, both in the Old World and the New, has grown up a vast amount of folk-lore. The rabbit and the child are associated in the old nursery-rhyme:-- "Bye, bye, Baby Bunting, Papa's gone a-hunting, To get a rabbit-skin, To wrap Baby Bunting in," which reminds us at once of the Chinook Indians and the Flat Heads of the Columbia, with whom "the child is wrapped in rabbit-skins and placed in this little coffin-like cradle, from which it is not in some instances taken out for several weeks" (306.174). An Irish belief explains hare-lip as having been caused, before the birth of the child, by the mother seeing a hare. The Chinese think that "a hare or a rabbit sits at the foot of the cassia-tree in the moon, pounding the drugs out of which the elixir of immortality is compounded" (401. 155). The Ungava Eskimo, according to Turner, have a legend that the hare was once a little child, abused by its elders; "it ran away to dwell by itself. The hare has no tail, because as a child he had none; and he lays back his ears, when he hears a shout, because he thinks people are talking about him" (544. 263). In a myth of the Menomoni Indians, reported by Dr. W. J. Hoffman, we read that Manabush [the great culture-hero] and a twin brother were born the sons of the virgin daughter of an old woman named Nokómis. His brother and mother died. Nokómis wrapped Manabush in dry, soft grass, and placed a wooden bowl over him. After four days a noise proceeded from the bowl, and, upon removing it, she saw "a little white rabbit with quivering ears." Afterwards, when grown up, and mourning for the death of his brother, Manabush is said to have hid himself in a large rock near Mackinaw, where he was visited by the people for many years. When he did not wish to see them in his human form, he appeared to them as "a little white rabbit with trembling ears" (389. (1890) 246). Of the white rabbit, the Great Hare, Manabush, Naniboju, etc., more must be read in the mythological essays of Dr. Brinton. Among the tales of the Ainu of Yezo, Japan, recorded by Professor B. H. Chamberlain, is the following concerning the Hare-god:-- "Suddenly there was a large house on top of a hill, wherein were six persons beautifully arrayed, but constantly quarrelling. Whence they came was not known. Thereupon [the god] Okikurumi came, and said: 'Oh, you bad hares! you wicked hares! Who should not know your origin? The children in the sky were pelting each other with snowballs, and the snowballs fell into this world of men. As it would have been a pity to waste heaven's snow, the snowballs were turned into hares, and those hares are you. You who live in this world of mine, this world of human beings, must be quiet. What is it that you are brawling about?' With these words, Okikurumi seized a fire-brand, and beat each of the six with it in turn. Thereupon all the hares ran away. This is the origin of the hare-god, and for this reason the body of the hare is white, because made of snow, while its ears, which are the part which was charred by the fire, are black" (471. 486). The Mayas of Yucatan have a legend of a town of hares under the earth (411. 179). In Germany we meet with the "Easter-Hare" (Oster-Hase). In many parts of that country the custom prevails at or about Easter-tide of hiding in the garden, or in the house, eggs, which, the children are told, have been laid by the "Easter-hare." Another curious term met with in northeastern Germany is "hare-bread" (Hasenbrod). In Quedlinburg this name is given to bread (previously placed there intentionally by the parents) picked up by children when out walking with their parents or elders. In Lüneburg it is applied to dry bread given a hungry child with an exhortation to patience. In the first case, the little one is told that the hare has lost it, and in the second, that it has been taken away from him. The name "hare-bread" is also given to bread brought home by the parents or elders, when returning from a journey, the children being told that it has been taken away from the hare. In the shadow-pictures made on the wall for the amusement of children the rabbit again appears, and the hare figures also in children's games. _Squirrel._ According to the belief of certain Indians of Vancouver Island, there once lived "a monstrous old woman with wolfish teeth, and finger-nails like claws." She used to entice away little children whom she afterwards ate up. One day a mother, who was about to lose her child thus, cried out to the spirits to save her child in any way or form. Her prayer was answered, and "The Great Good Father, looking down upon the Red Mother, pities her; lo! the child's soft brown skin turns to fur, and there slides from the ogress's grip, no child, but the happiest, liveliest, merriest little squirrel of all the West,--but bearing, as its descendants still bear, those four dark lines along the back that show where the cruel claws ploughed into it escaping" (396. III. 52-54). Elsewhere, also, the squirrel is associated with childhood. Familiar is the passage in Longfellow's _Hiawatha,_ where the hero speaks to the squirrel, who has helped him out of a great difficulty:-- "Take the thanks of Hiawatha, And the name which now he gives you; For hereafter, and forever, Boys shall call you _adjidaumo, Tail in air_ the boys shall call you." _Seals._ Those noble and indefatigable missionaries, the Moravians, have more than once been harshly criticised in certain quarters, because, in their versions of the Bible, in the Eskimo language, they saw fit to substitute for some of the figurative expressions employed in our rendering, others more intelligible to the aborigines. In the New Testament Christ is termed the "Lamb of God," but since, in the Arctic home of the Innuit, shepherds and sheep are alike unknown, the translators, by a most felicitous turn of language, rendered the phrase by "little seal of God," a figure that appealed at once to every Eskimo, young and old, men and women; for what sheep were to the dwellers on the Palestinian hillsides, seals are to this northernmost of human races. Rink tells us that the Eskimo mother "reserves the finest furs for her new-born infant," while the father keeps for it "the daintiest morsels from the chase," and, "to make its eyes beautiful, limpid, and bright, he gives it seal's eyes to eat" (523. 37). _Fish._ Mrs. Bramhall tells us how in Japan the little children, playing about the temples, feed the pet fishes of the priests in the temple-lake. At the temple of the Mikado, at Kioto, she saw "six or eight little boys and girls ... lying at full length on the bank of the pretty lake." The fishes were called up by whistling, and the children fed them by holding over the water their open hands full of crumbs (189. 65). Other inhabitants of the sea and the waters of the earth are brought into early relation with children. _Crabs and Crawfishes._ Among the Yeddavanad, of the Congo, a mother tells her children concerning three kinds of crabs: "Eat _kallali,_ and you will become a clever man; eat _hullali,_ and you will become as brave as a tiger; eat _mandalli,_ and you will become master of the house" (449. 297). In the Chippeway tale of the "Raccoon and the Crawfish," after the former, by pretending to be dead, has first attracted to him and then eaten all the crawfish, we are told:-- "While he was engaged with the broken limbs, a little female crawfish, carrying her infant sister on her back, came up seeking her relations. Finding they had all been devoured by the raccoon, she resolved not to survive the destruction of her kindred, but went boldly up to the enemy, and said: 'Here, Aissibun (Raccoon), you behold me and my little sister. We are all alone. You have eaten up our parents and all our friends. Eat us, too!' And she continued to say: 'Eat us, too! _Aissibun amoon, Aissibun amoon!'_ The raccoon was ashamed. 'No!' said he,' I have banqueted on the largest and fattest; I will not dishonour myself with such little prey.' At this moment, Manabozbo [the culture-hero or demi-god of these Indians] happened to pass by. _'Tyau,'_ said he to the raccoon, 'thou art a thief and an unmerciful dog. Get thee up into trees, lest I change thee into one of these same worm-fish; for thou wast thyself a shell-fish originally, and I transformed thee.' Manabozho then took up the little supplicant crawfish and her infant sister, and cast them into the stream. 'There,' said he, 'you may dwell. Hide yourselves under the stones; and hereafter you shall be playthings for little children'" (440. 411, 412). _Games._ The imitation of animals, their movements, habits, and peculiarities in games and dances, also makes the child acquainted at an early age with these creatures. In the section on "Bird and Beast," appropriately headed by the words of the good St. Francis of Assisi--"My brother, the hare, ... my sisters, the doves,"--Mr. Newell notices some of the children's games in which the actions, cries, etc., of animals are imitated. Such are "My Household," "Frog-Pond," "Bloody Tom," "Blue-birds and Yellow-birds," "Ducks fly" (313. 115). _Doves._ Not at Dodona and in Arcadia alone has the dove been associated with religion, its oracles, its mysteries, and its symbolism. In the childhood of the world, according to the great Hebrew cosmologist, "the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters," and a later bard and seer of our own race reanimated the ancient figure of his predecessor in all its pristine strength, when in, the story of Paradise lost and found again, he told how, at the beginning, the creative spirit "Dove-like sat brooding o'er the vast abyss." In the childhood of the race, it was a dove that bore to the few survivors of the great flood the branch of olive, token that the anger of Jahveh was abated, and that the waters no longer covered the whole earth. In the childhood of Christianity, when its founder was baptized of John in the river Jordan, "Lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, and the Spirit of God descended like a dove, and lighted on Him,"--and the "Heavenly Dove" Still beautifies the imagery of oratory and song, the art and symbolism of the great churches, its inheritors. In the childhood of man the individual, the dove has also found warm welcome. At the moment of the birth of St. Austrebertha (630-704 A.D.), as the quaint legend tells, "the chamber was filled with a heavenly odour, and a white dove, which hovered awhile above the house, flew into the chamber and settled on the head of the infant," and when Catherine of Racconigi (1486-1547 A.D.) was only five years old "a dove, white as snow, flew into her chamber and lighted on her shoulder"; strange to relate, however, the infant first took the bird for a tool of Satan, not a messenger of God. When St. Briocus of Cardigan, a Welsh saint of the sixth century, "was receiving the communion for the first time, a dove, white as snow, settled on his head, and the abbot knew that the young boy was a chosen vessel of honour" (191. 107, 108). In a Swedish mother's hymn occurs the following beautiful thought:-- "There sitteth a dove so white and fair, All on the lily spray, And she listeneth how to Jesus Christ The little children pray. "Lightly she spreads her friendly wings, And to Heaven's gate hath sped, And unto the Father in Heaven she bears The prayers which the children have said. "And back she comes from Heaven's gate, And brings, that dove so mild, From the Father in Heaven, who hears her speak, A blessing on every child. "Then, children, lift up a pious prayer! It hears whatever you say; That heavenly dove so white and fair, All on the lily spray" (379. 255). The bird-messenger of childhood finds its analogue in the beliefs of some primitive tribes that certain birds have access to the spirit-land, and are the bearers of tidings from the departed. Into the same category fall the ancient practice of releasing a dove (or some other winged creature) at the moment of death of a human being, as a means of transport of his soul to the Elysian fields, and the belief that the soul itself took its flight in the form and semblance of a dove (509. 257). The Haida Indians, of British Columbia, think that, "in the land of light, children often transform themselves into bears, seals, and birds," and wonderful tales are told of their adventures. Hartley Coleridge found for the guardian angel of infancy, no apter figure than that of the dove:-- "Sweet infant, whom thy brooding parents love For what thou art, and what they hope to see thee, Unhallow'd sprites, and earth-born phantoms flee thee; Thy soft simplicity, a hovering dove, That still keeps watch from blight and bane to free thee, With its weak wings, in peaceful care outspread, Fanning invisibly thy pillow'd head, Strikes evil powers with reverential dread, Beyond the sulphurous bolts of fabled Jove, Or whatsoe'er of amulet or charm Fond ignorance devised to save poor souls from harm." Perhaps the sweetest touch of childhood in all Latin literature is that charming passage in Horace (_Carm._ Lib. III. 4):-- "Me fabulosæ Vulture in Apulo, Nutrices extra limen Apuliæ, Ludo fatigatoque somno Fronde nova puerum palumbes Texere," which Milman thus translates:-- "The vagrant infant on Mount Vultur's side, Beyond my childhood's nurse, Apulia's bounds, By play fatigued and sleep, Did the poetic doves With young leaves cover." The amativeness of the dove has lent much to the figurative language of that second golden age, that other Eden where love is over all. Shenstone, in his beautiful pastoral, says:-- "I have found out a gift for my fair; I have found where the wood-pigeons breed," and the "love of the turtle," "billing and cooing," are now transferred to human affection. Venus, the goddess of love, and the boy-god Cupid ride in a chariot drawn by doves, which birds were sacred to the sea-born child of Uranus. In the springtime, when "the voice of the turtle is heard in the land," then "a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love." If, from the sacred oaks of Dodona, to the first Greeks, the doves disclosed the oracles of Jove, so has "the moan of doves in immemorial elms" divulged to generation after generation of lovers the mission of his son of the bow and quiver. _Robin._ What the wood-pigeon was to Horace, the robin-redbreast has been to the children of old England. In the celebrated ballad of the "Children in the Wood", we are told that, after their murder by the cruel uncle,-- "No burial these pretty babes Of any man receives, Till Robin Redbreast piously Did cover them with leaves." The poet Thomson speaks of "the redbreast sacred to the household gods," and Gray, in a stanza which, since the edition of 1753, has been omitted from the _Elegy_, wrote:-- "There scattered oft, the earliest of the year, By hands unseen are frequent violets found; The robin loves to build and warble there, And little footsteps lightly print the ground." Dr. Robert Fletcher (447) has shown to what extent the redbreast figures in early English poetry, and the belief in his pious care for the dead and for children is found in Germany, Brittany, and other parts of the continent of Europe. In England the robin is the children's favourite bird, and rhymes and stories in his honour abound,--most famous is the nursery song, "Who killed Cock Robin?" A sweet legend of the Greek Church tells us that "Our Lord used to feed the robins round his mother's door, when a boy; moreover, that the robin never left the sepulchre till the Resurrection, and, at the Ascension, joined in the angels' song." The popular imagination, before which the robin appears as "the pious bird with the scarlet breast," found no difficulty in assigning a cause for the colour of its plumage. One legend, current amongst Catholic peoples, has it that "the robin was commissioned by the Deity to carry a drop of water to the souls of unbaptized infants in hell, and its breast was singed in piercing the flames." In his poem _The Robin_, Whittier has versified the story from a Welsh source. An old Welsh lady thus reproves her grandson, who had tossed a stone at the robin hopping about in the apple-tree:-- "'Nay!' said the grandmother; 'have you not heard, My poor, bad boy! of the fiery pit, And how, drop by drop, this merciful bird Carries the water that quenches it? "'He brings cool dew in his little bill, And lets it fall on the souls of sin; You can see the mark on his red breast still Of fires that scorch as he drops it in.'" Another popular story, however, relates that when Christ was on His way to Calvary, toiling beneath the burden of the cross, the robin, in its kindness, plucked a thorn from the crown that oppressed His brow, and the blood of the divine martyr dyed the breast of the bird, which ever since has borne the insignia of its charity. A variant of the same legend makes the thorn wound the bird itself and its own blood dye its breast. According to a curious legend of the Chippeway Indians, a stern father once made his young son undergo the fasting necessary to obtain a powerful guardian spirit. After bravely holding out for nine days, he appealed to his father to allow him to give up, but the latter would not hear of it, and by the eleventh day the boy lay as one dead. At dawn the next morning, the father came with the promised food. Looking through a hole in the lodge, he saw that his son had painted his breast and shoulders as far as he could reach with his hands. When he went into the lodge, he saw him change into a beautiful bird and fly away. Such was the origin of the first robin-redbreast (440. 210). Whittier, in his poem, _How the Robin Came_, has turned the tale of the Red Men into song. As the father gazed about him, he saw that on the lodge-top-- "Sat a bird, unknown before, And, as if with human tongue, 'Mourn me not,' it said, or sung; 'I, a bird, am still your son, Happier than if hunter fleet, Or a brave before your feet Laying scalps in battle won. Friend of man, my song shall cheer Lodge and corn-land; hovering near, To each wigwam I shall bring Tidings of the coming spring; Every child my voice shall know In the moon of melting snow When the maple's red bud swells, And the wind-flower lifts its bells. As their fond companion Men shall henceforth own your son, And my song shall testify That of human kin am I.'" _Stork._ The _Lieblingsvogel_ of German children is the stork, who, as parents say, brings them their little brothers and sisters, and who is remembered in countless folk and children's rhymes. The mass of child-literature in which the stork figures is enormous. Ploss has a good deal to say of this famous bird, and Carstens has made it the subject of a brief special study,--"The Stork as a Sacred Bird in Folk-Speech and Child-Song" (198). The latter says: "It is with a sort of awe (_Ehrfurcht_) that the child looks upon this sacred bird, when, returning with the spring he settles down on the roof, throwing back his beak and greeting the new home with a flap of his wings; or when, standing now on one foot, now on the other, he looks so solemnly at things, that one would think he was devoutly meditating over something or other; or, again, when, on his long stilt-like legs, he gravely strides over the meadows. With great attention we listened as children to the strange tales and songs which related to this sacred bird, as our mother told them to us and then added with solemn mien, 'where he keeps himself during the winter is not really known,' or, 'he flies away over the _Lebermeer_, whither no human being can follow.' 'Storks are enchanted (_verwünscht_) men,' my mother used to say, and in corroboration told the following story: 'Once upon a time a stork broke a leg. The owner of the house upon which the stork had its nest, interested himself in the unfortunate creature, took care of it and attended to it, and soon the broken leg was well again. Some years later, it happened that the kind-hearted man, who was a mariner, was riding at anchor near the North Sea Coast, and the anchor stuck fast to the bottom, so that nothing remained but for the sailor to dive into the depths of the sea. This he did, and lo! he found the anchor clinging to a sunken church-steeple. He set it free, but, out of curiosity, went down still deeper, and far down below came to a magnificent place, the inhabitants of which made him heartily welcome. An old man addressed him and informed him that he had been the stork whose leg the sailor had once made well, and that the latter was now in the real home of the storks.'" Carstens compares this story with that of Frau Holle, whose servant the stork, who brings the little children out of the child-fountain of the Götterburg, would seem to be. In North Germany generally the storks are believed to be human beings in magical metamorphosis, and hence no harm must be done them. Between the household, upon whose roof the stork takes up his abode, and the family of the bird, a close relation is thought to subsist. If his young ones die, so will the children of the house; if no eggs are laid, no children will be born that year; if a stork is seen to light upon a house, it is regarded by the Wends of Lusatia as an indication that a child will be born there the same year; in Switzerland the peasant woman about to give birth to a child chants a brief appeal to the stork for aid. A great variety of domestic, meteorological, and other superstitions are connected with the bird, its actions, and mode of life. The common Low German name of the stork, _Adebar_, is said to mean "luck-bringer"; in Dutch, he is called _ole vaer,_ "old father." After him the wood-anemone is called in Low German _Hannoterblume,_ "stork's-flower." An interesting tale is "The Storks," in Hans Christian Andersen. _Bird-Language._ In the Golden Age, as the story runs, men were able to hold converse with the birds of the air and the beasts of the field, nor had a diversity of dialects yet sprung up among them. In Eden of old the whole world was of one tongue and one speech; nay more, men talked with the gods and with God. Many legends of primitive peoples there are telling how confusion first arose,--every continent has its Babel-myth,--and how men came at last to be unable to comprehend each other's speech. The Indians of Nova Scotia say that this occurred when Gluskap, the culture-hero of the Micmacs, after giving a parting banquet to all creatures of earth, sea, and air, "entered his canoe in the Basin of Minas, and, sailing westward in the moonlight, disappeared. Then the wolves, bears, and beavers, who had before been brothers, lost the gift of common language, and birds and beasts, hating one another, fled into the distant forests, where, to this day, the wolf howls and the loon utters its sad notes of woe" (418. 185). The Mexican legend of the deluge states that the vessel in which were Coxcox,--the Mexican Noah,--and his wife, Xochiquetzal, stranded on a peak of Colhuacan. To them were born fifteen sons, who, however, all came into the world dumb, but a dove gave them fifteen tongues, and thence are descended the fifteen languages and tribes of Anahuac (509. 517). In later ages, among other peoples, the knowledge of the forgotten speech of the lower creation was possessed by priests and seers alone, or ascribed to innocent little children,--some of the power and wisdom of the bygone Golden Age of the race is held yet to linger with the golden age of childhood. In the beautiful lines,-- "O du Kindermund, o du Kindermund, Unbewuszter Weisheit froh, Vogelsprachekund, vogelsprachekund, Wie Salamo!" the poet Rückert attributes to the child that knowledge of the language of birds, which the popular belief of the East made part of the lore of the wise King Solomon. Weil (547. 191) gives the Mussulman version of the original legend:-- "In him [Solomon] David placed implicit confidence, and was guided by him in the most difficult questions, for he had heard, in the night of his [Solomon's] birth, the angel Gabriel exclaim, 'Satan's dominion is drawing to its close, for this night a child is born, to whom Iblis and all his hosts, together with all his descendants, shall be subject. The earth, air, and water with all the creatures that live therein, shall be his servants. He shall be gifted with nine-tenths of all the wisdom and knowledge which Allah has granted to mankind, and understand not only the languages of men, but those also of beasts and birds.'" Some recollection of this appears in Ecclesiastes (x. 20), where we read, "For a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter," and in our own familiar saying "a little bird told me," as well as in the Bulbul-hezar or talking bird of the _Arabian Nights_, and its imitation "the little green bird who tells everything," in the _Fairy Tales_ of the Comtesse d'Aunoy. The interpretation of the cries of birds and animals into human speech has also some light thrown upon it from this source. Various aspects of this subject have been considered by Hopf (474), Swainson (539), Treichel (372), Brunk, Grimm (462). The use of certain birds as oracles by children is well known. A classical example is the question of the Low German child:-- "Kukuk van Hewen, "Wi lank sail ik lewen?' ["Cuckoo of Heaven, How long am I to live?"] Of King Solomon we are told: "He conversed longest with the birds, both on account of their delicious language, which he knew as well as his own, as also for the beautiful proverbs that are current among them." The interpretation of the songs of the various birds is given as follows:-- The cook: "Ye thoughtless men, remember your Creator." The dove: "All things pass away; Allah alone is eternal." The eagle: "Let our life be ever so long, yet it must end in death." The hoopoo: "He that shows no mercy, shall not obtain mercy." The kata: "Whosoever can keep silence goes through life most securely." The nightingale: "Contentment is the greatest happiness." The peacock: "As thou judgest, so shalt thou be judged." The pelican: "Blessed be Allah in Heaven and Earth." The raven: "The farther from mankind, the pleasanter." The swallow: "Do good, for you shall be rewarded hereafter." The syrdak: "Turn to Allah, O ye sinners." The turtle-dove: "It were better for many a creature had it never been born." The King, it appears, chose the hoopoo and the cock for his companions, and appointed the doves to dwell in the temple which he was to erect (547. 200, 201). In fairy-tale and folk-lore bird-speech constantly appears. A good example is the story "Wat man warm kann, wenn man blot de Vageln richti verstan deit," included by Klaus Groth in his _Quickborn_. In the Micmac legend of the _Animal Tamers_, by collecting the "horns" of the various animals a youthful hero comes to understand their language (521. 347). Longfellow, in his account of "Hiawatha's Childhood," has not forgotten to make use of the Indian tradition of the lore of language of bird and of beast possessed by the child:-- "Then the little Hiawatha Learned of every bird its language, Learned their names and all their secrets, How they built their nests in summer, Where they hid themselves in winter, Talked with them whene'er he met them, Called them 'Hiawatha's Chickens.' "Of all the beasts he learned the language, Learned their names and all their secrets, How the beavers built their lodges, Where the squirrels hid their acorns, How the reindeer ran so swiftly, Why the rabbit was so timid, Talked with them whene'er he met them, Called them 'Hiawatha's Brothers.'" In the Middle Ages the understanding of the language of birds, their _Latin_, as it was called, ranked as the highest achievement of human learning, the goal of wisdom and knowledge, and the thousand rhyming questions asked of birds by children to-day are evidence of a time when communication with them was deemed possible. Some remembrance of this also lingers in not a few of the lullabies and nursery-songs of a type corresponding to the following from Schleswig-Holstein:-- "Hör mal, lütje Kind Wo düt lütje Vagel singt Baben in de Hai! Loop, lüt Kind, un hal mi dat lüt Ei." Among the child-loving Eskimo we find many tales in which children and animals are associated; very common are stories of children metamorphosed into birds and beasts. Turner has obtained several legends of this sort from the Eskimo of the Ungava district in Labrador. In one of these, wolves are the gaunt and hungry children of a woman who had not wherewithal to feed her numerous progeny, and so they were turned into ravening beasts of prey; in another the raven and the loon were children, whom their father sought to paint, and the loon's spots are evidence of the attempt to this day; in a third the sea-pigeons or guillemots are children who were changed into these birds for having scared away some seals. The prettiest story, however, is that of the origin of the swallows: Once there were some children who were wonderfully wise, so wise indeed that they came to be called _zulugagnak_, "like the raven," a bird that knows the past and the future. One day they were playing on the edge of a cliff near the village, and building toy-houses, when they were changed into birds. They did not forget their childish occupation, however, and, even to this day, the swallows come to the cliff to build their nests or houses of mud,--"even the raven does not molest them, and Eskimo children love to watch them" (544. 262, 263). From time immemorial have the life and actions of the brute creation been associated with the first steps of education and learning in the child. CHAPTER XIII. CHILD-LIFE AND EDUCATION IN GENERAL. The mother's heart is the child's school-room.--_Henry Ward Beecher_. The father is known from the child.--_German Proverb_. Learn young, learn fair, Learn auld, learn mair. --_Scotch Proverb._ We bend the tree when it is young.--_Bulgarian Proverb_. Fools and bairns should na see things half done. --_Scotch Proverb_. No one is born master.--_Italian Proverb_. _Mother as Teacher_. _Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius in sensu_ is a favourite dictum of philosophy; primitive peoples might, perhaps, be credited with a somewhat different crystallization of thought: _nihil est in puero quod non prius in parenti_, "nothing is in the child which was not before in the parent," for belief in prenatal influence of parent upon child is widely prevalent. The following remarks, which were written of the semi-civilized peoples of Annam and Tonquin, may stand, with suitable change of terms, for very many barbarous and savage races:-- "The education of the children begins even before they come into the world. The prospective mother is at once submitted to a kind of material and moral _regime_ sanctioned by custom. Gross viands are removed from her table, and her slightest movements are regarded that they may be regular and majestic. She is expected to listen to the reading of good authors, to music and moral chants, and to attend learned societies, in order that she may fortify her mind by amusements of an elevated character. And she endeavours, by such discipline, to assure to the child whom she is about to bring into the world, intelligence, docility, and fitness for the duties imposed by social life" (518. XXXI. 629). Among primitive peoples these ceremonies, dietings, doctorings, tabooings, number legion, as may be read in Ploss and Zmigrodzki. The influence of the mother upon her child, beginning long before birth, continued in some parts of the world until long after puberty. The Spartan mothers even preserved "a power over their sons when arrived at manhood," and at the puberty-dance, by which the Australian leaves childhood behind to enter upon man's estate, his significant cry is: "My mother sees me no more!" (398. 153). Among the Chinese, "at the ceremony of going out of childhood, the passage from boyhood into manhood, the goddess of children 'Mother,' ceases to have the superintendence of the boy or girl, and the individual comes under the government of the gods in general." That women are teachers born, even the most uncultured of human races have not failed to recognize, and the folk-faith in their ministrations is world-wide and world-old; for, as Mrs. Browning tells us:-- "Women know The way to rear up children (to be just); They know a simple, merry, tender knack Of tying sashes, fitting baby-shoes, And stringing pretty words that make no sense, And kissing full sense into empty words; Which things are corals to cut life upon, Although such trifles." Intellectually, as well as physically,--as the etymology of the name seems to indicate,--the mother is the "former" of her child. As Henry Ward Beecher has well said, "the mother's heart is the child's school-room." Well might the Egyptian mother-goddess say (167. 261): "I am the mother who shaped thy beauties, who suckled thee with milk; I give thee with my milk festal things, that penetrate thy limbs with life, strength, and youth; I make thee to become the--great ruler of Egypt, lord of the space which the sun circles round." In the land of the Pharaohs they knew in some dim fashion that "the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world." The extensive rôle of the mother, as a teacher of the practical arts of life, may be seen from the book of Professor Mason (113). Language, religion, the social arts, house-building, skin-dressing, weaving, spinning, animal-domestication, agriculture, are, with divers primitive peoples, since they have in great part originated with her, or been promoted chiefly by her efforts, left to woman as teacher and instructor, and well has the mother done her work all over the globe. The function of the mother as priestess--for woman has been the preserver, as, to so large an extent, she has been the creator, of religion--has been exercised age after age, and among people after people. Henry Ward Beecher has said: "Every mother is a priestess ordained by God Himself," and Professor Mason enlarges the same thought: "Scarcely has the infant mind begun to think, ere this perpetual priestess lights the fires of reverence and keeps them ever burning, like a faithful vestal" (112. 12). Though women and mothers have often been excluded from the public or the secret ceremonials and observations of religion, the household in primitive and in modern times has been the temple, of whose _penetralia_ they alone have been the ministers. _Imitation._ Tarde, in his monograph on the "Laws of Imitation," has shown the great influence exerted among peoples of all races, of all grades and forms of culture, by imitation, conscious or unconscious,--a factor of the highest importance even at the present day and among those communities of men most advanced and progressive. Speaking a little too broadly, perhaps, he says (541. 15):-- "All the resemblances, of social origin, noticed in the social world are the direct or indirect result of imitation in all its forms,--custom, fashion, sympathy, obedience, instruction, education, naive or deliberate imitation. Hence the excellence of that modern method which explains doctrines or institutions by their history. This tendency can only be generalized. Great inventors and great geniuses do sometimes stumble upon the same thing together, but these coincidences are very rare. And when they do really occur, they always have their origin in a fund of common instruction upon which, independent of one another, the two authors of the same invention have drawn; and this fund consists of a mass of traditions of the past, of experiments, rude or more or less arranged, and transmitted imitatively by language, the great vehicle of all imitations." In her interesting article on "Imitation in Children," Miss Haskell observes: "That the imitative faculty is what makes the human being educable, that it is what has made progressive civilization possible, has always been known by philosophical educators. The energy of the child must pass from potentiality to actuality, and it does so by the path of _imitation_ because this path offers the least resistance or the greatest attraction, or perhaps because there is no other road. Whatever new and striking things he sees in the movements or condition of objects about him, provided he already has the experience necessary to apperceive this particular thing, he imitates" (260. 31). In the pedagogy of primitive peoples imitation has an extensive _rôle_ to play. Of the Twana Indians, of the State of Washington, Rev. Mr. Eells observes: "Children are taught continually, from youth until grown, to mimic the occupations of their elders." They have games of ball, jumping and running races, and formerly "the boys played at shooting with bows and arrows at a mark, and with spears, throwing at a mark, with an equal number of children on each side, and sometimes the older ones joined in." Now, however, "the'boys mimic their seniors in the noise and singing and gambling, but without the gambling." The girls play with dolls, and sometimes "the girls and boys both play in canoes, and stand on half of a small log, six feet long and a foot wide, and paddle around in the water with a small stick an inch in thickness; and, in fact, play at most things which they see their seniors do, both whites and Indians" (437. 90, 91). Concerning the Seminoles of Florida, we are told: "The baby, well into the world, learns very quickly that he is to make his own way through it as best he may. His mother is prompt to nourish him, and solicitous in her care for him if he falls ill; but, as far as possible, she goes her own way and leaves the little fellow to go his." Very early in life the child learns to help and to imitate its elders. "No small amount," Mr. MacCauley tells us, "of the labour in a Seminole household is done by children, even as young as four years of age. They can stir the soup while it is boiling; they can aid in kneading the dough for bread; they can wash the 'koonti' root, and even pound it; they can watch and replenish the fire; they contribute in this and many other small ways to the necessary work of the home" (496. 497, 498). Of the Indians of British Guiana, Mr. im Thurn reports: "As soon as the children can run about, they are left almost to themselves; or, rather, they begin to mimic their parents. As with the adults, so with the children. Just as the grown-up woman works incessantly, while the men alternately idle and hunt, so the boys run wild, playing not such concerted games as in other parts of the world more usually form child's play, but only with mimic bows and arrows; but the girls, as soon as they can walk, begin to help the older women. Even the youngest girl can peel a few cassava roots, watch a pot on the fire, or collect and carry home a few sticks of firewood. The games of the boy are all such as train him to fish and hunt when he grows up; the girl's occupations teach her woman's work" (477. 219). The children imitate their elders in other ways also, for in nearly every Indian house are to be seen toy vessels of clay; for "while the Indian women of Guiana are shaping the clay, their children, imitating them, make small pots and goglets" (477. 298). And in like manner have been born, no doubt, among other peoples, some of the strange freaks of art which puzzle the _connoisseurs_ in the museums of Europe and America. Mr. Powers, speaking of the domestic economy of the Achomåwi Indians of California, says: "An Achomåwi mother seldom teaches her daughters any of the arts of barbaric housekeeping before their marriage. They learn them by imitation and experiment after they grow old enough to perceive the necessity thereof" (519. 271). This peculiar neglect, however, is not entirely absent from our modern civilization, for until very recently no subject has been so utterly overlooked as the proper training of young girls for their future duties as mothers and housekeepers. The Achomåwi, curiously enough, have the following custom, which helps, no doubt, the wife whose education has been so imperfect: "The parents are expected to establish a young couple in their lodge, provide them with the needful basketry, and furnish them with cooked food for some months, which indulgent parents sometimes continue for a year or even longer; so that the young people have a more real honeymoon than is vouchsafed to most civilized people." Among the Battas of Sumatra, "It is one of the morning duties of women and girls, even down to children of four and five years old, to bring drinking-water in the _gargitis_, a water-vessel made of a thick stalk of bamboo. The size and strength of growing girls are generally measured by the number of _gargitis_ they can carry" (518. XXII. 110). Of the Kaffir children Theal informs us: "At a very early age they commence trials of skill against each other in throwing knobbed sticks and imitation assegais. They may often be seen enjoying this exercise in little groups, those of the same age keeping together, for there is no greater tyrant in the world than a big Kaffir boy over his younger fellows; when above nine or ten years old they practise sham-fighting with sticks; an imitation hunt is another of their boyish diversions" (543. 220). Among the Apaches, as we learn from Reclus: "The child remains with its mother until it can pluck certain fruits for itself, and has caught a rat by its own unaided efforts. After this exploit, it goes and comes as it lists, is free and independent, master of its civil and political rights, and soon lost in the main body of the horde" (523. 131). On the Andaman Islands, "little boys hunt out swarms of bees in the woods and drive them away by fire. They are also expected regularly to collect wood." From their tenth year they are "accustomed to use little bows and arrows, and often attain great skill in shooting." The girls "seek among the coral-reefs and in the swamps to catch little fish in hand-nets." The Solomon Islands boy, as soon as he can walk a little, goes along with his elders to hunt and fish (326. I. 6). Among the Somali, of northeastern Africa, the boys are given small spears when ten or twelve years old and are out guarding the milk-camels (481 (1891). 163). Of the Eskimo of Baffin Land, Dr. Boas tells us that the children, "when about twelve years old, begin to help their parents; the girls sewing and preparing skins, the boys accompanying their fathers in hunting expeditions" (402. 566). Mr. Powers records that he has seen a Wailakki Indian boy of fourteen "run a rabbit to cover in ten minutes, split a stick fine at one end, thrust it down the hole, twist it into its scut, and pull it out alive" (519. 118). Among the games and amusements of the Andamanese children, of whom he says "though not borrowed from aliens, their pastimes, in many instances, bear close resemblance to those in vogue among children in this and other lands; notably is this the case with regard to those known to us as blind-man's buff, leap-frog, and hide-and-seek,"--Mr. Man enumerates the following: _mock pig-hunting_ (played after dark); _mock turtle-catching_ (played in the sea); going after the Evil Spirit of the Woods; swinging by means of long stout creepers; swimming-races (sometimes canoe-races); pushing their way with rapidity through the jungle; throwing objects upwards, or skimming through the air; playing at "duck-and-drakes"; shooting at moving objects; wrestling on the sand; hunting small crabs and fish and indulging in sham banquets, comparable to the "doll's feast" with us; making miniature canoes and floating them about in the water (498. 165). _Education of Boys and Girls._ With the Dakota Indians, according to Mr. Riggs, the grandfather and grandmother are often the principal teachers of the child. Under the care of the father and grandfather the boy learns to shoot, hunt, and fish, is told tales of war and daring exploits, and "when he is fifteen or sixteen joins the first war-party and comes back with an eagle feather in his head, if he is not killed and scalped by the enemy." Among the amusements he indulges in are foot-races, horse-racing, ball-playing, etc. Another branch of his education is thus described: "In the long winter evenings, while the fire burns brightly in the centre of the lodge, and the men are gathered in to smoke, he hears the folk-lore and legends of his people from the lips of the older men. He learns to sing the love-songs and the war-songs of the generations gone by. There is no new path for him to tread, but he follows in the old ways. He becomes a Dakota of the Dakota. His armour is consecrated by sacrifices and offerings and vows. He sacrifices and prays to the stone god, and learns to hold up the pipe to the so-called Great Spirit. He is killed and made alive again, and thus is initiated into the mysteries and promises of the Mystery Dance. He becomes a successful hunter and warrior, and what he does not know is not worth knowing for a Dakota. His education is finished. If he has not already done it, he can now demand the hand of one of the beautiful maidens of the village" (524. 209, 210). Under the care and oversight of the mother and grandmother the girl is taught the elements of household economy, industrial art, and agriculture. Mr. Biggs thus outlines the early education of woman among these Indians: "She plays with her 'made child,' or doll, just as children in other lands do. Very soon she learns to take care of the baby; to watch over it in the lodge, or carry it on her back while the mother is away for wood or dressing buffalo-robes. Little girl as she is, she is sent to the brook or lake for water. She has her little work-bag with awl and sinew, and learns to make small moccasins as her mother makes large ones. Sometimes she goes with her mother to the wood and brings home her little bundle of sticks. When the camp moves, she has her small pack as her mother carries the large one, and this pack is sure to grow larger as her years increase. When the corn is planting, the little girl has her part to perform. If she cannot use the hoe yet, she can at least gather off the old corn-stalks. Then the garden is to be watched while the god-given maize is growing. And when the harvesting comes, the little girl is glad for the corn-roasting." And so her young life runs on. She learns bead-work and ornamenting with porcupine quills, embroidering with ribbons, painting, and all the arts of personal adornment, which serve as attractions to the other sex. When she marries, her lot and her life (Mr. Riggs says) are hard, for woman is much less than man with these Dakotas (524. 210). More details of girl-life among savage and primitive peoples are to be found in the pages of Professor Mason (113. 207-211). In America, the education varied from what the little girl could pick up at her mother's side between her third and thirteenth years, to the more elaborate system of instruction in ancient Mexico, where, "annexed to the temples were large buildings used as seminaries for girls, a sort of aboriginal Wellesley or Vassar" (113 208). _Games and Plays._ In the multifarious games of children, echoes, imitations, re-renderings of the sober life of their elders and of their ancestors of the long ago, recur again and again. The numerous love games, which Mr. Newell (313. 39-62) and Miss Gomme (243) enumerate, such as "Knights of Spain," "Three kings," "Here comes a Duke a-roving," "Tread, tread the Green Grass," "I'll give to you a Paper of Pins," "There she stands a lovely Creature," "Green Grow the Rushes, O!" "The Widow with Daughters to marry," "Philander's March," "Marriage," etc., corresponding to many others all over the globe, evidence the social instincts of child-hood as well as the imitative tendencies of youth. Under "Playing at Work" (313. 80-92), Mr. Newell has classed a large number of children's games and songs, some of which now find their representatives in the kindergarten, this education of the child by itself having been so modified as to form part of the infantile curriculum of study. Among such games are: "Threading the Needle," "Draw a Bucket of Water," "Here I Brew and here I Bake," "Here we come gathering Nuts of May," "When I was a Shoemaker," "Do, do, pity my Case," "As we go round the Mulberry Bush," "Who'll be the Binder?" "Oats, Pease, Beans, and Barley grows." Mr. Newell includes in this category, also, that well-known dance, the "Virginia Reel," which he interprets as an imitation of weaving, something akin to the "Hemp-dressers' Dance," of the time of George III., in England. In a recent interesting and valuable essay, "Education by Plays and Games," by Mr. G. E. Johnson, of Clark University,--an effort "to present somewhat more correctly than has been done before, the educational value of play, and to suggest some practical applications to the work of education in the grades above the kindergarten,"--we have presented to us a list of some five hundred games, classified according to their value for advancing mental or physical education, for cultivating and strengthening the various faculties of mind and body. These games have also been arranged by Mr. Johnson, into such classes and divisions as might be held to correspond to the needs and necessities of the pupils in each of the eight grades above the kindergarten. Of the educational value of play and of "playing at work," there can be no doubt in the mind of any one at all acquainted with the history of the individual and the history of the race. As Mr. Johnson justly observes (269.100): "The field of the study of play is very wide; the plays are well-nigh infinite, and as varied as life itself. No one can estimate the value of them. Given right toys and surroundings, the young child has an almost perfect school. It is marvellous how well he learns, Preyer does not overestimate the facts when he says the child in the first three or four years of his life learns as much as the student in his entire university course. In the making of mud pies and doll dresses, sand-pile farms and miniature roads, tiny dams and water-wheels, whittled-out boats, sleds, dog-harnesses, and a thousand and one other things, the child receives an accumulation of facts, a skill of hand, a trueness of eye, a power of attention and quickness of perception; and in flying kites, catching trout, in pressing leaves and gathering stones, in collecting stamps, and eggs, and butterflies, a culture also, seldom appreciated by the parent or teacher." Upon the banner of the youthful hosts might well be inscribed _in hoc ludo vincemus_. Yet there is danger that the play-theory may be carried to excess. Mr. James L. Hughes, discussing "The Educational Value of Play and the Recent Play-Movement in Germany," remarks: "The Germans had the philosophy of play, the English had an intuitive love of play, and love is a greater impelling force than philosophy. English young men never played in order to expand their lungs, to increase their circulation, to develop their muscles in power and agility, to improve their figures, to add grace to their bearing, to awaken and refine their intellectual powers, or to make them manly, courageous, and chivalrous. They played enthusiastically for the mere love of play, and all these, and other advantages resulted from their play" (265. 328). Swimming is an art soon learned by the children of some primitive races. Mr. Man says of the Andaman Islanders: "With the exception of some of the ê·rem-tâg·a-(inlanders), a knowledge of the art of swimming is common to members of both sexes; the _children_ even, learning almost as soon as they can run, speedily acquire great proficiency" (498. 47). _Language._ With some primitive peoples the ideas as to language-study are pretty much on a par with those prevalent in Europe at a date not so very remote from the present. Of the Káto Pomo Indians of California, Mr. Powers remarks: "Like the Kai Pomo, their northern neighbours, they forbid their squaws from studying languages--which is about the only accomplishment possible to them save dancing--principally, it is believed, in order to prevent them from gadding about and forming acquaintances in neighbouring valleys, for there is small virtue among the unmarried of either sex. But the men pay considerable attention to linguistic studies, and there is seldom one who cannot speak most of the Pomo dialects within a day's journey of his ancestral valley. The chiefs, especially, devote no little care to the training of their sons as polyglot diplomatists; and Robert White affirms that they frequently send them to reside several months with the chiefs of contiguous valleys to acquire the dialects there in vogue" (519. 150). Nevertheless, as Professor Mason observes, among primitive races, woman's share in the "invention, dissemination, conservation, and metamorphosis of language" has been very great, and she has been _par excellence_ the teacher of language, as indeed she is to-day in our schools when expression and _savoir faire_ in speech, rather than deep philological learning and dry grammatical analysis, have been the object of instruction. _Geography._ Much has been said and written about the wonderful knowledge of geography and topography possessed by the Indian of America, and by other primitive peoples as well. The following passage from Mr. Powers' account of the natives of California serves to explain some of this (519. 109):-- "Besides the coyote-stories with which gifted squaws amuse their children, and which are common throughout this region, there prevails among the Mattoal a custom which might almost be dignified with the name of geographical study. In the first place, it is necessary to premise that the boundaries of all the tribes on Humboldt Bay, Eel River, Van Dusen's Fork, and in fact everywhere, are marked with the greatest precision, being defined by certain creeks, cañons, bowlders, conspicuous trees, springs, etc., each one of which objects has its own individual name. It is perilous for an Indian to be found outside of his tribal boundaries, wherefore it stands him well in hand to make himself acquainted with the same early in life. Accordingly, the squaws teach these things to their children in a kind of sing-song not greatly unlike that which was the national _furore_ some time ago in rural singing-schools, wherein they melodiously chanted such pleasing items of information as this: 'California. Sacramento, on the Sacramento River.' Over and over, time and again, they rehearse all these bowlders, etc., describing each minutely and by name, with its surroundings. Then when the children are old enough, they take them around to beat the bounds like Bumble the Beadle; and so wonderful is the Indian memory naturally, and so faithful has been their instruction, that the little shavers generally recognize the objects from the descriptions of them previously given by their mothers. If an Indian knows but little of this great world more than pertains to boundary bush and bowlder, he knows his own small fighting-ground infinitely better than any topographical engineer can learn it." Mr. Powers' reference to "beating the bounds like Bumble the Beadle" is an apt one. Mr. Frederick Sessions has selected as one of his _Folk-Lore Topics_ the subject of "Beating the Bounds" (352), and in his little pamphlet gives us much interesting information concerning the part played by children in these performances. The author tells us: "One of the earliest of my childish pleasures was seeing the Mayor and Corporation, preceded by Sword-bearer, Beadles, and Blue Coat School boys, going in procession from one city boundary-stone to another, across the meadows and the river, or over hedges and gardens, or anything else to which the perambulated border-line took them. They were followed along the route by throngs of holiday makers. Many of the crowd, and all the Blue boys, were provided with willow-wands, _peeled_, if I remember rightly, with which each boundary mark was well flogged. The youngest boys were bumped against the 'city stones.'" In the little town of Charlbury in Oxfordshire, "the perambulations seem to have been performed mostly by boys, accompanied by one or more of their seniors." At Houghton, a village near St. Ives in Huntingdonshire: "The bounds are still beaten triennially. They are here marked by holes in some places, and by stones or trees in others. The procession starts at one of the holes. Each new villager present is instructed in the position of this corner of the boundary by having his head forcibly thrust into the hole, while he has to repeat a sort of mumbo-jumbo prayer, and receives three whacks with a shovel. He pays a shilling for his 'footing' (boys only pay sixpence), and then the forty or fifty villagers march off to the opposite corner and repeat the process, except the monetary part, and regale themselves with bread and cheese and beer, paid for by the farmers who now occupy any portion of the old common lands." In Russia, before the modern system of land-registration came into vogue, "all the boys of adjoining Cossack village communes were 'collected and driven like flocks of sheep to the frontier, whipped at each boundary-stone, and if, in after years two whipped lads, grown into men, disputed as to the precise spot at which they had been castigated, then the oldest inhabitant carrying a sacred picture from the church, led the perambulations, and acted as arbitrator." Here also ought to be mentioned perhaps, as somewhat akin and reminiscent of like practices among primitive peoples, "the _blason populaire_ (as it is neatly called in French), in which the inhabitants of each district or city are nicely ticketed off and distinguished by means of certain abnormalities of feature or form, or certain mental peculiarities attributed to them" (204.19). In parts of Hungary and Transylvania a somewhat similar practice is in vogue (392 (1892). 128). _Story-Telling._ Some Indian children have almost the advantages of the modern home in the way of story-telling. Clark informs us (420.109):-- "Some tribes have regular story-tellers, men who have devoted a great deal of time to learning the myths and stories of their people, and who possess, in addition to a good memory, a vivid imagination. The mother sends for one of these, and, having prepared a feast for him, she and her little 'brood,' who are curled up near her, await the fairy stories of the dreamer, who, after his feast and smoke, entertains them for hours. Many of these fanciful sketches or visions are interesting and beautiful in their rich imagery, and have been at times given erroneous positions in ethnological data." Knortz refers in glowing terms to the _adisoke-winini_, or "storyteller" of the Chippeway Indians, those gifted men, who entertain their fellows with the tales and legends of the race, and who are not mere reciters, but often poets and transformers as well (_Skizzen_, 294). So, too, among the Andaman Islanders, "certain mythic legends are related to the young by _okopai-ads_ [shamans], parents, and others, which refer to the supposed adventures or history of remote ancestors, and though the recital not unfrequently evokes much mirth, they are none the less accepted as veracious" (498. 95). _Morals._ Among some of the native tribes of California we meet with _i-wa-musp_, or "men-women" (519. 132). Among the Yuki, for example, there were men who dressed and acted like women, and "devoted themselves to the instruction of the young by the narration of legends and moral tales." Some of these, Mr. Powers informs us, "have been known to shut themselves up in the assembly-hall for the space of a month, with brief intermissions, living the life of a hermit, and spending the whole time in rehearsing the tribal-history in a sing-song monotone to all who chose to listen." Somewhat similar, without the hermit-life, appear to be the functions of the orators and "prophets" of the Miwok and the peace-chiefs, or "shell-men," of the Pomo (519. 157, 352). Of the Indians of the Pueblo of Tehua, Mr. Lummis, in his entertaining volume of fairy-tales, says: "There is no duty to which a Pueblo child is trained in which he has to be content with the bare command, 'Do thus'; for each he learns a fairy- tale designed to explain how people first came to know that it was right to do thus, and detailing the sad results which befell those who did otherwise." The old men appear to be the storytellers, and their tales are told in a sort of blank verse (302. 5). Mr. Grinnell, in his excellent book about the Blackfeet,--one of the best books ever written about the Indians,--gives some interesting details of child-life. Children are never whipped, and "are instructed in manners as well as in other more general and more important matters." Among other methods of instruction we find that "men would make long speeches to groups of boys playing in the camps, telling them what they ought to do to be successful in life," etc. (464. 188-191). Of the Delaware Indians we are told that "when a mere boy the Indian lad would be permitted to sit in the village councilhouse, and hear the assembled wisdom of the village or his tribe discuss the affairs of state and expound the meaning of the _keekg_' (beads composing the wampum belts).... In this way he early acquired maturity of thought, and was taught the traditions of his people, and the course of conduct calculated to win him the praise of his fellows" (516. 43). This reminds us of the Roman senator who had his child set upon his knee during the session of that great legislative and deliberative body. _Playthings and Dolls._ As Professor Mason has pointed out, the cradle is often the "play-house" of the child, and is decked out to that end in a hundred ways (306. 162). Of the Sioux cradle, Catlin says:--"A broad hoop of elastic wood passes around in front of the child's face to protect it in case of a fall, from the front of which is suspended a little toy of exquisite embroidery for the child to handle and amuse itself with. To this and other little trinkets hanging in front of it, there are attached many little tinselled and tinkling things of the brightest colours to amuse both the eyes and the ears of the child. While travelling on horseback, the arms of the child are fastened under the bandages, so as not to be endangered if the cradle falls, and when at rest they are generally taken out, allowing the infant to reach and amuse itself with the little toys and trinkets that are placed before it and within its reach" (306. 202). In like manner are "playthings of various kinds" hung to the awning of the birch-bark cradles found in the Yukon region of Alaska. Of the Nez Percé, we read: "To the hood are attached medicine-bags, bits of shell, haliotis perhaps, and the whole artistic genius of the mother is in play to adorn her offspring." The old chronicler Lafiteau observed of the Indians of New France: "They put over that half-circle [at the top of the cradle] little bracelets of porcelain and other little trifles that the Latins call _crepundia_, which serve as an ornament and as playthings to divert the child" (306. 167, 187, 207). And so is it elsewhere in the world. Some of the beginnings of art in the race are due to the mother's instinctive attempts to please the eyes and busy the hands of her tender offspring. The children of primitive peoples have their dolls and playthings as do those of higher races. In an article descriptive of the games and amusements of the Ute Indians, we read: "The boy remains under maternal care until he is old enough to learn to shoot and engage in manly sports and enjoyments. Indian children play, laugh, cry, and act like white children, and make their own play-things from which they derive as much enjoyment as white children" (480. IV. 238). Of the Seminole Indians of Florida, Mr. MacCauley says that among the children's games are skipping and dancing, leap-frog, teetotums, building a merry-go-round, carrying a small make-believe rifle of stick, etc. They also "sit around a small piece of land, and, sticking blades of grass into the ground, name it a 'corn-field,'" and "the boys kill small birds in the bush with their bows and arrows, and call it 'turkey-hunting.'" Moreover, they "have also dolls (bundles of rags, sticks with bits of cloth wrapped around them, etc.), and build houses for them which they call 'camps'" (496. 506). Of the Indians of the western plains, Colonel Dodge says: "The little girls are very fond of dolls, which their mothers make and dress with considerable skill and taste. Their baby houses are miniature teepees, and they spend as much time and take as much pleasure in such play as white girls" (432. 190). Dr. Boas tells us concerning the Eskimo of Baffin Land: "Young children are always carried in their mothers' hoods, but when about a year and a half old they are allowed to play on the bed, and are only carried by their mothers when they get too mischievous." The same authority also says: "Young children play with, toys, sledges, kayaks, boats, bow and arrows, and dolls. The last are made in the same way by all the tribes, a wooden body being clothed with scraps of deerskin cut in the same way as the clothing of the men" (402. 568, 571). Mr. Murdoch has described at some length the dolls and toys of the Point Barrow Eskimo. He remarks that "though several dolls and various suits of miniature clothing were made and brought over for sale, they do not appear to be popular with the little girls." He did not see a single girl playing with a doll, and thinks the articles collected may have been made rather for sale than otherwise. Of the boys, Mr. Murdoch says: "As soon as a boy is able to walk, his father makes him a little bow suited to his strength, with blunt arrows, with which he plays with the other boys, shooting at marks--for instance the fetal reindeer brought home from the spring hunt--till he is old enough to shoot small birds and lemmings" (514. 380, 383). In a recent extensive and elaborately illustrated article, Dr. J. W. Fewkes has described the dolls of the Tusayan Indians (one of the Pueblo tribes). Of the _tihus_, or carved wooden dolls, the author says (226. 45): "These images are commonly mentioned by American visitors to the Tusayan Pueblos as idols, but there is abundant evidence to show that they are at present used simply as children's playthings, which are made for that purpose and given to the girls with that thought in mind." Attention is called to the difficulty of drawing the line between a doll and an idol among primitive peoples, the connection of dolls with religion, psychological evidence of which lingers with us to-day in the persistent folk-etymology which connects _doll_ with _idol_. The following remarks of Dr. Fewkes are significant: "These figurines [generally images of deities or mythological personages carved in true archaic fashion] are generally made by participants in the _Ni-mán-Ka-tci-na_, and are presented to the children in July or August at the time of the celebration of the farewell of the _Ka-tci'-nas_ [supernatural intercessors between men and gods]. It is not rare to see the little girls after the presentation carrying the dolls about on their backs wrapped in their blankets in the same manner in which babies are carried by their mothers or sisters. Those dolls which are more elaborately made are generally hung up as ornaments in the rooms, but never, so far as I have investigated the subject, are they worshipped. The readiness with which they are sold for a proper remuneration shows that they are not regarded as objects of reverence." But, as Dr. Fewkes himself adds, "It by no means follows that they may not be copies of images which have been worshipped, although they now have come to have a strictly secular use." Among some peoples, perhaps, the dolls, images of deities of the past, or even of the present, may have been used to impart the fundamentals of theology and miracle-story, and the play-house of the children may have been at times a sort of religious kindergarten of a primitive type. Worthy of note in this connection is the statement of Castren that "the Finns manufacture a kind of dolls, or _paras_, out of a child's cap filled with tow and stuck at the end of a rod. The fetich thus made is carried nine times round the church, with the cry 'synny para' (Para be born) repeated every time to induce a _hal'tia_--that is to say, a spirit--to enter into it" (388. 108). A glance into St. Nicholas, or at the returns to the syllabus on dolls sent out by President Hall, is sufficient to indicate the farreaching associations of the subject, while the doll-congress of St. Petersburg has had its imitators both in Europe and America. A bibliography of doll-poems, doll-descriptions, doll-parties, doll-funerals, and the like would be a welcome addition to the literature of dolls, while a doll-museum of extended scope would be at once entertaining and of great scientific value. The familiar phrase "to cry for the moon" corresponds to the French "prendre la lune avec ses dents." In illustration of this proverbial expression, which Rabelais used in the form _Je ne suis point clerc pour prendre la lune avec les dents_, Loubens tells the amusing story of a servant who, when upbraided by the parents for not giving to a child what it wanted and for which it had been long crying, answered: "You must give it him yourself. A quarter-of-an-hour ago, he saw the moon at the bottom of a bucket of water, and wants me to give it him. That's all." (_Prov. et locut. franç_., p. 225.) To-day children cry for the moon in vain, but 'twas not ever thus. In payment for the church, which King Olaf wanted to have built,--a task impossible, the saint thought,--the giant demanded "the sun and moon, or St. Olaf himself." Soon the building was almost completed, and St. Olaf was in great perplexity at the unexpected progress of the work. As he was wandering about "he heard a child cry inside a mountain, and a giant-woman hush it with these words: 'Hush! hush! to-morrow comes thy father Wind-and-Weather home, bringing both sun and moon, or saintly Olaf's self.'" Had not the king overheard this, and, by learning the giant's name, been enabled to crush him, the child could have had his playthings the next day. In the course of an incarnation-myth of the raven among the Haida Indians of the Queen Charlotte Islands, Mr. Mackenzie tells us (497. 53):-- "In time the woman bore a son, a remarkably small child. This child incessantly cried for the moon to play with, thus--_Koong-ah-ah, Koong-ah-ah_ ('the moon, the moon'). The spirit-chief, in order to quiet the child, after carefully closing all apertures of the house, produced the moon, and gave it to the child to play with." The result was that the raven (the child) ran off with the moon, and the people in consequence were put to no little inconvenience. But by and by the raven broke the original moon in two, threw half up into the sky, which became the sun, while of the other half he made the moon, and of the little bits, which were left in the breaking, all the stars. In the golden age of the gods, the far-off _juventus mundi_, the parts of the universe were the playthings, the _Spielzeug_ of the divine infants, just as peasants and human infants figure in the folk-tales as the toys of giants and Brobdingnagians. Indeed, some of the phenomena of nature and their peculiarities are explained by barbarous or semi-barbarous peoples as the result of the games and sports of celestial and spiritual children. With barbarous or semi-civilized peoples possessing flocks and herds of domesticated animals the child is early made acquainted with their habits and uses. Regarding the Kaffirs of South Africa Theal says that it is the duty of the young boys to attend to the calves in the kraal, and "a good deal of time is passed in training them to run and to obey signals made by whistling. The boys mount them when they are eighteen months or two years old, and race about upon their backs" (543. 220). In many parts of the world the child has played an important role as shepherd and watcher of flocks and herds, and the shepherd-boy has often been called to high places in the state, and has even ascended the thrones of great cities and empires, ecclesiastical as well as political. _Dress._ In his little book on the philosophy of clothing Dr. Schurtz has given us an interesting account of the development and variation of external ornamentation and dress among the various races, especially the negro peoples of Africa. The author points out that with not a few primitive tribes only married persons wear clothes, girls and boys, young women and men even, going about _in puris naturalibus_ (530. 13). Everywhere the woman is better clothed than the girl, and in some parts of Africa, as the ring is with us, so are clothes a symbol of marriage. Among the Balanta, for example, in Portuguese Senegambia, when a man marries he gives his wife a dress, and so long as this remains whole, the marriage-union continues in force. On the coast of Sierra Leone, the expression "he gave her a dress," intimates that the groom has married a young girl (530. 14, 43-49). Often, with many races the access of puberty leads to the adoption of clothing and to a refinement of dress and personal adornment. A relic of this remains, as Dr. Schurtz points out, in the leaving off of knickerbockers and the adoption of "long dresses," by the young people in our civilized communities of to-day (530. 13). With others the clothing of the young is of the most primitive type, and children in very many cases go about absolutely naked. That the development of the sex-feeling, and entrance upon marriage, have with very many peoples been the chief incitements to dress and personal ornamentation, has been pointed out by Schurtz and others (530. 14). Not alone this, but, sometimes, as among the Bura Negroes of the upper Blue Nile region, the advent of her child brings with it a modification in the dress of the mother. With these people, young girls wear an apron in front, married women one in front and one behind, but women who have already had a child wear two in front, one over the other. A similar remark applies to tattooing and kindred ornamentations of the body and its members. Among the women of the Bajansi on the middle Congo, for example, a certain form of tattoo indicated that the woman had borne a child (530. 78). Schurtz points out that the kangaroo-skin breast-covering of the Tasmanian women, the shoulder and arm strips worn by the women of the Monbuttu in Africa, the skin mantles of the Marutse, the thick hip-girdle of the Tupende, and other articles of clothing of a like nature, seem to be really survivals of devices for carrying children, and not to have been originally intended as dress _per se_ (530. 110, 111). Thus early does childhood become a social factor. CHAPTER XIV. THE CHILD AS MEMBER AND BUILDER OF SOCIETY. In great states, children are always trying to remain children, and the parents wanting to make men and women of them. In vile states, the children are always wanting to be men and women, and the parents to keep them children.--_Ruskin_. Children generally hate to be idle; all the care is then that their busy humour should be constantly employed in something of use to them.--_Locke_. Look into our childish faces; See you not our willing hearts? Only love us--only lead us; Only let us know you need us, And we all will do our parts.--_Mary Howitt_. [Greek: Anthropos Phusei zoon politikon] [Man is by nature a political (social) animal].--_Aristotle_. Never till now did young men, and almost children, take such a command in human affairs.--_Carlyle_. Predestination and Caste. "Who can tell for what high cause This darling of the Gods was born?" asks the poet Marvell. But with some peoples the task of answering the question is an easy one; for fate, or its human side, caste, has settled the matter long before the infant comes into the world. The Chinese philosopher, Han Wan-Kung, is cited by Legge as saying: "When Shuh-yu was born, his mother knew, as soon as she looked at him, that he would fall a victim to his love of bribes. When Yang sze-go was born, the mother of Shuh-he-ang knew, as soon as she heard him cry, that he would cause the destruction of all his kindred. When Yueh-tseaou was born, Tzewan considered it was a great calamity, knowing that through him all the ghosts of the Johgaou family would be famished" (487. 89). In India, we meet with the Bidhata-Purusha, a "deity that predestines all the events of the life of man or woman, and writes on the forehead of the child, on the sixth day of its birth, a brief precis of them" (426. 9). India is _par excellence_ the land of caste, but other lands know the system that makes the man follow in his father's footsteps, and often ignores the woman altogether, not even counting her in the census of the people, as was formerly the case even in Japan and China, where a girl was not worthy to be counted beside the son. Of ancient Peru, Letourneau says: "Every male inherited his father's profession; he was not allowed to choose another employment. By right of birth a man was either labourer, miner, artisan, or soldier" (100. 486). Predestination of state and condition in another world is a common theological tenet, predestination of state and condition in this world is a common social theory. Vast indeed is the lore of birth-days, months and years, seasons and skies--the fictions, myths, and beliefs of the astrologist, the spiritualist, the fortune-teller, and the almanac-maker--which we have inherited from those ancestors of ours, who believed in the kinship of all things, who thought that in some way "beasts and birds, trees and plants, the sea, the mountains, the wind, the sun, the moon, the clouds, and the stars, day and night, the heaven and the earth, were alive and possessed of the passions and the will they felt within themselves" (258. 25). Here belongs a large amount of folk-lore and folk-speech relating to the defective, delinquent, and dependent members of human society, whose misfortunes or misdeeds are assigned to atavistic causes, to demoniacal influences. _Parenthood._ Among primitive peoples, the advent of a child, besides entailing upon one or both of the parents ceremonies and superstitious performances whose name and fashion are legion, often makes a great change in the constitution of society. Motherhood and fatherhood are, in more than one part of the globe, primitive titles of nobility and badges of aristocracy. With the birth of a child, the Chinese woman becomes something more than a mere slave and plaything, and in the councils of uncivilized peoples (as with us to-day) the voice of the father of a family carries more weight than that of the childless. With the civilized races to-day, more marriages mean fewer prison-houses, and more empty jails, than in the earlier days, and with the primitive peoples of the present, this social bond was the salvation of the tribe to the same extent and in the same way. As Westermarck points out, there are "several instances of husband and wife not living together before the birth of a child." Here belong the temporary marriages of the Creek Indians, the East Greenlanders, the Fuegians, the Essenes, and some other Old World sects and peoples--the birth of a child completes the marriage--"marriage is therefore rooted in family, rather than family in marriage," in such cases. With the Ainos of the island of Tezo, the Khyens of Farther India, and with one of the aboriginal tribes of China, so Westermarck informs us, "the husband goes to live with his wife at her father's house, and never takes her away till after the birth of a child," and with more than one other people the wife remains with her own parents until she becomes a mother (166. 22, 23). In some parts of the United States we find similar practices among the population of European ancestry. The "boarding-out" of young couples until a child is born to them is by no means uncommon. _Adoption._ Adoption is, among some primitive peoples, remarkably extensive. Among the natives of the Andaman Islands "it is said to be of rare occurrence to find any child above six or seven years of age residing with its parents, and this, because it is considered a compliment and also a mark of friendship for a married man, after paying a visit, to ask his hosts to allow him to adopt one of their children" (498. 57). Of the Hawaiian Islanders, Letourneau remarks (100. 389, 390): "Adoption was rendered extremely easy; a man would give himself a father or sons almost _ad infinitum_." In the Marquesas Islands "it was not uncommon to see elderly persons being adopted by children." Moreover, "animals even were adopted. A chief adopted a dog, to whom, he offered ten pigs and some precious ornaments. The dog was carried about by a _kikino_, and at every meal he had his stated place beside his adopted father." Connected with adoption are many curious rites and ceremonies which may be found described in Ploss and other authorities. Dr. Friedrich S. Krauss (280) has recently treated at some length of a special form of adoption symbolized by the cutting of the hair, and particularly known among the southern Slavonians. The cutting off the hair here represents, the author thinks, the unconditional surrendering of one's body or life to another. The origin of the sacrifice of the hair is to be sought in the fact that primitive peoples have believed that the seat of the soul was in the hair and the blood, which were offered to the spirits or demons in lieu of the whole body. The relation between nurse and child has been treated of by Ploss and Wiedniann (167), the latter with special reference to ancient Egypt and the Mohammedan countries. In ancient Egypt the nurse was reckoned as one of the family, and in the death-steles and reliefs of the Middle Kingdom her name and figure are often found following those of the children and parents of the deceased. The wet-nurse was held in especial honour. The milk-relationship sometimes completely takes the place of blood-relationship. The Koran forbids the marriage of a nurse and a man whom, as a child, she has suckled; the laws of the Hanafi forbid a man to marry a woman from whose breast he has imbibed even a single drop of milk. Among the southern Slavonians: "If of two children who have fed at the breast of the same woman, one is a boy and the woman's own child, and the other (adopted) a girl, these two must never marry." If they are both girls, they are like real sisters in love and affection; if both boys, like real brothers. In Dardistan and Armenia also, milk-relationship prevents marriage (167. 263). In Mingrelia as soon as a child is given to a woman to nurse, she, her husband, children, and grandchildren are bound to it by ties more dear even than those of blood-relationship; she would yield up her life for the child, and the latter, when grown up, is reciprocally dutiful. It is a curious fact that even grown-up people can contract this sort of relationship. "Thus peasant-women are very anxious to have grown-up princesses become then foster-children--the latter simply bite gently the breasts of their foster-mothers, and forthwith a close relationship subsists between them." It is said also that girls obtain protectors in like manner by having youths bite at their breasts, which (lately) they cover with a veil (167. 263). Adoption by the letting or transfusion of blood is also found in various parts of the world and has far-reaching ramifications; as Trumbull, Robertson Smith, and Daniels have pointed out. The last calls attention to the Biblical declaration (Proverbs, xxviii. 24): "There is a friend which sticketh closer than a brother," underlying which seems to be this mystic tie of blood (214. 16). The mourning for the death of children is discussed in another part of this work. It may be mentioned here, however, that the death of a child often entails other, sometimes more serious, consequences. Among the Dyaks of Borneo, "when a father has lost his child, he kills the first man he meets as he goes out of his house; this is to him an act of duty" (100. 238). _Hereditary Bights._ The hereditary rights of children to share in the property of their parents have been made the subject of an interesting study by Clement Deneus (215), a lawyer of Ghent, who has treated in detail of the limitation of the patria potestas in respect to disposition of the patrimony, and the reservation to the children of a portion of the property of their parents--an almost inviolable right, of which they can be deprived only in consequence of the gravest offences. This reservation the author considers "a principle universally recognized among civilized nations," and an institution which marks a progress in the history of law and of civilization (215. 49), while testamentary freedom is unjust and inexpedient. The author discusses the subject from the points of view of history, statute and natural law, social economy, etc., devoting special attention to pointing out the defects of the system of the school of Le Play,--primogeniture, which still obtains in England, in several parts of Germany, in certain localities of the Pyrenees, and in the Basque provinces. In the countries of modern Europe, the testamentary power of the father is limited as follows: _Austria_ (Code of 1812): One-half of parents' property reserved for children. The law of 1889 makes exception in the case of rural patrimonies of moderate size with dwelling attached, where the father has the right to designate his heir. _Denmark_ (Code of 1845): Father can dispose of but one-fourth of the property; nobles, however, are allowed to bestow upon one of their children the half of their fortune. _Germany_: No uniform civil legislation exists as yet for the whole empire. In the majority of the smaller states, in a part of Bavaria, Rügen, eastern Pomerania, Schleswig-Holstein, the _Corpus Juris Civilis_ of Justinian is in force, while the Napoleonic code obtains in Rhenish Prussia, Hesse, and Bavaria, in Baden, Berg, Alsace-Lorraine. In Prussia, the reserve is one-third, if there are less than three children; one-half, if there are three or four. In Saxony, if there are five or more children, the reserve is one-half; if there are four or less, one-third. _Greece:_ The Justinian novels are followed. _Holland:_ The Napoleonic code is in force. _Italy_ (Code of 1866): The reserve is one-half. _Norway_ (Code of 1637, modified in 1800, 1811, 1825): The father is allowed free disposal of one-half of the patrimony, but for religious charities (_fondationspieuses_) only. _Portugal_: The legitimate is two-thirds. _Roumania_ (Code of 1865): The same provision as in the Napoleonic code. _Russia_ (Code of 1835): The father can dispose at pleasure of the personal property and property acquired, but the property itself must be divided equally. In Esthonia, this provision also applies to personal property acquired by inheritance. _Spain_ (Code of 1889): The father can dispose of one-third of the patrimony to a stranger; to a child he can will two-thirds. He can also, in the case of farming, industry, or commerce, leave his entire property to one of his children, except that the legatee has to pecuniarily indemnify his brothers and sisters. _Sweden_ (Code of 1734): In the towns, the father can dispose of but one-sixth of the patrimony; in the country, the patrimonial property must go to the children. The rest is at the will of the father, except that he must provide for the sustenance of his children. _Switzerland:_ At Geneva, the Napoleonic code is in force; in the Canton of Uri, the younger son is sometimes specially favoured; in Zürich, the father can dispose of one-sixth in favour of strangers, or one-fifth in favour of a child; in Bâle, he is allowed no disposal; in the cantons of Neuchâtel and Vaud, the reserve is one-half, in Bern and Schaffhausen, two-thirds, and in Eriburg and Soleure, three-fourths. _Turkey:_ The father can dispose of two-thirds by will, or of the whole by gift (215. 39-41). In Prance, article 913 of the civil code forbids the father to dispose, by gift while living, or by will, of more than one-half of the property, if he leaves at his death but one legitimate child; more than one-third, if he leaves two children; more than one-fourth, if he leave three or more children. In the United States great testamentary freedom prevails, and the laws of inheritance belong to the province of the various States. Among the nations of antiquity,--Egyptians, Persians, Assyrians, Chinese,--according to Deneus (215. 2), the _patria potestas_ probably prevented any considerable diffusion of the family estates. By the time of Moses, the Hebrews had come to favour the first-born, and to him was given a double share of the inheritance. With the ancient Hindus but a slight favouring--of the eldest son seems to have been in vogue, the principle of co-proprietorship of parent and children being recognized in the laws of Manu. In Sparta, the constitution was inimical to a reserve for all the children; in Athens, the code of Solon forbade a man to benefit a stranger at the expense of his legitimate male children; he had, however, the right to make particular legacies, probably up to one-half of the property. Deneus considers that the _penchant_ of the Athenians for equality was not favourable to a cast-iron system of primogeniture, although the father may have been able to favour his oldest child to the extent of one-half of his possessions. In ancient Rome (215. 4-16), at first, a will was an exception, made valid only by the vote of a lex curiata; but afterwards the absolute freedom of testamentary disposition, which was approved in 450 B.C. by the Law of the Twelve Tables,--_Uti legassit super pecunia tutelage suce rei, ita jus esto,_--appears, and the father could even pass by his children in silence and call upon an utter stranger to enjoy his estate and possessions. By 153 B.C., however, the father was called upon to nominally disinherit his children, and not merely pass them over in silence, if he wished to leave his property to a stranger. For some time this provision had little effect, but a breach in the _patria potestas_ has really been made, and by the time of Pliny the Younger (61-115 A.D.), who describes the procedure in detail, the disinherited children were given the right of the _querula inoffidosi testamenti,_ by which the father was presumed to have died intestate, and his property fell in equal shares to all his children. Thus it was that the right of children in the property of the father was first really recognized at Rome, and the _pars legitima,_ the reserve of which made it impossible for the children to attack the will of the father, came into practice. In the last years of the Republic, this share was at least one-fourth of what the legitimate heir would have received in the absence of a will; under Justinian, it was one-third of the part _ab intestate,_ if this was at least one-fourth of the estate; otherwise, one-half. The father always retained the right to disinherit, for certain reasons, in law. With this diminution of his rights over property went also a lessening of his powers over the bodies of his children. Diocletian forbade the selling of children, Constantine decreed that the father who exposed his new-born child should lose the _patria potestas,_ and Valentinian punished such action with death. Among the ancient Gauls, in spite of the father's power of life and death over his offspring, he could not disinherit them, for the theory of co-proprietorship obtained with these western tribes (215. 16). With the ancient Germans, the father appears to have been rather the protector of his children than their owner or keeper; the child is recognized, somewhat rudely, as a being with some rights of his own. Michelet has aptly observed, as Deneus remarks, that "the Hindus saw in the son the reproduction of the father's soul; the Romans, a servant of the father; the Germans, a child" (215. 17). At first wills were unknown among them, for the system of co-proprietorship,--_hoeredes successoresgue sui cuique liberi et nullum testamentum,_--and the solidarity of the family and all its members, did not feel the need of any. The inroad of Roman ideas, and especially, Deneus thinks, the fervour of converts to Christianity, introduced testamentary legacies. The Goths and Burgundians, in their Roman laws, allowed the parent to dispose of three-fourths, the Visigoths one-third or one-fifth, according as the testator disposed of his property in favour of a child or a stranger. The national law of the Burgundians allowed to the father the absolute disposal of his acquisitions, but prescribed the equal sharing of the property among all the children. The ripuarian law of the Franks left the children a reserve of twelve sons, practically admitting absolute freedom of disposition by will (215. 18). The course of law in respect to the inheritance of children during the Middle Ages can be read in the pages of Deneus and the wider comparative aspect of the subject studied in the volumes of Post, Dargun, Engels, etc., where the various effects of mother-right and father-right are discussed and interpreted. _Subdivisions of Land._ In some cases, as in Wurtemburg, Switzerland, Hanover, Thuringia, Hesse, certain parts of Sweden, France, and Russia, the subdivision of property has been carried out to an extent which has produced truly Lilliputian holdings. In Switzerland there is a certain commune where the custom obtains of transmitting by will to each child its proportional share of each parcel; so that a single walnut-tree has no fewer than sixty proprietors. This reminds us of the Maoris of New Zealand, with whom "a portion of the ground is allotted to the use of each family, and this portion is again subdivided into individual parts on the birth of each child." It is of these same people that the story is told that, after selling certain of their lands to the English authorities, they came back in less than a year and demanded payment also for the shares of the children born since the sale, whose rights they declared had not been disposed of. On the islands of the Loire there are holdings "so small that it is impossible to reduce them any less, so their owners have them each in turn a year"; in the commune of Murs, in Anjou, there is "a strip of nine hectares, subdivided into no fewer than thirty-one separate parcels." The limit, however, seems to be reached in Laon, where "it is not rare to find fields scarce a metre (3 ft. 3.37 in.) wide; here an apple-tree or a walnut-tree covers with its branches four or five lots, and the proprietor can only take in his crop in the presence of his neighbours, to whom he has also to leave one-half of the fruit fallen on their lots." No wonder many disputes and lawsuits arise from such a state of affairs. It puts us in mind at once of the story of the sand-pile and the McDonogh farm. The exchange or purchase of contiguous parcels sometimes brings temporary or permanent relief (215. 112, 113). The following figures show the extent to which this Lilliputian system obtained in France in 1884, according to the returns of the Minister of Finance:-- NATURE OF PROPERTY. ABSOLUTE PER TOTAL PER NUMBER OF CENT. HECTARES. CENT. HOLDINGS. Less than 20 ares (100 ares = one hectare) 4,115,463 29.00 Less than 50 ares 6,597,843 47.00 1,147,804 2.31 Less than 1 hectare ( =2-1/2 acres) 8,585,523 61.00 2,574,589 5.19 Less than 2 hectares 10,426,368 74.09 5,211,456 10.53 From 2 to 6 hectares 2,174,188 15.47 7,543,347 15.26 From 6 to 50 hectares 1,351,499 9.58 19,217,902 38.94 From 50 to 200 hectares 105,070 0.74 9,398,057 19.04 More than 200 hectares 17,676 0.12 8,017,542 16.23 Totals..................... 14,074,801 100.00 49,388,304 100.00 Deneus gives other interesting figures from Belgium and elsewhere, showing the extent of the system. Other statistics given indicate that this parcelling-out has reached its lowest point, and that the reaction has set in. It is a curious fact, noted by M. Deneus, that of the 1,173,724 tenant-farmers in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in the year 1884, no fewer than 852,438 cultivated an acre or less. _Younger Son._ Mr. Sessions, in his interesting little pamphlet (351) calls attention to the important _role_ assigned in legend and story to the "younger son," "younger brother," as well as the social customs and laws which have come into vogue on his account. Sir Henry Maine argued that "primogeniture cannot be the natural outgrowth of the family, but is a political institution, coming not from clansmen but from a chief." Hence the youngest son, "who continues longest with the father, is naturally the heir of his house, the rest being already provided for." Mr. Sessions observes (351. 2): "Among some primitive tribes, as those of Cape York [Australia] and the adjacent islands, the youngest son inherited a double portion of his deceased father's goods. Among the Maoris of New Zealand he takes the whole. Among some hill tribes of India, such as the Todas of the Neilgherries, he takes the house and maintains the women of the family, whilst the cattle, which represent the chief personalities, are equally divided. The Mrus and Kolhs and Cotas have similar customs." Somewhat similar to the code of the Todas was that of the Hindu Aryans, as embodied in the laws of Manu, for "the youngest son has, from time immemorial, as well as the eldest, a place in Hindu legislation." The succession of the youngest prevails among the Mongolian Tartars, and "when in Russia the joint family may be broken up, the youngest takes the house." The right of the youngest was known among the Welsh, Irish, and some other Celtic tribes; the old Welsh law gave the youngest son the house and eight acres, the rest of the land being divided equally between all the sons. Mr. Sessions calls attention to the fact that, while in Old Testament Palestine primogeniture was the rule, the line of ancestry of Christ exhibits some remarkable exceptions. And among primitive peoples the hero or demi-god is very often the younger son. Under the name of "Borough English," the law by which the father's real property descends to the youngest son alone, survives in Gloucester and some few other places in England,--Lambeth, Hackney, part of Islington, Heston, Edmonton, etc. Another interesting tenure is that of gavelkind, by which the land and property of the father was inherited in equal portions by all his sons, the youngest taking the house, the eldest the horse and arms, and so on. This mode of tenure, before the Conquest, was quite common in parts of England, especially Wales and Northumberland, still surviving especially in the county of Kent. Many things, indeed, testify of the care which was taken even in primitive times to secure that the youngest born, the child of old age, so frequently the best-loved, should not fare ill in the struggle for life. _Child-Nurses._ One important function of the child (still to be seen commonly among the lower classes of the civilized races of to-day) with primitive peoples is that of nurse and baby-carrier. Even of Japan, Mrs. Bramhall gives this picture (189. 33):-- "We shall see hundreds of small children, not more than five or six years of age, carrying, fast asleep on their shoulders, the baby of the household, its tiny smooth brown head swinging hither and thither with every movement of its small nurse, who walks, runs, sits, or jumps, flies kites, plays hop-scotch, and fishes for frogs in the gutter, totally oblivious of that infantile charge, whether sleeping or waking. If no young sister or brother be available, the husband, the uncle, the father, or grandfather hitches on his back the baby, preternaturally good and contented." The extent to which, in America, as well as in Europe, to-day, young children are entrusted with the care of infants of their family, has attracted not a little attention, and the "beyond their years" look of some of these little nurses and care-takers is often quite noticeable. The advent of the baby-carriage has rather facilitated than hindered this old-time employment of the child in the last century or so. In a recent number (vol. xvii. p. 792) of _Public Opinion_ we find the statement that from June 17, 1890, to September 15, 1894, the "Little Mothers' Aid Association," of New York, has been the means of giving a holiday, one day at least of pleasure in the year, to more than eight thousand little girls, who are "little mothers, in the sense of having the care of younger children while the parents are at work." In thrifty New England, children perform not a little of the housework, even the cooking; and "little mothers" and "little housekeepers" were sometimes left to themselves for days, while their elders in days gone by visited or went to the nearest town or village for supplies. _Child-Marriages._ "Marriages are made in heaven," says the old proverb, and among some primitive peoples we meet with numerous instances of their having been agreed upon and arranged by prospective parents long before the birth of their offspring. Indeed, the betrothal of unborn children by their parents occurs sporadically to-day in civilized lands. Ploss has called attention to child-marriages in their sociological and physiological bearings (125.1. 386-402), and Post has considered the subject in his historical study of family law. In these authorities the details of the subject may be read. In Old Calabar, men who already possess several wives take to their bosom and kiss, as their new wife, babes two or three weeks old. In China, Gujurat, Ceylon, and parts of Brazil, wives of from four to six years of age are occasionally met with. In many parts of the world wives of seven to nine years of age are common, and wives of from ten to twelve very common. In China it is sometimes the case that parents buy for their infant son an infant wife, nursed at the same breast with him (234. xlii.). Wiedemann, in an article on child-marriages in Egypt (381), mentions the fact that a certain king of the twenty-first dynasty (about 1100 B.C.) seems to have had as one of his wives a child only a few days old. From Dio Cassius we learn that in Rome, at the beginning of the Empire, marriages of children under ten years occasionally took place. In some parts of the world the child-wife does not belong to her child-husband. "Among the Reddies, of India," Letourneau informs us, "a girl from sixteen to twenty years of age is married to a boy of five or six. The wife then becomes the real wife of the boy's uncle, or cousin, or of the father of the reputed husband. But the latter is considered to be the legal father of the children of his pretended wife." So it is only when the boy has grown up that he receives his wife, and he, in turn, acts as his relative before him (100. 354). Temple cites the following curious custom in his tales of the Panjâb (542. I. xviii.):-- "When Raja Vasali has won a bride from Raja Sirkap, he is given a new-born infant and a mango-tree, which is to flower in twelve years, and when it flowers, the girl is to be his wife." The age prescribed by ancient Hindu custom (for the Brahman, Tshetria, and Vysia classes) is six to eight years for the girl, and the belief prevailed that if a girl were to attain her puberty before being married, her parents and brothers go to hell, as it was their duty to have got her married before that period (317. 56). Father Sangermano, writing of Burma a hundred years ago, notices the "habit of the Burmese to engage their daughters while young, in real or fictitious marriages, in order to save them from the hands of the king's ministers, custom having established a rule, which is rarely if ever violated, that no married woman can be seized, even for the king himself" (234. xlii.). The child-marriages of India have been a fruitful theme for discussion, as well as the enforced widowhood consequent upon the death of the husband. Among the most interesting literature on the subject are the "Papers relating to Infant Marriage and Enforced Widowhood in India" (317), Schlagintweit (142), etc. The evils connected with the child-marriages of India are forcibly brought out by Mrs. Steel in several of the short stories in her _From the Five Rivers_ (1893), and by Richard Garbe in his beautiful little novel _The Redemption of the Brahman_(1894). But India and other Eastern lands are not the only countries where "child-marriages" have flourished. Dr. F. J. Furnivall (234), the distinguished English antiquary and philologist, poring over at Chester the "Depositions in Trials in the Bishop's Court from November, 1561 to March, 1565-6," was astonished to find on the ninth page the record: "that Elizabeth Hulse said she was married to George Hulse in the Chapel of Knutsford, when she was but _three or four_ years old, while the boy himself deposed that he was about seven," and still more surprised when he discovered that the volume contained "no fewer than twenty-seven cases of the actual marriage in church of the little boys and girls of middle-class folk." The result of Dr. Furnivall's researches is contained in the one-hundred-and-eighth volume (original series) of the Early English Text Society's Publications, dealing with child-marriages, divorces, ratifications, etc., and containing a wealth of quaint and curious sociological lore. Perhaps the youngest couple described are John Somerford, aged about three years, and Jane Brerton, aged about two years, who were married in the parish church of Brerton about 1553. Both were carried in arms to the church, and had the words of the marriage service said for them by those who carried them. It appears that they lived together at Brerton for ten years, but without sustaining any further marital relations, and when the husband was about fifteen years, we find him suing for a divorce on account of his wife's "unkindness, and other weighty causes." Neither party seemed affectionately disposed towards the other (234.26). Other very interesting marriages are those of Bridget Dutton (aged under five years) and George Spurstowe (aged six) (234. 38); Margaret Stanley (aged five) and Roland Dutton (aged nine), brother of Bridget Dutton (234. 41); Janet Parker (aged five) and Lawrence Parker (aged nine to ten). The rest of the twenty-seven couples were considerably older, the most of the girls ranging between eight and twelve, the boys between ten and fourteen (234. 28). It would Seem that for the most part these young married couples were not allowed to live together, but at times some of the nuptial rites were travestied or attempted to be complied with. In two only of the twenty-seven cases is there mention of "bedding" the newly-married children. John Budge, who at the age of eleven to twelve years, was married to Elizabeth Ramsbotham, aged thirteen to fourteen years, is said to have wept to go home with his father and only by "compulsion of the priest of the Chapel" was he persuaded to lie with his wife, but never had any marital relations with her whatever, and subsequently a petition for divorce was filed by the husband (234. 6). In the case of Ellen Dampart, who at the age of about eight years, was married to John Andrew aged ten, it appears that they slept in the same bed with two of the child-wife's sisters between them. No marital relations were entered upon, and the wife afterwards sues for a divorce (234. 15, 16). The practice seems to have been for each of the children married to go to live with some relative, and if the marriage were not ratified by them after reaching years of consent, to petition for a divorce. In some nine cases the boy is younger than the girl, and Humfrey Winstanley was under twelve when he was married to Alice Worsley aged over seventeen; in this case no marital relations were entered upon, though the wife was quite willing; and the husband afterwards petitions for a divorce (234.2-4). Thomas Dampart, who at the age of ten years, was married to Elizabeth Page, appears to have lived with his wife about eight years and to have kept up marital relations with her until she left him of her own motion. Dr. Furnivall (234. 49-52) cites four cases of ratification of child-marriages by the parties after they have attained years of discretion, in one of which the boy and the girl were each but ten years old when married. The most naive account in the whole book is that of the divorce-petition of James Ballard, who, when about eleven years of age, was married in the parish church of Colne at ten o'clock at night by Sir Roger Blakey, the curate, to a girl named Anne; the morning after the ceremony he is said "to have declared unto his uncle that the said Anne had enticed him with two Apples, to go with her to Colne, and marry her." No marital relations were entered upon, and the curate was punished for his hasty and injudicious action (234. 45). Dr. Furnivall (234. xxxv.) quotes at some length the legal opinion--the law on infant marriages--of Judge Swinburne (died, 1624), from which we learn that "infants" (i.e. children under seven years of age) could not contract spousals or matrimony, and such contracts made by the infants or by their parents were void, unless subsequently ratified by the contracting parties by word or deed,--at twelve the girls ceased to be children, and at fourteen the boys, and were then fully marriageable, as they are to-day in many parts of the world. Of childhood, Judge Swinburne says, "During this age, children cannot contract Matrimony _de praesenti_., but only _de futuro_"; but their spousals could readily be turned into actual marriages after the girls were twelve and the boys fourteen, as Dr. Furnivall points out. The fifth limitation to his general statement, which the learned judge made, is thus strangely and quaintly expressed: "The fifth Limitation is, when the Infants which do contract Spousals are of that _Wit and Discretion_, that albeit they have not as yet accomplished the full Age of Seven Years, yet doth their supra-ordinary understanding fully supply that small defect of Age which thing is not rare in these days, wherein Children become sooner ripe, and do conceive more quickly than in former Ages" (234. xxxvi.). First among the causes of these child-marriages Dr. Furnivall is inclined to rank "the desire to evade the feudal law of the Sovereign's guardianship of all infants," for "when a father died, the Crown had the right to hold the person and estate of the propertied orphan until it came of age, and it could be sold in marriage for the benefit of the Crown or its grantee." Moreover, "if the orphan refused such a marriage with a person of its own rank, it had to pay its guardian a heavy fine for refusing his choice, and selecting a spouse of its own" (234. xxxix.). Property-arrangement also figures as a cause of these alliances, especially where the bride is older than the groom: Elizabeth Hulse (aged four) was married to George Hulse (aged seven) "because her friends thought she should have a living by him" (234. 4). When Elizabeth Ramsbotham (aged 13-14) married John Bridge (aged 11-12), "money was paid by the father of the said Elizaboth, to buy a piece of land" (234. 6); according to the father of Joan Leyland (aged 11-12), who married Ralph Whittall (aged 11-12), "they were married because she should have had by him a pretty bargain, if they could have loved, one the other" (234.12); Thomas Bentham (aged twelve) and Ellen Boltoii (aged ten) were married because Richard Bentham, grandfather of Ellen, "was a very wealthy man, and it was supposed that he would have been good unto them, and bestowed some good farm upon them" (234. 32); the marriage of Thomas Fletcher (aged 10-11) and Anne Whitfield (aged about nine) took place because "John Fletcher, father of the said Thomas, was in debt; and, to get some money of William Whitfield, to the discharge of his debts, married and bargained his sonne to the said Whitfield's daughter." The "compulsion of their friends" seems also to have been a cause of the marriages of children; Peter Hope (about thirteen) married Alice Ellis (aged nine), "because it was his mother's mind, he durst not displease her" (234. 20, 23). So far the evidence has related to unsatisfactory and unfortunate marriages, but, as Dr. Furnivall remarks, "no doubt scores of others ended happily; the child-husband and--wife just lived on together, and--when they had reached their years of discretion (girls twelve, boys fourteen) or attained puberty--ratified their marriage by sleeping in one bed and having children" (234. xix., 203). Some additional cases of child-marriages in the diocese of Chester are noticed by Mr. J. P. Earwaker (234. xiv.), a pioneer in this branch of antiquarian research, whose studies date back to 1885. The case of John Marden, who, at the age of three years, was married to a girl of five is thus described: "He was carried in the arms of a clergyman, who coaxed him to repeat the words of matrimony. Before he had got through his lesson, the child declared he would learn no more that day. The priest answered: 'You must speak a little more, and then go play you.'" Robert Parr, who, in 1538-9, at the age of three, was married to Elizabeth Rogerson, "was hired for an apple by his uncle to go to church, and was borne thither in the arms of Edward Bunburie his uncle ... which held him in arms the time that he was married to the said Elizabeth, at which time the said Robert could scarce speak." Mr. Earwaker says that in the _Inquisitiones post mortem_, "it is by no means unfrequent to read that so and so was heir to his father, and then aged, say, ten years, and was already married" (234. xxi.-xxxiii.). A celebrated child-marriage was that at Eynsham, Oxfordshire, in 1541, the contracting parties being William, Lord Eure, aged 10-11 years, and Mary Darcye, daughter of Lord Darcye, aged four. The parties were divorced November 3, 1544, and in 1548, the boy took to himself another wife. Dr. Furnivall cites from John Smith's _Lives of the Berkeleys_, the statements that Maurice, third Lord Berkeley, was married in 1289, when eight years old, to Eve, daughter of Lord Zouch, and, before he or his wife was fourteen years of age, had a son by her; that Maurice, the fourth Lord Berkeley, when eight years of age, was married in 1338-9, to Elizabeth, daughter of Hugh Lord Spenser, about eight years old; that Thomas, the fourth Lord Berkeley, when about fourteen and one-half years of age, was married, in 1366, to Margaret, daughter of Lord de Lisle, aged about seven. Smith, in quaint fashion, refers to King Josiah (2 Kings, xxiii., xxvi.), King Ahaz (2 Kings, xvi. 2, xviii. 2), and King Solomon (1 Kings, xi. 42, xiv. 21) as having been fathers at a very early age, and remarks: "And the Fathers of the Church do tell us that the blessed Virgin Mary brought forth our Saviour at fifteen years old, or under" (234. xxvii). Even during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries child-marriages are numerously attested. Following are noteworthy cases (234. xxiii.): In 1626 Anne Clopton, aged nearly fourteen, was married to Sir Simonds D'Ewes, aged nearly twenty-four; in 1673, John Power, grandson of Lord Anglesey, was married at Lambeth, by the Archbishop of Canterbury to Mrs. Catherine Fitzgerald, his cousin-german, she being about thirteen, and he eight years old; at Dunton Basset, Leicestershire, in 1669, Mary Hewitt (who is stated to have lived to the good old age of seventy- seven) was married when but three years old; in 1672, the only daughter (aged five) of Lord Arlington was married to the Duke of Grafton, and the ceremony was witnessed by John Evelyn, who, in 1679, "was present at the re-marriage of the child couple"; in 1719, Lady Sarah Cadogan, aged thirteen, was married to Charles, Duke of Eichmond, aged eighteen; in 1721, Charles Powel, of Carmarthen, aged about eleven, was married to a daughter of Sir Thomas Powel, of Broadway, aged about fourteen; in 1729, "a girl of nine years and three months was taken from a boarding school by one of her guardians, and married to his son"; Bridget Clarke, in 1883, is reputed to have been twenty-five years old, to have had seven children, and to have been married when only thirteen; at Deeping, Lincolnshire, a young man of twenty-one married a girl of fourteen, and "it was somewhat of a novelty to observe the interesting bride the following day exhibiting her skill on the skipping-rope on the pavement in the street." Mr. Longstaff, who has studied the annual reports of the registrar-general for 1851-81, finds that during these thirtyone years, "out of 11,058,376 persons married, 154 boys married before 17, and 862 girls before 16. Of these, 11 boys of 15 married girls of 15 (four cases), 16, 18 (two cases), 20, and 21. Three girls of 14 married men of 18, 21, and 25. Five girls of 15 married boys of 16; in 29 marriages both girl and boy were sixteen" (234. xxxiii). Further comments upon infant marriages may be found in an article in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, for September, 1894, the writer of which remarks: "Within recent years, however, the discovery has been made, that, so far from being confined, as had been supposed, to royal or aristocratic houses, infant marriages were, in the sixteenth century, common in some parts of England among all classes" (367. 322). It was said "marriages are made in heaven," and that some times children are married before they are born; it might also be said "marriages are made for heaven," since some children are married after they are dead. In some parts of China (and Marco Polo reported the same practice as prevalent in his time among the Tartars) "the spirits of all males who die in infancy or in boyhood are, in due time, married to the spirits of females who have been cut off at a like early age" (166. 140). As Westermarck observes, "Dr. Ploss has justly pointed out that the ruder a people is, and the more exclusively a woman is valued as an object of desire, or as a slave, the earlier in life is she chosen; whereas, if marriage becomes a union of souls as well as of bodies, the man claims a higher degree of mental maturity from the woman he wishes to be his wife." In so civilized a nation even as the United States, the "age of consent" laws evidence the tenacity of barbarism. The black list of states, compiled by Mr. Powell (180. 201), in a recent article in the _Arena_, reveals the astonishing fact that in three states--Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina-the "age of consent" is _ten_ years; in four states, twelve years; in three states, thirteen years; in no fewer than twenty states, fourteen years; in two states, fifteen years; in twelve states, sixteen years; and in one state (Florida), seventeen years. In Kansas and Wyoming alone is the "age of consent" eighteen years, and it is worthy of note that Wyoming is the only state in the Union in which women have for any considerable length of time enjoyed the right to vote on exactly the same terms as men. In England, the agitation set going by Mr. Stead, in 1885, resulted in, the passage of a law raising the "age of consent" from thirteen to sixteen years. It is almost beyond belief, that, in the State of Delaware, only a few years ago, the "age of consent" was actually as low as seven years (180.194)! Even in Puritan New England, we find the "age of consent" fixed at thirteen in New Hampshire, and at fourteen in Connecticut, Vermont, and Maine (180. 195). It is a sad comment upon our boasted culture and progress that, as of old, the law protects, and even religion fears to disturb too rudely, this awful sacrifice to lust which we have inherited from our savage ancestors. There is no darker chapter in the history of our country than that which tells of the weak pandering to the modern representatives of the priests of Bacchus, Astarte, and the shameless Venus. The religious aspect of the horrible immolation may have passed away, but wealth and social attractions have taken its place, and the evil works out its destroying way as ever. To save the children from this worse than death, women must fight, and they will win; for once the barbarity, the enormity, the inhumanity of this child-sacrifice is brought home to men they cannot for their own children's sake permit the thing to go on. Here, above all places else, apply the words of Jesus: "Whoso shall cause one of these little ones which believe on me to stumble, it is profitable that a great millstone should be hanged about his neck, and he should be sunk in the depths of the sea." The marriage-laws of some of the states savour almost as much of prehistoric times and primitive peoples. With the consent of her parents, a girl of twelve years may lawfully contract marriage in no fewer than twenty-two states and territories; and in no fewer than twenty, a boy of fourteen may do likewise. Among the twenty-two states and territories are included: Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont; and among the twenty, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont. In some of the Southern States the age seems to be somewhat higher than in a number of the Northern. The existence of slavery may have tended to bring about this result; while the same fact in the West is to be accounted for by the vigour and newness of the civilization in that part of the country. _Children's Rights._ Where, as in ancient Rome, for example, the _patria potestas_ flourished in primitive vigour,--Mommsen says, "all in the household were destitute of legal rights,--the wife and the child no less than the bullock or the slave" (166. 229), children could in nowise act as members of society. Westermarck (166. 213-239) shows to what extent and to what age the _mundiwm_, or guardianship of the father over his children, was exercised in Rome, Greece, among the Teutonic tribes, in France. In the latter country even now "a child cannot quit the paternal residence without the permission of the father before the age of twenty-one, except for enrolment in the army. For grave misconduct by his children the father has strong means of correction. A son under twenty-five and a daughter under-twenty-one cannot marry without the consent of their parents; and even when a man has attained his twenty-fifth year, and the woman her twenty-first, both are still bound to ask for it, by a formal notification." Westermarck's observations on the general subject are as follows:--"There is thus a certain resemblance between the family institution of savage tribes and that of the most advanced races. Among both, the grown-up son, and frequently the grown-up daughter, enjoys a liberty unknown among peoples at an intermediate stage of civilization. There are, however, these vital differences: that children in civilized countries are in no respect the property of their parents; that they are born with certain rights guaranteed to them by society; that the birth of children gives parents no rights over them other than those which conduce to the children's happiness. These ideas, essential as they are to true civilization, are not many centuries old. It is a purely modern conception the French Encyclopaedist expresses when he says, 'Le pouvoir paternel est plutot un devoir qu'un pouvoir'" (166. 239). _The Child at School._ It was in this spirit also that Count Czaky (when Minister of Education in Hungary), replying to the sarcastic suggestion of one of the Deputies, during the debate on the revision of the curriculum of classical studies, that "the lazy children should be asked whether they liked to study Greek or not," said that "when it became necessary, he would willingly listen to the children themselves." That children have some rights in the matter is a view that is slowly but surely fixing itself in the minds of the people,--that the school should be something more than an intellectual prison-house, a mental and moral tread-mill, a place to put children in out of the way of the family, a dark cave into which happy, freedom-loving, joyous childhood must perforce retire from that communion with nature which makes the health of its body and the salvation of its soul. This false theory of education is vanishing, however tardily, before the teachings of the new psychology and the new anthropology, which demand a knowledge of what the child is, feels, thinks, before they will be party to any attempt to make him be, feel, think, something different. The school is but a modified form of society, of its fundamental institution, the family. Dr. Eiccardi, in the introduction to his _Antropologia e Pedagogia_,-in which he discusses a mass of psychological, sociological, and anthropological observations and statistics,--well says (336. 12):-- "The school is a little society, whose citizens are the scholars. The teacher has not merely to instruct the pupil, but ought also to teach him to live in the little school-society and thus fitly prepare him to live in the great society of humanity. And just as men are classified in human society, so ought to be classified the scholars in the little school-society; and just as the teacher looks upon the great human world in movement upon the earth, so ought he also to look upon that little world called the school, observing its elements with a positive eye, without preconceptions and without prejudices. The teacher, therefore, in regard to the school-organism, is as a legislator in regard to society. And the true and wise legislator does not give laws to the governed, does not offer security and liberty to the citizens, until after he has made a profound study of his country and of society. Let the teacher try for some time to take these criteria into his school; let him try to apply in the school many of those facts and usages which are commonly employed in human society, and he will see how, little by little, almost unnoticeably, the primitive idea of the school will be modified in his mind, and he will see how the school itself will assume the true character which it ought to have, that is, the character of a microscopic social organism. This legislator for our children, by making the children and youths clearly see of themselves that the school is nothing else but a little society, where they are taught to live, and by making them see the points of resemblance and of contact with the great human society, will engender in the minds of the pupils the conscience of duty and of right; will create in them the primitive feeling of justice and of equity. And the pupils, feeling that there is a real association, feeling that they do form part of a little world, and are not something merely gathered together by chance for a few hours, will form a compact homogeneous scholastic association, in which all will try to be something, and of which all will be proud. In this way will the assemblage of disparate, diverse, heterogeneous elements, with which the school begins the year, be able to become homogeneous and create a true school organism. And if the teacher will persevere, whether in the direction of the school, in the classification of the pupils, or in the different contingencies that arise, in applying those criteria, those ideas, those forms, which are commonly employed in society, he will be favouring the homogeneity of the little organism which he has to instruct and to educate. He will thus have always before his mind all the organic, psychic, and moral characteristics of human society and will see the differences from, and the resemblances to, those of the school-organism. In so far will he have an example, a law, a criterion, a form to follow in the direction of the little human society entrusted to him, with its beautiful and its ugly side, its good and its bad, its vices and its virtues. This idea of the school as an organism, however much it seems destined to overturn ideas of the past, will be the crucible from which will be turned out in the near future all the reforms and many new ideas." This view of the school as an organism, a social microcosm, a little society within the great human society, having its resemblances to, and its differences from, the family and the nation, is one that the new development of "child-study" seems bound to promote and advance. Rank paternalism has made its exit from the great human society, but it has yet a strong hold upon the school. It is only in comparatively recent times that motherhood, which, as Zmigrodzki says, has been the basis of our civilization, has been allowed to exercise its best influence upon the scholastic microcosm. Paternalism and celibacy must be made to yield up the strong grasp which they have upon the educational institutions of the land, and the early years of the life of man must be confided to the care of the mother-spirit, which the individual man and the race alike have deified in their golden age. The mother who laid so well the foundations of the great human society, the originator of its earliest arts, the warder of its faiths and its beliefs, the mother, who built up the family, must be trusted with some large share in the building of the school. _Child-Sociology._ In _The Story of a Sand-Pile_ (255), President G. Stanley Hall has chronicled for us the life-course of a primitive social community-nine summers of work and play by a number of boys with a sand-pile in the yard of one of their parents. Here we are introduced to the originality and imitation of children in agriculture, architecture, industrial arts, trade and commerce, money and exchange, government, law and justice, charity, etc. The results of this spontaneous and varied exercise, which, the parents say, "has been of about as much yearly educational value to the boys as the eight months of school," and in contrast with which "the concentrative methodic unities of Ziller seem artificial, and, as Bacon said of scholastic methods, very inadequate to subtlety of nature," Dr. Hall sums up as follows (255. 696):-- "Very many problems that puzzle older brains have been met in simpler terms and solved wisely and well. The spirit and habit of active and even prying observation has been greatly quickened. Industrial processes, institutions, and methods of administration and organization have been appropriated and put into practice. The boys have grown more companionable and rational, learning many a lesson of self-control, and developed a spirit of self-help. The parents have been enabled to control indirectly the associations of their boys, and, in a very mixed boy-community, to have them in a measure under observation without in the least restricting their freedom. The habit of loafing, and the evils that attend it, have been avoided, a strong practical and even industrial bent has been given to their development, and much social morality has been taught in the often complicated _modus vivendi_ with others that has been evolved. Finally, this may perhaps be called one illustration of the education according to nature we so often hear and speak of." This study of child-sociology is a _rara avis in terra_; it is to be hoped, however, that if any other parents have "refrained from suggestions, and left the hand and fancy of the boys to educate each other under the tuition of the mysterious play-instinct," they may be as fortunate in securing for the deeds of their young off-spring, as observant and as sympathetic a historian as he who has told the story of the sand-pile in that little New England town. Bagehot, in the course of his chapter on "Nation-Making," observes (395. 91):-- "After such great matters as religion and politics, it may seem trifling to illustrate the subject from little boys. But it is not trifling. The bane of philosophy is pomposity: people will not see that small things are the miniatures of greater, and it seems a loss of abstract dignity to freshen their minds by object lessons from what they know. But every boarding-school changes as a nation changes. Most of us may remember thinking,' How odd it is that this _half_ should be so unlike last _half_; now we never go out of bounds, last half we were always going; now we play rounders, then we played prisoner's base,' and so through all the easy life of that time. In fact, some ruling spirits, some one or two ascendant boys, had left, one or two others had come, and so all was changed. The models were changed, and the copies changed; a different thing was praised, and a different thing bullied." It was in the spirit of this extract (part of which he quotes), that the editor of the "Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science" happily admitted into that series of monographs, Mr. J. H. Johnson's _Rudimentary Society among Boys_(272), a sociological study of peculiar interest and importance--"a microcosm, not only of the agrarian, but of the political and economic history of society." Mr. Johnson has graphically described the development of society among some fifty boys on the farm belonging to the McDonogh School, not far from the city of Baltimore, Maryland; land-tenure, boy-legislation, judicial procedure, boy-economy, are all treated of in detail and many analogies with the life and habits of primitive peoples brought out, and the author has gone a long way towards realizing the thesis that "To show a decided resemblance between barbarian political institutions and those of communities of civilized children, would be a long step towards founding a science of Social Embryology" (272. 61). _"Gangs."_ Mr. Stewart Culin (212) in his interesting account of the "Street Games of Boys in Brooklyn, N.Y." notices _en passant_ the existence of "gangs" of boys--boys' societies of the ruder and rougher kind. As evidence of the extent to which these organizations have flourished, the following somewhat complete list of those known to have existed in the city of Philadelphia is given:-- Badgers, Bed Bugs, Bleeders, Blossoms, Bouncers, Buena Vistas, Buffaloes, Bull Dogs, Bullets, Bunker Hills, Canaries, Clippers, Corkies, Cow Towners, Cruisers, Darts, Didos, Dirty Dozen, Dumplingtown Hivers, Dung Hills, Muters, Forest Eose, Forties, Garroters, Gas House Tarriers, Glassgous, Golden Hours, Gut Gang, Haymakers, Hawk-Towners, Hivers, Killers, Lancers, Lions, Mountaineers, Murderers, Niggers, Pigs, Pluckers, Pots, Prairie Hens, Railroad Roughs, Rats, Ramblers, Ravens, Riverside, Eovers, Schuylkill Eangers, Skinners, Snappers, Spigots, Tigers, Tormentors, War Dogs, Wayne Towners. Of these Mr. Culin remarks: "They had their laws and customs, their feuds and compacts. The former were more numerous than the latter, and they fought on every possible occasion. A kind of half-secret organization existed among them, and new members passed through a ceremony called 'initiation,' which was not confined to the lower classes, from which most of them were recruited. Almost every Philadelphia boy, as late as twenty years ago, went through some sort of ordeal when he first entered into active boyhood. Being triced up by legs and arms, and swung violently against a gate, was usually part of this ceremony, and it no doubt still exists, although I have no particular information, which indeed is rather difficult to obtain, as boys, while they remain boys, are reticent concerning all such matters" (212. 236). These street-organizations exist in other cities also, and have their ramifications in the school-life of children, who either belong to, or are in some way subject to, these curious associations. Every ward, nay, every street of any importance, seems to have its "gang," and it is no small experience in a boy's life to pass the ordeal of initiation, battle with alien organizations, and retire, as childhood recedes, unharmed by the primitive _entourage_. No doubt, from these street-gangs many pass into the junior criminal societies which are known to exist in many great cities, the training-schools for theft, prostitution, murder, the feeding-grounds for the "White Caps," "Molly Maguires," "Ku-Klux," "Mafia," "Camorra," and other secret political or criminal associations, who know but too well how to recruit their numbers from the young. The gentler side of the social instinct is seen in the formation of friendships among children, associations born of the nursery or the school-room which last often through life. The study of these early friendships offers a tempting field for sociological research and investigation. _Secret Societies of the Young._ There are among primitive peoples many secret societies to which children and youth are allowed to belong, or which are wholly composed of such. Among the secret societies of the Kwakiutl Indians, of British Columbia, Dr. Boas mentions the "Keki'qalak--( = the crows)," formed from the children (403. 53). The same author speaks of the Tsimshians, another British Columbia tribe, in these terms (403. 57):-- "A man who is not a member of a secret society is a 'common man.' He becomes a middle-class man after the first initiation, and attains higher rank by repeated initiations. The novice disappears in the same way as among the Kwakiutl. It is supposed that he goes to heaven. During the dancing season a feast is given, and while the women are dancing the novice is suddenly said to have disappeared. If he is a child, he stays away four days; youths remain absent six days, and grown-up persons several months. Chiefs are supposed to stay in heaven during the fall and entire winter. When this period has elapsed, they suddenly reappear on the beach, carried by an artificially-made monster belonging to their crest. Then all the members of the secret society to which the novice is to belong gather and walk down in grand procession to the beach to fetch the child. At this time the child's parents bring presents, particularly elk skins, strung on a rope as long as the procession, to be given at a subsequent feast. The people surround the novice and lead him into every house in order to show that he has returned. Then he is taken to the house of his parents and a bunch of cedar-bark is fastened over the door, to show that the place is tabooed, and nobody is allowed to enter." The dance and other ceremonies which follow may be read of in Dr. Boas' report. Dr. Daniels, in his study of _Regeneration_, has called attention to "seclusion" and "disappearance," followed by reappearance and adoption as members of society, as characteristic practices in vogue among many savage and semi-civilized tribes with respect to children and those approaching the age of puberty--a change of name sometimes accompanies the "entering upon the new life," as it is often called. Of the Australians we read: "The boy at eight or ten years of age must leave the hut of his father and live in common with the other young men of the tribe. He is called by another name than that which he has borne from birth and his diet is regulated to some extent." In New Guinea, in Africa, and among some of the tribes of American aborigines like habits prevail. The custom of certain Indians formerly inhabiting Virginia is thus described: "After a very severe beating the boys are sent into a secluded spot. There they must stay nine months and can associate with no human being. They are fed during this time with a kind of intoxicating preparation of roots to make them forget all about their past life. After their return home everything must seem strange to them. In this way it is thought that they 'begin to live anew.' They are thought of as having been dead for a short time and are 'numbered among the older citizens after forgetting that they once were boys'" (214. 11-13). In the African district of Quoja existed a secret society called Belly-Paaro, "the members of which had to spend a long time in a holy thicket. Whoever broke the rules of this society was seized upon by the Jannanes, or spirits of the dead, who dwelt in the thicket and brought thither, whence he was unable to return" (127. I. 240). Of this practice Kulischer remarks: "'It is a death and a new birth, since they are wholly changed in the consecrated thicket, dying to the old life and existence, and receiving a new understanding.' When the youths return from the thicket, they act as if they had come into the world for the first time, and had never known where their parents lived or their names, what sort of people they were, how to wash themselves" (214. 12). Of another part of Africa we read: "In the country of Ambamba each person must die once, and come to life again. Accordingly, when a fetich-priest shakes his calabash at a village, those men and youths whose hour is come fall into a state of death-like torpor, from which they recover usually in the course of three days. But if there is any one that the fetich loves, him he takes into the bush and buries in the fetich-house. Oftentimes he remains buried for a long series of years. When he comes to life again, he begins to eat and drink as before, but his reason is gone, and the fetich-man is obliged to train him and instruct him in the simplest bodily movements, like a little child. At first the stick is only the instrument of education, but gradually his senses come back to him, and he begins to speak. As soon as his education is finished, the priest restores him to his parents. They seldom recognize their son, but accept the express assurance of the feticero, who also reminds them of events in the past. In Ambamba a man who has not passed through the process of dying and coming to life again is held in contempt, nor is he permitted to join in the dance" (529. 56). Some recollection, perhaps, of similar customs and ideas appears in the game of "Ruripsken," which, according to Schambach, is played by children in Gottingen: One of the children lies on the ground, pretending to be dead, the others running up and singing out "Ruripsken, are you alive yet?" Suddenly he springs up and seizes one of the other players, who has to take his place, and so the game goes on. Among the Mandingos of the coast of Sierra Leone, the girls approaching puberty are taken by the women of the village to an out-of-the-way spot in the forest, where they remain for a month and a day in strictest seclusion, no one being permitted to see them except the old woman who has charge of their circumcision. Here they are instructed in religion and ceremonial, and at the expiration of the time set, are brought back to town at night, and indulge in a sort of Lady Godiva procession until daybreak. At the beginning of the dry-cool season among the Mundombe "boys of from eight to ten years of age are brought by the 'kilombola-masters' into a lonely uninhabited spot, where they remain for ninety days after their circumcision, during which time not even their own parents may visit them. After the wound heals, they are brought back to the village in triumph" (127. 1. 292). With the Kaffirs the circumcision-rites last five months, "and during this whole time the youths go around with their bodies smeared with white clay. They form a secret society, and dwell apart from the village in a house built specially for them" (127. I. 292). Among the Susu there is a secret organization known as the _Semo_, the members of which use a peculiar secret language, and "the young people have to pass a whole year in the forest, and it is believed right for them to kill any one who comes near the wood, and who is not acquainted with this secret tongue" (127. I. 240). A very similar society exists among the tribes on the Rio Nunez. Here "the young people live for seven or eight years a life of seclusion in the forest." In Angoy there is the secret society of the _Sindungo_, membership in which passes from father to son; in Bomma, the secret orders of the fetich Undémbo; among the Shekiani and the Bakulai, that of the great spirit Mwetyi, the chief object of which is to keep in subjection women and children, and into which boys are initiated when between fourteen and eighteen years old; the Mumbo Jumbo society of the Mandingos, into which no one under sixteen years of age is allowed to enter (127. I. 241-247). Among the Mpongwe the women have a secret society called _Njembe_, the object of which is to protect them against harsh treatment by the men. The initiation lasts several weeks, and girls from ten to twelve years of age are admissible (127. I. 245). Of the Indians of the western plains of the United States of America we are told: "At twelve or thirteen these yearnings can no longer be suppressed; and, banded together, the youths of from twelve to sixteen years roam over the country; and some of the most cold-blooded atrocities, daring attacks, and desperate combats have been made by these children in pursuit of fame" (432. 191). Among the Mandingos of West Africa, during the two months immediately following their circumcision, the youths "form a society called _Solimana_. They make visits to the neighbouring villages, where they sing and dance and are _fèted_ by the inhabitants." In Angola the boys "live for a month under the care of a fetich-priest, passing their time in drum-beating, a wild sort of singing, and rat-hunting." Among the Beit Bidel "all the youths who are to be consecrated as men unite together. They deck themselves out with beads, hire a guitar-player, and retire to the woods, where they steal and kill goats from the herds of their tribe, and for a whole week amuse themselves with sport and song. The Wanika youths of like age betake themselves, wholly naked, to the woods, where they remain until they have slain a man." On the coast of Guinea, after their circumcision, "boys are allowed to exact presents from every one and to commit all sorts of excesses" (127. 1.291-4). "Among the Fulas, boys who have been circumcised are a law unto themselves until the incision has healed. They can steal or take whatever suits them without its being counted an offence. In Bambuk, for fourteen days after the circumcision-_fête_, the young people are allowed to escape from the supervision of their parents. From sunrise to sunset they can leave the paternal roof and run about the fields near the village. They can demand meat and drink of whomsoever they please, but may not enter a house unless they have been invited to do so." In Darfur, "after their circumcision, the boys roamed around the adjacent villages and stole all the poultry" (127. I. 291). _Modern Aspects_. These secret societies and outbursts of primitive lawlessness recall at once to our attention the condition of affairs at some of our universities, colleges, and larger schools. The secret societies and student-organizations, with their initiations, feasts, and extravagant demonstrations, their harassing of the uninitiated, their despisal of municipal, collegiate, even parental authority, and their oftentime contempt and disregard of all social order, their not infrequent excesses and debauches, carry us back to their analogues in the institutions of barbarism and savagery, the accompaniments of the passage from childhood to manhood. Of late years, the same spirit has crept into our high schools, and is even making itself felt in the grammar grades, so imitative are the school-children of their brothers and sisters in the universities and colleges. Pennalism and fagging, so prevalent of old time in Germany and England, are not without their representatives in this country. The "freshman" in the high schools and colleges is often made to feel much as the savage does who is serving his time of preparation for admission into the mysteries of Mumbo- Jumbo. In the revels of "May Day," "Midsummer," "Eogation Week," "Whitsuntide," "All Fools' Day," "New Year's Day," "Hallow E'en," "Christmas," "Easter," etc., children throughout England and in many parts of Europe during the Middle Ages took a prominent part and _rôle_ in the customs and practices which survive even to-day, as may be seen in Brand, Grimm, and other books dealing with popular customs and festivals, social _fêtes_ and merry-makings. In _Tennyson's May_ Queen we read:-- "You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear; To-morrow'll be the happiest time of all the glad New Year; Of all the glad New Year, mother, the maddest, merriest day; For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May." And a "mad, merry day" it certainly was in "merry England," when the fairest lass in the village was chosen "Queen of the May," and sang merry songs of Robin Hood and Maid Marian. Polydore Virgil tells us that in ancient Home the "youths used to go into the fields and spend the Calends of May in dancing and singing in honour of Flora, goddess of fruits and flowers." Westermarck seems to think some of these popular customs have something to do with the increase of the sexual function in spring and early summer (166. 30). In seizing upon this instinct for society-making among children and youth lies one of the greatest opportunities for the prevention of crime and immorality the world has ever known. To turn to good ends this spontaneity of action, to divert into channels of usefulness these currents of child-activity, will be to add immensely to the equipment of mankind in the struggle with vice. A certain bishop of the early Christian Church is credited with having declared that, if the authorities only took charge of the children soon enough, there would be no burning of heretics, no scandalous schisms in the body ecclesiastic; and there is a good deal of truth in this observation. The Catholic Church, and many of the other Christian churches have seen the wisdom of appealing to, and availing themselves of, the child-power in social and socio-religious questions. Not a little of the great spread of the temperance movement in America and Europe of recent years is due to the formation of children's societies,--Bands of Hope, Blue Ribbon Clubs, Junior Temperance Societies and Prohibition Clubs, Young Templars' Associations, Junior Father Matthew Leagues, and the like,-- where a legitimate sphere is open to the ardour and enthusiasm of the young of both sexes. The great Methodist Church has been especially quick to recognize the value of this kind of work, and the junior chapters of the "Epworth League"--whose object is "to promote intelligence and loyal piety in its young members and friends and to train them in experimental religion, practical benevolence, and church work"--now numbers some three thousand, with a membership of about one hundred and twenty thousand. This society was organized at Cleveland, Ohio, May 15, 1889. The "Young People's Society of Christian Endeavour," the first society of which was established at Portland, Maine, February 2,1881, with the object of "promoting an earnest Christian life among its members, increasing their mutual acquaintance, and making them more useful in the service of God," has now enrolled nearly thirty-four thousand "Companies," with a total membership (active and associate) all over the world of over two million; of these societies 28,696 are in the United States and 2243 in Canada. Another society of great influence, having a membership in America and the Old World of some thirty-five thousand, is the "Ministering Children's League," founded by the Countess of Meath in 1885, and having as objects "to promote kindness, unselfishness, and the habit of usefulness amongst children, and to create in their minds an earnest desire to help the needy and suffering; to give them some definite work to do for others, that this desire may be brought to good effect"; there are also the "Lend-a-Hand Clubs" of the Unitarian Church. The Episcopal Church has its "Girls' Friendly Societies," its "Junior Auxiliaries to the Board of Missions"; its "Brotherhood of St. Andrew," and "Brotherhood of Andrew and Philip," for young men. For those of not too youthful years, the "Young Men's Christian Association," the associations of the "White," "Red," and "Iron Cross" exist in the various churches, besides many other "Guilds," "Alliances," "Leagues," etc. For those outside the churches there are "Boys' Clubs," and "Girls' Societies" in the cities and larger towns. The "Bands of Mercy" and the branches of the "Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals" exert a widespread influence for good; while several of the secret benevolent associations, such as the "Foresters," for example, have instituted junior lodges, from which the youth are later on drafted into the society of their elders. There exist also many social clubs and societies, more or less under the supervision of the older members of the community, in which phases of human life other than the purely religious or benevolent find opportunity to display themselves; and between these and the somewhat sterner church-societies a connecting link is formed by the "Friday Night Clubs" of the Unitarian Church and the "Young People's Associations" of other liberal denominations. In the home itself, this society instinct is recognized, and the list of children's teas, dinners, parties, "receptions," "doll-parties," "doll-shows," etc., would be a long one. Among all peoples, barbarous as well as civilized, since man is by nature a social animal, the instinct for society develops early in the young, and the sociology of child-hood offers a most inviting field for research and investigation both in the Old World and in the New. CHAPTER XV. THE CHILD AS LINGUIST. But what am I? An infant crying in the night: An infant crying for the light, And with no language but a cry.--Tennyson. Yet she carried a doll as she toddled alone, And she talked to that doll in a tongue her own.--Joaquin Miller. Among savages, children are, to a great extent, the originators of idiomatic diversities.--Charles Rau. It was as impossible for the first child endowed with this faculty not to speak in the presence of a companion similarly endowed, as it would be for a nightingale or a thrush not to carol to its mate. The same faculty creates the same necessity in our days, and its exercise by young children, when accidentally isolated from the teachings and influence of grown companions, will readily account for the existence of all the diversities of speech on our globe.--Horatio Hale. Some scientists have held that mankind began with the _Homo Alalus_, speechless, dumb man, an hypothesis now looked npon by the best authorities as untenable; and the folk have imagined that, were not certain procedures gone through with upon the new-born child, it would remain dumb through life, and, if it were allowed to do certain things, a like result would follow. Ploss informs us that the child, and the mother, while she is still suckling it, must not, in Bohemia, eat fish, else, since fish are mute, the child would be so also; in Servia, the child is not permitted to eat any fowl that has not already crowed, or it would remain dumb for a very long time; in Germany two little children, not yet able to speak, must not kiss each other, or both will be dumb. _The Frenum._ Our English phrase, "an unbridled tongue," has an interesting history and _entourage_ of folk-lore. The subject has been quite recently discussed by Dr. Chervin, of the Institute for Stammerers at Paris (205). Citing the lines of Boileau:-- "Tout charme en un enfant dont la langue sans fard, A peine du filet encore debarrassee Sait d'un air innocent begayer sa pensee," he notes the wide extension of the belief that the cutting of the _filet,_ or _frein,_ the _frenum,_ or "bridle" of the tongue of the newborn infant facilitates, or makes possible, articulate speech. According to M. Sebillot, the cutting of the _sublet,_ as it is called, is quite general in parts of Brittany (Haute Bretagne), and M. Moisset states that in the Yonne it is the universal opinion that neglect to do so would cause the new-born child to remain dumb for life; M. Desaivre cites the belief in Poitou that, unless the _lignoux_ were cut in the child at birth, it would prevent its sucking, and, later on, its speaking. The operation is usually performed by nurses and midwives, with the nail of the little finger, which is allowed to grow excessively long for the purpose (205. 6). Dr. Chervin discusses the scientific aspects of the subject, and concludes that the statistics of stammering and the custom of cutting the _frenum_ of the tongue do not stand in any sort of correlation with each other, and that this ancient custom, noted by Celsus, has no real scientific _raison d'etre_ (205. 9). We say that a child is "tongue-tied," and that one "makes too free with his tongue"; in French we find: _Il a le filet bien coupe,_ "he is a great talker," and in the eighteenth century _Il n'a pas de filet_ was in use; a curious German expression for "tongue-tied" is _mundfaul,_ "mouth-lazy." Following up the inquiry of Dr. Chervin in France, M. Hofler of Tolz has begun a similar investigation for Germany (263). He approves of the suggestion of Dr. Chervin, that the practice of cutting the _frenum_ of the tongue has been induced by the inept name _frenulwm, frein, Bändchen,_ given by anatomists to the object in question. According to H. Carstens the _frenulum_ is called in Low German _keekel-reem_ or _kikkel-reem,_ which seems to be derived from _käkeln,_ "to cry, shriek," and _reem,_ "band, cord," so that the word really signifies "speech-band." If it is cut in children who have difficulty in speaking before the first year of life, or soon after, they will be cured of stuttering and made to speak well. To a man or woman who does a good deal of talking, who has "the gift of the gab," the expression _Em (ehr) is de keekelreem gut snaden_ = "His (her) _frenum_ has been well cut," is applied. In some parts of Low Germany the operation is performed for quite a different reason, viz., when the child's tongue cannot take hold of the mother's breast, but always slips off. Hofler mentions the old custom of placing beneath the child's tongue a piece of ash-bark (called _Schwindholz_), so that the organ of speech may not vanish (schwinden); this is done in the case of children who are hard of speech (263.191, 281). Ploss states that in Konigsberg (Prussia) tickling the soles of the feet of a little child is thought to occasion stuttering; in Italy the child will learn to stutter, unless, after it has been weaned, it is given to drink for the first time out of a hand-bell (326. II. 286). Among the numerous practices in vogue to hasten the child's acquisition of speech, or to make him ready and easy of tongue, are the following: some one returned from the communion breathes into the child's mouth (Austrian Silesia); the mother, when, after supper on Good Friday, she suckles the child for the last time, breathes into its mouth (Bohemia); the, child is given to drink water out of a cow-bell (Servia); when the child, on the arm of its mother, pays the first visit to neighbours or friends, it is presented with three eggs, which are pressed three times to his mouth, with the words, "as the hens cackle, the child learns to prattle" (Thuringia, the Erzgebirge, Bavaria, Franconia, and the Harz); when a child is brought to be baptized, one of the relatives must make a christening-letter (_Pathenbrief_), and, with the poem or the money contained in it, draw three crosses through the mouth of the child (Konigsberg) (326. II. 205). _Speech-Exercises._ Ploss has a few words to say about "Volksgebrauchliche Sprach- Exercitien," or "Zungen-Exercitien," the folk-efforts to teach the child to overcome the difficulties of speech (326. II. 285, 286), and more recently Treichel (373) has treated in detail of the various methods employed in Prussia. In these exercises examples and difficult words are given in several languages, alliteration, sibilation, and all quips and turns of consonantal and vocalic expression, word-position, etc., are in use to test the power of speech alike of child and adult. Treichel observes that in the schools even, use is made of foreign geographical names, names of mountains in Asia, New Zealand, and Aztec names in Mexico; the plain of _Apapurinkasiquinilschiquasaqua_, from Immermann's _Munchhausen_, is also cited as having been put to the like use. The title of doctors' dissertations in chemistry are also recommended (373. 124). Following are examples of these test sentences and phrases from German:-- (1) Acht und achtzig achteckige Hechtskopfe; (2) Bierbrauer Brauer braut braun Bier; (3) De donue Diewel drog den dicke Diewel dorch den dicke Dreek; (4) Esel essen Nosseln gern; (5) In Ulm imd um Ulm und urn Ulm herum; (6) Wenige wissen, wie viel sie wissen mussen, um zu wissen, wie wenig sie wissen; (7) Es sassen zwei zischende Schlangen zwischen zwei spitzigen Steinen und zischten dazwischen; (8) Nage mal de Boll Boll Boll Boll Boll Boll Boll Boll Boll; (9) Fritz, Fritz, friss frische Fische, Fritz; (10) Kein klein Kind kann keinen kleinen Kessel Kohl kochen. There are alliterative sentences for all the letters of the alphabet, and many others more or less alliterative, while the humorous papers contain many exaggerated examples of this sort of thing. Of the last, the following on "Hottentottentaten" will serve as an instance:-- "In dem wilden Land der Kaftern, Wo die Hottentotten trachten Holie Hottentottentitel Zu erwerben in den Schlachten, Wo die Hottentottentaktik Lasst ertonen fern und nah Auf dem Hottentottentamtam Hottentottentattratah; Wo die Hottentottentrotteln, Eh' sie stampfen stark und kuhn. Hottentottentatowirung An sioh selber erst vollzieh'n, Wo die Hottentotten tuten Auf dem Horn voll Eleganz Und nachher mit Grazie tanzen Hottentottentotentanz,-- Dorten bin ich mal gewesen Und iclh habe schwer gelitten, Weil ich Hottentotten trotzte, Unter Hottentottentritten; So 'ne Hottentottentachtel, Die ist nämlich fürchterlich Und ich leid' noch heute An dem Hottentottentatterich" (373. 222). In our older English, and American readers and spelling-books we meet with much of a like nature, and the use of these test-phrases and sentences has not yet entirely departed from the schools. Familiar are: "Up the high hill he heaved a huge round stone; around the rugged riven rock the ragged rascal rapid ran; Peter Piper picked a peck of prickly pears from the prickly-pear trees on the pleasant prairies," and many others still in use traditionally among the school-children of to-day, together with linguistic exercises of nonsense-syllables and the like, pronouncing words backwards, etc. In French we have: (1) L'origine ne se désoriginalisera jamais de son originalité; (2) A la santé de celle, qui tient la sentinelle devant la citadelle de votre coeur! (3) Car Didon dina, dit-on, Du dos d'un dodu dindon. In Polish: (1) Bydlo bylo, bydlo bedzie (It was cattle, it remains cattle); (2) Podawala baba babie przez piec malowane grabie (A woman handed the woman over the stove a painted rake); (3) Chrzaszcz brzmi w trzinie (The beetle buzzes in the pipe). Latin and Greek are also made use of for similar purpose. Treichel cites, among other passages, the following: (1) Quamuis sint sub aqua, sub aqua maledicere tentant (Ovid, _Metam._ VI. 376); (2) At tuba terribili sonitu taratantara dixit (Virgil, _Aen._ IX. 503); (3) Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum (Virgil, _Aen._ VIII. 596); (4) [Greek: _Aytis epeita pedonde kylindeto lâas anchidaês_] (Homer, Odyss. II. 598); (5) [Greek: _Trichthà te kaì tétrachthà diéschesen ìs ánémoio_] (Homer, Odyss. IX. 71, II. III. 363); (6) [Greek: _'O mákar 'Adreídae moiraegenès ólbiodaímon_] (Homer, _Il._ III. 182). These customs are not confined, however, to the civilized nations of Europe. Dr. Pechuel-Loesche tells us that, among the negroes of the Loango coast of Africa, the mother teaches the child little verses, just as illogical as the test-sentences often are which are employed in other parts of the world, and containing intentionally difficult arrangements of words. The child whose skilful tongue can repeat these without stumbling, is shown to visitors and is the cause of much admiration and merriment. And this exhibition of the child's linguistic and mnemonic powers finds vogue among other races than those of the dark continent (373. 125). _Alphabet-Rhymes_. A very curious development of child-linguistics is seen in the so-called _ABC Rhymes_. H. A. Carstensen reports from Risummoor in Low Germany the following arrangement and interpretation of the letters of the alphabet (199. 55):-- A--Aewel B--baeget C(K)--Kaege A--Abel B--bakes C(K)--cakes. D--Detlef E--ët F--fåle. D--Detlef E--eats F--much. G--Grutte H--Hans J--jaeget K--Kraege. G--Great H--Jack J--hunts K--crows. L--Lotte M--maeget N--noerne. L--Lütje M--makes N--names. O--Okke P--plökket Q--Kuerde. O--Okke P--makes Q--wool-cards. R--Rikkert S--sâit T--tuffle. R--Richard S--sews T--slippers U--Uethet V--Volkert W--waeder? U--Fetches V--Volkert W--water? From the North Frisian islands of Silt and Föhr the following ABC rhymes have been recorded, consisting mostly of personal names (199. 192):-- 1. From Silt: _A_nna _B_oyken, _C_hristian _D_ojken, _E_rkel _F_redden, _G_ondel _H_ansen, _J_ens _K_uk, _L_orenz _M_ommen, _N_iels _O_tten, _P_eter _Q_uotten, _R_ink _S_wennen, _T_heide _U_wen, _V_olkert, _W_ilhelm, exerzére. 2. From Föhr: _A_rest _B_uhn, _C_ike _D_uhn, _E_hlen _F_rödden, _G_irre _H_ayen, _I_ngke _K_ayen, _L_urenz _M_unje, _N_ahmen _O_tt, _P_eter _Q_uott, _R_ekkert _s_kär, _T_rintje _u_m, qui _w_eg, _x, y, z_. 3. From Föhr: _A_ntje _b_rawt; _C_isele _d_rug; _E_hlen _f_ald; _G_öntje _h_olp; _I_ngke _k_näd; _L_ena _m_äd; _N_ahmen _O_kken; _P_eter _Q_uast; _R_örd _R_ütjer; _S_ab _S_ütjer; _S_onk _S_tein; _T_hur _O_rdert; _W_ögen _w_uhlet; _Y_ng _Z_uhlet. From Ditmarschen we have the following (199. 290):-- 1. From Süderstapel in Stapelholm: _A-B_eeter, _C-D_eeter, _E-_E_f_ter, _G-H_ater, _I-K_ater, _L-_E_m_der, _N-O_ter, _P_eter Rüster sien Swester harr Büxsen von Manchester, harr'n Kleed vun Kattun, weer Köfft bi Jud'n (Peter Rüster his sister has breeches from Manchester, has a dress of cotton, who buys of Jews). 2. From Tönningstedt and Feddringen: _A-B_eeter, _C-D_eeter, _E-E_fter, _G-H_ater, _J-K_ater, _L-_E_m_der, _N-O_ter, _P-_K_u_ter, _L-_E_s_ter, _T-U_ter, _V-W_eeter, _X-Z_eeter. In Polish we have a rather curious rhyme (199. 260): _A_dam _B_abkie _C_ukier _D_al, _E_wa _F_igi _G_ryzla; _H_anko, _J_eko, _K_arol _L_erch _N_osi _O_rla _P_apa _R_uskigo (Adam to the old woman sugar gave, Eve figs nibbled; Hanko, Jeko, Karol, and Lerch carry the eagle of the Ruthenian priest). Another variant runs: _A_dam _B_abi _C_ucker _d_aje _E_wa _f_igi _g_rizi _H_ala, _i_dzie _K_upic' _l_ala _m_ama _n_ie _p_ozwala (199. 150). At Elberfeld, according to O. Schell, the following rhyme was in use about the middle of this century (199. 42): _A_braham _B_öckmann; _C_epter _D_ickmann; _E_ngel _F_uawenkel; _G_retchen _H_ahn; _I_saak _K_reier; _L_ottchen _M_eyer; _N_ikolas _O_lk; _P_itter _Q_uack; _R_udolf _S_imon; _T_ante _U_hler; _V_ater _W_ettschreck; _X_erxes _Y_ork. From Leipzig, L. Fränkel reports the following as given off in a singing tone with falling rhythm:-- B a ba, b e be, b i bi--babebi; b o bo, b u bu--bobu; ba, be, bi, bo, bu--babebibobu. C a ca (pron. _za,_ not _ka_), c e ce, c i ci --caceci; c o co, c u cu--cocu; ca, ce, ci, co, cu-cacecicocu, etc. From various parts of Ditmarschen come these rhymes:-- A-B ab, | A-B ab, Mus sitt in't Schapp, | Mouse sits in the cupboard, Kater darfår, | Cat in frount, Mak apen de Dår. | Open the door. These child-rhymes and formulae from North Germany find their cognates in our own nursery-rhymes and explanatory letter-lists, which take us back to the very beginnings of alphabetic writing. An example is the familiar:-- "A was an Archer that shot at a frog, B was a Butcher that had a big dog," etc., etc. _Letter-Formulæ._ Here belong also the curious formulæ known all over the United States and English-speaking Canada, to which attention has recently been called by Professor Frederick Starr. When the word _Preface_ is seen, children repeat the words, "_P_eter _R_ice _E_ats _F_ish _a_nd _C_atches _E_els," or backwards, "_E_els _C_atch _A_lligators; _F_ather _E_ats _R_aw _P_otatoes." Professor Starr says that the second formula is not quite so common as the first; the writer's experience in Canada leads him to express just the opposite opinion. Professor Starr gives also formulæ for _Contents_ and _Finis_ as follows: "_F_ive _I_rish _N_iggers _I_n _S_pain," backwards "_S_ix _I_rish _N_iggers _I_n _F_rance"; "_C_hildren _O_ught _N_ot _T_o _E_at _N_uts _T_ill _S_unday" (355. 55). Formulæ like these appear to be widespread among school-children, who extract a good deal of satisfaction from the magic meaning of these quaint expressions. Another series of formulæ, not referred to by Professor Starr, is that concerned with the interpretation of the numerous abbreviations and initials found in the spelling-book and dictionary. In the manufacture of these much childish wit and ingenuity are often expended. In the writer's schoolboy days there was quite a series of such expansions of the letters which stood for the various secret and benevolent societies of the country. _I. O. G. T._ (Independent Order of Good Templars), for example, was made into "I Often Get Tight (_i.e._ drunk)," which was considered quite a triumph of juvenile interpretative skill. Another effort was in the way of explaining the college degrees: _B.A._ = "Big Ape," _M.A._ = "Matured Ape," _B.D._ = "Bull-Dog," _LL.D._ = "Long-Legged Devil," etc. Still another class is represented by the interpretations of the German _u. A. w. g._ (our R. S. V. P.), _i.e._ "um Antwort wird gebeten" (an answer is requested), for which A. Treichel records the following renderings: um Ausdauer wird gebeten (perseverance requested); und Abends wird getanzt (and in the evening there is dancing); und Abends wird gegeigt (and in the evening there is fiddling); und Abends wird gegessen (and in the evening there is eating); und Andere werden gelästert (and others are abused) (392. V. 114). This side of the linguistic inventiveness of childhood, with its _double-entendre_, its puns, its folk-etymologies, its keen discernment of hidden resemblances and analogies, deserves more study than it has apparently received. The formulae and expressions belonging to such games as marbles are worthy of consideration, for here the child is given an opportunity to invent new words and phrases or to modify and disfigure old ones. _Formulae of Defiance, etc._ The formulae of defiance, insult, teasing, etc., rhymed and in prose, offer much of interest. Peculiarities of physical constitution, mental traits, social relationships, and the like, give play to childish fancy and invention. It would be a long list which should include all the material corresponding to such as the following, well known among English-speaking school-children:-- 1. Georgie Porgie, Puddin' Pie, Kissed a girl and made her cry! 2. Blue-eyed beauty, Do your mother's duty! 3. Black eye, pick a pie, Turn around and tell a lie! 4. Nigger, nigger, never-die, Black face and shiny eye! Interesting is the following scale of challenging, which Professor J. P. Fruit reports from Kentucky (430. 229):-- "I dare you; I dog dare you; I double dog dare you. I dare you; I black dog dare you; I double black dog dare you." The language of the school-yard and street, in respect to challenges, fights, and contests of all sorts, has an atmosphere of its own, through which sometimes the most clear-sighted older heads find it difficult to penetrate. The American Dialect Society is doing good work in hunting out and interpreting many of these contributions of childhood to the great mosaic of human speech, and it is to be hoped that in this effort they will have the co-operation of all the teachers of the country, for this branch of childish activity will bear careful and thorough investigation. _Plant-Names._ In the names of some of the plants with which they early come into contact we meet with examples of the ingenuity of children. In Mrs. Bergen's (400) list of popular American plant-names are included some which come from this source, for example: "frog-plant (_Sedum Telephium_)," from the children's custom of "blowing up a leaf so as to make the epidermis puff up like a frog"; "drunkards (_Gaulteria procumbens_)," because "believed by children to intoxicate"; "bread-and-butter (_Smilax rotundifolia_)," because "the young leaves are eaten by children"; "velvets (_Viola pedata_)," a corruption of the "velvet violets" of their elders; "splinter-weed (_Antennaria plantaginifolia_)," from "the appearance of the heads"; "ducks (_Cypripedium_)," because "when the flower is partly filled with sand and set afloat on water, it looks like a duck"; "pearl-grass (_Glyceria Canadensis_)," a name given at Waverley, Massachusetts, "by a few children, some years ago." This list might easily be extended, but sufficient examples have been given to indicate the extent to which the child's mind has been at work in this field. Moreover, many of the names now used by the older members of the community, may have been coined originally by children and then adopted by the others, and the same origin must probably be sought out for not a few of the folk-etymologies and word-distortions which have so puzzled the philologists. "_Physonyms_." In an interesting paper on "physonyms,"--_i.e._ "words to which their signification is imparted by certain physiological processes, common to the race everywhere, and leading to the creation of the same signs with the same meaning in totally sundered linguistic stocks"--occurs the following passage (193. cxxxiii.):-- "One of the best known and simplest examples is that of the widespread designation of 'mother' by such words as _mama_, _nana_, _ana_; and of 'father' by such as _papa_, _baba_, _tata_. Its true explanation has been found to be that, in the infant's first attempt to utter articulate sounds, the consonants _m_, _p_, and _t_ decidedly preponderate; and the natural vowel _a_, associated with these, yields the child's first syllables. It repeats such sounds as _ma-ma-ma_ or _pa-pa-pa_, without attaching any meaning to them; the parents apply these sounds to themselves, and thus impart to them their signification." Other physonyms are words of direction and indication of which the radical is _k_ or _g_; the personal pronouns radical in _n_, _m_ (first person), _k, t, d_ (second person); and demonstratives and locatives whose radical is _s_. The frequency of these sounds in the language of children is pointed out also by Tracy in his monograph on the psychology of childhood. In the formation and fixation of the onomatopes with which many languages abound some share must be allotted to the child. A recent praiseworthy study of onomatopes in the Japanese language has been made by Mr. Aston, who defines an onomatope as "the artistic representation of an inarticulate sound or noise by means of an articulate sound" (394. 333). The author is of opinion that from the analogy of the lower animals the inference is to be drawn that "mankind occupied themselves for a long time with their own natural cries before taking the trouble to imitate for purposes of expression sounds not of their own making" (394. 334). The latter process was gradual and extended over centuries. For the child or the "child-man" to imitate the cry of the cock so successfully was an inspiration; Mr. Aston tells us that "the formation of a word like _cock-a-doodle-do_, is as much a work of individual genius as Hamlet or the Laocoön" (394. 335). Of certain modern aspects of onomatop�ia the author observes: "There is a kindred art, viz. that of the _exact_ imitation of animal cries and other sounds, successfully practised by some of our undergraduates and other young people, as well as by tame ravens and parrots. It probably played some part in the development of language, but I can only mention it here" (394. 333). _College Yells._ The "college yells" of the United States and Canada offer an inviting field for study in linguistic atavism and barbaric vocal expression. The _New York World Almanac_ for 1895 contains a list of the "yells" of some three hundred colleges and universities in the United States. Out of this great number, in which there is a plenitude of "Rah! rah! rah!" the following are especially noteworthy:-- _Benzonia:_ Kala, kala, kala! Sst, Boom, Gah! Benzo, Benzon-iah! Whooo! _Buchtel:_ Ye-ho! Ye-hesa! Hisa! Wow wow! Buchtel! _Dartmouth:_ Wah, who, wah! wah who wah! da-da-da, Dartmouth! wah who wah! T-i-g-e-r! _Heidelberg:_ Killi-killick! Rah, rah, Zik, zik! Ha! Ha! Yi! Hoo! Baru! Zoo! Heidelberg! The "yell" of _Ohio Wesleyan University_, "O-wee-wi-wow! Ala-ka-zu-ki-zow! Ra-zi-zi-zow! Viva! Viva! O. W. U.!" is enough to make the good man for whom the institution is named turn uneasily in his grave. The palm must, however, be awarded to the _University of North Dakota_, whose remarkable "yell" is this: "Odz-dzo-dzi! Ri-ri-ri! Hy-ah! Hy-ah! North Dakota! and Sioux War-Cry." Hardly have the ancestors of Sitting Bull and his people suspected the immortality that awaited their ancient slogan. It is curious that the only "yell" set to proper music is that of the girls of _Wellesley College_, who sing their cheer, "Tra la la la, Tra la la la, Tra la la la la la la, W-E-L-L-E-S-L-E-Y, Welles-ley." As is the case with other practices in collegiate life, these "yells" seem to be making their way down into the high and grammar schools, as well as into the private secondary schools, the popularity and excitement of field-sports and games, baseball, foot-ball, etc., giving occasion enough for their frequent employment. Here fall also the spontaneous shouts and cries of children at work and at play, the _Ki-yah!_ and others of a like nature whose number is almost infinite. Mr. Charles Ledyard Norton, in his _Political Americanisms_ (New York, 1890), informs us that "the peculiar staccato cheer, 'rah, rah, rah!'" was probably invented at Harvard in 1864. In the Blaine campaign of 1884 it was introduced into political meetings and processions together with "the custom, also borrowed from the colleges, of spelling some temporarily significant catch-word in unison, as, for instance, 'S-o-a-p!' the separate letters being pronounced in perfect time by several hundred voices at once." The same authority thinks that the idea of calling out "Blaine--Blaine--James G. Blaine!" in cadenced measure after the manner of the drill-sergeants, "Left--left--left--right--left!" an idea which had many imitations and elaborations among the members of both the great political parties, can be traced back to the Columbia College students (p. 120). _The Child as an Innovator in Language._ But the role of the child in the development of language is concerned with other things than physonyms and onomatopes. In his work on Brazilian ethnography and philology, Dr. von Martius writes (522. 43): "A language is often confined to a few individuals connected by relationship, forming thus, as it were, _a family institute_, which isolates those who use it from all neighbouring or distant tribes so completely that an understanding becomes impossible." This intimate connection of language with the family, this preservation and growth of language, as a family institution, has, as Dr. von Martius points out, an interesting result (522. 44):-- "The Brazilians frequently live in small detachments, being kept apart by the chase; sometimes only a few families wander together; often it is one family alone. Within the family the language suffers a constant remodelling. One of the children will fail to catch precisely the radical sound of a word; and the weak parents, instead of accustoming it to pronounce the word correctly, will yield, perhaps, themselves, and adopt the language of the child. We often were accompanied by persons of the same band; yet we noticed in each of them slight differences in accentuation and change of sound. His comrades, however, understood him, and they were understood by him. As a consequence, their language never can become stationary, but will constantly break off into new dialects." Upon these words of von Martius (reported by Dr. Oscar Peschel), Dr. Charles Rau comments as follows (522. 44): "Thus it would seem that, among savages, _children_ are to a great extent the originators of idiomatic diversities. Dr. Peschel places particular stress on this circumstance, and alludes to the habit of over-indulgent parents among refined nations of conforming to the humours of their children by conversing with them in a kind of infantine language, until they are several years old. Afterward, of course, the rules of civilized life compel these children to adopt the proper language; but no such necessity exists among a hunter family in the primeval forests of South America; here the deviating form of speech remains, and the foundation of a new dialect is laid." _Children's Languages._ But little attention has been paid to the study of the language of children among primitive people. In connection with a brief investigation of child-words in the aboriginal tongues of America, Mr. Horatio Hale communicated to the present writer the following observation of M. l'Abbé Cuoq, of Montreal, the distinguished missionary and linguist: "As far as the Iroquois in particular are concerned, it is certain that this language [langage enfantin] is current in every family, and that the child's relatives, especially the mothers, teach it to their children, and that the latter consequently merely repeat the words of which it is composed" (201. 322). That these "child-words" were invented by children, the Abbé does not seem to hint. The prominence of the mother-influence in the child's linguistic development is also accentuated by Professor Mason, who devotes a chapter of his recent work on woman's part in the origin and growth of civilization to woman as a linguist. The author points out how "women have helped to the selection and preservation of language through onomatopoeia," their vocal apparatus being "singularly adapted to the imitation of many natural sounds," and their ears "quick to catch the sounds within the compass of the voice" (113. 188-204). To the female child, then, we owe a good deal of that which is now embodied in our modern speech, and the debt of primitive races is still greater. Many a traveller has found, indeed, a child the best available source of linguistic information, when the idling warriors in their pride, and the hard-working women in their shyness, or taboo-caused fear, failed to respond at all to his requests for talk or song. Canon Farrar, in his _Chapters on Language_, makes the statement: "It is a well-known fact that the neglected children, in some of the Canadian and Indian villages, who are left alone for days, can and do invent for themselves a sort of _lingua franca_, partially or wholly unintelligible to all except themselves" (200. 237). Mr. W. W. Newell speaks of the linguistic inventiveness of children in these terms (313. 24):-- "As infancy begins to speak by the free though unconscious combination of linguistic elements, so childhood retains in language a measure of freedom. A little attention to the jargons invented by children might have been serviceable to certain philologists. Their love of originality finds the tongue of their elders too commonplace; besides, their fondness for mystery requires secret ways of communication. They, therefore, often create (so to speak) new languages, which are formed by changes in the mother-speech, but sometimes have quite complicated laws of structure and a considerable arbitrary element." The author cites examples of the "Hog Latin" of New England schoolchildren, in the elaboration of which much youthful ingenuity is expended. Most interesting is the brief account of the "cat" language:-- "A group of children near Boston invented the _cat language_, so called because its object was to admit of free intercourse with cats, to whom it was mostly talked, and by whom it was presumed to be comprehended. In this tongue the cat was naturally the chief subject of nomenclature; all feline positions were observed and named, and the language was rich in such epithets, as Arabic contains a vast number of expressions for _lion_. Euphonic changes were very arbitrary and various, differing for the same termination; but the adverbial ending _-ly_ was always _-osh; terribly, terriblosh_. A certain percentage of words were absolutely independent, or at least of obscure origin. The grammar tended to Chinese or infantine simplicity; _ta_ represented any case of any personal pronoun. A proper name might vary in sound according to the euphonic requirements of the different Christian names by which it was preceded. There were two dialects, one, however, stigmatized as _provincial_. This invention of language must be very common, since other cases have fallen under our notice in which children have composed dictionaries of such" (313. 25). This characterization of child-speech offers not a few points of contact with primitive languages, and might indeed almost have been written of one of them. More recently Colonel Higginson (262) has given some details of "a language formed for their own amusement by two girls of thirteen or thereabouts, both the children of eminent scientific men, and both unusually active-minded and observant." This dialect "is in the most vivid sense a living language," and the inventors, who keep pruning and improving it, possess a manuscript dictionary of some two hundred words, which, it is to be hoped, will some day be published. An example or two from those given by Colonel Higginson will serve to indicate the general character of the vocabulary:-- _bojiwassis_, "the feeling you have just before you jump, don't you know--when you mean to jump and want to do it, and are just a little bit afraid to do it." _spygri_, "the way you feel when you have just jumped and are awfully proud of it." _pippadolify_, "stiff and starched like the young officers at Washington." Other information respecting this "home-made dialect," with its revising academy of children and its standard dictionary, must be sought in the entertaining pages of Colonel Higginson, who justly says of this triumph of child-invention: "It coins thought into syllables, and one can see that, if a group of children like these were taken and isolated until they grew up, they would forget in time which words were their own and which were in Worcester's Dictionary; and _stowish_ and _krono_ and _bojiwassis_ would gradually become permanent forms of speech" (262. 108). In his valuable essay on _The Origin of Languages_ (249), Mr. Horatio Hale discusses a number of cases of invention of languages by children, giving interesting, though (owing to the neglect of the observers) not very extensive, details of each. One of the most curious instances of the linguistic inventiveness of children is the case of the Boston twins (of German descent on the mother's side) born in 1860, regarding whose language a few details were given by Miss E. H. Watson, who says: "At the usual age these twins began to talk, but, strange to say, _not_ their 'mother-tongue.' They had a language of their own, and no pains could induce them to speak anything else. It was in vain that a little sister, five years older than they, tried to make them speak their _native language_,--as it would have been. They persistently refused to utter a syllable of English. Not even the usual first words, 'papa,' 'mamma,' 'father,' 'mother,' it is said, did they ever speak; and, said the lady who gave this information to the writer,--who was an aunt of the children, and whose home was with them,--they were never known during this interval to call their mother by that name. They had their own name for her, but never the English. In fact, though they had the usual affections, were rejoiced to see their father at his returning home each night, playing with him, etc., they would seem to have been otherwise completely taken up, absorbed, with each other.... The children had not yet been to school; for, not being able to speak their 'own English,' it seemed impossible to send them from home. They thus passed the days, playing and talking together in their own speech, with all the liveliness and volubility of common children. Their accent was _German_,--as it seemed to the family. They had regular words, a few of which the family learned sometimes to distinguish; as that, for example, for carriage [_ni-si-boo-a_], which, on hearing one pass in the street, they would exclaim out, and run to the window" (249. 11). We are further informed that, when the children were six or seven years old, they were sent to school, but for a week remained "perfectly mute"; indeed, "not a sound could be heard from them, but they sat with their eyes intently fixed upon the children, seeming to be watching their every motion,--and no doubt, listening to every sound. At the end of that time they were induced to utter some words, and gradually and naturally they began, for the first time, to learn their 'native English.' With this accomplishment, the other began also naturally to fade away, until the memory with the use of it passed from their mind" (249. 12). Mr. Horatio Hale, who resumes the case just noticed in his address before the Anthropological Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (Buffalo, 1886), gives also valuable details of the language of a little four-year-old girl and her younger brother in Albany, as reported by Dr. E. R. Hun (249. 13). The chief facts are as follows: "The mother observed when she was two years old that she was backward in speaking, and only used the words 'papa' and 'mamma.' After that she began to use words of her own invention, and though she readily understood what was said, never employed the words used by others. Gradually she extended her vocabulary until it reached the extent described below [at least twenty-one distinct words, many of which were used in a great variety of meanings]. She has a brother eighteen months younger than herself, who has learned her language, so that they talk freely together. He, however, seems to have adopted it only because he has more intercourse with her than with others; and in some instances he will use a proper word with his mother, and his sister's word with her. She, however, persists in using only her own words, though her parents, who are uneasy about her peculiarity of speech, make great efforts to induce her to use proper words." More may be read concerning this language in the account of Dr. Hun (published in 1868). Mr. Hale mentions three other cases, information regarding which came to him. The inventors in the first instance were a boy between four and five years old, said to have been "unusually backward in his speech," and a girl a little younger, the children of a widower and a widow respectively, who married; and, according to the report of an intimate friend: "He and the little girl soon became inseparable playmates, and formed a language of their own, which was unintelligible to their parents and friends. They had names of their own invention for all the objects about them, and must have had a corresponding supply of verbs and other parts of speech, as their talk was fluent and incessant." This was in Kingston, Ontario, Canada (249. 16). The second case is that of two young children, twins, a boy and a girl: "When they were three or four years old they were accustomed, as their elder sister informs me, to talk together in a language which no one else understood.... The twins were wont to climb into their father's carriage in the stable, and 'chatter away,' as my informant says, for hours in this strange language. Their sister remembers that it sounded as though the words were quite short. But the single word which survives in the family recollection is a dissyllable, the word for milk, which was _cully_. The little girl accompanied her speech with gestures, but the boy did not. As they grew older, they gradually gave up their peculiar speech" (249. 17). The third case cited by Mr. Hale is that of two little boys of Toronto, Canada,--five or six years of age, one being about a year older than the other, who attended a school in that city: "These children were left much to themselves, and had a language of their own, in which they always conversed. The other children in the school used to listen to them as they chattered together, and laugh heartily at the strange speech of which they could not understand a word. The boys spoke English with difficulty, and very imperfectly, like persons struggling to express their ideas in a foreign tongue. In speaking it, they had to eke out their words with many gestures and signs to make themselves understood; but in talking together in their own language, they used no gestures and spoke very fluently. She remembers that the words which they used seemed quite short" (249. 18). Mr. Hale's studies of these comparatively uninvestigated forms of human speech led him into the wider field of comparative philology and linguistic origins. From the consideration of these data, the distinguished ethnologist came to regard the child as a factor of the utmost importance in the development of dialects and families of speech, and to put forward in definite terms a theory of the origin and growth of linguistic diversity and dialectic profusion, to the idea of which he was led by his studies of the multitude of languages within the comparatively restricted area of Oregon and California (249. 9). Starting with the language-faculty instinct in the child, says Mr. Hale: "It was as impossible for the first child endowed with this faculty not to speak in the presence of a companion similarly endowed, as it would be for a nightingale or a thrush not to carol to its mate. The same faculty creates the same necessity in our days, and its exercise by young children, when accidentally isolated from the teachings and influence of grown companions, will readily account for the existence of all the diversities of speech on our globe" (249. 47). Approaching, in another essay, one of the most difficult problems in comparative philology, he observes: "There is, therefore, nothing improbable in the supposition that the first Aryan family--the orphan children, perhaps, of some Semitic or Accadian fugitives from Arabia or Mesopotamia--grew up and framed their new language on the southeastern seaboard of Persia." Thus, he thinks, is the Aryo-Semitic problem most satisfactorily solved (467. 675). In a second paper (250) on _The Development of Language_, Mr. Hale restates and elaborates his theory with a wealth of illustration and argument, and it has since won considerable support from the scientists of both hemispheres. Professor Romanes devotes not a few pages of his volume on _Mental Evolution in Man_, to the presentation of Mr. Hale's theory and of the facts upon which it is based (338. 138-144). _Secret Languages._ That the use of secret languages and the invention of them by children is widespread and prevalent at home, at school, in the playground, in the street, is evident from the exhaustive series of articles in which Dr. F. S. Krauss (281) of Vienna has treated of "Secret Languages." Out of some two hundred forms and fashions there cited a very large proportion indeed belong to the period of childhood and youth and the scenes of boyish and girlish activity. We have languages for games, for secret societies, for best friends, for school-fellows, for country and town, for boys and girls, etc. Dr. Oscar Chrisman (206) has quite recently undertaken to investigate the nature and extent of use of these secret languages in America, with gratifying results. A study of the child at the period in which the language-making instinct is most active cannot be without interest to pedagogy, and it would not be without value to inquire what has been the result of the universal neglect of language-teaching in the primary and lower grade grammar schools--whether the profusion of secret languages runs parallel with this diversion of the child-mind from one of its most healthful and requisite employments, or whether it has not to some extent atrophied the linguistic sense. The far-reaching ramifications of "secret languages" are evidenced by the fact that a language called "Tut" by school-children of Gonzales, Texas, is almost identical in its alphabet with the "Guitar Language," of Bonyhad, in Hungary, the "Bob Language," of Czernowitz, in Austria, and another language of the same sort from Berg. The travels of the Texas secret language are stated by Dr. Chrisman to be as follows: "This young lady ... learned it from her mother's servant, a negro girl; this girl learned it from a negro girl who got it at a female negro school at Austin, Texas, where it was brought by a negro girl from Galveston, Texas, who learned it from a negro girl who had come from Jamaica" (208. 305). Evidence is accumulating to show that these secret languages of children exist in all parts of the world, and it would be a useful and instructive labour were some one to collect all available material and compose an exhaustive scientific monograph on the subject. Interesting, for comparative purposes, are the secret languages and jargons of adults. As Paul Sartori (528) has recently shown, the use of special or secret languages by various individuals and classes in the communities is widespread both in myth and reality. We find peculiar dialects spoken by, or used in addressing, deities and evil spirits; giants, monsters; dwarfs, elves, fairies; ghosts, spirits; witches, wizards, "medicine men"; animals, birds, trees, inanimate objects. We meet also with special dialects of secret societies (both of men and of women); sacerdotal and priestly tongues; special dialects of princes, nobles, courts; women's languages, etc.; besides a multitude of jargons, dialects, languages of trades and professions, of peasants, shepherds, soldiers, merchants, hunters, and the divers slangs and jargons of the vagabonds, tramps, thieves, and other outcast or criminal classes. Far-reaching indeed is the field opened by the consideration of but a single aspect of child-speech, that doll-language which Joaquin Miller so aptly notes:-- "Yet she carried a doll, as she toddled alone, And she talked to that doll in a tongue her own." _Diminutives._ Both the golden age of childhood and the golden age of love exercise a remarkable influence upon language. Mantegazza, discussing "the desire to merge oneself into another, to abase oneself, to aggrandize the beloved," etc., observes: "We see it in the use of diminutives which lovers and sometimes friends use towards each other, and which mothers use to their children; we lessen ourselves thus in a delicate and generous manner in order that we may be embraced and absorbed in the circle of the creature we love. Nothing is more easily possessed than a small object, and before the one we love we would change ourselves into a bird, a canary--into any minute thing that we might be held utterly in the hands, that we might feel ourselves pressed on all sides by the warm and loving fingers. There is also another secret reason for the use of diminutives. Little creatures are loved tenderly, and tenderness is the supreme sign of every great force which is dissolved and consumes itself. After the wild, passionate, impetuous embrace there is always the tender note, and then diminutives, whether they belong to expression or to language, always play a great part" (499. 137). The fondness of boys for calling each other by the diminutives of their surnames belongs here. In some languages, such as the Nipissing dialect of Algonkian in North America, the Modern Greek or Romaic, Lowland Scotch, and Plattdeutsch, the very frequent employment of diminutives has come to be a marked characteristic of the common speech of the people. The love for diminutives has, in some cases, led to a charm of expression in language which is most attractive; this is seen perhaps at its best in Castilian, and some of the Italian dialects (202 and 219). A careful study of the influence of the child upon the forms of language has yet to be made. CHAPTER XVI. THE CHILD AS ACTOR AND INVENTOR. The child is a born actor. The world's a theatre, the earth a stage, Which God and Nature do with actors fill.--_Heywood_. Man is an imitative creature, and the foremost leads the flock. --_Schiller_. _Imitative Games_. In her article on _Imitation in Children_, Miss Haskell notes the predilection of children for impersonation and dramatic expression, giving many interesting examples. S. D. Warren, in a paper read before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, at the Brooklyn Meeting, 1894 (_Proc_., Vol. xliii., p. 335), also notes these activities of children, mentioning, among other instances, "an annual celebration of the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown," "playing railroad," playing at pulling hand fire-engines, as the representatives of two rival villages. The mention of the celebration of Cornwallis' surrender by children brings up the question of the child as recorder. As historian and chronicler, the child appears in the countless games in which he preserves more or less of the acts, beliefs, and superstitions of our ancestors. Concerning some of these, Miss Alice Gomme says: "It is impossible that they have been invented by children by the mere effort of imagination, and there is ample evidence that they have but carried on interchangeably a record of events, some of which belong to the earliest days of the nation" (242.11). As Miss Gomme points out, many of the games of English children are simply primitive dramas,--of the life of a woman ("When I was a Young Girl"), of courtship and marriage ("Here comes Three Dukes a-Riding," "Poor Mary sits a-Weeping"), of funerals ("Jenny Jones," "Green Gravel"), of border warfare ("We are the Rovers"), etc. Mr. W. W. Newell had previously remarked the importance of the dramatic element in children's games, citing as historical plays "Miss Jennia Jones" (funeral), "Down she comes as White as Milk," "Green Gravel," "Uncle John," "Barbara Allen," and others more or less partaking of this character, based upon historical ballads, of some of which traces only are now preserved. By means of carved or graven images in wood or stone, given to children as playthings or as targets to practise skill in shooting or striking with miniature bow-and-arrow or spear, an early acquaintance is formed with many animals. The imitation of animals, their habits and peculiarities, often forms no small part of the dances and games of children of the lower races. _The Child as Actor_. Wallaschek, in his study of the primitive drama and pantomime (546. 214-229), notes the presence of children as dancers and performers among the Andaman Islanders, the Tagals of the Philippines, the Tahitians, Fijis, Polynesians and other more or less primitive races. Of Tibet and some portions of China Mr. Rockhill, in his _Diary of a Journey through Mongolia, and Tibet, in 1891 and 1892_ (Washington, D. C., 1894), informs us that the lads in every village give theatrical performances, the companies of young actors being known as _Hsiao sheng huei_, "young men's amateur theatrical company" (p. 68). Among the aborigines of the New World we find also children as actors and participants in the ceremonies and ritual performances of various tribes. In certain ceremonials of the Sia, as Mrs. Stevenson informs us, young children take part. A boy of eight was allowed to hear the sacred songs on one occasion, and to witness the making of the "medicine-water," but a boy of four was not permitted to be present; the boy also took part in the dance (538. 79). In the rain ceremonial of the "Giant Society," a little girl, eight years old, painted the fetiches quite as dexterously as her elders, and took apparently quite as much interest in the proceedings. In the rain ceremonial of the "Knife Society," boys assist, and in the rain ceremonial of the Querränna, a child (boy) with wand and rattle joins in the celebration of the rites, "requiring no rousing to sing and bend his tiny body to the time of the rattle, and joining in the calls upon the cloud-people to gather to water the earth, with as much enthusiasm as his elders." When children, boys or girls, are about ten or twelve years of age, and have, as the Indians say, "a good head," they are initiated, if they so desire, into some of the mysteries of the dances of the Ka'tsuna, in charge of the Querränna Society (538. 106-117). Dr. J. W. Fewkes, in his detailed article on the _Flute Observance_ of the Tusayan Indians of Walpi, an interesting study of primitive dramatization, notes the part played by children in these ceremonies. The principal characters are the "Snake Boy," the "Snake Girl," and some girl carriers of the sacred corn, besides lads as acolytes. The story of the child as an actor has yet to be written. When the ancient Greeks crowded the theatres to hear and see the masterpieces of dramatic and histrionic genius, their "women, slaves, and children" were for the most part left at home, though we do find that later on in history, front seats were provided for the chief Athenian priestesses. No voices of children were heard in chorus, and childhood found no true interpreter upon the stage. In France, in the middle of the seventeenth century, women appear as actors; in England it was not until long after the death of her greatest dramatist that (in 1660) women could fill a _rôle_ upon the stage without serious hindrance or molestation; in Japan, even now, play-acting is not looked upon as a respectable profession for women. For a long time in England and elsewhere, female parts were taken by children and youths. Here also we meet with companies of child-actors, such as the "Boys of the Grammar School at Westminster," "The Children of Paul's," etc. The influence which produced these survives and flourishes to-day in the fondness of high-school pupils and university students for dramatic performances and recitations, and the number of schools of gesture, elocution, and the like, testifies to the abiding interest of the young in the mimic art. This is also evidenced by the number of child actors and actresses in the theatrical world, and the remarkable precocity of the members of the profession in all lands. In England, the pantomime offers a special outlet for this current of expression, and there the child is a most important factor in stage-life. The precocity of girls in these respects is noteworthy. _The Child as Inventor_. Borrowing his figure of speech from the environment of child-hood, C. J. Weber has said: "_Die Gesellschaft ist die Grossmutter der Menschkeit durch ihre Töchter, die Erfindungen_,--Society is the grandmother of humanity through her daughters, the inventions," and the familiar proverb--Necessity is the mother of invention--springs from the same source. Isaac Disraeli aptly says: "The golden hour of invention must terminate like other hours; and when the man of genius returns to the cares, the duties, the vexations, and the amusements of life, his companions behold him as one of themselves,--the creature of habits and infirmities," and not a few of the "golden hours of invention" seem to belong to the golden age of childhood. Even in these "degenerate" days the child appears as an inventor. A contributor to the periodical literature of the day remarks: "Children have taken out a number of patents. The youngest inventor on record is Donald Murray Murphy, of St. John, Canada, who, at the age of six years, obtained from the United States exclusive rights in a sounding toy. Mabel Howard, of Washington, at eleven years, invented an ingenious game for her invalid brother and got a patent for it. Albert Gr. Smith, of Biehwood, Illinois, at twelve years invented and patented a rowing apparatus" (_Current Lit_., K T., xiv. 1893, p. 138). The works of Newell (313), Bolton (187), Gomme (243), amply reveal the riot of childish variation and invention in games and plays. Mr. Newell observes: "It would be strange if children who exhibit so much inventive talent [in language] did not contrive new games; and we find accordingly that in many families a great part of the amusements of the children are of their own devising. The earliest age of which the writer has authentic record of such ingenuity is two and a half years" (313. 25). And among the primitive peoples the child is not without like invention; some, indeed, of the games our children play, were invented by the savage young ones, whose fathers have been long forgotten in the mist of prehistoric ages--the sports of their children alone surviving as memorials of their existence. Theal tells us that the Kaffir children, when not engaged in active exercise, "amuse themselves by moulding clay into little images of cattle, or by making puzzles with strings. Some of them are skilful in forming knots with thongs and pieces of wood, which it taxes the ingenuity of the others to undo. The cleverest of them sometimes practise tricks of deception with grains of maize" (543. 221). The distinguished naturalist, Mr. A. R. Wallace, while on his visit to the Malay Archipelago, thought to show the Dyak boys of Borneo something new in the way of the "cat's cradle," but found that he was the one who needed to learn, for the little brown aborigines were able to show him several new tricks (377. 25). Miklucho-Maclay notes that among the Papuans of north-eastern New Guinea, while the women showed no tendency to ornament pottery, young boys "found pleasure in imprinting with their nails and a pointed stick a sort of ornamental border on some of the pots" (42. 317). Paola Lombroso, daughter of Professor Cesare Lombroso, the celebrated criminologist, in her recent study of child psychology, observes: "Games (and plays) are the most original creation of the child, who has been able to create them, adapt them to his needs, making of them a sort of gymnastics which enables him to develop himself without becoming fatigued, and we, with the aid of memory, can hardly now lay hold of that feeling of infinite, intense pleasure." Moreover, these popular traditional plays and games, handed down from one generation to another of children, "show how instinctive are these forms of muscular activity and imitative expression, which have their roots in a true physiological and psychic necessity, being a species of tirocinium for the experience of childhood" (301. 136). The _magnum opus_, perhaps, of the child as inventor, is the lyre, the discovery of which, classical mythology attributes to the infant Mercury or Hermes. Four hours after his birth the baby god is said to have found the shell of a tortoise, through the opposite edges of which he bored holes, and, inserting into these cords of linen, made the first stringed instrument. The English poet, Aubrey de Vere, singing of an Athenian girl, thus refers to the quaint myth:-- "She loves to pace the wild sea-shore-- Or drop her wandering fingers o'er The bosom of some chorded shell: Her touch will make it speak as well As infant Hermes made That tortoise in its own despite Thenceforth in Heaven a shape star-bright." CHAPTER XVII. THE CHILD AS POET, MUSICIAN, ETC. Poeta nascitur, non fit.--_Latin Proverb_. As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame, I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came.--_Pope_. _The Child and Music_. "Music," said quaint old Thomas Puller, "is nothing else but wild sounds civilized into time and tune," and Wallaschek, in his recent volume on _Primitive Music_, has shown how every nation under heaven, even the most savage and barbarous of peoples, have had a share in the work of civilization. Music has been called "the language of the gods," "the universal speech of mankind," and, early in the golden age of childhood, the heaven of infancy, is man made captive by "music's golden tongue." As Wallaschek has said of the race, Tracy says of the individual, "no healthy, normal child is entirely lacking in musical 'ear.'" The children of primitive races enjoy music, as well as their fellows in civilized communities. The lullaby, that _quod semper ubique et ab omnibus_ of vocal art, early engages and entrances the infantile ear, and from the musical demonstrations of his elders, the child is not always or everywhere excluded. Indeed, the infant is often ushered into the world amid the din and clamour of music and song which serve to drown the mother's cries of pain, or to express the joy of the family or the community at the successful arrival of the little stranger. Education in music and the dance begins very early with many peoples. At the school of midwifery at Abu-Zabel in Egypt, according to Clot-Bey, in cases of difficult childbirth, a child is made to hop and dance about between the legs of the mother in order to induce the foetus to imitate it (125. II. 159). As understudies and assistants to shamans, "medicine-men," and "doctors," children among many primitive peoples soon become acquainted with dance and song. In Ashanti, boy musicians, singers, and dancers figure in the processions of welcome of the chiefs and kings, and young girls are engaged in the service of the fetiches (438. 258). At a funeral dance of the Latuka, an African tribe, "the women remained outside the row of dancers dancing a slow, stupid step, and screaming a wild and most inharmonious chant, whilst boys and girls in another row beat time with their feet." Burchell, while _en route_ for the Kaffir country, found among certain tribes that "in the evening a whole army of boys would come to his hut and listen with manifest pleasure to the tones of his violin, and would repeat the melodies he played with surprising accuracy" (546. 3, 199). The _meke-meke_, a dance of the Fiji Islanders, "is performed by boys and girls for whom an old musician plays"; at Tahiti the children "are early taught the 'ubus,' songs referring to the legends or achievements of the gods," and "Europeans have at times found pleasure in the pretty, plaintive songs of the children as they sit in groups on the sea-shore" (546. 35, 180, 208). In some of the Polynesian Islands, young girls are "brought up to dance the timorodea, a most lascivious dance, and to accompany it with obscene songs" (100. 62). At Tongatabu, according to Labillardiere, a young girl "sang a song, the simple theme of which she repeated for half-an-hour" (546. 31). Wallaschek calls attention to the importance of the child in song in the following words (546. 75):-- "In some places the children, separated from the adults, sing choruses among themselves, and under certain circumstances they are the chief support of the practice of singing. On Hawaii, Ellis found boys and girls singing in chorus, with an accompaniment of seven drums, a song in honour of a quondam celebrated chief. Even during supper with the Governor, table-music was performed by a juvenile bard of some twelve or fourteen summers, who sang a monotonous song to the accompaniment of a small drum.... In Fiji a man of position deems it beneath him to sing, and he leaves it to his wife and children, so that women sing with women only, and children with children." Speaking of the natives of Australia, with whom he came into contact, Beckler says "the octaves of the women and children at the performance he attended were perfectly in tune, as one rarely hears in a modern opera chorus, they were in exact accord." In the Kuri dance, witnessed by Angas, a number of boys take part (546. 37, 223). In New Guinea "the Tongala-up, a stick with a string whirled in the air, is played by women and children." Among the Tagals of the Philippines, Volliner found (with perhaps a little Spanish influence) "a chorus was performed in a truly charming manner by twelve young girls formed in a circle, one girl standing in the middle to direct." In the Andaman Islands, where the men only, as a rule, sing, "the boys were far the best performers" (546.24, 27, 75). Among the Apache Indians of Arizona and Mexico, "old matrons and small children dance until no longer able to stand, and stop for very exhaustion" (546. 46). _The Child as Poet_. Victor Hugo, in one of his rhapsodies, exclaims: "The most sublime psalm that can be heard on this earth is the lisping of a human soul from the lips of childhood," and the rhythm within whose circle of influence the infant early finds himself, often leads him precociously into the realm of song. Emerson has said, "Every word was once a poem," and Andrew Lang, in his facetious _Ballade of Primitive Man_, credits our Aryan ancestors with speaking not in prose, but "in a strain that would scan." In the statement of the philosopher there is a good nugget of truth, and just a few grains of it in the words of the wit. The analogy between the place and effect of rhythm, music, and poetry in the life of the child and in the life of the savage has been frequently noted. In his recent study of _Rhythm_ (405 a), Dr. Bolton has touched up some aspects of the subject. With children "the habit of rhyming is almost instinctive" and universal. Almost every one can remember some little sing-song or nonsense-verse of his own invention, some rhyming pun, or rhythmic adaptation. The enormous range of variation in the wording of counting-out rhymes, game-songs, and play-verses, is evidence enough of the fertility of invention of child-poets and child-poetesses. Of the familiar counting-out formula _Eeny, meeny, miny, mo_, the variants are simply legion. The well-known lines of Pope:-- "As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame, I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came," receive abundant illustration from the lives of the great geniuses of song. Among primitive peoples, if anywhere, _poeta nascitur, non fit_. In her article on _Indian Songs_, Miss Alice C. Fletcher says: "Children make songs for themselves, which are occasionally handed down to other generations. These juvenile efforts sometimes haunt the memory in maturer years. An exemplary old man once sang to me a composition of his childhood, wherein he had exalted the pleasures of disobedience; but he took particular care that his children should not hear this performance. Young men sing in guessing-games, as they gambol with their companions, tossing from hand to hand a minute ball of buffalo hair or a small pebble, moving their arms to the rhythm of the music." This, and the following statement made of the Omaha Indians, will hold for not a few other savage and barbarous tribes: "Children compose ditties for their games, and young men add music to give zest to their sports" (445). Dr. F. Boas says of the Eskimo of Baffin Land (402. 572): "Children tell one another fables and sing short songs, especially comic and satirical ones." The heroes of the Basque legend of Aquelarre are thus described by Miss Monteiro (505. 22):-- "Izar and Lanoa were two orphan children; the first was seven years of age, and the latter nine. These poor children, true wandering bards, frequented the mountains, earning a livelihood by singing ballads and national airs in sweet, infantile voices, in return for a bed of straw and a cupful of meal. Throughout the district these children were known and loved on account of their sad state, as well as for their graceful forms and winning ways." Mr. Chatelain, in his recent work on African folk-tales, says of the natives of Angola: "No Angola child finds difficulty at any time in producing extemporaneous song." Dr. Gatschet, in his study of the Klamath Indians, gives examples of many songs composed and sung by young people, especially girls; and many other Indian tribes, Algonkian, Iroquois, etc., possess such as well. When Darwin reached Tahiti, his arrival was "sung by a young girl in four improvised strophes, which her fellow-maidens accompanied in a pretty chorus"; and among the song-loving people of the islands of the South Sea, the poetic talent develops quite early in both sexes. Among the aborigines of Peake River, in Australia, when a youth--at puberty--has undergone the ceremony of tattooing, and, his wounds having healed, is about to return to his fellows, "a young girl selected for the purpose, sings in her own way a song which she has composed, and, amid dancing, merriment, and feasting, the youth is welcomed back to his family and his kin" (326. 11. 241). Throughout the Orient woman is a dancer and a singer. India has her bayaderes and nautch-girls, whose dancing and singing talents are world-known. The Gypsies, too, that wander-folk of the world, are famed for their love-songs and fortune-telling rhymes, which the youth and girlhood among them so often know how to make and use. Crawford, who has translated the Kalevala, the great epic of the Finns, tells us, "The natural speech of this people is poetry. The young men and maidens, the old men and matrons, in their interchange of ideas unwittingly fall into verse" (423. I. xxvi.). Among the young herdsmen and shepherdesses of the pastoral peoples of Europe and Asia, the same precocity of song prevails. With songs of youth and maiden, the hills and valleys of Greece and Italy resound as of old. In his essay on the _Popular Songs of Tuscany_, Mr. J. A. Symonds observes (540. 600, 602): "Signor Tigri records by name a little girl called Cherubina, who made _Rispetti_ by the dozen, as she watched her sheep upon the hills." When Signor Tigri asked her to dictate to him some of her songs, she replied: "Oh Signore! ne dico tanti quando li canto! ... ma ora ... bisognerebbe averli tutti in visione; se no, proprio non vengono,--Oh Sir! I say so many, when I sing ... but now ... one must have them all before one's mind ... if not, they do not come properly." World-applicable as the boy grows out of childhood--with some little change of season with the varying clime--are the words of Tennyson:-- "In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love," and everywhere, if poetry and song be not indeed the very offspring of love, they are at least twin-born with it. Lombroso, in his discussion of the man of genius, gives many examples of precocious poetical and musical talent: Dante (who at nine years of age wrote sonnets), Tasso (wrote at ten years of age), Wieland (who wrote an epic at 16), Lope de Vega (who wrote verses at 12), Calderoii (at 13), Metastasio (who composed at 10), Handel (who wrote a mass at 13, and was director of opera at 19), Eichhorn, Mozart, and Eibler (all three of whom gave concerts at 6), Beethoven (who wrote sonatas at 13), Weber (who wrote his first opera at 14), Cherubini (who wrote a mass at 15), etc. (300.15). Among English poets whose precocity was marked, we find the most noteworthy to be Robert Browning, whose first poetic effusion is ascribed to his fourth year. It is now known, however, that poetry is much more common among children than was at first supposed, and early compositions are not to be expected from geniuses alone, but often from the scions of the ruder commonalty. In her interesting study of individual psychology, Dr. Caroline Miles informs us that out of ninety-seven answers to the question, "Did you express yourself in any art-form before eighteen years of age?" fourteen stated that the person replying used verses alone, fourteen used stories and poetry, three used poetry and drawing or painting, two used poetry and painting. Dr. Miles notes that "those who replied 'no' seemed to take pride in the fact that they had been guilty of no such youthful folly." This is in line with the belief parents sometimes express that the son or daughter who poetizes early is "loony." Some who were not ashamed of these child-expressions volunteered information concerning them, and we learn: "Most interesting was one who wrote a tragedy at ten, which was acted on a little stage for the benefit of her friends; from ten to thirteen, an epic; at thirteen, sentimental and religious poems" (310. 552, 553). Dr. H. H. Donaldson, in his essay on the _Education of the Nervous System_, cites the fact that of the musicians whose biographies were examined by Sully, 95% gave promise before twenty years of age, and 100% produced some work before reaching thirty; of the poets, 75% showed promise before twenty, and 92% produced before they were thirty years of age (216. 118). Precocity and genius seem to go together. CHAPTER XVIII. THE CHILD AS TEACHER AND WISEACRE. The child is father of the man,--_Wordsworth_. And wiser than the gray recluse This child of thine.--_Whittier_. And still to Childhood's sweet appeal The heart of genius turns, And more than all the sages teach From lisping voices learns.--_Whittier_. _Wisdom of Childhood_. In his beautiful verses--forming part of one of the best child-poems in our language-- "And still to childhood's sweet appeal The heart of genius turns, And more than all the sages teach From lisping voices learns,"-- Whittier has expressed that instinctive faith in the wisdom of childhood that seems perennial and pan-ethnic. Browning, in _Pippa's Song_, has sounded even a deeper note:-- "Overhead the tree-tops meet, Flowers and grass spring 'neath one's feet; There was nought above me, nought below, My childhood had not learned to know: For, what are the voices of birds --Aye, and of beasts,--but words, our words, Only so much more sweet? The knowledge of that with my life begun. But I had so near made out the sun, And counted your stars, the seven and one, Like the fingers of my hand: Nay, I could all but understand Wherefore through heaven the white moon ranges; And just when out of her soft fifty changes No unfamiliar face might overlook me-- Suddenly God took me." The power and wisdom of the child are quaintly and naively brought out in the legends and folk-lore of the various races of men, not alone of the present day, but of all eras of the world's history. As an illustration of the truth contained in the words of a great child-lover, "A little child shall lead them," and their echo in those of the Quaker poet,-- "God hath his small interpreters; The child must teach the man," nothing could be more artless and natural than the following legend of the Penobscot Indians of Maine, recorded by Mr. Leland, which tells of the origin of the "crowing of babies" (488. 121):-- When Glooskap, the culture-hero of these Indians, had conquered all his enemies, giants, sorcerers, magicians, evil spirits and ghosts, witches, devils, goblins, cannibals, _et id genus omne_, pride rose within him, and he said to a certain woman, that now his work was done, for he had conquered all. But she told him that he was mistaken; there yet remained "one whom no one has ever yet conquered or got the better of in any way, and who will remain unconquered to the end of time." This was _Wasis_, "the baby," who was sitting contentedly on the floor of the wigwam chewing a piece of maple-sugar. The great Glooskap, so the story runs, "had never married or had a child; he knew nought of the way of managing children"--yet he thought he knew all about it. So he smiled graciously at baby, and, "in a voice like that of a summer bird," bade him come to him. But baby sat still and went on sucking his sugar. Then Glooskap got angry, and in a terrible voice, ordered baby to crawl to him at once. But baby merely cried out and yelled, stirring not. Then Glooskap tried his last resort, magic, "using his most awful spells, and singing the songs which raise the dead and scare the devils." Still baby only smiled, and never budged an inch. At last the great Glooskap could do no more; he gave up the attempt in despair, whereupon "baby, sitting on the floor in the sunshine, went _'goo! goo!'_ and crowed lustily." And to this day, the Indians, when they hear "a babe well-contented going _'goo! goo!'_ and crowing, and no one can tell why," know that it is because he "remembers the time when he overcame the great Master, who had conquered all things. For of all beings that have been since the beginning, baby is alone the invincible one." Manabozho, the culture-hero of the Chippeways and other Algonkian tribes of the Great Lakes, and probably identical with his eastern analogue, Gluskap, was, like the latter, discomfited by a child. This is the legend:-- "One day Manabozho appeared upon the earth in an ill-humour. Walking along, he espied a little child sitting in the sun, curled up with his toe in his mouth. Somewhat surprised at this, and being of a dauntless and boastful nature, he set himself down beside the child; and, picking up his own toe, he essayed to place it in his mouth after the manner of the child. He could not do it. In spite of all twisting and turning, his toe could not be brought to reach his mouth. As he was getting up in great discomfiture to get away, he heard a laugh behind him, and did no more boasting that day, for he had been outwitted by a little child." This characteristic attitude of the child has also been noted by the folk-historians of India; for when, after the death of Brahma, the waters have covered all the worlds, "Vishnu [the 'Preserver,' in the Hindoo Trinity] sits, in the shape of a tiny infant, on a leaf of the pipala (fig-tree), and floats on the sea of milk, sucking the toe of his right foot" (440. 366), and, as Mrs. Emerson points out, "the feat that Manabozho sought in vain to perform is accomplished by the more flexible and lithe Hindoo god, Narayana" (440. 367). In another Micmac legend, given by Leland, Gluskap appears somewhat more to advantage. Of the Turtle [Mikchich], the "Uncle" of Gluskap, for whom the latter had obtained a wife, we read (488. 57):-- "And Turtle lived happily with his wife, and she had a babe. Now it happened in after-days that Glooskap came to see his uncle, and the child cried. 'Dost thou know what he says?' exclaimed the Master. 'Truly, not I,' answered Mikchich, 'unless it be the language of the Mu-se-gisk (spirits of the air), which no man knoweth.' 'Wel,' replied Glooskap, 'he is talking of eggs, for he says, '_Hoowah! hoowah!_' which, methinks, is much the same as '_waw-wun, waw-wun_.' And this in Passamaquoddy means 'egg.' 'But where are there any?' asked Mikchich. Then Glooskap bade him seek in the sand, and he found many, and admired and marvelled over them greatly; and in memory of this, and to glorify the jest of Glooskap, the turtle layeth eggs even to this day." In Mr. Leland's collection, as in the later volume of Dr. Band, there are many other delicate touches of childhood that show that these aborigines have a large measure of that love for children which is present with all races of mankind. In the legends of the saints and heroes of the Christian Church we meet with numberless instances of the wisdom and instruction that came to them from the mouths of little children. Among the stories in the life of St. Augustine is the following: "While St. Augustine was composing his book _On the Trinity_, and was at Cività Vecchia, he saw a little child making a hole in the seashore, and asked him what he was doing. The child replied: 'I am making a hole to contain the water of the sea.' The doctor smiled, telling the child it would not be possible to do so; but the child made answer: 'Not so, Augustine. It would be far easier to drain off the waters of the great deep than for the finite to grasp the Infinite'; and so he vanished. Augustine then knew that the child was an angel of God, sent to warn him, and he diligently set to work to revise what he had written" (191. 355). The best of mankind can still sit at the feet of childhood and learn of its wisdom. But of many a one must it be said:-- "He hath grown so foolish-wise He cannot see with childhood's eyes; He hath forgot that purity And lowliness which are the key Of Nature's mysteries." CHAPTER XIX. THE CHILD AS JUDGE. So, Holy Writ in Babes hath judgment shown, Where Judges have been babes.--_Shakespeare_. O wise young judge I--_Shakespeare_. _The Child as Judge_ Shakespeare in _All's Well that Ends Well_, makes Helen say to the King:-- "He that of greatest works is finisher, Oft does them by the weakest minister: So, Holy Writ in babes hath judgment shown, When judges have been babes." And in the history of the human race, appeal has often been made to the innocence and imputed discernment of the child. As one of the glories of God, David sang in Israel of old: "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength, because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger." And the disciple Matthew reiterates the thought: "Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes"; and, again: "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast thou perfected praise." _Solomon._ The stories told of Solomon--the judgments of the wise Hebrew monarch, when a child, were as remarkable as those which he made after attaining man's estate--have their counterparts in other lands. One of the most celebrated decisions was rendered by Solomon when he was but thirteen years of age. Well gives the story as follows (547.192):-- "The accuser had sold some property to the other, who, in clearing out a cellar, had found a treasure. He now demanded that the accused should give up the treasure, since he had bought the property without it; while the other maintained that the accuser possessed no right to the treasure, since he had known nothing of it, and had sold the property with all that it contained. After long meditation, David adjudged that the treasure should be divided between them. But Solomon inquired of the accuser whether he had a son, and, when he replied that he had a son, he inquired of the other if he had a daughter; and he also answering in the affirmative, Solomon said: 'If you will adjust your strife so as not to do injustice one to the other, unite your children in marriage, and give them this treasure as their dowry.'" In many other difficult cases, David, after the loss of the tube which, according to legend, the angel Gabriel brought him, was aided in judgment by the wisdom and far-sightedness of his young son. A decision similar to that of Solomon is attributed to Buddha, when a child, and to Christ. _Child-Judgments_. Müllenhoff records two cases of child-judgments in his collection of the folk-lore of Schleswig-Holstein. The first is as follows: "A branch of the river Widau, near Tondern, is named Eenzau, from the little village Eenz in the parish of Burkall. Where the banks are pretty high and steep, a man fell into the water once upon a time, and would have been drowned had not a certain person, hearing his cries, hastened to the river, and, holding out a pole, enabled the drowning man to help himself out. In doing so, however, he put out an eye. The rescued man appeared at the next thing (court), entered a complaint against the other, and demanded compensation for his lost eye. The judges, not knowing what to make of the case, put it off till the next thing, in order to meditate upon it in the meantime. But the third thing came, and the district-judge had not made up his mind about it. Out of humour, he mounted his horse and rode slowly and thoughtfully in the direction of Tondern, where the thing was then held. He reached Rohrkarrberg, and, opposite the house which is still standing there, lay a stone heap, upon which sat three herd-boys, apparently busy with something of importance. 'What are you doing there, children?' asked the judge. 'We are playing thing' (court), was the answer. 'What is the matter before the court?' continued the judge. 'We are trying the case of the man who fell into the Eenzau,' they answered, and the judge held his horse to await the verdict. The boys did not know him, for he was well hidden in his cloak, and his presence did not disturb them. The judgment rendered was, that the man who had been rescued should be thrown into the stream again at the same spot; if he was able to save himself, then he should receive compensation for the eye he had lost; if he could not, the decision was to be in favour of the other. Before the district-judge went away, he put his hand into his pocket and gave the boys some money; then, merrily riding to Tondern, he rendered the same judgment as the boys had given. The fellow was unable to save himself without assistance, and was like to have been drowned; consequently, his rescuer won the case" (508. 87, 88). The other case, said to have occurred at Rapstede, was this:-- "A tailor and a peasant, both possessing nothing more than a wretched hut, made a bargain for so and so many bushels of corn at such and such a price, although the tailor knew that the peasant had no money, and the peasant knew that the tailor had a needle, but no corn. Soon the price of corn rose, and the peasant appeared before the court to demand that the tailor should fulfil his part of the bargain. The judges were at a loss to decide such a matter. In this case, also, boys rendered judgment. The decision was, that the agreement was invalid, for both, being neighbours, had known each other's circumstances, and yet both were culpable for having entered into such a deceitful bargain" (508. 88). These decisions belong to the same category as that rendered by Solomon in the case of the two women, who both claimed the same child,--a judgment which has gone upon record in the Bible (1 Kings, iii. 16-28),--and a multitude of similar interpretations of justice found all over the world (191. 290). Mr. Newell, speaking of children's games in which judicial procedures are imitated, but from whose decisions no serious results ever come, observes (313. 123):-- "In the ancient world, however, where the courts were a place of resort, and law was not a specialized profession, the case was different. Maximus of Tyre tells us that the children had their laws and tribunals; condemnation extended to the forfeiture of toys. Cato the younger, according to Plutarch, had his detestation of tyranny first awakened by the punishment inflicted on a playmate by such a tribunal. One of the younger boys had been sentenced to imprisonment; the doom was duly carried into effect; but Cato, moved by his cries, rescued him." _Children's Ideas of Right_. Mr. Brown, of the formal School at Worcester, Massachusetts, has given us an excellent collection of _Thoughts and Reasonings of Children_ (194), and Signora Paola Lombroso, in her interesting and valuable _Essays on Child-Psychology_, has also contributed to the same subject (301. 45-72). A very recent study is that of _Children's Rights_, by Margaret E. Schallenberger (341), of Leland Stanford, Jr. University, California. The last author has charted the opinions of a large number--some three thousand papers were collected--of boys and girls from six to sixteen years of age, upon the following case, the story being employed as specially appealing to children (341. 89):-- "Jennie had a beautiful new box of paints; and, in the afternoon, while her mother was gone, she painted all the chairs in the parlour, so as to make them look nice for her mother. When her mother came home, Jennie ran to meet her, and said, 'Oh mamma! come and see how pretty I have made the new parlour'; but her mamma took her paints away and sent her to bed. If you had been her mother, what would you have done or said to Jennie?" From this extensive and most ingenious investigation, the following results are thought to have been obtained: "Young children are less merciful than older ones. When they appear cruel and resentful, we know that they are exercising what they honestly consider the right of revenge. Boys are less merciful than girls. Young children judge of actions by their results, older ones look at the motives which prompt them. If a young child disobeys a command and no bad result follows, he doesn't see that he has done wrong. Punishments which, have in them the idea of restitution are common to all ages. Girls consider the why more than boys; they explain to Jennie oftener than boys do. Threats and forced promises do not impress children" (341. 96). _Jurisprudence of Child's Play_. Pitré, the great Italian folklorist, has made a special study, though a very brief one, of the judgments rendered by children in games and plays,--the jurisprudence of child's play (323). His essay, which is devoted to the island of Sicily, touches upon a field which is likely to yield a rich harvest all over the world. The rules of the game; who shall play and who shall not; what is "out," "taw," "in"; when is one "it," "caught," "out"; what can one "bar," and what "choose,"--all these are matters which require the decisions of the youthful judiciary, and call for the frequent exercise of judgment, and the sense of justice and equity. Of the "Boy Code of Honour" some notice is taken by Gregor (246. 21-24). Mr. Newell thus describes the game of "Judge and Jury," as played at Cambridge, Massachusetts (312.123): "A child is chosen to be judge, two others for jurors (or, to speak with our little informant, _juries_), who sit at his right and left hand. Each child must ask the permission of the judge before taking any step. A platter is brought in, and a child, rising, asks the judge, 'May I go into the middle of the room?' 'May I turn the platter?' 'On which side shall it fall?' If the platter falls on the wrong side, forfeit must be paid." In Germany and Switzerland there is a game of the trial of a thief. In the former country: "There is a king, a judge, an executioner, an accuser, and a thief. The parts are assigned by drawing lots, but the accuser does not know the name of the thief, and, if he makes an error, has to undergo the penalty in his stead. The judge finally addresses the king, inquiring if his majesty approves of his decision; and the king replies, 'Yes, your sentence entitles you to my favour'; or, 'No, your sentence entitles you to so many blows.' Thus we see how modern child's play respects the dignity of the king as the fountain of law." In the Swiss version, as Mr. Newell remarks, "the memory of the severity of ancient criminal law is preserved," for "the thief flies, and is chased over stock and stone until caught, when he is made to kneel down, his cap pushed over his brows, and his head immediately struck off with the edge of a board" (313.124). _Boy-Moots_. The most interesting section, perhaps, of Mr. Johnson's _Rudimentary Society among Boys_, is that devoted to "Judicial Procedure" (272. 35-48). Fighting, arbitration, the ordeal and the wager have all been in use as modes of settling quarrels at the McDonogh School--such matters of dispute as arose having been left for the boys to settle among themselves without the control of the faculty. Indeed, the advice which Polonius gives to Laertes seems to have been ever present in the earlier days:-- "Beware Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in, Bear't that th' opposed may beware of thee." Following the appeal to fists came the appeal to chance and luck--the "odd or even" marbles, the "longest straw," and like devices came into vogue. The arbitration of a bystander, particularly of "a big boy who could whip the others," and the "expedient of laying a wager to secure the postponement of a quarrel," are very common. But the most remarkable institution at McDonogh is undoubtedly the boy-moot, one of whose decisions is reported in detail by Mr. Johnson,--an institution in action "almost daily," and part and parcel of the life of the school. None but the author's own words can justly portray it (272. 47, 48):-- "The crowd of boys assembled about the contestants, whose verdict decides the controversy, is, in many respects, the counterpart of a primitive assembly of the people in the folk-moot. Every boy has the right to express an opinion, and every boy present exercises his privilege, though personal prowess and great experience in matters of law have their full influence on the minds of the judges. The primitive idea that dispensing justice is a public trust, which the community itself must fulfil towards its members, is embodied in this usage of the 'McDonogh boys.' The judges are not arbitrators chosen by the disputants, nor are they public functionaries whose sole business is to preside over the courts; but the whole body of the population declares by word of mouth the right and wrong of the matter. This tumultuous body of school-fellows, giving decisions in quarrels, and determining questions of custom, reproduces with remarkable fidelity the essential character of the primitive assembly." Mr. Johnson was struck with "the peace and good order generally prevalent in the community," which speaks well for the judicial system there in vogue. The editor, in his introductory remarks, observes:-- "Every schoolboy and every college student in his upward way to real manhood represents the evolution of a primitive savage into a civilized being. Every school and college reproduces the developmental process of a human society in some of its most interesting aspects, such as government and law. There are all stages of social development in the student class, from actual savagery, which frequently crops out in the very best schools and colleges, to effeminate forms of modern civilization. There are all degrees of institutional government, from total anarchy and patriarchal despotism to Roman imperialism and constitutional government; although it must be admitted that self-government among the student class--said to obtain in some American schools and colleges--is not yet a chartered right. The regulation of student society by itself, or by all the powers that be, presents all phases of judicature, from the most savage ordeals to the most humane. Student customs are full of ancient survivals, and some editions of 'College Laws' are almost as archaic as the Code of Manu. One of these days we shall perhaps find men investigating college jurisprudence, college government, and college politics from the comparative point of view, and writing the natural history of the student class" (272. 3). In the community of the sand-pile studied by Dr. Hall, "a general habit of settling disputes, often brought to issue with fists, by means of meetings and specifications, arose." There is room for a volume on the jurisprudence of childhood and youth, and every page would be of intensest interest and of value in the history of the evolution of the ideas of justice in the human race. CHAPTER XX. THE CHILD AS ORACLE-KEEPER AND ORACLE- INTERPRETER. Enfants et fous sont devins [Children and fools are soothsayers]. --_French Proverb._ Children pick up words as chickens peas, And utter them again as God shall please.--_English Proverb_. The fresh face of a child is richer in significance than the forecasting of the most indubitable seer.--_Novalis_. _Child-Oracles_. "Children and fools speak the truth," says an old and wide-spread proverb, and another version includes him who is drunken, making a trinity of truth-tellers. In like manner have the frenzy of wine and the madness of the gods been associated in every age with oracle and sign, and into this oracular trinity enters also the child. Said De Quincey: "God speaks to children also, in dreams and by the oracles that lurk in darkness," and the poet Stoddard has clothed in exquisite language a similar thought:-- "Nearer the gate of Paradise than we, Our children breathe its air, its angels see; And when they pray, God hears their simple prayer, Yea, even sheathes his sword in judgment bare." The passage in Joel ii. 28, "Your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions," might stand for not a few primitive peoples, with whom, once in childhood (or youth) and once again in old age, man communes with the spirits and the gods, and interprets the events of life to his fellows. The Darien Indians, we are told, "used the seeds of the _Datura sanguinea_ to bring on in children prophetic delirium in which they revealed hidden treasures" (545. II. 417). One of the most curious of the many strange practices which the conservatism of the Established Church of England has continued down to the present is one in vogue at the parish church of St. Ives, in Huntingdonshire. A certain Dr. Eobert Wilde, who died in 1678, "bequeathed £50, the yearly interest of which was to be expended in the purchase of six Bibles, not exceeding the price of 7_s_. 6_d_ each, which should be 'cast for by dice' on the communion table every year by six boys and six girls of the town." The vicar was also to be paid 10_s_. a year for preaching an appropriate sermon on the Holy Scriptures. Public opinion has within recent years caused the erection of a table on the chancel steps, where the dice-throwing now takes place, instead of on the communion table as of old. Every May 26th the ceremony is performed, and in 1888 we are told: "The highest throw this year (three times with three dice) was 37, by a little girl. The vicar (the Rev. E. Tottenham) preached a sermon from the words, 'From a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures'" (390 (1888). 113). _The Child as Vision-Seer_. In the history of the Catholic Church one cannot fail to be struck by the part played by children in the seeing of visions, especially of the Virgin. To St. Agnes of Monte Pulciano (A.D. 1274-1317), when fourteen years of age, the Virgin appeared and told her she should build a monastery before she died (191. 24); Jeanne de Maille (1332-1414) was but eleven when the Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus came before her in a vision; Catherine of Racconigi (1486-1547) was visited by the Virgin when only five years of age (191. 108); in 1075, Hermann of Cologne, while still a boy, saw in a vision the Virgin, who kissed him, and made a secret deposit of food on a certain stone for his benefit. In 1858 a vision of the Immaculate Conception appeared to Bernadetta Soubirous, a sickly child of fourteen, at Lourdes, in the Hautes Pyrenees. No one else saw this vision, said to have occurred on Shrove Tuesday (Feb. 11), four years after Pius IX. had proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. The vision lasted for fourteen successive days (191. 484). On Jan. 17, 1871, the Virgin is alleged to have appeared at Pontmain to several children, and a detailed account of the vision has been given by Mgr. Guérin, chamberlain of Pius IX., in his _Vie des Saints_, and this is digested in Brewer. The children who saw the apparition are described as follows: "Eugène Barbedette was the second son of a small farmer living in the village of Pontmain, in the diocese of Laval. He was twelve years old, and his brother Joseph was ten. The other two [Françoise Richer, Jeanne Marie Lebossé] were children from neighbouring cottages, called in to witness the sight. The parents of the children, the pastor of the village, Sister Vitaline, the abbot Guérin, all present, could see nothing, nor could any of the neighbours of outlying villages, who flocked to the place. Only the children mentioned, a sick child, and a babe in the arms of its grandmother, saw the apparition." The description of the Virgin, as seen by Eugène Barbedette that starlight winter night, is quaint and naïve in the extreme: "She was very tall, robed in blue, and her robe studded with stars. Her shoes were also blue, but had red rosettes. Her face was covered with a black veil, which floated to her shoulders. A crown of gold was on her head, but a red line was observed to run round the crown, symbolic of the blood shed by Christ for the sins of the world. Beneath her feet was a scroll, on which were written these words: 'Mais priez, mes enfants, Dieu vous exaucera, en peu de temps mon fils se laisse toucher' (Pray, my children, God will hear you, before long my son will be moved)." Mgr. Guérin thus comments upon the miracle: "In order to make herself manifest to men, the Holy Virgin has chosen rather the simple eyes of childhood; for, like troubled waters, sinful souls would have but ill reflected her celestial image" (191. 26). _Flower- and Animal-Oracles_. Mr. Newell has a chapter on "Flower-Oracles" (313. 105-114), in which he gives many illustrations of the practice noted in the lines of that nature-loving mediaeval German singer, with which he prefaces his remarks:-- "A spire of grass hath made me gay; It saith I shall find mercy mild. I measured in the self-same way I have seen practised by a child." "Come look and listen if she really does: She does, does not, she does, does not, she does. Each time I try, the end so augureth. That comforts me,--'tis right that we have faith." The ox-eye daisy, the common daisy, the marguerite, the corn-flower, the dandelion, the rose, the pansy, the clover, and a score of other flowers and plants (to say nothing of bushes and trees) have their leaves and petals pulled off, their seeds counted, their fruit examined, their seed-tufts blown away, their markings and other peculiarities deciphered and interpreted to determine the fortune of little questioners, the character of the home they are to live in, the clothes they are to be married in, what they are to ride in, the profession they are to adopt, whether they are to marry, remain single, become monk or nun, whether they are to be drowned or hanged, rich or poor, honest or criminal, whether they are to go to hell, purgatory, or paradise. The use of drawing straws or blades of grass from the hand to determine who is "it," or who shall begin the game, the blowing of the dandelion in seed, the counting of apple-pips, or the leaves on a twig, and a hundred other expedients belong to the same category. All these are oracles, whose priest and interpreter is the child; first, in "those sweet, childish days that were as long as twenty days are now," and then again when love rules the heart and the appeal to the arbitrament of nature--for not alone all mankind but all nature loves a lover--is made in deepest faith and confidence. In the golden age of childhood and in the springtime of love all nature is akin to man. The dandelion is especially favoured as an oracle of children, and of those who are but "children of a larger growth." To quote from Folkard (448. 309):-- "The dandelion is called the rustic oracle; its flowers always open about 5 A.M. and shut at 8 P.M., serving the shepherd for a clock. 'Leontodons unfold On the swart turf their ray-encircled gold, With Sol's expanding beam the flowers unclose, And rising Hesper lights them to repose.'--_Darwin_. As the flower is the shepherd's clock, so are the feathery seedtufts his barometer, predicting calm or storm. These downy seedballs, which children blow off to find out the hour of day, serve for other oracular purposes. Are you separated from the object of your love? Carefully pluck one of the feathery heads; charge each of the little feathers composing it with a tender thought; turn towards the spot where the loved one dwells; blow, and the seed-ball will convey your message faithfully. Do you wish to know if that dear one is thinking of you? blow again; and if there be left upon the stalk a single aigrette, it is a proof you are not forgotten. Similarly, the dandelion is consulted as to whether the lover lives east, west, north, or south, and whether he is coming or not. 'Will he come? I pluck the flower leaves off, And, at each, cry yes, no, yes; I blow the down from the dry hawkweed, Once, twice--hah! I it flies amiss!'--Scott." Many interesting details about flower-oracles may be read in the pages of Friend (453) and Folkard (448) and in Mr. Dyer's chapters on _Plants and the Ceremonial Use_ (435. 145-162), _Children's Rhymes and Games_ (435. 232-242), etc. Beasts, birds, and insects are also the child's oracles. Mr. Callaway tells us that among the Amazulu, when cattle are lost, and the boys see the bird called _Isi pungumangati_ sitting on a tree, "they ask it where the cattle are, and go in the direction in which it points with its head." The insect known as the _mantis_, or "praying insect," is used for a similar purpose (417. 339). In the Sollinger forest (Germany), on St. Matthew's day, February 24, the following practice is in vogue: A girl takes a girl friend upon her back and carries her to the nearest sheep-pen, at the door of which both knock. If a lamb is the first to bleat, the future husbands of both girls will be young; if an old sheep bleats first, they will both marry old men (391. II. 10). _The Child as Oracle in the Primitive Community._ In primitive social economy the services of the child, as an unprejudiced or oracular decider of fates and fortunes, were often in demand. In the community of Pudu-vayal, in the Carnatic (southeastern India), "when the season for cultivation arrives, the arable land in the village is allotted to the several shareholders in the following manner: The names of each lot and each share-holder are written on pieces of the leaf of the palm-tree, such as is used for village records, and the names of each division of land to be allotted are placed in a row. A child, selected for the purpose, draws by lot a leaf with the name of the principal share-holder, and places under it a number, thus,-- 1--Tannappa. 2--Nina. 3--Narrappa. 4--Malliyan. It is thus settled by lottery that Tannappa and his under-share-holders are to cultivate the land of the principal share lotted under No. 1. Tannappa next proceeds to settle in the same way each under-shareholder's portion included in his principal share, and so on, until the sixty-four shareholders receive each his allotment (461. 32)." At Haddenham, in the county of Buckingham, England, a somewhat similar practice survived: "The method of deciding the ownership, after the meadow was plotted out, was by drawing lots. This was done by cutting up a common dock-weed into the required number of pieces to represent the lots, a well understood sign being carved on each piece, representing crows' feet, hog-troughs, and so on. These were placed in a hat and shaken up. Before this could be done, however, notice must be given by one of the men, calling out, at the top of his voice, 'Harko,' and using some sort of rigmarole, calling people to witness that the lots were drawn fairly and without favour.... The hat being shaken up, and one of the boys standing by, looking on with the greatest interest, is pitched upon as a disinterested person to draw the lots, and each owner had to 'sup up' with the lot that fell to him" (461.270). In the manor of Aston, in the parish of Bampton, Oxfordshire, a like custom prevailed: "When the grass was fit to cut, the grass stewards and Sixteens [stewards] summoned the freeholders and tenants to a general meeting, and the following ceremony took place: Four of the tenants came forward, each bearing his mark cut on a piece of wood, which, being thrown into a hat, were shaken up and drawn by a boy. The first drawing entitled its owner to have his portion of the common meadow in set one, the second drawn in set two, etc., and thus four of the tenants have obtained their allotments. Four others then came forward, and the same process is repeated until all the tenants have received their allotments" (461. 166). In Kilkenny, "when the division is made out, lots are prepared. Each man takes a bit of stick or particular stone, well marked; these are enveloped in a ball of clay, and a child or stranger is called to place each ball upon some one of the lots, by which each man's share is determined" (461. 141). The Kaffir boy who is to tend the calves in the kraal, while his fellows sport and romp about, is selected by lot: "As many blades of grass as there are boys are taken, and a knot is made on the end of one of them. The biggest boy holds the blades between the fingers and thumb of his closed hand, and whoever draws the blade with the knot has to act as herdsman" (543. 221). Nowadays, children are employed to turn roulette-wheels, sort cards, pick out lottery-tickets, select lucky numbers, set machinery going for the first time, and perform other like actions; for, though men are all "children of fortune," there is something about real children that brings luck and prospers all enterprises of chance and hazard. Unconscious action and selection by children have no doubt profoundly influenced individual men and society at times. De Quincey tells us that "the celebrated Dr. Doddridge is said to have been guided in a primary act of choice, influencing his whole after life, by a few chance words from a child reading aloud to his mother." The story of the conversion of drunken John Stirling by the naïve remark of his four-year-old boy, as the mother was reading Matthew xxv. 31-33, "Will father be a goat, then, mother?" finds parallels in other lives and other lands (191.356). Here may be considered as belonging some of the "guessing-games," certain of which, in forms remarkably like those in use to-day, were known to the ancients, as Mr. Newell has pointed out, from references in Xenophon and Petronius Arbiter (313. 147-152). _Oracular Games_. As we of to-day see in the sports and games of children some resemblance to the realities of life of our ancestors of long ago, and of those primitive peoples who have lingered behind in the march, of culture, so have the folk seen in them some echo, some oracular reverberation, of the deeds of absent elders, some forecast of the things to come. Among the Shushwap Indians of British Columbia, the following belief is current regarding twins: "While they are children their mother can see by their plays whether her husband, when he is out hunting, will be successful or not. When the twins play about and feign to bite each other, he will be successful; if they keep quiet, he will return empty-handed" (404. 92). In Saxon Transylvania, "when children play games in which dolls and the like are buried, play church, or sing hymns in the street, it is thought to foretell the approaching death of some one in the place" (392 (1893).18). Similar superstitions attach to others of the games and sports of childhood, in which is reproduced the solemn earnest of an earlier manhood; for, with some peoples, the conviction that what is acted in pantomime must occur at a later date in all its reality, finds ready acceptance, and hence children are sometimes even now debarred from carrying out some of their games, from a vague fear that ill will come of them in the manner indicated. CHAPTER XXI. THE CHILD AS WEATHER-MAKER. Rain, rain, go away, Come again, another day.--_Children's Rhyme._ Perhaps the most naive tale in which, the child figures as a weather-maker occurs in the life-story of St. Vincent Ferrier (1357-1419 A.D.), who is credited with performing, in twenty years, no fewer than 58,400 miracles. While the saint was not yet a year old, a great dearth prevailed in Valencia, and one day, while his mother was lamenting over it, "the infant in swaddling-clothes said to her distinctly, 'Mother, if you wish for rain, carry me in procession.' The babe was carried in procession, and the rain fell abundantly" (191.356). Brewer informs us that in 1716 "Mrs. Hicks and her daughter (a child nine years of age) were hung at Huntingdon [England], for 'selling their souls to the devil; and raising a storm by pulling off their stockings and making a lather of soap'" (191. 344). Saints and witches had power to stop rains and lay storms as well as to bring them on. H. F. Feilberg has given us an interesting account of "weather-making," a folk-custom still in vogue in several parts of Denmark. It would appear that this strange custom exists in Djursland, Samse, Sejere, Nexele, in the region of Kallundborg. Here "the women 'make weather' in February, the men in March, all in a fixed order, usually according to the numbers of the tax-register. The pastor and his wife, each in his and her month, 'make weather' on the first of the month, after them the other inhabitants of the village. If the married men are not sufficient to fill out the days of the months, the unmarried ones and the servants are called upon,--the house-servant perhaps 'making weather' in the morning, the hired boy in the afternoon, and in like manner the kitchen-maid and the girl-servant" (392 (1891). 56, 58). In this case we have a whole family, household, community of "weather-makers," old and young, and are really taken back to a culture-stage similar to that of the Caribs and Chibchas of America, with whom the chief was weather-maker as well as ruler of his people (101. 57). _The "Bull-Roarer."_ In Mr. Andrew Lang's _Custom and Myth_ there is an entertaining chapter on "The Bull Roarer," which the author identifies with the [Greek: rombos] mentioned by Clemens of Alexandria as one of the toys of the infant Dionysus. The "bull-roarer," known to the modern English boy, the ancient Greek, the South African, the American Indian, etc., is in actual use to-day by children,--Mr. Lang does not seem to be aware of the fact,--as a "wind-raiser," or "weather-maker." Mr. Gregor, speaking of northeastern Scotland, says: "During thunder it was not unusual for boys to take a piece of thin wood a few inches wide and about half a foot long, bore a hole in one end of it, and tie a few yards of twine into the hole. The piece of wood was rapidly whirled around the head under the belief that the thunder would cease, or that the thunder-bolt would not strike. It went by the name of the 'thunner-spell'" (246. 153). Among the Kaffirs, according to Mr. Theal:-- "There is a kind of superstition connected with the _nowidu_ [the South African 'bull-roarer'], that playing with it invites a gale of wind. Men will, on this account, often prevent boys from using it when they desire calm weather for any purpose" (543. 223). Dr. Boas tells us that the Shushwap Indians of British Columbia attribute supernatural powers to twins, and believe: "They can make good and bad weather. In order to produce rain they take a small basket filled with water, which they spill into the air. For making clear weather, they use a small stick to the end of which a string is tied. A small flat piece of wood is attached to the end of the string, and this implement is shaken. Storm is produced by strewing down on the ends of spruce branches" (404. 92). The Nootka Indians have a like belief regarding twins: "They have the power to make good and bad weather. They produce rain by painting their faces with black colour and then washing them, or by merely shaking their heads" (404. 40). Among some of the Kwakiutl Indians, upon the birth of twins "the father dances for four days after the children have been born, with a large square rattle. The children, by swinging this rattle, can cure disease and procure favourable winds and weather" (404. 62). In Prussia, when it snows, the folk-belief is "the angels are shaking their little beds," and Grimm's story of "Old Mother Frost" has another rendering of the same myth: "What are you afraid of, my child! Stop with me: if you will put all things in order in my house, then all shall go well with you; only you must take care that you make my bed well, and shake tremendously, so that the feathers fly; then it snows upon earth. I am Old Mother Frost." An Eskimo legend states that thunder and lightning are caused by an adult person and a child, who went up in the sky long, long ago; they carry a dried seal-skin, which, when rattled, makes the thunder, and torches of tar, which, when waved, cause the lightning. The Mississaga Indians explain a fierce storm of thunder and lightning by saying that "the young thunder-birds up in the sky are making merry and having a good time." In like manner, the Dakotas account for the rumbling of thunder, "because the old thunder-bird begins the peal and the young ones take it up and continue." In the poetry of the ancient Aryans of Asia the wind is called "the heavenly child," some idea of which survives in the old pictures in books representing the seasons, and in maps, where infants or cherubs are figured as blowing at the various points of the compass. But to return to rain-making. Grimm has called attention to several instances in Modern Europe where the child figures as "rain-maker." _Girl Rain-Makers_. One of the charms in use in the Rhine country of Germany in the eleventh century, as recorded by Burchard of Worms, was this: "A little girl, completely undressed and led outside the town, had to dig up henbane with the little finger of her right hand, and tie it to the little toe of her right foot; she was then solemnly conducted by the other maidens to the nearest river, and splashed with water" (462. II. 593). In Servia the rain-maker is well known, and the procedure is as follows: "A girl, called the _dodola_, is stript naked, but so wrapt up in grass, herbs, and flowers, that nothing of her person is to be seen, not even the face. Escorted by other maidens, _dodola_ passes from house to house; before each house they form a ring, she standing in the middle and dancing alone. The goodwife comes out and empties a bucket of water over the girl, who keeps dancing and whirling all the while; her companions sing songs, repeating after every line the burden _oy dodo, oy dodo le_." Following is one of the rain-songs:-- "To God doth our doda call, oy dodo oy dodo le! That dewy rain may fall, oy dodo oy dodo le! And drench the diggers all, oy dodo oy dodo le! The workers great and small, oy dodo oy dodo le! Even those in house and stall, oy dodo oy dodo le!" Corresponding to the Servian _dodola_, and thought to be equally efficacious, is the [Greek: _pyrperuna_] of the Modern Greeks. With them the custom is: "When it has not rained for a fortnight or three weeks, the inhabitants of villages and small towns do as follows. The children choose one of themselves, who is from eight to ten years old, usually a poor orphan, whom they strip naked and deck from head to foot with field herbs and flowers: this child is called pyrperuna. The others lead her round the village, singing a hymn, and every housewife has to throw a pailful of water over the pyrperuna's head and hand the children a para (1/4 of a farthing)" (462. I. 594). In a Wallachian song, sung by children when the grain is troubled by drought, occurs the following appeal: "Papaluga (Father Luga), climb into heaven, open its doors, and send down rain from above, that well the rye may grow!" (462. II. 593). This brings us naturally to the consideration of the rain-rhymes in English and cognate tongues. _Rain-Rhymes_. Mr. Henderson, treating of the northern counties of England, tells us that when the rain threatens to spoil a boy's holiday, he will sing out:-- "'Rain, rain, go away, Come again another summer's day; Rain, rain, pour down, And come no more to our town.' or:-- 'Rain, rain, go away, And come again on washing day,' or, more quaintly, yet:-- 'Rain, rain, go to Spain; Fair weather, come again,' and, _sooner_ or _later_, the rain will depart. If there be a rainbow, the juvenile devotee must look at it all the time. The Sunderland version runs thus:-- 'Rain, rain, pour down Not a drop in our town, But a pint and a gill All a-back of Building Hill.'" Mr. Henderson remarks that "such rhymes are in use, I believe, in every nursery in England," and they are certainly well known, in varying forms in America. A common English charm for driving away the rainbow brings the child at once into the domain of the primitive medicine-man. Schoolboys were wont, "on the appearance of a rainbow, to place a couple of straws or twigs across on the ground, and, as they said, 'cross out the rainbow.' The West Riding [Yorkshire] receipt for driving away a rainbow is: 'Make a cross of two sticks and lay four pebbles on it, one at each end'" (469. 24, 25). Mr. Gregor, for northeastern Scotland, reports the following as being sung or shouted at the top of the voice by children, when a rainbow appears (246. 153, 154):-- (1) "Rainbow, rainbow, Brack an gang hame, The coo's wi' a calf, The yow's wi' a lam, An' the coo 'ill be calvt, Or ye win hame." (2) "Rainbow, rainbow, Brack an gang hame; Yir father an yir mither's aneth the layer-stehm; Yir coo's calvt, yir mare's foalt, Yir wife'll be dead Or ye win hame." (3) "Rainbow, rainbow, Brack an gang hame, Yir father and mither's aneth the grave stehn." Even more touching is the appeal made by the children in Berwickshire, according to Mr. Henderson (469. 24, 25):-- "Rainbow, rainbow, hand awa' hame, A' yer bairns are dead but ane, And it lies sick at yon gray stane, And will be dead ere you win hame. Gang owre the Drumaw [a hill] and yont the lea And down by the side o' yonder sea; Your bairn lies greeting [crying] like to dee, And the big tear-drop is in his e'e." Sometimes the child-priest or weather-maker has to employ an intermediary. On the island of Rugen and in some other parts of Germany the formula is (466 a. 132):-- "Leeve Katriene Lat de stinnen schienen, Lat'n ragen overgahn, Lat de stunnen wedder kam'n." ["Dear (St.) Catharine, Let the sun shine, Let the rain pass off, Let the sun come again."] In Eugen the glow-worm is associated with "weather-making." The children take the little creature up, put it on their hand and thus address it (466 a. 133):-- "Sunnskurnken fleeg weech, Bring mi morgen good wader, Lat 'en ragen overgahn, Lat de sunnen wedder kam'n, Bring mi morgen good wader." If the insect flies away, the good weather will come; if not, there will be rain. The Altmark formula, as given by Danneil (_Worterb_., p. 81) is:-- "Herrgottswörmk'n, flêg nao'n Himmel, segg dîn Vaoder un Mutter, dat't morgen un äöwermorg'n gôd Wäd'r wart." ["Little God's-worm, fly to heaven, tell your father and mother to make it fine weather to-morrow and the day after to-morrow."] Another rain-rhyme from Altmark, sung by children in the streets when it rains, is harsh in tone, and somewhat derisive as well (p. 153):-- "Räg'n blatt, maok mi nich natt, Maok den olln Paop'n natt De'n Büd'l vull Geld hat." ["Rain, don't make me wet, Make the old priest wet, Who has a purse full of money."] Concerning the Kansa Indians, Rev. J. Owen Dorsey informs us that the members of the Tcihacin or Kanze gens are looked upon as "wind people," and when there is a blizzard the other Kansa appeal to them: "O, Grandfather, I wish good weather! Please cause one of your children to be decorated!" The method of stopping the blizzard is as follows: "Then the youngest son of one of the Kanze men, say one over four feet high, is chosen for the purpose, and painted with red paint. The youth rolls over and over in the snow and reddens it for some distances all around him. This is supposed to stop the storm" (433. 410). With the Kwakiutl Indians of Vancouver Island, as with the Shushwaps and Nootka, twins are looked upon in the light of wonderful beings, having power over the weather. Of them it is said "while children they are able to summon any wind by motions of their hands, and can make fair or bad weather. They have the power of curing diseases, and use for this purpose a rattle called K.'oã'qaten, which has the shape of a flat box about three feet long by two feet wide." Here the "weather-maker" and the "doctor" are combined in the same person. Among the Tsimshian Indians, of British Columbia, twins are believed to control the weather, and these aborigines "pray to wind and rain: 'Calm down, breath of the twins'" (403. 51). In the creation-legend of the Indians of Mt. Shasta (California), we are told that once a terrific storm came up from the sea and shook to its base the wigwam,--Mt. Shasta itself,--in which lived the "Great Spirit" and his family. Then "The 'Great Spirit' commanded his daughter, little more than an infant, to go up and bid the wind be still, cautioning her at the same time, in his fatherly way, not to put her head out into the blast, but only to thrust out her little red arm and make a sign before she delivered her message." But the temptation to look out on the world was too strong for her, and, as a result, she was caught up by the storm and blown down the mountain-side into the land of the grizzly-bear people. From the union of the daughter and the grizzly-bear people sprang a new race of men. When the "Great Spirit" was told his daughter still lived, he ran down the mountain for joy, but finding that his daughter had become a mother, he was so angry that he cursed the grizzly-people and turned them into the present race of bears of that species; them and the new race of men he drove out of their wigwam,--Little Mt. Shasta,--then "shut to the door, and passed away to his mountains, carrying his daughter; and her or him no eye has since seen." Hence it is that "no Indian tracing his descent from the spirit mother and the grizzly, will kill a grizzly-bear; and if by an evil chance a grizzly kill a man in any place, that spot becomes memorable, and every one that passes casts a stone there till a great pile is thrown up" (396. III. 91). Here the weather-maker touches upon deity and humanity at once. CHAPTER XXII. THE CHILD AS HEALER AND PHYSICIAN. Fingunt se medicos quivis idiota, sacerdos, Iudæus, monachus, histrio, rasor, anus. [Any unskilled person, priest, Jew, monk, actor, barber, old woman, turns himself into a physician.]--_Medical Proverb_. _The Child as Healer and Physician_. Though Dr. Max Bartels' (397) recent treatise--the best book that has yet appeared on the subject of primitive medicine--has no chapter consecrated to the child as healer and physician, and Mr. Black's _Folk-Medicine_ (401) contains but a few items under the rubric of personal cures, it is evident from data in these two works, and in many other scattered sources, that the child has played a not unimportant rôle in the history of folk-medicine. Among certain primitive peoples the healing art descends by inheritance, and in various parts of the world unbaptized children, illegitimate children, and children born out of due time and season, or deformed in some way, have been credited with special curative powers, or looked upon as "doctors born." In Spain, to kiss an unbaptized child before any one else has done so, is a panacea against toothache (258. 100). In north-eastern Scotland, "a seventh son, without a daughter, if worms were put into his hand before baptism, had the power of healing the disease (ring-worm) simply by rubbing the affected part with his hand. The common belief about such a son was that he was a doctor by nature" (246. 47). In Ireland, the healing powers are acquired "if his hand has, before it has touched anything for himself, been touched with his future medium of cure. Thus, if silver is to be the charm, a sixpence, or a three-penny piece, is put into his hand, or meal, salt, or his father's hair, 'whatever substance a seventh son rubs with must be worn by his parents as long as he lives.'" In some portions of Europe, the seventh son, if born on Easter Eve, was able to cure tertian or quartan fevers. In Germany, "if a woman has had seven sons in succession, the seventh can heal all manner of hurt,"--his touch is also said to cure wens at the throat (462. III. 1152). In France, the _marcou_, or seventh son, has had a great reputation; his body is said to be marked with a _fleur-de-lis_, and the cure is effected by his simply breathing upon the diseased part, or by allowing the patient to touch a mark on his body. Bourke calls attention to the fact that among the Cherokee Indians of the southeastern United States is this same belief that the seventh son is "a natural-born prophet with the gift of healing by touch" (406. 457). In France similar powers have also been attributed to the fifth son. The seventh son of a seventh son is still more famous, while to the twenty-first son, born without the intervention of a daughter, prodigious cures are ascribed. Nor is the other sex entirely neglected. In France a "seventh daughter" was believed to be able to cure chilblains on the heels (462. III. 1152), and in England, as recently as 1876, the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter claimed great skill as an herb-doctor. In northeastern Scotland, "a posthumous child was believed to possess the gift of curing almost any disease by looking on the patient" (246. 37), and in Donegal, Ireland, the peasants "wear a lock of hair from a posthumous child, to guard against whooping-cough," while in France, such a child was believed to possess the power of curing wens, and a child that has never known its father was credited with ability to cure swellings and to drive away tumours (462. III. 1152). Twins, in many countries, have been regarded as prodigies, or as endowed with unusual powers. In Essex, England, "a 'left twin' (_i.e._ a child who has survived its fellow-twin) is thought to have the power of curing the thrush by blowing three times into the patient's mouth, if the patient is of the opposite sex" (469. 307). Among the Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia, twins are said to be able to cure disease by swinging a rattle, and in Liberia (Africa) they are thought to possess great healing powers, for which reason most of them become doctors (397. 75). In Sweden, "a first-born child that has come into the world with teeth can cure a bad bite." In Scotland, "those who were born with their feet first possessed great power to heal all kinds of sprains, lumbago, and rheumatism, either by rubbing the afflicted part, or by trampling on it. The chief virtue lay in the feet" (246. 45). In Cornwall, England, the mother of such a child also possessed the power to cure rheumatism by trampling on the patients. The natives of the island of Mas, off the western coast of Sumatra, consider children born with their feet first specially gifted for the treatment of dislocations (397. 75). Among the superstitions prevalent among the Mexicans of the Rio Grande region in Texas, Captain Bourke mentions the belief: "To cure rheumatism, stroke the head of a little girl three times--a golden-haired child preferred" (407. 139). The Jews of Galicia seek to cure small-pox by rubbing the pustules with the tresses of a girl, and think that the scrofula will disappear "if a _Bechôr_, or first-born son, touches it with his thumb and little finger" (392 (1893). 142). The power of curing scrofula--touching for the "King's Evil"--possessed by monarchs of other days, was thought to be hereditary, and seems to have been practised by them at a tender age. In England this "cure" was in vogue from the time of Edward the Confessor until 1719, when, according to Brewer, the "office" disappeared from the Prayer-book. The French custom dated back to Anne of Clovis (A.D. 481). In the year of his coronation (1654 A.D.), when Louis XV. was but eleven years old, he is said to have touched over two thousand sufferers (191. 308). _Blood of Children_. In the dark ages the blood of little children had a wide-spread reputation for its medicinal virtue. The idea that diseased and withered humanity, having failed to discover the fountain of eternal youth, might find a new well-spring of life in bathing in, or being sprinkled with, the pure blood of a child or a virgin, had long a firm hold upon the minds of the people. Hartmann von Aue's story, _Der arme Heinrich_, and a score of similar tales testify of the folk-faith in the regeneration born of this horrible baptism--a survival or recrudescence of the crassest form of the doctrine that the life dwells in the blood. Strack, in his valuable treatise on "Human Blood, in Superstition and Ceremonial," devotes a brief section to the belief in the cure of leprosy by means of human blood (361. 20-24). The Targumic gloss on Exodus ii. 23--the paraphrase known as the Pseudo-Jonathan--explains "that the king of Egypt, suffering from leprosy, ordered the first-born of the children of Israel to be slain that he might bathe in their blood," and the Midrasch Schemoth Rabba accounts for the lamentation of the people of Israel at this time, from the fact that the Egyptian magicians had told the king that there was no cure for this loathsome disease, unless every evening and every morning one hundred and fifty Jewish children were slain and the monarch bathed twice daily in their blood. Pliny tells us that the Egyptians warmed with human blood the seats in their baths as a remedy against the dreaded leprosy. According to the early chroniclers, Constantine the Great, on account of his persecution of the Christians, was afflicted with leprosy, which would yield neither to the skill of native nor to that of foreign physicians. Finally, the priests of Jupiter Capitolinus recommended a bath in the blood of children. The children were gathered together, but "the lamentations of their mothers so affected the Emperor, that he declared his intention of suffering the foul disease, rather than be the cause of so much woe and misery." Afterwards he was directed in a dream to Pope Sylvester, was converted, baptized into the Church, and restored to health (361. 22). Other instances of this fearful custom are mentioned in the stories of Percival (in the history of the Holy Grail), of Giglan de Galles et Geoffrey de Mayence, and the wide-spread tale of Amicus and Amelius and its variants, Louis and Alexander, Engelhard and Engeltrut, Oliver and Arthur, etc., in all of which one of the friends is afflicted with leprosy, but is cured through the devotion of the other, who sacrifices his own children in order to obtain the blood by which alone his friend can be restored to health. Usually, we are told, God rewards his fidelity and the children are restored to life. The physicians of King Richard I. of England are said, in one of the fictions which grew up about his distinguished personality, to have utterly failed to give relief to the monarch, who was suffering from, leprosy. At last a celebrated Jew, after exhausting his skill without curing the monarch, told him that his one chance of recovery lay in bathing in the fresh blood of a newborn child, and eating its heart just as it was taken out of the body. That the king adopted this horrible remedy we are left to doubt, but of Louis XI of France, several chroniclers affirm that he went even farther than the others, and, in order to become rejuvenated, drank large quantities of the blood of young children. In all these cases the character of the child as fetich seems to be present, and the virtues ascribed to the blood drawn from children (not always killed) belong not alone to medicine, but also to primitive religion (361. 23). Even the dead body of a child or some one of its members plays a _role_ in folk-medicine in many parts of the globe. Grimm cites from a document of 1408 A.D., a passage recording the cure of a leper, who had been stroked with the hand of a still-born (and, therefore, sinless) child, which had been rubbed with salve (361. 34). In Steiermark, so Dr. Strack informs us, "a favourite cure for birth-marks is to touch them with the hand of a dead person, especially of a child" (361. 35). Among the charges made by the Chinese against the foreigners, who are so anxious to enter their dominions, is one of "kidnapping and buying children in order to make charms and medicines out of their eyes, hearts, and other portions of their bodies." This belief induced the riot of June, 1870, an account of which has been given by Baron Hubner, and similar incidents occurred in 1891 and 1892. Somewhat the same charges have been made (in 1891, for example) by the natives of Madagascar against the French and other foreigners (361. 37). _Medicine-Men._ Among many primitive peoples, as is the case with the Zulus, Bechuana, Japanese (formerly), Nez Perces, Cayuse, Walla-Wallas, Wascos, etc., the office of "doctor" is hereditary, and is often exercised at a comparatively early age (397. 275). Dr. Pitre has recently discussed some interesting cases in this connection in modern Italy (322). Among certain Indian tribes of the Rocky Mountain region of the northwestern United States, although he cannot properly practise his art until he reaches manhood, the "medicine-man" (here, doctor) begins his candidacy in his eighth or tenth year. Of the "wizards," or "doctors" of the Patagonians, Falkner says, that they "are selected in youth for supposed qualifications, especially if epileptic" (406. 456). While among the Dieyerie of South Australia, the "doctor" is not allowed to practise before having been circumcised, or to enter upon the duties of his office before completing his tenth year, those young people become "doctors," who, as children, "have seen the devil," i.e. have seen in a troubled dream the demon _Kutchie_, or have had the nightmare. The belief is, that in this way, the power to heal has been imparted to the child (397. 75). Among the Yuki Indians of California, "the 'poison-doctor' is the most important member of the profession. The office is hereditary; a little child is prepared for holding it by being poisoned and then cured, which, in their opinion, renders him invulnerable ever afterward" (519. 131). Among the Tunguses, of Siberian llussia, a child afflicted with cramps or with bleeding at the nose and mouth, is declared by an old shaman ("medicine-man," or "medicine-woman") to be called to the profession, and is then termed _hudildon_. After the child has completed its second year, it is taken care of by an old shaman, who consecrates it with various ceremonies; from this time forth it is called _jukejeren_, and is instructed by the old man in the mysteries of his art (482. III. 105). With these people also the female shamans have the assistance of boys and girls to carry their implements and perform other like services (397. 66). An excellent account of shamanism in Siberia and European Eussia has been given by Professor Mikhailovskii (504), of Moscow, who gives among other details a notice of the _kamlanie_, or spirit-ceremonial of a young shaman belonging to one of the Turkish tribes of the Altai Mountains (504. 71). Among the Samoyeds and Ostiaks of Siberia, "the shamans succeed to the post by inheritance from father to son" (504. 86). On the death of a shaman, "his son, who desires to have power over the spirits, makes of wood an image of the dead man's hand, and by means of this symbol succeeds to his father's power. Those destined to be shamans spend their youth in practices which irritate the nervous system and excite the imagination." Among the Buryats of southern Siberia, it is thought that "the dead ancestors who were shamans choose from their living kinsfolk a boy who is to inherit their power. This child is marked by signs; he is often thoughtful, fond of solitude, a seer of prophetic visions, subject, occasionally, to fits, during which he is unconscious. The Buryats believe that at such a time the boy's soul is with the spirits, who are teaching him; if he is to be a white shaman, with the western spirits; if he is to be a black shaman, among the eastern spirits." Usually, the youth does not enter upon his duties until he has reached his twentieth year (504.87). The tribes of the Altai believe that "the ability to shamanize is inborn; instruction only gives a knowledge of the chants, prayers, and external rites." There is in early life an innate tendency to sickness and frenzy, against which, we are told, the elect struggle in vain (504.90): "Those who have the shamanist sickness endure physical torments; they have cramps in the arms and legs, until they are sent to a _kam_ [shaman] to be educated. The tendency is hereditary; a _kam_ often has children predisposed to attacks of illness. If, in a family where there is no shaman, a boy or a girl is subject to fits, the Altaians are persuaded that one of its ancestors was a shaman. A _kam_ told Potanin that the shamanist passion was hereditary, like noble birth. If the _kam's_ own son does not feel any inclination, some one of the nephews is sure to have the vocation. There are cases of men becoming shamans at their own wish, but these _kams_ are much less powerful than those born to the profession." Thus the whole training of the _kam_ from childhood up to exercise of his official duties is such as "to augment his innate tendencies, and make him an abnormal man, unlike his fellows." When fully qualified, he functions as "priest, physician, wizard, diviner." _Moses_. Of the childhood of Moses Oriental legend has much to say. One story tells how the daughter of Pharaoh, a leper, was healed as she stretched out her hand to the infant whom she rescued from the waters of Nile. Well thus resumes the tale (547.122):-- "The eldest of the seven princesses first discovered the little ark and carried it to the bank to open it. On her removing the lid, there beamed a light upon her, which her eyes were not able to endure. She cast a veil over Moses, but at that instant her own face, which hitherto had been covered with scars and sores of all the most hideous colours imaginable, shone like the moon in its brightness and purity, and her sisters exclaimed in amazement, 'By what means hast thou been so suddenly freed from leprosy?' 'By the miraculous power of this child,' replied the eldest. The glance which beamed upon me when I beheld it unveiled, has chased away the impurity of my body, as the rising sun scatters the gloom of night.' The six sisters, one after the other, now lifted the veil from Moses' face, and they, too, became fair as if they had been formed of the finest silver. The eldest then took the ark upon her head, and carried it to her mother, Asia, relating to her in how miraculous a manner both she and her sisters had been healed." We also learn that when Moses was six years old, being teased by Pharaoh until he was angry, he kicked the throne over so that the king fell and injured himself so that he bled at the mouth and nose. The intercession of Asia and the seven princesses seemed vain, and the king was about to thrust Moses through with his sword, when "there flew a white cock toward the king, and cried: 'Pharaoh, if thou spill the blood of this child, thy daughters shall be more leprous than before.' Pharaoh cast a glance upon the princesses; and, as if from dread and fright, their faces were already suffused with a ghastly yellow, he desisted again from his bloody design" (547. 127). _Child-Saints._ To other heroes, kings, saints, the power to heal which characterized their years of discretion is often ascribed to them in childhood, especially where and when it happens that the same individual is prophet, priest, and king. In the unnumbered miracles of the Church children have often figured. Lupellus, in his life of St. Frodibert (seventh century A.D.), says: "When Frodibert was a mere child he cured his mother's blindness, as, in the fulness of love and pity, he kissed her darkened eyes, and signed them with the sign of the cross. Not only was her sight restored, but it was keener than ever" (191. 45). Of St. Patrick (373-464 A.D.) it is told: "On the day of his baptism he gave sight to a man born blind; the blind man took hold of the babe's hand, and with it made on the ground a sign of the cross." Another account makes the miracle a triple one: "A blind man, taking hold of St. Patrick's right hand, guided it into making on the ground a cross, when instantly three miracles ensued: (1) A spring of water bubbled from the dry ground; (2) the blind man, bathing his eyes with this water, received his sight; and (3) the man, who before could neither write nor read, was instantly inspired with both these gifts" (191. 237). Brewer relates other instances of the miraculous power of the child-saint from the lives of St. Genevieve (423-512, A.D.), St. Vitus, who at the age of twelve caused the arms and legs of the Emperor Aurelian to wither, but on the Emperor owning the greatness of God, the "child-magician," as the monarch had termed him, made Aurelian whole again; St. Sampson (565 A.D.), who cured a fellow schoolboy of a deadly serpent's bite; Marianne de Quito (1618-1645 A.D.), who cured herself of a gangrened finger (191. 442). In his interesting chapters on _Fairy Births and Human Midwives_, Mr. Hartland informs us that young girls have sometimes been called upon to go to fairy-land and usher into the world of elves some little sprite about to be born. Instances of this folk-belief are cited from Pomerania, Swabia, Silesia. Rewards and presents are given the maiden on her return, and often her whole family is blest, if she has acted well (258. 37-92). Close, indeed, are often the ties between the saint and the physician; the healer of the soul and the healer of the body are frequently the same. Other links bind the doctor to the hero and to the god. Of AEsculapius, the great son of Apollo, exposed in childhood by his mother, but nurtured by the goat of the shepherd Aresthanas, and guarded by his dog, when he grew up to manhood, became so skilled in the uses of herbs and other medicines that he received divine honours after his death and came to be looked upon as the inventor of medicine as well as god of the healing art. _Origin of the Healing Art_ With some primitive peoples even the child is their. AEsculapius, at once human and divine, hero and god. An Iroquois legend recorded by Mrs. Smith attributes to a boy the discovery of witch-charms: "A certain boy while out hunting came across a beautiful snake. Taking a great fancy to it, he caught it and cared for it, feeding it on birds, etc., and made a bark bowl in which he kept it. He put fibres, down, and small feathers into the water with the snake, and soon found that these things had become living beings. From this fact he naturally conjectured that the snake was endowed with supernatural powers." So he went on experimenting, and discovered many of the virtues of the snake water: rubbing it on his eyes would make him see in the dark and see hidden things; pointing his finger, after having dipped it in the bowl, at any one would bewitch that person; by using it in certain other ways he could become like a snake, travel very fast, even become invisible; deadly indeed were arrows dipped in this liquid, and pointing a feather so dipped at any game-animal would cause it to start for the creature and kill it. In this fashion the boy learned the secret art of witchcraft. Afterwards, by experimenting, he discovered, among the various roots and herbs, the proper antidotes and counteracting agents (534, 69, 70). In his detailed account of the medicine-society of the Ojibwa, Dr. Hoffman tells how the mysteries of the "Grand Medicine" were taught to the Indians by the Sun-spirit, who at the request of the great Manido, came down to earth and dwelt among men in the form of a little boy, raising to life again his dead play-mate, the child of the people who adopted him. After his mission was fulfilled, he "returned to his kindred spirits, for the Indians would have no need to fear sickness, as they now possessed the Grand Medicine which would enable them to live. He also said that his spirit could bring a body to life but once, and he would now return to the sun, from which they would feel his influence." So the institution of "medicine" among the Ojibwa is called _Kwí-wí-sens' we-di'-shi-tshi ge-wi-nip_, "Little-boy-his-work" (473. 172,173). CHAPTER XXIII. THE CHILD AS SHAMAN AND PRIEST. Nearer the gates of Paradise than we Our children breathe its air, its angels see; And when they pray, God hears their simple prayer, Yea, even sheathes his sword, in judgment bare. --_R. H. Stoddard._ The youth, who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is nature's priest.--_Wordsworth_. _Priestly Training_. Instruction in the priestly art in Africa begins sometimes almost at birth. Bastian informs us (529. 58):-- "Women who have been long barren, or who have lost their children, are wont to dedicate to the service of the fetich the unborn fruit of the womb, and to present to the village priest the new-born babe. He exercises it, at an early age, in those wild dances with deafening drum-accompaniment, by means of which he is accustomed to gain the requisite degree of spiritual exaltation; and in later years he instructs his pupil in the art of understanding, while his frame is wracked with convulsions, the inspirations of the demon and of giving fitting responses to questions proposed." Of the one sex we read (529. 56):-- "Every year the priests assemble the boys who are entering the state of puberty, and take them into the forest. There they settle and form an independent commonwealth, under very strict regulations, however; and every offence against the rules is sternly punished. The wound given in circumcision commonly heals in one week, yet they remain in the woods for a period of six months, cut off from all intercourse with the outside world, and in the meanwhile each receives separate instruction how to prepare his medicine-bag. Forever after, each one is mystically united with the fetich who presides over his life. Even their nearest relatives are not allowed to visit the boys in this retreat; and women are threatened with the severest punishment if they be only found in the neighbourhood of a forest containing such a boy-colony. When the priest declares the season of probation at an end, the boys return home and are welcomed back with great rejoicings." Concerning the other, Bosman, as reported by Schultze, says that among the negroes of Whida, where snake-worship prevails (529. 80)-- "Every year the priestesses, armed with clubs, go about the country, picking out and carrying away girls of from eight to twelve years of age, for the service of the god. These children are kindly treated and instructed in songs and dances _in majorem gloriam_ of his snakeship. In due time they are consecrated by tattooing on their bodies certain figures, especially those of serpents. The negroes suppose it is the snake himself that marks his elect thus. Having received their training and consecration, which are paid for by the parents according to their means, the children return home; and when they attain their majority are espoused to the Serpent." In Ashanti, according to Ellis, the children of a priest or of a priestess "are not ordinarily educated for the priestly profession, one generation being usually passed over [a curious primitive recognition of the idea in our common saying, "genius skips a generation"], and the grand-children selected" (438. 121). At the village of Suru several children (male and female) and youths are handed over to the priests and priestesses to be instructed in the service of the gods, when the goddess was thought to be offended, and in the ceremonials when the new members are tested, youths and children take part, smeared all over with white (438. 130). Among the natives of the Andaman Islands, as Mr. Man informs us, sometimes even "a young boy is looked upon as a coming _oko-paiad_." The word signifies literally "dreamer," and such individuals are "credited with the possession of supernatural powers, such as second sight" (498. 28). Captain Bourke, in his detailed account of the "medicine-men" of the Apaches, speaking of the Pueblos Indians, says: "While I was at Tusayan, in 1881, I heard of a young boy, quite a child, who was looked up to by the other Indians, and on special occasions made his appearance decked out in much native finery of beads and gewgaws, but the exact nature of his duties and supposed responsibilities could not be ascertained." He seems to have been a young "medicine-man" (406. 456). Into the "medicine-society" of the Delaware Indians "the boys were usually initiated at the age of twelve or fourteen years, with very trying ceremonies, fasting, want of sleep, and other tests of their physical and mental stamina." Of these same aborigines the missionary Brainerd states: "Some of their diviners (or priests) are endowed with the spirit in infancy; others in adult age. It seems not to depend upon their own will, nor to be acquired by any endeavours of the person who is the subject of it, although it is supposed to be given to children sometimes in consequence of some means which the parents use with them for that purpose" (516. 81). Among the Chippeway (Ojibwa), also, children are permitted to belong to the "Midéwewin or 'Grand Medicine Society,'" of which Dr. W. J. Hoffman has given so detailed a description--Sikassige, a Chippeway of Mille Lacs, having taken his "first degree" at ten years of age (473.172). _The Angakok_. Among the Eskimo the _angakok_, or shaman, trains his child from infancy in the art of sorcery, taking him upon his knee during his incantations and conjurations. In one of the tales in the collection of Rink we read (525. 276): "A great _angakok_ at his conjurations always used to talk of his having been to Akilinek [a fabulous land beyond the ocean], and his auditors fully believed him. Once he forced his little son to attend his conjurations, sitting upon his knee. The boy, who was horribly frightened, said: 'Lo! what is it I see? The stars are dropping down in the old grave on yonder hill.' The father said: 'When the old grave is shining to thee, it will enlighten thy understanding.' When the boy had been lying in his lap for a while, he again burst out: 'What is it I now see? The bones in the old grave are beginning to join together.' The father only repeating his last words, the son grew obstinate and wanted to run away, but the father still kept hold of him. Lastly, the ghost from the grave came out, and being called upon by the _angakok_, he entered the house to fetch the boy, who only perceived a strong smell of maggots, and then fainted away. On recovering his senses, he found himself in the grave quite naked, and when he arose and looked about, his nature was totally altered--he found himself able at a sight to survey the whole country to the farthest north, and nothing was concealed from him. All the dwelling-places of man appeared to be close together, side by side; and on looking at the sea, he saw his father's tracks stretching across to Akilinek. When going down to the house, he observed his clothes flying through the air, and had only to put forth his hands and feet to make them cover his body again. But on entering the house he looked exceedingly pale, because of the great _angakok_ wisdom he had acquired down in the old grave. After he had become an _angakok_ himself, he once went on a flight to Akilinek." Besides this interesting account of an _angakok_ séance, the same authority, in the story of the _angakok_ Tugtutsiak, records the following (525. 324): "Tugtutsiak and his sister were a couple of orphans, and lived in a great house. It once happened that all the grown-up people went away berry-gathering, leaving all children at home. Tugtutsiak, who happened to be the eldest of them, said: 'Let us try to conjure up spirits'; and some of them proceeded to make up the necessary preparations, while he himself undressed, and covered the door with his jacket, and closed the opening at the sleeves with a string. He now commenced the invocation, while the other children got mortally frightened, and were about to take flight. But the slabs of the floor were lifted high in the air, and rushed after them. Tugtutsiak would have followed them, but felt himself sticking fast to the floor, and could not get loose until he had made the children come back, and ordered them to uncover the door, and open the window, on which it again became light in the room, and he was enabled to get up." Girls, too, among the Eskimo, could become _angakoks_ or shamans. Rink tells of one who visited the under-world, where she received presents, but these, while she was carrying them home, "were wafted out of her hands, and flew back to their first owners." Of the Pawnee Indians, Mr. Grinnell informs us that the legend of their wanderings tells of a boy in whose possession was the sacred "medicine-bundle" of the tribe, and who was regarded as the oracle-interpreter (480 (1893). 125). _Witches_. As Dr. Mackay has remarked, in all the woeful annals of the witch-persecutions, there is nothing so astounding and revolting as the burning and putting to death of mere children for practising the arts of the devil. Against innocents of both sexes counting no more than ten or twelve years, there appear on the records the simple but significant words _convicta et combusta_--convicted and burned. Here the degradation of intellect and morals reaches its lowest level; it was Satan and not Jesus who bade the children come unto him; their portion was the kingdom of hell, not that of heaven. In Würzburg, between 1627 and 1629, no fewer than 157 persons suffered death for witchcraft (guilty and innocent), and among these were included "the prettiest girl in the town"; two mere boys; a wandering boy of twelve; a maiden of nine and her sister, younger in years; two boys of twelve; a girl of fifteen; a boy of ten and a boy of twelve; three boys of from ten to fifteen years of age. At Lille, in 1639, a whole school of girls--fifty in number--barely escaped burning as witches (496 a. II. 266-287). Everywhere the maddened, deluded people made sacrifice of their dearest and holiest, tainted, they thought, with the touch of the evil one (496 a. II. 285). It is a sad comment upon civilization that the last execution for witchcraft in England, which took place in 1716, was that of "Mrs. Hicks and her daughter, _a child nine years of age_, who were hung at Huntingdon, for 'selling their souls to the devil; and raising a storm, by pulling off their stockings and making a lather of soap'" (191. 344). In the _London Times_ for Dec. 8, 1845, appeared the following extract from the _Courier_, of Inverness, Scotland: "Our Wick contemporary gives the following recent instance of gross ignorance and credulity: 'Not far from Louisburg there lives a girl who, until a few days ago, was suspected of being a witch. In order to cure her of the witchcraft, a neighbour actually put her into a creed half-filled with wood and shavings, and hung her above a fire, setting the shavings in a blaze. Fortunately for the child and himself, she was not injured, and it is said that the gift of sorcery has been taken away from her. At all events, the intelligent neighbours aver that she is not half so witch-like in appearance since she was singed" (408. III. 14). Concerning the sect of the Nagualists or "Magicians" of Mexico and Central America Dr. Brinton tells us much in his interesting little book (413). These sorcerers recruited their ranks from both sexes, and "those who are selected to become the masters of these arts are taught from, early childhood how to draw and paint these characters and are obliged to learn by heart the formulas, and the names of the ancient Nagualists, and whatever else is included in these written documents" (413. 17). We learn that "in the sacraments of Nagualism, woman was the primate and hierophant," the admission of the female sex to the most exalted positions and the most esoteric degrees being a remarkable feature of this great secret society (413. 33). Indeed, Aztec tradition, like that of Honduras, speaks of an ancient sorceress, mother of the occult sciences, and some of the legends of the Nagualists trace much of their art to a mighty enchantress of old (413. 34). In 1713, the Tzendals of Chiapas rose in insurrection under the American Joan of Arc, an Indian girl about twenty years of age, whose Spanish name was Maria Candelaria. She was evidently a leader of the Nagualists, and after the failure of the attempt at revolution disappeared in the forest and was no more heard of (413. 35). Dr. Brinton calls attention to the fact that Mr. E. G. Squier reports having heard, during his travels in Central America, of a "_sukia_ woman, as she was called by the coast Indians, one who lived alone amid the ruins of an old Maya temple, a sorceress of twenty years, loved and feared, holding death and life in her hands" (413. 36). There are many other instances of a like nature showing the important position assigned to girls and young women in the esoteric rites, secret societies, magic, sorcery, and witch- craft of primitive peoples. "_Boy-Bishop_." A curious custom attached itself to the day of St. Nicholas, of Patara in Lycia (died 343 A.D.), the patron saint of boys, after whom the American boys' magazine _St. Nicholas_ is aptly named. Brewer, in his _Dictionary of Phrase and Fable_, has the following paragraph concerning the "Boy-Bishop," as he is termed: "The custom of choosing a boy from the cathedral choir, etc., on St. Nicholas day (6th December), as a mock bishop is very ancient. The boy possessed episcopal honour for three weeks, and the rest of the choir were his prebends. If he died during the time of his prelacy, he was buried _in pontificalibus_. Probably the reference is to Jesus Christ sitting in the Temple among the doctors while he was a boy. The custom was abolished in the reign of Henry Eighth" (p. 110). Brand gives many details of the election and conduct of the "Boy-Bishops," and the custom seems to have been in vogue in almost every parish and collegiate church (408. I. 415-431). Bishop Hall thus expresses himself on the subject: "What merry work it was here in the days of our holy fathers (and I know not whether, in some places it may not be so still), that upon St. Nicholas, St. Katherine, St. Clement, and Holy Innocents' Day, children were wont to be arrayed in chimers, rochets, surplices, to counterfeit bishops and priests, and to be led with songs and dances from house to house, blessing the people, who stood grinning in the way to expect that ridiculous benediction. Yea, that boys in that holy sport were wont to sing masses, and to climb into the pulpit to preach (no doubt learnedly and edifyingly) to the simple auditory. And this was so really done, that in the cathedral church of Salisbury (unless it be lately defaced) there is a perfect monument of one of these Boy-Bishops (who died in the time of his young pontificality), accoutred in his episcopal robes, still to be seen. A fashion that lasted until the later times of King Henry the Eighth, who, in 1541, by his solemn Proclamation, printed by Thomas Bertlet, the king's printer, _cum privilegio_, straitly forbad the practice." When King Edward First was on his way to Scotland, in 1299, we are told, "he permitted one of these Boy-Bishops to say vespers before him in his Chapel at Heton, near Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and made a considerable present to the said bishop, and certain other boys that came and sang with him on the occasion, on the 7th of December, the day after St. Nicholas's Day" (408. I. 422). The records of the churches contain many particulars of the election, duties, and regalia of these boy-bishops, whence it would appear that expense and ceremony were not spared on these occasions. Another boy-bishop was paid "thirteen shillings and sixpence for singing before King Edward the Third, in his chamber, on the day of the Holy Innocents" (408. I. 428). The Boy-Bishop of Salisbury, whose service set to music is printed in the _Processionale et usum insignis et preclare Ecclesie Sarum,_ 1566, is actually said "to have had the power of disposing of such prebends there as happened to fall vacant during the days of his episcopacy" (408. I. 424). With the return of Catholicism under Mary, as Brand remarks, the Boy-Bishop was revived, for we find an edict of the Bishop of London, issued Nov. 13, 1554, to all the clergy of his diocese, to the effect that "they should have a Boy-Bishop in procession," and Warton notes that "one of the child-bishop's songs, as it was sung before the Queen's Majesty, in her privy chamber; at her manor of St. James in the Field's on St. Nicholas's Day, and Innocents' Day, 1555, by the child-bishop of St. Paul's, with his company, was printed that year in London, containing a fulsome panegyric on the queen's devotions, comparing her to Judith, Esther, the Queen of Sheba, and the Virgin Mary" (408. I. 429-430). The places at which the ceremonies of the Boy-Bishop have been particularly noted are: Canterbury, Eton, St. Paul's, London, Colchester, Winchester, Salisbury, Westminster, Lambeth, York, Beverly, Rotherham, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, etc. The Boy-Bishop was known also in Spain and in France; in the latter country he was called Pape-Colas. In Germany, at the Council of Salzburg, in 1274, on account of the scandals they gave rise to, the _ludi noxii quos vulgaris eloquentia_ Episcopatus Puerorum _appellat,_ were placed under the ban (408. I. 426). It would appear from the mention of "children strangely decked and apparelled to counterfeit priests, bishops, and women," that on these occasions "divine service was not only performed by boys, but by little girls," and "there is an injunction given to the Benedictine Nunnery of Godstowe in Oxfordshire, by Archbishop Peckham, in the year 1278, that on Innocents' Day the public prayers should not any more be said in the church of that monastery _per parvulas, i.e._ little girls" (408. I. 428). Though with the Protestantism of Elizabeth the Boy-Bishop and his revels were put down by the authorities, they continued to survive, in some places at least, the end of her reign. Puttenham, in his _Art of Poesie_ (1589), observes: "On St. Nicholas's night, commonly, the scholars of the country make them a bishop, who, like a foolish boy, goeth about blessing and preaching with such childish terms as make the people laugh at his foolish counterfeit speeches" (408. 427). Brand recognizes in the _iter ad montem_ of the scholars at Eton the remnants of the ceremonies of the Boy-Bishop and his associates (408. 432); and indeed a passage which he cites from the _Status Scholæ Etonensis_ (1560) shows that "in the Papal times the Eton scholars (to avoid interfering, as it should seem, with the boy-bishop of the college there on St. Nicholas's Day) elected _their_ boy-bishop on St. Hugh's Day, in the month of November." In the statutes (1518) of St. Paul's School, we meet with the following: "All these children shall every Childermas Day come to Pauli's Church, and hear the Child-bishop sermon; and after he be at the high mass, and each of them offer a 1_d_. to the Child-bishop, and with them the masters and surveyors of the school." Brand quotes Strype, the author of the _Ecclesiastical Memorials_, as observing: "I shall only remark, that there might be this at least said in favour of this old custom, that it gave a spirit to the children; and the hopes that they might one time or other attain to the real mitre made them mind their books." In his poem, _The Boy and the Angel_, Robert Browning tells how Theocrite, the boy-craftsman, sweetly praised God amid his weary toil. On Easter Day he wished he might praise God as Pope, and the angel Gabriel took the boy's place in the workshop, while the latter became Pope in Rome. But the new. Pope sickened of the change, and God himself missed the welcome praise of the happy boy. So back went the Pope to the workshop and boyhood, and praise rose up to God as of old. Somewhat different from the poet's story is the tale of the lama of Tibet, a real boy-pope. The Grand Lama, or Pope, is looked upon as an incarnation of Buddha and as immortal, never suffering death, but merely transmigration (100. 499). Among various peoples, the child has occupied all sacerdotal positions from acolyte to pope--priest he has been, not in barbarism alone, but in the midst of culture and civilization, where often the jest begun has ended in sober earnest. In the ecclesiastical, as well as in the secular, kingdom, the child has often come to his throne when "young in years, but in sage counsel old." CHAPTER XXIV. THE CHILD AS HERO, ADVENTURER, ETC. O wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother!--_Shakespeare._ Who can foretell for what high cause This Darling of the Gods was born?--_Marvell._ The haughty eye shall seek in vain What innocence beholds; No cunning finds the keys of heaven, No strength its gate unfolds. Alone to guilelessness and love That gate shall open fall; The mind of pride is nothingness, The childlike heart is all.--_Whittier._ Carlyle has said: "The History of the World is the Biography of Great Men." He might have added, that in primitive times much of the History of the World is the Biography of Great Children. Andrew Lang, in his edition of _Perrault's Tales,_ speaking of _Le Petit Poucet_ (Hop o' My Thumb), says: "While these main incidents of Hop o' My Thumb are so widely current, the general idea of a small and tricksy being is found frequently, from the Hermes of the Homeric Hymn to the Namaqua Heitsi Eibib, the other _Poucet_, or Tom Thumb, and the Zulu Uhlakanyana. Extraordinary precocity, even from the day of birth, distinguishes these beings (as Indra and Hermes) in _myth._ In _Marchen_, it is rather their smallness and astuteness than their youth that commands admiration, though they are often very precocious. The general sense of the humour of 'infant prodigies' is perhaps the origin of these romances" (p. ex.). This world-homage to childhood finds apt expression in the verses of Mrs. Darmesteter:-- "Laying at the children's feet Each his kingly crown, Each, the conquering power to greet, Laying humbly down. Sword and sceptre as is meet." All over the globe we find wonder-tales of childhood, stories of the great deeds of children, whose venturesomeness has saved whole communities from destruction, whose heroism has rid the world of giants and monsters of every sort, whose daring travels and excursions into lands or skies unknown have resulted in the great increase of human knowledge and the advancement of culture and civilization. In almost all departments of life the child-hero has left his mark, and there is much to tell of his wonderful achievements. _Finnish Child-Heroes_. In Finnish story we meet with _Pikku mies_, the dwarf-god, and in Altaic legend the child _Kan Püdai_, who was fed upon two hundred hares, who tames wild animals, makes himself a bow and bow-string, and becomes a mighty hero. In Esthonian folk-lore we have the tale of the seven-year-old wise girl, the persecution to which she was subjected at the hands of her stepmother, and the great deeds she accomplished (422. II. 144, 147, 154). But, outside of the wonderful infancy of Wäinämöinen, the culture-hero of the Finns, whom the _Kalevala_ has immortalized, we find some striking tributes to the child-spirit. In the closing canto of this great epic, which, according to Andrew Lang, tells, in savage fashion, the story of the introduction of Christianity, we learn how the maiden Marjatta, "as pure as the dew is, as holy as stars are that live without stain," was feeding her flocks and listening to the singing of the golden cuckoo, when a berry fell into her bosom, and she conceived and bore a son, whereupon the people despised and rejected her. Moreover, no one would baptize the infant: "The god of the wilderness refused, and Wäinämöinen would have had the young child slain. Then the infant rebuked the ancient demi-god, who fled in anger to the sea." As Wäinämöinen was borne away in his magic barque by the tide, he lifted up his voice and sang how when men should have need of him they would look for his return, "bringing back sunlight and moonshine, and the joy that is vanished from the world." Thus did the rebuke of the babe close the reign of the demi-gods of old (484. 171-177). _Italian_. On the other hand, it is owing to a child, says a sweet Italian legend, that "the gates of heaven are forever ajar." A little girl-angel, up in heaven, sat grief-stricken beside the gate, and begged the celestial warder to set the gates ajar:-- "I can hear my mother weeping; She is lonely; she cannot see A glimmer of light in the darkness, Where the gates shut after me. Oh! turn the key, sweet angel, The splendour will shine so far!" But the angel at the gate dared not, and the childish appeal seemed vain until the mother of Jesus touched his hand, when, lo! "in the little child-angel's fingers stood the beautiful gates ajar." And they have been so ever since, for Mary gave to Christ the keys, which he has kept safe hidden in his bosom, that every sorrowing mother may catch a glimpse of the glory afar (379. 28-30). _Persian Deed-Maiden_. _I fatti sono maschi, le parole femmine_,--deeds are masculine, words feminine,--says the Italian proverb. The same thought is found in several of our own writers. George Herbert said bluntly: "Words are women, deeds are men"; Dr. Madden: "Words are men's daughters, but God's sons are things"; Dr. Johnson, in the preface to his great dictionary, embodies the saying of the Hindus: "Words are the daughters of earth, things are the sons of heaven." In compensation for so ungracious a distinction, perhaps, the religion of Zoroaster, the ancient faith of Persia, teaches that, on the other side of death, the soul is received by its good deeds in the form of a beautiful maiden who conducts it through the three heavens to Ahura (the deity of good), and it is refreshed with celestial food (470. II. 421). That children should be brought into close relationship with the stars and other celestial bodies is to be expected from the _milieu_ of folk-life, and the feeling of kinship with all the phenomena of nature. _Moon-Children_. In his exhaustive essay on _Moon Lore_, Rev. Mr. Harley tells us that in the Scandinavian mythology, Mâni, the moon, "once took up two children from the earth, Bill and Hiuki, as they were going from the well of Byrgir, bearing on their shoulders the bucket Soeg, and the pole Simul," and placed them in the moon, "where they could be seen from the earth." The modern Swedish folk-lore represents the spots on the moon as two children carrying water in a bucket, and it is this version of the old legend which Miss Humphrey has translated (468. 24-26). Mr. Harley cites, with approval, Rev. S. Baring-Gould's identification of Hiuki and Bill, the two moon-children, with the Jack and Jill of the familiar nursery rhyme:-- "Jack and Jill went up the hill, To fetch a pail of water; Jack fell down and broke his crown, And Jill came tumbling after." According to Mr. Duncan, the well-known missionary to certain of the native tribes of British Columbia, these Indians of the far west have a version of this legend: "One night a child of the chief class awoke and cried for water. Its cries were very affecting--'Mother, give me to drink!' but the mother heeded not. The moon was affected and came down, entered the house, and approached the child, saying, 'Here is water from heaven: drink.' The child anxiously laid hold of the pot and drank the draught, and was enticed to go away with the moon, its benefactor. They took an underground passage till they got quite clear of the village, and then ascended to heaven" (468. 35, 36). The story goes on to say that "the figure we now see in the moon is that very child; and also the little round basket which it had in its hand when it went to sleep appears there." The Rev. George Turner reports a Polynesian myth from the Samoan Islands, in which the moon is represented as coming down one evening and picking up a woman, and her child, who was beating out bark in order to make some of the native cloth. There was a famine in the land; and "the moon was just rising, and it reminded her of a great bread-fruit. Looking up to it, she said, 'Why cannot you come down and let my child have a bit of you?' The moon was indignant at the idea of being eaten, came down forthwith, and took her up, child, board, mallet, and all." To this day the Samoans, looking at the moon, exclaim: "Yonder is Sina and her child, and her mallet and board." Related myths are found in the Tonga Islands and the Hervey Archipelago (468. 59). The Eskimo of Greenland believed that the sun and the moon were originally human beings, brother and sister. The story is that "they were playing with others at children's games in the dark, when _Malina_, being teased in a shameful manner by her brother _Anninga_, smeared her hands with the soot of the lamp, and rubbed them over the face and hands of her persecutor, that she might recognize him by daylight. Hence arise the spots in the moon. _Malina_ rushed to save herself by flight, but her brother followed at her heels. At length she flew upwards, and became the sun. _Anninga_, followed her, and became the moon; but being unable to mount so high he runs continually round the sun in hopes of some time surprising her" (468. 34). There are many variants of this legend in North and in Central America. In her little poem _The Children in the Moon_, Miss Humphrey has versified an old folk-belief that the "tiny cloudlets flying across the moon's shield of silver" are a little lad and lass with a pole across their shoulders, at the end of which is swinging a water-bucket. These children, it is said, used to wander by moonlight to a well in the northward on summer nights to get a pail of water, until the moon snatched them up and "set them forever in the middle of his light," so that-- "Children, ay, and children's children, Should behold my babes on high; And my babes should smile forever, Calling others to the sky!" Thus it is that-- "Never is the bucket empty, Never are the children old, Ever when the moon is shining We the children may behold" (224. 23-25). In Whittier's _Child Life_, this poem is given as "from the Scandinavian," with the following additional stanzas:-- "Ever young and ever little, Ever sweet and ever fair! When thou art a man, my darling, Still the children will be there. "Ever young and ever little, They will smile when thou art old; When thy locks are thin and silver, Theirs will still be shining gold. "They will haunt thee from their heaven, Softly beckoning down the gloom; Smiling in eternal sweetness On thy cradle, on thy tomb" (379. 115-117). The Andaman Islanders say that the sun is the wife of the moon, and the stars are their children--boys and girls--who go to sleep during the day, and are therefore not seen of men (498. 92). The sun is termed chä'n'a bo'do, "Mother Sun"; the moon, _mai'a 'o-gar_, "Mr. Moon" (498. 59). In many other mythologies the stars, either as a whole, or in part, figure as children. In the figurative language of ancient records the patriarchs are promised descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven, and in the Tshi language of Western Africa, the stars are termed _woh-rabbah_, from _woh_, "to breed, multiply, be fruitful," and _abbah_, "children." The South Australian natives thought the stars were groups of children, and even in the classic legends of Greece and Rome more than one child left earth to shine in heaven as a star. In the belief of the natives of the Hervey Islands, in the South Pacific, the double star µ¹ and µ² _Scorpii_ is a brother and sister, twins, who, fleeing from a scolding mother, leapt up into the sky. The bright stars [Greek: _m_] and [Greek: _l_] _Scorpii_ are their angry parents who follow in pursuit, but never succeed in overtaking their runaway children, who, clinging close together,--for they were very fond of each other,--flee on and on through the blue sky. The girl, who is the elder, is called _Inseparable_, and Mr. Gill tells us that a native preacher, alluding to this favourite story, declared, with a happy turn of speech, that "Christ and the Christian should be like these twin stars, ever linked together, come life, come death." He could scarcely have chosen a more appropriate figure. The older faith that was dying lent the moral of its story to point the eloquence of the new (458. 40-43). _Hindu Child-Heroes_. In the Rig-Veda we have the story of the three brothers, the youngest of whom, Tritas, is quite a child, but accomplishes wonderful things and evinces more than human knowledge; also the tale of Vikramâdityas, the wise child (422. II. 136). In the interesting collection of Bengalese folk-tales by Rev. Lal Behari Day we find much that touches upon childhood: The story of the "Boy whom Seven Mothers Suckled," and his wonderful deeds in the country of the Rakshasis (cannibals)--how he obtained the bird with whose life was bound up that of the wicked queen, and so brought about her death; the tale of the "Boy with the Moon on his Forehead"--how he rescued the beautiful Lady Pushpavati from the power of the Rakshasis over-sea! We have also the wonder-tales of Buddha. In a tale of the Panjâb, noted by Temple (542. II. xvi.), "a couple of gods, as children, eat up at a sitting a meal meant for 250,000 people"; and in a Little Russian story "a mother had a baby of extraordinary habits. When alone, he jumped out of the cradle, no longer a baby, but a bearded old man, gobbled up the food out of the store, and then lay down again a screeching babe." He was finally exorcised (258. 119). A huge appetite is a frequent characteristic of changelings in fairy-stories (258.108). _Japanese Child-Heroes_. The hero of Japanese boys is Kintaro, the "Wild Baby," the "Golden Darling." Companionless he played with the animals, put his arm around their necks, and rode upon their backs. Of him we are told: "He was prince of the forest; the rabbits, wild boars, squirrels and pheasants and hawks, were his servants and messengers." He is the apotheosis of the child in Japan, "the land of the holy gods," as its natives proudly termed it (245.121). Another boy-hero is Urashima, who visited Elysium in a fishing-boat. A third phenomenal child of Japanese story is "Peach Darling," who, while yet a baby, lifted the wash-tub and balanced the kettle on his head (245. 62). We must remember, however, that the Japanese call their beautiful country "the land of the holy gods," and the whole nation makes claim to a divine ancestry. Visits to the other world, the elfin-land, etc., are found all over the world. _German._ In Germany and Austria we have the stories of (258. 140-160): The girl who stole the serpent-king's crown; the Pomeranian farmer's boy who, after quenching his thirst with the brown beer of the fairies, tried to run off with the can of pure silver in which it was contained (in a Cornish legend, however, the farmer's boy pockets one of the rich silver goblets which stood on the tables in the palace of the king of the piskies, or fairies, and proves the truth of the story he has afterwards to tell by producing the goblet, "which remained in the boy's family for generations, though unfortunately it is no longer forthcoming for the satisfaction of those who may still be sceptical." A like origin has been suggested for the celebrated "Luck of Edenhall," and the "Horn of Oldenburg," and other like relics); the Carinthian girl, who, climbing a mountain during the noon-hour, entered through a door in the rock, and remained away a whole year, though it seemed but a little while; the baker's boy who visited the lost Emperor in the mountain--the Barbarossa-Otto legend; the baker's daughter of Ruffach, who made her father rich by selling bread to the soldiers in a great subterranean camp; the girl of Silesia, who is admitted into a cavern, where abides a buried army; and many more of a similar nature, to be read in Grimm and the other chroniclers of fairy-land (258. 216. 217). Among the Danish legends of kindred type we find the tales of: The boy who ran off with the horn out of which an elf-maiden offered him a drink, and would not return it until she had promised to bestow upon him the strength of twelve men, with which, unluckily, went also the appetite of twelve men (258. 144). _Celtic_. Among the Welsh tales of the child as hero and adventurer are: The visit of Elidorus (afterwards a priest), when twelve years old, to the underground country, where he stole a golden ball, which, however, the pigmies soon recovered; the youths who were drawn into the fairies' ring and kept dancing for a year and a day until reduced to a mere skeleton; the little farmer's son, who was away among the fairies for two years, though he thought he had been absent but a day; corresponding is the Breton tale of the girl who acts as godmother to a fairy child, and remains away for ten long years, though for only two days in her own mind (258. 135, 136, 168, 170). Very interesting is the Breton legend of the youth who undertook to take a letter to God,--_Monsieur le Bon Dieu_,--in Paradise. When he reaches Paradise, he gives the letter to St. Peter, who proceeds to deliver it. While he is away, the youth, noticing the spectacles on the table, tries them on, and is astonished at the wonders he sees, and still more at the information given him by St. Peter on his return, that he has been gazing through them five hundred years. Another hundred years he passes in looking at the seat kept for him in Paradise, and then receives the answer to the letter, which he is to take to the parish priest. After distributing in alms the hundred crowns he is paid for his services, he dies and goes to Paradise to occupy the seat he has seen. As Mr. Hartland remarks, "the variants of this traditional Pilgrim's Progress are known from Brittany to Transylvania, and from Iceland to Sicily" (258. 192). _Basque_. A remarkable child-hero tale is the Basque legend of the orphans, Izar (seven years old) and Lañoa (nine years old), and their adventures with Satan and the witches,--how Izar cured the Princess and killed the great toad which was the cause of her complaint, and how Lañoa defied Satan to his face, meeting death by his action, but gaining heaven (505. 19-41). _American Indian Child-Heroes_. In a legend of the Tlingit Indians concerning the visit of Ky'itlac', a man who had killed himself, to the upper country ruled by Tahit, whither go such as die a violent death, we read that-- "When he looked down upon the earth, he saw the tops of the trees looking like so many pins. But he wished to return to the earth. He pulled his blanket over his head and flung himself down. He arrived at the earth unhurt, and found himself at the foot of some trees. Soon he discovered a small house, the door of which was covered with mats. He peeped into it, and heard a child crying that had just been born. He himself was that child, and when he came to be grown up he told the people of Tahit. They had heard about him before, but only then they learnt everything about the upper world" (403. 48, 49). In a legend of the Kwakiutl Indians of Vancouver Island, a chief killed by a rival goes to the other world, but returns to earth in his grandson: "It was Ank-oa'lagyilis who was thus born again. The boy, when a few years old, cried and wanted to have a small boat made, and, when he had got it, asked for a bow and arrows. His father scolded him for having so many wishes. Then the boy said, 'I was at one time your father, and have returned from heaven.' His father did not believe him, but then the boy said, 'You know that Ank-oa'lagyilis had gone to bury his property, and nobody knows where it is. I will show it to you.' He took his father right to the place where it lay hidden, and bade him distribute it. There were two canoe-loads of blankets. Now the people knew that Ank'oa'lagyilis had returned. He said, 'I was with _ata_ [the deity], but he sent me back.' They asked him to tell about heaven, but he refused to do so." The boy afterwards became a chief, and it is said he refused to take revenge upon his murderer (404. 59). In the mythology of the Siouan tribes we meet with the "Young Rabbit," born of a piece of the clotted blood of the Buffalo killed by Grizzly Bear, which the Rabbit had stolen. According to legend the Rabbit "addressed the blood, calling it his son, and ordering it to become a little child, and when he had ordered it to advance from infancy, through boyhood to youth, and from youth to manhood, his commands were obeyed." The "Young Rabbit" kills the Grizzly and delivers his own father (480 (1892). 293-304). The legend of the "Blood-clot Boy" is also recorded from the narration of the Blackfeet Indians by Bev. John MacLean and Mr. Grinnell. The tale of his origin is as follows: "There lived, a long time ago, an old man and his wife, who had three daughters and one son-in-law. One day, as the mother was cooking some meat, she threw a clot of blood into the pot containing the meat. The pot began to boil, and then there issued from it a peculiar hissing noise. The old woman looked into the pot, and was surprised to see that the blood-clot had become transformed into a little boy. Quickly he grew, and, in a few moments, he sprang from the pot, a full-grown young man." Kûtoyîs, as the youth was named, became an expert hunter, and kept the family in food. He also killed his lazy and quarrelsome brother-in-law, and brought peace to the family. Of Kûtoyïs it is said he "sought to drive out all the evil in the world, and to unite the people and make them happy" (480(1893).167). Concerning the Micmac Indians of Nova Scotia, Mr. Band informs us (521.xlii.):-- "Children exposed or lost by their parents are miraculously preserved. They grow up suddenly to manhood, and are endowed with superhuman powers; they become the avengers of the guilty and the protectors of the good. They drive up the moose and the caribou to their camps, and slaughter them at their leisure. The elements are under their control; they can raise the wind, conjure up storms or disperse them, make it hot or cold, wet or dry, as they please. They can multiply the smallest amount of food indefinitely, evade the subtlety and rage of their enemies, kill them miraculously, and raise their slaughtered friends to life." A characteristic legend of this nature is the story of Noojekêsîgünodâsît and the "magic dancing-doll." Noojekêsîgûnodâsît,--"the sock wringer and dryer," so-called because, being the youngest of the seven sons of an Indian couple, he had to wring and dry the moccasin-rags of his elders,--was so persecuted by the eldest of his brothers, that he determined to run away, and "requests his mother to make him a small bow and arrow and thirty pairs of moccasins." He starts out and "shoots the arrow ahead, and runs after it. In a short time he is able to outrun the arrow and reach the spot where it is to fall before it strikes the ground. He then takes it up and shoots again, and flies on swifter than the arrow. Thus he travels straight ahead, and by night he has gone a long distance from home." His brother starts in pursuit, but, after a hundred days, returns home discouraged. Meanwhile, the boy travels on and meets a very old man, who tells him that the place from whence he came is a long way off, for "I was a small boy when I started, and since that day I have never halted, and you see that now I am very old." The boy says, however, that he will try to reach the place, and, after receiving from the old man a little box in return for a pair of moccasins,--for those of the traveller were quite worn out,--he goes his way. By and by the boy's curiosity leads him to open the box, and "As soon as he has removed the cover, he starts with an exclamation of surprise, for he sees a small image, in the form of a man, dancing away with all his might, and reeking with perspiration from the long-continued exertion. As soon as the light is let in upon him, he stops dancing, looks up suddenly, and exclaims, 'Well, what is it? What is wanted?' The truth now flashes over the boy. This is a supernatural agent, a _manitoo_, a god, from the spirit world, which can do anything that he is requested to do." The boy wished "to be transported to the place from whence the old man came," and, closing the box, "suddenly his head swims, the darkness comes over him, and he faints. When he recovers he finds himself near a large Indian village." By the aid of his doll--_weedapcheejul_, "little comrade," he calls it--he works wonders, and obtains one of the daughters of the chief as his wife, and ultimately slays his father-in-law, who is a great "medicine-man." This story, Mr. Rand says he "wrote down from the mouth of a Micmac Indian in his own language"; it will bear comparison with some European folk-tales (521. 7-13). Another story of boy wonder-working, with some European trappings, however, is that of "The Boy who was transformed into a Horse." Of this wonderful infant it is related that "at the age of eighteen months the child was able to talk, and immediately made inquiries about his elder brother [whom his father had 'sold to the devil']." The child then declares his intention of finding his lost brother, and, aided by an "angel,"--this tale is strangely hybrid,--discovers him in the form of a horse, restores him to his natural shape, and brings him safely home; but changes the wicked father into a horse, upon whose back an evil spirit leaps and runs off with him (521. 31). Other tales of boy adventure in Dr. Rand's collection are: "The History of Kïtpooseâgûnow" [i.e. "taken from the side of his mother," as a calf of a moose or a caribou is after the mother has fallen] (521. 62-80); "The Infant Magician"; "The Invisible Boy," who could change himself into a moose, and also become invisible (521. 101-109); "The Badger and his Little Brother" (521. 263-269), in which the latter helps the former decoy the water-fowl to destruction, but, repenting at the wanton slaughter, gives the alarm, and many birds escape; "The Little Boy who caught a Whale" (521. 280-281). The story of "The Small Baby and the Big Bird" contains many naïve touches of Indian life. The hero of the tale is a foundling, discovered in the forest by an old woman, "so small that she easily hides it in her mitten." Having no milk for the babe, which she undertakes to care for, the woman "makes a sort of gruel from the scrapings of the inside of raw-hide, and thus supports and nourishes it, so that it thrives and does well." By and by he becomes a mighty hunter, and finally kills the old culloo (giant bird) chief, tames the young culloo, and discovers his parents (521. 81-93). In the mythologic tales of the Iroquois, the child appears frequently as a hero and an adventurer. Mrs. Erminnie A. Smith, in treating of _The Myths of the Iroquois_ (534), relates the stories of the infant nursed by bears; the boy whom his grandmother told never to go west, but who at last started off in that direction, and finally killed the great frog (into which form the man who had been tormenting them turned himself); the boy who, after interfering with his uncle's magic wand and kettle, and thereby depriving the people of corn, set out and managed to return home with plenty of corn, which he had pilfered from the witches who guarded it,--all interesting child exploits. Among the myths of the Cherokees,--a people related in speech to the Iroquois,--as reported by Mr. James Mooney, we find a story somewhat similar to the last mentioned,--"Kânátî and Sélu: the Origin of Corn and Game" (506. 98-105), the heroes of which are _Inage Utasuhi,_ "He who grew up Wild," a wonderful child, born of the blood of the game washed in the river; and the little son of Kanati ("the lucky hunter") and Selu ("Corn," his wife), his playmate, who captures him. The "Wild Boy" is endowed with magic powers, and leads his "brother" into all sorts of mischief. They set out to discover where the father gets all the game he brings home, and, finding that he lifted a rock on the side of a mountain, allowing the animal he wished to come forth, they imitated him some days afterwards, and the result was that the deer escaped from the cave, and "then followed droves of raccoons, rabbits, and all the other four-footed animals. Last came great flocks of turkeys, pigeons, and partridges." From their childish glee and tricksiness the animals appear to have suffered somewhat, for we are told (506. 100): "In those days all the deer had their tails hanging down like other animals, but, as a buck was running past, the 'wild boy' struck its tail with his arrow, so that it stood straight out behind. This pleased the boys, and when the next one ran by, the other brother struck his tail so that it pointed upward. The boys thought this was good sport, and when the next one ran past, the 'wild boy' struck his tail so that it stood straight up, and his brother struck the next one so hard with his arrow that the deer's tail was curled over his back. The boys thought this was very pretty, and ever since the deer has carried his tail over his back." When Kanati discovered what had occurred (506. 100), was furious, but, without saying a word, he went down into the cave and kicked the covers off four jars in one corner, when out swarmed bedbugs, fleas, lice, and gnats, and got all over the boys. "After they had been tortured enough, Kanati sent them home, telling them that, through their folly," whenever they wanted a deer to eat they would have to hunt all over the woods for it, and then may be not find one. "When the boys got home, discovering that Selu was a witch, they killed her and dragged her body about a large piece of ground in front of the house, and wherever the blood fell Indian corn sprang up. Kanati then tried to get the wolves to kill the two boys, but they trapped them in a huge pound, and burned almost all of them to death. Their father not returning from his visit to the wolves, the boys set out in search of him, and, after some days, found him. After killing a fierce panther in a swamp, and exterminating a tribe of cannibals, who sought to boil the "wild boy" in a pot, they kept on and soon lost sight of their father." At "the end of the world, where the sun comes out," they waited "until the sky went up again" [in Cherokee cosmogony "the earth is a flat surface, and the sky is an arch of solid rock suspended above it. This arch rises and falls continually, so that the space at the point of juncture is constantly opening and closing, like a pair of scissors"], and then "they went through and climbed up on the other side." Here they met Kanati and Selu, but, after staying with them seven days, had to "go toward the sunset land, where they are still living." Dr. G. M. Dawson records, from the Shushwap Indians of British Columbia, the story of an old woman,--husbandless, childless, companionless,--who, "for the sake of companionship, procured some pitch and shaped from it the figure of a girl, which became her daughter," whom many adventures befell (425. 33). There is a very interesting Tahitian myth telling of the descent of little Tavai to the invisible world. Tavai was his mother's pet, and one day, for some slight fault, was beaten by the relatives of his father. This made Ouri, his mother, so angry, that Oema, her husband, out of shame, went down to Hawaii, the under-world, whither Tavai, accompanied by his elder brother, journeyed, and, after many adventures, succeeded in bringing to their mother the bones of Oema, who had long been dead when they found him (458. 250). Legion in number and world-wide in their affiliations are the stories of the visits of children and youths, boys and girls, to heaven, to the nether-world, to the country of the fairies, and to other strange and far-off lands, inhabited by elves, dwarfs, pigmies, giants, "black spirits and white." Countless are the variants of the familiar tale of "Jack and the Bean Stalk," "Jack, the Giant-Killer," and many another favourite of the nursery and the schoolroom. Tylor, Lang, Clouston, and Hartland have collated and interpreted many of these, and the books of fairy-tales and kindred lore are now numbered by the hundred, as may be seen from the list given by Mr. Hartland in the appendix to his work on fairy-tales. Grimm, Andersen, and the _Arabian Nights_ have become household names. For children to speak before they are born is a phenomenon of frequent occurrence in the lives of saints and the myths of savage peoples, especially when the child about to come into the world is an incarnation of some deity. Of Gluskap, the Micmac culture-hero, and Malumsis, the Wolf, his bad brother, we read (488. 15,16):-- "Before they were born, the babes consulted to consider how they had best enter the world. And Glooskap said: 'I will be born as others are.' But the evil Malumsis thought himself too great to be brought forth in such a manner, and declared that he would burst through his mother's side. And, as they planned it, so it came to pass. Glooskap as first came quietly to light, while Malumsis kept his word, killing his mother." Another version of the same story runs: "In the old time, far before men knew themselves in the light before the sun, Glooskap and his brother were as yet unborn. They waited for the day to appear. Then they talked together, and the youngest said: 'Why should I wait? I will go into the world and begin my life at once;' when the elder said: 'Not so, for this were a great evil.' But the younger gave no heed to any wisdom; in his wickedness he broke through his mother's side, he rent the wall; his beginning of life was his mother's death" (488. 106). Very similar is the Iroquois myth of the "Good Mind" and the "Bad Mind," and variants of this American hero-myth may be read in the exhaustive treatise of Dr. Brinton. Very interesting is the Maya story of the twins Hun-Ahpu and Xbalanque, sons of the virgin Xquiq, who, fleeing from her father, escaped to the upper world, where the birth took place. Of these children we are told "they grew in strength, and performed various deeds of prowess, which are related at length in the Popul Vuh [the folk-chronicle of the Quiches of Guatemala], and were at last invited by the lords of the underworld to visit them." The chiefs of the underworld intended to slay the youths, as they had previously slain their father and uncle, but through their oracular and magic power the two brothers pretended to be burned, and, when their ashes were thrown into the river, they rose from its waters and slew the lords of the nether world. At this the inhabitants of Hades fled in terror and the twins "released the prisoners and restored to life those who had been slain. The latter rose to the sky to become the countless stars, while Hunhun-Ahpu and Vukub-Hun-Ahpu [father and uncle of the twins] ascended to dwell, the one in the sun, the other in the moon" (411. 124). Born of a virgin mother were also Quetzalcoatl, the culture-hero of Mexico, and other similar characters whose lives and deeds may be read in Dr. Brinton's _American Hero-Myths_. From the Indians of the Pueblo of Isleta, New Mexico, Dr. A. S. Gatschet has obtained the story of the "Antelope-Boy," who, as the champion of the White Pueblo, defeated the Plawk, the champion of the Yellow Pueblo, in a race around the horizon. The "Antelope-Boy" was a babe who had been left on the prairie by its uncle, and brought up by a female antelope who discovered it. After some trouble, the people succeeded in catching him and restoring him to his mother. Another version of the same tale has it that "the boy-child, left by his uncle and mother upon the prairie, was carried to the antelopes by a coyote, after which a mother-antelope, who had lost her fawn, adopted the tiny stranger as her own. By an ingenious act of the mother-antelope the boy was surrendered again to his real human mother; for when the circle of the hunters grew smaller around the herd, the antelope took the boy to the northeast, where his mother stood in a white robe. At last these two were the only ones left within the circle, and when the antelope broke through the line on the northeast, the boy followed her and fell at the feet of his own human mother, who sprang forward and clasped him in her arms." The Yellow Pueblo people were wizards, and so confident were they of success that they proposed that the losing party, their villages, property, etc., should be burnt. The White Pueblo people agreed, and, having won the victory, proceeded to exterminate the conquered. One of the wizards, however, managed to hide away and escape being burned, and this is why there are wizards living at this very day (239. 213, 217). In the beginning, says the Zuni account of the coming of men upon earth, they dwelt in the lowermost of four subterranean caverns, called the "Four Wombs of the World," and as they began to increase in numbers they became very unhappy, and the children of the wise men among them besought them to deliver them from such a life of misery. Then, it is said, "The 'Holder of the Paths of Life,' the Sun-Father, created from his own being two children, who fell to earth for the good of all beings. The Sun-Father endowed these children with immortal youth, with power even as his own power, and created for them a bow (the Rainbow) and an arrow (the Lightning). For them he made also a shield like unto his own, of magic power, and a knife of flint.... These children cut the face of the world with their magic knife, and were borne down upon their shield into the caverns in which all men dwelt. There, as the leaders of men, they lived with their children, mankind." They afterwards led men into the second cavern, then into the third, and finally into the fourth, whence they made their way, guided by the two children, to the world of earth, which, having been covered with water, was damp and unstable and filled with huge monsters and beasts of prey. The two children continued to lead men "Eastward, toward the Home of the Sun-Father," and by their magic power, acting under the directions of their creator, the Sun-Father, they caused the surface of the earth to harden and petrified the fierce animals who sought to destroy the children of men (which accounts for the fossils of to-day and the animal-like forms of rocks and boulders) (424. 13). Of this people it could have been said most appropriately, "a little child shall lead them." Mr. Lummis' volume of folk-tales of the Pueblos Indians of New Mexico contains many stories of the boy as hero and adventurer. The "Antelope-Boy" who defeats the champion of the witches in a foot-race (302. 12-21); Nah-chu-ru-chu (the "Bluish Light of the Dawn"), the parentless hero, "wise in medicine," who married the moon, lost her, but found her again after great trouble (302. 53-70); the boy who cursed the lake (302. 108-121); the boy and the eagle, etc. (302. 122-126). But the great figures in story at the Pueblo of Queres are the "hero-twins," Maw-Sahv and Oo-yah-wee, sons of the Sun, wonderful and astonishing children, of whom it is said that "as soon as they were a minute old, they were big and strong and began playing" (302. 207). Their mother died when they were born, but was restored to life by the Crow-Mother, and returned home with her two children, whose hero-deeds, "at an age when other boys were toddling about the house," were the cause of infinite wonder. They killed the Giant-Woman and the Giant-Baby, and performed unnumbered other acts of heroism while yet in childhood and youth. To the same cycle seems to belong also the story of "The Magic Hide-and-Seek" (302.87-98). From the Pueblo of Sia, Mrs. Stevenson has recorded the story of the twins Ma'asewe and U'yuuyewe, sons of the Sun-Father by the virgin Ko'chinako; how they visited their father, and the adventures that befell them on their long journey; how they killed the wolf of the lake, the cougar, the bear, the bad eagles, burned the cruel witch, and other great enemies of the people, organized the cult societies, and then "made their home in the Sandia Mountain, where they have since remained." At the entrance to the crater, we are told, "the diminutive footprints of these boys are yet to be seen by the good of heart" (538. 43-57). Among the American Indians it is difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish the child-hero from the divinity whom he so often closely resembles. CHAPTER XXV. THE CHILD AS FETICH, DEITY, GOD. Childhood shall be all divine.--_Proctor_. A baby's feet, like sea-shells pink, Might tempt, should Heaven see meet, An angel's lips to kiss.--_Swinburne_. Their glance might cast out pain and sin, Their speech make dumb the wise, By mute glad godhead felt within A baby's eyes.--_Swinburne_. _The Child as Fetich._ It is easy to understand how, among barbarous or semi-civilized peoples, children born deformed or with any strange marking or defect should be looked upon as objects of fear or reverence, fetiches in fact. Post informs us regarding certain African tribes (127. I. 285, 286):-- "The Wanika, Wakikuyu, and Wazegua kill deformed children; throttle them in the woods and bury them. The belief is, that the evil spirit of a dead person has got into them, and such a child would be a great criminal. The Somali let misformed children live, but regard them with superstitious fear. In Angola all children born deformed are considered 'fetich.' In Loango dwarfs and albinos are regarded as the property of the king, and are looked upon as sacred and inviolable." Here we see at least some of the reasons which have led up to the eulogy and laudation, as well as to the dread suspicion, of the dwarf and the hunchback, appearing in so many folk-tales. We might find also, perhaps, some dim conception of the occasional simultaneity of genius with physical defects or deformities, a fact of which a certain modern school of criminal sociologists has made so much. Concerning albinos Schultze says (529. 82):-- "In Borneo albinos are objects of fear, as beings gifted with supernatural power; in Senegambia, if they are slaves, they are given their freedom, are exempted from all labour, and are cheerfully supported at others' expense. In Congo the king keeps them in his palace as 'fetiches which give him influence over the Europeans.' They are held in such respect that they may take whatever they will; and he who is deprived of his property by them, esteems himself honoured. In Loango they are esteemed above the Gangas (priests), and their hair is sold at a high price as a holy relic. Thus may a man become a fetich." At Moree, in West Africa, Ellis informs us, "Albinos are sacred to Aynfwa, and, on arriving at puberty, become her priests and priestesses. They are regarded by the people as the mouth-pieces of the goddess." At Coomassie a boy-prisoner was painted white and consecrated as a slave to the tutelary deity of the market (438. 49, 88). Coeval with their revival of primitive language-moulds in their slang, many of our college societies and sporting clubs and associations have revived the beliefs just mentioned in their mascots and luck-bringers--the other side of the shield showing the "Jonahs" and those fetiches of evil import. Even great actors, stock-brokers, and politicians have their mascots. We hear also of mascots of regiments and of ships. A little hunchback, a dwarf, a negro boy, an Italian singing-girl, a child dressed in a certain style or colour, all serve as mascots. Criminals and gamblers, those members of the community most nearly allied in thought and action with barbarous and primitive man, have their mascots, and it is from this source that we derive the word, which Andran, in his opera _La Mascotte_, has lifted to a somewhat higher plane, and now each family may have a mascot, a fetich, to cause them to prosper and succeed in life (390 (1888). 111, 112). One of the derivations suggested for this word, viz. from _masque_ = _coiffe_, in the expression _ne coiffe_, "born with a caul," would make the _mascot_ to have been originally a child born with the caul on its head, a circumstance which, as the French phrase _etre ne coiffe_, "to be born lucky," indicates, betokened happiness and good-fortune for the being thus coming into the world. In German the caul is termed "Glückshaube," "lucky hood," and Ploss gives many illustrations of the widespread belief in the luck that falls to the share of the child born with one. A very curious custom exists in Oldenburg, where a boy, in order to be fortunate in love, carries his caul about with him (326. I. 12-14). Other accidents or incidents of birth have sufficed to make fetiches of children. Twins and triplets are regarded in many parts of the world as smacking of the supernatural and uncanny. The various views of the races of mankind upon this subject are given at length in Ploss (326. II. 267-275), and Post has much to say of the treatment of twins in Africa. In Unyoro twins are looked upon as "luck-bringers, not only for the family, but for the whole village as well. Great feasts are held in their honour, and if they die, the house in which they were born is burned down." Among the Ishogo, from fear that one of the pair may die, twins are practically isolated and _taboo_ until grown up (127. I. 282, 284). To the Ovaherero, according to Ploss, "the birth of twins is the greatest piece of good-fortune that can fall to the lot of mortals," and such an event makes the parents "holy." Among this Kaffir people, moreover: "Every father of twins has the right to act as substitute for the village-chief in the exercise of his priestly functions. If the chief is not present, he can, for example, exorcise a sick person. Even the twin-child himself has all priestly privileges. For a twin boy there is no forbidden flesh, no forbidden milk, and no one would ever venture to curse him. If any one should kill a twin-child, the murderer's whole village would be destroyed. As a twin-boy, he inherits the priestly dignity at the death of the chief, and even when an older brother succeeds the father as possessor of the village, it is, however, named after the younger twin-brother, who is clothed with the priestly dignity" (326. II. 271-274). Among the Songish Indians of Vancouver Island, it is believed that "twins, immediately after their birth, possess supernatural powers. They are at once taken to the woods and washed in a pond in order to become ordinary men." The Shushwap Indians believe that twins retain this supernatural power throughout their lives (404. 22, 92). Of children whose upper teeth break out before the lower, some primitive tribes are in fear and dread, hastening to kill them, as do the Basutos, Wakikuyu, Wanika, Wazegua, and Wasawahili. Among the Wazaramo, another African people, such children "are either put to death, given away, or sold to a slave-holder, for the belief is that through them sickness, misfortune, and death would enter the house." The Arabs of Zanzibar, "after reading from the Koran, administer to such a child an oath that it will do no harm, making it nod assent with its head" (127. I. 287). From what has preceded, we can see how hard it is sometimes to draw the line between the man as fetich and the priest, between the divinity and the medicine-man. _Fetiches of Criminals._ It is a curious fact that St. Nicholas is at once the patron saint of children and of thieves,--the latter even Shakespeare calls "St. Nicholas's clerks." And with robbers and the generality of evil-doers the child, dead or alive, is much of a fetich. Anstey's _Burglar Bill_ is humorously exaggerated, but there is a good deal of superstition about childhood lingering in the mind of the lawbreaker. Strack (361) has discussed at considerable length the child (dead) as fetich among the criminal classes, especially the use made of the blood, the hand, the heart, etc. Among the thieving fraternity in Middle Franconia it is believed that "blood taken up from the genitals of an innocent boy on three pieces of wood, and carried about the person, renders one invisible when stealing" (361. 41). The same power was ascribed to the eating of the hearts (raw) of unborn children cut out of the womb of the mother. Male children only would serve, and from the confession of the band of the robber-chief "King Daniel," who so terrified all Ermeland in the middle of the seventeenth century, it would appear that they had already killed for this purpose no fewer than fourteen women with child (361. 59). As late as 1815, at Heide in Northditmarsch, one Claus Dau was executed for "having killed three children and eaten their hearts with the belief of making himself invisible" (361. 61). This eating of little children's hearts was thought not alone to confer the gift of invisibility, but "when portions of nine hearts had been eaten by any one, he could not be seized, no matter what theft or crime he committed, and, if by chance he should fall into the power of his enemies, he could make himself invisible and thus escape." The eating of three hearts is credited with the same power in an account of a robber of the Lower Rhine, in 1645. In the middle of the last century, there was executed at Bayreuth a man "who had killed eight women with child, cut them open, and eaten the warm, palpitating hearts of the children, in the belief that he would be able to fly, if he ate the hearts of nine such children" (361. 58). Only a few years ago (April, 1888), at Oldenburg, a workman named Bliefernicht was tried for having killed two girls, aged six and seven years. The examination of the remains showed that "one of the bodies not only had the neck completely cut through, but the belly cut open, so that the entrails, lungs, and liver were exposed. A large piece of flesh had been cut out of the buttocks and was nowhere to be found, the man having eaten it. His belief was, that whoever ate of the flesh of innocent girls, could do anything in the world without any one being able to make him answer for it" (361. 62). Strack has much to say of the _main-de-gloire_ and the _chandelle magique._ Widespread among thieves is the belief in the "magic taper." At Meesow, in the Regenwald district of Pomerania, these tapers are made of the entrails of unborn children, can only be extinguished with milk, and, as long as they burn, no one in the house to be robbed is able to wake. It is of the hands, however, of unbaptized or unborn children that these tapers were most frequently made. At Nürnberg, in 1577 and 1701, there were executed two monsters who killed many women in their pursuit for this fetich; at Vechta, in Oldenburg, the finger of an unborn child "serves with thieves to keep asleep the people of the house they have entered, if it is simply laid on the table"; at Konow, the fat of a woman with child is used to make a similar taper. In the Ukrain district of Poland, it is believed that the hand of the corpse of a five-year-old child opens all locks (361. 42). This belief in the _hand-of-glory_ and the _magic candle_ may be due to the fact that such children, being unbaptized and unborn, were presumed to be under the influence of the Evil One himself. Of the wider belief in the _chandelle magique_ and _main-de-gloire_ (as obtained from criminal adults) in Germany, France, Spain, etc., nothing need be said here. At Konow, in the Kammin district of Pomerania, "if a thief takes an unborn child, dries it, puts it in a little wooden box, and carries it on his person, he is rendered invisible to everybody, and can steal at will" (361. 41). The history of the robbers of the Rhine and the Main, of Westphalia, the Mark, and Silesia, with whom the child appears so often as a fetich, evince a bestiality and inhumanity almost beyond the power of belief. _Magic._ But it is not to the criminal classes alone that superstitions of this nature belong. Of the alchemy, magic, black art, sorcery, and "philosophy" of the Dark Ages of Europe, the practice of which lingered in some places well on into the seventeenth century, horrible stories are told, in which children, their bodies, their souls even, appear as fetishes. The baptism of blood is said still to be practised in parts of Russia by parents "to preserve their child from the temptations of the prince of darkness," and in 1874, "a country-school teacher of the Strassburg district, and his wife, upon the advice of a somnambulist, struck their own aunt with the fire-tongs until the blood flowed, with which they sprinkled their child supposed to have been bewitched by her" (361. 73). Here it is the blood of adults that is used, but the practice demands the child's also. According to C. F. A. Hoffmann (1817), there lived in Naples "an old doctor who had children by several women, which he inhumanly killed, with peculiar ceremonies and rites, cutting the breast open, tearing out the heart, and from its blood preparing precious drops which were preservative against all sickness." Well known is the story of Elizabeth Bathori, a Hungarian woman of the early part of the seventeenth century, who, it is said, receiving on her face a drop of blood which spurted from a waiting-girl whose ears she had severely boxed, and noticing afterward, when she wiped it away, that her skin at that spot appeared to be more beautiful, whiter, and finer than before, resolved to bathe her face and her whole body in human blood, in order to increase her charms and her beauty. Before her monstrous actions were discovered, she is thought to have caused the death of some 650 girls with the aid of accomplices (361. 46). _Fetiches of Religion._ The use of human blood in ritual has been treated of in detail by Strack, and in his pages many references to children will be found. He also discusses in detail the charge of the Anti-Semitics that the Jews kill little children of their Christian neighbours for the purpose of using their blood and certain parts of their bodies in religious rites and ceremonies, showing alike the antiquity of this libel as well as its baselessness. Against the early Christians like charges appear to have been made by the heathen, and later on by the Saracens; and indeed, this charge is one which is generally levelled at new-comers or innovators in the early history of Christian religion and civilization. Strack points out also that, during the contest of the Dominicans and Franciscans in Bern, in 1507 A.D., it was charged that the former used the blood of Jewish children, the eyebrows and hair of children, etc., in their secret rites (361. 68, 69). Brewer, who gives little credit to the stories, cites the account of numerous crucifixions of children alleged to have been carried out by Jews in various parts of Europe, for the purpose of using their flesh and blood in their rituals, or merely out of hatred to the Christian religion. The principal cases are: Andrew of Innspruck; Albert of Swirnazen in Podolia, aged four (1598); St. Hugh of Lincoln, aged eleven (1255); St. Janot of Cologne (1475); St. Michael of Sappendelf in Bavaria, aged four and one-half (1340); St. Richard of Pontoise, aged twelve (1182); St. Simon of Trent, aged twenty-nine months and three days (1475); St. William of Norwich, aged twelve (1137); St. Wernier (Garnier), aged thirteen (1227). The _Acta Sanctorum_ of the Bollandists give a long list of nameless children, who are claimed to have suffered a like fate in Spain, France, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Italy, etc. The later charges, such as those made in the celebrated case of the girl Esther Solymasi, whose death was alleged to have been brought about by the Jews of Tisza-Eszlar in Hungary, in 1882, are investigated by Strack, and shown to be utterly without foundation of fact, merely the product of frenzied Anti-Semitism (191. 171-175). The use of blood and the sacrifice of little children, as well as other fetichistic practices, have been charged against some of the secret religious sects of modern Russia. _Dead Children._ In Annam the natives "surround the beds of their children suffering from small-pox with nets, and never leave them alone, fearing lest a demon, in the form of a strange child, should sneak in and take possession of them" (397. 169, 242). This belief is akin with the widespread superstitions with respect to changelings and other metamorphoses of childhood, to the discussion of which Ploss and Hartland have devoted much space and attention, the latter, indeed, setting apart some forty pages of his book on fairy-tales to the subject. In Devonshire, England, it was formerly believed lucky to put a stillborn child into an open grave, "as it was considered a sure passport to heaven for the next person buried there." In the Border country, on the other hand, it is unlucky to tread on the graves of unbaptized children, and "he who steps on the grave of a stillborn or unbaptized child, or of one who has been overlaid by its nurse, subjects himself to the fatal disease of the grave-merels, or grave-scab." In connection with this belief, Henderson cites the following popular verses, of considerable antiquity:-- "Woe to the babie that ne'er saw the sun, All alane and alane, oh! His bodie shall lie in the kirk 'neath the rain, All alane and alane, oh! "His grave must be dug at the foot o' the wall, All alane and alane, oh! And the foot that treadeth his body upon Shall have scab that will eat to the bane, oh! "And it ne'er will be cured by doctor on earth, Tho' every one should tent him, oh! He shall tremble and die like the elf-shot eye, And return from whence he came, oh!" (469. 13). Among the natives of the Andaman Islands, after a dead child has been buried and the parents have mourned for about three months, the remains are exhumed, cleansed at the seashore by the father, and brought back to the hut, where the bones are broken up to make necklaces, which are distributed to friends and relatives as mementos. Moreover, "the mother, after painting the skull with _kòi-ob_--[a mixture of yellow ochre, oil, etc.] and decorating it with small shells attached to pieces of string, hangs it round her neck with a netted chain, called _râb--._ After the first few days her husband often relieves her by wearing it himself" (498. 74,75). According to Lumholtz, "a kind of mummy, dried by the aid of fire and smoke, is also found in Australia. Male children are most frequently prepared in this manner. The corpse is then packed into a bundle, which is carried for some time by the mother. She has it with her constantly, and at night sleeps with it at her side. After about six months, when nothing but the bones remain, she buries it in the earth. Full-grown men are sometimes treated in this manner, particularly the bodies of great heroes" (495. 278). Among the western Eskimo, "the mother who loses her nursling places the poor 'papoose' in a beautifully ornamented box, which she fastens on her back and carries about her for a long while. Often she takes the miserable mummy in her arms and makes it a kind of toilette, disinfecting it, and removing the mouldiness" (523. 102). According to the traveller Lander, a woman of Yoruba, in Africa, "carries for some time a wooden figure of her lost child, and, when she eats, puts part of her food to its lips"; and Catlin writes of the Mandan Indians: "They place the skulls of their dead in a circle. Each wife knows the skull of her former husband or child, and there seldom passes a day that she does not visit it with a dish of the best cooked food ... There is scarcely an hour in a pleasant day, but more or less of these women may be seen sitting or lying by the skull of their dead child or husband, talking to it in the most pleasant and endearing language they can use (as they were wont to do in former days), and seemingly getting an answer back" (Spencer, _Princ. of Soc.,_ 1882, I. 332, 326). Of the Nishinam Indians of California, Mr. Powers tells us: "When a Nishinam wife is childless, her sympathizing female friends sometimes make out of grass a rude image of a baby, and tie it in a miniature baby-basket, according to the Indian custom. Some day, when the woman and her husband are not at home, they carry this grass baby and lay it in their wigwam. When she returns and finds it, she takes it up, holds it to her breast, pretends to nurse it, and sings it lullaby songs. All this is done as a kind of conjuration, which they hope will have the effect of causing the barren woman to become fertile" (519. 318). Of certain Indians of the northern United States we read, in the early years of the present century: "The traders on the river St. Peter's, Mississippi, report that some of them have seen in the possession of the Indians a petrified child, which they have often wished to purchase; but the savages regard it as a deity, and no inducement could bribe them to part with it" (_Philos. Mag._ XXIX., p. 5). _Child-Worship._ As Count D'Alviella has pointed out, we have in the apocryphal book of the _Wisdom of Solomon_ the following interesting passage: "For a father afflicted with untimely mourning, when he hath made an image of his child soon taken away, now honoured him as a god, which was then a dead man; and delivered to those that were under him ceremonies and sacrifices." Mrs. Stevenson, in a Zuñi tale of motherly affection, relates how, in crossing a river in the olden time, the children clinging to their mothers were transformed into such ugly and mischievous shapes that the latter let many of them fall into the river. Some held their children close, and on the other side these were restored to their natural forms. Those who had lost their children grieved and would not be comforted; so two twin-brothers--sons of the sun, they are called--went beneath the waters of a lake to the dwelling of the children, who asked them to tell how it fared with their mothers. Their visitors told them of the grief and sorrow of the parents, whereupon the children said: "Tell our mothers we are not dead, but live and sing in this beautiful place, which is the home for them when they sleep. They will wake here and be always happy. And we are here to intercede with the sun, our father, that he may give to our people rain and the fruits of the earth, and all that is good for them." Since that time these children have been "worshipped as ancestral gods, bearing the name of kok-ko" (358. 541). This reminds us strikingly of the great Redeemer, of whom it was said that he is "an Advocate for us with the Father," and who himself declared: "In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you." In not a few mythologies we meet with the infant god in the arms of its mother or of some other woman. Of the goddess of pity in the Celestial Empire we read: "The Chinese Lady of Mercy in her statues is invariably depicted as young, symmetrical, and beautiful. Sometimes she stands or sits alone. Sometimes she holds an infant god in her lap. Sometimes she holds one, while a second plays about her knee. Another favourite picture and statue represents her standing on the head of a great serpent, with a halo about her face and brows, and spirits encircling her. In the sixth, she stands upon a crescent, awaiting a bird approaching her from the skies. In a seventh, she stands smiling at a beautiful child on the back of a water-buffalo. In an eighth, she is weeping for the sins of either humanity or the female portion of it. She is the patron saint of all her sex, and intercedes for them at the great throne of Heaven. She is a very old divinity. The Chinese themselves claim that she was worshipped six thousand years ago, and that she was the first deity made known to mankind. The brave Jesuit missionaries found her there, and it matters not her age; she is a credit to herself and her sex, and aids in cheering the sorrowful and sombre lives of millions in the far East." We also find "the saintly infant Zen-zai, so often met with in the arms of female representations of the androgynous Kwanon." Mr. C. N. Scott, in his essay on the "Child-God in Art" (344), is hesitant to give to many mythologies any real child-worship or artistic concept of the child as god. Not even Rama and Krishna, or the Greek Eros, who had a sanctuary at Thespiae in Boeotia, are beautiful, sweet, naive child-pictures; much less even is Hercules, the infant, strangling the serpents, or Mercury running off with the oxen of Admetus, or bacchic Dionysus. In Egypt, in the eleventh, or twelfth dynasty, we do find a family of gods, the triad, father (Amun), mother (Maut), child (Khuns). Mr. Scott follows Ruskin in declaring that classic Greek art gives no real child-concept; nor does Gothic art up to the thirteenth century, when the influence of Christianity made itself felt, that influence which made art lavish its genius upon the Madonna and the Santo Bambino--the Virgin and the Christ-Child. CHAPTER XXVI. THE CHRIST-CHILD. The holy thing that is to be born shall be called the Son of God.--_Luke_ i. 35. There is born to you this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is anointed Lord.--_Luke_ ii. 11. Great little One! whose all-embracing birth Lifts Earth to Heaven, stoops Heaven to Earth.--_Richard Crashaw._ Our Babe, to show his Godhead true, Can in his swaddling hands control the damnèd crew.--_Milton._ The heart of Nature feels the touch of Love; And Angels sing: "The Child is King! See in his heart the life we live above."--_E. P. Gould._ During the nineteen centuries that have elapsed since Jesus of Nazareth was born, art and music, eloquence and song, have expended their best talents in preserving forever to us some memories of the life and deeds of Him whose religion of love is winning the world. The treasures of intellectual genius have been lavished in the interpretation and promulgation of the faith that bears his name. At his shrine have worshipped the great and good of every land, and his name has penetrated to the uttermost ends of the earth. But in the brief record of his history that has come down to us, we read: "The common people heard him gladly"; and to these, his simple life, with its noble consecration and unselfish aims, appealed immeasurably more even than to the greatest and wisest of men. This is evident from a glance into the lore that has grown up among the folk regarding the birth, life, and death of the Christ. Those legends and beliefs alone concern us here which cluster round his childhood,--the tribute of the lowly and the unlearned to the great world-child, who was to usher in the Age of Gold, to him whom they deemed Son of God and Son of Man, divinely human, humanly divine. _Nature and the Christ-Birth._ The old heathen mythologies and the lore of the ruder races of our own day abound in tales of the strange and wonderful events that happened during the birth, passion, and death of their heroes and divinities. Europe, Africa, Asia, America, and the Isles of the Sea, bring us a vast store of folk-thought telling of the sympathy of Mother Nature with her children; how she mourned when they were sad or afflicted, rejoiced when they were fortunate and happy. And so has it been, in later ages and among more civilized peoples, with the great good who have made their influence felt in the world,--the poets, musicians, artists, seers, geniuses of every kind, who learned to read some of the secrets of the universe and declared them unto men. They were a part of Nature herself, and she heralded their coming graciously and wept over them when they died. This deep feeling of kinship with all Nature pervades the writings of many of our greatest poets, who "live not in themselves," but are become "a portion of that around them." In the beautiful words of Scott:-- "Call it not vain; they do not err Who say, that, when the poet dies, Mute Nature mourns her worshipper, And celebrates his obsequies; Who say, tall cliff, and cavern lone, For the departed bard make moan; That mountains weep in crystal rill; That flowers in tears of balm distil; Through his loved groves the breezes sigh, And oaks, in deeper groan, reply; And rivers teach their rushing wave To murmur dirges round his grave." And with a holier fervour, even, are all things animate and inanimate said to feel the birth of a great poet, a hero, a genius, a prophet; all Nature thrills with joy at his advent and makes known her satisfaction with the good that has fallen to the lot of earth. With such men, as Goethe said, Nature is in eternal league, watching, waiting for their coming. How Nature must have rejoiced on that auspicious day, nineteen centuries ago, when the Messiah, long looked for, long expected, came! The sacred historians tell us that the carol of angels heralded his birth and the bright star in the East led the wise men to the modest manger where he lay. Never had there been such gladness abroad in the world since "The morning stars sang together, And all the sons of God shouted for joy." Shakespeare, in _Hamlet,_--a play in which so many items of folk-lore are to be found,--makes Marcellus say:-- "It faded on the crowing of the cock. Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, The bird of dawning singeth all night long: And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad; The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallow'd and so gracious is the time," to which Horatio replies:-- "So have I heard, and do in part believe it." This belief in the holy and gracious season of the birth of Christ,--a return to the old ideas of the Golden Age and the kinship of all Nature,--finds briefest expression in the Montenegrin saying of Christmas Eve: "To-night, Earth is blended with Paradise." According to Bosnian legend, at the birth of Christ: "The sun in the East bowed down, the stars stood still, the mountains and the forests shook and touched the earth with their summits, and the green pine tree bent; heaven and earth were bowed." And when Simeon took the Holy Child from the mother's arms:-- "The sun leaped in the heavens and the stars around it danced. A peace came over mountain and forest. Even the rotten stump stood straight and healthy on the green mountain-side. The grass was beflowered with opening blossoms, and incense sweet as myrrh pervaded upland and forest, and birds sang on the mountain-top, and all gave thanks to the great God" (_Macmil-lan's Mag.,_ Vol. XLIII, p. 362). Relics of the same thoughts crop out from a thousand Christmas songs and carols in every country of Europe, and in myriads of folk-songs and sayings in every language of the Continent. And in those southern lands, where, even more than with us, religion and love are inseparable, the environment of the Christ-birth is transferred to the beloved of the human heart, and, as the Tuscans sing in their _stornelli_ (415. 104):-- "Quando nascesti tu, nacque un bel flore; La luna si fermò di camminare, Le stelle si cambiaron di colore," in Mrs. Busk's translation:-- "Thy birth, Love, was the birth of a fair flower; The moon her course arrested at that hour, The stars were then arrayed in a new colour," so, in other lands, has the similitude of the Golden Age of Love and the Golden Time of Christmas been elaborated and adorned by all the genius of the nameless folk-poets of centuries past. _Folk-Lore of Christmas Tide._ Scottish folk-lore has it that Christ was born "at the hour of midnight on Christmas Eve," and that the miracle of turning water into wine was performed by Him at the same hour (246. 160). There is a belief current in some parts of Germany that "between eleven and twelve the night before Christmas water turns to wine"; in other districts, as at Bielefeld, it is on Christmas night that this change is thought to take place (462. IV. 1779). This hour is also auspicious for many actions, and in some sections of Germany it was thought that if one would go to the cross-roads between eleven and twelve on Christmas Day, and listen, he "would hear what most concerns him in the coming year." Another belief is that "if one walks into the winter-corn on Holy Christmas Eve, he will hear all that will happen in the village that year." Christmas Eve or Christmas is the time when the oracles of the folk are in the best working-order, especially the many processes by which maidens are wont to discover the colour of their lover's hair, the beauty of his face and form, his trade and occupation,--whether they shall marry or not, and the like. The same season is most auspicious for certain ceremonies and practices (transferred to it from the heathen antiquity) of the peasantry of Europe in relation to agriculture and allied industries. Among those noted by Grimm are the following:-- On Christmas Eve thrash the garden with a flail, with only your shirt on, and the grass will grow well next year. Tie wet strawbands around the orchard trees on Christmas Eve and it will make them fruitful. On Christmas Eve put a stone on every tree, and they will bear the more (462. IV. 1790-1825). Beat the trees on Christmas night, and they will bear more fruit (448. 337). In Herefordshire, Devonshire, and Cornwall, in England, the farmers and peasantry "salute the apple-trees on Christmas Eve," and in Sussex they used to "worsle," _i.e._ "wassail," the apple-trees and chant verses to them in somewhat of the primitive fashion (448. 219). Some other curious items of Christmas folk-lore are the following, current chiefly in Germany (462. IV. 1779-1824):-- If after a Christmas dinner you shake out the table-cloth over the bare ground under the open sky, crumb-wort will grow on the spot. If on Christmas Day, or Christmas Eve, you hang a wash-clout on a hedge, and then groom the horses with it, they will grow fat. As often as the cock crows on Christmas Eve, the quarter of corn will be as dear. If a dog howls the night before Christmas, it will go mad within the year. If the light is let go out on Christmas Eve, some one in the house will die. When lights are brought in on Christmas Eve, if any one's shadow has no head, he will die within a year; if half a head, in the second half-year. If a hoop comes off a cask on Christmas Eve, some one in the house will die that year. If on Christmas Eve you make a little heap of salt on the table, and it melts over night, you will die the next year; if, in the morning, it remain undiminished, you will live. If you wear something sewed with thread spun on Christmas Eve, no vermin will stick to you. If a shirt be spun, woven, and sewed by a pure, chaste maiden on Christmas Day, it will be proof against lead or steel. If you are born at sermon-time on Christmas morning, you can see spirits. If you burn elder on Christmas Eve, you will have revealed to you all the witches and sorcerers of the neighbourhood (448. 319). If you steal hay the night before Christmas, and give the cattle some, they thrive, and you are not caught in any future thefts. If you steal anything at Christmas without being caught, you can steal safely for a year. If you eat no beans on Christmas Eve, you will become an ass. If you eat a raw egg, fasting, on Christmas morning, you can carry heavy weights. The crumbs saved up on three Christmas Eves are good to give as physic to one who is disappointed (462. IV. 1788-1801). It is unlucky to carry anything forth from the house on Christmas morning until something has been brought in. It is unlucky to give a neighbour a live coal to kindle a fire with on Christmas morning. If the fire burns brightly on Christmas morning, it betokens prosperity during the year; if it smoulders, adversity (246. 160). These, and many other practices, ceremonies, beliefs, and superstitions, which may be read in Grimm (462), Gregor (246), Henderson (469), De Gubernatis (427, 428), Ortwein (3l5), Tilte (370), and others who have written of Christmas, show the importance attached in the folk-mind to the time of the birth of Christ, and how around it as a centre have fixed themselves hundreds of the rites and solemnities of passing heathendom, with its recognition of the kinship of all nature, out of which grew astrology, magic, and other pseudo-sciences. _Flowers of the Christ-Child._ Many flowers are believed to have first sprung into being or to have first burst into blossom at the moment when Christ was born, or very near that auspicious hour. The Sicilian children, so Folkard tells us, put pennyroyal in their cots on Christmas Eve, "under the belief that at the exact hour and minute when the infant Jesus was born this plant puts forth its blossom." Another belief is that the blossoming occurs again on Midsummer Night (448. 492). In the East the Rose of Jericho is looked upon with favour by women with child, for "there is a cherished legend that it first blossomed at our Saviour's birth, closed at the Crucifixion, and opened again at Easter, whence its name of Resurrection Flower" (448. 528). Gerarde, the old herbalist, tells us that the black hellebore is called "Christ's Herb," or "Christmas Herb," because it "flowreth about the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ" (448. 281). Certain varieties of the hawthorn also were thought to blossom on Christmas Day. The celebrated Abbey of Glastonbury in England possessed such a thorn-tree, said to have sprung from the staff of Joseph of Arimathea, when he stuck it into the ground, in that part of England, which he is represented as having converted. The "Glastonbury Thorn" was long believed to be a convincing witness to the truth of the Gospel by blossoming without fail every Christmas Day (448. 352, 353). Many plants, trees, and flowers owe their peculiarities to their connection with the birth or the childhood of Christ. The _Ornithogalum umbellatum_ is called the "Star of Bethlehem," according to Folkard, because "its white stellate flowers resemble the pictures of the star that indicated the birth of the Saviour of mankind" (448. 553). The _Galium verum,_ "Our Lady's Bedstraw," receives its name from the belief that the manger in which the infant Jesus lay was filled with this plant (448. 249). The flight of the Holy Family into Egypt has attracted to it as a centre a large group of legends belonging to this category, many of which are to be found in Folkard and Busk. Of a certain tree, with leaves like the sensitive plant, in Arabia, we read that this peculiarity arose from the fact that when near the city of Heliopolis "Joseph led the dromedary that bore the blessed Mother and her Divine Son, under a neighbouring tree, and as he did so, the green branches bent over the group, as if paying homage to their Master." Near Mataria there was said to be a sycamore-tree, called "the Tree of Jesus and Mary," which gave shelter at nightfall to the Holy Family, and to this fact the Mohammedans are reported to attribute the great longevity and verdure of the sycamore (448. 558). A widespread tradition makes the "Rose of Jericho," called also "St. Mary's Rose," spring up on every spot where the Holy Family rested on their way to Egypt. The juniper owes the extraordinary powers with which it is credited in the popular mind to the fact that it once saved the life of the Virgin and the infant Christ. The same kind offices have been attributed to the hazel-tree, the fig, the rosemary, the date-palm, etc. Among the many legends accounting for the peculiarity of the aspen there is one, preserved in Germany, which attributes it to the action of this tree when the Holy Family entered the dense forest in which it stood (448. 230):-- "As they entered this wilderness, all the trees bowed themselves down in reverence to the infant God; only the Aspen, in her exceeding pride and arrogance, refused to acknowledge Him, and stood upright." In consequence of this "the Holy Child pronounced a curse against her; ... and, at the sound of His words, the Aspen began to tremble through all her leaves, and has not ceased to tremble to this day." According to a Sicilian legend, "the form of a hand is to be seen in the interior of the fruit of the pine," representing "the hand of Jesus blessing the tree which had saved Him during the flight into Egypt by screening Him and His mother from Herod's soldiers" (448. 496). We have from Rome the following tradition (415. 173):-- "One day the Madonna was carrying the Bambino through a lupine-field, and the stalks of the lupines rustled so, that she thought it was a robber coming to kill the Santo Bambino. She turned, and sent a malediction over the lupine-field, and immediately the lupines all withered away, and fell flat and dry on the ground, so that she could see there was no one hidden there. When she saw there was no one hidden there, she sent a blessing over the lupine-field, and the lupines all stood straight up again, fair and flourishing, and with ten-fold greater produce than they had at first." In a Bolognese legend the lupines are cursed by the Virgin, because, "by the clatter and noise they made, certain plants of this species drew the attentions of Herod's minions to the spot where the tired and exhausted travellers had made a brief halt" (448. 473). Another tradition, found over almost all Italy, says that when the Holy Family were fleeing from the soldiers of King Herod:-- "The brooms and the chick-peas began to rustle and crackle, and by this noise betrayed the fugitives. The flax bristled up. Happily for her, Mary was near a juniper; the hospitable tree opened its branches as arms and enclosed the Virgin and Child within their folds, affording them a secure hiding-place. Then the Virgin uttered a malediction against the brooms and the chick-peas, and ever since that day they have always rustled and crackled." The story goes on to tell us that the Virgin "pardoned the flax its weakness, and gave the juniper her blessing," which accounts for the use of the latter for Christmas decorations, --like the holly in England and France (448. 395). _Birds of the Christ-Child._ Several birds are associated with the infant Christ in the folk-lore of Europe and the East. In Normandy, the wren is called _Poulette de Dieu, Oiseau de Dieu,_ "God's Chicken," "God's Bird,"--corresponding to the old Scotch "Our Lady's Hen,"--because, according to legend, "she was present at the birth of the Infant Saviour, made her nest in his cradle, and brought moss and feathers to form a coverlet for the Holy Child" (539. 35). A Tyrolian folk-tale informs us that in days of yore the ravens were "beautiful birds with plumage white as snow, which they kept clean by constant washing in a certain stream." It happened, once upon a time, that "the Holy Child, desiring to drink, came to this stream, but the ravens prevented him by splashing about and befouling the water. Whereupon he said: 'Ungrateful birds! Proud you may be of your beauty, but your feathers, now so snowy white, shall become black and remain so till the judgment day!'" In consequence of their uncharitable action have the ravens continued black ever since (539. 92). In his childhood Christ is often represented as playing with the other little Jewish children. One Sabbath day He and His playmates amused themselves by making birds out of clay, and after the children had been playing a while, a Sadducee chanced to pass that way. The story goes on to tell that "He was very old and very zealous, and he rebuked the children for spending their Sabbath in so profane an employment. And he let it not rest at chiding alone, but went to the clay birds and broke them all, to the great grief of the children. Now, when Christ saw this, He waved His hands over all the birds He had fashioned, and they became forthwith alive, and soared up into the heavens" (539. 181). From Swainson we learn that in the Icelandic version of the legend the birds are thought to have been the golden plover "whose note 'deerin' sounds like to the Iceland word 'dyrdhin,' namely 'glory,' for these birds sing praise to their Lord, for in that He mercifully saved them from the merciless hand of the Sadducee." A Danish legend, cited by Swainson, accounts for the peculiar cry of the lapwing, which sounds like "Klyf ved! klyf ved!" i.e. "Cleave wood! cleave wood!" as follows (539. 185):--"When our Lord was a wee bairn, He took a walk out One day, and came to an old crone who was busy baking. She desired Him to go and split her a little wood for the oven, and she would give Him a new cake for His trouble. He did as He was bid, and the old woman went on with her occupation, sundering a very small portion of the dough for the promised recompense. But when the batch was drawn, this cake was equally large with the rest. So she took a new morsel of the dough still less than before, and made and baked another cake, but with the like result. Hereupon she broke out with 'That's a vast overmuckle cake for the likes o' you; thee's get thy cake anither time.' When our Lord saw her evil disposition, His wrath was stirred, and He said to the woman: 'I split your wood as you asked me, and you would not so much as give me the little cake you promised me. Now you shall go and cleave wood, and that, too, as long as the world endures!' With that he changed her into a weep (_vipa_) [lapwing]." Among the many legends of Isa, as Jesus is called by the Moslems, current among the Mohammedan peoples is a variant of the story of the clay-birds, as follows: "When Isa was seven years old, he and his companions made images in clay of birds and beasts, and Isa, to show his superiority, caused his images to fly and walk at his command." Clouston informs us that this story is also found in the Gospel of the Pseudo-Matthew, and in that of the Infancy (422. II. 408). In Champagne, France, legend makes the cuckoo to have issued from a Christmas log (462. I. 113), and in a Latin poem of the Middle Ages we are told that "the crossbill hatches its eggs at Christmas and the young birds fly in full plumage at Easter" (539. 67). _Animals._ At Christmas certain animals become more human, or express their joy at the birth of Christ in unmistakable fashion. There was an old Scottish belief that "at the exact hour of the Saviour's birth bees in their hive emitted a buzzing sound" (246. 147). According to a Breton folk-tale the ox and the ass can converse for a single hour, "between eleven and twelve on Christmas night." At the same hour, in German folk-lore, all cattle stand up; another version, however, makes them devoutly kneel (462. IV. 1481). Among the animals which folk-thought has brought into connection with the Christ-Child is the horse. A Russian legend tells us that the flesh of the horse is deemed unclean because "when the infant Saviour was hidden in the manger, the horse kept eating the hay under which the babe was concealed, whereas the ox not only would not touch it, but brought back hay on its horns to replace what the horse had eaten" (520. 334). From a Spanish-American miracle-play, we learn that the oxen and asses around the manger kept the little babe warm with their breath. In Ireland the following folk-beliefs obtain regarding the ass and the cow:-- "Joseph and Mary fled into Egypt with the infant Jesus, on an ass. Since that date the ass has had a cross on its back. This same ass returned to Nazareth seven years later with them on its back, travelling in the night, since which time it has been the wisest of all animals; it was made sure-footed for Christ to ride on his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and it remains the most sure-footed of all beasts. The ass and cow are looked upon as sacred, because these animals breathed upon the infant Jesus in the manger and kept the child warm. Old women sprinkle holy water on these animals to drive away disease" (480 (1893) 264). In _I Henry IV._ (Act II. Sc. 4) Falstaff says: "The lion will not touch the true Prince," and the divinity which hedged about the princes of human blood was ever present with the son of Joseph and Mary, whose divinity sprang from a purer, nobler fount than that of weak humanity. _The Holy Family._ We have several word-pictures of the Holy Family from the mouth of the folk. Among the hymns sung by the Confraternities of the Virgin in Seville, is one in which occurs the following figure (_Catholic World,_ XXIV. 19):-- "Es Maria la nave de gracia, San Jose la vela, el Nino el timon; Y los remos son las buenas almas Que van al Rosario con gran devocion." _i.e._ ["Mary is the ship of grace, St. Joseph is the sail, The Child (Jesus) is the helm, And the oars are the pious souls who devoutly pray."] One of the little Italian songs called _razzi neddu,_ recorded by Mrs. Busk, is even briefer:-- "Maruzza lavava, Giuseppe stinnia, Gesu si stricava Ca minna vulia." ["Sweet Mary was washing, Joseph was hanging out the clothes to dry, Jesus was stretching Himself on the ground, For so His mother willed."] A popular Spanish lullaby recorded by De Gubernatis in his great study of birth customs and usages, runs as follows in translation (500. 310):-- "The Baby Child of Mary, Now cradle He has none; His father is a carpenter, And he shall make Him one. "The Lady, good St. Anna, The Lord St. Joachim, They rock the Baby's cradle, That sleep may come to Him. "Then sleep, thou too, my baby, My little heart so dear; The Virgin is beside thee, The Son of God is near." Among the many versions and variants of the familiar child's prayer, "Now I lay me down to sleep," cited by the Countess Martinengo-Cesaresco (500. 202-213), is to be included the following, found among the Greeks of the Terra d'Otranto, in Italy:-- "I lay me down to sleep in my little bed; I lay me down to sleep with my Mamma Mary; the Mamma Mary goes hence and leaves me Christ to keep me company." Some of the most naïve legends are those which deal with the Child and His mother in the early years of life. "Our Lady's Thistle" (_Carduus Marianus_) receives its name "because its green leaves have been spotted white ever since the milk of the Virgin fell upon it, when she was nursing Jesus, and endowed it with miraculous virtues." A German tradition tells the same story of the _Polypodium vulgare_ (Marienmilch), based upon an older legend of the goddess Freia, many of whose attributes, with the lapse of heathendom, passed over to the central female figure of Christianity (448. 499). A similar origin of the white lily from the milk of Juno is given in Greek mythology (462. IV. 1671). In Devonshire, the custom of burning a faggot of ash at Christmas, is traced back to the fact that "the Divine Infant at Bethlehem was first washed and dressed by a fire of ash-wood" (448. 235). In Spain the rosemary is believed to blossom on the day of Christ's passion, and the legend accounting for this tells us that "the Virgin Mary spread on a shrub of rosemary the underlinen and little frocks of the infant Jesus." The peasantry believe that rosemary "brings happiness on those families who employ it in perfuming the house on Christmas night" (448. 526). _Joseph and Mary._ The suspicions entertained by Joseph (as indicated in the narrative of St. Matthew i. 19), when the birth of the child of Mary was first announced, have found deep expression in folk-thought. According to one Oriental legend, the infant Christ himself spoke, declaring that "God had created Him by His word, and chosen Him to be His servant and prophet" (547. 254). Another tradition, cited by Folkard, states that (448. 279): "Before the birth of our Saviour, the Virgin Mary longed extremely to taste of some tempting cherries which hung upon a tree high above her head; so she requested Joseph to pluck them. Joseph, however, not caring to take the trouble, refused to gather the cherries, saying sullenly, 'Let the father of thy child present thee with the cherries if he will!' No sooner had these words escaped his lips, than, as if in reproof, the branch of the cherry-tree bowed spontaneously to the Virgin's hand, and she gathered its fruit and ate it. Hence the cherry is dedicated to the Virgin Mary." In Finland the white side of the flounder "is said to have been caused by the Virgin Mary's laying her hand upon it," and an Eastern legend states that "the Angel Gabriel restored a sole to life, to assure the Virgin Mary of the truth of the miraculous conception." Ralston cites from the Kherson Government in Russia the following:-- "At the time of the Angelic Salutation, the Blessed Virgin told the Archangel Gabriel that she would give credit to his words, if a fish, one side of which had already been eaten, were to come to life again. That moment the fish came to life, and was put back into the water." This legend, accounting for the shape of the sole, finds perhaps its origin in "the old Lithuanian tradition that the Queen of the Baltic Sea once ate half of it and threw the other half into the sea again"--another example of the transference of older stories to the cycle of the Virgin Mary (520. 334). De Gubernatis records from Andalusia, in Spain, a legend which tells how the Holy Family, journeying one day, came to an orange-tree guarded by an eagle. The Virgin "begged of it one of the oranges for the Holy Child. The eagle miraculously fell asleep, and the Virgin thereupon plucked not one but three oranges, one of which she gave to the infant Jesus, another to Joseph, and the third she kept for herself. Then, and not till then, the eagle that guarded the orange-tree awoke" (448. 478). A beautiful pendant to this Spanish tale is found in the Roumanian story cited by Folkard:-- "The infant Jesus, in the arms of the Blessed Virgin, becomes restless, will not go to sleep, and begins to cry. The Virgin, to calm the Holy Child, gives Him two apples. The infant throws one upwards and it becomes the Moon; He then throws the second, and it becomes the Sun. After this exploit, the Virgin Mary addresses Him and foretells that He will become the Lord of Heaven" (448.222). In his recent book on _Childhood in Literature and Art,_ Mr. Scudder treats of the Christ-Child and the Holy Family in mediaeval and early Christian art and literature (350. 57-65, 83-99), calling special attention to a series of twelve prints executed in the Netherlands, known as _The Infancy of our Lord God and Saviour, Jesus Christ,_ in which we have "a reproduction of the childhood of the Saviour in the terms of a homely Netherland family life, the naturalistic treatment diversified by the use of angelic machinery" (350.91). _Moslem Lore of the Christ._ In the _Toldoth Jesú,_ which Clouston terms "a scurrilous Jewish 'Life of Christ,'"--the Hebrew text with a Latin translation and explanatory notes, appeared at Leyden in 1705, under the title _Historiæ Jeschuce Nazareni,_--the many wonders admitted to have been performed by Christ are ascribed to his "having abstracted from the Temple the Ineffable Name and concealed it in his thigh,"--an idea thought to be of Indian origin. Clouston goes so far as to say: "Legends of the miracles of Isa, son of Maryam, found in the works of Muslim writers, seem to have been derived from the Kurán, and also from early Christian, or rather _quasi_-Christian traditions, such as those in the apocryphal gospels, which are now for the most part traceable to Buddhist sources." One belief of the Mohammedans was that "the breath of the Messiah had the virtue of restoring the dead to life" (422. II. 395, 408, 409). In the first volume of the _Orientalist,_ Muhammed Casim Siddi Lebbe gives an account of the views of Arabian writers regarding the Virgin Mary and Jesus. Weil has also devoted a section of his work on Mussulman legends to "John, Mary, and Christ." When the child Jesus was born, we are told, the withered trunk of a date tree against which the Virgin leaned, "blossomed, and its withered branches were covered with fresh dates," while "a fountain of fresh water gushed forth from the earth at her feet" (547. 249-264). _The Christ-Child To-day._ Folk-stories and churchly legends tell us that the Christ-Child still walks the earth, and appears unto the saints and sinners of this world. Folkard reports a tradition from the Havel country in North Germany:-- "One Christmas Eve a peasant felt a great desire to eat cabbage and, having none himself, he slipped into a neighbour's garden to cut some. Just as he had filled his basket, the Christ-Child rode past on his white horse, and said: 'Because thou hast stolen on the holy night, thou shalt immediately sit in the moon with thy basket of cabbage.'" And so, we are told, "the culprit was immediately wafted up to the moon," and there he can still be seen as "the man in the moon" (448. 265). Brewer gives many of the churchly legends in which the Christ-Child appears to men and women upon earth, either in the arms of the Virgin, as he came to St. Agnes of Monte Pulciano and to Jeanne Marie de Maille, or as a glorious child, in which form he appeared alone to St. Alexander and Quirinus the tribune, in the reign of Hadrian; to St. Andrew Corsini, to call him to the bishopric of Fiesole; to St. Anthony of Padua, many times; to St. Cuthbert, to rebuke him (a child of eight years) for wasting his time in play; to St. Emiliana of Florence, with the same purpose; to St. Oxanna, and to St. Veronica of Milan (191. 59, 60). Among the rude peasantry of Catholic Europe belief in the visitations of the Christ-Child lingers, especially at the season of His birth. With them, as Milton thought,--"Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth." Yet not unseen, but seen often of the good and wise, the simple and innocent, and greatest of these visitants of earth is the Child Jesus, ever occupied about His Father's business. CHAPTER XXVII. PROVERBS, SAYINGS, ETC., ABOUT PARENTS, FATHER AND MOTHER. 1. Be a father to virtue, but a father-in-law to vice. 2. Bread is our father, but _kasha_ [porridge] is our mother. --_Russian_. 3. Call not that man wretched, who, whatever ills he suffers, has a child he loves.--_Southey_. 4. Children suck the mother when they are young, and the father when they are old. 5. Children see in their parents the past, they again in their children the future; and if we find more love in parents for their children than in children for their parents, this is sad and natural. Who does not fondle his hopes more than his recollections?--_Eötvös_. 6. Choose a good mother's daughter, though her father were the devil.--_Gaelic_. 7. Die Menschheit geben uns Vater und Mutter, die Menschlichkeit aber gibt uns nur die Erziehung. [Human nature we owe to father and mother, but humanity to education alone.]--_Weber_. 8. Die Mütter geben uns von Geiste Wärme, und die Väter Licht. [Our mothers give us warmth of spirit; our fathers, light.]--_Jean Paul_. 9. Die Mutter sagt es, der Vater glaubt es, ein Narr zweifelt daran. [The mother says it, the father believes it, the fool doubts it.]--_Pistorius._ 10. Dos est magna parentum Virtus. [The virtue of parents is a great dowry.]--_Horace._ 11. En olle kan beter söfen kinner erneren, as söfen kinner ên olle. [A parent can more easily maintain seven children than seven children one parent.]--_Low German._ 12. Fader og Moder ere gode, end er Gud bedre. [Father and mother are kind, but God is better.]--_Danish._ 13. He knows not what love is that hath no children. 14. He that loveth father and mother more than me is not worthy of me.--_Jesus._ 15. If poverty is the mother of crimes, want of sense is the father of them.--_La Bruyere._ 16. Keep thy father's commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother.--_Bible._ 17. La buena vida padre y madre olvida. [Prosperity forgets father and mother.]--_Spanish._ 18. Laus magna natis obsequi parentibus. [Great praise comes to children for having complied with the wishes of their parents.] --_Phoedrus._ 19. Look at home, father priest, mother priest; your church is a hundred-fold heavier responsibility than mine can be. Your priesthood is from God's own hands.--_Henry Ward Beecher._ 20. One mother is more venerable than a thousand fathers. --_Laws of Manu._ 21. Parents are the enemies of their children, if they refuse them education.--_Eastern Proverb._ 22. Parents' blessings can neither be drowned in water, nor consumed in fire. 23. Parents we can have but once.--_Dr. Johnson._ 24. Parents say: "Our boy is growing up." They forget his life is shortening.--_Afghan._ 25. Respect for one's parents is the highest duty of civil life. --_Chinese._ 26. The bazaar knows neither father nor mother.--_Turkish._ 27. The crow says: "O my son, whiter than muslin."--_Afghan._ 28. The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it.--_Bible._ 29. The house of the childless is empty; and so is the heart of him that hath no wife.--_Hitopadesa._ 30. The joys of parents are secret, and so are their griefs and fears.--_Bacon._ 31. These are my jewels.--_Cornelia (mother of the Gracchi)._ 32. They who have lost an infant are never, as it were, without an infant child.--_Leigh Hunt._ 33. To a father, when his child dies, the future dies; to a child, when his parents die, the past dies.--_Auerbach._ 34. To make a boy despise his mother's care is the straightest way to make him also despise his Redeemer's voice; and to make him scorn his father and his father's house, the straightest way to make him deny his God and his God's heaven.--_Ruskin._ 35. Unworthy offspring brag most of their worthy descent. --_Danish._ 36. Vom Vater hab'ich die Statur, Des Lebens ernstes Fuhren; Von Mutterchen die Frohnatur Und Lust zu fabulieren. [My father's stature I possess And life's more solemn glory; My mother's fund of cheerfulness, Her love for song and story.]--_Goethe._ 37. Was der Mutter an's Herz geht, das geht dem Vater nur an die Kniee. [What goes to the mother's heart goes only to the father's knees.]--_German._ 38. Wer nicht Kinder hat, der weiss nicht, warum er lebt. [Who has not children knows not why he lives.]--_German._ 39. Whoso curseth his father or his mother, his lamp shall be put out in obscure darkness.--_Bible._ 40. Whoso robbeth his father or his mother, and saith, It is no transgression, the same is the companion of a destroyer.--_Bible._ CHAPTER XXVIII. PROVERBS, SAYINGS, ETC., ABOUT THE CHILD, MANKIND, GENIUS, ETC. 1. Argument is like an arrow from a cross-bow, which has great force, though shot by a child.--_Bacon_. 2. Childhood often holds a truth in its feeble fingers, which the grasp of manhood cannot retain, and which it is the pride of utmost age to recover.--_Ruskin_. 3. Children always turn toward the light.--_Hare_. 4. Der grösste Mensch bleibt stets ein Menschenkind. [The greatest man always remains a son of man.]--_Goethe_. 5. Dieu aide á trois sortes de personnes,--aux fous, aux enfants, et aux ivrognes. [God protects three sorts of people,--fools, children, and drunkards.]--_French_. 6. Enfants et fous sont devins. [Children and fools are soothsayers.]--_French_. 7. Every child is, to a certain extent, a genius, and every genius is, to a certain extent, a child.--_Schopenhauer_. 8. Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.--_Jesus_. 9. Fede ed innocenzia son reperte Solo ne' pargoletti. [Faith and innocence we find Only in the children's mind.] --_Dante_. 10. Genius is the power of carrying the feelings of childhood into the powers of manhood.--_Coleridge_. 11. Genius must be born, and never can be taught.--_Dryden_. 12. Genius should be the child of genius, and every child should be inspired.--_Emerson_. 13. God is kind to fou [_i.e._ drunken] folk and bairns.--_Scotch_. 14. God watches over little children and drunkards.--_Russian_. 15. Heaven lies about us in our infancy.--_Wordsworth_. 16. I love God and little children.--_Jean Paul_. 17. If children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses.--_Goethe_. 18. Infancy presents body and spirit in unity; the body is all animated.--_Coleridge_. 19. Ingenio non ætate adipiscitur sapientia. [Wisdom comes by nature, not by age.]--_Latin_. 20. Kinder und Narren sprechen die Wahrheit. [Children and fools tell the truth.]--_German_. 21. Kloke kinner ward nit old. [Wise children don't live long.] --_Frisian_. 22. L'homme est toujours l'enfant, et l'enfant toujours l'homme. [The man is always the child, and the child is always the man.] --_French_. 23. Mankind at large always resembles frivolous children; they are impatient of thought, and wish to be amused.--_Emerson_. 24. Men are but children of a larger growth; Our appetites are apt to change as theirs, And full as craving, too, and full as vain.--_Dryden_. 25. Men are unwiser than children; they do not know the hand that feeds them.--_Carlyle_. 26. Men deal with life as children with their play, Who first misuse, then cast their toys away.--_Cowper_. 27. Men fear death as children to go into the dark.--_Bacon_. 28. Nature is full of freaks, and now puts an old head on young shoulders, and then a young heart beating under fourscore winters.--_Emerson_. 29. Nothing is so intelligible to the child, nothing seems so natural to him as the marvellous or the supernatural.--_Zacharia_. 30. Odi puerulos præcoci ingenio. [I hate boys of precocious genius.]--_Cicero_. 31. _on oi theoi philousin apothnaeskei neos_. [He whom the gods love dies young.]--_Menander_. 32. Poeta nascitur, non fit. [A poet is born, not made.]--_Latin_. 33. Prophete rechts, Prophete links, Das Weltkind in der Mitten. [Prophets to right of him, prophets to left of him, The world-child in the middle.]--_Goethe_. 34. So wise, so young, they say, do ne'er live long. --_Shakespeare_ (Rich. III. iii. 1). 35. Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.--_Jesus_. 36. The best architecture is the expression of the mind of man-hood by the hands of childhood.--_Ruskin_. 37. The birth of a child is the imprisonment of a soul.--_Simons_. 38. The boy's story is the best that is ever told.--_Dickens_. 39. The child is father of the man.--_Wordsworth_. 40. The childhood shows the man As morning shows the day.--_Milton_. 41. The wisest doctor is gravelled by the inquisitiveness of a child.--_Emerson_. 42. These moving things, ca'ed wife and weans, Wad move the very heart o' stanes.--_Burns_. 43. They who have lost an infant are never, as it were, without an infant child.--_Leigh Hunt_. 44. To be young is to be as one of the immortals.--_Hazlitt_. 45. Wage du zu irren und zu traumen: Hoher Sinn liegt oft im kind'schen Spiel. [Dare thou to err and dream; Oft deep sense a child's play holds.]--_Schiller_. 46. Wer darf das Kind beim rechten Namen nennen? [Who dare give the child its right name?]--_Goethe_. 47. Whilst we converse with what is above us, we do not grow old but grow young.--_Emerson_. 48. Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.--_Jesus_. 49. Ye are but children.--_Egyptian Priest (to Solon)_. CHAPTER XXIX. PROVERBS, SAYINGS, ETC., ABOUT THE MOTHER AND CHILD. 1. A child may have too much of its mother's blessing. 2. A kiss from my mother made me a painter.--_Benj. West._ 3. Ama sinhesten, ezduenac, ain zuna. [Who does not follow his mother will follow his stepmother, i.e. who will not hear must feel.]--_Basque_. 4. A mother curses not her son.--_Sanskrit_. 5. An ounce o' mother-wit is worth a pound o' clergy.--_Scotch_. 6. As if he had fallen out of his mother's mouth (i.e. so like his mother).--_Low German_. 7. Barmherzige Mütter ziehen grindige Töchter. [Compassionate mothers bring up scabby daughters.]--_German_. 8. Choose cloth by its edge, a wife by her mother.--_Persian_. 9. Das Kind, das seine Mutter verachtet, hat einen stinkenden Atem. [The child that despises its mother has a fetid breath.]--_German_. 10. Das Kind fällt wieder in der Mutter Schooss. [The child falls back into its mother's bosom.]--_German_. 11. Das Kind folgt dem Busen. [The child follows the bosom.]--_German_. 12. Die Mutter eine Hexe, die Tochter auch eine Hexe. [Mother a witch, daughter also a witch.]--_German_. 13. Die Tochter ist wie die Mutter. [Like mother, like daughter.]--_German_. 14. Es meinet jede Frau, ihr Kind sei ein Pfau. [Every woman thinks her child a peacock.]--_German_. 15. Es ist kein' so böse Mutter, sie zöhe gern ein frommes Kind. [There is no mother so bad but that she will bring up a good child.]--_German_. 16. Fleissige Mutter hat faule Tochter. [A diligent mother has a lazy daughter.]--_German_. 17. God pardons like a mother who kisses the offence into everlasting forgetfulness.--_Henry Ward Beecher_. 18. Happy is the boy whose mother is tired of talking nonsense to him before he is old enough to know the sense of it.--_Hare_. 19. He deceives thee, who tells thee that he loves thee more than thy mother does.--_Russian_. 20. He has faut [i.e. need] o' a wife that marries mam's pet. --_Scotch_. 21. He that is born of a hen must scrape for a living. 22. I have always found that the road to a woman's heart lies through her child.--_Haliburton_. 23. I would desire for a friend the son who never resisted the tears of his mother.--_Lacretelle_. 24. If the world were put into one scale and my mother into the other, the world would kick the beam.--_Lord Langdale_. 25. In a matter of life and death don't trust even your mother; she might mistake a black bean [nay] for a white one [yea].--_Alcibiades_. 26. lst eine Mutter noch so arm, so giebt sie ihrem Kinde warm. [However poor a mother is, she keeps her child warm.]--_German_. 27. It is not as thy mother says, but as thy neighbours say. --_Hebrew_. 28. Jedes Mutterkind ist schon. [Every mother's child is beautiful.]--_German_. 29. Keine Mutter tragt einen Bastart. [No mother bears a bastard.]--_German_. 30. La madre pitiosa fa la figluola tignosa. [A merciful mother makes a scabby daughter.]--_Italian_. 31. Like mother, like daughter. 32. Mai agucosa, filha preguicosa. [Diligent mother, idle daughter.]--_Portuguese_. 33. Mere piteuse fait sa fille rogneuse. [A merciful mother makes her daughter scabby.]-_French_. 34. Milk with water is still milk [i.e. though, your mother is bad, she is nevertheless your mother].--_Badaga_. 35. Mothers' darlings are but milksop heroes. 36. Mothers' love is the cream of love. 37. Muttertreu wird taglich neu. [Mother's truth keeps constant youth.]--_German_. 38. Mysterious to all thought, A mother's prime of bliss, When to her eager lips is brought Her infant's thrilling kiss.--_Keble_. 39. Nature sent women into the world that they might be mothers and love children, to whom sacrifices must ever be offered, and from whom none can be obtained.--_Jean Paul_. 40. No bones are broken by a mother's fist.--_Russian_. 41. No hay tal madre come la que pare. [There is no mother like her who bears.]--_Spanish_. 42. O l'amour d'une mere! amour quo nul n'oublie! Pain merveilleux, que Dieu partage et multiplie! Table toujours servie au paternel foyer! Chacun en a sa part, et tous l'ont tout entier. [O mother-love! love that none ever forgets! Wonderful bread, that God divides and multiplies! Table always spread beside the paternal hearth! Each one has his part of it, and each has it all!] --_Victor Hugo_. 43. One good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters. 44. One scream of fear from a mother may resound through the whole life of her daughter.--_Jean Paul_. 45. Seem I not as tender to him As any mother? Ay, but such a one As all day long hath rated at her child, And vext his day, but blesses him asleep. --_Tennyson_. 46. Sind die Kinder klein, so treten sie der Mutter auf den Schooss; sind die Kinder gross, so treten sie der Mutter auf das Herz. [When the children are small they tread upon the mother's breast; when they are large they tread upon the mother's heart.]--_German._ 47. So moder, so dogter. [Like mother, like daughter.]--_Frisian_. 48. Stabat Mater dolorosa Juxta crucem lacrymosa Quo pendebat Filius. [Sorrow-stricken stood the Mother Weeping by the cross On which hung her Son.] --_Mediaeval Latin Hymn_. 49. Tendresse maternelle toujours se renouvelle. [A mother's affection is forever new.]--_French_. 50. The child is often kissed for the mother's (nurse's) sake. 51. The elephant does not find his trunk heavy, nor the mother her babe.--_Angolese_ (Africa). 52. The future destiny of the child is always the work of the mother.--_Napoleon_. 53. The good mother says not "Will you?" but gives.--_Italian_. 54. The mother's heart is always with her children. 55. The mother's breath is aye sweet.--_Scotch_. 56. The mother knows best if the child be like the father. 57. The mother makes the house or mars it. 58. The nurse's bread is better than the mother's cake. --_Frisian_. 59. The prayer of the mother fetches her child out of the bottom of the sea.--_Russian_. 60. The watchful mother tarries nigh, Though sleep has closed her infant's eye.--_Keble_. 61. There is nothing more charming to see than a mother with her child in her arms, and there is nothing more venerable than a mother among a number of her children.--_Goethe_. 62. Though a mother be a wolf, she does not eat her cub's flesh.--_Afghan_. 63. Timidi mater non flet. [The coward's mother need not weep.]--_Latin_. 64. To a child in confinement its mother's knee is a binding-post. --_Hitopadesa_. 65. Unhappy is the man for whom his own mother has not made all mothers venerable.--_Jean Paul_. 66. Unless the child cries even the mother will not give it suck.--_Telugu_. 67. Wer ein saugendes Kind hat, der hat eine singende Frau. [Whoever has a suckling child, has a singing wife.]--_German_. 68. Wer dem Kinde die Nase wischt, kusst der Mutter den Backen. [Whoever wipes a child's nose kisses the mother's cheek.]--_German_. 69. What a mother sees coils itself up, but does not come out [i.e. the faults of her child].-_Angolese_ (Africa). 70. You desire, O woman, to be loved ardently and forever until death; be the mothers of your children.--_Jean Paul_. 71. Zu solchen Kindern gehort eine solche Mutter. [To such children belongs such a mother.]--_German_. CHAPTER XXX. PROVERBS, SAYINGS, ETC., ABOUT FATHER AND CHILD. 1. An dem Kind kennt man den Vater wohl. [The father is known from the child.]--_German_. 2. Bone does not let go flesh, nor father son.--_Angolese_. 3. Bose Kinder machen den Vater fromm. [Bad children make the father good.]--_German_. 4. Chi non ha figluoli non sa qualche cosa sia amore. [Who has not children knows not what love is.]--_Italian_. 5. Child's pig, but father's bacon. 6. Ein Vater ernahrt ehei zehn Kinder, denn zehn Kinder einen Vater. [One father can better nourish ten children, than ten children one father.]--_German_. 7. Fathers alone a father's heart can know.--_Young_. 8.Fathers first enter bonds to Nature's ends, And are her sureties ere they are a friend's. --_George Herbert_. 9.Fathers that wear rags Do make their children blind; But fathers that wear bags Do make their children kind. --_Shakespeare_ (King Lear, ii. 4). 10.Fathers their children and themselves abuse, That wealth a husband for their daughters choose. --_Shirley_. 11. Happy is he that is happy in his children. 12. Happy is the child whose father went to the devil. 13. Haur nizar-galeac aitari bizzarra thira. [The child that will cry, pulls at its father's beard.]--_Basque_. 14. He has of [i.e. is like] his father.--_Russian_. 15. He is a chip of the old block. 16. He is cut out of his father's eyes [i.e. very like his father].--_Frisian_. 17. He is the son of his father. 18. He is a wise child that knows his own father. 19. He that can discriminate is the father of his father.--_Veda_. 20. He that hath wife and children wants not business. 21. He that marries a widow and three children marries four thieves.--_Spanish_. 22. He that hath a wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.--_Bacon_. 23. He was scant o' news that told that his father was hanged. --_Scotch_. 24. He who hath but one hog makes him fat; he who hath but one son makes him a fool.--_Italian_. 25. It is a wise father that knows his own child.--_Shakespeare_ (Merch. of Venice, ii. 2). 26. Like father, like son.--_Arabic_. 27. Man sieht dem Kind an, was er fur einen Vater hat. [By the child one sees what sort of man his father is.]--_German_. 28. Many a father might say ... "I put in gold into the furnace, and there came out this calf."--_Spurgeon_. 29. Many a good father has a bad son. 30. On est toujours le fils de quelqu'un. Cela console. [One is always the son of somebody. That is a consolation.]--_French_. 31. Patris est filius. [He is the son of his father.]--_Latin_. 32. Such a father, such a son.--_Spanish_. 33. Tel pere, tel fils. [Like father, like son.]--_French_. 34. The child is the father of the man.--_Wordsworth_. 35. The child has a red tongue like its father. 36. The Devil's child, the Devil's luck. 37. The father can no more destroy his son than the cloud can extinguish by water the lightning which precedes from itself.--_Raghuvansa_. 38. The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.--_Bible_. 39. The glory of children are their fathers.--_Bible_. 40. The gods do not avenge on the son the misdeeds of the father. Each, good or bad, reaps the just reward of his own actions. The blessing of the parents, not their curse, is inherited.--_Goethe_. 41. The ungrateful son is a wart on his father's face; to leave it is a blemish, to cut it a pain.--_Afghan_. 42. The words that a father speaks to his children in the privacy of home are not heard by the world, but, as in whispering-galleries, they are clearly heard at the end and by posterity.--_Jean Paul_. 43. To a father, who is growing old, there is nothing dearer than a daughter.--_Euripides_. 44. To a father, when his child dies, the future dies; to a child, when his parents die, the past dies.--_Auerbach_. 45. Vinegar the son of wine [_i.e._ an unpopular son of a popular father].--_Talmud_. 46. Whoso wishes to live without trouble, let him keep from step-children and winter-hogs.--_Low German_. CHAPTER XXXI. PROVERBS, SAYINGS, ETC., ABOUT CHILDHOOD, YOUTH, AND AGE. 1. A' are guid lasses, but where do a' the ill wives come frae? --_Scotch_. 2. Age does not make us childish, as people say; it only finds us still true children.--_Goethe_. 3. Aliud legunt pueri, aliud viri, aliud senes. [Children read one way, men another, old men another.]--_Terence_. 4. A man at five may be a fool at fifteen. 5. A man at sixteen will prove a child at sixty. 6. An old knave is no babe. 7. A smiling boy seldom proves a good servant. 8. Auld folk are twice bairns.--_Scotch_. 9. Aus gescheidenen Kindern werden Gecken. [From clever children come fools.]--_German_. 10. Aus Kindern werden Leute, aus Jungfern werden Bräute. [From children come grown-up people, from maidens come brides.] --_German_. 11. Better bairns greet [_i.e._ weep] than bearded men. --_Scotch_. 12. Childhood and youth see all the world in persons. --_Emerson_. 13. Childhood often holds a truth in its feeble fingers, which the grasp of manhood cannot retain, and which it is the pride of utmost age to recover.--_Ruskin_. 14. Childhood shows the man, as morning shows the day.--_Milton_. 15. Der Jüngling kämpft, damit der Greis geniesse. [The youth fights, in order that the old man may enjoy.]--_Goethe_. 16. Een diamant van een dochter wordt een glas van eene vrouw. [A diamond of a daughter becomes a glass of a wife.]--_Dutch_. 17. Eident [_i.e._ diligent] youth makes easy age.--_Scotch_. 18. Ewig jung zu bleiben Ist, wie Diehter schreiben, Höchstes Lebensgut; Willst du es erwerben, Musst du frühe sterben. [To remain ever-young Is, as poets write, The highest good of life; If thou wouldst acquire it, Thou must die young.]--_Rückert_. 19. Fanciulli piccioli, dolor di testa; fanciulli grandi dolor di cuore. [Little children bring head-ache, big children, heart-ache.] --_Italian_. 20. Giovine santo, diavolo vecchio. [Young saint, old devil.] --_Italian_. 21. Hang a thief when he's young, and he'll no steal when he's auld.--_Scotch_. 22. Happy child! the cradle is still to thee an infinite space; once grown into a man, and the boundless world will be too small to thee.--_Schiller_. 23. He cometh to you with a tale which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney-corner.--_Sir Philip Sidney_. 24. He who mocks the infant's faith Shall be mocked in age and death.--_Blake_. 25. How little is the promise of the child fulfilled in the man! --_Ovid_. 26. If you lie upon roses when young, you will lie upon thorns when old. 27. Ihr Kinder, lernet jetzt genug, Ihr lernt nichts mehr in alten Zeiten. [Ye children, learn enough now; When time has passed, you will learn nothing more.]--_Pfeffel_. 28. In childhood a linen rag buys friendship.--_Angolese_. 29. In childhood be modest, in youth temperate, in manhood just, and in old age prudent.--_Socrates_. 30. In the opening bud you see the youthful thorns.--_Talmud_. 31. In youth one has tears without grief; in age, grief without tears.--_Jean Paul._ 32. Invention is the talent of youth, and judgment of age. --_Swift._ 33. It's no child's play, when an old woman dances.--_Low German._ 34. Jong rijs is te buigen, maar geen oude boomen. [A young twig can be bent, but not old trees.]--_Dutch._ 35. Jonge lui, domme lui; oude lui, koude lui. [Young folk, silly folk; old folk, cold folk.]--_Dutch._ 36. Junge Faullenzer, alte Bettler. [Young idlers, old beggars.] --_German._ 37. Just at the age 'twixt boy and youth When thought is speech, and speech is truth.--_Scott._ 38. La jeunesse devrait etre une caisse d'épargne. [Youth ought to be a savings-bank.]--_Mme. Svetchin._ 39. Learn young, learn fair; Learn auld, learn mair.--_Scotch._ 40. Let the young people mind what the old people say, And where there is danger, keep out of the way. 41. Levity is artlessness in a child, a shameful fault in men, and a terrible folly in old age.--_La Rochefoucauld._ 42. Maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives.--_Shakespeare_ (As You Like It, iv. 1). 43. Man schont die Alten, wie man die Kinder schont. [We spare old people, as we spare children.]--_Goethe._ 44. Man mut de kinner bugen, so lange se junk sunt. [Children must be bent while they are young.]--_Frisian._ 45. Man's second childhood begins when a woman gets hold of him.--_Barrie._ 46. My son's my son till he hath got him a wife, But my daughter's my daughter all the days of her life. 47. Nicht die Kinder bloss speist man mit Mãrchen ab. [Not children alone are put off with tales.]--_Leasing._ 48. Old head and young hand. 49. Old heads will not suit young shoulders. 50. Old men are twice children.--_Greek_. 51. Once a man and twice a child. 52. Se il giovane sapesse, se il vecchio potesse, c' non c' è cosa che non si facesse. [If the youth but knew, if the old man but could, there is nothing which would not be done.]--_Italian_. 53. Study is the bane of boyhood, the element of youth, the indulgence of manhood, and the restorative of age.--_Landor_. 54. The household is the home of the man as well as of the child.--_Emerson_. 55. The man whom grown-up people love, children love still more.--_Jean Paul_. 56. There are in man, in the beginning, and at the end, two blank book-binder's leaves,--childhood and age.--_Jean Paul_. 57. We are children for the second time at twenty-one, and again when we are gray and put all our burden on the Lord.--_Barrie_. 58. We bend the tree when it is young.--_Bulgarian_. 59. When bairns are young they gar their parents' heads ache; when they are auld they make their hearts break.--_Scotch_. 60. When children, we are sensualists, when in love, idealists. --_Goethe_. 61. Wie die Alten sungen, so zwitschern auch die Jungen. [As the old birds sing, the young ones twitter.]--_German_. 62. Wir sind auch Kinder gewesen. [We too were once children.] --_German_. 63. Young men think that old men are fools; but old men know young men are fools.--_Chapman_. 64. Youth is a blunder; manhood, a struggle; old age, a regret. --_Disraeli_. 65. Youth is full of sport, age's breath is short; Youth is nimble, age is lame; Youth is hot and bold, age is weak and cold; Youth is wild, and age is tame.--_Shakespeare_. CHAPTER XXXII. PBOVEKBS, SAYINGS, ETC., ABOUT THE CHILD AND CHILDHOOD. 1. A beltless bairn cannot lie.--_Scotch._ 2. A burnt child dreads the fire. 3. A child is a Cupid become visible.--_Novalis._ 4. A daft nurse makes a wise wean.--_Scotch._ 5. A growing youth has a wolf in his belly. 6. A hungry belly has no ears. 7. A lisping lass is good to kiss. 8. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. 9 An infant crying in the night, An infant crying for the light; And with no language but a cry.--_Tennyson._ 10. A pet lamb makes a cross ram. 11. A reasonable word should be received even from a child or a parrot.--_Sanskrit._ 12. A simple child That lightly draws its breath, And feels its life in every limb, What should it know of death?--_Wordsworth._ 13. As sair greets [as much weeps] the bairn that's paid at e'en as he that gets his whawks in the morning.--_Scotch._ 14. A tarrowing bairn was never fat.--_Scotch._ 15. Auld men are twice bairns.--_Scotch._ 16. Auld wives and bairns make fools of physicians.--_Scotch._ 17. Bairns are certain care, but nae sure joy.--_Scotch._ 18. Be born neither wise nor fair, but lucky.--_Russian._ 19. Behold the child, by Nature's kindly law, Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw.--_Pope._ 20. Better be unborn than untaught.--_Gaelic_. 21. Birth's good, but breeding's better.--_Scotch_. 22. Bon sang ne peut mentir. Qui naquit chat court après les souris. [Good blood cannot lie. The kitten will chase the mouse.]--_French_. 23. Broken bread makes hale bairns.--_Scotch_. 24. By sports like these are all their cares beguil'd, The sports of children satisfy the child.--_Goldsmith_. 25. Çe que l'enfant entend au foyer, est bientôt connu jusqu'au Moistre. [What children hear at the fireside is soon known as far as Moistre (a town in Savoy).]--_French_. 26. Che nasce bella nasce maritata. [A beautiful girl is born married.]--_Italian_. 27. Childhood and youth see the world in persons.--_Emerson_. 28. Childhood is the sleep of Reason.--_Rousseau_. 29. Children and chickens are always a-picking. 30. Children and drunken people tell the truth. 31. Children and fools speak the truth.--_Greek_. 32. Children and fools have many lives. 33. Children are certain sorrows, but uncertain joys.--_Danish_. 34. Children are the poor man's wealth.--_Danish_. 35. Children are very nice observers, and they will often perceive your slightest defects.--_Fénelon_. 36. Children cry for nuts and apples, and old men for gold and silver. 37. Children have more need of models than of critics.--_Jouberi_. 38. Children have wide ears and long tongues. 38a. Children increase the cares of life, but they mitigate the remembrance of death. 39. Children, like dogs, have so sharp and fine a scent, that they detect and hunt out everything--the bad before all the rest.--_Goethe_. 40. Children of wealth, or want, to each is given One spot of green, and all the blue of heaven.--_Holmes_. 41. Children pick up words as chickens peas, And utter them again as God shall please. 42. Children should have their times of being off duty, like soldiers.--_Ruskin_. 43. Children to bed, and the goose to the fire. 44. Children should laugh, but not mock; and when they laugh, it should not be at the weaknesses and faults of others.--_Buskin._ 45. Children sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter.--Bacon. 46. Children tell in the streets what they hear round the hearth.--_Portuguese._ 47. Das kann ein Kind machen. [A child can do that--that is very easy.]--_German._ 48. Das Kind mit dem Bade verschutten. [To throw away the child with the bath--to reject the good along with the bad.]--_German._ 49. Dat is en kinnerspil. [That's child's play--very easy.] --_Frisian._ 50. Dat lutjeste un lefste. [The youngest and dearest.] --_Frisian._ 51. Dawted [i.e. petted] bairns dow bear little.--_Scotch._ 52. Dawted dochters mak' dawly [slovenly] wives.--_Scotch._ 53. Delightful task! to rear the tender thought, To teach the young idea how to shoot.--_Thomson._ 54. De wesen wil bemint, de nem sin naver kind. [Who would be loved, let him take his neighbour's child.]--Frisian. 55. Die Kinder sind mein liebster Zeitvertreib. [Children are my dearest pastime.]--_Chamisso._ 56. Dochders zijn broze waaren. [Daughters are brittle ware.]--_Dutch._ 57. Do not meddle wi' the de'il and the laird's bairns.--_Scotch._ 58. Do not talk of a rape [rope] to a chiel whose father was hangit.--_Scotch._ 59. Do not train boys to learning by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be the better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.--_Plato._ 60. Education begins its work with the first breath of life. --_Jean Paul._ 61. Education commences at the mother's knee, and every word spoken within the hearing of little children tends towards the formation of character.--_Ballou._ 62. Eet maar Brod, dann wardst du grôt. [Eat bread and you'll grow.]--_Frisian_. 63. Ein Kind, kein Kind, zwei Kind, Spielkind, drei Kind, viel Kind, vier Kind, ein ganzes Hausvoll Kinder. [One child, no child; two children, playing children; three children, many children; four children, a whole house full of children.]--_German_ (with numerous variants). 64. Ein Laster kostet mehr als zwei Kinder. [One crime costs more than two children.]--_German_. 65. Es ist besser zehn Kinder gemacht, als ein einziges umgebracht. [It is better to have made ten children than to have destroyed one.]--_German_. 66. Fools and bairns shouldna see things half done.--_Scotch_. 67. Fools with bookish learning are children with edged tools; they hurt themselves, and put others in pain.--_Zimmermann_. 68. Fremde Kinder, wir lieben sie nie so sehr als die eignen. [We never love the children of others so well as our own.]--_Goethe_. 69. Fremde Kinder werden wohl erzogen. [Other people's children are well brought up.]--_German_. 70. Gie a bairn his will, And a whelp his fill, Nane o' them will e'er do well.--_Scotch_. 71. Give a child till he craves, and a dog while his tail doth wag, and you'll have a fair dog, but a foul knave. 72. Gie a dog an ill name and he'll soon be hanged.--_Scotch_. 73. God is kind to fou [_i.e._ drunken] folk and bairns.--_Scotch_. 74. God ne'er sent the mouth but He sent the meat wi't.--_Scotch_. 75. God watches over little children and drunkards.--_Russian_. 76. Gude bairns are eith [easy] to lear [teach].--_Scotch_. 77. Happy is he that is happy in his children. 78. He who sends mouths will send meat. 79. Heimerzogen Kind ist bei den Leuten wie ein Rind. [A home-bred child acts like a cow.]--_German_. 80. He that's born to be hanged will never be drowned. 81. He that is born under a tippeny [two-penny] planet will ne'er be worth a groat.--_Scotch_. 82. I cuori fanciulli non veston a bruno. [A child's heart puts on no mourning.]--_Zendrini._ 83. If our child squints, our neighbour's has a cast in both eyes. 84. Ill bairns are best heard at hame.--_Scotch._ 85. It is the squalling child that gets the milk.--_Turkish._ 86. Je lieberes Kind, je scharfere Rute. [The dearer the child, the sharper the rod.]--_German._ 87. Kinder hat man, Kinder kriegt man. [Children bring children.]--_German._ 88. Kinder kommen von Herzen und gehen zu Herzen. [Children come from the heart, and go to the heart.]--_German._ 89. Kinder und Bienstocke nehmen bald ab bald zu. [Children and bee-hives now decrease, now increase.]--_German._ 90. Kind's hand is ball fullt, Kind's zurn is ball stillt. [A child's hand is soon filled, A child's anger is soon stilled.]--_Low German._ 91. Late children are early orphans.--_Spanish._ 92. Les enfants sont ce qu'on les fait. [Children are what we make them.]--_French._ 93. Let thy child's first lesson be obedience, and the second will be what thou wilt.--_Franklin._ 94. Liebe Kinder haben viele Namen. [Dear children have many names.]--_German._ 95. Lieber ungezogene, als verzogene Kinder. [Better unbred children than ill-bred ones.]--_German._ 96. Like the wife wi' the mony daughters, the best comes hindmost.--_Scotch._ 97. Little pitchers have big ears. 98. Little ones are taught to be proud of their clothes before they can put them on.--_LocJce._ 99. Lutze potten hebben ok oren [i.e. little children have ears].--_Low German._ 100. Man is wholly man only when he plays.--_Schiller._ 101. Maxima debetur pueris reverentia. [The greatest respect is due to boys (youth).]--_Juvenal._ 102. Men are generally more careful of the breed of their horses and dogs than of their children.--_William Penn._ 103. Mony a ane kisses the bairn for love of the nurice.--_Scotch._ 104. More children, more luck.--_German._ 105. Nessuno nasce maestro. [No one is born master.]--_Italian._ 106. 'N gôd Kind, wen't slöpt. [A good child, when it sleeps.] --_Frisian._ 107. O banish the tears of children! Continual rains upon the blossoms are hurtful.--_Jean Paul._ 108. O formose puer, nimium ne crede colori. [Oh, beauteous boy, trust not too much to thy rosy cheeks.]--_Virgil._ 109. Of bairns' gifts ne'er be fain, Nae sooner they give but they seek them again.--_Scotch._ 110. One chick keeps a hen busy. 111. Our young men are terribly alike.--_Alex. Smith._ 112. Pars minima est ipsa puella sui. [The girl herself is the smallest part of herself.]--_Ovid._ 113. Parvum parva decent. [Small things become the small.] --_Horace._ 114. Play is the first poetry of the human being.--_Jean Paul._ 115. Qui aime bien, châtie bien. [Who loves well chastises well.]--_French._ 116. Qui parcit virgæ odit filium. [Who spareth the rod hateth his child.]--_Latin._ 117. Reckless youth maks ruefu' eild [age].--_Scotch._ 118. Royet [wild] lads may make sober men.--_Scotch._ 119. Rule youth well, for eild will rule itself.--_Scotch._ 120. Salt and bread make the cheeks red.--_German._ 121. Seven nurses cost the child an eye.--_Russian._ 122. Small birds [_i.e._ children] must have meat. 123. Sores are not to be shown to flies, and children are not to be taught to lie.--_Malay._ 124. Spare the rod and spoil the child. 125. Teach your children poetry; it opens the mind, lends grace to wisdom, and makes the heroic virtues hereditary.--_Mahomet._ 126. Tenez la bride haute à votre fils. [Keep a tight rein over your son.]--_French._ 127. That's the piece a step-bairn never gat.--_Scotch._ 128. The bairn speaks in the field what he hears at the fireside. --_Scotch._ 129. The bearing and the training of a child is woman's wisdom. --_Tennyson._ 130. The best horse needs breeding and the aptest child needs teaching.--_Arabic._ 131. The boy's will is the wind's will.--_Lapp._ 132. The chief art is to make all that children have to do sport and play.--_Locke._ 133. The child says nothing but what he heard at the fireside. --_Spanish._ 134. The de'il's bairns hae the de'il's luck.--_Scotch._ 135. The heart is a child; it desires what it sees.--_Turkish._ 136. The heart of childhood is all mirth.--_Keble._ 137. The king is the strength of the weak; crying is the strength of children.--_Sanskrit._ 138. The right law of education is that you take the best pains with the best material.--_Ruskin._ 139. The spring is the youth of trees, wealth is the youth of men, beauty is the youth of women, intelligence is the youth of the young.--_Sanskrit._ 140. The plays of children are the germinal leaves of all later life.--_Froebel._ 141. The time of breeding is the time of doing children good. --_George Herbert._ 142. They were scant o' bairns that brought you up.--_Scotch._ 143. The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or perchance a palace on the earth; at length middle-aged, he concludes to build a woodshed with them.--_Thoreau._ 144. They who educate children well are more to be honoured than they who produce them; these gave them life only, those the art of well-living.--_Aristotle._ 145. To a child all weather is cold. 146. To endure is the first and most necessary lesson a child has to learn.--_Rousseau._ 147. To write down to children's understandings is a mistake; set them on the scent, and let them puzzle it out.--_Scott._ 148. Un enfant brûlé craint le feu. [A burnt child dreads the fire.]--_French._ 149. Ungezogene Kinder gehen zu Werk wie Binder. [Unbred children go to work like cattle.]--_German._ 150. Viel Kinder viel Vaterunser, viel Vaterunser viel Segen. [Many children, many Paternosters; many Paternosters, many blessings.]--_German_. 151. We ought not to teach the children the sciences, but give them a taste for them.--_Rousseau_. 152. Wen de gôsen wâter sên, dan willen se drinken. [When the geese (_i.e._ children) see water, they want to drink.]--_Frisian_. 153. Wenn das Kind ertrunken ist, deckt man den Brunnen. [When the child is drowned, the well is covered.]--_German_. 154. Wenn Kinder und Narren zu Markte gehen, lösen die Krämer Geld. [When children and fools go to market, the dealers make money.]--_German_. 155. Wenn Kinder wohl schreien, so lebeu sie lange. [When children cry well, they live long.]--_German_. 156. Wer wil diu kint vraget, der wil si liegen leren. [Who asks children many questions teaches them to lie.]--_Old High German_. 157. What children hear at home soon flies abroad. 158. When children remain quiet, they have done something wrong. 159. Women and bairns lein [hide] what they ken not.--_Scotch_. 160. Women and children should retire when the sun does. --_Portuguese_. 161. You should lecture neither child nor woman.--_Russian_. _Index to Proverbs, etc._ Following is an index of peoples and authors for the foregoing proverbs and sayings (the references are to pages):-- _A, PEOPLES._ Afghan, 377,379,385,389. Angolese, 385,386,387,391. Arabic, 388,400. Badaga, 384. Basque, 382,387. Bulgarian, 393. Chinese, 377. Danish, 377,378,395. Dutch, 391,392,396. Egyptian, 381. English, 376,377,380,382,383,384,385,387,388,390,392,393,394, 395,396,397,398,399,400,401. French, 379,380,383,385,388,395,398,399,400. Frisian, 380,385,392,396,397,399,401. Gaelic, 376,395. German,378,380,382,383,384,385,387,388,390,392,393,396,397,398, 399,400,401. Greek, 393,395. Hebrew, 383. Hindu, 377. Italian, 383,385,387,388,391,393,395,399. Lapp, 400. Latin, 380, 385, 388, 399. Low German, 377, 382, 389, 392, 398. Malay, 399. Oriental, 377. Persian, 382. Portuguese, 383,396, 401. Roman, 378. Russian, 376, 380, 383, 384, 385, 387, 394, 397, 399, 401. Sanskrit, 377, 382, 394, 400. Scotch, 380, 382, 383, 385, 388, 390, 391, 392, 393, 394, 395, 396, 397, 398, 399, 400, 401. Spanish, 377, 384, 388, 398. Telugu, 386. Turkish, 377, 398, 400. B, AUTHORS, ETC. Alcibiades, 383. Aristotle, 400. Auerbach, 378, 389. Bacon, 377, 379, 380, 388, 396. Ballon, 396. Barrie, 392, 393. Beecher, 377, 383. Bible, 377, 378, 388. Blake, 391. Burns, 381. Carlyle, 380. Chamisso, 396. Chapman, 393. Cicero, 380. Coleridge, 379, 380. Cornelia, 378. Cowper, 380. Dante, 379. Dickens, 381. Disraeli, 393. Dryden, 379, 380. Emerson, 379, 380, 381, 390, 393, 395. Eötvös, 376. Euripides, 389. Fénelon, 395. Franklin, 398. Froebel, 400. Goethe, 378, 379, 380, 381, 385, 389, 390, 392, 393, 395, 397. Goldsmith, 395. Haliburton, 383. Hare, 379, 383. Hazlitt, 381. Herbert, 387, 400. Hitopadesa, 377, 385. Holmes, 395. Horace, 376, 399. Hugo, 384. Hunt, 378, 381. Jean Paul, 376, 380, 384, 385, 386, 389, 392, 393, 396, 399. Jesus, 377, 379, 381. Johnson, 377. Joubert, 395. Juvenal, 398. Keble, 384, 385, 400. La Bruyère, 377. Lacretelle, 383. Landor, 393. Langdale, 383. La Rochefoucauld, 392. Lessing, 392. Locke, 398, 400. Mahomet, 399. Manu, 377. Menander, 380. Milton, 381, 390. Napoleon, 385. Novalis, 394. Ovid, 391, 399. Penn, 398. Pfeffel, 391. Phædrus, 377. Pistorius, 376. Plato, 396. Pope, 394. Raghuvansa, 388. Rousseau, 395, 400, 401. Rückert, 391. Ruskin, 378, 379, 381, 390, 395, 396, 400. Schiller, 381, 391, 398. Schopenhauer, 379. Scott, 400. Shakespeare, 381, 387, 388, 392, 393. Shirley, 387. Sidney, 391. Simons, 381. Smith, 399. Socrates, 392. Southey, 376. Spurgeon, 388. Svetchin, 392. Swift, 392. Talmud, 389, 392. Tennyson, 384, 394, 400. Terence, 390. Thomson, 396. Thoreau, 400. Veda, 388. Virgil, 399. Weber, 376. West, 382. Wordsworth, 380, 381, 388, 394. Young, 387. Zachari, 380. Zendrini, 398. Zimmermann, 397. For the collection of proverbs and sayings here given, the writer acknowledges his indebtedness to the numerous dictionaries of quotations and proverbs, of which he has been able to avail himself. CHAPTER XXXIII. CONCLUSION. In these pages the "Child in Primitive Culture" has been considered in many lands and among many peoples, and the great extent of the activities of childhood among even the lowest races of men fully demonstrated. That the child is as important to the savage, to the barbarous peoples, as to the civilized, is evident from the vast amount of lore and deed of which he is the centre both in fact and in fiction. The broader view which anthropologists and psychologists are coming to take of the primitive races of man must bring with it a larger view of the primitive child. Still less than the earliest men, were their children, mere animals; indeed, possibly, nay even probably, the children of primitive man, while their childhood lasts, are the equals, if not the superiors, of those of our own race in general intellectual capacity. With the savage as with the European of to-day, the "child is father of the man." The primitive child, as language and folk-lore demonstrate, has been weighed, measured, and tested physically and mentally by his elders, much as we ourselves are doing now, but in ruder fashion--there are primitive anthropometric and psychological laboratories as proverb and folk-speech abundantly testify, and examinations as harassing and as searching as any we know of to-day. Schools, nay primitive colleges, even, of the prophets, the shamans, and the _magi_, the race has had in earlier days, and everywhere through the world the activities of childhood have been appealed to, and the race has wonderfully profited by its wisdom, its _naïveté_, its ingenuity, and its touch of divinity. Upon, language, religion, society, and the arts the child has had a lasting influence, both passive and active, unconscious, suggestive, creative. History, the stage, music, and song have been its debtors in all ages and among all peoples. To the child language owes many of its peculiarities, and the multiplicity of languages perhaps their very existence. Religion has had the child long as its servant, and from the faith and confidence of youth and the undying mother-love have sprung the thought of immortality and the Messiah-hope that greets us all over the globe. Even among the most primitive races, it is the children who are "of the Kingdom of Heaven," and the "Fall of Man" is not from a fabled Garden of Eden, but from the glory of childhood into the stern realities of manhood. As a social factor the child has been of vast importance; children have sat upon thrones, have dictated the policies of Church and of State, and from them the wisest in the land have sought counsel and advice. As oracles, priests, shamans, and _thaumaturgi_, children have had the respect and veneration of whole peoples, and they have often been the very mouth-piece of deity, standing within the very gates of heaven. As hero and adventurer, passing over into divinity, the child has explored earth, sea, and sky, descending into nethermost hell to rescue the bones of his father, and setting ajar the gates of Paradise, that the radiant glory may be seen of his mother on earth. Finally, as Christ sums up all that is divine in men, so does the Christ-Child sum up all that is God- like in the child. The Man-Jesus stands at the head of mankind, the Child-Jesus is the first of the children of men. All the activities and callings of the child, the wisdom, the beauty, the innocence of childhood find in folk-belief and folk-faith their highest, perfect expression in the Babe of Bethlehem. True is it as ten thousand years ago:-- "Before life's sweetest mystery still The heart in reverence kneels; The wonder of the primal birth The latest mother feels." Motherhood and childhood have been the world's great teachers, and the prayer of all the race should be:-- "Let not (the) cultured years make less The childhood charm of tenderness." BIBLIOGRAPHY. 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Flashes of Wit, Wisdom and Satire from the World's Literature. Compiled by Frederick W. Morton. Chicago, 1894. 123. PARKER, E. H.: Comparative Chinese Family Law. _China Review_ (Hong-Kong). Vol. VIII. (1879-1880). 124. PISCHON, C. N.: Der Einfluss des Islam auf das hausliche, sociale und politische Leben seiner Bekenner. Leipzig, 1881. 125. PLOSS, H.: Das Weib in der Natur- und Völkerkunde. Anthropologische Studien von Dr. H. Ploss. Dritte umgearb. u. stark verm. Aufl. Nach d. Tode des Verf. bearb. u. herausgeg. v. Dr. Max Bartels. Leipzig, 1891. 2 Bde., xxiii, 575; vii, 684 S. 8vo. 126. PORTER, ROSE: About Women: What Men have Said. Chosen and arranged by Rose Porter. New York and London, 1894. 207 pp. 127. POST, A. H.: Afrikanische Jurisprudenz. Ethnologisch-juristische Beitrage zur Kenntniss der einheimischen Rechte Afrikas. 2 Thlc. in einem Bd. Oldenburg u. Leipzig, 1887. xx, 480; xxx, 192 S. 8vo. 128. POST, A. H.: Die Geschlechtsverhältnisse der Urzeit und die Entstehung der Ehe. Oldenburg, 1875. 129. POST, A. H.: Studien zur Entwickelungsgeschichte des Familienrechtes. Bin Beitrag zu einer allgemeinen vergleichenden Rechtswissenschaft auf ethnologischer Basis. Oldenburg u. Leipzig, 1890. 130. POST, A. H.: Grundriss der ethnologischen Jurisprudenz. Oldenburg, 1894-1895. 2 Bde. Gr. 8vo. I. Bd., 1894, xii, 473 S.; II. Bd., 1895, xv, 744 S. 130 a. RADEMACHER, C.: Ueber die Bedeutung des Herdes. _Am Ur-Quell_, 1893. S. 57-60. 131. RAPHAEL, A.: Die Sprache der Proverbia qui dicuntur super naturam feminarum. Berlin, 1887. 8vo. 132. REINSBERG-DURINGSFELD, O. FREIH. r.: Die Frau im Sprichwort. Leipzig, 1862. 133. ROCCO, G.: La filosofia del matrimonio ed i mali individuali c sociali del divorzio. Napoli, 1892. 121 pp. 8vo. 134. ROGER, C.: Social Life in Scotland from Early to Recent Times. 3 Vols. Edinburgh, 1884-1886. 135. ROSENBAUM, J.: Geschichte der Lustseuche im Alterthume. 3 Abdr. Halle, 1882. 136. SABELLJIN, J.: History of Russian Life from the Oldest Times. [In Russian.] Moscow, 1876-1879. 1167 pp. 137. SAVAGE, M. J.: Man, Woman, and Child. Boston, 1884. 211 pp. 8vo. 138. SAYCE, A. H.: Social Life among the Assyrians and Babylonians. London, 1893. 126 pp. 139. SCHELLONG, O.: Ueber Familien-Leben und Gebrauche der Papuas der Umgebung von Finschhafen. _Ztschr. f. Ethnol._ (Berlin). XXL, Bd. (1889), S. 10-25. 140. SCHERER, O.: Bilder aus dem serbischen Volks- und Familienleben. Neusatz, 1882. 141. SCHEURL, O. v.: Das gemeine deutsche Eherecht. Erlangen, 1882. 142. SCHLAGINTWEIT, E.: Die Hindu-Wittwe in Indien. _Globus_. XLIII. Bd. (1883). 143. SCHMIDT, K.: Jus primae noctis. Freiburg im B., 1881. 144. SCHMIDT, K.: Der Streit uber das jus primae noctis. _Ztschr. f. Ethnol._ (Berlin). XVI. Bd. (1884), S. 18-59. 145. SCHROEDER, L. v.: Die Hochzeitsgebrauche der Esten und einiger anderer finnisch-ugrischen Volkerschaften in Vergleichung mit denen der indogermanischen Volker. Berlin, 1888. 146. SCHWIERIGER-LERCHENFELD, A. FREIH. v.: Das Frauenleben der Erde. Wien-Pest-Leipzig, 1881. 147. SIBREE, J.: Relationships and the Names used for them among the Peoples of Madagascar, etc. _Journ. Anthr. Inst._ (London). Vol. IX. (1879). 148. SIGHELE, L.: La foule criminelle. Paris, 1892. 185 pp. 8vo. 149. SMITH, E. M.: Woman in Sacred Song. A Library of Hymns, Religious Poems, and Sacred Music by Women. Compiled and edited by E. M. Smith (Mrs. G. C. S.). Boston, 1885. xl, 883 pp. 4to. 150. SMITH, MRS. BURTON: The Mother in Woman's Advancement. _Pop. Sci. Mo._ (New York). Vol. XLVL. (1895), pp. 622-626. 151. SMITH, W. R.: Marriage and Kinship in Early Arabia. Cambridge, (Engl.), 1885. 152. STARCKE, C. N.: The Primitive Family in its Origin and Development. New York, 1889. 315 pp. 8vo. 153. STEIN, L. v.: Die Frau auf dem Gebiete der Nationalökonomie. 4. Aufl. Stuttgart, 1876. 154. STRICKER, W.: Ethnographisehe Untersuohungen über die kriegerischen Weiber (Amazonen) der alten and neuen Welt. _Arch. f. Anthr._ (Braunschweig). V. Bd. (1872), S. 220 ff, S. 451. 155. THULIÉ, H.: La Femme. Essai de sociologie, physiologie. Ce qu'elle a été, ce qu'elle est. Les théories: ce qu'elle doit être. Paris, 1885. 8vo. 156. TRASK, K.: Motherhood and Citizenship. _Forum_ (New York). Vol. XVIII. (1895), pp. 607-618. 157. TREICHEL, A.: Lactation beim männlichen Geschlechte. _Am Ur-Quell._ IV. Bd. (1893), S. 70-71. 158. TRUMBULL, J. H.: On Algonkin Names for Man. _Amer. Philol. Assoc. Trans._ (1871), Hartford (Conn.), 1872, pp. 138-159. 159. TRUMBULL, H. C.: Studies in Oriental Social Life. Philadelphia, 1894. 160. UZANNE, O.: La femme à Paris. Nos Contemporaines. Paris, 1894. Gr. 8vo. 161. VILLEMONT, M.: Dictionnaire historique et scientifique de l'amour et du mariage. Paris, 1886. 489 pp. 12mo. 162. VOLKOV, T.: Rites et usages nuptiaux en Ukraine. _Anthropologie_ (Paris). Vol. II. (1891), pp. 537-587; Vol. III. (1892), pp. 541-588. 163. WAKE, C. S.: The Development of Marriage and Kinship. London, 1889. 164. WASSEKZIEHER, DK.: Das Weib in der Sprache. _Am Ur-Quell,_ III. Bd., S. 214-215. 165. WEINHOLD, K.: Die deutschen Frauen in dem Mittelalter. 2 Bde. 2. Aufl. Wien, 1882. 166. WESTERMARCK, C.: The History of Human Marriage. 2d ed. London and New York, 1894. xx, 644 pp. 8vo. 167. WIEDEMANN, A.: Die Milchverwandschaft im alten Aegypten. _Am. Ur-Quell._ III. Bd. (1892), S. 260-267. 168. WILKEN, G. A.: Das Matriarchat bei den alten Arabern. (Germ. Trans.) Leipzig, 1884. 169. WINTERNITZ, M.: On a Comparative Study of Indo-European Customs with Special Reference to the Marriage Customs. _Trans. Intern. Folk-Lore, Congr._ London, 1891. 170. WLISLOCKI, H. v.: Aus dem Volksleben der Magyaren. Ethnologische Mittheilungen. München, 1893. 171. WLISLOCKI, H. v.: Volksglaube und Volksbrauch der Siebenbürger Sachsen. Berlin, 1893. 172. WLISLOCKI, H. v.: Die Stamm-und Familienverhältnisse der transsilvanischen Zeltzigeuner. _Globus_. L. Bd. (1888), S. 183 fl. 173. ZANETTI, Z.: La medicina delle nostre donne. Studio folklorico. Castello, 1892. xviii, 271 pp. 8vo. 174. ZMIGRODZKI, M. v.: Die Mutter bei den Völkern des arisehen Stammes. Eine anthropologisch-historische Skizze als Beitrag zur Lösung der Frauenfrage. München, 1886. 444 S. 8vo. 175. ZUCCARELLI, A.: Divorzio e scienza antropologica. Napoli, 1893. 46 pp. Following is a subject-index to the titles of Section A:-- Abnormal and delinquent, 49, 86, 104, 110, 116, 185, 148, 144, 148, l57. Africa, 14, 48. Amazons, 154. American Indians, 13, 27, 51, 52, 63, 69, 72, 73. Arabia, 80a, 151, 168. Assyria, 138. Australia, 54, 55-57. Babylonia, 74, 138. Celibacy, 71, 94. Ceylon, 10. Child-birth, l6a, 43, 48, 83. China, 81, 123. Chirography, 65, 66. Divorce, 15, 25a, 47, 106, 183, 175. Egypt, 19, 88. Epigram, 17, 45, 122, 126. Esthonian, 145. Evolution, 36, 37. Family, 26, 32, 44, 68, 76, 89, 92, 99, 103, 119, 123, 128, 139, 140, 151, 152, 163, 166, 169. Father, 114, 130a, 151. Father-right, 9, 82, 80, 114. Fiji, l6a. France, 85, 160. Gender, 3, 68. Germany, 29, 81, 54, 98, 141, 165. Girls, 7, 54, 116. Gypsies, 172. India, 5, 16, 85. Italy, 33, 173. Japan, 7, 78, 105. Jews, 12, 41, 102. Language, 19, 74, 158, 164. Literature, 78, 126. Magyars, 170. Man, names for, 158. Marriage, 1, 10, 12, 13, 25a, 30, 31, 33, 41, 55-57, 68, 69, 72, 73, 88, 91, 98, 99, 102, 106, 109, 115, 141, 145, 151, 161-163, 166, 169. Medicine, 173. Mexico, 8. Morals, 96. Mordwins, 109. Mother, 4, 39, 67, 150, 156, 174. Matriarchate and mother-right, 6, 9, 31, 32, 80, 168. Mother and child, 27. Mother-in-law, 17, 58. Mourning, 16. Mummy, 19. New Britain, 30. Old maids, 71. Oriental, 159. Papua, 139. Poetry of motherhood, 39. Poets, 22, 149. Polyandry, 5, 40. Proverbs, 45, 132, 133. Relationship, 13, 41, 108, 118, 147, 167. Religion, 73, 124. Rome, 92, 159. Royalty, 75. Russia, 84, 136. Samoa, 89. Satire, 17, 45. Scotland, 134. Servia, 140. Sex-relations, 20, 28, 42, 46, 53, 54, 59, 60, 62, 64, 86, 90, 110, 120, 125, 128, 135, 137, 143, 144, 157, 161. Siberia, 11. Slavonic, 87, 88. Sociology, 8, 25, 85, 51, 52, 81, 82, 84, 95, 100, 101, 107, 117, 127, 130, 184, 136, 138, 170, 172. Tibet, 5. Transylvania, 171, 172. Turkey, 61, 80a. Ukraine, 167. United States, 25a. Woman, names for, 164. Woman's position and labours, 2, 11, 21-24, 29, 34, 88, 46, 50, 61, 69, 77, 78, 80a, 85, 97, 104, 105, 111-118, 121, 122, 125, 132, 146, 158, 155, 160, 165. _B_. CHILDREN, CHILDHOOD, CHILD-LIFE, ETC. 176. "A.," and MENELLA SMEDLEY: Poems Written for a Child. 177. "A.," and MENELLA SMEDLEY: The Child's World. 178. ADAMS, J. D.: Child-Life and Girlhood of Remarkable Women. New York, 1894. 179. 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W.: Some Records of the Thoughts and Reasonings of Children. From the Collection of Observations at the State Normal School at Worcester, Mass. _Pedag. Sem._ Vol. II. (1893), pp. 358-396. 195. BULWER-LYTTON, E. R.: Fables in Song. London, 1874. 196. BYJRNHAM, W. H.: The Study of Adolescence. _Pedag. Sem._ Vol. I. (1891), pp. 174-198. 197. CAMPBELL HELEN: Child-Life in the Slums of New York. _Demorest's Fam. Mag._ (New York), 1892. 198. CARSTENS, H.: Die Schwalbe im Volksmunde und im Kinderlied. _Am. Urdhs-Brunnen._ II. Bd., S. 240-242. 198 a. CARSTENS, H.: Der Storch als heiliger Vogel im Volksmund und im Kinderlied. _Am Urdhs-Srunnen._ Heft 1, 1881, S. 12-14. 199. CARSTENSEN, H. H.: A B C Spiel. _Am Ur-Quell._ IV. Bd. (1893), S. 55, 150, 260; V. Bd. (1894), S. 114, 192, 290; VI. Bd. (1895), 42-3. 200. CHAMBERLAIN, A. F.: Notes on Indian Child-Language. _Amer. Anthr._ Vol. III. (1890), pp. 237-241. 201. CHAMBERLAIN, A. F.: Further Notes on Indian Child-Language. _Ibid._ Vol. VI. (1893), pp. 321-322. 202. CHAMBERLAIN, A. F.: The Use of Diminutives in -_ing_ by Some Writers in Low German Dialects. _Public. Mod. Lung. Asso. Amer._ Vol. VII. (1892), pp. 212-247. 203. CHAMBERLAIN, A. F.: The Coyote and the Owl (Tales of the Kootenay Indians). _Mem. Intern. Congr. Anthr._ (1893), Chicago, 1894, pp. 282-284. 204. CHAMBERLAIN, A. F.: Human Physiognomy and Physical Characteristics in Folk-Lore and Folk-Speech. _Journ. Amer. Folk-Lore._ Vol. VI. (1893), pp. 13-24. 205. CHERVIN, A.: Faut-il conper le frein de la Langue (Extr. de _La Voix Parlée et Chantée_, frévrier, 1894). Paris, 1894. 16 pp. 206. CHRISMAN, O.: Secret Language of Children. _Science_ (New York). Vol. XXII. (1893), pp. 303-305. 207. Christmas with the Poets. London, n.d. x, 202 pp. 208. CLEVELAND, DUCHESS OF: The True Story of Kaspar Hauser. From Official Documents. London and New York, 1893. 122pp. Sm. 8vo. 209. COFFIGNON, A.: L'Enfant à Paris. Paris, 1890. xxii, 440 pp. 210. 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DRAGOMANO, M.: Slavonic Folk-Tales about the Sacrifice of One's Own Children. (Transl. O. Wardrop). _Journ. Anthr. Inst_. (London). Vol. XXI. (1892), pp. 456-469. 219. DREYLING, G.: Die Ausdrucksweise der übertriebenen Verkleinerung im altfränzösichen Karlepos. Marburg, 1888. 220. DÜRINGSFELD, J. V., und O. V. REINSBERG-DÜRINGSFELD: Sprichwörter sammlung. 6 Bde. (Das Sprichwort als Kosmopolit. 3 Bde. Intern. Titulaturen. 2 Bde. Das Kind im Sprichwort). Leipzig, 1863-1864. 8vo. 221. EARLE, ALICE M.: Customs and Fashions in Old New England. [Chapter I., pp. 1-35, Child-Life.] New York, 1893. iii, 387 pp. 8vo. 222. EASTMAN, C. A.: Recollections of Wild-Life. III. Games and Sports. _St. Nicholas_ (New York). Vol. XXI. (1893-4), pp. 306-308. 223. EELLS, M.: Twins among Indians of Puget Sound. _Science_ (New York). Vol. XX. (1892), p. 192. 224. ELIOT, S.: Poetry for Children. Boston, [1879]. xii, 327 pp. Sm. 8vo. 225. ENFANT (L') chez les sauvages et chezles civilisés. _Revue Britannique_, Nov., 1880. 226. FEWKES, J. W.: Dolls of the Tusayan Indians (Repr. fr. _Intern. Arch. f. Ethnogr_., VII. Bd., 1894, pp. 45-73). Leiden, 1894. 30 pp. 4to. Five coloured plates. 226 a. FIELD, EUGENE: Love Songs of Childhood. Chicago, 1895. 227. FLETCHER, ALICE C.: Glimpses of Child-Life among the Omaha Indians. _Journ. Amer. Folk-Lore_. Vol. I. (1888), pp. 115-123. 228. FLOWER, B. O.: Lust Fostered by Legislation. _Arena_ (Boston). Vol. XI. (1895), pp. 167-175. 229. FLOWER, W. H.: Fashion in Deformity. London, 1881. 85 pp. 8vo. 230. FORD, R.: Ballads of Bairnhood. Selected and edited with notes by Robert Ford. Paisley, 1894. xix, 348 pp. 8vo. 231. FOSTER, MARY J. C.: The Kindergarten of the Church. New York, 1894. 227 pp. 8vo. 232. FRACASETTI, L.: I giovani nella vita pubblica. Conferenza. Udine, 1893. 233. FROEBEL, F.: Mother's Songs, Games, and Stories. Froebel. Mutter- und Kose-Lieder rendered in English by Frances and Emily Lord. New and revised edition. London, 1890. xxxvi, 212 + 75 (music) pp. 8vo. 234. FURNIVALL, F. J.: Child-Marriages, Divorces, Ratifications, etc. In the Diocese of Chester, A.D. 1561-6. Depositions in Trials in the Bishop's Court, Chester, concerning: 1. Child-Marriages, Divorces, and Ratifications. 2. Trothplights. 3. Adulteries. 4. Affiliations. 5. Libels. 6. Wills. 7. Miscellaneous Matters. 8. Clandestine Marriages. Also Entries from the Mayors' Books, Chester, A.D. 1558-1600. Edited from the MS. written in court while the witnesses made their depositions, and from the Mayors' Books. London, 1897 [1894]. lxxxviii, 256 pp. 8vo. 235. GAIDOZ, H.: Un vieux rite médical. Paris, 1892. ii, 85 pp. Sm. 8vo. 236. GAIDOZ, H.: Ransom by Weight. _Am Ur-Quell_. II. Bd. (1891), S. 39-42, 59-61, 74-75. 237. GAIDOZ, H., et M. PEKDRIZET: La Mesure du Cou. _Mélusine_ (Paris). Tome VI. (1893), No. 10. See also _Amer. Anthr_., VI. (1893), p. 408. 238. GARBINI, A.: Evoluzione della Voce nella Infanzia. Verona, 1892. 53 pp. 8vo. 239. GATSCHET, A. S.: A Mythic Tale of the Isleta Indians: The Race of the Antelope and the Hawk around the Horizon. _Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc._ (Philadelphia). Vol. XXIX., pp. 208-218. 240. GESSMANN, G. W.: Die Kinderhand und ihre Bedeutung für Erziehung und Berufswahl. Eine physioguomische Studie. Berlin, 1894. 88 S. 8vo. 31 Abbild. 241. GILL, V. W.: Child-Birth Customs of the Loyalty Islands. _Journ. Anthr. Inst._ (London). Vol. XIX. (1890), pp. 503-505. 242. GOMME, ALICE B.: Children's Singing Games with the Tunes to which they are sung. Collected and edited by Alice B. Gomme. London and New Tork, 1894. 243. GOMME, ALICE B.: The International Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland, with Tunes, Singing Rhymes, and Method of Playing according to the variants extant and recorded in different parts of the Kingdom. Vol. I. According ... Nuts in May. London, 1894. xix, 453 pp. 8vo. 244. 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HALE, HORATIO: Language as a Test of Mental Capacity. _Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada._ Vol. IX. (1891), Sect. II., pp. 77-112. 252. HALL, G. S.: The Contents of Children's Minds on Entering School. _Pedag. Sem._ Vol. I. (1891), pp. 139-172. 252 a. HALL, G. S.: Children's Lies. _Ibid_., pp. 211-218. 253. HALL, G. S.: The Moral and Religious Training of Children and Adolescents. _Ibid_., pp. 196-210. 254. HALL, G. S.: Child-Study: The Basis of Exact Education. _Forum_ (New York). Vol. XVI. (1893-4), pp. 429-441. 255. HALL, G. S.: The Story of a Sand-Pile. _Scribner's Mag._ (New York). Vol. III. (1888), pp. 690-695. 256. HARQUEVAUX, E., et L. PELLETIER: 200 jeux d'enfants en plein air et à la maison. Paris, 1893. 257. HARRIS, W. T.: Eighth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Education, 1892. Industrial Education. Washington, 1892. 707 pp. 8vo. 257 a. HARRISON, ELIZABETH: A Study of Child-Nature from the Kindergarten Standpoint. 3d. edition. Chicago, 1891. 207 pp. 8vo. 258. HARTLAND, E. S.: The Science of Fairy Tales. An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology. London, 1891. viii, 372 pp. 8vo. 259. HARTMANN, B.: Die Analyse des kindlichen Gedankenkreises als die naturgemässige Grundlage des ersten Schulunterrichts. Zweite verm. Aufl. Annaberg i. Erzgeb., 1890. 116 S. 260. HASKELL, ELLEN M.: Imitation in Children. _Pedag. Sem._ Vol. III. (1894-5), pp. 30-47. 261. HERVEY, T. K.: The Book of Christmas. Boston, 1888. vi, 356 pp. 262. HIGGINSON, T. W.: Concerning All of Us. New York, 1893. vi, 210 pp. 12mo. [Pp. 103-109, "A Home Made Dialect."] 263. HÖFLER, M.: Die Lösung des Zungenbändchens. _Am Ur-Quell._ V. Bd. (1894), S. 191, 281. 264. HOYT, W. A.: The Love of Nature as the Root of Teaching and Learning the Sciences. _Pedag. Sem._ Vol. III. (1894-5), pp. 61-86. 265. HUGHES, J. L.: The Educational Value of Play, and the Recent Play- Movement in Germany. _Edue. Rev._ (New York). Vol. VIII., pp. 327-336. 266. HURLL, ESTELLE M.: Child-Life in Art. New York, 1894. 267. IM THURN, E. F.: Games of Guiana Indians. _Timehri_ (Georgetown). Vol. III. (1889), pp. 270-307. 268. JOCELYN, E.: The Mother's Legacy to her Unborn Child. New York, 1894. 269. JOHNSON, G. E.: Education by Plays and Games. _Pedag. Sem._ Vol. III., pp. 97-133. 270. JOHNSON, J. H.: Rudimentary Society amongst Boys. _Overl. Mo.,_ 1883 271. JOHNSON, J. H.: Judicial Procedure amongst Boys. _Ibid_., 1884. 272. JOHNSON, J. H.: Rudimentary Society among Boys (J. H. Univ. Studies ... No. XI., 2d ser.). Baltimore, 1884. 56pp. 8vo. 273. JOHNSON, J., Jr.: The Savagery of Boyhood. _Pop. Sci. Mo._ (New York). Vol. XXXI (1881), pp. 796-800. 274. KALMANT, L.: Kinderschrecker und Kinderräuber im magyarischen Volksglauben. _Ethnol. Mitt. aus Ungarn_ (Buda-Pest). III. Bd. (1893), S. 188-193. 275. KEBER, A.: Zur Philosophie der Kindersprache. Gereimtes und Un-gereimtes. Zweite verm. Aufl. Leipzig, 1890. 96 S. 8vo. 276. KIPLING, E.: The Jungle Book. New York, 1894. xvii, 303 pp. 8vo. 277. KISS, A.: Magyar gyermekjátek gyütemény [Collection of Hungarian Children's Games, etc.]. Buda-Pest, 1891. viii, 518 pp. 8vo. 278. KLEINPAUL, R.: Menschenopfer und Ritualmorde. Leipzig, 1892. 80 S. 8vo. 279. KRAUSS, F. S.: Serbischer Zauber und Brauch Kinder halber. _Am Ur-Quell_. III. Bd. (1892). S. 160-161, 276-279. 280. KRAUSS, F. S.: Haarschurgodschaft bei den Südslaven (Sep. Abdr. aus: _Intern. Arch. f. Ethnog._ VII. bd. S. 161-198). Leiden, 1894. 38 S. 48to. 281. KRAUSS, F. S.: Geheime Sprachweisen _Am Ur-Quell_. II. Bd. (1891). S. 21-23, 48-49, 65, 79-80; 98-99, 111-112, 127-128; 143-144, 187-189; III. Bd. (1892), 43-44, 106-107, 135-136, 167, 225-226, 328; IV. Bd. (1893), S. 76-78, 147; V. Bd. (1894), 74-78; VI. Bd. (1895), 37-40. 282. KEUSCHE, G.: Litteratur der weiblichen Eiziehung und Bildung in Deutschland von 1700 bis 1886. Langensalza, 1887. 43 S. 8vo. 283. KULISCHER, M.: Die Behandlung der Kinder und der Jugend auf den primitiven Kulturstufen. _Ztschr. f. Ethnol_. 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MACDONALD, A.: Abnormal Man, being Essays on Education and Crime, and Related Subjects, with Digests of Literature and a Bibliography (Bureau of Education, Circ. of Inform., No. 4, 1893). Washington, 1893. 445 pp. 8vo. 304. MAGNUS, LADY: The Boys of the Bible. London, 1894. 305. MARENHOLZ-BÜLOW, BARONESS: The Child and Child-Nature. 5th ed. London, 1890. x, 186 pp. 8vo. 306. MASON, O. T.: Cradles of the American Aborigines. _Rep. U. S. Nat. Mus_., 1886-87, pp. 161-212. 307. MAUPATÉ, L.: Recherches d'anthropologie criminelle chez l'enfant; criminalité et dégénérescence. Lyon, 1893. 228 pp. 8vo. 308. McLEAN, J. E.: Psychic View of Infant Prodigies. _Metaphys. Rev_. (New York). Vol. I. (1895), pp. 156-164. 309. MEHNERT, A.: Bin indischer Kaspar Hauser. Eine Erzählung aus dem anglo-indischen Volksleben. Dresden-Leipzig, 1893. 108 S. Kl. 8vo. 310. MILES, CAROLINE: A Study of Individual Psychology. _Amer. Journ. Psych_. Vol. VI. (1895), pp. 534-558. 311. MORENO, H. DE: La festa del natale in Sicilia. Palermo, 1893. 312. MOUTIER, A.: Contribution à l'étude de la protection de l'enfanee à Rome. Paris, 1884. 313. NEWELL, W. W.: Games and Songs of American Children. New York, 1884. xii, 242 pp. Sm. 4to. 314. NICOLAY, F.: Les enfants mal élevés. Paris, 1890. 315. ORTWEIN, F.: Deutsche Weihnachten. Der Weihnachtsfestkreis nach seiner Entstehung, seinen Sitten und Bräuchen deutscher Völker. Gotha, 1892. 133 S. 8vo. 316. OWENS, J. G.: Natal Ceremonies of the Hopi Indians. Journ. Amer. Ethn. and Arch. Vol. II. (1892), pp. 161-175. 317. Papers Relating to Infant Marriage and Enforced Widowhood in India. Calcutta, 1886. 318. Pedagogical Seminary (The). An International Record of Educational Institutions, Literature and Progress. Edited by G. Stanley Hall. Worcester, Mass. Vols. I.-III. (1891-1895). 319. PEREZ, B.: Le Caractère de l'Enfant à l'Homme. Paris, 1892. 320. PEREZ, B.: L'Art et la Poésie chez l'Enfant. Paris, 1888. 308 pp. 321. PITRÉ, G.: Usi e Credenze dei Fanciulli in Sicilia. Palermo, 1889. 16 pp. Sm. 8vo. 322. PITRÉ, G.: Mirabile facolta di alcune famiglie di guarire certe malattie. Palermo, 1889. 13 pp. Gr. 8vo. 323. PITRÉ, G.: Folk-lore giuridico dei Fanciulli in Sicilia. Palermo, 1890. 6 pp. 324. PITRÉ, G.: Il pesce d'Aprile. V. Ed. con moltiss. giunte. Palermo, 1891. 25 pp. Gr. 8vo. 325. PLOSS, H.: Das kleine Kind vom Tragbett bis zum ersten Schritt. Ueber das Legen, Tragen und Wiegen, Gehen, Stehen und Sitzen der kleinen Kinder bei verschiedenen Völkern der Erde. Leipzig, 1881. xii, 121 S. 8vo. 326. PLOSS, H.: Das Kind in Brauch und Sitte der Völker. Anthropologische Studien von Dr. H. Ploss. Zweite, neu durchges. u. stark vermehrte Aufl. Neue Ausgabe. Leipzig, 1884. 2 Bd. x, 394; iv, 478 S. 8vo. 327. POKROVSKI, E. A.: Fizicheskoe vospitanie detei u. raznich narodov preimutshestvenno Rossii; materiali dlja medico-antropologiche-skago izsledovanija [Physical Education of Children in Different Nations, especially in Russia; materials for medico-anthropological Research]. Moskva, 1884. iv, 379 pp. Fol. 328. POKROVSKI, E. A.: Pervonachalnoe fizicheskoe vospitanie dietei (po-puljarnoe nukovodsto dlja materei). [The Early Physical Education of Children (popular manual for mothers)]. Moskva, 1888. 261 pp. 8vo. 329. POKROVSKI, E. A.: Ob ucho die za malymi dietmi [on the care of little children]. Moskva, 1889. viii, 100 pp. 16mo. 330. POKROVSKI, E. A.: Detskija igry preimushestvenno russkija (V. svjazi s istorei, etnografei, pedagogiei, i gigienoi) [Children's Games, especially Russian] (from an historical, pedagogical, and hygienic point of view). Moskva, 1887. vi, 368 pp. 8vo. 331. PORTER, J. H.: Notes on the Artificial Deformation of Children among Savage and Civilized Peoples. Rep. U. S. Nat. Mus., 1886-87, pp. 213-235. 332. POST, A. H.: Mittheilungen aus dem bremischen Volkleben [Zungenübungen]. Am Ur-Quell. V. Bd. (1894). S. 176-179. 332a. PODLSSON, E.: Finger-Plays for Nursery and Kindergarten. Boston, 1893. 333. RAND, K. E.: The Childhood of an Affinity. New York, 1893. vi, 304 pp. 8vo. 334. RASSIER, M: Valeur du témoignage des enfants en justice. Lyons, 1893. 88 pp. 335. RAUBER, A.: Homo Sapiens Ferus oder die Zustände der Verwilderten in ihrer Bedeutung für Wissenschaft, Politik und Schule. Biolo-gische Untersuchung. Zweite Aufl. Leipzig, 1888. 134 S. 8vo. 336. RICCARDI, A.: Antropologia e Pedagogia. Introduzione ad una Scienza della Educazione (Osservazioni psioologiche; ricerche statistiche; misure antropologiche, ecc.). Parte Prima. Osservazioni psicologiche; ricerche statistiche e sociologiche. Modena, 1892. 172 pp. 4to. 336a. RILEY, J. W.: Rhymes of Childhood. Indianapolis, 1894. 186 pp. 8vo. 337. ROBERTSON, E. S.: The Children of the Poets. An Anthology from English and American Writers of Three Centuries. Edited with Introduction by Eric S. Eobertson. London and Neweastle-on-Tyne, 1886. xxxviii, 273 pp. 12mo. 337 a. ROBINSON, L.: The Primitive Child. _N. Amer. Rev._ (N. Y.), 1895. 338. ROMANES, G. J.: Mental Evolution in Man. New York, 1883. 338 a. ROY, RAJ COOMAR: Child Marriage in India. _N. Amer. Rev.,_ Oct., 1888, pp. 415-423. 339. [RUNKLE, K. B.]: A Collection for Christmas. The New Year. Easter. Boston, 1884. xii, 388 pp. 340. SAUBERT, DR.: Maikäfer, Frau Holle's Bote. _Am Urdhs-Brunnen._ VI. Bd. (1888-1889). S. 22-24. 341. SCHALLENBERGER, MARGARET E.: A Study of Children's Rights as seen by themselves. _Pedag. Sem._ Vol. III. (1894-1895), pp. 87-96. 342. SCHECHTER, S.: The Child in Jewish Literature. _Jewish Quarterly_ (London). Vol. II. (1889). 343. SCHELL, O.: Woher kommen die Kinder? _Am Ur-Quell._ IV. Bd. (1893), S. 224-226; V. Bd. (1894), S. 80-81, 162, 254, 255, 287. 344. SCOTT, C. N.: The Child-God in Art. _Contemp. Bev._ (London). Vol. L. (1886), pp. 97-111. 345. SCRIPTURE, E. W.: Arithmetical Prodigies. _Amer. Journ. Psychol._ Vol. IV., pp. 1-59. 346. SCUDDER, H. M.: Childhood in Greek and Roman Literature. _Atlantic Mo._ (Boston). Vol. LV., pp. 13-23. 347. SCUDDER, H. M.: Childhood in Early Christianity. _Ibid._, pp. 617-625. 348. SCUDDER, H. M.: Childhood in Medieval Art. _Ibid._, LVI. (1885), pp. 24-31. 349. SCUDDER, H. M.: Childhood in English Literature and Art. Ibid., pp. 369-380, 471-484. 349 a. SCUDDER, H. M.: Childhood in Modern Literature and Art. _Ibid._, pp. 751-767. 350. SCUDDER, H. M.: Childhood in Literature and Art, with Some Observations on Literature for Children, Boston, 1894. Cr. 8vo. 351. SESSIONS, F.: The Younger Son (Folk-Lore Topics, No. 5). Eepr. from Gloucester Journal, March 3d, 1894. Gloucester (Engld.), 1894. 8 pp. 352. SESSIONS, F.: Beating the Bounds (Folk-Lore Topics, No. 4). Eepr. from G-loucester Journ., Feb. 17, 1894. 353. SHINN, MILLICENT W.: Some Comments on Babies [of Various Eaces]. Overt. Mo. (San Francisco). Vol. XXIII (1894), pp. 2-19. 354. SOHNKEY, H.: Geburt und Taufe in der Gegend des Sollinger Waldes. Am Ur-Quell. II. Bd. (1894), S. 197-202. 355. STARR, F.: A Page of Child-Lore. Journ, Amer. Folk-Lore. Vol. IV. (1891), pp. 55-56. 356. STEEL, F. A., and E. C. TEMPLE: Wide Awake Stories. A Collection of Tales told by Little Children between Sunset and Sunrise, in the Panjab and Kashmir. Bombay, 1884. 357. STEINMETZ, S. E.: De "Fosterage" of Opvoeding in Vreemde Families [Eepr. from Tijdschr. v. Ji. Jconinkl. Nederl. Aardrijksk. Genootsch.]. Leiden, 1893. 92 pp. 8vo. 358. STEVENSON, Mrs. T. E.: The Religious Life of a ZnEi Child. Fifth Ann. Sep. Bur. of Ethnol. (Washington), pp. 533-555. 359. STEVENSON, E. L.: A Child's Garden of Verse, 1885. 360. STORK, T.: The Children of the New Testament. Philadelphia, 1856. xi, 185 pp. 8vo. 361. STRACK, H. C.: Der Blutaberglaube in der Menschheit, Blutmorde und Blutritus. Vierte neu bearb. Aufl. Mlinchen, 1892. xii, 156 S. 8vo. 361a. STRASZBURGER, B.: Geschichte der Erziehung und des Unterrichts bei dea Israeliten. Von der vortalmudischen Zeit his auf die Gegenwart. Mit einem Anhang.: Bibliographie der judischen Padagogie. Stuttgart, 1885. xv, 210 S. 362. STRETTELL, ALMA: Lullabies of Many Lands. New York, 1894. 363. STRONG, G. D.: Child-Life in Many Lands. Boston, 1870. iv, 210 pp. 8vo. 364. Studentensprache und Studentenlied in Halle von 100 Jahren. Neudruck des Idiotikon der Burschensprache von 1795 und der Studentenlieder von 1781. Halle, 189-. xliii, 118 S.; viii, 127 S. 365. SULLY, J.: Studies of Childhood. [Numerous articles in Pop. Sei. Mo. (New York). Vols. XLVI. and XLVII.]. 366. SUNDERMANN, F.: Woher kommen die Kinder? Eine Beantwortung dieser Frage aus Ostfriesland. Am Urdhs-Brunnen. I. Bd. (1881), Heft II., S. 14-18; Heft V., S. 14. 367. "SYLVANUS URBAN": Infant-Marriages. Gentlm. Mag. (Load.) Vol. 277 (1894), pp. 322-324, 427-428. 368. The Feeble-Minded Child and Adult. A Report on an Investigation of the Physical and Mental Condition of 50,000 School Children, with Suggestions for the Better Education and Care of Feeble-Minded Children and Adults. (Charity Organization). London, 1893. xii, 159 pp. 8vo. 369. The Epileptic and Crippled Child and Adult. London, 1893. xxi, 132 pp. 8vo. 370. TILTE, M.: Die Geschichte der deutschen Weihnacht. Leipzig, 1894. 371. TRACY, F.: The Psychology of Childhood. Sec. Ed. Boston, 1894. xiii, 107 pp. 8vo. 372. TREICHEL, A.: Provinzielle Sprache zu und von Thieren und ihre Namen. _Alt-Preuss. Monatsschr_. XXIX. Bd., Hefte I., II. 373. TREICHEL, A.: Zungenübungen aus Preussen. _Am Ur-Quell_. V. Bd. (1894), S. 122-126, 144-148, 180-182, 222-224. 374. TUCKER, ELIZABETH S.: Children of Colonial Days. New York, 1894. 375. TUCKWELL, Mrs. G. M.: The State and its Children. London, 1894. 376. TYLOR E. B.: Wild Men and Beast Children. _Anthrop. Rev_. (London). Vol. I. (1863), pp. 21-32. 377. TYLOR, E. B.: Remarks on the Geographical Distribution of Games. _Journ. Anthr. Inst._ (London). Vol. IX. (1879), pp. 23-30. 378. VOSTROVSKY, CLARA: A Study of Children's Imaginary Companions. _Education_ (Boston). Vol. XV. (1895), pp. 393-398. 379. WHITTIER, J. G.: Child-Life. A Collection of Poems. Edited by J. G. Whittier. Boston, n.d. xii, 263 pp. Gr. 8vo. 380. WHITTIER, J. G.: Child-Life in Prose. Boston, n.d. 381. WIEDEMANN, A.: Kinderehe bei den alten AEgyptern. _Am Ur-Quell_. VI. Bd. (1895), S. 3-4. 382. WIGGIN, KATE D.: Children's Eights. A Book of Nursery Logic. Boston and New York, 1893. 235 pp. 16mo. 383. Wild Babies. _Harper's Monthly_ (New York). Vol. LVII. (1878), pp. 829-838. 384. WILTSE, SARAH E.: The Place of the Story in Early Education, and Other Essays. Boston, 1892. vi, 137 pp. 8vo. 385. WINTERNITZ, M.: Das Kind bei den Juden. _Am Ur-Quell_. II. Bd. (1891), S. 5-7, 34-36. 386. WOSSIDLO, R.: Volksthümliches aus Mecklenburg. De Jung [Pro- verbial Sayings of Children]. _Plattd. Sünndagsbl_. (Bielefeld). III. Bd. (1890), S. 75-77. 387. YODER, A. H.: The Study of the Boyhood of Great Men. _Pedag. Sem._ Vol. III. (1894-5), pp. 134-156. Following is a subject-index of titles under Section B:-- Abandoned children, 28. Abnormal man, 188, 197, 303. Adolescence, 196. Adoption, 280. Age of consent, 180. American Indians, 211, 222, 223, 226, 227, 239, 267, 302, 306, 816, 358, 383. Animals, 276, 372. Animal-reared children, 183, 376. "April fool," 324. Arabia, 289. Art and poetry, 320. Assyria, 290. Babylonia, 290. Birth-customs, etc., 241, 311, 316, 354. Birth-myths, 343, 366. Bogies, 203, 275. Boys of Bible, 304. Boyhood of genius, 387. Brittany, 299. Brooklyn, 212. California, 184. Ceremonial, 235, 279, 361. Character, 216, 319. Child and race, 182. Child-god, 344. Child and state, 312, 375. Child as--witness, 334. Childhood in literature, 346-350. Child-criminal, 307. Child-life, 178, 180 a, 184, 189, 197, 209, 221, 225, 227, 246, 266, 283, 283 a, 325, 326, 329, 333, 342, 353, 363, 374, 383, 385. Child-marriages, 234, 317, 338 a, 367, 381. Child-psychology, 252, 259, 301, 305, 310, 336, 365, 371. Children of New Testament, 360. Child-study, 254, 378. Chirography, 240. Christ, 285. Christmas, 190, 207, 261, 315, 339, 370. Cradles, 306. Defectives and delinquents, 197, 314, 368, 369. Deformations, 229, 331. Diminutives, 202, 219. Dolls, 226. Education, 257, 288-298. Egypt, 179, 288, 381. England, 243, 349. Fairy-tales, stories, 192, 245, 258, 302, 356, 384. Folk-lore, 246, 284, 321, 355. Fosterage, 357. France, 219. Games and songs, 181, 186, 187, 198, 199, 212, 213, 217, 222, 233, 242, 243, 260, 265, 267, 269, 277, 313, 330, 332 a, 377. Genius, 178, 300, 387. Germany, 315, 354, 366, 370, 386. Girlhood, 178, 228, 282. Greece, 296-7, 346. Hair-cutting, 280. Hygiene, 210, 330. Hungary, 277. Imitation, 260. India, 183, 248, 290, 309. Infanticide, 218. Infant-prodigies, 304, 345. Insects, 340. Ireland, 243. Japan, 180 a, 189, 245. Jews, 298, 342, 361 a, 385. Justice, 271, 323, 341. Kabylia, 299. Kaspar Hauser, 208, 309. Language, 193, 200, 201, 205, 206, 249, 250, 257, 262, 263, 275, 281, 332, 372, 373. Lies, 253. Loyalty Is., 241. Lullabies, 362. Measurements, 237, 244, 299. Medicine, 322. Mental evolution, 182, 194, 211, 338. Miracles, 179. Morals, 179. Mother and child, 268. Nature, 264. New England, 221. New York, 197. Paris, 209. Persia, 291. Phoenicians, 290. Physical education, 327, 328. Physiognomy, 204. Poetry for and about children, 176, 177, 195, 224, 226 a, 230, 247, 336a, 337, 359, 379. Proverbs, 220, 386. Public life, 232. Puberty, 214. Regeneration, 214. Religion, 184 a, 231, 253, 358. Rights, 215, 382. Rome, 297, 312, 346. Russia, 327, 328, 330. Sacrifice, 218, 228, 278, Savagery, 273. Scotland, 243. Servia, 279. Secret languages, 206, 281. Sicily, 321, 322, 323. Silesia, 284. Slavonic, 218, 280. Sociology, 270, 272, 255, 378. Stork, 198 a. Studentdom, 185, 364. Swallow, 198. Twins, 223. United States, 180. Voice, 238. Washington, D.C., 181. Weighing, 236, 238. Wild children, 335. Younger son, 351. C. GENERAL. 388. D'ALVIELLA, COUNT GOBLET: Lectures on the Origin and Growth of the Conception of God as illustrated by Anthropology and History. (Hibbert Lectures, 1891.) London, 1892. xvi, 296 pp. 8vo. 389. American Anthropologist (Washington): Vols. I.-VIII. (1888-1895). 390. American Notes and Queries (Phila.) Vols. I.-VI. (1888-1891). 391. Am Urdhs-Brunnen (Dahrenwurth bei Lunden, Holstein). I.-VII. Bde. (1881-1890). 392. Am Ur-Quell (Lunden). I.-VI. Bde. (1890-1895). Continuation of No. 391. 393. ANDERSEN, HANS C.: Fairy Tales and Stories. (Transl. Dr. H. W. Dulcken). N.Y., n.d. iv, 377 pp. 8vo. 394. ASTON, W. G.: Japanese Onomatopes and the Origin of Language. _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ (London). Vol. XXIII. (1894), pp. 332-362. 395. BAGEHOT, W.: Physics and Politics. New York, 1887. 396. BANCROFT, H. H.: The Native Races of the Pacific Coast. 5 vols. New York, 1874-1876. 8vo. 397. BARTELS, M.: Die Medicin der Naturvolker: Ethnologische Beitrage zur Urgeschichte der Medicin. Leipzig, 1893. 361 S. 8vo. 398. BASTIAN, A.: Zur naturwissenschaftlichen Behandlungsweise der Psychologie durch und filr die Volkerkunde. Berlin, 1883. xxxviii, 230 S. 8vo. 399. BASTIAN, A.: Die Seele indischer und hellenischer Philosophie in den Gespenstern moderner Geisterscherei. Berlin, 1886. xlviii, 223 S. 8vo. 400. BEKGEN, FANNY D.: Popular American Plant-Names. _Jour. Amer. Folk-Lore._ Vol. V. (1872), pp. 88-106; VI. (1893), pp. 135-142; VII. (1894), pp. 89-104. 401. BLACK, W. G.: Folk-Medicine: A Chapter in the History of Culture. London, 1883. iii, 228 pp. 8vo. 402. BOAS, F.: The Central Eskimo. _Sixth Ann. Hep. Bur. Ethnol._ (Washington), pp. 399-669. 403. 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De Gubernatis. De Meung. Deneus. De Quincey. Desaivre. De Vere. _Dialect Notes_. Dickens. Dio Cassius. Diocletian. Dirksen. Disraeli. Doddridge. Dodge. Donaldson. Dorsey. Douglas. Dreyling. Drummoud. Dryden. Duncan. Du Vair. Dyer. Earle. Earwaker. Eastman. Ebers. Eells. Eibler. Eichhorn. Ellis (A. B.). Ellis (H.). Ellis (W.). Emerson (Mrs. E. E.). Emerson (R. W.). Engelhus. Engels. Eotvos. Epictetus. Erman. Estienne. Euripides. Eyre. Falkner. Farrar. Fay. Feilberg. Fenelon. Ferguson. Feuerbach. Fewkes. Fischer, 20. Fletcher (Miss A. C.). Fleteher (R.). _Folk-Lore Journal_. Folkard. Ford. Franck. Frankel. Franklin. Fraser. Frazer. Friend. Froebel. Fruit. Fuller. Furnivall. Gaidoz. Garbe. Garnett. Gatsehet. Gerarde. Gibbs. Gill. Girard-Teulon. Gladstone. Goethe. Goltz. Goldsmith. Gomme (Miss A.). Gomme (L.). Gore. Gould. Gray. Gregoire. Gregor. Griffis. Grimm (J.). Grinnell. Groth. Guérin. Guppy. Haas. Haberlandt. Hale. Haliburton. Hall (Bishop). Hall (G. S.). Halleck. Handel. Hanoteau. Han Wân-Rung. Hare. Harley. Harrison. Hartland. Hartmann von Aue. Haskell. Hawthorne. Hazlitt. Held (v.). Henderson. Henne am Rhyn. Heraclitus. Herbert. Herder. Herodotus. Herrick. Hesso. Heywood. Hiawatha. Higginson. _Hitopadesa_. Höfler. Hoffman. Holmes. Hölty. Homer. Hopf. Horace. Hose. Howitt. Hübner. Hughes. Hugo. Humphrey. Hun. Hunt. Immermann. Im Thurn. Irving. Isaiah. Jean Paul (Richter). Jesus. Job. Joel. Johnson (G. E.). Johnson (J. H.). Johnson (S.). _Journal of American_. _Folk-Lore_. _Journ. of Anthrop. Inst._ Joubert. Justinian. Juvenal. Kane. Kant. Keble. Klemm. Kluge. Knortz. _Koran_. Krauss. Kulischer. La Bruyère. Lacretelle. Laflteau. Lallemand. Lander. Landor. Lang. Langdale. La Rochefoucauld. Lebbe. Legge. Leland. Le Play. Lescarbot. Lessing. Letourneau. Lippert. Livy. Locke. Lombroso (C.). Lombroso (P.). Longstaff. Longfellow. Lope de Vega. Loubens. Lowell. Lübben. Lubbock. Luke, (St.). Lumholtz. Lummis. Luther. Lycurgus. Lytton. Maaler. Macaulay. MacCauley. Macdonald. MacKay. Mackenzie. Maclean. _Macmillan's Magazine_. Madden. Mahomet. Mahoudeau. Maikhallovskii. Maine. Mallery. Man. Manouvrier. Mantegazza. Manu. Marco Polo. Martinengo-Cesaresco. Martins (v.). Marvell. Mason. Matthew (St.). Matthews. Maundeville. Maximus. McGee. McLennan. Menander. Mercer. Metastasio. Meung (de). Meyer. Michelet. Miklucho-Maclay. Miles. Miller (J.). Miller (W.). Milman. Milton. Mirabeau. Moisset. Mommsen. Mone. Montaigne. Monteiro. Montesinos. Mooney. Morgan. Morley. Mozart. Müllenhoff. Müller (F. Max). Müller (J. G.). Murdoch. Napoleon. Nelson. Newell. Niebuhr. Norton. Novalis. Opitz. Orientalist. Ortwein. Ossian. Ovid. Paul (St.). Pechuel-Loesche. Peckham. Penn. Percival. Perdrizet. Perrault. Peschel. Petronius Arbiter. Pfeffel. Phaedrus. Philo. _Philosophical Magazine_. Pindar. Pistorius. Pitré'. Plato. Pliny (Elder). Pliny (Younger). Ploss. Plutarch. Pokrovski. Polle. Polydore Virgil. Pope. Popular Science Monthly. Porter. Post. Pott. Powell. Powers. Praed. Preyer. Procopius. Proctor. _Psychological Review_. _Public Opinion_. Puttenham. Pythagoras. _Quarterly Review_. Rabelais. Rademacher. _Raghuvansa_. Ralston. Rameses. Rand. Rau. Rauber. Reclus. Riccardi. Ricnter (see Jean Paul). Riggs. Rink. Robinson. Rockhill. Romanes. Roscommon. Rousseau. Rückert. Ruskin. Russell. Sangermano. Sartori. Scaliger. Schallenberger. Schambaeh. Schell. Schiller. Schlagintweit. Schlegel. Schomburgk. Schopenhauer. Schottel. Schultze. Schurtz. Scott (C. N.). Scott (W.). Scudder. Sébillot. Sembrzycki. Sessions. Shakespeare. Shelley. Shenstone. Shirley. Sibree. Sidney. Simons. Simrock. Simson. Skeat. Sleeman. Smith (E.). Smith (J.). Smith (R.). Smith (S. F.). Socrates. Soest (v.). Solomon. Solon. Sophocles. Southey. Spencer. Spenser. Spurgeon. Squier. Stanton. Starr. Stead. Steel. Steineu (v. den). Stevenson. St. Francis. Stoddard. St. Pierre. Strack. Strype. Sully. Sundermann. Svetchin. Swainson. Sweeny. Swinburne (A. C.). Swinburne (Judge). "Sylvanus Urban." Symonds. Tacitus. _Talmud_. Tarde. Tasso. Temple. Tennyson. Terence. Thales. Theal. Theocritus. Thiele. Thom. Thomson. Thoreau. Tillaux. Tilte. Tigri. Tobler. _Toldoth Jesu_. _Tora_. Tracy. Treichel. Trumbull (H. C.). Turner. Turner (G.). Turner (L. N.). Tylor. Uhland. Valentinian. Valerius. Vambéry. Vance. Vaughan. _Vedas_. Vere (de). Verney. Virgil. Vogelweide. Volliner. Vossius. Wallace. Wallaschek. Warton. Warren. Watson. Weber. Webster. Wedgwood. Weigand. Weil. West. Westermarck. Whittier. Wiedemann. Wieland. Wiltse. Winternitz. _World Almanac_. Wordsworth. Wulfila. Xenophon. Xenophanes. Yarrow. Young. Zachariä. Zanetti. Zendrini. Ziller. Zimmermann. Zmigrodzki. Zoroaster. INDEX II. PLACES, PEOPLES, TRIBES, LANGUAGES, ETC. Abipones. Abu-Zabel. Accadians. Achomâwi. Afghan. Africa. Ainu (Ainos). Alabama. Alarsk. Alaska. Albania. Albany. Alemanian. Alfurus. Algeria. Algonkian (Algonquin). Alleghanies. Alsace. Altai. Altmark. Amazulu. Ambamba. Amboina. America. Anahuac. Andalusia. Andaman Islands. Angola. Angoy. Anjou. Annam (Annamites). Apaches. Arabia (Arabs). Aramæan. Arapahos. Ararat, Mt. Araucanians. Arawak. Arcadia. Ardennes. Arekuna. Argentine. Arizona. Armenia (Armenian). Aryan. Ashanti. Asia. Asia Minor. Assyria. Aston. Athens. Aurora. Australia (Australians). Austria. Aveyron. Aztecs (see Nahuatl, Mexico). Badagas. Baden. Baffin Land. Bajansi. Bakaïri. Bakulai. Balanta. Bâle. Bamberg. Bambuk. Bampton. Banians. Banks Islands. Basques. Basutos. Battas. Bavaria. Bayreuth. Bechuanas. Bedouins. Beit-Bidel. Belford. Belgium. Bengal (Bengalese). Berg. Bern. Berwickshire. Beverly. Bielefeld. Bilqula (Bella Coola). Blackfoot (Blackfeet). Boeotia. Bohemia. Bologna. Bomba. Bomma. Bonyhad. Borneo. Bornoo (Bornu). Bosnia. Boston. Boxley. Brabant. Brahmans. Brazil. Bremen. Brerton. Breslau. British Columbia. Brittany (Breton). Brooklyn. Buckinghamshire. Buddhists. Bulgaria. Burgundians. Burma (Burmese). Buru. Buryats (Buriats). Byzantium. Caddos. Cakchiquels. Calabar. Calabria. California. Cambridge. Canada. Canary Islands. Canterbury. Cape Breton. Cape York. Caribs. Carinthia. Camatic. Carthage. Castilian. Çatloltq. Cuyuse. Celebes. Celts (Celtic). Central America. Ceylon. Chalons. Champagne. Cbarlbury. Cherokees. Chester. Chetimachus. Chiapas. Chibchas. Chickasaws. Chilli. China (Chinese). Chinantec. Chinchas. Chinook. Chippeway (Ojibwa). Chiquito. Choctaw. Cholona. Clonmel. Coçonino. Colchester. Colhuacan. Comanches. Colne. Cologne. Congo. Connecticut. Coomassie. Coptic. Cornwall (Cornish). Cossacks. Cotas. Cracow. Cree. Creeks. Crete. Cronstadt. Cumberland. Czechs. Czernowitz. Dakotas. Damaras. Damascus. Dardistan. Darfur. Darien. Deeping. Delaware. Delawares. Denmark (Danish). Devonshire. Dieyerie. Ditmarsh. Dnieper. Dodona. Donegal. Doracho. Dravidian. Dutch. Dvina. Dyaks. East Indies. Egypt (Egyptian). Elberfeld. Elbing. England (English). Ermeland. Erzgebirge. Eskimo (Esquimaux). Essenes. Essex. Esthonia (Esthonian). Eton. Etruscan. Euphrates. Europe. Ewe. Eynsham. Feddringen. Fernando Po. Fiji. Finland (Finns). Flat Heads. Florence. Florida. Föhr. France (French). Franconia. Franks. Friburg. Frisian. Fuegians. Fulas. Gaelic. Galibi. Galicia. Ganges. Gauls. Geneva. Genoa. Georgia. Gerbstädt. Germany (German). Gilolo. Glastonhnry. Gloucester. Godstowe. Gothic (Goths). Göttingen. Greece (Greek). Greenland. Grodno. Gualalas. Guarani. Guarayo. Guatemala. Guiana. Guinea. Gujurat. Gypsies. Hackney. Haddenham. Haidas. Hameln. Hanafi. Hanover. Hare Indians. Harz. Havel. Hawaii (Hawaiian). Hebrews (Jews). Heide. Heliopolis. Hellene. Herefordshire. Hervey Islands. Hesse. Heston. Heton. Hichitis. Hidatsa. High-Coquetdale. Himalayas. Hindus (Hindoos). Holland. Honduras. Hopi. Hottentots. Houghton. Hovas. Hungary (Hungarian). Huns. Huntingdonshire. Hupas. Hurous. Iceland (Icelandic). India. Indians, American (see also various tribal names). Indo-Iranian. Innspruck. Iowa. Ipurucoto. Ireland (Irish). Iroquois. Ishogo. Isleta. Islington. Italy (Italian). Jamaica. Japan (Japanese). Jasmund. Java. Jericho. Jews (see Hebrews). Jivaro. Kabinapek. Kabylia (Kabyles). Kaffirs (Kafirs). Kalispelm. Kallundborg. Kalmucks. Kammin. Kamtschatka. Kansa. Kansas. Karaïbi. Karankawa. Karok. Káto Pomo. Kei Islands. Kent. Kentucky. Kherson. Khonds. Khyens. Kiché (Quiché). Kilkenny. Kingsmill Islands. Kingston. Klamath. Knutsford. Kolosh. Kols (Kolhs). Königsberg. Konow. Kootenays. Korosi. Kwakiutl. Labrador. Lambeth. Laon. Lapps. Latin (Roman). Latuka. Leipzig. Lewis. Liberia. Libya. Liege. Lille. Lincolnshire. Lithuania. Loango. Loire. London. Louisiana. Lourdes. Low German. Lowland Scotch. Lüneburg. Lusatia. Lycia. Madagascar. Magyars. Maine. Makusi (Macusi). Malabar. Malay. Malaysia. Mandans. Mandingos. Mangaia. Mansfeld. Maoris. Mark. Marquesas Islands. Marutse. Maryland. Massachusetts. Mataria. Matchlapi. Maya. Mazatec. Mecklenburg. Meesow. Meiderich. Melanesia. Menomoni. Mesopotamia. Messenia. Mexico (Mexican). Miao-tse. Micmacs. Micronesia. Milan. Minahassers. Mincopies. Mingrelia. Mississagas. Mississippi. Miwok. Moabites. Modocs (Modok). Mohaves. Mohammedans (Moslems). Moki (Moqui). Moluccas. Monbuttu (Monboddo). Mongols. Montenegro. Monte Pulciano. Moors. Moravians. Moree. Moslems (Muslim, Mussulmans). Mosquito. Mota. Mpongwe. Mull. Munda Kols. Mundombe. Murs. Muskogees. Mussulmans. Muzo. Nah'ane. Nahuatl (Aztec). Nairs. Namaqua. Naples. Navajos (Navahos). Negritos. Neo-Latin (Romance). Netherlands. Neuchâtel. Neu-Stettin. Newcastle-on-Tyne. New England. New Guinea. New Hampshire. New Hebrides. New Jersey. New Mexico. New York. New Zealand. Nias. Nicaragua. Nile. Nilgiris (Neilgherries). Nipissings. Nishinam. Niskwalli. Nootkas. Normandy. North Carolina. Northumberland. Norway (Norwegian). Norwich. Nova Scotia. Ntlakyapamuq. Nubia. Nürnberg. Ojibwa (see Chippeway). Okanak-en. Oldenburg. Omagua. Omahas. Oraibi. Oranienburg. Oregon. Oriental. Ossetic. Ostiaks. Otranto. Oude. Ovaherero. Oxfordshire. Pádam. Padua. Palestine. Pali. Pampas. Panjâb (Punjab). Papuans. Paraguay. Parsees. Patwin. Pawnees. Peake River. Pelew Islands. Pennsylvania. Penobscots. Pentlate. Persia (Persian). Peru (Peruvian). Philadelphia. Philippine Islands. Phoenicia. Phrygia. Piutes. Plattdeutsch. Podolia. Poitou. Poland. Polynesia. Pomerania. Porno. Ponkas. Pontmain. Pontoise. Portugal (Portuguese). Prussia. Pt. Barrow. Pudu-vayal. Pueblos Indians. Puharies. Pyrenees. Quedlmburg. Queen Charlotte Islands. Queensland. Queres. Quichés (Kichés). Rackow. Rapstede. Rarotonga. Reddies. Rees. Regenwald. Rhode Island. Rio Grande. Rio Nunez. Ripon. Rome (Roman). Rotherham. Roumania. Rügen. Russia (Russian). Sahaptin. Sahara. Sakalavas. Salisbury. Salish. Salzburg. Samoa. Samoyeds. Sandeh. Sanskrit. Santals. Sappendelf. Saracens. Sarcees. Saxony. Scandinavian. Sehaffhausen. Schleswig-Holstein. Scotland (Scotch). Seminoles. Semites (Semitic). Semnoues. Senegambia. Servia (Servian). Seville. Shasta. Shawnees. Shekiani. Shropshire. Shushwaps. Sia. Siam. Siberia. Sicily (Sicilian). Sierra Leone. Silesia. Silt. Siouan (Sioux). Slavonian (Slavonic). Snanaimuq. Society Islands. Soissons. Soleure. Sollinger Wald. Solomon Islands. Somali. Songi. Songish. Soudan. South America. South Carolina. Spain (Spanish). Spanish-American. Sparta. Stapelholm. Steiermark. St. Ives. St. Petersburg. Strassburg. Suevi. Sunderland. Suru. Susu. Sumatra. Swabia. Sweden (Swedish). Switzerland (Swiss). Syriac. Tacana. Tafllet. Tagals. Tahiti. Tamil. Tamanako. Tarahumari. Tartars. Tasmanians. Tedâ. Tehua. Telugu. Teton. Teutonic. Texas. Thames. Thuringia. Tiber. Tibet. Tierra del Fuego. Tigris. Timbuktu (Timbuctoo). Tinné. Tiszla-Eszlar. Tlingit. Todas. Tondern. Tonga. Tongatabu. Tonkawe'. Tonningstedt. Tonquin. Transylvania. Trent. Treves. Tshi (see Ashanti). Tsimshian. Tuareg. Tunguses. Tupende. Tupi. Turko-Tartars. Turks. Tusayan. Tuscany. Twana. Tyre. Tyrol. Tzendals. Ukrain. Uliase Islands. Ungava. United States. Unyoro. Utes. Vancouver Island. Vaud. Venezuela. Vermont. Virginia. Visigoths. Vitilevu. Volga. Wailakki. Wakikuyu. Wales (Welsh). Wallachia. Walla-Walla. Walpi. Wanika. Wasco. Washington. Wazaramo. Wazegua. Wends. Westminster. Westphalia. Whida. Winchester. Wingrove. Winnebagos. Wintun. Wisconsin. Wiyots. Wrek. Wurtemburg. Würzburg. Wyoming. Yahgans. Yao. Yaqui. Yeddavanad. Yezo (Yesso). Yokaia. York. Yorkshire. Yoruba. Yucatan. Yuchi. Yuke. Yuki. Yukon. Yurok. Zanzibar. Zend. Zulus. Zuñi. Zürich. INDEX III SUBJECTS Abandonment. _Abba._ _Abbas._ _Abbot._ Abbreviations. ABC. --rhymes. _Abeona._ Abortion. Abraham. Abyss-mother. _Accouchement._ Acolytes. Actions, goddess of. Activities of childhood. Acting (actor). _Adam._ Adam. _Adebar._ [Greek: _adelphos_]. _Adeona. Adolescence._ Adoption. _Adult._ Adventures. AEsculapius. Affection. Age of consent. of marriage. _Agenona._ Agni. Agriculture. Akka. Albinos. Alcohol. All-father. "All-fathers." "All Fools'Day." Alliteration. All-mother. _Alma mater._ Alphahet. --rhymes. _Alumna, alumnus._ Amicus and Amelias. Amun (Amon). Amusements. Anahita. Ancestor-worship. Angakok (child). Angels. Animal-food. --gods. --language. --nurses. --oracles. --tamer. Animals. and Christ. _Ankle-deep._ "Annexes." Answers (parents'). Antelope-boy. _Antennaria._ Anthropometry. [Greek: _anthropos_]. Anti-Semitism. Aphrodite. Apple-pips. --temptation. Apples. Ararat, Mt. _Arm's length._ Art. Artemis. _Artemisia._ Ash. Ashes. Ashtaroth. Aspen. Ass. Astarte. _Aster. Atta. Attila._ Atys. Awakening of soul. B. A. _Babe._ Babel. "Babes in wood." Babies. "Babies in eyes." "Babies' breath." "Babies' feet." Babies' food. "Babies' slippers." Babies' souls. "Babies' toes." _Baby_. --signs for. --words for. --basket. "Baby blue-eyes." "Baby-bunting." Baby-carrier. "Baby-talk." Bacchus. Bachelors. _Bairn_. Balams. Ballads. Bambino, Santo. Band of Hope. Bands of Mercy. _Bandchen._ Baptism. --(blood). --(fire). "Bar." "Barbara Allen." Barbarossa. Basil. Bastard. Bathing. _Batyushka._ Baucis. Bayaderes. Bay-tree. B. D. Beans. _Bear_ (to). Bear-boy. --girl. --lick. --stories. Bears. Beast-children. --oracles. Beating. "Beating the Bounds." Beauty. --bath. Bed. Bees. Begetting. Bel. Belit. Bell. "Bellypaaro." Berselia. _Berusjos._ Bhavani. Bible-verses. Bibliography. Bidhata-Purusha. "Billing and cooing." "Binder." Bird-language. --messenger. --oracle. --soul. Birds. --of Christ. Birth, birth-myths. --days. --marks. --of Christ. Bitch-nurse. Biting. "Black art." Blackness of raven. _Blason populaire._ Blessing. "Blind-man's buff." Blindness. Blizzard. Blood. "Blood-clot Boy." Blood-covenant. "Bloody Tom." _Blossoming._ _Blow_ (to). "Bluebirds." "Blue-eyed babies." Blue-ribbon Clubs. Body. Bogies. _Bojiwassis._ _Bona dea._ --_mater._ Bonaparte. Bones. "Boo." "Boo Man." Born (to be). "Borough-English." Bounds. Bow-and-arrows. _Boy_. Boy-bards. --bishop. --code. --colonies. --cornstealer. --gangs. --heroes. --husband. --martyrs. --"medicine man." --moots. --oracle. --pope. --priest. --shaman. --societies. --travellers. --weather-maker. --whale-catcher. --wonder-worker. Boyish excesses. Boys. "Boys and Girls." Boys' Clubs. "Boys' love." Bread. "Bread and butter." Breath. "Bremen geese." "Brew and Bake." Bridal of earth and sky. Bride. Bridegroom. Bridle (tongue). Brightness of sun. Bright side of child-life. Broom. Brother (bone). (younger). Brotherhoods. Brother-stars. Bruises. "_Bub_." _Bube_. _Bud_. Buddha. Bulbulhezar. "Bull-roarer." Buried armies. Buschgroszmutter. Butter. Butterfly. Butz. Cabbages. Cackling. _Calandrina_. _Calf_. Calling. _Camoaena_. Candy. Cannibals. Canoes. Caprimulgus. _Carduus marianus_. _Carna_. Carving. Caste. Casting dice. lots. "Cat-language." Cato. "Cat's cradle." Cattle. "Caught." Caul. Caves. Cedar. _Cereal_. _Ceres_. Chalchihuitlicue. Challenges. _Chamaigenes_. "Chandelle magique." Changelings. Changes at school. Chant. Cheers. Chemical terms. Cherry-tree. Chick-peas. Chief. Chilblains. _Child_. Child-actor. --adventurer. --birth. --bringer. --carrier. --conjurer. --crucifixion. --dancer. --deity. --dice-thrower. --discoverer. --fetich. "Child-finger." "Child-fount." Child-god. --healer. --heroes. --historian. --inventor. --judge. "Child-lake." Child-language. --leader. --linguist. Child lot-caster. --marriage. --mascot. --musician. --names. --nurses. --oracle. --physician. --poet. --priest. --prophet. --sacrifice. --saint. --shaman. --singer. --societies. --sociology. --soul. --spirit. --stealers. "Child-stone." Child-study. --teacher. --thaumaturgist. "Child-tree." "Child-trough." Child-verdicts. --vision-seer. --weather-maker. --wiseacre. --witch. --words. --worship. and father. and fire. and mother. and music. and nature. and race. and rhythm. Child and spirit-world. and woman. in art. in ceremonial. in language. in moon. in _proverbs_. in religion. in school. Childhood and age. in art and literature. Childhood's golden age. Childlessness. Children and fools. as stars. "Children of God." "Children of hand." "Children of Light." "Children of Paul's." "Children of sun." Children's animals and birds. blood. clothing. courts. ditties. flowers and plants. food. games. holidays. justice. lies. minds. names. parties. paradise. questions. reasonings. rights. Children's souls. thoughts. tree. Child's kiss. Chin. "Chip of old block." Chipmunk. "Choose." Christ. Christ-child. Christening letter. Christianity. Christmas. --herb. --oracle. Chrysostom, St. Church and children. Cinderella. Cinteotl. Circumcision. Clay-birds. Clocks (flower). Clothing. Clytie. Cock. "Cock-a-doodle-doo." Cock-robin. Code of honour. _Coiffe._ Cold. Cold water. Collecting. College-fetiches. --societies. --yells. Colleges, primitive. Colonies (boy). _Colt._ Comparisons with animals. with plants. Confusion of tongues. Conglomerate. Consent, age of. Constantine. Constructing. C-o-n-t-e-n-t-s. Contents of mind. Corn. "Corn-field." Cornflower. Corn-goddess. --mother. "Corn-stalk fiddle." Corn-tobacco. Corn-woman. Counsel, god of. Counting, goddess of. Counting-out rhymes. Courtship-games. "Couvade." Cows. Crab-hunting. --mother. Crabs. Cradle-goddess. Cradles. Cramps. Crawfish. Creation. _Creator._ _Crepundia._ Cries of animals. of birds. Criminal-fetiches. --societies. Crocus. Crossbill. Crowing of babies. of cock. Crumbs. Crying. "Crying for Moon." Crying, god of. Cub. _Cuba._ _Cubit._ Cucalkin. Cuchavira. Cuckoo. Culture-hero. --school. _Cunina._ Cupid. Curses. Cybele. Cyrus. _Dad._ _Dada._ "Daddy darkness." "Daddy-nuts." Daisy. _Dam._ _Dame._ Dancing. Dandelion. Daphne. Date-palm. _Daughter._. "Davie daylicht." Dawn-maidens. --mother. Day-father. Days of week. Dead child. hand. mother. _Dea mens._ _Statin_ Death. "Death-baby." "Death-eome-quickly." Death-reaper. Deborah. Deceits. Decoctions. Dedication, Deed-angel. Deformation. Deformed children. _Degenerate._ Delirium. Demeter. Deudanthropology. _Der arme Heinrich._ Deucalion. _Deus._ _catus pater._ _conus._ Devastation. "Devil-dances." Devils. Devil's grandmother. mother. Dew-drops. Dialects. Dialect-Society. Diaua. _Dicentra._ Dictionaries. _Diespiter._ Diminutives. Dionysus. Disappearances. Discovery of medicine. Disease-curers. Disinheritance. Dislocation. _Diva edusa._. _Diva potina._. Divination. Divinity of childhood. "Doctor born." Doctors. Dodola. Dogs. Doll-clothing. --congress. --houses. --language. --parties. --shows. --spirits. Dolls. Donkey. "Dove dung." Doves. Dramatics. Drawing lots. Dreams. Dress. Drink, goddess of. Drink of immortality. "Drunkards." "Ducks." "Ducks and Drakes." "Ducks Fly." "Duke-a-roving." Dulness cured. Dumbness. Dwarfs. _Dyaus-Pitar._ "Dying." Eagle. Ears of hare. Earth-father. --flower. --god. --goddesses. --mother. --wife. Easter. "Easter-hare." Eating. "Eating the roll." Eden. Education, primitive. Eel-mother. Effigies. Efflux of sun. Egg, cosmic. Eggs. "Eggs of earth." Eileithyia. Elder. Elder brother. Elder-mother. _Eldermen._ Eldest son. Elidorus. Elixirs of life. Elizabeth Bathori. Elysium. _Embryo._ Embryology of society. Emperor-father. _Enfanter._ Engelhart. _EntMndung._ Eos. Epilepsy. Epworth League. Equivoques. _Erd._ Erdenmutter. Eros. Etelmutter. Eternal youth. Ethics. Ethnic origins. Ethnology. Eve. Evil. and good. "Everywhere." Evolution. "Ewig-weibliche (das)." Excesses. "Excrement of gods." Execution. _Ex pede Herculem._ Eyes. "Eyes, babies in." Fables. _Fabulinus._ Faculty of speech. Fagging. Fairies. Fairy-beer. --tales. Family. "Farming." Fasting. Fates. _Father._ Father Amun. Father animal-god. --balam. --earth. --fire. --frost. --giants. --god. --gods. --heart. --heaven. --king. Fatherhood, lore of. _Fatherland._ Fatherless. Father-light. --moon. --priest. --right. --river. --sea. --sky. --strong-bird. --sun. Thames. --thumb. --thunder. Tiber. --wind. --worship. and child. as _masseur._ in Heaven. in Proverbs. of country. of history. of inventions. of medicine. of people. Father (to). "Fathers." "Fathers, Pilgrim." "Fathers of the Church." "Fathers (Our)." Father's dieting. taboos. _Fathom._ Faust, Dr. Feast of dead. Feature-plays. "Feeding the dead." Feet. _Female._ Female animals. colleges. element. societies. _Femina._ Fetiches. Fever. Fifth son. Fig-tree. _Filet._ _Filia._ _Filius._ _Filly._ "Finger-biter." Finger-games. --names. --plays. --rhymes. _Finger's breadth._ Fingers. F-i-n-i-s. Fire. Fire-father. --grandfather. --mother. --place. and marriage. First-born. First-food. First-kiss. Fishes. Fishing. Fits. Flax. Flesh, goddess of. Flight into Egypt. Flogging. Floral Trinity. Florigeny. Flounder. _Flourish._ Flower-child. --grandfather. --grandmother. --language. --names. --oracles. --stars. Flowers. _Foal._ _Foetus._ Folk-lore of Christmas. --medicine. --thought. Food. goddess of. of gods. --taboos. _Foot._ "Footing." Foot-races. Forehead. Foreign words. "Foresters, Junior." Forget-me-not. Formulæ. _Fortune._ Fortune-telling. Foster-animals. --children. --mother. Fountains. Fountain of youth. Fran Beretha. Holle. Wachholder. Freia. _Frein._ _Frenulum._ _Frenum._ _Fresh._ Frenzy. Friday-Mother. "Friday-Night Clubs." Friendships. "Frog-plant." "Frog Pond." Frost. Frost-father. --mother. Fruit. Funeral-plays. --rites. _Gabaurths._ "Gabble retchet." Gabriel. Gæa. _Galium._ Gambling. Game-formulæ. --oracles. --songs. Games. Gangs. Garden of souls. Gates of heaven. _Gaultheria._ Gavelkind. Ge. _Genesis._ _Genius._ _Gens._ _Genteel._ _Gentile._ _Gentle._ _Genuine._ _Genus._ Geoffrey de Mayence. Geography. Geographical rhymes. _Geranium._ _Germ._ _Germander._ Ghost-hunts. Giants. Giants' playthings. Giglan de Galles. _Girl._ Girl-angakoks. Girl-carriers. --dancer. --education. --figure. --inventor. --linguist. --poet. --priest. --rain-maker. --sorcerer, witch. --vision-seer. "Girls and Boys." Girls' Friendly Society. Girls, wild. Glastonbury Thorn. Glow-worm. Glüskap (Glooskap). _Glyceria._ Goats. "Go backs." Goblins. God, idea of. as begetter. as creator. as father. as mother. as potter. "God's bird." Gods and goddesses of childhood. Gods, playthings of. Going out. Gold. Golden Age. of childhood. of love. "Golden Darling." Golden House. Gold-seers. Good and evil. Goose. Götterburg. Graces. Grammar. --school. "Grandfather." Grandfather-fire. --Pleiades. --sky, 65. "Grandmother." Grandmother-fire. of devil. of men. Grass. --image. Grateful beasts. _Gravid._ Great children. eaters. "Great Father." Great-grandmother. "Great Hare." "Great Mother." "Green Gravel." Grizzly bear. _Grow._ Guardian angels, and deities. Gude. Guessing-games. Guillemots. Gypsy-singers. _Haberfeldtreiben._ Hades. Hair. --cutting. --sacrifice. "Halcyon days." "Half." "Hallow E'en." Hand. Hare. "Hare-bread." Hare-child. "Hare-eggs." Hare-god. --lip. --town. Harke. Harvest-home. Haulemutter. Hawthorne. Hazel. "Head, good." Heart. "Heart of Hills." Hearth. Heat. Heathen. Heaven. Heaven-father. visited. _Heil._ Hell. Hellebore. Hera. Herb-robert. Hercules. Heredity. Hermes. Hermits. Hero (child). --myths. --twins. "Heroic treatment." Hertha. Hestia. Hiawatha. "Hide and Seek." "High Father." "High Mother." High Schools. Historian (child). Historical bogies. games. History. "Hog Latin." Holdings, small. Hole. Holidays. Holle. Holly. Holy Family. "Home-made dialect." _Homo._ _alalus._ _sapiens._ Honey. "Honey-moon." Hoopoo. Hope, goddess of. Hop-o'-my-thumb. Horn of Oldenburg. Horns. Horse. Horse-boy. Household arts. _Houstonia._ Hunchback. Hunger. Hunting. Hurt. Hyacinthus. Hydrolatry. Idols and dolls. Illegitimate children. Images. Imitation. of animals. Imitative games. Immortality. Improvvisatrici. "In." Incarnation. Infancy. deities of. _Infant._ Infant-magician. --marriage. --prodigy. --spirit. _Infanta._ Infanticide. _Infantry._ _Ingenious._ _Ingenuous._ Inheritance. Initials. Insult. Intoxication. Inventiveness of children. Invisibility. I. O. G. T. _Ipukarea._ Isis. Isles of West. Istar. "It." "Iter ad montem." Itzcuinam. "Jack and Jill." "Jack and Bean Stalk." "JacktheGiant-Killer." "Jack Stay-at-Home." Jackal. Jacob's ladder. _Janitar._ Janus. Jargons. Jehovah. "Jennia Jones." "Jenny Lang Pock." "Jenny Iron-Teeth." Jesus (see Christ). Jewels. Jin. "Jonah." Joseph. of Arimathea. Judge (child). "Judge and Jury." Judicial folk-lore. games. Jurisprudence of child's play. Jumping. Juniper. Juno. Kalevala. Kaspar Hauser. Kata. Katzeuveit. _Keekel-reem._ "Kernaby." Key. Khuns. _Kid._ Kidnapping. _Kin._ _Kind._ "Kinderbaum." "Kinderbrunnen." Kindergarten. "Kindersee." "Kindertruog." King. King-father. Kingdom of heaven. "King's Evil." Kinship of Nature. Kintaro. Kissing. _Ki-yah!_ Klagemiitter. _Klein._ _Kndbe._ _Knave._ _Knecht._ _Knee-high._ Knickerbockers. Knife-point. _Knight._ "Knights of Spain." Knowledge-tree. Koko. Kok-ko. Koran. Krishna. _Krono._ "Kiikkendell fair." Kwanon. "Labour." _Lad._ "Lady Summer." Lake. Lama. Lamb. _Landesleute._ _Landesvater._ "Land of milk and honey." Language. (bird). (flower). --study. _Langue maternelle-._ Lapwing. _Lass._ _Latin._ Laughter-roses. Laume. Leap-frog. Leaves. "Left twin." Leprosy. Leucothea. _Levana._ Libussa. Licking. Lies (children's). (parents'). Life-tree. Lifting. Light. Light-children. --father. --god. Lightning-mother. Lilies. Lilith. Lilliputian farms. Lime. _Lingua materna._ Linguist (child). Linguistic exercises. faculty. inventiveness. Linguistics. Litholatry. _Little._ "Little boy's breeches." "Little Boy's Work." Little children. "Little man." "Little mothers." "Little seal of God." "Little woman." _Livid._ Lizard. LL.D. _Lonicera._ Loon. "Lose measure (to)." Lotis. Lots (casting). Louis and Alexander. Louis XI. Louis XV. Love. and language. and song. Love-games. --oracles. Lower world visited. Lucina. _Lucina sine concubitu._ "Luck-bringer." "Luck of Edenhall." Lullabies. Lumbago. Lupine. _Lychnis._ Lyre. _Ma._ M. A. Madonna. Mafia. Magic. Magic doll. taper. _Magnificat._ _Maia._ _Maid._ Maids, old. _Main-de-gloire._ Malumsis. _Mama._ _Mama Allpa._ _Cocha._ _Cora._ _Mamma._ _Mammalia._ Manabozho (Manabush, Naniboju). Manhood. Man-in-moon. Manners. Manslaughter. Man-tree. Maple. _Marchen._ March-mother. _Marcou._ Marguerite. Maria Candelaria. Marianne de Quito. _Marienmilch_. Marks of shaman. _Marriage._ _Marriage_ (before birth). (spirit). --age. --games. --oracles. Marriages (child). Mars Pater. Mary (Virgin). Mary's, three. _Mascot._ Masculine element. Massage. _Matar._ _Mater._ _alma._ _Flora._ _Mater Lua._ _Maia._ _Matuta._ _Turrita._ Matriarchate. Matricide. _Matron._ _Matronalia._ Matthias Corvinus. Matutinus Pater. Maut. _May._ May-day. --festivities. --Queen. McDonogh School. Mead. Measuring. Meat. Medicine (folk). Melted butter. Member of society (child). Memnon. Memory. "Men-women." Mercury. _Mere-patrie (la)._ "Merry Month" (May). Messages. Messenger-bird. _Messerin._ Metamorphoses. Metempsychosis. [Greek: _Maetris_]. _Metropolis._ Midas. Midnight. Midsummer. Milk. "Milk and Honey." Milk-tree. Milky Way. Mimicry. Mind-goddess. Minds (children's). (parents'). Minerva. Miniatures. "Ministering Children's League." Miracles. Mishosha. Mississippi. Mistress. Mock pig-hunting. tobacco. turtle-catching. Modelling. _Moderson. Modersprak. Moedertaal. Moimenspraken._ [Greek: _Moîrai._] Moloch. "Molly Maguires." Money. Monkeys. Montezuma. Month-mother. Month. Moon. Moon-children. --father. --god. --goddess. --maiden. --mother. --plaything. --spots. Morals. Moses. _Mother._ Mother (dead). Mother-abyss. --animals. --antelope. --basil. --corn. Mother-crab. --crow. --dawn. "Mother-die." Mother-Dnieper. --Dvina. --earth. --elder. --eel. --feeling. --fire. --flower. --forest. --Friday. --frost. --Ganges. --God. --influence. --inventor. --land. --lode. --March. --matter. --moon. --mountain. --mud. --names. --nature. --night. --ocean. --plants. --poet. --priest. --queen. --right. --river. --sea. --shrimp. --soul. --spirit. --sun. --Sunday. --teacher. --thumb. --tongue. --Volga. --water. --Wednesday. --wit. --worship. Mother and child. Motherhood. Mother in proverbs. Mother of cows. of devil. of fingers. of hand. of heaven. of Lares. of light. of lightning. of men. of rivers. of stones. of sun. "Mother of thousands." "Mother's beauties." Mother's curse. kiss. land. night. "Mother's son." Mother's soul. spirit. tears. "Mothers." "Mothers, little." Mother-in-law. Mountain-mother. Mourning. Mouse. Mouth. Mud-mother. Mud-pies. "Mulberry Bush." Mumbo-jumbo. Mummies. _Mundfaul. Muscari._ Muse-mother. Music. Musician (child). Mustard. Mut (Maut). Mutilations. _Mutterbiene. Mutterbirke. Mutterblume. Mutterboden. Mutteresel. Muttergefilde. Muttergrund. Mutterhase. Mutterhaus. Mutterhimmel._ Mutter Holle. _Mutterholz. Mutterkind. Mutterland. Mutterlamm. Mutterluft. Muttermensch. Mutternelke. Mutterpferd. Mutterschaf. Mutterschwein. Mutterseele. Mutterseelenallein. Muttersohn. Muttersprache. Mutterstadt. "Mutterstein." Muttertiere, Mutterzunge._ "My Household." Mysteries. Myth-tellers. Myths of birth. Nagualism. Names (child). Names (father). Names (mother). Names (plant). Nänibojü (Manabozho, Manabush). Narcissus. Narses. Natal ceremonies. "Natal soil." _Nation._ "Native country." "Natural son." Nature. Nature-mother. Nautch-girls. Neck-measurement. "Needle." _Nemophila._ Neptune. New-birth. New-born. New Life. New Year. "Nice (to make look)." Night. Night-father. --mare. --mother. Nightingale. Njembe. Noon-lady. Norus. Nose. Nose-bleed. _Nowidu._ Nox. _Numeria. Nunu_. Nurse. "Nuts of May." Oath. "Oats, Pease" etc. Ocean-mother. Oceanus. Odin. Ogres. Old men reciters. "Old Mountain Woman." Oliver and Arthur. Onomatology. Onomatopoeia. Opis. Ops. Oracle-keeper (child). Oracles. Oranges. Oratory. Orchis. Ornament. _Ornithogalum_. Orphans. Osiris. _Ossipaga_. Other-world visited. "Our Father in Heaven." "Our Fathers." "Our Lady's Bed-Straw." "Our Lady's Thistle." "Out." Owl. Owl-women. Ox-boy. Oxen. Pa. Pachamama. Pain. "Painted devils." [Greek: _Pais._] Paleness of moon. Pallas Athene. Palm-tree. Pansy. Pantomime. _Papa_. Papa (Earth). (priest). Luga. "Paper of Pins." _Para_. Paradise. Lost. visited. _Parca. Parent_. Parent-finger. Parental affection. Parentalia. Parents' answers. lies. minds. Parsley. Parties. Partition of land. Partula. Parvus. Pater. cense. familias. patratus. patriae. Patres. Patria. Patria potestas. Patriarch. Patrician. Patrimony. Patriotism. [Greek: _patris_]. Patrius sermo. Patron. Peacock. "Pearl grass." Pearls. Pebbles. Pedagogy (Primitive). of play. Peevish. Pelican. Pennalism. Peunou. Pennyroyal. Peragenor. Perambulation. Percival. Personal names. Pet, pettish. Phallus. Pharaoh. Phatite. Philemon. Philology (see Linguistics). Philosophy. [Greek: _phusi_]. Phyllis. Physical efficiency. Physiognomy. "Physonyms." Pigs. Pine. Pinks. Pippadolify. "Pity my Case." "Place, my." Plant-food. --mother, --names. --oracles. Planting trees. Plants. Play. Play-courts. --railroad. --spirit. --theory. --things. --verses. --work. "Playing at work." Pleiades. Plover. Poet (child). Poet (mother). Poeta nascitur. "Poison-doctor." Poison-food. Polednice. Politics. Polygala. Polyglots. Polypodium. Ponds. "Poodle's Wedding." Popanz. Pope. Popelmann. Posthumous child. Post-mortem marriages. Pottery. Pramantha. Prayer. Precocity. Predestination. Pre-existence. P-r-e-f-a-c-e. Pregnant. Pre-natal marriages. Presents. Priest (child). (father). (mother). Priest and food. Primogeniture. Prithivi-matar. "Prophets." Proverbs (age). (child). (father). (genius). (mother). (parents). (youth). Proverbs of birds. Psammetichus. Psyche. Psychology. Puberty. Pudelmutter. Puella. Puer. Pullet. Punchkin. Pupil. Puppies. Purgatory. [Greek: _Purperouna_]. Quarrels. Queen. "Queen of Heaven." Queen-mother. Questions (children's). Quetzalcoatl. Rabbit. Raccoon. Race. Races. 'Rah! 'rah! 'rah! Rain. Rain-bow. Rainbow-goddess. Rain-drops. Rain-makers (children). --oracles. --rhymes. --stillers. Raising to life. Rama. Rangi. "Rappaccini's Daughter." Raven. Reaper (Death). Reasonings (children's). Re-birth. Reciters. Regeneration. _Regina coeli_. Relatives. Religion. Renascence of myths. Reserve (children's). Resurrection-flower. Return of dead mother. Rhea. Rhymes (alphabet). (counting out). Rhyming. Rhythm. Rice. Richard Coeur de Lion. Right (father). Right (mother). Rights (children's). River-father. River-mother. Rivers. Roaming. Robberies. Robin. Rocks. "Rogation." Röggenmuhme. Roggenmutter. Roll-eating. [Greek: _Rombo_]. "Rome (to show)." Romulus and Remus. Rosemary. Rose of Jericho. Roses. "Rovers." R. S. V. P. Rules of same. _Rumina_. Rûripsken. "Rye-aunt." Sacred trees. Sacrifice to lust. Sacrifice of children. Sand-hills. "Sand-man." Sand-pile, history of. Sap. Satan. Satavahana. School. School-jargons. --language. --organism. --revels. --rights. --society. School in heaven. Scrofula. Sea. Sea-father. Sea-mother. Seals. Seclusion. Secret languages. Secret societies. Seed. Selection of doctors. Selection of priests. Semo. Sentences (test). Sermons (primitive). Serpents. Seventh daughter. son. Sewing. Sex and clothing. "Sex, the speechless." Shaman (child). Sham-fights. She-bear. --goat. --wolf. Shepherds. "Shoemaker." "Shoe-string bow." Shooting. "Show (to), Rome." "Show (to), Bremen Geese." Shrimp-mother. Sickness. _Siderum regina. Sierra Madre_. Sign-language. Signs for child. for father. for mother. Signs of shaman. Silk (corn). _Similia similibus_. Sindungo. Singers (children). Singing, goddess of. _Sire_. Sister-dawns. Sitting-down. Siwa. Sky-father. --god. Sky-grandfather. --land. Sleep. Sleep, goddess of. _Small_. Small holdings. Small-pox. Smell. _Smilax_. Smile-roses. "Smoking." Smoking (tobacco). Snail-water. Snakes. Snow. Snow-balling. Social embryology. Social factor, child as. Social instinct. Societies. (secret). "Sock-wringer." Sole. Solomon. Solomon's judgment. wisdom. Sôma. Somatology. _Son_. Son, eldest. youngest. Song. "Sons of God." "Sons of trees." Sorcerers. Sore. Soul. (child's). (father's). (mother's). Soul-bird. --butterfly. --leaf. --star. --tree. _Span_. Spear-throwing. Speech. --band. --exercises. --god. Spelling-yells. Spices. Spinning. Spirit-feeding. --land. --marriage. Spirits. Spots (moon). Sprains. Sprinkling. _Spygri_. Squalling. Squirrel. Srahmanadzi. "Staccato cheer." Standing, deities of. Star-child. --flower. --soul. of Bethlehem. Stars. _Statina (Dea)_. St. Augustine. Austrebertha. Briocus. Catherine. Stealing. St. Francis. Frodibert. Géneviève. Stick. Still-born children. Stilling the wind. St. Nicholas. Stomach. Stones. Stone-mother. Stork. Stork-flower. --land. Stork-men. --names. --stones. Storm-laying. --making. Story-telling. _Stowish_. St. Patrick. Strigalai. String-puzzles. Stroking. St. Sampson. Stuttering. St. Vincent. Vitus. Subdivisions of land. Suckling. "Suck-soul." Sudiêcky. Sugar. Sukia-woman. Sun. --children. --father. --god. --goddess. --mother. Sunday-mother. Sunset-land. Surnames. Survivals. Swallows. "Swan-child." "Swan-stones." Swans. Swimming. Swinging. Sword. Sycamore. Sylvester (Pope). Sympathy of nature. Syrdak. Syrinx. Taboos. Tales. Talking birds. Tamerlane. Tamoï Taper (magic). _Tata_. Tattooing. "Taw." Teacher (child). (mother). Teachers (primitive). Tears. _Teat_. Technology. "Teethed babes." "Teetotum." _Tékvov_. Tellus. Temperance societies. Terra. Test-sentences. Tests (physical). Tezistecatl. Theft. Theocrite. Thieves. Thieves' fetiches. saint. Thoughts (children's). (parents'). "Thread Needle." Three Brothers. "Three Dukes." "Three Kings." "Three Mary's." Throwing. "Thrush." Thumb. --lather. --mother. Thunder. --birds. --lather. "Thunner spell." Tihus (dolls). _Tilia_. _Tiny_. Titistein. Tobacco. Toci. Tongue. "Tongue-cut." "Tongue-tied." Tooth-ache. Topography. Totemism. Touching. Toys. _Tradescantia_. Training of priests and shamans. Transfer of character. of soul. Transfusion. Transmigration. "Tread the Green Grass." Tree of Knowledge. of Life. of milk. of souls. Trees. Tremsemutter. Trinity. Triplets. Tulasî. Tule-ema. _Tupi_. "Turkey-hunting." "Turks." Turtle. Turtle-dove. Tut-language. Twenty-first son. Twin-healers. --heroes. luck-bringers. "Twin-sisters." Twin weather-makers. Twins. Twins' breath. U. A. w. g. Ukko. Unbaptized children. Unborn children. "Unbridled tongue." "Uncle John." Undeformed. Under-world visited. Upper jaw. Upper-world visited. Uranus. Urashima. Ut. Ut'sèt. Vampires. "Van Moor." Varuna. Vatea. _Vaterland. Vaterschacht. Vaterstadt. Vaticanus_. "Velvets." _Venilia_. Venus. Vermin. _Veronica_. Vestice. _Vera madre_. Violet. Viracocha. "Virginia Reel." Virginity. Virgin Mary. Virgin-Mother. Virgins. Vishnu. Vision-seers (children). _Voleta. Volumnus_. Vomiting. Vulcan. Waïnamoïnen. Walrus-fat. War. "Wassail." Water. --carrier. --father. --lilies. "Water-man." "Water-mother." "Water-woman." Weak children. _Wean_. Weasel. Weather-makers (children). Weddings. Wednesday-mother. _Wee_. Weighing. Wens. Werwolves. Whey. Whipping. Whiskey. Whispering. "White as Milk." "White Caps." "White Ladies." "White lies." Whiteness of hare. Whitsuntide. Whooping-cough. "Widow and Daughters." Widows. "Wild baby." "Wild boy." Wild children. girls. huntsman. woman. "Will." Will-deities. Will-o'-the-wisp. Wills. Wind-children. --father. --people. --raiser. --stiller. Wisdom of childhood. Wiseacre (child). "Wise Child." Wish-deities. Witchcraft. Witches (children). Withering of trees. Wit. Wits, god of. Wizards. Wjeschtitza. Wolf-children. --stories. Wolves. Woman, as linguist. as poet. as teacher. position and place of. Womanly, the eternal. Woman's arts. Woman's dress. share in primitive culture. Wooden figure. Wood-pigeons. Word-interpretation. Words descriptive of child. _World_. Worms. Xmucane. Xpiyacoc. Yang. "Yells" (college). "Yeth hounds." Y. M. C. A. Yohmalteitl. _Young_. Young couples. "Young Peoples' Societies." "Young Templars." Younger brother. Youngest son. Youth, eternal. Y. P. S. C. E. Yu. _Yum_. Y. W. C. A. Zenzaï. Zeus. Zinog. Ziwa. Zlata-Baba. MENTAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE CHILD AND THE RACE. METHODS AND PROCESSES. BY JAMES MARK BALDWIN, M.A., Ph.D. _Stuart Professor of Psychology in Princeton University; Author of "Handbook of Psychology," "Elements of Psychology"; Co-Editor of "The Psychological Review."_ WITH SEVENTEEN FIGURES AND TEN TABLES. SECOND EDITION, CORRECTED. Price $2.60, net. NOTICES. "The great problem of the evolution of mind has received many notable contributions towards its solution of late years. We question, however, if there are any which, in time to come, will occupy a higher place than the work now before us. This it owes partly to its subject, partly to its treatment. Mr. Baldwin with rare skill has traced the thread of development from individuals to races, and has shown how the element of heredity plays a much larger part than is supposed in the economy of mental evolution.... The book is evidently the result of years of close observation and study. Its method is admirable, the induction is broad and reliable, while the conclusions drawn in most cases are both rigorously logical and avoid even the suspicion of exaggeration. We predict a high place in the annals of biological science will yet be assigned to this admirable work."--_The Liberal_. "It is a most valuable contribution to biological psychology, which is a field of modern naturalism in which few have labored."--_The Critic_. "'Mental Development' must be regarded as an epoch-making book: it suggests a new field for experiments and observations, and throws down the gauntlet to existing theories of mental growth."--_The Churchman_. "It is of the greatest value and importance."--_The Outlook_. "The author emphasizes the motor elements in mental evolution, and thus introduces into psychogenesis a point of view which is eminently characteristic of modern psychology.... This summary sketch can give no idea of the variety of topics which Professor Baldwin handles or of the originality with which the central thesis is worked out. No psychologist can afford to neglect the book, and its second part will be eagerly expected."--PROF. TITCHENER, _Cornell University_. THE INSTITUTES OF EDUCATION: COMPRISING A RATIONAL INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. BY S. S. LAURIE, LL.D., F.R.S.E. _Professor of the Institutes and History of Education, University of Edinburgh; Author of "Metaphysica" and "Ethica" etc._ 16mo. Price $1.00, net. NOTICE. "That book is strongest which makes the reader think the most keenly, vigorously, and wisely, and, judged by this standard, this seems to be the most useful book of the season. We would put it in the hands of a working teacher more quickly than any other book that has come to our desk for many a month."--_Journal of Education._ A COURSE OF LECTURES ON THE GROWTH AND MEANS OF TRAINING THE MENTAL FACULTY. DELIVERED IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE BY FRANCIS WARNER, M.D. (Lond.), F.R.C.P., F.R.C.S. (Eng.). _Physician to the London Hospital; Lecturer on Therapeutics and on Botany at the London Hospital College; Formerly Hunterian Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in the Royal College of Surgeons of England._ 12mo. Cloth. Price 90 cents, net. NOTICES. "It is original, thorough, systematic, and wonderfully suggestive. Every superintendent should study this book. Few works have appeared lately which treat the subject under consideration with such originality, vigor, or good sense."--_Education._ "A valuable little treatise on the physiological signs of mental life in children, and on the right way to observe these signs and classify pupils accordingly ... The book has great originality and it should be very helpful to the teacher on a side of his work much neglected by the ordinary treatises on pedagogy."--_Literary World._ "The eminence and experience of the author, and the years of careful study he has devoted to this and kindred subjects, are a sufficient guarantee for the value of the book; but those who are fortunate enough to examine it will find their expectations more than fulfilled ... A great deal may be learned from these lectures, and we strongly commend them to our readers."--_Canada Educational Journal._ MACMILLAN & CO. 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.